The Lost Tohunga (19 page)

Friday afternoon

D
onna Kyle stared as a female form lurched from the silty shallows of the lake and flopped against a tree, right beside Hinemoa's pool. A girl clad only in sopping knickers and a crop-top. She was clearly exhausted. Hollis's eyes went from disbelief to wonder. Then he was standing, pulling off his jacket, holding it out to her as she stumbled towards him. He wrapped the coat about her, and his arms, leading her gently towards the hot pool. She was shaking, her teeth chattering and legs rubbery. But the girl's eyes, when they lifted to his face, shone.

Donna felt strangely envious, wondering what it would be like to feel, and to engender, the emotions she saw in their faces. It was beyond her how anyone could trust another enough to love, and so instantly. And why should it come so easily for these two? What right did they have to love? What had they ever done to earn it? Bitterness filled her mouth, and she palmed her gun.

Stone appeared, blinking in the light. ‘What is happening, mistress?' he asked, something like wonder in his hard, jaded voice. ‘I felt a strange thing.'

‘I called for Hinemoa to come to her Tutanekai. I needed her to come, to open the way. She's the key to Te Iho. Puarata bound the gateway to a living soul. It is her destiny to come here, so I felt it likely if Tutanekai was the summoner that she could escape the clutches of anyone who held her. Puarata once told me that when an avatar's story is being fulfilled, Aotearoa is compelled to aid their destiny.'
And Father tipped me off
, she didn't add.

Stone turned his head away. ‘You have asked Aotearoa to enact one of its great stories, so now you must let the story play out. Try to interfere and the land itself will rise against you. It will be as a curse upon you.' He touched the hilt of his sword as if it was a talisman.

She grimaced. ‘I'm cursed anyway.' She rose, and followed the policeman, lifting her gun.

 

The stones about the pool poured heat up through Hollis's feet, and worked a soft warm magic upon his body. He felt a surge of energy and a sudden feeling of rightness, of gears engaging, of pieces falling into place. The young woman who rose from the lake was no-one he had ever seen before, but he knew her utterly. He had been waiting for her, ever since his lovely, wondrous Hinemoa had died in Taupo that awful day eighteen years ago. The shivering girl fell into his coat, into his arms, shaking and dazed. She swayed, but he held her up. Her skin was icy, leeching heat from him.

‘Tu? Tutanekai?' she whispered, dream-like, her eyes unfocused.

His first-aid training took over. She was nearly frozen, in
danger of hypothermia.
I need to get her dry and warm
. Then footsteps stopped behind him, and he turned to see—

He stared down the throat of a gun. ‘Please,' he whispered. ‘She needs help.'

The blonde woman with the scarred face and hollow eyes looked him in the eye, and he thought she would pull the trigger, but she only nodded. ‘Ten minutes.'

 

He dried her with his shirt while she stared at him helplessly, utterly spent. He sat her on the lip of the pool, but didn't dare immerse her in the hot water too soon. Instead he hugged her, and tried to tell her where she was and what was happening, although he knew little enough. Mostly he just looked at her, and knew, deep inside, that she had come back to him — his Hinemoa — and if they could survive this, life would be a blessing once more.

The time passed too soon. Donna Kyle stepped out of the trees with a face like flint, and scowled down at him. Pale shapes flitted behind her, people who looked like goths or emos or whatever they called themselves these days, but redhaired and feral-looking. Their eyes were like cold fire, and they flinched from the sunlight. Then movement beyond them caught his eye and he stared. He saw leering goblinesque things that tittered at him through shark-like teeth. He shook his head, but these nightmare creatures refused to vanish.

What the hell are they? What's happened to reality?

The tallest of the goths attending Donna produced a cord, bound Hollis's arms tightly behind his back, and dragged him onto the porch of a wooden building overlooking the pool.
The sun was setting. Donna eyed him and the girl uneasily, then spoke to the goth. ‘Put him inside the mission house and stand guard! Keep him unharmed.'

‘Let us feed on him, Mistress,' the tall man said, and bared fangs like Dracula.

Hollis stared in shock. His gaze flew to Donna Kyle, half-expecting her to recoil. Instead, she pursed her lips, as if she considered the request perfectly reasonable. She shook her head. ‘No, Stone. I have too little information. I may need them both still.' She clapped her hands. ‘Move! We must muster: I want the whole tipua tribe with me when we descend into the lair. If anything is there to oppose us, we must have overwhelming force.'

‘It is here, then?' Stone asked.

‘Yes, I believe it is,' Donna replied. ‘Put the policeman in the house. I'll keep the girl with me.'

He struggled, but the vampire-things were immensely strong. As they hauled him into the mission house, he frantically tried to seize one last look at the girl's anguished face. Then they tied a sack over his head, and the half-burnt she-vampire knelt and whispered a promise: ‘Tonight, I will drink you dry, mortal. We will keep your woman as a plaything, but you're just dinner.'

 

Parukau hid on the edge of the lake as the song of the flute faded. He was in Aotearoa, having followed the flute music across in his vain pursuit of Hine. He had passed out in a clump of reeds, and had been fortunate not to drown. Only by luck had he fallen with his head above water. Now he lay
in a bundle, shaking and shivering, wondering how he could find another body then flee.

I've screwed this up totally.

This body had failed him. His right arm was near-useless. The girl was gone, and Asher Grieve must be laughing at him.
I gave my Pledge and the clue about the Swimmer for … what? Asher, you bastard!

Some rival — Kyle? Venn? Bryce even? — had known enough of the importance of the girl to use the Tutanekai and Hinemoa legend to steal her away. How had they known? Had Asher Grieve betrayed him? How long now, until a new makutu-master arose? How long did he have to run and hide before they came for him?
I should run
… but he found himself paralysed by pain and fear as the sun fell towards the western hills.

Dimly, he became aware of a small rakish waka rippling through the waters, returning from Mokoia Island. The waka was clearly a tipua craft. He could see them hunched over their paddles. It was near-empty, but as he watched another left the shore, going the other way, laden with warriors.

The island — the island must be the gateway … Whoever stole Hine Horatai must have also found the gate, and now they have the key, too. Donna Kyle, surely: Venn and Bryce didn't use tipua. Damn her!

A future as miserable as his recent past loomed, of being hunted — worse, of being found, and the horrors that would be inflicted upon him.
I've got to run.

But he didn't. Instead he eyed the tipua waka. Calculating. Something an old soldier had once told him popped into his head. He and the veteran had just found a man dead of
gangrene, after what had probably been weeks of agony. ‘It's better to die with your boots on,' the veteran had said.

Perhaps I can somehow resurrect my chances …

Slowly he nursed his wrecked body through the shallows, towards the goblin village. Had he not been close to collapse, he might have woven a hiding spell about himself, but he was beyond that. He walked openly, knowing he would be swiftly seen.

He felt and then saw them gather about him. Hairless, elongated skulls, leathery skin, vaguely reptilian little figures half his height. Each a perfect little nightmare come to life. Despite this, if led by an intelligent chief they were capable of friendship and trade; but they were mostly stupid and gullible and tended to believe whatever anyone told them — ideal foot soldiers for Puarata and his warlocks.

They crowded about him, herded him like prey, prodding and jabbing him with their weapons until he could barely stay upright. Finally, he found himself kneeling among a whole stinking crowd of them, mostly male. Squalid huts surrounded him. Everything stank of fish and blood — his own.

A larger tipua clad in a feather cloak stepped in front of him. ‘I am Kotukutuku,' it snarled. ‘I am chief here. Who are you, human?'

Parukau looked up at the goblin, and forced a smile. ‘My name is a secret,' he said. ‘Let me whisper it to you …'

 

It was some time before the confusion died down. The man lay in several bloody pieces at Kotukutuku's feet. Something had happened, some dark serpent had seemed to envelop
them both, until the bravest of the goblins had waded in and hacked the human to pieces. Now they circled warily, spitting on the remains.

Parukau looked out from Kotukutuku's eyes, ransacking the goblin chief's memories for names and words. When he thought he could deal with a conversation in the goblin tongue, he pointed to one of the sub-chiefs. ‘Come! I know a place, not far away, where there are Pakeha fire-spears buried. Let us spring a surprise on the Witch.'

Two hours later, as the sun fell, he directed the final waka of tipua warriors across the lake. Each had one of Jones's muskets wrapped in a cloak, primed and loaded. There had been no time to train them, only to show them how to load the weapon. He would likely only get one shot each out of them, but maybe it would be enough to tilt the balance. They were sworn to conceal these new weapons until he gave the word. He could sense their excitement.
Tonight
, they whispered among themselves,
the arrogant White Witch will pay for all of the brother tipua she led to death.

Parukau stared ahead, the waka thrumming with a music only he could hear, as they carved through the waves towards Mokoia Island.
I am not done yet.

Friday afternoon

M
at rode Fitzy at a steady canter along old hunting trails and through sun-dappled clearings. The distance wasn't great, but there were no roads and they had to be wary of who else might be traversing the Aotearoa back ways. He wondered if they shouldn't have rejoined Wiri and Kelly after all, but clung to the hope that he was doing the right thing.

He had few glimpses of what lay ahead or behind: the kauri and totara here were like tower blocks, and the undergrowth was dense with uncoiling ferns. He saw little other wildlife. The Birdwitch's creatures had driven all other life away. If that multi-hued flock did not have so sinister a purpose, he might have enjoyed watching them. Although there were dozens of sparrows and thrushes and mynahs and other common birds, there were other, more interesting, birds among them. Fantails flittered about him and kaka swooped, screeching whenever they had to move to keep him in sight, while the wind-chime tones of tui could be heard above the harsh chatter of the other birds. Woodpigeon wings throbbed. And there were vanished birds, too, like huia, no friendlier than the others.

He knew of no way of losing them. ‘I guess I'm stuck with
you all,' he grumped out loud as they flapped about him. ‘So Kurangaituku knows where I am, huh?'

Fitzy cocked his head. ‘That's her big edge over the other warlocks. She usually gets any information first. But there are limits. She has to exert herself to utilize their senses, and they're not physically strong. None of the other warlocks trust her. If Puarata had been able to fully control her, he might have tracked us down last year. But she was AWOL, as usual.'

They rode on, their unwanted watchers swooping about. It was an eerie feeling. There was an unnerving intensity to that bank of unblinking black eyes and the rush of wings surrounding them. Mat felt hungry, having not eaten since lunch the day before. There were streams trickling through the forest, pools to sip from, but nothing to eat, and he had the feeling that catching and cooking a bird would be fatal. He felt depleted, too, of his magical abilities. The mere thought of trying to slip back to the real world was as exhausting as the twenty kilometres he had to walk either way. So he filled his belly with water at the next stream, and rode on, in a kind of fixed daze.

 

Hours later, as the sun sank in the west, they descended a narrow track towards a thin strip of glistening water. The path had become too tricky for riding, and Fitzy had gone back to dog form. His fur was damp and matted and he was panting heavily. Mat felt guilty for having tired him out so much.

The birds seemed fewer, and almost nervous, as if they too were being stalked. He half-sensed something larger in the deeper shadows, but couldn't catch a glimpse. It was almost impossible to see more than ten to twenty feet anyway. The
ferns grew profusely, choking the ground between the great sentinels of totara. Glow-worms clung to the dank spots under the banks of a small stream they struck five minutes down the path. Apart from the occasional night-birds, all was silent but for their footfalls.

A dark bulk was growing before them, a low hill. Fitzy led him upwards, a climb of five minutes only, to a small ridge. He halted, panting a little, and lost the train of his thought in the beauty before his eyes as a new vista of Aotearoa was revealed.

They stood partway up a bare slope that led down to the shores of the small Lake Rotomahana. A series of shallow shelves cascaded past them to the lake. On each shelf, hot thermal water pooled in basins of glowing white residues of the sulphates and chemicals in the water. The slope was luminous, and steam flowed down the slope like a dry-ice show at a rock concert. The air was warm and thick and smelt sulphurous, but not unpleasantly so. The glow was magical, unearthly, surreal. He drank in the sight with pleasure.

‘Otukapuarangi, they called it. “Fountain of the Clouded Sky”,' Fitzy told him, emerging from the shadows in his goblin form and clambering onto a rock. ‘In your world, it was destroyed when Mount Tarawera erupted, more than one hundred years ago. These are the White Terraces. The Pink ones are around the bay.' He gazed down fondly. ‘Some folks called them one of the Wonders of the World. Sad they're gone now from your world, but at least we can come here.'

Mat could only peer about and nod his head slowly. The glowing slopes seemed part of a fairy paradise, not of this planet at all.

Fitzy slipped back into dog form, and they traversed the
White Terraces, stepping through steaming pools encrusted with mineral sediment like cake icing. They even glimpsed a few bathers: white settlers, quaintly attired in bathing costumes that covered them head to foot, alongside naked Maori. Fitzy told him most bathed at the Pink Terraces over the hill. They avoided those, however, climbing back into the trees, where a path took them into a dark cutting, and they lost the sunlight. Mat's eyes quickly adjusted to the gloom as they descended to where the slopes on either side of them became bare rock, and closed about them like a tunnel.

The cutting ended before twin pillars, carved wood dyed with red ochre. Twisted tiki faces and sinuous taniwha shapes piled one atop the other in the totems, paua inlaid into the eyes, catching the remaining light and glowing like opals. He sized it up while Fitzy changed again to goblin form.

‘This is the gateway to Mahuika's Cave,' the little turehu said.

Mat inhaled nervously. ‘So, shall we go in?'

Fitzy looked at him sideways. ‘Um … actually “we” won't. Just you.'

Mat felt a small thrill of surprise and fear. ‘But—'

‘Mahuika and I have a little past history,' Fitzy told him. ‘My brothers and I had a dare over who would go in and bring something valuable out. She caught me, and told me if I ever came back she'd fry me and eat me.'

Mat peered, trying to see if he was joking. ‘Really?'

‘On my honour,' the little turehu replied, a little defensively. ‘We turehu don't spend all of our time nobly defending the righteous, you know. Some of the time we just kid around.'

‘So I have to go in there alone?' Mat winced at the sulphurous reek emanating from the cave.

Fitzy nodded. ‘I'll wait here, I promise.' He squatted and pointed at the gateway. ‘You have to knock, and call out to her.'

Mat swallowed. He had no weapons, and he was tired and starving. With a hesitant fist, he rapped on the gatepost, and called. ‘Mahuika? Mahuika? May I enter? My name is Matiu Douglas, and I need your help … Please?'

His voice echoed through the narrow cleft. All other noises faded.

He felt something turn and regard him. He had a faint vision, of a shadowy head swivelling, and a sightless white eye like a boiled egg fixing upon him. A whispered female voice echoed from the depths.
‘Enter.'

 

The walls of the cave ran with a coppery glow, so that no torch was required. The air was warm and wet, and he was soon sweating profusely. He wished he had some weapon, but nothing confronted him. The walls were unadorned initially, but then he began to see carvings, twisting shapes that seemed to move when his eye was not on them. Many of taniwha and tiki, turehu and kehua, even bird-like manaia. But the primary design was a coiling tongue of fire. The carvings became more and more prominent, until every surface held them, and he could clearly see the faces turn and look at him with paua-blank eyes. The air stank like rotten eggs, and his skin ran with perspiration, as if in a sauna. He began to feel dizzy, needing to put his hands on the walls for balance, always careful to avoid the carven mouths of the beasts. The strain of being awake for hours and the constant battering his body and mind were taking were beginning to sap him to the core. He longed
to just lie down, but there was too much at stake.

Finally the tunnel opened onto a small sandy beach. The way forward was blocked by steaming, bubbling hot pools of mud which burped and slopped before him, assailing his nose with the hot reek of sulphur. He gagged, and held a hand to his nose. Dimly he could make out a thin path winding between the pools, and he teetered around their steaming edges. He felt a rising faintness running like a slow current to his brain, and he dropped to his knees before he fell. His senses reeled.

The air here … poisonous … I have to do something …

He grabbed at a memory of pure, clean air, and clung to it. Clean air, heavy with rain, tangy on the tongue. He called that wind, tried to bring its cold purity to this foul place. It seemed to take forever, as he panted, feeling energy ebb from him in waves, then suddenly, gently at first but then stronger, a cold breeze wafted over him. He sucked it in, and then gasped as tongues of fire ignited over the pools — some combination of the heat and gases of this place and the oxygen from outside. A near silent
whoof
sounded all about him as he pressed flat, and a boiling ball of flame washed over the carved ceiling. The fire seared his eyes, and in that flash of light he saw that dozens of bleached skeletons lay all about him, men who had succumbed to the deadly air of the cavern. Then everything went dark again.

A high laugh echoed around the chamber. An old woman's cackle.

Mat looked up, but his eyes couldn't pierce the gloom.

‘Come ahead, boy. In a few more metres you'll come to a pool. Swim it — you can swim, I take it?' The old woman still sounded vastly amused.

‘I can swim,' panted Mat. ‘Thank you, Mahuika,' he added.

‘Hmmm, a polite young man … and handsome, too, although a trifle pale.' She tittered to herself. ‘I might just keep you.'

Mat refused to think about that. He peered ahead, and saw a copper-coloured pool some ten metres in front, frothing like a freshly poured beer. Beyond lay a stair emerging from the water, climbing up into darkness. The old woman's voice floated from that darkness.

‘Come on, boy. Whilst your little breeze maintains the breathability of the air down there.'

That spurred him onwards, and he darted between the mud pools, and poised above the pool, dipping in a toe. It was hot, very hot, but not enough to scald him. The water was clear, now that he was above it, and he could peer down a long way, as the red-copper glow radiated down the walls of the pool, like the inside of a tube. He couldn't see the bottom, and dark shapes moved, down below in the depths. Big long shapes, lots of them.

‘Swim quickly, boy. The eels are hungry tonight,' came Mahuika's voice from above.

His clothes weren't ideal for swimming, but he saw no choice. He took a deep breath, and dived. The heat of the water was a shock, stinging his eyes when he tried to open them. Warmth burrowed into his pores, and he felt his muscles loosen, but he did not tarry to enjoy the sensation. Not with those eels below … He groped for the steps, and clambered up them, blinking furiously. They were coated in mineral deposits and slick as oil, but he scrabbled onto them as swiftly as he could, sensing more than seeing a dark mass of shapes flowing
upwards. No sooner was he clear than the water boiled with writhing bodies, a thrashing tangle of snapping mouths, and he had to scramble further to be clear of their lunges. The largest, a horror with a foot-long skull, snapped its jaws closed just centimetres from his face as he clambered away backwards.

Mahuika chortled merrily from above. ‘Well, you were just quick enough, boy!'

He looked down at the thrashing eels and went cold, despite the heat. He hurried up the slick stairs, water running from him. He ran his hands over his hair and face, and cleared his vision. Then he saw her, and froze.

Mahuika sat on a ledge above him, looking down with gleaming white eyes that had no iris. He realized with a shock that they were completely sightless, but she seemed to perceive him regardless. She was huddled beneath an old cloak of feathers, and a rank smell rose about her. ‘Come here. Let me look at you properly,' she rasped cheerily.

He climbed hesitantly to the small flat space before her, and not knowing what else to do, bowed as if to a queen. She laughed, and climbed to her feet. She was small, hunched, and her mouth was toothless. She clutched a wooden stick, unadorned but for a small clutch of feathers at the top. The fingers that grasped it had no nails, just bare, pulsing pink flesh that seeped wetly. She hobbled up to him and stuck out her nose. Belatedly realizing what was expected, Mat touched his nose to her, a traditional hongi. The woman smelt unclean, and she was as bony as a starving cat.

‘Sit, boy. What a handsome child you are! What is your name?' She sat on a mat, cross-legged, and pulled the cloak
about her. She indicated a place on the flaxen mat opposite her, and he sat, their knees nearly touching.

‘Matiu Douglas, grandmother.'

‘I'm not your grandmother, boy!' she retorted tersely. ‘Although I was grandmother to that wretch Maui. What do you want here? Nothing good, I'm sure.' She laughed, slapping her thighs as she wheezed. ‘You are here to steal fire, like that sly dog Maui. Did he whisper in your ear: “Go to Mahuika and steal fire”? Ha! Well, he stole all my fire. I have nothing to give any more. So your journey is wasted.'

‘It was Ngatoro who sent me. And he didn't tell me to steal fire. He said to ask for it.'

She looked at him with her white orbs and shrugged, huddling into her cloak as if she had taken a chill. ‘Ngatoro is dead and gone. And I told you: I have nothing to give.'

He opened his mouth to speak, but she stuck out a nail-less finger and placed it against his lips. ‘Silence, boy! I can hear without ears, and see without eyes.' She leant forward and put her hands to his temples. She crooned something, and he immediately felt a dreamy distance, and a torrent of images flowed from his mind. He felt no sense of invasion, but no sense of control either. And he couldn't seem to marshal his thoughts enough to stop it.

‘Don't fight me,' said Mahuika. ‘Let me see …'

He fell into a vague dream, a random re-run of the last few days. Riki and Kurangaituku … Hine gone … Jones caught in that tree … the attack on himself and his mum … And then she was prying into Waikaremoana, and then his flight to Reinga last year. He couldn't say how long it went on, but when he came to, clutching his head dazedly, Mahuika was
sitting opposite him again. She bobbed her head and smiled.