by Joanna Orwin
They hovered there, suspended in this sound-free space, rocking gently as their momentum slowed. Taka looked around him as his heart resumed its normal beat and his hearing recovered from its battering. One by one, he stretched the joints of his aching toes. Gradually, faint sounds returned: the soft pluck of placid water, the fluttering of a seabird overhead, the still-laboured breathing of his fellow Travellers. They were in a narrow passage that curved away in front of them, its rock walls almost closing out the rapidly darkening sky. He couldn’t see where it would lead them or what lay ahead. But it didn’t matter. They had made their landfall. They were safe at last. They took up their paddles once more. Matu guided the moki through the passage as it widened before them.
None of them could have anticipated the vista that opened out. They were emerging into a huge harbour, guarded at its sea end by the cliffs they’d just negotiated. The rock walls behind them formed knuckled fists at the end of protective arms that wrapped around the harbour on both sides, stretching from the twin summits that dominated the centre of the island. Sheltered between these arms were long, gentle wooded slopes that descended below the rocky summits to a series of terraces at the heads of deep bays scattered around the harbour. Taka blinked, then squinted, trying to pick up detail. The slopes were hazed with the last soft light from the setting sun and further obscured by smoke that rose from numerous small fires. But these were not Mahui’s fire signs. Everywhere Taka looked, he could make out square shapes clustered on the higher terraces. In the bay nearest them, where the biggest cluster seemed to be, he spotted some larger solid shapes that stood alone on the highest terrace.
As his eyes adjusted, he saw distant, tiny figures moving on paths linking the cultivated fields that occupied most of the highest terraces and in some bays extended up into the wooded slopes. People. The island was inhabited. A lump formed in his throat, and he swallowed hard. The Travellers had achieved the impossible. They had crossed the Great Ocean. They had found an island occupied by people. People who grew cultivated foods. He knew now, without any doubt, that they had been guided here, to this particular island. Here they would find the sacred kuma they were seeking. He watched the figures moving down the slopes towards the smaller clusters of houses. These were people going about their normal, domestic lives, heading for home after a day’s work. The notion suddenly seemed extraordinary. Tears welled and trickled unnoticed down his cheeks.
For a long time, they sat and watched, the paddles resting forgotten across their thighs. Taka greedily absorbed the human activity, the sheer unmoving solidity of the slopes that now enfolded them on all sides, offering safety and security after the constant fluid motion of their sojourn at sea. But it felt as though they were watching a separate world. A world apart, a world oblivious to their presence. The purple shadows of the short tropical evening were already obliterating the scene. No one ashore had spotted them on their low-lying moki. From that distance they would seem nothing more than a swamped log, a piece of flotsam.
Eventually, Kai stirred. ‘Are we going to land any time soon?’ His voice was dry.
Piko managed a laugh. He wiped the trace of tears from his own face. ‘Look at us!’ He gestured at their salt-encrusted, hunger-thinned bodies, their unkempt, wind-tangled hair, their sun-blackened and scabbed faces and shoulders, their sea-stained, tattered loincloths. ‘Maybe we should clean up before we go any further.’
‘Be quick,’ said Matu. ‘It’s almost dark. Visitors arriving so late mightn’t be welcome.’
It was a sobering thought. But Piko was right: they couldn’t arrive in this state. One after the other, they plunged over the side of the moki to hang one-handed from the ties while they scrubbed their rank bodies and washed the stale sweat from their hair. The clean salt stung Taka’s sun-tender skin, but he luxuriated in the freedom of the water and would have lingered if Matu’s impatient voice hadn’t urged them to get a move on. They hastily changed their filthy loincloths for the spares they had brought, then combed out their hair and refastened it with new headbands. By the time they took up their stations once more, the light was fading fast.
When Matu gave the order to paddle, Kai hesitated. ‘Maybe it’s already too late. It’ll be completely dark before we reach the shore.’
Piko agreed. ‘Might be best to wait for morning.’
When it came to it, though, none of them could bear the thought of even one more night spent in discomfort on board the moki, not when land was so close. They could smell the smoke from the fires. Kota insisted he was picking up the distinctive aroma of meat cooking. The thought of hot, cooked food was too much.
‘Let’s take our chances.’ Matu voiced what they were all thinking.
‘How likely is it they get many visitors from across the sea?’ Taka looked back at the narrow passage they’d just negotiated. ‘Surely they’ll be curious, if nothing else.’
His comment clinched the argument, so they set off again. Paddling as strongly as they could, the Travellers headed towards the large settlement in the nearest bay. Taka felt his shoulder muscles burn again as they urged the labouring moki onwards through the increasing resistance of the water that now lapped beside him, the swirl of his paddle enough to send the occasional surge of water over his feet. They were only just afloat. They’d reached sanctuary in the nick of time. Kua-the-Seeker was so weighed down that the water-god must be holding her back, reluctant to release her as they approached Mahui’s domain.
Although they were now close enough to pick up individual, small flames flaring from the evening cooking fires, they still hadn’t been spotted. The moki was hidden in the night shadow stealing over the harbour. They slowed their paddles once more.
‘They might mistake us for intruders,’ said Piko, his voice flat.
Kai urged caution. ‘You’re right — they may not treat us like guests, arriving like this, unseen and unannounced.’
‘We could sing,’ said Kota. ‘Intruders wouldn’t warn them they were coming.’
So they raised their voices in a chant of thanks to Tanga for their safe delivery to this island. As their voices rang out over the shadowed harbour, Taka saw torches being lit among the houses. By the time the moki grounded in shallow water and they could paddle no further, lines of torches that flamed in the darkness were being carried down the terraces towards the shoreline. There was no answering call of welcome. His stomach lurched in sudden apprehension. He smelt a waft of demon breath that caught in the back of his throat. Perhaps they had made a mistake, coming at night like this. But it was too late to retreat.
Kai said quietly, ‘We should stow the paddles lest they mistake them for weapons.’
Matu demurred. ‘We hardly pose any threat, just the five of us.’
‘We know that, but they mightn’t see it that way,’ Piko pointed out.
He was right. Although they’d cleaned themselves up the best they could, they still looked a bunch of ruffians. As for Kua-the-Seeker, Taka knew the moki that had carried them faithfully for so long looked like an oversized, storm-sodden heron’s nest rather than a sea-going craft.
So they stowed the paddles and lowered themselves without haste into the water to tow the moki further ashore. As they heaved and strained at frayed and rotting ties that broke in their hands, Taka could sense watchful eyes upon them. Dark figures were assembling at the back of the narrow beach. The flaming torches flicked faces and limbs with exaggerated shadows and highlights that made alien demons of the silent watchers.
Kua-the-Seeker grounded again and they could heave her no closer to the shore. No longer held up by saltwater, the moki slumped and settled, a weary creature whose task was done. Taka instinctively patted the flank beside him, knowing they would never again fly together over the waves, the wind accompanying them with its wild song. His heart racing, his mouth dry, he followed the others as they slowly waded the last few metres that separated them from this unfamiliar island and its unknown, waiting people. The people whom they had taken fo
r granted would welcome the Travellers, give them succour and help them fulfil their quest.
As Taka trod dry sand for the first time in more than three weeks, and swayed on ground that still heaved like the sea beneath his feet, a harsh voice rang out. A man’s voice, the words recognizable, though the accent and intonation were foreign to him:
Who are you, coming upon us in the night?
Who are you, coming upon us from the sea?
Who are you, unannounced and uninvited?
Who sent you?
Where have you come from?
Why have you come?
His tone was authoritative and hostile, the formal challenge unmistakable.
Taka heard Kai murmur beside him, ‘He’s not wasting much time, is he? We’d better establish our credentials, quick smart.’ His voice was calm, as though they were merely uninvolved spectators.
Before Taka could respond, they were surrounded by a line of scowling men, each armed with a spear. In the light of the torches, he saw the poised spears quiver, their cruelly barbed points eager to find a mark. He could feel the tensed muscles, sense the blood lust rising. At the same time that demon breath filled the air once more, acrid in his nostrils. These were Mahui’s people. All Taka’s instincts told him that Kai was right. They needed to defuse the situation quickly, but there was no time to explain. Words would be inadequate if the Travellers were perceived as enemies, Tanga’s people who came unannounced from the sea. Tanga’s people who had just chanted a song of praise to the water-god. Words risked failure. Words risked death. Without further pause for thought, he stepped boldly forward, evading Kai’s restraining grasp.
Taka raised his arms high, hands angled back from his wrists, fingers spread stiffly like the flight feathers of the migratory kua, his head flung back. He heard a hissed intake of breath. Before the watchers could react, he began to dance.
Ignoring the still-rolling ground under his feet and his unsteady balance, ignoring his protesting muscles and stiff limbs, Taka danced the story of their long voyage. He danced the flight of the kua, the surge and lift of the moki over the endless, rolling swells. He danced the rising and setting of the sun, the slow wheel of stars across the night sky. He danced the storm’s thunder-claps, the darts of lightning, the breaking sea crests. He danced the sunlit dawn sea at the storm’s end, the moki’s exhilarating soaring swoop as the giant waves rose and fell beneath them. He danced the perilous approach to this island, their exhaustion, the slow dying of the valiant moki now stranded below them on the ebbing tide.
As he danced, the circle of hostile spear carriers gradually pulled back to give him more room. Taka barely heard Kai pick up the beat, drumming a soft accompaniment on his thigh with the stiffened palms of his hands. He barely heard the other Travellers join in to create a surging, receding beat that mimicked the sea they’d just left behind. Every muscle, every joint shrieked protest at the effort he was demanding from his unfit, weakened body. Sweat pricked in the corners of his eyes and ran down the sides of his face. He couldn’t stop now. Some separate part of his brain told him that he might have won the watchers over, but more was needed to ensure their safety.
Taking a deep breath and praying to Tanga to give him strength, Taka began to spin. Arms flung wide, his feet pivoting faster and faster, he whirled in an ever-tighter circle. The light of the flaming torches merged into a blur of yellow and red that seared his eyes. He whirled until the water-god at last heard his prayer and sent him, painless now, into that trance-like state he’d experienced only once before, all those months ago on the lagoon edge at Hara.
The last thing Taka was aware of as darkness overwhelmed him was his cousin’s voice, speaking quiet, unthreatening words.
‘We come to you in peace. We come for your blessing and your help.’
Chapter 14
Taka could smell the familiar pungent odour of dried chicken droppings. Its ordinariness was strangely comforting. The spear carriers motioned the Travellers inside the small hut on the edge of the settlement, then firmly closed the door. He heard the thud of timber being slotted across the entrance. They’d been locked into what must be a disused hen house. These Mahui people were taking no chances. None of their escort of spear carriers had spoken, and they’d all been careful to keep their distance from the demon-possessed dancer. He’d staggered and stumbled, his legs drained of all strength, and would have fallen many times if Kai and Piko hadn’t supported him, one on either side. He slumped onto the straw-strewn dirt floor as soon as his companions let him go.
When the spear carriers’ footsteps retreated out of hearing, Kai scolded his cousin. ‘You took a huge risk. You could’ve been killed.’
Taka heard the relief behind Kai’s anger, so meekly accepted the rebuke. He was too exhausted to say anything, wrung out by the emotions that had coloured the long day, swinging wildly from elation to despair. The ground still undulated disconcertingly beneath him, and all he wanted to do now was sleep.
After a long moment, Matu said, his voice diffident, ‘Reckon he saved our skins.’
Before Kai could answer, they heard someone approaching their hut, then the door was unbolted. A hand thrust a large basket inside before the door was hastily rebarred. A cautious voice said, ‘Mister Goddard said you were to be fed. Eat while it’s hot.’
Piko fetched the basket. He passed around the steaming, leaf-wrapped contents, a parcel for each of them. ‘Smells good.’
Matu tore open his parcel. ‘Drumsticks, and some sort of flat cake.’
When Taka couldn’t make the effort to investigate his parcel, Kota squatted beside him and patiently fed him morsels of chicken and broken-off pieces of starchy cake. After a while the food revived him enough to sit up and fend for himself. He muttered his thanks, but Kota brushed them aside. ‘Matu’s right: we probably owe you our lives.’
Soon after he’d eaten, Taka drifted off to sleep, waking only when the grey dawn light filtered through gaps in the rough stone walls of the hut. It had rained overnight, and he could smell the rich, unfamiliar scents of warm, damp earth and rotting vegetation. When his eyes adjusted, he could make out wooden nesting-boxes lining one of the walls, and felt a pang of homesickness for Ra-Repo and the chickens he’d fed from the time he could first walk. The others were stirring, and they sat with their backs to the walls, listening intently to the waking noises coming from the nearby settlement as they finished the remaining food. Taka could tell they were all thinking what he was: that nothing in the story of Kahu and his voyage had warned them their reception might be hostile, that this island mightn’t be the sanctuary they’d expected.
It was Piko who voiced their growing trepidation. ‘So much for a heroes’ welcome!’
Kai nodded. ‘Even if this is the land of the gods the Wise Ones spoke of, we shouldn’t assume they’re our gods.’
‘Let’s not assume the worst,’ said Kota. ‘We did catch them by surprise.’
Before they could say more, the spear carriers came to fetch them. With gruff voices, they ordered them to their feet. ‘Mister Goddard wants to see you.’
As the Travellers meekly accompanied their escorts towards the settlement, Taka examined them surreptitiously. In daylight the spear carriers still appeared fearsome. They were all tall men, clad in short, belted tunics made from an unfamiliar stiff, heavy material that left their brawny arms and legs free. Without exception, they were brutal-looking, with close-shaven heads, thick necks and powerfully muscled shoulders. They were unlike any people he’d seen before. Apart from their similar physique, some had pale, freckled coarse skins and uncanny grey or even blue eyes under prominent brows. Others were darker-skinned with more familiar brown eyes, their blue-shadowed scalps and jaw lines suggesting they were also dark-haired. A few had broad, moon-like faces, verging on concave in profile. Their eyes were almost black and slant-lidded, and their skin was finely textured and the shade of newly dried rau. The spear carriers were heavily armed, with knives in scabbards on their
belts as well as the metal-tipped spears they carried. What sort of people were these who felt such a need to go about armed? What were they afraid of — demons, some marauding animal or other people? And who or what was this Mister Goddard?
When Kai asked, one of the spear carriers spoke brusquely, his voice thick with accent but its tone unmistakable. ‘You’ll find out soon enough. Be wise to keep your mouths shut and do what you’re told.’
They were now following a wide path lined with neatly built stone huts with palm-frond thatched roofs, much the same size as those at home. Taka absorbed as much as he could as they were marched through the settlement. Each hut was surrounded by its own small garden planted with bright flowers and glossy large-leaved shrubs that glistened with moisture from the night’s rain. Dogs lay in the sun just as they did at home, and the numerous chickens fossicking in the dust were familiar enough, but the squat, fat animals with bristly hides and flattened snouts that scurried among the bushes were not.
He could snatch only glimpses: he wasn’t willing to stare too openly past the men who lounged in groups on both sides of the path, examining them with bold eyes and making loud comments, the tone mocking and unfriendly. Although they were of mixed ethnic type like the spear carriers, these men were all shapes and sizes, and he assumed the armed escort must have been selected for their physique. Every man in the settlement seemed to have gathered to watch them pass, and Taka wondered whether usually they would be at work in the cultivations on the hill slopes beyond or out fishing in the harbour. Behind the men, in the doorways of the huts and at work in the colourful gardens, women with babies strapped on their backs and small children hiding behind their legs also turned to watch the Travellers as they passed. The men wore patterned, calf-length wraps that left their torsos bare; the women were similarly clad, but their wraps were fastened high under their armpits. No one smiled or called a greeting. Kota had been over-optimistic: the island’s inhabitants were clearly reserving judgment before making them welcome.