The Lost Tohunga

by David Hair

  The war went on covertly, nevertheless. Information and clues were traded or stolen, murders arranged and carried out. Most thought her defeated. But she knew of one way back. Te Iho … her last hope.

  Venn didn’t even know! He thought this war was all about property and wealth. But Puarata had been more than rich and influential; he had been the mightiest tohunga makutu ever known, and Venn was no Puarata, not in the field of makutu.

  To truly inherit Puarata’s mantle required Puarata’s secret lair: Te Iho, The Heart. Puarata had told her of it, but had never taken her there. Without Te Iho, victory or defeat was incomplete. She was now certain it wasn’t in the Ureweras. Best of all, Venn did not even know it existed. Venn can rot in the Ureweras, she told herself. Let him think me defeated. I shall return, possessing might undreamt.

  A flicker in the mirror caught her eye, and she turned in fright. There was a man there, in the glass, staring back at her. A man clad in velvet with a foppish hat and furs at his throat, like some Renaissance potentate. His furrowed, clean-shaven visage was framed in long, silver hair that floated strangely, as if underwater. ‘Hello, Daughter,’ he said laconically. ‘Feeling sorry for yourself?’

  Her world lurched. ‘Father?’ She had tried hard to forget that mental warning that had saved her from Rothwell a year ago. She had almost convinced herself she had imagined it. Almost. ‘Father?’

  ‘Donna, my dear. You look anxious. Let me help you.’ His voice sounded pained, sympathetic. ‘Let me restore you to what you once were.’

  Too many emotions flooded her: hatred, for what he had done to her; betrayal, that he had failed her; contempt, that he had been so foolish as to go up against Puarata; anger; bitterness. ‘What are you? Some kind of ghost?’

  ‘No ghost, Daughter, for I did not die. I am merely a prisoner, here in the darkness.’

  ‘A prisoner,’ she breathed. Her fury at him welled up. ‘The mighty Asher Grieve, trapped? I hope you rot there for eternity!’

  Asher’s eyes narrowed. ‘Trapped, aye,’ he hissed. ‘Imprisoned and bled dry by your lover, because you betrayed me, you ungrateful little sow. After everything I gave you.’

  ‘Everything you gave me?’ she echoed derisively. ‘You gave me away! I was eight, Father. You gave me to that bastard, and he destroyed me!’

  His lip curled. ‘Destroyed? Fool! We made you, my girl. You were ignorant of your potential. We freed it! You were to be co-ruler of this world when I became king! As I would have if you hadn’t turned on me. You sided with him, and condemned me to this prison!’

  ‘Why should I have sided with you, you monster? You sold me! Did you expect to get me back for free? For some kind of deluded family loyalty?’

  Asher Grieve’s face twisted nastily. ‘Loyalty? Yes, I expected loyalty from my only acknowledged child! Especially as I sought to free her from the man she claimed to hate so much! I had every right to expect a daughter’s loyalty. I took a bed-wetting cry-baby and gave her the tools to rule. But poor little Princess Donna didn’t like getting her hands dirty, and didn’t have the guts to seize her chance — our chance!’ He leant towards her, as if straining against some invisible bond. ‘I would have made up for every hurt he inflicted upon you, but you didn’t have the courage to see it through!’

  She flinched at each word, her legs wobbling. ‘Did you have a point to make?’ She wished her voice didn’t sound so quavery.

  He lifted his right hand, clutching a walking cane with a crystalline lion’s head on the tip. ‘Yes, my daughter, I do. You are seeking Te Iho. You cannot be victorious without it.’

  ‘I know that,’ she replied scornfully.

  His face floated closer, until it almost filled the mirror. ‘You cannot find it without my help.’

  She felt her skin become slick. ‘You, help me?’ Her voice betrayed her desperation.

  ‘Yes, Daughter, you cannot find it without me. I wish to help you. But how can I trust you, you who so thoroughly repudiates me? No, there is only one way I can trust you.’ He smiled. ‘Pledge your soul to freeing me, and I will guide you to The Heart itself!’

  She backed away and sat on the bed. It was that or fall to her knees. A Pledge … she knew what he meant. This was no empty promise that could be broken. This was an oath that harmed the swearer if broken. The sort they all swore to Puarata. The breaking of that Pledge had been part of the fatal weakening that enabled Puarata to defeat Asher’s revolt.

  Not to you, Father! She straightened, and raised a hand. ‘Burn in hell or rot in prison forever, Father. Just don’t talk to me again.’ She exerted a little force, and the glass shattered. His cry of pain sweetened the feeling of vindication.

  But in the hours afterwards came the fear, and then the certainty, that she had just doomed herself.

  Parukau

  Monday

  Parukau sat with his back to the wall all night, unsleeping. He was learning the mind of his new host, Evan Tomoana, and especially examining his memories of Hine Horatai. Hine … Parukau had seen her for what she was immediately. All those years trapped in the dog’s body, he had carried one clue regarding Te Iho: Blood of the Swimmer … He had wondered about who or what ‘the Swimmer’ might be. It was obvious now, as the answers to riddles often were. He would find Hine Horatai, and she would open the path to Te Iho.

  His mind reeled with the possibilities. Beside him, Tomoana’s friends slept; a mindless mountain who called himself Brutal, and a lamb in wolf’s clothing called Ronnie. This evening they would be released, and he would find Hine Horatai. Then Te Iho would be his.

  It had been more than a century ago that Parukau’s attempt to supplant Puarata had failed. Puarata had punished him by imprisoning him in the body of a dog. In pre-contact days, Parukau had been a tohunga makutu serving Puarata, one who had learned body-jumping as a way of living forever. Unlike most, he had embraced European settlement, enraptured with these alien beings and their elegant trappings. Plush clothing and foreign women had been his addiction. Literally enduring a dog’s life had nearly destroyed him. Only one thing had kept him going: Te Iho, The Heart. He had helped design and create it. One day, he would claim it and overthrow Puarata.

  However, that dog body could get into places a man could not. Parukau had watched and learned. He had seen the rise of successive favourites and pretenders, and laughed as they all fell. When Puarata died he had gone straight to the Ureweras, and slipped into the hidden caves which led to Te Iho … and found them blocked and disempowered. Puarata had closed the gateway. He had panicked for a time, but he clung to the fact that Puarata had needed Te Iho. It must be merely hidden. They had designed it with no fixed abode, a pocket of space and time independent of both worlds. The gateway was movable, and of course Puarata would have moved it from time to time. He just had to find the new door, and the new key.

  So he had ignored the war, and hunted for the gateway instead. The longer he used a body the better he controlled it, so he had kept the tramp-body despite its shortcomings. But now he was ready for a new phase. He was ready to enjoy this powerful younger frame, and make ‘Evan Tomoana’ a feared man.

  At dawn, the shifts changed and a new pack of uniforms swaggered in. His ‘friends’ slept on. Let them; he didn’t need them yet. He had plans to lay, a new world to explore. When last he had worn human guise, aeroplanes and cars were undreamt of, electricity a foreign rumour. Old Mac had gone bush decades ago; he had been an ignorant loner. So Parukau feverishly shuffled through the memories of this Evan Tomoana to educate himself.

  Eventually the police took statements. He feigned regret. A lawyer came and talked about bail. It was easy. He laughed inwardly at the pathetic amount tendered for his good behaviour as, exactly twenty-four hours later, he walked free. Free. In a body worthy of me … I am Parukau. I am back in the game.

  Monday evening

  The girl was gone when Parukau returned to Evan’s home. He needed to find her. But he was starving, needed to refuel. So they ate pizza an
d drank beers on the back lawn as evening fell, a scarlet sunset with clouds gathering to the north. He savoured every mouthful of food with relish. Life felt good, and was about to get better. The fat waddling creature that Ronnie was shackled to, Ko, kept the beers coming. She was afraid to meet his eye. He would talk to her later …

  ‘What’s happening, boss?’ asked Brutal. ‘What we gonna do?’

  ‘Yeah, what we gonna do?’ Ronnie parroted.

  Tomorrow, I will find other men to serve me. Better men than these cretins. ‘First thing, I want you to know that I am going to take a Maori name. “Evan” is a Pakeha name. I renounce it.’

  The two thugs looked at each other in surprise. Evan was basically Pakeha, for all his pretensions. But neither argued. ‘Sure thing, chief,’ said Brutal. ‘What should we call you now?’

  He let it roll off his tongue. ‘Parukau.’

  ‘Parukau?’

  ‘Yes, Parukau.’ It was a joy to hear his name spoken aloud after all these years. ‘Secondly, we will enlist some men tomorrow. Then we’re going to get rich.’

  ‘Rich?’ they chorused myopically.

  ‘That old tramp at the police station whispered a secret in my ear as he died. He told me where he had buried his money.’ He leant forward conspiratorially. ‘It’s in Rotorua. So that is where we’re going, tomorrow night. To dig it up. But first, tomorrow morning, we’re going to enlist some allies.’

  ‘Allies?’

  Are these fools going to echo every word I say? ‘Indeed.’

  He got up, indicating he was going to pee, and swaggered across the lawn to the back door. The toddler was there. She saw something in him that frightened her, made her flee into the house. He stalked into the kitchen, where that obese creature Ko was cooking. The other baby looked at him and began to cry. Children have such good eyes. ‘Where is Hine, Ko?’

  Ko didn’t look at him. ‘I dunno.’

  ‘I think you do, Ko. You were here when she came for her clothes. You’re her only friend. Where did she go?’

  ‘I dunno, I swear.’

  He picked up a carving knife. ‘Where is she, Ko?’

  The baby screamed, like a torture victim. He watched Ko shake, too scared to move.

  ‘Don’t you want those little brats to just shut up sometimes, Ko? Don’t you just want to cut their tongues out sometimes?’ She looked at him with her big pleading-cow eyes. He stroked her cheek with his left hand. ‘Where did Hine go, Ko?’

  ‘To the refuge. She went to the refuge.’ Ko began to weep, rivulets flowing from both eyes. ‘Don’t you hurt my babies.’

  He put the knife down. ‘Of course not. I love children.’

  In Aotearoa

  Monday

  Hine opened her eyes, and realized with mild shock that she didn’t have a hangover. She peered cautiously out from under the musty blanket, and guessed from the angle and hue of the sunlight that it was still early morning. She was on an old sofa in Aethlyn Jones’s lounge. Godfrey lay on top of the blanket, snuggled against her, with a nice clean dog smell like warm rugs and pine needles. The ceiling above her head was open-beamed, with cobwebs in the corners.

  She huddled under the blanket, clad in an old nightgown that Jones had handed her on arrival. He had been grandfatherly and gentlemanly, and she had trusted him right away. She liked the offhand way he talked, and the concern he showed without being over-solicitous. He had made it clear that they would talk, but only when she was ready. That suited her fine. She couldn’t remember the exact impulse that had caused her to abandon the cops and run off, but it still felt like she had done the right thing. If she had gone to the refuge, Evan would know exactly where she was.

  Evan … or whatever he is now …

  She found to her surprise that she had no trouble believing that Evan was possessed by some evil thing. She had grown up believing in good and evil, in religion and magic — this was just an extension of that. That tramp had been possessed, and now the demon was in Evan. It was horrible, but conceivable. It didn’t really change things: she had already decided to leave. It just made it more imperative. She couldn’t even mourn Evan: there weren’t enough good memories to cling to.

  Jones was fussing in the kitchen, and Godfrey got up and scratched at the door. It opened a crack, and the smell of bacon and coffee welled into the darkened room. ‘You awake, lass?’ Jones called.

  ‘Yeah! I’m coming out! You got a dressin’ gown’ll fit me?’

  ‘Aye, I’ve got one warming by the stove. It’s a cold morning, lass. You wantin’ coffee or tea?’

  Her mouth watered. ‘Coffee, please.’ She got up, marvelling briefly at the antique cotton nightie she was in as she dragged fingers through her curls and rubbed the grit from her eyes. She felt refreshed as if after her best sleep ever. She fingered the scab on her cheek and found it almost gone, which was weird. Godfrey had licked it, she recalled.

  The kitchen was warm and redolent of pipe smoke, cooking bacon and rich coffee. There were two chairs at a table, and she wrapped herself in the dressing gown hanging by the stove, and sat. The room had no electricity, at least that she could see, although there was a muddle of electrical wires and gizmos piled at one end of the table, looking out of place.

  Jones turned and smiled. ‘Did ye sleep, lass?’

  ‘Yeah. What time is it?’ Her watch seemed to have stopped.

  ‘Oh, about nine I’m thinkin’. Don’t hold much with time here. Although I can’t abide lateness,’ he added with a wry smile. ‘I keep a sundial out the back.’

  She peered out the window onto a sunlit back yard surrounded by trees. Their shadows stretched towards her, so she guessed the back yard must face east. The grass was long and there were two sheds, a small one that contained a toilet she had used last night, and a bigger shed containing two horses and the cart they had ridden in to get here. It had been a strangely silent journey; no street lights, she had thought dimly at one point, but then she had fallen asleep.

  Jones fixed some eggs while she took the coffee pot off the element and poured the black liquid into two old mugs. Then she wolfed down the best breakfast she could remember for a long time, while Jones picked at his, feeding half of his bacon to Godfrey.

  ‘You’re probably wondering a few things, lassie,’ he remarked finally. His accent was definitely British, and had a rough honey texture she warmed to. ‘Like maybe “Where am I?”, “Who’s the old guy?”, and “What am I going to do?” perhaps?’

  She smiled despite herself. ‘Yeah, I guess. What was the first one: where am I?’

  ‘We’re on the lakefront, a little south of the Napier turn-off.’

  ‘I thought it was all time-shares and hotels down here? Your house must be worth a packet, eh? You hanging out for some rich dude to make you an offer?’

  ‘Something like that, lass.’

  ‘So, who’s the old guy?’

  ‘I’m Aethlyn Jones, once of a hamlet near Abertawe, in Wales. But that was a long time ago — I’ve been in Aotearoa longer than I ever lived in Wales.’

  ‘Don’t sound like it.’ The old man had a pommy accent worse than she had ever heard.

  ‘Don’t I?’ He raised an amused eyebrow. ‘Perhaps the way we learn to enunciate as a child stays with us.’

  Enunciate? She had not heard words like that since high school. ‘What do you do? Are you on the pension?’

  ‘The pension?’ He laughed. ‘I’ve never really thought to apply, to be honest. Maybe I should: I’m sure I’ve got papers somewhere saying I’m over sixty-five.’ He chuckled, as if he found the thought inordinately funny. ‘No, I guess I’m something of a trader and fisherman, and a man who gets things done.’

  She asked the last question. The serious one. ‘What am I going to do, Mister Jones?’

  ‘Just “Jones”, lass.’ His eyes were suddenly serious. ‘That’s the real question, isn’t it? What are you going to do? Because you sure as hell can’t go back to him, can you?’

  She c
aught her breath at that, and wondered whether he somehow knew what had happened to Evan. ‘Can’t I?’ she asked, just to see what he would say.

  ‘No, you certainly can’t.’

  She tried again. ‘What’s happened to him? I saw …’ Her mind flicked back to what she had witnessed in that cell, and she shivered suddenly, as if someone had opened the door and let the cold inside.

  ‘What did you see, lass? Tell me.’

  For a second she didn’t want to, but she made herself do it. He didn’t once scoff, or even interrupt, as she described the horrible vagabond, and the dark shadow-serpent, and what had happened to Evan. She found herself talking about Evan, even though her eyes welled up with salty tears that stung as they flowed out and down her cheeks. She talked about Evan and what he did to her, which took her back to how he had been at first, which led further back to Glenn Bale and her mother. By then she was just crying, soaking the shoulder of this kind old man who knew how to listen and not question or accuse or condemn. It seemed like hours until she ran dry of tears and words.

  He talked softly in her ear. ‘Lass, the world is a little more uncanny than you can know. The thing that is in your Evan now is something that I’ve been hunting for a long time. I’ll tell you about him later, when you’re up to it.’ He wiped her eyes. ‘Go and shower, now. I’ve laid out some clothes for you in the bathroom. They’re a bit old-fashioned, but they’ll be a novelty for ye ’til I can take you shopping.’