by David Hair
Damn you, old man! You gotta earn my trust before I tell you anything. He clutched his head with relief. I was right! It’s the girl, she really is the key …
Then let us exchange conditional pledges, Parukau. You will reveal the key, and pledge to free me when you have opened the door to Te Iho … and I will tell you where the gate is.
He stared into the darkness. Somewhere, Donna Kyle was winning, and he was stalled, in a broken body and no way forward. Damn it! Okay, okay. Let’s do it, old man.
Before dawn, in a haze of pain, he managed to recover sufficiently to shift back to the real world, close to his motel. It was almost too much. He avoided the eyes of the pedestrians, and slipped inside the motel. He hammered on the door until Ko let him in, glanced at the girl to ensure she was still there because she was his only ace, and then he collapsed across his bed, oblivious to anything else.
Friday morning
Riki didn’t know how long it took him to fall asleep, but he did. The rasping voice of the Birdwitch haunted his sleep, half-rousing him time and again. The place she had brought him — her nest — stank of bird droppings and there were old bones in the corner of the cage. Human bones.
This was bad. The cage was damned solid. There was water in a plastic bottle she had left him, but nothing else, just a bucket for slops. It didn’t look like she planned on keeping him for long.
Hatupatu’s adventures had been his favourite stories when he was a kid. Hatupatu was the classic youngest son, and was full of clever tricks to fool his elder brothers and his tribe’s enemies, like draping toitoi bushes in cloaks to make it look like they were crouching warriors. He had beaten up his evil brothers and become chief. Hatupatu was Riki’s sort of hero, especially at a time when his own brothers all seemed pretty evil, although he loved them dearly now.
I just wish Hatupatu had killed this old hag properly!
Hatupatu had been kidnapped by Kurangaituku and held in a cage for food. But he had escaped, hid inside a rock, and then led her through the mud pools here in Rotorua until she had slipped, fallen in and been boiled to death. The way Granddad told it, she had seemed as much comic as frightening — but she didn’t seem funny at all in the flesh.
The dawn chorus started before five o’clock, by his wristwatch; there was no point in trying to get any more sleep. He felt battered and sore, and he was trapped in the Never-never with a carnivorous witch. Now would be a good time to show up, Matty Douglas! Ain’t that what heroes do?
An hour passed in which nothing stirred in that gloomy room. It was utterly unfurnished, with nothing but his six-by-six cage in it. Nothing he could reach out and snag to help him escape. His experimental kicks at the door just produced a rattling that he was afraid would bring Witchy-poo, so all there was to do was wait and hope.
She came for him just after dawn, as sunlight gleamed golden through the shutters. The deafening chatter of the birds fell silent as she opened the door, and hunched inside. She was still wrapped only in her feather cloak and a small shift. Her crone face sat incongruously above that muscular body. She stared at him, licking her lips, her eyes nothing like human. ‘Do you know my name, human?’ she asked, eventually. There was a strange weight in the question, in the way she said it. It was … wistful … hoping for something she did not believe would ever happen.
He thought he knew — the obvious answer — but he didn’t answer at once. Something told him that this was a riddle she asked all of her victims, like the sphinx did in Egyptian stories. Damn, I wish I’d listened more to the old fellas around the marae …
‘Kurangaituku,’ he answered slowly, experimentally.
Wrong answer! She swelled in size, filling the room, hunched over the cage like a hungry beast. Her face contorted, her nose and chin growing together like the top and bottom of a beak, the eyes blazing with hunger. Her huge taloned hands reached out, and pulled the cage open. He fell back to the far wall, as she cawed like a crow and reached out.
He continued frantically: ‘—is the wrong name! The right one is on the tip of my tongue!’
To his utter amazement, she paused. A talon that could have crushed his skull clenched and retracted.
Her voice held a genuine longing. ‘You have ten seconds, human, to find the right answer …’
Asher’s bargain
Friday, pre-dawn
All night, Donna Kyle stalked real-world Rotorua, throwing death-threat looks at anyone that glanced at her, until the night-time crowd simply vanished. Then she slumped onto a bench by the lake and stared across the waters.
Kurangaituku had sent a morepork, which had spoken in a harsh voice, telling her that Kurangaituku held Matiu Douglas’s companion, whoever he was. One morepork! What sort of alliance of mutual agreement was that? There had been no further contact. Damn her, this is betrayal!
Had Matiu Douglas been there? Had he heard her words? Did he believe them? She didn’t even know now if she had meant them, but she could hear them still, replaying in her mind.
She summoned the patupaiarehe, and sent them into Aotearoa. Stone, to bring the goblins to this shore; Heron, to find Kurangaituku and deliver her most urgent summons; Thorn, to scout for Parukau — only Rose she kept with her. The girl was singing softly to herself, pirouetting at the water’s edge, lost in some fantasy. Together and alone, they waited out the eternal night. It came as a vague surprise that the sun rose. Donna had almost forgotten that such a thing happened. It hurt her eyes to watch that orb lift above the dark horizon, and see the shafts of light stab the darkness with brutal clarity.
Rose whimpered as the light grew. ‘Go! Go and cower in a hole,’ Donna snapped at her. The patupaiarehe quailed, but she didn’t stay. Alone — finally, truly alone — Donna made herself watch the dawn. While she still could.
Where and what is Te Iho? If I don’t get to it first, I’m worse than dead. Everything was slipping from her hands. If I stop concentrating, I’m going to fly apart …
A dry voice chuckled into her mind, and she didn’t have the strength to banish it. Daughter, whispered Asher Grieve. My little Donna, take courage. I can help you.
She cringed, curling up inside herself.
Daughter, I feel your pain. It hurts me as it hurts you.
‘Liar!’
He ignored her. The clues are falling into place, Donna. Te Iho is within your grasp. It is in Rotorua. I remember the smell of sulphur.
‘You remember what?’ she asked, her interest sparked despite herself.
Yes, he replied, in his baited tones, it is in Rotorua, Daughter. Where you are! And there is a special, unique blood that opens the gates, and the path beyond. I remember it, floating through the air as if it were flowing through water. The Blood of the Swimmer, Daughter!
‘The Blood of the Swimmer? What does that mean?’
Think, Daughter! Lake Rotorua. A swimmer.
Omigod. ‘An avatar?’
Yes, an avatar. Parukau has her.
‘How can you know that?’
Parukau himself told me of it. His voice sounded eerily self-satisfied.
She felt herself chill. ‘He told you?’
Indeed, Donna. Do you think you are the only one I can communicate with?
She almost swallowed her tongue. ‘You’re helping Parukau?’ she breathed, more frightened than she had ever been in her entire life.
Manipulating him, Daughter. I know his strings, and how to pull them.
‘Why are you telling me this?’
To give you one last chance, Donna. Do you think I want that snake Parukau beside me when I rise anew? Of course, if needs must, then that is how it will be, but it is you who I truly want at my side.
She wondered how her heart kept beating. ‘But I don’t know where Te Iho’s gate is. And I don’t know where Parukau has the girl. You’ve got to give me more than this, Father!’
Do I have your Pledge then?
Damn this! Damn this! ‘Yes,’ she half-sobbed, ‘I pledge to free you.’ She pu
t her face in her hands, wailing inside.
To free me alive and unharmed, and to kiss my ring and serve me, Daughter, he purred inside her mind. To rule beneath me — my princess — in a new regime that will rule Aotearoa forever.
‘Yes. Yes. I so pledge.’ She felt something tighten, like a chain twisting about her soul.
Ahhh. It is done, Asher sighed. She shuddered. Do not despair. There is a way to prise the girl from Parukau. Remember the legend, Daughter! Seek the avatar that is her mate! He will be close at hand! Remember the legend.
Suddenly he was gone. It was almost as if she felt his hand on her head, but then his presence, almost tangible, faded away. She sat shaking, wondering what she had done. Then she realized that she was not alone. Only a few dozen metres away, a Maori man stood, his breath steaming in the cold air. He wore a police uniform beneath an overcoat, but she could see his other identity overlaying him plainly, if she concentrated. It felt so serendipitous as to be fate. Could it truly be him?
She walked towards him, as casually as she could. Before she could even open her mouth, he spoke aloud. ‘It’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it?’
The effort of concealing her excitement and wonder was almost beyond her. But she managed. ‘Yes,’ she breathed, forcing the slightest smile while her heart leapt in her chest like a caged beast. ‘Unbelievable.’
The Maori man smiled softly. ‘I love this place,’ he said, as much to himself as to her. He was, perhaps, in his forties, and had a kind of emptiness in his eyes, a loneliness he didn’t know how to fill. ‘I love the way the water catches the light.’
She stared at him. This wasn’t any sort of chat-up line — he would have said the same things even if he was here alone. ‘I’m Donna,’ she said quietly, hoping it wouldn’t break the moment. But she needed to know his name. ‘You are …?’
‘Tu Hollis,’ he replied, half-turning. His face had a tired, disappointed cast to it, but unbroken. ‘Tutanekai Hollis, actually. My folks named me for the old story.’
Yes!
She froze him in place with a smile, then smashed him around the temple with a fist that she infused with stone. He dropped like a pole-axed bull.
She took the prone Tutanekai Hollis through to Aotearoa, and was pleasantly surprised to see that Stone had not failed her — a waka of tipua goblins stood standing offshore, awaiting her. She waved them ashore, and they carried the prone policeman through the shallows and deposited him on the canoe. She took a position in the stern, and gestured impatiently. Within minutes, they were paddling across the dawn-flecked lake to the island. She sent out a mental call to the other patupaiarehe as they surged across the water.
Come to the island, immediately. The game has changed.
In the modern world, Mokoia Island is semi-deserted, a native flora and fauna reserve, a tourist site and, during the school holidays, a school for traditional Maori martial skills. It had once been inhabited, but no more, in either the real world or Aotearoa. They struck the south shore beside the hot pools, and dragged the waka ashore, under the canopy of the forest. The tipua hid themselves in the shadows, liking the sunlight little more than the patupaiarehe. Rose and Thorn arrived minutes later, flowing through the air like jets. But no Heron. Donna frowned, then realized in sudden panic that she no longer held the life cord that controlled the scarecrow-like being. She felt her heart flutter in alarm. How had that happened? When?
Father did it … He must have …
She banished the others to the shadows uneasily.
She had the goblins leave Tutanekai Hollis beside the very pool where the legends said Hinemoa came to Tutanekai. The policeman woke slowly, groggily, and stared at her. With her servants in the shadows she might have seemed alone, but he didn’t try anything, just waited as the pale morning sun lit Aotearoa. They were in a grassy clearing, right up against the lake, where flat slate rocks bounded a pool of gently bubbling hot water that steamed enticingly in the chill morning air. A few metres away was a disused mission house established in the 1800s but gone now from the real world, although still present here in Aotearoa.
She had taken a crude flute from one of the tipua, and now she proffered it to Tutanekai Hollis. ‘Play.’
He glared back at her with rebellion in his eyes. ‘Go to hell.’
‘I’m not a believer in heaven or hell,’ she told him. ‘Play the damned flute.’
‘No!’
With an effort of will that made her shudder, she refrained from ripping his heart out. Instead, she bent over him. ‘Listen, Tutanekai. You have two choices. You will play that flute, and finally get to meet the one woman who can make your lonely existence meaningful. I swear I will even let you both live, once I’m done with you.’ Maybe. ‘Or you keep refusing, in which case I will allow my servants to eat you, slowly, raw. You have around ten seconds to make up your mind.’ She sat back and stared out across the water. ‘Think of me as an unusual kind of dating service.’
Tutanekai Hollis faced her down for a few seconds, then capitulated. He slowly picked up the flute, raised it to his lips, and began to blow. He seemed surprised as a strange and eerie music arose, as much from the place about them as from the instrument he held. But she wasn’t surprised at all.
Can you hear this, Hinemoa?
Prisoners in the darkness
Friday, pre-dawn
Mat dreamt, of Ngatoro.
They were in a darkened room, moonlight streaming through big windows behind him. The old man hung in the air before Mat, wrapped up in tubes that looked like veins, pulling and pumping fluids from his body and out into the darkness. His body was thin and hunched, his limbs twitching occasionally. His long, grey hair floated as if he were under water, and his eyes were closed, but his lips moved faintly. Bubbles formed at his lips and streamed upward and dissolved.
They weren’t alone. To the left and right, in a circle fading into the shadows, there were at least a half-dozen others, male and female, all old, almost all of them Maori. The windows revealed a vista of moonlit rose gardens, oddly familiar.
Ngatoro opened his eyes. They were like two discs of slate, and they didn’t seem to see Mat at all. ‘Matiu?’ Ngatoro whispered, barely audible. ‘Are you dreaming or are you really here?’
‘I think I’m asleep,’ Mat replied. ‘Where are we?’
‘In my prison, where Puarata left me.’
Mat looked at the other captives. ‘Who are these others?’ he whispered, slightly awed.
‘What others?’ Ngatoro breathed. ‘There are no others. They’re all dead and gone.’
‘Can’t you see them?’ Mat asked. ‘They’re right here …’
The old tohunga shook his head, making his silver hair ripple through the air. ‘There used to be others. I am the last.’
‘But … what is this place?’
Ngatoro sighed. ‘This is Puarata’s lair. He called it “Te Iho” — The Heart.’
‘This is what all of his warlocks are looking for!’ Mat stared about him.
Ngatoro nodded. ‘Yes, this is the place. He overmastered me, with poisons and treachery, and he brought me here. I remember blood, a stream of blood that we followed through a dark shifting cave or tunnel: a shadow-maze. I was only half-conscious.’ His voice became dreamy and faint.
‘Where are we? Where in the real world?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I went to sleep in Rotorua! The warlocks are here. I think they’re looking for Te Iho in Rotorua.’
‘Rotorua? I don’t know … I thought it was in the Ureweras, in a cave. They took me through caves, Parukau and Puarata, and then …’ The old tohunga visibly fought to rouse himself. ‘Mat, a shadow-maze is impenetrable without a guide. Without the guide, you will be lost forever. You must find the gate, and the guide!’
Mat bit his lip. ‘I don’t know what the guide is. And I don’t know where the gate is. Is there some other way?’
Ngatoro thought for a time, going so still Mat almost thought he
had fallen asleep. Finally, he whispered, ‘There is only one other way: primal fire.’
‘Primal fire?’
The old tohunga nodded. ‘Original fire. True fire. To burn the walls of shadow.’ His head slumped again. Mat bent as close as he could. ‘Mahuika,’ the tohunga whispered, utterly exhausted. ‘Mahuika. You must find her. Immediately! If you cannot find the guide, then you must gain primal fire from Mahuika, and then you must find the gateway …’ His head slumped forward. ‘All else is secondary …’
‘Ngatoro!’ Mat called him, a forced whisper. He tried to reach towards him, but found his hands passing through the old man. He jerked back, and looked left and right.
Every prisoner in that place dreamt on, oblivious.
Except one.
The next prisoner in the line, a grey-haired Pakeha with a hook nose and deep dissolute lines about his face, was staring at him open-eyed. ‘YOU!’ the man spat. He raised a hand, and pointed straight at him. ‘GET OUT!’
A blank wall of force swatted him, and he spun and fell …
… and woke.
Mat sat up abruptly, a cry half-formed on his lips, and blinked in the dim sunlight. Then he almost leapt ten feet as a wet tongue slopped at his cheek. ‘Arghhh!’
Fitzy chuckled darkly. ‘Heh heh. Just me, Mat.’
He stared at the turehu, clutching his chest. ‘Hell, Fitzy! Couldn’t you have just barked or something?’
‘Yeah, but that would’ve meant I didn’t get to see you nearly wet yourself.’ Fitzy glanced around. ‘I suppose you know that we’re under observation?’
They both looked up at the birds that sat silent on every branch. ‘Yeah.’ He rubbed his eyes. The first thing he remembered was that bizarre one-way conversation with Donna Kyle. He was still struggling to think his way through that … Was she sincere? She had tried to kill him several times, and yet when she had captured him a year ago in Auckland what she really wanted was a way to escape Puarata’s clutches. It was that desire to escape that had enabled him to turn the tables on her.