by David Hair
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.
‘So, I had heard that Aethlyn Jones had taken a protégé … I have even heard your name. Now here you are, determined to play the hero. Ngatoro thinks I will just give you what you want, does he?’ She didn’t seem at all surprised at the revelation that Ngatoro, and others, had been imprisoned by Puarata. ‘What do you hope to gain, boy? Power? Status? The love of this girl Hine? She is a pretty thing, isn’t she?’ She looked at Mat thoughtfully. ‘You are even a little in love with her — but she isn’t for you.’
‘I know that,’ he told her. ‘I’m just trying to help her.’
She put her finger to his lips again. ‘Hush, boy. I know you know. I’ve seen inside your head. Your motives are clear to me. You are that rare thing: a selfless person. Although you want things for yourself, you are prepared to put those wants aside for the sake of those you love, even a little.’ She bared her gums. ‘Oh, I know about love, although I’m just an old crone in a cave. Love is a kind of fire, made of belief. Love lasts as long and shines as bright as you believe it to. You can ignite it with a single glance, and douse it with a single doubt. It burns, and flickers. You must feed it, or it will turn to ashes. But no flame burns forever, boy. Not even the sun, or the fires that well up from beneath the stone.’ Her voice was bleak and faintly regretful.
He felt a pang of fear, that she would not aid him after all. ‘Please, Mahuika, will you help me? I must save Hine and Ngatoro! I must return with your fire!’
‘Must you, must you? Why? Why should I care? The world outside means nothing to me. Why should I help you or anyone else?’
He couldn’t think of a reason that would sway her, if she cared so little about the world. He took a deep breath, and met her sightless eyes. ‘What must I do?’ he asked her, as humbly as he could. ‘I would do anything, give anything, to rescue Hine and Ngatoro.’
Her blind gaze seemed to look through him. ‘Would you indeed, boy? Anything?’
‘Yes — yes, I would.’
She regarded him for a long time. Finally, she opened her mouth again. ‘Did Aethlyn Jon
es tell you how to win power from the powerful?’
He shook his head.
‘You must give to receive, Matiu Douglas. That is what he would have told you, had he been here. I was guardian of the primal fire, until I was tricked into relinquishing it. I have languished here ever since. Few come any more, and most end up feeding my slippery friends in the pool. I have grown sick of men and their taking. If you wish for fire, Matiu Douglas, then you must give. You must sacrifice.’
He looked down, and into himself. Then he looked up.
‘What must I give?’ he asked in a small voice.
She leant towards him, so he could smell her poisonous breath. ‘You must give yourself, Matiu Douglas.’
He felt a shiver of fear, and a slickness on his brow. ‘What do you mean?’
The blind crone cackled low and mirthlessly. ‘You must give me your Pledge. A Pledge can take many forms. Puarata demanded one of loyalty of his warlocks that was linked to their power — if they broke with him, their powers were lessened for a time.’ She reached out and clutched his face in hands that felt like heated metal clamps. ‘You will pledge me your service, Matiu. Pledge me that, and I will aid you. Betray that promise, and my wrath will find you.’
He stared at her ruined face, and her horribly seeing blind orbs. He nodded slowly, and she felt the movement through her hands. She dropped them, smiling gummily. ‘Good,’ she purred. ‘Good. Your service is accepted.’ She pulled him towards her, and kissed his cheeks with burning lips. ‘I will aid you.’ She added, cackling, ‘I never liked that arrogant bastard Puarata or his pustulent minions.’
He nodded slowly, frightened as to what he had just committed himself. What might she demand of him? A thousand horrible fates flashed before his eyes. She snickered as if she read them there, flashing her gums. ‘Your promise is given and heard. Violate it, and this little flame in here’ — she tapped his chest—‘will go out. You hear me? Break your oath and you will die inside. Now, give me your hand.’
He held out his right hand. She shook her head, and then took his left hand instead. ‘You are right-handed, are you not?’ she asked. He nodded. ‘I thought as much,’ she replied, and then gripped his little finger. ‘This will hurt,’ she said cheerily. ‘It will hurt a lot.’
Then she pinched the fingernail on the little finger of his left hand, and ripped it off.
The pain was excruciating — a liquid, acidic fire that tore through his hand and arm and racked his body as he threw back his head and howled. All he could see was fire; red agony that shook him uncontrollably. He snatched back his hand, and gasped over it, as the pain subsided slowly.
When he opened his eyes, a tongue of fire danced in his gaze. It lay in the palm of Mahuika’s hand. It was his tiny fingernail burning with a tiny flame that didn’t consume it. The flame burned with a purity and brightness unlike any he had seen, captivatingly lovely.
‘Aethlyn Jones told me that a foreign god with the strange name of Odin sacrificed the sight of one eye for the gift of prophecy,’ Mahuika told him. ‘A strange choice, in my view; but then, I gave two eyes, and gained less.’ She thrust the burning nail at him. ‘Take it and go, and rejoice that you are only the third man to leave this place alive. Go, Taker! Go before I change my mind. And do not forget your oath!’
He sat there, and looked at her. His little finger felt as if it was being cut in half slowly with a blunted knife. But he felt a sudden surge of pity for the old woman. He reached out with his right hand, and took the nail tentatively between his forefinger and thumb. The heat was searing, yet it did not seem to damage his hand. He reached out, grasped the right hand of the old woman. He turned it over, and fitted his burning nail into the puckered flesh of her forefinger as her mouth fell gently open.
‘Here, grandmother. Take this, as a gift from me to you.’
She sighed, bent her head, and shook gently. The carven moko of her face seemed to flare softly to light, like rivers of lava coursing her cheeks. She blinked, and the milkiness drained from her eyes, revealing copper irises that focused intently on his face. She seemed younger, somehow.
Wordlessly, he screwed up his courage, and offered her another finger of his left hand.
The heron and the Birdwitch
Friday evening
Mat climbed the path from out of the caves, both hands wrapped in blood-soaked rags, every movement agony. But cupped in his right palm, he cradled his prize — a tiny piece of fingernail that glowed, a tiny whisper of flame playing on it. True flame, to burn away the shadows.
I did it …
He tried not to think about what he had given away, to gain this tiny thing. Nor what the Fire-Queen might eventually demand. The old woman had seemed to grow younger with each new nail; when he left, she was more like a thirty-year-old than the ancient crone he had first beheld. Her eyes remained ancient, but her body was fuller, her skin more youthful. She had a frightening type of beauty, the sort that hurt the retinas. Burnished eyes that smouldered and fingers that seared. In some ways she frightened him more, not less.
Outside, the daylight had gone, and only the tongue of fire lit the path, like a little piece of a setting sun. He stepped through Mahuika’s gate, cradling the tiny flame, and looked about him. ‘Fitzy?’
Then he froze.
A scrawny, ageless man sat on a rock above him, kicking his feet like a child. He had white skin and colonial-era clothing, and his chin was smeared with blood. His orange hair, piled like a windblown haystack, shimmered in the half-light. He held a Labrador on his lap, breathing in wet rasps. Fitzy’s eye rolled towards Mat, and his limbs twitched.
‘Turehu blood,’ the pale thing smirked, licking his lips. ‘My favourite.’
Another patupaiarehe … Mat stared up at the pale thing, his heart pounding. ‘Put him down!’ He brandished the Fire-Nail, although even moving his hands sent screaming pulses of pure agony through them. ‘Put him down or I’ll burn you alive.’
The patupaiarehe curled his lip. ‘Will you just, my pretty little boy? Then I certainly won’t put him down, will I?’ He sat up, kicked off, and floated through the air, down to the bare rock before the gate, about ten feet from Mat. He held Fitzy in front of him, as a shield, clamped effortlessly in one arm. ‘What is it you’ve got there, boy? Something of value?’
All about them, the birds in the trees sat watching and waiting, a silent audience. He didn’t know how to answer. Fitzy whimpered in the patupaiarehe’s grasp. Mat’s brain seemed to seize up, like a jammed machine.
‘What is it?’ the patupaiarehe insisted. ‘Is it something of hers? Is it a fire-nail of Mahuika?’ He grinned ferally. ‘Yes, of course it is! How fascinating.’ He cocked his head, as if listening to an unheard voice, then licked his lips. ‘I must take it to my mistress. It will please her, make me her favourite. Give it to me — give it to Heron!’
No! He bowed his head, trying desperately to think.
‘Give it to me or your little friend here dies,’ Heron wheedled insistently. ‘Give it to me.’ He held out Fitzy in one skinny arm, holding thirty kilos of Labrador effortlessly. ‘Exchange …’
He could see no way out of it. Defeat seemed to lurk at every turn and it now seemed that all he could hope for was to keep himself and as many of those he loved alive as he could. Starting with Fitzy.
He slowly stepped forward, holding out both hands; the Fire-Nail in his right hand; and his left hand ready to pull the turehu to himself. His bandaged hands throbbed with merciless waves of pain, and he gritted his teeth.
The patupaiarehe’s hands blurred, snatching the Fire-Nail and stepping backwards. But Mat reached desperately, gasping in pain as his bandaged fingers grasped the turehu. Fitzy twisted suddenly and bit at Heron, forcing the patupaiarehe away. He snarled as he backed from them, cradling the Fire-Nail in his hand.
Mat held Fitzy against him protectively. ‘Fitzy?’ he whispered.
‘I’ll be fine,’ Fitzy muttered. ‘Caught by a patupaiarehe. Damn, that
’s embarrassing!’
Heron smirked in triumph. The flame lit his eyes. ‘Got it!’ he crowed. He cocked his head again. ‘I must take it to her.’ He turned back to Mat. ‘But first I must kill you, and now there is nothing to prevent me.’ He raised the hand holding the Fire-Nail, as if to smite him with it.
Mat stepped in front of Fitzy to shield him. There wasn’t time for anything else. But as Heron gestured with the Nail, his own hand burst into flame, and the patupaiarehe screamed in agony, his back arching and face contorting.
Mat gaped in sudden hope, which died as another shadow fell over them, a vast shadow with massive wings.
‘My children told me you would be here,’ rasped Kurangaituku.
Mat looked up, his heart in his mouth. Kurangaituku stood beyond Heron on a rock, her dirty grey hair fanned about her head, falling over the thick cloak of feathers that covered her shoulders. About her waist she wore a piupiu, a flax kilt. Her dark tattooed face was expressionless. It looked like etched leather.
Heron turned, cradling his burning hand, his eyes glazed with pain. ‘Witch, the mistress must have this. It is commanded.’
Kurangaituku’s eyes glittered. ‘Commanded by whom, Heron?’
The patupaiarehe’s voice faltered. ‘By … er …’ He shook his head, then nodded again. ‘It is commanded!’ His face was drawn with pain from handling the Fire-Nail.
Mat watched the Birdwitch’s hands sprout claws a foot long. ‘You have been subverted, Heron. Another has stolen command of you.’ She stalked closer. ‘Place the Fire-Nail on the ground, dead thing.’
Mat flexed his hands painfully. The bloody rags were like clumsy mittens, and he felt nauseous from the pain and blood loss. Beneath them, he had no fingernails left, and no weapon. He glanced at Fitzy, but the little turehu looked weak and his throat glistened with blood. They were helpless. Their only hope was this apparent division in the enemy ranks.