Risen Gods

by J. F. Penn

  Rangi got out of the truck and stretched his back and legs, letting the early morning sun warm his limbs. Was this the right thing to do? The urge to bring Amber here had been strong in the night, when the spirits swirled about them, but now … now, he wondered whether he would even be welcome.

  "Should we bring Amber out?" Lucy called softly from inside the truck.

  "Wait a minute," Rangi said. "Let me go find my grandmother. She'll know what to do."

  He walked around the edge of the marae to a small house. The red door was faded and scratched, but the plants in the garden were blooming and well kept. He smiled. His grandmother, Aroha, still had her priorities right.

  Rangi knocked at the door. His heart pounded. What if she turned him away? What if she slammed the door in his face? She certainly had the right to. He had not been a good grandson.

  The door creaked open.

  Her brown face was more wrinkled now, the lines deeper, etched with the pain of her people and the weight of responsibility for this hapu, the extended families of the area. Her dark eyes narrowed a little, focusing on his face.

  Then she beamed as recognition dawned. She flung the door open, her arms wide.

  "Rangi," she said. "Welcome home, my boy." Rangi stepped forward and embraced her, leaning down and holding her close. Tears pricked his eyes as the years of being an outcast fell away.

  "Let me look at you," Aroha said, stepping back, holding his face in her hands. Her deep brown eyes stared into his, and Rangi felt her search his soul. He caught his breath as she raked him through. Then she nodded with a smile.

  "It is as it should be. Now, where is this sick girl?"

  Rangi didn't question how she knew. Aroha had always been able to see through the veil of what the world considered real, to what lay beyond.

  "In the truck." Rangi pointed.

  "Bring her into the marae," Aroha said. "I'll meet you in there once I gather my things." She ducked back inside the house.

  Rangi jogged to the truck, opened the door, and lifted Amber from Lucy's arms.

  He carried the unconscious girl into the marae compound. At the steps of the meeting house, he slipped off his shoes. Lucy followed close behind.

  Rangi laid Amber gently on the ground and smoothed the hair from her face. Lucy curled up next to her sister.

  "It's going to be alright," she whispered.

  Rangi stood and looked around Te Wharenui, the meeting house. It was decorated with carved wooden panels depicting the gods, woven mats in between each panel. Even in these desperate times, it was good to be back.

  Aroha came inside with a woven bag in her hand.

  "Welcome, child," she said to Lucy, kneeling down next to Amber. She touched the girl gently, feeling her forehead. Aroha's eyes closed and her lips moved as she whispered ancient words.

  Then she stopped. Her eyes opened.

  "Show me, girl. What is it you carry for the gods?" Her voice wavered.

  Lucy pulled out the manaia pendant from her clothes.

  "Do you mean this?"

  Aroha gasped, her fingers flying to her mouth at the sight.

  23

  Tongariro National Park Volcano Center, North Island, New Zealand

  "I can't make it across, Charlie." A crackle of static broke up the next words.

  The phone network was down across the country. The mountain team had CB radio, but that wasn't enough to help Charlie now. Frank had many more years' experience with the volcano. He knew the moods of the mountain. They had even joked that his blood ran with magma. But Frank couldn't get here – he was trapped along with so many others in Ohakune, dealing with the aftermath of the quakes that continued to shake the whole country.

  Charlie scrolled through the news reports. The internet was in a frenzy of speculation about what was coming next. That peculiar mix of grief and morbid fascination, desperate for details of tragedy. People couldn't keep their eyes from a disaster, especially if they weren't directly affected. He imagined people shaking their heads in sadness as they sipped their caramel lattes in coffee shops on the other side of the world.

  He scrolled on through the newsfeed. Scientists from across the world were getting their two minutes of fame, discussing tectonic plate shifts and how none of this was unusual on the Pacific Rim of Fire. Images of destruction repeated over and over. Shattered buildings and piles of rubble. Streams of people trying to get out from the worst hit areas, their faces marred by smoke and blood.

  And he was all alone up here.

  A bead of sweat rolled down his back. Was it really getting hotter? Or was it just the stress?

  He checked the readings again. There were sensors all over Mount Tongariro, but they hadn't seen readings like this even when the Te Mari Craters had erupted in 2012.

  Charlie logged onto GeoNet, the official source of geological hazard information for New Zealand. It contained the latest reports from all over the country, with lists of earthquakes and volcanic alert levels as well as scans of seismic recordings for each of the volcanoes.

  Only yesterday, the front page of GeoNet had been all green, the alert levels at 0 or 1. Now, the team could not update the page fast enough. The listed quakes were updating every few minutes and the volcano alert levels were currently at 2: moderate to heightened volcanic unrest.

  Charlie's finger hovered over the keyboard. The alerts should be a lot higher. He should report his readings immediately, but the country was already in such a state of craziness, adding fear of eruption might tip it over. Could the readings be wrong?

  He stood to refill his coffee cup and stretched his aching back. He had definitely been sitting too long. Perhaps he should go and take a look at the main craters. Charlie ran his fingers through his sandy hair as the kettle boiled. He looked out the window. From up here on the mountainside, all looked calm and peaceful.

  He made his coffee and took it to the door of the monitoring station. He opened the door and sat on the top step, taking a sip.

  Charlie loved being alone. It was his natural state. His ideal day involved walking the park with a pack on his back, in sun or rain or snow. He could go days without speaking to another person, and he was acutely aware of the sounds of the mountain. But as he swallowed the coffee, he realized that it was too quiet, even for him.

  There was no birdsong in the air.

  No hum or buzz of insects.

  The air was still and heavy. And there was something else unusual. Through the soles of his shoes, he could feel warmth.

  Charlie put his hand on the ground. It was warm to the touch, and getting hotter. No wonder the animals had fled and the birds had flown away. As creatures so close to the earth, they knew when trouble was on the way.

  But he couldn't leave. His place was here.

  He was part Maori on his mother's side, and she had spoken of his whakapapa, his ancestry. They were descended from the people of the mountain, those who had once worshipped here. Before she died, his mother had said that people nowadays had forgotten where they came from. They didn't honor the old gods anymore. They had turned the mountain into a tourist hotspot, tramping and skiing on it, oblivious to the sacred nature of the ground. Perhaps now they would pay the price for such hubris, as man had ever learned his most important lessons.

  The hard way.

  Charlie went inside and typed swiftly into GeoNet, reporting on the seismic readings and his observations of the environment. He didn't stop to note the replies that arrived thick and fast.

  He grabbed his emergency pack and jogged outside, where he mounted a quad bike, revved the engine and headed up towards the main crater.

  The wind whipped through his hair as he sped up the rocky slopes, the power of the machine beneath him propelling him onwards. He should be walking, he should be feeling the earth beneath his feet, but there was no time.

  As he crested the ridge, a plume of smoke belched up from the crater in the distance. The black ash erupted into the blue sky above. Charlie was transf
ixed. It seemed as if there were creatures in the smoke, ash-formed shapes that gazed down at the land beneath, as if they hadn't seen it for generations. They shifted with the wind, dispersing and then re-forming into animal shapes, then human figures, then grew and shifted into great lizard creatures. Charlie rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his vision, the rational part of his mind denying what he saw.

  Then a deep rumble came from beneath the earth, like the rush of a train along a tunnel. Charlie had studied volcanoes with a passion since childhood.

  He knew what was coming.

  He killed the engine and turned to sit sideways on the quad bike. There was no time to escape. He fixed his eyes on the crater, wanting to witness that which he had never seen with his own eyes.

  A roar of gas and power exploded from the crater. A blast of superheated air smashed into Charlie. He shielded his eyes, feeling his flesh burn, but the pain was nothing. He knew it would be short-lived. A tower of bright orange, scarlet and vermilion rushed into the sky, shooting towards the clouds before it fell, turning black as it crashed down.

  It was so beautiful.

  Charlie smiled, tears in his eyes as his lifetime dream was fulfilled: to see the mighty eruption of his volcano. As the burning hot ash rained down upon him, speckling his skin and tainting his lungs, Charlie spoke aloud a karakia learned from his mother years ago, a prayer to the ancient gods, asking them to allow him home.

  The creatures in the flaming rock reached out for him as he closed his eyes for the last time and the lava engulfed his body.

  BBC World News

  Thousands of New Zealanders have fled their homes after a volcanic eruption at 11:42am in the center of the North Island today. Mount Tongariro is a compound volcano in the Taupo Volcanic Zone and is one of the most active in the north. Ngauruhoe, a cone of the volcano, has erupted more than seventy times since 1839, but geologists are citing this latest eruption as the worst event in recent history.

  "I heard a massive boom and when I looked up, the side of the volcano was burning and ash was raining down," said Mo, a forty-two-year-old retailer from the mountain town of Ohakune, who was on the main shopping street at the time."We've all heard about the possible 'big one,' an eruption that could kill us all, so I went home, got my son and we left. We're heading north to Auckland, like everyone else."

  All flights in and out of the North Island have been suspended as ash from the Tongariro eruption spreads across the country. Experts say that tiny particles of sand, rock and glass contained in the ash can clog aircraft engines. Fluctuating winds have already driven the ash plume east, with fears of it shifting north towards Auckland in the next twenty-four hours, further complicating the rescue operations already in place for South Island refugees. Civil Defense officials are advising people to avoid traveling, but instead, to stay indoors and tape up windows as much as possible.

  The eruption happened only two days after a tsunami crippled Christchurch and multiple earthquakes hit the South Island. A total of 3410 people are reported dead so far, with thousands more injured and missing. Official figures continue to rise.

  "We're worried that the tectonic activity will spread," Mark Jacobs, vulcanologist at Massey University, reported earlier today in a press conference. "The Auckland volcanic field has fifty-three volcanoes. All are dormant and the majority have only erupted once. But Rangitoto has erupted repeatedly and is due for another eruption within a short period, geologically speaking. The next eruption could be in thousands of years' time, but it could just as well be tomorrow."

  24

  Ben waded into the stream of humanity flowing south on Fenton, towards where he had last seen Gina. He tried to dodge through the crowd, but the route was thick with people desperate for shelter. He overheard parents telling their children that everything would be fine. Yet Ben felt Whiro's anger in the pulse of the earth and the black smoke that whirled about them.

  "Where's everyone going?" he asked a man beside him in the crush.

  "The Institute of Technology," the man said, his eyes wide with barely constrained panic. "They have an emergency shelter, and they’re trying to figure out what’s going on."

  At the Institute, security guards with earpieces directed people towards stairwells that led to the heart of the building. Maybe Gina was already there. He was about to go down the stairwell when he heard his name.

  "Ben!"

  He turned to see Gina, a wide smile on her face. She was against the back wall of the lobby. A steady stream of people moved between them.

  "Stay there," he shouted, pushing against the tide towards her.

  Ben shoved his way through, knocking a floppy-haired teenager to the side in his haste. He reached out his hand to her and Gina leapt at him, her arms pulling him close. He breathed in the scent of her hair. They clung to each other. A moment of calm in the chaos. She gave him one more squeeze and then pulled away.

  "The bus," Ben said. "I couldn't –"

  "It's OK," Gina said. "We're together now." She looked towards the stairwell. "Should we go down there with everyone else? Back in the States, they built these fallout shelters in the '50s. Most of the old office buildings in Chicago have them. You think that’s what’s down there?"

  "I’m not sure." Ben clutched at the talismans on his chest. He was still drawn north, and he felt a sense of foreboding here. After seeing the black smoke winding around the crowd, he didn't want to be trapped in here with them as the angry gods clawed their way from the depths of the earth.

  "We should keep going north." Ben took Gina’s hand and they squeezed through the crowd towards a side exit. "So we need to find a car."

  They made it outside and rested for a moment, their backs against the wall of the building. Gina turned and planted a soft kiss on Ben’s lips.

  "I'm glad we found each other," she whispered.

  Ben's breath caught in his chest. He wanted to pull her closer, but … Lucy.

  Gina was one of the coolest women he’d ever met, but his heart belonged to another.

  "Gina, I –"

  She cut off his words with a finger on his lips. "I know. There's someone else. But you and I are here right now. So let's find a ride outta here." She grinned and spun away. "I bet I can find us the coolest car."

  Gina jogged towards the Institute parking lot. Ben watched her trim figure as she ran to the abandoned vehicles. If they had met at some other time or place, their relationship might have been different. He smiled as he watched her try the door handles of the cars, shaking her head dramatically, making a performance of it. Ben couldn't help but laugh at her antics.

  "Found one," she shouted from across the parking lot. "This little Honda is unlocked."

  Suddenly, the sky darkened.

  A tornado of black smoke swept into the car park. Ben's stomach twisted with visceral fear. Whiro.

  The earth vibrated and cracked.

  The asphalt in the parking lot broke apart, the noise like ripping flesh.

  "Run, Gina!" Ben shouted.

  The windows of the Institute shattered with the force of the quake. Fragments of broken glass rained down on Ben as he darted away. Black smoke poured from the ground, enveloping Gina until Ben could hardly see her.

  The asphalt folded and the fissure split the ground, heading right for her. The cars in the parking lot slid sideways as if a giant had lifted them.

  Gina jumped onto the hood of the Honda as other cars smashed into it. She leapt off the other side and sprinted towards the edge of the lot.

  "Go, go!" Ben shifted his direction, running to intersect with her path.

  Before he could reach her, a roar came from underground and a massive tree fell down, knocking Gina over as the leafy branches descended. She rolled and made it back to her feet. She stumbled to the left and then broke into a run again.

  The edge of the lot was only yards away.

  Then, Ben saw what was behind her.

  It was a pool of bubbling, boiling grey mud used by the Ins
titute to measure geothermal activity. The sludge sputtered violently, sending thick globs of mud onto the earth around it.

  Gina ran towards it, her vision obscured by the dense smoke that enveloped her.

  Ben bellowed a warning.

  As she reached the edge of the pool, she turned. Her face was radiant. She thought she was safe. Her eyes sought his. He sprinted for her.

  Dark smoke swept into the pool behind her. A wave of boiling mud rose up like a giant clawed hand. Its talons closed around her.

  "No!" Ben screamed as Gina was pulled back towards the pool. She clawed at the ground, but its pull was relentless.

  Her body splashed in and she was sucked down under the mud.

  Ben reached the pool and dove down next to it. The heat was intense but he thrust his arms in, trying to catch her. He felt her fingers and pulled, tugging her, crying with pain as his flesh burned.

  Her face emerged from the depths, her perfect skin scorched and blistered, mud clinging to her like a second skin.

  A hideous gurgling came from her throat as she struggled to breathe.

  "Ben," she whispered, and he saw the light go out in her eyes.

  Her hand slipped from his as her body sank back into the depths.

  Ben roared his pain to the sky as he knelt by the boiling pool. In the bubbling of the mud, he heard the dark laughter of Whiro as the god devoured another soul.

  A cracking sound came from behind him. Ben turned as a geyser exploded from the earth and a blazing, toxic rain spilled from it. The fissure beyond opened up, wrenching apart the walls of the Institute. The boiling mud erupted into it, pouring into the gaps. The screams of those dying inside echoed to the sky.

  Ben knelt in horror, watching his world end. He was nothing in the face of such destructive power. He beat his fists on the earth as tears streamed down his face. Everything was lost.