Guardian of the Dead

by Karen Healey

  ‘The full story,’ I said. ‘And explain why Reka said they would take your eyes.’

  The corner of his mouth crinkled. ‘Actually . . . the full story wouldn’t be a bad place to start. Okay. In the beginning . . .’ He hesitated, then shook his head. ‘Look. This is a dubious version of the myth. It isn’t the whole story, or an entirely true one, and there’s no way to get around it. I can’t even tell it to you in the right language, because you don’t speak it.’

  ‘Chapman’s Homer?’ I suggested.

  He slanted a tight smile at me. ‘Heh. Close enough.’

  ‘So,’ I said, and half bowed, trying to mimic Professor Gribaldi’s drawl. ‘At least be gloriously inaccurate.’

  He returned the bow with an arm flourish that set his charms jingling, and tried again.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘This is a story of how mankind was made, and how death entered the world. A long time after the beginning, there are Papatuanuku, who is the Earth-Mother, and Rangi-nui, who is the Sky-Father. So strong is their affection that they cannot bear to be apart, and remain always in loving embrace. They bring forth many children, but will not relinquish their grip on each other. Those brought forth from Earth’s womb are forced to crawl upon her surface, while their father presses against her. There is only close, moist darkness and suffocating warmth. Like everyone, these children want to stretch and grow without the constraints laid upon them by their parents.’

  I gaped at him. The words had rolled out in a low, passionate flow, his usually ordinary voice becoming something rich and compelling, lightly accented. In that voice, the familiar story was transformed into a living epic of intense fascination. Iris’s eyes had acquired a familiar glint. If Mark wasn’t careful, he was going to end up with a starring role in her next production.

  ‘Some of their sons gather to decide what should be done. One of the brothers says that they should kill their parents, but he is shouted down. Another proposes they do nothing at all and be content in their closeness, but no one listens to him. As always happens in such meetings, the most charismatic speaker wins the argument. One by one, five of the brothers, crawling in their claustrophobic prison-home, set their shoulders against their father and push. And finally, the last of the brothers, the tallest and strongest, lies on his back and pushes with his mighty legs, and measure by tiny measure, their father’s body moves.

  ‘Rangi-nui calls to Papa-tuanuku, and they cleave ever tighter to each other. But they have seeded their own destruction, and the six brothers fight for every finger of space until their father is a torso’s length from their mother.

  Then a body’s length. Then as far as they can reach with their arms outstretched. And then, with one final heave, they hurl their father high above the loving reach of their mother’s embrace.

  ‘And Sky-Father weeps in his grief and Earth-Mother tosses and rumbles in her anger, but it is done, and nothing they can do can ever reverse it.

  ‘The brothers look around and shake out their long hair, stretching freely for the first time in their long lives. The tallest, strongest brother, Tne-te-toko-o-te-rangi, Tne the prop of the sky, is disconcerted by his father’s nakedness, hanging above them. He gathers lights in a basket, and sets them in his father’s cloak, to shine down at night. But the brother who protested this violation is angry with his siblings. He joins his father in the sky, to be the God of Wind and Storm, and he is an enemy to the descendants of his brothers still today.’

  He rotated his shoulders, and I startled. The vivid images his voice had conjured faded. ‘With me so far?’ he asked.

  Iris nodded, her lips parted in admiration.

  ‘But I know this,’ I said, resenting him and his beautiful voice and his beautiful face and body. They kept tricking me into thinking I could trust him, when most of the evidence suggested the opposite. ‘It’s the Mori origin myth; everyone knows this.’

  ‘You’ve got to know the very basics. Or nothing will make any sense. Ready?’

  I tried to ignore the dank sensation of muddy grass against my butt, and nodded.

  ‘Right, then,’ he said. ‘After a long time, Tne makes a woman out of earth, and brings her to life. She is beautiful, and he takes her to wife. Their daughter is the first woman born, Hine-titama, the girl who brings the dawn. Innocent, she does not know her father is her father. He takes her to wife also, and they have many children. Tne is the God of birds, of forests, and now the creator of man, and this is the beginning of humankind.

  ‘But this incest is wrong, and one day Hine-titama discovers she is daughter-wife to her husband-father. She flees from him, to live in the underworld, and when he tries to fetch her home, he cannot. She has grown strong and fierce in the darkness. She is no longer the dawn maiden, but Hine-nui-te-p, the woman of the night. She tells her father-husband that he must care for their children in life. She, in turn, will wait to receive them when death enters the world, and protect them, in death, from all evil.

  ‘Tne grieves, but he must accept her words.’

  ‘This story is so sexist,’ Iris said abruptly. She was working her thumbs into her palms in slow circles, no longer so enthralled by Mark’s voice.

  I nodded at her. ‘You get that in a lot of origin myths. The Greeks go crazy for it.’

  Mark blinked. ‘You think it’s sexist? I always thought the bit where she told him to go away was empowering.’

  I snorted. ‘Sure. After the incest he initiated and lied about, she gets to hide underground and be the goddess of dead people, and he gets to be the god of the living.’

  His eyebrows drew down. ‘Well, regardless of modern readings of ancient mores,’ – Iris sniffed – ‘that’s our story: the origin of humankind. The children of Tne and Hine-titama have children of their own, and those children spread and have children of their own. They are human, but immortal; they do not know death from age. And from their descendants, many years later, Mui is born.

  ‘He is the youngest son, born premature, and, wrapped in his mother’s hair, he is tossed into the sea. But he lives. Protected by the ocean guardians and befriended by birds, he finds his way home. He makes his mother acknowledge him and finds his father by following his mother on her nightly visits. When people complain that the days go too quickly, he makes his brothers catch the sun in a net, and he beats it so that it goes slower across the sky. He takes the flaming fingernails of his ancestress, provoking her into sending the secret of fire back into the world. He goes fishing with the sacred jawbone of his grandmother and hauls up a giant fish. His brothers, who are envious of his strength and power, disregard his warnings and beat the fish in his absence, making hills and valleys of flesh. It becomes Te Ika a Mui, the North Island of New Zealand. Mui’s boat, Te Waka a Mui, becomes the South Island. He is a trickster and a hero, feared and loved, almost a god himself. He’s unbeatable.’

  Mark fell silent for a moment, then returned to storyteller mode. ‘But finally, Mui hears that the immortality enjoyed by the descendants of Tne and Hine-titama will one day end, unless one brave man can prevent it. And surely, that man is he, who tamed the sun, and dragged land from the sea.

  ‘Accompanied by the small birds, who are always his friends and allies, he goes into the underworld, to the cave of Hine-nui-te-p, who was once in ages past the maiden of the dawn, and who now guards the dead while she sleeps. She is enormous in her slumber, sitting against the wall with her giant legs splayed. Mui can see sharp teeth of greenstone and obsidian at the junction of her thighs. He knows that to conquer death for all time, he must make a reversal of birth.

  ‘Before he makes this attempt, he swears his bird companions to absolute silence. One breath of sound might wake the goddess. They all promise to keep quiet. And then, while she snores, he crawls into the cave between her legs.

  ‘But he looks so ridiculous, wriggling his way into her, with his legs sticking out and his feet squirming in the air. The birds take deep breath after deep breath, until all their cheeks puff up and they
are dying with the need to laugh.

  ‘And then the fantail surrenders to this need, and lets out a trilling burst of mocking song.’

  Mark brought his hands sharply together. ‘At once Hine-nui-te-p wakes, and crushes the impudent man between her thighs. He dies in shame. Worse, in trying to prevent death, he invites it. And ever since, all living things are mortal and must die, to be received and protected by the guardian of the dead, who was once the dawn maiden, in accordance with the agreement she made with her father-husband. And that is the end of the story.’ His voice fell on the last words, winding away into a tenuous finality.

  We waited for a moment, but he said nothing else.

  ‘Are you saying this actually happened?’ Iris demanded.

  Mark hesitated. ‘Not . . . A lot of people know the story, do you get it? It’s the shape of the story that matters, the way belief forms around it. The story has real weight.’ He pointed at himself. ‘Patupaiarehe look like monsters in some stories, but they’re beautiful in a lot. I guess people believed more in the beautiful version. And the ideal of beauty changes. If I’d been born two hundred years ago, I bet I wouldn’t look like this. The stories shaped me. They shape everyone, inside and out, but me more than most, because I’m magic.’

  Iris looked mildly perplexed.

  He was tugging at his bracelet again. I put my hand over his to still the movement. There was a sense of motion in my head, of important things sliding into new places, forming new structures. ‘You said “all living things must die,” ’ I repeated. ‘Including the patupaiarehe?’

  ‘Yes. They live a long time, especially if they stay in the mists. But they age, and eventually, they die. They used to be immortal. They don’t see why they should pay for a man’s arrogant mistake.’

  ‘Are you saying they think there’s a way to get immortality again?’ I couldn’t see what this had to do with anything. Good luck to them.

  Mark’s face was weary. ‘There might be. This is living legend. Hine-nui-te-p is always there, guarding the dead in her sleep, but maybe she could be, uh . . . mystically overworked? If the patupaiarehe can burden her with enough work to make her sleep very soundly, they might be able to do what Mui tried to, and regain their immortality.’

  I suddenly grasped the implications of what he was saying, and gaped at him.

  Iris had apparently been a step ahead. ‘You’re saying Reka wants to kill a lot of people?’ she said flatly.

  Mark smiled bitterly. ‘That’s . . . not her style. It’s other patupaiarehe, in the North Island.’

  I felt empty. ‘Can’t they just sit and wait for a really bad flu season?’

  He shook his head. ‘They don’t have the time. There’s maybe three dozen left. They’re a dying race.’

  ‘What will they do?’ Iris asked. She sounded practical and calm, but her fingers were combing frantically through the ends of her hair.

  ‘I’ve been trying to work that out for five years. Reka didn’t know specifics, so I started researching, making some contacts. Nukes are probably out. But it could be an epidemic – like flu. Or maybe sars.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Whatever they’ve planned, I think they’ve already started preparing for it.’

  I stared at him, that same sliding feeling in my head outlining the shape of some enormous revelation. I almost knew what he would say before he pointed at me.

  ‘You were right, Ellie. But the Eyeslasher isn’t just one person. It’s a dying species, cannibalising the power to commit mass murder.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said, as the outline became clear. ‘When they take the eyes, they’re taking power, aren’t they? That’s why you tried to keep me from going out at night. They’ve been killing magicians for days.’

  Mark winced, as if in pain, and then, slowly, inclined his head.

  In the silence, ducks made their way up the river, small wakes spreading in the dirty water behind their churning feet.

  ‘Magicians like . . . us?’ I asked at last.

  He nodded, looking slightly sick. ‘Like both of us. To them, I don’t count as patupaiarehe any more.’

  ‘But not Kevin?’ I pressed.

  ‘No. He’s still latent. Not even half-woken, like you.’

  ‘Is this why Reka tried to get him now? Before they did whatever they’re trying to do?’

  Mark’s mouth hung open slightly. ‘Huh. Maybe. I never thought of that.’

  ‘This is insane,’ Iris said. ‘This is not happening.’

  My own head was spinning. The stories were true on some level, okay. There really were patupaiarehe; I had seen that for myself. That they were killing real people, in the real world, and stealing their power I could definitely believe. Those dead people on the news had been very real. But that the patupaiarehe were planning to use that stolen power to precipitate a disaster so catastrophic that the guardian of the dead wouldn’t notice one of them crawling between her thighs to reclaim immortality for their species – that was a bit much.

  Still, I forced myself to believe.

  ‘You wanted your eyes opened,’ Mark said, and rose to his feet. ‘This should complete that process.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’ He held out his hand to the river and cried out something long and ceremonial-sounding in Mori.

  I raised an eyebrow at Iris.

  ‘I don’t understand it all,’ she said quietly. ‘I caught greetings. And an apology for the disturbance.’

  Mark’s voice died away. The dark water churned, white froth washing violently against the banks. Gleaming darkly, water cascading from its stately flanks, something rose slowly from the river.

  The something was immense, and so alien that I could barely comprehend its dimensions. On the long, twisting body, I saw scales grown over with furry algae and jagged spikes like greenstone spear-heads thrusting up from the spine. But it was the face that held most of my attention – a knotted, twisted thing with a nose that was merely two nostril slits and, most arresting, the pupilless eyes. They weren’t patupaiarehe green, but iridescent and as many-coloured as opal or the inner shell of a paua.

  ‘This is my grandfather,’ Mark said. ‘Be careful. Show him respect.’

  Something crumbled in my head; some final remaining barrier between the ordinary person I had been, and my access to the secret potential I carried within me. I barely noticed its disintegration. Instead, I stared up at the taniwha, and wondered if vomiting in terror might be considered rude.

  ‘Wow,’ Iris breathed, edging closer to me. Her small hand was colder even than mine, but I didn’t pull away when she wrapped it around my fingers.

  ‘Did you feel it, Ellie?’ Mark asked.

  ‘In my head, like walls crumbling? Yes.’

  He smiled, and I understood that I had passed a test. It did little to alleviate my terror when the taniwha opened its mouth.

  In shape and sequence, the black teeth were those of a shark’s, marching back in rows, but the smallest was as large as my hand, and they all gleamed like obsidian mirrors. The pink tongue was pointed and rough, like a cat’s. I waited for some menacing roar or reptilian hiss, but it spoke to Mark in Mori. That mouth apparently had no difficulty forming the sonorous syllables, and the rolling voice was beautiful and low, rippling like water. It sounded real. It sounded human.

  In less than a day, I had been harassed, enchanted, shouted at, cried on, and clawed. I’d been cold, scared, dirty, exhausted, hungry, and miserable. And up until now, I’d been mildly impressed with my ability to cope.

  But the taniwha’s voice finally broke me. It was not the monstrosity, but that which was not monstrous, coming out of that awful mouth. Alive with animal panic that rose directly from my darkest instincts, I turned and pelted up the bank in my heavy shoes, Iris’s hand still tight in mine.

  ‘Ellie,’ Mark shouted. ‘Don’t!’

  My shoulder jerked hard as Iris skidded in the mud and my back was aflame, but the fear left no
space for anything else, and the pain was like an uninteresting conversation in another room. My shoulder eased as Iris found her feet. She was missing one of her shoes, but I did not relinquish my grip, yanking her over the gravel path and into the misty concealment of the huge, old trees.

  One conifer was right before us, its down-spreading branches promising the illusion of safety. I ran us both under it. Iris was gasping for air, her breath coming in noisy pants.

  I tugged her into a crouch and clamped my hand over her mouth. ‘Breathe through your nose,’ I hissed, and waited until she gave me a wide-eyed nod before I released her to follow my own advice.

  I wrapped my arms around my shoulders and shook. Reka had been frightening and evil, but close enough to human, with desires and motivations that shadowed those of humanity. The thing in the water had abruptly convinced me I wanted nothing to do with Mark’s secret war.

  Except the patupaiarehe needed human lives.

  But what could I do to stop them? I couldn’t wrap myself around every threatened life and hold on.

  ‘Wasn’t it beautiful?’ Iris whispered, slipping off her other shoe.

  I shivered, trying to fit that description to the monster as big as a house, and the melodious baritone voice coming from between those teeth. ‘It’s just . . . when it spoke.’

  Her face went completely blank.

  ‘Iris?’ I said quietly.

  ‘Mark’s calling me,’ she explained easily. I grabbed at her wrist as she ducked under the branches. She didn’t struggle, but when I made contact my hand stung as if I’d grasped a nettle. I snatched it back, and she scrambled forward, moving carefully but steadily over the uneven ground in her bare feet, ridiculous handbag swinging from her shoulder.

  ‘Oh no,’ I whispered, and followed her, sticking close to the trees in the probably vain hope of watching without being noticed. A ninja I was not.