Guardian of the Dead

by Karen Healey

  Mark was leaning against the Fountain fence again, fiddling with his bracelet and only partially concealed from the view of anyone who happened to peer through the gates. I spared an irritated thought for this impracticality before I remembered I was furious with him.

  Iris walked straight up to Mark until she was close enough to touch him, her head reaching neatly to just under his collarbone. They looked like something out of a fairy tale; his flaming hair set against her glossy lengths of black. He put his hand on her shoulder and she shook her head hard, then gasped up at him.

  ‘How—’

  ‘Shhh.’ His eyes searched the mists. I clung to my tree trunk. ‘Ellie?’

  ‘What did you do?’ Iris demanded, and kicked him in the shin.

  Mark jumped back, yelping out a curse, and Iris yelped too, grabbing at her stockinged foot. She overbalanced hard into the rim of the fountain with a thump that echoed dully and then lurched upright again, landing a wild punch on his shoulder. He evaded the next one, but he was no longer looking for me.

  ‘I’m trying to help you! Ellie, please come out!’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Iris demanded, limping toward him again. She swung her handbag at him and he danced out of her clumsy, if enthusiastic, reach. ‘Are you going to bewitch her?’

  ‘I can’t! I just want to explain. Ellie, please! It’s safe, I promise!’

  ‘I’m right here,’ I called, and waded through the fog.

  He favoured me with a tight smile. ‘Good. We were just about to start pulling hair.’

  I folded my arms and didn’t smile back. Iris was still bristling, but she’d stopped trying to smack him as soon as I appeared. ‘You enchanted my friend,’ I snapped.

  ‘You insulted my grandfather,’ Mark said.

  ‘Some warning might have been nice!’ I paused. ‘Grandfather? Seriously?’

  ‘Reka’s father. His wife was patupaiarehe but he was human before he died. Sometimes, if the land needs you, you can come back as something else.’

  ‘Something like that?’

  Mark’s pale cheeks flushed. ‘He can take human shape if he wants to.’

  ‘Then why does he look like a taniwha?’

  ‘Because that’s what he is!’ he shouted. ‘You wanted answers! Did you think they would be nice? You ran away!’

  ‘Yeah? Well, now I’m walking away,’ I said, and forced down the voice which said I wasn’t being fair. ‘The buses are still running, Iris.’

  Iris finished pulling off her muddy pantyhose. ‘I want to know more, still.’

  I shuddered. ‘But it’s so—’

  ‘He,’ Mark insisted. ‘He’s the guardian of this place.’ He kicked the fountain fence. ‘This poisoned him. But he’s strong. He rusted it.’ His voice was defensive.

  Iris nodded as if that made perfect sense. ‘Cast iron in the water. Like chemical warfare.’

  Mark nodded, in a stiff imitation of his usual blankness. But I could read his face now, read the genuine hurt that tugged at the corners of his mouth.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was responsible.

  But still. ‘Taniwha eat people, and it’s not the sort of thing you can spring on me unprepared,’ I said, and marched up to the gates. The gravel crunched under my shoes. Iris came after me, skirting the path on the grass. ‘We’ll call you tomorrow, Nolan,’ I added. ‘Or you’ll call me. Or stalk me. I’ll give you more hair if you need it.’

  ‘It’s not safe,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ll show up on their radar now.’

  He was standing by the fountain with his hands thrust into his pockets. Weird mist slow-time aside, he was probably twice my age, I reminded myself. He wasn’t some lost kid in need of a home.

  His eyes narrowed at something over my shoulder. Wet air prickled along my skin like a spider walking down my spine.

  ‘Get back!’ he shouted, but I was already moving, wrenching at Iris’s wrist to tug her away from the entrance.

  I thrust her stumbling toward Mark, and spun to face the threat on the other side of the black cast-iron gates.

  I’d known danger was there, but not what form it would take. Yet that sense of something otherworldly and strange resonated like a struck bell in my head, and I was not surprised when I saw the five strange patupaiarehe, armed and unsmiling, step silently out of the mists.

  PART TWO

  PINK FROST

  THERE WERE FOUR males and one female and they were all naked and pale and inexpressibly gorgeous. If Mark, with his human ancestry, was just incredibly good looking, and Reka, with hers, edged into the territory usually occupied by supermodels and movie stars, then no human blood had dimmed the radiant, painful presence of these five. The red and yellow hair of the males was tied up in fat knots. The female’s hair fell in shining platinum waves across her breasts and back, and reached down to her waist. She might have looked grandmotherly, if any wrinkles had appeared on that ageless face.

  I was momentarily so stunned by their beauty that I didn’t notice the weapons until they lifted them. Each of the men carried a taiaha, the long wooden staffs with their flat-bladed ends and sharp thrusting points fitting easily to their hands. The woman had a bone mere dangling from her wrist, the polished surface of the curved club marred with ugly brown stains.

  I took it in, the beauty and the terror, as they turned their pupilless eyes on me. There was a humming thrill in the air, and I thought that perhaps I could speak with these beautiful people and be loved by them.

  Then I broke free of the impulse that told me to stay, as stupid as any bird in a trap, and pelted back toward the others.

  Iris was running beside the gravel, flying ahead towards the river, but Mark was waiting for me.

  His outstretched hand circled my wrist. ‘Run!’ he shouted. Answering shouts rose behind us, and were abruptly replaced by unnerving silence.

  I wasn’t slow, even in my stiff black school shoes, but Mark was ahead, and yanking me off-balance. I twisted my wrist free through the gap in his fingers, and sped up to run beside him. We caught up with Iris in the half a minute it took to cover the distance, and skidded down the bank together, ungainly and undignified on the wet grass. I hadn’t forgotten what was in the river, but at least we’d been introduced.

  Mark caught my hand again and tucked his arm securely about Iris, propelling us into the icy-cold water. My skirt floated up, twisting in the strong current; I spared one hand to shove it back down again and felt an algae-covered rock turn slickly under my shoe. After that, I abandoned the skirt and used my free arm for balance. Iris was swearing like a sailor as we waded forward, almost absent-mindedly. English curses apparently exhausted, she switched to Chinese.

  I was chest-deep in the centre of the river, Iris clinging to Mark to keep her head above the water, when the patupaiarehe appeared and ran smoothly down the bank.

  ‘Mark,’ I said, hating the way it came out in a squeak.

  ‘Don’t let go,’ he said, something humming through his voice. I stopped twisting the hand he held, and tried to think as the patupaiarehe stepped into the water.

  I could slow them down while he and Iris escaped. The women’s hospital was just a short run from the other bank, and if they could get through the fence they might be safe in there. Of course, I wouldn’t be. One out-of-practice tae kwon do first dan black belt trying to take five armed warriors was an extremely stupid idea, but if Mark didn’t come up with a better plan very soon, I was going to put it into action anyway.

  All five of them were in the water, wading carefully toward us, well balanced, with their weapons ready. We craned over our shoulders, unable to turn without releasing our grip on each other. Iris let out a high noise, splashed, and went silent again.

  Something long and dark flowed between us and the advance.

  Mark’s grandfather reared, water cascading from his flanks as his massive jaws closed halfway down the torso of the blond male leading our attackers. The patupaiarehe shrieked once, and then
the taniwha shook his head, like a dog worrying a rat. Gore sprayed across the water as the legs collapsed and tumbled down the slope and the air was suddenly saturated with the sweet scent of blood overlaying a richer, more stomach-turning stench. Something warm and wet spattered against my cheek. I touched it with my free hand. It was too thick to be blood.

  My held breath puffed out in a low sigh, but I was screaming internally. On Mark’s other side, Iris began swearing again, in a voice on the ragged edge of full-blown hysteria.

  Mark was silent.

  The remaining patupaiarehe were, briefly, as shocked as we were. Then they howled in ragged chorus and flung themselves at the taniwha’s sinuous body, thrusting their taiaha at its throat and darting away. The woman floundered back to shore, letting her shorter weapon swing from her wrist by its cord. The taniwha roared and twisted, flinging the full weight of its spiked mass at them. In the faint, wet light of the fog, I could see two taiaha broken off in its body. Another patupaiarehe shrieked as he was smashed into the water by the monster’s bulk. He floated there, broken, and didn’t rise again.

  The woman on the shore pointed her mere at us, voice rising in eerie song. The air crackled.

  ‘Don’t let go!’ Mark said.

  The taniwha whirled, faster than anything so huge should, and cocked his head at Mark.

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered to it, and yanked us into the river.

  I closed my mouth and eyes before the freezing water closed over my head, schooled by childhood beach summers of being dunked by my sister and her friends. But they’d never thrown me in during the winter. I kicked down, and felt no rocks beneath us.

  I opened my eyes.

  I could see nothing at all; not even light and shapes blurred by water; not even myself. There was the sensation of motion, a fast rushing through solidity as if I was insubstantial, but I felt no pressure or pain, even from my wounded back. I was anchored only by Mark’s hand, the one real thing in this blind flight.

  I tried to scream and made no noise. I wasn’t breathing. I wasn’t sure I had lungs to draw breath with, or a mouth to shape my terror.

  Mark tugged me up. Rising, I saw, before I clenched my eyes shut again, the reddish-brown of clay and soft grey silt.

  Then we were standing in the middle of a creek that came up to my knees, long river grasses winding about my calves. Iris moaned, a low, wavering noise that cut off into abrupt sobs. Bare-limbed European trees stood on the banks, with the odd patch of green indicating a cabbage tree or pine. I peered through them and made out a familiar, squat, large structure, lit up by harsh white lights – the student-union building. We were in the part of the creek that the pub overlooked, but it seemed that no one had been out on the cold terrace at the time we appeared. At any rate, there weren’t any cries of alarm.

  Mark staggered and fell against me, dragging Iris with him. I stood, somehow, against their double weight, and shoved back until we were all righted again, and splashing towards the bank. We collapsed in a tangle of cold wet limbs and bruises.

  ‘Shelter,’ Mark gasped.

  ‘We went under the earth,’ I said.

  ‘My grandfather’s work,’ Mark said. ‘I couldn’t do it.’ His face was next to mine, his lips twisting bleakly. ‘We need to find somewhere to shelter. They can’t easily come into a building ungreeted. It breaks protocol, saps their power.’

  Shelter was a good idea for more than one reason. I was shivering so hard I had to clench my teeth against their chattering.

  Iris hiccuped, and abruptly drew herself up. ‘I’ve still got my keys,’ she said. ‘We’ll go to the theatre.’

  The student-union side of the riverbank was right by the pub, and in order to make it harder for drunk students to drown themselves, it was fenced off. We had to climb out on the university side and go the long way around, heading for the bridge. Iris had scraped her foot on something running barefoot, and couldn’t walk properly. Over her weak protests, I got her to jump onto Mark’s back.

  I took her handbag, feeling a bizarre affection for the absurd scrap of black satin. It was soaked and stained, but it had, unlike my abandoned backpack, survived the evening.

  The moon was nearly full and reassuringly clear in the sky, unclouded by tendrils of fog. I stared up at it as we began to trudge along, clutching the bag in numb fingers, humming along to the music the pub was still pumping into the still air. Then I jolted to a halt.

  ‘Mark.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There’s a woman in the moon.’

  I could see her. She was clutching a scrubby tree, the roots dangling from her desperate grip. Enormous dark eyes seemed to meet mine, filled with an immense despair.

  ‘Yep,’ Mark said. ‘There is.’

  ‘But that’s—’ I shied away from impossible. ‘She’d be too big!’

  Iris looked. ‘I don’t see anything, Ellie,’ she said apologetically.

  I walked forward, still staring. When I blinked the woman was gone, replaced by the familiar near-circle of the waxing moon. I blinked again and she reappeared, dark hair falling around her face. ‘She’s so sad.’

  ‘She can’t get back down,’ Mark said. ‘She cursed the moon on a cloudy night, and so the offended moon took her away.’

  ‘I know the story,’ I said absently. ‘She stubbed her toe.’

  ‘I know how she felt,’ Iris said.

  ‘Look at the stars,’ Mark suggested.

  I did. They were only stars, at first, a misty swirl across the dark sky. It took a moment to make out the shapes between them, the curves suggested by their shadows, but when I saw the true picture I stopped walking altogether.

  The sky was the body of a man, so large he defied comprehension, massive arms stretching yearningly towards the earth. He was clothed in a cloak woven of light. The stars were a gift, created by a son for his sorrowing father. Tears welled in my eyes and I had to look away. Mark’s eyes met mine with ironic understanding.

  ‘Are all the stories true?’ I asked. ‘Am I going to see this everywhere, all the time?’

  ‘You’ll see the big stories, the ones that have formed the shape of the world around you. And you carry your own mythologies with you, so you can see the stories that are important to you, the ones that parts of you believe.’

  I thought of the tall shelf of Mori and Pacific Folklore, the Greek and Roman myths and legends that I’d devoured since I was seven, the Christian iconography I’d absorbed through my father’s faith and from living in the West. Maybe even my old Superman comics. ‘Only those ones?’

  His face was wistful. ‘It can be controlled.’

  I shivered and turned to gaze again at Rangi the Sky-Father, poised above his unreachable wife in eternal solitude, and was not reassured.

  It was impossible to look away from the radiance of the sky for long. Iris kept twisting to watch me anxiously, while Mark scanned the trees on either side of the road, fingers tugging at his charms.

  ‘Will they come after us again?’ Iris asked, as we started over the footbridge.

  ‘Probably not you, if you stay away from us. They only want people with magic. People like Ellie.’ He grimaced. ‘And me. Damn. She was right.’

  ‘At least your grandfather killed two.’ She looked even paler. ‘When he bit them.’

  ‘Deep breaths,’ Mark said quickly.

  ‘Oh, God, the smell.’ She scrambled off Mark’s back and hung over the railing, retching in convulsive shudders. Mark pulled her wet hair out of the way. Stirred by some vague impulse toward comforting her, I patted her back.

  After a moment she wiped at her mouth. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ I said. ‘It was the grossest thing I’ve ever seen.’ Clouds were blotting out the beautiful sky, and I found it easier to tear myself back to earth. Something twinged at the edge of my awareness. ‘Mark?’

  Fog drifted up from the damp road, turning into a thick bank behind us. I could see two dark outlines coalescing in it. ‘Mark!
They’re here!’

  He pushed past me and ran back to the road to guard the entrance to the bridge, braceleted arm up like a shield.

  The taniwha had evidently taken out one more of the male patupaiarehe. The last of them came out of the mist limping on a torn calf, the blood almost as bright as his hair against his pale skin. His taiaha had been snapped to half its length; dark, viscous liquid gleamed on the broken end. But the silver-haired woman was whole and unharmed. She held her mere and watched Mark with calm certainty. The man stepped in front of her, brandished his spear-shaft, and issued a low cry of challenge.

  Iris had made it to the end of the bridge by hauling herself along the railing, but she fell trying to make her wounded feet take her weight. I reached for her.

  ‘I can’t,’ she panted. ‘I can’t, I can’t, please, just run!’

  I shoved the handbag into her hands and hauled her to her feet, thrusting my arm around her waist, my shoulder screaming at the strain. The scratches on my back were aflame, new agony with a harder edge, and I unceremoniously dropped her on the wet asphalt. I was suddenly terrified that I would faint and certain that if I lifted her again, we’d both go down.

  ‘Mark!’ I shrieked.

  He whirled, his braceleted wrist flung out towards us, and shouted a word. It gave Iris strength; she tore from my grip and sped straight for the theatre’s back door, pale feet flashing in the murky air like fish glimpsed darting through a silted creek. I spared no further thought on the miracle.

  Belly clenching in fear, I ran back over the bridge to stand with Mark as the red-haired man attacked.

  I’d never been in a real fight before, not with weapons and people who wanted me dead, and my first panicked impulse was to throw myself forward and batter at them blindly. But years of training held firm, and I slid into place, perfectly balanced.

  The patupaiarehe’s taiaha spun and struck and thrust, and I managed not to die. It helped that he was already hurt, and that he wasn’t used to the shorter length of his weapon, but he was still insanely quick and unhesitatingly fierce. I blocked three blows to my head that smacked my right arm numb from elbow to wrist, and deflected a stab to my gut with my left hand. Brain whirring automatically through the forms, I tried to follow with a strike, but he stepped back to the limit of his weapon range, far beyond where my feet and fists could reach him. Even with the broken taiaha, he could bring me down long before I could land a blow on him.