by Various
“So, we still have no proof that these taniwha of yours are real? Very good.”
“Sir,” Sullivan called, “I think I see it.”
Kent looked. The silhouette against the horizon was vast. The Tekotekonui stepped across a gully, six huge legs pistoning. Steam hissed from vents along its limbs, and on its dozen snaking arms swung stars of whirling blades and nozzles dripping white smoke. One mighty leg rose, its foot the rotating iron wheel of a steam tractor. The wheel descended, shredding foliage and spraying dirt before gaining traction and pulling the monster forward.
Faulkner chuckled, rubbing his hands together. “What a splendid machine.” He glanced at Hariki. “Ngai Toaki built this? Their ingenuity impresses me.”
“Them,” Hariki grunted, “and their Pakeha engineers.”
“The Cruickshank brothers?” Kent asked. “They were forced to do this?”
Hariki snorted. “Kaore! I was a prisoner. Those two wanted to be there. They were behind the design.”
Kent stared, the beast’s flailing limbs unravelling the truths he had thought he had known, both of monsters and of how monstrous some men must be to create them.
Of how men create monsters of other men.
Faulkner’s words weighed on him, the taste of betrayal rising bitter in his mouth. He was beginning to understand what he would have to do, and it sickened him.
But there must be another way. Whatever Howard Faulkner wanted him to be, whatever the secretive Office of the Preternatural demanded of its initiates, Morgan Kent was not a murderer, no matter the stakes. At least, he hoped he wasn’t.
He tore his gaze away and squatted before Hariki. The tohunga’s toa tensed, but the elder waved them away. “E koro,” he deferred, “If you can truly korero with taniwha, then I beseech you to use that power now. Ngai Toaki have long held out against the Pakeha while plotting their destruction, but they have been twisted into this course of action by evil men. Innocents will die, Maori and Pakeha alike, and only you can stop it. Had you wished for this, you could have raised a real taniwha to fight for them long ago. But you didn’t, which is why I believe you do not wish to see more bloodshed. You can end this.”
“How?” Ti Hariki folded his arms. “This thing is no taniwha I can coax into submission. Its heart pulses steam, and the will that drives it is human.”
“The machine is making for Wellington. It will attack the settlements there.” Hariki said nothing, his eyes hard. “We both know the Ngati Arai legends, how Whataitai made his resting place in the harbour after Ngake fled him. There he sleeps the deepest sleep, even now.” Kent knew he was clutching at straws, trusting to myths upheld only by belief. If he was wrong, Faulkner would laugh him into his grave.
“Kaore,” the tohunga growled. “I will not wake the taniwha.”
“Koro, you must!”
There was a sudden crack of cannon fire and Waka-a-Rangi lurched, slamming Kent into the bulkhead.
“Hold on!” Matara shouted as a hot projectile scorched past. “Looks like they’ve spotted us!”
Boilers whined as Matara climbed out of range of the Kestrel’s plundered cannons.
Faulkner hauled Kent to his feet and leaned in to hiss in his ear. “Can you finish this, or will I have to pass on my disappointment to the Minister? Tell him that you’re no monster hunter, and never will be?”
Kent’s skin turned cold. He was running out of time, out of options, out of air. He had to decide. Lives were at stake, as was his future. He looked again at the old man. Perhaps the tohunga could not be forced, but he was human. There were ways to persuade a man that required neither threat nor blade.
Wellington harbour loomed closer. The Tekotekonui was not far behind.
Kent shook his head, meeting the tohunga’s flinty gaze. “I was wrong. This old charlatan can’t speak with taniwha because they don’t exist. He’s a fraud. Best that we put them down here and return to the stockade to prepare our defence against the real monster.”
“Here?” Faulkner asked. “In the middle of nowhere?”
Although Faulkner didn’t say it, Kent heard the hunter’s unspoken question: Here? In the monster’s path?
“Yes,” Kent nodded, a lead ball in his gullet. “Right here.”
• • •
Never had Kent felt so cruel, so ruthless, nor so empty as he did when Waka-a-Rangi ascended, leaving Hariki and his toa standing on the bluff between the harbour and the monster. Tekotekonui’s arms whirled with blades and belched smoke as it bore down on the former prisoners.
Kent pictured Hariki, gazing across the harbour to the lurking shape of Whataitai, a peninsula crowned with shrubby rocks and bush grown ancient since he had fallen into heartbroken slumber—or so said the Ngati Arai legends. The truth of those legends, or otherwise, was about to be tested.
“You seem concerned.”
Kent managed not to jump at Faulkner’s voice. “He is tapu, and I challenged his mana in front of his men.”
“English, if you please.”
“He will be obliged to prove that his people’s myths are more than just fictions dreamed up around a fire to explain the shape of a hillside, or unseen birdcalls in the night.”
He imagined Hariki’s voice rising in karakia, a ululation to breach the divide between worlds, to break the mantle of Papatuanuku, Earth Mother, to wake her sleeping children.
Tekotekonui closed in. The warriors faced it with nothing but wooden taiaha, stone patu, and the courage of the damned.
“Nice story,” Faulkner grated, and turned away.
A rush of heat and chill suddenly flowed through Kent, sucking his strength. He staggered.
“Sir!” Sullivan yelled. “We’ve got flux! Spiking on all spectrums! More than I can register!”
Kent hauled himself back to the window in time to see the taniwha wake. Whataitai twitched, perhaps nothing more than an eyeblink in the endless sleep of an undying leviathan, and the world shattered around him.
The harbour buckled and the earth shivered like flax in the wind. Tekotekonui stumbled, thrown sideways by the quake, its wheels sliding from under it as the shockwave rippled through the hillside. The shore rent open and the cliff collapsed with a roar, a cloud of debris sliding into the waves. Like a giant spider tumbling from its web Tekotekonui fell, limbs flailing in clouds of steam.
No-one spoke. Waka-a-Rangi chugged on, oblivious.
Kent gazed on the altered shoreline, the raging breakers lashing the waterfront, and the dust-cloud rising where the bluff had once been.
There, where Ti Hariki and his men had stood, alone, to face the monster. Where they had died to destroy it.
“E koro,” he said to himself, “what did I make you do?”
Taniwha are what men make them, he thought. Monsters, guardians, champions. And if we’re forced to, we will make taniwha of ourselves.
Faulkner’s case was solved, but at what cost? Had Whataitai not stirred from his sleep as deep as death for that shiver of a moment, Tekotekonui may have continued its destructive rampage for days or even weeks. But the repercussions of the earthquake would be felt for months and years to come.
Finally, Kent found his voice. “So,” he asked Faulkner, “now do you believe in taniwha?”
Faulkner smiled his cold smile. “I didn’t see one. Did you? Now, are you ready, Officer?” He adjusted his weapons belt as the airship descended. “We have work to do.” Faulkner’s grin was genuine now, but no less cold, or crooked, or hungry for it.
Kent nodded as the word sank in. Faulkner had called him Officer. He had proven himself to the paragon of monster hunters, yet the victory tasted sour as corked wine, like an offering of rotten flesh to an angry god. One day, he hoped, he would cease to regret that it had taken waking the taniwha in himself to earn the respect of a monster.
Royal Ethnographer’s Note:
The earthquake of January 1855 is the largest in recorded history to have struck the Wellington region. Whether it was Whataitai wakin
g to stretch his legs or Ngake trying to return to his ancient hunting grounds is still a matter of intense debate among local historians, but it is generally agreed that these are the only two logical explanations.
THE CROOKED MILE
by Dan Rabarts
First published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies (Aug. 2013), edited by Scott H. Andrews
• • • •
NO WAY, Rosco knew, that Sheriff Dylan would let a killer walk the town loose for no good reason. But Sheriff Dylan weren’t around when the stranger rode up with two bodies slung over his saddle all shot to pieces, just Rosco; Rosco, with his shiny new deputy’s badge and his Pappy’s six-shooter that his Momma had given him after Pappy hadn’t come back from down the Mile, all that was left just his gun and his boots and what little pieces the sheriff could find.
Rosco guessed he’d have to handle the situation, what with the sheriff being away down the Mile and all. He stepped out into the main road that ran down the middle of Gutshank, population one-hundred-fifty-three, and rested a hand on the pearly handle of his revolver. Tried to look mean, like his Pappy would’ve done.
“Trouble, partner?” Rosco hailed the stranger.
The man’s cold eyes settled on him from a-ways off. “Yup,” he growled around a mouthful of tobacco, “I got me some wizard trouble.”
Rosco swallowed hard. Anything to do with wizards was trouble of the worst sort.
The man dragged at one of the corpses, letting it flop over. “Dead wizard trouble. I’m here for the bounty.”
“Bounty?” Rosco was just a deputy, after all. He didn’t know nothing about bounties. But he knew well enough to be shit-scared of anything involving wizards.
“The federal bounty. Don’t be messing about, Deputy. I killed me some wizards, and I come for my coin.”
“Well,” Rosco said, trying to sound like he wasn’t trying to sound brave, “that’s the sheriff’s business. He’s down the Mile. You’ll have to wait ’til he gets back.”
The stranger stared at him for a long minute, chewing slowly. “Down the Mile, you say.”
“Yup. He’s got business.”
“Then I guess I’ll go down the Mile and find him. Got a cell? I want my dead ’uns locked up.”
Rosco chuckled, shuddered. Last thing he wanted or needed was a couple dead wizards in his cells. “You’re scared someone might steal ’em?”
The stranger’s salt-pepper beard crinkled into a ghost of a smile. “More worried they might walk away on their own. You don’t want dead wizards wandering around your pretty little town now, do you, Deputy?”
Rosco’s stomach tightened. “Sure don’t. But I don’t much see as how a jail cell’s going to hold ’em back, neither.”
“Well, I guess we’ll just have to take ’em along, when you and me head down the Mile to find your sheriff and get me my bounty.”
Rosco’s breath hitched in his throat. “Me and you? Sorry mister, but I can’t leave my post. Sheriff’s orders. I’m here to watch for trouble, see.”
The man leaned forward and hawked a gob of black spit into the sand at Rosco’s feet. “You see any trouble, Deputy?”
Rosco saw it all right. And he didn’t want nothing to do with it. “You just keep on riding, mister. You head on down the Mile. You go find the sheriff.”
“So now you and your badge are driving me out of town, me with my rightful claim to the president’s good gold?”
“Now don’t be talking like that, mister. We’re just a small town, and we ain’t got no cells fit for wizards. If you want the sheriff you’ll have to go find him, and take your wizards with you. They’re your concern, and you won’t be making ’em mine.”
Rosco wondered if Pappy would’ve been proud to hear him talking so tough to this dangerous, mean-faced varmint. The stranger stared, long and hard, and truth was it took all the iron in Rosco’s blood to keep his chin up and his eyes straight as that gaze bore him down. Yep, Pappy’d’ve been proud.
The stranger nudged his horse into a walk. “I’ll find your sheriff and bring him back here for my coin. Then, depending how I feel, we just might have to settle this here disagreement.”
Rosco could’ve let it go; he could’ve just let the stranger ride off. But no man with any pride could let a challenge like that hang over his head. He thrust his jaw out, the way he’d seen Sheriff Dylan do. “You threatening me, mister? Because I can lock you up if you’re threatening a deputy, and I can confiscate your bounties, too. That’s the law, that is.”
The stranger pulled his horse up hard and twisted in the saddle, them cold dead eyes freezing Rosco stiff. “You know about laws, boy? Then you know that these scum here, they break ’em all, not just the ones writ by men in their warm offices way back east, but the laws of nature and physics and even god. Men like me, we have to do the same, as best we can, to protect weaklings like you who hide behind your badges and your laws. So don’t you be lecturing me, son. I’ve been killing wizards longer’n you’ve been alive. Maybe you’re brave, maybe you’re trying to prove something, but me, I think you’re a fool. Don’t you be crossing my path again, Deputy. Ain’t worth your while.”
Rosco watched him go, his fingers tight around the grip of Pappy’s revolver secure in its holster. He hadn’t never wanted to shoot a man more than he wanted to shoot this wizard hunter right now, but the law was the law. Until a man did something amiss, he was free to go.
The townsfolk began to drift away once it was clear that the spectacle was over. Rosco stood for a long while looking down Gutshank’s dusty main road, wondering if he had just done the town a service by moving the vagrant on, or if he’d angered a dangerous man enough that he’d bring them back nothing but grief.
Not to worry. The stranger was riding into the Crooked Mile. Oft times folks didn’t come back from the Crooked Mile. It was what kept Sheriff Dylan so busy down that twisting road so many days and nights in the month. Whatever the stranger thought he knew on account of his years hunting wizards, he ain’t never seen the likes of what lay down the Crooked Mile.
When Rosco couldn’t see the stranger’s back no more, he retreated to the cool shade of the awning and his mug of ice tea. Carefully, he unloaded his revolver and began to clean it. Chances were good he’d need it before this was all over.
• • •
Rosco woke with a start. Summer lightning, and thunder, that was all. Not a gunshot. Sleep had been a long time coming, him jumping at every sound, worrying the wizard hunter would steal back in the dead of night to put a bullet in him while he slept.
The night was hot, the crickets whirring up a storm, and Rosco wasn’t getting back to sleep. He got up, shrugged into his clothes and gunbelt, and stepped out into the muggy night to cast an eye over Gutshank.
What a fool he’d been to say the things he’d said. Damned hothead. Who’d dare stand up to a man who made a life killing himself wizards for coin? Sheriff Dylan maybe, but not many others. Most honest folk, sensible folk, they’d hide themselves away from that sort of trouble.
A riderless horse came limping up the street. Rosco thought it was a paint, white with brown or black patches, but something about the way it stumped closer sent a shiver through him. Thing was hurt, for sure, but where was its rider?
Summer lightning crackled, leaving Rosco with flickering after-images of white and red. He stumbled back, fumbling for his gun. Horse weren’t no paint. It was covered in blood. And Rosco knew that horse, knew her like he’d know his own Momma by the smell of her biscuits.
He reached out and gently took her reins, suddenly feeling a fool, holding his revolver like an idiot frightened of thunder. He holstered it and looked to the horse, checking her over to see what injury she’d done herself. “Martha? Hey girl, where’s your master? Where’s the sheriff?”
Despite all that blood, it weren’t Martha’s, which could only mean one thing. One awful, awful thing.
Rosco thought about Sheriff Dylan, thought about bringing him back in l
ittle bits and pieces, scraps of meat and bone and buckskin, like they’d brought back his Pappy. His stomach churned, and only a voice from behind stopped him from keeling over there and then and baptising the road with the beans and beef and pumpernickel he’d eaten for his supper.
“Hey, Deputy,” the voice sang, deliciously high, “there’s sweeter company inside than out there with that old nag. Discount for lawmen, you know?”
Rosco felt his face flush, refused to turn and look; refused to let the whores see his shame. Momma didn’t hold with whores, and Rosco was a good boy. Loving between a man and a woman was for married folks; that was the law. He gripped Martha’s saddle and swung up onto her back. “Sorry ladies,” he grunted, without looking to where they hung over the rails of the brothel on the far side of the street, their bosoms struggling to burst free of their thin tight dresses, “duty calls.” He urged Martha into an awkward trot.
Gutshank seemed to fade from around him as he realised what he was doing. He was leaving his post. He was disobeying the sheriff. He was riding into the Crooked Mile, where dead wizards would be the least of a man’s troubles. He was going to find the sheriff, because the sheriff might be shot up, or cut up, or worse, and Rosco was the only one who knew. He was heading into the Crooked Mile, where Pappy’s ghost was waiting for him.
At least he had Pappy’s gun. Not that it had done Pappy a whit of good.
• • •
Gutshank didn’t disappear around a corner or into the distance. The town just vanished with a hiss. There one second, gone the next, now nothing but stunted acacia clinging to wind-howl ravines at Rosco’s back. Even the moon above the canyon walls was different here, her visage twisted into something that Rosco thought more wolf, or maybe rat.
He resisted the urge to pull his gun, knowing he needed both hands on the reins. He didn’t want to have Martha fall lame under him. She knew the way out, and Rosco didn’t. All he knew was that the way out of the Mile weren’t never the same as the way in, and you never arrived in the Crooked Mile at the same place twice. He scanned the barren rock for signs of passage, traces of blood, but it was no use. He was as much a tracker as he was a marksman, which is to say he could as well find his way in the dark in unfamiliar territory as he could hit the moon with a rifleshot.