by David Hair
‘Incoming,’ she shouted to him. ‘Six seconds!’ Her hand on his ankle squeezed like a vice. He couldn’t feel his toes. ‘On two, lift and go right,’ she called. ‘Four, three … TWO!’
He banked and climbed as she’d instructed. But to his horror, she let go.
At once his manoeuvrability returned. He swung upwards to the right as the eagle hurtled past him, its claws raking the space he’d just occupied. He threw his eyes left and down, and saw Evie drop, then her wings abruptly unfurled again in a spray of droplets and caught the wind. Torn between two targets, the raptor missed them both. Evie zigzagged for the shore, which was coming up fast. Mat flashed a warning burst of fire at the giant predator as it spun towards them again. It screeched angrily, banking away. He shouted defiantly back.
Evie jolted into the gravel of the beach with a painful cry. Mat dove after her, stalled and planted his feet, landing upright over her huddled form, freeing his hands from the cloak instantly and kindling more flames in his hands.
With another screech, this time of frustration, the raptor pulled out of its attack. It banked above them and then abruptly gave up, beating away to the north as the natural southerly reasserted itself over the winds summoned by Evie’s rune stone. In seconds the giant bird was just a dot.
Mat fell to his knees as the adrenalin began to recede. He realized he was utterly bathed in sweat, his chest and lungs going like bellows. Evie was the same, shaking and gasping for air as she slowly raised herself to hands and knees, dry-retching on the stones and gravel of the shore.
‘Are you alright?’ Mat managed to pant.
‘Uh huh,’ she answered. ‘Just landed … like … a brick … that’s all.’
His eyes followed the receding dot of the bird with amazement. ‘Far out. I thought New Zealand’s wildlife was supposed to be harmless.’
‘That thing was so not harmless.’ Evie climbed painfully to her feet, the cloak sodden about her, but Mat could see it shedding water of its own volition, the outer layer becoming sleek and the inside fluffing up. Ice and snow lay in clumps about them. The winds were frigid; a shiver ran through him. He wrapped his own cloak about him, helping to trap his body heat. He felt utterly and absolutely drained.
‘Where are we?’ Evie said.
‘Lake Wanaka, eastern shore. I reckon we’re still a few miles from the south end, where the township is.’ He looked up. Night was coming on fast. ‘I’ve got nothing left for flying again.’
‘Me neither. I’m totally stuffed and freezing,’ Evie admitted. ‘I can barely stand.’ Her jacket, woollen jersey and jeans were soaked, and she was shivering.
Mat grimaced. ‘Then we need a fire, and somewhere out of this wind. Wait here.’ She nodded numbly. The temperature was dropping fast, or maybe they were just noticing it more now. He looked about him. There were a few tangles of driftwood on the narrow shore. He jogged up the low bank that rimmed the lake and looked about. They were hemmed in by snow-covered hills and mountains. There was no sign of anyone else — the land seemed utterly empty. There was little in the way of trees, just windswept tussock. It looked bleak and inhospitable.
He jogged inland until he found a small dell only a hundred yards or so from the water, but where the wind would at least be less. He went back and helped Evie make it there. She collapsed into the grass, her shoulders shaking. She looked close to tears. He took off his cloak, freeing himself up to drag a couple of branches of dead bracken into the dell, then set them alight with his fingernails. He hunched over Evie. ‘You need to get those wet clothes off,’ he told her. ‘Wet clothes against your skin will kill you. The cloak will be enough to keep you warm.’
He gave her privacy, heading off to hunt for more wood and anything else that might be useful. He found a fallen tree and broke off some branches, dragging them back behind him wearily. The air temperature was still plummeting, the moisture on the air becoming icier and heavier, on the edge of being sleet.
He started as he heard a sudden ‘yip’ behind him, and a collie dog bounded up beside him, tail wagging. ‘Hey, fella,’ he breathed, looking around in hope of seeing the dog’s owner, but there was no-one. ‘What are you doing here?’ The dog rubbed against his calf with an affectionate yap. I guess he’s friendly.
The collie followed him all the way back to their makeshift camp. Evie was wrapped in her cloak, with only her bedraggled hair and face above the feathers; her outer layers of clothing were draped about the upwind side of the fire. She exclaimed with pleasure as the collie trotted up to her. ‘Hey, look at you,’ she said. The dog nuzzled her, snuffling as it burrowed into her cloak, then turned, so that its head poked out from the folds with a pleased look on its face.
‘Ooo, he’s so warm,’ Evie hugged the dog playfully. ‘Where did you find him?’
‘I didn’t, he found me. I didn’t see his owner anywhere. There’s no houses nearby.’ He dragged the branches to the fire and broke off what he could before feeding them into the blaze. Then he settled into his cloak too, his own clothing dry enough to sleep in.
Evie looked for a collar but the dog didn’t have one. It was clearly domesticated though: it stayed wrapped with Evie in the cloak, and listened attentively to all they said. Not that they talked much. There was no food except for a couple of muesli bars they’d brought for the trip, and nothing to drink. The air got colder and colder, but the heat of the fire radiated out. Mostly they just watched the fire, which Mat kept building up with heavier branches, knowing they’d need to sleep soon and that it needed to last until morning.
‘Are you warm enough?’ Mat asked Evie.
Evie stroked the collie. ‘Yeah, thanks to my new best friend,’ she replied. The dog wuffed happily. ‘You?’
He shrugged doubtfully. ‘Yeah, I guess.’ He eyed the dog jealously, though crawling under a cloak with Evie in her underwear was undoubtedly a very bad idea. ‘I’ll manage.’
She gave him a faint smile. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘Um, can I ask you something?’ he said tentatively. She gave a nod, so he braced himself to go on. ‘Have you had any serious boyfriends?’
‘A couple.’ Her one eye fixed on him. ‘What are you really asking?’
He blushed.
‘Am I a virgin? Is that the question?’ She lifted her chin. ‘The answer is no.’ She looked away, into the fire. ‘I was afraid that being one-eyed would mean no-one would ever want me. It made me insecure. I was dumb enough to let this guy sleep with me. He was a jerk and I knew it, but I wanted to feel like I belonged. He took advantage of that, then dumped me.’
Mat wished he hadn’t asked.
‘Then there was a tourist who was just passing through. He was sweet, and he was safe because I knew I wouldn’t need to see him again. That was a bit nicer.’ She shrugged, patting the collie absently. ‘That’s all. Not much of a track record, huh?’
It was Mat’s turn to shrug awkwardly.
‘I wish now I’d waited,’ Evie said sadly. ‘It wasn’t the big thing I’d thought it was. I cringe whenever I think about those guys now. My first time should have been special, not frittered away like that.’ Mat exhaled heavily. His own lack of experience didn’t seem so bad, suddenly. ‘Bet you wish you hadn’t asked, huh?’ Evie laughed humourlessly. She looked away while he squirmed uncomfortably.
She fished in her pocket, pulled out a rune stone and read it with a resigned expression. She showed it to him: the sign on it looked like a little ‘t’. ‘This is Nauthiz, the stone of patience — it came to my hand unbidden. It is telling us to be strong and forbear from self-destructive impulses.’
He clenched his fists in frustration. ‘How can you live like that? Just doing what a random stone or card says to do?’
‘That’s not how it works. The cards and stones aren’t random, they are what they must be.’
Mat put his head in his hands. It wasn’t fair, to want her so much and to be forced to be alone with her, to be made by the unfeeling universe and an oppor
tunistic collie dog to … ‘forbear’.
Right now he hated Aroha. Well, perhaps hate was too strong a word. He knew it wasn’t fair; he knew that her choices were limited and that what she demanded of him wasn’t her fault. He knew that to let her down would be to allow Byron to triumph and allow a new Puarata into the world … but it didn’t make him feel any better. ‘We should try to sleep.’
She nodded once, and it seemed to him that they understood each other perfectly. ‘Yeah, we should.’
He built up the fire carefully, while Evie rolled onto her side, the dog cradled against her, and closed her eye. The collie wuffed mournfully at Mat, then closed its eyes too.
Mat felt a little cold still, but not dangerously so. He stared at the flames, until a tiny white flake floated down, and then more and more. They seemed to swirl away from the fire, and never really settled on the cloaks or into the dell at all, but the night sky above was suddenly weeping tiny and perfectly symmetrical wafers of ice, coating the rim of the dell. He looked across. The collie was awake again, but Evie seemed to be asleep. He felt dry and warm, and the snow was as beautiful as her face.
He managed to find a small piece of transient happiness at the beauty of all he could see tonight, and that thought carried him down into sleep.
Regrouping
Evie was woken by the wet tongue of the collie. Its breath was steaming and kind of smelly, but she gave it an affectionate hug. She felt stiff and the ground, which had felt so soft last night, was now a hard and rugged collection of bumps and pokey bits that were gouging her side through the cloak. She opened her eye and clambered to her feet, pulling the cloak up with her so that Mat didn’t get too much of an eyeful. ‘Hey, what’s for breakfast?’ she asked, realizing that the sound and smell of cooking meat was rising from the fire Mat was tending.
‘Rabbit,’ Mat replied. ‘The dog went off and caught a couple just before sunrise.’ His hair was a tousled mess, poking up in all directions, but he looked fresh and relaxed. ‘Sleep alright?’
‘Yeah,’ she answered, realizing in surprise that she had. Then what she was seeing outside the dell hit her. ‘Hey, it snowed!’ she exclaimed, her breath billowing from her mouth in steamy clouds.
‘Sure did,’ Mat grinned. ‘All night, by the look of it.’
The countryside all about them was completely white, apart from the dark stillness of the lake in the distance and the blue-black lower slopes of the mountains that crowded about them. The snowfall had emptied the clouds, and the sky was brilliantly blue above them, the southerly now just a breeze. She felt exhilarated just to see such natural beauty, to feel a part of it. She stretched her arms and legs luxuriantly, careless that Mat was getting that eyeful after all. He pretended he wasn’t looking.
She pulled on her clothes and boots, which were mostly dry, then went for a pee. After that she went to the lake and filled their plastic water bottles. By the time she got back, Mat was pulling the rabbit from the fire. The dog was eating the other one raw. Mat had a Swiss Army knife with which he had skinned the rabbits, and he used that to carve off haunches for them to eat. It was arguably the most disgusting-looking meal she’d ever had, city girl that she was, but it tasted delicious. Hot meat in her empty belly made her feel completely human again. Her family used to go camping in the Coromandel when she was younger, but that had been much more genteel, with wine, salads and a barbeque. ‘The others will be worried,’ she said regretfully. There was a timeless quality to being here. But Riki Waitoa was still a prisoner. They couldn’t tarry.
‘Yeah, we need to get to Wanaka and find them,’ Mat agreed, his voice a little sad too.
They finished the small meal, then put the fire out carefully, covering it with sand and snow. Evie hugged the collie goodbye. The dog barked mournfully as they left. Their cloaks had dried, and they were able to rise easily into the air. Evie’s shoulders and arms ached horribly, but she quickly worked off the stiffness as they climbed and then soared south. This time they followed the shoreline, so they wouldn’t be caught over water again if that predatory bird reappeared. It didn’t, though. Instead they were treated to perfect skies and striking vistas of the mountains reflecting in the lake. The winds rose as they flew, and they could see more clouds banked up away to the south, heavy with more snow. This was a small window of peace before more storms. Evie resolved to enjoy it.
I’m flying in another world. I’m beside the most special guy I know. ‘Somehow we’ll get Riki back, dump Aroha and then date like normal people,’ she added softly to herself.
They flew over the Aotearoa township of Wanaka, found a grove of stunted pines, and Mat brought them back across to the real world. From there they walked into the town, the cloaks rolled up under their arms. A surprisingly large settlement lay facing north on the lakeshore. Mat spotted Cassandra’s Mazda parked outside a big café on the waterfront, beside Jones’s rental. Across the road from it, on the shores of the lake, was a statue of a collie dog. Evie touched it fondly, imagining that maybe it had come to life to protect and feed them last night. When she suggested it to Mat, he didn’t discount it.
They went into the café to find the other four of their group huddled around a table, sipping hot drinks and waiting for them. The smell of coffee hit Evie’s nose in a wave of goodness that made her mouth water. ‘Where have you two been?’ Jones demanded gruffly.
‘We got attacked by some kind of eagle,’ Mat replied casually.
‘I ended up in the lake, and we had to camp for the night,’ Evie added, mimicking Mat’s relaxed tones. ‘A dog brought breakfast and we flew here. Now I must have coffee or die.’
They told their story cradling mugs of coffee, while the others had brunch and listened with a mix of excitement and disbelief. Jones told them the giant bird was probably a Haast’s eagle, the world’s largest eagle ever, but now extinct — except in Aotearoa. ‘You were lucky to escape it,’ he added. ‘They used to hunt and kill moa.’
‘It nearly got me,’ Evie said, putting her hand over Mat’s. ‘But my champion rescued me.’
‘It was a team effort,’ Mat said modestly, though he was beaming. Then they both remembered The High Priestess and pulled their hands away, causing the others to study them with raised eyebrows.
‘Nice night in the countryside?’ Damien asked archly, his arm around Shui. ‘Huddled around the campfire, singing songs?’
‘Go bite yourself,’ Evie told him.
‘We behaved ourselves,’ Mat added primly.
‘Each to their own,’ Damien replied, shaking his head. He and Shui had spent a harrowing day on Richard Pearse’s plane, clinging to the undercarriage while the southerlies battered them across the skies. Pearse had gone on, back to his home in Temuka on the east coast.
‘Right,’ Jones said seriously. ‘We need to finish up here, then get a lead on where Hayes is now. I can’t believe they would risk Foveaux Strait at this time of year, but we must be open to all possibilities.’ He drained his coffee and glared about him until everyone else did the same.
Afterwards they went to the motel Jones’s party had used, checked out and then transitioned into Aotearoa. The Wanaka of Aotearoa was much smaller, just a tavern and some small businesses clustered near the shore. Jones rented a back room in the tavern for an hour and asked not to be disturbed. The stout and heavily bearded owner quickly agreed when gold coins were produced. Once they were shut in, and the open fire stoked, the Welshman turned to Evie. ‘I’m sorry to place these demands on you, lass, but we need a reading. We need to find Riki as soon as we can.’
Evie didn’t mind at all. It felt good to contribute in a way no-one else here could, not even Jones and Mat. She laid out their largest map, of the bottom half of the South Island, then tossed her playing cards into the air over it, watching them fly into position as energy crackled in her fingers. She felt a thrill of victory as she saw that the cards signifying Riki and his captors were no longer at sea, but moving inland, still well south of them, l
eaving a snail trail of after-images behind them as they arced inland across the map. ‘They’re moving inland, southwest of us,’ she told them excitedly. ‘Riki is okay, but still in danger.’ She plucked a rune stone and placed it face down on the Riki card, then turned it over to see what it was: a fire rune. ‘That usually means someone is driving,’ she said, surprised.
Jones was unperturbed. ‘Early vehicles have worked in Aotearoa for some time now. Ghost worlds are always eighty to a hundred years behind our own, but they modernize as time passes.’ He tapped the map. ‘Assuming they can get through the Milford Road at this time of year, the route they are taking runs through Lumsden, at which point they could go north to Queenstown and the Cromwell Basin, or east to Dunedin. We need to find out which.’ He glanced at the map. ‘They may well reach Lumsden before us. We need to move.’ He looked at Evie. ‘Is there anything else you can tell us about what they are purposing?’
She bit her lower lip, thinking hard, then slowly shook her head. ‘I really don’t know enough to ask the right questions. Do you?’
Jones pursed his lips, then exhaled heavily. ‘No. There are too many moving parts. We need to find them and learn what is happening.’ He clapped his hands, standing. ‘Let’s get to Lumsden. It’s only a couple of hours away. Damien, Shui: I’ll take you as far as we can, then leave you in Aotearoa until we can gather together again.’ He tousled Evie’s hair, which she normally hated but somehow liked when Jones did it. ‘Well done, lass.’
She smiled up at him, and her eye met Mat’s. His face was troubled, but hopeful. He nodded his gratitude to her, and she almost reached out to hug him, but restrained herself reluctantly. Instead, she gathered up her cards and stones again, and the others also got to their feet. In minutes, they were back in the real world and driving south.
The Wooden Head
Riki stood in the line of prisoners as they peed into the ditch beside the road. Their urine steamed as it carved rivulets in the snow. Behind him the trucks hissed and smoked. Wind roared in the trees, shaking loose more snow. The sun was up, but it hadn’t reached the narrow gorge in which they were currently laid up. They’d travelled all night, replenishing the petrol from stock carried in the back of one of the trucks. It was morning now, and he felt truly awful. There had been no food, just a water bottle passed from prisoner to prisoner, barely enough to wet his mouth. His dad had once told him that the Te Anau to Milford road was fabulously beautiful, but all he’d seen of it was what he could see through the gaps in the back of the truck he was chained up in. That hadn’t been much, just occasional glimpses of the side of the road through the headlights of the truck behind them. Someone had vomited from the motion and that had set most of the rest of them off. The idea of getting back into the truck after this stop was nauseating. Escape, even if he was unchained, was out of the question. They were hundreds of kilometres into the most inhospitable part of the country in midwinter.