by David Hair
Mat wasn’t all that keen on any of it: Aroha, becoming immortal, or being a father. If he could have avoided getting involved at all he would have, but it was becoming increasingly apparent that he didn’t have much choice. ‘I still wish someone else …’
Ngatoro grunted. ‘Do not think such thoughts, Matiu. What you are soon to undertake is bigger than you imagine. As you know, there are ghost worlds in all lands, all over the world. In each, a similar quest exists, where a young person must renew the spiritual strength of the land. In some lands a young woman must seek a male god, and bear his child. In Aotearoa, the quest is to find the Death Goddess, Hine-nui-te-po.’
Mat nibbled at his lower lip. Hine-nui-te-po was truly frightening: she’d killed the demigod Maui for doing exactly what Mat was supposed to attempt.
‘If you do not prevail, a dark period will unfold in this country, Matiu,’ Ngatoro told him. ‘Servants of dark magic, makutu, will also seek Hine-nui-te-po when the time comes. If you fail, one of them will succeed, and plunge the land into turmoil. Or worse, if no-one reaches her, there will be catastrophe. When no candidates reached the goddess in Rome, the empire fell and plunged Europe into a Dark Age. Similar failures in China and India have presaged the collapse of whole civilisations. Another failure in Europe in the first years of the previous century triggered two world wars.’
Mat swallowed. ‘But this is only New Zealand. Nothing like that can happen here …’
‘Can it not? When Kiki succeeded and Puarata was conceived, the Maori were master of these islands. Within a hundred years our people were swamped by European settlers and brought to near extinction.’ Ngatoro tapped the ground for emphasis. ‘History is not all progress, Matiu: there are also falls and declines. Imagine an invasion from Asia, and the great powers standing aside for political reasons. Or a period of terrible earthquakes and volcanic activity here, razing cities and poisoning the soil, driving people from these islands. Do not tell me that nothing bad can happen here.’
Mat shut his mouth. He’s right. I must do this. But he didn’t have to like it. I’m trapped. I have to go to Aroha whether I want to or not. He tried to conceal his frustration and fear, because he knew that was what his mentor expected. For the thousandth time he missed Jones, who would have understood his misgivings. But Aethlyn Jones was dead, and probably would have given him the same advice anyway.
‘In the end, Matiu, we are only caretakers, handing down this world to the next generation. We should seek only to enhance that legacy. You must approach this as a spiritual quest of renewal, a hero’s quest, for which it is an honour to be called.’ Ngatoro tapped his staff on the soil. ‘The child of the sacred union reflects the emotions of the couple: thus the birth of Puarata heralded a time of exploitation and conflict. So it is vital that you make peace emotionally with Aroha, and find love for her.’
Unfortunately the word ‘love’ only brought one face to Mat’s mind: Evie van Zelle. Here I am, about to embark on a quest for a woman I don’t even like. I wonder if the Knights of the Round Table ever had this problem? He sighed heavily, knowing he had no choice. To turn aside now would be to betray everyone who believed in him, including the stern, kindly man at his side. ‘What must I do?’ he asked.
‘Just be aware and be ready,’ Ngatoro replied. ‘Ensure that when the solstice comes you are right here, on this bluff.’
‘Why must I be here?’
‘Because for each candidate, the beginning point must be somewhere tied to their essence, tied to their name and ancestry. This hill is where your father’s forebears once stood, and laid claim to these lands. As the light of the rising moon strikes you, the path will open. Bring whatever you believe you will need, and ensure that you are fit, well-rested and well-fed.’
Mat felt that on that front, he was as prepared as he could be. He’d completed his NCEA Level Three papers, his final high-school exams. After all the years building up to them, they’d gone past in a blur; with all that was happening outside school making the exams seem trivial. Nevertheless he thought he’d done well: he’d always been a diligent student. With that distraction out of the way, and his physical training going well, he should have been raring to go.
And if the quest was to win Evie instead of Aroha, I would be.
At least the coming week would be a diversion from worrying about the pending ordeal. Tomorrow he and his parents would join the other Napier Boys High School Year Thirteen students on a visit to Wellington, to get a taste of the university options there. Massey was Mat’s likely choice as it offered a Visual Arts degree.
They fell silent for a few more minutes, then Mat asked the questions he’d been storing up for this moment. ‘Master, when I last saw Aroha, she said: “Let the journey of Tawhaki guide you, and the fate of Maui warn you.” What did she mean?’
Ngatoro looked at him gravely. ‘You know of the fate of Maui?’
‘Sure, who doesn’t? He was the demigod who was going to conquer death for everyone, by passing through the body of the Death Goddess, going in through her … um …’ his face went red ‘… and out her mouth. But just when he was about to succeed, a fantail laughed at the sight, woke the Death Goddess and she bit him in half. Or something like that.’
‘Mmmm. And what does that tell you about your own quest?’
Mat frowned. ‘To beware of fantails? And … that I’ve got to … uh …’ He looked at Ngatoro with panic beginning to fill his mind. ‘Surely I don’t have to …’
‘I suspect the parts about the male entering the female might be a metaphor for something else, don’t you?’ Ngatoro said wryly.
‘I really hope so,’ Mat replied fervently. ‘So, just sex then?’ Not that he believed there was any such thing as ‘just sex’. And not that he’d know anyway.
Ngatoro nodded, an amused smile on his lips.
‘So is Kiki the only one to ever succeed?’ Mat asked doubtfully.
Ngatoro shook his head. ‘No, Matiu Douglas. There was also my father, Rakauri.’ The old man sighed. ‘He has passed on — immortal does not mean invulnerable — but I have endured, to counter Kiki and Puarata’s evil.’
Mat caught his breath. ‘Serious? Wow.’ The thought that he might be following in the footsteps of Ngatoro was daunting. ‘What about Tawhaki?’
Ngatoro gave a small shrug. ‘Tawhaki was different: do you know the tale?’
‘Um, not really. I looked it up, but there were so many versions.’
Ngatoro chuckled. ‘That is because it in such an elemental tale: the hero’s quest for immortality, duplicated through the world. I will tell you the version I believe. Tawhaki was a warrior who dwelt in the early days of Aotearoa. He was descended of men and gods, and had several adventures among the sea people, the ponaturi. Those do not concern us. What does matter is his final journey. Tawhaki had a wife, Hapai, who was one of the sky people, a divine being. They had a child together, but he broke a tapu and offended her. She took their child and ascended into the clouds. He repented immediately, and sought to regain his wife. With his younger brother Karihi, he ascended the mountains, overcoming many obstacles, until they came to a place where vines descended from the clouds. Climbing the vines, Karihi fell and died, but Tawhaki went on. He came to a land in the clouds, filled with beauty and wonder, and underwent many trials, in which he confronted ghosts, and his own mortality. Eventually he tricked his way into the village where his wife Hapai dwelt, by putting on the semblance of an old man, and he won her back. There he lives still with his wife and child, but is now immortal and a god of the lightning.’
‘So you’re saying I have to make like Jack and the Beanstalk, climb into the clouds, find Aroha, make out, and she’ll turn me into a god?’
Ngatoro chuckled. ‘No, what I am saying is that there are parallels to Tawhaki’s tale and your own. And more than that: as Aroha herself has told you that it is linked to your quest, it is likely that your own quest will be similar to that of Tawhaki in some form. Should you find he
r, you will gain immortality. It may be that the tale of Tawhaki is the half-remembered tale of someone just like my father, who sought and found the goddess.’
Mat swallowed. ‘But I don’t want to live in the clouds. I want to study art at university, with my friends. I want to see the world, and do stuff—’ And be with Evie.
‘I know this, Matiu. And it may be that you will be able to do so. But for the sake of Aotearoa, you must do this thing first.’ The old man laid a kindly hand on Mat’s arm. ‘I do understand, my young friend. Better than you might appreciate. But two worlds depend on your triumph.’
Mat found himself looking at his shoes. ‘Is there really no-one else?’
‘No. You are the only Adept with the youth, experience and mana to do this.’ Ngatoro paused. ‘Although on the side of makutu, there are several who may essay the quest, including Kiki’s protégé, Byron Kikitoa.’
Mat bit his lip. Kiki and Byron had vanished after the encounter five months ago in Arrowtown. They’d taken with them the dreaded Wooden Head, a carving that could kill people with its cry. That brought him back to Ngatoro’s earlier warning. ‘I wonder what they were doing last night?’
‘Something that we will regret,’ Ngatoro said flatly. ‘You must warn those you love to be on their guard.’
Mat felt his face go cold. ‘Are they really in danger?’
‘I fear so,’ Ngatoro told him. ‘Kiki may seek to weaken you by moving against those you care about.’
Mat nibbled his lower lip. ‘Mum and Dad are both going to Wellington with me on Sunday. Riki is coming, too, because he’s thinking of studying in Wellington as well.’ Riki Waitoa’s transformation from layabout to proficient scholar was a minor miracle of modern education. ‘And we’ll being staying with Wiri and Kelly.’
Ngatoro nodded encouragingly. ‘Wiri knows how to protect himself from the arcane.’
‘But Cassandra’s in Gisborne.’ Cassandra and Riki had a long-distance on-off thing going. They’d been a bit more off than on recently, because Cass had been offered a scholarship in America that she was keen to accept. Riki wasn’t taking it well.
And Evie is alone in Auckland.
‘Then warn them,’ Ngatoro replied. Mat took a second to register that the old tohunga had said ‘them’. He always seemed to know what Mat was thinking.
‘I’ll call,’ Mat breathed. He felt a fine sweat breaking out on his brow.
‘Do so.’ Ngatoro looked at him squarely. ‘Listen to me, Matiu. A tutor can show his apprentice only so much. Theory is only one teacher: practice and hard experience must do the rest. Your time with me is over.’
Mat quivered in surprise. ‘But I feel like I hardly know a thing.’
Ngatoro chuckled. ‘Listen to you, and your foolish modesty!’ He took Mat’s hand, raised it up to eye-level. Mat’s fingernails were scab-red and as hard as stone, a gift from the goddess of fire. ‘You are an Adept, an apprentice tohunga ruanuku who has mastered fire. You have a winged cloak, gift of the Birdwitch. You bear my own taiaha, soaked in the blood of the land, harder than steel and stone, and you know how to wield it. You have defeated the warlocks of Puarata’s entourage and released his prisoners, myself included. You are ready.’
‘But—’
‘Matiu, when a tohunga’s apprentice has learnt all that his master can impart, the tradition is that they undertake a task to demonstrate their graduation from trainee to mastery. Often it involves a journey, and no little self-sacrifice and suffering. A soul journey. A spirit quest. All shamanic cultures do the same, to show that the apprentice has achieved mastery. This journey, to seek Aroha, is your spirit quest.’
Mat swallowed, and nodded. Put like that, it sounded increasingly daunting.
‘Put aside doubt and fear, Matiu,’ Ngatoro told him. ‘They are your enemies, more surely than Byron Kikitoa.’ He squeezed Mat’s arm. ‘You are ready. I believe in you. You will succeed.’
What if I don’t want to …?
Your whole lives ahead
‘Wait, wait!’ Mum shouted, as they all gathered about the car. ‘Just one more photo.’
Tama Douglas rolled his eyes at Mat. All morning his estranged wife, Colleen, had been stopping everyone every few seconds for ‘just one more photo’. It was as though life had a pause button and Colleen was a trigger-happy kid with the remote control, freezing everything in place momentarily every few seconds.
Mat and Riki sighed, winked at each other and struck another pose. The front yard was packed with Riki’s family, attracted by the novelty of the occasion: no child of theirs had ever graduated from high school. They couldn’t afford to take time off work to go south with their fourth son (and seventh child of nine) to survey his study options, so were grateful to Mat’s father who had volunteered to take Riki south. The whole clan had descended on Mat’s dad’s house en masse to see them off. Most were familiar faces, as Mat visited them often, and anyway his father had represented several generations of them in court, as their defence lawyer. Riki’s family weren’t so much criminal as wayward, but they had a penchant for getting into trouble.
The whole gathering squeezed together beside Tama’s Mercedes, and Colleen snapped away merrily. His mother was looking pretty good, Mat decided. For an oldie. She had on her tight jeans, a black leather jacket, and her ginger hair was spiked up, recalling the ’eighties punkette she’d been when younger. Tama and Colleen were both in their forties, and had been separated almost four years now. They didn’t fight so much these days. She had come down from Taupo, where she now lived, and had agreed to drive down to Wellington in the same car, to save cash. Mat couldn’t help hoping they’d get back together, especially on days like this when they were in harmony.
‘One more, just Mat and Riki,’ Colleen called. The Waitoa clan and children, adherents and hangers-on edged aside, and Mat and Riki posed by the bonnet of the car, arms around each other’s shoulders, beaming wearily.
‘Look at you both!’ Riki’s mother sniffed. ‘All grown-up, with your whole lives ahead.’
‘They’re just going to another school,’ snarked Shana, one of Riki’s younger sisters. ‘That’s not growing up, it’s retarding.’ She poked out her tongue at Riki moodily. She was sixteen, having dropped out of high school to have a baby, and hated being upstaged. ‘Riki should get a real job.’
‘I will, once I graduate,’ Riki shot back.
‘Nah, you’ll be paying off your student loan all your life,’ his brother Eroni put in. ‘That’s why I didn’t go to varsity, eh?’
‘That and cos you’re thick,’ Shana said sourly. ‘You ain’t got a job either.’
‘I got work,’ Eroni retorted. He threw a sideways look at Tama Douglas and added, ‘Legit work.’
Shana snickered at that, but then her baby wailed and she dropped out of the conversation to feed it.
‘I’m so gonna miss all this,’ Riki said, with a complete insincerity.
Mat grinned, Mum snapped the shot, and finally — finally! — it was time to go.
‘Hey, Mr Douglas, if you leave me your keys, I can feed the cat,’ Eroni offered.
Tama raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ve got a neighbour looking after that,’ he replied coolly. ‘They’ll be keeping a good eye on everything. But thanks.’
‘No problemo,’ Eroni said, his face falling a little. ‘I wouldn’t rip you off, Mr Douglas. Your place is off-limits, everyone knows that.’
‘Hmmm.’
Riki hugged his mother, then his father, and worked his way down a shifting line until he was picking up nephews and nieces who were too young to know what was going on, and were far more interested in playing hide-and-seek in the garden beds, then finally he was in the car. Tama gunned the engine with a heavy sigh of relief. ‘Right, let’s get out of here.’
They waved out the windows, then the Mercedes purred away down the street, and the house and its attendant crowd fell from view. In minutes they were on Marine Parade South and heading toward Clive, Hastings, and
the highway to Wellington. The trip would take about four and a half hours, longer if they stopped for lunch, which was the plan. It was Sunday, though, and the roads should be quiet, at least until they reached the edge of Wellington. Mum and Dad tuned in a radio station and began talking in low voices. Mat settled back, and looked at Riki. ‘Hey, we’re off.’ He felt both nervous and exhilarated.
Riki stretched cheerily. ‘Amen and Hallelujah.’ He poked and prodded at the various buttons that controlled the airflow in the back of the car. ‘Choice, we can have our own settings. Think I’ll buy some wheels like this when I graduate from uni and get my first big job, eh?’ he speculated with blithe disregard for the ways of the real world.
‘Did you call Cass last night?’
Riki nodded. ‘We spoke for, like, two hours, man.’
‘Did you warn her about what I said?’ Mat asked in a low voice.
‘Sure. She and her dad are gonna be careful. Anyway, she was calling from Auckland International Airport: she’s off to check out the digs on that Californian scholarship. Silicon Valley, man.’ He looked up desultorily. ‘She’s got her heart set on it.’
Mat frowned. ‘How are you doing on that?’
A miserable look slid over Riki’s face. ‘It’s just wrong, man. After all we’ve been through, she’s like: “I need to do this, for my future”. I don’t get it: it’s all “her” future — what about “our” future? And how can she bail on us now? She hangs with us, she gets to see a whole different world. Magic and stuff! All she gets over there in the You-Ess-Aye is money.’
Mat could empathise. After all their adventures, the life-and-death moments, the wonders and the horrors, it seemed absurd that someone who’d been through so much with them might settle for something so mundane as overseas study.
Of course, getting shot at, stabbed, and menaced by magic-wielding monsters isn’t for everyone.
‘You’ve got a future, too,’ he reminded Riki. ‘Just a different one.’