by David Hair
Then a voice began calling his name. Matiu … Matiu … A cold, clear woman’s voice, from nowhere and everywhere, softer than a whisper yet containing great clarity. Aroha’s voice.
He staggered along a walkway, barely keeping himself from being swept off and into the sea as waves crashed below. There was a huge glass box of a restaurant and bar, and he could see the patrons inside, but no-one could see him out in the dark and wet. The harbour ferries rose and fell alarmingly on their moorings, battering against the docks, where temporary signs declared the ferry service closed that night, due to sea conditions. Then he saw the sign.
Not a mystical omen, just a few words on the ferry sign: Queen’s Wharf, Harbour Ferry Terminal: Departure Point for Matiu-Somes Island, and Eastbourne.
Matiu … He traced it with his fingers. His own name. Could it be that simple? He’d come this way earlier in the day without even seeing it: Somes Island, in the middle of Wellington Harbour, had once been called Matiu — his own name.
That’s what it would have been called in Aroha’s day.
He threw himself into the lee of the booking office, sank to the cold concrete, fished out his cellphone and called Wiri’s house. It was Kelly who answered.
‘Hello? Matty-Mat-Mat! Where are you? Dinner’s almost ready.’
‘I need Wiri to bring me my taiaha and the feather cloak! I need them now!’
‘Wiri’s gone to work.’
‘Then Dad! Put Dad on!’
‘Slow down, Matty. Tama and Colleen are working late at the Archives: they phoned in half an hour ago. There’s just me, Riki, Nikau and the bump here. What’s the problem?’
Damn damn damn. ‘OK,’ he said, feeling that destiny was conspiring against him, ‘put Riki on.’
Riki’s voice spoke in his ear a moment later. ‘Hey, bro.’ He sounded flat, dispirited.
‘I’ve found the place I need to be, but I’ve got to get there now. I need my stuff: can you bring it?’
Riki audibly perked up. ‘Yeah? Sweet! Where are you?’
Mat told him hurriedly, then added: ‘You’re not coming, remember?’
‘Yeah, whatever. I’ll be there in ten, just gotta chisel some wheels outta Kels.’ The line went dead.
After that, all Mat could do was wait, shivering in the shelter of the building, and pray that he was right, and in time. The only person to go by was a man wrapped in a raincoat, carrying a closed umbrella because opening it would have seen him airborne. If he saw Mat he didn’t indicate, just staggered on, shoved bodily towards the railway station by the following winds. All the while the call came louder and clearer, out of the skies.
Matiu … Matiu …
The storm hits
High on Mount Victoria, Byron Kikitoa watched the storm-front rolling in from the south. The wind whipped up as the evening came on, the crescent of lights around the harbour gradually emerging from the gloom as daylight faded early. Far off, thunder begin to rumble.
Byron looked much older than he had, the price of his encounter with the kehua at Te Reinga, but in truth he quite liked the look. Kiki had been right, he was more of a man now, heavier-set and more formidable.
This had always been his favourite place growing up in Wellington, up by the cannon on the crest of the hill, looking down on the city. Being up so high gave him a sense of where he wanted to be. He’d got into his first knife-fight up here, with a gang prospect. He’d left the little shit cutup and crippled, his hamstring severed beyond repair. The memory made him smile.
Not long after, he’d gone north to follow the rugby league dream, though by then he was already aware that he had far more talents than just throwing a ball around. The two things had fed off each other: makutu and league were both a form of war. A violent confrontation, a struggle for mastery. But all that was trivial compared to what was to come, this very night. Immortality. Supreme power. I’m going to screw a goddess and conceive a son. He smiled slowly. Aroha, I’m coming for you. You betcha I am.
Beside him, hunched in his cloak, Kiki was staring out over the harbour. He’d been there for hours: one got used to waiting around doing nothing with the ancient tohunga. It still rankled.
After tonight I won’t need him anymore. I’ll be able to swat him like a bug.
The sun had been buried in thick cloud all day, not enough to discomfort Kiki. Nevertheless his face was more content once darkness fell. ‘Make ready, my apprentice. I shall invoke the path, to take you up and on your way.’
‘What about Douglas?’
Kiki smiled evilly. ‘He has already lost. By seizing control of the path and bringing forward the date that it opens, I have left him stranded. He is down below, ignorant of the danger.’ He looked up at the boiling clouds. ‘The moment will be soon.’
That afternoon, they had invoked the path, performing a ritual that had required a lot of very special blood: not a problem as they’d had an unwilling donor who had supplied all they needed. Byron patted his pack, and the trophy within.
‘I had hoped to meet Douglas along the way,’ Byron said nonchalantly. ‘I was looking forward to killing him.’
Kiki frowned. ‘That is foolish. Make no mistake: the journey to Aroha’s whare will test all of your skill, knowledge and fortitude. Any obstacle that can be avoided is a good thing.’
‘I suppose. I’ll kill him eventually anyway.’
‘There may be others to contend with,’ Kiki warned him. ‘Other tohunga makutu will send their protégés, and some of those may have read the signs and known to be in position tonight.’
Byron shrugged. Kiki had assured him that none of the other makutu apprentices were a threat. ‘Where will you be?’
‘I have another errand, readying the second part of our plans.’ He looked down over the city, taking in the panorama, from the harbour to the north and west, to distant views of Cook Strait to the south in Island Bay, right around to the airport, Miramar peninsula, and the entrance to the harbour. ‘Do you know the tale of the making of the harbour?’ he asked.
Byron scowled. He wasn’t really in the mood for another lecture on history or folklore. But he knew he’d get one, nevertheless, so he shook his head, resigned.
‘Long ago, Wellington harbour, known then as Te Whanganui-a-Tara, was a lake, and the home of two great taniwha, Ngake and Whataitai. They lived a pleasant life, chasing eels and fish in the waters. But like all taniwha, they had a longing for the open sea. The seabirds told them tales, of huge fatty whales to eat, and mighty depths to explore. Gradually that longing grew, until the two taniwha were overcome with the need to break through and reach the ocean. Ngake made his try west of what is now the Miramar peninsula, and being strong and powerful he carved a path and reached the sea. He dwells there still, stirring up storms as he explores the deeps. But Whataitai had always been lazier, and he soon tired. Instead of carving a path, he found himself stranded, on the lowlands beneath these hills. For a time he was sustained by birds bringing him fish, but eventually he died, and his bones became the Hataitai ridge, named for him. They are just east of here.’
Byron stifled a yawn. ‘Why should I care?’
‘Because it is the local lore, and all lore has value. Ngake still mourns the loss of his brother. In Aotearoa, he still lurks in the harbour or the straits beyond. Whataitai’s bones still lie beneath the stones. A strong tohunga makutu can use that knowledge.’
Interested now, despite himself, Byron looked at his mentor with impatient curiosity. ‘What are you planning, old man?’
Kiki licked his cracked lips and spat. ‘This city stands on a fault-line, where two massive tectonic plates meet. The fault runs through the very heart of the city, right along The Terrace. Envisage what might happen in Aotearoa were someone to wake Whataitai to life. Imagine the shaking of the Earth as the giant emerges, and the flood as Ngake comes to see his brother. Do you think the flimsy colonial buildings could survive?’
Byron smiled grimly. ‘It would devastate the city.’
Byron licked his lips.
‘With the government apparatus of both worlds destroyed, and the financial centres also, there will be chaos. In such times, a new man can step forth, fuelled by new powers. Mesmerizing to the media and the sycophantic public, full of youth and promise. A messiah to save the land, governing alone, but for his trusted advisers.’
Trusted? You wish … But Byron could not help but admire the plan. And his own place in it.
‘The years you gave to the kehua at Reinga have aged you well,’ Kiki added. ‘They have given you a more adult appearance, a gravitas that will play well to the cameras and the public, as well as concealing your previous public identity. No-one will suspect this new leader to be the vanished league star. Your older, wiser face will reassure people as they come to terms with the tragedy, and the emergency that follows.’
Byron slowly nodded. What was a little youth, in exchange for eternity? He could still run as fast, fight as hard. ‘So I’m going to be the saviour of this country?’ He chuckled.
‘You are.’ Kiki rose. The rising wind was swirling about them, and the rain, which had been flowing past them and dumping on the city, was beginning to fall here, too. ‘I must be about my tasks,’ he shouted above the gathering storm. ‘Abide here, and be ready for the moment when it comes!’
Byron, for what he intended to be the last time, knelt at Kiki’s feet. ‘Master,’ he shouted, ‘I will not fail!’
You damned bet I won’t. I will return and I will conquer, and for every time you struck me during our training I will inflict a torment upon your flesh that you cannot endure. Then I will snuff you out like a candle-flame.
He watched Kiki hobble away, surprisingly spry as he descended the slopes, fading into Aotearoa as he went. Then Byron sat again, as the rain slapped down and the city became a blur of lights in the darkness. He was inured to discomfort, his training having been an ordeal in privation and endurance. Rain and cold meant little to him. Kiki’s training regime might have been pitiless and almost sadistic, but Byron didn’t regret it. It had made him hard and strong, well-prepared for his destiny.
Hours passed, although he barely noticed, concentrating on the storm above, and what it presaged. As the lightning flashed, he could sense something above, a knot of energy unfurling tendrils toward the Earth, like a massive octopus or a bundle of ivy spreading its vines. The goddess was calling. Not to him, of course not: she still clung to the hope of Matiu Douglas. But Kiki was right — he could feel one thread reaching down towards this place, closer and closer.
When the moment came, it was like a lightning bolt, blazing out of the darkness as thunder cracked. He met it with arms and legs spread wide, bellowed in agony-ecstasy as it blasted through him, and for a moment it was a tangible, real thing, a vivid green vine, dipping to touch the summit of Mount Victoria, precisely where he stood. He leapt, threw his arms about it and held on with arms and legs as it rose again, pulling him in a dizzying ascent to the clouds. His stomach rebelled, his grip almost going as the tendril thrashed left and right, shaking him in huge, sickening motions.
Somehow he clung on, bellowing triumphantly as the ground vanished, and the only light came from above. Then as the vine became, if not still, at least manageable, he seized the branch above, and with sure and purposeful movements, began to climb into the heavens.
Evie put her cards away, pulled out an iPad and switched it on. Her mouth was dry, but her hands were trembling from too much coffee, and she didn’t want to switch to anything alcoholic when everything might be about to kick off. She settled on apple juice and a slice of warm lasagne.
Night was coming on, the streets darkening outside and rain lashing the window. The other customers were all huddled over their drinks and shivering. She wished she could just lie down and close her eyes, but her bland box of a hotel room on Featherston Street was an unappealing prospect, and she still couldn’t work out what was going on. Being thwarted this badly was unusual: her gift had always been strong, and usually her readings revealed more than she wanted to know, not less. Failure wasn’t something she liked, and she could feel her mother’s waspish temper in her own mood. She wanted something to lash out at.
When the homepage came up on the iPad, she didn’t enter anything, just clicked on a box called ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’. It was something she’d thought of when she’d heard a song containing the lyrics ‘she divined by radio’ a few weeks ago on student radio back in Auckland. Let’s see what random stuff comes up …
The headline read: MAN FOUND DEAD IN GISBORNE.
Evie read the story, faintly chilled by the callous, anonymous coldness of the crime. No names were given, as relatives were still being sought, but she knew. She whispered a prayer for Cassandra, and hit random search again.
She got a page about street-art. Then one about Jack and the Beanstalk. Another about Leviathan, the mythical sea-beast, and then one about the Japanese tsunami … and that was enough to see the patterns emerging. She reached for her cards again, spraying them across the table with practised hands, fingers trembling from more than just an overdose of caffeine.
Then abruptly she was sweeping everything into her satchel and running for the door.
‘So that was your daughter, yesterday,’ Mistress Screw whispered through the bars.
Donna Kyle looked back from her tiny barred window, which overlooked nothing more soul-enriching than the staff car park of Arohata Prison. A lamp-post dimly illuminated rows of dated and low-cost vehicles, the glass streaked by new falling rain. About her she could feel the prison slowly settling down into another empty night. At some point soon, yet another petty argument between cellmates would turn loud, and perhaps violent. The shutdown for the night would begin at nine, and after that there would be only the long, slow silences, punctuated by the boots of the guards on the corridors.
Even locked away like this, she still expected her life to end in an act of vigilante justice. She was helpless enough during daylight that it wouldn’t be so hard. Not exactly comatose in a coffin, but torpid and dazed. The evil thing in her was only really awake at night.
‘Everalda van Zelle,’ the guard went on. ‘Puarata’s daughter. There are those who’d lock her up, or worse, just for that.’ Her tone made it clear that she would applaud such a thing wholeheartedly.
‘Guilty by blood.’ Blood: Donna wished she hadn’t used that word. It made her tongue tingle and her belly growl. She felt her teeth sharpen just at the thought.
‘Why not? We all know the way she will turn out.’
Donna turned to face her. ‘Do we?’ My daughter grew up surrounded by love. That’s the gift I gave her: not being around for most of her life. ‘Nature or nurture, Screw? Are we defined by our ancestry or by the environment we grow in?’ She curled her lip. ‘I can see where you stand on the matter.’
The guard wrinkled her nose. ‘I see both sorts, witch. Either is enough. It’s a rare person who can rise above both.’
‘My daughter is a rare person,’ Donna retorted, surprised at the intensity of feelings that went into her words. ‘The rarest.’ I barely know her, but I know this.
Mistress Screw grunted. ‘Why did she leave you that card?’
Donna’s eyes went to the game card, its corner protruding from beneath her pillow. All the months she’d been here, she’d not been tempted to escape. Had not wanted to.
But if she’s in danger …
‘It’s just a small thing, to give me hope,’ she replied. She’d never really had hope before, didn’t know how to deal with it. Even at the height of her power, during her long years with Puarata, she’d felt his chains
about her, forcing her to be as he desired. And since then the struggle to overcome her rivals had seemed doomed. Even though she had fought like a demon, she’d never felt any real belief that victory and defeat would feel terribly different.
‘There is no hope for the things like you,’ Mistress Screw sneered coldly.
Yes, there is. It’s called redemption.
Sidekick
Mat saw a car’s headlights loom up out of the driving rain, as he sat huddled against the concrete wall, barely sheltered from the rain. The freezing damp was creeping through him and snuffing out the last vestiges of heat in his body. There was a car park in front of him, and the newly arrived vehicle’s lights washed over him. It was Kelly’s Volkswagen Beetle, the genuine article and over forty years old. The ‘Kelly the Clown’ pictures and logo were lit garishly by the street-lights.
He stood, waved and sprinted for the car, almost picked up and thrown onto it by the raging southerly. Riki’s face was visible behind wheel, reaching across to unlock the passenger door. Mat had to fight to open it, then throw himself in as the wind slammed it for him. ‘Jeez, it’s cold,’ he exclaimed.