by David Hair
In the morning, there was a small canoe tied to a tree-branch on the water’s edge.
‘Did you fall asleep?’ Mat teased Riki when he saw the craft. ‘Some watchman!’
‘I didn’t, I swear,’ Riki protested. He had no idea when the boat had appeared, though. Cautiously they approached the canoe — a simple hollowed-out log with an outrigger for stability — and found a single paddle, as crudely made as the canoe. Mat touched Riki’s arm and pointed to the inside of the bow, where the initials B K had been hacked into the wood.
‘We’re behind him,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Keep your eyes peeled.’
Clearly they were intended to go to the island. But the fact that Byron was ahead, and maybe lurking in wait, weighed heavily on their minds as they set out. Riki sat in the prow, taiaha ready, while Mat did the paddling, awkwardly at first until he found the rhythm, and then they ploughed steadily through the gentle, murky waters.
Riki looked down, then did a double-take. ‘Check it out, man,’ he breathed, pointing downward. ‘People of a nervous disposition are urged to beware.’
Mat followed Riki’s finger, and swallowed. The waters below were shifting in grey swirls, gradually clearing as they left the shore, and then abruptly they were transparent, and he could see shoals of gulls flying beneath them, as though the water were air. One even ascended and broke the surface, only to plunge beneath again. Worse, he was almost sure there were mountain peaks beneath, and steep valleys encrusted with vegetation, like the view from an aircraft window.
‘Let’s not go for a swim,’ he suggested, exhaling nervously.
Despite the apparent precariousness of their position, the water behaved like normal water, and they made good progress, the island looming closer. They made for a sandy bay, enfolded in two arms of the conical peak. They landed unhindered, running the canoe up onto the beach then dragging it ashore. The line of bush beyond the narrow sandy strip was silent, and in fact it seemed as though there were no birds here at all. In the centre of the line of trees there was an opening, and marking their path were two giant pou, the thick red-ochre-stained carved pillars reaching up into the trees, both etched with fearsome faces, inlaid paua eyes staring. When they glanced back, the canoe had vanished, and it was with a sense of inevitability that they entered the forest.
The air was heavy with the dampness of water and wood, but utterly silent, as though not even insects came here. A tangible feeling of threat hung in the air, and the sense of Nature holding its breath, watching them intently. They shouldered their packs and weapons, and took the narrow path between the carved poles. The cold dampness enfolded them, the heavy humidity chilling on the lungs, and climbing the path was like wading upstream. Ferns brushed against them, leaving green stains on their clothing as though marking them in some arcane way. The forest was as still as a library, the gnarly trees the only witnesses to their passing. As they ascended, the oppressive atmosphere built. Scattered pou marked the path, adorned with carvings whose blank eyes stared at them as they passed.
The path led upwards, becoming rough-hewn steps as the way became steeper, glistening wet but worn smooth by rainfall. As they ascended, the exertion made them sweat, not least because the air seemed to be growing warmer, something confirmed when they broke free of the bush and found themselves on stark slopes, cracked and broken, and steaming in the sunlight. The stone was hot to touch, and through the crevices came the rotting-egg sulphur smell of a volcano, which soon had them gagging. A strong reek of decaying meat and blood filled their nostrils also, a stench that grew as they climbed.
The final approach was to a beautiful whare set just below the peak. It unfolded with giant carved poles lining the wide path to the meeting house, and there were panoramic views looking back towards the lake and forest through which they had come, though neither boy really noticed. Their attention was on the blood all over the steps, and the hideous thing that awaited them.
A taiaha had been rammed into the rock itself, blade first, so that the pointed tongue jutted into the air. Onto that point, a severed head had been rammed, so hard that the tongue had broken through the top of the skull from within. Gore had run down the shaft of the taiaha and pooled on the rock, and huge blowflies, the first insects they’d seen on the island, were crawling all over the head and the blood. They buzzed furiously around the boys as they gasped for clean air, and tried to keep from throwing up.
Riki peered closer and gasped. ‘Jeez, bro! The eyes just moved!’
Mat swallowed, pushed aside his nausea and staggered forward, staring at the head. As he did, the flies rose in a cloud, and with a crackling flash of fire from his fingernails he crisped most of them. The remainder scattered in an angry cloud. The skull was bared, an aged male with dark skin and moko etched in deeply. Mat’s heart jolted as the lips quivered. Both eyes blinked away blood, and focused on him.
It’s some kind of reflex … It’s not alive … Not possible …
Then it tried to speak. ‘Mhggh … nggghhh …’
Mat stared in mute horror, while realizing the worst thing of all: he knew the man.
‘Mat?’ Riki called, his voice hollow.
‘It’s Tamure. Aroha’s father.’
‘Oh God, you know this guy?’
Mat waved a hand to him, finger upright for silence, and bent closer to the head. ‘Tamure? It is Matiu. Who did this?’
Tamure’s lips moved, and a word crawled out. ‘Ki … ki … to … a …’
Mat closed his eyes, nodding. ‘Where is he?’
‘Gone …’
Riki came up beside Mat, putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘Where’s the rest of him?’ he whispered.
Mat shook his head. ‘Have a look, but be careful, Byron might still be here.’
Riki began looking about, down the slopes, while Mat bent until his ear was against Tamure’s mouth, scarcely breathing so as not to inhale the reek of death. ‘What happened?’
The reply emerged in slow, wheezing croaks, as if from far away. ‘They … took … me … Used … my blood … to trig … ger … the … quest … Left my … h-h-head … to … sc-scare … you.’
Mat felt his stomach churn — and his anger rise. He had rescued Tamure and Aroha together from Puarata’s prison, and had been impressed by Tamure’s clear wisdom and gentleness. Tamure was also a tohunga of great repute, whose legendary defeat of Kiki —a tale known in the modern world in a distorted form — had largely confined the tohunga makutu to Aotearoa. His death was a huge loss.
He sensed the remaining life draining away. How Tamure still clung to even this fragment of consciousness he couldn’t say. ‘What must I do?’ he whispered, calling to that remaining scrap of awareness.
‘Find … Aroha … Before … dawn …’
Tamure’s lips fluttered, his eyes blinking frantically. Mat reached out and stroked the tohunga’s cheek, even though his skin rebelled at the feel of the cooling skin, slick with blood.
‘Tests … Live … learn …’ Tamure’s eyes locked onto his, and Mat could sense the struggle to do even that. ‘Find … Aro … ha …’
Tamure’s lips fell still, and his eyelids dropped. Nothing further came from his mouth but a dribble of blood. He was gone.
Mat hung his head, blinking back tears. He died with his daughter’s name on his lips. He touched his right hand to his chest in respect. The fingers of his left hand fingers clenched around his taiaha, until his knuckles were white, his whole body trembling in anger.
If I can’t find love for Aroha, I at least have plenty of hate for Kikitoa.
‘Mat?’ Riki called. ‘I can’t find his body.’
Mat stepped back from the now lifeless head, his eyes glassy. ‘I don’t think it’s here.’ He let the flies buzz in again and settle, then raised his hands slowly, kindling more fire on Mahuika’s fingernails, then let the fire goddess’s powers flow. In a brilliant blaze that swept over the rock, the flies were consumed, and the head and the taiaha were engulfed. Th
e skull crumbled in seconds, but the taiaha remained, jutting from the stone, soaked in blood and preserved by some power from the flames.
Riki put a consoling hand on Mat’s shoulder. ‘What do we do now?’
Mat stared into space, feeling his resolve crystallising. No matter how little he truly felt for Aroha, he could never be a worse man than Byron Kikitoa. He would win, or die trying. ‘Kill our enemies. Find the girl. Save the world.’
Riki stepped back, looking at him gravely, as he would a teacher or a parent. All he said, though, was ‘Good plan, brother.’ He walked up to the taiaha that had borne the head, and pulled at it thoughtfully. To their surprise, it slid from the stone. It reminded Mat of the legend of King Arthur, and the sword in the stone. Riki examined the taiaha, then experimentally slammed it against a rock.
The rock shattered.
‘I might hang onto this.’ Riki left his own taiaha, one he’d carved in woodworking lessons at Boys’ High, in the hole instead. ‘Could come in handy.’
Mat gripped his own taiaha, that of Ngatoro, which had been bathed in sacred blood in Puarata’s lair, and set his jaw. Seeing Riki with a similar weapon eased his fears. ‘I’m sure he’d want you to have it.’
‘Who knows? But it fits my hands well. Shall we go?’
They walked cautiously together to the meeting house, conscious of the paua eyes of the carvings glaring down at them. The door was narrow and low, so that they needed to almost crawl through. Mat was hunching over to enter when Riki gripped his shoulder.
‘I’ll go first, bro. If Byron’s on the other side, best it’s me he whacks, so you get some warning and can smack him down.’
Mat frowned, but he could see that Riki was determined to play this role. ‘We’ll take turns.’
‘Sure, but I’m going first this time,’ Riki replied, with a flash of a grin. ‘My idea, see?’ He bent, prodded with his taiaha, then with a twist and shimmy he vanished inside.
Mat peered into the darkness. ‘Riki?’ No sound at all emerged from within. He waited, called again. ‘Riki?’ There was still nothing. Oh no.
Steeling himself, imagining all the dreadful things he might see, he bent, and clambered as swiftly as he could into the whare. He straightened immediately, taiaha in a guard position, heart thumping. Spun about slowly, eyes searching in the gloom.
He was within a traditional meeting house, with carved wall panels, and woven flax matting between the panels in red, white and black. A fire-pit lay in the middle of the hall, lit with a small fire, scarcely shedding more light than that of a candle. The flickering light seemed to make the carved faces on the panels move, their long extended tongues seeming to shift, their eyes to blink and follow him as he moved through the interior, not relaxing his wariness for a second.
‘Riki?’ he called softly. Then he shouted. ‘RIKI!!!’
But there was no sign of Riki, or anyone else. He was utterly alone.
Banshee wail
Tama Douglas was staring at his estranged wife — and trying to pretend that he wasn’t — when the ghostly sound came. Colleen was hunched over a sheet of parchment, pen in hand, carefully writing in the flowing script of the original Treaty, an almost perfect replica. She was almost done, and this one, the fiftieth or hundredth or whichever attempt, seemed perfect.
It was that little crease on her brow, of absolute concentration, that got to him. The one that said: ‘You have my utmost attention.’ The one that said she was totally present. He’d adored it, when it was focused on him.
I’ve never loved anyone else—
The thought was buried by the sudden cry in the darkness outside. A scream of utter desolation, yet filled with a palpable sense of menace. A cry to chill the heart.
It was Thursday night in Aotearoa and they were working late, the day having blurred past. Almost everyone had already left the old Government Buildings to go home to whatever afterlives they had. He and Carlisle had fended off the endless parade of politicians seeking time with them. The messages — flooding in from all over the country, promising that this or that signatory would come on Saturday morning for the re-signing ceremony — had finally petered out. That was less than thirty-six hours away now. Time moved the same in both worlds, and the weather was usually much the same, too: in which case real-world Wellington must be getting an absolute hammering, because this was the worst storm he could remember. Some gusts had the whole building shaking, and Carlisle had reported that a few windows had been blown in on the south side.
Colleen looked up at the sound of the cry. ‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ she said anxiously.
‘It might have just been the wind,’ he suggested, though his frayed nerves said otherwise.
‘If this was the Old Country, I’d be calling it the cry of a bean sídhe.’
‘A banshee? Don’t they—’
‘Foretell a death. Or many deaths.’
They turned, startled, as the door flew open. It was the bureaucrat, Carlisle, and for the first time since they’d met him he looked ruffled.
‘Sir, ma’am …’ His voice trailed away. ‘Something is out there.’ He went to the window, drew back the curtains and stared into the night. Then he stabbed a finger against the glass. ‘There!’
Tama joined him at the window, drawn by the open fear in Carlisle’s voice. As the lightning cracked, the cry sounded again. In the vivid flashes, he saw what had frightened the man.
A carved wooden head had been set upon a pole, facing the front of the building, and Tama could have sworn it was from this carving that the cry came. The Wooden Head … The legend of Puarata’s deathly Wooden Head sprang immediately to mind, especially as Tama could see a growing mass of wispy figures, pale as mist, gathered at the foot of the pole. Many were Maori, toa and even wahine, spectral and chilling. There were Pakeha, too; some in colonial army uniform, many just farmers or townsmen, clad in long coats and wearing brimmed hats. Their outlines were barely discernible, clearer in the dark than the light. As he watched, ice began to form at the base of the window, frond patterns crawling up the glass. Another burst of lightning struck, revealing a hunched old Maori man in a heavy cloak, clutching the pole and staring up at him. He raised an arm and pointed at Tama.
The ghostly swarm of men began to flow towards the building.
Colleen had come to his side, her trembling hand seizing his as she stared. He pulled her against him as he looked at Carlisle. ‘How many people are in the building?’
‘A few of the premiers are in the Cabinet Room; some staff downstairs, and in the kitchen. Perhaps eight or nine people.’
‘And weapons?’
Carlisle hesitated. ‘I’ve got half a dozen revolvers in a locked cupboard in my office.’
‘Then get them. Gather everyone in the Cabinet Room. I’ll alert the premiers.’
Carlisle hurried off, while Tama patted Colleen’s back. ‘My love, we have to move.’
She nodded, her face pressed to his chest. ‘I knew this place would be the death of us.’
Tama lifted her chin, smoothed her hair from her face, and kissed her pale lips. ‘We’re not dead yet.’
He pulled her with him, as they hurried to the office door, then suddenly she stopped and slipped from his grasp. ‘We mustn’t forget this,’ she exclaimed, running back to the desk and snatching up the Treaty forgery. She rolled it up, and he saw courage rekindle in her face as she found something constructive to focus on.
In the corridor, hurrying towards Tama from the Cabinet Room, was a portly man in a grey suit, balding with a lopsided smile. Tama has spent half the afternoon avoiding him. ‘Ah, the elusive Tama Douglas!’ His narrow eyes went to Colleen as she re-joined him. ‘And your good wife. Finally! I’ve spent days trying to meet you, ma’am, heh-heh. I want a word—’
‘There’s no time for this, Mr Muldoon,’ Tama snapped. ‘We’re under attack.’
The Cabinet Room door opened, and Seddon appeared, his big, burly form reassuringly solid. ‘Rob
, get back in here! I told you not—’
‘We’re under attack, Dick,’ Tama interrupted, as Colleen tucked the Treaty forgery into her jacket.
Seddon puffed up indignantly. ‘Under attack? By gad — who?’
‘A tohunga and a swarm of ghosts,’ Tama told them. No scoffing or ridicule greeted his words: this was Aotearoa. John Ballance peered around the door, his studious face animated.
‘I’ve seen them at the window, Dick. There’s more appearing every second.’
‘I’ve sent Carlisle to round up whoever is still here,’ Tama put in.
Footsteps hammered on the stairs at either ends of the corridor, and Carlisle appeared, a large satchel in his hands and a pair of bent old men with inky hands trailing after him, wheezing. From the other end, a thin, severe-faced cook appeared, a woman with a stained apron.
Seddon took charge, snatching the satchel from Carlisle and doling out the guns and belts of ammunition: one each for himself, Ballance, Tama and — after a moment’s hesitation — Muldoon. He left one with Carlisle, then dangled the final one. None of the old bureaucrats looked willing, nor the bony cook. Colleen reached for it.
Tama touched her shoulder. ‘Col?’
‘I’m Irish, Tama. I know how t’use one of these.’ Her voice was shaky, and the traces of her homeland evident again. She squinted at the ancient hammer and locking mechanism. ‘Not quite so old, though. Y’might have t’show us how to load it.’
‘It’s simple enough,’ Carlisle explained, handing out handfuls of bullets. ‘This is an early cartridge-using weapon, with automatic cocking and six chambers in the revolver. Just point and shoot. It would pay to hold it in both fists, though, ma’am: it’s got a fair kick.’
‘Right,’ Seddon said, stepping in. ‘We can’t defend the whole floor, let alone the building.’ He looked about him. ‘John, Carlisle, with me: we’ll take the northern stairs and corridor. Rob, Tama, the south end. Mrs Douglas, please stay here with Nelly and …’, he squinted at the two older men doubtfully, his expression blank, ‘… these two fellows.’