Guardian of the Dead (26 page)

Then we were standing in the middle of a creek that came up to my knees, long river grasses winding about my calves. Iris moaned, a low, wavering noise that cut off into abrupt sobs. Bare-limbed European trees stood on the banks, with the odd patch of green indicating a cabbage tree or pine. I peered through them and made out a familiar, squat, large structure, lit up by harsh white lights – the student-union building. We were in the part of the creek that the pub overlooked, but it seemed that no one had been out on the cold terrace at the time we appeared. At any rate, there weren't any cries of alarm.

Mark staggered and fell against me, dragging Iris with him. I stood, somehow, against their double weight, and shoved back until we were all righted again, and splashing towards the bank. We collapsed in a tangle of cold wet limbs and bruises.

‘Shelter,' Mark gasped.

‘We went under the earth,' I said.

‘My grandfather's work,' Mark said. ‘I couldn't do it.' His face was next to mine, his lips twisting bleakly. ‘We need to find somewhere to shelter. They can't easily come into a building ungreeted. It breaks protocol, saps their power.'

Shelter was a good idea for more than one reason. I was shivering so hard I had to clench my teeth against their chattering.

Iris hiccuped, and abruptly drew herself up. ‘I've still got my keys,' she said. ‘We'll go to the theatre.'

The student-union side of the riverbank was right by the pub, and in order to make it harder for drunk students to drown themselves, it was fenced off. We had to climb out on the university side and go the long way around, heading for the bridge. Iris had scraped her foot on something running barefoot, and couldn't walk properly. Over her weak protests, I got her to jump onto Mark's back.

I took her handbag, feeling a bizarre affection for the absurd scrap of black satin. It was soaked and stained, but it had, unlike my abandoned backpack, survived the evening.

The moon was nearly full and reassuringly clear in the sky, unclouded by tendrils of fog. I stared up at it as we began to trudge along, clutching the bag in numb fingers, humming along to the music the pub was still pumping into the still air. Then I jolted to a halt.

‘Mark.'

‘Yes?'

‘There's a woman in the moon.'

I could see her. She was clutching a scrubby tree, the roots dangling from her desperate grip. Enormous dark eyes seemed to meet mine, filled with an immense despair.

‘Yep,' Mark said. ‘There is.'

‘But that's—' I shied away from
impossible
. ‘She'd be too big!'

Iris looked. ‘I don't see anything, Ellie,' she said apologetically.

I walked forward, still staring. When I blinked the woman was gone, replaced by the familiar near-circle of the waxing moon. I blinked again and she reappeared, dark hair falling around her face. ‘She's so sad.'

‘She can't get back down,' Mark said. ‘She cursed the moon on a cloudy night, and so the offended moon took her away.'

‘I know the story,' I said absently. ‘She stubbed her toe.'

‘I know how she felt,' Iris said.

‘Look at the stars,' Mark suggested.

I did. They were only stars, at first, a misty swirl across the dark sky. It took a moment to make out the shapes between them, the curves suggested by their shadows, but when I saw the true picture I stopped walking altogether.

The sky was the body of a man, so large he defied comprehension, massive arms stretching yearningly towards the earth. He was clothed in a cloak woven of light. The stars were a gift, created by a son for his sorrowing father. Tears welled in my eyes and I had to look away. Mark's eyes met mine with ironic understanding.

‘Are all the stories true?' I asked. ‘Am I going to see this everywhere, all the time?'

‘You'll see the big stories, the ones that have formed the shape of the world around you. And you carry your own mythologies with you, so you can see the stories that are important to you, the ones that parts of you believe.'

I thought of the tall shelf of M
ori and Pacific Folklore, the Greek and Roman myths and legends that I'd devoured since I was seven, the Christian iconography I'd absorbed through my father's faith and from living in the West. Maybe even my old Superman comics. ‘
Only
those ones?'

His face was wistful. ‘It can be controlled.'

I shivered and turned to gaze again at Rangi the Sky-Father, poised above his unreachable wife in eternal solitude, and was not reassured.

It was impossible to look away from the radiance of the sky for long. Iris kept twisting to watch me anxiously, while Mark scanned the trees on either side of the road, fingers tugging at his charms.

‘Will they come after us again?' Iris asked, as we started over the footbridge.

‘Probably not you, if you stay away from us. They only want people with magic. People like Ellie.' He grimaced. ‘And me. Damn. She was right.'

‘At least your grandfather killed two.' She looked even paler. ‘When he bit them.'

‘Deep breaths,' Mark said quickly.

‘Oh, God, the
smell
.' She scrambled off Mark's back and hung over the railing, retching in convulsive shudders. Mark pulled her wet hair out of the way. Stirred by some vague impulse toward comforting her, I patted her back.

After a moment she wiped at her mouth. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘Don't be,' I said. ‘It was the grossest thing I've ever seen.' Clouds were blotting out the beautiful sky, and I found it easier to tear myself back to earth. Something twinged at the edge of my awareness. ‘Mark?'

Fog drifted up from the damp road, turning into a thick bank behind us. I could see two dark outlines coalescing in it. ‘Mark! They're here!'

He pushed past me and ran back to the road to guard the entrance to the bridge, braceleted arm up like a shield.

The taniwha had evidently taken out one more of the male patupaiarehe. The last of them came out of the mist limping on a torn calf, the blood almost as bright as his hair against his pale skin. His taiaha had been snapped to half its length; dark, viscous liquid gleamed on the broken end. But the silver-haired woman was whole and unharmed. She held her mere and watched Mark with calm certainty. The man stepped in front of her, brandished his spear-shaft, and issued a low cry of challenge.

Iris had made it to the end of the bridge by hauling herself along the railing, but she fell trying to make her wounded feet take her weight. I reached for her.

‘I can't,' she panted. ‘I can't, I can't, please, just run!'

I shoved the handbag into her hands and hauled her to her feet, thrusting my arm around her waist, my shoulder screaming at the strain. The scratches on my back were aflame, new agony with a harder edge, and I unceremoniously dropped her on the wet asphalt. I was suddenly terrified that I would faint and certain that if I lifted her again, we'd both go down.

‘Mark!' I shrieked.

He whirled, his braceleted wrist flung out towards us, and shouted a word. It gave Iris strength; she tore from my grip and sped straight for the theatre's back door, pale feet flashing in the murky air like fish glimpsed darting through a silted creek. I spared no further thought on the miracle.

Belly clenching in fear, I ran back over the bridge to stand with Mark as the red-haired man attacked.

I'd never been in a real fight before, not with weapons and people who wanted me dead, and my first panicked impulse was to throw myself forward and batter at them blindly. But years of training held firm, and I slid into place, perfectly balanced.

The patupaiarehe's taiaha spun and struck and thrust, and I managed not to die. It helped that he was already hurt, and that he wasn't used to the shorter length of his weapon, but he was still insanely quick and unhesitatingly fierce. I blocked three blows to my head that smacked my right arm numb from elbow to wrist, and deflected a stab to my gut with my left hand. Brain whirring automatically through the forms, I tried to follow with a strike, but he stepped back to the limit of his weapon range, far beyond where my feet and fists could reach him. Even with the broken taiaha, he could bring me down long before I could land a blow on him.

I screamed a war cry, desperately denying that I was about to die.

‘Down,' Mark said behind me, magic burring through the eerie calm of his voice and I dropped awkwardly to the gravel. White light crackled over my head and tore the taiaha from my enemy's hand.

He was shocked for one second too long, and fear gave me speed.

With screaming muscles and throbbing back I rose, big hips twisting, and sank my left foot into his gut. He folded over as sweetly as any opponent in the ring, and I flowed smoothly into the axe-kick I would never use in a proper match – one with pads and headgear and no one trying to kill me or my friends. Remorseless, my heel in its heavy black shoe crashed down on his bare skull.

He flopped facedown onto the asphalt path, blood from his wounded leg spreading watery pink over the frost.

I twisted to face my next opponent, sobbing, but the silver-haired woman was gone, vanished back into the mists.

‘Run,' Mark said calmly, and together we pelted up over the bridge and up the theatre steps, where Iris was watching, and holding the door open for us.

Mark dragged the couch in front of the glass door and then slumped onto it with Iris. We were dripping every- where, and our breath hung white in the frigid air of the green room.

‘Showers,' I said. ‘Showers and fresh clothes.'

‘What clothes?' Iris said vaguely, and then sat up, indignation cutting through the fatigue. ‘Ellie! Not the costumes!'

‘It's that or hypothermia,' I said ruthlessly, and went hunting through the dressing rooms. Mark was easy – Demetrius was stouter and shorter, but a close-enough fit, and his Edwardian layers would be warm enough. Iris could wear one of the fairy bodysuits, and Carrie's skirts and blouses. Kevin's Theseus costume wasn't finished; I had to settle for the trousers and rough shirts and jackets of the rude mechanicals. Typical.