The Bone Tiki (18 page)

They stared at the map.

‘That’ll take us to about twenty kilometres south of the cape, won’t it?’ asked Kelly.

‘Yes,’ replied Wiri.

‘Which side should we be on?’ Mat asked. He could still feel the draining effect of the last two shifts, and the thought of doing another one…

‘We’ll stay on this side for now. Until we can get closer to the cape, and see what’s waiting for us.’

What’s waiting for us,
thought Mat weakly. It wasn’t an encouraging thought. He leant back.

‘Get some more sleep, brother. We’re going to drive some more, try and get through Kaitaia about midnight. That way, we’ll avoid any watchers picking which road we take from there.’

Mat nodded. Despite the food and drink, he felt weak, as if he were recovering from a dose of flu. He stroked the cool greenstone of the koru knot, and let his mind wander. His mother’s face drifted past his eyes, murmuring
encouragement. His father too, united in concern for him. ‘Be brave, son,’ they said together. He took the thought down into sleep.

He awoke at dawn, jolted by the movement of the RAV4 as it left the road.

‘Ahipara,’ said Wiri. ‘We’re at Ahipara, where the tourists can access the beach. And now, we’ve only eighty-eight kilometres, or fifty-five miles, of sand and we’ll be nearly there.’

‘Fifty-five? I thought it was ninety—as in “Ninety Mile Beach”?’ said Kelly.

Wiri chuckled. ‘That’s Pakeha counting for you. Ninety Mile Beach is only eighty-eight kilometres long, which is actually fifty-five miles in the old imperial measurement.’

They were at the bottom of a gentle northward curve, and the sun was rising into a cloudless sky. The air was warm, and the shadows on the beach lifted with each passing second, revealing a golden expanse that disappeared into a haze to the north. The beach was wide, with the sand close to the edge of the ocean firmly packed. When Mat set out, he’d been looking at the Pacific Ocean from Hawke Bay in the east, and now here he was, just a few days later, hundreds of kilometres to the north, and looking westward at the Tasman Sea. Kelly pushed her foot down, and the RAV4 surged down to the water line. The beach was clear and unspoiled, and empty as far as the eye could see. Wiri whooped as they picked up speed, and Mat felt an urge to yell. Only Kelly looked grim, her mind no doubt where it always seemed to
be—looking ahead with dread to the moment when Wiri’s spirit was thrown from this life into whatever lay beyond. Wiri tried to involve her, to make her laugh, and often did, but she always lapsed into an ever-more painful silence. But she drove them on, and after a while Mat realised it was just about the bravest thing he’d ever seen.

The day was as blue and clear as the morning suggested, but the beach wasn’t empty. They surged past fishermen—some Maori, using primitive-looking nets and gourds, some European, waving cheerily holding elaborate modern lines. Mat wondered briefly at the number of people and goods that seemed to flow between the two worlds. But mostly he wondered where his mother was, fingering the pendant, chewing his nails, trying not to let his eyes sting with tears.

‘Sometimes people cross over, without ever realising,’ Wiri said. ‘This land is so beautiful and unspoilt in some places it’s never really separated into New Zealand and Aotearoa. In some special places it’s one and the same.’

Mat liked that thought. ‘If I get out of this alive, I’m going to explore them both.’

Wiri nodded. ‘You do that, brother. You do that.’

The beach was a thin strip of paradise. The dunes banked higher and higher on the right, and Mat half-wished they could pull over and play. The thought of sliding and rolling down the mountains of sand was wonderful.

Out to sea, they glimpsed huge creatures—sea-taniwha, or maybe whales—crashing amongst the waves. Inland, a
massive tuatara, as big as the RAV4, watched them hum past from the crest of a dune. Gulls swirled above, diving for fish. They seemed the same as any from his own world and Mat wondered if they flew in both worlds.

He looked up, and noticed an even larger gull swooping toward them on the landward side, coming from the northeast. He stared for a few seconds, then grabbed Kelly’s shoulder. ‘Stop! Stop!’

‘Wassup?’ Kelly asked as she braked.

He pointed, as the RAV4 lurched to a halt in the sand. They got out, as the gull banked, and called, ‘Kia-ora, my friends!’

‘Fitzy!’

The turehu landed with an ostentatious flourish of his wings, and immediately took goblin form, waddling across the sands, grinning broadly. Wiri swept him up in an embrace, and after some hesitation, Mat joined them, and found himself carrying the turehu in his arms like an overgrown toddler. Kelly looked at them oddly, still obviously disturbed by the turehu’s fluid form. But he was heavy, so Mat held him out and dumped him into her arms. Fitzy threw his stubby arms about her neck and kissed her cheek. She flinched slightly, then kissed him back, and he beamed over pointy teeth. He looked highly excited, and desperate to tell them where he’d been.

‘Finally found you all! I’ve looked everywhere, and then when I finally realised what you were doing I was a long way behind. You’re doing well, but the tohunga makutu is ahead of you.’

‘What about the others?’ asked Wiri. ‘And how did you escape, little man?’

‘Man? Don’t call me a man! I am more than a man, in every way!’

Kelly looked at Mat. ‘I still liked him better when he was a dog.’

Fitzy folded his arms. ‘Do you want to know what happened or not?’

‘Just tell us,’ urged Mat impatiently. ‘Did you see my parents? Are Manu and Captain Spriggs OK? How did you escape?’

Fitzy threw up his hands. ‘OK, OK. Put me down, little wahine,’ he told Kelly.

‘Who are you calling little, squirt?’ retorted Kelly as she dropped Fitzy onto the bonnet of the RAV4. He sat there like a Buddha, and blew her a kiss. ‘I know you love me really, Kelly darling.’ Then he beamed at them. ‘I have news, my friends. Three items of good news, and three of bad news. The bad news first. Donna Kyle is laid out cold in hospital and won’t be joining us for the remainder of this expedition.’

‘How disappointing,’ remarked Kelly. ‘The bitch is still alive.’

‘You can’t have everything,’ said Fitzy lightly. ‘Second bit of bad news—those two trouble-makers Tim Spriggs and Manu are alive, and have had to leave the hospitality of Miss Kyle.’

Wiri let out a sigh of relief.

‘And finally, the third piece of bad news is that by taking
this detour, you’ve missed a welcome party Puarata had planned for you near Kaitaia.’

‘What a shame,’ grinned Kelly.

Fitzy took a deep breath and became more solemn. ‘However, the good news is also bad. When Puarata realised you had evaded him he immediately drove north and is waiting for you at Cape Reinga.’

Wiri nodded. ‘That isn’t unexpected. What else?’

‘I flew near the cape and noticed strange lights in the sky, including a huge rainbow, so I think Puarata is planning an even bigger celebration to greet your arrival. And finally, he has your parents with him, Mat. I think he’s intending to threaten us with harm to them should the tiki not be returned. I am sorry.’

They absorbed that in silence. Mat felt bleak despair. How on earth could they get the tiki to the pohutukawa now? How could any of them get out of this alive? It seemed hopeless.

Kelly looked at Fitzy. ‘Couldn’t you fly the tiki up, and toss it into the bush yourself? You have a much better chance of sneaking through than we do.’

Fitzy shook his head regretfully. ‘I have the same problem as Wiri. I can’t touch the tiki. It has been made so that only living humans can touch it.’ He passed his hand through the pendant to emphasise the point, his fingers not even snagging on its thong.

Kelly looked disappointed. ‘Why don’t we just go somewhere else,’ she suggested. ‘They can’t wait up there for us forever. We could come back when the chase has died down.’

‘We could,’ agreed Wiri. ‘But by then my village will have been destroyed by Hauhau, and Puarata will have time to bring more of his allies north. He has other apprentices besides Donna Kyle. They will be coming to him, and once they join their powers to his, he will be able to break through Mat’s screening of our whereabouts, and we won’t be able to hide. And our heading for Reinga was at least unexpected this time round. It will never be as easy again. I am afraid that it is now, or never.’

Fitzy bobbed his head in agreement. ‘I have felt them coming up the island behind us, sniffing us out. Things of the myth-lands that move slowly, but are deadly if they catch us. The Bird-Witch. Patupaiarehe. All allies of Puarata, summoned to his aid. If we wait, they will be on us. There is a malevolent storm following behind. Pause, and we shall be engulfed.’

Kelly put her face into her hands. Wiri put a hand on her shoulder but she shook it of and walked away, down to the sea. Wiri watched her, flinching at the miserable look on her face, before turning back to the turehu.

‘Did you see how Puarata has arranged his forces at Reinga?’

‘I saw a little,’ the turehu replied. ‘I couldn’t stay long or I would have been noticed. But I saw something which gives us hope. He has had to spread forces over both worlds, because he doesn’t know in which world we will come. In the real world, he has Mat’s father, held by gunmen, supervised by one of his apprentices.

‘In Aotearoa, he has more apprentices, and has tied Mat’s
mother to some sort of power totem.

Mat felt his legs tremble, and Wiri put an arm around his shoulders. He held onto the warrior gratefully.

Wiri’s face hardened. ‘We must move onward, and make what plans we can.’ He called to Kelly, who came back looking pale and red-eyed, but she took the wheel of the RAV4 again, and with Fitzy in dog form in the back with Mat, they drove on along the beach toward the north. Midmorning they reached the northern end of the beach, and realised they were going to have to turn inland.

‘Look for a river mouth,’ Wiri said. ‘A stream winds inland, back to the main road.’

They found it soon afterward, and stopped to eat. Mat didn’t feel hungry. Soon he might have to shift the RAV4 again, maybe more than once. The final showdown was coming. Puarata was waiting with Tupu and Puarata’s other followers. His parents were hostages, weapons to be used against him.

‘Let me tell you of the cape,’ said Wiri, after they had all eaten. ‘I’ve never been there, but I have listened to all the legends and stories and read about it, hoping it was my salvation. It is a wild place. The road climbs and dips through dense bush, until it comes to a high ridge. In New Zealand there is a tourist centre, restricting access. No such thing exists in Aotearoa, but people still don’t go there. It is a haunted place, where the dead depart. It is sacred, tapu.

‘You then go north, to a rocky headland, which in New Zealand holds a lighthouse. From there you can see where
the oceans meet. The Tasman Sea flows from the west, around Cape Maria van Diemen, and collides with the Pacific Ocean, which is higher, and the two break against each other like a wave. You can see the line of spray, a white line where the spirits of the two oceans contend, far out to sea.

‘From the lighthouse, it is a short walk to the Place of Departing, which is the same on both sides—but only on the Aotearoa side will you see the spirits, as they drift pale and lost, ever northward, until they find the pohutukawa, the fire-tree that opens the gate to the next world.’

They looked north, and Mat squinted. Somehow the light was refracting, forming a huge rainbow in the clear sky. Puarata, he thought. Puarata is waiting for us, and he is prepared.

They drove warily inland along the stream, until it hit the main road. It was little more than a dirt track. The bush was thick and damp, the air still and humid. Wiri got out and ran a little way south, peering down the track. Then he went north toward the cape, and did the same, returning ten minutes later, while Kelly and Mat waited tensely. ‘No one,’ he said tersely as he got back into the RAV4. Kelly looked across at him with wet eyes, and leaned over quickly to kiss him on the mouth, then pulled away. Mat took a deep breath, and looked out the window, fighting back a sudden stinging in his eyes.

They sat there for several minutes, without a word, until Mat couldn’t stand it any more. Even Fitzy looked
uncomfortable. The turehu was in his goblin shape, staring out the window. ‘Can we go now?’ he asked, desperate to get underway.

Kelly looked at Wiri. ‘First, can I ask just one last thing. Please?’ Her voice was low and serious.

Wiri nodded.

‘We won’t have time later, and I need to know. Tell me about Wai-aroha.’

Wiri looked at her, and then at Mat. ‘Are you sure?’

Kelly hesitated, then nodded firmly.

Wiri closed his eyes, looking tired, and as ancient as Hakawau. ‘Puarata took me to Wellington, in 1964, in July. Winter time. It was cold and wet, and the wind was enough to strip your clothes and freeze you naked. We had been there before, to study, and for Puarata to mix and mingle with powerful men of your world—Maori politicians, Pakeha businessmen. But this trip he was looking for recruits.

‘He had taken several apprentices over the previous decades. Most were not strong enough to cope and ended up dead. Some, like Donna Kyle, have proved worthy. He recruited her around 1960. There are others, not many. Most failed.

‘He looks for artistic talent and anger. The artistry shows imagination—it is vital that a sorcerer can imagine things, and imagine them richly, so those things can be brought into being. Puarata used to make them imagine fire, and try to use that visualisation to make real fire. This was after he had given them ointments and potions that would either kill them, or make them into a sorcerer. The potion was distilled
from the blood of the fairy folk—from patupaiarehe and turehu. The drinker’s body would either accept the potion, or die. Donna lived, as did others. Most didn’t.

‘There was a young artist he believed had potential—a mean-spirited little man called Francis Scoreson. Puarata told me to get close to him if I could, to ascertain his demeanour. He arranged for me to be introduced to Scoreson. Puarata himself was too busy with the politicians, so I was on my own. I was still rebellious, looking for ways to escape. I’m sure he sensed this, because he gave me very tight instructions. I couldn’t mention him, I couldn’t talk to others unless I had to, I couldn’t talk about myself, I could do nothing that would arouse suspicion. I was fenced in with “do nots” but for once, this worked in my favour.