by Joanna Orwin
To make matters worse, the big youth from Hara and his cronies accosted him as the dancers filed off the performance area.
Beefy arms folded across his chest, Matu blocked his path. ‘Didn’t your mate reckon you were one of the main dancers?’
‘Yeah,’ said one of his companions. ‘How come you were in the back line, Repo scum?’
Taka muttered Something noncommittal. Where was Kai when he needed him? Matu was grinning. ‘People keep asking why they haven’t seen you dance solo again.’
‘Oh — that.’ Taka knew he needed to stand up to this oaf. ‘That was different.’ He searched for Something more convincing to add as Matu’s grin widened. ‘It was the final welcome dance. You Hara lot were the last to arrive.’
‘Seems strange, though, “you Repo lot” not repeating that welcome at the gathering.’ Matu’s brow wrinkled in mock puzzlement. ‘This other stuff’s nothing like as dramatic.’
His companions sniggered.
‘Maybe not,’ said Taka. ‘We’re expected to perform the traditional dances of homage at the gathering.’ Too late, he saw Matu’s eyes gleam triumphantly.
‘So, what you did down at the landing wasn’t traditional? Being a bad boy, were you?’
One of the others chipped in. ‘Is that why you’re dancing in the back line now?’
‘Stands to reason, doesn’t it? I heard that the dance master is his father.’ Matu thrust his face right into Taka’s, his breath rank with the fish he’d eaten. ‘Why else wouldn’t he want such a fancy-footer where you can be seen properly?’
Keeping in mind Kai’s warning, Taka took a step back. He shut his mouth firmly, determined not to react.
Matu watched him for a moment, then turned away, making a dismissive gesture. ‘Nothing to say? Not only a show-off. A snivelling coward.’
Smarting with mortification, Taka watched the Hara youths swagger off. It didn’t help to realize he’d been carefully led into a trap. This was Something else Kai had got wrong: Matu wasn’t thick at all.
The night before the full moon, those families with young men eligible for the Choosing didn’t stay at the gathering place for the evening’s festivities. After the shared meal, they returned to the comparative privacy of their small shelters to spend what might be their last evening together. Taka was infected with Kai’s moroseness. The whole year had been a series of calamities and complications. The expectations aroused by the return of the sky-gods and the bright colours they cast over the land had dwindled in the face of their growing hunger. Now, nothing about this Choosing festival was matching his expectations.
This was certainly the last night Hina would spend with her family. After the Choosing she would stay on here at Ra-Hou with the Council of Wise Ones to learn all the rituals. She already seemed someone far removed from his beloved older sister, there for him whenever he needed her quiet strength. As a Wise One, she would belong to no one — or to everyone. His mother’s accepting sadness at Hina’s looming future cut him to the quick. Only that morning, he’d caught her smoothing his sister’s last piece of weaving before she held it to her nose, smelling the faint scent left by Hina’s fingers. When Whi saw him watching, she quickly turned to put the piece of fabric away, but not before he caught the wet shine of tears on her cheeks. To his dismay, Moho was equally glum. At practice, the dance master dismissed the dancers early, saying grumpily they would not perform that evening.
Taka joined his father to keep him company on the walk back to the shelters. Moho merely nodded as his son fell in beside him, but said nothing. As they made their way down the path, Taka wracked his brains, silently testing and discarding topic after topic in an effort to find Something cheering to say.
Eventually, partly to reassure himself, he said, ‘It’s not that bad, surely? Hina comes back to Ra-Repo in a few years when our Wise One steps down, and we’ll see her at the spring festivals each year.’
Moho glanced at him. ‘True enough. But it’s not only Hina, is it? You seem to be forgetting that we face losing both of you.’
‘I thought you’d be pleased to see the back of me.’ Taka spoke partly in jest, but his father had no need to be concerned. Just about every youth he’d met at Ra-Hou this week seemed more likely to be chosen as a Traveller than him. That Hara hulk, Matu, would be seen as a better prospect. Even ironic, steady Kai had every chance of being chosen, although he had no desire to be a Traveller. Moho gripped Taka’s shoulder and forced him to stop walking. ‘Don’t say such things. Don’t even think them. We sometimes fall out, and your behaviour sometimes disappoints me, but you’re still my son.’
Made uncomfortable by the emotion in his father’s voice, Taka said lightly, ‘Well, my behaviour makes it a sure bet I won’t get chosen.’
He made to move on, but Moho stood still. His father looked at him, not saying anything. Taka shrugged. ‘What? What have I said now?’
His father sighed. ‘It’s not a betting matter. You’ve just as much chance of being chosen as anyone else.’
Something in his voice alerted Taka. He said slowly, ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
‘I assumed you would’ve worked it out by now.’ Moho hesitated, then said, ‘There’s no reason or rule that says you can’t be told what happens. The Choosing is entirely random. Each candidate draws a pebble from Raranga’s woven basket, one pebble for each of you. Most are black, but ten are white. Those who draw the white pebbles become the ten Travellers.’
There was silence while Taka absorbed this. His father repeated his words, his voice bleak. ‘You’ve got just as much chance of being chosen as anyone else.’
Taka couldn’t help it. Excitement fizzed in his veins, his stomach performed flips, his heart was skipping beats. The moment was here at last. With the other eligible youths, close to one hundred of them, he was being taken up the sacred mountain. Ahead of them, the Wise Ones climbed the narrow path steadily, feeling the way with their long staffs. The candidates followed, one by one, so close together that Taka saw the sweat trickle down the back of the youth in front of him, smelt the rancid reek of fear. Trepidation briefly dried his mouth and made his heart hammer before excitement took over again. He knew the thought was unworthy, but he was glad Hina was not accompanying the Wise Ones. This was his moment of destiny.
Higher and higher they climbed, for the first time going beyond the sky-talker, beyond the clattering, wind-frayed fronds of the ti trees that guarded the path. On up through the storm-sculpted manu scrub, following the Wise Ones until they emerged on the barren rock platform that was the summit of Hou.
Taka was higher than he had ever been before. Below him, the swamplands spread out to the west and north as far as he could see, a laid-out mat of misted, dull greens stitched by the dark, tangled threads of the water ways. To the south, the silhouetted, sinister cones of the still-smoking mountains and Mahui’s ash pillars. The mysterious land of ancient Aotea. No matter how hard he gazed, he couldn’t make out any distinct features. The setting sun had drawn a cloak of blurred, deepening shadow across the face of the southern land, hiding its secrets. Disappointed, he slowly turned away, then looked east. To the sea.
He drank in a swirling palette of colour, richer and more vivid than any pattern woven by Whi or Hina. Below Hou, where the land ended and the river entered the sea, swamp-black streaks mixed with pale greens and ochre yellow, the colours further out darkening through deeper greens and blues until they merged in the distance into softer blue overlaid with a shimmering web of light. His gaze lifted to the eastern horizon, where water met air, where the strands of light condensed to form the gleaming border of the world. He drew in an awed breath as he registered the immensity of the Great Ocean. Tanga’s domain. Vast, infinite, unknown.
Now, as the sky dimmed and the brightest of the first evening stars became visible, the old women and their attendants prepared them for the Choosing.
Stripped naked, the youths bathed in rain water collected in the natural rock basins tha
t dimpled the summit platform. The water caressed Taka’s skin, soft and cool, as he emptied the brimming calabash over himself three times, as required by the ritual. He could feel the weight of his hair lying damp and loose against his shoulder blades. When they finished bathing, the Wise Ones brought them bowls of clear liquid and bade them drink. He grimaced as the slight bitterness tingled on his tongue, then obediently drained the bowl. Kai followed suit beside him, not responding to any of his muttered asides. It wasn’t long before Taka, too, became quiet, caught up in the growing solemnity of the ritual and his awareness that ten lives would soon change irrevocably. All around him, the nervous whispered jokes and occasional muffled burst of laughter faded to silence.
Before the last, pale wash of evening fading on the western horizon could be overcome by the uncompromising light of a full moon, the Wise Ones led them in the first part of the familiar chant that accompanied all their rituals:
In the beginning, the light
Tender dawn light
Evening soft light
Clear light
Sun-gilded light
Cloud-diffused light
Rain-washed light
Moon shadow-sharp light
Star light
Life.
His thoughts calm now, immersed in the ritual, Taka watched the moon lift above the border of the world. As the gleaming disc cleared the sea and revealed its full splendour, he choked back a gasp of amazement. The moon had changed colour. Instead of the bright, glistening silver they had observed in each of the six months since the skies cleared, this moon was rimmed by intense indigo-blue, its interior mottled with lighter shades of blue and green. As the eerily blue moon rose steadily above the sea, casting a silver-blue path on the darkening water, he couldn’t help whispering to Kai, still standing beside him, ‘It’s a sign sent by the gods!’
The blue moon climbed higher, until it gathered pace as it rolled across the night sky. Although the colours lost their intensity, the austere light was still tinged blue. It created strange shadows on his companions’ bare skin and lit a blue gleam in their eyes. Taka shivered. They looked like ghostly apparitions waiting to enter the Under-World.
Unperturbed, almost as though they expected some sign from the sky-gods, the Wise Ones waited until the youths settled again, then carried on with the ritual. As the hours went by, the preparation for the Choosing proceeded, stately and unhurried. Soon the only sounds Taka could hear were the low, tranquil voices of the old women, interspersed with the whisper of a small wind that stirred below them in the manu scrub, then brushed his slightly sweaty skin with cold fingertips. Absorbed by the hypnotic ritual and the slowly passing hours, he gradually descended deeper and deeper into a trance-like state. He felt entirely alone, aware of the others only as insubstantial shapes that moved when he moved, quiet background voices that murmured with his when they responded to the signal to chant.
At some point in the long night, the blue moon was engulfed by a dense mass of black cloud spreading rapidly from the west. As its light was briefly eclipsed and the night turned black, without even the glimmer of a star, Mahui’s fire signs far to the south glowed blood-red. While the lines of youths chanted, Taka’s eyes were drawn to these signs, a reminder that the ancient words were true words:
Then, came the dark
Towering dark
Billowing dark
Fire-shot dark
Rock-rumbling dark
Smothering dark
Suffocating dark
Light-defeating dark
Winter dark
Death.
That final word sent its single drumbeat echoing out into the night long after the moon re-emerged from behind the concealing cloud.
The solitary note of a waking bird at last signalled the approach of dawn. They waited while the first rays of the sun crept across the sea below. Taka watched the tide of light spread up the mountain slope towards them, replacing the moon-shadows with those of the day. The welcome heat of the sun warmed his chilled skin as the Wise Ones led them in the final part of the chant, with its message of hope:
Slow, the returning light
Dimmed light
Shadow light
Stealth light
Skin-touched light
Earth-stirring light
Shoot up-thrusting light
Leaf-unfolding light
Life-giving light
Rebirth.
It was time for the Choosing.
Taka’s eyes were bound shut with a soft swathe of fabric. The early sun warmed the nape of his neck, exposed now that his hair was tied back with a fillet of flax. His arms hung relaxed by his side, his mind emptied of all thought, his breathing deep and steady. He could hear a bird in the scrub below, its song coming up the slope in disconnected trills as it flitted from twig to twig. He could hear the rhythm of Kai’s slow breathing beside him. He could feel every grain in the rough-textured rock, dew-cold and tingling against the soles of his bare feet. He could smell the dry, grassy tang of the new waist mat slung around his hips. The very air was scented, a heady mixture of sunlight, salt and aromatic manu leaves. Despite the long night without sleep or sustenance, he felt alive in a way he had not known before, not even when he danced.
The Wise Ones were making their slow way along the lines of waiting youths, each blindfolded like him. He could hear the soft shuffle of the old women’s sandals on the rock, the tap of their staffs seeking out hazards, the repeated brief murmur of their thready voices. A pause, followed by that shuffle, tap, tap, coming closer. The faint chink of shifting pebbles joined the sounds, the barely perceptible rustle of woven flax.
It was his turn. An old hand, soft, wrinkled skin slipping loosely over hard finger bones, guided his own hand onto the firm, curved rim of a basket. This time he made out the murmured words: ‘May Raranga guide and protect you.’
Taka thrust his hand deep among the smooth shapes of rounded pebbles that slid past each other as his groping fingers brushed against their slightly pitted surfaces. Nothing distinguished one from the other. Slowly, he folded his fingers around the pebble nestling against the palm of his hand. Slowly, he withdrew his hand, the securely held pebble already losing its chill as it absorbed warmth from his flesh. Before long, he couldn’t separate stone from skin. The pebble had become part of him.
Time passed. The Wise Ones told them to remove their blindfolds. Taka fumbled one-handed with the fastening at the back of his head. The cloth fell away, and he blinked, momentarily dazzled by the brightness of the sun. Vaguely, he sensed Kai standing next to him, but his whole being was focused on the pebble in his hand, its weight palpable now. A quiet voice told them to look at what they each held.
Trembling, Taka slowly opened his fingers. It seemed whole moments passed before he could force his eyes to focus on the pebble lying on the palm of his hand. The small, round object gleamed, its pearly surface alive with bright clear crystals that reflected the light. Uncomprehending, he stared at it.
The pebble was white. The gods had granted him his childhood dream.
Chapter 6
Only the ten who held the white pebbles remained on the summit of Hou. Taka didn’t notice the others slip away. He barely registered the soft murmurs of disappointment mingled with dawning relief as the Wise Ones directed the others to the path that would take them back to the waiting people below, back to normal life. He stared at his pebble for a long time. When he at last raised his eyes, he met the steady gaze of his cousin. Kai. Still there. One of those remaining on the summit of Hou.
Wordlessly, Kai showed him the white pebble lying on his own palm. The hollow numbness that held Taka in its grip was replaced by a wild surge of Something approaching joy. A slow smile broke on his face. They were both to be Travellers. Their lives and their futures were still bound together. And out there an unknown world waited for them. Adventure and freedom.
Kai looked soberly at him, unable to smile back. ‘If we’re going to die yo
ung, I’m glad that at least we’ll die together.’
‘Who says we’re going to die?’ Taka wouldn’t let his cousin dampen his growing elation. ‘Who knows what adventures lie ahead of us? Aren’t you in the least bit excited?’
Kai sighed. ‘I’d set my heart on an ordinary life at Ra-Repo, catching eels, marrying someone. Bringing up a family.’
‘Anyone can do that,’ said Taka firmly. ‘Becoming a Traveller makes us special.’
He grew aware that someone was watching them. With a start, he recognized the heavy-set youth from Hara. His heart skipped a beat as he realized what that meant: Matu had also drawn a white pebble.
As soon as Matu knew they had seen him, he came to join them. He did not come in friendship. ‘Don’t think this changes anything.’ A scowl darkened his face. ‘I’m the most senior here. I intend being the leader of the Travellers. You Repo scum better toe the line.’
Taka scowled back. ‘We’ll see about that.’
‘Close your foolish mouths, both of you.’ Kai intervened as they fronted up to each other, hackles raised like dogs disputing territory. ‘Who knows what’s in store for us? Whatever it is, we won’t survive if we’re at loggerheads with each other.’
‘Who are you calling foolish?’ Matu wheeled to face Kai.
When Kai stood his ground unflinching, staring calmly back at him, the Hara youth eventually turned away with a grunt. ‘Ah — you’re not worth the effort.’ He stomped off, saying over his shoulder, ‘Not that I’ll forget you said that.’
