Moon Mask

by James Richardson

  Upon making landfall, however, Ngatoro headed into Te Puku o Te Ika a Maui- The Belly of the Great Fish of Maui- the heart of the North Island which, according to legend, the demigod Maui had pulled from beneath the ocean while fishing. On his journey to secure territory for his ancestors, Ngatoro committed many great feats.

  On the summit of Mount Tauhara, he thrust his staff into the earth and a freshwater spring flowed forth. Of the newly formed lake at the foot of the mountain, he declared that it would forever more be the drinking water of his grandchildren. He then tore a feather from his cloak and placed it in the water where it transformed into the Koaro, a type of whitebait which the Maori had fished ever since.

  Everywhere he went, he stamped his foot and fresh-water springs would bubble to the surface but, while crossing the plains of Tarawera, he was confronted by an atua, a demon named Tamaohoi, and they fought. Eventually, Ngatoro stamped his foot and opened a chasm in the ground into which he thrust Tamaohoi, thus creating the volcanic rent of Mount Tarawera.

  But, it was as he made his ascent of Mount Tongariro, overcoming many challenges, that he was at last overcome by the God of the Wind, Tawhirimatea.

  “As the god hurled ice and snow at him, Ngotoro began to freeze to death,” Rawiri told the tourists in the boat. “He fell to his knees, his hair matted with snow, his eyes frozen open. Ice began to cover his body. His heart began to slow. Death was upon him.”

  His words drifted into the eerie mist, swallowed by the gloom. It had descended from nowhere, drifting in to blot out the sun and, while it added to the atmospheric effect of his storytelling, he knew that if it grew much thicker they would have to paddle back to shore or risk getting lost on the lake. Roughly twenty five square miles, the lake covered a vast area at the foot of the volcano of the same name.

  There was silence. Not a breath of air rippled the water. No one dared speak, or even breathe. All eyes were on him, waiting for him to continue.

  “Kuiwai e!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs, rising to his full height and projecting his voice out across the lake. The canoe rocked beneath the motion, made more extreme by the startled jumping of the tourists. Tipene and Rui struggled to keep the vessel steady with their oars.

  “Haungaroa e!” he shouted again. Now, the panicked tourists began to laugh at their own nervousness, enjoying their guide’s animation. “Ka riro au i te Tonga. Tukuna mai tea hi!”

  He slowly slid back down to his previous position, hunched in the bow of the boat, smiling at his audience. “Oh Kui! Ngotoro called to his sisters, Kuiwai and Haungaroa, across the sea in Hawaki,” he explained, translating his outburst. “Oh Hau! I have been captured by the southern winds. Send me fire!

  “And so his sisters,” he continued, “filled six baskets with the glowing embers from the Sacred Fire of Ruaumoko, the God of the Volcano, and sent the demigods Te Hoata and Te Pupa across the great ocean to deliver them to their brother. Te Hoata and Te Pupa travelled beneath the Pacific, spreading the Sacred Fire. They surfaced at Whakaari- White Island- to get their bearings but the embers set fire to the island and the fire still burns beneath it to this day. Then the demigods continued on, travelling underground, beneath Moutohora, Rotoiti, here, at Tarawera, then to Rotorua and Taupo before finally bursting forth out of the summit of Tongariro. But, by then, only one basket of the Sacred Fire remained and Ngatoro became angry, unable to revive himself with such little warmth. In his rage, he stomped his feet twice, shaking the earth and the embers of the Sacred Fire erupted to life, unleashing the power of Ruaumoko, the God of Volcanoes, upon Aotearoa! And, to this day, that power remains, barely contained within the ground beneath our feet.”

  He fixed his eyes on several of his party, enjoying the attention two British girls paid to his hard abdomen and muscle-bound chest.

  “The passage of Te Hoata and Te Pupa can still be seen today, in the line of geothermal fire which stretches from the Pacific Ocean to what geologists call the ‘Taupo Volcanic Zone’. This area,” he explained, opening his ring-binder of visual aides and showing the group the laminated map of the North Island, “is almost two hundred and twenty miles long and thirty miles wide and is one of the most active areas of volcanic activity in the world. Only six miles beneath our feet, six miles,” he reiterated for dramatic emphasis, “is one of the largest cauldrons of magma near the earth’s crust. The entire island is riddled with active volcanoes, hot-water springs, geysers and boiling mud pools. Who here has been to Taupo yet?” Several hands shot up. “Well, did you know that when you were there, you were effectively standing in the middle of a volcanic caldera, formed by the most violent volcanic eruption in geologically recent times? Only twenty-five thousand years ago, practically yesterday if you think about the age of the earth, Taupo erupted.

  “But Taupo is not just an ordinary volcano. It is a super-volcano! We have just been to the Buried Village of Te Wairoa. On June 10, 1886, shortly after midnight, Mount Tarawera exploded. According to Maori legend, the demon Tamaohoi grew angry at the sins which the Maori were committing since the arrival of the Europeans- drinking and debauchery,” he shrugged, thinking about his own upcoming weekend of sinning. “In his rage, he burst out of the side of the volcano to swallow up the sinners! Te Wairoa was just one of the towns destroyed by the eruption which sent two cubic kilometres of tephra hurtling into the sky. Two cubic kilometres!” he said again. He always enjoyed this part of the scare-mongering.

  “Volcanologists measure volcanic eruptions on a scale they call the ‘Volcanic Explosivity Index’, or VEI” he explained. “The Tarawera eruption measured 5 on that scale.” He paused for emphasis. “Vesuvius measured 5, as did Mount St. Helens. Krakatoa measured 6. One of the largest volcanic eruptions in the last five thousand years, since civilisation began, was the eruption of Taupo around 180 AD. It measured 7 on the VEI and ejected . . . one hundred and twenty cubic kilometres of tephra into the atmosphere.” There were awed and fearful gasps from his audience. They began to murmur about the sheer enormity of it all but he held up his hand to silence them.

  “That’s nothing,” he said. “The eruption of Taupo twenty-five thousand years ago, a super-volcanic eruption, spewed . . . wait for it . . . four hundred and thirty cubic kilometres into the atmosphere! Ash from the eruption landed on the Chatham Islands, one thousand kilometres away. It choked the atmosphere and plummeted the temperature of the entire planet. Human life survived . . . just barely. But,” he added ominously, “if human civilisation had existed back then- even a civilisation as technologically advanced and sophisticated as ours- it would have been totally wiped out!

  “Taupo has erupted in the past. And it will erupt again in the future. In fact, some scientists think that it is already overdue and that an eruption could occur any time. In a decade?” he shrugged. “Next year? Next week? Tomorrow? Maybe it’s already starting beneath our feet as we speak.”

  “Yeah, but they’d know, right?” one of the British girls asked. “I mean, they’ve got like scientists and seismic sensors and stuff, so-”

  “Actually,” he cut her off, “a recent study on crystals that form inside magma suggest that before a super-volcanic eruption there is a sudden surge of magma from deep inside the earth. It races up through vents at tremendous speed, creating phenomenal pressure which causes the whole thing to blow all of a sudden- possibly with very little, if any, warning.” He smiled coyly. “At least, you won’t get any warning . . . but the Maori might.”

  The tour group looked at him expectantly. “Before Tarawera erupted in 1886, a Maori guide, a woman named Sophia, took a party of tourists,” he nodded at his own group, “out on the lake to see the Pink and White Terraces.” He flipped another laminated page in his folder to show them a picture of what had once been described at the Eighth Wonder of the World.

  Formed from silicic acid and sodium chloride contained within the geothermally heated water of two geysers, the Terraces were separate formations covering about three he
ctares and rising some hundred and thirty feet into the air. They dropped in over fifty layers, each containing pools of geothermal water which the tourists of the day used to swim in for both recreation and, some believed, for medicinal purposes. In the eruption, however, they were almost totally obliterated, existing only in almost fantastical paintings until the shocking rediscovery of the lower levels, deep beneath Lake Rotomahana, in 2011.

  “On their way back to shore,” he continued, “the party spotted what appeared to be a Maori War Canoe- the likes of which hadn’t been seen anywhere in the area for decades- heading towards them, only to vanish into . . . the mist,” he glanced around at the blue mist which had been continuing to gather around his own party. The sun seemed very far away now and an icy finger snaked down his spine. A sudden sense of isolation and fear took hold.

  You idiot! He cursed himself. You’re scaring yourself with your own ghost stories!

  Of course, the legend of the Phantom Canoe was rife among the communities near to the lake. Even the pakehas had been sucked into the superstitious nonsense. Sceptics had suggested that the phenomenon had been caused by a freak wave, created by the seismic activity. Others suggested that a burial waka, containing the remains of a dead chief tied in the upright position, had been dislodged. But the legend persisted.

  “Locals believe that the Waka Wairua, the Spirit Canoe,” he said, dropping his voice as though his words might offend the spirits, “had been a harbinger of the coming doom and, they still believe that if it is seen on the lake again, it would be signalling another coming disaster. So,” he forced a smile, not wanting to totally terrify his party of tourists, “if you happen to see a war canoe heading towards us, please let me know because I intend to get the hell out of here!”

  He laughed at his own little joke, his group joining in a bit too animatedly than the comment warranted. When their laughter became a little more raucous, Rawiri noticed them looking off into the gloom of the mist-shrouded interior of the lake, pointing. A few took out digital cameras and began snapping images. But, before he turned, he glanced at Tipene and Rui at the back of the boat. Their hands still clutched their oars, their knuckles turned white. Their faces had drained of all colour and their eyes stared, wide and fearful, at something behind him.

  Rawiri turned slowly, fearing whatever he was going to see. His eyes pierced the blue pall of the heavy mist. It had swallowed them up now, closed like a draw-string, or a noose perhaps, around them. Despite the summer heat, he felt suddenly cold as his eyes fixed on the silhouette of an intricately carved Maori war canoe. Three ghostly figures sat within and a low, solemn song carried upon the air. And then, as quickly as they had appeared, the warriors and their waka were swallowed once more by the ethereal mist.

  One by one, the excited babble of the tour group dropped silent as they realised that the waka’s almost on-cue appearance had not been part of some elaborate hoax or a prearranged part of the tour.

  Rawiri’s own thoughts about his sins and the demon Tamaohoi came flooding back to him, as did his ominous warning. “An eruption could occur any time. . . Maybe it’s already starting beneath our feet as we speak.”

  He was about to order Tipene and Rui to start paddling for shore when he felt a sudden rocking in the hull of the boat beneath his feet. The water around them suddenly began to ripple as small bubbles popped to the surface. Tipene and Rui didn’t need to be told. They thrust their oars into the water and with powerful strokes began to push through the lake but the mist was so thick now that Rawiri couldn’t see the shore.

  “What’s going on?” someone demanded.

  “Everyone stay calm.” He tried to make his own voice sound calm but then realised it was bordering on panic. All about them, the bubbles grew larger and came more frequently until the entire surface of the lake seemed to roil around them. The waka shook violently as Rawiri took a paddle and thrust it into the water to help Tipene and Rui- left then right, left then right!

  “Hold on!”

  A large wave, two feet high, slammed into the bow of the canoe, spraying up and over him. The tourists screamed.

  “The water’s boiling!” one of the British girls shouted.

  It was an exaggeration. The water wasn’t quite boiling, but it was certainly hot, like the temperature of a very hot bath. Far hotter than it usually was and, he feared, it would only get hotter!

  They had to get to shore, but which way was it?

  A high pitched scream snapped his attention back to his party. A Japanese woman was pointing at something in the water only ten yards away. Rawiri looked and gasped. It was a body! Had he lost someone overboard? No, they were all still there.

  He considered ignoring the ghastly emergence but then his conscience kicked in. He shouted at Tipene and Rui and all three of them began paddling towards the body. It looked lifeless, dead perhaps, but he had to be sure. The water churned all around it, making the limp limbs dance like a sick puppet.

  They hauled the waka to a stop beside this new apparition and he leaned over the side of the boat. Tipene and two of the tourists helped to pull the dead weight from the water and roll the body- a man with black hair and piercing blue eyes staring wide and lifeless- into the boat.

  As suddenly as the thrashing water had struck, it began to ease, the bubbles diminishing and the waves fading into nothingness. It was as though the water wanted nothing more than the extraction of the foreign body from the water.

  “Get us back to shore!” he nevertheless ordered Tipene and Rui. “Has anyone got a phone on them? Good. Call an ambulance!” Then, as the boat began moving quickly through the mist, hopefully in the direction of the shore, he returned his attention to the body lying in the middle of the canoe. The tourists had scrambled disgustedly away from it and Rawiri understood why. Even as he felt for a pulse, he noticed the bruising and the cuts and grazes that had torn his clothing and his flesh.

  “Wait,” one of the tourists said. “He looks familiar.”

  As if jogging everyone else’s memories, several of the others nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I’ve seen him before.”

  “But where?”

  “He was on the news!” someone else said urgently.

  “That’s it.” Then a gasp of horror. “I know who he is!”

  “He’s that terrorist! The one who blew up that American ship in the Pacific last year!”

  “What was his name . . ?”

  “Raine!”

  “That’s it. Nathan Raine!”

  Rawiri frowned as he looked up at the tourist group surrounding him. What was a terrorist doing in the middle of the lake? Was the strange activity a precursor to an eruption? And what about the Spirit Canoe? He had no idea what was going on.

  The only thing he knew for certain, as he took his fingers off the man’s neck, was that Nathan Raine was dead.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  James Richardson works at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, where he is surrounded by inspirartion-inducing objects everyday. He is a keen traveler, having journeyed to over twenty countries in search of inspiration and settings for his novels.

  Keep upto date with his latest news and release information at www.moonmask.webstarts.com or why not search for him on Facebook and Twitter.