The Wind City

by Summer Wigmore

  It shouldn’t have, but it did.

  …Pay attention. From here on things get a little complicated.

  See, nothing is one thing only, cities most of all. They’re made of people, and people are made of contradictions, beautiful ugly contradictions clashing and blending and blurring. So cities are made of contradictions as well. They’re a mess of noise, laughing and talking and yelling and music and the subtler music made of the movements of cars. (And buses and bicycles and trains, and where people go, and when. There is rhythm to all these things.) And sometimes, rarely, most often in the early mornings, there are those small moments of perfect silence, when there is no one there but you. No one in the world. Cities are kind and they are cruel, they are perfectly filthy and gloriously drab; they force many, many people together, and so they are made of stories, and they are the things of which stories are made.

  Wellington plays at being the capital, but everyone knows that that’s Auckland, really, the super-city to the north, sprawling comfortably across its land, home to so many, the beating heart of the populace. Wellington is made of hills and sharp edges and steep places; it’s made of steps and sweet-spicy scents and brightly coloured houses perched on the hillsides. It’s the capital of art, maybe, the capital of creativity, of crafted things, of theatre, of song. But most of all, more than anything else, it is the capital of wind.

  Wind is breath is spirit.

  Singing is a raw expression of that – it’s the most direct form of music, it’s breathing your soul straight into the notes.

  The wind caught the warrior’s song, and carried it to those of his people who were waiting, still, forever waiting these days, huddled into hollows and forest-scraps and wherever they could find, and they heard the summons, and they some of them answered: Yes.

  And they left their mist and mountains and shreds of safety, to come when they were called.

  And mistfae walked the streets of the wind city.

  The burning of the Hikurangi was taken in many different ways. Some thought it was the beginning of a war. Others took it as a sign that the city had at last become too dangerous to live in. However, its main effect was that atua activity became more prominent and noticeable, rather than less.

  Patupaiarehe walked the streets of Wellington. Some marvelled at its wonders, and some detested it for the same things – the bright of the sky and the smell of the air and the people, there were so, so many people and the patupaiarehe would have been overwhelmed were it not for Ariki, telling them of outrages the humans had done, calling them to fight.

  The tipua in the Bucket Fountain brooded, chin on her hands and rainbows in her hair. The buckets, blue and yellow and red, slowly tipped, pouring water into each other, some of it spilling onto the street. “What do radios even have to do with anything,” she said, too quiet to hear, and then louder, much louder, she called her friends to arms.

  In the south, in the mountains, a star who had the power to cure blindness fell where there was no one to see him.

  In some city, in some town – any city, any town – a woman sat at her table. Her eyes were on the rubbish bin in the kitchen. The baby had come early, too early, a sad little thing dead before it had any chance of living. She wrapped it in plastic bags and put it in the bin and cried and she couldn’t tell anyone, she couldn’t. She choked on the words and choked on her misery. But that night she could’ve sworn she woke up with a child’s tiny fingers clutching at her throat. So now she sat at her table, and she stared, and as she watched the rubbish bin rattled, a little, as though something inside it was angry.

  A man with clenched fists and an angry heart was playing rugby on a field that could be any field – squelch of mud beneath the grass, goalposts against the grey sky. His friends jeered at him when he stopped, stood alertly as though listening to something. He went by the name of Tū. He, at least, knew there was no war. Not yet, at least. Not yet.

  A train spirit hid his face behind a newspaper, his body made of shiny glass like the blackness of a tunnel, reflective. Spirits of transportation had a lot of power because of all the people that used them and that prayed without even knowing: five minutes earlier, oh god please don’t let me be late, I have a meeting, please let it not be raining, please let him be out when I come back I can’t take any more of this –

  And others, countless others, most too small to see – if you couldn’t count the grains of sand on the beach or the stars in the sky, you couldn’t count these atua either. Very much like sand and stars; as small, and as giant.

  And a taniwha walked her streets with a mist warrior by her side, and a scholar learned all he could, and the ghost of what had once been a mighty trickster was torn by the winds, and a man yet to be broken walked – strutted, swaggered – towards the end.

  12

  It was pretty easy to find him, easier than Tony had expected. She just followed the smell of burning.

  Hinewai stalked beside her, leggy and intent, her hands making odd motions; it was raining, raining around Tony and Hinewai particularly, like a curtain between them and the rest of the world, hiding them from view. They found Saint leaning against a wall in the shadows beside the skateboard ramp in Waitangi Park, breathing out a thin plume of smoke; he heard them approaching and turned to look, and stubbed the cigarette out under his heel, his eyes fixing on Tony. She could only assume that she looked the bigger threat to him, all hulking muscle and spikes and teeth – which was odd, considering how terrified he’d seemed of patupaiarehe, before.

  In all fairness, Hinewai was pretty terrifying, but right now there was no one Tony would rather have by her side than her. She was terrifying in useful ways. The trick was just in finding them.

  Tony had to be like that too, now, just for now: had to be cruel, had to be strong. This was no place for the cheerful girl who just wanted to make people happy. So she let herself feel all the hurt and hate that had been building up these last few days as people she loved died – in her territory, on her watch – let it build up and boil inside her, and moved steadily onward. Her tail lashed at the night air and her tongue flickered out to taste it. She reared back so she stood taller than he did and bared her teeth in threat and he took an involuntary step back, for all his swagger and suavity he was scared of her.

  Good. He should be.

  She pounced at him and he dived aside and panted, “As dragons go you’re rather a bad one – are you even trying?” and flicked his wrists and sent fire at her.

  She recoiled instinctively because she hated fire a lot more in this form. She was of ocean. Water and fire didn’t mix.

  Now there was an idea.

  She lashed out lightning-quick with a claw and he cursed, distracted into glancing down at where she’d drawn blood, and in that instant she swung her tail and swept his legs out from under him. He landed and she flowed smoothly past him, over a sandy path and onto a wooden boardwalk lined with tussock, heading for the water.

  “I mean, come on – you don’t even have wings,” he shouted after her, and then, as expected, he leapt to his feet and followed.

  “What are you doing?” Hinewai said, running beside her.

  “What are you doing? I thought you’d have tried to dismember him by now or something.”

  Hinewai shook her head. “This is your fight, not mine,” she said. “I’m lending aid as I promised, but I won’t intervene unless you seem in danger of losing, which won’t happen. And thus.” She shrugged. “It’s better not to kill people than it is to kill them. You taught me that.”

  “Well, not in this case,” Tony said, her voice a growl. “I’m going to drown the bastard and put an end to this,” fierce with determination and trying not to think about it too hard. She could do this. She was strong.

  She chanted that inside her head as they ran, to keep herself focused, to keep herself from quailing at these extreme measures: I’m strong, she chanted to herself as she reached the waterfront and turned to face him, I’m strong, I’m strong. He
grinned all cocky and made some quip or other and punched out flame, which hit her and burned at her flesh, but it didn’t matter because she was ancient, she was a child of Tangaroa. And he had angered her.

  She called to the ocean, and it came. A great salty wave surged up behind her, towering, and then crashed down, knocking both of them off their feet and flooding across the asphalt.

  Tony moved through the floodwaters easily, half swim, half undulating walk, and hooked the flailing spluttering man with one claw. She let the wave, retreating, tug them over the wall and into the cold sea.

  He waved his arms around madly, and then, showing surprising presence of mind, started boiling the water so it hissed and bubbled around them. Which was alarming, but it stopped after she’d held him under for a while, one claw resting against his head to keep it down. It was easy; he was heavy in his soaked coat, and not strong enough to pull free even when he wasn’t half-drowned. The water was shallow here, but water didn’t need to be deep for this sort of work.

  His frantic thrashing started to slow. Then it stopped.

  Good. She was a child of Tangaroa, she was a guardian, she –

  What was she doing?

  Dismayed, Tony pulled him to the surface and tilted his head so he could breathe. She coiled herself around him anxiously, and sagged in relief when he started coughing.

  Weak, said some part of her, but it wasn’t true. She was strong, and she always had been; she was the kind of strong that came with being gentle, being kind even when people didn’t deserve it because if she wasn’t kind to them then who would be?

  That was a much better kind of strong than brute strength.

  So she nudged at Saint as his body shook with coughs, as he spat out salt water, as he at last turned to look at her with extreme suspicion. Fair enough.

  “Are you going to waterboard me or something?” he said, as soon as he could speak: hoarse and exhausted but still fiery, it defined him, he would never ever give up. She tightened her grip on him, wary, kept his hands pinned to his sides – she’d have to lock him up somewhere while they figured out what to do with him, maybe.

  They drifted. He coughed again. “Because I have to say that if there’s going to be torture on the cards, I would’ve expected more of the crushing-with-brute-force and filleting-with-deadly claws and whatnot.”

  “I’m not going to torture you,” she said, then added, “though you deserve it,” because he was a murderer, after all, and he didn’t even seem to be sorry.

  “Yeah yeah, you’re as intimidating as a really intimidating thing,” he said, and then, “Wait,” in an entirely different tone. “Wait, I know that voice. Tony?”

  “In the flesh,” she said.

  He stared at her, and then, at last, he sank back, fell back, let his head sag as though supporting it was too much effort. “You’re one of the atua,” he said, blankly.

  She beat her tail once to take them to a pebbly scoop of beach. “Well yeah.”

  “But,” Saint said. “You’re human?”

  Tony dug her claws into the shore and hauled herself and Saint up. She dropped him not un-gently on the ground, and stretched to let the water slide off her slick skin. “Uhhh… ” she said, because human she pretty obviously wasn’t.

  He shook his head. His hair was plastered against his head, his coat dragging down his shoulders. He looked smaller, somehow. “No, I mean you’re a person, you… That means you’re all people.” He said it again, incredulous: “You’re all people.”

  “Um. Well yes. Isn’t that… obvious… ” She trailed off, because he looked like he was on the edge of a nervous breakdown; he’d bit his lip to a bloodied mess, and his face was so gaunt. She hadn’t noticed until then how painfully thin he was, how tired.

  “Fuck,” he said, almost a whimper. “No. Oh, fuck,” and he buried his face in his hands.

  Tony said nothing. She shifted back to her human-shape, not letting Saint out of her sight – but he didn’t move. Hadn’t moved, since they’d got back on land. Just… sat there.

  It was peaceful down here, far too peaceful, still water and a few startled ducks and boats bobbing in the distance. Hinewai stood a few metres away, watchful. There was no sound except the lap of water and Saint’s ragged breathing.

  Tony crouched beside him. “Hey,” she said.

  He looked at her. “So,” he said. “I’m not a hero, then.”

  “Huh?”

  “Because I’m a murderer,” he said. He breathed out, a long whistling sigh. “… Figures.”

  She frowned quizzically. “You thought you were being a … hero?”

  “Yep,” Saint said, and forced a grin. It looked like Hinewai’s type of smile, gaunt and glaring and joyless, too much teeth in it. “What a laugh, huh?”

  “I… I wouldn’t put it that way –”

  “Christ,” he burst, savage. “I just wanted to help people for once in my useless fucking life, I… No wonder they all just leave.” He ran his hands through his hair, swore. Slammed his palms savagely against his forehead as though to punish his brain. Then again. Tony had to grip his wrists to stop him from hurting himself, though he winced at the tightness of the hold.

  “Owww,” he said, tilting his head to grin at her more. “You’re hurting me.”

  She released him, unsettled. “Are… are you all right?”

  “Can’t stop till I burn the whole world down,” he said, eyes drifting away from her face, aimless. “That’s what he said.”

  “What? Who?” She frowned. “Māui? He’s the one behind this, right?”

  “Mm,” Saint said. “… Well. To be fair, he did tell me to stop, not terribly long ago. And it’s not his fault, really; he had what he thought were good reasons, which was better than I had, and he – I mean, yeah, he said you lot weren’t sentient, but I never even questioned it. I never questioned anything and I killed so many… ”

  “I think you should calm down,” Tony said, and patted at his shoulder. He was such a mess. For the first time in a while she wanted to help someone but had no idea how to do it, or if she even should.

  “Can’t stop till I burn the whole world down… ” he said, softly, and then he said, much louder and with harsh laughter in his voice, “May as well!”

  The next part was all confusion. A wall of fire flared up with a roar, and it was hot, it was ferociously hot, it singed her skin and scorched her hair even sopping wet as she was. She dived backward, and the wall of flame flickered, and then Saint stepped through it, grinning like a mad thing with his hands clenched into fists and his eyes jagged with desperation.

  Tony grew her claws in readiness, but before she could do anything she heard music, wild and wind-like and fae. The song was just barely starting but Saint flinched like he’d been hit, his head jerking in Hinewai’s direction – and then he ran, up the steps and away, as fast as his feet could take him. Tony frowned after him.

  “I’m sorry,” Hinewai said, lowering her flute. “I know it’s important to be kind –”

  “Dude, it’s fine!” Tony said, and then, because it had been a trying half hour and because she wanted to, she grabbed Hinewai in a hug, squishing her tight. “It’s fine, it’s who you are,” Tony explained, muffled, as she discreetly checked her for injuries. “You be cruel, and I’ll be kind, and it’ll all work out… ”

  “Yes, all right,” Hinewai said, patting awkwardly at her head.

  “And a bit of cruelty’s okay in this case,” Tony said as she pulled back, “because Saint is a massive bag of dicks.”

  Hinewai nodded. “Yes,” she said firmly. “He is a massive bag of dicks,” and Tony snorted out a slightly hysterical laugh.

  “He ought to be punished for what he did and stuff,” Tony said, once she’d recovered. “But… I dunno.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, he’s kinda out of control right now, so our first priority is just to get him contained, get him to calm down if we can. But beyond that… ” She broke off, f
rowning. “I dunno. It’s just. I’m kinda worried by the guy.”

  “Because he is completely batshit insane?” Hinewai recited.

  Tony wrung water from her hair and stared out into the night, the lights of the harbour. “Nah. Well I mean, he is a few something short of a something else, but I just… He could really use some help, I just have no idea how to help him and no idea who can. He’s way obsessed with his image and stuff, he’d never admit that he’s in pain. Gah. Moron. Stupid murderous moron.”

  Tony couldn’t afford to spend all her time thinking of Saint; there were more people than him to help. There was everyone. So she went to the Hikurangi, or where it had been.

  “This is really sad,” Tony said, giving up – no matter how hard she tried, the place between the two pillars didn’t lead anywhere but to a place slightly in front of the place between the two pillars, and there was no use pretending otherwise. She couldn’t see trees there, and besides, the whole place just felt flatter. Emptier. Lacking.

  “Yes, a lot of people died here,” Hinewai said absentmindedly, and Tony stared at her in shock and horror, but before she could ask her to elaborate, Hinewai’s head jerked up and her eyes narrowed, intense. “Someone’s here,” she said.

  Tony relaxed. “And not dead?” she said hopefully.

  Hinewai shook her head. “You don’t understand. I mean… someone’s here. One of my kind is here.” Her eyebrows lifted. “More than one. What… ”

  “Yes, that’s due to me,” Ariki said, staggering around the corner, looking weary and defiant. “You may punish me if you have a will to –”

  “Oh my god, your hands,” Tony breathed, and then she clicked her fingers at Hinewai. “Get bandages.”

  Hinewai nodded and melted off into the darkness. It’d be dawn in another couple of hours, Tony thought, and after that Hinewai would have to seek out shelter, but until then they could work together still.

  Hinewai returned bafflingly quickly carrying flax and woven cloth, and Tony tended carefully to Ariki’s burns. Hinewai stood by, watching distantly. Come to think of it, Tony had never seen the two mistfolk interact before, which was strange considering they were the only two in the city. Or had been, apparently.