by Patty Jansen
You will understand. I kept hearing Nan's voice.
In our culture, possessions of important persons were tapu; you weren't allowed to touch them. I was beginning to feel I was dealing with just such a thing.
I did something Tamati would find silly: I walked across town to the building on the waterfront everyone knew as Te Papa, the National Museum.
I remembered Nan having taken me there, way back when it was still housed in the old building, I must have been nine or ten. Tamati was there, too. We'd looked at huge stuffed Moas in glass cages, beautiful ceremonial cloaks my forefathers made from kiwi feathers and pictures of tribe elders, every inch of their skin covered in tattoos. I remembered Nan's voice. Those are proud Maori men, Tamati, not those who drown their trouble in beer.
After I asked if a Dr Rob Mason worked in the museum, a receptionist made me wait in the foyer, awkwardly clutching my box.
Unsurprisingly, Rob Mason was the museum's chief anthropologist. He looked like he had a trace of Maori ancestry, but to my disappointment, he didn't wear a lab coat. He led me through a maze of corridors into a cluttered office with bookshelves along the wall.
We sat down at the desk in the middle of the room.
'Your grandmother would be Ngaio?'
I nodded. I gave him the box. He set it aside on his desk.
When I raised my eyebrows, he said, 'It is not for me to look at.'
My heart jumped. Tapu indeed. And I'd been trying to sell this thing?
'What do you know about it?' he asked.
'Nothing,' I said, and when the silence lingered, I added. 'It's Chinese.'
'That's all?'
'Well . . .' Should I mention the visions? He'd think I was crazy.
'You are Ngaio's biological granddaughter, aren't you?'
What was he hinting at? 'Of course.'
'Then are you sure that is all you know?' His eyes were penetrating.
Sheesh! I shrugged, but couldn't hide my frustration. 'Everyone seems to know more about this thing than I do.'
He sighed, pushed himself out of his chair and collected a big book from a shelf behind him. He opened it, flicked through the pages and turned the book to face me. On the page was a photograph of crude map drawn in black ink on cloth. I recognised the image.
'Ngaio said she'd seen something like this before. Am I right in guessing that you have seen it, as well?'
'Yes.' My voice was almost a whisper. 'Touching the statue gives me . . . visions. I know it sounds stupid, but . . .'
'Your grandmother said the same thing.'
He flicked another page to a similar map. 'These are maps as were made by Chinese cartographers in the fifteenth century. There is evidence that Chinese vessels travelled the oceans and mounted expeditions. The Yongle emperor, Zhu Di, is said to have sent his fleet admiral Zheng He to discover the world.'
I remembered the emperor pointing at the map, and the man kneeling on the floor, the magician who'd been pushed into the sea after I'd seen him talking to his leader.
'We know that this statue is a genuine artefact from the fifteenth century, which has passed through many generations of your family. How did it come in their possession? There are ship wrecks along the coast where your grandmother's iwi still lives. We can only guess that her ancestors found the statue.'
No. I saw a man crawling, wet and bedraggled, onto a sandy beach.
'Why didn't Nan tell me any of this?'
He shook his head, but a chill went through me. I'd found Nan dead on the floor in the kitchen after I came home from work. Paramedics said she'd suffered a heart attack, but what if someone had wanted her dead?
* * *
By the time I came home, it was dark.
As I walked up to the house, key in hand, I noticed that the flyscreen had been ripped off the bedroom window.
Legs trembling, I clomped up the stairs to the veranda. Make lots of noise, Nan would say. Give them room to escape. I stopped at the front door, unlocked it, flicked the switch in the hall.
'Hello? Anyone there?'
I went inside. There was no one in the hall, or in the living room or in any of the bedrooms.
In that intense silence, my phone rang. I gasped and fished it out of my pocket. I recognised the number on the screen.
'Tamati?'
'Are you all right?'
'Yeah, of course.' I cleared my throat, still scanning the darkness of the living room. 'Why shouldn't I be?'
'You don't sound all right.'
'I am--honestly.' My mind scrambled for something to say. I didn't understand this sudden attention. He'd never called me when Nan was alive. Maybe he wanted me to hurry with the sale of the house. 'Tamati. I'm just completing some legal stuff. Do you remember what the doctor put on Nan's death certificate as the cause of death?'
A short silence. 'No . . . Why? Does it matter?'
'It's just a question on the form I have to answer.'
'Oh. OK. The death certificate should be in the folder on the shelf in the kitchen.'
'Yeah. I'll check.'
I said goodbye and hung up.
You should have told him about the break-in, stupid. No, not now. He'd find out the statue was worth money, or he'd tell Aunt Mary, and she'd have my head for trying to sell it.
Still feeling shivery, I walked through into the kitchen. Piles of documents from the real estate agent which lay on the table reminded me why I had gone to sell that blasted statue in the first place.
I slid the bag off my shoulder, dumped it on the table, filled up the kettle and set it to boil.
As I reached for the shelf to get a cup, a small noise that sounded like a man's whisper made me look over my shoulder. Tendrils of smoke curled into the kitchen.
In a few steps, I was at the door. A spout of smoke hit me in the face, so forceful it made me recoil. It burned my lungs, clouded my eyes, made me cough and cough until I was dizzy. I groped for a chair, gasping for breath.
The world went black.
* * *
When I woke up, it was to total darkness. My hands had been tied behind my back, but when I wriggled, the knot slipped. I pushed myself up, knocking something over. A large object fell with a clatter, bringing down a whole lot of other things.
Oh shit. I sat frozen. A dog barked outside. A car drove past.
I rummaged in my pocket for Nan's cigarette lighter and snipped it into life. The flickering flame showed a large room with boxes and bags piled against the walls. Jars with labels in Chinese and pictures of tigers. Plastic bags with dried things.
I sat in one corner, next to a jumble of African giraffe statues carved from black wood--the objects that had fallen over.
I tried the door. It was locked. The room only had a small window near the ceiling. Through it, I saw a piece of brick wall. I stacked a few boxes, but when I climbed up, I found that the window didn't open, and the glass was reinforced with metal wire.
A door clanged and footsteps came down the hall.
I jumped down and grabbed one of the African statues. I pressed myself against the wall.
I'm sure that the people in Africa who carve one-and-a-half metre tall giraffes from ebony wood don't intend them for combat purposes, but when you grab one by the head and swing, it becomes a weapon nevertheless.
The lock rattled. The door opened.
I swung the giraffe, hit someone. On the shoulder, I think. It was too dark to see.
A man screamed.
Someone else grabbed me from behind. There were harsh voices. Shadows moved in the room. Three men.
One shone a torch in my face. 'You. Stay still.' He spoke with a heavy accent.
Someone flicked on the light, a naked bulb hanging from a piece of wire.
My captor was dressed in black. Asian eyes glittered over the cloth that covered his nose and mouth. While his comrade set me down on a chair, he placed something on the table--the dragon statue.
'Call the dragon.'
I couldn't suppres
s a chuckle. Me. Call a dragon. Fancy that.
The man grabbed the front of my shirt and slapped me in the face.
'Huan Li's heir can call the dragon, because Huan Li stole it from the emperor and imprisoned it in this statue.'
I saw it in his eyes; I had seen it in my visions. The emperor had thought to rid himself of the magician who plotted to overthrow him by sending him with Zheng He's expedition. Even while at sea, the emperor's minions had followed him. In the end, the magician Huan Li had been the only survivor from the ship fire. He had come ashore where Nan's ancestors lived. A woman from the village would have borne his children. After a couple of generations, the only evidence of his existence had been the statue, passed from generation to generation.
I stammered, 'The magician's heir? Me?' But I knew it was true. 'And you are the emperor's heir.'
He had brought me here to settle the vendetta.
'Call the dragon,' he said again.
'I don't know how.' I had to stall him and wait for--for what? No one knew I was here, not even Tamati. Stupid, stupid. I should have let him know what was up.
He snorted. 'What colour is your dragon? Just name colour.'
'Black.'
The man shook his head. 'Black is bad. Choose different colour. Choose red.'
'I am Maori. I choose black.' There were no dragons, anyway.
The look in his eyes hard, he handed me the statue.
As soon as I touched it, the stone dragon warmed under my hands. Tendrils of smoke curled from its mouth. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't.
Something huge and black burst out of the statue in a cloud of smoke. Light reflected in shiny scales. Fire-red eyes blinked, the pupil slitted. The head bent towards me. I pushed back in the chair as far as I could. The dragon hissed softly and sat on its haunches, like a massive dog waiting for me to throw a ball . . . or an ebony giraffe? I glanced aside, but the giraffes were out of reach.
The emperor's heir extended both hands. Shafts of green burst from his fingers, coiling around the dragon. The creature reared and gave a panicked hiss, but the bonds were too strong. He pulled at the green net of fire, dragging it to a second statue, a newer one, which he had put on the table. Once he had the creature trapped inside, it would answer to him.
'Leave it!' I yelled. 'Forget this stupid argument. What's it about anyway? Something that happened five centuries ago?'
He flicked a strand of magic at me. Green fire burned through me, making my chest constrict. I gasped for breath. Magic exploded all around the room. A dark strand hit the giraffe statue which I'd used as weapon and which now lay on the floor. It stirred and raised itself on spindly legs. There were other shadows, about a hundred live ebony giraffes in the room, prancing, galloping in loops around the magician's feet.
Holy shit. That looked like my magic.
I pointed at the net. Dark strands of magic flowed from my fingers, ricocheted off the walls, bounced off the ceiling and the floor. The carpet caught fire, and so did one of the giraffes.
The magician laughed and spoke in Chinese. I needed no translation. I was a total fool, a worthless ignoramus. My magic had no aim or power.
I met the dragon's red eye. Give me some help. I'm trying to free you.
A red glow went up my arm, mingled with my dark fire. The skin of the dragon turned a deep maroon. The beast snarled. The magician stumbled back but tripped over the giraffes.
Fire erupted from the dragon's mouth, searing my skin, but I kept the strands of dark magic in my hands, straining with effort not to let it go. The magician was pushing himself up from the floor. Green fire crackled over his back. His eyes flashing with green, he pointed a trembling hand at me . . .
Behind him, a burning giraffe collapsed into a cardboard box. There was a crack, a hiss and then a huge ball of fire.
The dragon let out a shriek. It tore apart the green web. I was somehow still holding onto it with the magic and was jerked hard upward while the creature jumped and hit the ceiling. Plaster and wood splintered around me. Chunks hit my arms and my legs. Next thing I knew I clung onto a scaly neck and cool night air rushed past me, interrupted only by powerful wingbeats. In the suburb below, a house burned bright in the dark. A few blocks down, a fire engine sped through the street.
* * *
The dragon landed in the ink-dark shadow of the tree in front of my house. I slid off its back, shivering. The creature bent its head towards me, blinking a red slitted eye.
'Go back where you belong,' I whispered.
The dragon jumped into the air. Two heavy wingbeats and it was gone.
I walked up the path to the front door. Lights burned behind all windows. I remembered having left the light on in the kitchen, but not in the living room or the bedroom.
'Anyone answering yet?' A male voice drifted from the open door. Tamati.
I ran up the veranda.
My cousin was in the kitchen, pouring water from the kettle into the teapot.
'Tamati!' My voice spilled over. I couldn't believe how glad I was to see him.
He rushed across the room in a few steps and closed his arms around me.
My head on his beefy shoulder, I noticed another person in the kitchen: Aunt Mary.
I untangled myself from Tamati's arms. 'What are you doing here?'
'You were behaving so strangely,' Tamati said. 'I rang up Aunt Mary and she asked if you looked at that dragon thing. She told me it gave her the creeps so I went to check, and . . .' He gestured at the floor where shards of porcelain mingled with black stains of soot. 'What happened?'
In a few halting sentences, I told him how I'd gone to sell the statue and how the men had broken into the house. I said nothing about the magic, or the dragon.
'Why didn't you tell us you were in trouble?'
I shrugged. Why hadn't I? Because I was stubborn? Because Nan had raised me and I felt like I had to prove something to her memory? 'I'm sorry, I . . .' My voice would no longer cooperate. I'd made a mess. I didn't even have the dragon statue anymore and I still had no money.
'Please, Kiri, don't you dare become as stubborn as Nan.'
'Hmph,' Aunt Mary said. 'You know that me and Ngaio never got along, but . . . I guess . . . that has nothing to do with you. I should have thrown that thing in the sea. I'm sorry it's happened and if I can do something to help you . . .'
Help me, she could indeed. I'd pay her back, oh hell I would; I would work my fingers to the bone.
'Yes, you could help me. I was wondering if you would lend me some money . . .'
* * *
I was in the kitchen when I heard a male voice on the veranda. I dried my hands and went to the front door, noting how much better the hallway looked since I'd pulled up the old carpet and polished the floorboards. Mum sat on the veranda in her wheelchair, pale, but less so than when I had taken her out of the hospice. Next to her on the bench sat a thin man with black hair.
'Mr Wong?'
He turned around and rose.
'I came to bring you . . .' He gestured at a box he had put on Nan's card table. The statue.
'My brother said someone came into the shop and tried to sell this to him, but he knew it was yours. He said he knew it was stolen and was going to call the police, and they just ran.'
While he spoke, I'd slid the lid off the box and unveiled the black dragon in its bed of newspapers.
'Thank you,' I whispered, my voice thick. 'I was afraid I'd lost it.' I ran my finger along its carved scales. Nothing. The dragon and its magic were gone, leaving only stone, and the legacy of my family's history, a treasure for generations to come.
About this story:
Whether or not the Chinese really landed in New Zealand in 1492 remains the subject of much debate, but with a superficial similarity in Maori wood carvings and Chinese art, it is easy to believe that they might have, and if that is so, their descendants could still be there.
Mass Extinction
Originally published in Antipodean SF<
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'Commander Luczan, your report please!'
'Greetings Councillor Fargi, may luck be with you.'
'Cut the formalities, Commander. Have you made landfall?'
'We have, Sir.'
'Where are you now?'
'We're orbiting the planet, Sir.'
'Orbiting . . . What! Why are you not down there building a settlement?'
'It's . . . it's not that easy, Sir.'
'What isn't? What's going on? Our probes show that the planet is perfect for colonisation. It has the right air quality, plenty of water, plenty of vegetation--what else do you want?'
'Nothing, Sir. It's just that it's . . . inhabited.'
'Inhabited? The report says nothing about intelligent beings!'
'They're not intelligent, Sir, just . . . very big.'
'Out with it, Luczan!'
'Well, Sir--I went with the scout craft this morning. As you said, things looked perfect for colonisation. The air was moist and warm, just as our reports foretold. Myself, Taqan and Ehi climbed a hill. That's when we first saw them.'
'Saw what, Luczan?'
'Huge creatures, grazing four-leggers, with long necks. There was a whole herd of them. The ground was trembling under their feet, and you should have seen the way they just pushed over the vegetation.'
'And? You got so scared of a herd of grazers that you decided to call it quits?'
'I haven't finished my story Councillor.'
'Then get on with it. The Council is paying for this transmission!'
'While the three of us were standing there, there was a rustle in the vegetation and this . . . this thing came out. It had a huge head, with rows of pointy teeth. It gave a bellow of a howl that echoed all over the valley and then came straight for us. It walked on the two rear legs and it was fast, faster than any of us could run. The front legs were very small and useless, but Sir, you should have seen the claws on them. I fired at it, but I didn't seem to do it any harm. I ran out of power. Fortunately, Taqan managed to hit it in the belly and it went down, but he was also running low on power. Then a second one of these creatures appeared. I thought we'd had it, Sir, but it went straight for the carcass of the other one, and began to tear at it.'
