by David Hair
The old man winced a little, then smiled. ‘Come, let us finish this trial, and then we can eat.’ Hakawau spoke to Rata, who proclaimed that Puarata was solely to blame for the death of Mahuta, Rata’s son. The warriors listened and then turned to gaze at him in fear and pity. When his son was slain, Rata had commanded that his murderer be forgotten by the tribe, erased from memory. He now welcomed him back to the tribe, and offered to restore his name.
‘Thank you, rangitira and father. But for the last century I have been known as Wiremu,’ Wiri replied. ‘I would like to be known by that name, for my first name carries bad memories of an unworthy son. And the name Toa is stained in blood. Wiremu is the name by which my friends and companions know me. Please let me remain Wiremu.’
So it was agreed, and Rata embraced him, in a formal gesture. The tribe took this as licence to approach and greet him also, and give their welcome. Most rejoiced. Many came up to him, touching his arms, speaking gently. But the three who had laid down the challenge the previous night did not—the biggest of them shaking his head and staring at the ground.
‘That is Karaitiana,’ whispered Manu. ‘He was Mahuta’s best friend. Six hundred years is a long time to hold a grudge.’
Mat and Kelly stared at Manu, curiously.
‘Is everyone here six hundred years old?’ Kelly asked.
Manu grinned. ‘Yeah. We’re all old fellers here.’
‘How does it feel to live forever?’ asked Mat.
Manu gave a lopsided frown. ‘Dunno. Six hundred years isn’t forever. And…well, I think you’re better talking to the tohunga. I can’t remember much…none of us can…we just…go on…’ He sounded oddly sad. He turned to walk away then looked back over his shoulder. ‘Wahine!’ he said with a grin, ‘I need my pistol back.’
Kelly paused, then held it out butt first. He took it with a nod. ‘I never saw you take it. No one has ever done that to me before.’
Kelly smiled prettily.
‘But,’ added Manu, scratching his stubble, ‘if you want to fire it, you need to pull the hammer back.’ He laughed shortly, and swaggered away.
Kelly blushed, and cursed softly.
‘I thought you were cool,’ Mat told her.
She looked at him, letting out her breath over pursed lips. ‘Thanks. You were pretty awesome yourself.’
Wiri clapped them both on the shoulder, and pulled them into a hug. ‘Thank you both,’ he said. His eyes looked shiny with unshed tears. ‘You have given me back my tangata-whenua, my people. I have my whanau back.’
They ate with Rata, and his wives and children, in the largest of the whare: kumara, and muttonbird, wild pig, and eel and fish from the Waikato River. Wiri was guest of honour, the lost son who had returned to the people. Mat knew some of the songs they sang, but the songs sounded alive, and breathing, not handed down. When the warriors stamped and chanted, the ground shuddered, and when the women sang and poi whirled, he felt a stirring inside. He joined in when he could, and sang himself hoarse.
He noticed Iru, Wiri’s former wife, hovered close to her husband, but he didn’t pay her much attention. Wiri was intent in conversing with Rata, but turned occasionally to respond politely to Iru, who would smile warmly at him. Whenever this happened Kelly muttered, her face dark.
Hakawau ate alone, as was customary for a tohunga, but joined them afterward, sitting beside Mat and Kelly. He quickly noticed Kelly’s glares at Iru.
‘Some wife!’ snarled Kelly. ‘One moment she wants him dead, next she wants him back. Cow!’
Hakawau shook his head. ‘You should not judge too harshly. She stayed true to her husband for many centuries. Finally she took another man, but he is dead now, and she is lonely. But Wiri has said he considers her divorced, and free to marry again. She is unhappy at this and wants him back.’
Kelly glared at Wiri. ‘And he never even mentioned his wife might be still alive. I thought everyone he grew up with would be dead.’
This reminded Mat of something he had been meaning to ask. ‘Hakawau, we asked Manu before what it was like to live forever. Well, for centuries. He said we should ask you. I’ve seen children here, and you said that people die. I don’t understand. Wiri told us this place was like a myth-land, and everyone here was like a video recording…’ He trailed off, not sure what the tohunga might think of being called a video recording, or if he even knew what one was.
Hakawau smiled wryly, and bobbed his head. ‘It is confusing, Mat. Let me try to explain it in my words. For I too have travelled in your world, and know something of it…’
He tapped his walking stick thoughtfully. ‘Think of a dream. Think of one dream to which everyone who sleeps contributes. As if every time you and anyone else thinks or imagines, your thoughts are taken, and used to build that one dream. It will be filled with all of the dreams and imaginings of every person. But imagine that it takes time for that dream to assimilate all the thoughts it receives, so that older things linger, and are only slowly replaced. Old monsters and gods linger longer here than in your world. Here lost and legendary creatures can still be found.
‘Imagine also that within the dream, within this Aotearoa, people dwell, dead people, ghosts of the real world living in the world of dreams. We are as old as we desire. We are who we imagine ourselves to be.’
‘Then why are you so old?’ asked Kelly. ‘Wouldn’t you want to be young all the time?’
Hakawau shook his head. ‘I am not the same. I am a dream of the dream. I am the wise man, the tohunga. I am the keeper of knowledge and tradition. I have been dreamt into reality by the dream itself. So was Puarata—he is my enemy, the keeper of dark secrets. He and I have lived longer, seen more, looked deeper, than any others. We will last longer, and we appear as people expect us to.
‘Just as he has steeped himself in your world, and become powerful there, I have become at one with this world. Here I am the master—in yours, he is stronger. Both of us have paid a price. For him, it is mortality—he has had to work great spells and pay horrible prices to keep his life. For me, it is age and my binding to this place—I cannot leave for long, and can never go very far. For me, that has been a small price—because this place, and these people, are very beautiful.’
Mat and Kelly sat silent after that. Finally Mat asked another question that had been nagging at him.
‘You said earlier that Iru’s second husband died. How can that happen if you’re all living in this myth-world where no one dies?’
‘Oh we can die, Mat. A spirit can kill another spirit. Iru’s husband was slain by a taniwha on the river. Others have been killed in battle with other tribes. We still fight each other, here in Aotearoa. This is a place of beauty and wonders—but it is not a place of peace.’
‘So if Tupu and Wiri fight here in the spirit world…’
‘They are different—they cannot be killed, only banished to their respective talismans,’ finished Hakawau. ‘They are two sides of a coin. They will meet again before the end.’
Soon, the singing stopped, and the food was cleared away. Many of the guests went to sleep in their own houses, including the woman Iru, who left reluctantly. At last only Rata, Hakawau, and the travellers remained. The fires burned low as they sat cross-legged on the woven flax mats. Kelly sat beside Wiri, leaning toward him almost possessively. Mat felt tired, barely able to concentrate. The reddish light of the fires lent Rata the aspect of a squat volcano. Hakawau sat beside him huddled in a cloak, as if even with the warmth of the fires, his old bones still felt the chill of the night air.
‘We must make plans,’ said the old tohunga.
12
The fate of Wiri
After ruminating for a few minutes, Rata leant forward. ‘Does Puarata know you are here, my son?’ Rata asked Wiri. Rata spoke in halting English, for the benefit of Kelly and Mat.
‘I don’t know for sure, Father. But he must guess I would come here. Where else would I go?’
Hakawau agreed. ‘Where else indeed?
Any other tribe would turn you away. Only here would you have any hope of welcome.’
‘What will the tohunga makutu do, Hakawau?’ Rata rumbled thoughtfully. ‘Will he come in peace to demand the return of his slave, or will he come with a war party of Hauhau?’
Hakawau made patterns with his fingers in the dust. ‘The time for parley is past. He will come with war.’
‘Then we will meet him with war,’ growled Rata. ‘I will send messages to my kin and friends among the Tainui and the Ngati Tuwharetoa. We will meet these Hauhau that slither behind Puarata and make an end of them at last.’
Wiri’s face creased into a hard smile. ‘At last I will have vengeance.’ His words hung in the air.
Kelly pulled away from him slightly, her normally cheery face vexed. ‘But what if you lose?’ she asked, in a low voice.
‘Then we will take as many of them with us as we can,’ answered Rata with a puzzled, affronted look. His forbidding look was clearly meant to silence her.
Kelly was undaunted. ‘And then Wiri goes back to slavery, and becomes Toa again. Mat and I will be dead, and so will everyone else.’
Wiri sighed impatiently. ‘That is what you risk in war. Puarata will not give me up.’
‘But how many of them will there be, compared to what you’ve got?’
Rata pondered a while. ‘With my kin and allies, I could bring more than three hundred warriors to the field of battle.’
‘And what about him?’ Kelly asked. ‘What has Puarata got?’
‘We don’t know,’ shrugged Rata.
‘More than twice that,’ answered Wiri. ‘And not all of them are men. Some are much worse.’
‘So you’ll be outnumbered two or three to one. Excuse me if I don’t lay any bets on us winning!’
Wiri looked exasperated. ‘Would you have us give up? What other choice do we have but to fight?’
‘Exactly!’ said Kelly. ‘What other choice do we have?’
Rata shook his head. ‘Why are we listening to this wahine? What does she know of war?’
Kelly glared back at him defiantly. ‘At least I can count the odds,’ she snapped.
Rata’s brow creased thunderously, but Hakawau whispered something soothing in Maori.
Mat rubbed his eyes to fight off tiredness, and found his voice. ‘If we stay here, then Puarata will surround us and swamp us, right?’
‘We could win,’ disagreed Wiri.
‘But we probably won’t, will we?’
‘We have local knowledge, and the other tribes will not like seeing Hauhau in their lands. They would harry them, even if they did not come directly to our aid. We could win.’
‘But lots of people would die, wouldn’t they? Really die—spirits killed by other spirits, right? They would die?’
‘Yes.’
Mat thought hard. He remembered the cunning look Hakawau had given him earlier, and his words about a plan to save Wiri from Puarata’s clutches.
‘It’s the tiki that Puarata wants. Can we…can you,’ he said addressing Hakawau, ‘can you destroy it, so that Wiri becomes like a normal man?’
Hakawau shook his head. ‘No, to both your questions. I know something of the spells Puarata has used to make the tiki. It cannot be destroyed in any normal manner. And even if it was somehow destroyed, that would achieve nothing except the death of Wiri.’
It was Wiri’s turn to look thoughtful. ‘I remember something…Puarata once punished me, when I tried to defy him. One of many such times. I remember something he said…“You will never escape me, Wiri. You will never rise from the Place of Leave-taking, you will always be mine.” I was afraid at the time, but afterward I remembered these words. They seemed to offer hope.’
Wiri leant forward. ‘Do you know the legend, Mat? Perhaps not—you are distressingly ignorant about your own people…
Mat coloured slightly.
‘…when a person dies, their spirit leaves the body, and journeys north—to the farthest tip of the North Island—Cape Reinga. There, they go to the pohutukawa that grows there, and climb down its roots to a place through which they may enter the spirit world, and so depart this life, for the next. If the tiki was taken to the pohutukawa at Te Reinga, perhaps my spirit would be allowed to finally depart.’
Mat felt his his skin go cold. ‘Depart. You mean, die?’
Wiri nodded. ‘Yes. Perhaps that would work, and no one else would need to die, only me. And perhaps it would drag Puarata down with me, or weaken him fatally.’
They all fell silent. Kelly looked as if she was already regretting her initial objections to the battle plan.
Finally Rata spoke to Hakawau. ‘Counsel me, my tohunga. What do you say to this other plan?’
It seemed to Mat that this was the decision Hakawau had been edging them toward, since his cryptic remarks earlier, but the tohunga continued to trace patterns with his forefinger in the dust for a few more seconds, before he finally spoke.
‘I believe Wiri is correct. If the tiki were cast into the branches of the tree at Te Reinga, his spirit would depart.’
Kelly made a choking noise.
Rata laid a hand on Wiri’s shoulder. ‘If you so wish, my son. We will fight to defend you, we would fight to the last. But if you choose instead to make the journey to Te Reinga, we will aid you as best we can.’
Wiri looked at the ground blankly for long silent minutes as the fires crackled and sputtered lower. Finally he looked up. ‘It is not my choice.’ He looked at Mat. ‘Only three people here can touch the tiki. None of the people of the tribe can. And while only Hakawau, Kelly and Mat could bear the tiki to Te Reinga, only Mat can conceal it from Puarata.’
Kelly bit her lip. ‘There must be another way…one that won’t kill you?’
Wiri and Hakawau both shook their heads.
‘I cannot see another way,’ said the tohunga. ‘And I am too old, and too tied to this place, to make that journey. I wish that this were not so.’
Wiri looked at Mat. ‘And you are just a boy, Mat. We cannot ask this of you.’
Mat looked back at him, his head swirling with too many thoughts and emotions to think properly. ‘You don’t have to ask,’ he heard himself say as if from a great distance. ‘I’ll take the tiki.’
‘Even if it is a journey to my death?’ pressed Wiri.
Mat nodded, blinking back stinging tears.
Wiri let out a long slow sigh. ‘So it comes to this,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘A journey toward death. What did Peter Pan say in that English story? To die will be an awfully big adventure. Perhaps that is what I want. To finally die.’
‘No! No!’ gasped Kelly. She looked at Wiri with wounded eyes. ‘You can’t!’
Wiri looked at her sadly, shaking his head. Kelly leapt to her feet and stood over him, her face deadly white.
‘No! There must be another way! You can’t die, you stupid man!’ Then she suddenly went bright red, burst into a howling sob and ran out into the darkness.
‘Wait—’ Wiri sprang up, looked at Mat helplessly, then ran after her into the darkness. Rata and Hakawau murmured as though in pain. Mat stared after them but they didn’t return before he stumbled to a new, larger whare that had been set aside for them, and fell asleep.
They spent three days at the pa. The days were bright, though rain fell each night. The river was like a silver ribbon below, the land rolling and green. Wiri spent the days with the warriors, practising with weapons, and helping them clean and prepare a waka, a huge war canoe, for the river.
Kelly moped tearfully for a day, but then woke with a fixed determination in her eyes, and rummaged about her pack until she pulled out her clown costume. She sat before a small mirror painting a sad smile onto her face, and put on a show for the children. She was soon very popular, and spent much of each day pursued by naked laughing children, begging her for more tricks. ‘Kalleee,’ they called, and she would sigh under her breath, then turn beaming, and perform again.
As for Mat, he found
himself mostly in the company of Hakawau. The people remembered his actions at the trial, and regarded him with apprehension, as though he could make them disappear if they displeased him. At first he quite liked feeling dangerous, but after a while it became lonely. Hakawau noticed him moping, and came and took him around the hill fort. After poking their heads into all the buildings, and touring the perimeter, they finally sat on a grassy rise, Hakawau pointing out landmarks with his carved stick.
They could see many kilometres in all directions—north to Rainbow Mountain near Rotorua, south toward Taupo, and the mighty mountains of the Volcanic Plateau—Ruapehu shrouded in cloud, Ngaruhoe smoking menacingly, and Tongariro hulking like broken rubble. To the west they glimpsed Mount Taranaki, gleaming white in the shimmering azure sky. They looked pristine, remote, untouchable, strangely larger and more beautiful here in the myth-land of Aotearoa.
‘Will you show me the tiki again?’ Hakawau asked finally.
Mat pulled the tiki and the koru knot out, disentangled the cords, and handed the tohunga the bone carving. He held it for a long moment, then gave it back with a shudder.
‘It is an old and evil thing. I can feel its maker when I hold it, whispering.’
Mat shivered too. ‘Sometimes I can feel him calling me, but Pania told me how to make it go away.’
Hakawau pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘Few could do that. You are a rare boy, Matiu.’ Then he saw the koru knot, and his thin bird-face creased into a deep smile.
‘Ahhh,’ he said, ‘now this fills me with joy. Did you make it? It is a precious and good thing!’ He took the koru knot from Mat, smiling as he pulled them apart, and then reunited them. Mat told him how he made it, and why, and Hakawau bobbed his head approvingly. ‘I can feel these two calling to each other, Matiu. You have made something strong…you have a rare talent. A very rare talent. Treasure this thing—it has a power, to bring two worlds together. Use it well.’
