by Baker Chris
He caught a burst of worry from Wilf, a charge of fear and uncertainty.
Paki didn’t hesitate. He swam straight to Hoheria and kissed her on the cheek.
Her eyes suddenly became alert as he approached. Her hair waved gently in the eddies as her body hung in the water. I know you, she thought. What are you doing here? What do you want?
I’m Paki. He formed the words in his mind, syllable by syllable, the effort scoring furrows in his brow. I’m here to rescue you.
Who am I?
Hoheria.
Hoheria? I know that name.
You should. It’s you. Kevin’s waiting on land.
Who’s that?
He’s your man. He loves you.
Paki watched while Hoheria wrestled with the fragmented pieces of her being. He saw realisation dawn on her young face as the jigsaw puzzle came together. She was looking over his shoulder too, uncertainty flickering in her eyes. Wilf was close by, facing the Ponaturi. Liquid fire sparked blue at his fingertips.
Who’s he? thought Hoheria. What’s that blue stuff?
That’s Wilf. He saved Kevin’s life.
Hoheria looked at him blankly, then at the Ponaturi. They were gathered around the walls. There seemed to be more of them. She felt Paki’s thought.
The blue stuff’s our protection. It’s in me. You too.
Hoheria was just about to ask how it worked when another shark swam in one of the holes and the two fish began circling. Wilf started to move towards Hoheria and Paki but the sharks cut him off and herded him away to one side. They weren’t coming too close, Paki noticed. Probably the Ponaturi were instructing them. Then again maybe it was the blue fire. Maybe he could use it himself. He straightened his good arm and waggled his fingers. Nothing happened. Then he remembered. Love. He thought of Hoheria and forced to the forefront of his mind a picture of Cheryl, Eric, and the folk at Kokopu Waters. He missed them already. He wanted to keep them safe. Wilf too. But still nothing happened. He could see the sharks circling. A frisson of fear arose, and Paki thrust it aside. That wouldn’t help him at all, it might even block the flame. It must be working in him. He was alive. Or was he? The sense of unreality was almost overwhelming, and he had Wilf helping him. What had Hoheria been through?
She was thinking at him. They’re feeding off you. Anything you’re feeling.
Paki could sense her fear, and her efforts to suppress it. Suddenly he could feel Wilf too. Pain. Panic. He turned his head to the old man, swimming nearby, but cut off by the sharks. Wilf was clutching his chest, writhing in the water. The Ponaturi felt it too. They leaned forward, anxious to capture every nuance of Wilf’s agony. The sharks swam closer. One of them darted in, seized Wilf, gave an obscene shake and a wriggle, and swam away with Wilf’s left leg in its massive jaws. It was bitten through cleanly just above the knee and, within a few seconds, gouts of blood pumping into the water had obscured everything, a red cloud that spread and thickened.
It was the taste that jerked Hoheria out of her dream. That was blood, she thought with a jolt. A friend of theirs was bleeding, maybe even dying. She wasn’t asleep or dead either. This was real. She had to do something.
Stop the bleeding! She flung the thought at Paki. He was giving off waves of fear and aggression as he swam in circles, a dim shape in the red fog. She could feel predatory fish gathering, attracted by the blood. She pulled the belt from her jeans, rolling in the water from the effort, and groped for Wilf. No thoughts were coming from the old man. Was he dead? But she could feel the blood pumping. He must be alive. She got hold of Wilf, but he started to drift away when she released her grip to wrap the belt around his leg.
Help me, she thought at Paki, the sudden projection making him flinch. She could feel the sharks too, the barracouta and smaller fish, a storm-like gathering about to burst into a feeding frenzy.
Fuck off, she shrieked in her head. Everything recoiled. The storm shrank. Paki held Wilf still so that she was able to get the belt around his thigh. He twisted it tight with a waterlogged stick from the sandy floor, and the blood stopped pumping.
Gradually the red cloud cleared. Paki almost wished it hadn’t. He could now see the sharks swimming around them a few feet away, the barracouta and other fish gleaming and predatory. The Ponaturi still lined the walls, their eyes wide and their mouths open. Paki felt ill. The blood. The fear. How could he fight the demons, if his aggression just fed them? Then a distant memory of his nanny Riria popped into his head.
Fight as hard as you can, dear, but never get angry, she was saying. Make sure you keep thinking. That made sense. He cleared his head. What was he doing? How would he do it? He remembered the manaia. What could a bone carving do? How could they use it? Hoheria already knew who she was. She didn’t need the manaia. Or did she? He broke the thong around his neck and held it out to her.
The manaia shone in the dim phosphorescence, turquoise eyes and a crown of jewels sparkling and glowing. Paki could feel the Ponaturi withdraw slightly. Hoheria’s gaze fell on the diminutive carving, now giving off its own light, an eerie bluish effulgence.
What’s that? she thought at Paki.
He touched his forehead to hers. That’s Tinirau. He shaped the thought carefully and deliberately, a child’s storybook picture of a taniwha. He’s on our side.
Hoheria took the artefact, the question large in her eyes. Then a spark of realisation flared. Her fingers closed around the manaia and as they did something exploded in her mind.
The image came first. A huge eel with dragon wings and a gaping mouth, wide enough to swallow the sharks and the other fish as well. Eyes that were wise and old, and unbelievably cruel. No, she thought. It wasn’t cruelty she saw. It was indifference, a lack of interest. Those eyes showed a creature that didn’t care much for the doings of human beings. It was a taniwha, she suddenly knew, a mythical beast from legends and fairy tales.
With that knowledge came the feeling. Hoheria’s heart lurched at the sensation of something huge and muscular brushing up against her, and the shocking, riverbed smell of a live eel that suddenly filled her mind. It terrified her, but it gave her a great strength as well and she seized on that instinctively, letting her understanding of the taniwha wash through her, squeezing out all thoughts of fear for herself, for Paki and the old man.
She looked around. Paki was nearby, hovering over Wilf’s body supine on the sandy floor. The sharks herded them. Around the walls of the cave-like hall, the Ponaturi floated. Hoheria sensed uncertainty in them. What had happened? What had changed? It must be Tinirau. She felt the beginnings of a great rage stirring. She’d show them. She’d fix the bastards. Some of the demons seemed to stiffen, concentrating their attention. Whoops, she thought. Give them nothing. Carefully she pulled back, focussing instead on who the mysterious Kevin might be. Then she remembered a smell like freshly rolled-in grass, and a burst of wild laughter. Of course. Kevin. Her mate, her partner. The love of her life. Wary of everything, afraid of nothing. For all his youth and inexperience a cunning fighter, thinking on his feet. How would he handle this?
Carefully she cleared her mind, then bit by bit allowed the fear to creep back in. Paki looked at her, puzzled. The Ponaturi leaned forward again, feasting once more.
Hoheria let the fear grow till it almost overwhelmed her, filling her, making her limbs tremble. She could feel the Ponaturi, near ecstasy with her terror, turned towards her, their eyes and mouths open wide. Then she unleashed Tinirau.
She simply let go. The fear vanished and suddenly she was full of a ravening, maddened beast, snapping jaws and blazing eyes. She was Tinirau. She was fearless.
Who were these horrid little upstarts who were trying to cause pain and suffering? They had to be driven out. She turned her attention on them one by one, perceiving their minds as tiny pools of light, little splashes of something putrid and unpleasant. She roared at them, hurling the image of Tinirau sucking them into his maw. Some of the lights faded and withdrew. Some winked out completely. S
he let her gaze travel slowly around the walls. Her vision was now split, she realised. Half of her saw with Tinirau’s eyes, half with her own. The once-mysterious creatures, powerful and frightening, were now unravelling. She marvelled, like a little girl watching a computer-generated construct dissolve. All around her the Ponaturi were simply coming apart, hanging in the water, nothing more than fading clouds of seaweed and fish scales. But not all of them.
One was left, unchanged. Hoheria caught a flash of his fury as he swam towards her. Meremere, that’s who it was. How was he unaffected? What could he do?
Your tricks won’t work on me, he was saying. I’ll destroy you, turn you into a piece of mindless food for the sharks.
Paki picked up the thought from where he was floating nearby, and swam at Meremere. Hoheria felt a lightning blast strike Paki, driving out his consciousness and leaving him floating, insensible. Meremere swam right up to Hoheria, looking into her eyes. His mind groped and thrust into hers. She tried thinking of Tinirau, but the taniwha was suddenly indifferent, and she was helpless before the attack. Images began smashing in, shattering her purpose. There were the Kokopu Waters people, attacked by the Ponaturi, clawed at by lobster-limbed monsters. There was Kevin, trying to stop the assault. To her horror, she watched him torn apart by grinning, capering things with hāpuku heads. They were holding Sean down, biting away lumps of his flesh. Cheryl was being strangled by a clump of seaweed, waving and stretching with a horrible life of its own. A shark was eating Eric, ripping off his limbs and tossing his little body out of the water.
Hoheria tried to armour herself, but Meremere was relentless. The bloody images of mayhem and destruction poured in till she felt herself dissolving in them. She was small and weak, unable to withstand such a powerful being. She should just give up, stop resisting. There was no hope. What was the point? She felt her consciousness slipping away. She felt Meremere’s triumph.
Then in a corner of her mind came the faintest of stirrings. What was that? Where was it coming from? Meremere hadn’t noticed. He was too busy with what he was sure was his victory. Something was waking up, coming around, sleep falling away. Hoheria tried to concentrate. It wasn’t easy. Meremere was still in her mind, flailing her with ghastly images of sharks feeding on the bodies of her friends. Paki floated nearby, his mind a blank. The old man … what was happening with him? The agony of a stroke, and a leg torn off? Suddenly aware that she needed to divert Meremere’s attention, she allowed a bit more of her mind to collapse, and the fear in herself to blossom. She didn’t need to pretend. She just held to the image of the fish-headed monsters killing Kevin, and cowered away from Meremere. But out of the corner of her eye she saw Wilf. He’d been lying curled on the sand, his eyes shut, his hands clutching at his heart, the tourniquet tight around his leg and enough blood escaping to cloud the water around his torn limb. He was stirring now, his pain-filled eyes open and his hands paddling fretfully at the water. He saw Hoheria looking and put a finger to his lips. Lifting his other hand, he pointed at Meremere. Blue fire rippled and ran down his arm. Meremere felt the disturbance. He turned in the water, flipping like an Olympic relay swimmer. Hoheria felt the bolt he was readying to hurl at Wilf.
A tongue of fire licked out from Wilf’s pointing finger, leapt to Meremere, and spread around him, enveloping him. Suddenly the Ponaturi was gone from Hoheria’s head. She could see clearly. She could think without hindrance. Quickly, she thought, the old man won’t be able to keep that up for long. What could she do? Power, she needed power. Frantically she called for Tinirau and to her huge relief the taniwha swam back into her mind. She felt her strength restored. Tinirau filled her like a great heat, made her confident, sure she was invincible. She searched inside herself. There must be something. There was. The fire, right at her core. It was keeping her alive, she realised, allowing her to live underwater. But she wasn’t anywhere near using it fully. She was hardly using it at all.
She concentrated on the ball of blue flame, allowing it to grow and spread through her limbs. Wilf saw what was happening. With what felt like a last gasp he withdrew his envelope of fire from Meremere and closed his eyes. Too tired. He couldn’t fight. His chest hurt. His pain was real to Hoheria, just like the frenzied and frustrated hunger of the fish swimming back and forth a few metres away, like the tiny flickers from the sea snails and limpets around the rock walls.
Hoheria felt huge, powerful. Her senses expanded to fill the cavern. Paki floated nearby, his consciousness bruised and battered. The old man lay on the sand, his mind guttering like a nearly spent candle. The sharks still circled, but now she could sense their confusion. And she could feel Meremere, swimming before her. His mind darted and probed, but he was unable to find a way in. His uncertainty grew, and he became desperate. He thrust at her, searching for an opening, for a weakness. But there was none, and suddenly his efforts seemed ludicrous. What was he anyway? Just an evil spirit with no power of his own. He could hurt her only if she let him. He was pathetic. She laughed at him, a chuckle at first, but soon guffaws rooted in a real amusement. Who did he think he was? What on earth was he trying to do?
Her laughter grew into a gale of mirth. She felt it rising from the pit of her stomach, bursting from the depths of her mind. Meremere recoiled. She saw her laughter striking him, making him flinch with every peal. Now was indeed the time. She was bursting with life, the blue fire, and all her love for her family right at her core. It swelled, overflowing so that she was alight with the feeling. She gathered it all up and flung it at Meremere. She had the sudden feeling of throwing a cream pie, a cheesecake, and the little girl within her giggled. That was the final straw for Meremere. She saw the defeat in his eyes as he tried to evade Hoheria’s attack, and she saw her missile strike him, a dense cloud of sparking blue and white fire that flowed all over him. There was one last cry from his mind, a futile and feeble puff of hatred and anger, and Meremere simply winked out. No debris in the water, no gradual fading. Just nothing.
For a few seconds everything was still. No thoughts flowed, even the sharks and barracouta seemed shut down. Hoheria was drained, empty. She gazed at the space around her, all her thoughts gone. Then slowly they returned. Had she survived? Yes, she had. She’d even won the fight. The Ponaturi were beaten. Meremere was destroyed. A spark of relief grew till it was a blaze of triumph. The fish felt her mood and began swimming out through the holes. No food here, only danger. Hoheria watched them go, and as her triumph slowly faded her attention fell on Paki and Wilf.
Paki hung limp in the water. Hoheria could see his mind, the spark all but destroyed. Gingerly she reached out to him, feeling his crushed synapses, the collapsed pathways of his thought waves. Maybe she could heal him. Very gently she entered his mind and began examining the damage. It was severe and extensive, she discovered. The healing wasn’t going to be easy, even if it was possible. And it would have to be quick. She could feel the old man, hovering on the edge of death. Maybe she could just manage a makeshift repair, enough to buy them some time.
She grasped Paki’s shoulders. His eyes had rolled back in his head and his limbs were loose. Where to start? How? Perhaps if she just bathed his mind in the fire. She called it up and allowed it to wash through his head, hoping it would help. She felt it fill his mind, and to her relief, she saw his collapsed and cluttered neurological pathways clearing. His eyes focussed and his body seemed to gather itself. A weak thought came through to Hoheria.
What happened?
You got hit by a bus, her thought rippled at him, carried on a wave of relieved laughter. But it’s okay now. They’re all gone. We won.
She felt Paki relax, and then his thought came through.
Really? I thought they had us. Then a worried frown covered his face. What about Wilf? How’s he? Hoheria inclined her head towards the old man. He’s not too good. We’d better get him back on land. Are you strong enough to help?
Paki checked his body, flexing his muscles and retreating into his head. I’m ok
ay, he thought, with some surprise. In fact I feel better than ever. This isn’t real, is it?
It’s real enough. And we’d better get out of here.
Together they moved to Wilf and picked him up gently. The old man barely stirred as they swam through one of the holes and back into the glowing green of the open estuary. Hoheria stopped, just as they were starting up the slope away from the black hill.
One more thing, she said. I wonder if we can? Maybe together…
Paki guessed her intent. Wilf’ll be okay here for a minute.
They laid him gently on the sandy seabed and turned to the hill.
We’ll probably have to do it from inside, thought Hoheria. They swam back through one of the holes.
Paki looked around. Where do we start?
Hoheria turned slowly. Find a weak spot. Hang on, I know. She gazed at the walls as she turned. How was this place put together? Then it started coming clear to her. It was almost like she was looking at a diagram, a drawing of the geological structure of the place. She could see stress points and places where the balance was critical.
There. And there. She pointed. Maybe if we concentrate together, focus on one place.
They picked the first spot Hoheria had indicated, both focussing on it and visualising bolts of destruction striking it. At first nothing happened. Waste of time, Paki was thinking, when suddenly there was a rumble they felt deep in their insides. A large boulder broke free from the lofty roof of the cavern and landed beside them.
Now here! Hoheria inclined her head and indicated a spot low on the wall near their entrance. She started directing her attention to it.
Wait! Paki’s thought was urgent, accompanied by the image of somebody sawing off the branch on which they were sitting. Get closer to our escape route!
