Taniwha's Tear (22 page)

Jones lifted a hand, and gestured, and flames leapt up among the pile of bones. The soldier leapt away, nervously crossing himself. Captain Taylor strode up, ordering the man away, adding more bones. He looked expectant, and impatient.

Lena splashed into the waters, making the fish dart away, and reached out to the stone taniwha, stroking it about the nostrils. She was shaking visibly, but her eyes were filled with eagerness. Mat felt his stomach clench. She seemed like a stranger. It was as if everyone knew something he didn’t. In his ear, Ngatoro murmured wordlessly.

Jones beckoned to Lena, and she walked back through
the water to his side. Mat hurried up. ‘I’m ready, sir,’ he offered again.

But Jones shook his head. ‘It must be Lena. The taniwha was a female, so must her deliverer be.’

‘But…Kauariki…I’m sure it must be me…’ Mat stared helplessly at Jones, while Tuwai’s unseen fingers stroked his windpipe. He turned to Lena. ‘It should be me…’

Lena smiled thirstily. ‘No, it’s going to be me…’ She licked her lips. ‘I told you I would become someone.’

He floundered, his brain refusing to comprehend. ‘But how…you can’t.’ He felt Ngatoro gasp inside his skull, and his own dread and confusion threatened to drown him.

Jones dropped the head into the heart of the fire, and looked at Lena. ‘Do you understand what you’ve got to do, Lena?’

She looked sideways at Mat, then nodded.

‘Then proceed, my girl, and we will end this war, perchance.’

Mat felt the walls of the world tumble about him. ‘Ahhh,’ Ngatoro murmured. An image rose in Mat’s mind, of Lena…changing into the taniwha. A massive beast…on a leash, held by Bryn Jones…if that was really his name.

‘No!’ Mat lunged forward, towards the fire. Something hammered into the back of his head, and he fell dazed onto the flat stone. A booted foot smashed into his ribs, something inside cracked, and he gasped in agony.

Captain Taylor put his boot into the middle of his chest and pinned him flat. He levelled a gun at his face. ‘Lie still or I’ll blow your whiny little head off, boy.’

Unseen, but horribly close, Tuwai snarled softly in his ear. ‘You’re failing me, poai.’ He could feel the guardian’s baffled fury. The only one he had power over here now was Mat, because of the tapu. The only person he could harm was the one person he couldn’t afford to if his whole purpose was not to be rendered as nought.

Mat fought for air, pinned immobile and in agony. Beside him, the mokomokai crackled as the flames caught it. He swivelled his head, and saw Lena kneeling beside the fire, with a wetted blanket about her head. He tried desperately to think…but he knew so little of what was really going on…

‘Who are you?’ he whispered desperately to Jones. Playing for time, scared to really know.

The man turned, as if he’d been waiting for the question. ‘My name is John Bryce. I was Native Minister from 1881 to 1884. It was my job to undo the harm the liberals and weaklings had done, and put the savages in their place. I did that, oh yes, though the weak-kneed fools in Parliament tried to tie my hands. They remember me, yes they do, especially in Parihaka.’ His voice dripped with bitterness. ‘When I was reborn in Aotearoa, I found that all the hatred of the natives towards me gave me power over them. They feared me, for they knew I could and would kill them all if I was permitted. Belief is reality here, boy. Over here, I can kill a Maori man with a single word,
you know that? All because they called me Bryce Kohuru, “Bryce the Murderer”.’ He chuckled. ‘It’s one of the great pleasures, to kill with a word.’ He looked thoughtfully at the smouldering skull. ‘Soon, girl,’ he told Lena.

He turned back to Mat. ‘You know, when I lived, I never really hated you natives. Despised, yes, for you are inferior beings. But not hated…you are not worthy. A thing has to be fully human to earn true hatred. But here in Aotearoa, what Maori believed about me changed my nature. When I was alive, it was just a task that I had to do. Politics, nothing more. Here, where I am a ghost, it is a labour of love.’

Mat stared at him with growing disbelief. ‘You’re insane.’

Bryce smiled gently. ‘Maybe,’ he admitted. ‘The mad ghost of a sane man. It hardly matters. I am what I am, here in this place. I made my deals with Puarata, and he ceded me the South Island. Rich pickings, and not too many natives.’ He nudged Lena. ‘Now, girl. Breathe in deeply, as if inhaling a cigar.’

‘Lena!’ Mat called to her, his voice echoing about the dell. ‘Lena, this will destroy you! And Tuwai will kill me!’

She looked down at him. ‘No, it won’t,’ she replied. ‘It will make me great. Don’t worry, I won’t let them hurt you, Mat. Mister Bryce will keep you safe from Tuwai. He promised. But I can’t let you get in my way.’

‘Shall I shut him up?’ Taylor asked Bryce dispassionately. ‘We don’t need him no more. Why don’t I just—’

‘No!’ Lena said hastily, looking at Bryce. ‘You promised.’

Bryce shrugged, and looked at Taylor. ‘There is no need. He has been a cipher all along. Just a way to bring a number of unique elements together. But don’t let him speak again. Keep him quiet.’ He turned away, as if Mat had ceased to exist.

Taylor knelt beside him. ‘You hear that, boy?’ the American asked. ‘You speak, and I’m gonna hurt you bad. So keep your mouth shut.’

Mat went still, hope draining away.
The moment she breaks the bargain I made with Tuwai, the guardian is going to kill me, right before he fades away. Has she forgotten that? Doesn’t she understand?
He looked about helplessly. Sassman was hovering near the edge of the hollow, haunting it like a spectre. The other soldiers were staring at the girl, with expressions ranging from distaste to fear. He looked up at Taylor, trying to measure whether he had any leeway to speak.

Lena coughed, and when her head emerged from the blanket, her eyes were red and streaming. Mat stared at her, willing her to stop. Bryce saw the look, as he helped her up, and guided her towards the pool. ‘Ah, betrayed love,’ he mock-sighed. ‘But she deserves her chance at true power, you know. And only a woman can do this part.’

Mat watched as Lena stumbled through the water, and then breathed the smoke of the burning skull across the eye of the taniwha. Bryce took the flask he had obtained from the trader and doused the eye.

It blinked, with a sound like a windshield cracking.
Lena gaped at the amber-slitted orb that gazed balefully at her. She fell to her knees in wonder as green fluid filled the bottom of the eye, and gathered into a single tear, the size of a child’s fist.

‘Take it, and drink, Lena,’ Bryce told her. ‘Don’t let it touch the water! Drink it, make your wish. You must wish to become Haumapuhia the taniwha, so that all her wonderful strength and power will be yours, just as I said it would.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled something out, a bundle of something that glinted in the torchlight, as the sun fell in scarlet in the west. It was a plaited lock of blonde hair. He held it behind himself, out of Lena’s sight.

Full realisation struck Mat like a blow.

He had confessed his promise to Sassman, and Sassman had told Bryce, his master. Finally, they had realised, here was the key that would unlock the power of the taniwha. But only if they played Mat for a fool. So they had led him with feigned friendship, and he had dutifully fed them the remainder of the puzzle—Kauariki’s tale, Hoanga’s words—he had given them all the missing pieces.

But they wanted more than the freeing of the taniwha…

They wanted to control it…

And to control it, it needed to be contained in a vessel…

A female vessel, with some power of its own to channel it…a gifted female like Lena…

Then they had to be able to control the vessel…and would, with a braid of Lena’s hair!

They must have gone to Lena, probably as recently as yesterday, and told her that they could make her powerful, make her into a ‘player’. She had accepted. No wonder she had become so full of vengefulness against perceived and real slights, when she felt that soon she would have the ability to redress them. No wonder she had become so bristling with ambition and purpose, and so distant, for she must have known that Mat would never agree to any of this. She wanted too much and knew too little. Because of that, he would die, when Tuwai punished his failure to free the taniwha. As a taniwha, she would be beyond Tuwai’s retribution. The taniwha, freed by Lena and controlled by Bryce, would be turned into a killing machine. Everything that was Lena would be erased, and Bryce would destroy his rivals and rule Aotearoa.

Mat met her eyes, as she cupped the tear, and let it flow into her hands, where it caught the firelight and reflected it about the bowl, a watery green and golden glow. It seemed to take that light and magnify it, so that it became the illumination that lit the whole bowl.

She wanted power…but did she also want to be controlled? And what would be left of her soul when Haumapuhia flowed into it, with her centuries of pent-up rage?

‘Ngatoro?’
he called silently. No one answered.

Lena raised her hands to her mouth, the green liquid of the tear poised against her lips. Suddenly she started
and her eyes went wide. Mat heard a voice inside his head as if from a massive distance…the voice of Ngatoro-i-rangi…‘Girl, they are betraying you, even as they betrayed Matiu.’ Ngatoro’s voice, speaking to Lena. Her eyes flitted about the hollow, filled with confusion and fear. ‘But even now you have choices, though each has a price…’

Mat lost the connection. He looked up at Taylor, and saw Tuwai, superimposed over the captain’s features, staring down at him. Mat didn’t have to feign terror. They both looked back at Lena.

With a small flourish and lifting of her head, Lena drank the green liquid, her eyes impossible to read.

Mat panted, clinging to his consciousness by a thread, the pain throbbing through him. He looked up desperately, scanned the rim of the bowl, hopeless, helpless. A new figure had joined the Maori on the south side of the bowl. Donna Kyle, clad in a feather cloak, her face glowing in the light. Some thing gleamed in her grasp.

It was another braid of Lena’s hair…

Of course! Bryce didn’t have the resources to keep Venn penned in his redoubt. And Donna didn’t have control of Mat and Lena. From the moment Mat gave Bryce the pieces of the puzzle, Bryce must have realised he had to make a deal. To destroy Venn, and divide Aotearoa with Donna Kyle, North Island and South Island. With equal command of the taniwha. Which meant the attack on him and Lena at Matawhero had been staged…

I’m such a fool!
Everyone in Turanga had asked them: ‘Are you with Kyle or Venn?’ It was always going to be one of them, standing behind everything…

‘Make the wish, girl,’ Bryce commanded, his voice ringing out across the bowl, echoing on the walls. The braid of hair twitched in his hand.

Mat stared into Lena’s eyes, and she stared back. He read it all. She understood too, finally, that she was as trapped as Mat. She had been there, in the chamber when he bargained his soul with Tuwai. She knew that her next words could kill him. She knew she was dealing with treacherous men. The very fact that they had come to her with their secret deals revealed their true nature. That they would deal behind Mat’s back, and seek to offer her the taniwha’s powers instead of letting it go free showed what type of men they were. That meant she must expect treachery…to offer her power with no strings attached would go against their nature. She was much worldlier than Mat. She would have guessed. But she had said nothing to Mat about it, and she wanted so very badly to be among the mighty…

He stared at her, searching her face, her eyes, her soul. But she was unreadable.
I have no idea what you are going to do.
He took a breath, and tried not to call it his last. He could practically feel Tuwai’s breath in his face, could feel the blow poised above him like Damocles’ sword.

Lena opened her mouth to speak, and everyone present held their breath.

R
iki followed the Ponaturi out of the water and into the fog, trying not lose his balance, or make a splash, whilst going fast enough to keep the shadowy sea-fairies in sight in the gathering gloom. That the sun was still up he could only guess from the glow about the fogbank, but as he stepped ashore, he stepped out of the mist. He suddenly felt like a target. Scenes from D-Day movies filled his head, of carnage as men stepping ashore were butchered by machine guns. Damn
Saving Private Ryan
! He wished he’d never seen the bloody movie.
I’ll never be jealous of Mat and his adventures again. If we get out of this…if…

He lost the Ponaturi in the fog as he stumbled ashore, and grabbed Damien’s shoulder. ‘Where are we, man?’ He looked for Cassandra, only exhaling as the girl’s silhouette emerged beside them.

‘Where are we?’ she asked. ‘And what’s that red light?’ She pointed at his chest, where a tiny red dot of light danced erratically.

It reminded him of a sniper movie…

‘Freeze!’ drawled a deep voice. A soldier stepped out of the mist. You could almost laugh; a musket with a laser sight. How American! Except the laser dot was pointing at his heart.

‘What you got, Jefferson?’ said another voice, higher pitched, a little scared and trying to hide it.

An electric torch nearly blinded Riki. ‘Kids!’ spat the first voice—Jefferson’s. ‘Jus’ some damned kids. Shall we kill ’em?’ He lowered the torch, allowing Riki to make out two bulky forms and their raised guns. Pallid shadows ghosted in behind them.

He held his breath, not flinching in case he betrayed his rescuers. Polished bone patu flashed in the remaining light. Cassandra blanched and looked away. The two soldiers crumpled.

Their Ponaturi guides stepped over the fallen foe, and put out their hands for rewards.

Riki tried not to look at the fallen soldiers as he fished out the chocolate, and broke off another row of chocolate. The price of their safety.

They crept along the shoreline, at the fringe of the mist, until they found a small shingled bay, where the rest of the Ponaturi were gathered. They could not have looked more alien as they turned, faces feral, at the sound of their approach. Jones, in the midst of them, cursed silently, his eyes blazing as he saw them. Even Godfrey, a dog again, looked cross.

The Welshman marched up to Riki, who was in the lead, and thrust his face at him. ‘What the HELL are you doing here?’ he hissed, almost beside himself with fury. ‘I told you to stay back! What do you think this is, a GAME?’ He clenched his fists. ‘I don’t have time for this! Now go back!’

Riki drew on every last shred of determination he had. He felt so scared he wanted to be sick, and the thought of more hand-to-hand fighting filled him with nausea. But Mat was out there! ‘Nope. Sorry, old man, we’re in on this.’

‘In it up to the eyeballs,’ Damien added. ‘Try stopping us.’

Cassandra flipped open her laptop. ‘What’s your plan?’ she enquired, as though the deal was already done. A piece fell out of her broken glasses. She had some thing black strapped to the top of her head; some sort of goggles, pushed up onto her brow so she could read. She looked down in annoyance at the laptop, and then returned her attention to Jones, her fingers on the keyboard, like a secretary poised to take dictation.

Jones looked about to burst into apoplexy. But suddenly, a pale blue-pink light peered above the hills to the east, and he whirled. ‘The moon! The moon is rising!’ he spun back towards the teens, and a thousand emotions warred on his face, then he cursed and spat. ‘We’re out of time! Damn you! Then follow me. But stay out of trouble!’

He threw them one last furious look, then stormed back into the knot of Ponaturi gathered about their leader, and
he spat out a series of instructions. Piriniha nodded, then growled some thing that made his warriors smile ferally. They looked like the war-band of Tumatauenga, God of War. As one, they raised their weapons in a silent salute or prayer, and then they surged silently along the shore, as a wind slowly rose from the lake, shifting the mist onshore in a rolling wave.

‘So, no plan, huh?’ Cassandra whispered dryly. ‘Boys…’ She flipped the laptop shut with a sigh.

The three teens trailed after the spectral shapes of the Ponaturi war-party along the shore, and the fog swallowed them all.

They had just rounded a bend in the path when a Ponaturi loomed out of the fog, and seized Riki’s shoulder. The warrior put his fingers to his lips, and pointed ahead. They froze, then crept forward slowly. All about them were the other Ponaturi, crouched behind rocks and bushes, facing forward. To the right, the tiny waves of the lake broke against the rocky shore. That shoreline rose to their left, towards a stony lip. Below that lip, light flickered, the yellow-orange of firelight. Patrolling the lip were four men, powerfully built, their long muskets tipped by silvery bayonets. They were restless, looking here and about, but they were distracted too, by whatever was happening below them, where the light came from. They seemed oblivious to the gathering Ponaturi.

Suddenly, a voice rang out from within the fire-lit area below that rim. Mat’s voice.

‘Lena! Lena, this will destroy you! And Tuwai will kill me!’

They all stiffened, and Riki had to fight to prevent himself from sprinting out to the rim to see what was happening. He heard Cassandra and Damien gasp. Then Lena’s voice carried to them, but the words were too low to hear. Other voices replied in similar tones.

I have to go to Mat,
was all Riki could think. He rose. Jones seized him, and pulled him back before he lunged into the open. ‘Shhh!’ the Welshman hissed, his whole weight holding Riki back. He was strong, weirdly strong for an old man. Fog billowed out, enveloping the sentries on the rim of the bowl. The Ponaturi rose like vampires from the grave, and became the fog itself.

Lena’s eyes locked on Mat, then flicked to Taylor. Mat glanced up at the soldier, and stiffened. Captain Taylor was gone. It was Tuwai that knelt above him, pinning him to the ground. His massive patu was raised for the killing blow.

Mat looked back at Lena, and saw her decide. Her words carried clear across the bowl—to John Bryce, waiting to assume control; to Donna Kyle above with her warriors; and to Mat, held beneath the guardian, waiting for the killing blow.

‘Let the taniwha become me.’

For an instant, every thing fell still. Bryce frowned, halfway through lifting the braid of hair in his hand.
The soldiers looked at each other. It was DJ Sassman that broke the silence. ‘The girl said the wrong thing,’ he whispered. ‘She said the words wrong.’ He sounded puzzled. ‘Weren’t she s’posed to say it the other way round?’ His voice echoed oddly in the gloomy bowl of stone.

‘What have you done?’ Bryce demanded of Lena, his voice apprehensive.

Lena blinked, looking around her wildly, her whole posture changing. Where there had been the schooled posture of the fashion-conscious modern girl, now there was a hunched, wild thing, her arms and legs spreading as if to flee.

Donna Kyle’s harsh laughter rang from above. ‘You fool, Bryce. You left her a way out. You wanted a pliable girl in command of the taniwha. Instead you’ve just got a primitive savage inside the girl’s body. She’s useless to us now! This has all been for nothing, you imbecile!’

Mat barely heard her. He was staring up at Tuwai, who suddenly grinned down at him. ‘The tapu is lifted, poai. The taniwha is free…and so am I.’ His voice held fear and joy in equal measure. He stood, and pulled Mat to his feet. ‘Reinga is calling,’ he said, his head cocked. He handed Mat his patu, and then he was gone, his features fading back to those of Captain Taylor.

They both blinked at each other in confusion. It was clear Taylor had some dim understanding of what had passed, but in the captain’s disciplined world, these things did not happen. Mat moved first, as Taylor’s bewildered
gaze fell upon his own empty hand, and then Mat’s hand, his eyes going wide. Mat followed his gaze, to where Tuwai’s patu had transformed back into Taylor’s pistol.

He jabbed the weapon into Taylor’s face, and raised a finger of his left hand to his lips. The captain went very still. Mat walked slowly round him, trying not to draw attention. But no one was looking at him—all eyes were on Lena, and Bryce.

If Tuwai let me live, then the taniwha is free…
but all that was to be seen at the centre of the hollow were Lena, and Bryce gaping stupidly at her.

Mat looked up past them, and sucked in his breath. Fog was rolling down the western wall of the bowl, the wall that kept the lake penned. On the lip of the wall, almost a part of the fog, were a line of savage-looking beings, pale-skinned, near-naked, with long black hair and feral faces, gazing down upon the events below. Amidst them, his disbelieving eyes picked out Riki, Damien and Cassandra. His heart leapt to his mouth.

He glanced at Donna Kyle and her warriors, then at Bryce’s men, but they were oblivious to the newcomers. All were still, poised, as if sucking in one last breath before diving into deep water. All were staring at Lena, and when he followed their gaze, he became as hypnotised as everyone else.

It was as if Lena were slowly turning to glass…no, water! All of the colour in her form was turning to empty transparent fluid. She moved, slowly, raising her arms, looking about her through her hands. She lifted her head,
and then some thing laughed through her, channelled its girlish delight through her throat. Some thing old, and wild, and almost free.

Lena, perhaps on Ngatoro’s advice, had out-thought the warlocks. Instead of her soul entering the stone behemoth beneath her feet, she had called the soul trapped within that petrified form into her body. But that soul was NOT, as Donna Kyle supposed, just that of a primitive girl. Just as the body had transformed, so had the spirit animating it. The soul empowering Lena was now the soul of Haumapuhia, and it was both girl and taniwha—the animal-spirit of water and strength and terror, the guardian spirit, the vengeful protector, who might save or destroy.

Yes, she had out-thought them, but at what price…?

She had power now…but what had she lost? Her very self?

Bryce realised, too late, and snatched his gun from his belt. ‘Kill her!’ he bellowed. His men raised guns, but most aimed towards Donna Kyle, thinking her the target of his order. A few saw the white shapes on the western wall, and aimed that way. But most eyes remained on Lena, as she suddenly seemed to implode, a fountain that had been turned off, into water that flowed into the head of the giant stone taniwha.

The spell of stillness was broken, and everyone moved at once.