The Sacrifice Read online

  Contents

  Prologue

  Silence. A thick, claustrophobic cocoon of silence. That’s what I …

  Chapter 1

  The curve of the wave pushed them upwards as though …

  Chapter 2

  Each morning that autumn, straight after dance practice, Taka and …

  Chapter 3

  A storm-besieged month later, the two cousins were sent again …

  Chapter 4

  Sweeping around the final bend in the river that fed …

  Chapter 5

  That evening, soon after the feasting had finished and the …

  Chapter 6

  Only the ten who held the white pebbles remained on …

  Chapter 7

  Even if we agree to this, we don’t have canoes …

  Chapter 8

  Collect your belongings and prepare to leave.’ Tarapu told them …

  Chapter 9

  Taka paused halfway down the sand dune, his arms full …

  Chapter 10

  The completed moki hulls sat upright on a line of …

  Chapter 11

  On this first night, without any need for discussion, the …

  Chapter 12

  Taka faced blindly forward, his head bowed. Tears mingled with …

  Chapter 13

  It was another full day before the cloud was near …

  Chapter 14

  Taka could smell the familiar pungent odour of dried chicken …

  Chapter 15

  You do realize she’s their headman’s daughter?’ Kai looked …

  Chapter 16

  Just before the sun reached the top of its arc, …

  Chapter 17

  The Travellers had been training for ten days, and Taka …

  Chapter 18

  The next few days passed slowly as Taka adjusted to …

  Chapter 19

  Midday and high tide. Two canoes lined up side by …

  Chapter 20

  Best stay away from us,’ said Kai. ‘We need to …

  Chapter 21

  The last months of winter dragged. The sun shone warm …

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Silence. A thick, claustrophobic cocoon of silence. That’s what I remember most. I can still taste it in my mouth, that silence. The chalky slime of ash turned to a paste that coated my teeth, clogged my throat. I couldn’t stop myself swallowing. But it wasn’t pressure deadening my ears. It was the absence of noise. An absence even more terrible than all that had gone before.

  Something had made us push on northwards, always northwards. A few of us, fleeing ahead of the panicked hordes leaving the stricken city. We had relatives way up there, and memories of quiet, green days of childhood. Visions of paradise, then, enough to keep us trudging day after day. We were city people, none of us used to walking, so we soon abandoned most of our possessions. They’d seemed essential at first, things the authorities said we should take with us in an emergency. Disks of family photographs, showing people who no longer lived; records of assets now destroyed. We all carried electronic devices we couldn’t imagine being without, even though they didn’t work any more. The forlorn piles of discarded objects grew.

  I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to hang on to one last, random vestige of my old life. It was a notebook of jottings, small enough to add no weight to the burden that raised angry, throbbing welts on my shoulders. An anachronism of a different sort. A recent passion that connected me to my ancestral past. Another vision of paradise. We women had sketched our new knowledge with pencils on paper, using this old technology to sustain the even older manual skills we were being taught. I knew such jottings were no more use than the dross discarded by others, but some instinct made me reluctant to toss the notebook away.

  Now, in the ominous silence, I forced myself to uncurl from the fetal position I’d adopted against the low rock face. Slowly, blinking in disbelief, I took in the bleak desolation that lapped the mountain and stretched as far as I could see. I was alone. I longed to be anywhere but here. Death was surely preferable to this.

  Then I heard the first, stammering murmur of shocked voices. I’d been wrong. I was not alone. I saw a few others, familiar others, unwind themselves from sheltering nooks and crannies. I made my way towards them, words of resolve forming in my head:

  ‘I am Raranga. I am a survivor — we are survivors.’

  Chapter 1

  The curve of the wave pushed them upwards as though the water-god himself had them in his grip. Taka instinctively braced his thighs and feet against the low sides of their unstable reed craft, revelling in every moment as he effortlessly balanced his torso in response to the lurching moki. In front of him, despite sharing his compact, light-boned build, his cousin wasn’t managing so well. Kai swayed dangerously as they surged forward on the cresting wave, and Taka yelled at him to hang on. For an exhilarating moment, they rode high above the world while the wave swept them forward in a rush of breaking foam. Then the moki rolled, throwing them both into a maelstrom of water.

  Tumbled helplessly like a piece of kelp beneath the surface, Taka struggled to emerge. At last he reached the air, spluttering bitter saltwater, his eyes stinging. He scrambled to his feet, having to push hard against the undercurrent trying to tow him back out to sea. He’d lost his loincloth, but the precious paddle was still clutched firmly in his hand. He scanned the sea edge, searching for Kai. Anxiety nibbled at his elation until he spotted his cousin stumbling safely ashore a little further along the beach, also stripped naked by the force of the water. Taka pushed the long strands of wet hair back off his face and let out another yell, this time a wordless, exuberant shout of triumph.

  Kai limped towards him, brandishing his own paddle. ‘That was amazing!’ he called, his normally serious face creased by a huge grin.

  ‘Told you it would be.’ Taka took in the raised welt blossoming across Kai’s thigh. His elation faded. ‘You’re hurt.’

  His cousin gingerly touched the purpling bruise, then shrugged. ‘It’s nothing — I landed hard, hit Something buried in the sand. The skin’s not broken.’

  Although his voice was casual, the usual unease flickered in Taka’s mind before enthusiasm took over again. ‘Keen to have another go?’

  The two youths waded along the edge of the sea, searching for their reed craft. Taka skipped and pranced over each small ripple as it subsided at his feet. Every fibre of his body zinged with the adrenalin of the swooping, surging ride that had exceeded all his expectations. He took care, though, to skirt the sinister, half-buried mounds of unyielding demon-debris lurking at the water’s edge; indistinguishable, twisted shapes that still leached dangerous fluids to stain the surrounding sand.

  ‘There!’ Kai spotted the moki as a breaking wave catapulted it skywards, its dark form like a dolphin leaping. As the water began to surge back down the beach, the craft was stranded in the shallows. ‘Quick, grab it before we lose it again.’

  They reached the moki just as it was being sucked under the next breaking wave, and dragged it ashore, struggling with the unexpected weight. When they beached it at last, Taka looked at it, his heart sinking. ‘It’s filled up with sand.’

  Kai stooped to examine the moki. ‘Worse than that — half the bindings and some of the reeds are missing.’

  ‘At least we didn’t lose the paddles.’ Taka couldn’t remember when any pieces of timber suitable for making paddles had last washed up on the beach. Replacing a reed moki was easy enough, but not paddles.

  They were trying to drag the sand-laden moki further up the beach when Taka saw someone loping steadily towards them. He groaned. ‘We’ve blown it — lo
ok who’s coming.’

  Although the figure was too far away for them to pick up facial features, no one could mistake Taka’s father. His slim figure, shared by all the Repo people, was honed to lean perfection and he had the lithe movement of a trained dancer. The tawny shadow cast before him alerted Taka to the position of the veiled sun, already well to the west. It was much later than he’d thought, late enough for them to be missed. He met Kai’s rueful eye. ‘Who cares? That ride was worth every moment.’

  His cousin nodded. ‘We’re not likely to get the chance to repeat it.’

  When Taka’s father reached them, he stood looking at the damaged moki and the two naked youths with their wet, sand-streaked hair. Just when Taka couldn’t stand the silence any longer, his father held up his hand. ‘Don’t even start!’ He shook his head heavily. ‘What were you thinking, trying such a stunt?’

  While they shuffled their feet guiltily, he went on, ‘When will your foolishness end, Taka? Sometimes I struggle to remember you’re sixteen. You’re lucky Tanga didn’t suck you both down into the depths.’ He crouched to look more closely at the craft. ‘Look at this moki: a perfectly good moki — wrecked.’

  Taka took a breath, intending to say Something defiant and off-hand about it being old, almost worn out, but when Kai shook his head slightly and touched a warning finger to his lips he managed to swallow his words. Moho, busy checking out the moki, didn’t see the interchange. Now he stood up and turned to Kai. ‘My own son might be a thoughtless thrillseeker, but I expected better of you.’

  Taka bridled. It wasn’t reasonable to assume Kai would always behave like some sober old man just because he was the headman’s son. This time he ignored his cousin’s warning glance. ‘Don’t blame Kai — it was entirely my idea. I persuaded him to join me.’

  His father said dryly, ‘To my knowledge, he has a perfectly good mind of his own.’

  Before Taka could say anything else, his cousin spoke up. ‘We haven’t any excuses. It seemed a good idea at the time.’

  Moho sighed. ‘At least I see you managed to hang on to the paddles.’

  Taka was uncomfortably aware that, no matter what Kai said, he had got his cousin into trouble yet again. He studied his sand-encrusted feet, his father’s disappointment weighing heavy on his shoulders. Only Moho could induce this feeling, one that had become all too familiar lately.

  At last his father sighed again. ‘This moki’s beyond repair. At the very least, I expect the two of you to spend the next few days cutting rau for a new one.’

  To Taka’s surprise, his father didn’t mention their escapade at that evening’s gathering, so they escaped public censure. Nor did Moho say anything now as they sharpened two of Ra-Repo’s remaining steel machetes on the whetstone under his watchful eye. He then left them to complete their preparations for cutting the area of reed bed needed to make a two-person moki. When he was out of earshot, Taka turned to his cousin. ‘We got off lightly — that ride was worth worse punishment!’

  Kai lifted one eyebrow, a familiar quirk that lit his face with humour. ‘I had the distinct impression your father was a bit envious!’

  For a moment Taka was startled, then he chuckled. ‘Maybe you’re right.’

  Not long after they finished cutting reeds for the replacement moki, the autumn sky started to change. The sun was too bright to look at directly as it sank towards the western horizon, its customary veils disintegrating into tatters. The afternoon shadows grew more distinct. Colours sharpened as the familiar amber light gradually gave way to a blue clarity that made Taka’s eyes ache with the effort of gazing up through the gaps opening in the ash layer. Excited and afraid, he wondered whether the sky now stretched endlessly upwards. When night fell, instead of the normal, dim twilight reflected back by the ash, the newly cleared sky above the sun’s sleeping place extinguished more and more light.

  Even more astonishing, the sun’s shadow sister slowly revealed her true form. Each night, Taka and Kai went with the rest of the Ra-Repo people to gather on the beach and look up through the widening rents in the ash layer, following the moon as it grew from a slender curve into the familiar silver hoop that rolled across the night sky by the end of each month. Night after night, they watched in awe as the space enclosed by the forming hoop filled in. When the lop-sided shape finally rounded into a solid, glowing disc, they saw that its pitted and cratered surface bore an uncanny resemblance to the sky-talker that stood on the sacred summit of Tepaki. Without a word being said, everyone made their way up the mountain. When they reached the summit, they extinguished their torches and clustered around the base of the sky-talker. Its angled disc gleamed dully in the new light of the moon. The people waited there for hours as the moon travelled across the sky, expectant faces turning from the moon to the disc of the sky-talker. The low hum of their excitement increased when the moon at last gained its high point. Puweto, the headman, urged them to be quiet.

  Taka blinked hard to clear his vision, then stared intently at the sky-talker. His heart beat faster as he watched and waited. He wasn’t sure what to expect: transmitted images of some sort perhaps, or voices emanating from the unknown world beyond the Great Ocean. The gathered people waited in vain. Nothing happened.

  When the moon sank below the horizon and the subdued light of dawn replaced its unfamiliar gleam, old Huaho, Ra-Repo’s storyteller, broke the disappointed silence. ‘Maybe we’ve got it wrong. Maybe the sky-talker has sent its message to our house-discs.’

  Almost before he’d finished speaking, everyone rushed back down the mountain. Once inside their small house, Taka crouched in front of the wall shrine with the other members of his family.

  The inert, dull metal disc that hung above the shelf of votive offerings to Tanga had become so familiar that Taka couldn’t remember when he last even noticed its presence. Now it took on new significance. But if the disc had responded to any signals, they were too late to see or hear them. Like the sky-talker on the mountain, the disc remained unchanged.

  Each night while the moon remained close to full, the headman sent some people to attend the sky-talker on the mountain while everyone else watched their house-discs. Even though many offerings were placed at the foot of the sky-talker and on the household shrines, the discs remained unresponsive. Once the moon started to wane and the clearing night sky became even darker than before, the Ra-Repo people gradually gave up hope that the portents meant renewed contact with the outside world.

  When Taka expressed his own disappointment, Kai laughed. ‘You want to know what I think? The sky-talker and the house-discs are just leftover junk from before the Dark.’

  Taka was about to rebuke him, then changed his mind. His cousin liked to be provocative, and it was wiser not to encourage him. He contented himself with making the demon-averting gesture behind his back where Kai wouldn’t see.

  As the end of the month drew near and the moon dwindled into nothingness, the night sky growing ever blacker, Ra-Repo’s doomsayer took advantage of the growing unease. When the people gathered for the usual evening discussions and storytelling on what would be the darkest night of the month, Kawau rudely snatched away the talking stick just as the headman bent to pick it up. Puweto shrugged and conceded the floor to the little man. Kawau strutted as he waved the talking stick towards the sky.

  ‘Now we know what these portents mean!’ His voice was clotted with barely hidden relish. ‘We’re being punished for neglecting the sky-talker. The gods are about to plunge us into eternal night. The portents signal the return of the Dark.’

  Puweto intervened before the stir of movement and hasty, demon-averting gestures could turn to panic. He rose to his feet and took the talking stick back from Kawau, quelling his querulous protest with a look. ‘Nonsense!’ He waited until everyone settled. ‘Far from the return of the Dark, we’re witnessing the end of it.’

  A dubious voice from the crowd posed Taka’s own silent question. ‘How can you be so sure?’

  Huaho stru
ggled to his feet. Puweto placed his hand under the old man’s elbow until he was safely upright, then handed him the talking stick, which he leant on heavily for support. Taka could see the withered legs beneath his waist mat shake with the effort of standing, but the old man’s still-deep voice resonated with power, the hooded eyes beneath their jutting eyebrows sharp and penetrating. ‘Puweto is right. The stories tell us this is how the Dark will end. This gradual clearance of the sky, the sky-gods showing their faces once more.’

  Someone else demurred. ‘But the nights are blacker than ever.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Huaho was unperturbed. ‘The old stories lead me to think that, contrary to Kawau’s predictions, the sky-gods may have prepared a treat for us — a treat that needs the blackest of skies.’

  Despite the questioning voices, Huaho wouldn’t elaborate. ‘The sun is seeking its nest and the sky grows dark. Follow me down to the beach.’

  Taka fell in beside Kai at the back of the torch-bearing crowd, where they jostled each other, eyes alight with anticipation, as the old man made his slow way through the sand dunes, supported by his two sons.

  Once they all reached the beach, Huaho told them to extinguish the torches. Then he gestured towards the west. ‘Watch.’

  Standing in small groups, the people obediently faced the western horizon, many of them clutching amulets for protection against lurking demons. As the swathe of cleared sky darkened into night, Taka caught his breath. Nothing had prepared him for this. There in the west, a few bright orbs now hung like the crystal jewels of ancient stories. He watched them glitter against the fading crimson of the sun’s farewell.

  Amid the growing murmurs of wonder, Huaho said quietly, ‘The stories say they are stars — other-worlds far distant from ours reflecting light from the sun.’