The Lost Tohunga Read Online Free

eyes, and shut out the smells of the lake, the distant traffic, and the chill touch of the wind. Inside himself he could feel a thin coil of verdant fire. He grasped it, visualized Aotearoa, the Ghost World that existed parallel to the real world, the place where legends lived and the dead went. It took seconds, as energy surged then left him shaking and perspiring. He opened his eyes, and looked about. The time-shares had vanished, replaced by verdant forest. The town had been replaced by a Maori pa and a collection of colonial houses. He exhaled with satisfaction, and then the lake boiled about his feet, and with a rush, a massive water-serpent towered over him, its teeth bared.
    â€˜Kia ora, Horomatangi!’ he shouted, as a wave washed over his knees and made him stagger.
    The taniwha hissed, and its fishy breath hit Mat like a cold blast of steam. Massive filmy eyes took turns at regarding him as the serpent turned its head first one way then the other. Lake weed slid from its oily black flanks, and clung to the twisted folds and ridges of its massive skull. If a mythical dragon had mated with a massive eel, it might have resulted in this creature. But it was far more than a big fish. This was the lake-god, and the world seemed to bend around it. Mat could feel throbbing skeins of power that emanated from it. It was both in and of the water, bound to both worlds at once.
    Horomatangi lowered its head back into the water, half-submerged, one huge opalescent eye watching him. Its tongue flickered out. On it was a stone the size of a compact disc, grey slate washed smooth by the waters of the lake, presentedas a gift. Mat reached cautiously into the taniwha’s mouth, between fangs the size of his hands, and took the stone. In the great reflecting eye, he saw an image flicker of Jones, and he nodded. Then a pulse of energy made him gasp, and the pale disc of stone seemed to fizz with light. Further images formed. A blonde woman with a scarred face and a tattooed chin: Donna Kyle! His heart beat faster. More images followed. A hollow-eyed tramp limping down a gravel road. A shape like a woman, composed entirely of birds. A giant pounamu stone that pulsed like a heartbeat. Then darkness. His vision cleared, and he stared up at the taniwha.
    Horomatangi reared again, towering above him, then swirled away into the depths with a mighty crash of water. Mat barely kept his footing, his clothes were sodden. He stared after the taniwha, hoping for more, but it was gone. He was left wet and shivering. He slopped back to the shoreline and sat on a tree stump, shivering.
    The face of the blonde woman still haunted his dreams. Donna Kyle, Puarata’s former apprentice. The last time he had seen her was an instant before the waters had swept him away in Waikaremoana. He had hoped she had drowned, but her sneering, cold-eyed face never left his nightmares. Why did she feature in the taniwha’s message?
    Standing, he began to run down the trail. Under the pallid sky, if seen out of the corner of the eye, the sun seemed to be a huge carved face — only the most obvious sign that he was in another world. He reached an old jetty, then turned up a short path through bush that thrummed with insects and birdsong, to an old wood cabin that lurked among towering kauri trees.
    â€˜Jones! Jones!’
    An old man stepped from the front door, a bony figure with lank, grey hair and rough white stubble. He wore faded brown cotton pants of the sort worn by colonial settlers, and his checked shirt was stained and threadbare. A grin adorned a leathery face that had something of a wolf about it.
    â€˜Mat! About time!’ Aethlyn Jones strode down the path and hugged Mat, his warm embrace reeking of pipe smoke. He still spoke with a Welsh burr, despite having left Wales two hundred years before, fleeing a Church-led purge of the remnants of druidism and witchcraft. Eventually, he had settled in Aotearoa. Since New Year, Mat had become