The Roof of Voyaging

by Garry Kilworth

Genres: Horror; Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure

Synopsis

When Kupe, one of the great Polynesian voyagers, chases a huge octopus across the ocean, he discovers the strange and mysterious Land of Mists and rescues a man and a woman from the wild sea. He carries them back to the island of Raiatea where the pale strangers witness the momentous events that follow the death of the king and the struggle for succession. But the gods are watching also, and when Prince Tangiia and his followers secretly flee the island in search of a new home, their intervention becomes inevitable. Delighting in the rich and colourful detail and myth of Polynesian life, The Roof of Voyaging is the first part of a wonderful tale which will become a landmark in fantastic fiction.

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 400

Sample

This is a work of fantasy fiction, based on the myths and legends of the Polynesian peoples and not an attempt to faithfully recreate the magnificent migrational voyages of those peoples. Other authors have done that, will do it again, far more accurately than I am able to do. This particular set of tales, within these pages, alters a piece of known geography, while hopefully retaining the internal logic of the story; my apologies to the country of New Zealand, which has changed places with Britain. (New Zealand and the Maori are not forgotten and appeared in Book II of The Navigator Kings). The gods of the Pacific region are many and diverse, some shared between many groups of islands, others specific to one set of islands or even to a single island. Their exact roles are confused and confusing, and no writer has yet managed to classify them to absolute clarity, though Jan Knappert’s book is the best. Where possible I have used the universal Polynesian deities, but on rare occasion have used a god from a specific island or group for the purposes of the story. Since the spelling of Polynesian gods and the Polynesian names for such ranks as ‘priest’ varies between island groups, I have had to make a choice, for example Tangaroa (Maori) for the god of the sea and Kahuna (Hawaiian) for priest. In short, for purposes of homogeneity I have taken liberties with the names of gods and with language.

For the facts behind the fiction I am indebted to the following works: The Polynesians by Peter Bellwood (Thames and Hudson); Nomads of the Wind by Peter Crawford (BBC); Polynesian Seafaring and Navigation by Richard Feinberg (The Kent State University Press); Ancient Tahitian Canoes by Commandant P. Jourdain (Société des Oceanistes Paris Dossier); Pacific Mythology by Jan Knappert (HarperCollins); that inspiring work, Polynesian Seafaring by Edward Dodd (Nautical Publishing Company Limited); Aristocrats of the South Seas by Alexander Russell (Robert Hale); the brilliant Myths and Legends of the Polynesians by Johannes C. Andersen (Harrap); and finally the two articles published back to back that sparked my imagination and began the story for me way back before I had even published my first novel, The Isles of the Pacific by Kenneth P. Emory, and Wind, Wave, Star and Bird by David Lewis (National Geographic Vol. 146 No. 6 December 1974).

Also: Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race by T. W. Rolleston (Constable); Dictionary of Celtic Mythology by Peter Berresford Ellis (Constable); and Celtic Gods Celtic Goddesses by R. J. Stewart (Blandford).

Once again, and finally, grateful thanks to Wendy Leigh-James, the design artist who provided me with a map of Oceania decorated with Polynesian symbols and motifs and the various windflowers which decorated each of the ten separate parts of each volume.

Amai-te-rangi: Deity of the sky who angles for mortals on earth, pulling them up in baskets to devour them.

Ao: God of Clouds.

Apu Hau: A god of storms, God of the Fierce Squall.

Apu Matangi: A god of storms, God of the Howling Rain.

Ara Tiotio: God of the Whirlwind and Tornado.

Aremata-rorua and Aremata-popoa: ‘Long-wave’ and ‘Shortwave’, two demons of the sea who destroy mariners.

Atanua: Goddess of the Dawn.

Atea: God of Space.

Atua: Ancestor’s spirit revered as a god.

Brighid: Celtic Goddess of smithcraft and metalwork.

Dakuwanga: Shark-God, eater of lost souls.

Dengei: Serpent-God, a judge in the Land of the Dead.

Hau Maringi: God of Mists and Fog.

Hine-keha, Hine-uri: The Moon-Goddess, wife of Marama the Moon-God, whose forms are Hina-keha (bright moon) and Hine-uri (dark moon).

Hine-nui-to-po: Goddess of the Night, of Darkness and Death. Hine is actually a universal goddess with many functions. She is represented with two heads, night and day. One of her functions is as patroness of arts and crafts. She loved Tuna the fish-man, out of whose head grew the first coconut.

Hine-te-ngaru-moana: Lady of the Ocean Waves. Hine in her fish form.

Hine-tu-whenua: Benevolent goddess of the wind who blows vessels to their destination.

Hua-hega: Mother of the trickster demi-god Maui.

Io: The Supreme Being, the ‘Old One’, greatest of the gods who dwells in the sky above the sky, in the highest of the twelve upper worlds.

Ira: Mother of the Stars.

Kahoali: Hawaiian God of Sorcerers.

Kukailimoku: Hawaiian God of War.

Kuku Lau: Goddess of Mirages.

Limu: Guardian of the Dead.

Lingadua: One-armed God of Drums.

Magantu: Great White Shark, a monster fish able to swallow a pahi canoe whole.

Manannan mac Lir: Celtic Sea God.

Maomao: Great Wind-God, father of the many storm-gods, including ‘Howling Rainfall’ and ‘Fierce Squall’.

Marama: God of the Moon, husband of Hine-keha, Hine-uri.

Mareikura: Personal attendants of Io, the Old One. His ‘angels’.

Marikoriko: First woman and divine ancestor, wife of Tiki. She was fashioned by the Goddess of Mirages out of the noonday heatwaves.

Maui: Great Oceanian trickster hero and demi-god. Maui was born to Taranga, who wrapped the child in her hair and gave him to the sea-fairies. Maui is responsible for many things, including the birth of the myriad of islands in Oceania, the coconut, and the length of the day, which was once too short until Maui beat Ra with a stick and forced him to travel across the sky more slowly.

Milu: Ruler of the Underworld.

Moko: Lizard-God.

Mueu: Goddess who gave bark-beating, to make tapa cloth, to the world. The stroke of her cloth-flail is death to a mortal.

Nangananga: Goddess of Punishment, who waits at the entrance to the Land of the Dead for bachelors.

Nareau: Spider-God.

Nganga: God of Sleet.

Oenghus mac in Og: Celtic Lord of Fatal Love.

Oro: God of War and Peace, commander of the warrior hordes of the spirit world. In peacetime he is ‘Oro with the spear down’ but in war he is ‘killer of men’. Patron of the Arioi.

Paikea: God of Sea-Monsters.

Papa: Mother Earth, first woman, wife of Rangi.

Pele: Goddess of Fire and the Volcano.

Pere: Goddess of the Waters which Surround Islands.

Punga: God of Ugly Creatures.

Ra: Tama Nui-te-ra, the Sun-god.

Rangi: God of the Upper Sky, originally coupled to his wife Papa, the Goddess of the Earth, but separated by their children, mainly Tane the God of Forests whose trees push the couple apart and provide a space between the brown earth and blue sky, to make room for creatures to walk and fly.

Rehua: Star-God, son of Rangi and Papa, ancestor of the demigod Maui.

Ro: Demi-god, wife of the trickster demi-god Maui, who became tired of his mischief and left him to live in the netherworld.

Rongo: God of Agriculture, Fruits and Cultivated Plants. Along with Tane and Tu he forms the creative unity, the Trinity, equal in essence but each with distinctly different attributes. They are responsible for making Man, in the image of Tane, out of pieces of earth fetched by Rongo and shaped, using his spittle as mortar, by Tu the Constructor. When they breathed over him, Man came to life.

Rongo-ma-tane: God of the Sweet Potato, staple diet of Oceanians.

Rongo-mai: God of Comets and Whales.

Ro’o: Healer-God, whose curative chants were taught to men to help them drive out evil spirits which cause sickness.

Ruau-moko: Unborn God of Earthquakes, trapped in Papa’s womb.

Samulayo: God of Death in Battle.

Tane: Son of Rangi the Sky God, and himself the God of artisans and boat builders. He is also the God of Light (especially to underwater swimmers because to skin divers light is where life is), the God of Artistic Beauty, the God of the Forest, and Lord of the Fairies. As Creator in one of his minor forms he is the God of Hope.

Tangaroa: God of the Ocean, who breathes only twice in 24 hours, thus creating the tides.

Taranis: Celtic God of Thunder.

Tawhaki: God of Thunder and Lightning. Tawhaki gives birth to Uira (lightning) out of his armpits. Tawhaki is also the God of Good Health, an artisan god particularly adept at building houses and plaiting decorative mats.

Tawhiri-atea: Storm-God, leveller of forests, wave-whipper.

Te Tuna: ‘Long eel’, a fish-god and vegetation-god. Tuna lived in a tidal pool near the beach and one day Hine went down to the pool to bathe. Tuna made love to her while she did so and they lived for some time on the ocean bed.

Tiki: Divine ancestor of all Oceanians who led his people in their fleet to the first islands of Oceania.

Tikokura: Wave-god of monstrous size whose enormous power and quick-flaring temper are to be greatly feared.

Tini Rau: Lord of the Fishes.

Tui Delai Gau: Mountain God who lives in a tree and sends his hands fishing for him when he grows hungry.

Tui Tofua: God of all the sharks.

Ua: Rain God, whose many sons and daughters, such as ‘long rains’ and ‘short rains’ are responsible for providing the earth with water.

Uira: Lightning (See Tawhaki).

Ulupoka: Minor god of evil, decapitated in a battle amongst the gods and whose head now rolls along beaches looking for victims.

Whatu: The God of Hail.

The giant Head rolled along the beach, driven forward by a strong, cold sea-breeze.

Leaves rustled in the frangipani trees and white blossoms drifted down to the earth as the wind swept the Head beneath their branches. Fruit bats like prehistoric birds soared through the thickening dusk. Palm-rats, sensing the presence of evil, stiffened in their climb, panted quickly, and stared with small fearful eyes at the strange tracks left upon the coral sands.

On the face of the Head, twice the size of that of a mortal, was a look of intense purposefulness. The Head had smelled the presence of seafaring men on its shore. Mingling with the sea-bottom odour of drying weed, shellfish and crustaceans coming from the exposed reef, the thick cloying perfume of trumpet blooms, the sometimes unbelievable stench of rotting mud in the mango swamp, was the smell of groin sweat, oiled skin and hair, and stale breath.

There were exhausted seafarers, potential victims, who had fallen asleep in the land of the Head. One of these newcomers to the island was close to death and very ripe.

The Head’s long black hair whipped the coral sand with its flails as it sped along.

Crabs scattered in panic out of its path.

The Head’s lips were curled back in an expression of contempt, to reveal two rows of neat, even teeth. Its smoky eyes were smouldering with the desire for blood and flesh. The two broad nostrils were flared and cavernous.

The Head belonged to the god Ulupoka, severed in a great battle with the sky god, Rangi. Now it roamed the sands of certain islands, bringing disaster and disease to the earth, looking for men near to death to bite in their sleep to make certain of their demise. Once bitten by Ulupoka, either around the neck or the feet, the wound was fatal.

There was a beached double-hulled canoe above the waterline. Its Tiki, impotent on the shore, stared fixedly at the sky above the distant horizon. The pandanus sail was spread to dry between two chestnut trees near by. Perched on the prow of the boat, its feathers powdered with the pollen of orchids, was a barking pigeon, a bird whose call was not unlike the sound of a dog. The dust of dried lichens greyed the sides of the vessel, where it had been dragged over rocks to the top of the beach.

Not far from this boat the rolling Head of Ulupoka found Kupe and his six companions asleep in a make-shift hut beneath some giant ferns. Since they had fallen asleep a giant spider had woven a web with strands thick enough to catch a small bird in its nets across the entrance to their hut.

The Head bounced into the encampment and jumped into the hut, breaking the web and releasing its victim. It flew away, its high note waking the dying man. The sailor opened his eyes just as Ulupoka landed heavily on his chest. The Head bit the dying man deeply in the throat, swallowing his larynx so that he could not cry out. The only sound the mariner made was that similar to the single gulp of a tree frog.

It was enough to awaken the youngest member of the party, a boy of seven by the name of Kieto.

‘Who’s there?’ cried the boy, in terror.

Ulupoka’s Head, unwilling to be seen by a mortal, bounced out of the hut and into the swiftly descending night. When it was some distance from the Oceanians it let out a sound like that of a parrot burned by fire: a hideous laugh. The forest echoed with the noise and souls were chilled. Ulupoka rolled on, into the waters of the ocean, to cross the reefs to another island where there might be more dying men.

The spirit of the bitten man left his body and began the long walk along the path across the sea to the land of Milu, ruler of the dead. The dead man was rather resentful. Although he knew he had been dying, of heatstroke and exhaustion, he had been thinking very hard in his sleep about the meaning of life. Gradually, as he slept, the answer had come to him. He felt now it was bitterly ironic that he should come to know the meaning of life just at the point of his death.

‘Just before Ulupoka bit me, I realised what it was all about,’ he complained to Milu, who was waiting for him at the end of the purple path. ‘And I died before I could tell anyone.’

Milu smiled. ‘It’s always the way,’ he said.

After the boy’s cry woke Kupe and his men, they found the dead mariner. In the light of torches lit from the embers of their small fire they saw he had torn open his own throat, with the nails of his fingers, in his terrible fever. The man had drunk sea water just before they had sighted land and they concluded this had driven him out of his mind. They took him out of the palm leaf hut and laid his tattooed corpse on the mosses under a nokonoko tree.

‘We’ll bury him tomorrow,’ said Kupe. ‘Rest now, my brave fishermen.’

‘I had a nightmare,’ complained the boy, Kieto. ‘I dreamed a monster came into the hut. A great head without a body. Its eyes were like embers and its tongue was a giant centipede. Its hair was long and thick, like black weed. It grinned at me – a grisly grin, like a dead man’s smile.’

‘A monster?’ cried one of the other seafarers, shuddering. ‘Listen to the boy …’

Kupe knew that his men would not stay on the island and get their much-needed rest if they believed a monster was on the loose. It was necessary that they replenished their store of drinking coconuts at least. Even if the boy was right – and young people were often more sensitive to these things than older men – it would be courting death by thirst to leave the island immediately.

‘It was a dream,’ he told Kieto and the others, ‘nothing more. Since we have no kahuna with us to interpret the dream, then we can’t be sure whether the omens are good or bad. Let’s sleep on it tonight and discuss it in the morning. All dreams are clearer in the light from Ra’s benevolent rays.’

There was a grumble of dissent from the fishermen, but they were very tired too and gradually sank back down onto their mats and into fitful sleeps. Kupe placed the torches around the hut, keeping his men within their circle. The gods, ancestor spirits and demons who shared the known world with men, there being no other place to inhabit, were all wary of fire.

The boy was still awake when Kupe went back into the hut.

‘Are we safe?’ asked the trembling Kieto.

‘Yes, safe, safe,’ replied Kupe.

The boy then fell instantly asleep, reassured absolutely by the leader of the expedition, the great navigator, Kupe.

It was a strange expedition, completely spontaneous, and one that would soon catch the imagination of all men and enter the legends of the Oceanians even as it was being carried out. Kupe had been fishing off the shore of his home island, Raiatea, when a giant octopus had stolen the bait from his hooks with its many arms. Enraged, Kupe had leapt from his small fishing canoe into an ocean-going vessel cruising near by. He had turned the crab-claw sail and given chase, at that time encouraged by the men already in the large canoe.

Following the ripples of the giant octopus they had been taken far away from Raiatea, until some of the men were concerned that they would never see their homeland again.

‘Where’s your seafaring spirit?’ cried Kupe. ‘Who knows what new islands we shall discover under the roof of voyaging? This octopus is obviously some kind of sea demon, sent by one of the gods, intent on leading us somewhere beyond our knowledge, for it never completely submerges and loses itself. Perhaps the Great Sea-God, Tangaroa, wishes to show us some new land we have never seen or heard of before? When I trap this great octopus and kill it, then I shall return to Raiatea and not before.’

Since they were ordinary fishermen and Kupe was of noble birth they did not argue, though one or two would have killed him if they thought they could get away with it. However, Kupe always kept his lei-o-mano, his dagger of kauila wood rimmed with sharks’ teeth, stuck in his waistband. Kupe was a great warrior and the opportunities for catching him unawares were almost non-existent. Finally, his mana was almost as great as that of a king, so the fishermen did as they were told, day by day, night by night, ever sailing on into the unknown reaches of the Great Ocean ruled over by the god Tangaroa.

Kupe was confident in himself, for though Oceanian navigators might not know where they are going, they always know where they have been. He had memorised the way across the roof of the heavens, and across the many-islanded sea, to where they were now. His mariners would have done likewise. Even the boy, were he the last to survive, could find his way back home again. It was in their nature, in their instinct, to memory-map their path as they voyaged. What was more, on returning home they would describe their journeys so accurately to those who had never made the trip, the voyages could be repeated without them.

Kupe knew where he was from the shape of the waves, the star paths, the Long Shark At Dawn which was the rash of white stars across the roof of voyaging, the underwater volcanoes, the sea birds, the swell and the drift, the passing islands, the trade winds, and a thousand other things that were like signposts to him and his men. He could follow these markers back to Raiatea, possibly even blind when the breezes carrying the aromatic blends of islands and sea were in the right direction.

He could smell his way home.

At the same time he kept a record of his voyage on a piece of cord in the form of knots. The size, type and distances between the knots enabled him to recall certain sightings as well as to mark the distances between islands. This device was used by many Oceanic navigators and would be inherited by a named chosen legatee on the death of the navigator.

Tonight, the giant octopus had gone into an ocean trench, at least a league deep, and out of Kupe’s reach. Kupe was sure however that they were not at the end of their journey, where he expected a battle with the ocean beast. He was being led to the creature’s home waters, where the fight would be to the octopus’s advantage.

Kupe had asked himself many times – why? Why was he following this creature at a whim? Kupe had suffered stolen bait before, from crabs and cuttlefish, lobsters and crowns-of-thorns. Why had he taken it into his head to chase after this particular beast?

It had to be the work of the gods. His fate was at the end of this voyage, one way or another. It would either be Kupe’s destruction, or he was being given a precious gift. He had no idea what shape or form that gift would take. Perhaps the gods were leading him to a heavenly island?

The only other explanation was that Maui, the ancient trickster hero, was leading him on a fruitless voyage to nowhere. This was of course possible, but if the slight but powerful Maui had decided to play a game with you, you went along with it or you were destroyed. Kupe knew it was best to ignore that possibility and hope for a better.

When morning came, and the roof of voyaging with its islands of stars had gone from the sky, Kupe leapt to his feet.

As always he was first up. The torches had burned to the ground and were charred and cold. He used wood from a kaikomako tree to produce fire by friction, making a nest of coconut fibre to catch the smouldering sawdust. This he whirled about his head on a cord until it burst into flames. Soon he was cooking yams and bananas over the heat of a fire made with white driftwood from along the shoreline.

The parrots, fruit doves and parakeets were already shouting at one another. The frigate birds, bandits of the air, were wheeling above the ocean, ready to steal from more successful feathered anglers and each other. Shoals of tiny fish, like thousands of silver splinters, were arcing across the surface of the lagoon. It was a new and brilliant morning, with a softness to the puffed clouds lying on their blue bedding.

‘Up, up,’ he cried, allowing the smell of the food to waft over the sleeping men, to stupify them. ‘Eat, my brave sailors, we must be on our way. The great octopus stirs out in the deeps, beyond the lagoon. The dark waters bubble. We must sail when he comes to the surface.’

The men rose, grumbling, rubbing the fine, white sand from their creased faces. Some of them went immediately to a pool to drink, while others simply sat and stared bleakly at the still blue surface of the lagoon, finding it difficult to suppress the desire to fish its bountiful waters.

The boy, Kieto, assisted Kupe with the cooking, eager to be of service. His nightmare was now forgotten in the brightness of the sunshine, when the fears of night had left with the departure of Hine, Goddess of Darkness and Death.

‘Will we be going home soon?’ Kieto asked of Kupe. ‘Shall I see my father?’

For all his eagerness to follow the giant octopus, Kupe regretted one thing: that he had not cast the boy into the sea before leaving Raiatea, so that Kieto could have swum back to the reef or shore and would not now be on a dangerous voyage into the unknown. The octopus had left the scene so quickly though, there had been little time to think of such things.

‘Soon,’ he told the boy. ‘I feel it in my bones. The journey will be over soon.’

Leaves rustled in the trees and the boy Kieto stared up at them.

‘We have no ancestors here,’ he remarked in a hushed voice. ‘These ghosts are all strange to us, Kupe. They play in the trees and bushes like our own spirits, but we cannot offer them worship, for we do not know them.’

Kupe nodded. ‘True, Kieto, but there are powerful gods with us on this voyage. The great Tangaroa will not let any harm come to you.’

‘You are beloved of Tangaroa, are you not, Kupe?’ said Kieto, his face shining with admiration.

‘Perhaps I am,’ smiled Kupe, touching the boy’s hair. ‘But I would rather have Maui for a friend than any other ancient hero, for he plays such mischief with those he does not love. Now let us eat, quickly, for the octopus stirs.’

The pandanus mat sail filled with wind and the light double-hulled canoe sped through the chopped waves. The seafarers were on a platform between hulls made from te itai trees, lashed together with hand-rolled fibres from the coconut husk. On this platform sat a palm leaf hut for shade. A bailer worked almost constantly on the hulls, as canoes always leaked water where the wood was sewn together and caulked with breadfruit sap.

‘We are heading towards Apa toa,’ cried Kupe. ‘Keep the ocean swell to starboard.’

Apa toa was the name of a wind, not a place, for though they had no instruments or charts to follow, there was a windflower carved in the bows. The tattoo signs for twenty-three major and minor winds, with arrows pointing at the direction of their sources, were etched deeply into the wood, making the shape of a many-petalled circular bloom. The windflower was both aesthetic and practical; an artistic decoration which had a functional purpose.

Ahead of them, below the surface of the sea, swam the great dark shadow which was the octopus. The beast was languid in movement, but not slow. It took all Kupe’s skill to keep up with the creature. Po, the man at the helm, struggled with the steering oar to keep the craft on a true course.

Kupe, as the navigator, was constantly searching the surface of the ocean and the skyline, even the clouds, for signs to remember. A light green colour on a cloudbase to one direction meant an island or even atoll, where the waters of a lagoon were reflecting on the sky. Frigate birds meant there was land somewhere near. He listened for the sound of reefs and watched the colour of the water change through many shades.

The double-hulled canoe Kupe was sailing belonged to the fisherman Po and it was Po’s Tiki which stood on the deck of the vessel. The carved wooden idol was the eyes and ears of the crew. Since Po had hewn this Tiki it was to Po it spoke, inside his head, and it irritated Kupe that he was not directly in control of the entire boat. Po, however, did his best to please Kupe on all occasions, knowing that once the voyage was over he would be rewarded for his part in the expedition.

There was a bird cry from inside the deck hut and Kieto went in to feed their latest captive: a kula parrot from the islands they had just left. Kupe would have liked to have taken a breeding pair, since the bird had a breast of scarlet feathers. It would have made them all rich men, for red feathers were the currency of exchange on Raiatea and Borabora. However, the octopus had left just as they had caught their first kula and there had been a scramble to get on board the boat and head out to sea, leaving the riches behind them.

When the night came down again, Kupe was able to watch for the kaveinga, the path of stars which rose one after the other over the dark horizon. He knew their secret names, and those of the slower-wheeling fanakenga, or zenith stars which pointed down to particular islands in their wake.

When he had to sleep, Po took over the watch and the oar both, keeping the gleaming phosphorescent ripples made by the fleeing octopus in his sight.

After many weeks there came a time when the sea darkened quickly and large waves reared before them. The craft bravely fought through these, the men using their heavy oars rather than trusting to the sail. Eventually they came upon some high cliffs of an island too large to hold in the eye. It swept away on both sides of the craft to somewhere deep in the mists.

They followed the octopus down the length of this land, to its bottom, where the shore was wild and untamed. Here the wind was cold, the sea was cold, the skies grey. Sharp, hissing rain joined with stinging spray to rob the seafarers of energy, to fill them with a bleakness of spirit. The waves grew mountainous, with rushing peaks of white which touched the swirling greyness above, and sky and sea seemed one.

The sea and scouring rain had hewn the rocks of the coast into grotesque shapes and tall stacks. The wind had cut fissures in the rockface deep enough to swallow a man. There were pinnacles that towered like giant spears over the small craft and great boulders loomed suddenly as if vomited from coves just a few moments ago. It was a dark, forbidding place with ancient secrets moaning for release from a hundred-thousand caverns; with cryptic silences locked in fathomless caves.

‘The giant beast has led us to a giant land,’ said Kupe, in wonder. ‘It is here we shall do battle.’

Indeed, as if the octopus had heard his words, it rose frothing to the surface and turned, coming towards the canoe at a monstrous speed. Its massive tentacles were pumping behind it, shooting it through the spume like a racing canoe powered by a hundred men. Its great eyes were wide with hatred. Its beak chopped at the surface of the sea, in anticipation of crunching the bones of its determined adversary.

Po let out a cry and pulled hard on the steering oar, while the rowers beat the waves with their rowing oars. The hero Kupe stood on the front of the craft, awaiting the onslaught, his lei-o-mano in his strong right hand.

Po, with the help of the brave little Kieto, managed to turn the canoe at the last moment, and the octopus swept by the stern. A single tentacle flashed over the deck of the craft, snatching at the beast’s enemy. Kupe’s tattooed body was hauled over the side, caught in the suckers on that terrible limb.

‘He’s gone!’ cried Po, to the other sailors, who let out a moan and started paddling away from the scene.

Kieto yelled, ‘Don’t leave him!’

They ignored the boy in their desperation to escape the giant. Their terror would not allow them to accept the thought that Kupe might win. All they wanted to do was put a great distance between themselves and the octopus, fearful that the creature might wreak more revenge upon the craft. Kupe and the octopus were lost behind a huge wave thrown back by the high cliffs of the land.

‘Stop,’ screamed the boy. ‘He’ll be left to drown in these grey seas …’

Still the wide-eyed mariners, nightmares running like shadows over their faces, through their eyes, would not stop paddling. Kieto raced to the sail and heaved upon the line, half raising the pandanus mat in the full force of the wind. The craft lurched sideways, spilling one of the rowers into the sea. Luckily the man overboard clung to one of the trailing lines and managed to keep with the craft.

A mariner rushed for the boy, wielding a paddle club.

‘You stupid young idiot!’ shrieked the man. ‘Don’t make me kill you.’