“Right, we’re all set then?” asked Moana to the two other Chosen, either side of her. They were standing outside the Sanctum in Ko-Koro, looking down on the village, which was clear and crisp.

“Yep,” said Kaiwera.

“Ready to go fighting Rahi and other unknown terrors?”

“Yup,” replied Pirihi.

“Ready to not let your pride get in the way of teamwork?”

There was no response from the males.

“Men,” Moana muttered, “all alike.” “Except for him…” she thought.

They set off down the steps. Kaiwera was dressed in his now normal furs, which billowed in the icy wind.

“So… have either of you been around Mata Nui much? Seen any of the sights?” Moana asked.

“I’ve been all over Ta-Wahi, it was my job as a scout and then as Jala’s right hand man. I’ve of course been to Ga-Wahi with you, and now Ko-Koro.”

“Hmm… anyplace you’d particularly like to see?”

“No.”

“No? You can never see all of Mata Nui, there are always new places to visit and admire the beauty of.”

“Well I’m not interested. All I care about is defeating Makuta. Perhaps after he is slain it is time to appreciate the finer detail of the island. All I see is rocks, grass, water, trees, plants and food when I look at a view.”

“Oh… well, that explains a lot. How about you Pirihi? Are you well travelled?”

“Around Ko-Wahi. I have never been outside, I have never felt the need to leave my people. Only Nelo and Zolo ever really travel, they sometimes visit Onu-Koro to pick up supplies and to talk to the mechanic there… Naparu.”

“Oh right. You’ve never been to another Koro? Don’t you ever wonder what it’s like there?”

“No… not really. I focus on the task that is at hand, like all Ko-Koronan.”

“I wonder… I once met a multicoloured Tohunga called Takua. He used to get teased for it, he told me. He was from Ta-Koro, and-“

“-has a blue mask red body and yellow feet? Yes, I know him, he still visits Ta-Koro from time to time,” said Kaiwera.

“Yes, that sounds like him. Well, anyway, he told me he’d been all over the island, to all the villages and everything! When I asked him how he kept up with his chores in the village he said he didn’t have any, no-one wanted his help. I felt so sorry for him, he was so sweet…”

“Yes, well, we can’t all not work all our lives, can we,” snapped Kaiwera.

“Oh… well, no I guess not, nothing would get done. But I wish I could see everywhere on Mata Nui…”

“Perhaps on this quest you will Moana, seeing as we have to go to the other three villages to get the other Chosen,” pointed out Pirihi.

“Oh yeah! I hadn’t thought of that! We will won’t we!” exclaimed Moana, who now skipped happily along the path in front of the two boys. Kaiwera looked at her in mild disgust, Pirihi just smiled.

Their path up the side of Mount Ihu brought them to a grove of large snow covered trees.

“Be watchful, Taku are in high numbers around here, they like the berries of the trees.”

Kaiwera looked up and saw that attached to the ends of the branches were bunches of shiny lime green berries.

“Can we eat them?” he asked.

“You could, but you need your eyesight so I suggest you don’t.”

“Oh. How do the Taku not become blinded by them then?”

“They must have different metabolisms to us.”

Kaiwera wondered how different the metabolisms of the villagers from different Koros were. Very little he decided, apart from perhaps Ga-Koro.

Moana stopped suddenly.

“Boys… don’t move. Very, very slowly look into the trees.”

Kaiwera and Pirihi looked. Pirihi jumped in shock, but Kaiwera continued to squint.

“What? I don’t see anything. Just branches.”

“Those aren’t branches Kaiwera…” said Pirihi slowly.

Kaiwera looked again. There were just branches, dark brown, with little notches in them. That looked like eyes. That were eyes… “Mata Nui…” thought Kaiwera. Almost every “branch” he could see was a brown Taku, perched very still on a branch, staring at them.

“Mumph…” said Kaiwera.

“What should we do?” asked Moana.

Pirihi looked around slowly, and saw a little path of snow near the bank of the path that looked darker than the snow around it.

“You see over there, to your left. There’s a tunnel through there, we might make it if we run.”

“OK… I see it. On the count of three?” asked Kaiwera. “One, two, three!”

As one the Chosen darted towards the tiny cave, Pirihi drawing his sword and preparing to smash the ice that blocked the entrance. A tremendous screeching started, and there was a “wooosh” of the air as all the Taku took off at all at once from their branches. Pirihi was now attacking the entrance, and as Kaiwera arrived he had made a large slit into it.

“Watch ooout!” cried Kaiwera, as he ran full force into the ice, smashing it to pieces. He landed inside with a thump, bounced off the wall and then pulled the others inside too.

The Taku hesitated for a moment, and then all tried at once to enter the cave. This resulted in them forming a mid air cork, of which no bird could escape from. The Taku lost altitude and crashed into the hard ground. They picked themselves up and ran into the hole, only to find a small avalanche had blocked the entrance.

On the other side of the ice, Pirihi leant against the wall of the little cavern.

“Phewie! Too close for comfort. Makuta must have gathered all the Taku in the area especially for us… what?” Pirihi asked the other two, who were staring open mouthed at something behind him.

He turned and saw what had caused their shock. They had entered a tomb of some sort, with four graves in it.

They walked towards them, and Kaiwera wrapped his arms around himself.

“There is a strong source of… something, coming from each of those graves. Don’t touch them, whatever you do.”

The graves were huge, much bigger than they needed to be to bury a Tohunga. They were obviously very old, and encrusted with some kind of filth. It was rich and dark, and didn’t reflect the light. In some places it was brown and speckled.

“Hey, there’s something written on the gravestones. Just one word for each. This one’s… Famine,” said Moana.

“And this one’s Pestilence,” said Pirihi, “and the next one is War.”

“What does the last one day Kaiwera?” said Moana.

“It’s in big bold letters, it says Death. I wonder who these graves belong to. Do you know Pirihi?”

“No… I have never noticed this cave before, I must have walked past it many times.”

“Boys, there’s something written on the pedestal in the middle too. It’s so covered in grime… I can’t read it. Pirihi? Can you make sense of it?”

“Yes… yes, it says, ‘Beneath the clouds, coloured like blood,
then shall rise our Brotherhood,
All of those who keep the old way,
they will be cast away,
And then all, as you shall see,
shall be freed from misery,
We shall cast out all their lies,
beneath Crimson Skies, beneath Crimson Skies.’”

“Freaky. That doesn’t sound good. This place is weird, lets get out of here,” complained Moana.

“It looks like there used to be a mask mounted on here,” said Kaiwera, “I wonder if it’s a key to something?”

“Perhaps if you place whatever mask in there, the creatures buried here would wake up. They must have died of these things… War and so on,” said Pirihi.

“How can you die of Death?” asked Moana.

“Oh I dunno. Hey look, there’s another tunnel in this wall!” said Pirihi, his voice sounding strange as it was altered by the acoustics of the cavern.

“Do we follow it you think?” asked Kaiwera.

“Not much choice, I’m not braving those Taku, are you?” said Moana.

“No! Well, keep your swords out, we don’t know where this might lead,” warned Kaiwera.

The wind blew snow about in little spirals around the grave of a Matoran. Inscribed on the gravestone were the words:

‘Here lies Tohunga Wakatu, may he find peace in the heavens with Mata Nui.
~Pirihi’

Care had been taken in the carving, the head stone was neatly filed and fitted securely into the ground, which had been compacted into a mound and was now covered in snow.

Below, down the steps made of ice, a small mound of snow tremoured, and then erupted. Like rabbits out a hole the three Chosen shot out of the tunnel beneath, and lay panting on the snow.

“Whoa… I thought we would never get any air!” exclaimed Kaiwera.

“So stuffy in there… it’s good to be back in the open again,” said Pirhihi.

“Hey, look, we’re here!” Kaiwera said.

They looked up at the impressive towering structure that was the Ice Spirit temple. It rose high off the ground, in two levels. The first had steps leading to the second, which was dominated by two large pillars, which supported a plinth which hung over the doorway into the Temple.

The Chosen climbed the steps, and peered into the gloom of the entrance. There were no doors, just a roughly cut gaping hole. There was snow on the stone floor, where it had blown in from outside. A fierce wind blew strongly over the trio, taking all the warmth away from them. Pirihi just stood, Moana shivered and Kaiwera hugged himself.

“Look familiar Moana?” he asked her.

“Yes… much like the Water Temple isn’t it. Doubtless the Kanohi Akaku is in there somewhere…”

“The Kanohi Akaku? Like, the one Kopaka, Toa of Ice will wear?”

“Yep, the same. Also the one you, Pirihi, Chosen of Ice will wear,” said Moana.

“Wow…” said Pirihi, imagining the power the mask would give him control over.

They stepped into the Temple. The layout was much the same as in the Fire and Water temples, in that everything was extremely old and was falling to pieces. The floor was covered with patches of ice.

“There was once a great fire in the trees below the Temple. The heat rose into the brickwork of the Temple and melted most of the ice structures inside of it. We may find it difficult to access areas that have lost bridges or steps,” said Pirihi.

“There was a fire in Ko-Wahi?! Crazy!”

“However unlikely, there was.”

The Chosen’s footsteps began to get louder as they walked along the path. They walked under a large beam, and on the other side were back into the snow again. There was a fierce snowstorm outside now, and it was difficult to see.

“Great, your Temple wasn’t even completed! Were back outside in the cold… brr…” growled Kaiwera.

“No… this isn’t right. We must keep going, the Temple is huge, it doesn’t stop half way!” defended Pirihi.

The Chosen kept a ragged line as they stumbled against the whirling snow. A huge canyon opened up in front of them, it’s depth escaped all light.

“Whoa… that’s a big drop. Think there was a bridge here once Pirihi?” Moana said, looking down into the depths of the canyon.

“There must have been. We must find another way across.”

The Chosen scanned the walls for an entrance or doorway, but found nothing.

“There’s nothing here, we must go back! We’ll all freeze to death and then we’ll never complete our quest,” complained Kaiwera.

“There must be something! Something isn’t right here. We’re being blind to the obvious. The Temple can’t end here… so this must all be an illusion!”

Almost as Pirihi said it, the snowstorm began to settle. The wind dropped away, and the snowflakes landed on the stone floor, and disappeared into it. The roof was once again over them, and the light of the outside world disappeared. The gloom of the Ice Temple returned.

“I hate it when that happens. Do you ever get the feeling there’s something we don’t know about on the island?” asked Kaiwera.

“There is a lot we don’t know about this island Kaiwera, we can only hope to discover some of it’s secrets. We have been here for hundreds of years, and still we only know a little,” intoned Pirihi. He looked around. “There still isn’t a way across this canyon. Maybe there’s a trapdoor?”

“Do you see a trapdoor? I don’t. Do you Moana?” drawled Kaiwera.

“Err… yeah actually, your standing on one.”

Kaiwera looked down, and then kicked the tarnished golden handle of the trapdoor. The wood splintered and the door flipped up. Inside, there were some stone steps leading down into a tiny room.

“Ah-ha!” shouted Kaiwera, “This is where we find something that will let us continue on our quest, there was a room like this in the Fire Temple where I found the firesword!”

“Then there should be a weapon in this chest?” said Pirihi, who took his sword off his back and smashed the padlock on the front of the chest. He opened it to reveal… a very big white sword, with a double blade and square holes for the blood channel. It was very thin, and very cold.

“Well, if you are the Ice Chosen that must be yours Pirihi,” said Moana.

Pirihi took it, and then ran back up the steps out of the little room in the floor. He stood on the edge of the canyon, spun the sword over his head and brought it down in a swoop. It should have continued to cut his leg off, but instead it stopped level with the ground, and began to create a bridge. The ice appeared out of nowhere, running away from the sword and spreading over the gap of the chasm, until it reached the other side. Pirihi put the sword on his back and stepped onto the bridge.

“It was always here, it just needed to be touched by the sword to reveal itself,” he said.

“But, how did you kno-“ started Moana.

“I just did. Lets go.”

Moana and Pirihi began to walk over the bridge. Kaiwera stayed on the edge of the canyon and gingerly tested the bridge for reality. When he felt confident it was real, he took a step onto it, and then ran to catch up with the others.

On the other side of the bridge there was another large space. At the end there were some steps… leading to another chest.

“Is that… that can’t be it. It must be another trick by the Temple, when we try to open the chest a Rahi will jump out at us or something,” warned Kaiwera.

“No… it looks like the chest that contains the Akaku alright,” said Moana, who began to walk towards it, “so that must mean the guardian is somewhere between it and us-“–CLICK–“-uh-oh!” Moana recoiled back from a panel in the floor which had sunk down under her weight. Through the floor the sound of something grating began, and the entire section of the stone floor in front of the chest disappeared down, only to return with a Muaka standing on it, looking very hungry. It reared up onto it’s tread and let out a thunderous roar, that echoed down the ravine behind them.

The Chosen drew their swords.

“Plan?” asked Kaiwera.

“Ok, we take it from three different sides, so it’s confused. Aim for the infected Haus it’s wearing and watch out for it’s jaws, they can extend their necks,” said Pirihi.

“GO!” said Kaiwera, and ran to the left of the creature, who turned to face him. Moana picked up a piece of the floor and hurled it at the Muaka’s head, which whipped round to stare at her. Pirihi began to bang his sword on the floor in front of the Muaka, the noise attracting it’s attention. The Muaka failed to notice Kaiwera, who had crept round behind it, and now took a running leap and kicked off one of the infected masks. The Muaka became confused and tried to charge at all three of them at once. The Chosen simply kept out of it’s path, it was impossible to reach the other infected Kanohi. The Muaka regained it’s balance and sighted on Moana. It reared it’s head and charged. Moana turned and ran, but it was obvious she wouldn’t escape. Pirihi jumped into the monsters path and rammed his sword into the Hau, removing it from the Rahi, who stopped running and looked around in bemusement. It walked over to Moana, licked her with it’s giant tongue then bounded over the ice bridge and out of sight.

“Phew, that was a tough one,” said Kaiwera.

“Yeah, and it’s got me soaking wet! And it smells!” said Moana, trying to wipe off the Muaka drool.

“It seemed to like you,” said Pirihi, who was opening the chest. He knocked off the lock and pulled out the white Kanohi.

“So... this is mine?”

“Yeah! Looks a bit strange though...” said Moana.

“No it doesn’t! It looks like it should. Lets go back to Ko-Koro and see what advice Nuju has to give us,” commanded Pirihi.

“Don’t you think you had better put the Akaku on?” asked Moana.

“Oh… you think I should?” Pirihi said doubtfully. He didn’t know if he really was a Chosen. What would happen if he wasn’t?

“Well of course you should,” interrupted Kaiwera.

“But… oh, ok.”

Pirihi put the Akaku onto his face, there was a flash and then the lines of the Akaku merged with Pirihi’s mask.

“Who-ha, I can see right though you!”

“What?” said Kaiwera, looking down at himself.

“The mask lets me look through you, and the chest, and Moana!”

“Great, well, it works. Ko-Koro anyone?” said Kaiwera.

The Chosen set off back over the bridge, cold, worn, and in Moana’s case, wet.