Witi Ihimaera - Sky Dancer

“The giant ogre birds, like the pouakai or his cousin the poua, circumnavigate the world,” Bella cut in. “Some of them have sworn eternal vengeance against man for what he has done to the world. If hungry or enraged, they have the awesome power to devastate entire territories. They prey on man and devour him wherever he settles.”

“This doesn’t explain the Hokioi,” Arnie said, his patience wearing thin.

“I’m coming to that,” Hoki continued. “The realm of the supernatural birds can only be negotiated safely by supernatural birds themselves. Whoever goes through the ripped sky has to be one of these birds, one who is not only able to survive the perilous winds and currents of space, but also has the leave of the manu Atua, the God birds, to whom the Lord Tane entrusted this realm. The Hokioi is one of these birds sanctioned to travel through the upper sky realm. It was known as the Spirit Messenger of the Gods and of Immortal Life.”

Arnie’s face set with determination. “Then we have to find this bird.”

Hoki looked at Arnie as if he was dumb.

“You’re looking at her,” she said.

Darkness, rain and forked lightning.

On an island rolling through deep space, Skylark was busy trying to break free of her tether. She was chattering away, talking to herself, and it helped her because it made her feel as if she wasn’t so alone. Mind you, some of her dialogue was inane, but who else was around to hear her? “No pain without gain,” she said as she hopped the length of her tether, her sharp eyes looking for some weakness, some flaw. She found one: a spot where the tether was frayed and most thin, connected by seven strands loosely bound together. “Aha! When one door closes another opens.” Oh, if only she had that penknife! There had to be something else she could use. She found it: the sharp edge of a long curved beak, the remnant of some earlier meal enjoyed by the pouakai. “Waste not, want not,” she said.

At the same time Skylark noticed a small subsidence in the floor of the nest. She hopped over to investigate: Yes! Scraping away with her tiny feet she saw that with a little bit of work she might be able to squeeze through.

If I can’t go over the top or sides, I’ll go through the bottom, Skylark thought to herself, but first things first. She went back to the curved beak and looked at it intensely. “I know you belonged to a bird which didn’t escape the pouakai,” she said. “Please help me to do what your owner couldn’t.”

Skylark took the beak in hers and began to saw. “Time to get down and dirty,” she said. Her progress was agonisingly slow. She had no idea how long it took her to cut through one of the strands. “Six to go —”

An ear-splitting shriek interrupted her work. She yelped and ran for cover. From out of the darkness came the pouakai. “Fee fi fo fum,” Skylark said. “I’d forgotten how gigantic you were.” As the pouakai circled the nest, Skylark saw a clutch of wriggling blindworms in her claws and remembered the dark uppermost Heavens. “So that’s your happy hunting ground.”

With a dizzying swoop, the pouakai glided down to the nest. She flapped her wings, causing a swirling whirlwind, stalled and landed. Brought back to reality, Skylark managed to saw through another strand. Five strands left. But she was as firmly tied as ever.

The pouakai released the blindworms into the nest. She didn’t bother to tether them as she had done Skylark. After all, they had no wings and they were blind. The pouakai cocked her head and checked out Skylark. She gave a low growl and opened her beak menacingly — and her breath was absolutely foul. “You need to see an orthodontist immediately,” Skylark said. The pouakai gave a menacing cluck, hiss and rattle.

Close up, she was terrifying. Her face was massive. The eyes were black slits surrounded by red orbs, like a devil’s, and surmounted by triangular patches of white. She had large ear orifices. Her razor-like beak was conspicuously long and covered with horny plates; at its base were quill-like whiskers. All this was surmounted by a crest of three crimson horns.

“Pretty, aren’t you?” Skylark murmured.

The pouakai seemed to be sensitive to aspersions about her looks. She opened her beak and gave Skylark a closeup of her sharp teeth.

Take a look, little one.

Skylark backed away. “Okay, okay, I get the message,” she said. Satisfied, the pouakai began to preen herself, as if she had all the time in the world. No reason to hurry.

Around the pouakai’s throat was a collar of bright red feathers. Her plumage, black and bronze, looked like reptilian scales, shaggy, falling down and around her monstrous body to muscular hindquarters. The wings were awesome, spreading out like knives, black-tipped as daggers and diaphanous as a bat’s. Her legs and feet were heavy and powerful. When she moved her tail swished, long and tapered like a dinosaur’s.

“You’re an alien queen all right,” Skylark said, a hint of admiration and awe in her voice. “No doubt about it.”

Skylark’s attention was taken by the blindworms. They knew they were in deep trouble. There were twelve of them, shining, luminous, wriggling and wrapping themselves around each other, trying to be the one in the middle.

Dear oh dear oh dear, my sisters, what have we come to? Dear oh dear oh dear, my brothers, is there no way to escape our unhappy fate?

“No,” Skylark sighed. “We’re all in the same basket.”

The blindworms heard Skylark and came sliding over to her, sniffing her with their nostrils.

You’re not one of us! What are you?

“Another burger for chicken dinner,” Skylark answered. “Something nice, warm and tasty for the pouakai’s little kiddies.”

Is it that bad, stranger?

“Yes,” Skylark answered, “and it’s just about to get a lot worse.”

From the corners of her eyes, she had picked up a slight movement. The pouakai noticed the movement too. With a cry of joy, she waddled over to the three eggs, the nest creaking and quaking at her footfalls. She inclined her head, listened and purred.

From one egg after another came a faint peeping. The first egg developed a hairline crack as the chick inside jabbed at the shell and prised it open. Stretching and cracking noises followed, and the chick emerged, squealing, as it broke through the albumen and blood of its amniotic fluid. The second chick came too, a nightmarish vision of pink pulsing flesh through wet congealed down. With a scream, the third chick smashed open its shell and fell out, bawling, thrashing its feet and wings. Eyes not quite open. Ugly as.

The blindworms went crazy. They smelt and heard the chicks and knew their goose was cooked.

Something is hungry, sisters. Something is squealing for food, brothers.

Sniffing the air, the baby chicks advanced on the blindworms. Skylark watched them coming and, seeing that they were only interested in the very interesting white wriggling worms, sidled away into the shadows. As for the blindworms, they acted as if they were rabbits and a python was in the room. They simply gave up.

Ah well. Ho hum. Fiddle dee dee. What goes around comes around.

They knew they were done for.

Watching from the sideline, the pouakai gave a lightning swift downward kick and decapitated one of the blindworms. Its stomach and guts cascaded in a steaming heap before the three chicks.

Yes, babies, food .

The chicks pounced on the dead blindworm and demolished it. Horrified, Skylark pressed herself further into the dark. Was that how she would be eaten? Whimpering, she began to saw again at the tether. Another strand snapped. Four to go.

The three chicks were yelping and screaming at the mother pouakai.