Witi Ihimaera - Sky Dancer

“Hhhuuuuhhh!” Excreted a stream of splashing and blinding shit into the pouakai’s eye.

Having bought valuable seconds before the pouakai could recover, Hoki sped up the wind shaft after Skylark. Not far above them was the jagged edge of the ripped sky.

“We’re going to make it!” Skylark cried.

But lumbering behind them came the pouakai.

“Go through,” Hoki shouted.

And Skylark fell through the ripped sky.

There was a crack as she did so. It scared the living daylights out of Bella. She fell against Arnie, who grabbed Francis and Mitch to keep his balance.

“What the heck is that —”

Mitch’s shotgun went boom, the bullet whizzing through the air, causing further confusion among the seabirds still trying to get in. To make things more puzzling, a little bird was trying to get out. When Arnie saw the bird coming through the rip, his heart leapt. But she was out of control, rolling over and over, trying to stabilise herself.

“Skylark, oh, Skylark —”

She was going too fast, in danger of going over the cliff. Arnie leapt for her and caught her. Skylark felt his warm hands around her. Saw the bright sunlight. Everything was a kaleidoscope of sky, sea and Manu Valley.

“Arnie —”

Dazed, Skylark looked up and into his eyes. Then the whole world began to whirl around.

“Put her on the ground,” Bella told Arnie. “Quickly!”

With awe, Bella, Arnie, Mitch and Francis watched as Skylark changed slowly back into her human form. Mitch and Francis stared open-mouthed at her transformation.

Skylark looked up at the ripped sky. “Where’s Hoki? She was right behind me.”

The sky bulged and the huge head of the mother pouakai came through the rip, blinked and looked around, surprised. She tried to push her way through.

What have we here ?

“Holy smoke!” Mitch shouted.

Arnie’s wits were about him. He let the pouakai have it with both barrels. “Take that, you cyborg freak.”

Roaring with pain, the pouakai fell back through the rip. As she did so, she chomped on some of the seabirds and pulled them with her.

Bella shivered with anxiety. Where was Hoki? She closed her eyes. An image came to her of a small crippled bird buffeted by the currents of Time, trying to get the pouakai’s attention, trying to coax it away from the ripped sky.

“Here kitty kitty kitty,” Hoki called. “Come to Mama.”

The pouakai tried to clear her eyes. Tiny pellets of shot had lodged there like grit. When she saw Hoki she gave a snort of irritation.

Get a life .

After all, the pouakai had found a new paradise, a great new hunting ground. Lots of new food for its chicks. It tried to clamber back through, presenting Hoki with the unseemly sight of its posterior.

“What’s a girl to do?” Hoki asked herself. With a grimace of distaste — Hoki had always been fastidious — she closed her eyes, hoped that her tetanus shot would protect her, and bit the pouakai on the bum.

That did the trick. The pouakai fell back again, lost its balance and began to twist out of control down through the wind shaft. Roaring with rage, it locked on to Hoki and pulled her down with it.

Helplessly caught in the pouakai’s claws, Hoki didn’t have a chance to free herself until they had reached the lip of the universe. And was the mother pouakai angry? Was she what! Staggering in the air, fierce eyed, she looked at Hoki:

Whoever or whatever you are, I don’t give a shit. This time you’ve really pissed me off.

The pouakai attacked. Hoki sideslipped and followed with a sudden upswing and a hover.

“You want to mess with me?” Hoki asked, facing off. “Even on your best day you’re not as good as I am on my worst.”

Wings back-paddling, Hoki turned at right angles and beat across the universe, striking out for the higher thermals.

“I’ve got to keep in front of her,” she said to herself.

She dropped into a jetstream. Smaller and lighter, Hoki set a cracking pace with a fast deep-pumping wingbeat. Her short wings and long tail configuration, designed for speed and manoeuvrability, allowed her to keep just a little ahead of the pouakai, but it took all of her effort. The pouakai made a bone-cracking lunge, and managed to flick at her. The motion was devastating, and Hoki began to tumble out of control.

Is that your highest speed? the pouakai asked scornfully.

Luck was running out for Hoki. The pouakai closed on her, menacing, positioning itself for the kill. Hoki looked desperately for a way out. But she was in a No Exit street.

“Ah well, I’ve had a good life,” Hoki said. Far below was the green and blue orb of earth. “But I’m definitely not going to die out here in the universe,” she continued. “If I have to go, let it be in the embrace of Papatuanuku, the mother of us all.” Defiant to the last, she yelled at the pouakai. “If you want me so bad, then damn well come and get me.”

Proudly, Hoki tipped, felt the G-forces and let them pull her down. The speedometer went into the red. Reaching 200 kilometres an hour, she dived through the space. The pouakai dived after her. As for Hoki, she had decided that if she had to go, she’d make sure everybody knew about it.

“Hokiiii-oiii! Hokiii-oiii!”

She hurtled across the Heavens. She was the Bird of Destiny. She was the Bird of Fate. She hit the Earth’s stratosphere and her feathers warmed up and burst into flames. Behind her, the same thing was happening to the pouakai. From Earth, they looked like two meteors flaming across the sky, one small, the other large — and gaining.

“Hokiii-oiii! Hokiii-oiii!”

Below, the manu whenua heard the call of the Hokioi. They gathered around Te Arikinui Kotuku, Chieftain Kahu and all the birds of the paepae.

“Remember this day,” Kotuku said with awe. “On this day, after our second war with the seabirds, remember that you saw the Hokioi.”

The pouakai opened its jaws. It extended its neck. Hoki felt its hot and fetid breath. She waited for the pouakai’s beak to make its quick jab, slide through the intersection of bone and skull and impale her brains.

“Oh Lord Tane,” Hoki cried. “I offer my spirit up unto you. All I have ever wanted to do was to serve you in life and unto death. Receive me —”

In her last moments, Hoki thought of Skylark. She also thought of Bella, and wondered how her sister would get on without her.

“Goodbye, Sister.”

But something extraordinary happened. From everywhere in the upper sky came the manu Atua, the supernatural ones of the bird kingdom, God birds of indescribable magnificence. Some of them looked like immense flying dragons. Others like darkly gleaming bats with pearl-veined wings. Some were heavy-bodied, grotesque with mask-like heads and three-digit hands and feet. Others were beings of pure light, of such surpassing beauty, that they took Hoki’s breath away. As they hovered, they wove a screen of incredible brilliance around Hoki so that the pouakai could not get through to her.

But she is mine , the pouakai roared.

The manu Atua stilled, held court, made a collective decision. The pouakai waited for the affirmative. The manu Atua uttered judgement.

Foolish, arrogant pouakai, they said. This one is yours, you say?

The pouakai knew she was lost.

No, of all the Lord Tane’s creatures, this one above all others is his.

The manu Atua swirled in a gigantic carousel, faster and faster, individual birds blurring into one gigantic phoenix. Their wings touched. Lightning crackled, and a skein of death wove around the pouakai. She began to shudder and scream. The electric bolts pierced her carapace, sheeting and sizzling through every vein, reaching to her heart. A sudden discharge, and the pouakai exploded.