“So what happened,” Arnie asked, pleased to see her back. “Didn’t you want to stay with your kind?”
“Hmph,” Skylark glared at him. “Men! You’re all the same.”
By this time, all the birds that had been waiting in the upper sky had been released, trillions of glittering feathers falling through the air. Some began to wheel away from the main exodus: mollymawks, fulmars, petrels, prions, shearwaters, frigate birds.
“The seabirds are claiming their dominion,” Skylark said.
Dizzy with delight, the seabirds were diving into the teeming sea, bountiful with darting fish. The albatrosses among them ceased their point duty and began to wheel away into the distance.
For the landbirds, however, the exodus was not yet over. On they flew — fantails with owls, robins with quails — towards the horizon. The smaller birds, tiring of the long flight, took respite by resting on the giant swan canoes as they continued to strain across the sea.
“Neke neke! Keep your ranks! Neke neke!”
Suddenly the swallows, which had been scouting far ahead, came streaking back from the horizon. Something was there, awaiting the exodus. The birds redoubled their efforts.
“Hii haa! Hii haa!”
Gradually, something began to appear. Something bright. Something wondrous. On the horizon something was lying like a huge smooth piece of pounamu washed by the sea. The greenstone was glowing, glorious.
“It’s Aotearoa,” Skylark said.
The sky began to sing. A great trilling filled the air, a karanga to the land. “Receive us, welcome us, open to us.” The birds announced they were coming.
“We’re almost there,” Skylark cried.
The wind came up from the south, buffeting the birds. Some were blown high and some were blown low.
The wind was cold and strong, and Skylark began to shiver
“Hang in there, Skylark,” Arnie said.
Skylark and Arnie flew onward, intent on making landfall. As they approached, the land fragmented into two main islands — Te Waka a Maui and Te Wai Pounamu. The wind increased, funnelling through the strait between the two islands. The ocean stormed through the break and, on its front, dolphins were leaping.
“Aren’t you glad we’re not on a ferry?” Skylark asked Arnie with an impish look.
A mood of anticipation came over the landbirds. They began to circle and circle in that midway place, calling their farewells to each other. Some split away, parrots and other birds, twirling like brightly ribboned cyclones, heading upward to the warmer climate of the north. The swans, however, flew their giant waka bearing the moa southward where there were grazing grounds. “Neke neke! Hii haa!”
The blue sky was a maelstrom of feathers as the birds chittered and chattered and wheeled in all directions. “Which way should we go?” Arnie asked Skylark.
Skylark hovered, unsure. She remembered Lottie’s instructions: Just head for the rainbow. But where was it?
“There!” Arnie cried. “To the south.”
Even as he pointed Skylark saw it — the First Rainbow in the World being born out of the cradle of the sea. Where it began, the water bubbled and hissed, creating myriad water spouts. Up the rainbow came, woven by those water spouts, taking colour and strength from them, vaulting the dome of the sky from east to west like a blessing.
The rainbow created a current in the air. Sensing an upward thermal, a convection current heading towards the Antarctic, Arnie sidled up, made some fancy rolls into its jet stream, and stabilised when he reached the centre.
What a show-off, Skylark thought. She wasn’t about to let Arnie think he was king of the air, so she copied what he had done and came in behind him, riding his slipstream.
“You’re learning fast,” Arnie said, and winked. He was really proud of her.
“It’s easy once you get used to it,” Skylark sniffed.
Arnie grinned at her answer. He must be getting through to her. She had accepted his compliment without biting his head off.
They were over the South Island, and down below was the Great Forest of Tane. Nothing had prepared Skylark for that first sight.
“It’s even more stunning than Hoki described,” she said.
Close up, the Great Forest was luminous, an emerald sparkling and glittering in the sun. Like Eden, the lush growing trees, palms and shrubs flowered underneath. The titan kauri were tall, triumphant. No less grand, other trees like totara, karaka and kahikatea added their majesty to the mosaic. Stitched among them were the flowering trees, the pohutukawa reds, kowhai yellows and many others, splashing the Great Forest with colours.
It truly was the wonder of the southern world. And it was breathing like a living thing. At every inhalation it rippled with life. When it breathed out, it released its heady fragrances upon the air.
Sensing they had finally arrived at their destination, the birds began to spin away in their thousands down into the Great Forest. As they descended they sang hymnals to Tane, praises to the Lord of Birds. “Thank you, Lord, for your great gift.”
Skylark and Arnie continued southward, following in the wake of the swans with their giant moa cargoes. With the thrill of excitement, Skylark saw that straight ahead were snow-capped mountains. They were like the palisades of a pah, wedged there to keep Earth and Sky apart so that there could be space for all living creatures between.
“The sacred mountains,” Skylark whispered. She would have recognised those southern alps anywhere. Excited, she flipped down, and Arnie followed her. Soon they were skimming the snow and following the contours of the mountains. “Catch me if you can,” Skylark called.
Laughing, Arnie played tag with Skylark over the alpine peaks. They rode elevator winds and skimmed the downward escalator currents. He could have caught up with her any time, and maybe given her a playful nip, but wiser counsel prevailed. Skylark was having fun and thought she was still the leader, and while she was happy there was peace on the planet.
Skylark saw a river valley cutting a pathway through the mountains.
“This is where I can give Arnie the slip,” she said to herself.
She caught a swift current pouring through it. The river ended at the lip of a giant waterfall and, all of a sudden, the ground dropped away.
“Arnie we’re here,” Skylark yelled. Her voice echoed through the well of the sky. Behind her were the twin mountains themselves, the closest point between the Earth and the moon. Below was Manu Valley. Thousands of years later, a small town called Tuapa would be built in its shadows. Ahead was the glistening sea. Somewhere to the left would be the ancestral paepae for the landbirds, the first tree that Tane had planted in his Great Forest. When Arnie stilled beside her, he pointed it out.
There it was, like a huge candelabra. And above, the rainbow.
Then something shifted, changed. It was as if the defensive system of the world, the shield that had kept everything in place, had come down. The forcefield that had been this world’s protection flickered and died. Skylark thought of the Garden of Eden: the Angel guarding the garden had walked away and left it defenceless.
Something physical slammed into Skylark and Arnie. Flailing, their heads spinning, they found themselves falling out of control. For a moment Skylark blacked out completely. Quickly, Arnie flew beneath her and managed to stabilise her until she regained consciousness.
“What the heck was that?” Arnie asked.
“I’m sorry, Arnie, I don’t know. I —” She looked up. The rainbow was on fire. The ash flaking from it, was falling from the sky. The rainbow turned ghastly white, like an after-image, and warped out of existence. In the blink of an eye, everything had altered. A sick feeling punched Skylark in the chest.