Tui flew back to his branch. With discomfort, Arnie realised that all the chieftains and arikinui were looking at him to respond. Would Skylark understand why?
“Do you want me to do the talking for you?” he asked Skylark. “It would be better if I did.”
But protocol was the least of Skylark’s concerns. She was in the spotlight, and it was time to act. She took a deep breath and opened her wings. “Here goes nothing,” she said. She looked at Arnie. “I’ll just have to wing it.”
With that, Skylark flew down and took her place, alone, on the branch reserved for speechmaking.
“E nga reo, nga manu, nga rangatira, tena koutou katoa,” she began.
Immediately there was a storm, a commotion. “Oh no,” Arnie groaned. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire.”
“A woman standing to speak?” Chieftain Kea screamed, attacking the bark with his beak. “The stranger tramples on the kawa, the customary practices of the manu whenua.”
“Ae! Ae!” agreed Chieftain Kakapo. “Wring her neck! She tries to be a cock when she is only a hen!”
Skylark staggered under the weight of the tumult. Chieftain Kawau left his perch to attack her. “Our protocol is sacred! How dare you demean it.”
“Don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger, “Skylark cried.
Seeing her so defenceless, Arnie flew down beside her, glaring, displaying his wings and strength, fighting Kawau off.
“Kik-kik-kik-kik! Keep away. Kik-kik-kik-kik!”
“I’m sorry, Arnie,” Skylark called. “I should have remembered —”
“That’s okay,” he replied. “But I’m afraid our credit rating just went down and our card is out of funds.”
A dark shadow cast itself across Arnie’s right shoulder. He was busy defending Skylark from Kawau but even so he tried to do a backward-kick boxing move he had learnt at the gym. Too late — a huge white kotuku landed on the branch. Her beak flashed like a razor. But what was this?
“Kra-aak! Kra-aak!” Te Arikinui Kotuku screamed. “I give this child the cloak of aroha, the protection of my rank. She is waewae tapu. Her claws, while she is among us, are sacred. If any of you want to take issue with her, face me first and do so at your peril.”
Then another bird settled beside Skylark and Arnie. “Is Trouble your first name, boy?” Chieftain Kahu shouted.
He flapped for attention. “The child and her warrior are under my wing also. It was I who brought them in, and like Kotuku I give the child the dispensation to stand to speak.”
Neither Kotuku nor Kahu could stop the full fury of the Runanga a Manu. “The strange chieftainess must pay for her wilful transgression,” they cried. From all branches came whirring wings, fierce beaks, outstretched claws, all intent on punishing the interloper.
“No,” Kotuku repeated. “I tell you she is waewae tapu —”
Then it happened. Something shifted. Something changed. Skylark felt giddy, sick, as she was struck by the same overwhelming sense of physical assault she had experienced when the rainbow had turned to ashes. Her head was whirling with vertigo and she would have blacked out again, except that Arnie pulled her back from the brink of unconsciousness.
“Time has accelerated again, hasn’t it, Skylark?” he asked.
Skylark nodded, trying to recover.
“Yes, but this time it’s worse —”
She heard cries of alarm coming from the wingless chieftains at the base of the paepae. They were pointing at something moving up the cliff face toward the sacred tree. It was a strange creature such as none had ever seen before, neither real nor unreal, walking as if in a dream.
“What is this giant demon?” Tui asked. “Is it a pouakai come down to haunt us from the uppermost Heavens?”
“Where are its wings?” Kawau cried. “Where are its claws? Look, it has no face, no beak, no crest —”
Skylark cleared her head. She looked at the apparition and gave a gasp.
“Do you know what the demon is?” Te Arikinui Kotuku asked.
“Yes,” Skylark nodded. “It’s Mummy.”
Coming towards the tree was Cora. But something was wrong with her. She looked like a sleep walker. She was wearing the Madonna outfit she had worn for the production.
“Skylark, don’t you understand?” Arnie said. “It’s not really Cora. As Time speeds onwards it creates these strange after-images of what is happening until real Time asserts itself again. It’s a hologram of your mother.”
Arnie was right. Even as he spoke, Chieftain Ruru flew at Cora, beak open to tear her to pieces. There was no contact. Cora’s image wobbled like jelly as he flew straight through her. The Runanga a Manu set up a cry of awe. “What witchery is this?” screamed Chieftain Kawau at Skylark. “What tribe are you from! Who are you! Kill the female sorcerer and stop her witchcraft.”
“No,” Skylark pleaded. “What happened was not my mother’s fault. She didn’t know what she was doing —”
Helpless to stop events that had already occurred, Skylark watched as Cora sat down, lit a cigarette and put it to her mouth. To the manu whenua, the action looked like Cora had made fire from a fingernail. Cora threw the match at the sacred tree. It moved in slow motion through the air.
The sacred tree burst into flames.
“Save yourselves!” Tui yelled.
The flames spread quickly among the branches. There was pandemonium as the manu whenua tried to escape. In a trice the tree had become a flaming torch, sending sparks up into the sky. Not one bird had managed to take wing. But something extraordinary was happening. Tui was still alive, looking as if he was bathing in the flames. Te Arikinui Huia, instead of being burnt to a crisp, was turning and dipping, and her wings were going right through the flames.
“How can this be?” Chieftain Kahu asked Arnie.
“The flames aren’t real,” Arnie answered. “Like the creature, they are a hologram, a simulation. They’re like the burning bush that Moses found on Mount Ararat, burning but not really burning. Have no fear. The flames will soon pass.”
As he spoke, the flames vanished. Cora’s image wavered and then it too disappeared. A hubbub arose among the Parliament of the Birds.
“This is your chance, strange chieftainess,” Kotuku said. “Deliver your message quickly before the manu whenua regroup against you.”
Skylark stepped forward and cut through the din with her glorious karanga. Even as she was singing, she could feel the sickness overwhelm her as Time accelerated again.
“Watch the sky,” Skylark called.
There was a sudden boom and crack. A seam of the sky caught fire and the sky ripped open. Giant black creatures which looked like spiders began to crawl through. Only, they weren’t spiders. They took wing as seabirds, flying out of the burning belly, heading down towards the offshore islands.
“What unholy intervention is this?” Chieftain Tui asked.
The coming of the seabirds from the future looked like a video in fast forward mode. On and on the seabirds came, spilling out in their hundreds. The sky reverberated with their menacing cries of triumph.
“Is there no end to them?” Kotuku turned to Skylark for an answer. Already the seabirds had obscured the sun, casting premature night across the Great Forest. They were spreading out towards the horizon, smothering the light.
Then suddenly Time stopped. Reached the present. Through the ripped sky slid a sinuous figure. Skylark shivered with fear.
“Kawanatanga!”
The wind turned cold and sharp. In an attempt to sober up his chieftains, Tui ordered that they all bathe under the waterfall. The brisk water flowing from the snow-covered mountains certainly had the desired effect, shocking the chieftains into sobriety and to focusing on this new and ominous threat.