The Chronicle of Matahouroa Chapter 9: Watching

 Atarau’s efforts bore fruit. From her cover amidst the clouds, she could  see the forest canopy beneath her ripple like waves, spreading across  the mountain slopes.

The Pirita Kahuna were moving, en masse.

She  willed the air and moisture around her to shimmer in a thin coating of  whiteness, between liquid and ice. Her dark feathers and clothes were  concealed, and in the glimmer her shadow dissipated.

Now, she could just watch, and think.

***

Atarau watched from the shadows.

Beneath  her, the marketplace went on as usual, giving purpose to the city. The  silver from which the buildings and streets were built glimmered between  light grey and blinding brightness as clouds rolled above. Buildings  rose tall, almost all competing for the tallest towers, but all failed  in comparison to the temple-palace, its triangular edges emerging like a  snow-capped mountain in the distant horizon.

When Atarau had  arrived there, so many years beforehand, she found it to be surprisingly  quiet, the likes of which seen nowhere else outside of Hinawahine.  Hiriwa’s people took pride in their sophistication and self-restraint  and so, even when advertising their wares and their fish, they seldomly  shouted. Wild birds like seagulls did not even dare fly above, and music  dared not be played outside of establishments, of which none was in  Atarau’s sight.

Whatever other sound resonated loudly enough, it would be dealt with.

She  had long learn to stand still. To watch, before taking any rash action.  That was what her stomach and her fragile, bony bulk demanded.

Her  sight locked to a fish stand. Slowly, she descended from her perch,  gliding silently to an alley. Back rasping against silver, and arm-wings  following suit. Her feathers made only the barest possible of sounds,  inaudible to the ears of the humans she intended to steal from.

She made it so closely that, had she reached a few inches further, her taloned hand could have stolen a juicy lobster.

But then, it began.

She  felt an intrusion in her mind. For a second, she visualised an intense  white light, brighter than the sun, that flared just for a few seconds  in her eyes. She couldn’t help but scream, a loud, desperate noise that  echoed across the market.
For once in her life, all caution went to  the wind and she took to the air, flying as fast as she could. She  didn’t care about where she went, fear and humiliation having taken over  her in a mad daze.

A sharp pain flared in Atarau’s shoulder:  the metal edges of a roof had cut through her arm, blood staining the  metallic white. She plummeted accordingly, crashing into a stand.  Lobsters fell all around her, an irony she would laugh at bitterly for  years to come.

But in that moment, she couldn’t do anything but look around, trying to find any shadow to crawl into and just die.

All  around her, the silence became a cacophony, human and Aven voices  indistinguishable from a storm. It disoriented her, and made her feel  all the more helpless. She crawled in a fetal position, wings shielding  her knees, an action that portrayed weakness and earned her more  humiliation.

Just as she was at her worst, the light flooded her mind again, and for the longest while all she could see was a white blank.

***

When the white blank finally dissipated, Atarau still found herself in her fetal position, but now there was silence.

Welcoming, merciful silence.

She rose. Around here, silver was still dominant, but the blue of the sky was gone, as were the soft, dark greys of the clouds.

Instead,  she was in some sort of chamber or room, ornamented with elaborate  drawers depicting historical events, Parekareka and human statues in  still, austere poses, and a sword made from whale ivory. There were no  windows but plenty of ambient light, allowing no shadows to exist. It  wasn’t as blinding as that light, but it still felt intrusive, and  Atarau looked for some semblance of darkness.

“That is of no use” a commanding voice said, cold like the crash of waves, yet bright like the dawn.

Atarau  turned, and saw another Aven, a Parekareka. He was adorned with silver  clothes - literally so, as Atarau noticed the metallic fibers - trimmed  with whale ivory and pounamu. His eyes shone with an eldritch white  light, that seemed to pulse vividly, as if threatening to purge her.

“I am the light of Hiriwa, and shadows have no place here. Except for you, my child.”

“Wait” Atarau realized, “You’re-”
“Yes” he answered succinctly.

He waved a hand, and silver glistened, turning liquid. A table was formed, as were two benches on opposite sides.

“Come sit, child” he invited, “You must be starving.”

Atarau  wanted to refuse, but her stomach betrayed her, roaring loudly.  Embarrassed, she sat, and the Parekareka snapped his feathered fingers. A  door - no, a wall - shimmered and opened. Beyond it there was the same  white void, and from there came two humans.

Atarau thought that  they couldn’t possibly be servants. They were well dressed in blue,  purple and silver robes with gold, coral jewels and even diamonds sewn  into the clothes in bizarre constellations. Each carried a mirror, made  of silver and ice.

Yet, in spite of this, they carried in silver  plates of food: roasted sweet potato, whale meat - raw and cooked -,  podocarp fruits covered in honey, fish slices randomly mixed up, that  included tuna, sunfish, shark, barracuda and mackerel. Oysters were  lined around the edges of the plates, while sweet little krill and fish  organs got their own small plates.

As a bird, Atarau’s sense of  smell was minimal. To Aven, that sort of preparation was purely  aesthetic, all the colors and shapes mixed in inviting the hungry Alalā  to peck her away. The Parekareka, however, held his hand.

“We’ve also gotten your favourite” he said calmly, and extended a wing.

Another  open wall, another totally-not-a-servant servant, drawing in a wooden  tray, it's dark brown a relief to Atarau’s sore eyes. But she quickly  ignored that in favour of what it carried: lobsters, so many lobsters.  All raw, except for a soup, nested in a depression within the trail..

“Your favourite, I presume?” the Parekareka asked.

Atarau  nodded enthusiastically as it was all laid on the table. She reached to  touch a lobster, but just as she grabbed a leg she hesitated.

“Why?” she asked.

“What’s the matter, should it had been cooked” the Parekareka said sadly..

“You know very well what’s the ‘why’” Atarau hissed. She didn’t like being taken for a fool.

The  Parekareka pondered, talons dragging along the lower jaw. Atarau could  not read his pulsing eyes, but she could feel a sense of detachment on  his part. He became less of a host and more of a cold observer.

“I need your services. I thought it would ease your predicament if I started with hospitality.”
He grabbed a simple silver cup, letting its clear water fall on his gaping beak.

“The food is edible” he continued, “if there was poison, I wouldn’t enjoy it as well.”

And  so he took a lobster from the tray, and swallowed it whole, impressing  and disgusting Atarau at the same time. He reached for another one, but  Atarau’s hand was faster, and she shielded her prey with her arm-wings,  pecking at it, ripping large chunks of soft crustacean meat.

The  Parekareka turned his hand away from the tray, and picked slices of  whale meat instead, sliding them down his throat at his leisure. The  servants stood still, though one had to cover her mouth, glowing blue  with an easing spell. A single gag was enough to draw Atarau’s  attention. She threw the emptied lobster away, and picked a spoon,  eating the soup.

“So, what are they?” Atarau asked, staring at the humans.

“Humans” the Parekareka asked.

Atarau  stared at him coldly. It had little effect, especially as his own eyes  unnerved her. Still, he shook his feathers in a triumphant way.

“They’re my pupils, Karetai Kahuna initiates. They are not from this city, so they must prove their loyalty to me.”

“By being your slaves?” Atarau retorted, a hint of jealousy cracking in.

“No, attendants. You, on the other hand, are my slave.”

Atarau dropped the lobsters, and rose from the table.

“If you think bribing me with food will make me your slave, then you are mistaken” she said.

She  thought of all the dark places she had been in: sewers, caves, deltas.  Darkness began to pool inside her, her eyes now a void. Fear consumed  the Karetai Initiates, who began to cower, but the Parekareka rose his  own hand, and stared at Atarau. The light of his eyes began to fill her  vision once again, so she looked away. In desperation, she blasted a  cloud of pure necrotic energy, intended at the Light of Hiriwa.

Instead,  there was the sound of wind passing through, and one of the initiates  screamed in agony while the other crawled beneath the table.

“I  am beyond your comprehension” the Parekareka said, an odd lilt spicing  his otherwise austere voice, “But that doesn’t matter. If you leave, you  will have the military and all Parekareka of the world after you, in  every island you chose to go.”

He rose from the table. It and the  benches became liquid again, sinking the food as well as the unlucky  initiate, who screamed as she was entombed alive.

Softly, he landed a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t dare look, remaining still as a statue.

“You have to serve me. In return, I can promise you happiness.”

“W-what do you want me to do?” Atarau asked, fearing the worst.

Beaked jaws approached, uncomfortably close to her earholes.

“You will be my spy, and you will be my blade. But, most importantly, you will be my eyes.”

Suddenly, a talon touched the back of her head, and the light flooded her senses.

***

A  window opened, and Atarau was home. From the outside, the silver  apartment was rather bland, but on the inside not only it was large, but  full of everything she ever wanted.

Gold and jewels covered the  ground, metals and stones far brighter and more colourful than the  monochromatic silver. It made walking painful, but it was just as she  liked, loving to figure out the puzzle of where to put her feet. A well  positioned respite came into view: the corpse of a vendor, allowing her  to perch herself on it. She dove her beak into his exposed back, making a  snack out of his rib tendons.

Feeling full, she flew, gliding  shortly before reaching her circular nest-bed, made of the finest down  and sea urchin wool, filling elephant seal pelt pillows. A bed stand  tripod displayed a plate full of lobster legs, that she pecked at ease.

Nothing better to greet her home after a night of assassinations.

A light flared on her mind, and she grunted.

“What is it?” she said.

I need you to fly to Inanga. Take your time, but be there before dawn. My subject has arrived.

Atarau  didn’t protest further, both because she couldn’t but also because she  wanted to learn what the “subjects” he had talked about actually were.

She dropped her lobster, spread her wings and legs, and took off, flying out of her home.

***

Now she knew, and now she waited.