Woodlock

by Steve Shilstone

  “I’m on the proper path? On the other side of that… Can I go around it? It looks so such to be far too steep for a bendo dreen like me to climb. I don’t have to climb it, do I?” I wondered.

  “The other side. The other side,” said Shendra Nenas, and she raised the spikes along her spine and rattle clattered ‘em.

  “I can go around then. I can go around. Right?” I pressed.

  The trofle sighed and blinked her green glow eyes. She began to shimmer. She shifted to droplets, fell to the ground, gathered to pool, flowed into the stream and blended away.

  “She gave me a clue. I’m on the proper path,” I said, and so saying, I was suddenly drained dry of Shendra Nenas’ day long support of watery energy.

  I cupped my hands and drank from the low curtain falls. The water was cold and tasted sweet, but I remained exhausted. I curled down to sleep. I vowed to strike out for the other side of the rocky outcropping when I awoke.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Delia’s Cave

  I awoke from a dream so such pleasant that I closed my eyes and tried to retrieve it. I’d been soaring with Kar through the sky, collecting miniature rainbows and tying ‘em to my sleeves, where they fluttered like colorful tatters. How pleasant. What comfort. What joy! I tried to sink back, but failed. Thoughts interfered.

  Oh, well… Shendra Nenas… The rocky outcropping. What’s on the other side of it? Kar, I wish you were here to fly me. I’d even be glad of your bony jrabe Rakara arms like when you carried me in the Realm of Globes. Such… Get up, Bekka. Find Delia Branch. Steal the orb. Then… Then what? Then what happens will so such happen. Truth, Shendra Nenas did say that you were on the proper path. I heard her. She said it.

  I moved quickly, gliding and sliding, sometimes even bounding, along by the stream. I tore plump berries from bushes and ate ‘em. Pushing through a goodly thicket, I reached the bend in the stream and saw rising up to my right the steep black face of the rocky outcropping. So such it seemed to be made of shiny obsidian stone like the streets so said of Cloud Castle City. I myself have never seen ‘em, those streets, but I know the stories, and one day I’ll visit ‘em. Truth. So said, the outcropping was tall and thick and roundish like a fat high tower. Such an impressive greatness! It seemed out of place, an oddity there in the midst of the Woods Beyond the Wood. Why had I, the Chronicler, never heard of it in any of the Gwer drollek stories? I searched my brain. No. Nothing. Not a hint of so such a great massive rock could I find. Shrugging, I moved on.

  “I’m glad I don’t have to go over it,” I said aloud.

  It took some wading in the stream and some climbing up, across, and down more than a few cracked and tumbled boulders to arrive at an easily traveled slope on the other side of the looming black outcropping. I looked back and shrugged again at a mystery unsolved, towering and silent. Why had I never heard of so such a thing like that? I diverted my attention to the downward slope and to my task, whatever it was. Descending to a new odd valley landscape, I passed through an unusual stand of timber and undergrowth. Between the trees, green bushes with large leaf petals grew close to the ground. Some of ‘em were a shiny pale green. Some had darker green fringes of fuzz running around the edges of the leaf petals. A few supported prickly yellow green spikes almost fair matching the shade of my bendo dreen skin. All the trees, trunks and branches gray, joined leafy canopies to make a fine dark forest. Here and there were bright pink tufts of bunched leaves poking up between stones. The ground itself was muddy red, like dark bricks. Strange. So such the Woods began to seem enchanted.

  This is a seeming oddment, I thought. Could it be the homeland of Delia Branch? I’m on the proper path, remember. I’m on the proper path.

  A tingle of expectation went up my spine. Expectation was more than rewarded when in the next minute I stepped into a clearing. A gold lantern perched on a pale pink slab of rock, a table top, which was supported on the slender gray legs of bowed tree limbs bound together with gold cord. Next to the table on the mud red ground sat a tub, a gray washing tub so such nearly like we have in the hedge. A gold cord tied from one tree to another stretched across the mouth of a cave. Hanging from the cord was a well-woven fern tunic, an image of the one I’d seen the woodlock wearing. I could see a ways into the cave, and on its floor was a silver-fringed beautifully woven red carpet. Stone steps to the left of the cave led up into the Woods. Pink flowers bloomed in greenery climbing the rocks around the cave. Above the cave were trees and bushes with their roots poking down like stringy hair.

  "Delia’s cave,” I whispered, triumphant.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I Wait

  I wonder where she got this tub, I thought. It looks so such like one from the forge tunnels under the hedge. Oh, the table slab. How oddly smoothly cool. See, Kar! See what I have found! I bet that lantern is magic of a sort. I won’t touch it. Who knows what it’ll do?

  I ventured closer to the mouth of the cave and examined closely the tunic hanging from the gold cord.

  Wet… Finely woven, not sloppy like…like her future daughter’s...like Rindle Mer’s. So such if… Oh, a pocket! Empty… But see how the material is stretched, Kar, so such that its seeming habit is to hold…something round. Of course the orb. She has it with her out there somewhere, close by, maybe.

  That particular tumble of thought brought me to pluck my chonka from my belt and sing out a likely tune. I hoped to lure the woodlock near. I paced around about in the clearing while gazing into the surrounding Woods for a glimpse of green sparkles or a flash of gray. The conclusion of my song was answered by silence. I returned to the mouth of the cave and risked entering it.

  Not very deep. It’s a single room like a thorn bowl turned over. Cosy. And such a carpet! The weave must be roamer! Has to be! Kar, a roamer carpet! Roamers are numerous back in this when. Of course they are! How I would like to meet one! I would… But settle, Bekka. You have a task. The woodlock. The orb. Something.

  I decided to hide. The woodlock was shy, I reasoned. She herself would hide if she saw me clumping around her cave and singing like a lackwit. She probably WAS hiding. I decided to pretend to leave. I loudly announced my intention.

  “The woodlock is not here. I’ll just have to search elsewhere. Too bad, though, about her daughter-to-be,” I said.

  I marched up the stone steps next to the cave and wandered by pink tufts and gray-limbed trees and bushy greenery of various hues. After several paces, I dove with bendo dreen skill into a hedge. I burrowed to nest, placed my chonka there, and slithered quietly to a position where between a leafy fork of branches I commanded a partial view of the clearing and a full view of the tunic hanging from the cord.

  This is perfect, I thought. I’ll wait and watch. She’ll be back. She will, Kar, she will. She’ll bring her orb. I’ll snatch it from her after dark. Then… Then something will happen because I’m on the proper path. I’m on the proper path, Kar. I’m on it!

  I dozed and snapped awake off and on throughout the day. The tunic hung from the gold cord. The woodlock did not appear. No green sparkles. No flash of gray. Dusk. Night. I waited. As darkness descended, the clearing became dimly illuminated by a shadow of blue light. Though I couldn’t see it, I decided that the lantern on the pink marble slab table glowed magically so such and supplied the light.

  Good fortune, I thought. I can still see the tunic and the mouth of the cave.

  The tunic shimmered a dance in front of my glassy stare. I shook my head. Awake! I had to stay awake. The tunic shimmered. My eyelids fell, and when next I had a thought, it was morning. Bleary of brain, I blinked my eyes. The gold cord stretched from tree to tree across the mouth of the cave. The tunic was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  And Wait

  I crashed out of the hedge and cursed my lackwit self with wagging tongue and a stampy sort of dance. I imagined Kar laughing at me. So such made me settle to brooding. What to do?

  “Shendra Nenas, am I still on the proper
path?” I shouted.

  Receiving no sign of an answer, I wriggled back into the hedge and retrieved my chonka. Attaching it to my belt, I freed myself from the hedge and hurried to the woodlock’s clearing. The lantern perched in its place on the pink slab table. The washing tub sat by so such the same. The cave was empty, so such except for the finely woven red carpet on its floor. The gold cord line, which I touched, hung slightly slack from tree limb to tree limb. No tunic hung from it. No tunic.

  “Delia Branch!” I called out, and recklessly added, “I’m from the future! I’m here to help you and Riffle Sike! Your daughter! I know who she will be!”

  No response.

  ”Shendra Nenas!”

  No response.

  “I’ll…I’ll… Kar, what would you do?”

  Strangely, oddly, my jark dweg best friend Kar’s voice sounded clearly in my head. I whirled around looking for her.

  “I didn’t hear that. I thought it,” I muttered. “The black rock, eh?”

  Truth, the imagined voice of Kar had suggested returning to the mysterious rocky outcropping. I had no better idea of my own. I believed so such to aid me that the thought had been planted some magical how by Shendra Nenas. The belief offered me a sort of a comfort. I left the clearing with no delay and moved with a swiftness through the green and pink and gray of the enchanting Woods.

  Such a great black steep rocky obsidian mound tower in the midst of the Woods Beyond the Wood, I thought. Why have I never heard tell of it in any of the Gwer drollek tales? Does it disappear from history? Is it…

  I stopped in my tracks, frozen so such like the lavender witch, the Babba Ja Harick, was at times.

  …part of MY task?

  A true lightning bolt of possibility struck me. I stayed frozen to allow the bolt to melt and seep twining about the coils of my mind. I stood there, one highboot raised, for a goodly span of time on the slope rising up to the massive black rock.

  I’ll examine it. I’ll circle it. I’ll look for fractures, for fissures, for hidden tunnels!

  I put my highboot down and commenced to stride slowly up the slope, tapping my chonka in a meditative manner. I reached the great wall of black gleaming rock. I placed a hand on it.

  “I have never heard of you,” I said. “Why?”

  Keeping close to the rock face, I circled to the right, scuffing a path in the mud red dirt. I wedged my hands into fractures, looking for levers to spring hidden doors. No levers. No doors. I pushed on bumps and knobs. I tapped on bulging seams. Nothing happened, though the silence seemed eerie. I moved slowly, carefully, pushing, tapping, kicking. I rested from time to time to ease the strain of so such concentration. My eyes fairly burned. I snacked on likely leaves and massaged lightly with my fingertips all around my eyes. Work and rest, work and rest, for the full length of day I inched my way around the great black tower of a rock. When the sun sank low, I arrived back where the scuff path of my highboots began. I drooped to sit, my back against the wall.

  “Another day wasted,” I groaned. “Lackwit. Things will be as they aren’t. Such will be so.”

  I almost gave up right then and right there, but I didn’t. I firmed my jaw.

  “The week is not over,” I said. “There are four more days.”

  Too exhausted to move, I vowed to return in the morning to the woodlock’s clearing and to hide in the back of her cave until she appeared. She would appear. She had to! It was her home. So such determined and satisfied, I curled down to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The Next Day

  Morning found me up early and wading down the slope through swirls of low mist. I headed for the woodlock’s clearing. I hoped to surprise her there. So such was one of my hopes. Another of my hopes featured Shendra Nenas appearing with more clues. My fondest hope concerned my task, whatever it was. I yearned so such for it to be successfully completed and have me safely back by the Well of Shells in my own when before another sunsink. At the base of the slope I reentered the Woods, which seemed even more enchanted and strange to me in the low swirling mists. Pink tufts of flowers fairly floated on the fog. I crept straightaway to the place of the woodlock’s clearing. There I hid behind the fattest of its border bushes. The clearing appeared so such the same as it had on the previous day.

  She hasn’t returned? I asked myself.

  A weight of disappointment gathered in my legs. I stepped into the clearing. Pink slab marble table. Lantern. Washing tub. Gold cord. No tunic. I walked beneath the cord and into the cave. Silver fringed red carpet, finely woven. And something else beyond it! The weight of disappointment dispersed. What’s this? Not here yesterday, were you? Fairly I sprang to the back wall of the cave. There on the mud red earth sat a fist-sized rock. Black obsidian.

  She HAS been here! I internally exulted. This is from the outcropping. I saw hundreds like it! I was right. There IS some so such sort of a connection between the woodlock and the mysterious looming black rock. I knew it! I am on the proper path! I wonder what it is!

  I picked up the rock and studied at its glassy brilliance. It had a thorny spur. Sharp. I tested it. Thorn sharp. Such. It was then I saw the marks in the dirt on the floor of the cave. Runes so such they seemed to me and carven with the spur of the very rock I held in my hand. I crouched to get a closer look. The runes meant nothing to me. Squiggles, lines, arcs, and circles.

  She carved ‘em out with this, I thought. She’s a woodlock. She can shift to green sparkles. What else can she do? Conjure with spells? Why not? Kar, I bet this is a spell. What kind? Something about Runner Rill! Something about Runner Rill!

  I sat down to ponder, and while pondering, I caressed the rock’s thorny spur. Such it brought to me a comfort memory of thorn plucking time in my own bower hedge home.

  If she’s casting spells about Runner Rill and they aren’t working, is it up to me to help her? My task? I need to interview her, don’t I, Kar? I need to coax her so such that she allows me to hold her orb while she tells me all about herself. Isn’t that so, Shendra Nenas? I gave her back the orb too quickly. She hadn’t told me enough. Right, Shendra Nenas? I’ll find my task by gaining more information from the woodlock. Such! So! I can do that. Am I not the Chronicler of the Boad, All Fidd and Leee Combined?

  Answers unknowable began to gather behind a thick wall of clouds in my head. I sensed ‘em there! Links were clanking into place. Ideas of woodlock and waterwizard drifted together, drawn to the great black obsidian rock.

  She’ll be back. Her spell will fail. It must, because I have not yet performed my task, whatever it is.

  I sat, brimmed full of thorn confidence, at the back of the cave. I admired the red roamer carpet. I hummed likely tunes. I tapped a quiet rhythm on my chonka.

  “You don’t have to tell me, Kar. I know. Practice patience. Sabeek orrun,” I said aloud every few hours or thereabout all through the day.

  And when the blue shadow light from the lantern outside on the table lit the haunting night, I smiled and waited. I felt so such on the proper path. I sagged to nap and snapped awake. Delia Branch appeared at the mouth of the cave.

  Chapter Thirty

  Delia Speaks

  “Delia Branch,” I said calmly, “I have been waiting for you.”

  Her chalky gray face bathed in the yellow shaft of light shooting up from the orb she held in her hand. Her dark eyes were fixed on the black chunk of rock I clutched in MY hand.

  “I have discovered your runes here. The spell didn’t work, did it?” I guessed softly with sympathy. “I can help you. Truth, such is the very reason I am here.”

  Her gaze flicked up from the rock to my face. I sensed she was poised, ready to flee, but so such somehow was held by my words.

  “Runner Rill is in your future,” I said gently, nodding. “I can help. Won’t you tell me what happened at the pool with the cave?”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Yes, I have interviewed both of ‘em, the waterwizard brothers, about it. Runner Rill saw
you, and you sparkled away. Why?” I inquired softly.

  “I…couldn’t speak. He… He am… Runner Rill? Runner Rill… Runner Rill… He was…too…beautiful. I…are…too timid,” she managed to whisper.

  “You are a woodlock, the shyest of creatures. It is so such understandable. A truth. Listen. I am sent here specially to help you. I am a traveler through time from far in the future. Do you believe me?” I said in the kindest sort of effort not to alarm her.

  I waited, holding my breath until she nodded slowly once.

  “Well then, fine,” I said, ever smiling. “For me to act, and I must act quickly, I need more knowledge of woodlock lore. So such, tell me about this place and how you came here and everything all about chalky woodlocks.”

  Delia Branch stepped to the carpet and sat down, straight of back, crossed and folded of legs. Her hands she held cupped in the lap of her tunic. Her orb, shooting shafts of yellow light, perched on the cup of her hands. She seemed so such to be at ease.

  “Tell me about your wonderful orb,” I encouraged.

  “It am given to woodlocks at the Abandonment. My Abandonment took place here,” she said in her tiny voice.

  “Ah, the Abandonment. Such, so said, what IS the Abandonment?” I probed.

  “A chalky woodlock are set out alone in a forest after one hundred days of life. I was left here with this carpet, the table, the lantern, the cord, and my orb,” she said.

  “Who left you here?”

  “I don’t remember. I was here. I knew what to do. I wove my tunics from ferns. I braided my belt. My orb…”

  “Your orb? Yes. What about your orb?” I pushed a nince too eagerly, so such drawn to the orb was I. How could I get it into my grasp?

  “It am my guide. When I think on it, I learn the magic of my spells,” she explained. “But it… No, I are happy here alone. I are happy! I swim. I conjure. I play. I sparkle. I are happy here… I was happy…until…”