“Until you saw Runner Rill! I know. I’ll share a secret with you, Delia Branch. Runner Rill, when he saw you, was fairly astonished by YOUR beauty!” I gushed.
The woodlock covered her face with a chalky gray hand, fingers spread wide, webs between ‘em stretched taut. Had my last remark been a mistake? All aquiver, the woodlock seemed ready to flee.
“Delia, tell me about the black rock. This chunk…and that great tower up the slope,” I said desperately, holding up the obsidian chunk with one hand and pointing to where I thought the outcropping stood with the other.
She lowered her hand from her face. Her eyes were wet, glittery gleaming. A single teardrop rolled down her cheek. She raised the orb and kissed it. The rock flew from my hand and out into the night beyond the cave’s entrance.
Chapter Thirty-One
I Pledge a Vow of Resolve
“Oh, I see,” I said, not seeing.
Delia Branch wiped the teardrop from her cheek and gave to me a genuine smile. I gave her one in return, and such was the only action I took. I dared not risk more words. Why? She appeared to be so such much more relaxed than she’d been before. She looked almost content.
“You am from the future, you say. You have found me twice. You knew that my spell failed. I… I want to be able to talk to him. Why am his hair so…burning? Why do his eyes spark…flames? He am called Runner Rill,” she spilled rapidly, then sighed.
I kept my tongue pressed to the roof of my mouth to block off any escape of words. She was talking. I was listening. Such was what I’d wanted.
“You will help?” she asked.
I allowed myself a nod.
“The Urplinth am what it are,” she said.
At that moment, I do assume that my face took on an expression so such exactly like that of a completely fuddled lackwit. Why? I WAS fuddled, and in addition, she laughed. What a delightful laugh she had! It sang like little bells.
“The black rock,” she explained. “You asked me about it. It am the Urplinth. I used my orb to send the chunk back to the top from where I gathered it. You were right. I did try a spell to lure him…Runner Rill. You were right. It did fail. You found my orb. You gave it back to me. You am from the future. You can help?”
I risked another nod, but no words. I had a task to perform. What was it? Whatever it was, its effect had to be to bring Runner Rill and Delia Branch together. Such I believed. I had to believe such. What else could I believe from the sparse and vague guidance of Shendra Nenas?
“How can you help?” asked Delia Branch in a voice full of hope, fairly forcing my tongue to drop its blockade.
“Tell me all you know about the Urplinth. And afterwards, I’ll reveal my plan,” I bluffed.
“The Urplinth am a good place to sit on top of,” she said. “I sparkle green to go there and look around. The view of the Woods in all directions am best there. On top of the Urplinth, my orb shoots rainbow light, not yellow shafts like these, and tells me things. I knew on the day of the Abandonment that I should go there to the top. I knew that much. I went up and sat and of a sudden knew enough more. My orb was casting rainbow lights of knowledge at me. I was up there today, and my orb would not help. I was up there days ago, and I saw the other one, the plain one, splashing at that cave pool. I went to see if his…Runner Rill would appear. He…I was too shy. How can you help?”
I was beginning to decide that in order to fulfill my task, I would have to be standing on top of the black obsidian outcropping, the Urplinth. Obviously a sort of a magical energy lived there. The woodlock said the orb changed when on top of the Urplinth. The orb! The key to my task!
“To help you to speak to Runner Rill, I must get to the top of the Urplinth and hold your orb in my hand at midnight tomorrow,” I said forcefully, making it all up out of nothing on the spot. “I pledge to you a vow of resolve. As I am Bekka of Thorns, Chronicler of the Boad, All Fidd and Leee Combined, I will bring you, Delia Branch, chalky woodlock, and Runner Rill, youngling waterwizard with fiery eyes and hair, together to ensure for future generations the salvation of the Woods Beyond the Wood.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
To The Urplinth
Trapped in a situation. Trapped. No doubt. Tied to my own uninformed guesses, I’d committed myself to a path of action, proper or not. Shendra Nenas, so said, hinted with some emphasis I should go around what I know now to be the Urplinth, not over it. Such and so, I was tied to a midnight on the Urplinth holding the woodlock’s orb in my hand. Delia Branch beamed at me. I was her hope.
I have won her trust, I thought. That’s a worthy gain. How many days, how much time, is left? The morning will bring the… fifth…yes, the fifth day. Midnight tomorrow… I wonder why I chose midnight… Whyever, whatever, it will bring the sixth day. That leaves one day left over in case it turns out I don’t know so such what I’m doing.
“Delia, I need to sleep until morning. We bendo dreen need rest to replenish our energies of mind and body. I have a desire to be thorn sharp tomorrow. I must be. Such. Oh, I assume, of course, that you will be able transport me some sorcerous how to the top of the Urplinth,” I announced, dreading a possible negative reply.
“Sorcery am not needed. You am able to climb stairs, amn’t you?” she said brightly.
“Stairs? Of course, stairs! We have ‘em by the dozens in the hedge,” I said, much relieved while at the same time wondering where, in fact, those so such stairs hid. “Well, good night then.”
“Bekka of Thorns, I will leave to you the carpet,” said the woodlock. “I will consult with my orb outside while you sleep. Blue lantern light, yellow orb light, I are content to be the green sparkle mist between. I believe in you, Bekka of Thorns.”
So saying, she left the cave, and I curled down, not to sleep, but to think. Tucked in shadow on the comfort of the carpet, I watched layers of dim blue, bright yellow, and shimmering green lights flicker and dance outside.
She believes in me. That makes one of us. What if Runner Rill has already flown far and away and gone? He said he would… But no, I had a week, Kar. A week. Shendra Nenas said a week. Tomorrow’s five, then six, then seven. Stairs. She said stairs. What stairs? I fairly broke my eyes searching around that Urplinth for hidden passages. Well, she says there are stairs. So good. I’ll get up to the top. It’s magical up there, isn’t it, Shendra Nenas? The orb spouts rainbows there, not merely yellow shafts of light. The orb has powers that were never told in the Gwer drollek story of Rindle Mer. That’s a truth. In that story, it was a simple lantern and a comfort to Rindle Mer. But it’s more other than that, isn’t it, Shendra Nenas? What should I do when I hold it at midnight? Kar, what would you do? Make up a chant? Something jark dweg silly, I bet. Something will happen. I’m on the proper path. Something must happen.
The dance of lights from outside the cave buzzed my mind numb and put me to sleep. I was poked in the ribs by Kar, and awoke to see not Kar, but the woodlock. Her chalky gray hand with its webbed fingers rested on my ribcage.
“It am morning, Bekka of Thorns. Are it time to go to the Urplinth?” she said eagerly in her tiny voice.
“It are…is,” I croaked.
“I will lead you,” she trilled, shimmering to sparkle green mist.
Out from the cave, across the clearing, and into the green and the gray and the pink of the Woods we went. The woodlock flitted, spun and darted up trees, around ‘em, back to me, away from me, through hedges, up to the sky, down. If a shimmering cloud of green mist can demonstrate joy, then so such was joy demonstrated. She truly believed I would bring Runner Rill to her. She believed it more than I did. But so saying, her belief boosted my confidence more than slightly. I felt jaunty. And when she shimmered to her shy woodlock self at the base of the Urplinth and brought out the orb from her tunic pocket and kissed it, causing the ground to rumble and a steep stairway up the face of the Urplinth to appear, my confidence in myself filled up to thorns over the brim.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Up The Stairs
The stairway ran steeply away to the right, curving out of sight, and halfway up the Urplinth it reappeared on the left, hugging the face of the outcropping and climbing to gain the summit.
“Steep stairway,” I said. “A worrisome sort of narrow. No rail.”
“I climbed these block steps on the day of Abandonment before the orb gave me the knowledge of shift,” said Delia Branch. “I haven’t needed to since. Come along. Run up!”
So much had her mood been made merry by her belief in me that she scampered ahead up the narrow stairway of black blocks, paused, hopped up a few more, turned and sat to wait for me with a happy fat grin on her chalky gray face. Once in my time past, forced by circumstance, I climbed stairs without rails up the wall of a great cavern. Kar was with me, and she was my Kar, my bendo dreen Kar only, before we discovered what all other she was. So said, heights can strike my legs hollow and make me dizzy. Truth to tell, such had happened to me on the wall of that cavern. My vow of resolve echoed in my head. I took a deep breath and placed my left highboot on the first jutting block of stone.
“You go on ahead, Delia. I’ll join you on top. You’re in a hurry, I can tell. I want to take a lazy time and enjoy the view,” I lied, not wanting her to witness what I knew would be for me a humiliating climb of terror.
“All right. I forgot how fun it am to run and hop up the stairs,” she piped, and I listened to the fading patter of her rising rush up the stairway.
I assumed my climbing posture, which was a hands and knees crawl with my eyes pinched shut and my left shoulder pressing with a purpose into the sheer face of the Urplinth. I pictured Kar laughing at me, and truth, I laughed at myself, though masked and deeply hidden beneath tossing waves of fear. Up I went cautiously, hand, hand, knee, knee. Time rolled slowly off its spool. I breathed. I did not get dizzy. My legs weren’t hollow. My shoulder rubbed precious contact up the obsidian. I knew if I opened my eyes, I would do one of two things. I would wither to freeze in a lump, or I would be captured by an irresistible and most unfortunate urge to leap into space. So such was why my eyes could not have been pried open by the thorniest talons of the angriest Dragon.
“Am you all right, Bekka of Thorns?” came the concerned voice of the woodlock floating down from high above.
“Oh, yes! Fine! Fine! What a magnificent view! Be patient, Delia. Sabeek orrun! We have until midnight, remember,” I called out through clenched teeth, my forehead pressed to the Urplinth.
I fooled her so such, because she didn’t bother me again, and a very long span of time rolled on before I finally tumbled on my left side pressing air with my shoulder. I was on top of the Urplinth. I risked a squint. I saw enough to make me scuttle to the middle of what so seemed like a high black meadow of rock. I sat up and sighed with relief. I was atop the Urplinth! My very next thought hollowed my legs. The stairs. I would have to descend ‘em whenever this whatever was completed! And worse! Where was Delia?
“Delia Branch!” I shouted.
A green sparkle mist cloud shimmered up over the rim of the Urplinth. The woodlock shifted to shape.
“At long last! You took half the day to get here,” she jabbered lightly. “It am my favorite place to stand on one foot leaning out. I almost forgot. Come and lean out with me. Let’s look down. It am so nice and steeply far to the ground.”
“Maybe later,” I said, almost fainting. “First I should tell you about Runner Rill.”
She fell silent and was at my side in a nince.
Chapter Thirty-Four
On Top of the Urplinth
I captured so seemingly her full attention. What next? Should I reveal all? Or part? Or lie? Seeing the woodlock poised before me wearing a look of rapt expectation, I made a decision.
“I know you can keep a secret. After all, you are a woodlock,” I confided, pitching my voice one sliver above whisper. “You believe that I am from the future.”
Delia Branch, the chalky woodlock, nodded, her hands pressed together over the bulge of the orb in her gray fern tunic pocket.
“In your future unveiled will come a time when these Woods Beyond the Wood will wither dry into desolation. Not a tricklestream, river, pool or fountain will there be. Not a single drop of water!” I plunged on, not knowing if I should and blaming Shendra Nenas in advance if I was truly straying from the proper path. “But before the Woods ignite and crackle a storm of fire, they will be replenished by a stubborn youngling, a youngling possessed of a bark-lined endurance, a watery woodlock named Rindle Mer. The daughter of Delia Branch. The daughter of Runner Rill.”
Delia Branch sat heavily, collapsed so said. Mute she remained, and she stared at me with her big dark luminous eyes.
“If… If… Such will happen IF I succeed in my task,” I continued. “You believe I will succeed in my task, don’t you?”
I asked because I needed her belief to bolster mine. She gave me a solemn nod, and more than that, she produced the orb from her pocket and reached it out to give to me. I took it. Its coppery metallic smoothness settled onto my palm. Its eight elongated ovals were closed, sealing off the yellow light.
“The ovals open only at night, I suppose,” I said.
The woodlock nodded.
“How like the color of my hair it is,” I said.
The woodlock nodded.
“At midnight I’ll use it to summon Runner Rill,” I said.
The woodlock nodded.
I kept spilling thoughts, one by one as they occurred to me, and each thought brought a nod from the woodlock. I could have said Blossom Castle would sprout legs and hop away. She would have nodded. I began to grow nervous under the relentless gaze of the woodlock. I grew tired of talking. I made a suggestion.
“While we’re waiting, would you mind floating off to collect some shragnuts for me to eat? The climb up this Urplinth has made me hungry,” I lied, hoping to gain some brooding time free from her gaze.
Delia Branch did what I expected. She nodded. She shifted to green sparkle mist and drifted over the edge of the Urplinth and downwardly disappeared.
Well, Kar, look at me now. I’m sitting on top of an Urplinth, something we never knew existed. Here it is. I’m on it. Such. I’m holding in my hand Rindle Mer’s orb. It seems so such…simple…light as a beeket feather. Will Rindle Mer ever hold it? Will Rindle Mer… ever be? It’s up to me. Oh, Kar, why didn’t I get better instructions? The shifter left me to stumble along blindly, so said. I stumbled to the top of this Urplinth. I stumbled to having a chalky woodlock believe in me. She believes in me! Rindle Mer’s mother believes in me! Kar! Kar! What if I fail? What if…?
The sparkle green mist cloud rose over the rim and shimmered to woodlock. She padded across the black obsidian surface and held out to me a handful of shragnuts. I could scarcely bear to look at her face. It was so such too shining with hope and belief.
“Thank you,” I said softly.
I ate the shragnuts carefully, slowly, solemnly in ritual fashion. It seemed so such the thing to do while under worshipful gaze.
“Now we should close our eyes and be still until night,” I announced.
The orb felt cool in my hand.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The Orb at Midnight
Are you watching, Shendra Nenas? I asked in thought. Please, I beg, interrupt if what I am doing is wrong.
The cool of the orb was a comfort in my hand. Though my eyes were closed, I sensed the nearness of the woodlock. I was alert to the tiniest of movements. I noted each intake and outflow of air, every breath we breathed. At times I alone breathed and therefore knew she had shifted to mist. Nervousness must have made her do so such, I decided. After counting five hundred slow deep breaths, I peeked at the sky. Day. Afternoon. Green mist in sparkle on the rim of the Urplinth. I closed my eyes. Five hundred breaths. Peek. Afternoon. The woodlock seated nearby, gazing away from me. Five hundred breaths. Peek. Afternoon deepening. The woodlock, her back to me, seated on the rim, legs dangling. I cl
osed my eyes. Two thousand breaths I counted. Peek. Moons. I looked down at the orb in my hand. Its eight elongated ovals were open, but no shafts of yellow light beamed. Instead, I could see inside the orb seething layers of rainbow glow.
“Delia,” I called in a hush.
“I are here,” she replied, a silhouetted lump of darkness off to my left.
“I see the rainbows inside,” I informed her.
“Yes,” she commented.
“How do YOU release ‘em?” I asked in an offhand manner so such as to demonstrate that I had my own ideas, which of course I didn’t.
“I place the orb on the Urplinth,” she said.
“A good choice. I will do the same at midnight. Until then, I must prepare quietly. Please inform me when midnight arrives,” I bluffed, hoping, more so such sensing, that woodlocks were able to read the night from dusk to dawn.
“Yes, Bekka of Thorns,” came the voice of worship from Delia, spilling relief all over me.
I counted until I lost count of my breaths and dropped away into a half dream stupor. I was jolted alert by Delia’s tiny voice.
“Midnight,” she said into my ear.
There were stars. Both moons were high and less than half. The writhing rainbows seethed in the orb. Well, this is it. Here goes, I thought. I placed the orb on the obsidian surface of the Urplinth.
“So!” I cried.
The rainbows crackled like lightning from the orb in exploding arcs. They filled the sky, lit up the night with spangles and bursts of blossoms. Booms shook the Urplinth. Colors rained brilliantly in swooping waves. Swirls of colors raced like serpents above me. I fell onto my back, awestruck, deafened by crack booms. On and on went the mad frenzy of color splashing, popping, smashing against the black night sky.
“Oh,” the voice of Delia Branch.
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