The Questory of Root Karbunkulus - Quill

by Kamilla Reid

  Everyone ignored it.

  “Are you sure I had the Pasting Quill last?” said Dwyn crouched behind his dresser.

  “Well, you were the last one to use it on Root.”

  “Wait a minute! That was when we were still with Martika and Alabiss. When we left, you had packed it in the travel bag, Lian!” Dwyn obviously didn’t like being held responsible for losing the one thing they wanted now more than anything.

  But then neither did Lian as they ransacked his room, which was a much more difficult undertaking considering that many things that were searchable were alive and not at all pleased about being frisked.

  When nothing was recovered the probable

  loss of the Pasting Quill aka HaloEm Quill became a suffocating reality. And on the heels of suffocating reality, blame could always be found.

  “How could you not know it was a HaloEm Quill?” asked Dwyn far too accusingly for Lian’s liking.

  “As a matter of fact I was suspicious but she

  used it like a butter knife, Dwyn! You don’t use a real live HaloEm Quill like a butter knife.”

  “Well, why didn’t you ask?”

  “I just assumed it was from an exotic bird!

  And besides I didn’t see you asking about it, either!”

  “Well, how’m I s’posed t’think it’s unusual.

  I’ve never lived here before!”

  “You still could’ve asked. It’s not like

  you’ve never asked about anything here

  before…only like a hundredbazillion times! It doesn’t matter anyway ‘cause even if you knew you’d’ve probably lost it!”

  “I didn’t lose it! You did!”

  “Okay, guys that’s enough! Geez.” Root

  wanted to strangle them both. “There’s no point fighting when it could’ve got lost anywhere during the last Quest. It’s not like the travel pack was kept in a nice, safe bubble after we left the Keepers. If you remember an Albino Gorilla even had it for awhile.”

  True.

  But the horror of being so close and now so far was a sickening pill to swallow. Not because they would have to, like everyone else, journey to find a new Quill. That wasn’t bad at all. In fact they had to admit they had felt a little sad at the thought of missing out on a second exciting adventure.

  No, the horror was being stuck on this second adventure with Ernest Skubblenob.

  There was only one thing for it. Sleep. Maybe they’d wake up to find the old inventor was just a nasty dream they had coincidentally shared. Okay, maybe not but staying up, freaking out ‘til sunrise wouldn’t help any either. Maybe, if they were really lucky in the morning the old inventor would be too embarrassed to return.

  Fingers were crossed.

  Root’s walk through the corridors back to her room was burdened by the desire to visit Krism whose light was still on. She paused, on the cusp of total burnout.

  Nope. Her drooping eyelids simply wouldn’t allow it. She would have to see Krism in the morning, after a comatose few hours in bed.

  Once returned to her room she jotted down a note and passed it to her Doorhand. She hadn’t used the Messenger System before since most deliveries were botched or worse, monitored. But sleep had already taken over her legs and would soon consume her entirely. “Room sixty eleven, please. His name’s Krism.”

  Root’s Door Hand, a rather stalky thing with oversized knuckles was pleased to get an assignment, having recently felt undervalued and in need of job stimulus. One can only greet and announce so much before dying of boredom. A dispatch was just the solution. It snatched the paper from Root and disappeared to whatever messenger route it was that Door Hands took. Through the walls most likely.

  Root yawned so wide her jaw nearly unhinged. Even Mordge’s regular nightcap was put off for this much needed ‘preliminary sleep’ as Lian called it.

  But tired as she was, it was one of those attempts where the body is more than ready and willing but the mind just can’t concur. She stared up from her bed at the cracked ceiling above. This time tomorrow she would be immersed in the Second Magisterial Treasure Quest of DréAmm. With so much time spent pillaging their rooms, all they had eked out of a plan was back-tracking their last Quest, hoping to find the Quill where it may have fallen. Anywhere from the Death Yard at Loz to the Sea Wraith’s domain to Bumplekins’ secret cottage to the very unfriendly Mortem Woods.

  A thrill swept through her as she remembered her first Quest. Sure, the idea of finding the Quill sitting innocuously in one of their rooms had had its merits. But truth be told, a second adventure was the trump. Root had spent so many weeks training for and looking forward to it. The adventure and excitement had worked its way under her skin and she suspected that it had been the same for Dwyn and Lian.

  As an orchestra of crickets serenaded outside her window, she felt exactly as she had the very first night of the very first Quest: lucky and thrilled and anxious and terrified and happy. She eventually fell asleep but her dreams were fraught with images of the HaloEm Quill floating on a vast seascape, only to be suddenly chomped and dragged under by an old man’s pair of false teeth.

  10

  DEAD TREADERS

  A Dead Treader is nocturnal. But that doesn’t mean it dances under the moon or anything wasteful like that. No, no a Dead Treader is not one to socialize. It comes out just long enough to find its prey and eat it. A fast food kinda thing. Nothing too fussy in the diet. Unfortunately for the prey this usually means anything ‘warm and breathing’, which regrettably means being eaten alive. However, if one could reach for a brighter side to such an ordeal, at least the prey is paralyzed first and can’t feel that it’s being eaten. But that doesn’t really help the fact that it knows its being eaten, which, in the end may be a far worse way to go. Unless of course the eatee passed out in the process as is usually the case.

  Most victims of a Dead Treader had found a nice place to sleep after an active evening of foraging. By the time they realized that they were now being foraged, it was too late; the Dead Treader’s many-segmented body had scurried over them with hundreds of tiny poison tipped legs, paralyzing them instantly.

  It’s a quiet meal. As was stated and is worth repeating, a Dead Treader is not one for socializing. It lives a rather solitary existence under rocks and rotting trees, emerging only for this brief digestive encounter with a small rodent, of which a forest has plenty.

  But this particular Dead Treader has not been released into a forest. No. This very large, abnormally large in fact Dead Treader has been released into a bed. After having spent many days in a large clay box without food.

  This Dead Treader is hungry.

  It doesn’t particularly care for the crisp, clean sheets of its landing but eventually it finds something resembling a meal, albeit a hairless meal. The Dead Treader scurries over the skin, marvelling in its smoothness. Salivating. And lookie here!-this hairless rodent is huge! The Dead Treader sweeps up and down its victim, discharging hundreds of paralytic stings from hundreds of eager legs.

  Never in its life has the Dead Treader seen such a large rodent. The Dead Treader can’t believe its good fortune. In fact, it’s so happy, it doesn’t even seem to mind the other three Dead Treaders that have been released into the same bed to share. There’s more than enough!

  Hilly Punyun woke up to find that she couldn’t move anything but her head. She thought she’d been sleeping in a position that had put her arms to sleep but when she couldn’t move her legs either, she figured it was more serious. It was only when she saw several abnormally large Dead Treaders slowly making their way toward her face that she realized just how serious it was.

  Hilly passed out.

  It was as the original Dead Treader was making its way toward an ear that Hilly woke again. This time she saw the shiny brown shell and hungry clipping mouth.

  Hilly screamed. She screamed louder than she’d ever screamed in her life. Then she passed out again. But lucky for Hilly Punyun she had screamed a
scream so shrill, so resonant, so perfectly pitched, it caught the attention of a Shrieking Shrub. The Shrieking Shrub thought Hilly was its long lost mother and shrieked back.

  Unfortunately for Lian the Shrieking Shrub was in his room. He woke clutching his heart, just in time to see his Shrieking Shrub uproot and race out the door. Well, under the door.

  As the shrub tore down the halls towards its ‘mother’, Lian in tow, it managed to wake a good number of residents. Soon Lian heard the thunder of many a footstep racing behind him. Root had caught the terrifying shrieks many floors up and had joined the amassing crowd of pajamas, nighties and slippers.

  When they arrived at Hilly’s room, most of the horror had been already dealt with. Jorab was putting something monstrously creepy looking into a bag that was squirming with legs. Countless, nasty, writhing legs.

  Hilly was lying in bed, every inch of her looking stone cold stiff. The Shrieking Shrub was nestled up under her chin, practically strangling her with affection. Though she wanted to swat the thing away, she couldn’t for the only things mobile were her eyes and mouth. Beside her, Hyvis Punyun was patting her arm and seething.

  “It was him!” Hyvis screamed in a voice still deranged by the ordeal, not certain her daughter wasn’t partially eaten already.

  The growing swarm of kids rubbernecked toward the corner where Hyvis’s glare had landed. Root went instantly pale. There, in the shadows of Hilly’s room, the whites of his eyes ablaze, stood Krism. He looked small and fatal, any innocence effectively ambushed.

  “He was trying to kill her, Jorab!” Hyvis exploded.

  Hilly’s eyes rolled back to Jorab while her face remained stone stuck. It was rather disturbing to watch. “Are they…are they gone!” She screeched as much as one can screech with no jaw to back it up.

  “Yes, they’re all gone. Now settle down, Miss Punyun. Let’s take care of your paralysis first.” Jorab applied slight pressure to Hilly’s hand. “Can you feel this?”

  “No! Why, is there nothing there? Is my hand gone?” Her eyes swivelled wildly again. She tried to move her head to look, but absolutely nothing came of it.

  “Your hand is still attached. It’s been numbed and so…”

  “Has it been chewed? Do I still have all five fingers?”

  “No, it has not been chewed. Yes, you have all five fingers. Consider yourself lucky.”

  A huge glob of a tear formed in the corner of Hilly Punyun’s eye. In perfect measure, an identical droplet, soppy and ready to burst claimed the other eye. She blinked, sending two rivulets down her cheeks. It was masterful. Even Root felt a pang of sympathy.

  But in her stupendously, notoriously obnoxious way, Hilly would put a direct halt to that. “Did it…sniff…gnaw off my nail polish?” she whimpered. “I spent so much on that design. I don’t know what I’d do if it was ruined.”

  Master Hillywur Gub arrived in a flurry of panic, putting a swift cork in Hilly’s Oscar performance. Much to Jorab’s relief.

  “What’s going on?” He pushed his way past the gawking crowd, unconscious of the fact that he was wearing a one-piece pajama ensemble and a shower cap. He saw Jorab’s squirming bag of Dead Treaders and yelped.

  “Oh good.” Jorab smiled. “Would you mind disposing of these, Master Gub?” He handed the bag over.

  Hillywur Gub took the bag. Slowly. With a hand clasped over his mouth. He looked fit to outdo Hilly’s tears.

  “Thank you.” Jorab turned back to his task. “Now then…Lian…”

  Lian approached reluctantly.

  “I believe she is yours.” Jorab gestured toward Hilly.

  Lian’s face flushed amidst a wave of snickers. The nubs of his ears went scarlet. “She’s not mine…I mean…we’re not dating…!”

  “Gross! As if!” Hilly added to his embarrassment.

  “I’m referring to your Shrieking Shrub. Yours I assume?”

  “Oh. Yeah. She’s mine.” Lian cautiously leaned in and tried to pry the leaves of his shrub from their grip around Hilly’s neck. It was utterly impossible. That weed was clutching so tight, Hilly’s neck looked like the link part of a sausage, all gathered and squeezed. It was a good thing Hilly had no feeling or there would be just desserts. And Lian wanted no part of just desserts, especially coming from the likes of Hilly and Hyvis Punyun. He bore down on the vegetation.

  “What’re you doing to her?” Hyvis cried.

  “Get off me, you loser!” Hilly added. “And take your stupid plant with you!”

  “Wha’dya think I’m trying to do!” Lian yelled. The nubs of his ears were getting redder. Especially with his audience laughing full out now. He took hold of his ‘stupid’ shrub and yanked. It shrieked louder than before, clutching its ‘mother’s’ long lost cheeks.

  “I said get it off me!” It was a good thing Hilly had no idea how odd she looked with her face stretched like that. She looked like she had entered warp speed. With a plant stuck to her head.

  “I’m…”

  Yank.

  “…trying…”

  Yank…

  “to…”

  Super yank.

  Nothing. This shrub was not going anywhere.

  “You’re gonna have to pretend it’s your baby.” Lian advised at last.

  “What? Are you insane?”

  “It’s the only way. Just tell it you need to sleep and that it can come back soon.”

  “But it can’t!”

  “Just say it!”

  “I’m not telling a stupid, dumb weed that I’m its mother, Blick. So, you better…”

  The Shrieking Shrub stretched its leaves contentedly, nuzzling them further in and around Hilly’s head. A purr began.

  “I’m telling you, it won’t leave otherwise.” Lian haggled.

  “Very funny…hardy har har. Spare me the stupid puns.”

  Lian shook his head. “Whatever. Keep it for all I care, then.” He turned to walk away.

  “Hilly!” Hyvis gave her daughter the ‘just do it’ look.

  “Fine! Fine, I’ll do it!” Hilly’s lips were pursed tighter than the shrub’s grip. She took a deep, very unamused breath. Her eyes rolled down toward the plant. It seemed to look back at her. “Oh, hi…uh…little…uh…tyke. Boy, you sure are…cute. Hey, look, it’s your bedtime but I promise you can come back. Real soon.”

  The plant stopped purring.

  “Mummy just needs a…a rest is all. But mummy still…loves you...”

  “And so does grandma.” Added Hyvis.

  The plant nodded a reluctant leaf. Lian took his cue and gingerly attempted to remove it from Hilly’s nose, which looked like it might come off in the extraction. Eventually the Shrieking Shrub let go with a sigh.

  At the exact same time, the reach of the Dead Treader’s poison spread further, seizing Hilly’s lips. She was now stuck stiff like a mannequin. A crab faced mannequin, Root thought staring down at her.

  Master Gub had somehow regained his composure. “What in the blazes of chaos is going on here?”

  A muffled whine came from Hilly and the only thing left to move, her eyes, darted toward the corner where Krism still cowered. The mood of the room shifted. Root could feel it, as if winter had returned for unfinished business. Krism would not step out from the shadows. It was just like that day at the Black Market where Root had found him with a broken body and spirit in a filthy cell. The exact same look on his face.

  Hilly’s eyes finally succumbed to the poison. They froze glaring at Krism. It was total creepy.

  “Well!?” Master Gub spun around to face the crowd. His Bag ‘o Treaders forced the onlookers back in a frightened crush. Directly in front of him, Milden Ibbbs started hopping on one foot. His other had just been trampled.

  “I don’t know, sir.” Milden limped back farther from the writhing bag. “When we got here, all we saw was Hilly laying in bed and…and him.” He pointed at Krism who flinched and pulled further into the corner, hoping the shadows would swallow him whole. “Then more p
eople came and then Jorab who found…those gross things.” Milden pointed at the twisting bag. Master Gub suddenly became aware of the Dead Treaders again and jumped. He held them arms length, forcing those closest to back tighter into the crowd.

  Jorab had been administering a sticky, clear balm over Hilly’s face and now the bottom half of her lip had ‘thawed’. “Those things nearly killed me!” came flying from her mouth. It had actually come out as “Toes tings eerly pilled be!” but everyone got the gist of it.

  Hyvis turned to the corner of Hilly’s room with a fierce growl. She had resented the presence of the Tint from day one and now her loathing was validated. Her top lip curled in hatred. “Just like I said ‘Where there is depravity, there is a Tint!’ And I was right!”

  A fury unleashed with her words. The gawking, confused faces of the onlookers now grew angry and frightened. Hatred sprung forth with a malice Root had only scratched the surface of in her encounters. Even Hillywur Gub could not function with fairness. He stared at Krism in disdain and allowed the circle to form around him.

  “You don’t know that he did it for sure!” Root jumped in front of Krism. Even if it was true, which she was sure it wasn’t, this was no way to handle it.

  “ Yeah, it could’ve been anyone!” Milden scrambled awkwardly beside Root.

  “But you yourself said he did it!” someone yelled at Milden.

  “No, I didn’t. I said he was here when we got here. But his room is closest and so that doesn’t mean anything.” It was a flimsy excuse and Root flushed with embarrassment for she sensed, like everyone else, that it came out of his…erm…fondness for Root, not Krism.

  Thankfully, Dwyn entered the tightened circle and gave Root some balance. But the hatred had ripened in Hyvis’s words. A tall boy took a step toward Krism.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Dwyn warned him.

  Root searched for Lian. Though he was not a part of the lynch mob, he had chosen to stand back, away from his friends. She could see him teetering, his eyes wide and confused. Root held herself in front of Krism and nervously bit her lip. Where was Jorab? She looked at the bed and found him calmly watching the unfolding. His eyes were scanning, as if searching for deeper truths amongst the faces. Why wasn’t he stopping this?