Carven Flute

by Steve Shilstone

  “What final chapter? Where?” insisted Kar.

  “Kar!” I hissed. “Jo Bree. Jo Bree.”

  “Yoss. Jo Bree… and more,” said Babba Ja Harick.

  I pinched Kar before she could ask, “what more?” I pointed at the crystal ball. In it Zinna shifted to jrabe. Of a sudden she was Ragaba and flying fast, fleeing to the west.

  “I know where she’s going! I know!” said Kar.

  I knew, too, but I didn’t so say. Kar likes to be first. Such was and is so. I kept silent and allowed her to tell me what I already knew.

  “She’s going to the city of jrabes under the Wide Great Sea,” announced Kar triumphantly. “I know all about it. You don’t, Bek. I know how to get there. You don’t, Bek.”

  I merely shrugged. Why argue when you don’t want to argue? I knew how to get there. Zinna told me all about it, and Kar knew that I knew. She knew! Wasn’t she sitting right next to me at the table in the shop while Zinna told all about the city of jrabes? Of course she was. Such was truly so. And so said, I merely shrugged. I might have rolled my eyes, too.

  “Then I guess you should shift to dragon and take us,” I suggested.

  “Yoss!” shrieked Babba Ja Harick, and she jumped to her feet. “Yoss, go! Yoss, shift! I have fun… no… done!… my part! PRAW! FUH! SIGH!… WHY?!”

  She dove at a mound of cloaks and swept them aside, uncovering a broom. She clutched it, shouted “Awaaaaay!” and flew through the window. I was left speechless. Kar wasn’t.

  “I bet the Barrier’s gone! I bet I’m right! Jo Bree! Bek, look!”

  I looked. An image real of Jo Bree, the flute, flushing yellow pink, floated alone in the crystal blue clarity of the witch’s globe. Never had I seen such. Only had I heard of it in Gwer drollek stories. Truth, its simplicity of form and beauty tingled my neck.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Flight

  “Jo Bree! Oh, it’s fading”

  “The ball is clear. The witch is gone. That means we have to go. Bek, it means we have to go to the Wide Great Sea.”

  “Well… I… Such seems like she might have said… to finish a Prophesy… I suppose.”

  “Oh, it’s right. No suppose about it. Oh, Bek! On the way I’ll swoop ’em at FiddLeeeBoad Castle low over the towers! That’ll give ’em something to talk about! Such!”

  “I’ve never seen the Castle. That would be….”

  “Good then! I’m going outside to shift. You won’t believe it, Bek. You won’t believe it! Come and watch!”

  “I’ll bring along some of the cookie shingles. I don’t think she’ll mind.”

  “Why should she mind? They’ll reappear tomorrow morning. Watch! Weeeeeeeee…

  Yah! How’s this? I love it! Don’t I look sun bold? Just look at the flash of my scales?!”

  “Kar, you are…glorious! Such gold! What shine! When did you learn to do this? How?”

  “Zinna taught me golden dragon as well as green dragon. I kept it secret to surprise you. Good surprise, huh? Zinna said I would know when to be gold. Know! Now! Are my eyes blue sparks? Look at my tongue!”

  “Blue sparkle eyes, you have ’em. Ooooo, doesn’t that burn?”

  “The tongue flames, you mean? No, not a nince. I am the first jrabe sorceress to construct a dragon shift so such, with a red lash of a tongue flaring blue flames. Zinna vowed it. She was taken with pride. Climb aboard, Bekka, and I will fly us to the Wide Great Sea. We’ll find Jo Bree. That’s a rhyme! Write it like that when you tell this tale.”

  “Here… Let me… All right… I’m… Ooooohhhhh!”

  “See? See? I told you. No more Barrier! I’m going high as….”

  “Not so high! This is high enough!”

  “We’ll follow the Greenwilla River. We’ll see the Clover hills south and the oat fields north. Hutter cottages. We’ll leave the River to fly over both Castles! Just quickly. Just to look. We’ll be the first team of bendo dreen and jrabe to do so such.”

  “Good. Good. That will be good.”

  “See it there so small, Bek? So many Gwer drollek stories. I’ll swoop to give us a quick closer look.”

  “Look, Kar! The Princess Tower! Lovey, Lorelei Lo, the Triplets!”

  “So such. We’ve seen it, Bek. And now to Honeygold Castle for the shortest

  of swoops. Good-bye, FiddLeeeBoad!”

  “A gaspable sight. All of the stories are fairly true.”

  “Such. A perfect scene in the sunsink. Honeygold, Clover Castle.”

  “Ivah Skay… The Great Green Va.”

  “And the skrabbler Spar Marcasite, too.”

  “Weedthistle, Amzo, more. Should we rest here, Kar, on a Clover hill?”

  “When I am golden dragon, I need no rest. Such is so. I’ll fly the night to take us to the Wide Great Sea. Hook the cuffs of your sleeves over my horns and sleep, Bek. You need your bendo dreen rest. I, a jrabe, the first ever raised as bendo dreen, sleep only when I wish to dream.”

  “Is it really such so for jrabes?”

  “Truly.”

  “Well, so, then, it’s a truth that my eyelids feel heavy as forge anvils. I will nap for a nince….”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Ragaba

  When I awoke from my dream of being tied by my wrists to the roof of my bower nest, I blinked at the grayness of morning beyond the brilliant golden neck of Kar, my friend so such shifted to dragon. I unhooked my cuffs from her golden horns and peered down at the Wide Great Sea below us.

  “Wide Great Sea?” I croaked.

  “Good, Bek. You woke in time. I was just about to shake you awake,” hissed Kar, turning her head to regard me with a blue glinting eye. “I’ve been circling here waiting for dawn. Such a night. I counted stars. I bet I’m the first jrabe to do such. There, look, when the sun is full risen, separated so from the horizon sea, then will you see the spouting spire.”

  “What do you mean? What are you saying? How do you know?” I asked, stacking three questions quickly like that.

  “In the W’s Three, Zinna told me many things I haven’t yet shared with you, Bek. I know lots,” Kar hissed proudly. “Look below.”

  I looked below. The sea spoiled into a churn which shot up a funnel of glassy water. And sailing upside down from the mouth of the funnel flew Ragaba, green mantle fluttering and orange foam of hair whipping in the breeze.

  “Ye be welcome!” she called. “Daughter, I sense you as golden dragon. And Bekka! Silent Bekka rides! Such tells me that ye have beaten the Barrier and have heard the Babba Ja Harick tell her tale. Now ye know more than ye did before. Be that not a truth, Silent Bekka?”

  “Some,” I said.

  “Where is Jo Bree, Ragaba?” asked Kar as Ragaba joined us circling above the funnel.

  “In time I will tell ye, daughter, in time. Ever eager be ye. Follow me now up into the city of jrabes,” said Ragaba.

  We both knew she meant “down” when she said “up” and “up” when she said “down.” Such was so from the first time we met her, which was truth on our adventure to find Rumin and the racketous garl. Such was a time before we knew she was Zinna AND Kar’s mother. Shapeshifters ever are so confusing. They can be so many things in such ways.

  “Should I shift, Ragaba, to other than dragon?” asked Kar.

  “Won’t I fall if you do?” I offered nervously.

  “Rest ye easy, Silent Bekka. Daughter, ye should shift to your bendo dreen comfort. But first, Bekka, grip my hand. Kar, ye too, reach me a claw before ye shift. I will haul the both of ye up into the city. Once there, daughter, remain bendo dreen. That I be your parent be our secret, and the time of revealing will be our surprise.”

  Ragaba’s lavender hand was smooth and cool. Kar was Kar, my old familiar, holding Ragaba’s other hand. Heads down, highboots up, we drifted toward the yawning mouth of the spinning glassy funnel, the spout, the spire.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  City of Jrabes

  What happened next was strange like
a dream. We drifted into the funnel. Drifted. It was not like falling or flying. Such was it more as if Kar and I were weightless balloons, and Ragaba fairly tugged us along. Had she released my hand, truth I thought I would float up and away forever. Such was so. Ragaba guided us, pulled us down the swirling glassy tube. Kar was hushed. Such and the wideness of her eyes were the signs she was whelmed like as I was. Awed we were. Mute. But not Ragaba. She instructed us in her high thin airy voice as she led us down and down.

  “When we reach the platform below the city, then shall ye two stand there poised as bendo dreen. As bendo dreen ye shall remain for the full out width of the visit. I, Ragaba, shall leave ye there. There, by Prophesy, shall I leave ye to lose myself in the city. When I have gone, ye must count to one hundred. Then be ye free to seek me. Find me, and ye find Jo Bree. If ye so succeed, the Carven Flute will sing a turn of the Prophesy. Thus be ye entwined, younglings, in an unspooling web of fate. Step by step by step ye go. Barrier to witch’s tale to city of jrabes to… what? If and when ye find me, ye will know. Such. Ah, behold, up here be the platform.”

  The funnel of water swirled around us, but below I saw a perfect circle of roundness, a mirror. We drifted down to meet ourselves drifting up. Confusion. I couldn’t decide what was ‘up’ and what was ‘down’ anymore. I found myself on hands and knees looking at myself looking at myself. I stood up. I still felt like a weightless balloon. Ragaba was gone. Kar crawled across the mirror.

  “Kar, what….” was all I had time to say before the funnel expanded away from us in all directions. The circle of mirror we perched on hung unsupported in space. Above or below us, I didn’t know which, clusters of monstrous glassy green globes appeared. A sea of them. Seemingly endless. Darting in and out among ’em at all angles, every tilt possible, sailed jrabes and jrabes, hundreds of jrabes.

  “City of jrabes,” whispered Kar.

  “Are we upside down or sideways or other?” I asked in confusion.

  “It doesn’t matter. There is the city of jrabes,” said Kar.

  “We have to find Ragaba. Let’s go. Jo Bree!”

  “Shouldn’t we count to one hundred first?” I commented.

  “Here come some jrabes. Let’s ask ’em,” said Kar.

  A flutter of jrabes approached us, tilted this way and that, upside down, downside up, sideways. “Who be ye and why?” they chanted in babble, one and all.

  “We seek Ragaba,” said Kar boldly.

  “Ragaba?” they chanted in turmoil, one and all.

  “Do you know where she might be?” asked Kar.

  “Up there,” they said in chorus, pointing above their heads in all possible directions. Such and so seemingly satisfied, they left us and rejoined the throngs darting and sailing among the globes.

  “What will happen if we step off this mirror?” I asked. “Let’s count to one hundred and find out,” replied Kar.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Where to Begin

  “…one hundred. Let’s go, Bek.”

  “Which way? Where?”

  “I’ll take a step… See? It works. I can walk on the air. I was first. You try it now, Bek. Step off.”

  “”I… Well, it’s… Oh!”

  “That’s right. See how easy?”

  “But it’s a shaky oddment to be walking on nothing.”

  “Remember the Gwer drollek story when Roamer Lace went down the Well?”

  “Oh, such! I remember. The Ranger of Travel and walking on air above the snow.”

  “To save the jesterbeasts!”

  “Such. Oh, Kar, I’m dizzy. I don’t know what is up or down or sideways. The jrabes flying all in every way confuse me. When Zinna told us about the green globe clusters, did you think they would be such and so like this?”

  “Such! Exactly! Close your eyes like me and you can sense ’em better.”

  “Kar, I’m not a jrabe. When I close my eyes, I bump into things.”

  “Close ’em. Hold my hand. Are you still dizzy?”

  “I… I… No! I’m not! But I can’t see anything… or sense. How am I supposed to seek Ragaba with my eyes shut?”

  “Bek, you are with me, a jrabe, a sorceress, a dragon shifter, the first ever raised as bendo dreen. I will sense for the both of us. Such will be truly so! Here we go… Oh, pardon us, jrabe. Jrabe!… She ignored me. Well, so. They act as if we weren’t here.”

  “Because we’re supposed to find Ragaba without their help, I bet. Remember they pointed in every direction when we asked about Ragaba?”

  “True. Then where do you think we should look, Bek? You’re the Chronicler. You have the wit.”

  “With my eyes closed I can’t… If I open ’em… See? I get dizzy.”

  “Close ’em then. We’ll just search every globe in every cluster and take bar years to find Jo Bree. I’ll sense something sometime somewhere.”

  “Don’t snip, Kar. You don’t need to snip. I do have a sort of an idea.”

  “What kind of a sort? Say it, and before you say it, give me one of those shingle cookies. Searching makes me hungry.”

  “Here. Now think. We know how Ragaba likes to be upside down. And when we asked the jrabes where she was, they all said, “up there.” “Up there” for Ragaba would be straight down for bendo dreen. Am I right?”

  “You are right. When Ragaba shifts to Zinna, she even likes to stand on her head.”

  “Such is rightly so. Kar, if you can figure out… sense!… as a jrabe where the bendo dreen ‘up’ and ‘down’ are in this city of multiple ‘ups’ and ‘downs,’ then I suggest that we go bendo dreen ‘down’ to find Ragaba.”

  “Say that again.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “Such. No matter. I’ve got it. I’m sensing as bendo dreen… This way! This way is down for a bendo dreen.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  To See Jo Bree

  I allowed Kar to lead me by the hand. As long as my eyes remained pinched tightly shut, walking on nothing felt fairly the same as walking on something firm and level. Such was strangely so. I felt certain if I risked a peek I would be instantly woozed. So was what I believed. So was why I did not risk a peek. Instead, I peppered Kar with questions.

  “Where are we headed? Are we approaching globes? Is that what the humming sound is? Are you sure this is bendo dreen ‘down’? It feels level. I don’t hear jrabes fluttering. Are they gone? There’s buzzing. What’s buzzing with the humming? Are we….”

  Kar, in her snippiest manner, interrupted me, inviting me to be quiet for a thin span of time so she could tell me what I wanted to know. I silenced myself at once. The shadowy buzz beneath the hum growled. Kar stopped walking. I felt her lean into me. Close to my ear, I heard her lips whisper.

  “You had a good idea, Bek. I sensed it truly. We’re beneath the clusters. A single globe is spinning just below us. Take a look. Open your eyes.”

  I risked a look with a measure of reluctance. Dizziness is something I don’t enjoy much. I looked down. A whirling crystal globe, clear, not green, hung in empty space below us. I looked up. Distant green globe clusters. Not a single jrabe in sight. I looked down. Empty globe. Clear. Spinning. Buzzing. Humming. I was not dizzy.

  “I’m not dizzy,” I told Kar.

  “Jo Bree is in there,” she said.

  “It’s empty. I can see right through it. Can’t you?” I said, such confused, but fairly so not dizzy.

  Kar winked at me! Kar does not wink. She winked! Then she stuck out a boot and pushed me, tripped me! I fell headfirst onto the globe, felt it give way, and I was in it! I bounced on yellow cushions! Where had they come from? I rolled to my knees. I found myself enclosed in a hollow ball, a hollow ball walled completely with yellow cushions! I stood. Kar tumbled through the wall of cushions and landed beside me. I began to babble.

  “Are we in the globe? It was clear from the outside looking in, but it’s yellow cushions everywhere from the inside looking out. Why is that? How is that? Did you know tha
t? Why did you trip me? Where’s Jo Bree? I don’t see Jo Bree or Ragaba. Is this all a trick you and Zinna are playing? It’s not a funny trick. I get sick dizzy walking on air. I….”

  A cloud of sparkles appeared in the center of the globe. My mouth clamped shut, and truth to tell, I sat down. The cloud shimmered to shape. Ragaba, upside down, her black green mantle flowing up her thin body to pool in the air above her, fixed on us her milky white sightless eyes. She thrust from beneath the cape a lavender hand. In it she held Jo Bree. Flushed yellow pink, carven and solid, there it was.

  “Ye be clever younglings,” said Ragaba.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Jo Bree Sings

  “Bek figured it out. I was first to lead her here,” said Kar.

  “Is the Flute going to sing?” I asked quietly.

  “I do be sensing the approach of the moment. It be for us now, all three, time to close down, time to breathe deeply in silence, time to wait,” said Ragaba.

  I tried not to move a muscle. I am close to certain I didn’t. I gazed at the Flute, the Carven Flute, Jo Bree, hanging just there so near in the lavender hand of Ragaba. Jo Bree! The Carven Flute! I sensed Kar at my side. Sensed her! Motionless she sat like me. We were held in thrall by the twinings of carven ivy and the flush yellow pink. The Carven Flute! Jo Bree! A short reach up and I could have touched it! Another Gwer drollek story brought to life! Would I faint if the Flute began to sing? Such and so was what I wondered. In a pace of time I had my answer. No, I would not faint. Instead, I would quiver enough to rattle my chonka. I quickly took it from my belt and placed it away from me on a yellow cushion. Kar and I both of us trembled together when the Carven Flute began to pulse rainbow pure colors in turn. We continued trembling when Ragaba opened her hand and Jo Bree floated free. In a voice of hollow wind the Flute sang sweetly. I tingled all the while as I heard:

  “Prophesied pale purple daughter