Blue Hills

by Steve Shilstone

  “I be Riverine Run,” said the yellow-robed one.

  “I be Runnel Burn,” said the one wearing the deep purple robe.

  “I be Eddy Gurge,” said the one with shiny silver skin and a forest green robe.

  “I be Freshet Spill,” said the red-clad one with the pale green beard and the flash orange eyes.

  They bowed as one. I shut my eyes one more time to make sure that I was truly awake. When I couldn’t see through my eyelids, I knew. Well then. So.

  Chapter Six

  The Terrible News

  “I am Bekka … the Chronicler. Have you truly lost your magic?” I said uncertainly, not sure how to proceed. The waterwizards bored holes in me so such with their eyes.

  “If we had not lost our magic, would we have walked here?” snapped the one in the yellow robe, so said Riverine Run.

  I shrugged, silenced, shrunken shy by eight glittery waterwizard eyes, all of ‘em flashing anger at me. Stiff silence. They stood in an accusatory row, so it seemed. What were they expecting? Me to do something? My cheeks burned. I felt ‘em go green. The awkwardness grew until Kar broke it. She waddled complaining from the hut, shooting a small flood of relief through me. Small, not large.

  “I told you to wake me, Bek. Why didn’t you wake me? She was supposed to wake me when you arrived. Lucky I waked myself. It got so such stuffy under this silly tuft of a left wing. I should have shifted to Dragon. Why didn’t I get stuck as a nice Racing Dragon?” said Kar, showing no sign whatsoever that her feathery scratch voice annoyed her.

  Then all of ‘em, the four waterwizards and Kar, began a scrawpy confused mingle of babble I had no chance of understanding. Such was so. The waterwizards gestured and spun, each trying to outshout the others. Kar fluttered above ‘em, shrieking and squawking, bobbing her ridiculous mallet head with its silly waving blue plume.

  “Quiet!” I screamed, slamming my hands over my ears. “Quiet! Quiet! Quiet!”

  Truth, they settled, and the burden of stiff silence again descended. Lifted instantly by the power of a command obeyed, I stood and folded my arms.

  “Tell me what has happened and what I must do?” I demanded in a reasoned voice of majesty, and I reached out and pointed at the red-clad waterwizard with the pale green beard and the flash orange eyes. “You with the greenest green skin. You alone will speak. Your name is …”

  “Freshet Spill,” said the waterwizard.

  He took one formal step forward and bowed to me. The other three waterwizards struck poses of calm restraint. I tried to project a look of aloofness and power. I knew I’d failed by one glance at Kar, who perched on the rim of the Well of Shells rolling her pink eyes and shaking her mallet head. So I shrugged and sat down.

  “Tell me what happened and what must be done,” I said in my much more usual timid manner.

  “The Blue Hills! Oh, the Blue Hills,” sang out Freshet Spill with a groan.

  “Yes, the Blue Hills, and the …,” joined in the other three.

  “Settle!” shrieked Kar. “The Chronicler has chosen Freshet Spill to speak.”

  The others settled. Kar winked at me. I nodded at Freshet Spill.

  “Yes, the Blue Hills. What about the Blue Hills?” I said knowingly, having never before heard anything ever at all about so such Blue Hills.

  “The Harick, the Babba Ja Harick, the lavender witch has abandoned her cottage and fled to the Blue Hills. Oh, it be true. When she crossed the Charborr Forest and flew over the source of the Greenwilla River to the Blue Hills, all magic everywhere in Clover, across Fidd and Leee, in and under and beyond the Wide Great Sea, in Skrabble, in and under the mountains of Orrun, across all Woods and fields, all magic everywhere, in all of known Boad, disappeared. We cannot conjure. We cannot spell. Wands, amulets, dusts? Useless! And more. Those who never had magic be frozen, like that beeketbird there, in the exact splash of moment when the witch crossed over to the Blue Hills. Ye be not frozen because ye be the Chronicler and ye be chosen. It be up to ye,” said Freshet Spill. “What exactly is it that I must do?” I asked. “Bring her back. Fetch the witch,” he replied.

  Chapter Seven

  To Begin

  More confusion. The other three waterwizards could hold back no longer. Chatter and babble, they all four of ‘em paced in front of me. Chatter and babble, they milled, tugging their beards, flinging their arms this way and that in seeming despair. I myself did nothing but sit and watch ‘em. Kar hopped from the Well and waddled backward to my side.

  “You heard ‘em, Bek. It’s up to you. Let’s go fetch the witch,” she whispered into my ear.

  “Blue Hills?” I murmured.

  “Blue Hills, yes. Bek and Kar together on another adventure. Such!” she enthused, ridiculous though she was.

  The boiling babble of waterwizards lessened to a simmer. Their movements slowed. They sank to the ground, exhausted. Eight glittery eyes stared at me from four tired faces, mouths agape, gasping. Angry eyes became pleading eyes. Stiff was the silence. Truth, I knew they expected me to speak.

  “I will … try,” I said so such timidly.

  “Try! Pah! When the Chronicler Bekka and the jrabe jroon Kar set out to complete a task, completed it is. And with flair!” spouted Kar from her silly mallet head, its blue plume waving. “Nothing could be simpler. So! Such! These so said mysterious Blue Hills lie somewhere beyond the source of the Greenwilla River, if I clearly understood Freshet Spill. And I did. I am the first and only jrabe jroon and my hearing is uncommon keen. What say you, Bekka of Thorns? Shall we depart right now?”

  Kar’s eyes, pink though they gleamed, were truly Kar’s, and I could read ‘em. They urged me to say yes.

  “Yes. We will … go to … the Falls of Horn. Yes! That’s it! Then up the Greenwilla all the way to its source and beyond to … the Blue Hills,” I managed to say. Then I added, “Won’t you come with us?”

  Three of the waterwizards shifted their gazes to the fourth. The fourth, the one in purple with the white moons and stars, stroked his blue beard with a minty green hand. I tried to remember his name. Was it … Runnel … Furn? … No … Burn? Yes! That was it!

  “It be for me to tell ye that all waterwizards everywhere be flowing here to the Well of Shells,” he said. “We four arrived first because we make our watery homes nearby. Mine be the pool beneath the Falls of Horn. Freshet Spill’s be found in Dragon’s Deep Pool. Riverine Run be my neighbor. His home be the Falls themselves. Eddy Gurge swims the depths of a beckoning pool in the Chack Tree Forest. So ye see, we be closest to here of all the waterwizards. And here we will wait for the gathering. In collection will we gather around the Well of Shells. When the last one of us dribbles in, we shall turn as one and gaze at yon beeketbird for the pure true sign of your success. If it flies, the witch be returned, and with her, our powers. If not …”

  Runnel Burn shrugged and fell silent.

  “The beeketbird will fly!” shouted Kar, and she leaped up to swoop and flutter in the air. “Bek, let us away now to the Falls of Horn and the Blue Hills!”

  I stood, rushed into the hut, grabbed Jo Bree, dead brown stick though it was, looked at my chonka, rejected the idea of taking it, rushed back outside, and followed Kar’s ridiculous wobbling flight into the Villcom Wood after waving what I thought was a dignified good-bye to the four waterwizards.

  Chapter Eight

  To the Falls of Horn

  “Kar, fly closer. What do you think happened?”

  “The witch went to the Blue Hills.”

  “I know that. But why? I mean why do you think she did it?”

  “I don’t know why. She did it. We have to get her back.”

  “But don’t you wonder?”

  “I’m not the wonderer. You are, Bek.”

  “Such.”

  “So. And … Oho! There’s Janellia Spurl like as you said. That is a plump sudplum she’s reaching for.”

  “Leave it alone, Kar! I want it to be there when … when we … I … bring the Babb
a Ja Harick back from the Blue Hills. Blue Hills? Listen to me. I’m talking about somewhere I never even knew existed when I woke up this morning.”

  “Look there, Bek. Hodding Spurl. He was caught in laughter. So. Better than being caught like this. Why did I make these wings so such stubby? I tire so quickly and have to rest too often. Stick out your arm, Bek. I’ll perch there for a span.”

  “Well, so, Kar, you aren’t heavy at all, are you? You are just a clump of ridiculous feathers. And why did you make the webbed feet point backward?”

  “Thought it was funnier.”

  “Oh.”

  Thus and so, we moved through the Villcom Wood, chatting the way we always chat whenever we are chatting. I’ve known her longer than anyone. We were misfits together for bar years of our younglinghoods in the hedge as bendo dreen before we discovered on our first adventure that Kar was in truth a shapeshifting jrabe. What an adventure that was! Could this one be better? Not better, no, it couldn’t. But stranger, yes, it could. Already it was stranger. Such!

  Sun moving, preparing to sink, the afternoon shadows grew long. Our chatting ceased, and I settled into a soft stepping pace so as not to disturb the stiffness of silence. Kar rested on my left forearm, her mallet head drooping slightly as she dozed with half-open pink eyes. Automatically I strained to hear the roaring sound of the Falls of Horn as down a lane of forest I sighted the wide spreading boughs of the bulging bingle tree which famously grew on the bank near the Falls. No roar. Stiff silence. Of course.

  “The bingle tree, Kar.”

  “Huh? Oh, I see it.”

  “No roar.”

  “No.”

  I stepped out of the forest and stood next to the bingle tree. The silence seemed so such stiffer as I saw what I saw. The mighty Falls of Horn was a frozen cascade, unmoving. The great Horn of Stone rising like a tusk at the brink of the cataract was surrounded by captured motionless spray and foam and surge. I set Kar down and crept to the edge of the river. I dipped my hand into its stiff seeming stillness and brought up a wobbling clarity of crystal water. Truth, it dribbled between my fingers. I drank. Strange. Kar fluttered out over the Horn of Stone, circled it several times, and fluttered back to plump down at my side. We stared at the motionless legendary Falls.

  “So many stories here.”

  “Such.”

  Chapter Nine

  Night in the Grotto

  We might have talked about the ghosts of many a Gwer drollek story swirling around the Falls of Horn. Gwer drollek stories are those most important to all bendo dreen. As chosen Chronicler, it was my duty to find new ones and write ‘em down in this strange language from the world down the Well of Shells. Some Gwer drollek stories we might have chatted about concerned the witch herself, the Babba Ja Harick, and how she and her sister as witchlets played in the pool beneath the Falls of Horn long before the Well of Shells even existed. We might have shared the romance tale of the Princess Ambergold and the winged Lord Fay Dot of Orrun. A good span of that tale finds Fay Dot and his faithful hollowite, Yones, hiding from craggers in the very grotto beneath the Horn of Stone jutting so stiffly silent before the moody gazes of Kar and me. Those certainly were wonderful Gwer drollek stories. The Windwhirl. The Squirrels. Yes, the Squirrels of Horn with yellow fur, golden eyes, and fat curling puffy red tails. Such. So. Many strange creatures have I met on my adventures, but never a Squirrel of Horn. They disappeared mysteriously bar eons ago. No legend I know tells why. In the past I’d spent more than a few comfortable afternoons sitting by the thundering Falls with my Chalky Gray friend Janellia Spurl, sometimes with Kar, sometimes without. We wondered together about the Squirrels and about what it was like in the times ago when they romped by the bingle tree and slept in the grotto under the Horn of Stone. Such are some of the many things Kar and I might have discussed while sitting in the stiff silence staring at the motionless Falls and at the still majesty of the Horn of Stone.

  We discussed none of ‘em. The gloom of stiff silence weighed

  us speechless. Darkness descended.

  “We’ll sleep in the grotto,” I murmured.

  “I’ll meet you there,” said Kar without the slightest questioning pause, and she lifted, fluttered to the Horn of Stone and disappeared down through the crevice which led to the grotto.

  I pushed myself up and made my way to the bingle tree where I would slip into the tunnel at its base which led under the Falls to the grotto. But a thought flared and made me pause. Why don’t I swim? The mighty Greenwilla was placid and still as a pond. I stood and studied it. More thoughts bloomed. What if … it started up again? I would be kept … not kept, swept …swept away and plunged to a nasty ending. The witch … is somewhere in the Blue Hills. You, Bekka of Thorns, are on a quest to … to … lure her back. Such is so. But … what if she returns on her own right now? The last thought sent me scurrying to the bingle tree. I scrambled through the tunnel and met Kar, ridiculous mallet head Kar, in the grotto.

  “Let’s try to sleep,” I offered in gloomy greeting.

  “I’m putting my head on this ledge. Under wing is no good. I don’t understand why they do it,” muttered Kar, and she laid her mallet head and neck down along a stretch of rocky shelf.

  Stiff silence curbs tongues. Such had we learned. We brooded, both awake, in opposite corners of the grotto. The grotto where Fay Dot hid with Yones! The grotto of the Squirrels of Horn! But so such thoughts of Gwer drollek legends were not enough to thrill me. I was pressed low, beaten down to gloom by the stiff silence. My mind was vacant, and I must have slept, because the crevice in the grotto which led up to the surface of the Horn of Stone above began to shimmer dimly with dawn. I yawned. I stretched. I took the dead wooden stick of Jo Bree from my belt, examined it, and put it back. Kar, I saw, was now perched on one backward webbed red foot, mallet head pushed under

  her tuft of a wing.

  “Kar,” I whispered.

  “What?” she muffled foggily, pulling her head from under her wing. “Now how did that happen? How annoying. I’m … still …”

  Her complaining dribbled to a stop. Stiff silence curbs tongues.

  “Blue Hills,” I said.

  She nodded. With no other word spoken, I traveled the tunnel and crawled out between the fat roots of the bingle tree. Kar was waiting for me. I pointed east, up the river. Kar fluttered to perch on my arm. I set off at a sturdy pace.

  Chapter Ten

  Monuments

  I placed highboot in front of highboot. That was all. Nothing so such other. Boot. Boot. Time was gone. My eyes, though open, saw nothing. Stealthy stiff silence invaded my mind, creeping to fill it with empty gloom. Boot… Boo… B………..

  “Bek!” a shriek shattered me to shards.

  I jumped. Of a sudden, sky, river, shore, bushes, oat fields, and distant Clover hills all slammed at me with vivid clarity. I blinked. I shook my head.

  “Bek! You froze! You froze, Bek. I couldn’t wake you. It’s been hours! You stopped mid-step. Like the witch. Like the witch!” babbled ridiculous Kar, fluttering in front of my face.

  “I … what?” I said, fuddled dizzy. I had to sit down. “How long?”

  “Hours! Hours! I don’t know. Hours! I was perched on your arm napping. I woke and you were a statue, boot raised, mid-stride. I don’t know. Hours!” said Kar in a panic.

  “Let’s swim,” I was shocked to hear myself say.

  I thought I slumped to the ground in a faint. So such I thought. I was wrong. A curtain of strangeness surrounded me. I fought through it and swam toward consciousness. I found myself seated on the bank of the Greenwilla River. My hair was sopping wet. I held my right boot in my hands. I pulled it on. I felt refreshed. The gloom of stillness had vapored away.

  “That was a good idea, Bek. I feel springier. These webbed feet make for a fun swim. They’re strong paddlers, even if they are backward. At least one part of me isn’t useless,” said Kar, shuddering her feathers and waddling around me.

  I kn
ew something so such odd was happening to me. I’m not the sort who likes odd things to happen to her. I do like to see new things and to tell stories, true, but I am bendo dreen timid as well. The stiff silence played strange games. I determined to push it off and away.

  “Let’s sing as we go on, Kar. We’ll set up a barrier of sound against the silence,” I suggested.

  And we did. With Kar perched on my arm, I marched along the bank of the river, and we sang out loud all the songs of the hedge we could remember. Our voices grew croakier and croakier as time passed. And somewhere along about sometime in the afternoon, we arrived at the Monuments. Legendary Monuments. Gwer drollek stone statues. Awed, we dropped our voices to whispers. Truth, such felt better to our song-strained throats.

  “Remember when we flew over ‘em, Bek, on our way to break the Danken Wood Barrier?” whispered Kar.

  “But we never saw ‘em up close like … this,” I answered in a hush.

  I carefully sat on one of the carven marble benches, and Kar hopped from my arm to sit beside me. We were blessed in fortune to have arrived in time to witness the great stone Monuments bathed in the glory of sunsink. Ah, Lovey. There she was. Oh, Gwer drollek! As a Princess she stood posed, one foot wearing a splendid hopping boot, the other wrapped in a flow of scarves. Lovey’s father, King Harold the Tooth, standing proud, holding one of his beloved lorgnettes. Oh, Gwer drollek! His Queen, Lovey’s mother, Lorelei Lo, raised by the River Dragon. And Prince Chef Larry, a Chalky Gray who left the Villcom Wood, became husband to Lovey, father to their daughter Ambergold, great grandfather of the Triplet Princesses Three. The Monuments. Oh, Gwer drollek! The stories! The Gwer drollek stories!