Blue Hills

by Steve Shilstone

  Kar and I found ourselves piled in a jumble on a silver blue level platform, a landing so such at the top of a flight of silver blue stairs. While I struggled to know what I was doing, Kar got to her feet.

  “All right, strange Bek, you got us in here, whatever here is,” she said. “Did you see what I saw? Red tentacle? Do you think it might be a garl?”

  Not trusting my mouth, I nodded yes.

  “I’ve always liked silver blue light the few times I’ve been bathed in it. Enchanting. Magical. So such. That garl probably wants us to go down the stairs, don’t you think?” mused Kar.

  I nodded yes and stood. I shrugged. Kar shrugged. We descended the stairs. There were a lot of ‘em and they plunged deep down until they made a turn which led us into a great cavern arena. Such was amazingly so. Silver blue light. Tiers of benches rose in circles around a so said sort of a stage. And the benches teemed with babbling red tentacled, one-eyed, bulbous headed creatures. They silenced and turned to greet our appearance with a tentacle salute. I counted four tentacles to each creature -so such not enough for a garl, at least not any garl I knew. One of the creatures posed alone on the stage.

  “Jelly and toasted vines,” it shouted from its wide smile of a mouth. “And when I say ‘Jelly and toasted vines’, I mean ‘Welcome to our theater. You’re in luck. The performance is about to begin. We are the snaves of Annek.’”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Pageant of the Snaves

  “Snaves of Annek!” Kar hissed into my ear.

  I stopped myself from blurting ‘I know!’ because I felt certain it would come out all wrong. Instead, I wobbled my head in a nod and fixed my mouth with a grin. The snave down on the central circle slithered its way to a latch-lidded trunk sitting at the edge of the stage. With one red tentacle it lifted the lid and held it up open. A second tentacle snaked inside and pulled out a red floppy velvety cap. Slam shut went the lid while the snave arranged the cap at a jaunty angle on its bulby red head. Blinking its eye and smiling a wide smile, the snave left the stage with a neat slither down some two or three stairs. Eye on us, it moved to the aisle and stopped at the first tier of benches. It plucked the cap from its head and tentacled it to the closest snave. While all of this so such activity took place, a blanket of silence hung over the masses of snaves in the cavernous bowl. Kar nudged me with her elbow. I nudged her harder in return.

  “The bread is spoken with custard,” said the snave receiving the cap. It turned to face us and added, “By which I mean ‘Let the pageant unfold’.”

  The newly capped snave slithered to take the stage, and the first rushed up the aisle with alarming swiftness directly at Kar and me. We both stepped back in some goodly level of fright in spite of the snave’s wide smile. Truth, a snave is twice the size of any bendo dreen. One great round eye. Four writhing tentacles. So said. Alarming.

  “I will dip you in honey!” said the snave in urgent hush, looming above two cowering bendo dreen, one so such me and one so such really a shapeshifting jrabe jroon. “And when I say ‘I will dip you in honey’, I mean ‘I will narrate and explain’.”

  My mind was eased, and so was Kar’s. I felt her rigid arm relax. The snave slithered left, unblocking our view of the stage. What happened for the next unknown number of hours was a numbing jumble of confusing gibberish. Each snave in turn advanced to the round platform stage when given the floppy red velvet cap. Some wore it pushed back, some low over the eye, some jaunted left, some right. And after each snave surrendered the cap, it moved to the top of the cavernous bowl and took the last spot on the highest tier’s bench. The masses of snaves moved in orderly procession, one space at a time along the benches, winding back and then forth, descending the bowl, until reaching the first seat on the lowest bench tier and receiving the cap. Each snave, when on stage, roared or whispered, shouted or sang, writhed wildly or spun elegantly, droned dully or waved tentacles in the slowest of motions. No two acted the same. Such was so. And I understood nothing. Nothing. The snave whispering explanations to us was twice told more fuddling than the nonsense spouting from the stage below.

  “The Queen’s diamonds means the King’s raft. The biggest mushroom means lunch is overthrown. Dragon overhead means goblets of fun. Weeds of char means bake it now. Sing loudly means drain the lake,” whispered the snave in a blur of rush.

  Kar looked at me. I looked at Kar. We did what we do. We shrugged. On and on it went, snaves winding down the tiers, each patiently waiting its turn to bellow nonsense. Kar tapped Jo Bree at my belt. Good idea. I lifted it up. Flush yellow pink it rested on my hands. I wanted it to rise and pulse rainbow. It didn’t. It wouldn’t. It rested flush yellow pink on my hands. I replaced it in my belt, and Kar and I again exchanged shrugs. The snave on our left continued to whisper rapid nonsense. Where was the witch? Where was the witch? A double loud shriek from the stage brought me back from numb stupor. The snave to our left abandoned our left. Instead, it sped slithering down to the stage. It took the cap from the snave who’d shrieked, scundled to the latch-lid trunk, lifted the lid, inserted the cap, slammed the lid, and turned so such to fix its staring eye on Kar and me. Truth, every snave in the cavern turned our way and stared with wide open eye. The silence was truly somewhat stiff.

  “To weave an island from flooce’s wool, you need more than water and oats,” said the snave on the stage.

  I understood. I understood! Why? I don’t know. In my head the nonsense jelled into clarity. The snave had announced that it was now time for the visitors to perform.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Kar Shifts and I Spout Nonsense

  “They want us in the river,” I eagerly explained. “They’re telling us all about the pudding. We must … perform.”

  Three times I had sent the words ‘We must perform’ from brain to lips. Twice had my lips and tongue so such conspired to garble the message before relenting at last to the pitiful spectacle of my ever-expanding agitated urgency.

  “Shall we read tatters of straw? Shall we reside in mounds of sticky bark?” I asked more calmly, fully expecting my question to break through the nonsense on the third try. “Shall we tell ‘em about the … the freeze and the … stiff silence … and the witch and … and … why we’re here?”

  “We’ll do better than that, Bek. Get ready to hop on,” said Kar. She shimmered to shift.

  She fogged into orange mist and emerged red Dragon, matching neatly her color to that of the snaves. I hopped onto her neck and clung. She lifted to swoop on membraned wings all above and around the tiers of benches in the cavernous bowl. The snaves registered delight. I saw ‘em grinning and waving their tentacles. I heard ‘em murmuring in approval. Kar tilted and dropped us in a glide to land in the center of the circular platform stage.

  “Behold, you snaves of Annek! I, the first and only jrabe jroon, Karro of Thorns, Rakara, Queen Jebb of the Acrotwist Clowns, bring to you the great privilege and opportunity to hear Bekka, the Chronicler of the Boad, All Fidd and Leee Combined! She, who is keeper and collector of all Gwer drollek stories, will explain to you our quest.”

  Kar lowered her head, and I slid to the stage, true and properly introduced. I felt it so such. Not a sliver timid, I stood there in silver blue light under the gazes of surrounding multitudes of snaves. Truth, I was a new Bekka, fair bold, not shy. Confident to my core, I opened my arms and shouted out my message.

  “Weeds are not eyebrow replacements,” I began, and to my surprise, the snaves cheered and applauded, slapping tentacles on the benches.

  They knew what I meant. They knew. I wouldn’t have to repeat myself so such three times. My brain sent words to convey the message of our quest to find the lavender witch, the Babba Ja Harick. Weeds and eyebrows may have sounded from my lips, but understanding slithered in the writhings of the snaves.

  “Socks can’t be trusted in avalanche weather,” I continued. “Never mix hutter blankets with buckletar before noon. Drink tea only while standing in the river. Jars ar
e cleanest at sunsink. Lemony doorknobs … And so on … And so forth … And so fifth.”

  I spewed the nonsense, and the snaves cheered and cheered. I told ‘em about the frozen stiff silence and the waterwizards and the beeketbird hanging motionless in the air above my hut’s roof and about all the other bendo dreen frozen and the Chalky Grays and about Kar’s silly bird shape with its ridiculous blue plume and about the silent motionless Falls of Horn and the loss of magic and how I was there to try and bring it back. I ended my speech of gibberish with a question.

  “Striped pantaloons?” I asked simply.

  The snaves fell silent. Kar hisspered at me from her Dragon mouth, “What was that? What was that? What did you ask ‘em?”

  “Striped Pantaloons?” I whispered. “Can you guide us to the witch?”

  The snaves slithered a strange parade, each tier of ‘em moving in opposition to the tiers below and above. In the brightness of the silver blue light, it was dizzying to watch ‘em, hoops of red circling this way, that way, this way, that way, up, up, up.

  “Settle!” roared Kar, shooting yellow flames from her nostrils. “Snaves! We need guidance! Where is the Babba Ja Harick?”

  The snaves stopped circling and began laughing. They roared and roared with laughter, swaying bulbous heads, slapping tentacles on benches. And as their laughter soared, the floor of the stage beneath me and Kar sagged, melted, disappeared. I fell laughing. Kar fell laughing. Whump. We landed on a slick slide, and down we went, helpless with laughter, flailing wild with speeding glee.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  What Happened?

  I blinked and looked down at my sopping wet clothes. My hands rested on a carpet of pale blue grass. I raised my head and stared out over the lake to the heights of the Charborr Forest. The low sun of morning stretched my shadow on the Blue Hill. Same Blue Hill? What? Where? Kar? Where was Kar? I whipped my head around, casting a flight of droplets from the soaked tendrils of my coppery hair. Kar crouched halfway up the slope, hugging her knees, staring at me. A red Dragon no more, she was bendo dreen Kar.

  “Kar? Am I … saying what I’m thinking?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, Bek. What are you thinking?” she solemnly replied.

  “That’s it. That’s good. The right answer. The right … answer,” I said, much relieved. “It’s so such … annoying to … have to … have to push the same … idea … three times to get it out … once. What’s it like to be Queen of the Acrotwist Clowns?”

  “What? Why ask that? Don’t you want to know what happened, why we’re here again?” responded Kar.

  “First, so said … first, what’s it like to be … Queen? Second, yes … second, what happened?” I insisted, fuddlement full well in control of my mind.

  “All right, Bek. You settle and dry off. I’ll tell you first about being Queen Jebb,” said Kar, still hugging her knees, still staring at me. “I get to throw the first pie at every pie fight. I am first in line to be cleaned in the Sudser after every pie fight. So said, truth, I am first in line for everything unless I want to be second or third or last. I make the Clock watch schedule. I test all new slapshoes and award ‘em to contest winners. I never have to do the dishes. I choose what cake what day for what meal. If I say “Stop!” or “Go!” every Acrotwist Clown in hearing must obey, stop or go. Such … like that.”

  She paused, still hugging her knees, still staring at me. The expression in her eyes wasn’t one of worry. It was more like as one of wary. Such was so.

  “Now I’ll tell you what happened,” she resumed. “We slid down a so such sort of a funnel which led to a long tunnel slide like as described in the Gwer drollek story of the Weather Woes. Both of us were limp with laughter. I was red Dragon, remember, and tried to fly, but my muscles were too tickled to work. And then I gave up. I didn’t care. It was fun to laugh down the slide. You laughed, too, until we hit the lake. Just over there. Deep under. Below. The slide tunnel spilled us into the bottom of the lake. You floated limp. Such was so. Your eyes rolled back in your head. Your smile was blissful. I shook you hard and noticed that I was still Dragon when I saw my red taloned claws. I shifted to Rakara, wrapped you in my mantle, and brought you up over there. I swam you to the shore, shifted to bendo dreen, and laid you down where you are sitting. You have had another so such ‘swim’. I suppose you remember nothing.”

  “I remember falling through the … the … the stage and beginning to … to … laugh … and … slide. After that … nothing,” I said.

  “Well, you seem alert now and not talking so such oddly as before with the snaves. Such might be good. And now we’re both bendo dreen. That’s more a comfort, isn’t it? You are Bekka, in spite of all oddness. What do you say we should do now, stuck as we are back here again?” asked Kar, renewing her faith in me and replacing her fate into my hands.

  I looked at Jo Bree safely tucked under my belt. Flush yellow pink.

  “Remember Jo Bree’s … gong … no … song. It told us … the tiers of snaves must be mimed … no … climbed. It said A, then E, then I, O, and U. We … met the snaves of … Annek.

  Annek might be … A. There are more Blue Hills beyond this … one. Tiers of ‘em. Let’s march over this one and up … the next.”

  Kar nodded and shrugged like we do. I did the same, and got to my feet. Kar came near and handed to me a pulpy, pale blue globe.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “I found ‘em growing on luminous vines at the bottom of the lake. They’re good. Taste,” she answered.

  I nibbled. Sweeter than cappmelons drenched in Clover honey.

  “I named ‘em moonplums,” Kar said proudly.

  “Mmmmm, good,” I responded to the taste and the name.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  To The Smokey Blue Hill

  We climbed to the top of the hill and looked for any sign at all of the entrance down to the stairs which led to the cavern theater where we’d encountered the snaves of Annek. Not a hint of a clue was there to be seen. The hill was blanketed smoothly with pale blue grass. We stood for a goodly span of time on the summit riding the slow back and forth movement of the hill. The hill beyond the one we rode moved away to the left as we went to the right, and away to the right as we went to the left. So and such the constant serenity of the soothing motion bound the both of us uncommonly still so as like in a spell of enchantment.

  “Bek?” droned Kar.

  “Hmmm?” I buzzed in a blur.

  We, a pair of bendo dreen statues, lapsed into a lengthy silence. Not a stiff menacing silence, but a cool drowsing silence. The sun marched hard and steady across the sky. My shirt, jacket, pantaloons, stockings and highboots moved from drenched to dry.

  “Bek?” droned Kar.

  “Hmmm?” I buzzed from deepest blur.

  “Bek!” snapped Kar, startling me alert.

  “What?” I responded.

  “We’ve wasted an entire day standing on this hill!” she said with a good measure of alarm.

  I shook my head. I even slapped my own cheeks. It was so such difficult to completely escape the blissful torpor we had been lulled into by the gently moving hills. But escape it I did with a final slap.

  “Kar, yes … Kar … the next … Blue Hill … That one with the … the … blanket of … of …smoky … yes … smoky blue grass. The second tier. Let’s … go,” I managed to say.

  Hand in hand, we clumped down the hill, keeping our eyes lowered to watch the carpet of pale blue grass. We did so such in order to avoid being mesmerized by the motion of the hills. The slope leveled. I lifted my head and calculated the distance to the smoky Blue Hill. Not so such far, but between us and it stretched a low standing dark blue hedge.

  “Look,” I informed Kar, “a boundary hedge. A boundary … hedge … for true. Oh! Two of ‘em!”

  There were two. The one closest to us moved with the hill we rode. The barely higher one just beyond moved in opposition with the smoky Blue Hill. We were about to cross
the boundary between the first tier of Blue Hills and the second.

  “I’ll fly us over,” said Kar.

  “I would rather … hop,” I said.

  “Why?” asked Kar, giving me the wary look.

  “I … don’t … don’t know,” I explained, grinning like a lackwit.

  “It’s too much for you. You can’t jump that …,” Kar argued until she was cut off by me suddenly breaking into a sprint and speeding for all I was worth and a mound of thorns more for the low moving hedges. I cleared ‘em both with a tremendous leap of joy, and mid-flight I looked down between the hedges at a fracture filled with blue shifting sand. I landed whump on smoky blue grass. I grinned madly back at Kar, who gaped at me. She shimmered to cloud with green wings, one of her favorite shapes, and floated serenely over the hedges. She swirled and emerged as the jrabe Rakara, hanging upside down in the air.

  “Ye be an oddment, Bek,” she said, blinking her sightless milky white eyes.

  “I … know. There was … blue sand in the fracture … blue sand,” I said, so such haunted by something hiding among the wisps of fog in my mind. “Kar … please be … Kar. I need you … to … to be … Kar.”

  Rakara whirled her dark green mantle and spun to sit next to me on the smoky blue grass as Kar, my bendo dreen Karro of Thorns.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Be … cause,” I answered dimly. “Dark.”

  By this time, dusk had crept all around us. I pointed to the top of the smoky Blue Hill. I was waiting for night. Kar shrugged like we do.