Blue Hills

by Steve Shilstone

  “Such … flush yellow sink … pink … Jo Bree, Carven … boot? … no … Flute … yoss … You gave to us the rainbow … stew … clue … but now you … you are silent. Such. So. Kar … I will play a … a sad … song of … light … no … night memories … specially for … you ……”

  “Ahh, Nursery Bower. Bek, I remember. Zinna sang it whenever she took her turn watching over the younglings. Oh, so such long before we discovered that she was my mother! Oh, such, a jrabe lullaby hidden behind bendo dreen words. Play, Bek, play, sweet and sad on the Carven Flute … Bek … Bek, we must bring magic home.”

  Chapter Thirty

  The Snaves of Innek

  Clouds hid the moons and stars, causing the melodies I played on Jo Bree to float out into a pure sort of darkness. Long clear tones I breathed to waft from the Flute. No runs, no trills. Truth, my mind was fair occupied otherly, sifting and sifting thoughts of blue sand. I barely realized I was playing. Automatically my fingers moved. Such was so. Kar was somewhere, probably above me in the darkness as a winged cloud. I took no notice and had no thought of her. I played myself into a dreamy trance of blue sand falling in ribbons.

  “Bek, the shaft!” shouted Kar.

  Slapped alert, my eyes flew open. Kar shifted from cloud to bendo dreen, bathed bright in silver blue light cast off from a great climbing column of brilliance spouting from the top of the hill. I jammed Jo Bree into my braided belt, and with no hesitation, was off in a sprint. Kar had a fair lead on me, and I saw her arrive and dive head first to disappear in the light. I threw myself forward and joined her. Whump. I landed hard on the silver blue platform, banging my elbow a goodly crack. There we were at the top of a long twisting flight of silver blue stairs.

  “Here we go again,” said Kar, shrugging like we do.

  Down the stairs. Around a final bend. Cavern theater. Tiers of benches. Masses of snaves.

  “Yellow. You were right, Bek,” whispered Kar.

  “Fortunate is the cheese that has been fitted with nails!” shouted the single yellow snave on the circular stage. “And when I say ‘Fortunate is the cheese that has been fitted with nails’, I mean ‘Welcome to our theater. You’re in luck. The performance is about to begin. We are the snaves of Innek.’”

  “Go ahead. Get the floppy yellow hat,” murmured Kar from the side of her mouth. “That’s right. Get ‘em moving. Start the gibberish.”

  The gibberish started. The first snave, like the first snave of Ennek, unlike the first snave of Annek, did not approach us, but instead moved to the end of the line at the top tier bench. I kept my eye on that so said snave so as not to lose track of when the gibberish would end. Truth, from time to time, when Kar rolled her eyes and began to sigh, I could tell her with a level of confidence how much longer we had to wait.

  “I filed the corners off my bread,” sang one snave while whirling madly around the stage.

  “Broken dishes make a fine lotion,” blurted another quickly before flinging the hat to the next in line and rushing off stage.

  “Bek, when can I Dragon?” asked an impatient Kar.

  “Moon … soon,” I replied. “Crate … bait … eight! … Yoss! … more … eight more … eight … more … more …”

  “Snaves,” completed Kar.

  “Seven,” I said.

  The last snave said, “Mingle the liveliest of snow with threads of corn”, and I understood perfectly we’d been invited to perform. I nodded at Kar and elbowed her in the ribs for emphasis. I stepped back to allow her enough room to be dramatic. She did not disappoint. She fairly exploded so such into a glorious brilliantly blinding yellow and golden Dragon. I flung myself aboard her gleaming scaly neck and held on tight for the twists and zooms. The gasps and the cheers of the snaves and the clatter of their tentacles slapping the benches resounded throughout the cavern dome. Kar, after a flight much longer than the snaves of Annek or the snaves of Ennek had witnessed, delivered me to the stage and roared my name with a thunderous rumble accompanied by a halo of yellow fire which she wove with quick turning twists of her fierce lizard head, the flames shooting from her nostrils. I took the stage, properly introduced, and spun my story. It so such took me longer to tell because I stumbled for words in my witch speak. Truth, I’d fully expected the witch speak to disappear as it had done before when I spoke to the snaves of Ennek. But no, it didn’t, and it took me a wearying span of time to get to the final question, which would, I assumed, drop us down the funnel. The question, “Can you guide us to the witch?” came out this time not as “Striped pantaloons?” or as “Where is the wig paint?”, but as “Is … pie … necessary?” The snaves spun, this way or that, in opposition by tier. Their roars of laughter filled the dome. The stage sagged. Kar and I, Dragon and bendo dreen, dropped to the funnel slide.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Fun in the Funnel Tunnel

  Whooshing down a steepness we slid, so such so very fast our breaths were swept from our lungs. We skimmed on slickness. Kar shifted from Dragon to bendo dreen, and I managed to catch hold of her hand. Our gazes locked. Her eyes, wide, sparkled with delight. Her grin, huge, barely fit her face. I knew it matched mine because I could feel my own grin’s stretch pushing back my cheeks. Such was truly so. The slide spiraled a descent and began to level.

  “We must be approaching the barrier between tiers. Right, Bek?” said Kar.

  I nodded in agreement. We whipped along a long straight segment. Ahead a goodly measure of spans, a rise in the slide approached. Up it we slid, slowing around a gentle arc of a curve, which brought into view the end of the tunnel blocked by a moving wall of stone behind a falling curtain of blue sand.

  “There it is,” said Kar with a pride built from her successful prediction.

  We slowed to a stop, breathing happy heavily and listening to the grind and scrape of the moving rock face. I tried to stand up and couldn’t. Too slippery. Instead, I fell down giggling. So such it happened that then and there Kar and I shared a giggle fit like as we sometimes do. We can’t help it. When possessed by giggle fits, if we look at each the other, we laugh. When we were misfit younglings in the hedge, giggle fits had earned us many a shake of head and frown from other bendo dreen. Truth. We were limp helpless while twice the tunnel opening to the second tier passed by, once in each direction.

  “We’ll go the … the next … flime,” I said.

  That sent Kar flat on her back and kicking. She squealed “Flime!” over and over. Again we were helpless, and the tunnel passed by four more times. I struggled to get to my hands and knees. I pointed through the filmy falling sand at the rock wall scraping by. Kar flung a hand over my mouth.

  “No! No, Bek! Don’t talk! I can’t stand any more!” she gasped. “We’ll go through. We can do it. No laughing.”

  Suppressing giggles, we crawled to the rock face and waited for the tunnel opening to grind its way back. Soon the first sliver curve of darkness appeared, and as it widened, we pushed through and fell sliding down a new steepness. We roared laughter and screamed for all we were worth and more. Kar shouted, “Fliiiiiiiiiiiiime!” I shouted more simply, “Aaaaaahhhhhh!” Down to level, curve and up, we soon reached the first tier barrier. Experts by now, we paused not a nince, diving straight through on the tunnel’s first pass.

  “Bek, this is good, Bek. And you say that there are more snaves to meet, more tiers to climb? That must mean so such longer slides. Wheeeee!” said Kar.

  We shouted “Wheeeee!” together, and as I grinned and laughed, my mind floated out and stared down at the pair of us, two madly sliding bendo dreen. My mind sorted through hills of blue sand. My mind cloaked itself in shadow. My mind shut down.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Conversation of Nonsense

  “Come on, Bek. Time to wake up. Open your eyes. Blink ‘em. I’ve got more moonplums.”

  “Hmmmmm?”

  “That’s it. That’s better. Go ahead. Open ‘em. Look at me.”

  “Are we straw? Is there a wind
ow in my hat? Have I slept long?”

  “Stay there. Settle. It seems so such like as you aren’t spouting witch speak any more. More like as … nonsense snave! So. Such. I’ll answer the two nonsense questions and the real one. We’re not straw. There’s no window in your hat. You don’t even have a hat. You slept in the lake smiling with your eyes rolled back while I plucked moonplums. You should have seen me. I shifted to snave! Purple! Tentacles are the best! I carried you up to this same old place on the first tier of Blue Hills by the lake. Not long ago. Short. The sun was almost that high. I shifted to me so as to give you comfort when you popped your eyes open. Truth, anyway, it’s not as fun snave slithering on the grass as it is snave swimming in the lake.”

  “I’m not a boot? I have no gravy pockets? I’m not speaking witch?”

  “No, no, and no. Eat this moonplum. Gather your wits. We’ve got Blue Hills to climb. Fourth tier. We’ve done Annek, Ennek, Innek. What did you say was next?”

  “Raft horns.”

  “That’s nonsense, not real.”

  “Cookies.”

  “Nonsense, not real.”

  “Onnek.”

  “Truth! Such. Onnek. Can you guess what color they will be? I’m thinking white like as winter in the Woods Beyond the Wood. What do you say, Bek?”

  “Pancake.”

  “Nonsense, not a color. One.”

  “Thorn gossamer.”

  “Nonsense, not a color. Two.”

  “Green.”

  “Third time is truth. Fair said. Green for you, white for me. So such. The sun is high. Shall we go? You can dry off as we travel. Or I can shift and flame you.”

  “Soap! Pan! No!”

  “Here’s an idea. Can’t you just think your first two thoughts, and then blurt out the third?”

  “It isn’t oily enough. The straps are too tight. It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Such then. Eat this. You walk, I’ll talk. I can’t wait to slide down the fourth tier funnel. Then the fifth will be after that. And oh! What sorts of magnificent splendid Dragons shall I shift to? What about an Eel Dragon with eight wings? That’d knock ‘em down, wouldn’t it? I’ll do it. I’ll try that. And other. And other. What other? Mmmmmmm … heads, extra heads. A three-headed Dragon, each head flaring a different color flame. Such! Hurry, Bek! I can’t wait!”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Something Different

  So said, sopping wet, I got to my feet. Kar was already halfway up the hill. I glanced back at the heights of the Charborr Forest before trudging in her wake. Questions, so many questions, mounded mingling in my mind. Why did the Babba Ja Harick leave Danken Wood? Why did she take all magic with her? How? What about the blue sand in the fractures between the tiers of Blue Hills? Was it so such the same as the blue sand in the little wooden box I saw that time ago in the witch’s cottage? Why do I float smiling at the bottom of the lake with my eyes rolled back and not drown? Why can’t I remember? Why did I speak like the witch, and then not? Why so such like a snave? How long have we been here in these Blue Hills? It seems only days, but could it be more? Years even? So such like the time when Kar and I passed through O’Tan’s Gate and descended the Levels? It seemed days then, too, but truth, five bar years passed. The questions boiled and frothed, repeating, “Why? Why? Why?”

  I pondered, and Kar ever madly shifted, dashing or flying about as beeketbird, pollidore, trofle, winged flooce, winged cloud, or so such any of many another assortment of Boadlian creatures. I trudged on, thinking, nibbling a moonplum, nodding whenever Kar raced around or above me while shouting out some or some other excited silliness. I leaped the first boundary, crossing from pale blue grass to smoky blue. I especially took note of the writhing blue sand in the fracture as I soared over it. Up and over the second tier of Blue Hills we went, me trudging, Kar flying, rolling, darting, zagging. I leaped the second boundary, noted again the blue sand writhing, and landed on the dusky blue grass of the third tier. Trudge. Up. Over. Kar shifted from Dragon to Dragon, asking which of ‘em I liked best, which one she

  should show to the snaves of Onnek.

  “Two spoons, four oats, three heads,” I said.

  I’m still speaking snave nonsense, I thought. I wonder why such is so? And yet, Kar was satisfied with my answer. Shifted to jrabe Rakara, she flew off cackling, her dark green mantle fluttering and flapping. She passed above the boundary separating the third tier of Blue Hills from the fourth. I followed her shortly with a flying leap, allowing myself a quick study view of churning blue sand in the fracture before I cleared the far hedge row and dropped on hands and knees onto a soft fair almost white carpet of blue grass.

  “Now we wait for dark and the shaft of light, right, Bek?” said Kar, who was in truth again Kar, bendo dreen Kar, standing there grinning.

  “Spin the lamp. Thorn treasure. Yes, we wait,” I replied.

  The fair almost white blue grass, of a softness so such to inspire deep weariness, toppled us. Truth, we toppled, Kar yawning, stretching out on her side, making a pillow of her arm, and closing her eyes. I, in turn, yawned and fell back, dreaming before my head hit the softness of the grass. I saw nothing but starless night. However, I heard a harmony of sweet chiming voices. A lilting dream. A satisfying dream. I felt myself lifted and floated within a cavern of song. Lifted. Lowered. Lifted. Lowered. So such like as riding the waves of a gentle sea. I opened my eyes and sat up. Cavern, true, but not of song. Silence now. Empty theater. Empty round stage. Tiers and tiers of empty benches circling the empty round stage. Silver blue light. We were there in a where, but how? I nudged Kar, who sprawled beside me so such at rest. She blinked a few times, shook her head and pushed herself up.

  “How did we …? Where are the snaves?” she said.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The Snaves of Onnek

  The silver blue light in the cavern shone a good span dimmer than it had in the theaters of Annek, Ennek, or Innek. We heard no chaotic din of snaves slapping benches with tentacles. So such, not a single snave at all did we see.

  “I’ll call ‘em,” volunteered Kar. “Snaves of Onnek! The Chronicler, Bekka of Thorns, and the jrabe jroon Kar are here arrived! We quest from All Fidd and Leee Combined!”

  Her shouting echoed into empty. No response. The silence was almost stiff. She gave me a look. We did what we do. We shrugged. I pointed to the stage and cocked my head to the side in what I thought was a quizzical manner. I meant to suggest we might as well maybe go down and stand on the stage. Something was probably maybe sure to happen.

  “There’s no latch-lidded trunk,” said Kar, instantly taking on the meaning of my odd posture and heading down the aisle.

  We stepped onto the stage and paced around it, staring up at the tiers of benches. I tested its bounciness with little jumps. I don’t know why. It wasn’t bouncy. Kar nudged me like she does, her elbow to my ribs. I paid her heed. She pointed to the top of an aisle, not the one we’d come down. There, slithering in single file, were eight green snaves. The great eye of each of ‘em gazed at us through a single round lens held in one tentacle curved elegantly up. These green snaves, the snaves of Onnek, I so supposed, were wrinkled with seeming age. Wearing wide dignified frowns, they moved to the lowest tier of benches and arranged ‘emselves in perfect alignment there.

  “We are the snaves of Onnek,” they said as one in perfect choral harmony while raising their lenses in a sort of salute.

  “No soap foam? No basket shavings? No nonsense?” I sputtered.

  “We are the snaves of Onnek. We have no time for nonsense. Get on with the performance,” they chorused.

  Kar nudged me a good one in the ribs. I nudged her back harder.

  “Should I Dragon? Should I Dragon?” she hissed at me.

  “Bricks! Bittem! No!” I hissed in reply.

  The way the snaves regarded us made us feel so such like as unwelcome intruders. I could see Kar’s embarrassed grin. I felt my own. What to do? Plod forward. Ever is it so with
me. I am a plucky bendo dreen. Such is so in truth. I cleared my throat and commenced reciting my tale from start to finish, two nonsense thoughts for every clear one. The snaves were solemn. They were grim. They were posed statues staring through lenses. Not once did any of ‘em move. Not a twitch. Not a wriggle. I finished by asking the question, “Is cotton eaten with or without tendrils? Does the river enjoy bathing on a raft carpet? Can you guide us to the witch?” The snaves twirled around once in unison and, without word or glance, they slithered up the aisle and departed.

  “Should we follow ‘em?” asked Kar.

  I shrugged.

  “Should we … Should we what, Bek? What should we? You’re the Chronicler. They were green, not white. You were right. What should we?” pleaded Kar.

  ”Slice the pie to diamonds. Unhinge the doorframe. Study the stage,” I said.

  I wanted to see if we were meant to discover a way to the funnel without the help of snaves moving in tiers, laughing and writhing. I placed a hand on Jo Bree. Warm and cool, flush yellow pink, the Carven Flute simply would not pulse rainbow. No help. I joined Kar on hands and knees crawling about the stage.

  “Wait. What’s that there?” said Kar, looking off stage at the first tier of benches where the wrinkled green snaves of Onnek had been sitting.

  I lowered myself from stage to aisle, moved to the bench and picked it up. What was it? A lens. One of ‘em had left a lens. I turned to show it to Kar. She wasn’t there, and neither was the floor of the stage. I peeked down, expecting to see Kar sliding down the funnel. I’d tensed my muscles to leap and join her. No need. She was not sliding. She grinned up at me from where she stood there below on a landing at the top of a twisting flight of silver blue stairs.