“You need to be Rakara for us to find the last Ramp? Is that it? You think so such because this looks like a dream jrabe city! That’s it! Am I right? Am I right?” I asked, suddenly elated because, because, oh just because I felt so such a comfort to be the best friend of a shapeshifting jrabe who was also half jroon.
“Ye be the Chronicler, a genius, so thought Violet! Ha! I feel it. I sense it. What say ye? Which of the clusters should we visit first?” said Rakara, swirling her green mantle and turning her sightless milky gaze and lavender face to me.
Her enormous lavender ears twitched impatiently. She waited for an answer. I searched my mind for brilliant insight and found instead the usual empty swirl. I put my hand on Jo Bree. The Flute quivered. A thought entered my mind. The cluster of red glow globes was the closest.
“Red,” I said.
She swept me up in her bony arms, and off we flew.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Red
Up close the globes proved to be immense. They revolved in ponderous dance, making the silence graceful. Rakara glided in among ‘em, and we were bathed in the red, red glow.
“What are we looking for, Kar?” I asked in a hush, not wishing so such to disturb the graceful silence.
“A door,” answered Rakara in a hush of her own.
We studied the gigantic floating orbs. They glistened red, satiny smooth. From orb to orb we sailed until we came to the one with a door. Small and round with a lever latch, it was hinged with darker red rivets.
“How did you know? Clue from Dak?” I whispered.
“Such be so. Lift the latch, Bekka of Thorns. It be for ye to do it,” said Rakara.
Truth, I trusted Kar as Kar, but I trusted her more as Rakara. Such was so. I reached to grip the latch, and when I touched it, a cool tingle ran up my arm. Shock! Dumped harshly, thrown, I landed crash on my side. I rolled to sit. In the globe. Inside it. We were inside the globe! And Kar was Kar, not Rakara, and she sat beside me, looking stunned.
“What was that? Why did you shift?” I asked.
“I didn’t shift. I was shifted!” said Kar in a rush.
The interior of the globe was carpeted with thick red grass. A perfect stone red cube floated in what looked to be the exact center of the orb. The cube was motionless, but what quivered above it wasn’t. A round red fuzzy ball quivered there, and it began to grow star fingers. A drull! A drull! A red drull! I knew such was so in a nince. I found myself clutching Kar. She found herself clutching me. The star fingers shivered and shuddered, shifting to shape. Fleckrunner! The very same so who’d been at the gate of Blossom Castle instructing us to seek the beckoning pool.
There she sat on the stone red cube. She regarded us with half-closed eyes.
“I see that you are here,” she said, yawning. “Have you been paying close attention?”
Kar and I exchanged glances. Mine asked if there were any Dak secrets about this and so development. Hers asked if I had been paying close attention. Kar elbowed me in the ribs.
“Oof! I pay attention. I’m the Chronicler of the Boad, All Fidd and Leee Combined,” I responded. “You are the fleckrunner we met at the bound timber gate of Blossom Castle a long time before tomorrow.”
“True enough, in an odd way, Chronicler of the Boad. Can you answer me this then? When the Quing appeared in her gown of silver with the gold spangled cape, what did she say?” said the fleckrunner, narrowing her eyes, leaning back, and tapping her purple boots together.
Kar hissed into my ear, “Do you know? Do you remember? I don’t. Bek, do you? You’re not muddled again about yesterday so such, are you?”
I covered Kar’s mouth with my hand to stop her flow of worry. I knew what the fleckrunner was about. She was trying to trick me. It wouldn’t work. It didn’t. I leaped to my feet and even placed my hands on my hips to show a thorn sharp confidence I deeply truly felt then and there. Such was so. The fleckrunner gazed down at me with the customary fleckrunner look of boredom modeled onto her ash green face.
“The Quing was not wearing a gown of silver. She was wearing a gown of gold. And furthermore and more, her cape was not gold spangled. It was silver spangled,” I said with a goodly heap of boast.
“Quite right, I suppose,” yawned the fleckrunner. “That’s one.”
With one finger raised, she popped to disappear, and I was gripped in Rakara’s bony arms and nestled among folds of her green mantle, and we glided above the gigantic slowly
revolving red globes.
“What color next?” asked Rakara simply.
I touched Jo Bree at my belt and said, “Orange.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Orange
I asked Rakara if she could shift to something without such and so bony arms. She said she could, but she wouldn’t. I asked why. She said Dragons would spoil this Realm. I was suchly baffled enough at that to remain silent. I turned my attention to the orange cluster of glowing globes hanging far off in the distant darkness. I wondered why when I’d touched Jo Bree I’d been forced to say “Orange”. The blue cluster loomed closer, and the yellow. Kar’s bony fingers stabbed my ribs. I wriggled to find a better sort of comfort, failed, and decided to hang limply.
“What be wrong, Bek? Be all of your wits with ye?” asked Rakara.
“I’m wonderful, if severe pain and discomfort are wonderful. Can’t you fly faster?” I complained.
“Ye sound so such like a Quing. Practice patience. Sabeek orrun. I can fly faster. I thought ye were enjoying the darkness and the silence and the glowing clusters,” said Rakara.
The green mantle fluttered as we gained speed and more speed. The orange cluster of globes grew larger and larger until we swerved in among ‘em. Rakara slowed and began a careful drift while I searched for a door on the bulbous surfaces of the globes. I suppressed the ache in my ribs and scanned the massive orbs.
“There! Quick!” I snapped.
A small round door with lever latch and darker orange hinge rivets revolved into view in the heart of the cluster on the lower surface of a gigantic globe. Rakara fell into rhythm with its rotation, and I reached out to touch the lever latch. I expected to be tingled, shocked and thrown inside the globe. The tingle? Yes. The shock? Yes! Falling in a heap so such on my side that my breath was knocked out of me oooof? True. I gasped for air and raised myself to my knees. Kar was Kar, flat on her back with a silly jark dweg grin on her face. The orange grass where we’d fallen was longer and thicker than the grass in the red globe. Orange hedges blooming alive with fat creamy orange blooms criss-crossed each the others in random rows all around us, above us, beside us, covering the orb’s interior surface. The orange cube, as I’d expected, floated in the orb’s exact center. The orange fuzzy round drull I expected to see above it was yes there, quivering. Star fingers, shiver, shift to shape. We beheld the fleckrunner, yawning mightily, stretching her arms, tossing the long end of her green scarf around her neck. She settled to sit cross-legged on the cube.
“I see that you are here,” she said. “Have you been paying close attention?”
I grabbed Kar’s arm before she could nudge me.
“I pay attention as before. Ask me another,” I said with a good measure of confidence, proud of my Chronicler skills of observation.
“Answer me this. Watery serpent with a red ruby eye, what was the color of the dim purple sky?” said the fleckrunner, the curve of her ash green neck made long by her head lolling back to study with apparent indifference the grass and the hedges high overhead.
“Again you can’t fool me!” I said in triumph. “The watery serpents had emerald eyes, not ruby.”
“That’s two,” yawned the fleckrunner, and she popped to disappear.
Hanging in the darkness above the cluster of orange globes and wrapped in the folds of Rakara’s green mantle, I tried without success to make myself comfortable. Her arms WERE that bony. I touched Jo Bree and shouted, “Yellow, and fast!”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
<
br /> Yellow
“If you won’t shift, will you at least carry me somehow other? My ribs can’t take much more. Legs. Try my legs.”
“If ye so say.”
“There … That’s better … Yes …… Kar?”
“What?”
“This won’t work either. I can’t hang upside down. I’m getting dizzy. Go ahead. Crush my ribs. It’s better than being dizzy.”
“So said.”
“All right, all right. I’ll talk. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll babble to keep my mind from the pain. That’s a good idea. That’s good. Can’t you fly any faster?”
“No.”
“All right, all right. I’ll talk. Let’s see. The fleckrunner. Her questions are such and so easy. She tries to trick me, but she can’t. No. I remember detail. I take note. I am the Chronicler … the Chronicler with the painful ribs. Hurry, Kar, hurry. Can’t you just shift your arms pillowy?”
“No.”
“All right, all right. I can stand it. I can stand it. What will the fleckrunner ask in the yellow cluster? Why should I worry? I remember detail … except … except in the mirrored room of the Blue Truth Berry. My mind floated almost away. Kar, what if the fleckrunner asks a Berry question? I might not remember. You’ll have to!”
“Don’t think now, Bek. Here we be. Search for the door.”
“What will happen if I don’t know?”
“There it be! Such, Bek, touch the lever latch when I bring us close.”
“Ooooof! Uh! Ohhh, beautiful!”
“Are those fronds?”
“And flowers like bells. It’s such as a Honeygold, Clover Castle garden! And there’s the cube through the branches! And the yellow drull!”
“I see that you are here. Have you
been paying close attention?”
“I think so such, maybe.”
“Bek has seen through your first two tricks. Try a third.”
“Contemplate this. Of three-fingered hands,
four. Of tiny arms, four. Of red bead eyes,
two. Of red lips, two. What was found to
be the answer to question three?”
“Question three?”
“The Lie Berry, Bek. Remember? The Lie Berry! I asked it questions when you were mindless. I don’t remember. I don’t remember!”
“The countdown begins. 10 … 9 …”
“When I woke up, Kar, you asked it how it knew that you weren’t bendo dreen? That’s the first fuzzy memory I have.”
“… 8 … 7 … 6 …”
“Right. Right. That WAS my third question! What did the Berry answer? I forget! I forget!”
“… 5 … 4 …”
“I don’t. The Berry said that your mind was bolted in place and that my mind was rootless!”
* * *
“Which cluster be next, most excellent Chronicler?”
“I wish you could BE a swumpoggler and not just talk like one. Jo Bree says … uhh … green.”
Chapter Thirty
Green
We flew toward the green cluster of globes. I asked Kar, I mean Rakara, if there was any really other so and such possible way to carry me. Could I myself hang from her neck without her bony arms touching me at all? No, she said. Could I scramble onto her back and ride so such as if I was flying on a Shortneck Dragon? No, she said. When I whined why, she said she was sorry. That was no measure of an answer to me, so I grumped. I grumped with her bony arms wrapped around my painful ribs. She said she could hold me upside down by my legs, but no other way. Such was no good. I preferred rib pain to dizziness. So I resigned myself to chattering babble in an effort to drown the pain. The pain was not drowned.
“All right, all right,” I said. “The growth in the green globe will be thicker yet, I bet. I wonder what sort. It could not be lovelier than the yellow fronds and trees and blossoms and tricklestreams of the yellow globe. The red globe was grassy carpet. The orange was grass and hedges. We had the yellow and now for the green. Oh, yoffus! Carry me by my legs for a span. My ribs! My ribs!”
Rakara tumbled me and caught my legs. I hung upside down and instantly grew dizzy, but my ribs felt released from forge iron clamps. I snatched Jo Bree from my belt and brought it to my lips to play. A dizzy thought made me do so such. I wove a bendo dreen lullaby into the darkness. A smile bloomed on Rakara’s thin lavender lips. Dizziness fuzzed me, but still I played. The sweet slow melody carried us back to our younglinghood Nursery Bower days.
“And there will be thorns in the morning,” sang Rakara.
The final note drifted away, and I took a breath to play another until we sailed in among the green globes. I placed Jo Bree back in my belt and told Rakara to grab me around the ribs. Time to search for the green lever latch door. Time to fall inside. Time to prepare for the next fleckrunner trick question. We found the door deep in the cluster, and Rakara brought us onto its path. I reached to touch it, and yes, we were dropped inside. A truth, nearly the whole of the interior grew thickly to almost filled with a leafy tangle of green vines. Above us. Below us. Around us.
“Where’s the middle? I can’t see a wall,” I said, finding myself wedged between a pair of fat vines and drenched with dew which fell in crystal green droplets from huge drooping leaves above me.
“Where are you, fleckrunner?” called out Kar. “The Chronicler Bekka is ready to answer the fourth question.”
Such seemed to me a sensible thing to call. I was so such impressed with Kar. Wherever the fleckrunner sat on the globe’s green cube, there would be the middle. If she replied, we could find her by following the sound of her voice. Such was not only so, but true.
“I hear that you are here. Have you been paying close attention?” came the indifferent voice of the fleckrunner sounding through the foliage from somewhere to the left of us.
“I have been paying attention,” I shouted, struggling to get free from my vine wedged circumstance.
“Can you answer me this then, Chronicler of the Boad?” droned the voice of the fleckrunner. “Green hat, yellow tunic, blue hat, red hat. Who and why do they dwell in a teapot of green?”
“Violet is green hat. Lionel is yellow tunic. Guy is blue hat. Slingsby is red hat. Their teapot is not green! It is red!” I blurted triumphantly without a nince of hesitation, and I reached for Jo Bree to decide on which cluster was next BEFORE I found myself floating in the great darkness, ribs aching in Rakara’s bony arms.
“Blue,” I gloated before Rakara could ask.
Chapter Thirty-One
Blue
I was glad of blue because its cluster floated such a short space span away, so said a mere flicker of flight. The only remaining unvisited cluster other than the blue was the purple, and it glowed a mere purple smudge, a speck far off in the distant darkness. I and my ribs dreaded the flight there even as we dropped in among the great blue spheres and glided to search for the orb with a door. Turn and turn, Rakara hovered in front of each globe, and we watched a completed slow revolution before moving on to the next. The fourth globe we visited rewarded us with the sight of the door swinging into view. I reached for the lever latch as it approached us. Touch. Tingle. Fall. Heavily I was dumped clang onto a hard blue surface.
“Kar?” I called, looking around, rubbing my elbow, which hurt more than my still aching ribs.
“I be up here,” said Rakara, unshifted.
Our voices echoed eerily in the great hollow sphere. No grass, no vine, no growth at all. No cube. No drull. Only echoing emptiness.
“Why no plants? Why no fleckrunner? Why weren’t you shifted to Kar? How can we answer a trick question when there’s no fleckrunner to ask it?” I and my echoes asked in nervous babble.
Rakara hovered where the cube should have been and gave me no answer. Instead, she rubbed her lavender chin and blinked her sightless milky eyes in thought.
“Do you have a secret about this? You do, don’t you?” I, then my echo, asked.
Rakara raised a bony finger to her l
ips, a warning for me to practice silence. I silenced and waited. My natural bendo dreen timidity emerged from wherever it had been hiding. It brought with it a creeping uneasiness which worked its way up my spine. Such was so. Panic thoughts flared. Stuck in a hollow blue orb forever. No way out! A trap! Lightning bolts of terror struck me. My arms were rigid. I stared at Rakara, my only hope. I quivered.
“So this be what Dak meant,” she whispered.
Those whispered words loosed a flood of relief to wash away the terror. I relaxed. She knew something. She KNEW something!
“What?” I croaked without echo.
Then was the when an amazing thing happened. Rakara whirled and shifted, exploding into a waterfall of twinkling sparkles which thundered down to form a running river which raced past me and up and around the walls of the orb and back and by me again, roaring a path, spraying rainbows of sparkles. The blue cube appeared, and above it, the drull. Blue drull. Star fingers. Fleckrunner. The river raced and roared.
“I see that you are here. Have you been paying close attention?” yawned the fleckrunner, seated on the cube, legs dangling, yellow pantaloons, purple boots.
“I paid attention!” I shouted over the rushing roar of my best friend Kar, now a racing river. The fleckrunner’s hands were stuffed into the pockets of her purple tunic.
“Answer me this then. What do I hold in my hands?” asked the fleckrunner, her ash green eyelids drooping.
That wasn’t a question! How could I know? Wait. Had the fleckrunner been holding something in the other globes? Had I paid attention? I hadn’t! I hadn’t! I hadn’t noticed anything!
“Nothing!” I cried wildly.
I floated in Rakara’s bony arms in the darkness. The cluster of blue globes glowed far below. My ribs ached. My head spun.
“Purple be the only one left,” said Rakara brightly.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Rakara Page 6