The Questory of Root Karbunkulus - Quill

by Kamilla Reid

  It all washed down nicely with Chorm, taking any resent with it. And that was cause for a celebratory dessert, wasn’t it? Root and Dwyn let Lian do the honors. He was the best drawer of the three. A remnant of the Fuffleteez gene pool.

  They were surprised and delighted by the dish he’d managed to eke out. It was a large bowl piled high in soft warm gingerbread chunks. This he topped in hot caramel and heaping clouds of whipped cream.

  Every mouthful rocked.

  The whole world was surely jealous.

  Root put what was left of the Hemostylus away for future rationing and Dwyn was still licking the bowl clean when Lian pulled out Road and dropped its gravelly remains on the ground.

  “Where are we and where is the port town of Divit?” he asked.

  Road did not answer. Lian couldn’t even see its signature smiling face in the top corner. In fact, he couldn’t even see a corner.

  Oh no.

  Wait, something moved. An eye? A mouth? Yes, it was. Road’s face was slowly sculpting its way to the surface. Except that it stopped half way.

  “Good evening and thank you for…are currently in the…exactly three hundre….town of …amenities…”

  Lian tried to follow Road’s disjointed ramblings but the map was only half showing, the other half dawning on him to be somewhere else. Like the stomach of a stupid CowPigRodent animal. He stiffened. “Road’s broken.”

  “What?”

  “It’s half missing.”

  His teammates knew exactly what he meant.

  They gathered round him, as if standing there with gaped mouths would somehow fix things. They called out more questions to the map but each time it simply sifted into more confusion. From what little they could gather Divit could be to the west. Either that or the notorious Twal desert where nothing survived except vulturous reptiles that finished off the things that didn’t survive.

  “We are so hooped.” Dwyn said.

  “Hang on a sec!” Root cried. “The Hemostylus! We can draw a new Road.”

  It was a great idea in theory. But in reality, when the ink ran out after a mere four lines of the sketch and the pen was madly shaken and tried again and nothing but a dry etching scratched across the paper, it was a theory that totally sucked.

  And now they were plagued with guilt over the fact that something so valuable, the very thing that could have saved their butts had been literally wasted on whipped cream. Mounds of it.

  Root, feeling the lion’s share of blame took to searching the area. Perhaps Road had been spilled somewhere and could be recollected.

  “You’re better off checking out that dumb animal’s steaming piles, if y’know what I mean!” Dwyn said. “Heck y’might even find some of our money in one.”

  Root ignored him. No small feat considering she wanted to throttle him. She kept her eyes down, praying for success. Not only so they could have proper directions but so she could somehow atone for the creature that she’d taken a liking to. Maybe finding the rest of Road would relieve her teammates enough to give it another chance.

  Forgiveness had yet to arrive when, speak of the devil, the CowPigRodent returned with Stogie at its lead. They looked content indeed, having spent the evening searching, finding, squeaking, stealing from each other, chomping, tug ‘o warring, pouncing and eventually sharing the squeaky toy.

  A friendship had been made.

  Though not amongst the Valadors. Meaning Dwyn and Lian.

  “That thing is not coming with us!”

  “She’s just a baby, Lian. She didn’t know any better!” Root pleaded.

  “Baby or not, it’s a menace and it can’t come.”

  “He’s right, Root. It’ll just slow us down.”

  “I am not leaving her here all alone. Obviously she needs us if she came back.”

  “Because you feed the stupid thing! If you just leave it, it can learn to fend for itself. You’re not helping it any.”

  “Besides it’ll suck us dry!”

  “She eats off the trees. I’ve seen her. She just got into our stuff out of curiosity. She’s a kid!”

  “Well, the last thing we need is a kid dragging us down.”

  The moon was high above before the argument ended. Root had been overruled. There was nothing she could say. They were in urgent need of supplies and couldn’t be slowed. She was reminded rather rudely that they were in a race and the artifact was NOT a CowPigRodent.

  In the morning the animal would be left behind.

  It was just awful. Utterly pathetic.

  Even Lian and Dwyn could hardly bare it,

  CowPigRodent galomping along below them, tripping, falling, whimpering against the scraping thorns of bushes, galomping and falling again, her knobby, skinny, hairless legs splaying across the ground then dragging herself up again. Anything to keep up. Anything to stay with them, her newfound family. Surely they were just toying with her. Any minute now they would come back dowm with pats and smiles.

  Any second now. Right?

  It was pitiful.

  Dwyn landed Hana. A bathroom break. Remarkably timed, one might say.

  No one said anything as Dwyn ‘accidentally’ dropped a few treats right beside the panting CowPigRodent who just happened to be right there with the same remarkable timing. And eyes averted altogether when the thing coincidentally found fresh water from Lian’s ‘accidentally’ spilled flask.

  Several more remarkably timed breaks led to the conclusion that the creature had been forgiven entirely. By sundown, in her homely way, nestled by their fire she had even somehow become cute. Most likely because she was so happy. So ridiculously, devotedly, gratefully happy.

  By nightfall she was no longer CowPigRodent but CPR. As in “No, CPR!” and “Down, CPR!” and “G’night CPR, you silly lovable thing.”

  22

  THE BROTSWIN

  Morning greeted the team with a sparkling sun and a blue sky. After another disappointing ‘discussion’ with Road, they were still either headed directly for the sea and thus their destination or they were aiming for the scalding heat and pecking order of the Twal Desert. The fact that it was very hot already did nothing for their confidence.

  A pep talk was in order.

  Bright side: They were happy now that their sleep had been won back, happy to move on, get back in the game.

  Gloomy side: For all they knew the game was over, with all HaloEm Quills found while they’d been petrified in amber.

  Bright side: Possibly. But they had no way of knowing.

  Gloomy side: That’s a pretty lame bright side.

  Bright side: But it was true and so why not choose the more upbeat and equally viable possibility that even now all five Quills had remained from the competition’s grasp.

  Gloomy side: I’m hot!

  Bright side: At least it’s not raining.

  Gloomy side: Not yet. And we’ve got no rain gear!

  Bright side: Well, if we end up in the Twal Desert, we won’t have to worry about rain gear.

  Gloomy side: Aha! So, you think we’re gonna die…shrivel up in the Twal Desert!

  Bright side: Well, it’d be better than sitting here listening to you!

  It wasn’t a very productive pep talk. In the end, they decided that a fifty-fifty chance of a sea arrival wasn’t really that bad. It was fairly hopeful and enough to get them to their feet.

  They moved efficiently, even around CPR’s clumsy affection and soon all were fed (more berries, yay), packed, and mounted on Hovers.

  Picture perfect, Root thought and pulled out her shiny new Brotswin. Briefly the Sage Mother’s paintings flashed across her memory and her heart constricted. But she folded the canvases up in her mind and tucked them neatly away behind a door with a ‘Closed’ sign hanging from its handle.

  She aimed the Brotswin. This would be the first archive of her new life and the new memories she would take into it.

  “Say cheese!” she said as it focused on her friends.

  “Why?” L
ian asked.

  “It’s just a saying. Smile!”

  They smiled.

  Puwff! A flash and then Root took a quick peek to see how it turned out.

  Quite badly apparently. A warped blur to be exact. Must have not focused properly. Root aimed the Brotswin again. This time both Lian and Dwyn said cheese and made faces.

  Puwff! Root looked again. Again it sucked. Where her friends should have been, instead was a muddy smear of color. Plus it looked more like a lone figure than the two standing in front of her, still making faces and now laughing. Did the Sage Mother give her a lemon, she wondered then immediately took it back, accepting that she simply didn’t know how the Brotswin worked yet. Obviously it would be different than a camera from back home. Probably had some sort of hidden, magic compartment.

  “That bad, eh?” Dwyn said.

  “Not you guys. It’s me. I’ve gotta figure out how it works. I’ll play with it while we travel.”

  At that the Hovers rose into the air and began the long journey to the port town of Divit. Hopefully.

  Below, on the ground CPR tried her best to keep up but more often than not they were forced to slow down and even stop altogether while she tripped and galloped toward them.

  It was impossibly slow going. They would never get to Divit at this rate. Eventually even Root came to this conclusion. But abandoning the poor thing was no option. Instead she landed Stogie and actually tried to boost CPR onto his back. He was not amused. He evaded and growled and nipped when CPR was in range. At last, when he realized that Root’s intent was steeled and that this could go on for hours he surrendered to the clumsy thing’s weight.

  “Hokay. Let’s get outta here.” Root urged with flushed cheeks.

  CPR released a satisfied breath and relaxed.

  Until Stogie began to rise into the air. At which point she panicked and squirmed and fell off. The boys watched with dull sympathy as this happened several more times. Annoyance eventually came to the forefronts of their minds. Impatience set in. Suggestions went sharply untaken. In her own stubborn time, Root discovered her own stubborn means: CPR was yanked on Stogie’s back while the Hover simultaneously launched, quickly taking them high enough that his new passenger was too scared to jump off.

  The boys shrugged. Whatever worked. They were on their way; that was all that mattered.

  Once a Hover height and rhythm were set Root took a just-making-sure glance back at CPR. Aaaaawwwww! The poor thing’s eyes were sooooooo big! Big, cute, terrified baby eyes. It was totally a Kodak moment. She pulled out her Brotswin and aimed it at CPR.

  Puwff!

  Root looked into the Brotswin’s screen. Again a blur but this time there was no denying that the picture, whatever it was, was not of CPR. The colors were different. The light. And again, there seemed to be one single person in the image. A woman? A man? And were those flowers?

  Well, clearly these were just old pictures of the Sage Mother’s that hadn’t been cleared out or something. Root put the Brotswin away. But for the rest of the afternoon it bothered her. For there was something strangely familiar in that image. And soothing.

  The team kept fairly low, staying in the trees where the sun couldn’t melt them. Even so, it was soooooo hot! And there was no running water. No river, no creek, no nothing. If only Lian could figure out a way to squeeze the moisture from the air, which was so heavy it felt like a damp fur over them. Such a paradox, dying of thirst in a humidity-peaked forest.

  It was actually CPR who saved the day when she boldly leapt from Stogie and landed at the mouth of a large cool cave. ‘Cool’ being the operative word.

  It was worth the risk.

  They hid behind bushes at the opening, the memory of the last cave still fresh and frightening.

  Another pep talk was definitely in order. Okay, maybe not. But a plan, definitely a plan. They looked at Lian.

  “What?” he said annoyed. “Don’t look at me. I may know what kind of beasts live in caves but I have no idea what kind of beast may live in this cave.”

  Hmmmm…

  Of the seven of them, animals included, six were hesitant. CPR was the lone rebel ready to bet the ranch. A leash of Sloshvine quickly put an end to that as Root battled to shimmy it over the animal’s head. Was it her or was CPR bigger already? She seemed bigger. Much bigger. And stronger. Yet, the intelligent factor seemed to be conspicuously missing as CPR continued to yank toward the cave’s belly. Sure, it was hot. They were all sweltering and the mouth of the cave offered a cooling respite. But, with absolutely no visibility, the diving-right-in-approach wasn’t the wisest of plans.

  “Wait!” Root whispered. “I’ve got an idea!” She pulled out the Brotswin. “I’ll flash it inside and you can see if it’s empty or not.”

  “And if it’s not?”

  “We’ll be on Hovers. We can take off if something comes.”

  A waft of cool air drifted from the cave. That settled it.

  . “Sorry, CPR” Root said as she and Lian and Dwyn battled the squirming thing onto Stogie’s back again. Once mounted, Root held the Brotswin up. With Lian and Dwyn flanking her on Hana and Pilsnips, she glided forward and aimed at the cave.

  Puwff!

  “Not long enough. Can you do a few in a row?”

  Puwff! Puwff! Puwff! Puwff!

  SCREEEEEEE!!!!

  ‘Lookout!”

  The Hovers pitched into the air. It came at them like a speed train. A charging beast, sooted in the dirt of the cave, squealing and baring its teeth, ready to pounce its hulking weight upon its trespassing enemy.

  All two pounds of it.

  The rat looked about. He could have sworn he’d been rudely flashed by intruders. Something landed a couple feet down the hill in front of him. He sniffed. Could it be? He ventured forward. Another sniff. No, it can’t be. Another few steps and…it is! It is! Fresh Hoverpoo! What had he done to get so lucky? Let the feasting begin!

  Once inside the cool, cool, oh so blessedly cool cave Lian immediately (and rather giddily) made use of some of his latest Ekladian acquirements, including a Door Restore that built itself over the cave’s mouth thereby completely hiding the entrance from view, particularly the rat’s view.

  And now for some light. Lian followed the directions carefully, a dash of heat, an appropriate amount of rubbing, a smooth finish until, in the middle of the cave the boulder that had been sitting there minding its own business began to glow. It, in fact gave off enough light to overview nearly the whole of the cave. The cave that was now seen to be welcome-wagon-make-yourselves-at-home empty.

  So while the satiated rat worked up a solid sweat trying to find the door to his house that he was sure was right there only moments before, three Hovers, three teens and a CowPigRodent snoozed the sweltering afternoon away.

  Hours later, when the nag of empty stomachs woke them Lian and Dwyn decided to explore the surroundings of their pit stop while Root remained, intent to figure out the deal with her Brotswin. She didn’t know why but it felt urgent. She looked it over. There was a screen to look through with a playback option, the clicking picture-taking button thingy and…she turned the Brotswin over…that was it. There was nothing else to jig or flick at or ponder. Curious, she pressed the screen’s playback. Where there should have been a two-pound rat charging forward from a dark cave, she saw bright daylight and more blurs of people.

  Lian and Dwyn raced back to the sound of something banging. When they realized it was Root banging her Brotswin in frustration, they sighed in relief.

  “This stupid thing’s worse than Skubblenob’s Tempometre. I can’t make it work.”

  “Let me see it.” Lian said.

  Root handed it to him and was surprised to feel an overwhelming sense of reluctance. “It’s only showing someone’s old pictures and I don’t know how to clear them.”

  Lian leaned up comfortably against the great bulk of Pilsnips and inspected the Brotswin. “That’s weird. There’s nothing besides the Receiving Platfor
m and the Engager. Nothing for Imaginate transfer.”

  “That’s an Imaginate?”

  “No, I thought it was an Imagi-captor…the mobile device that captures the images to be transferred to the Imaginate…but now I’m not sure. What did she call it?”

  “A Brotswin.”

  “Hmmm, never heard of it.” Lian aimed the Brotswin at Root.

  Puwff!

  “Hey! At least give me warning!” Root blinked.

  Lian looked into the screen.

  And went horribly pale.

  “What? What is it?” Root’s tone caught Dwyn’s attention. “Lian! Are you okay?”

  Lian slowly put the Brotswin down, confusion rattling his brains. Dwyn grabbed it and looked at the screen.

  “What the…hey, that’s your dad, Lian!”

  “What?” Root drew near Dwyn and looked. “And your mum, Ms. Fuffleteez!”

  “Who’s the girl?” Dwyn smiled.

  “No one!” Lian suddenly grabbed at the Brotswin. But Dwyn was too fast.

  “Oooooo, keepin’ it on the down-low, eh. Why? Is that your girlfriend?”

  “Gimme it, Dwyn.”

  “It is! Lian’s got a girlfriend!” Then sing-songy. “Blick’s got a girlfriend, Blick’s got a girlfriend!

  “She’s not my girlfriend!”

  “Why not? Did she dump you?” This while swiftly avoiding Lian’s grabbing hands.

  “Just gimme the stupid Brotswin, Dwyn!”

  “Could it be? Mister ‘I-don’t-do-relationships’ did a relationship?”

  “Shut up, Dwyn!” Lian swung and missed again. The tips of his ears were swelling red.

  “Blick had a girlfriend! Blick had a girlfriend!”

  “She wasn’t my girlfriend, you stupid jerk.”

  “Right! Then who is she?”

  “My sister!” Lian yelled and swung again. Missed again.

  Dwyn’s eyes lit up. He looked at the image again. “No way…Lian, you’ve been holding out on your good friend. Your sister’s cute!”