“Hold. I reflect,” replied Med of the East, and, after a pause filled by my growing ever more aware and ever more amazed at where I was and what was happening, she added, “No, I have never seen a bendo dreen so dance. And, truth, I still haven’t.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Med Explains
Kar sat up, the smile wiped from her face. Now, instead of me, Kar sat stricken speechless and uncommonly pale. Her eyes were wide and round. I crawled over to be near her. I placed my hand on Kar’s knee and looked at Med of the East.
“What do you mean exactly when you say that you still have not seen a bendo dreen so dance?” I asked slowly and carefully.
“Such. Well asked, silent Bekka. Listen to Med of the East, then, Bekka and Karro of Thorns. You two have journeyed long and boldly, seeking after adventure out from under the security of the bendo dreen hedge. Yes, it was I who planted the seed of a visit to the Roamer hut ruin into your dreams, Bekka of Thorns. It was I who planted directions to Sharumin in your head, Karro of Thorns. Then I stepped back to see if you were worthy. And here you are! Success! You have shown the strength required to meet adventure. A Chronicler, Bekka, must possess such strength. You have passed the test. You have been selected to be the new Chronicler of the Boad, all Fidd and Leee combined!”
I blinked in disbelief. I heard the words, but I could not arrange ’em into sense. Such was so. Instead, I repeated my earlier question.
“What do you mean exactly when you say that you still have not seen a bendo dreen so dance?” I said dully.
“Settle into yourselves, youngling pair. Subside. I will reveal most of all and everything to you,” continued Med, hanging in the air above us, wings folded down at rest. “My name as such is not Med of the East, but as Med of the East I will speak. As the sorceress jrabe I was more akin to the me who I mostly am. I come from under the sea where dwell the jroons and the jrabes. I was summoned bar years ago and allowed to penetrate the sealed Danken Wood. Yes, summoned by the Harick, the lavender witch, the Babba Ja. Sealed away in her Wood for century bars of years since the sudden closing of the portals to the strange world, the world of the language of the Chronicles, she had seen in her crystal ball that the time was at hand to choose a new Chronicler. Naturally, she sent for me. We have a history, an unwritten one, concerning her Carven Flute. She set for me the task of finding a proper candidate. Such I did. Such I have done. Such it is you, Bekka of Thorns.”
More words, too precious for me to understand, fell formless in the blank space which occupied my mind. My mouth moved.
“What do you mean exactly when you say that you still have not seen a bendo dreen so dance?” remained the only words I could speak.
“So. The Chronicler of the Boad, all Fidd and Leee Combined, presses me with a single question. It is well expected. Such is how a Chronicler proceeds. I knew that it would be so. Silent you were, but ever thinking. There then, I will answer you, Bekka of Thorns. Your friend Kar, so pale beside you, is not a bendo dreen!”
Kar’s knee quivered under my hand. Med smiled. Her wispy beard fluttered in the updraft from the crater. She fell silent. I felt that she waited for me to prod her. I prodded.
“What is she then?” I squeaked.
“Her father is an Acrotwist Clown, as you, thoughtful Bekka, guessed. Her mother is a shapeshifter,” announced Med.
Kar went limp, slumped flat, not a jark dweg faint, but a real one.
“A shapeshifter like Zom Falbu in the Gwer drollek story?” I asked, not really believing what I was hearing. Acrotwist Clown? Yes, such might be so. But shapeshifter? When had Kar ever shifted shape? Never once that I had seen.
“No, she is not such a sort as Zom Falbu, a Time Traveler of Jom. No, she is of another sort,” said Med of the East.
“What other sort? Nimble Missst sort? Your sort?” I pressed.
“A sort the likes of such you have never before heard of in any story, Gwer drollek or other, Bekka, the Chronicler. When Kar awakens, you may tell her that soon enough she will know who she is. But for now, it is time for me to place you in sight of the hedge. Younglings, your first adventure is about to find its exciting finish.”
Could I survive another layer of excitement? I would find out soon enough. Med of the East, or whoever or whatever she was, spread her wings and the crater melted and the sea disappeared and I was seated on a barren ridge in the W’s Three. My hand still rested on Kar’s limp leg. In the distance could be seen the glorious simplicity of the boundary hedge, our home. The sun was sinking.
Chapter Thirty-Three
At Night in the Sight of the Hedge
“It’s all right, Kar. We’re near home.”
“Huh?”
“The shapeshifter, the Med or jrabe or garl or whatever such she was, set us down here magically in the W’s Three. We’re back. Look at the hedge, so quiet under the moonslight. The night is so soft. Isn’t it calm? I’ve never seen Jeth and Jith so fat and bright. I watched ’em rise while you slept. See our shadows, how black they are on the ridge.”
“Bek?”
“Shhhh, Kar. You rest. You should rest. I have been thinking long while you slept. Let me tell you what I am sure of.”
“Bek, I….”
“You are the first bendo dreen ever not to be a bendo dreen! That’s all truth. So said, so what. You are Karro of Thorns. You are my jark dweg best friend. And what is more and even better than that, the shapeshifter told me to tell you that soon enough you would know who you are. The story will have an ending.”
“Shapeshifter.”
“That’s the exciting part! Can you remember ever…or something happening?”
“I can’t… No… Never.”
“What if you tried a jark dweg trick? Maybe if you think or command your arms to transform into wings, they might….”
“I’ll try… No use.”
“Well, that’s just not the way is all. You’ll find out how to do it. She said that such would be so. And your father! Your father IS an Acrotwist Clown! So said Med! Maybe when you learn to shift, you can fly us to Fan Wa’s Island and meet him!”
“Bek, when will I know who I am?”
“Soon enough. That’s what she said. Soon enough. Let’s just sit out here the whole night and stay awake. Let’s just be Bek and Kar. Let’s watch the moons and talk. She said that I am the new Chronicler. She said that I passed the test. I never would have done it if you weren’t with me to keep me going.”
“You are the new Chronicler. This is your first story. Truth, it is a Gwer drollek, isn’t it?”
“Because you made me push to the ending. Because you made me, Kar. When I go collecting stories as I should, you’ll always go with me, won’t you, Kar? I’ll need you to make me brave enough to find endings. Maybe all of my stories will be Gwer drollek.”
“That would be good.”
“Maybe the Harick, the Babba Ja, will allow me, us, to pass through the Danken Wood barrier and meet her! Look how I’m talking about such! And we’ll need no walking hedge to travel, will we? The open sky and the winds are not that fearful, are they? Remember when they were, at the start? You had the good idea to build that walking hedge, Kar. That was a good idea. But now we don’t need one, do we?”
“No. A truth.”
“Kar, you are quiet with thought. So is such. So it well should be. Shapeshifter! Acrotwist Clown! Those are wonderful things to be! Such! Such! Such!”
“I liked that you thought that Zinna was my mother.”
“Oh. Yes. Such is a pleasant game for bendo dreen younglings to play.”
“I am not bendo dreen.”
“You are whoever you are and have always been, Karro of Thorns, cracked melon, heart friend of Bekka.”
“Such is so.”
“And tomorrow morning, we will cross the broken rocks and scraggy tufts to find the ending to our most Gwer drollek story. Hedge to hedge, beginning and end.”
“Let’s not tell ’em about me yet. Let�
��s tell ’em all but that.”
“We will make it a story all about me being tested for Chronicler. Such is Gwer drollek enough. The other will be our secret as long as you say. Let’s look at the stars for a time, Kar, and pretend we are Spar Marcasite and Ivah Skay of the Green Va Gwer drollek studying the constellations.”
“I wonder if I will be able to become a mound of rocks.”
“You’ll be the first shapeshifter raised as a bendo dreen to do so.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Celebration
I talked the whole night through and never felt tired. I was the new Chronicler. I was the new CHRONICLER! Kar seemed fragile, not at all jark dweg. I strained my wits, every one of ’em, trying to get her to smile. Instead of smiles, she gave me sighs. I ached to make her become my old cracked melon Kar. Such and so, when dawn broke, I got to my feet and pulled Kar to hers.
“Soon enough. Soon,” I said.
“I’ll have to pretend I’m me,” said Kar. “I’ll walk sideways.”
A surge of hope flooded through me. She dug stockings from her pack and draped ’em over her ears. She nodded at me to go, and we went. Down the crumbling ridge and between patches of gray stubble grass we moved. Across the desolate field toward the hedge Kar shuffled sideways, green stockings dangling from her ears. I plodded slowly, keeping pace. As we approached the hedge, cries and shouts sounded from within it, and best of all, the music of chonkas chankling swept through us, raising tingles along my spine.
CHONKA CHANKLE CHONK
“Silent Bekka! Jark dweg Karro!”
CHONKA CHONK CHANKLE
“The youngling adventurers have returned!”
We squeezed through into the hedge and before I could open my mouth, an excited flow of bendo dreen carried us to the Assembly Bower.
“What fortune it is that they return on a Purple Day!”
“Better a Green! You think Silent Bekka will speak?”
“Bring cracked thorn pudding!”
“Prepare the root shavings and dust ’em on the capp melon slivers!”
CHONKA CHANK
“SILENCE! Welcome, bendo dreen all, to this glory I decree a Purple Day! A thrill for us each and all it is to see the return of the youngling adventurers. I toss aside the story, Gwer drollek though it was, that I had selected to tell this Purple Day. I give way to Silent Bekka, Purpler such as she is. Purplers, raise your chonkas!”
Old Weffa, such was so, the eldest of all Purplers, delivered those words. Chonkas chankled before being hung on the belt clips of their purple owners, signaling silence. All bendo dreen sat. All eyes were on me.
“Will you speak, Silent Bekka? Can you?” Old Weffa asked softly.
“Of course she can! Of course she will!” shouted Kar.
She hopped and spun and sat down in front of me. She gazed at me with a jark dweg grin and pleading eyes. Old Weffa nodded. The five-sided mirror lowered.
“Gwer drollek,” I began in a whisper, head down. I paused, took a deep breath, raised my head and looked out at the gathered bendo dreen. After one quick glance at Kar, I continued, loud and strong, “Gwer drollek… Bek and Kar left the hedge to find adventure!”
I spun the tale out over ’em. They sat entranced, all of ’em. I told ’em the story of how I had been chosen to be tested as new Chronicler of the Boad, all Fidd and Leee Combined. I built visions of Med of the East and the spinning pearl platter cavern and abandoned Rumin and the sorceress jrabe and the golden tower and the racketous garl. I left out the part about Kar being a shapeshifter. I swooped to an ending by bringing out Roamer Harpo’s purple books and holding ’em high to be beheld. An eruption of delight filled the bower. The five-sided mirror lifted back into the ceiling. The bowls of cracked thorn pudding and the plated slivers of capp melon dusted with root shavings were distributed by bustling proud Purplers. Well-wishers swarmed me, spouting congratulations. Compliments showered me from all sides, and I blushed hot green in triumph. I looked for Kar. I’d lost her in the crowd. Around the bower my eyes searched until they fell upon a beaming Zinna. She raised her hand and beckoned to me. Kar was at her side, looking thrilled. The two of ’em slipped from the bower. I pressed my way through the chattering throng to follow ’em. It’s soon enough! It’s soon enough! The end is here! I thought.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Gwer Drollek
I raced along the corridor to Zinna’s shop. I skidded through the doorway. Kar and Zinna sat at the worktable. The table was strewn with chanks, ribbons, ties, and several partly-repaired chonkas. Kar and Zinna, the pair of ’em, wore the same happy smile on their so such samely round faces.
“What?” I gasped.
“Seal the doorway, Silent Bekka,” commanded Zinna.
Oh, what? Oh, what? We never seal the door! streamed through my mind. I lifted the woven seal, a lengthy sort of drape, from its pegs and placed it on its door hooks. Zinna’s voice, though calm, had trembled slightly.
“Would you please put the little red thorn box on the table?” continued Zinna, voice yet calm, yet trembling.
I nearly wrenched my arm from my shoulder tearing my pack from my back. Such was so. I had the red box out and on the table in a nince. What happened next makes this, my first Chronicle, supremely Gwer drollek, an Orrun Mountain pinnacle of Gwer drollek! Such!
Zinna’s tremble spread from her voice to the rest of her. Her deeply blue shirt and her gray jacket fluttered. Her coppery hair danced as if in whipping wind. She drifted upward, forming into a pillar of whirling green smoke. The whirling ceased. The smoke cleared. The sorceress jrabe hung upside down, her dark green mantle pooling at her feet on the ceiling.
“I can hear that ye be shocked,” said the jrabe, her thin-lipped pale purple mouth curved in a secret smile. “There be more shocks. Observe.”
She shut her milky white unseeing eyes and began to spin in a rush of red smoke. A spray of ropy writhing serpent flames leaped above the worktable. They wove together and splashed to mist, twinkling away, glitter red. And there stood Med of the East, magnificent emerald green wings spread wide.
“Hold. I reflect,” she said, and, stunned almost senseless, I bathed in her kindly ash blue eyes.
She stroked her wispy green beard and closed her eyes. Kar was in rapture. I knew why. She was looking at her mother. Her mother WAS Zinna! Oh, Gwer drollek! Med of the East ended her reflection, lowered her gaze.
“And yet, and yet, I will not do the garl. The room is far too small,” she said.
Her wings folded around her and became Zinna’s gray jacket. Her gold twine sandals became Zinna’s highboots. Her fine black leggers striped with gold became Zinna’s bendo dreen gray pantaloons. Her softly green hair streaked with gray turned to bendo dreen coppery. Emerald green skin became yellow green, as did ash blue eyes. Zinna—shapeshifter!—stood by the table.
“And did you find the thorn cup useful?” she asked, winking. “No need? Didn’t like the taste?”
Neither Kar nor I could respond to Zinna’s teasing, familiar though it was to us. I had grown, so it seemed, great roots from my highboots straight through the floor. Kar grinned, a seated statue, a jark dweg cracked melon with glistening eyes.
“Unable to speak? Well, here is the first lesson. Listen closely, Silent Bekka, Chronicler of the Boad, all Fidd and Leee Combined. Hear and witness how a shapeshifting jrabe mother passes the gift to her Acrotwist Clown jrabe daughter.”
Zinna picked up the red box I had carried throughout our adventure. She opened it and removed from it the red cup with the hinged lid. She lifted the lid. Thorns, dusty and drab, floated out and up. They formed into a cloud above Kar’s head.
“Change,” said Zinna.
The thorns twinkled into a shimmer of purple crystal droplets.
“Change,” said Zinna.
The crystal droplets fell onto Kar’s face, making it shine.
“Change,” said Zinna.
Kar slumped backward off the stool. She didn’t
fall. She rose, feet first, to the ceiling. A dark green mantle appeared around her and pooled on the ceiling at her feet. Kar’s ears were large and pale purple, her eyes milky white and seemingly sightless. Her nose was long and narrow, her mouth small. Her orange hair fell up, framing her face. A look of pure joy shone from her face.
Else? Other? Such? Behind the closed door for the rest of the day, Kar, with Zinna’s patient guidance, practiced being things. We had a shared secret, we three. We still have it. Such is so. No one other on this world can read these words I write. Such I believe. And even on the sealed off world of this language— who knows?—these symbols may have lost all meaning.
Chapter Thirty-Six
What We Have Done, What We Will Do
We have rebuilt the Roamer hut where I sit writing these words. It is my home now, three roomy rooms. I am called Silent Bekka, new Chronicler of the Boad, All Fidd and Leee Combined. Every morning when I awaken, I rattle my chonka in rhythmic chankle, summoning Kar from the hedge. She lives there still, in the guise of jark dweg bendo dreen. We stand at the Well of Shells each day to see if the seal to the strange world has broken. It hasn’t yet, but some day I’m certain it will. We eat leafy pudding or crumbled thorns and plan our next adventure. We are determined to travel to the Danken Wood Barrier. Zinna has promised us that if we find success in breaking through to visit the Harick, the Babba Ja, the lavender witch, then Zinna herself, as sorceress jrabe, will tell us the Gwer drollek tale of Carven Flute and Acrotwist Clown, freeing me to write it as a Chronicle and revealing to Kar the story of her father. Such will be so.
Otherly, Kar practices shifting in the privacy of the hut while I labor at scratching out this Gwer drollek story in purple ink on oat parchment pages. Sometimes at night, Kar creeps out and flies while the hedge is quiet with sleep. To all of the other bendo dreen we are still regarded as odd, but now with some fair amount of respect. And of course, they don’t know, none of ’em! They don’t know Zinna’s truth, so well has she blended from the beginning when she placed herself in the deep of night as an infant bendo dreen into the Nursery Bower. Whenever she disappears for a time, tunnelers of the forge think she’s in her shop above, and hedgers above think she’s in the forge tunnels below. Such is so.
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