Rakara

by Steve Shilstone

  Kar twisted up to rest on her elbows and squint at the circle of sun in the milk white sky before she said, “That’s right, Bek. Such is so. This is the Realm that is frozen in time.”

  “Secrets again. You know everything about the Realms, don’t you, Kar? The only secrets are secrets from me,” I said glumly, though deep inside I was glad and felt safe with my jark dweg jrabe jroon best friend Kar.

  “I know some things,” she admitted, “but not, such is so, about her.”

  I almost snapped my neck to follow Kar’s gaze and her pointing finger. A figure marched at us from the far side of the tricklestream. She wore a vivid blue dress and an oat sun yellow apron. On her head was a hat, yellow green such as like the bendo dreen tufts of the tall thin trees. Two long bedraggled vivid blue feathers stuck up from the hat. Her skin was as white as the sky. Her shoes were black and matched her eyes and lips. Her head was round like a ball.

  “Good afternoon,” she called. “Might I enquire as to who you are? And following that, might I not engage you to assist me in searching? Allow me first to introduce myself. I am Violet, and I seek my companions. I’ve lost my fishing spoon, as well.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Lionel

  The strange youngling Violet hopped the tricklestream and took up in front of us an impressive stance with her arms folded. She studied us, head to highboot. She cocked her own round head to one side, looking somewhat puzzled.

  “I am Karro of Thorns,” boomed Kar, lifting out her arms. “This is Bekka of Thorns. We are bendo dreen seeking the Ramp to the Fourth Realm.”

  Kar seemed to me to be acting in such and so a manner as if she knew exactly what she was doing. Probably more secrets, I decided. I thought I would live up to my hedge name, Silent Bekka. So I did.

  “I live in a teapot,” mentioned Violet, and her black eyes continued to dance over us. “I must observe that your hair and your garments are improper. Everything I have ever seen up until this moment has been black or white or red or green or blue or yellow. I am astonished to gaze upon unknown colors. What color do you say is your hair? Surely not red.”

  “It’s coppery, a kind of orange,” said Kar, grinning.

  “Coppery? Orange? Strange sounds I have never heard before. I note that your boots are of a normal blackness, but what do you call those shirts, those belts, those jackets, those pantaloons? Is that a tambourine? Is that a flute?”

  Kar explained Jo Bree and my chonka. She explained my purple shirt and her green, and how we traded belts so I wore her green and she wore my purple. She told Violet our jackets and pantaloons were gray, a sort of mix between black and white. Such and so information seemed to please Violet.

  “A mix of proper black and proper white!” she exclaimed. “Are the purple and the orange and the what you call green mixes also?”

  “This green of my shirt is a mix of yellow and blue, more blue than yellow. Your green is such like as our skin, more yellow than blue in the mix. Orange is a mix of red and yellow. Purple is a mix of blue and red,” instructed Kar.

  “Purple is sometimes called violet,” I added, breaking my silence and receiving a glare from Kar that said either ‘Good one!’ or ‘Shut it off!’

  “My name means that color? Astounding!” said Violet, and a wide smile spread across her face. “You both must be highly intelligent to wear garments of unknown color. Won’t you use your giant brains to assist me? I have lost my companions.”

  “Where did you lose ‘em?” asked Kar.

  Violet pointed at the distant rolling vivid blue hills on the far side of the tricklestream. Kar bounced up to her feet and gave me a little kick. I bounced up, too.

  “Are you going to shift?” I whispered to Kar.

  “Mustn’t. Not here. Secrets,” she hissed before stating loudly, “We do have giant brains, Violet. Lead us to where you lost ‘em.”

  We splashed through the tricklestream and marched across the vivid blue grass until we came to the vivid blue hills. The hills were patched with the burned red flowers. Violet bent to pluck a pair of ‘em and nestled ‘em carefully to protrude from the pocket of her oat sun yellow apron. We crested the hill and looked down on a pleasant white lake and something else. The something else was a figure sitting sadly slumped, chin in hand, among the oat sun yellow reeds on the shore. The figure wore a burned red shirt and an oat sun yellow tunic. Short black brush bristle hair grew on its round white head.

  “Oh, you found Lionel! You are geniuses! Lionel! Lionel!” shouted the delighted Violet, and she ran down the hill toward the lake.

  “But we didn’t do anything,” I shrugged to Kar.

  “No matter, Bek. She thinks we did. Such can do nothing but help us to find the Ramp,” said Kar.

  “Odd about the colors,” I mentioned.

  “Such,” agreed Kar.

  “She didn’t even know her name meant purple.” I continued.

  “Mmmmm,” muttered Kar, no longer paying me the slightest of heeds.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Guy

  “Lionel! Lionel! Where did you come from? Where have you been?” shouted Violet, rushing up to the slumping figure.

  “I fell out of the lake. Where were you?” pouted Lionel, fixing Violet with an accusing glower.

  “Finding green-faced creatures with unknown colors of hair and clothing! Look! Look! Look!” enthused Violet, waving her arms in our direction.

  Lionel looked, but seeing us was not enough to wipe the scowl completely from his round white face. He had quite a big pointy nose. Such was so. Kar took the lead, as I expected, and launched into a great verbal spray of friendliness. She explained how we were geniuses and had reunited ‘em and so such now we desired to find a Ramp to the Fourth Realm. She explained about the colors again and the Jo Bree and the chonka. Violet and Lionel gaped at her. When Kar at long and at last subsided, Violet spoke.

  “You have found Lionel, it is true. But what of the others?” she said, her black eyes wide and her black lower lip trembling.

  “Of course, the others. And where did you last see ‘em, the others?” asked Kar, dancing a little jig to show she was still a genius, I suppose.

  Both of the younglings, Violet and Lionel, pointed out to the middle of the milk white lake. Kar motioned me to step up beside her. Why? She wanted to whisper into my ear.

  “Ask ‘em something,” she hissed.

  “Ask what?” I hissed back.

  “Anything. I need time to think,” she muttered before lighting her fattest smile and turning it to the pair of oddly roundheaded younglings.

  “What were they doing when you saw ‘em?” I blurted out loudly in an unnatural voice.

  “Sinking,” said Lionel.

  “Our teapot sank. It had to. The boat had a hole in it,” added Violet.

  “You lost our fishing spoon,” Lionel accused Violet.

  “We should have brought more than one … and the Quangle Wangle … and the cat,” mused Violet.

  “Who failed to invite the Quangle Wangle? It was not I,” argued Lionel, striking a haughty pose and looking to the sky.

  “Hold now! Enough!” said Kar. “See what I have done?”

  Kar elbowed me and jerked her head in the direction of yet another strange youngling. This one crawled from the lake through the oat sun yellow reeds a span and a half down the shoreline. Violet clapped her hands in glee.

  “Oh, thank you, geniuses! You have found Guy!” she cried.

  The youngling fresh from the lake, Guy, such was apparently so, stood up. On his head perched a vivid blue cap. A long burned red coat reached below his knees and dripped white lake water. Two thin legs clad in oat sun yellow pants peeked beneath the coat. His head was round. His eyes and mouth and shoes were black. His skin was as white as the lake, white as the sky, white as Violet, white as Lionel. Kar went again into her dance of explanation as the three younglings gathered and gaped. I tugged on her jacket. She concluded, as before, asking ‘em if they could
direct us to the Ramp. I tugged on her jacket. Before I could say what I wanted to say, which was such and so how Violet had said ‘others’, not ‘other’, the younglings said it for me.

  “But …,” said Lionel.

  “But …,” said Guy.

  “But what about Slingsby?” finished Violet. “We need Slingsby, in spite of himself. And our boat. And our teapot.”

  “Our teapot most of all,” pleaded Guy.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Slingsby

  “Oh, I’ll find Slingsby. Don’t worry about Slingsby. I meant AFTER I find Slingsby, THEN will you show us the Ramp to the Fourth Realm? That’s what I meant. AFTER! Such was so,” bluffed and puffed Kar at the worried younglings.

  It must have worked since all the three of ‘em smiled in seeming relief. Violet stepped forward to say something, but Kar raised a hand to stop her.

  “No. Keep settled. I don’t need to know now. I’ll fetch Slingsby first,” Kar boasted before muttering low to me, “Keep ‘em entertained.”

  Impressively, Kar leaped for the lake, and splish splash glub, she launched a dive to disappear beneath the milk white surface, leaving ripples and a few disturbed oat sun yellow reeds behind. I felt a weak smile on my lips and emptiness in my brain. My smile grew weaker and my brain emptier as the three younglings pinned on me expectant gazes.

  “Heh, heh, heh,” I commented.

  “Your hair is an alarming color. I mean no offense,” said Guy.

  “Her hair is not alarming for a genius. Her shirt is called purple, another name for violet,” said Violet smugly.

  “Purr pull? Purr pull? Shall we call you Purr Pull from now on, Violet?” sang Lionel impishly. “Purr pull, purr pull, rub the cat’s belly and pull a purr!”

  “Nonsense!” snapped Violet. “Let us stand with dignity and await the return of the genius who dove in the lake. Is that not what we ought to do, genius who did not dive?”

  “Heh, heh, heh,” I answered.

  “I devoutly hope that our teapot can be mended,” said Guy, clasping his hands at his waist.

  “The boat had a hole, not the teapot,” taunted Lionel.

  “Stuff and nonsense!” snapped Violet. “Stand with dignity. Place your arms thusly.”

  Violet stood straight and tall with her arms stiffly clamped, hands fisted, to her sides. Lionel and Guy followed her example in the flash of a nince. They looked so such like three carven fenceposts. I wondered if such was good or bad. What was Kar doing in the depths of the lake? Had she shifted? Why had she left me alone with the younglings? A wave of awareness crashed in my head, splashing my mind with a clarity. The younglings looked like three carven fenceposts for a reason. What reason? ME! I was standing stiffly rigid like a carven fencepost! They were mimicking ME!

  “I must say! Is anyone going to greet me?” called a voice from up and behind me.

  “Slingsby!” shouted the three as one, and they raced past the fencepost of me.

  “Who is that strange creature?” said the new voice.

  “It is one of the geniuses who found you,” I heard Violet say.

  “How do you do, genius. I am Slingsby.”

  At the light tap on my shoulder, I turned to gaze up, yes, up, at Slingsby. Slingsby towered above the others. A tall burned red cylinder of a hat on his round milky white head made him even taller. He had a long torso and short legs. His shirt was burned the same so such red as his hat. Bendo dreen yellow green pants and black shoes completed his wardrobe. His cheeks plumped out chubby with a capp melon roundness. Such was so.

  “This is rather extraordinary,” said Slingsby.

  “What did I tell you? A promise is a promise,” I heard with a surge of gladness the voice of Kar.

  I swung around to see her stepping from the lake through the reeds. The four younglings babbled about geniuses and purple and purr pull and Violet and the hole in the boat and the teapot and the fishing spoon. They shut off spang bo like that to gape at what rose up from the lake behind Kar to float lightly on the smooth white almost unrippled surface. They jumped and shouted, spilling all more babble about the boat and the teapot and the fishing spoon, which I could see quite clearly as, starkly milk white, it leaned at rest against the great burned red teapot in the vivid blue boat with the striped burned red and oat sun yellow sail. Beyond the boat appeared a giant scooped hollow -a hole in the lake! -from which poked the top of a vivid blue Ramp.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Fourth Ramp

  “All right, Kar, tell me. Where did you go? What did you do? How did you float the boat? How did you FIND it? What made the Ramp appear? Why did you snatch me away so quickly? I’m the Chronicler! I should be given enough time so such to interview all the odd creatures we meet. You did not allow me to talk to Dosh enough … Or to the watery snakes … Or to the Blue Berry … Or to the four younglings. I’m not taking one more step down this Ramp until you explain everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “Each … All … Every … Thing. Such. Is. So.”

  “Such then. Here listen. I went under the lake and shifted to jrabe. I needed to sense the boat quickly.”

  “Why?”

  “Dak gave me the clue. He said, ‘When four might sail, two may walk.’ I said, ‘What does that mean?’ He said, ‘You might know if you don’t forget.’ I wanted to scream in his face as loud as I could, ‘WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!’ But I didn’t. I hadn’t known him long enough.”

  “What DID it mean?!”

  “See there, Bek. You HAVE known me long enough. It meant that when Slingsby was found, there would be four of the odd younglings. It meant that when the boat was raised, they might sail away. It meant that we two may walk down the Ramp.”

  “But that clue says nothing about a Ramp. And Slingsby wasn’t found yet. And how did you float the boat?”

  “You’re right, and you’re right. Everything was a guess. A jrabe jroon guess, and a good one! The boat? Oh, easy. I patched the hole in it with local tar and puffed it with Cold Dragon breath to raise it. I didn’t expect that Slingsby would be there when I got back to the shore. That was for me a right surprise. Truth, the tube hollow in the lake and this Ramp appearing was a double surprise. And that’s the why that I grabbed you so quick. I shifted springs in my highboots to jump us here to this timely Ramp. I could not know how long the tube hollow would hold.”

  “No clues from Dak to tell you? No secrets?”

  “No, none to say so such.”

  “Well, Kar, I see now that you were right to jump us quickly. That’s not white sky up there anymore, is it? It’s white lake. And we’re in this tube on this vivid blue Ramp. Are we sinking? Are we moving? What is happening?”

  “We are about to discover the Fourth Realm. Let’s walk.”

  * * *

  “Have we been walking long?”

  “Bek, don’t tell me that you wonder when it will be yesterday.”

  “No, I’m not muddled. It’s just hard to tell with the sameness. I’m not tired. I’m not hungry. I’m not thirsty. Should I be? The tube walls are white. The Ramp is seemingly never ending. There’s nothing to hear but our voices and bootsteps. Does time mean anything here? How do we know we’re getting nowhere or anywhere or somewhere?”

  “The tube walls, Bek, the walls. Look at ‘em.”

  “They’re not… so….”

  “…milky.”

  “They’re clearing!”

  “Oh, look!”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Fourth Realm

  The vivid blue Ramp ended. One step beyond it a flat round mirrored disc floated in surrounding darkness. We, Kar and I, paused, poised in the mouth of the tube at the end of the Ramp. We peered at the great darkness beyond the shimmering disc.

  “Nothing to do but leap to the disc. Such is so, don’t you think, Bek?” offered Kar vaguely.

  “Me think? I’m not the jrabe jroon. You are. I’m the bendo dreen who gets dizzy on mirrors. Remember? Wh
ere are your secrets? You lead. I follow. Such is how it must be so! Am I not correct?” I replied hotly, surprising myself.

  Kar nodded firmly, suggested I close my eyes, suggested we count to three together and hop to the disc. I nodded ‘yes’ and shrugged ‘why not?’ I closed my eyes. We counted three. We hopped. As our highboots clattered onto the hard surface of the mirror, I heard a sudden whoosh! which just as quickly faded. I also heard Kar gasp. Such was so.

  “Open your eyes, Bek. Open ‘em!” demanded Kar, clutching my shoulder and giving me a good sturdy shake.

  I obeyed. Clusters of slowly revolving gigantic glowing globes hung suspended in the darkness overhead. The Ramp and the tube were gone. Each cluster of globes glowed in a different color.

  “It’s like …,” I began.

  “… the City of Jrabes,” finished Kar. “But the globes are …”

  “… different, and where are the jrabes?” I completed.

  Under the Wide Great Sea, Kar and I visited the City of Jrabes while on our search for Jo Bree, the Carven Flute. It was yes a city of clustered globes, but there the globes, all of ‘em, were green. Here, in what was probably the Fourth Realm, globes clustered by color. Orange or blue or red or yellow or purple or yes green, they hung glowing in groups like gathered rotating moons. Not a jrabe was to be seen. On our Carven Flute adventure in the City of Jrabes, flutters of ‘em, jrabes so said, flew constantly in all directions. Here hanging clusters glowed, and slowly the globes revolved in silence. Such was impressively so.

  “It’s not the City of Jrabes, but it’s like it. Did Dak give you a clue about this? A song or a rhyme? And another thing, before I forget, when Dak talked to you, was he Dak the jroon or Kadd the Acrotwist Clown?” I asked, so such scratching my Chronicler curiosity itch.

  “We sat on boulders near the shore for a morning and part of an afternoon. He was Dak mostly, but sometimes Kadd when he felt like showing me Clown tricks. He juggled some. It was … Such! This is no time to be babbling, Bek! Realm! Realm Beyond Realms! We’re almost there! One more Ramp! Ah, I know what to do! Sooooo … ye see!” said Kar as she of a sudden shifted to Rakara.