Read The Questory of Root Karbunkulus - Quill Online

Authors: Kamilla Reid

Tags: #fantasy, #young adult, #fantasy adventure, #quill, #the questory, #kamilla reid

The Questory of Root Karbunkulus - Quill (41 page)

For years he’d wanted to leave permanently,
leave the city and his pa’s backhand behind. But that was like
asking the stars to fall just for you. His pa was having nothing of
it.
No son a his was gonna pussyfoot ‘round in the bush, not
when there was work to be done. No way, no how.

“Soon” the Bayou would sing to him at night.
“Patience…soon.”

Soon
just made ZigZag blaze with
anger, sweat with hate. Night after night he tolerated the old
man’s cold cruelty and night after night he’d take it out on the
living things around him, anything…cat, squirrel, anything. Finally
soon
came. When his pa witnessed the stark gravity of his
son’s hate, when he found him, his knife contentedly skinning
something that was still alive, then he knew something weren’t
right with that boy.

He let ‘im go that very night. Sent ‘im with
a sack of coins and a threat to never come back.

There were no back hands that night.

And so ZigZag the young man slipped away,
followed the song of damp, dark waters…poled his pirogue along the
lazy flow with its thick trees and hanging moss, turned himself
toward the Bayou Vagura and went deep into its depths where it
stilled and stunk of rot, where forgotten beasts lived and watched
him with yellow eyes.

It was here he found the Water Beast, the
dark Queen, at the deepest part of the trees, where the water from
four different rivers and seas met. There she was, sittin’,
hummin’, watching him like she’d been waiting his arrival, and
indeed she had been. She knew he was coming. She knew his dark
desire. She knew he’d want her to play her part. And she was
ready.

It was a battle the trees still whisper to
the wind, the night the water Queen was conquered, the hour of her
great fall, when her blood turned the bayou red and the years and
years and years of servility that followed. The years and years and
years of cruelty under the scarred man’s cold hands.

The years and years and years of her own
surging revenge.

“Soon,” her native water would sing.
“Patience. Soon.”

 

ZigZag had never used the sack of coins his
Pa had sent with him. There was no need. The Bayou took care of its
new sinewy god, offered him meat and drink. Taught him its secrets.
He learned the language of the snakes, their tricks. He learned how
to read water and make the wind carry his feet.

But there was one thing, one thing of the
Bayou Vagura that ZigZag, despite his best efforts could never
conquer - the whereabouts of the Throat, the hollowed tunnel that
had led his then uncalloused barefeet to its gifts. He had
forgotten where he’d found it those many many years ago, had left
no signs, no path. And though he sought it night after night, week
after week, year after year, it remained lost in the Bayou’s
enormity, a size that would take a man’s whole life to explore.

But ZigZag was no ordinary man. He knew the
power of desire, and what he desired now, more than anything were
the treasures his eyes had eaten those many years ago. All of them.
One was not good enough when it had brothers and sisters, still
golden and mighty and unclaimed.

Of that night, when his cheekbone cracked and
a thick scar changed his name, he remembers only one thing: the
bizarre shape of the sinkhole. The recognition had been brief, a
mere second of registry while he dangled from that tree, but it
would stay with him forever. Six points, as if a star had leaned
in, kissed the earth and left its watery imprint.

It would be another full year of seasons
before ZigZag would stumble upon his childhood memory. There it
was, as if time had not lingered near it at all. The clinging tree,
still hanging by a splay of twisted roots, clutching the sinkhole’s
rim. He spied it and blinked. Could it be? Yes. He’d found his
prize, at last. The mighty Throat. The Gathering Hollows. Only now
his treasure was buried deep beneath a murky green swamp-filled
star kiss.

He began digging that very moment.

And he returned to dig every night
thereafter.

Months later, when the surface seemed barely
scratched, he, for the first time in his life longed for help. It
never came, of course for he was a lone thing. A creature who
despised. And as his failure grew he despised even more, directing
his heat toward the Bayou itself. And most notably the tiny
creatures that shared its waters and leaves.

Skeens.

He’d watch them, skimming, dancing, playing
over the water on sunny days when it sparkled. He’d watch these
fragile creatures with their flitting wings and cherub faces and
their Light. It was their Light that he despised. The Joy that came
from them. He hated that light. He wanted to put it out.

But the Bayou Vagura would not let him. It
let him take a whip to the Water Queen anytime he felt like it. It
let him skin a boatload of snakes. It let him chew on the bones of
its dead things, even sicken the skin of its trees. But the Skeens
he couldn’t even touch. Not a one.

He knew it was because his heart was too
black. A heart so black that the Skeens, in their Light couldn’t
even imagine it. Oh but he imagined them. Saw them hanging from his
porch, dead and dim.

But not til they helped him first. He knew
their power. They would help him, oh they would, he’d make sure of
that. They would help him and then…the porch.

 

ZigZag pulled an old sack from a high ledge.
He gauged the weight in his hand. He had never touched it, not even
once after his pa had shoved it at his chest and told him to go and
never come back.

Now however, it felt useful in his grasp. For
he had heard of some race…a buncha kids lookin’ for lost artifacts.
Lookin’ for the Tome of Antiquilus…and undoubtedly the Gathering
Hollows.

His Gathering Hollows.

Hmmm…might be some’n in it for him. And if
not, well then the Water Beast would be well-fed for a couple
days.

Thus the crude, unfit man known only as Zig
Zag and the sack of money that came with him, stood in the darkest
corner of the ol’ tavern called The Shed. Before him, in a rickety
chair sat Studaben Picklepug, the Guardian of DréAmm, who wiped the
sweat from his brow, put the sack in his pouch and stamped the
sheet of paper in front of him:

 

ZigZag of the Bayou Vagura…blah blah
blah….official guide for the Third Magisterial Treasure Quests of
DreAmm…blah blah…the team Valadors.

 

HEY READERS!

 

 

For more fun, including free downloadable activities,
a fan forum, contests and more go to

The Questory
website

Why not join

Kamilla Reid on
Facebook

where you’ll get caught up on all the latest
buzz!

 

AND TO OUR BELOVED TEACHERS AND LIBRARIANS!

 

Did you know that, no matter where you live in the
world, Ms. Reid can visit your school classroom or library? It’s
true! With only a computer and free software like
Skype
, you
and your students could be chatting with Kamilla Reid live!

Plus with the free downloadable Root Karbunkulus
Teacher’s Guide, you can turn your lessons into exciting,
fun-filled Questory adventures!

 

Just send a request via
kamillareid.com
!

 

THANK YOU AND HAPPIEST READING!

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