Woodlock (8 page)

Delia Speaks

“Delia Branch,” I said calmly, “I have been waiting for you.”

Her chalky gray face bathed in the yellow shaft of light shooting up from the orb she held in her hand. Her dark eyes were fixed on the black chunk of rock I clutched in MY hand.

“I have discovered your runes here. The spell didn't work, did it?” I guessed softly with sympathy. “I can help you. Truth, such is the very reason I am here.”

Her gaze flicked up from the rock to my face. I sensed she was poised, ready to flee, but so such somehow was held by my words.

“Runner Rill is in your future,” I said gently, nodding. “I can help. Won't you tell me what happened at the pool with the cave?”

Her eyes widened.

“Yes, I have interviewed both of ‘em, the waterwizard brothers, about it. Runner Rill saw you, and you sparkled away. Why?” I inquired softly.

“I…couldn't speak. He… He am… Runner Rill? Runner Rill… Runner Rill… He was…too…beautiful. I…are…too timid,” she managed to whisper.

“You are a woodlock, the shyest of creatures. It is so such understandable. A truth. Listen. I am sent here specially to help you. I am a traveler through time from far in the future. Do you believe me?” I said in the kindest sort of effort not to alarm her.

I waited, holding my breath until she nodded slowly once.

“Well then, fine,” I said, ever smiling. “For me to act, and I must act quickly, I need more knowledge of woodlock lore. So such, tell me about this place and how you came here and everything all about chalky woodlocks.”

Delia Branch stepped to the carpet and sat down, straight of back, crossed and folded of legs. Her hands she held cupped in the lap of her tunic. Her orb, shooting shafts of yellow light, perched on the cup of her hands. She seemed so such to be at ease.

“Tell me about your wonderful orb,” I encouraged.

“It am given to woodlocks at the Abandonment. My Abandonment took place here,” she said in her tiny voice.

“Ah, the Abandonment. Such, so said, what IS the Abandonment?” I probed.

“A chalky woodlock are set out alone in a forest after one hundred days of life. I was left here with this carpet, the table, the lantern, the cord, and my orb,” she said.

“Who left you here?”

“I don't remember. I was here. I knew what to do. I wove my tunics from ferns. I braided my belt. My orb…”

“Your orb? Yes. What about your orb?” I pushed a nince too eagerly, so such drawn to the orb was I. How could I get it into my grasp?

“It am my guide. When I think on it, I learn the magic of my spells,” she explained. “But it… No, I are happy here alone. I are happy! I swim. I conjure. I play. I sparkle. I are happy here… I was happy…until…”

“Until you saw Runner Rill! I know. I'll share a secret with you, Delia Branch. Runner Rill, when he saw you, was fairly astonished by YOUR beauty!” I gushed.

The woodlock covered her face with a chalky gray hand, fingers spread wide, webs between ‘em stretched taut. Had my last remark been a mistake? All aquiver, the woodlock seemed ready to flee.

“Delia, tell me about the black rock. This chunk…and that great tower up the slope,” I said desperately, holding up the obsidian chunk with one hand and pointing to where I thought the outcropping stood with the other.

She lowered her hand from her face. Her eyes were wet, glittery gleaming. A single teardrop rolled down her cheek. She raised the orb and kissed it. The rock flew from my hand and out into the night beyond the cave's entrance.

I Pledge a Vow of Resolve

“Oh, I see,” I said, not seeing.

Delia Branch wiped the teardrop from her cheek and gave to me a genuine smile. I gave her one in return, and such was the only action I took. I dared not risk more words. Why? She appeared to be so such much more relaxed than she'd been before. She looked almost content.

“You am from the future, you say. You have found me twice. You knew that my spell failed. I… I want to be able to talk to him. Why am his hair so…burning? Why do his eyes spark…flames? He am called Runner Rill,” she spilled rapidly, then sighed.

I kept my tongue pressed to the roof of my mouth to block off any escape of words. She was talking. I was listening. Such was what I'd wanted.

“You will help?” she asked.

I allowed myself a nod.

“The Urplinth am what it are,” she said.

At that moment, I do assume that my face took on an expression so such exactly like that of a completely fuddled lackwit. Why? I WAS fuddled, and in addition, she laughed. What a delightful laugh she had! It sang like little bells.

“The black rock,” she explained. “You asked me about it. It am the Urplinth. I used my orb to send the chunk back to the top from where I gathered it. You were right. I did try a spell to lure him…Runner Rill. You were right. It did fail. You found my orb. You gave it back to me. You am from the future. You can help?”

I risked another nod, but no words. I had a task to perform. What was it? Whatever it was, its effect had to be to bring Runner Rill and Delia Branch together. Such I believed. I had to believe such. What else could I believe from the sparse and vague guidance of Shendra Nenas?

“How can you help?” asked Delia Branch in a voice full of hope, fairly forcing my tongue to drop its blockade.

“Tell me all you know about the Urplinth. And afterwards, I'll reveal my plan,” I bluffed.

“The Urplinth am a good place to sit on top of,” she said. “I sparkle green to go there and look around. The view of the Woods in all directions am best there. On top of the Urplinth, my orb shoots rainbow light, not yellow shafts like these, and tells me things. I knew on the day of the Abandonment that I should go there to the top. I knew that much. I went up and sat and of a sudden knew enough more. My orb was casting rainbow lights of knowledge at me. I was up there today, and my orb would not help. I was up there days ago, and I saw the other one, the plain one, splashing at that cave pool. I went to see if his…Runner Rill would appear. He…I was too shy. How can you help?”

I was beginning to decide that in order to fulfill my task, I would have to be standing on top of the black obsidian outcropping, the Urplinth. Obviously a sort of a magical energy lived there. The woodlock said the orb changed when on top of the Urplinth. The orb! The key to my task!

“To help you to speak to Runner Rill, I must get to the top of the Urplinth and hold your orb in my hand at midnight tomorrow,” I said forcefully, making it all up out of nothing on the spot. “I pledge to you a vow of resolve. As I am Bekka of Thorns, Chronicler of the Boad, All Fidd and Leee Combined, I will bring you, Delia Branch, chalky woodlock, and Runner Rill, youngling waterwizard with fiery eyes and hair, together to ensure for future generations the salvation of the Woods Beyond the Wood.”

To The Urplinth

Trapped in a situation. Trapped. No doubt. Tied to my own uninformed guesses, I'd committed myself to a path of action, proper or not. Shendra Nenas, so said, hinted with some emphasis I should go around what I know now to be the Urplinth, not over it. Such and so, I was tied to a midnight on the Urplinth holding the woodlock's orb in my hand. Delia Branch beamed at me. I was her hope.

I have won her trust,
I thought.
That's a worthy gain. How many days, how much time, is left? The morning will bring the… fifth…yes, the fifth day. Midnight tomorrow… I wonder why I chose midnight… Whyever, whatever, it will bring the sixth day. That leaves one day left over in case it turns out I don't know so such what I'm doing.

“Delia, I need to sleep until morning. We bendo dreen need rest to replenish our energies of mind and body. I have a desire to be thorn sharp tomorrow. I must be. Such. Oh, I assume, of course, that you will be able transport me some sorcerous how to the top of the Urplinth,” I announced, dreading a possible negative reply.

“Sorcery am not needed. You am able to climb stairs, amn't you?” she said brightly.

“Stairs? Of course, stairs! We have ‘em by the dozens in the hedge,” I said, much relieved while at the same time wondering where, in fact, those so such stairs hid. “Well, good night then.”

“Bekka of Thorns, I will leave to you the carpet,” said the woodlock. “I will consult with my orb outside while you sleep. Blue lantern light, yellow orb light, I are content to be the green sparkle mist between. I believe in you, Bekka of Thorns.”

So saying, she left the cave, and I curled down, not to sleep, but to think. Tucked in shadow on the comfort of the carpet, I watched layers of dim blue, bright yellow, and shimmering green lights flicker and dance outside.

She believes in me. That makes one of us. What if Runner Rill has already flown far and away and gone? He said he would… But no, I had a week, Kar. A week. Shendra Nenas said a week. Tomorrow's five, then six, then seven. Stairs. She said stairs. What stairs? I fairly broke my eyes searching around that Urplinth for hidden passages. Well, she says there are stairs. So good. I'll get up to the top. It's magical up there, isn't it, Shendra Nenas? The orb spouts rainbows there, not merely yellow shafts of light. The orb has powers that were never told in the Gwer drollek story of Rindle Mer. That's a truth. In that story, it was a simple lantern and a comfort to Rindle Mer. But it's more other than that, isn't it, Shendra Nenas? What should I do when I hold it at midnight? Kar, what would you do? Make up a chant? Something jark dweg silly, I bet. Something will happen. I'm on the proper path. Something must happen.

The dance of lights from outside the cave buzzed my mind numb and put me to sleep. I was poked in the ribs by Kar, and awoke to see not Kar, but the woodlock. Her chalky gray hand with its webbed fingers rested on my ribcage.

“It am morning, Bekka of Thorns. Are it time to go to the Urplinth?” she said eagerly in her tiny voice.

“It are…is,” I croaked.

“I will lead you,” she trilled, shimmering to sparkle green mist.

Out from the cave, across the clearing, and into the green and the gray and the pink of the Woods we went. The woodlock flitted, spun and darted up trees, around ‘em, back to me, away from me, through hedges, up to the sky, down. If a shimmering cloud of green mist can demonstrate joy, then so such was joy demonstrated. She truly believed I would bring Runner Rill to her. She believed it more than I did. But so saying, her belief boosted my confidence more than slightly. I felt jaunty. And when she shimmered to her shy woodlock self at the base of the Urplinth and brought out the orb from her tunic pocket and kissed it, causing the ground to rumble and a steep stairway up the face of the Urplinth to appear, my confidence in myself filled up to thorns over the brim.

Up The Stairs

The stairway ran steeply away to the right, curving out of sight, and halfway up the Urplinth it reappeared on the left, hugging the face of the outcropping and climbing to gain the summit.

“Steep stairway,” I said. “A worrisome sort of narrow. No rail.”

“I climbed these block steps on the day of Abandonment before the orb gave me the knowledge of shift,” said Delia Branch. “I haven't needed to since. Come along. Run up!”

So much had her mood been made merry by her belief in me that she scampered ahead up the narrow stairway of black blocks, paused, hopped up a few more, turned and sat to wait for me with a happy fat grin on her chalky gray face. Once in my time past, forced by circumstance, I climbed stairs without rails up the wall of a great cavern. Kar was with me, and she was my Kar, my bendo dreen Kar only, before we discovered what all other she was. So said, heights can strike my legs hollow and make me dizzy. Truth to tell, such had happened to me on the wall of that cavern. My vow of resolve echoed in my head. I took a deep breath and placed my left highboot on the first jutting block of stone.

“You go on ahead, Delia. I'll join you on top. You're in a hurry, I can tell. I want to take a lazy time and enjoy the view,” I lied, not wanting her to witness what I knew would be for me a humiliating climb of terror.

“All right. I forgot how fun it am to run and hop up the stairs,” she piped, and I listened to the fading patter of her rising rush up the stairway.

I assumed my climbing posture, which was a hands and knees crawl with my eyes pinched shut and my left shoulder pressing with a purpose into the sheer face of the Urplinth. I pictured Kar laughing at me, and truth, I laughed at myself, though masked and deeply hidden beneath tossing waves of fear. Up I went cautiously, hand, hand, knee, knee. Time rolled slowly off its spool. I breathed. I did not get dizzy. My legs weren't hollow. My shoulder rubbed precious contact up the obsidian. I knew if I opened my eyes, I would do one of two things. I would wither to freeze in a lump, or I would be captured by an irresistible and most unfortunate urge to leap into space. So such was why my eyes could not have been pried open by the thorniest talons of the angriest Dragon.

“Am you all right, Bekka of Thorns?” came the concerned voice of the woodlock floating down from high above.

“Oh, yes! Fine! Fine! What a magnificent view! Be patient, Delia. Sabeek orrun! We have until midnight, remember,” I called out through clenched teeth, my forehead pressed to the Urplinth.

I fooled her so such, because she didn't bother me again, and a very long span of time rolled on before I finally tumbled on my left side pressing air with my shoulder. I was on top of the Urplinth. I risked a squint. I saw enough to make me scuttle to the middle of what so seemed like a high black meadow of rock. I sat up and sighed with relief. I was atop the Urplinth! My very next thought hollowed my legs. The stairs. I would have to descend ‘em whenever this whatever was completed! And worse! Where was Delia?

“Delia Branch!” I shouted.

A green sparkle mist cloud shimmered up over the rim of the Urplinth. The woodlock shifted to shape.

“At long last! You took half the day to get here,” she jabbered lightly. “It am my favorite place to stand on one foot leaning out. I almost forgot. Come and lean out with me. Let's look down. It am so nice and steeply far to the ground.”

“Maybe later,” I said, almost fainting. “First I should tell you about Runner Rill.”

She fell silent and was at my side in a nince.