Woodlock (9 page)

On Top of the Urplinth

I captured so seemingly her full attention. What next? Should I reveal all? Or part? Or lie? Seeing the woodlock poised before me wearing a look of rapt expectation, I made a decision.

“I know you can keep a secret. After all, you are a woodlock,” I confided, pitching my voice one sliver above whisper. “You believe that I am from the future.”

Delia Branch, the chalky woodlock, nodded, her hands pressed together over the bulge of the orb in her gray fern tunic pocket.

“In your future unveiled will come a time when these Woods Beyond the Wood will wither dry into desolation. Not a tricklestream, river, pool or fountain will there be. Not a single drop of water!” I plunged on, not knowing if I should and blaming Shendra Nenas in advance if I was truly straying from the proper path. “But before the Woods ignite and crackle a storm of fire, they will be replenished by a stubborn youngling, a youngling possessed of a bark-lined endurance, a watery woodlock named Rindle Mer. The daughter of Delia Branch. The daughter of Runner Rill.”

Delia Branch sat heavily, collapsed so said. Mute she remained, and she stared at me with her big dark luminous eyes.

“If… If… Such will happen IF I succeed in my task,” I continued. “You believe I will succeed in my task, don't you?”

I asked because I needed her belief to bolster mine. She gave me a solemn nod, and more than that, she produced the orb from her pocket and reached it out to give to me. I took it. Its coppery metallic smoothness settled onto my palm. Its eight elongated ovals were closed, sealing off the yellow light.

“The ovals open only at night, I suppose,” I said.

The woodlock nodded.

“How like the color of my hair it is,” I said.

The woodlock nodded.

“At midnight I'll use it to summon Runner Rill,” I said.

The woodlock nodded.

I kept spilling thoughts, one by one as they occurred to me, and each thought brought a nod from the woodlock. I could have said Blossom Castle would sprout legs and hop away. She would have nodded. I began to grow nervous under the relentless gaze of the woodlock. I grew tired of talking. I made a suggestion.

“While we're waiting, would you mind floating off to collect some shragnuts for me to eat? The climb up this Urplinth has made me hungry,” I lied, hoping to gain some brooding time free from her gaze.

Delia Branch did what I expected. She nodded. She shifted to green sparkle mist and drifted over the edge of the Urplinth and downwardly disappeared.

Well, Kar, look at me now. I'm sitting on top of an Urplinth, something we never knew existed. Here it is. I'm on it. Such. I'm holding in my hand Rindle Mer's orb. It seems so such…simple…light as a beeket feather. Will Rindle Mer ever hold it? Will Rindle Mer… ever be? It's up to me. Oh, Kar, why didn't I get better instructions? The shifter left me to stumble along blindly, so said. I stumbled to the top of this Urplinth. I stumbled to having a chalky woodlock believe in me. She believes in me! Rindle Mer's mother believes in me! Kar! Kar! What if I fail? What if…?

The sparkle green mist cloud rose over the rim and shimmered to woodlock. She padded across the black obsidian surface and held out to me a handful of shragnuts. I could scarcely bear to look at her face. It was so such too shining with hope and belief.

“Thank you,” I said softly.

I ate the shragnuts carefully, slowly, solemnly in ritual fashion. It seemed so such the thing to do while under worshipful gaze.

“Now we should close our eyes and be still until night,” I announced.

The orb felt cool in my hand.

The Orb at Midnight

Are you watching, Shendra Nenas?
I asked in thought.
Please, I beg, interrupt if what I am doing is wrong.

The cool of the orb was a comfort in my hand. Though my eyes were closed, I sensed the nearness of the woodlock. I was alert to the tiniest of movements. I noted each intake and outflow of air, every breath we breathed. At times I alone breathed and therefore knew she had shifted to mist. Nervousness must have made her do so such, I decided. After counting five hundred slow deep breaths, I peeked at the sky. Day. Afternoon. Green mist in sparkle on the rim of the Urplinth. I closed my eyes. Five hundred breaths. Peek. Afternoon. The woodlock seated nearby, gazing away from me. Five hundred breaths. Peek. Afternoon deepening. The woodlock, her back to me, seated on the rim, legs dangling. I closed my eyes. Two thousand breaths I counted. Peek. Moons. I looked down at the orb in my hand. Its eight elongated ovals were open, but no shafts of yellow light beamed. Instead, I could see inside the orb seething layers of rainbow glow.

“Delia,” I called in a hush.

“I are here,” she replied, a silhouetted lump of darkness off to my left.

“I see the rainbows inside,” I informed her.

“Yes,” she commented.

“How do YOU release ‘em?” I asked in an offhand manner so such as to demonstrate that I had my own ideas, which of course I didn't.

“I place the orb on the Urplinth,” she said.

“A good choice. I will do the same at midnight. Until then, I must prepare quietly. Please inform me when midnight arrives,” I bluffed, hoping, more so such sensing, that woodlocks were able to read the night from dusk to dawn.

“Yes, Bekka of Thorns,” came the voice of worship from Delia, spilling relief all over me.

I counted until I lost count of my breaths and dropped away into a half dream stupor. I was jolted alert by Delia's tiny voice.

“Midnight,” she said into my ear.

There were stars. Both moons were high and less than half. The writhing rainbows seethed in the orb.
Well, this is it. Here goes,
I thought. I placed the orb on the obsidian surface of the Urplinth.

“So!” I cried.

The rainbows crackled like lightning from the orb in exploding arcs. They filled the sky, lit up the night with spangles and bursts of blossoms. Booms shook the Urplinth. Colors rained brilliantly in swooping waves. Swirls of colors raced like serpents above me. I fell onto my back, awestruck, deafened by crack booms. On and on went the mad frenzy of color splashing, popping, smashing against the black night sky.

“Oh,” the voice of Delia Branch.

I sat up. Runner Rill floated at the rim of the Urplinth, staring at us with his angry orange eyes. I lunged and caught the woodlock's hand.

“Runner Rill, glad you're here. This is Delia Branch, the chalky woodlock,” I squeaked out ecstatically.

“I see who ye be, and she. Where be Riffle Sike?” he snapped.

“Riffle Sike? He's not here. A misunderstanding. He has no claim on the woodlock. She has no claim on him. You were wrong. A misunderstanding. A misunderstanding. So such monumental that I can say in truth that Delia Branch standing here is smitten with you!” I spouted, and Delia almost crushed my hand with an unexpected forceful sudden strength of grip.

The Urplinth trembled more violently. Delia tore her hand from mine. The rolling of the massive rock knocked me off my feet and down to my hands and knees. The woodlock swept in front of me and snatched up the orb. The rainbows gushed to instant nothingness. Black was the night. Tilting, lifting, falling was the Urplinth. I held on with all of the thorn strength I had, and the last sight I saw before being knocked unconscious was a cloud of green sparkle mist rushing away.

Exasperation

I heard groaning from high in the distance. Unable to move or to see, I listened. I began to rise and my limbs took life. I swam in a sort of a sleepy drift up through blackness to meet the groaning. The groaning invaded my throat like honey sliding, and I realized I was awake and the groaning was mine. I batted my eyes in blinks. I discovered myself nested, hidden in a comfort of branches and thorns. I twisted and elbowed my way out to see revealed before me a wide flat circle of rubble, broken black rocks, obsidian, the shattered remains of the Urplinth.

“No more Urplinth,” I muttered, my mind thickly clouded.

“Tel fen. How true,” sounded the unmistakable voice of the shifter, Shendra Nenas.

“Shendra Nenas,” I said dully, turning my head to see her emerge as trofle from the thorny thicket a scant space of distance down from where I rested.

She clamped flat smooth with a clatter the ivory bone purple spikes covering her body and head. Both of her golden whip tails she snapped out straight. ‘Pop' went one. ‘Pop' went the other. So such.

“Did I fail?” I mumbled, certain that I had. “I have one more day. Help me. I need better instructions!”

“You have no more days. Lo ten. The week was all used up three days ago. You have been sleeping peacefully since the collapse of the Urplinth. I have been watching you. Deg wun,” said the shifter, and she regarded me with her expressionless green glow eyes.

Hope dissolved. I had failed. It was over. I had failed. Hadn't I?

“You could send me back four days and let me try again,” I said, rising to stand and embering hope. “You are a time traveling shifter! Send me back! Give me another chance!”

“Why?” said Shendra Nenas, cocking her trofle head to one side.

“When I go home, I want things to be as they were, not as they weren't!” I shouted, fists clenched.

“What has that to do with me? Kep lit?” asked Shendra Nenas.

I spluttered, speechless with rage. She was playing with me. She was so such amused!

“You never gave me enough information! How can I be expected to perform a task with a blinded brain?! I thought shifters were supposed to help! That's what they do in all of the Gwer drollek stories I know, and I know all of ‘em! You never gave me enough information. You never gave me…ENOUGH! INFORMATION!”

I stamped my highboots. I breathed like a bellows in the forge.

“Settle, Bekka of Thorns. Char ten. Hatch! I admire you. You DO plod ever forward. I see no surrender in you, and what is more, I have not heard it said that you failed,” said Shendra Nenas.

“What?” I said, flames of despair subsiding, wave of hope rising.

“How are you so sure that you failed?” asked the shifter with a smooth writhe of her tails.

“Delia… She sparkled… I saw her rush off as I fell… Too shy… She gripped my hand when I… Did I succeed?” I stumble spoke.

“It is one of the possibilities,” answered Shendra Nenas.

“Can't you just say it out loud? Did I fail, or did I not fail? So such! Like that!” I said, forced by frustration to tug on my hair.

“Why don't you play your chonka?” suggested Shendra Nenas, maddening me further.

“My chonka?”

My voice was a high angry squeak. I sat down and beat on the ground with my fists. Why? The shifter trofle had shimmered a final empty smile at me before disappearing in a puff of pale blue smoke.

Home to the Hedge

All right, settle,
I thought, composing myself.
Maybe you didn't fail. But if I didn't fail, why am I still here? Why didn't the maddening shifter send me back home? Why did…?

The final words Shendra Nenas spoke doused my musings. I looked to my chonka. It hung peacefully on my belt. I plucked it up, gave it a shake, and sang, so such brayed, a hedge home song about thorns and jellies and capp melon crescents. I allowed the final notes to fall away in a warble, and I braced myself for…something. So such perhaps a sight of Delia Branch and Runner Rill blissfully floating by, or maybe me plucked up to whirl through time, or something other magical. But no. Nothing. I stood staring at the silent field of black shattered Urplinth.

Of course nothing happened. Why should anything happen? Tell me, Kar, why should I believe anything she said? Her trofle wasn't even so very such impressive,
I thought, grumping.
Truth, the Urplinth is no more. And in our when, Kar, there is no Urplinth that we ever heard about. Well, such, there is no more an Urplinth right now here in this when, is there? If there is no Urplinth, have I succeeded? But listen, wait. Delia Branch fled. I saw her. And what's more, I'm still here. Oh…never enough information. Maybe… the chonk ... It matters WHERE I play it! Delia's clearing! Or cave! What about that, Kar?

“It's worth a try,” I announced to the field of obsidian rubble.

I moved around the open meadow of broken rocks and descended the slope to the gray and green Woods. I passed by once more scattered shocks of pink blooms. The way was familiar, and I moved swiftly. The deeper into the Woods I went, the more enchantment I sensed in the air. I hesitated as I drew near my destination.

Should I cry out? Warn ‘em I'm approaching?
I asked myself.
What ‘em would that be? Why do you think there's an ‘em? If you successfully completed your task, Bek, the woodlock and the waterwizard might be in the cave. Maybe it is meant for you to greet ‘em. Maybe your way home is to play a chonka chant for ‘em.

“Delia Branch! Runner Rill! I am here!” I shouted in triumph as I burst into the clearing.

Abandoned. So such. I drooped. Disappointment. The ground was mud red, yes. To the left of the cave there were five rough stone steps leading up into the Woods, yes. The pink marble top table was there, yes. But…the lantern? Gone. The gray washtub? Gone. The red finely woven roamer carpet on the floor of the cave? Gone. The gold cord draped across the cave's mouth from one gray tree limb to another? Gone.

“Shendra Nenas! Give me a clue!” I roared.

My chonka fell from my belt to the ground and rolled a short rattle until it settled, membrane side up.

Is that a clue, or am I clumsy?
I asked myself.

“All right,” I announced, turning a full circle with outstretched arms. “I will now shake and tap for your enjoyment the Evening Silence Chant.”

I picked the chonka from the mud red ground and shuddered my wrist to produce the proper opening rattle. At the sound of the first chankachonk I was thrown highboots over head and swept to a crushing oomph of a landing flat on my back. Gasping for air, dizzy dazed, I struggled to sit up. Before my eyes was…home. My hut! The Well of Shells! The Villcom Wood! The hedge!