Rakara Read online

  Bekka of Thorn Chronicles

  Book Three

  Rakara

  by

  Steve Shilstone

  Wild Child Publishing.com

  Culver City, California

  Rakara Copyright © 2011 by Steve Shilstone

  Cover illustration by Wild Child Publishing © 2011

  For information on the cover art, please contact [email protected].

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it or win it in a sanctioned contest, you have obtained this book illegally. Illegal copies hurt both the author and publisher. Please delete this book immediately and purchase it from either Wild Child Publishing or an authorized distributor.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Editor: Jackelynn Woolley

  ISBN: 978-1-936222-89-6

  If you are interested in purchasing more works of this nature, please stop by www.wildchildpublishing.com.

  Wild Child Publishing.com

  P.O. Box 4897

  Culver City, CA 90231-4897

  Printed in The United States of America

  Chapter One

  A Start

  I barely know where to begin. I don’t! I’m so jumbled with confusion and corked full brim with strange experiences. Such is truly so. And more! They say in the hedge that I’ve been gone for five bar years! How so? How? Calm down, Bekka of Thorns. Settle. Settle. I’ll write it twice more. Settle. Settle. Such. There. Better.

  I returned yesterday from a most amazing colossal adventure. I stare at those words written down in the strange language of the world down the Well. When, with sharpened quill I scratch onto oat parchment pages the words in purple ink, I feel composed. Truth. I sit here at my table in my hut. My head still spins, but now I have a focus. To write it down. To write it all down. I look out at the Well of Shells. Beyond it I see the bramble bower hedge of my younglinghood, when I was timid and frightened. How long ago that seems. How long ago that was. Truth. They say I have been gone a full five bar years. Such. And now? How peaceful is the morning. I am bendo dreen, bramble dwarf. I am the Chronicler, Bekka of Thorns, chosen by the witch, the Babba Ja Harick herself. The greatest of the stories that we bendo dreen tell when gathered in the hedge’s Assembly Bower are called Gwer drollek. The lesser stories are merely drollek. This secret language I employ for the Chronicles is from the world down the Well of Shells. Such is so. No creature of my world save me can read what I write. Truth. Where to begin? Five bar years in the ago? Five! Can it be such? Five. Such. I will begin there.

  It started on a bright cloudless day. Settled at my table, I labored to finish the final page of the Gwer drollek of how we, my friend Kar and I, reopened the portals to the world down the Well with the help of the Carven Flute. Truth, I missed my friend Kar, a sorceress shapeshifting jrabe, who had been gone for the months and months I had spent toiling at the Gwer drollek tale of our adventures with the Carven Flute. Jo Bree, the Carven Flute itself, rested on the shelf ledge nearest the doorway. I turned from my work at a sudden sound of fluttering and a most familiar pleasant cry.

  “Bek! Bek! I am the first and only jrabe jroon! First and only! Bek! Bek!”

  A pale green cloud with blue wings flapped through the doorway and shimmer shifted to Kar, bendo dreen Karro of Thorns, my best friend from ever since memory flickered into life. She threw her yellow green hands into her coppery hair and marched around in a tiny circle, slamming her highboots, stomp, stomp, stomp.

  “Bek! We are challenged, you and I! It’s a Gwer drollek, true and all!” she ranted. “Realms!”

  “Kar! Kar! Settle! Kar, you’re back! Kar!” I shouted as I leaped to her.

  Gripping wrists, we danced around the room, not hearing one word the other spouted. Such was so. Truly. In time I began to gasp and was forced to rest. Bendo dreen lack the energy of sorceress jrabes. Fact. I sat on the bench. Kar twirled once more and shimmered a shift to her true form, jrabe. In dark green mantle she hung in the air. Her enormous lavender ears stuck out from her tumbling mass of orange hair. Her sightless milky eyes stared unblinking.

  “Oh, are you able to be comfortable upside down now?” I asked.

  She hung upside down. Such was how her mother, Ragaba, hung when not in bendo dreen disguise as Zinna of Thorns. Kar had become Rakara. The way her dark green mantle fell up from her shoulders to pool on the ceiling brought to me the memory of the first time we saw Ragaba, when Kar was Karro only, before she knew she was a shapeshifting jrabe, before in the ago when she was merely my cracked melon bendo dreen best friend Kar. Jark dweg. Such is how we bendo dreen say cracked melon. Such I stared at Rakara, who grinned with an upside down madness, still jark dweg to me. Ever have I liked it that way. Such is so.

  Chapter Two

  Kar Explains Something

  “Bek! Guess what happened! Guess!”

  “I…”

  “Wrong! I’ll tell ye. On the day when we left ye then ago, Ragaba and I flew as matching red-spotted blue Dragons across the Wide Great Sea. When we drew near FanWa’s Island, Ragaba told me something. Guess what it was.”

  “I…”

  “Wrong! She said we should appear on the island as bendo dreen. That was the only how my Acrotwist Clown father knew her! He never knew she was a jrabe! Never knew!”

  “What did…”

  “I’ll tell ye. Don’t interrupt. Oh, how funny! I can’t wait. Oh, Bek, we swooped to land, shifted, and walked across the silver sands as bendo dreen, Zinna and Karro. Oh, the sands DO BE silver! Bek! Silver! We entered the Hall and saw the trampolines and the trapezes, but not a single Acrotwist Clown. Mystery. Was the Clock being tended? Were time and weather about to escape? Again?”

  “The Gwer drollek about Lovey and…”

  “I know. Don’t interrupt. You’ll jumble me. I thought the same about that. I asked Zinna. She shrugged. She didn’t know. We went up the stairs to the Clock Vault. The door was open, Bek. Zinna hung back and pushed me forward. She was shy. Why?”

  “I…”

  “Wrong again! My father. Bek, I saw him. I didn’t know who he was, but I did. Understand? His back was to us. He stood at the Clock Face polishing levers and humming happily. He wore a puffy green suit with big yellow spots and a yellow neck ruffle. His bright red shoes were so long that he had to lean forward to reach the Clock. His hair was a mop of

  red. Zinna whispered from behind me, ‘Kadd.’”

  “Kadd? From the…”

  “Yes! Yes! Ledgemoon! Kadd be my father! I be a jroon jrabe, Bek! I be a jroon jrabe!”

  “But how…”

  “Calm yourself. Settle. I will tell ye. Oh, funny. He turned and gasped, ‘Zinna.’ His gray storm eyes flashed with a joy. The tears painted on his white and orange swirl decorated face gleamed. I was the one. I was the first. I said, ‘Dak, the jroon?’ I said it just like that.”

  “Did he…”

  “Of course he did! And what do ye think next happened?”

  “He…”

  “Wrong! It was thorns over the brim funny! It was. There were stumbling gasps and blurts of laughter. One and the other both, ye see, had never known!”

  “No, I don’t see. What are…”

  “Bek, if ye want to hear, ye should really bind your tongue down tight. Here it be, simply, the story. When Ragaba, the jrabe, shifted to bendo dreen Zinna to visit Fan Wa’s Island in the ago, she met Kadd, the Acrotwist Clown, and t
hey fell after a courting time into a celebrated Ritual of Companionship. When they parted by circumstance, each held an unrevealed secret. Zinna was not Zinna, bendo dreen. She was Ragaba, sorceress shapeshifting jrabe. Kadd was not Kadd, the Acrotwist Clown. He was Dak, the jroon! I be jrabe jroon, Bek! The only one! The only one ever! The first!”

  “But what…”

  “Your tongue, Bek, your tongue. It should not be flapping.”

  “Sorr…”

  “Tut! We all shifted to striped green and gray racing Dragons and flew above the Island, looping and speeding, showing off. We boiled the sea with fiery blasts of flame. A family, Bek! A family!” “Where were the other Acrotwist Clowns?” “Ahhh … yes.”

  Chapter Three

  Performance in the Hedge

  Rakara shimmered, her eyes yellowing, her hair coppering, and she tumbled a turn to stand before me as my own dear Karro of Thorns. She snatched my chonka, my tambourine, from the shelf and gave it a rattle.

  “I’ll reveal the rest of it in the Assembly Bower. Did you tell ‘em about Zinna and me, Bek?” she said.

  “I knocked ‘em down with it,” I answered proudly. “They were flattened when I told ‘em Zinna was a jrabe. And even more ever than that, such being so, they collapsed in disbelief that you, jark dweg Karro, were Zinna’s daughter. Such!”

  “Good, good. Now I’ll give ‘em another rattle. Watch me, Bek,” said Kar, winking, and she banged my chonka on her knee before tossing it to me. “Go ahead. Announce me.”

  Eager to hear the rest of Karro’s adventure on Fan Wa’s Island, I stepped out of the hut and banged out on my chonka the Signal of Attention. CHONKA CHANK! Instantly from the hedge came the proper answering KACHUNKs, followed by rustling and muttering.

  “Karro of Thorns has returned from Fan Wa’s Island!” I shouted. “She has brought a Gwer drollek story to tell! Gather, bendo dreen, in the Assembly Bower! In two short paces of time Karro and Bekka will join you!”

  “That’s good, Bek. Give ‘em three paces, then I’ll sweep in. Should I be Dragon? What sort? Or no? Maybe cloud? What do you think?” asked Kar.

  “Let’s enter as Silent Bekka and jark dweg Kar. Then when you start your story, change into all sorts of everything you can! That’ll knock ‘em over. There’ll be a clatter of dropped chonkas and a gape of dropped jaws. I can’t wait to see it! You’ll be the first jrabe jroon to shift in the Assembly Bower!” I offered, my cheeks burning with boosted energy.

  “The first jrabe jroon,” repeated Kar in a dreamy hush.

  We marched across the clearing to the hedge and squeezed through into a deserted corridor of brambles. We heard a hum of babble excitement from far down the tunnel. Kar and I grinned at each the other. The bendo dreen were assembled. I banged my chonka once. CHANKA! The hum babble ceased. We sailed like Blossom Castle Royalty down the turns and twists until we came to the Assembly Bower. Without a pause we sailed in smoothly. I bowed to Kar. I don’t know why. It seemed a proper way to begin.

  Then Kar knocked me flat amazed along with all the other gathered bendo dreen. She opened her mouth and roared. She bulged and flexed, expanding to a glorious Dragon covered with writhing black and gold stripes. She snaked a flaming green tongue from between her horrid fangs and shot it over the heads of the bendo dreen to the far wall of the Bower. She stretched her neck in loops, shimmering gold. And there, instead of glorious Dragon, was a green misty cloud with great feathered blue wings. The cloud rained sparkles of silver and gold. It flapped around the Bower, circling low to drop spangles on each bendo dreen. The cloud settled above me, then formed in shimmer to Rakara, upside down jrabe. Her dark green mantle pooled on the thorny ceiling of the Bower.

  “I be Rakara, jrabe jroon. Ye knew me as Karro of Thorns, jark dweg. I bring to ye a promise of a true Gwer drollek tale. I pledge on thorns that ye shall be told the most amazing Gwer drollek ever. Better yes than the Well of Shells. Better yes even than the Triplets, Bandy, and the Rainbow Giants. What tale could be better than such? ye ask. A tale to be told on Chronicler Bekka’s return, I answer. A story soon to be collected by Chronicler Silent Bekka and the jrabe jroon Rakara, me. We have been challenged to pass the Four Ramps of the Realms to discover the Realm Beyond Realms! Such and so have we been challenged by Dak, the jroon. Truly! We quest! Following a great success, Bekka will write the Chronicle as Roamer Harpo and Roamer Lace did before her. She will spin it out for ye here in the Assembly Bower. Ye shall be told the most glorious Gwer drollek ever!”

  Saying such, she caught me up into her green mantle with her powerful bony lavender hands and whisked us from the room, down the corridor, through the hedge wall, and into the sky.

  Chapter Four

  Explanation in Flight

  “What did you do? What did you say? Your hands are too bony. Shift to Dragon or something. Not the one you just did! What was that horrid sludge dripping from your fangs? Oh! This is no good either. Talons are bonier than jrabe hands! Reach me up to … There. That’s better. Your neck is nicer. Like when we flew to break the Barrier. Remember? So. Such. Where are we going? What are we doing?”

  “We’re going to Blossom Castle. See where I made fringes of purple feathers on my wings?”

  “Dragons don’t have feathers.”

  “This one does. The first.”

  “Jark dweg. You’re jark dweg, Kar.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You never said why the Acrotwist Clowns were gone. Except for Kadd, or Dak, who isn’t, wasn’t, of course. Why were they gone? Where?”

  “They left to perform on Cloud Castle City. Kadd sent ‘em off. The City came and got ‘em.”

  “You mean Cloud Castle City flew all the way out to Fan Wa’s Island to pick ‘em up?”

  “Such.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s all a part rolled together. Kadd expected us. When I guessed he was Dak the jroon, all the secrets tumbled free.”

  “Why didn’t Zinna know that Kadd was Dak? Oh, wait. Oh, wait. I remember. Of course. The Gwer drollek …”

  “…story of Dak, the Ledgemoon, Sill and Fiss, can be heard by bendo dreen youngling ears only from the unspoken thoughts of a waterwizard.”

  “And Zinna…”

  “…was never truly a bendo dreen youngling.”

  “But you weren’t either. How … Oh, now I remember. You were sick.”

  “And you broke all the rules and told me the story yourself. Good old Bek.”

  “Yes, I remember. But why didn’t Dak know Zinna was a jrabe? Why was he expecting you? If he was expecting you, shouldn’t he have known that Zinna was really Ragaba, a jrabe?”

  “He had a Realm dream.”

  “Oh, that explains everything! How silly of me not to guess! Do I know what a Realm dream is? Wait. Let me ask myself. Bekka, do you know what a Realm dream is? No? I beg my pardon.”

  “Don’t snip, Bek. Settle. Practice patience. Sabeek orrun.”

  “I can sabeek orrun. I’m the one who taught you to sabeek orrun. Now, hurry up. What was all that bunkus about Realms? And why are we headed for Blossom Castle?”

  “It’s a clue. It’s a start Dak gave me. From Blossom Castle we can somehow find a way to the First Ramp.”

  “Why do we want to do such as that?”

  “It’s a challenge! From Dak! My father! When I boasted about us leaving the hedge to find Rumin and the garl, he was amused. When I boasted about us breaking the Barrier and opening the Portals, he wondered if I would like to accept a real challenge instead of such and so a pair of simplicities like opening Portals and breaking Barriers. I said we’d do it whatever it was. Oh, Bek! I didn’t tell you what he looks like shifted to jroon!”

  “I remember from the Gwer drollek…”

  “But it’s better seen truly real! The gold of his robe! It smolders shiny glints! His dark green hair and long beard are sprinkled with glimmering moss. It glows! His skin is the palest hutter blue. His gray storm eyes are not fierce. They flash kind
ness, even though truth he never smiles with his lips, but does with his words. Such is so!”

  “How does it feel to know who your parents are? Do they stay jrabe and jroon mostly?”

  “It feels … I don’t know … special bubbly. . Ragaba is mostly Zinna. Dak is mostly Kadd. Such is the how that they are most fond, as bendo dreen and Acrotwist Clown. They liked me being Karro.”

  “I wish I had Jo Bree. Why did you fly me away without the Carven Flute?”

  “Ha! Look! Surprise!”

  “How did you…”

  “I took it from your hut while you announced me. I have learned new powers. Jroon powers. Anything I touch I can shift to blend with me.”

  “Don’t blend me ever. That’s a rule. I don’t want to be your nose.”

  “What about my tail?”

  “No!”

  “Ha!”

  Chapter Five

  Realm Dream

  I leaned forward to rest my head on Rakara’s scaly Dragon neck. The rush of wind in my face had been too much. Such was so. With a restful rhythm I rose and fell with each and every beat of Kar’s long feather-fringed membraned wings. I watched through drooping eyelids the flutter of those purple feathers. I slid Jo Bree under my belt snug next to my chonka.

  “Riding your neck puts me to sleep. Don’t let me fall, and wake me before the Woods Beyond the Wood. I’ve never seen the Woods Beyond the Wood,” I yawned.

  “I’ve hooked your pantaloons with scale spurs. Feel ‘em? You can’t fall. Go ahead. Sleep,” hissed Kar, and she turned her head to regard me with a gleaming red Dragon eye.

  I nodded and closed my own less impressive eyes. I felt cradle rocked and wind whoosh lullabied. I sank to dream. My dream placed me in Zinna’s hedge shop repairing chonkas. Not ordinary chonkas. No. Immense chonkas stacked high. I volunteered to climb ‘em with a paint brush in my teeth. Up I went without the slightest difficulty. I waved at Zinna and Kar far below me. They waved back, waiting. It was up to me, whatever it was. The paint brush in my mouth went oat noodle limp. I grabbed it and stuffed it into my vest pouch. My vest had a pouch for some unknown reason. A big one. Such was so. “Everything is fine!” I shouted as I scrambled to the top of the tambourine tower and rolled as quickly as I could across its membrane.