I TELL A LIE TO REPAIR A MISTAKE
“You wait here, slip and slide. I will go and call a gathering. Count to one hundred five times or to five one hundred times, slip and slide. If you don’t mind being out of the shadow, you may sit on my sleep nest over there by my boulder while you count, slip and slide. When you’re through, follow that path. I must announce the arrival of the Jaha! Preparations must be made! Slip and slide!” instructed the happy Jerrandal, hopping from huge foot to huge foot and clacking clatter talons on tusks.
“But the … shadow … will … Ah, I tree … see,” I began in the language from down the Well and finished in bendo dreen Boadlian when I realized something. “Kar, book … look, the valley is … all … in … in … pur … pur … violet shadow.”
The jesterbeast gave us a farewell salute of a sort and spun down a path to the cup of forest below. Kar glared at me, hands on hips, waiting for me to translate the jarbot’s so such long speech. I explained we were still safe in the shadow because the entire cup and hump valley was purple hazed. She asked me if I thought she was a lackwit. Did I think she’d not noticed flash quick how when we’d stepped across and down the ridge a few paces, the purple circle shadow around the jesterbeast had blended into the view?
“You … noticed?”
“Of course I noticed! Just because I don’t understand the fancy language of this world down the Well doesn’t mean that my brains have leaked my head empty! And you don’t have to tell me what the jesterbeast said. I don’t WANT you to! I can guess. I’m the first and only jrabe jroon ever, remember. I’m Rakara, Jebb AND Karro, daughter of Ragaba the jrabe and Dak the jroon. I say that the monster went on ahead to announce us. We are legends from their world of ancestry, so they think. So such we are! Bek, we’re legends! The first to visit ‘em! And other! I also say that the jesterbeast pointed at that boulder so such to show us the watch nest. Am I right, or right?”
“Yoss, except …”
“Except what? We found jesterbeasts on the world down the Well! Your cottage is down in those trees somewhere! Your rings! I wonder where Cloud Castle City is floating. What a lot of mysteries, Bek! What an adventure! Do you have a feeling, a thought, a Harick tingle or something?”
“No … I …”
“It doesn’t matter. Time is in place and all will roll out as so such it should. You are Harick. I am jrabe jroon. It feels good to be a legend, doesn’t it, Bek?”
“Yoss, except …”
“Except what? Except what? Why do you keep saying ‘except’?
“Blue … true, I am … am … a legend to the … the … mess … no … jesterbeast! … yoss … but … but … you … you … The beast drinks … thinks that you are … my … my … my …”
“Your what? The beast drinks thinks I’m your what?”
“Pet.”
It was then that Kar turned and stalked down the path, fuming. I should have kept my lips sealed. Why did I tell her? True, it was funny, but true, it wasn’t. I followed along, joked about it, said it was a ridiculous funny thing. I got a glare. I suggested we fly down the path, she as a magnificent shining giant Golden Racing Dragon, me as a small Harick riding on her neck. I got a glare and a snort. Next I made up a lie such and so how ‘pet’ meant something completely different other in the language of the world down the Well. I said it meant, and then I paused long because I had to think up something good, and truth I was glad of my witch stumble speech because it gave me time to find a soothing sort of a lie.
“It beans … means … ‘first’.”
“First? First. How true. ‘Pet’ means ‘first’. Good joke, Bek, good joke.”
She smiled, shrugged, and nudged me one in the ribs. I didn’t have to spill out one more word of explanation, which was a grand thorn of relief to me, as so such one more word of explanation was something I did not possess.