THE SEARCH BEGINS
The snow was unhealthy for charborrs. When Kar hissed that information, I knew what I didn’t know with a shocking clarity of revelation. A curtain swept open in my mind, and new knowledge tumbled onto the stage. My reliability as Harick was being tested for the first time. Was I up to it? The snows continued rapidly to bury the Charborr Forest. I hadn’t found Ommy Anthus. Where was the so said pie wedge boulder? Was I failing my very first Prophesy test? No, I was not! I knew what I didn’t know. Swift and decisive, I ordered Kar to melt a cavern above a patch of greps. She heard the thornlike mastery and determination in my voice despite the many stumbles and stutters. She obeyed by producing an impressive snow-melting shaft of blue flame from her dagger-toothed mouth. We worked in a fit, ripping up greps and stuffing ‘em down the slide.
“Now what?” hissed Kar eagerly after I shouted, “Enough!”
I knew what I didn’t know. I knew where to find the boulder. I knew I had to lead Kar to it and leave her there. Why? Two reasons. One, I knew it was given and proper that I should find Ommy Anthus on my own. So such, I knew it. Two, Kar as Dragon would mark the location of the boulder by breathing fiery plumes of smoke. What need for that if I knew where it was? So said, I knew it was near a strangely formed tree, a tree which rose on a thickly straight trunk to half its height, and then coiled up like as in a spiral until straightening out at its tip. No other tree so such coiled, but its coils would soon be buried under snow, and with ‘em all hope of finding the wedge pie boulder.
“Bind … find the tree like as a boil … coil fire … wire … spire!” I shouted, snatching at the white broom shape in the snow where I’d flung my broom aside to rip up strips of greps.
“How can we see through a blizzard?” Kar asked, blinking her Dragon eyes.
Truth, I did an anger dance. I was so such that upset. I wasn’t upset with the blizzard. No. I was upset with Kar.
“Have you forgotten who you are?!” I screamed, anger smoothing away all stutters. “Rakara! Rakara! Rakara!”
I emphasized each shout of Kar’s true jrabe name with a stomp of my right buckle shoe. As a blind milky-eyed jrabe, my shapeshifter best friend from ever could sense sights better than any eye could see ‘em.
“Oh, I thought your pouchbag, an amulet or vial or …” she said, shrugging like we do.
She shifted to Rakara, milky-eyed Rakara, lavender skinned Rakara with the enormous ears, Rakara wearing her dark green mantle, Rakara with her mass of orange hair. She hung upside down in the air, the dark green mantle pooling up at her feet.
“What say ye now, Bek?” she asked.
“I pay … say … let’s fly before the bowl … troll … hole! … you melted … pills … drills … fills! … and carrys us … parrys us … buries us! Lead on! Bind that flea! Find that tree!”
Up we went into the silent white sea of windless snowfall. I followed the flutter of Rakara’s mantle through the white, now peaceful, soon to be fiery, flakes. She led me up above the storm and paused, hanging in the sky, tilting her head this way, that. I circled her slowly on my broom, content not to interfere with her scan. From her dark green mantle emerged a bony lavender hand. A bony lavender finger pointed down to the right.
“There. There it be,” she said. “I be the first jrabe to find a coiling tree in a storm.”
She dove. I dove after her into the whitefall. I held my eyes fixed to the flutter of her mantle. Trees loomed from the whiteness and we went by ‘em. The mantle dipped and rose. Unveiled before us was the tree of coils! I landed on a thick round curve, bending low so as not to bump my head on the coil above. Below me, coils. Above me, coils. The straight shaft of tree trunk was buried. The tree was more than half way covered, and the snow fell thicker, faster!
“Quickly! Dragon! Fire! Bind the shoulder! Find! Boulder! Pie wedge!” I screamed.
Kar hesitated not a nince, changing to enormous purple Dragon (I’d never seen her bigger.), and blasting the snow with blue flame to melt a shaft hole all the way to the ground. She waddled to disappear into the shaft, and I waited. Ommy Anthus! Oh, was it too late? Ommy Anthus!
“It’s here!” came a triumphant hiss from below.
“Sit on it. Bake … make a spoke … smoke chimney! Keep it fear … clear! Stay! I’ll be tack … rack … sack … back! Yoss! That’s it!” I cried, leaping to my broom and wondering when I would know if I was in time or too late for Ommy Anthus, a charborr lost in the snow.