PUSHED AND PULLED
Up the slide and up through the snow and into the sky I blasted my way until I was far above the storm. The sliver moons were waning, sinking down to meet the rising rosy dawn. I hurried left, circled back right, dipped to the upper fringes of the storm, dove lower to skim along and angrily kick at the snow piling ever higher. The tallest trees were buried so such like as if up to their necks. I whirled a torrential tantrum, kicking and tearing at the snow. I even bit it. And when I bit it, I felt silly, and subsided. I sat on the snow. I looked up, closed my eyes, and felt the flakes falling softly, steadily, on my face. I made an attempt to gather myself to a place of calm.
You are Bekka Ja Harick, I told myself. You are reliable. You are responsible. You have found the pie wedge boulder and have left Kar there to mark its location. You have refreshed the charborrs in the Dome. You have … forgotten the Koil!
I jumped to my broom and flew about in an aimless fret. Truth, I had not traveled the tunnel from the cube room to the Koil’s Chamber. How could I have forgotten the Koil? Why? I was useless as Harick. The Koil was ashes. Ommy Anthus was ashes. The trees were nearly buried. Roaring purple flames would consume ‘em before the day ended. I slowed my flight and landed near the top of one of the taller trees. My shoulders slumped. I sank my chin to my chest. Never have I felt more drained of spirit, before or since. I put out my hands, my lavender hands, and watched the snowflakes settle and melt, settle and melt. Of a sudden my hands snapped into fists!
The Koil is not ashes! Screamed my mind. I reignited the charborrs! They of course will feed the Koil! The Koil is saved!
My lavender fists relaxed and opened. They tore my pouchbag with a purposeful swiftness out from under my blackest purple cloak. I wondered what they would do next. They acted somehow in some way from my hidden knowledge. I felt it. I knew it! I sat back and watched ‘em. My left hand drew out the topaz vial. My right hand pulled its yellow crystal stopper. My left hand tilted the vial and poured its entire contents onto the snow. My right and left hands restored the vial to the pouchbag while I ignored ‘em, staring instead at the amazing bubble which grew up out of the snow. Clear with shimmering glints of gold it approached me, consumed me. Truth, I’d made travel bubbles before as Harick and had ridden in ‘em, sometimes for duty, sometimes for fun with Kar. Never, though, had I seen so such a bubble like as this one. Inside it, soft music of chimes rang peace in my mind.
I made this. I am Harick. I know what I don’t know, I comforted myself.
“Take me to Ommy Anthus.”
Five words unbidden so such spilled from my lips, and when they did, the bubble began to roll. I floated in its very core, seated on air, listening to the soothing chime song.
When should I transform to charborr? I calmly asked my hidden knowledge.
Not yet a while, my hidden knowledge responded.