RETURN TO THE SLIDE
The bead of worry disturbing my satisfaction consisted so such of an uneasy feeling about the Koil. In the earlier rush to revive the charborrs and find Ommy Anthus, I neglected to deliver and feed greps to the Koil. Oh, I assumed the other charborrs took care of it. I’m sure they did, I thought. And yet, the bead of worry existed.
We took to the sky, and the Charborr Forest spread out below us, magnificent and fresh, black in its beauty. Kar had shifted to her jrabe self, Rakara, so such in order to sense the hidden hollow of the Dome underneath the Forest. Without its snowy cover, the landscape presented a new and unknown face to us. I trailed the flutter of her dark green mantle. We traced ever wider circles above the trees. Rakara’s head was turned, one enormous lavender ear to below, one to above.
“Do you …” I called.
“Sssh!” she interrupted.
I subdued and followed quietly, taking the time to look about at the Forest below for nothing in particular. I noticed the trees seemed to stand straight and proud, vigorous, sparked with a lively life. Prophesy’s gift, I thought. Prophesy has fizzed ‘em anew.
“There it be,” announced Rakara, pointing, and she drifted lower.
We touched ground three paces from the tree root entrance to the slide. Rakara shimmered to bendo dreen Kar.
“All right, Bek, I’ll shift to charborr, slide down, no, wait … I’ll try the slide as bendo dreen! See if it tickles like as before when we were charborrs. Then in the cube room, that’s when I’ll shift to charborr and slither to the Dome. Then I’ll … I’ll … I’ll what, Bek?” chattered Kar while I simply stood and waited for her to subside.
“I know what … what I don’t … know,” I said, boosting my belief in myself. “First WE will snow … go! … to the … the … Chamber of the … Soil … Boil …”
“Koil?” helped Kar.
“Yoss! That’s it!” I said, and with a gesture of hand and a nod of head I instructed Kar to descend the slide.
Kar threw herself with eagerness between the roots. I climbed down with more care, though truth I looked forward to the tickle. The slide’s pale green pulsing smoothness was slick and familiar, but during the long swift sailing fall not the tiniest taste of a tickle did I feel. When I slid to gentle rest in the cube room, Kar was waiting for me. She shrugged.
“No tickling at all for me. How about you?” she said.
I shook my head ‘no’.
“Guess you have to be a charborr,” she reasoned, shrugging again.
The pale green light of the slide washed against the black walls and ceiling of the cube room. The three tunnels exiting the cube were black in shadow. The tunnel to the right led, I remembered, to the Chamber of the Koil. I pointed at it. Kar looked and nodded.
“Before you drift … shift … to … to … to …” I began to instruct.
“Charborr, yes, charborr. Before I shift to charborr, what?” bubbled the impatient Kar.
“Don’t bake … …”
“A pie? I promise I won’t bake a pie,” teased Kar.
“Settle!” I suddenly erupted, surprising myself when I slammed my broom against a wall of the cube.
Kar settled subdued, so such shocked.
“Sorry,” I said meekly. “Sometimes to be … to be Harick is … is …”
“Hard?” suggested Kar.
“Yoss,” I said quietly. “Please don’t … make … mischief.”
“Me? Mischief?” Kar said, winking, and she shifted to charborr.