KAR MAKES MISCHIEF
Kar was a pulsing pale green blob of charborr, and she slithered into the tunnel which led to the Chamber of the Koil. I followed closely, needing her pale green light to see my way. Maybe I should light my hat luminous, I thought, and decided I wouldn’t, reasoning Kar’s light was enough and I wasn’t planning on letting her escape my sight. I knew she as charborr sensed the surrounding tunnel all lit up, pulsing dim purple with bright orange streaks. All I saw was blackness. Kar seemed so such to be in no great rush, pausing and bumping at the walls from time to time. Why is she doing that? I wondered, shrugging. After a span of traveling through bends, dips and rises, the tunnel opened out at its end into a wide cavern, easy to see, lit up as it was by the pulsing strong pale green light of the Koil, who could be seen consuming a huge pile of greps. The bead of worry inside me vaporized, and I itched to leave at once for the Danken Wood. I expected to see my crystal ball glowing blue, no longer danger yellow. Truth, only then would I relax completely, thorn certain I’d fulfilled my responsibility to Prophesy.
“Let’s go, Kar. All is bell … well here,” I said, forgetting for the shortest flash about Kar’s inability as charborr to sense my existence. “Kar, let’s … Oh.”
So such I remembered. My bead of worry returned fresh and new. Kar wobbled in front of the Koil. The Koil shuddered and lurched for the tunnel. I stepped aside. The great blob slung low and long to enter the opening. Kar hurried after it. What could I do but follow? I followed, shaking my head. Why had I run out of amethyst drops? Why had I trusted Kar not to make mischief? I fingered my rings and got twenty-two shocks of rejection. All right, I thought. This is what is supposed to be. I don’t know it, but deep inside I do, I think. All I can do is watch and wait for Kar to shift to an anything I can scream at.
The Koil slithered without pause through the cube room and into the tunnel to the Dome. Kar wobbled after. I trudged behind, dragging my broom. When the Koil reached the apron of the Dome, it blobbed a huge shiver. The masses of charborrs rushed to assemble. They jelled together and formed a massive ball which bulged and sagged until, spang!, it snapped into perfect pyramid form, creased and straight, angles crisp, shining with a pale green glow.
“Now what?” I muttered, leaning my chin on my hands which were cupped on the top of my broom.
The Koil wobbled and wobbled. It grew still and slid aside so such to make way for Kar. Oh, Kar. Oh, Kar, I thought, shaking my head and shrugging. She slithered forward and began to wobble. What was she thinking at ‘em? What mischief was she making? After she wobbled on and on for time and a half, the pyramid swayed, and a single charborr detached itself from halfway up the face of the foremost triangle and slid to the floor of the Dome. The pyramid firmed to rigid. The single charborr moved to meet Kar. Blob to blob they stood, trembling one at the other. I looked to the Koil. It swayed a wobble, elongated, and retreated up the tunnel. I looked to the pyramid. It sagged and broke apart into a milling mass of charborrs, all awobble, all pulsing pale green. I looked to Kar, who rolled laughing and kicking her highboots on the floor of the Dome. So such she had transformed to bendo dreen, bramble dwarf Karro of Thorns.
“Oh, Bek! It was … Oh! Oh! Oh!” she struggled to talk and failed, pounding the ground and shrieking with laughter until she finally went limp instead.
“What did you chew … do, Kar?” I asked in the calmest and softest of voices.