DOWN THE SPOUT
In my dream, Comb the Hutkeeper jabbed at me with what I knew was the wand while at the self and same time she chanted over and over and over again ,”Imagine my pleasure.” I squirmed away from her and said, “Pop it!”
“Pop what? The bubble?” asked Kar. I fell up from the dream and pried open my eyes.
I looked at my lavender hands. Shock. Twenty-two rings. Shock. Harick. Harick. I was Harick, no longer bendo dreen. Such was so. I sat up. Encased in a bubble floating on the sea. Kar pointing at the red dawn sky. Broom. Hat. I took the hat and placed it on my head. The broom I held in my hand.
“Orruneries ... Wand,” I croaked, guiding the bubble up the steep flank of the volcano.
Cracked crust, black. Ember fires glowing in fissures. Up. Up. Up. Over the rim and into the smoke. Smoke swirling in gray bands all around the bubble. Descent. Smoky swirls thicken, engulf the orb. Tinge orange. Tinge red. Molten fire lava below. Brimstone. Descent. Bubble surrounded by rage of red, yellow and white gold magma. Cool in the bubble. Kar glanced at me. We shrugged like we do.
“Well, are you going to summon ‘em, talk to ‘em?” asked Kar.
“Yoss,” I replied. “Orruneries! Orruneries of the Great Sea Fire Spout! I am Bekka Ja Harick! I beak ... seek my frond ... wand. I fish ... wish for my towers ... powers to be complete. Yoss! That’s it! Neatness counts!”
Kar rolled her eyes. Outside the bubble a shape with willowy arms wriggled into fluttery view. Kar gave me an elbow. I gave her one back. We shrugged.
“When we go to live on the sun, it might be warm enough,” hissed the orrunerie, dripping blue flames from its knowing fiery buckletar eyes. “When we go to live on the sun, what bliss it will be. Our minds will be cleared of ice. We might be able to remember.”
“Remember what?” interrupted Kar.
I nudged her hard. She nudged me harder. We had a short nudge fight. Meanwhile, the orrunerie blended away, but quickly so such two more appeared above us at the top of the bubble.
“When we go to live on the sun,” they boiled in unison, “we will for once and for all and forever be warm enough. Never more will we have a care or a worry or a troublesome chill.”
The orruneries blended away. Though we could not sense it, the bubble was sinking lower and lower. We discovered so such when of a sudden under our feet it bumped to a stop.
“What’s this? Where now?” asked Kar.
“I ... I ... back up,” I said just so such to say something, and I pointed the broom up just so such to do something.
“Wand! Orruneries! Where is ... is ... is ...,” I struggled to shout.
“The wand?” Kar helped me spit out the question.
A mass of orruneries waving their willowy arms appeared all completely surrounding the bubble. In chorus they sang. Such was thrillingly so.
“When we dream on the sun, we’ll remember the days when we lived in the chill next to the Vault. When we dream on the sun, we might wonder, too, if ever the wand was released.”
The orruneries blended away. The bubble ascended up and out of the volcano’s spout. I guided it to float on the sea. I popped the bubble with a proper twist of my lodestone ring, and laughed when Kar flopped splat on her back into the sea while I rode my broom in circles above her. She splashed around laughing and shifted to Dragon.
“What do you know, Bek? What do you know? You must know something to do so such!” she eagerly hissed, venting curly blue flames from her nostrils.
I did know something. Kar knew I did. We know each other so such that well.