MY POWERS COMPLETE
Beneath the puffed up pride I felt at being the new Harick a tiny dart of doubt jabbed me. Maybe Kar was right. Maybe the wand was lying. Then, at a glance, doubt was swept away. Why? I noticed my lavender hands and the rings. Harick. I was the Harick. With my pride again puffed and my face wearing a smile of superiority, I told Kar to spend the night wherever she felt safe. I, true bold, vowed to sleep within touching distance of the wand. So such on that note Kar and I parted. She shifted to Dragon, green with yellow spots, and flew off to disappear around the steep flank of the volcano. I dropped down to the Vault.
“Kar has dressing ... pressing duties to perform on her ... her ... island. Yoss. She will be ... hack ... tack ... She will return in the ... morning,” I explained to the wand. “I reed ... need nest ... rest ... after so such a ... a ... long ... listen. Your story glowed true. I will berry blue ... hmmm ... carry you across the sea. Yoss! That’s it! My powers will be complete. I crust ... trust you. Here is my ... hand.”
“Well spoken, new Harick! I be drained of mischief! I obey commands! Feel my power!” said the wand, lifting to touch, to place itself in my outstretched hand.
Oh, the magic! Caged writhing and boiling, pulling and pushing so such like as spark taffy! It shivered my fingers. Clicketty clatter went my rings. I gripped the wand tighter, felt its strength straining under my control.
“Command me, Harick! I be servant to ye. No mischief!” cried the wand.
I staggered into the Vault and placed it on the velvet pillow.
“Tomorrow,” I gasped as calmly as I could, feeling weak in the knees. “I will reap now ... sleep.”
“As ye desire,” cooed the wand with a wooden smoothness, “as ye desire.”
I bunched down in a corner of the Vault. Truly I was exhausted. I noticed my hands were fists. I loosened ‘em. I instructed myself to take deep breaths. I took ‘em. Darkness leaked into the Vault. I no longer saw the wand or the pillow. I’d held the wand in my hand. It hadn’t turned me into a patch of tar. Truth. It spoke truth. Its mischief was drained away. I was the Harick. My powers were complete. Over and over so such thoughts ran across the stage of my mind. In the morning I would do something special. I would show Kar my mastery of the wand’s powerful magic. The power! I’d wrestled it in my hand! Truth, I had dismissed from my lackwit mind the wand’s need of me to fly it across the sea.
I slept. I dreamed strange dreams of swimming through thick black goo. My crystal ball circled swiftly above me. It glowed yellow. I gave to it a lazy smile. Though yellow means danger, I did not care. I dreamily settled into the thick black goo. I sensed myself melting to join it. Ahhhh, such a bliss. Drifting into nothingness, of a sudden I heard Kar’s voice.
“Bek! Wake up!”
I popped my eyes open and sat up blinking. Kar, bendo dreen Kar, stood in the Vault’s doorway. The wand rested on the velvet pillow. I looked at my lavender hands, the twinkle and gleam of my rings.
“Yoss,” I croaked.
I struggled to stand. It felt so such as if I was stuck to the floor. The wand trembled. I suddenly stood.
“See, Kar? I am not a ... a patch ... of ... of ... of ...”
“Tar,” finished Kar glumly, her gaze never straying from the wand.
“I will flow ... show you what the ... the wand and I can glue ... stew ... do together. Yoss! That’s it!” I announced.