The Questory of Root Karbunkulus - Quill (2 page)

Soon, soon.

Whatever.

By the time
soon, soon
arrived she’d
be in the grave! Bad enough she was already fifteen! Fifteen.
Normally she’d’ve forgotten entirely, but DréAmm doesn’t forget its
birthdays. Or rather its Birthday. One day, set aside, like a
holiday. Birthday was the celebration day for all those who have
been born. Everyone. Young and old and in between.

It was quite the affair with its gatherings
and decorating and feasting. Fire Blossoms were strung. Swags
festooned along hallways and on the fronts of doors. Beautiful
sparkling centerpieces were placed upon tables.
Happy
Birthday
was put to every greeting. And from the neighbouring
evergreens, the deep rich aroma of their bark drifted heavily, like
the gods had sprinkled cinnamon and honey into the air. It was a
joyous and wonderful occasion and Root was thrilled when she and
Dwyn were invited to share it with Madam Mordgidika Keen and Jorab,
two of her most favoritest people of all. Lian had spent the early
part of Birthday between the homes of his parents and then joined
Root and Dwyn later.

Fifteen years old, all three of them.

Two hundred and eighty eight years, Mordge.
Two hundred and forty three, Jorab. That called for a celebration
indeed, complete with gifts, treats, games and a capper of Chorm
around the fire.

An early fall frost had spilled a crystal
veneer across Mordge’s window. Root scraped the words ‘Best
Birthday ever’ across it with her fingernail.

They toasted themselves well into the evening
and fell asleep on warm fat chairs while Jinter Twostep’s warbled
recording got stuck on the same line over and over.

Be not ye careworn

Be glad ye were born

Be not ye careworn

Be glad ye were born

Birthday had made Root want to know her
parents more than ever. She clung to the only vision of her mother
she had, a woman with long ebony hair and a ribbon of silver
through it. A tiny, mysterious image but it was enough. She tried
to talk to Dwyn about his parents too but Dwyn didn’t talk about
his parents.

“But don’t you want to know who they
were?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Miss Pramly was my mum as far as I’m
concerned. She raised me since I was a baby. Genes don’t matter to
me. She was the one who was there. Besides you’re never gonna find
out, Root.”

“Wha’dya mean?”

“Haven’t you read any of the history books,
yet? Kakos’ attack was so swift and powerful, people died by the
thousands. They couldn’t keep up with the dead bodies and ended up
throwing them in mass graves. It’ll be years before Council can
tally names, if they even can at all. And even longer to piece
together any families. I’d bet a zillion bucks that the reason
Picklepug keeps putting off requests for identity files is because
there are none. They’re either lost or were never made. Why don’t
you just let it go.”

That was too much to ask of Root. She’d
already let enough go. Like the hug. The embrace that she’d seen so
many other kids get from their parents. The one she’d always wanted
from hers. She knew its shape, its feel, its smell, its sight. A
circle of arms. Warm, hearth-smelling, squeezing arms. She had seen
it in slow motion, under the stars, in the morning dew, in any way
it came to her. The embrace. The arms of her parents wrapped around
her.

She would never let it go.

Her persistence paid off one day as she
watched Picklepug slip into his office. She discovered a perfect
little inroad…a way to eavesdrop on the very conversations of the
Guardian of DréAmm, Studaben Picklepug himself. Well, if you can
call Quatra eavesdropping. He was in a meeting and Root had tapped
into an older woman with whom he was talking. Root felt bad. The
woman had obviously let down her guard in her emotional state and
Root had gained easy access to her thoughts. But Root was sick to
death of being patronized. She needed answers too.

Picklepug was extolling to the woman and
another, a man, the woman’s husband, the virtues of the Quest and
its overwhelming success.

“Well, from what I’ve gathered it was nothing
of the sort. The dangers those children were placed in were far
beyond anything we were promised.” Root could feel that the woman
did not trust Picklepug.

“My dear lady, your son is splendid, thanks
to his swift, unhindered conditioning during the race. Let’s not
forget, this Quest held within it opportunity, a unique rites of
passage of which you were fully in agreement with before your
son…ahem…lost. And, as has been stated many times, there was never
any real danger with which to be concerned.”

Root had rather balked at this. It had felt
pretty darn dangerous to her. But, perhaps the teams had been
monitored more than she’d known. There was the Brédin, after all.
Even just thinking of them made her feel safe. And they were always
only a Bean Bug away.

“Indeed,” Picklepug continued “your son was
given a chance at a prize well worth the challenge, was he not?” He
felt slimy in the woman’s mind.

“And by his being eliminated…” This was the
father now, speaking as if getting something off his chest. “…He’s
not…I mean… not eligible for…”

“Arthur!” Root felt a sudden fury in the
woman. A powerful rage that made Root feel sick. She had to bail;
the pressure in her head was too much.

Definitely a lesson there, she thought later
but not one in which she would share with Jorab. She knew he would
never approve of her using Quatra to listen in on conversations.
Right now she didn’t care. It was the only way she could get
answers.

Besides, it wasn’t like she had access all
the time. Hardly anyone had Quatra. Most of the time she was tuning
into white noise, like on a television or the hit and miss of radio
stations. That is until she quite unexpectedly struck the jackpot
of all jackpots in the eavesdropping world. She had been trying to
tune in to another conversation of the Guardian’s when she caught a
third party wave. It was his Klok! Who’dathunk his Klok, of all
things would have Yield Quatra but clear as the wings on its little
bat body, this Klok was better than a fly on the wall. Root zeroed
in with ease and was soon party to the Guardian’s most private
interactions.

Talk about a disappointment. Studaben
Picklepug was a real dud on the ol’ grapevine. Most of his
conversations revolved around food, what was to be for lunch,
dinner et cetera. You’d think he’d been sworn in as Caterer to
DréAmm and not its illustrious leader. Surely his most secret
exchanges were done elsewhere. They had to be. A country can’t run
on menu choices. There were issues. Even Root knew that.

Luckily, peppered in with Cockled Hen and
Harvest Pie, the Guardian managed to direct his attention, at least
for a time to the matter of the orphans. Hundreds of them, the ones
who had been eliminated from the first Quest had to be placed
somewhere. Papers were shuffled, documents were stamped and
appointments were scheduled. But nothing seemed to be done.

The majority of Picklepug’s speeches to the
orphans went something like: “As you know, as Guardian of our great
land, it is my sincere desire that you be taken care of but, as you
can imagine I am a very busy, important figure and these things
take time…a great deal of time, indeed…and…”

Blah blah voice dragging into mud blah...

Root saw some of the kids leave the castle,
taken in by new families. Most stayed. The House of Gub was their
fall out shelter, the only thing sturdy between where they had come
from and where they might end up.

“You okay, Rooty-pie?” Elgart startled Root
back to the present. She shook free of her clinging thoughts and
nodded. “Sorry, I was just…thinking.”

Elgart patted her back. “As soon as something
is found, I’m sure you will be the…”

“First to know…Yeah. Thanks, Elgart.”

A small boy came around the corner. He was
head to toe in disgusting putrid smelling slime. Elgart looked at
him. “Uh oh. Widow Squash Bomb?”

The kid nodded and tried not to cry. Root
cringed. The use of Widow Squash bombs had become very popular as
of late. Whoever was doing them had gotten away with at least ten
attacks so far. Ten disgusting, stinking puke explosions, most of
them on the head of the victim. It was gross beyond gross and, with
the culprit as of yet not apprehended, Root had found herself
looking over her shoulder way too often now.

“Alright, let’s getchya cleaned up, kiddo.”
Elgart took the boy’s hand and led him toward the stables. “See ya
later, Rootabaga.”

“See ya” Root said, trying not to heave in
the boys’ smell. And she thought Bulk-Poo was bad.

Speaking of Bulk-Poo.

Root turned back to Stogie now whizzing about
the courtyard, sniffing this, licking that. There was so much to
see now that Spring was taking the throne, pushing snow further and
further from her kingdom. The spired leaves of tulips were nudging
into her air. Everything dripped and dropped in her warm breath.
Mud glistened. Puddles grew. A million smells woke from a great
sleep. All finding their way to Stogie’s wet, black, happy
nose.

Hmmmmm. This called for extreme
measures
. When it came to controlling Stogie, Root had one
thing she could always count on. She had held off because it was
her last one. But this was a matter of life and death. For her
nostrils at least. “Stogaloo!” she chirped and reached in her
pocket.

Squeak!

Stogie’s ears shot up.

“You want your squeaky, Stogers?”

The wet grass flattened under the beating of
his tail.

Squeak!

He did a stand sit stand sit stand kind of
dance and looked like he would surely die if he didn’t have that
squeaky toy in his chompers right this second.

Root eased him toward the hose.
Squeakity,
squeak, squeak.
Once there, with the poor toy in his jaws she
knew he wouldn’t move. But she also knew he’d have it destroyed in
mere minutes. She’d have to act fast.

Water, soap, spray, scrub, rinse. All in
record time.

As the last squeaky remains spit out onto a
bright yellow Squeaky pile and a fluffy blanket darted about drying
the drowned looking but happy Hovermutt, Root heard her name
called.

She turned.

Krism was bleeding and dirty and tears had
turned his face into muddy streaks.

The first Treasure Quest, it was acknowledged
had taken longer than was expected. Much longer. And thus, any
successional Quests would most likely follow suit. With this in
mind, Lord Blick set to establishing a proper facility for the
Brédin that were to stay at Gub. Continued maintenance of their
training was, according to him, essential.

Over the weeks he had recruited in a lot more
Brédin, citing the increased Tint attacks of late but the rumour
amongst the majority was that they were to protect the Miists of
Kalliope. All six had been collected and hidden somewhere on the
premises, their exact location known only to a select few including
the Guardian of DréAmm and presumably Jorab.

The Brédin’s training arena was erected just
off the hotel premises, along Mirror Lake where it could avoid the
reaches of the Krux. It was an incredible architectural achievement
that gained immediate attention and praise. Especially since it was
built, quite literally overnight.

Root, like everyone else had gone to bed with
a view of Mirror Lake’s bronzed shoreline, quiet and recumbent,
glazed under the light of a fat harvest moon. When she woke in the
morning, the shoreline was gone. Where the thick, wet dunes had
been, there now lay an enormous rupture, as if the moon had sucked
its own reflection unto itself, leaving a gaping crater. The belly
of this crater was swept up like a tsunami, curving a seismic wave
and then freezing it mid air. A gigantic sand wave.

And there, posted atop the towering
sand-wave, like a Great White riding the sea, was the magnificent
Brédin arena.

Harmos Weol
. The Wheel of Harmony.

A rounded white-stone coliseum of arches and
pillars two stories high, the Wheel most assuredly dazzled. The
only way it could be reached was by a hidden staircase along the
curve of the giant wave. Unless of course you were a Brédin, in
which case you could spread your silver wings and arrive in two or
three fluttering motions.

At the top of the wave, a staircase of coral
and cream tiles led to the main entrance, where the entire floor
was a mosaic-ed history of the Brédin, here a masterful tribute to
their athletics, there a portrayal of musical prowess. Brédin
poetry weaved throughout like a ribbon in the wind…words like
artem
and
pacem.
Art and Peace.

The grand archway was marked by the
commanding presence of two statues. The first statue was of a
Brédin Prince, Aalistus The Sworn, who had taken the first Oath of
Preservation those many generations ago when the welfare of the
Brédin was in grave danger.

Opposite him was the impressive monument of
Watilda Blick, the nose and ears prominent. Clad in the hard-bitten
garments of war, she claimed a fierce impression. But the artisan
who had crafted her made certain to capture the distinct softness
in her eyes, a twinkle perhaps. Or the trace of a warm baked
cookie.

Faced with the task of protecting her
immortal, peace loving companions, Watilda Blick fused Brédin
philosophy with the unique form of defensive arts she had developed
as Captain of DréAmm Defense. This powerful union did indeed gain
the Brédin their freedom and along side this, a might unsurpassed
in all of recorded history. It also made Watilda Blick the first
Brédin Master of DréAmm, an honour that has been passed down from
generation to generation along the Blick bloodline ever since.