The Wicked Wand (5 page)

THE WAND SPEAKS

The Vault door in the biggest of the boulders on the tiny bump of island next to the Great Sea Fire Spout was sprung wide open. I'd done it. I'd found the door. I'd opened it with a ring manipulation and a silent chant I didn't know I knew. Powers of Harick. Witchly. Truth, as said Kar, the room inside the boulder seemed so such to be a giant scooped out emerald. Truth again, on a creamy crimson velvet pillow in the center of the room rested the wand. All I had to do was step inside and pick it up in order to complete my powers. And yet, I hesitated.

“What are you waiting for, Bek?” said Kar. “We came all this way. Second thoughts? Such. Why don't you close that door, and we'll go visit the Edge and the Hollows and so such else? You don't need the wand. You have the rings. Twenty-two of ‘em! That's more than plenty! The wand is dangerous. Why for else was it locked away out here? The Babba Ja Harick could not control it. Why can you? Why was it brought here and so such hidden?”

“For me to ... bind ... find. I bound ... found it. I will take it,” I said, convincing myself to step into the room and to touch the wand, to lift it from its rest.

The wand appeared so such to be like as a common twig with a slight elbow bend in its middle. But not a rough-barked twig, no. Polished to a blush of creamy brown, it blended smoothly with the creamy crimson velvet of the pillow. I stepped briskly into the green emerald glow and plucked it up. At once I felt it spark to life. It shivered in my hand. It trembled. I held tight. It spoke!

“Thank ye, thank ye, thank ye, thank ye,” it said softly in a gentle wooden hum.

I looked at Kar. She shrugged and retreated two paces. Her eyes were round with fear. She bent at the knees in preparation to shift and flee in frightened flight. I shrugged at her and crossed my eyes and stuck out my tongue to reassure her. And myself. The wand's power, so such seemingly barely contained, surged in my hand.

“Thank ye, thank ye. I be so glad to look upon ye,” said the wand, a simple stick in my hand with no eyes or mouth that I could see. “The bars and bars of eon years have taught me. I have learned my lesson to a sparkle shine of clarity. No more misbehavior. I admit it. I misbehaved. I were young. Now I be old. I were a lackwit. Now I have knowledge. It were proper for me to be sealed here away. I be good now. I be good. I be not wicked. How could I be wicked? Look at me. I be the plainest of wands ready to serve. What would ye have me to do?”

In my hand the wand vibrated with a fierce energy.

“Sabeek orrun,” I said, which means ‘Practice patience'. “Calm your vi ... vi ... vi ...vi ... shaking.”

The wand subdued to a gentle wobble, and yet I still felt its deeply masked power. I glanced again at Kar, who'd retreated the short span to the edge of the island and was standing up to the ankles of her highboots in the sea. I shrugged at her and gave her a grin. I even winked.

“Wand, I am Bekka Ja Harick. I have ... collected blue ... flu ... you! ... to complete my ... my powers. Yoss! That's it! My powers! My trend ... friend Karro, shapeshiftress jrabe loon ... jroon ... and I, the new Harick, would hear your glory ... story. So such. As well as Harick, I am ... I am the ... the Chronicler of the ... Boad, All Fidd and ... Leee ... all of ‘em! ... Combined! Yoss!”

In my hand the tingle of the wand's vibration grew soothing. I walked out of the Vault and sat under the sky, waving for Kar to join me. Reluctantly she did so, crouching three paces distant.

“Tell us your ... story,” I commanded the wand. I placed it on the folds of my blackest purple cloak. It trembled there and spoke in its wooden hum way.

POND OASIS

“Rest ye there while I speak and tell to ye the tale of how and where I grew, and how I were plucked and carried off, and how I made mischief, and how I were carried to here and sealed away, and how I have been washed clean of mischief, and how I no longer be wicked, but good and kind and true and helpful. This all be a truth, to ye I vow. Rest ye there while I begin,” hummed the wand in its wooden way.

“There were long long ago, and perhaps there may be yet, an oasis in the fair true center of the Blue Dunes east of east beyond the birthplace of the Greenwilla River. (Kar and I exchanged darting glances of recognition. Blue Dunes. Blue Hills. We knew about ‘em. So such among ‘em had I transformed from bendo dreen to Harick.) I sprouted from the bulbous trunk of a grob tree far below its wide feather fronds. The grob tree were one of many growing tall from the blue grass surrounding the pool what gave its name to the oasis. The Blue Crystal Pool Oasis. That be what it were called. And there it were that I grew from the trunk of a fat tall grob tree. Dunes of blue sand rose on all sides around the oasis. When wind storms blew, the pool were rippled with spattering fizz, and I were bent back and fro while peppered with sand. A pleasant sensation that were. A truly good life it seemed to me with plentiful heaps of time for thinking. For thoughtful contemplation. And what did I contemplate, ye may well ask, innocent twig on a tree as I were? I wondered to float on the pool. It seemed to me an inviting treat. Parties of snaves visiting the oasis from time to time found it a pleasure to splash in the pool. Why would I not find it pleasant, too? (Kar and I darted each the other another glance. Snaves! We had been among ‘em in their cavern theaters beneath the moving Blue Hills. Snaves with writhing tentacles and bulbous heads. I wondered which sort of snave, which color, the wand had seen at the oasis.) Sometimes they slithered up my tree to collect fronds, and I felt the slippery grip of a yellow tentacle. (Ah.) Ticklish. It made me wriggle. I could not yet laugh or speak. I knew nothing of my great and wonderful mischievous powers. Mischievous then! Not now. My powers now be for nothing save goodness and helping. No mischief. None! To resume, I say to ye that I wondered where the snaves went when they slithered away over the dunes.

“By and by, years went by, bars and bars, and I watched stars and moons and days and nights and birds and snaves and crawlers. I wondered how it would be to break from the trunk and fall to the pool. Sand blew from time to time, gust or storm. Rain fell, soft or hard. Snaves came, splashed, went. Content I were, but curious. How would it be to be free of the tree? Then arrived the day when it happened.”

The wand ceased speaking, ceased quivering. Stiff and silent it rested on my blackest purple cloak. Kar, who by this time was sitting fair next to me, gave me a nudge in the ribs and whispered urgently, “Ask it what happened!”

“What ... happened?” I obeyed without question.

“Well ye may ask,” hummed the wand. “I will tell ye. The waterwizard appeared. (Kar elbowed me. I elbowed her.) ‘Here be a new creature,' I thought, watching him float down from the sky. In white robe and cap, both sprinkled with black moons and stars, he descended. He had fiery orange skin and a long red flow of a beard. His eyes were cool ice blue. He carried a white pouch, also sprinkled with black moons and stars. A breath of mist's distance above the pool he settled, sitting cross-legged on the air. ‘This be fine,' he rumbled in a grumble of a voice. ‘A fine new beckoning pool for Briny Brook.'”

BRINY BROOK

Briny Brook. Kar shrugged me a question. I shrugged her an answer. The question? Have you ever heard tell of a waterwizard named Briny Brook? The answer? No, and pay heed because we're hearing of him now. The wand hummed along in its wooden manner. Kar and I paid heed.

“The waterwizard were a delight for me, something new, a sensation of antics. He plunged with a frown to the depths of the pool, and I waited, alert, watching the ripples diminish. After a span of throbbing silence, the pool erupted a geyser of sparkles which spangled down fluttering around and about the frowning waterwizard. Hidden by the eruption, he had risen again to float above the pool. He were digging into his pouchbag as he mumbled, ‘Fair rippled complete. This be my pool now. I'll mark it well for all and good. Where be that ... Ah.' He lifted from the pouchbag a tiny green bottle. He pulled its cork with his teeth and carefully tilted the bottle to spill a few honey-thick green drops onto the surface of the pool. The drops hissed and swirled, spreading in crawling rivulets, twining and expanding until the pool was no longer crystal blue, but instead crystal green. I shivered in appreciation. A witness to magic for the very first time! Oh, how I wanted to snap off and fall into the newly green pool. Magic were growing in me. I could feel it, but I could not command it. I vowed a thought to study Briny Brook. I wished a thought for a powerful wind storm to snap me free. When would my day arrive?

“For bar years I observed Briny Brook's spells and potions and amulets in wondrous performance. A grumpy delight, salty and frowning, that were Briny Brook. He shaped clouds, changed their colors, made the rain stop in mid-fall. He spelled a rope of water up from the pool to reach the sky. He climbed it for exercise. From time to time he floated away and left me alone in the silent oasis. Those were the times when most I wanted to tear myself from the tree. How had I endured the tedious boredom of the empty oasis in the years before Briny Brook appeared? I tried to snap myself from the tree. How I tried! The magic were in me, but it always slipped aside whenever I tried to grasp it. The snaves slithered over the dunes to visit the pool a time or two, commenting without alarm and some amusement at the pool's new green color, but never by bad fortune did they arrive when Briny Brook was there. Bad fortune for me. I wished to see what would happen when Briny Brook met the snaves. Oh, bad fortune four or five times. Good fortune once! Hear ye well!

“Came a bright morning when Briny Brook were plucking blades of blue grass directly beneath me. He had to duck or I would have knocked off his conical cap. To my joy, over the dunes came a line of yellow snaves slithering and singing bad rhymes. Briny Brook looked up and began to stroke his long red beard with his fiery orange hands. He retreated to his favorite position, hovering seated cross-legged just a scant reach above the pool. He faced the approaching snaves, who slithered to an astonished halt when they saw him. ‘Seed belt striped with fog, and when I say “Seed belt striped with fog”, I mean “Waterwizard?”', said the snave at the head of the line. (Kar rammed me a strong elbow. I knew. I knew. We had dealt with snave nonsense ourselves. I nodded a nod.) ‘I be Briny Brook. This be my beckoning pond. Who be ye, and why?' said the waterwizard. ‘We are the snaves of Innek. We climb on toast, by which I mean that we visit the pool to romp. Will you bend the wheels on our ivy?' Briny Brook ignored the snave nonsense, instead opening his arms and some magical how building a slitherway which led up to the top of a waterslide which in its own very turn emptied into the pool. The snaves wriggled with delight and spent all of the day in slide and splash play while Briny Brook posed, arms folded, leaning on a grob tree trunk, watching with his ice blue eyes. He was directly across the pool from me. And after the snaves had disappeared over the dunes spouting grateful nonsense songs of farewell, Briny Brook remained leaning against the tree. His ice blue eyes stared straight at me. ‘Ye there, though bent in the middle, would make a comely wand, wouldn't ye?' he said.

HIDING MISCHIEF

The wand twitched, flipped, stood on end. It wobbled there on a fold of my blackest purple cloak and continued to tell its tale.

“Briny Brook nodded a smiling frown and circled the pool walking, not floating, all the while keeping his ice blue gaze fixed on me. I were filled with a hope of excitement. The magic inside me fizzed and tingled. I could almost grip it! ‘A gift. A likely gift for the witch ye would make. A trade. Better! A trade! Wand for a sweet chunk of cottage. I hear tell it be made of candy and cakes never ending,' said the waterwizard, approaching, reaching up, and snapping me from the tree. Free! Oh, free! The surge of magic! I clutched it! ‘What be this? Aha, wand. Ye be a stormy chaos of magic full without my intervention. Ye be a wand ready made. A jolt. How long have ye been watching me?' said Briny Brook, narrowing his ice blue gaze. I would have answered him, but I had no firm hold of this magic voice that ye be hearing. I could not reply. I itched with mischief, secret mischief. Mischief then, not now. I speak to ye. I do not hide. Ye be the first creatures to hear my voice. (Kar shivered with joy beside me.) Now, ye see, I have nothing to hide. Back then, I hid my itch for mischief.

“After I were plucked from the tree, there followed days of glory. I were plunged down held in Briny Brook's hand to the bottom of the pool. Cool caress. Bubbles. Floating. I took in every new sensation and measured out magic in the smallest of doses, and only when Briny Brook tapped me three times. ‘So this be how ye work,' he said as I silently trained him to do my bidding. This were how I did it. I refused to release a single bolt of power unless he tapped me three times on a solid surface. In the beginning, he paced with me around and about the oasis, searching for things to spell. He pointed me at a grob tree. ‘Make it invisible,' he said. I did nothing, though yet I surely could have. I chuckled to myself. He shook me. ‘Spell out, wand. I feel the magic strong within ye,' said Briny Brook. He pointed me at the pool. ‘Make it orange,' he commanded. I did nothing. Then I wiggled. ‘Ah, something,' he grumbled, frowning. ‘Make it orange,' he repeated. I wiggled. He tapped me on a grob tree once. ‘Orange,' he said. I wiggled. He tapped me again. ‘Orange,' he said. I wiggled with more vigor. ‘Ah, something better,' he grumbled. He tapped me a third time on the tree. ‘Orange?' he questioned. I threw a bolt of magic at the pool and made it orange. I almost surrounded it with tar, too. But I didn't. I held the mischief back. I had the power to hold mischief back, though I rarely ever did so again. Mischief were such a pleasure! Such a joy! Such a ... Then! Then! Not now! Not now! Now I serve ye, the new Harick. I serve ye most humbly. What would ye have me do? Would ye like a bowl of ool? Would ye care for a pillow of comfort?”

“I would hike ... bike ... like to fear ... hear the rest of your ... your ...,” I stumbled.

“Story,” quickly completed Kar.

“I bow to your wish,” said the wand, and it tilted a sort of a bow. “I hid my mischief from Briny Brook. I were waiting to be flown out and away from the oasis. Powers to move on my own I had not yet mastered. The waterwizard in his ever constant muttering mumbled about Blue Hills this, Greenwilla River that, Danken Wood the other, but most of all about the witch's edible cottage. He had never ventured north across the Greenwilla River. His journeys had ever been south. Skrabble he knew, and the Swump of Greedge. I myself knew nothing of anything, but I were learning, filing away information picked from the frowning grumbles of the waterwizard. I allowed him four full days to think he had mastered my powers. Four were enough. Any more or fewer and he might have become suspicious of my hidden mischief.

On the fifth morning, I dutifully bolted a thatched hut of blue grass to appear on one command and three taps from the waterwizard. ‘Ye be ready enough for witches,' he frowned. ‘Today we go.'”