Blue Hills by Steve Shilstone Read Free Book Online Page A

famous of all bendo dreen, Bandy of Thorns. So such well thought of, Kar. So such.”
    â€œIt wasn’t …”
    â€œSilence. I am yet thinking while I speak. So … the Blue Hills are as like similar to the hackenlumps in the … the … Swump of Greedge. But these hills are … more of ‘em …and … and … bluer. Watch ‘em, Kar. They lull with their gentle back and forth, don’t they?”
    â€œThey do.”
    â€œYes, yoss, yes, they do.”
    â€œThey do.”
    â€œYoss.”
    â€œShouldn’t we be moving on, strange Bek?”
    â€œWhat? Oh. Right. Go on. We should. Down the zigs and zags. I’ll … I’ll… run. You fly. I’ll race you to that lake! That lake … ah … that lake …”
    â€œâ€¦ is the source of the Greenwilla River?”
    â€œSo said. Well thought. The source of the Greenwilla River. We’ll … swim. We’ll swim! Then will I press the print of my highboots on the lowest tier of the moving Blue Hills. Such will be so. And noon … no … soon. Yes!”

Chapter Nineteen
    Another Swim
    I raced in clattering eagerness down the steepness, weaving in jubilation back and forth, zigging and zagging, following the path. Down I hurtled, unable to stop, legs churning, highboots slamming, jarring my spine with shuddery thrill. Old Bekka would have crawled her way below on so such a steepness. New Bekka flung herself along in carefree glee. Such was truly so. I reached the base of the steepness, crossed it, attacked and conquered a low smooth blue black mossy hill, slid, jumped, and tumbled to the edge of the lake we’d observed from the high crest of the Charborr Forest. Kar came fluttering awkwardly over the hill.
    â€œHa! I won! I was the first!” I boasted without one oat of guilt.
    â€œI don’t care. It wasn’t fair. I’m not me. I couldn’t shift. I’d like to see you try to beat me when I’m a Striped Racing Dragon,” complained Kar.
    â€œDon’t grump, Kar. Truth is … true. You would beat me as … Dragon. Such I know is so,” I soothed. “Quick … now. Regard. I will … I will hold my poor dry dead stick Jo Bree between my teeth. Let’s swim.”
    * * * *
    I sat, thoroughly soaked, boots and all, on pale blue grass. Apparently I’d splashed my way across the lake fully clothed and booted. I stared above the motionless water to the heights of the Charborr Forest. Something … oh. I suddenly realized I still held Jo Bree between my teeth. I released my jaw grip and allowed the Carven Flute to fall into my waiting, but strangely unfamiliar, common bendo dreen yellow green hands. Tears sprang to my eyes. I wiped ‘em. Jo Bree, my Carven Flute, was no longer dead and brown. Flush yellow
    pink it glowed.
    â€œKar! Kar!” I shouted. “Jo Bree is … is … restored. Kar!”
    No response. No Kar. Where was she? It was then I noticed for the first time the movement, the smooth and gentle drift of the ground beneath me. I counted silently to myself. At fifteen came a pause, followed by the ground drifting back the other way. I rode on the low apron of a moving hill, a Blue Hill! A hill of pale blue grass. Nothing more. Not a tree. Not a bush. No moss, blue black or other. I searched the lake, the sky. A speck. I saw a speck in the sky high above the Blue Hill. It grew larger and larger, plunging straight at me. Wings. Dragon! It swooped.
    â€œHa! Bek! My powers are back!” roared the Dragon, dipping a glide to land nearby.
    Of course it was Kar, striped orange and yellow as Racing Dragon with a whippy tail and wonderful see-through membraned wings. But not so such for long. In a mad frenzy of delight, she shifted to winged cloud, to tumbling Acrotwist Clown Queen Jebb, to upside down jrabe with dark green mantle and enormous lavender ears, to swirling red mist, and finally to