The Wicked Wand by Steve Shilstone Read Free Book Online

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.
    â€œBy 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!”
    â€œWhat ... happened?” I obeyed without question.
    â€œWell 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.’”

Chapter Eighteen
    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.
    â€œThe 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