Helga: Out of Hedgelands - Rick Johnson (a court of thorns and roses ebook free TXT) 📗

he wondered, seeing a dusty old Dog standing on a hilltop not far away. The stranger’s clothes were worn and dirty, and he looked very tired.

But, he soon learned the old beast was not too tired to run. In a flash, he was running full speed down the hill and diving, clothes and all, into the pool! Burwell Oswego had never felt such a glorious feeling in all his life. His worn, tired, parched body was immersed in the most wonderful cool, clear water! “YAAHOOOO! GOORGLE-OOOO! SPLASH! SPLOOSH!” Leaping and diving like some crazed monster fish, Burwell left all the young beasts howling with laughter at his antics.

Finally, exhausted, he pulled himself up on the bank, gasping happily for breath. “Woooo, whew...That was so wonderful,” he wheezed with contented delight. Gazing dreamily out of his half-closed eyes, he might have simply dozed happily off into a nap, had he not seen a sight that made him burst out in wheezing laughter.

Bwellina was running down the hillside toward him. Helga hobbled quickly after her, also heading straight for the swimming hole. KER-SPLASH-SPLASH! Clothes and all, she too plunged in with glorious joy!

Winert and Ferrker looked at one another. “Wow!” Ferrker said, “Hey, Cow-Lady, that was super!”

Helga, spouting cool, clear water out of her mouth, laughed. “You haven’t seen anything yet! Just let me have a chance at that rope swing and I’ll show you some waves you’ll remember!”

The travelers discovered that for many, many miles they had been struggling along within easy reach of water. The dry lands they had been traveling sat atop a wealth of underground water. Spreading out from the Drownlands, the huge aquifer was completely hidden in most places. What seemed to be a “barren wasteland” actually contained plenty of water, if you knew where to look. The top of the vast reservoir was deep underground in some places, but as at the swimming hole, it was at the surface in valleys between hills. Water so close to the surface produced a large number of lakes, “wet” meadows, and constantly flowing streams—in close proximity to large expanses of parched lands. WooSheep Bottoms, as residents called the area, had an abundant, but mostly invisible, supply of water.

“Had we only climbed to the hilltops sooner...” Helga thought ruefully, as she sat on the bank splashing in the cool water. “But I guess the Ancient Ones had their own ways,” she reflected. “There probably is a reason that I should be here. That is the way of the Ancient Ones.” The happy yells of the young beasts swimming and splashing seemed to assure Helga’s heart that she, too, could again be happy.

The travelers were invited to join in the annual community picnic that was being held that day. In a shady grove of cottonwood trees, all the beasts of WooSheep Bottoms were gathered. Helga was surprised to find that the ‘WooSheep’ were actually, for the most part, not Sheep at all.

“WooSheep Bottoms is the home of all sorts of beasts,” Vernerdta Otter, the mother of Winert, explained as she led Helga through the serving line. “The Bottoms got its name from the first settlers, who were WooSheep. But over the years many other beasts of all kinds have settled here and been welcomed. We all came here for the same reason—so, even though we’re Otters, Sheep, Coyotes, Ducks, Foxes, Rabbits, we live together in peace. We’re all WooSheep, because it’s our home, not because we’re all Sheep. Nobody cares about that.”

“Why does anyone come here?” Helga asked. “The land all around is so barren and forbidding. You must not get many visitors?”

“We’ve seen only a few strangers in many years,” Vernerdta replied. “It’s very rare that anyone crosses the Great Barrens and survives. We are happy to have visitors, but we’re also glad they are rare. We like being protected from the outside world. Our life is happy and simple. We have all we need.”

Helga was quiet in her reflections as she filled her plate with the luscious food, which was spread out on long tables. Sweet Meadow Greens Salad with Roasted Sunflower Seeds and Dried Cherries, Pecan-Crusted Pan-Baked Crayfish, Thrice-Whipped Cream Cheese Soufflé with So-Hot Pepper Sauce, Trumpet Rolls and Butter, Mulberry Pie, Apple-Pear Turnovers, and Watermelon. Everyone also took Glory Bars that were being distributed in beautifully wrapped packages to each person. The scrumptious sweet was unlike anything Helga had ever tasted before. A crisp, golden pastry crusted with nuts was filled with creamy nougat filling and blackberries at the center.

Helga found a seat next to Burwell and Bwellina, who were stuffing themselves happily. Vernerdta was showing them how to extract the sweet meat from the hard shells of the crayfish. Helga was watching this with great interest, when her ears suddenly heard something that made her nearly drop her fork.

 

Annie and Breister’s Search

Breister lay in the Golden Grotto staring up through the LuteWoo, as the light gradually failed. Night was coming in the outside world. As the gloom deepened into the most complete darkness he could imagine, the only remaining light was the distant twinkling of stars he could see through the LuteWoo. They seemed so tiny and so few that the outside world was almost more a hope—even an illusion—than reality.

“Hang onto your mind, Breister, hang on to your mind!” he urged himself. As he lay in the darkness, the eerie knowledge of how easy it would be to lose contact with the feelings and perceptions of the outside world touched him like a cold hand. “If I stay here, soon, very soon, that world will no longer exist for me. It will be a dream. Even now I feel its reality slipping away from me. WooZan is right. If I stay here, the only hope is to join the WooPeace. I will go mad living down here by myself. Either I escape or join the WooPeace...But the WooPeace is not a life. I must find Helga.”

Breister sat gazing at the small patches of starry sky that he could see through the skylights far above. Most were too small to be more than dim pinpricks of light, but a few were brighter and could be seen passing across the opening. His mind returned again and again to the same question: “If the cave is open to the outside world through those skylights, why does no one find the openings? Surely over the years some beast must have seen them? If someone sees them, why does no one come here from the outside?” Muttering the question to himself over and over, Breister was baffled. Was there truly no way out?

Immersed in these endless wonderings, he heard a faint swish. Breister could make out the eerie light of lanterns mounted on a boat. They glinted off of the water as the boat approached. Here and there the walls of the grotto sparkled in the glow of the lanterns. Soon WooZan had arrived with a passenger in her boat. A Cougar! In the faint light, it was hard to be certain, but it certainly looked like it might be the partner of the Cougar who had fallen in the river with Breister. Breister immediately stood up and took a coldly distant stance.

“You know the Woonyak, I see,” WooZan commented. “You hate her. She has wronged you.” Again, the uncanny ability of the Sheep to anticipate Breister’s thoughts annoyed him.

“Hunjah! Do not be annoyed with me, friend,” WooZan said. “It is not my fault that our folk have existed so very long that we know the feelings of the Woonyaks that fall from above. I see your look. I see your tense muscles. It can only be hate. Hate comes when one feels wronged or when one is ignorant. You are not ignorant. You see it is not so difficult. Hunjah!”

Slasher Annie stepped out of the boat, looking around herself in amazement. Breister recognized the feelings of astonishment that he had also felt on first coming into the Golden Grotto. “You now see that you are not so different, yes?” WooZan observed, looking at Breister intently. “All Woonyaks are the same. Hate cannot last here. If you hate you die. There is life only in the WooPeace where hate is impossible. That is why we bring Woonyaks to the Golden Grotto and then to the WooPeace settlement. The true reality becomes clear.”

Annie looked at WooZan with interest. “The fool,” she thought to herself with some creeping feeling of contempt, “this Sheep is nothing but butterflies and air between her ears.”

“Be careful, friend,” WooZan said, turning and looking directly at Annie. “Ignorance is as dangerous as hate here. Those who have lived here in happy peace for centuries are not the fools. The fool is the one who thinks that the WooPeace is foolish. Hunjah!”

Startled at WooZan’s seeming ability to know what she was thinking, Slasher Annie laughed nervously. “Oh, I wasn’t really thinking you were a fool...It’s just such a shock...to find...such a wonderful place to live!” Annie finished.

WooZan sighed. “You cannot flatter us with empty praise. Your praise, today, is ignorant. You do not know your situation. You do not know the WooPeace. So, you praise out of ignorance. In a few days you will say the WooPeace is a wonderful place to live and mean it. Say such a thing then. Hunjah!”

WooZan reached into the boat and pulled out a bundle of sticks. Slapping the bundle on her legs, the Sheep began to chant in a singsong voice. Sometimes she jumped from foot to foot in high arching leaps. Shortly the singing and leaping stopped and WooZan began to get back in her boat. “Farewell, friends,” she said, paddling away. “I have signaled the Fire Beetles that you are here and asked that they not harm you. You will be safe. You have food and fish-oil candles enough for two days. That is usually enough for Woonyaks to flirt with madness and come to the truth. I will return in two days. You will be ready to join the WooPeace then. Hunjah!”

WooZan had hardly paddled out of sight, when Breister said, “I don’t know who you are, Cougar, and I don’t care at this point. I’m leaving this place. You may come with me, or you may stay here. But I’m leaving. So long as we’re here we’re as good as dead. This place is a tomb any way you look at it. It’s pointless for me to hate you in my own tomb. What good is it? I’m leaving. You coming or staying?”

“Just as you say, this is a tomb,” Annie replied. “It is either a real tomb that we can never escape”—she paused and held a fish-oil candle toward Breister’s face—“or it is an illusion with no more reality than the shadows flickering on your face. We will find out which it is. Let’s go!”

“But where do we go?” Annie continued a moment later. “There is water on one side; vertical, smooth walls on the other; and Fire Beetles above us, even if we could go up. Not promising.”

“Wood Cows look to the virtues of the earth,” Breister observed. “Before you came, I was lying here meditating and listening to the sounds of the rock. I heard many openings in the rock. Let me show you.” Breister took a small pronghorn flute from his pocket. “This belongs to my daughter, Helga,” he explained. “She’s been teaching me to play it. I was playing it here a while ago and noticed that the echoes in this grotto are very interesting—at least to a Wood Cow!” he laughed.

Breister played a series of rough, halting notes from the flute. “You see, I’m not very good,” he commented ruefully. “But listen to the echoes.” He played another series of notes.

“I