DAK THE JROON
In RAKARA, the soon to be published third story in The Bekka Chronicles, Bek and Kar undertake an adventure in direct response to a challenge from an immortal, Dak the Jroon, pictured below as he appeared in THE LEDGEMOON, a tale of twins floating on a raft in the Wide Great Sea and told in alternating chapters by the blind Harpo and his scribe, Lace. The first appearance of Dak is described by Lace.
Time passes. It moves. Night. Day. Sun. Moons. Cast adrift on the Wide Great Sea the trampoline raft floated on. Sill sat with her back to the mast. Her arms were folded, hugging her knees. She felt the buttons on her knee pockets pressing against her pale green arms, and she wished for the hundredth time, if not the hundred and eighth, that she hadn’t wasted the coin of Kadd. Why had she used it so early? She sighed. Now they were truly lost and truly, oh truly, they needed guidance to show them the way to the Ledgemoon. If only we could find the Ledgemoon, if only, she thought, then we would know. We’d know. She gazed out over the waves. Rise and fall. Surge and settle. Water and water everywhere, stretching to all horizons. Bloop. The head of her brother Fiss broke through a rolling glassy wave next to the raft. A spark of alarm fired in his watery sea green eyes.
“Sill, I think …,” he said, scrambling aboard the raft.
“What? What do you think?” yawned Sill, raking her blue fire hair back out of her eyes.
“Something is down there. It’s coming up. I saw bubbles and something gold. Shiny gold. Do you remember?… It seems like something familiar again,” said Fiss, sitting on the pie box, water cascading from his hair, his gills, his oat gray jumper.
“Gold?” said Sill, jumping to her feet. “That almost makes me know! … I feel like … Something … Somebody will help us.”
And then is when the sea around the raft began to churn and churn in a cold bubbling boil. A graceful column of water spouted high and fell away. Another. Another. Then quiet. The sea became calm, flat, waveless. The twins stared, watery sea green eyes wide. They waited. Stared at what? Waited for what? A golden circle of light played on the green glass sea. Up from under it rose a figure, a creature, a something, to break the circle of liquid gold and float free and bold in the air. Darting brightly with each slow twist, golden glints flashed from its robe. It wore a robe. A golden robe. Its hair was the darkest green, glimmered with glowing moss. Its beard was long and wavy and tied in the middle with a golden bow. Its gray storm eyes sparkled. Pale blue was its face. It did not smile when it spoke.
“To place hands on the Ledgemoon is to know. To know is a thing well met,” rumbled the creature, the figure, the something in a low thundering voice.
The twins sat down. Blump. Blump.
“I am Dak, the Sea Jroon, the Jroon of this Sea. You are the twins searching for the Ledgemoon. This much I know,” continued the creature, the Dak, the Jroon.
“How do you know us?” gasped Sill.
“What are you going to do?” breathed Fiss.
“Listen more, speak less, younglings, if you would benefit from what I have to say. Would you benefit?” rumbled Dak.
Both twins nodded assent, and, fair to tell, stole glances of reassurance one at the other and back.
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