The Land's Whisper Page 15

  The youth eyed Darse’s arms clothed in goose bumps. His own insides were cold and swirling with dread. “Moments like this are when I don’t like being a nurest. It makes me feel awful to be a walking mystery…even to myself.”

  Darse smiled in spite of the gravity of it all; Brenol sounded like himself again. He isn’t entirely lost, realized Darse. He reached over and patted him on the shoulder as he had done so many times before.

  Brenol nodded. The hand felt good, like a sturdy tree to cling to in a squall: reassuring, even if not entirely relieving. He offered Darse a dip of the head before rising and slipping from the room.

  Although Brenol retired to his quarters, he did not attempt sleep. He set to pacing his room as if he were a caged cat. His eyes did not see tapestry or stone or furnishing; they only saw Colette, for Veronia would not cease pounding him with images of the helpless child.

  Darkness was impenetrable and the castle quiet when he finally surrendered to the unrelenting voice of conscience.

  I have to get out of Veronia.

  I’m a terror. I’m a monster here.

  I scare Darse, I want to destroy a little girl…

  Yes. I have to listen to Darse. He is the only thing holding me together right now.

  And so he decided. He would begin the journey with Darse in the morning, plodding on to the border and all that fate held. Veronia said nothing of his decision, and he was too drained to care. He sighed and sank heavily into his bed for a few short hours of sleep before sunrise, unaware that the images carried through even in his dreams.

  ~

  They rose at dawn, bathed, and dressed. The Queen had given them clothes common to all the terrisdans: khaki boots with laces, tan jackets, and pants lined with a soft material. They were simple, well made, and discreet. Brenol fingered the fabric, and the name kord slid into his mind along with new images—fine heather reaching high, weathered workers harvesting with a slice of a scythe, crop beaten, cleaned, softened, brushed, spun, woven. His pupils widened; these clothes were decadent, even if they appeared commonplace.

  They breakfasted briefly and donned their new canvas packs, which were nearly bursting with stores, supplies, gifts, and currency. Their backs curved forward to compensate for the weight, and the two trod through the eerily silent castle. It was the same nail-biting experience as when they arrived: the absence of bodies, but the feel of many eyes tingling upon their necks.

  The Queen waited for them at the castle doors. She was garbed in a gown of honeysuckle gold that flowed down her frame with the smoothness of oil, and her mahogany hair hung soft and loose upon her slender back. Her eyes were full of wild emotion that refused to be masked, and her skin emanated light like the soft beam of a star. Again, her lucent beauty stunned Brenol. He inhaled carefully, with eyes ever upon her.

  Isvelle stepped forward and took a hand from both Brenol and Darse in a graceful motion.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, squeezing gently. Her lips opened slightly, but pursed a moment later as if to cork all the emotions threatening to bubble over. Her penetrating stare bore into each of them in turn.

  Brenol wanted to squirm, afraid she would see the pernicious battle of his heart. Isvelle gave no indication of spying any darkness, though, gifting him with a generous and affectionate smile. He sighed silently in relief, but wondered anew as he observed Darse. The man had a curious expression upon his features that Brenol had never before seen, and Isvelle’s hands twitched as she gazed back at Darse.

  Maybe there is a hole in her glass, he thought.

  The man and boy both lacked speech, each for his own reasons, so they turned and departed silently, with steps echoing.

  CHAPTER 11

  He will grasp at his cartess as though it is unknown, yet with every motion it blossoms to life.

  -Genesifin

  The early morning light trickled over the horizon and, slowly, both forest and water emerged from under the cold, black cloak of night. The vista remained silent, and the only movement came from Jerem, who drew the dew-thick air into a tight face. The aromas of Ziel burned the man’s nostrils—saccharine sweet, he thought in repugnance—but he remained crouched in the foliage, waiting.

  Waiting, waiting.

  Jerem’s even features twitched at the stirrings of dawn, his heart buzzed with anticipation, and his lean muscles quivered like an athlete before a race, but still he waited.

  Finally, the music began. It filled his ears and curled his soul in discomfort. He grunted in displeasure, but at least the moment was upon him.

  Fluidly, he drew a wooden canoe in a rasping drag across leaf and rock until it rippled upon the water and bobbed to a still. He thrust a pin-anchor into the hard soil while his hazel eyes darted frenetically across the glistening surface. His breath hung suspended in his throat.

  At last Jerem seemed satisfied, drew a breath, threw a large and bulky sack into the canoe, and returned to the foliage. He bent and heaved a limp woman over his left shoulder. It was a motion that came naturally, as one done regularly. He carried the body to his vessel and lowered her in, laying her with a perverse gentleness. Her coffee-colored tresses fell in a tousle to cover her emaciated face. He made no effort to brush her features clean, but instead allowed his palms to linger on her slim chest with a satisfied grin.

  He breathed in her ear, speaking words hardly audible, “I didn’t want to leave you on the shore this time. You will stay with me.”

  She did not stir.

  Jerem rose again in a towering height—a solid hand span above a normal man—and dashed back to the forest bushes. He emerged with yet another slack body, but this one—a man—he merely dragged by the ankles to the water’s edge, hauled up with a grunt, and dumped unceremoniously beside the canoe’s yoke. He tugged up the anchor, picked his way aboard, and seated himself. His chest rasped from the exertion, but his attention remained on the water. His eyes swept the area with tense fear, but the screen remained still.

  I can barely think in this wretched din.

  Jerem gripped the shaft of his oar and grimaced as he haphazardly scraped the starboard gunwale before dipping the blade into the clear water. He waited, exhaling softly when the surface remained undisturbed. A smug confidence rose within, and he coaxed the vessel out fifty strokes with the oar before stowing it quietly on the hull floor.

  The fish-fools don’t know as much as they say, he gloated.

  Jerem smoothed his sandy hair back and drew out a pocketed vial. He spread its contents—a thick, off-white cream—upon his fingers and roughly massaged the putrid mess into the scalp of the unconscious man, leaving only a few brown locks visible amidst the globs. The substance did not absorb, but rested and merged with the cracked and crusted cream already present. The man did not awaken, although his form suddenly tightened and wrenched as if under immense strain. Jerem smiled slightly; before him, a moving picture appeared and played. He watched as a young boy held a little girl’s hand, speaking to her with genuine tenderness. She squeezed his hand and smiled before the scene misted into clear air.

  Jerem carefully wiped his fingers on a loose cloth before he bent to retrieve a notebook. He penned out a few words but quickly returned his attention to the body. His lips pursed tightly in annoyance.

  “Nothing Deniel? How do you still fight me?” Jerem mumbled. “Even in your state?”

  A scalpel gleamed from his long fingers, and he bent forward, drawing lines of crimson across the other man’s arms like a stick dragging through sand. “You will learn not to play with me eventually.” The images were indecipherable amidst the blood, but Jerem smirked in satisfaction before returning to his notebook.

  Then he stopped, frozen. His breath hung choked in his lungs.

  Eyes stared out from the lake. They had barely surfaced, but they were there: steely orbs beneath a crop of ashen and green hair. The blue irises were mere specks of color amidst the shocking pools of black, as if the pupil had leeched and spilled out. Jerem’s insides wen
t cold.

  An amused glint suddenly shone from the maralane’s eyes, doing little to settle Jerem’s nerves.

  Ever so slowly, the man lifted his oar. He swept it over the gunwale and made to dip it in the water.

  “I would not do that.”

  Jerem stopped. The oar quivered in his hands.

  “It will only draw them.”

  Jerem’s eyes narrowed, confused. “But the song…it continues until the sun rises to the third marker.”

  The maralane spread his lips into a cruel smile. “I did not say that you would draw the maralane.” His features hovered suspended in an unnatural gloat. “What are you doing, little worm? It does appear ever so interesting.”

  “Nothing to concern you,” Jerem replied hastily.

  “No reason to get alarmed. What is your name?”

  Jerem began to shake his sandy head but stopped before the lethal glare of the lake-man. Never before had he seen such hatred. The whole universe would not be enough to sate that fire. “Jerem,” he replied tremulously.

  “What is it you are doing?” the maralane repeated. His eyes sparked in genuine diversion, though his manner and speech were lazily disinterested.

  “Nothing,” he replied, gritting his teeth.

  The maralane laughed. “You are a spider, aren’t you?” He lowered his body into the water so his chin rested upon the surface as if it were a table. “I think I might even help you.”

  Jerem’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Maralane do not help us.”

  Again the lake-man laughed. It was an evil roll that pressed a knot into Jerem’s insides. “Do you mean the wicked or merely the legged?”

  Jerem could barely think. He was unused to being the vulnerable one. “Either.”

  The smile grew wider. “What makes you think I am like other maralane? Or even a maralane?”

  Jerem did not speak. He merely stared.

  “I will take you to an island. You will not be disturbed there, assuming you show a touch more discretion than you have this morning.”

  “There is no island.”

  The smooth voice poured out like oil. “That is what they might have you believe.”

  “And if I will not go?”

  “I shall have to bring the others.”

  Jerem cursed under his breath. He flicked his eyes desperately to the shore and back again to the young woman heaped beside him.

  “There really is no room for escape. I would not even attempt it. It would be such a waste.” The maralane’s lips savored the last word.

  Finally, Jerem spoke, “And what about when I want to return?”

  The dark pools glinted. A dripping arm slid up into the canoe, caressing the unconscious woman in delighted mimicry. “It will likely amuse me to assist you again.”

  “Don’t touch her!” Jerem belted, standing suddenly and causing the craft to rock.

  “Sit,” the maralane barked, and Jerem obeyed with a wince, staring at the pale hand lingering upon her now-damp breast. The maralane’s features beamed in cruel satisfaction. “No. You shall do as I say, or your nasty little hands will only grope at the lake bed greenery. No more of this little one.” His white index finger traced the graceful neck of the young woman. His nails and cuticles were as black as if he had been digging in tar.

  Fear drained Jerem’s handsome face to a sickly cream. “What am I to do?”

  The maralane chuckled to himself, saying, “All the gnats eventually do what I say.” He met Jerem’s eyes. The little color remaining in the iris had now been overtaken with a deep obsidian. “All of them.”

  ~

  Travel was easy at first. Darse and Brenol sidled their way through the sloping lands that led from Sleockna to Pearia, yet this time they followed a more southern route than their original path. The land smoothed down in a gentle grade as they moved east, and it seemed another world entirely from the heights jutting up around Ziel. It was too perfect to last, like a heat swell in the heart of winter. The sky was a deep azure and the sun, still low, trickled heat down to lick away the cool dew glistening at their feet. The wind even held its breath, as if not wanting to disturb the idyll.

  They met Pearia and followed her south. She bubbled and danced merrily, and Brenol eyed her wistfully; they would not be able to raft down to Selet, even though she flowed the entire way. Pearia dipped south and slid through a range of mountains and ballooned under the additional run-off water. The jagged rocks along her girth made even skilled boaters shy from the watery avenue. So for now, they merely tramped beside her and listened to her babbling.

  By mid-morning, they spied their goal: a worn pier poking out above the river. A small hut was planted along the western shore. The hut and pier both blended with the cluttered tree life of the river. Darse would have missed the crossing entirely had Brenol, with his nurest sense, not known precisely where it lay.

  Brenol flicked his index finger across the sparkling water to where a canoe lay beached and inverted in a secure hold. Paddles hung on a trunk beside it. Slightly removed from the bank rested a house, formed from logs and the bister river clay, with gentle smoke billowing out from a flue in the roof.

  A burly man emerged—as though their steps had pealed an unseen bell—and swung his arm up in greeting before shouldering the craft, plucking up the two oars, and wading into the gushing water. He held the canoe firmly in his strong arms as he righted it with care, stowed the paddles, and clambered in with practiced ease. He fought the current with swift strokes and arrived downriver on the western side. He shouldered the craft again and lugged it up the thirty strides to Darse and Brenol. With a grunt and a lift of a bristly chin, he lowered the canoe and towed it up to the tiny pier.

  “Dione,” the man announced in a gravelly voice as he secured the craft. He was a bronzed beast, about a hand shorter than Darse, with thickly muscled arms and neck. His weathered oblong face was stern and honest, framed by dense brown eyebrows and a square jaw. His dark eyes were somewhat sunken, but without a hint of cruelty, and his yellowing teeth betrayed many summers of pipe tobacco and strong beer. Darse liked him immediately.

  “Darse and Bren.”

  The dark eyes flicked over them. “It’s ten a head.”

  Darse fingered out a few bills with the awkward unfamiliarity of a foreigner and looked expectantly to the ferryman.

  “The river isn’t gonna yank off ya shoes,” he said in answer to their raised brows, and the two toed themselves unsurely aboard.

  The canoe held four seats. Darse and Brenol loaded into the first two while Dione settled in the stern and untied them from the pier.

  The current was not choppy, but it certainly tugged at the craft with persistent fingers. The ferryman’s breathing only increased slightly; if anything, he appeared to find the passage calming as he swept his paddles repeatedly through the clear with deft strokes. They arrived at the shore downstream, and Dione leaped out to hold the canoe steady with an expectant glance. Darse and Brenol, realizing he would never scrape his boat across rock simply to keep their ankles dry, clambered out with less experienced movements. Darse emerged with drenched clothing up to his thighs; Brenol, his waist.

  Dione then lifted and hauled the craft in a dripping shower up the hundred paces to the hut. The two dogged his heels and watched as he secured the canoe amongst the trees. He gave a quick flick of a finger toward the house and grumbled out a promise of coffee. The two nodded gratefully and waited in sopping puddles for the ferryman to emerge with tin mugs brimming with a steaming, pungent brew. They sipped thoughtfully as he granted their request for directions.

  “You got this from tha Queen?” he asked mildly, fingering their rudimentary map. His rumbling voice was deep, with words meshing together like a child’s finger painting.

  Brenol nodded.

  “One would think she ’ud had somethin’ a bit better. Or sent ya wid a lil’ help.” Dione shrugged a shoulder. “’Gardless, the best route ’ud be here.” He pointed with callused hands to
a section on the map. “An’ here.” His rough digits swept across to illustrate Broning, the Inest River, and Stonia’s mountainous north cupping Ziel.

  “Stonia’ll be easy enough. Get a raft at tha inn and Inest’ll carry you west ’til she flows inta Lake Cabel. ’Pends on tha rains how rough Inest’ll be on ya, tho’.”

  He gulped from his mug as though the dark searing liquid were tepid. “From there ya’ve got ’bout three or four hours walk ta tha’ border a Stonia. It’s Selet that’ll beya monster t’ cross. It’ll take five days ah movin’ hard.” Dione peered down at them, and he puckered his lips in thought. “Prob’ly seven o’ eight tho’.”

  Darse grinned, amused at Dione’s swift appraisal of their lacking skills.

  “Tha woods ’n Selet are difficul’ ta folla’. Don’ run off explorin’. Leave that ta others.” His lips smacked at the last word as though it tasted of bilge water. His eyes drove into them meaningfully, obviously seeking to say more, but both Darse and Brenol stared back without comprehension.

  He sighed. “Jus’ watch yerselves. There’s much betta left alone. Don’t get too curious, ’n follow tha roads when ther’re roads. And avoid tha south if ya can.”

  He waved at the eastern section of the map. “I don’t know much ’bout Selet. Weird place it is…lights ’n invis’ble people…anyway, just ask for help ’n one of tha cities. I know there’s this one here… ’n up here too if ya end up more north ’an ya meanta.”

  The two offered thanks for the help and coffee, and the man granted a wide, yellowed smile before ducking into his house.

  “Wonder what that was about,” Brenol said.

  Darse shrugged. “As long as Selet doesn’t remember my da, I think we’ll be fine,” he said. Then we’ll only have to worry about tracking down a kidnapper, he thought wryly.

  Brenol peered back across the river, pondering. “Dione is right though. Isvelle sent us without much at all. Why didn’t she at least give us a guide?”

  Darse grimaced. “I imagine it’s more because of Ordah than anything. When a prophet orders, these people seem to sit, fetch, and heel without question.” He shook his head in exasperation. “Isvelle would have sent us with an army if Ordah had said she should.”