The Land's Whisper Read online

  ~

  When Sim awoke, he could not move. The sun shone down into his cold hole and cruelly revealed the fate of his night’s travels: this was more than likely the pit in which he would die. And with his death, Marietta would be lost forever.

  I’ve failed her, he thought, and wept.

  ~

  Garriel mopped the brow of the ashen woman, clucking her tongue in frustration. In her thirty-two orbits as a nurse, she had never seen such a mysterious decline in health. She had acted as midwife, herbalist, and bone-setter for the local community since she had reached womanhood and had grown to consider herself knowledgeable, yet nothing could have prepared her for the bizarre circumstances of Marietta.

  Marietta had been a vibrant, healthy woman, with a smile ever upon her lips, offering hospitality to all, pulling her soumme in for a kiss—regardless of the company. Now, she lay delirious and thrashing, with chestnut-red locks clinging sickly to pale cheeks and neck. The skin around her fingernails was as black as mold. She mumbled madness under a sour breath, and her gray eyes, listless and unseeing, had begun to lose their color: streaks of black filled her irises like oil in a pool. She had not eaten for days, and her skin had begun to shrink up tightly around her bones. She gave off the stink of muscle devouring itself. Death had hung his hat and was loathe to take his exit alone.

  Garriel arched her body forward to hear; a low voice issued from the frail creature.

  “In a hole. You must send seal. You must. A hole. In the mountain. The mountain has a hole. A hole. But the fields are gray. He knew and so the hole ate him…” Marietta continued to mutter deliriously, and Garriel straightened.

  Such a pity, the nurse thought. She was beautiful indeed—a woman of benere.

  Was? The morbidity of Garriel’s thoughts iced her spine, and she hugged her thick frame with doughy arms. If only Sim could return in time. She cannot have much left. Why did he go on this foolish hunt?

  Marietta thrashed in the bed, agitated and restless. “Sim! Get Sim! The hole. He knew. The hole ate him anyway.” Her arms danced wildly, and her screams grew more pronounced.

  Garriel hushed her and drew close with a cup. “Drink this, Mari. Drink.” Her voice was soothing as she spooned the warm liquid and drew it to Marietta’s full lips, which were becoming even now.

  An astonishingly strong hand flicked up and gripped Garriel’s arm, steely gray-black eyes finding her own. Broth slopped onto the sheets, and Garriel gasped; Marietta looked almost like herself in that moment.

  “Is this the milk of the tenralily? Selet allowed it? It isn’t just a tale?” she asked. “You sent seal? What of the hole and the gray?”

  Garriel stared stupidly at the woman, but in another moment Marietta’s eyes rolled lazily back, and she screamed before collapsing into her salty bedclothes.

  “Shhhhhh. Don’t fear, Mari. I’m right here.”

  “It is inside me. I can’t make it leave. Why won’t it leave?”

  “Hush, Mari. Hush.”

  “Take it out. Please. I didn’t realize when it asked to come in what it was. Make it leave.”

  “Mari, shhhhh.”

  “But Sim?” Marietta persisted. Her eyes flicked back in another moment of lucidity.

  “Take this, child.” Again she offered the spoonful of warm medicine.

  Marietta refused. “Is this from Sim? The milk?” Her eyes darkened further, and she moaned.

  “Yes, yes,” Garriel lied. “Sim is resting in the next room. He brought this for you. We made the tenralily milk.” The words burned in the nurse’s chest, and guilt flushed her cheeks. Am I so base that I utter lies to a woman in her coffin?

  The mollified Marietta relaxed and closed her eyes, finally allowing the broth to pass her lips. Her body eased into the sheets as the drugs began to act upon both nerves and pain.

  Before the narcotic had fully taken effect, though, Marietta’s lips pulled back over her teeth into a snarl, and her eyes snapped open and bore darkly into Garriel. The dark pools had nearly overtaken the gray. “Your lies are poison. And now we’re all dead.”

  She spat up into Garriel’s face. Garriel wiped the hot, putrid mucus from her stunned features and stared stupefied at her fingers.

  But she’s crazy. The sickness has taken her sense… She needs the medicine. She’s out of her mind.

  Three, help me…

  Garriel ignored her fretting stomach and spooned more into Marietta’s mouth. She doesn’t know what she says.

  The narcotic took hold. Marietta’s limbs sagged in sleep, and her face drooped to the side, finally resting. Her calmed breaths rose up and down in her thin chest.

  The movement and new lull served to allay Garriel’s doubts.

  Sim will return soon, she reassured herself. He will be back for her.

  ~

  Sim called out in the breeze to her, to his Marietta. It sounded more like a strangled whisper than words. “My dear, I am here. I am here. I know you can hear me. I am here. Send seal, send help. I am trapped on Inelt. My legs are both broken. I have your tenralily pods. I have your health! Save me, and I will save you too.” He kissed the air and prayed with his whole being that she could hear him.

  She can hear me. I know she can. She can.

  He unclenched his jaw—the pain of his legs was nearly unbearable—and yelled again. There must be life outside of this cursed land somewhere. Wolves, humans, juile, anyone.

  Selet rumbled. Its anger was hot beneath him, but clearly mixed within it was a gloating laugh. It jolted terror through his person.

  A slithering sigh came up from the hard soil: You should have left.

  Sim screamed, knowing his end would come soon.

  ~

  Garriel unfolded the black lace sheet upon the motionless bed. Dawn shone in with a yellow, unfeeling light as she gently pulled the delicate fabric over stiff legs, blackened fingernails, cold chest.

  Before shrouding the face, the nurse bent down with a tender kiss. Her tears fell upon the smooth skin, and she shook as she stifled her grief.

  The face was gaunt and white as milk, yet the now fully black eyes peered accusingly at her. She remembered how her brother had tried to scare her when they were children: “The dead know. They know and remember.” Garriel swallowed and hastily closed the eyelids. She swept the dark fabric up and covered the wavy auburn hair. She crept back and lowered herself down to both knees before the bed and black lace.

  “Your life was bountiful, may death’s reins only lead you to greater heights.”

  She rose, hugging her own body. Her limbs felt cold, despite the warm seasonal air. The boy in the other room wailed, hungry. She washed and rushed in, scooping him into a close cradle. It was a comfort to hold him in the storm of death, but her palate was dry and bitter; he was motherless and his father was without a soumme.

  “Darse, Darse, Darse. Shhhhhhh,” She rocked and drew a bottle to his delicate lips. He choked back and cried, piercing the air with cries for his mother’s breast.

  “No more, dear one. No more. She’s gone.” Her sobs racked her as she walked the room trying to soothe him to sleep. “No more.”

  ~

  That night Sim quivered like a dying wick. His skin was icy to the touch and his body weak. Guilt had nudged and gnawed at his insides until his soul had all but collapsed within him. He was unaccustomed to crying, yet here in the secret darkness of his own tomb, he sobbed and heaved uninhibited

  Sim finally understood and accepted his folly, and the shame clothed him with deeper grief.

  If she knew what I have done…

  And all because of those old crones’ stories.

  Sim extracted the gray parcel from his coat and peered at it with both loathing and desire. His hand lingered hesitantly, but suddenly he surrendered. He unwrapped the cloth and tilted his palm into a slide. The pods fell beside the heap of his crushed body with soft thuds. They rolled gently away.

  “Selet… I…” he whispered. “I stole from you
. I did it for Marietta… but it was still wrong. I’m sorry…” His voice felt changed, as though it were no longer his own. “I chased after a lie… I wish I’d stayed with her during her last moments. I’ve lost her now, surely.”

  He lay back and drank of regret and self-loathing.

  The hole, while still unpleasant, began to change. It no longer stifled him with the tightening walls of fury, but seemed to ease back and even widen. The ground warmed slightly under his body, and his skin soaked it up greedily.

  Is it just my own peace returning? Or is Selet changing?

  The ground itself answered him, and although he had been swallowed in violence, he was disgorged in gentleness. The soil multiplied and mounded beneath him like the surface atop a mole tunnel, and it carried his body up until he was level with the path. Selet stretched out before him again, and he could see the lugazzi with streaming eyes. The stars shone down in loveliness; the moons, in glory. He inhaled the sweet air drifting from Ziel’s breezes.

  As clearly as his own voice, Selet hissed, “Take a tenralily. One. And leave. Never return. Ever.”

  His jaw opened in awe, and closed as a new hope sprung alive within his chest. The land would never love him, but he was free. A pod rolled to his broken limbs, and he clutched it beneath white knuckles.

  “It won’t work,” Selet said with derision. “Nothing can stop malitas.”

  Sim ignored the jab and bowed his head and whispered in Massadan fashion, “Your mercy is my bounty.”

  “I will send aid shortly,” the terrisdan whirred. “Then get out.”

  Sim clung to the tiny hope. She has a chance. Maybe.

  ~

  What a fool, this woman, the spirit thought, hovering over Garriel as she clung to the child in the nursery. I think I shall still have some fun. There is much amusement for me here.

  It returned to the bedroom and re-entered Marietta’s cooled body. The sensation was strange, but somehow appealing. It no longer had to tear through her soul for control. All that fought back now were stiff limbs.

  Yes, I will do this next time. Oh, how I hated her squirming.

  The spirit tugged the black lace from its face with a swift movement. It lowered itself from the bed with catlike grace and padded lightly across the room to a small chest of drawers. With hands beginning to blacken, it gripped the small knife that lay on its worn surface. A cold, evil smile spread upon its lips, but its eyes remained lifeless and black. It could smell the early reek of the body decomposing. It was revolting, but humor served to outweigh the fleshly discomforts.

  I could do this often. Indeed. She taught me enough while alive.

  It opened the penknife and began to etch upon the floor boards. The motions were new, but it seemed to find a rhythm, as if the woman’s original skills had seeped into the intruder when they had shared one flesh and life. It soon completed its task.

  It grasped the black lace from the bed and pulled until the cloth cascaded down to cover the flesh.

  The spirit released its hold on the dead woman, whose skin grew blacker with every passing moment, and lifted up above her body.

  Pleasure bubbled in its core. I think that should do.

  It lingered in wait, pondering. As if the fabled tenralilies could stop me! Nothing could end the fire I bring.

  I will destroy the flowers, it thought smugly. I want to crush every hope these bugs have. Even the imagined ones.

  ~

  Several hours elapsed before Garriel returned. She laid Darse down and reluctantly moved to the bedchamber to tend to the corpse.

  I’ll at least pull her outside. The stench’ll be too much by morning, the nurse thought.

  When Garriel entered, however, the lifeless body lay on the floor. Cold ran through her veins. Her pulse quickened, but she leaned forward to peer upon the strange sight more closely. She noticed a small knife sticking up boldly from the floorboards like a dart in a bull’s-eye. And then her breath left her.

  Etched into the floor was a single word: LIAR.

  CHAPTER 1

  The worlds are connected; the wise tremble in this knowledge.

  -Genesifin

  The queue progressed slowly.

  The scrutar Reven sat in the square, wrapped in an air of importance, with his ledger and pen neatly before him. He was a small man, soft around the gut and thighs, and wore the usual uniform—navy blue slacks with copper buttons, tight crimson shirt and collar, matching navy blazer, sewn gold emblem at the breast—of his rank.

  As it was a smaller Alatrician town, Hael did not have a permanent taxation edifice, but the booth rested in a prominent location in the town center, where all could observe its dealings. Or lack thereof.

  Reven scrutinized the local homesteader approaching the table. His clothes were soiled and worn, with mending that left him seeming more quilt than man, and he had a face made ugly by orbits of toil. He placed two callused and filthy hands to rest on the table. Reven leaned back in distaste.

  “Treak Birch. My son is Mart.”

  Reven scrolled his index down the list until he came to the name. “Orbits?” he asked.

  “I’m forty-two. Mart is eight.”

  Reven nodded; the numbers matched his records. “Have you enrolled the boy in study?”

  Treak shook his head but refused to grant any further explanation. He need not, though; Reven knew very well that apprenticeships were costly commodities. This man, like most Reven had seen in the various rural towns, could hardly afford bread, let alone to pay a master to teach his son a craft for six orbits.

  “Is it only the two of you?”

  “Yeah,” Treak replied softly.

  “One male adult and one male child. Passes?” Reven asked. “Or the honor of conscription?”

  Treak did not meet the scrutar’s eyes. “I’m to set Mart down.”

  Reven’s brow narrowed harshly. “And you did not bring him?”

  The farmer drew up his gray, edgy gaze. “But he’s not to go ‘til ten,” Treak pleaded.

  Reven shook his head. “He still needs a stamp and an assessment.”

  Treak grimaced. He had left the boy purposefully, in hope that the scrutar would be too busy to enforce the tattoo signifying the boy’s allegiance. “When?”

  Reven peered about in search of his inker. The man was excellent at his job but rarely timely. “It will have to be this evening before sundown. I expect you back before I close for the day.” He glanced at the string of people waiting their turn. “Yes, today,” Reven confirmed. There were only two more days in Hael and then he would move his booth to the next town.

  Treak nodded weakly.

  “We will wait to settle your account until tonight,” Reven continued. “But you shall collect this time, for Mart’s induction will more than pay your pass, even though he is young.”

  Treak nodded again and strode from the table. His gait favored the left leg, but otherwise he appeared hale. Reven noted the limp in his ledger—old injuries did not warrant a mercy slip—and gestured sharply to the next in line.

  A man in the square frowned. He was past his prime, with graying hair, a strong chin, and eyes the hue of the sea. He leaned against the wall of the general store beside a burlap sack of goods. He observed Treak stride from the stand and maneuver his way past the few buildings of the town.

  He idled, deliberating, and his face appeared stern under his musings. Finally, he shrugged his shoulders and moved forward to greet the farmer.

  Treak glanced up. His eyes turned severe. “What do you want, Darse?”

  Darse met the man’s gaze. He did not return the fire, but stood tall, evidencing his own strength. “Your son Mart’s inducting?”

  Treak flinched, and he drew his lips into a false smile. “Requested the honor. I’ve been eager to send Mart since he was born. I didn’t even try to find apprenticeships.”

  Darse paused, again pondering. I’ve saved every spare drale all season. Why waste it on him? Yet despite his dislike of Treak
, Darse found his hand already reaching toward his money fold at his chest pocket.

  “Treak? Don’t induct your son. Really. I…I will pay his tax this season.” Darse drew out three marks, extending them in hand.

  Treak’s eyes sparked in a moment of hope, but the sentiment flickered out just as abruptly, and his features tightened in disdain. “You’re just as your da was,” he said. He stepped forward to leave, but then turned and spit, first on the palmed offering and then upon Darse’s boot.

  Darse peered down at his damp, sticky hand, then up at the farmer.

  Treak glowered and strode from the square in heat, his speed exaggerating the limp.

  Darse shook his head. That fool’d rather give up his son than take my money.

  He wiped his hand clean, returned to his abandoned sack in the square, and slid into the queue to purchase his annual conscription pass.

  ~

  Darse’s day proved arduous, the bulk of it elapsing under the sun’s blaze in the unending conscription line. The scrutar had come but a septspan after Darse’s final harvesting of corz, but even the poor timing could not be blamed for the yellowing mold stretching across half their rinds. There was no time to sell locally, let alone travel to a neighboring village. On a whim, Darse had loaded a sack full of the unblemished crop and hauled it into town. He had thought perhaps he might see some luck, but it was not to be so.

  Darse shouldered the burden back the five matroles to his field and set the bag in the cool of the barn. The remaining span before sundown became a race with light. He sprinted about to his steel. They were empty, save for a single ragged rabbit, which he killed and stuffed into his gaming sack. He fetched and tended Button, his dairy cow, and chased his handful of chickens into their coop. He glanced regretfully at the rows of crops he could not attend, but he soaked in the sharp, striking loveliness of the sunset for a moment, lighting his lantern before entering the barn.

  Darse upended the contents of the morning’s sack upon the hay-strewn ground. The corz rolled gently and settled while he selected and tossed the pieces that had turned in the heat and reserved those that could keep until he had the chance to dry the greenest and pickle the rest. He frowned, glancing across to the barrel that held the molding fruit; it would take a miracle of time to beat it.