The Land's Whisper Read online

  As dusk approached, the sky glowed a rich blue against the olive-black trees. They looked somber and proud: dark soldier-giants saluting the day as she sped away to the west, hands reaching out to grasp the last vestures of her glory.

  His face glistened in perspiration, and the nurest desire rent him anew.

  Go back, his blood burned. To Veronia. Go back.

  Brenol slowed the cart, sat, and wept.

  CHAPTER 17

  The waters are alive. They mete out life with each trickle of movement.

  -Genesifin

  Brenol stumbled upon the outskirts of the town of Tonkyon that night, tripping through black as thick as pitch, and met a man named Gartoung, who took one look at Darse and brought the two in—at least in a sense. He was a nomad, cautious and silent, but munificent. He did not own a conventional house, but was quick to offer what he did have: tent, clothing, medical supplies, food, friendship.

  Gartoung perceived much in the few words and explanations Brenol had given. While their mysterious benefactor spoke many things that first night, only one thing truly resonated with the boy: “You need not fear that evil man here. I will know if he comes.”

  Brenol clutched tight to the proffered relief with a surprising and immediate trust in the man. He watched with wide eyes as Gartoung cared for his friend, clearly appreciating the gravity of Darse’s condition.

  Gartoung was slender and tall, with black hair and olive skin, and a creature of rhythm. He swept his tall figure through the trees with precise steps and clean stride, tending to Darse and bringing the boy meals. It was almost like watching a dance, and Brenol allowed the man’s motions to lull him. Anything was better than hashing though the pernicious nightmare that had been—and still could be—hot on their heels.

  Darse did not awaken until the second full day. Brenol found his friend resting on his elbows, with the tarp bed clean and flat beneath him. The man’s face was tight as he breathed in his new consciousness and surveyed his surroundings.

  Brenol dipped his head under the tent wall that had been swept up and knotted to a nearby bough. He sat beside Darse and fiddled with his fingers. The boy’s shoulders slumped, as though he carried a yoke of solid rock. He eyed Darse, nervous and careworn. “Are you ok?” he asked finally.

  The man pushed his body up to a full seat, crinkling the material beneath him. He ignored the boy’s question. “How long have I been asleep?” he asked, examining his leg. It was wrapped, but yes, he could see—and feel—that the bone had been set and was healing. He lifted the linens to peek in curiously. The skin had begun to close at the site. He released the fabric and twisted his fingers in an awkward wring; the itch in his marrow was close to unbearable. “Has it really been that long?”

  Brenol shook his head in negation. “No, no, no. Only a couple days. And I missed the whole thing, honestly. Went to the river,” he pointed north, “Cela, to wash, and when I got back Gar had you all bandaged up and fixed. He doesn’t seem to understand when I ask him what kind of medicine he uses.” The boy finally remembered to breathe. “You’re healing so fast.”

  Darse gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Yeah. I think it’s different here.”

  Brenol’s head cocked slightly. “How so?”

  He smoothed the folds on his shirt with open hand. “This terrisdan, I mean.”

  The boy waited, his veins prickling with the startling sensation of Selet’s eye narrowing upon him.

  “On Alatrice, different places are more favorable for different things—crops, ranching, hunting, raising animals, building cities. It’s no different here. Perhaps this’s also a place more conducive to healing. Not just making,” his voice paused and threatened to crack, “the unseen visible.”

  Brenol leaned forward, his spine tightly clenched. He peered at the broken man, swallowed, and tried again. “Hey Darse. Are you ok?”

  Darse’s yellow eyes lifted and met Brenol’s. He held the gaze for a moment and his gold irises were shiny and unsettling. He lowered his stare, resting it upon a mess of tree roots. “Not really, Bren. But I imagine I’ll get over it.”

  “Wh-what… I mean, well… what happened?”

  Darse closed his eyes tightly and pressed his lips together until they were hidden but for a thin line. Logically, he knew it would help to simply talk about it, like draining poison from a wound, but the thought of saying the words out loud was nauseating. To speak would mean it had truly happened.

  “Not yet,” he whispered. He turned his back to Brenol and waited for the youth to scramble up and trail away with soft steps.

  ~

  Every day was the same, or so it seemed to Brenol. The boy churned with fury, fear, numbness, and relief. The inner roil was too much for him to draw into sense, and he was left pacing and irritable. Darse healed with an incredible speed, at least physically, but grew even more staunchly resistant to speaking of his deeper, hidden injuries.

  It appeared they would remain there forever, and Brenol feared his own heart would surrender to the sweating desire to return to Veronia that continued to hound him. He felt weak and alone.

  And Fingers? What do I do about him? Brenol brooded. A growing guilt gnawed at him over leaving the villain free to roam and harm others at will.

  I could ask Gartoung, he thought, but still did nothing. Irrationally, he hoped that if he simply ignored the situation, he would never have to face Fingers, or the crippling fear of him, again.

  Brenol bit his nails to the quick and waited.

  ~

  It was Gartoung who finally broke Darse’s silence. Brenol stood beside the makeshift tent—flaps knotted up again to allow in light and air—but it was Gartoung who did the talking. The tall man pressed his lips together, and his dark velvet eyes examined Darse with a gentle intensity. Gartoung was far from handsome, but his face and person were utterly arresting.

  “It is time, Darse Grey-Oak,” he said, voice as smooth as oil. Darse started slightly at the full use of his name but drew his gaze back to the earth.

  “You must speak of it. You will never recover unless you speak. Speak.” His soft drawl was compelling, but Darse sat grim and quiet.

  Gartoung waited patiently, saying nothing. The entire forest was silent in wait. When Darse actually spoke, Brenol jumped, for his mind had trailed off long ago.

  “My memories.”

  “Yes?” Gartoung asked.

  “He stole my memories.” It was barely a whisper, but the words were unmistakable. Darse raised his golden eyes to the dark man as a child would to a parent: beseeching, hungry for comfort and validation. His face was tawny and ill.

  “Tell me.”

  “He…he cut them right out.”

  “No, Darse. Tell me.” Gartoung’s honeyed voice was thick and slow.

  “I just… I just don’t think I can.”

  Again, Gartoung waited. Brenol saw it happen before the words came: Darse’s vision filled with image and memory and his entire person reacted. His features grew taut and horrified, and his mouth hung agape. The nightmare grasped the man afresh.

  Darse’s voice was soft, like a child whispering away the monster with blankets bunched in fists and heart in throat. “He is rubbing my scalp. He has a cream… It stinks like urine and dead animal. He giggles. His fingers feel slimy. I can’t escape them. The cream… it sinks into my mind. It smells awful. Ugh. I feel it sifting through.”

  Darse shuddered, and his voice became frantic. “How is he in my mind? How? Fingering my thoughts for something he might like—”

  Suddenly Darse shrunk back, screaming with unfeigned terror. He panted now, and his breaths came out in hyper spurts. “The cream was like a knife. He wanted my memory. And he cut it out. He did! He cut it out…but never broke my skin.”

  He rasped in the air as if choking. “And my memory—I can see it! We both see it. Like a foggy dream, playing before him. He yanked it from my head and then it was gone. Gone. Never cutting me—but the pain! Like he was digging out m
y brain with a hatchet… So much pain… Gone.”

  “And?”

  Gartoung surveyed the stricken face with solemn expression. Darse’s golden orbs stared ahead, glazed and empty, and his frame sank into a weary slouch.

  Brenol stepped back in a sudden sweep of emotion, his stomach sour with grief. He did not glance again to his friend’s destroyed countenance, just picked up his heels and fled. The boy did not pass a hundred strides before sliding to a halt and retching. The sun burned hot on his cheeks as he bent over again. He wiped his damp chin, stripped himself of the shirt clinging sickly to his skin, and, without concern for direction, sprinted off.

  Gartoung’s obsidian eyes flashed between the two decisively, and his cool voice issued softly, “Tomorrow, Darse Grey-Oak. Tomorrow.”

  Darse’s features sagged at the prospect, and he rolled his broken body to face away.

  ~

  Brenol returned to their campsite toward evening, pressed by the cooling air and his aching stomach. He found Gartoung roasting onions on a spear before a fire, while wrapped fish cooled on a fallen bough. The smell was enticing. His gut twisted in a knot, guilty for craving food in the midst of Darse’s pain.

  “Brenol Tilted-Ash,” he said, without turning his head to face the boy.

  “How did you hear me?”

  “Juile have many skills. Listening for the unseen is not a useless hobby.”

  “That is what you are? Juile?”

  Gartoung stretched his body back and turned to peer at the boy. “It is.”

  Brenol’s natural curiosity flared up. “Are you invisible?”

  Gartoung’s olive face widened into a smile. “That depends upon who you ask… But yes, humans would say that I am invisible.” He rotated the skewer in his palm, revealing a lovely char on the underside of the onion. “Selet is the one place I am fully visible. Most juile choose to live here for that reason.”

  Brenol chewed on the idea for a moment. “And the lugazzi?”

  “Like a glass of water.”

  The boy raised an eyebrow and slid into silence. Even the incredible could only hold his attention from the worries of the present for so long.

  Gartoung interrupted his brooding. “I think Darse will be all right, Brenol Tilted-Ash.”

  The popping of the flames seemed to be the only sound for matroles.

  “Did you know?” Brenol finally asked, gazing probingly at his companion.

  The juile shook his swarthy head, but it was an expression of pity instead of answer.

  “How did you know?” Brenol furrowed his brow. “You did know, didn’t you?”

  Gartoung tapped his wrist in a foreign gesture, but his face was soft in sympathy. “I didn’t. But I’ve heard of such horrors before…making the invisible seen. It is despicable.”

  “What had you heard?”

  He sighed, spun his skewer a half turn, and raised his eyes to the gaze that met his so hungrily. “There were rumors for orbits—screams in the woods, wolves’ gossip—but no one could ever pinpoint details.”

  Gartoung inhaled deeply, clearly perturbed. “One man came into Tonkyon a few orbits ago. His mind was as twisted as a warped tree. He spoke of a terror—blonde, tall, evil eyes—who he referred to as Vicog, but he mainly talked in incoherent babbles. The man was thinner than a reed and had yellow eyes. Within days, he drowned himself in the Garz.”

  Brenol let out a painful breath. “And Vicog? Who is that?”

  “A story. An old nurse’s tale. Something told to children to keep them close. Vicog is a villain, the stealer of souls. He emerges during the heart of winter and leaves bodies without a cloud of breath.”

  Brenol was filled with the image of Darse grasping his soul in hands as if it were as tangible as a garment, only to have it torn away by vicious fingers. The man was left with a ragged strip of cloth in his shaking hands and eyes as gold as the sun.

  “The man who did this to Darse was not tall and blonde,” Brenol said.

  “No. I realized as much when you told me your story the first night.”

  “Will Fingers be caught?”

  Gartoung flicked out his fingers. “I informed the town polina about what Darse told us today. I do not know any more as to the future.”

  “What do I do?” Brenol finally asked in a gulp.

  Gartoung smiled gently, his expression kind and encouraging. “Make Darse speak. It must come to the light… It will be bountiful, and it has been bountiful, Brenol Tilted-Ash.” He bowed deeply, even in his bent squat, and his robes swayed gently.

  The juile then plucked the skewer from the flame. The smell wafted up into the boy’s nostrils, and he had to force his hands into his lap to prevent them from grasping the meal uninvited. Gartoung—noting the boy’s eagerness and beaming in amusement—divvied out three potions onto thick, gray leaves.

  Brenol felt his mouth water to the point of drooling. “Why do you use my whole name?”

  Gartoung answered only with a mischievous smile before handing Brenol his leaf and whisking away to mete out Darse’s.

  ~

  “Tell me again.” Gartoung’s swarthy face shone in the soft afternoon light. It did not betray emotion but was set firmly in an expression that bespoke strength. The juile appeared to have sufficient fortitude to offer Darse aid until the end of time.

  The man absently stroked the site where bone had once protruded. The maddening itching had ceased, but the limb was still too weak to bear weight, so Darse remained confined to the prison of the canvas flaps. He stared with glassy eyes into the monochrome world of green beyond the tent.

  “Darse,” Gartoung compelled gently. “Again.”

  Darse glanced up with a flicker of defiance. “And if I don’t?”

  Gartoung swept his hand upon the opposite forearm in a mysterious gesture. “Nothing. You can choose to carry this darkness forever.” He met Darse’s golden gaze. “But I would think you would care to rid yourself of its nastiness.”

  Darse nodded his head slowly in agreement, but his features stretched back in a grimace as though he was fighting nausea. He opened his mouth reluctantly and then slowly relayed the events of the barn again: Fingers, the cream, memories lost forever.

  “I felt humiliated.” His head sunk down with the admission, and his cheeks burned pink.

  “Yes?”

  “My memories jumped before him like a moving painting…a ghost picture of what I’d lived. I…I could hear the voices. Tinny. Small. Like my life was nothing but a stupid little picture. He just watched them and laughed. He laughed at them. And I felt like I was a child… And I didn’t have them anymore… Gone. Nothing.” He stared at his fingers, desolate. “All I have of the memories now is him desecrating them.”

  “How many? How many did he take?”

  Darse looked up startled, as though emerging from a trance. It was then that he realized the gravity of what could have been. “Not all of them. He didn’t have time.” He paused, nodding to himself. “But yes, he would have, had I been his prisoner for long.” His eyes closed as the choice word pet echoed through his mind. Pet, pet, pet.

  “He stole them. He stole them. Stole them…”

  The situation suddenly fit with a new clarity in Brenol’s mind. He did not know why he had not seen it before, but Crayton now made sense. The man without memories. Left to be Fingers’s dog. He pushed down the lump rising in his throat as he recalled Crayton leaping and then himself reaching for the rock, plunging the needle.

  “And you remember which ones?”

  Darse looked directly at Gartoung. “Something about home and my da. And the small people—visnati were they? He took all of those. He liked them. Visnati.” He tested the word on his lips as if he were a baby learning speech. “I don’t remember. There are a few flashes I could see, ugh, as he chewed on his lip. He was so pleased… But no, they are all gone. I have chunks missing. My time here in Massada…it doesn’t make sense to me entirely.” He sucked in air between his teeth. “It wa
s like watching my life disappear a breath at a time, and now I’m left with what we saw between us—and even those scraps are tainted with his foul flavor.” Darse’s lips curled back in palpable loathing. “I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

  Brenol had never heard such venomous hatred in his friend’s voice; it turned his blood to ice.

  “Darse?” asked Gartoung.

  “What?” Darse said curtly.

  “You can say it.”

  Darse looked as if he had swallowed a scorpion. “I don’t need to.”

  “You do, but I will give you the day.”

  Darse sighed and unhinged his tensed body upon the tarp-bed. He sullenly shifted his back to them and feigned sleep until they left him to his thoughts.

  ~

  Brenol jerked his head up, surprised to find Gartoung approaching. It was well into the night, and he had left his companions slumbering—or so he had thought. The boy’s eyes flickered around nervously, as though proof of his guilt lay in the shadowy space of the glade.

  “Are you well?” Gartoung asked gently. His voice was as smooth as oil.

  Brenol winced, but the expression was hardly noticeable beneath the dim glow of the stars.

  “Bren?”

  The boy breathed and allowed his fingers to open from their tight fists. Chunks of bark showered to the earth in a soft sigh. Brenol swept his palms across his pants and finally attempted to speak. “Sometimes I…sometimes I get these feelings. A tug.”

  Gartoung waited patiently, but the silence only seemed to tighten Brenol’s lips. The juile waited still longer. Finally, he asked, “Is it only at night?”

  Brenol shook his head. His copper hair appeared slate in the darkness. “No, but usually. It becomes really bad when I’m alone… If I wake up…it…” The boy’s voice trailed into the night.

  Gartoung peered at him thoughtfully. “Are you scared?”

  Brenol did not speak, for he feared his voice would break.