The Land's Whisper Read online

  “I knew it. I just knew it. I had that feeling…and I just knew it,” Darse mumbled to himself.

  “I missed something. What happened? Who was killed?” Brenol asked. His face was still scrunched from the effort of attempting to piece together half of a story. “Visnati? I really didn’t hear most of that.”

  Darse’s voice was faraway, like the third reflection of an echo. “And more…” He closed his eyes tightly, but when he opened them, it was as if his golden orbs saw nothing. “Let’s get out of the plaza. I can’t breathe in here.”

  Brenol followed Darse through the hard-earthen streets past robes and eyes and commotion. On the edges of town, Darse swapped his determined stride for maddening pacing: back and forth and back again.

  “Darse?” the boy nudged.

  “Fingers.”

  “What?” asked Brenol.

  “He attacked the visnati. At least that’s what I think happened,” Darse replied.

  “What?” roared Brenol. His eyes bulged out. “Did the kid say genocide?”

  Darse wrung his hands. “He must have gone after them.”

  Brenol’s face fell grim. After a moment, a sickening thought came upon him. He tilted his head and asked, “What do you mean ‘you knew it’?”

  Darse sighed wearily and paused his pacing to give Brenol a pained glance. He returned to his march again as he spoke. “I’ve been mulling it over, day and night—even in dreams. What happened to Fingers that night? What?” His hands flew up. “I didn’t know! I just… I kept thinking. Fingers knew the visnati. He knew them and knew they had been significant to me—at least I think they must have been. He knew… Ugh. He had giggled, so tickled over those memories… I figured he woke enough to move from the front of the barn, but was too drugged to figure out what was happening, and went somewhere to recover. I…I…”

  Darse met Brenol’s face with his own pleading glance. “I couldn’t just stroll around the woods looking for him. I was broken. So I left…but…” He trailed off and his voice was subdued as he mumbled to himself. “When he found Crayton later he must have wanted to destroy me—or at least something I cared about.”

  Brenol’s face jumped alive. “What?” His voice boomed out in heat. “Darse, you killed Crayton?” The cold dream-fingers of the man had haunted him for many septspan. This was information he would have preferred to have known.

  Darse started, realizing he had been speaking aloud. “No,” he replied quietly.

  Brenol’s eyes widened at the implication. “But I…I…” He waved his hand as though swatting away a large bug. “Doesn’t matter. He would’ve killed me. Didn’t even mean to. Saving myself.” Yet the rationalization could not impede the stone settling into his gut. I killed a man.

  “I never questioned the rightness. I just feared the implications,” Darse said.

  “Why did you never say anything?” Brenol asked. “Especially when Gartoung made you speak about it over and over?”

  “I wanted to shield you from knowing,” Darse replied softly.

  Brenol shook his head, hoping to dislodge all the thoughts, all the guilt. I killed a man. A voice snaked around and whispered darkness in his heart: You meant to. He thought back to the words of the urchin: genocide. The black serpentine tongue spit silent words again: Your fault. Yours alone. You didn’t stop him. You failed.

  Brenol swallowed. “And Fingers?”

  “The boy said the attacker died in one of the fires he made.”

  “We can’t know if it really was Fingers,” Brenol said.

  Darse nodded. “You are right. But the description matches. We will have to talk to the polina to be sure.”

  “But the visnati?” asked Brenol, incredulous. “How do we know who? How can that even be?” The faces of Rook, Spence, Colvin—they were still fresh images smiling, singing. Can’t be. It can’t.

  “The boy said there were fifty-two dead in Coltair.”

  The number caused Brenol to reel. The visnati population had not been more than several hundred there.

  “But Darse, there is only one other visnati town. That is it.”

  Darse’s face paled further. “Why are there so few of them?”

  Brenol swallowed at the gravity of how much Fingers had stolen from Darse’s memory. “They have a smaller population anyway, but the black fever came through a few orbits ago. Many were lost.”

  Darse’s face disappeared into his immense hands. “I should have… I just…” The grown man fell to his knees in the dusty street. They thudded painfully, but he was oblivious to all. His golden eyes stared ahead while shaky fingers fell and dug absently in the loose dirt.

  The sight was a sharp slap to Brenol. He’s still broken. I have to be strong. Darse needs me to be strong. I need to help him this time.

  So he abandoned the awful ache within and steeled his heart. There would be no night of grief for the visnati, no dwelling on his own guilt and fear. There would be nothing, nothing but hatred for the awful man who had done this to them.

  Brenol crouched and scooped up Darse’s clammy hand. “We’re not traveling today. We’re going back to the inn for the night. It will give you a breath, and we’ll be able to think about what we have to do. We’ll leave in the morning.”

  Darse nodded absently and followed him.

  I’ve never seen him look so old, Brenol thought. I hate Fingers. I hate him.

  I hope it was him in the fires. He deserved to die. He deserved it.

  CHAPTER 19

  Health is not merely the absence of disease.

  -Genesifin

  One day rolled into a septspan, then two. Their funds slowly thinned and Brenol itched in the wait, his anxiety wearing him as raw as an ulcer. The ripping greed for the nuresti connection took him regularly but there was not any relief to be found. All he could do was gnaw his cheek and hope he could withstand it all. At least within the city, among the juile, Selet’s eye seemed to gaze with bored loathing instead of the hungry malice he had known in the wilderness. Brenol did not even attempt to speak with the terrisdan. He barely spoke to anyone.

  He would wander the city and allow the movements of the people to wash over him, but there always remained a dark burrowing hole in his core. He refused to look down that chasm, for it would only lead where he could not go: death, Fingers, Crayton, Darse crumpled and weeping like a child, hatred. So Brenol waited, and tried to bear it.

  Brenol eventually heeded Darse’s pleas—and example—to talk to the polina, but found little closure or peace. Yes, the attacker had been Fingers—they had several well drawn profiles—but the knowledge did not ease his mind as he imagined it would. He felt riddled with shame at how he had tarried and not done anything while Darse had convalesced. It had eventually been Gartoung who had spoken to the polina. He had done nothing but idle back in fear.

  Darse gradually emerged from the stunned torpor that had taken him in the plaza, but he was changed nonetheless. He disappeared every day for long, silent walks by himself. He would even sneak away in the night sometimes, when he thought Brenol sleeping.

  It irritated Brenol, but everything irritated him.

  “Where do you go all day?” he finally snapped one afternoon. They had been dining at the inn, and the fare was anything but memorable.

  Darse pushed his plate away. His lunch was barely touched. “The river.”

  “What’s at the river?”

  The man’s face was strained, but Brenol did not have the patience to care.

  “Gartoung,” Darse answered slowly, realizing he was no longer embarrassed. “He showed us. Speaking out in the waters…” Darse pondered a moment, attempting to pair words to the experience. “You remember the summer you got bit by that dodgernose?”

  Brenol nodded. The asp had struck without warning, not even giving its usual faint hiss to alert a person to its presence. Darse had barely blinked before unbelting his knife. He had sliced Brenol’s arm with swift precision and sucked out whatever the asp had pumped i
nto him.

  “It’s like that. When I say all the terrible things inside, the venom floats away with the current, no longer harmful to me. Inside it festers, but out—freedom.”

  Brenol ran his fingers over the old bite scar. “Huh. Is it working?”

  “Slowly. These things don’t seem to heal as quickly as bones. Do you want to try?”

  Brenol shook his head. After a moment, he met Darse’s gaze. “Are we…”

  Darse looked at him knowingly, and finished his words. “Ever going to leave? Get to Colette?” He shrugged. “I certainly hope so. But we also cannot rush into anything. As much as I know we have to move, I’m half broken. This is where I need to be right now… You too, Bren.”

  The boy swung his legs away from the bench and rose hastily. Lacking speech, he rushed out into the sweltering sun.

  Brenol wove through the crowds until he reached the city center. He stared at the moving throng, musing on their movements and the sweep of hands that slid over the plaza’s statue. No matter where he stood, the bronze eye seemed to always be gazing into him. It was strangely alluring yet utterly unsettling.

  Definitely not Selet’s eye, he thought wryly. Doesn’t hurt enough.

  Before he even knew it, he was standing beneath the bronze sphere, staring up. His hands crept forward hesitantly, unsure. Just as his fingertips met the sun-warmed surface, something deep within him swelled. All the dark emotions he had been burying rose and threatened to erupt. But Brenol met the tide with a fierce and powerful determination, yanking his outstretched hand back with a snarl. The sweep of grief cowered before the fury and slowly tucked itself into a hard knot deep within. The boy felt his chest grow colder, tighter.

  The statue stared down at him, and defiantly Brenol glared back, tingling with an odd sensation of regret.

  “I won’t,” he spat, but the statue merely gazed back silently.

  He left the city center and paced the busy streets, finally winding his way back to the inn to sit and sulk. Within the span of a few hours, Brenol began to forget what it was like to not carry the stony, chilling knot inside.

  ~

  While Darse’s soul did not mend as swiftly as his leg had, healing nonetheless came. It was as apparent as a child’s face maturing into an adult’s. Darse’s countenance opened, he ate more heartily, and his features flushed in expression. The shadow that had hovered over his soul dissipated. Darse was becoming Darse again.

  Why am I so annoyed, then? Brenol asked himself, not allowing a response.

  Now Brenol was the one taking long daily walks, but his sojourns through the city only left him more agitated and confused. Nothing seemed to reduce the anger that gnawed through him. He felt laden with questions, and his feet longed to be free and journeying again.

  Brenol recalled Gartoung’s words in their last meeting, for they rattled in his ears as an unending echo. He wondered if Darse was well, but even more, he began to wonder if he himself was well.

  It took Brenol several days, but one night, just as Darse was about to fall asleep, he whispered into the dark.

  “Do you regret coming?” Brenol half feared Darse’s answer, but he could not help himself.

  The question was one Darse had been mulling over himself. He answered thoughtfully, “No. No, I don’t… I do wish the whole thing back there hadn’t happened. I can’t deny that.” He moved his hands up to caress his closed, yellow eyes. “But life isn’t about escaping pain.”

  Brenol puzzled silently before responding. “What’s it about then?”

  “Love.” Darse smiled as he spoke, realizing he again felt the freedom of believing it.

  The boy did not ask anything else, so Darse rolled over and left Brenol to his ruminations.

  ~

  Brenol squared the remaining costs with the taciturn inn-keeper, who solemnly nodded his farewell. The boy cringed as he watched the coins and papers disappear into the dark hands, for they had very little remaining to get them through their journey. He swallowed his thoughts and collected his belongings to meet Darse outside.

  The two pushed forward with renewed vigor, marching east toward the Songra, and Brenol again perceived the jeering smirk of the land. The hills pushed up with a vicious jut, the avenues were rockier, and vines and underbrush crowded upon them. Still, the two managed to eke their way.

  Brenol remained wrapped in his thoughts throughout. He brooded, burrowing his feet into the damp earth and flinging it forward. Darse raised an eyebrow on several occasions but let the matter rest.

  By late afternoon of the second day, they happened upon the water. The Songra was as Gartoung promised: lovely, absolutely lovely. About twenty strides across, she flowed with the softness of a swishing gown and shone with the clarity of glass. Flowering lily pads, like pink-white jewels, grew along her banks, for the hems of the Songra were still and calm. The exquisite serenity hushed the travelers. The only sound to be heard was the opus of her gentle garments brushing gracefully past.

  Brenol could not pry his eyes away from her. He finally spoke, “It’s like the water’s being pushed by a breath. A breath alone.”

  Darse inhaled the fresh scents. “Clouds move faster,” he agreed.

  “There aren’t even any bugs.”

  “Hmmmm,” Darse sighed in enjoyment.

  “How deep?”

  Darse smiled playfully. “Only one way to see.” He set down their pack, stripped, and with the agility of a youth, dove into the crystal aqua depths. As his head popped up, he grinned widely and shot a thin stream from between his teeth to hit Brenol in the face.

  “What are you, ten orbits?” Brenol crowed, diving in with a laugh.

  The Songra was invigorating. She may not have moved much, but her waters were live. She was clean and mild and deliciously cool. The two swam, dipping down into her depths—the length of two men—and played at catching fish with only palms and fingers. They laughed, and their mirth was genuine. It was as though the nightmares of Massada had never been.

  Amidst the play, Brenol glanced back to the bank where he had left his things, where he had left the weight. A sudden longing to shed his anger and hate welled alive within him.

  I want to be free again. I want to forget Fingers. Forget the horrible desire in me. Forget it all. His longings swished down the lane with the Songra’s skirts, down into the heart of Selet.

  Could I? Could I really just speak that to the waters? That easily?

  He treaded the water somberly, with a heart full of anticipation.

  But his lips never moved, and the moment ended.

  “I’ll grab our things,” Darse said, startling Brenol from his introspection. The youth nodded, and Darse misread the flicker of disappointment he spied within the jade eyes.

  “Maybe we can come through here on our way back, Bren.”

  Brenol issued another inattentive bob of the head.

  Darse dipped into the clear one last time, finally surfacing when his lungs stung with need. He scrambled up to the western bank, collected their belongings, and precariously balanced them on his head before returning to cross the river. The pile promptly tipped as soon as his legs began their tread, and he smiled guiltily at Brenol. The two corralled the sodden items into their arms and worked their way across, eventually clambering up onto the perfumed pink banks.

  On the shore, dripping, they donned again their clothing, drenched pack, and burdens of Colette and Massada. Brenol gave a wistful glance back to the Songra’s smooth, clean body.

  Thank you, he thought, grateful for the lush oasis and what it had been, although his heart still yearned for more.

  He sighed and turned, leaving her innocent allurements to the next forlorn traveler.

  ~

  The following day marked another trying day of travel. The land was ever hostile and rough, opposed to their intrusion. It fought them every step between incline and valley, but the two progressed with a new dignity; the Songra had galvanized them. Brenol felt less strained. He l
aughed more and brooded less. His silent prayer for freedom had at least begun to soften the stone that was wedged so sturdily in his chest.

  “Hey, Bren?” Darse asked, after a particularly arduous section.

  “Yeah?”

  “Have you had any more luck talking to Selet?”

  Brenol’s face elongated in surprise; of all the things Darse could ask, he had not anticipated that one. He peered sideways at the man grimly battling the greenery. Darse lifted a bough to allow the youth to slide under unscathed.

  “I haven’t really been trying. But no.” I didn’t have to try with the others.

  “Why do you think that is?” Darse asked.

  “Don’t know,” Brenol replied, yet he tapped Darse with a double brush of his index finger. It was nothing that anyone else would have noticed or understood, but it was enough for them. He hoped Darse would understand his meaning: Wait for the lugazzi.

  Darse pulled on his ear, expressionless: I hear.

  They mopped the sweat from their brows and pressed on, with Selet’s eye upon them.

  ~

  They camped that night, and by midday of the following day, trod into the dusty village of Graft. It was a juile town, but it lacked the vivacity of Trilau. Graft was smaller, likely no more than a hundred residents, and had a quiet, quaint feel. The townspeople watched them indifferently, like scientists observing and noting, awaiting an outcome.

  It did not require extensive questioning to discover that Arman was indeed in Graft. Brenol could have wept in relief but instead held the thread of gratitude like a lifeline, hoping it would sustain.

  Eventually, they were granted further fortune: a child willing to help. She was a dark-plaited and wide-eyed girl in white, no older than six orbits, and she ushered the two through the sooty paths and lanes. She flitted quickly in and around with the nimble quickness of a cat, and their breath grew short as they labored to keep up. She had that capability all juile seemed to share of somehow sweeping over the ground in a manner so as not to upset the dirt. Her clothes, skin, and feet all remained immaculate.

  Darse and Brenol did not share her grace.