The Land's Whisper Read online

  CHAPTER 21

  The land sees all, but few see the land.

  -Genesifin

  After the fourth day, the party arrived at the lugazzi between terrisdans. Brenol stepped forward, his entire body quivering in relief; the eye of Selet was no more. The reprieve was so cathartic he fought to not weep, taking in huge gulps of dry air and hiding his face from his companions.

  When he had found composure, he spun his heels around and nearly choked. Arman was—as he had explained he would be—eerily faint. While visible to the eye, he appeared more immaterial than tangible. It was as though he were a transparency hung over the concrete world of creation. One could discern his presence, but it seemed a trick of the light at times. Brenol forgot Selet’s eye and all else he had been pondering.

  “Can you hear me?” the boy asked.

  Arman raised his eyebrows. “I have not lost my faculties.”

  Brenol started. To see someone so immaterial and yet hear his booming voice was jolting to the senses. His mind fought to make logic out of it all.

  The juile allowed a flicker of a grin at Brenol’s expression, but the motion was followed with a grimace. It would seem he was uncomfortable with this strange middle ground as well. “Soon I will be entirely invisible, and then you will be spared my rough features.”

  Brenol wisely refrained from comment.

  The lugazzi soon met Granoile; one only need glance down to see it. There was a line at which the gravel ended and the sand began. It was a dense terrain and appeared as treacherous as trudging upon the ocean floor.

  Arman suddenly smiled, taking Darse aback; it was ever a surprise to find such intensity paired with a jovial side. The juile bowed to the two of them and said, “You shall not be seeing me any longer. I trust it will still be bountiful.” He winked playfully at Brenol, strode forward, and disappeared from sight. No more transparency, no more Arman.

  Although the two had been expecting it, it was still startling. The juile had vanished entirely. His body was gone. It was uncanny.

  The visible two stared at each other uncertainly. They could not help but feel they were again just a pair. Both jumped when their invisible companion spoke.

  “Now, we shall head south for a bit.” Arman’s voice was strong and deep. It came from empty air, as did the laughter that followed. “You act as though I did not prepare you.”

  Brenol laughed too, good-naturedly. “I doubt anyone really gets used to it, though.” He pointed to the indentations in the sand; Arman was not entirely lost to the visual realm. “I’ll be an expert on juile footprints before you know it.”

  Arman cleared his throat. “That would take many orbits of study. It is a science for juile trackers, and only the juile can truly decipher their pedasse.”

  Brenol opened his mouth.

  “Footprints,” Arman replied, already stepping lightly before them. “Pedasse are juile footprints.”

  Darse began but paused when he noted that Brenol was not following. The boy made no move to stride forward; instead, he gently bent down and scooped a handful of white sand into his palm and let it sieve out slowly between his fingers. He touched the ground with a tenderness that surprised Darse, even though it was familiar from previous terrisdans.

  Brenol’s whisper was hardly audible. “Granoile? I am Bren. May we pass?”

  A silence gripped the open space, but it felt packed with life. Darse’s breath hung suspended. His skin tingled. The air was full of the buzzing electric life that precedes a lighting strike. He recalled a tree outside his homestead in Alatrice—splintered down the center with that sudden, unleashed power. Darse’s jaw tightened, and he froze.

  Finally, the ground hummed a light reply. No words were uttered aloud—that the man could hear, at least—and Darse’s golden gaze met Brenol’s. The boy gave a small smile and a nod.

  “Thank you,” he whispered. He stood, brushed his hands upon trousers, and uttered silent thanks for truly being free of Selet.

  ~

  Their feet dragged them through the dense terrain for long hours. Their eyes squinted through the glittering panorama, but the land merely stretched out forever in a sea of sand. They labored up steep dunes of gold, only to find higher ones in the next sweep. The sand wore at their feet, sliding in the crevices of their sandals to rub the skin raw and turn their tempers. Arman was the only traveler seemingly unaffected, being acclimated to travel in many terrains, but his sturdy and impenetrable boots gave him a distinct advantage as well. The juile led them vocally at times, but typically the two followed his pedasse wordlessly.

  As night approached, Darse and Brenol attempted to shake the cold from their clothing, but the desert cool crept into their marrow and curved their backs. They camped on the mesa crest of a dune and curled around the warm kiss of their camp fire.

  The following morning brought a teeth-chattering cold. Brenol grumbled as they stamped to life and nibbled cold breakfasts. But by midday it was uncomfortably hot, and they paused atop a dune to rest and sip from their water sacks. Darse and Brenol slumped down in the hot sand, too tired at first to even remove packs. They all munched lightly on juile cracker and dried fish while gazing down into the valley.

  There below, nestled beside the flowing Branio, sat the village of Caladia. It was a colorful sight: houses formed from the creamy river mud with roofs painted a vibrant rainbow. The group was too high to distinguish much detail, but it seemed a more populous town than either Darse or Brenol had seen in Massada yet, even bigger than Trilau. Flocks of birds played above the town, swooping and moving through the skies. It looked like an oasis of lushness in the midst of unending void.

  They clambered down the dune, attempting to not curse the sand that swallowed their ankles and sent their muscles groaning. Regardless, their spirits rose with every step that took them closer to the Branio, and the air thickened in their lungs. After several hours, the group found themselves waterside in the cooling evening, just outside the town. No bridge graced the waterway, and Brenol and Darse grudgingly followed Arman’s voice out across the boulders and stones that littered the Branio’s belly. Darse grappled to keep traction on the wet rock but slipped in a hard crash to his knees. The fall drenched him and jolted his bones, but he stood again and lumbered his way through the remaining few strides.

  On the eastern bank, they drank and filled their water pouches, and Arman urged them forward without much resistance; dinner and baths—hopefully both warm—offered enticement to all.

  Houses, single story and simply built, multiplied as they walked. The rainbow-hued roofs were hidden from ground view, and had Brenol not seen them from the dune heights, he would have thought the houses unimaginative and dull.

  Arman explained, “The frawnish paint their roofs as art, but art for the stars and fellow flying creatures. They see it as wasteful to allow the earth to view the beauty meant for the heavens.”

  “Wait… fellow flying creatures? What are the frawnish?” Darse looked more closely at the houses; they seemed man-made.

  Arman laughed. Brenol wished he were able to see his smile. “I would point to the skies if you could see my hand. Look south. No, no. Up.”

  And there they were. Not birds, as they had assumed. Winged persons.

  Groups of children flocked together in the skies, dipping in and out in a game of some nature. They appeared to be about the size of eight orbit olds, but with giant wings protruding from their backs. There was no single color to them, the frawnish feathers swept out in an array of brown, black, gray, white, red, blue, solid, speckled, striped, dappled.

  “Angali!” Darse gasped.

  “Angali?”

  “No, no.” Darse sliced his hand through the air. “Sorry. They reminded me for a moment of something I’d heard stories about in Alatrice.”

  “I see. I cannot compare them to your creatures as I don’t know of them… But these are people of the sky. Yes, they sleep and conduct business on the ground, but the sky is practically a par
t of their souls.”

  “What do they eat?” queried Darse.

  “Fish, of course, fruit, nuts, some plants, and yerig.”

  “Yerig?” asked Brenol.

  “Yes. It’s the main reason why they live here. Large beetles. The yerig population is abundant in the desert surrounding the Branio.”

  Brenol stopped moving. “How big?”

  A deep, guttural laugh issued from the unseen frame. “I would hope that an insect is not going to turn your toes after all this time…but to be truthful, they are venomous and quite nasty when cornered.”

  He didn’t answer my question, Brenol thought, but he decided against pursuing the topic further. Some things were better left unknown.

  “I take it insects are not a Massadan dietary taboo?” Darse asked wryly.

  Arman did not respond directly, but Darse could detect a smile behind his speech. “The frawnish are a good people, regardless of their palate. Prone to much emoting though.”

  “What does that mean?” Brenol asked.

  “You can discern for yourselves,” he said, and then added, “No, ahead. Straight.”

  The two craned their necks. They squinted for several minutes into the bright sunlight before glimpsing the winged creature, and for yet another before its form grew distinct. Arman had keen vision indeed.

  “Don’t look so awed. I merely use my eyes,” he responded as Darse and Brenol exchanged glances.

  Arman, Darse thought. Only Arman.

  The frawnite flew close to the ground—roughly as high as a man’s shoulders—and upon reaching them, lit down as though taking a half-step from a hovering staircase.

  In close proximity, Darse was less inclined to compare her to an angal, for her features and stature did not match his preconceptions. She was thin—very thin, which likely served her well in flight—with a petite frame as short as Brenol’s and tight, compact muscles. Her wings were a jet and glistening black, with base and coverts sprouting from her sides, slightly above the hip. They jutted out sharply like a sparrow’s—easily a wingspan of nine to ten strides—and were covered with lovely, downy feathers. Her face was a small heart with symmetric and attractive features that carried a markedly avian thread. She had chocolate brown skin and coal black hair cropped short. She wore a fitted green shirt and pants in soft muslin with comfortable moccasin shoes. Her ears were lined with shiny amber studs that matched her fiercely glinting eyes. No, this was no angal, but she was lovely in her own regard.

  The frawnite flashed her jaw toward Darse and Brenol in a gesture of authority. Her eyes were terrible and sharp. It was then Darse realized why she appeared so avian—aside from the obvious. She had the same intense, sclera-less orbs: no white, just amber-gold encircling black. Yet, somehow, it was becoming.

  She opened her lips to speak, but Arman’s voice issued first. “Arista,” he said. “I pray it has been bountiful.”

  The jaw snapped back, harshness vanishing with the speed of a flea, and her heart face spread into a smile. Her teeth were short and even, matching her petite and feminine mouth. “And in good measure for you, friend! I’ve sorely missed you, Arman.” She laughed naturally and without pretense, throwing her head back in joy.

  “And I, you… My companions—Darse, Bren.”

  She held both hands out, palms open to the two in greeting, and then, as though remembering something, spoke softly to the air, “Arman, would that I had known it was you. You have seal. I’d have brought it…” Arista lifted her wings slightly, tilted them, and ruffled her coverts. Her feathers reflected the light, shining like water dancing down a stream.

  “Urgent? Too urgent for us to enter?” Arman sounded concerned.

  More is being said than words, thought Darse.

  Arista’s primaries fluttered, causing a soft pattering—apparently continuing some kind of silent communication.

  “You may speak plainly. They are trustworthy.”

  She nodded, even though her golden eyes flicked suspiciously at them. “Ordah. A seal was dispatched less than five days ago. Instructions for the carrier make it clear it’s dire. He’s been searching for you.” Her somber face suddenly lit up in laughter. “You don’t make it simple, either.”

  “I’ve been known to be found, by the skilled at least.”

  Arista bowed her head with a slight smirk, as though accepting a compliment. Her movements were both playful and elegant.

  Brenol was practically twitching, he so longed for explanations. “Ordah? So what do we do? How do we get his letter?”

  The boy had not finished his thought before Arista bolted off into a run, extended her exquisite spread, jumped, and lifted from the sand in a great thwamp. She maneuvered her way into the town, now high in the skies, arching back and forth in flight like a gull.

  Arman responded while Brenol looked on in awed stupor. “She will bring it. Then we’ll decide what action to take.”

  “You didn’t say anything about flying people when you said we were coming to find your friend,” Brenol said wonderingly.

  “You do not have such creatures? What of these angali?”

  “Can’t see ’em,” Brenol said, still staring at the skies.

  “Hmmmmm.” The idea seemed to please Arman. Wings and invisibility were a duo with which to contend. “How do they not collide in flight?”

  Brenol grinned. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Darse’s yellow eyes scanned the expanse where Arman stood. “How long have you known Arista?”

  “Orbits. Sixteen, I believe.”

  “Do they allow strangers into Caladia?” he asked curiously.

  “Yes, but few come. Most humans fear them—there are tales told by every nurse to scare children from wandering off. And so the strange terror is perpetuated.”

  “Huh,” said Brenol. “Do any live outside the city?”

  “Not that I know of. But they are free to come, go, stay, leave Caladia. There are, however, certain dictates for remaining in Granoile. Those are rigid, but if dire need were to arise, I doubt a frawnite would be denied.”

  “What did you mean earlier about them being emotional?”

  Arman’s robes swished as if he were gesturing to explain, but the movement was ineffectual. “Perhaps I spoke prematurely, even if in truthfulness.”

  Arista returned before any more information could be wheedled out of Arman. Her flight was high, scooping the skies with vast wings. As she neared, she zig-zagged her way across the blue and dropped fast in a whiffle; her head hurtling toward earth with legs stretched above and wings upside-down beneath her. She fell with alarming speed, yet exhibited astounding control as her wings arched to slow her flight, and she returned to the upright position in time to land both moccasins softly upon the warm sand. Every dark hair was still in place, and her clothes were clean and neat. Nothing about her was disheveled, although her chest heaved slightly from exertion. She smiled with a huff, reached out her arm, opened her fist, and waited for Arman to remove the neatly folded paper from her palm. It disappeared, and her hand returned to her thin frame.

  In a moment, Arman spoke. His voice cracked with anxiety, causing goosebumps to spring out across Brenol’s body. “We must move. Fast,” he said.

  “What—” Brenol could not complete his question before Arista interrupted.

  “How may I help?” the frawnite asked.

  “We must move. We are still several days’ journey by foot. I don’t suppose…?”

  “It’s done. Renpaul and Voltant are coming—I wanted to be prepared. We cannot go beyond the borders, though.”

  “That’s more than I would have asked of you. Thank you, Arista. You are so good to me. It is, as always, bountiful.”

  Arista bowed her head in response. “Bountiful, indeed.”

  Arman’s voice rose to include the two foreigners. “You shall not see Caladia, my friends. But you will fly with the frawnish. This is no small privilege. Few fly without meeting their talons soon after.”


  Brenol winced, eyes flicking over to Arista. Even as he confirmed that her fingers were talon-free, the image of an osprey tearing into its prey remained unshakably before his vision. He breathed, but it came out in an edgy rasp. Only Arman would terrify me before I do something this incredible.

  ~

  Flying was much colder than Brenol expected it to be. And more uncomfortable. Wind whipped at him, his clothing lashed about every which way, his eyes watered and were soon blinded from the violent sweep of air, and Arista’s grip was constrictive and painful. He could not even enjoy the view, for an alarming rush of adrenaline surged through his system whenever he braved a peek through the wind blasts. They were dizzyingly high.

  Yet the frawnish felt the bite of the journey most. The winged men labored and fought, their wings beating hard against the thin air, unaccustomed to carrying such loads. Brenol, the smallest, likely weighed as much as their reedy, hollow-boned figures. It was comparable to a porpoise towing a cow through a heavy current, and it was clear that it could not be sustained for much length.

  The group finally lit down. The twilit sky still glowed a soft orange, but the sharp night air had already descended. All seemed dour, save Arman—deduced from speech, not appearance.

  Arman, thought Darse. Only Arman. It was difficult to understand how small Voltant had carried the very tall juile. A smile snuck across his lips despite his aches and chill.

  “Friend,” Arista heaved. “This is where we part. We’ve been directed to not push into Conch.” She indicated her fellow winged creatures with a flick of her feathers, but her amber eyes never strayed from Arman’s general location. Her lips quivered slightly as if she had more to say, yet she held her tongue’s rein determinedly. Arista cast her vision down, dropped Brenol’s pack with a soft thud upon the grassy terrain, crouched down onto the flats of her feet, and wept.

  In the skies she had appeared enormous, but curled upon the ground she was no larger than a girl of twelve. The dark feathers wrapped themselves about her and covered her face, and she shook as if buffeted by a gale.