The Land's Whisper Read online

  Slowly, the obsidian wings were brushed back by gentle and invisible hands. Arman’s soothing baritone rumbled in comfort as her petite fingers appeared to be taken in his. “Aris, my friend. This shall not be the end. I foresee many Caladian trips in my future.”

  She sniffled. “Yes. I know.”

  “Let us instead think of our reunion, which could be a mere septspan away.”

  She bowed despite her sobs and, with wingtips quivering, whispered, “It has been bountiful.”

  The group shared a brief and silent meal of cold bread before watching the majestic creatures wearily leap up into the dark air to coast the cool air back to Caladia.

  ~

  Arman set to building a fire while he finally informed the two of the contents of the seal. “Ordah knows who took Colette.”

  “What?” Brenol said.

  “It was his brother, Jerem.”

  “What?”

  Darse’s golden irises could have been flames.

  Arman’s voice remained calm, fluidly explaining. “He is a prophet, not infallible. He was blind to it or chose to be blind to it, although in knowing the man I would suggest he simply did not have the power to see. Regardless, his intuit came, and he was finally able to perceive…which is why we make such haste; we travel to Jerem’s home, at least the one Ordah knows of.”

  “Intuit?” Brenol asked.

  “Instant of understanding, having foresight or knowledge.”

  “He dawdled in arriving there,” Darse mumbled darkly.

  “I will not argue that. But, regardless, the time is ripe now. So we run. And it will be bountiful.”

  “Bountiful indeed,” Brenol replied softly, a whirlwind of emotions.

  “Where is it we go?” Darse asked.

  “Southern reaches of Callup. We pass the remainder of Granoile tomorrow and cross into Conch. I’m hoping to press through all of Conch the following day and reach the lugazzi by nightfall. From there, rest, and we can decide our plan once we have seen the battlefield.”

  Battlefield. The word reverberated in Brenol’s mind. A small voice whispered inside him, Is she worth a battle? To lose the nurest connection? A battle?

  Brenol blushed in the dim light and hoped Arman could not perceive his thoughts.

  “Any ideas on what we’ll find?” Darse asked.

  “Most likely an empty lair…but I’m hoping a trail will reveal itself.”

  “What does Ordah think?” Darse inquired.

  A tense silence followed.

  “I do not know,” the juile eventually replied.

  Darse cocked his head; Arman’s tone was laden with meaning.

  “He wrote little,” the juile sighed. “And really, the prophet rarely behaves in a logical manner. But now? When he knows his own brother is responsible? And that the world will think he chose blindness? I may know that the power of intuit is not so easily controlled, but Massada does not… They will likely blame him. And so now I am unsure of what will come. And what he will do.”

  Darse nodded to himself. Ordah had always made him wary, and this seemed confirmation of his suspicions.

  They continued to speak in somber, hushed voices as night deepened. Even the wood about them seemed prone to silence, surrounding them in an eerie stillness like that before a storm. Soon, soon it would be upon them.

  As they prepared for sleep, Brenol felt the rumble of greed flaring alive within him. His chest and brow slicked with perspiration, and desire for the nuresti connection rent his sensibilities. His fists curled into white balls, and he wrapped his blankets tightly around him so his companions would not see. He lay in the dark, praying for the moment to pass quickly.

  Veronia, his blood sang. Go back now.

  These people mean nothing. Go back.

  ~

  “What are those clicks about Arman?” Brenol asked. The desire had dissipated considerably as the stars emerged, but still he felt the edgy bite of shame at his interior corruption.

  “I’m surprised it has taken you so long to ask.” There was a smile behind the words. “Come.”

  “Where?” Brenol joked as he moved cautiously around the fire and the slumbering Darse to the blanketed place where Arman’s voice issued. It was true; the boy had been wondering about the abacus-in-the-pocket for leagues and terrisdans, but he asked now more to distract from the horror within than because of any interest in finger games.

  “It is code,” Arman said, with obvious pleasure.

  “Is this the hearing part to the written juile code you taught me?”

  “Hmmm. Very good, but no.”

  Irritation snapped awake within Brenol. “Well?” he asked curtly.

  Arman’s ensuing silence tickled guilt into the boy. “Sorry, Ar. Just edgy.”

  “I assume you refer to the plague of nurest desires?”

  Brenol exhaled softly. He reached out and jovially pushed the juile’s invisible body. “Someday I’ll get tired of you knowing everything.”

  “You lie,” Arman replied smartly.

  Brenol breathed more naturally. He no longer felt so alone. His face eased into a smile, now enjoying Arman’s teasing. He knows…and he’s still my friend. It’s going to be all right.

  “So go on,” Brenol said.

  “It is my own. There is no aural code for the juile, just the written one. But that seems to me to be grossly inadequate. So I’ve made my own. Only a select few know it.”

  “Oh yeah?” Brenol said with interest. He leaned forward as though the secret would be made clearer with proximity. “But if only a few know it, how is it useful?”

  “It helps me to sort through my thoughts,” Arman replied. “But aside from that? Sometimes it is not the quantity of help, but the quality that matters.” He paused and added, “But I do concede there have been times I’ve wished others had been fluent in this matter.”

  “You sound like you get into trouble a lot.”

  Arman chuckled in his low bass. “It often seeks me out,” he replied and nudged Brenol with a finger. “I would find much bounty in sharing it with you.”

  Brenol beamed. “Much indeed,” he replied. “Who else knows it?”

  “My sister. A friend named Ferest. Carn. And Arista,” Arman said.

  “Arista, huh?” Brenol asked jokingly. His tone implied much.

  “No. She is as a sister to me. She saved my life once. We are tied together with unbreakable bonds.”

  Arman. The day he makes light of something will be the day the maralane eat chicken, Brenol thought.

  “But more so, the frawnish do not take soummen outside of their own. It has proven disastrous for the fledglings: bird-men that could not fly, hollow bones no longer hollow. Not fit for frawnish life, not fit for human.”

  Brenol pondered the thought for a moment, but suddenly straightened. “Wait! You’re forgetting the code!”

  “I have not. I had begun to believe you might have though… Here, I made this for you.”

  A small strand appeared in his lap as softly as a wink. There were four wooden beads upon it: red, orange, red, yellow. Brenol manipulated them down the string. They clicked happily with the same clink that had accompanied his steps for days. He was suddenly overcome with warmth for Arman.

  He just knows me. He knows me. It was as though his entire body could sigh in peace. “Thanks, Ar,” Brenol said.

  Two quick clicks and a chink came in response. Brenol laughed, and the two delved into the mysteries of Arman’s code.

  ~

  Darse spent the night contending with darker thoughts.

  He knew he was asleep, but he could not rouse himself. Instead, he was forced to witness something incomprehensible, intolerable, as the dream world gripped him with fierce, gruesome fingers.

  He stood upon a knoll. It was a rounded hill of soft, summery grass, and he could sense the lush life tingling under his toes and smell it rushing up to his nostrils by the faintest of breezes. It was in the last moments of evening’s twilight,
but he did not require light to know that this place must be splashed vibrantly with green. He breathed deeply and felt content.

  Then he spied the tree.

  Before him stood a tree of unfamiliar type. It had the alabaster white bark of an aspen but with the fluid smoothness of polished ivory. Its roots were entrenched deep within the soil. He knew this with the unblinking assuredness that comes with dreams.

  The leaves of the tree were utterly magnificent. There was no single pattern— they were a mix of shapes: maple, cherry, aspen, fern, willow, dogwood, oak, beech, brechant. It was as though each leaf were as alike to another as a snowflake in a storm of crystals. He sighed again as he drew in the strange beauty. He stared for what could have been hours.

  The moons rose and bathed the tree in a soft glow. He felt his chest swell as a dapple of light filled his eye, for the leaves were more than he had initially perceived. At first glance, they had seemed a brilliant gold and had shone with a regal luster that could halt a breath on the lips, but now Darse saw that they flickered in an array of colors. One sparked turquoise, another crimson, another amber. Greens of every hue, silvers, tangerines. It was a tree of rainbows.

  A soft breath of air whispered across the knoll. It kissed the tree and turned its leaves in a gentle dance, and they dangled in a brilliant array of color like prisms on a string. Darse’s fingers itched to touch the rainbow, to feel the smooth blades and inhale the fragrances that lived in such magnificence. He made as if to step forward but found his bare feet grounded beneath him. He could not move. Even his arms were locked in a bizarre dream paralysis.

  It was then he knew this was not a dream of peace.

  A figure stole up upon the area. He was thin and tall and decked in a hood that disguised both face and hair. There was nothing by which to mark him, save his sly and fluid movements. He passed Darse without a glance, but as he swept by, Darse’s soul stirred in agitation. He longed to cry out, to stop the figure, but his voice was lost in a horrifying muteness.

  The man stood before the tree of beauty and laughed. It was an evil and jealous laugh, and it sent waves of ice down Darse’s spine and appendages. He would have turned away, but his paralysis was so deep, he could not even close his eyes to the terrible scene.

  The man stripped the bark, shaking down the leaves and ripping them apart with greedy fingers. He labored for a time digging at the root system but could not seem to reach the tips. The tree bled scarlet wherever the man touched it, and the ground was marred with his efforts. The ivory smoothness was no more.

  He did not stop—and it was clear he never would. Never. Not until all that was left was a lifeless stump. Laughter rolled from his hidden lips as he scourged the object of beauty.

  Darse could not muster a movement, but his eyes streamed. The loss of something so lovely—it made him wonder if his soul might break apart in sorrow.

  With a gasping inhale, Darse awoke to the early morning. His face was damp and his insides rent. The devastation of the dream left him somber and silent. He had no desire to move and allowed dawn to pour over their party as he drew in careful breaths behind closed lids. He did not even stir until his companions had roused themselves fully.

  Brenol chattered away, but Darse did not hear. He collected his things and held his silence painfully. It made little sense to him, and he was loathe to articulate the awful images to the others, however vividly they remained before his eyes.

  Darse chided himself for allowing such foolishness to mar his morning. A tree? A mysterious figure? The entire episode seemed ridiculous; the piercing pain he continued to experience, childish.

  He told himself again that it was but a dream, swallowed his ache, and forced himself onward to Callup.

  ~

  The spirit snarled, and the growl reverberated like an echo in its thin throat. It bit the sleeping child again and lapped up the resulting rush of blood. It was warm and delicious, but the spirit’s gnawing impatience left the present amusement vapid and pointless.

  They are so slow to move. So slow.

  How long must I work before they flush into war? How long?

  All its efforts toward sabotage had met little notice, as if this world were mindless in its tendency toward peace. It stretched out its black veined wings as it returned to the window sill and flapped into flight, feeling the cool air hug its tiny body. It rose up as if it might seek the moons themselves but then grew weary of the effort and lowered, finally settling itself with a clapping flutter against the face of the cliff.

  On my world, they would have discovered me long ago. The thought gave it pause—and a surprising sense of freedom. It was even more powerful here than it had originally thought. I come from a hard world. And they are but soft bugs.

  They cannot stop me. They never can.

  It might take longer, but I will destroy them. They will know the bitter taste of ruin. They will.

  It laughed with a screeching belt, and the Chiropteran shrill carried out into the thin air.

  Those who were awake below shivered and glanced to the night skies. When the silence resumed, each successively shook his head and smiled at himself and his imagination. In less than a breath, they forgot the terrible vulnerability that had stretched down into their navels and returned to their tasks and lives.

  CHAPTER 22

  There will come a cartontz, strong in his power from infancy. He, most of all, must not fail; he cannot, for the fate of the world will rest upon his shoulders.

  -Genesifin

  Arman, Darse, and Brenol were pressed with haste, and they skidded over the land like skipping stones across a still lake. Conch and Callup had met the boy with narrowed glances and silence but in the end had simply observed their progress.

  They neared their destination, and after a brief discussion, Arman descended invisibly into the valley to stealthily approach Jerem’s house. Brenol’s thoughts were consumed with much, yet he held his silence beside the quiet figure of Darse.

  Darse breathed slowly, trying to balance himself. The dream tree still clung to his mind’s eye. Why does this dream mar my waking so much? What about it? It is merely a dream… He could not shake the terrible images, even after several days, and he had been quietly consumed with them every step toward Callup.

  Brenol glanced at Darse and followed the man’s gaze to the house below. It was a sturdy, single-story trabeated building in a rusty red. It lay within a grassy field with only a few trees growing beside it, and those relatively young. The place was attractive, clean, inviting. It was hard to imagine somewhere so pleasant housing a kidnapper.

  The dark tapestries, clothing both windows and doors, suddenly began to fall in dramatic swoops. Had they been closer, the resounding thuds would have been startling after the tense and rigid silence. Light streamed in and filled the space. One could see through the house to the opposite side as all the large windows and doors now lay clear.

  Darse stood, brushing the soil from his hands and pants. “Must be the signal. Let’s go.”

  The two trotted quickly down the hill. They found Arman—or more appropriately, heard him—within Jerem’s house, carefully pilfering the place for clues.

  “Jerem?” Darse said.

  “There is no hint of him being here. Not one.”

  “Have you found anything helpful?”

  “Nothing yet, unless you count our lunch.” Several jars slid precariously across the smooth plank table in their direction.

  Brenol grinned. “Well, that’s not a bad start.”

  ~

  As they dined, the three found themselves disheartened. Hours of scouring had amounted to nothing. The place was immaculate, save a soft layer of dust, and held no trace of any inhabitant or even indication that Jerem had passed through recently. Arman guessed it had been vacant at least a season, but likely longer.

  Brenol kicked at the auburn table leg, stumped. “What do we know about Jerem, again?” he asked.

  “Ordah’s brother. Intelligent,
quick. Moved from northern Callup orbits and orbits ago. Not really close with Ordah, but no one willingly is. Does not carry the gift of sight as far as we know.”

  Thump, thump, Brenol kicked. “When did Ordah say he’d get here?” he asked, although he already knew the answer.

  “Two days, maybe three.”

  “What do we do ’til then?”

  “Consume jars of pickled fish.”

  “Ugh.”

  Brenol stood, stretched, and walked out the open entryway. The fresh air suggested rain, but the sun on the porch drenched him with delicious warmth. He glanced across at the sloping hills and the lovely land that could make a thriving homestead and more. It drew his mind back to Alatrice and the hardships of daily living.

  Brenol tilted his neck sideways and crinkled his eyes in concentration. “Well, huh.”

  Darse raised his eyes to scrutinize the boy; he knew that tone. “What is it, Bren?”

  “Well…what did the guy do?”

  Darse and Arman rose and joined him on the porch. Brenol pointed to the wood pile stacked high beside the house, easily the height of a man. “Chop wood all day? The land isn’t being farmed. He doesn’t raise animals here. So what does he do? You said he was smart. I don’t see books, any kind of job here. What did he do?”

  Arman’s footsteps retreated back into the house, then returned. “You are right, Bren. This place is staged. Perhaps he isn’t such a smart man.”

  Brenol felt the movement of Arman as he passed by, and heard the soft swish as his robes swept around the yard. Darse and Brenol shrugged and began to amble around the grounds, searching now for anything unusual. Soon, a laugh issued out from the juile, a robust and mocking sound, and the two panted across the lawn to discover what had elicited it. Brenol squinted down at the seemingly ordinary grass, glancing sideways to see if Darse was as clueless as he.

  They did not have to puzzle long. Within seconds, the sod began to be ripped and lifted. It came up in clods at first, but then pulled back smoothly like the lid on a tin can. Brenol gasped, wide-eyed at the revealed oval door. It was about a stride wide in diameter and wooden. With invisible hands, the juile brushed away much of the remaining soil and heaved it open with a grunt.