The Land's Whisper Read online

  Brenol’s spine twitched as he recalled his own brush with a strange voice in the cave, but he quickly shook it away as nonsense. “Darsey. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the boy insisted. “Look at this place! No one is around! And I am with you. There is nothing wrong. You’ve been invited! Let me stay with you.”

  Darse’s fingers gripped his belt. “Bren… I know you don’t understand right now, but I need you to trust me. I’m not just trying to get rid of you. I’m not. I need to know this place is safe before I can bring you here. And I couldn’t just slip you away from your mother to leave her to face the scrutarni and an inquiry.” Darse’s eyes narrowed on him solemnly. “It will not go well for her. No, Bren. It isn’t time yet. I have to take you back. I have to.”

  “No.”

  “No?” Darse raised his eyebrows, felt the surge of emotion rising, and braced himself for the fight.

  “She doesn’t care about me. You know it. You say you love me, but then why are you so willing to leave me?” Brenol had begun with the intention of using a new argument, but saying the words out loud brought the truth of them to his core. The boy felt raw, as if his soul had been dragged behind a horse’s plow for the space of a day’s labor.

  Darse thought back to the previous night. Can Brenol not see that this is about more than him? That this is my heritage and life? And still—that I even go for him? To hopefully make a place for him?

  Orbits of weariness seemed to sink deep into Darse’s bones. When he spoke, his words came out with a shudder that could not be concealed. “Bren, I’ll come back to Alatrice with you. I won’t stay here in Massada if we can find a way back.” His back slumped in acceptance. Yes, he felt old indeed.

  Brenol stilled. “You’d do that?” he asked. His stomach suddenly soured at the thought of this man living out his days atop the portal that would likely close forever with his death.

  “Of course. I don’t think that I should, but yes, I would.”

  “Oh,” Brenol sighed and stepped back, sinking into the soft mud by the bank. His feet were barely visible beneath the layers of burgundy soil. He felt like crying, but his pride already stung from the memory of his betrayal.

  “I’ll go back,” Brenol said softly. He swallowed the lump in his throat and straightened. “I’ll go back now.” He had turned to make his way back to the cave when Darse grabbed his forearm. Brenol raised his subdued gaze to see Darse’s tense face.

  “I don’t think they work both ways,” Darse said grimly.

  “What do you mean?”

  Darse released Brenol. “I met someone. I don’t think he was human, at least not exactly. He said there was no return.”

  Brenol stared. “What do you mean not exactly human?”

  Darse shook his head, ignoring the question. “Did you not hear me?”

  Brenol’s face lightened. “Why are we arguing then? If we can’t go back, why are you telling me I have to?”

  Darse felt like grinding his teeth. “Bren, your mother is in serious danger. She can’t even manage to pay your pass when you are present. How could she do so when you aren’t there?”

  Brenol’s face clouded. “But won’t the inquiry show I’m not around? And that she has a hole in her glass?”

  “Bren, when are you going to see it isn’t this simple? People on Alatrice are ugly about the kingdoms. How often has my door been lettered? How often have I been called a traitor? And all because my father got sucked into another world and couldn’t whisper a word about it to anyone?” Darse spoke with force. “Bren, she will be dead or wishing she were by the time next orbit’s conscription man arrives. She doesn’t know how to shut her lips, and they don’t know how to use their wits.”

  Brenol gulped, chastened. “Is it really that bad back home?”

  Darse nodded brusquely, uninterested in continuing the topic.

  “So what do we do?”

  Darse tilted his head toward the cave. “We go make sure, to start. I don’t trust that man I met, and we need to know with certitude it’s closed.”

  Brenol nodded and tarried for a step so he could follow Darse. The cave was nothing like it had been the previous night. It sat in ominous darkness, its mouth open and stifling all light. The boy prickled with goosebumps.

  Darse held out a hand in gesture to pause and stepped forward into the darkness. Brenol barely had to suck in two fitful breaths before Darse emerged again.

  “We are trapped,” he attested gravely, glancing around the wood as if it were a cage. “I think we’re both in serious danger, so let’s try and be cautious?”

  Darse’s intensity elicited a nod, but the youth felt a rising exuberance in him. He was free to remain, at least for the time being, and explore a new world.

  “Have you seen anything we could manage for breakfast? I’m famished from all that swimming last night.” Brenol held his stomach with eager expression before shrugging both shoulders. “But I’m sure we will find something… Where are we going?” He surveyed the land and pointed to a walkway slicing through the dense foliage. “There’s something.”

  Brenol’s nonchalance chafed Darse’s ill mood, but he agreed to pursue the forest path. It was smooth and well-worn, with bushes broken back to allow travelers to pass side by side.

  Brenol could not stop his wagging tongue as they meandered. Guilt no longer clawed, and his heart kindled with gaiety and life. He pointed to every sight and scene they passed. Darse chewed his lip, absorbed in silent worry.

  Bracken and dead logs littered the forest floor, but growth also sprouted up from the soil like fountains splashing out green: moss, lichen, bush, leaf, flower, tree. Sunlight trickled down in patches through the dense life and patterned the ground with moving light. The air was uncomfortably warm, though a gentle breeze occasionally sought an avenue through, bringing a moment of delicious relief from the swelter. Brenol found himself breathing with unusual exertion; his home in Alatrice was at a much lower elevation.

  It was not long before their bellies began to churn in emptiness. Even Brenol grew quiet and troubled. The path hooked sideways and dove its way steeply downhill in a grassy descent. It seemed unusual for a well-tended path to dive at such an incline, but as it appeared to be the only option, they continued on without remark.

  The two attempted a handful of other methods, but since their bare feet lacked traction, they eventually succumbed to scooting down slowly on their backsides with palms out to brace. Once the slope evened, they lifted their sore rears and continued on. They came upon several new footpaths branching away. After a short deliberation, they agreed to continue in the direction they believed—from the sun’s course—to be west.

  They had not gone five minutes on the new path before they heard voices. Every muscle in Darse tightened. He clamped onto Brenol’s arm and pulled him to the road’s side behind a clump of bushes. “Bren, quiet.”

  A party of four men ambled around the bend. They were stocky but not overweight, muscular and bronzed, and each could not have reached the height of half a man. Their voices boomed in the previous still, and they strode with steps surprisingly fleet for their small frames. One was clearly younger than the rest of the party—face as smooth as a baby’s belly—while the other three sported smartly trimmed beards dappled in the gray of many orbits. Each hefted a wooden bucket brimming with blossoms over one shoulder, while the opposite was laden with a cloth sack. Each also bore a musical instrument, either in hand or strapped upon back.

  Darse exhaled in surprise, quietly peering between bushes. Brenol, though, straightened in his awe, leaving behind all chance of concealment. Darse cursed softly as the men’s eyes jumped up to the open-mouthed youth. He then emerged and firmly grasped the boy’s shoulder.

  The men’s gazes carried a peculiar expression as they surveyed the two, but they finally rested their vision squarely upon Brenol.

  They see something there, Darse realized. Like I am barely here, beside him. The thought knotted his insides. What
does this place want with him? Why him?

  Brenol clambered forward—with Darse in pursuit—and asked softly, with childlike curiosity, “What are you?” He held his hands behind him, for the compulsion to poke the men itched in his fingers.

  The men jutted their chins out in indignation. The darkest of the group, tanned a swarthy copper, arched his head to the side and eyed the two strangers.

  “Foreigners, eh?” He did not pause long enough for a reply. “Lugazzi babes not taught anything.” He gave Darse a sideways glance, but just as quickly spread his face into an easy expression. “Ah, but where are my manners? My name is Rook.” He bent his sunned head in greeting. “And here are Spence and Murphy. Colvin right there is the baby.” Spence and Murphy bowed their heads, and Colvin nodded casually.

  “We,” continued Rook, “are visnati. Of the terrisdan Garnoble. Fullness and joy.”

  “Fullness and joy,” the other visnati intoned.

  “I am Darse, this is Bren,” said Darse. His voice was strained despite their apparent geniality.

  Murphy asked, “Where are you going? What terrisdan do you belong to? Or are you of the lugazzi?” He was about a hand span taller than the others and wore black suspenders atop blue trousers and thin, round glasses upon a hook nose. His eyes glinted in amusement but carried a sharpness that Darse perceived warily.

  Darse replied reluctantly, “We have no idea where we are going.”

  Rook’s amber eyes narrowed, but his tone remained courteous. “That’s fine. Your business, you know. Please speak if there is anything we can assist you with.” He bowed to them respectfully and gestured to his companions that they should continue on their journey.

  “Wait!” yelped Brenol. “Wait. We really don’t know. Please. Do you have food?”

  Rook gave a large, toothy grin. Without a word, each visnat produced from his sack several sandwiches and pieces of fruit, extending them out in offering. Brenol nodded with vigor, and Darse could hardly resist; his mouth salivated at the mere sight of a meal.

  They found a patch of cool, oak-shaded grass. The visnati plopped down, bantering amongst themselves, and distributed sandwiches. Colvin observed the strangers’ movements with a reserved eye and leaned back with ankles crossed to chew on a long stem of grass.

  “Is this chicken?” asked Brenol. He greedily reached for a second sandwich, even though he had not particularly liked the first.

  Rook’s eyes passed slowly between Darse and Brenol.

  “It’s a bird,” Brenol added.

  The conversing visnati halted mid-sentence. Spence’s hand slid down in a fluid motion to rest upon the blade that hung at his side. A silent communication clearly passed, serious concern evident. Rook finally held Brenol’s gaze. His look was not kind.

  “I…I…” Brenol stumbled into silence.

  Rook’s face soon released its taut lines, and the visnat settled back again into his cross-ankled position. He spoke now in an explaining tone, as one might to a small child. “Bren, we don’t eat birds. Here in Massada we only eat flesh if it comes from the water. You must be further from home than we guessed, eh?” He nodded to himself, as if fully assured now.

  “The creatures of the land don’t have awareness like us, but only a wild man would consume them. Humans, visnati, maralane—we all eat solely from the water.” Rook’s gaze narrowed as if to dare the two to defy him. “It’s a sign of civility. Of order.”

  Silence wrapped the party.

  “Why?” Darse finally asked hesitantly.

  Rook met the man’s gaze. “It’s respect. I’d never eat my brother, make a stew out of my sister. No. It’d be a nasty piece of work to eat a creature with a soul. Nasty, indeed. So we abstain from the baser of the meats, even if the animals don’t have sense like we do.” Rook’s chin raised in pride. “Anyone can eat, but one who selects food with purpose is something else.” His lips pinched in disgust at the evident alternative.

  “But what makes fish different?” Darse insisted. He was not eager to add new inconsistent social practices to his life.

  Colvin’s lips quirked at the edges, but the motion went unnoticed by the rest of his party.

  Rook grumbled incomprehensibly, and his face reddened in irritation.

  Darse took a bite of his sandwich.

  “It wasn’t always so,” Spence conceded. “For a time no man ate flesh of any kind. But after land dwellers discovered the maralane? Well, we all simply followed their way. Fish and other water life became acceptable as food.” Spence straightened his spine and pushed out his stout shoulders. “But everyone knows it’s vulgar to eat land animals.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Well, the majority,” Rook conceded with a scowl. “There’s not much drive within a wolf towards propriety, even if they somehow managed to find speech.”

  “Wolves are the only animals with sense?” Brenol asked.

  The visnati muttered and nodded. It was so, although they clearly disliked the fact.

  Darse recalled the cold quivering of vulnerability that had snaked across his chest at his first encounter with a wolf. He could certainly agree that the wolves were a different sort indeed, even if the distinction between meats was still unclear to him.

  “Where is your world?” asked Spence, whose hand no longer cradled his weapon. “Do you really eat animals?” His face screwed up in abhorrent fascination.

  Brenol, ignoring the last, lifted a hand to point in the direction of the cave. Suddenly, he realized he no longer possessed any sense of their location, and beyond that, a direction toward the cave would not clarify anything. He sat and looked to Darse, speechless.

  Darse met their gazes. They aren’t seeking to harm us, he reassured himself, and he felt the truthfulness of it ease—at least partially—his heart.

  Darse shrugged and spoke with his customary bluntness, “I don’t understand it entirely. We traveled through a canal under my home, and we arrived outside in a cave by what I assume is Lake Ziel.” He felt the keen sting of ludicrousness; the visnati could never believe such a tale.

  “Portal, eh?” Spence paused to scrutinize the two. “The caves around Ziel have often been portals from other worlds. Used to have all kinds of things coming through.” He frowned, continuing. “Only one way through though—at least for most of us. If you go in from this side, you will find moss and bugs and bats. Ha! No, they are only good for getting in. Don’t know if any ever got out.”

  Brenol immediately nodded. “Yes, we tried it.”

  Rook chuckled, “Eager to get back now, eh?”

  Brenol blushed.

  “I met someone on the shore,” Darse began hesitantly.

  “Yes?”

  “He asked if I’d come through the portal,” Darse continued. “He said I’d never get back through.”

  Spence nodded. “Probably an ignalli. They stay near the portals and tell the maralane who comes through.”

  “Why?” asked Brenol.

  “The ignalli once came through themselves,” replied Spence. “They’re foreigners, and foreigners usually work for the maralane.”

  “The maralane consider the portals their property,” added Murphy. “They never tell us anything.”

  “Are there lots of different kinds of people here?” Brenol asked.

  Murphy shrugged. “Some. Human, juile, lunitata, ignalli. There are more. Each usually live with their own kind. Pockets all around Massada. Although a few keep to specific terrisdans.”

  Darse paused, considering. “If no one can get back through, then what about letters?”

  “Ah. You mean the wolves. Yes, the portals open for them. There are a few who bring seals between worlds.” Rook’s tone was saturated with displeasure. “The maralane teach them how. But only them.”

  “The wolves are like the ignalli,” said Spence. “From another world.”

  “Would the wolves ever help us get back?” Darse asked.

  Spence snorted. “No.”

  “What about
the maralane?”

  “Never.”

  Darse felt the hope that had been rising within sputter out.

  “The real question is why you have a portal under your home.” The voice issued from the youngest visnat—sprawled and working on another stem—and seemed to echo eerily in the shaded wood. Colvin’s eyes glinted strangely as they settled upon Darse, not matching his posture of cool indifference.

  “It is a question, isn’t it?” replied Darse.

  The tension turned them silent, but Brenol screwed his face up and spoke, “Just tell them. They aren’t going to hurt us.” The boy carefully tucked his hands under him, for he had narrowly escaped indicating their heights with what would have been a mere flick of his fingers.

  Darse inhaled purposefully, realizing Brenol was more correct than not. He dipped his head down in a manner of apology, and explained, “My mother was from Massada.”

  The four could not feign indifference; their eyes snapped up and locked upon Darse in astonishment. Colvin even sat up from his supine laze, grass stem forgotten.

  “How?” asked Spence, but all the faces silently resounded the question.

  Darse spoke slowly, as one who does not know the full meaning of his words. “My father came many orbits ago from Alatrice. He never explained how or why—I don’t know if he even knew. He met my mother and they had me. She died not long after. Some strange illness. Afterwards, he just wanted to leave. He arranged some kind of return to Alatrice with the lake people, with the allowance of a portal for me, should I ever wish to return.” He frowned. “I guess they were willing to let people leave at one point.”

  Spence gripped his knife anew, in a pensive, not defensive, manner.

  “And Bren?” Colvin asked.

  Brenol flushed a bright pink, and his tongue cleaved to the dry roof of his mouth.

  Darse’s smile spread in a thick grimace, more ugly than inviting. “There was an issue. But we will sort it out shortly.”

  “What was your father’s name?” Colvin asked, stretching back into his loll.

  “Sim,” he replied hesitantly. Darse felt off balance in the conversation. He was beginning to realize that the recumbent visnat might actually be the one in control.