The Forbidding Blue Page 7

  The pestering for stories, he thought with a grin, but it was not his mother’s voice he heard; it was Colette’s. She had taken up his tale-seeking habit, seeming to apprehend the purpose behind his mother’s game more than he ever had.

  “Tell me a story about Darse.”

  Colette’s emerald eyes sparkled as she lay beside him. Their hands were intertwined and her voice was hushed, tender.

  Brenol’s lips spread into a smile. “Darse…”

  “Yes. About when you lived on Alatrice.”

  He paused, considering, and burst into laughter as he caught hold of a flicker of the past. Darse’s scowling face that day, so long ago, was still as fresh in his mind as if it had just occurred.

  “Tell me!” she said, eager to join in his amusement.

  “Ok, ok! Darse worked all the time. He fished, hunted, raised animals, grew crops. His homestead had some farming land, but also was half in the woods. It wasn’t far from my place with my mother, and the two of us spent much of the summer and fall together. At least when I was without jobs. In the winter I was usually at the schoolhouse, or helping my mother…

  “I was young. Nine orbits? Maybe younger. He’d gone through a long, extravagant lesson about trapping. It was really just more than it needed to be, but that was Darse. He was always so worried about keeping me safe and making sure he taught me right the first time. It was grueling. That man lectured the same lesson over and over until I was mumbling it in my sleep.”

  “That doesn’t take much,” Colette intoned with a sly grin.

  “Hey now!” He pushed her gently, and she pulled him into a soft kiss. Her lips opened, and her mouth was warm and sweet. He breathed in her honeysuckle scent, and nearly forgot all else.

  “My story?” she asked again, laughing. Her eyes danced merrily.

  “Oh, yes…” Brenol affectionately toyed with a tendril of her coffee hair between his fingers. “So we set up traps around the property. He made me rattle off where we’d set each one at least fifteen times, promising each time to be cautious if I went in any of those areas.

  “The next morning, when we went to check our steel, somehow—I still don’t know how—Darsey managed to set his foot into one of the nasty little things. It was a minor trap, so it merely cut up his arch and ankle a bit, but his face was as red as a summer strawberry. I’ve never seen him so embarrassed.”

  Colette smiled. Her silky plaits shone in the afternoon light. He tenderly brushed a fallen strand behind her ear, kissing it as if to seal it in place.

  “The next day, we didn’t have a single catch. But that really wasn’t his fault. The night before, I’d gone through and placed different things of his in each trap. I was so proud of myself, though as we neared the first one I wondered if I’d taken it too far… But he merely released each lock and threw the boot or sock or glove into his sack with a smile. At the end of the run, he licked his lips and said happily, ‘We sure caught us a lot of fool. That’s a fine meal.’”

  Colette’s cheeks brightened above her smile. “So what did you eat?”

  “Potatoes.” He laughed, recalling. Darse had lit candles and drawn out his one tablecloth reserved for special occasions. All for their feast of fools. “He didn’t push his lessons as hard after that. He was still Darse, but tempered.”

  Brenol found himself beaming at the memory, even in the streaming wet. The history he carried with Darse was truly special. He smiled, but the expression disappeared abruptly as his face was splashed from the ferryman’s labors.

  Back in the present, he sighed into the movement of the raft and all too soon found his feet meeting solid ground again.

  The damp and sinking clay of the opposite bank clung to his boots and made a slurping noise as he scrambled up through the pelting sleet. He dripped his way to the crossing’s inn, bathed, filled his stomach, and slept with the soundness that comes with travel and dreary weather.

  ~

  It had taken longer for Igont to locate Dresden than the sealtor had anticipated. The healers in Limbartina had been unsure of his whereabouts, but finally the wolf had found the man at the edge of Garnoble. Dresden had paused briefly in a deserted tavern, yet it seemed to the wolf that the man remained entirely unconcerned with fare or board. They met in a back corner, conversing in low voices.

  This human smells worse than most, Igont thought. Like he lives in a fire pit.

  Dresden peered down at the wolf for a moment, pondering his words. His light blue cloak was soiled, with mud stains creeping up the hem at his ankles. His chin was sharp and angular, and his eyes were as dark as a juile’s. No light sprang from his skin.

  “Who is it that asked for me?” Dresden replied carefully.

  Igont growled. He loathed repeating himself. This is why you write your messages, Arman.

  “Arman,” the wolf replied.

  “Arman?” Dresden asked sharply. His eyes hardened in thought.

  “Yes,” said Igont.

  “What was his purpose?” Dresden asked.

  The wolf hesitated. Something about the healer pricked his fur to a stand. He pondered just returning to Arman but then recalled the juile’s words about his gortei. “Arman wants to know about the black fever,” he replied quietly.

  “Does he?” Dresden mumbled darkly.

  The look of the healer unsettled Igont further, but there was little to do. “He bid you move in haste to Gare, outside of Brovingbune. I assume you know it?”

  Dresden shook himself from his brooding and smiled. It was wide and troubling. “Yes, of course. I know it. Would you like to join me?”

  Igont drew his snout back into a snarl. “Do not toy with me, human. I delivered the message. Your response is your own.”

  “Shall I send reply?” he asked coyly. His mouth opened up again into a toothy grin.

  What is this man playing at? This is supposed to be the greatest healer of our times? The wolf worked to control his rage. His voice, when it came, was more rumble in the throat than speech. “Write it, if you must.”

  The healer pilfered through his bag, graceful but with a laziness that provoked. He extracted a few items, arched easily over a sheet of paper, wrote a few words, then extended the note to the wolf.

  “You’ll not seal it?” Igont asked, astonished. Few trusted wolves to keep secrets. Even if one party was unconcerned, the other usually was. Arman was a rare exception.

  “If I must,” Dresden said. He peered at the wolf expectantly.

  Igont snarled, but tugged his pouch loose, and holding it in bared teeth, snapped it up to the man with a skilled flick of his neck. The pouch hit Dresden’s chest and fell. The man had not even attempted to catch the bag.

  The healer stooped with an air of boredom and collected the pouch. He opened it, plucked up the first metal seal he found, and set to melting the wax stick and sealing it with his press. Igont’s paws curled at the oddity: Dresden had selected lugazzi seals with a bright yellow wax—a glaring mismatch. And the man would know that lugazzi seals were not used for personal correspondence. The wolf snorted air out his nostrils, perceiving an insult.

  The healer flicked the letter and pouch to the ground with a bored twist of the wrist, and the wolf’s hair bristled at the incivility. Igont lowered his snarling mouth, bared his teeth back in disgust, bit up the seal, and tucked it securely into his neck sack. He then restored his pouch with the imprinting pieces back to his collar.

  “You’ve not paid me,” Igont growled, ready to be gone.

  “Please tell him that I really cannot spare the time. I’ve too much to work on here.” His mouth spread into an awful grin as he peered around the tavern. Dresden then selected several valuable coins from his pocket and dropped them to the floor. As they showered from his hands, Igont saw the state of the healer’s fingers. Black edged the nails.

  This man is disgusting.

  He pawed up his payment and left in haste.

  He pays well, but I prefer the invisible to his kind.
<
br />   The scent of Dresden still clung unhappily in his nostrils as he stretched his limbs in the evening air. The sky was a deep navy blue, but he had much energy to expend before he would rest—the encounter with the healer would push him for many matroles. He shook out his fur, as if to dislodge the clinging vexation, and huffed loudly out his nostrils.

  Enough, Igont. Move.

  He snarled his lips up in a lupine grimace and leaped into a swift bound. Igont’s stride matched the terrain as he wound through vale and mount and pass, and he grunted in the pleasure of unity with the land and the sweet air rushing through his coat. The clouds soon brushed from Veri’s face, and she beamed down in a soft light. He let out a low howl—met with the resounding chords of his kind across the hills and woods—and sped his way to Brovingbune.

  ~

  Colette pressed her palms to her eyes as she awoke groggily. The dream had been strange, and the vivid character of it was steeped with sleep and musings. For the first time, she questioned its authenticity.

  Have I been wrong all along? She grimaced. It was not the first time that her dreams and intuition had failed her. And the cost before had been unbearable. Deniel had believed her imaginings of queendom to the point of giving his life.

  A tight pressure suddenly banded around her belly, and she looked down with curiosity. She probed the taut skin with her fingertips, but soon the hardness released and the child resumed its usual movements. She sighed. It had been a welcome distraction.

  The man in my dream… He looked like… Dresden?

  She recalled the healer with fondness and could easily draw to mind the bronze and shining face. He had spoken to her kindly during her initial stay in Limbartina. They told her he had saved her from death. This man, though, was different. He only had an element of the healer’s character, as if he were a cousin, and his skin lacked any lunitata light or beam. The eyes of malitas had been present, of course. The whole of the dream world seemed too bizarre, hovering between reality and the unconscious.

  It can’t really be Dresden. I just haven’t slept well is all.

  She stretched in exaggerated slowness to prevent cramping in her calves and rolled to her side. She closed her eyes and took in long, deep breaths.

  She did not sleep, but she had known she would not.

  CHAPTER 8

  To hold the world in one’s hand is a precarious and terrible position.

  -Genesifin

  Arman strode with a vigor he did not feel, for sensation had ceased long ago. His boots clunked with each footfall upon the lonely perideta, the sound echoing until the snow drifts muffled it into silence. The land itself seemed to swallow him up—a lone figure of gray amidst the wash of blue. The evening sun gave little heat but lit the vast territory more than one would have liked; to see the desert extend for unending matroles would cause even the strongest of hearts to flinch.

  I was in Massada not long ago, he thought in bewilderment. It feels like I’ve been in the blue for moons.

  The last night in Aron seemed a world away, even if it had been but a handful of days. The floors had groaned under Gregory’s footfalls as the man withdrew to seek sleep in the upstairs room, undoubtedly harboring hopes that the juile might also leave. Arman had breathed easier with Gregory’s absence but made no move to depart. Instead, he had stretched his long frame before the still-strong fire, breathing in the fragrant cedar smoke, and permitted himself repose until sunrise. Rest had not been essential, but the necessary supplies could only be procured in the light of day.

  Dawn had crept up with the stealth of a cat. She had hidden behind cloud and mist until mid-morning but fortunately had not delayed the town from awakening to life. Aron was small—fifty to seventy persons at most—and lacked a thriving market, yet Arman had been pleased by the wares he had managed to acquire. He had loaded down an old, patched pack to near-bursting with dried fruit and fish, lake kelp, a used but sturdy rope, water pouches, a flagon of wine, a thick blanket, bandages, medicines, herbs. He wore the pack over the additional layers he had acquired: a warm sweater and trousers donned beneath his robes and a heavy winter cloak atop them. He had hunted for a blue cloak but was forced to content himself with a faded gray—a hair lighter than his robes.

  The Tindel will see me poking out of the desert like a yellow finch resting in a snow bank, he thought with a grimace, yet there was little to be done about it. He had taken the things and fled. The two days passing through Granallat were swift and grueling, for the drive for haste coursed through him with every beat of his heart. He must fly to the perideta, and fly he would.

  That last afternoon upon the terrisdans he had bountifully crossed through an unlikely little village—the last populated patch in Granallat—and tucked into a hearty bowl of stew at the back door of a cottage. The family was happy to earn several freg, and Arman was relieved to secure a hot meal. He did not know when the next would be and allowed himself a moment to relish in the warmth of his full gut before stamping his feet awake and striding purposefully west. The eyes of the few townsmen gazed with wonder on the stranger. It was more than the rarity of seeing a juile; souls seldom visited, and none travelled west. This town on the outskirts of the terrisdan was close to uninhabitable, but the perideta was lethal.

  Soon the white had dissipated as the terrisdan ended and the perideta began. The barren wasteland of the ice desert stretched out before him in a startlingly luminous cerulean that made one’s eyes recoil back; it was difficult to see where sky met land as the blues merged together in an indecipherable enigma. Many who had attempted to walk this path had lost their senses long before they succumbed to frostbite. Yes, this was undoubtedly a hard land.

  It would make for a compassionless people.

  He paused, rubbed his temples, and wondered how much of his intuit was awake and how much was simply insanity creeping in with the cold and blue.

  I’ll know in time, he thought grimly.

  He strained his eyes, attempting to see more than the sea of azure. There was nothing for matroles.

  Maybe the gray will be a blessing, he thought wryly, picturing the Tindel discovering his cloaked cadaver frozen amidst the blue.

  Arman shook his head briefly, attempting to dispel the uncertainty that raged through his mind. Should I have sent seal to Bren? Should I have told him where the sword was? That the Tindel protect it? Yet all his doubts were trumped by the greater fear of discovery. Should this thing know their plans, it would be their ruin. This was their last and only chance for life. Nothing mattered more than protecting Massada.

  It could easily take two septspan to find the Tindellan clansmen, and the securing of the sword and the return journey would likely take just as long. The loneliness of the trek and its ridiculous futility swept through him, in tempo with the desert’s wintry blasts. No one knew where he was, and no one would think to look beyond the terrisdan borders should anything happen to him.

  His tall frame shook as the wind sliced across the perideta. He pulled his cloak closer and battled with numb fingers to draw the hood further down his forehead. It was an ineffectual effort as the cloak, while made for a tall man, still fell several digits shy of good coverage in most directions. He sighed lightly, breath puffing out in a cloud of warmth.

  Even the desert seems colder.

  Everything is changing.

  Rather than disheartening him, the thought strengthened his stubborn resolve. He jutted out his jaw defiantly and launched forward with new vigor.

  Arman’s strides continued on for hours despite the wrenching chill. He wished he had some way of marking his progress besides the sun. It would be all too easy to lose himself in the blinding monochrome, even with the experience gained from previous treks. He had never traveled as far as he intended to go now, but he knew enough to tremble.

  An entire lifetime ago…

  He checked his boots and again scooped out the azure snow sneaking in at the shins. His hands trembled at the movement, and he suddenly froze
as an unsettling sound reached his ears. His body returned to shaking presently, for it took him only a moment to realize the noise had been nothing more than the chattering of his own teeth.

  I will go on. I will not stop. The world is at stake.

  Yet even as he intoned the words, doubt circled his heart like a snake, crushing all sense.

  What if I’m wrong? What if Carn is wrong? What if this thing isn’t what I think? What if I pass along the way?

  Arman narrowed his eyes at these thoughts, for they were unlike his sensible mind. His face knotted up in ugliness.

  “No,” he said aloud. “Fear would be the only reason why I wouldn’t fetch Heart Render.”

  Arman exhaled a heavy cloud. “So get to it, juile.”

  ~

  Brenol groaned as he lowered himself to his pallet. He had pushed himself unrelentingly through the day, only to stumble and sprain his ankle several matroles west of Gare. Having no other choice, he had dragged himself in a pitiful limp the remainder of the journey. The innkeeper Harris had stared suspiciously—Brenol more torn and battered than paying customers tended to be—but relaxed when the young man had reached for his purse and quickly sought to be of service.

  A bath, room, and short splint were provided as well as several tankards of dark beer and a hearty fish stew that boasted more of potatoes than flesh. Brenol was not happy to be incapacitated but sighed in the relief of knowing his journeying to be presently forestalled.

  A sharp rap yanked away any alleviation he had found. He eased his body up to attend to the door but then thought better of it.

  “You can enter,” he called.

  The spidery boy who had been sweeping the pub earlier creaked through the entryway with a nervous twitch of the eye. He was easily a head shorter than Brenol, with thin lips and hollow cheeks. He stared blankly at the man, as if Brenol had himself requested the lad’s assistance.

  “Can I help you?” Brenol asked curtly.

  “Oh.” The youth’s mouth hung agape, only furthering Brenol’s assumptions as to his wits. “I, uh… There’s someone for Arman…downstairs. He’s got a seal… You said to tell you when someone came lookin’ for you…or him?”