The Land's Whisper (20 page)

Brenol nodded. The hand felt good, like a
sturdy tree to cling to in a squall: reassuring, even if not
entirely relieving. He offered Darse a dip of the head before
rising and slipping from the room.

Although Brenol retired to his quarters, he
did not attempt sleep. He set to pacing his room as if he were a
caged cat. His eyes did not see tapestry or stone or furnishing;
they only saw Colette, for Veronia would not cease pounding him
with images of the helpless child.

Darkness was impenetrable and the castle
quiet when he finally surrendered to the unrelenting voice of
conscience.

I have to get out of Veronia.

I’m a terror. I’m a monster here.

I scare Darse, I want to destroy a little
girl…

Yes. I have to listen to Darse. He is the
only thing holding me together right now.

And so he decided. He would begin the
journey with Darse in the morning, plodding on to the border and
all that fate held. Veronia said nothing of his decision, and he
was too drained to care. He sighed and sank heavily into his bed
for a few short hours of sleep before sunrise, unaware that the
images carried through even in his dreams.

~

They rose at dawn, bathed, and dressed. The
Queen had given them clothes common to all the terrisdans: khaki
boots with laces, tan jackets, and pants lined with a soft
material. They were simple, well made, and discreet. Brenol
fingered the fabric, and the name
kord
slid into his mind
along with new images—
fine heather reaching high, weathered
workers harvesting with a slice of a scythe, crop
beaten,
cleaned, softened, brushed, spun, woven.
His pupils widened;
these clothes were decadent, even if they appeared commonplace.

They breakfasted briefly and donned their
new canvas packs, which were nearly bursting with stores, supplies,
gifts, and currency. Their backs curved forward to compensate for
the weight, and the two trod through the eerily silent castle. It
was the same nail-biting experience as when they arrived: the
absence of bodies, but the feel of many eyes tingling upon their
necks.

The Queen waited for them at the castle
doors. She was garbed in a gown of honeysuckle gold that flowed
down her frame with the smoothness of oil, and her mahogany hair
hung soft and loose upon her slender back. Her eyes were full of
wild emotion that refused to be masked, and her skin emanated light
like the soft beam of a star. Again, her lucent beauty stunned
Brenol. He inhaled carefully, with eyes ever upon her.

Isvelle stepped forward and took a hand from
both Brenol and Darse in a graceful motion.

“Thank you,” she whispered, squeezing
gently. Her lips opened slightly, but pursed a moment later as if
to cork all the emotions threatening to bubble over. Her
penetrating stare bore into each of them in turn.

Brenol wanted to squirm, afraid she would
see the pernicious battle of his heart. Isvelle gave no indication
of spying any darkness, though, gifting him with a generous and
affectionate smile. He sighed silently in relief, but wondered anew
as he observed Darse. The man had a curious expression upon his
features that Brenol had never before seen, and Isvelle’s hands
twitched as she gazed back at Darse.

Maybe there
is
a hole in her
glass,
he thought.

The man and boy both lacked speech, each for
his own reasons, so they turned and departed silently, with steps
echoing.

He will grasp at his
cartess
as though it
is unknown, yet with every motion it blossoms to life.

-Genesifin

The early morning light trickled over the
horizon and, slowly, both forest and water emerged from under the
cold, black cloak of night. The vista remained silent, and the only
movement came from Jerem, who drew the dew-thick air into a tight
face. The aromas of Ziel burned the man’s nostrils—
saccharine
sweet,
he thought in repugnance
—
but he remained crouched
in the foliage, waiting.

Waiting, waiting.

Jerem’s even features twitched at the
stirrings of dawn, his heart buzzed with anticipation, and his lean
muscles quivered like an athlete before a race, but still he
waited.

Finally, the music began. It filled his ears
and curled his soul in discomfort. He grunted in displeasure, but
at least the moment was upon him.

Fluidly, he drew a wooden canoe in a rasping
drag across leaf and rock until it rippled upon the water and
bobbed to a still. He thrust a pin-anchor into the hard soil while
his hazel eyes darted frenetically across the glistening surface.
His breath hung suspended in his throat.

At last Jerem seemed satisfied, drew a
breath, threw a large and bulky sack into the canoe, and returned
to the foliage. He bent and heaved a limp woman over his left
shoulder. It was a motion that came naturally, as one done
regularly. He carried the body to his vessel and lowered her in,
laying her with a perverse gentleness. Her coffee-colored tresses
fell in a tousle to cover her emaciated face. He made no effort to
brush her features clean, but instead allowed his palms to linger
on her slim chest with a satisfied grin.

He breathed in her ear, speaking words
hardly audible, “I didn’t want to leave you on the shore this time.
You will stay with me.”

She did not stir.

Jerem rose again in a towering height—a
solid hand span above a normal man—and dashed back to the forest
bushes. He emerged with yet another slack body, but this one—a
man—he merely dragged by the ankles to the water’s edge, hauled up
with a grunt, and dumped unceremoniously beside the canoe’s yoke.
He tugged up the anchor, picked his way aboard, and seated himself.
His chest rasped from the exertion, but his attention remained on
the water. His eyes swept the area with tense fear, but the screen
remained still.

I can barely think in this wretched din.

Jerem gripped the shaft of his oar and
grimaced as he haphazardly scraped the starboard gunwale before
dipping the blade into the clear water. He waited, exhaling softly
when the surface remained undisturbed. A smug confidence rose
within, and he coaxed the vessel out fifty strokes with the oar
before stowing it quietly on the hull floor.

The fish-fools don’t know as much as they
say,
he gloated.

Jerem smoothed his sandy hair back and drew
out a pocketed vial. He spread its contents—a thick, off-white
cream—upon his fingers and roughly massaged the putrid mess into
the scalp of the unconscious man, leaving only a few brown locks
visible amidst the globs. The substance did not absorb, but rested
and merged with the cracked and crusted cream already present. The
man did not awaken, although his form suddenly tightened and
wrenched as if under immense strain. Jerem smiled slightly; before
him, a moving picture appeared and played. He watched as a young
boy held a little girl’s hand, speaking to her with genuine
tenderness. She squeezed his hand and smiled before the scene
misted into clear air.

Jerem carefully wiped his fingers on a loose
cloth before he bent to retrieve a notebook. He penned out a few
words but quickly returned his attention to the body. His lips
pursed tightly in annoyance.

“Nothing Deniel? How do you still fight me?”
Jerem mumbled. “Even in your state?”

A scalpel gleamed from his long fingers, and
he bent forward, drawing lines of crimson across the other man’s
arms like a stick dragging through sand. “You will learn not to
play with me eventually.” The images were indecipherable amidst the
blood, but Jerem smirked in satisfaction before returning to his
notebook.

Then he stopped, frozen. His breath hung
choked in his lungs.

Eyes stared out from the lake. They had
barely surfaced, but they were there: steely orbs beneath a crop of
ashen and green hair. The blue irises were mere specks of color
amidst the shocking pools of black, as if the pupil had leeched and
spilled out. Jerem’s insides went cold.

An amused glint suddenly shone from the
maralane’s eyes, doing little to settle Jerem’s nerves.

Ever so slowly, the man lifted his oar. He
swept it over the gunwale and made to dip it in the water.

“I would not do that.”

Jerem stopped. The oar quivered in his
hands.

“It will only draw them.”

Jerem’s eyes narrowed, confused. “But the
song…it continues until the sun rises to the third marker.”

The maralane spread his lips into a cruel
smile. “I did not say that you would draw the maralane.” His
features hovered suspended in an unnatural gloat. “What are you
doing, little worm? It does appear ever so interesting.”

“Nothing to concern you,” Jerem replied
hastily.

“No reason to get alarmed. What is your
name?”

Jerem began to shake his sandy head but
stopped before the lethal glare of the lake-man. Never before had
he seen such hatred. The whole universe would not be enough to sate
that fire. “Jerem,” he replied tremulously.

“What is it you are doing?” the maralane
repeated. His eyes sparked in genuine diversion, though his manner
and speech were lazily disinterested.

“Nothing,” he replied, gritting his
teeth.

The maralane laughed. “You are a spider,
aren’t you?” He lowered his body into the water so his chin rested
upon the surface as if it were a table. “I think I might even help
you.”

Jerem’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Maralane do not help
us.
”

Again the lake-man laughed. It was an evil
roll that pressed a knot into Jerem’s insides. “Do you mean the
wicked or merely the legged?”

Jerem could barely think. He was unused to
being the vulnerable one. “Either.”

The smile grew wider. “What makes you think
I
am like other maralane? Or even a maralane?”

Jerem did not speak. He merely stared.

“I will take you to an island. You will not
be disturbed there, assuming you show a touch more discretion than
you have this morning.”

“There is no island.”

The smooth voice poured out like oil. “That
is what they might have you believe.”

“And if I will not go?”

“I shall have to bring the others.”

Jerem cursed under his breath. He flicked
his eyes desperately to the shore and back again to the young woman
heaped beside him.

“There really is no room for escape. I would
not even attempt it. It would be such a
waste.
” The
maralane’s lips savored the last word.

Finally, Jerem spoke, “And what about when I
want to return?”

The dark pools glinted. A dripping arm slid
up into the canoe, caressing the unconscious woman in delighted
mimicry. “It will likely amuse me to assist you again.”

“Don’t touch her!” Jerem belted, standing
suddenly and causing the craft to rock.

“Sit,” the maralane barked, and Jerem obeyed
with a wince, staring at the pale hand lingering upon her now-damp
breast. The maralane’s features beamed in cruel satisfaction. “No.
You shall do as I say, or your nasty little hands will only grope
at the lake bed greenery. No more of this little one.” His white
index finger traced the graceful neck of the young woman. His nails
and cuticles were as black as if he had been digging in tar.

Fear drained Jerem’s handsome face to a
sickly cream. “What am I to do?”

The maralane chuckled to himself, saying,
“All the gnats eventually do what I say.” He met Jerem’s eyes. The
little color remaining in the iris had now been overtaken with a
deep obsidian. “All of them.”

~

Travel was easy at first. Darse and Brenol
sidled their way through the sloping lands that led from Sleockna
to Pearia
,
yet this time they followed a more southern route
than their original path. The land smoothed down in a gentle grade
as they moved east, and it seemed another world entirely from the
heights jutting up around Ziel. It was too perfect to last, like a
heat swell in the heart of winter. The sky was a deep azure and the
sun, still low, trickled heat down to lick away the cool dew
glistening at their feet. The wind even held its breath, as if not
wanting to disturb the idyll.

They met Pearia and followed her south. She
bubbled and danced merrily, and Brenol eyed her wistfully; they
would not be able to raft down to Selet, even though she flowed the
entire way. Pearia dipped south and slid through a range of
mountains and ballooned under the additional run-off water. The
jagged rocks along her girth made even skilled boaters shy from the
watery avenue. So for now, they merely tramped beside her and
listened to her babbling.

By mid-morning, they spied their goal: a
worn pier poking out above the river. A small hut was planted along
the western shore. The hut and pier both blended with the cluttered
tree life of the river. Darse would have missed the crossing
entirely had Brenol, with his nurest sense, not known precisely
where it lay.

Brenol flicked his index finger across the
sparkling water to where a canoe lay beached and inverted in a
secure hold. Paddles hung on a trunk beside it. Slightly removed
from the bank rested a house, formed from logs and the bister river
clay, with gentle smoke billowing out from a flue in the roof.

A burly man emerged—as though their steps
had pealed an unseen bell—and swung his arm up in greeting before
shouldering the craft, plucking up the two oars, and wading into
the gushing water. He held the canoe firmly in his strong arms as
he righted it with care, stowed the paddles, and clambered in with
practiced ease. He fought the current with swift strokes and
arrived downriver on the western side. He shouldered the craft
again and lugged it up the thirty strides to Darse and Brenol. With
a grunt and a lift of a bristly chin, he lowered the canoe and
towed it up to the tiny pier.