The Land's Whisper (46 page)

He scanned the terrain. He knew he must be
quick. He ran again. He looked over his shoulder. Again and again.
He did not see anyone, but that failed to reassure him; he knew
better than any how easily the eyes could be tricked.

He stopped to take a breath, for his chest
was heaving. He listened. Nothing. A hope filled him, but he did
not allow it to distract him from his purpose.

He ran again. No pain was going to stop him.
Nothing would stop him.

I will run until I fall dead,
he
thought.

The scene disappeared from Brenol’s mind as
suddenly as it had exploded into it. The images made little sense.
This had obviously never happened.
I’ve never carried Colette.
And she was younger there…

Brenol elbowed up to a sit with painstaking
care. One blanket lay under him and another atop. Directly before
him crackled a low but ample blaze that caressed with comforting
heat, but beyond that was rising stone. The monoliths were
familiar, though it took him a moment to place them. He was above
ground, in the campsite they had used long, long ago.

So it is actually night,
he thought.
The darkness immediately lifted its oppressive hold on his chest,
and he inhaled the scents around him.
Actually night.

His foot was bandaged and propped up
upon—
yes, it is his—
Jerem’s pack and throbbed terribly. He
touched it gingerly with his fingertips, and the motion sent him
reeling. He reined in his breathing until it evened and he could
carefully open his eyes again.

The boy drew his mind back to the fragmented
moments before his blackout. None of it made sense. Jerem, the
knife, Deniel’s golden eyes intense and forging into his own with
such determined purpose. Brenol groaned and laid his head upon the
knee of his uninjured leg.

The noise beckoned movement from around the
stones’ corner. A man hastily swept in to stand at the boy’s side.
Brenol could hardly bring himself to look up, shuddering at what
would possibly befall him, but when he did he could not speak for
his heart was so full.

Darse is alive.

It was impossible but wonderful, even though
his face was severely beaten, and his jaw was disfigured. He looked
old. And tired.

“Bren?” The word sounded distorted emerging
from the broken face.

Darse knelt, unconcerned with his own state.
“What hurts? Are you ok?” He spoke softly, but the noise was
agonizing to the boy.

Brenol winced. “My head. Everything in my
head.”

“What did he do to you? Where did he hit
you?” The man began gingerly exploring Brenol’s scalp for
damage.

“I’ve no idea. I don’t think…” He groaned.
“I just remember my mind exploding suddenly… I mean…he
was
coming to hurt me…but I don’t think… Did he touch me?” He peered
down stupidly upon his unscathed limbs. The cruel blade had left no
trail or mark.

What happened?

“I…I just don’t know, Darse. I just don’t
know.” His last words issued out in a whisper. Everything was such
an effort. He could feel sleep calling, snaking its long fingers
around him and making everything hazy.

Brenol glanced up once more at Darse, whose
golden eyes bespoke wonderment, before collapsing into
oblivion.

~

Several days elapsed before Brenol awoke
again. When he did, he was no longer on the isle. He lay in a room,
furnished and tidy. His bed was downy and warm, and a soft brown
rug clothed the center of the white tiled floor. He brushed the
smooth linens beneath his fingertips, realizing that even his nail
beds had been scrubbed and manicured. He sighed. He had never
before felt this comfortable and safe. And
clean
.

He rose and dressed himself in clothes
neatly folded upon bedside table. A door opened softly, and a
graying man entered. His face lifted in surprise as he surveyed the
boy but then fell into a genuine smile.

“Bren, I am pleased to see you awake. I will
find your friend.” He ducked out the open door, but his head
appeared again to issue out a brief plea. “But please, rest!”

Brenol could not give order to his thoughts.
Something was unusual about the man, but the boy lacked both the
time and presence of mind to reach any conclusions.

Darse marched through the door presently. He
produced a wide-mouthed grin, highlighting the absence of several
teeth, and laughed in joy. It was very good to see Brenol both
awake and alive.

“What is this place Darsey? And where?”

“You certainly waste no time, do you?” He
chuckled. “It is a town, Limbartina, in the terrisdan Selenia.
You’re in the soladrome. It is a healing dome. I’m told there are a
few in Massada, but this is the best. The healers and people, well,
I should say the umburquin, have been very good to us. We’ve been
here for nearly a septspan.”

Brenol blinked at the staggering amount of
time he had lost. “But how? What happened? Where’s Arman? Ordah?
What…” Brenol’s voice trailed off, his eyes searching his friend’s
face for answers.

“Ok, ok, Bren. But sit down! Sit down!” He
paused for the boy to lower himself onto the bed before he would
proceed. “I woke up in the cave after what I can only assume was
several hours.” He flinched slightly as his hand unconsciously
traced his healing face. Brenol wondered at the pain that must have
jarred him awake in those first moments.

“You were alive but wouldn’t wake. You
didn’t seem to have any injuries that I could see—aside from your
leg, of course. I thought it might be shock. Or drugs. Colette was
alive and heavily sedated. Deniel and Jerem were both dead.”

“
What?
” Brenol clambered up, sheets
bunching beneath him.

Darse extended his fingers in a placating
motion and continued. “Yes… It hadn’t been too long—their bodies
were warm when I went to examine them… I’d been hoping you would
explain when you awoke.” He shook his head, stress still straining
his brow. “But that came much later than I expected. Ordah and I
brought you and Colette out of the cavern.” He stared at the
stark-white tile, recalling the difficulty of shuffling through the
low corridors with the limp bodies. It had made him certain that
Jerem utilized another entrance to the caves. “Colette and Ordah
were brought first, and then the maralane transported us across
Ziel.”

“But dead?” Brenol was incredulous. “Did
they fight each other?” He remembered back to the trim case. “Drug
each other?”

“No. I examined Jerem. He had no needle
marks from what I could tell. Granted, I could have missed much
between all the damage from our fight, but he didn’t seem to have
any untended injuries. Deniel was riddled with needle holes and
every spare section of skin was sliced and bruised. It didn’t seem
like any of the torture could’ve been enough to cause death, but I
couldn’t be sure.”

Brenol raised his face imploringly, grasping
for any element of sense. “I just don’t get it, Darse. I… I… He
looked at me—Deniel—he looked at me. Jerem was coming toward me and
then…the pain became unbearable. It was like my head exploded from
the inside. And I don’t remember anything else. It doesn’t make
sense.” Brenol stared at his hands.

Did he save me? Did he save us? Will I
never know?
He sighed.

Suddenly Brenol’s mind skidded in memory.
“How is…
she?
” He did not want to taste her name in his
mouth. The image of her treachery still seared his heart.
Did I
really leave all for her? For someone so awful? Her face is poison
to me.

Darse looked down at Brenol with eyes clear
and free from any bitterness. “She woke up for a moment yesterday.
Disoriented, confused. Lost consciousness shortly after… She’s been
drugged for the better part of eight orbits, with only moments of
terror when she awoke from it all. That’s
orbits,
Bren.” He
shrugged his shoulders. “She is more child than woman, despite the
face. Can you blame her for not knowing what she was doing in the
cave? She responded to the person who called her name. I doubt she
knew who he was or what she was doing.”

Brenol’s frame quivered in hot ire. “She
knew.”
Oh she knew.
Again he pictured the chain smashing
over and over into Darse’s face. The results stood before him in
the newly set jaw and green bruises littering his friend’s
features. Brenol shuddered involuntarily.

They sat together for a few minutes, and
Brenol wrestled silently with the bizarre lack of closure he felt,
paired with the relief and hollowness that comes with a mission’s
completion.
Do I go home now?
There was little appeal in
that prospect, not that he could even be certain Ordah would hold
true to his promise of opening the portal. He was unsure what he
wanted. Nothing felt right.

The elderly attendant snuck back into the
doorway. “Time for rest now, Bren.” His smile was kind but
firm.

Darse took his leave. The boy was wired with
energy, but he obediently situated himself again under his blankets
and allowed his mind to sift through the events and swirling
emotions.

Brenol glanced through the small, clean pane
of his window. Green leaves swayed in the gentle breeze that flowed
about the little meadow. He closed his hardening heart to the
beauty.

I don’t care. I’m going to die hating
her.

Flash!
Another scene overtook his
mind.

He scanned the map, fingering the worn edges
as he muttered softly under his breath. He calculated the distance
in his mind and adjusted his direction slightly to the northeast.
Tree fall crunched under him, and the sun overhead was pleasantly
warm, but it made him nervous to be out in the open, so visible. He
tugged his brown coat tightly about his body, hoping it would serve
as camouflage, and tramped down a smooth deer-made overpass. He
continued on through a sparse glade of green.

He saw it.

There,
he thought.
There.

The small house clothed with moss and vines
as though it had donned disuse as a cloak. It looked as if no one
had been there in a very long time. As though no one were living
there. As though no one was holding Colette there.

He knew better.

Stealthily, he swept closer, halting to
listen with suspended breath every few footfalls. His eyes were
aware of every movement, his ears of every sound. The branches
above creaked in the soft breeze. The damp moss smelled of pine and
must and earth. He bent down to examine a footprint. It led south
into a pale thicket. Jerem had been here. He knew it. He touched
the print gingerly. Yes, it had to have been him.

He is getting sloppy…

His legs glided quickly to the cabin. He did
not even bother to try the front door. It would undoubtedly be
boarded. No, there was some other way in. And he knew it was used
regularly. He brushed his eyes along until the footprints and scuff
marks led him to a rusty, heavy metal box next to the house—very
uninviting. It was filthy, foul. It seemed to promise that a
venomous spider’s lair hid inside.

And so it does
, he thought.

He opened the box, unsurprised to find a
diminutive stairway leading into the house. He closed the lid
behind him with a soft thud and gazed about.

The house was empty. He could hear the
settling of boards, but not a breath of life stirred in the
vicinity.

Panic swelled.
Where is she? Where?
She is here. She has to be!

He felt like upending furniture and
ransacking the place to find her but reined in his desperation.

Breathe, breathe
, he intoned, calming his
senses.
“A stone in fury cannot be a stone.”

His anguished mind grappled to grasp the
missing link. The house was empty… No, it was made to
appear
empty. He smiled grimly and looked yet again for signs of wear
that would lead to a hidden door.

It did not take even a minute now that he
was looking.

That roach is growing clumsy indeed,
he
thought.

He pulled the frayed and dusty carpet aside
slightly to reveal a cellar door. It opened easily and without
sound. He descended into the darkness.

He groped around and finally found a grimy
lantern to light. The dirt below him was hard and dry. It smelled
of iron and sweat. And Jerem.

I hate the stink of that leech.

He was in a room. It looked like a
laboratory. There was a table to his left with papers strewn across
it. Journals lined the bookshelf to his right, and straight ahead,
the entire wall was filled with large metal cabinets, roughly an
arm span high and another wide, each individually locked. There
were eight along that wall, stacked in twos, with an additional two
set down on the floor by the south wall.

His chest tightened.
No.

No.

It can’t be. Even he wouldn’t. No…

His sweating hands clenched, and he labored
against his spinning vision. He staggered forward, knowing he must
move quickly. Much more was at stake than he had realized.

My cartess. This is my cartess.

~

Darse stood over Brenol, gently rousing him,
“Brenol! Bren, it is ok! Wake up! Are you ok?”

Brenol groaned. His head throbbed in
torment.
What is happening to me?

“Bren, can you talk? Does something hurt?”
His kind eyes passed over the slouched body, the pained face, the
fingers clenched at the temples.

“Darse… I… I keep remembering things… It
comes with the pain…but…but…” Brenol’s mind released its hold on
the present, and the shroud of unconsciousness bound him up tightly
in its grasp.

~

When Brenol awoke again, his tongue cleaved
to the roof of his mouth, rubbery and dry like a frog in a summer’s
drought. Darse, waiting by his bedside, fetched him glass after
glass of water until his thirst was slaked. When he was finally
able to take in his surroundings, the look of concern on Darse’s
face was unmistakable.