The Land's Whisper (12 page)

They entered, and the low ceilings forced
Darse’s back into an aching arch, but the wonders of the tiny home
helped distract the man from his discomfort. It was furnished
sensibly, but decorated far differently than the quarters of the
other visnati who softened their habitations with rugs, drapes, and
art. This house was as much a garden as the plot outdoors, for
Colvin had flooded it with greenery and flowers. Artfully placed
trellises of blue climbing roses, pots of alabaster orchids and
lavender azaleas, vines of crimson blossoms. All splashed color
across the room, and the scents soothed rather than clashed
together. To have planned the sunlight necessary for each was in
itself a feat, and there must also have been an eye to seasons and
temperature. A meticulous hand was behind it, certainly.

“Well met. Come, sit. Tea?” Colvin beckoned
them forward and poured an amber liquid into earthen mugs. Soft
steam rose.

The two collected their beverages and
lowered their frames into awkwardly low seats. Darse extended his
legs in an ankle-cross; he felt ever the giant amongst these
people.

Colvin’s face grew sober. “Darse, Bren. I
will not hide my purpose.”

“Please,” Darse replied simply.

The visnat held up a creased square. “I have
a note here from Ordah. It was left with the maralane for you…I was
told to wait for further word before passing it along, but there
has been nothing, so I think it is time to give it to you.” He slid
the folded sheet across to Darse, who took it in hand. Brenol leapt
up to stand over his shoulder.

The paper was thin and smooth. It carried a
thick mound of vibrantly gold wax imprinted with an eight pointed
star. Darse opened the sheet carefully. It said:

Darse and Brenol-

Go to Isvelle, the queen.

-Ordah

“He thinks he can jus—” Brenol began, then
suddenly realized he had no idea to whom he was referring. His face
drained white, and he fumbled to repair any solecism. “Oh. Sorry.
What does he mean?”

Colvin smiled at the boy. Brenol was unusual
to him in speech and action, but Colvin perceived much goodness.
There was a desire to make the world right that poured from the
boy.

And something more,
Colvin thought.
He walks with the land as I’ve never seen…a command, a peace…It
reminds me of her…but it’s different…

Colvin allowed the thought to air in his
mind, ignoring the sharp pang that accompanied it. He answered
Brenol. “I’d wondered what he was going to tell you… There’s much
in here, and much not said. But that’s how Ordah writes.”

Anticipating the question, he continued.
“Ordah…well, Ordah is our man of foresight, if Massada ever claimed
to carry one. He comes from a region—and a family—known for being
blessed with the gift to perceive pieces of the future. He sleeps
during the day, living out in the desert wilderness and rocky
cliffs of Callup.” His lips quirked up in a tiny smile. “People say
he sleeps under the sun because he reads the stars at night, but I
think he just doesn’t want to have to talk to people.” He shrugged,
then leaned forward to draw the steaming beverage again to
lips.

“That personable?” Darse asked.

“Not many choose to befriend cacti.”

“Is this something we should heed?” asked
Darse. Something about it churned the old, irrational fears to the
surface; his skin could almost feel the dream-soaked sheets
clinging to him.

“It is, it is. He may not be the most social
of men, but he does have power and an honest tongue. It would be
best to listen, though I’d prefer if he didn’t feel the need to
make things so complicated and hidden.” Colvin’s face narrowed in
severity before it disappeared with a sip behind steam.

“Why does he want us there, though?” Brenol
asked.

“Do you think it is dangerous?” Darse
added.

Colvin shrugged. “It could be anything. I’ve
heard of Ordah sending a man on a trek to find a stone.” The visnat
shook his head. “Sometimes one cannot see his reasons until orbits
later. But he does have reasons.”

Brenol’s face screwed up in disbelief. “A
stone?”

“It made sense later. But for orbits the man
despised Ordah.”

“Have you ever met him?” Darse queried
thoughtfully.

Laughter bellowed out from the visnat’s
core. “I have indeed. And I don’t care to again.”

Darse smiled.
I understand him when he is
plain like this. I even
like
him.

Colvin waved his brawny arm in a dismissive
gesture. “He’s friends with the maralane, and is jealous of anyone
else who seems to be. He does not look kindly upon my ties with
them.”

A new thought graced Darse’s mind. “Would
Ordah be able to get Bren back through the portal?”

Brenol frowned silently.

Colvin considered. “It is a possibility. You
will have to ask. Perhaps he could encourage the maralane to open
one for you.” He pointed at the letter. “But you’ll have to listen
to him or he will certainly never consider anything.”

“Colvin?” Brenol asked. “What happened with
the maralane? And your family?”

The visnat, blinked, surprised by the
question. “The maralane? The tie between us?”

Brenol nodded.

“That is simple,” Colvin explained. “My
great, great grandfather was traveling to meet a friend in the
northern terrisdans. He saved a maralane one day. She’d been
enticed to shore somehow by a vagrant of the lugazzi. I don’t know
how he did it, but regardless, my grandfather found the man before
he had taken her far. He had wrapped her in his cloak and was
escaping into the mountains. She was thrashing and close to
death—you can’t simply transport a maralane in your pocket. They
need the water as much as fish do. Grandfather startled him, and he
dropped the girl and fled into the woods.

“Anyway, my grandfather rushed her back to
the water. She was alive, but barely. More maralane appeared and
learned of the events. A strong bond was formed that day between
him and the maralane, which carried all visnati into an alliance to
a degree. The maralane do not forget as quickly as most creatures
do, and so the bond has lasted several generations. And really,
they have been my friends when I had few others.”

He stared off in silence for a moment.
“Well, men, to the queen you shall go. Even if it is under the sour
pen of Ordah.” He chuckled, finding humor in the prophet’s avenue
of communication: the channel—maralane to Colvin—that Ordah held
most disdainfully.

“There is only one Queen Isvelle, a
lunitata. She reigns in Veronia, a terrisdan south of us. All I
know of her is that she is beautiful and troubled.”

Darse twitched and repressed a shudder.
Veronia?
The name from his dream made his limbs turn to ice,
and he could feel his heart lurch.
Do I flee? Or seek answers?
Was it just a dream? Or was there more?

“Do you know anything—
anything—
else
about Veronia?” The name seemed to stick to his palate like rancid
meat.

“Veronia itself?” Colvin’s eyes sharply
surveyed Darse. It was easy to see the man’s white-knuckled grip on
the armchair.

Darse jerked his head in assent.

Colvin spoke, still observing Darse’s tense
frame. “Veronia is a peaceful terrisdan. I don’t know what worries
you, but as far as the land lies, you have nothing to fear.
Veronia, while south of here, is still considered part of the
western terrisdans. It is far more welcoming than the most southern
ones.”

Darse loosened his hold and tried to calm
his heart.
Just a dream,
he reminded himself forcefully.
Just a dream.

After a few breaths his mind cleared. He
shook his head at his foolishness.
Nothing could have known
Brenol’s name. It was only my mind.

Brenol gave him an odd glance but dismissed
the behavior; Darse had been anxious from the beginning.

Colvin went on, “I will help all I can. But
now that I know his directions, I think it’s a good plan to move
soon.” He plucked out a pencil and sketched a rudimentary map for
them to illustrate their future travel. He handed it to Darse, and
indicated the route with a finger. “If you raft down through
Garnoble and Veronia, you’ll arrive at the palace in three, no more
than four, days.”

“Colvin?”

The visnat looked up with clear and open
eyes. “Yes?”

Darse almost pulled his gaze down but
resolved to the task. It was time, and he could no longer postpone.
Darse licked his lips hesitantly and finally found words. “Will you
tell me the secret about my father?”

The boy snapped his neck sideways to
consider Darse.
What secret?
Brenol wondered.

The man held his palms up as though begging
for bread. His unshaven face was equally entreating.

Colvin sighed. “I feared you might ask. You
do not miss much… All right, Darse. It is harsh though. Are you
sure you want to know?”

The hungry face was answer enough.

Colvin inhaled deeply, maintaining a steady
gaze with the man. “Sim was an other-worlder. He stole something
from a terrisdan and nearly died from it. It was a—”

“Tenralily pod.”

“You know?” Colvin asked, surprised.

“I know that much. I never understood why it
was so important, though.”

Colvin’s eyes pinched in pity. “The magic of
tenralilies was a fable. A story to tell by the fire. They had no
more healing properties than the spit between your teeth.”

Darse shook his head in confusion.

“I imagine your father was willing to try
anything. We all know what desperation a man can feel when he
loves.”

Brenol glanced between the two. “But what
happened?”

“To steal from another is a disgrace, but to
steal from a terrisdan? It’s close to suicide. The land marks you
and your family. You’re branded as traitors. And it’s unlikely
you’d ever manage to escape.”

A cold thought stung Darse. “Was it
Veronia?”

Colvin laughed. The humor was lost upon his
guests. “No. Selet.”

“Oh. Would Selet remember my da enough to
mark me?”

“Likely not.” Colvin paused, but then
continued grimly. “But that is not the secret. The cupped whispers
and strange glances you see…they’re not because of his theft.”

Darse’s eyebrows arched up in question and
he leaned forward, barely breathing.

“I assume you know she died in Massada?”
Colvin asked gently.

Darse nodded.

“Marietta was the first to pass from the
icar
, the black fever. It began with her and has spread like
dandelion seeds scattered in the wind.” His voice lowered in
sadness. “It’s been a devastation to all peoples, especially
ours…”

Colvin met Darse’s gaze and spoke with a
soft compassion. “I will not hold back, but this cannot be easy to
hear…”

Darse swallowed.

“Massadans hear the names Sim and Marietta
and cringe. The two are seen as cursed, and people believe they
brought this evil upon us all. Sim was an other-worlder. And
whether he carried the fever here or not, most blame him.”

Darse’s eyebrows furrowed; the picture still
seemed incomplete. “I’d no idea.”

“Why would you?”

“How has it been worse for the visnati?”
Brenol asked.

Colvin winced. “A few orbits ago, thirty-two
were lost in just a moon. Then twelve more in the next.”

Darse blinked. That was an enormous blow to
such a small community.

“Is there a cure?” Brenol asked. “What about
the tenralilies? Maybe their power wasn’t just a story?”

“Really, the pods were nothing. They were
just a legend of health. But the oddity is that after Marietta’s
death, all tenralilies and the trees they grew with, groyu,
disappeared. It doesn’t make sense. How could they have vanished
from an entire terrisdan? And Selet especially? That is not a land
to meddle with.” Colvin shook his head in bewilderment. “But as for
a cure? Marietta was the only person who was ever seen
alive
with the fever. Now, none are sick. We just see the aftermath of
black corpses. It leaves death and nothing more. There are no
survivors.”

Just trails of bodies,
thought Darse
gruesomely.

“Our people live in terror. It cannot be
stopped. It cannot even be predicted.”

And they all blame my parents,
Darse
realized.

“Is there nothing to be done?”

“Nothing. Had there been more information
about Marietta and her care, there may have been treatments or
medicines… But her nurse hung herself after she died.”

“What?” Darse stuttered.

Colvin winced as though he had seen the
scene himself. “Sim was carried back to his home by wolves. He
found his baby hungry and alone, his soumme dead and sheeted, and
the nurse hanging from the old willow behind the house.”

~

Brenol stole one more glance at Darse’s
brooding figure before quietly slinking from the barn. The man
needed privacy to sift through thoughts, and Brenol longed for time
away from Coltair. He shadowed his way through the dirt roads and
padded softly to the outskirts of town, out toward the little knoll
looking out upon the sloping countryside. It had become his place
where solitude and company met in peace.

He pressed forward, and with each step he
breathed easier. The piercing eye of Garnoble seemed to irk his
insides when he was surrounded by others, but out in private, the
hovering glare felt more like a friendly focus. Sometimes the boy
wondered how Darse could think with the hot gaze burning down upon
every movement, but the awareness of the land’s eye was not as
sharp in others, or so it appeared.

He arrived at the tree where he normally
rested, and there sat Colvin.

Brenol jumped in surprise. “What are you
doing here?”
He must have left immediately after we did. Did he
know I’d come here?