The Land's Whisper (13 page)

Colvin’s face looked gray and hollow, half
shaded from the tree, half painted by beams of moonlight. His back
arched forward in waiting, and his legs were crossed under him.
Colvin glanced up with a soft concern. “I feel I should be asking
you the same.”

“Oh.”

“You speak to Garnoble?” Colvin asked, but
his eyes said he already knew.

Brenol merely nodded. He did not feel shame,
exactly, but it was uncomfortable to have his secret laid so
vulnerably bare.

Colvin scooped up a handful of soil in his
palms and let it fall slowly to the ground. “It is beautiful, is it
not? Garnoble?”

Brenol sighed.
He understands.
The
sensation of relief was surprising, for the burden had been a quiet
and untouchable one—one he had not even noticed yoked upon his
shoulders. He inhaled slowly, grateful for the loosening in his
gut. “It is. Garnoble—”

“You speak much then?” The visnat’s hands
fidgeted in his lap.

“Yes, although it doesn’t always
answer.”

Colvin nodded, as though more had been
answered than Brenol knew was being asked. “And it is audible?”

The boy felt the visnat’s penetrating eyes
upon him, taking in every flicker and facial expression. Suddenly,
a wariness stole upon his tongue. He had longed to unleash a
waterfall of questions that plagued his mind, especially about the
booming voice from the cave, but now he bridled his tongue. He had
no reason but raw instinct.

Brenol finally spoke, forming his words
slowly. “Only a whisper of a voice. I have to listen carefully, but
yes, it is audible.”

Colvin rubbed several small stones between
his callused palms, “Bren, I shake inside for some reason…”

Brenol’s eyebrows raised in wonder.

“I’ve never seen any walk the land as you
do, save a nurest. The terrisdan soil seems to sway under your feet
and raise up plants effortlessly beneath your hands. I have
watched. I—I just have—I’ve never before seen that. You are poetry
upon the soil, and yet you are no nurest.” He peered over at the
boy as if closer scrutiny would unlock the mystery. “No, not a
nurest. But it is something. I don’t know why you have this
gift…but be careful with it. Things like that can turn against you,
even if you are seeking benere.”

Brenol felt strangely unconcerned. His
relationship with Garnoble was secret, but he experienced it more
as an awareness of reality than something to tremble over. The land
around him was alive; others’ blindness seemed of greater gravity
than his own vision.

Brenol probed elsewhere, hoping to shift the
attention. “Benere? What’s that?”

“Goodwill, goodness, wholeness.”

“Nurests?”

“Nuresti. What do you know?”

“A little,” Brenol replied honestly. Darse
had told stories, but Darse’s tales were pale half-truths before
the vibrant and often terrifying reality of Massada.

Colvin sighed. His words came out wrenched,
like he was pressing them through a finely woven sieve. “They are
the few people who are connected to the land in a bizarre way. One
per terrisdan—at least now—and it lasts from birth to death. They
have some kind of connection that allows them to talk with the
land. It’s almost gruesome to see. It seems to consume them—the
nuresti.”

“But you say that’s not what I am,” Brenol
said, allowing the sentence to dangle.

“No.” The visnat shook his head. “No. I’m
not sure what you are. But you have something… Can people talk to
the land as you do on Alatrice?”

Brenol nearly laughed. “Not at all.”

“Darse cannot do what you do.”

“No.”

Colvin paused, considering. “Did Sim?
Perhaps this strange half-connection is just your world meeting
ours. And Darse cannot have it because he is of Massada too.”

Brenol shrugged.

Colvin’s blue eyes came up to meet Brenol’s
green. They were clear, but Brenol saw it: a twitch of emotion
encased in the sea of blue.

“You knew one, didn’t you? A nurest?”

Colvin’s lips jerked. His look was a mix of
astonishment and appraisal. And sorrow. “Yes.”

“Who?”

His eyelids closed, and his voice was a
feeble whisper into the dark. “My sister.”

Brenol itched to ask but waited; the pain of
the memory was clearly too sharp to touch just yet.

After a few minutes, Colvin spoke again, and
his voice was hollow and flat. “She loved Garnoble from the moment
she came into the world sucking air and flailing. Yes, she loved
Garnoble. But it’s a burden, and a strange one, too… She never
seemed peaceful or content. And the things she said…” He shook his
head with a slow despair.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. She was strange. Most of
Coltair was frightened by her, not that she cared. All she could
think of was her beloved terrisdan. The maralane alone showed
concern when she disappeared. I had no one, but they helped me. I
searched all of Garnoble and more for her. That was nine orbits
ago. And a new nurest lives now. It was discovered within the last
few moons… My sister is dead, and I alone remember.”

Brenol gingerly placed his hand on Colvin’s
small shoulder. The visnat’s face was etched with pain, evident
even in the dark. “What was her name?”

Colvin gave a small smile. “Gina.”

“Gina,” Brenol repeated softly.

The two syllables fell upon the world around
them and seemed to elicit a drooping weakness. It was faint, but
Brenol heard the soft rustle of the land: “
I remember,
too.
”

Colvin surveyed the boy’s face. “It spoke
didn’t it?”

“Garnoble remembers,” Brenol replied.

Colvin laid both hands palm down upon the
soil. He inhaled deeply and whispered into the night, “I don’t know
if I can ever forgive you for what you made her…but thank you for
remembering, too.”

The grasses swayed, but the land was
silent.

“This is why I am not close with many here,”
Colvin said to Brenol. “They remember her negatively, while I can
only love her.”

“Colvin?” Brenol asked after a time.

“Yes.”

“I will be careful.”

“I want you to take this.”

Brenol squinted in the dark. A finely
crafted silver band lay in a circle atop the rough hand. Designed
for a small wrist, the glinting metal was braided in a smoothness
akin to flowing water. A row of gems ranged down its width in a
rainbow of color and sparkled in the soft light of the
moons
.
It was exquisite, incomparable. Brenol glanced up in
time to catch the wistful expression upon his companion’s face;
this bracelet was cherished.

Colvin extended it with shaking fingers in
offering. “It was Gina’s. I want you to take it as a pledge to be
careful. And to remember how treacherous the terrisdan connections
can be.”

Brenol shook his head deliberately and
covered Colvin’s hand with his own. He pushed the delicate band
back into the cup of Colvin’s palm with his fingertips and closed
his friend’s hand firmly with both of his own. “No. I think it’s
important for you to have. You loved Gina. I could never take this.
But I’ll be careful. I will, Colvin.”

The visnat granted a slight nod and leaned
back against the trunk, fully blanketing himself in the night’s
shadows. Brenol could not see his expression, but the boy did not
feel the need to grapple with emotions he could not comprehend.

“Thank you,” he said.

“In good accord,” Colvin replied in a
whisper.

They sat under Veri’s glow for close to an
hour. Then, silently, the two stood, embraced, and turned their
toes to their beds.

The place of a
cartontz
? To protect and
never fail.

Another shall rise up to take his place should he
fall.

-Genesifin

Darse awoke and drew in the rich fragrances
of the Gardenia: the loam, the breezes, the sprouting grass, and
breakfast sizzling to life somewhere. The night had been long, but
sometime in the bleak isolation and shame, he had discovered a
peace. It was a makeshift one, but one that he opted to accept
nonetheless: he had come for answers and was at least finding some.
The raw pain stung, but its airing felt good and right, like the
sharp spring air blowing through his house after a bitter
winter.

So this is the big mystery. My parents, the
curse.

Suddenly a memory leaped up in a rush upon
his senses, and every sound, smell, and touch lay before him almost
as vividly as it had in passing:

The older man stared at his hands,
avoiding the boy’s sea-blue eyes, as though fearing they too would
stare back in judgment. His voice was slow, hesitant.
“
She
was so sick, Darse. So sick. And I thought I could save
her.
”

The fingers wrung together, shaking. His
father peered at him, but only for a moment, before wearily rubbing
his eyes and face.
“
I traveled to a place—Selet—where your
mama was from. I thought…
”

All of Darse hung suspended: he longed to
soothe him but feared that the smallest interruption would make the
thin lips cease their movement.

“
I was wrong,
”
he said with a
sudden, bitter firmness.
“
I stole something from
Selet.
”

“
What was it?
”
Darse
whispered.

“
A
tenralily
pod.
”
The
words escaped his mouth with a reluctance, as though the sounds
themselves were vile.

“
What’s that?
”

“
I thought it might make her better.
”
His bass again dipped in sorrowful regret.
“
But when I
took it, the land got very angry. It… Well, we argued.
”

“
And the pod?
”

“
Selet gave it to me, but I was too
late.
”

“
She was so sick,
”
Darse whispered
to himself.

“
So sick,
”
his father affirmed. He
beckoned the boy forward with a crook of the wrist, and Darse
settled himself beside the man.

“
I’m sorry, Darse. I’d do anything to
bring your mama back…
”
His voice softened as he spoke to the
shadows, almost unaware of the boy at his side.
“
I let her
die alone.
”

Darse bit his lip, waiting for his father to
return to the present. He eventually stood, leaving the youth in
silence, but his smoky green eyes had remained haunted with a guilt
he refused to release.

The memory faded, and he lifted his face to
the Massadan sun, amazed at the warmth and light soothing his
closed lids. The heat felt good, a consoling contrast to the dark
musings.

Well, I am here. Hopefully Selet’s memory is
short.

A saying from Alatrice sprung up in his
mind, and he found his lips mouthing the words: “To tread for life,
one must forget the steps.”

All right, old man. Let it go.

“I can live in the past and I can live in
the dream world.” He sucked air in purposefully. “But I want to
live here, now. In this real moment. I won’t be my father.”

The last lingering fear over Veronia leaked
out from him, and he breathed easier. In its absence he knew his
true task. He must return Brenol to Alatrice, and heeding Ordah was
the first step in doing so.

He sighed, opened his eyes, and squinted
through thin slits to take in the giant dome of blue. He inhaled
deeply and turned back into the barn. It was time to start the
morning.

~

The spirit peered down blankly at the wolf,
reading truth on his miserable features. It paused, considering,
but soon resumed its efforts.

The wolf, Lador, writhed as the spirit
wrenched his leg into a terrible twist. He yelped in pain, but the
woman before him managed to simultaneously anchor his neck to the
ground in a formidable pin.

“What do you really want?” Lador panted. His
eyes were wide with fury and helplessness.

“I told you. I want to return. I want to get
out of this world. I need access to the portals.”

The wolf glared hard at the woman. She was a
human who lived in the next village. He even knew her name—Sefi—for
this was his sealtor route. She had a soumme
,
children. He
had delivered messages to her and her mate more than once. He was
certain this could only be trickery. “You are mad. Who are you
asking for?”

Sefi ground her teeth. The sound drew the
wolf’s fur to a rise.

“Tell me how to open them,” she ordered
softly. “Tell me. Or I will set fire to every hair on your wretched
body.”

The wolf’s face contorted in confusion. He
spoke slowly, attempting to gain understanding from her reactions.
“The maralane do not keep every portal open. Some they deem
unnecessary. Some they even destroy.”

Sefi snarled. “I know as much.”

“Which world do you seek?”

“Haife,” she replied. The word lingered on
her tongue, and a brief spark of desperate hope hung in the cold,
dark eyes.

“I know nothing of this world,” Lador
lied.

“But would another?”

The wolf sensed a slackening in her grip as
she spoke, and with an abrupt leap, he lunged in a powerful thrust
to snap at her arm. His teeth sank solidly into her flesh, and he
swung his neck with force to tear the soft tissue.

He made to move into another attack but
stopped at the sound of her laughter. His jaw gaped open, and he
released her tattered forearm.

“You cannot stop me like that,” she said
mildly. “Tell me how to get back.”

Lador did not reply. He was speechless.

Sefi kicked the wolf, and his body slammed
back into a tree. A terrible cracking sounded in his keen ears, and
his body sagged limply, pain flaring through his senses. He knew
immediately that several ribs had broken.