The Land's Whisper (36 page)

In a moment, Arman spoke. His voice cracked
with anxiety, causing goosebumps to spring out across Brenol’s
body. “We must move.
Fast,”
he said.

“What—” Brenol could not complete his
question before Arista interrupted.

“How may I help?” the frawnite asked.

“We must move. We are still several days’
journey by foot. I don’t suppose…?”

“It’s done. Renpaul and Voltant are coming—I
wanted to be prepared. We cannot go beyond the borders,
though.”

“That’s more than I would have asked of you.
Thank you, Arista. You are so good to me. It is, as always,
bountiful.”

Arista bowed her head in response.
“Bountiful, indeed.”

Arman’s voice rose to include the two
foreigners. “You shall not see Caladia, my friends. But you will
fly with the frawnish. This is no small privilege. Few fly without
meeting their talons soon after.”

Brenol winced, eyes flicking over to Arista.
Even as he confirmed that her fingers were talon-free, the image of
an osprey tearing into its prey remained unshakably before his
vision. He breathed, but it came out in an edgy rasp.
Only Arman
would terrify me before I do something this incredible.

~

Flying was much colder than Brenol expected
it to be. And more uncomfortable. Wind whipped at him, his clothing
lashed about every which way, his eyes watered and were soon
blinded from the violent sweep of air, and Arista’s grip was
constrictive and painful. He could not even enjoy the view, for an
alarming rush of adrenaline surged through his system whenever he
braved a peek through the wind blasts. They were dizzyingly
high.

Yet the frawnish felt the bite of the
journey most. The winged men labored and fought, their wings
beating hard against the thin air, unaccustomed to carrying such
loads. Brenol, the smallest, likely weighed as much as their reedy,
hollow-boned figures. It was comparable to a porpoise towing a cow
through a heavy current, and it was clear that it could not be
sustained for much length.

The group finally lit down. The twilit sky
still glowed a soft orange, but the sharp night air had already
descended. All seemed dour, save Arman—deduced from speech, not
appearance.

Arman,
thought Darse.
Only
Arman.
It was difficult to understand how small Voltant had
carried the very tall juile. A smile snuck across his lips despite
his aches and chill.

“Friend,” Arista heaved. “This is where we
part. We’ve been directed to not push into Conch.” She indicated
her fellow winged creatures with a flick of her feathers, but her
amber eyes never strayed from Arman’s general location. Her lips
quivered slightly as if she had more to say, yet she held her
tongue’s rein determinedly. Arista cast her vision down, dropped
Brenol’s pack with a soft thud upon the grassy terrain, crouched
down onto the flats of her feet, and wept.

In the skies she had appeared enormous, but
curled upon the ground she was no larger than a girl of twelve. The
dark feathers wrapped themselves about her and covered her face,
and she shook as if buffeted by a gale.

Slowly, the obsidian wings were brushed back
by gentle and invisible hands. Arman’s soothing baritone rumbled in
comfort as her petite fingers appeared to be taken in his. “Aris,
my friend. This shall not be the end. I foresee many Caladian trips
in my future.”

She sniffled. “Yes. I know.”

“Let us instead think of our reunion, which
could be a mere septspan away.”

She bowed despite her sobs and, with
wingtips quivering, whispered, “It has been bountiful.”

The group shared a brief and silent meal of
cold bread before watching the majestic creatures wearily leap up
into the dark air to coast the cool air back to Caladia.

~

Arman set to building a fire while he
finally informed the two of the contents of the seal. “Ordah knows
who took Colette.”

“
What?
” Brenol said.

“It was his brother, Jerem.”

“
What?
”

Darse’s golden irises could have been
flames.

Arman’s voice remained calm, fluidly
explaining. “He is a prophet, not infallible. He was blind to it or
chose to be blind to it, although in knowing the man I would
suggest he simply did not have the power to see. Regardless, his
intuit came, and he was finally able to perceive…which is why we
make such haste; we travel to Jerem’s home, at least the one Ordah
knows of.”

“Intuit?” Brenol asked.

“Instant of understanding, having foresight
or knowledge.”

“He dawdled in arriving there,” Darse
mumbled darkly.

“I will not argue that. But, regardless, the
time is ripe now. So we run. And it will be bountiful.”

“Bountiful indeed,” Brenol replied softly, a
whirlwind of emotions.

“Where is it we go?” Darse asked.

“Southern reaches of Callup. We pass the
remainder of Granoile tomorrow and cross into Conch. I’m hoping to
press through all of Conch the following day and reach the lugazzi
by nightfall. From there, rest, and we can decide our plan once we
have seen the battlefield.”

Battlefield.
The word reverberated in
Brenol’s mind. A small voice whispered inside him,
Is she worth
a battle? To lose the nurest connection? A battle?

Brenol blushed in the dim light and hoped
Arman could not perceive his thoughts.

“Any ideas on what we’ll find?” Darse
asked.

“Most likely an empty lair…but I’m hoping a
trail will reveal itself.”

“What does Ordah think?” Darse inquired.

A tense silence followed.

“I do not know,” the juile eventually
replied.

Darse cocked his head; Arman’s tone was
laden with meaning.

“He wrote little,” the juile sighed. “And
really, the prophet rarely behaves in a logical manner. But now?
When he knows his own brother is responsible? And that the world
will think he chose blindness? I may know that the power of intuit
is not so easily controlled, but Massada does not… They will likely
blame him. And so now I am unsure of what will come. And what he
will do.”

Darse nodded to himself. Ordah had always
made him wary, and this seemed confirmation of his suspicions.

They continued to speak in somber, hushed
voices as night deepened. Even the wood about them seemed prone to
silence, surrounding them in an eerie stillness like that before a
storm. Soon, soon it would be upon them.

As they prepared for sleep, Brenol felt the
rumble of greed flaring alive within him. His chest and brow
slicked with perspiration, and desire for the nuresti connection
rent his sensibilities. His fists curled into white balls, and he
wrapped his blankets tightly around him so his companions would not
see. He lay in the dark, praying for the moment to pass
quickly.

Veronia,
his blood sang.
Go back
now.

These people mean nothing. Go back.

~

“What are those clicks about Arman?” Brenol
asked. The desire had dissipated considerably as the stars emerged,
but still he felt the edgy bite of shame at his interior
corruption.

“I’m surprised it has taken you so long to
ask.” There was a smile behind the words. “Come.”

“Where?” Brenol joked as he moved cautiously
around the fire and the slumbering Darse to the blanketed place
where Arman’s voice issued. It was true; the boy had been wondering
about the abacus-in-the-pocket for leagues and terrisdans, but he
asked now more to distract from the horror within than because of
any interest in finger games.

“It is code,” Arman said, with obvious
pleasure.

“Is this the hearing part to the written
juile code you taught me?”

“Hmmm. Very good, but no.”

Irritation snapped awake within Brenol.
“Well?” he asked curtly.

Arman’s ensuing silence tickled guilt into
the boy. “Sorry, Ar. Just edgy.”

“I assume you refer to the plague of nurest
desires?”

Brenol exhaled softly. He reached out and
jovially pushed the juile’s invisible body. “Someday I’ll get tired
of you knowing everything.”

“You lie,” Arman replied smartly.

Brenol breathed more naturally. He no longer
felt so alone. His face eased into a smile, now enjoying Arman’s
teasing.
He knows…and he’s still my friend. It’s going to be all
right.

“So go on,” Brenol said.

“It is my own. There is no aural code for
the juile, just the written one. But that seems to me to be grossly
inadequate. So I’ve made my own. Only a select few know it.”

“Oh yeah?” Brenol said with interest. He
leaned forward as though the secret would be made clearer with
proximity. “But if only a few know it, how is it useful?”

“It helps me to sort through my thoughts,”
Arman replied. “But aside from that? Sometimes it is not the
quantity of help, but the quality that matters.” He paused and
added, “But I do concede there have been times I’ve wished others
had been fluent in this matter.”

“You sound like you get into trouble a
lot.”

Arman chuckled in his low bass. “It often
seeks me out,” he replied and nudged Brenol with a finger. “I would
find much bounty in sharing it with you.”

Brenol beamed. “Much indeed,” he replied.
“Who else knows it?”

“My sister. A friend named Ferest. Carn. And
Arista,” Arman said.

“Arista, huh?” Brenol asked jokingly. His
tone implied much.

“No. She is as a sister to me. She saved my
life once. We are tied together with unbreakable bonds.”

Arman. The day he makes light of
something will be the day the maralane eat chicken,
Brenol
thought.

“But more so, the frawnish do not take
soummen outside of their own. It has proven disastrous for the
fledglings: bird-men that could not fly, hollow bones no longer
hollow. Not fit for frawnish life, not fit for human.”

Brenol pondered the thought for a moment,
but suddenly straightened. “Wait! You’re forgetting the code!”

“I have not. I had begun to believe you
might have though… Here, I made this for you.”

A small strand appeared in his lap as softly
as a wink. There were four wooden beads upon it: red, orange, red,
yellow. Brenol manipulated them down the string. They clicked
happily with the same
clink
that had accompanied his steps
for days. He was suddenly overcome with warmth for Arman.

He just knows me. He
knows
me.
It was as though his entire body could sigh in peace
.
“Thanks, Ar,” Brenol said.

Two quick clicks and a chink came in
response. Brenol laughed, and the two delved into the mysteries of
Arman’s code.

~

Darse spent the night contending with darker
thoughts.

He knew he was asleep, but he could not
rouse himself. Instead, he was forced to witness something
incomprehensible, intolerable, as the dream world gripped him with
fierce, gruesome fingers.

He stood upon a knoll. It was a rounded hill
of soft, summery grass, and he could sense the lush life tingling
under his toes and smell it rushing up to his nostrils by the
faintest of breezes. It was in the last moments of evening’s
twilight, but he did not require light to know that this place must
be splashed vibrantly with green. He breathed deeply and felt
content.

Then he spied the tree.

Before him stood a tree of unfamiliar type.
It had the alabaster white bark of an aspen but with the fluid
smoothness of polished ivory. Its roots were entrenched deep within
the soil. He knew this with the unblinking assuredness that comes
with dreams.

The leaves of the tree were utterly
magnificent. There was no single pattern— they were a mix of
shapes: maple, cherry, aspen, fern, willow, dogwood, oak, beech,
brechant. It was as though each leaf were as alike to another as a
snowflake in a storm of crystals. He sighed again as he drew in the
strange beauty. He stared for what could have been hours.

The moons rose and bathed the tree in a soft
glow. He felt his chest swell as a dapple of light filled his eye,
for the leaves were more than he had initially perceived. At first
glance, they had seemed a brilliant gold and had shone with a regal
luster that could halt a breath on the lips, but now Darse saw that
they flickered in an array of colors. One sparked turquoise,
another crimson, another amber. Greens of every hue, silvers,
tangerines. It was a tree of rainbows.

A soft breath of air whispered across the
knoll. It kissed the tree and turned its leaves in a gentle dance,
and they dangled in a brilliant array of color like prisms on a
string. Darse’s fingers itched to touch the rainbow, to feel the
smooth blades and inhale the fragrances that lived in such
magnificence. He made as if to step forward but found his bare feet
grounded beneath him. He could not move. Even his arms were locked
in a bizarre dream paralysis.

It was then he knew this was not a dream of
peace.

A figure stole up upon the area. He was thin
and tall and decked in a hood that disguised both face and hair.
There was nothing by which to mark him, save his sly and fluid
movements. He passed Darse without a glance, but as he swept by,
Darse’s soul stirred in agitation. He longed to cry out, to stop
the figure, but his voice was lost in a horrifying muteness.

The man stood before the tree of beauty and
laughed. It was an evil and jealous laugh, and it sent waves of ice
down Darse’s spine and appendages. He would have turned away, but
his paralysis was so deep, he could not even close his eyes to the
terrible scene.

The man stripped the bark, shaking down the
leaves and ripping them apart with greedy fingers. He labored for a
time digging at the root system but could not seem to reach the
tips. The tree bled scarlet wherever the man touched it, and the
ground was marred with his efforts. The ivory smoothness was no
more.