The Land's Whisper (41 page)

Ordah was silent and watchful but collected
enough to take in the symphony of sensations, the rainbow of color.
The beauty was incomparable. He breathed and sat back. He allowed
the moment to be what it was and to soothe his heart against all
that was so, so terribly wrong.

~

Several hours elapsed, although the sun
beating hotly on their necks and blinding their eyes made it seem
longer. Darse lifted the sticking shirt from his chest in a vain
attempt to air his damp skin, but it only tightened the moist
material against his back. As he again mopped his brow, an image
flickered before his vision. He squinted out at the water,
attempting to grasp hold of what must have only been his mind’s
longing for land.

He sagged again into his seat in a rumpled
heap, but before his eyes had shied away from the glaring screen
entirely, he caught it again, and with greater clarity. The isle
had been there, for a mere blink of a moment, and had filled his
vision with a vivid picture of color and beauty before disappearing
into the vastness of empty water.

“What is it?” Brenol asked.

Darse realized that a cry of surprise had
escaped his lips in those brief seconds. He lifted an index finger
but then used his whole hand in a sweeping motion to indicate the
space before them. “I saw it.”

“Saw what?” Ordah asked.

Darse fought the immediate irritation he
felt at the prophet’s voice. “The island. It was…it was just a
moment, but as real as the wood on this boat. Like catching an
image in a broken mirror—a shard really—that is moving. I saw it
for just a second…as though I was at just the right angle…” His
voice trailed, but his eyes remained glued to the open waters. He
began to feel foolish as the minutes dragged forward and he had not
spied it again.

Brenol did not respond, merely wiping the
back of his burning neck and returning to his scowling brood.
Ordah, however, regarded Darse with keen eyes, and Darse prickled
in goosebumps despite the heat.

Suddenly, all was interrupted with a jarring
heave from the lake-man. The rickety craft sped from his thrust
like a skipping stone jumping one, two, three, and four across the
silvery screen. The party gripped the sides until splinters
embedded their way into hands, and the boat slid up onto shore in a
jouncing smack.

They had arrived.

The trio rubbed their whiplashed necks and
sloshed out with wobbling legs. They scanned the land and dark
water, but it was evident that their maralane companion had left
them. They utilized the fraying rope knotted upon the forward to
lug their vessel aground and tie her soundly to a tree. The group
was sandy and hot, and their insides gnarled with apprehension.
Ordah pointed to a rocky nook and what looked to be a shaded
overhang, and they trudged out from the dark, dense sand toward the
jutting stones.

Darse allowed Ordah to pull ahead several
strides before tugging back on Brenol’s sleeve. His own intentions
fluttered back and forth, but the despair he now faced in the
youth’s eyes grounded his purpose.

Darse whispered, gently but firmly, “It’s
time to realize you’re better than all this nuresti foolishness.
You’ve not given in, don’t you see? Don’t let Fishman back there
blind you. You’re more man than boy. Open your eyes.” He released
him, gazed into Brenol’s reluctant and freckled face, sighed, and
trod after Ordah. It was a strange experience to now be pushing
Brenol forward instead of grasping him back in fear, but the
compulsion felt solid and right.

Brenol did not move. He surged with hope for
a second before it darted from his grasp like a minnow between
fingers.

The truth was there…wasn’t it? And it was
so…like a breath of air.

Could it be? Could I trust that?

He cast an uneasy glance at his interior,
but the craving for the terrisdan power still roared in greed. The
temptation to abandon Colette and all they had done lay so close,
so enticing, that it felt almost tangible. He shook his head,
muttering under his breath to himself.

Darse doesn’t know. Who could want these
things? Who would even think—desire—to leave a girl to die? He
doesn’t know how many times I’ve almost left him, and when he was
most vulnerable. He would hate me.

He lowered his face, trembling with this
knowledge:
I’m not to be trusted.

A cartontz serves, a cartontz sacrifices.

One is an inhale, the other an exhale to the breath
of love.

-Genesifin

The afternoon and the following day were
passed in carefully mapping out the island. It was a small circle
of land, not more than four or five matroles in diameter. Trees
akin to palms grew up in spurts along the black sanded coast while
a thick, torrid jungle crowded the center of the isle, formidable
to cross. A slate-gray mount surged up at the isle’s heart. It was
no more than half a matrole from base to tip and met the sky with a
defiant stab.

The remaining land was far more open and
clothed in bushes of myrtle and jade. Rainbowed fruit was abundant,
and edible black nuts from the
cranelle
trees littered the
ground. Had the shadow of a murderer not lingered over their
shoulders, the island would have seemed a paradise.

There were only possible hints of
habitation—several broken branches that could have been from
trafficking through—and certainly enough food to sustain several
people, but nothing to clearly indicate his presence. It was
infuriating…and terrifying. Jerem could be anywhere. Watching them,
waiting for them. Furthermore, Ordah was as sour and surly as every
rumor had promised. He sulked about the isle and brooded with
unmatched nastiness, evidently perturbed at Jerem’s absence.

The plan, under Ordah’s orders, was to
continue to search and wait. The prophet argued it was best to do
so individually, so as to have eyes in many places at once. Darse
cared little for the vulnerability of separation, but reluctantly
followed the man’s direction. If anything, it meant he was able to
spend less time with Ordah.

Each wondered how long this would
endure.

~

They continued to chisel their way through
the island, but Jerem proved to be as subtle as a ghost. Or simply
not there. The island was small, and to be eluding them entirely
seemed simply unfeasible. Every day they abided by Ordah’s set
regimen of scouring the grounds, but it grew more and more vexing
as the only signs they discovered were of their own making. And at
a certain point, any traces—if truly present—had surely been trod
upon unnoticed by their own clumsy heels.

“So tell me more about the terrisdans,”
Darse said. It was afternoon, and the two were walking together
quietly after completing their scour of the isle.

Brenol glanced around to ensure no eyes were
upon his movements and ducked through a mess of foliage. “Selet is
in love with you.”

“I knew it,” he replied, although he was
hardly in the mood for banter.

Brenol raised his head and smiled weakly at
his friend. “What do you want to know?”

“Is it that hard to talk about?”

“I just don’t understand it entirely.”
Brenol studied his hands and then absently crouched down to sift
soil between them, as if the motion might elicit insight into his
memory. Finally he arched his face up to gaze into Darse’s golden
orbs. “Each place is so different. Conch, Selet, Granoile,
Garnoble. I feel the terrisdan eye on me with every breath. And
cringe with every blunder I see around me… It’s like being the only
one who knows how to act before a king—and possibly an
unpredictable and childish king at that.” He rose and brushed the
soil from his fingers, leaving streaks of rusty brown across his
tan pants.

Darse frowned in thought. Brenol’s voice had
a maturity to it, a new current rippling in its depths. The youth
had ruminated upon this experience more than Darse had
expected.

“Why did Selet hate us so much?” Darse
finally asked. “Did it remember my father?”

“No. At least it never told me as much.”
Brenol shrugged a single shoulder. “As for why? I think Selet hates
everyone.” A wry smile drew across the boy’s lips, and his eyes
sparkled with momentary amusement. “Maybe like our prophet?”

Darse issued a half grin, still lost in his
channel of thought.

Brenol lingered between trees for a moment
before his eyes rested upon his friend. “I really don’t have much
to tell, Darsey. Are you trying to ask me something else?”

Darse cocked his head a digit to the side,
then paused, confused. He had not intended anything with his query,
but Brenol’s question tugged an eerie sensation awake within him.
Not knowing what else to do, he closed his gaping mouth and
attempted to wipe the uncertainty from his face.

“Nothing, Bren. Nothing,” Darse finally
said, letting his premonitions subside into wisps of dream.

~

Darse felt himself growing sloppy. Each day
convinced him more and more that Arman’s assumptions had been
utterly wrong. Jerem was not there. They had fought the maralane,
left the juile, and wasted precious time in order to traipse around
in the miserable swelter of this island. What had appeared paradise
was proving to be perdition.

Ordah promises a portal for Bren. But can I
trust him? What if we never find Jerem? Or Colette?

He sighed deeply and fingered the long blade
at his side. Ordah had given him a knife, but Darse doubted he
would be able to wield it well in a fight. He almost wished he
would
be forced to use it. At least then their presence here
would not be meaningless. He willed his mind to attention and
scanned the scenery yet again for the unusual.

It was but a minute before his thoughts
returned to the same, unending circuit:
What are we doing
here?

He glanced at Brenol and shook his head in
frustration. Abandoning his original path, the man left the ring of
palms and strode with purpose toward the center of the island,
where the jungle grew thickest and the towering rock exploded into
the sky. Darse whacked with both hands and knife to clear his path.
He cared little about the obvious trail following his efforts.

Likely the only action this knife will
see,
he thought bitterly.

Upon reaching the rocky base, the man
dripped with sweat, and his lips cursed the damp air that drenched
his lungs. He did not tarry but threw his weight and muscle into
battling up the awkward mount. He only glanced below once as he
heard Brenol progressing behind him and matching every effort with
surprising ease.

It took a heaving hour to scale up to its
tip, but the stony height offered much for the eyes and was a task
a person could tackle with purpose. Darse let the straining
movement wash away his thoughts until, finally, he dragged his body
up over the last drop and breathed deeply in recovery. He stared
out to the turquoise waters and drank in the beauty of azure liquid
meeting sky and black sand merging with lush jungle.

For that brief second when I saw this on
the boat, it looked like an enormous maralane sword piercing the
heavens.
He wondered if the maralane could see him now, or if
the isle was concealed from view even for them. It seemed odd that
there could be such an obvious display of power in a place of
neutrality. He ruminated and waited for Brenol.

The boy emerged with a grunted hoist and
surveyed his friend with a quiet expression.

“You aren’t out of breath,” Darse
remarked.

Brenol exhaled in a soft laugh. “That’s
because I climb it every morning at sunrise before Ordah
wakes.”

The man issued out a booming laugh that
carried out over the trees and to the waters below them. He winced
slightly at his folly but brushed away all fear with the ever
strident reality:
Jerem has never once stepped onto this
island.

“I’ve wondered where you stole off to.”

“Darsey?”

Darse kept his vision upon the turquoise
water. “Hmm?”

“He isn’t here, is he?”

“No.”

“So we came out here for nothing?”

“It would seem so.”

Brenol bit his lip in thought. “I don’t
understand.”

The man arched his eyebrows up and turned to
fully face the boy.

Brenol burst out, “Why were the maralane so
reluctant about it then? And why did Ordah act like he did to
Arman? And then agree on coming out in the end after all?” He left
the unspoken question linger in the air, although both knew its
presence:
How could Arman have been wrong?

Darse nodded in understanding. He too, had
wrestled with the same questions every dawn, every step upon the
island, every meal taken. His head continued to bob slowly as
though the motion alone could bring order. The vast waters twinkled
in the afternoon sun, and sweet breezes swept up to meet them on
the acme. At least for this moment, Darse wordlessly released the
burden to the sparkling blue and allowed himself to not have the
solution. His nodding slowed to a still.

The boy though, shook his own head in stiff
negation and clambered down to his knees to begin lowering body
against crevice, cranny, and rock face.

~

“You’re early,” Ordah growled. He was
crouched a few digits from the ground examining some indecipherable
scratchings he had made with a short stick.

“You’re late,” Brenol replied gruffly,
allowing the full force of the statement to work its blow.

“Ah, we have come to that now,” he said with
a scowl. Ordah stood and let the stick clatter to the earth, wiping
his thin hands upon his trousers. He bore his gaze into the boy,
but the fiery green eyes did not falter. “What do you want to say?
Or are you ready to practice combatives?”

It was a pointed comment. Every night since
they had arrived on the island, Ordah had been teaching them how to
engage an enemy, fight, and wield their knives. Darse was more
practiced than Brenol, but neither felt adept. Every night they
curled up later in their blankets with new bruises and sores, as
well as an ever growing distaste for the man. He was adroit, but he
exhibited far too much pleasure in beating their unskilled
bodies.