He lifted his head and his voice shook the Mietan as he roared, “Why!”
His entreaty slashed off the walls of the Mietan, creating an echoic catalyst that cut through him from wall to wall, incising a hole from sternum to backbone.
Twisted by the melee, Wing gasped, and thought — wished — he might die.
But through the incision, the black strength of his pain found release.
Filled with unexpected relief he slowly sagged over, his right shoulder coming to ground. There, cheek pressed against the cold Mietan floor, he sought the shallowest of breaths...
And was answered in the cool whisper of a breeze pushing its way in from under the two bold doors of the Mietan.
Reaching out, he splayed his fevered palm upon the floor. His long dark fingers caressed the intricate inlay beneath him, tracing its swirling path in silence.
E me thelan no’ va-nen.
The words echoed in his head like a long lost friend. He drew a quick, sharp breath as the rest of the words came in a flood, rising up from deep inside his throat:
“ ‘E fe de lebaan’a tuvle
Pesanta telaa
Melaan, I jeik-a’ et te luua
Melaan e teh’ta e cansa ma’n
E gret’a tu entar
Ne’lanka uoo e emm’rtal louu
Se meeta ru neta
I me te dona’then
I sc’en ta too
A bonndo’ ne
E f’le
E to’ne
Sce’ken te mafa’la
Melaan, e scoka le e do’ur.’ ”
Carly pressed her hand against her quivering lips as she stood outside the Mietan doors. Since arriving in Legran, the three had become accustomed to the language of Legran as well as the Fultershier. To have heard Wing’s lament, to hear him slowly chanting a familiar verse from the Prophet-Poet Eneefa in their native tongue, tore at her heart.
Silently, she mouthed the words with him, wondering as she always had what the Prophet Eneefa must have seen, what he must have felt to have written in such despair:
“‘Why did we forget?
— Was that part of the crime?
To leave devotion out in the cold
— Just a beggar at the door?
Despised and left
— Thrown down from higher worlds
A scant tug on the sleeve
— Forgotten
Abandoned to note
— And line
— And word
Scratching like a thief —
Just a beggar at the door.’”
As Wing’s voice faded into the silent expanse of the Mietan, Carly pushed the hair away from her face, and brushing at her eyes, started back to the cabin.
Walking toward the little light that glowed inside the cabin window, Carly glanced up at the night sky, and stopped. Moonlit rays shot down from behind rolling, deep grey clouds. Through them she glimpsed brief handfuls of stars, startling white against the dark. As the clouds moved through space and over mountain, Carly could almost feel the empyreal motion of Leer itself, spinning through the ever-reaching black.
Lost in the sensation, it took a moment for her awareness to shift to a sound carried over the wind-rustled grasses. It was not a sound she’d ever heard; nevertheless, she recognized it immediately.
Carly looked back over her shoulder at the Mietan.
The sound was coming from Wing. It was the sound of a man weeping.
Drenched in opposing inclinations of longing and deference, she wavered briefly, fighting the invisible force drawing her back to him.
Aching moments passed, and as she turned to continue on to the cabin she caught sight of Lucin, standing front feet spread wide, eyes glinting in the night, his attention fixed upon the Mietan in the distance. He glanced at her — a brief look and twitch of his ears — before his head turned back toward the Mietan.
Feeling a strange fluttering in her chest, Carly walked on to the cabin.
Chapter 72
Shadowland
A few moonsteps had passed when Carly looked up to see Wing step in through the door of the cabin. To her eyes he had no weight, as if there were nothing more than a shadow upon his lithe frame. It seemed he’d left it all in the Mietan.
He shut the door and though he raised his eyes a little, did not look at her directly. Carly scooted on the bed. Wing walked over and sat down next to her.
“Carly, I…” He stopped, almost as if he’d forgotten what he’d started to say. “I’m sorry I was not there that night. I didn’t want to let you down. To let our people down.”
Carly felt a chill. He was talking about the night Rieeve was taken. “I know, Wing. I know.” Reaching out, she took his ethereal hand, cradling it like smoke between her own. “And for the record, you’ve never let me down. Not once. Not in anything.” She thought the ghost beside her trembled, but she could not have been sure. “I can’t explain why,” she continued, “but when I look at the stars, I imagine them whispering answers to your questions, wishing to ease the burden you carry.”
Wing raised his face. Carly saw his eyes focus on the shimmering pools of tears in her own.
“If that is so,” he replied, “then I am as deaf to them as I am to you.”
Saying good night to SiQQiy’s men and leaving SiQQiy herself up at the house, Nien returned to the cabin.
Opening the door, he moved quickly to the fire to warm his hands before glancing around to see who was there.
Wing was lying stretched out on his make shift bed on the floor, but his eyes were open, staring up at the cabin ceiling.
Usually the brothers and Carly passed a few quiet moonsteps in the cabin at night sharpening tools and patching clothes while they talked. But tonight, something was different. Actually, he’d noticed a slow darkening in Wing for a couple days now — ever since they’d talked about returning to Rieeve.
“Wing?”
Wing made no reaction to hearing his name. Nien looked upon him and for the first time in his life hardly knew him. Briefly, Nien thought there might be something wrong with his eyes, for Wing appeared to him more like a ripple on water than flesh.
“What’s wrong?” he asked slowly.
Slowly, Wing pushed himself over onto his side.
Nien’s brow furrowed. What was going on? And where was Carly?
Glancing back to the door, he wondered if he should go up to the house and find her. Perhaps she knew.
Stirring the fire, Nien stepped back out the door. He hadn’t gone far before he saw Carly in the grassy length of riverbank between the house and the cabin. Carly walked up to him with a container of food and a port of wine, and even in the darkness, Nien could tell that he needn’t ask if she knew something was wrong with Wing.
“Were you just in the cabin?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Is he still there?”
“Yes. What’s going on? Is he sick?”
“You didn’t talk?” “He didn’t say anything. I don’t even know if he knew I was there.”
Carly’s face grew more troubled. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Earlier this evening I found him in the Mietan. When I saw him it felt…”
“ — like you were looking at a stranger?”
“More like nothing at all,” Carly replied. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Nien said. “If he’s not sick, I don’t know that there’s anything we can do.”
“He…” Carly couldn’t quite believe the words that formed in her mind. “He’s a shadow, Nien. You should have seen him in the Mietan. There was a moment there that he…he truly frightened me. If we can’t reach him then what? I’m afraid I’ll wake up in the morning and he’ll be gone.”
Nien felt as if his heart weighed a pendtar. “I feel the same, Carly. The last few mornings I’ve woken up relieved to find him still on the floor.”
Carly looked ahead to the cabin. Nien did, too.
They were losing Wing. To
what, they weren’t sure. The only thing that did seem certain was that Wing was not going to tell them.
Lost for a solution, the two old friends walked on in silence, returning to the cabin and the ghost within.
A few days passed, and though Wing would still go out in the morning to work on the house with Nien and Monteray, he spoke not a word beyond the necessary and then would disappear and be gone till after dark, his only companion Lucin, a creature as silent and elusive as he had once again become. The renewed sense of life Nien had seen in Wing since he’d come to Legran had slipped away and his brother felt hollowed out, empty.
In Rieeve, Nien had often heard others, including their own parents, mention how Wing could bring light to a place or a gathering of people unlike anyone else could. The same had been true of Legran. The whole valley seemed to have risen to a new vitality since Wing had come. And even though, like Nien, he stayed primarily at the Monterays’, Nien had heard Call and Kate mention the excitement surrounding his brief comings and goings into town. The same was true of the Monteray home. Nien had seen a livening not only Tei, but in Monteray and Kate as well since Wing’s arrival.
But, as in Rieeve, the opposite was also true — Wing was capable of conjuring dark in the brightest of places. His withdrawal had shut in upon all of them. Beneath every day and every conversation had come an underlying silence and sadness, as if the Valley of Legran were waiting in stasis to see what would happen: Would the terrible storm surrounding Wing break the sky, or birth a new light unlike any of them had ever seen?
Chapter 73
Epiphany
A s had become their custom, Nien and SiQQiy left together after dinner, walking hand in hand along the river, watching the long grass move beneath their feet.
It had been five days since Nien had talked with his brother.
“I saw Wing this morning, he looked…” SiQQiy hesitated. Nien knew she, like the rest of them, was experiencing the gloom that had come over the Monteray house. “In despair.”
“I know.”
“Has he spoken to you, yet?”
“No.”
Nien knew SiQQiy was being careful with him. “So, still no idea what’s wrong?”
Nien looked up at the dark, shimmering length of river stretching out before them. “He’s alone,” he replied after a time.
“All three of you must feel impossibly alone — without your families, your people.”
“It’s more than that; I think he blames himself.”
“Blames himself?”
“For what happened. For the death of our people.”
“How could that have possibly been his fault?”
“Our people thought he was the one, the Leader of Legend.”
“I remember reading that in my studies long ago; it is from the works called the Ancient Writings, yes?”
Nien nodded. “You know of it?”
“As a ruler of such a diverse city, I was required as a girl to study the major belief systems of every race on our continent. So, your people believed that the Ka’ull are this devastation prophesied and Wing, the leader, Merehr?”
“Yeefa,” Nien swore mildly, “you actually remember all that from studies you did as a young girl?”
SiQQiy laughed. “Not exactly. In trying to understand netaia Lant — why he had to leave, why he could never return, why no one ever visited Rieeve — I took some pains to refresh my memory. I also did some additional research.”
Nien nodded, appreciating the effort. “Our people believed that, yes. But Wing? No. He tried, though. He tried to decipher what the Ancient Writings meant in regards to the Leader and the invasion from the northing. He had nightmares, though I suspect they were more like visions. He’s never told me specifically about them, but they tormented him. Maybe it was about all this. I don’t know.” Nien’s head lowered. “Our perspective was so limited, SiQQiy. We only had the Ancient Writings to reference. That was all Wing had at his disposal, and even though he was well aware a great many pieces of the puzzle were missing, he knew that our people considered the Ancient Writings as the only true source of knowledge and would, therefore, disregard information from any other works even were he to have access to them.”
“In Quieness, we do not take such ancient writings literally,” SiQQiy said. “But I can see how your people did, especially without, as you said, a broader perspective.”
“I found that out while I was living in Cao City,” Nien said. They were silent for a time before Nien spoke again. “Carly and I lost our people, too, but that Wing blames himself? I don’t know how he bears it. Isn’t it hard enough, but to carry that as well? Of the two, what Carly and I went through, versus what he’s been through, I think what happened to Wing was worse. He has been more alone than I could ever imagine.”
Beside him, SiQQiy walked in silence, contemplative before saying, “I understand, I think. As much as I can.” She paused. “What I know for certain, however, is that something real and fine stirs inside me when I’m with you. Something I’d thought had slipped my grasp forever.” She stopped walking. “When I look at you,” she said, “I see a depth that I have never seen in any soul. For all your secular learning, you are more like Wing, more of a Rieevan than you will ever be Quienan — or Preak.” SiQQiy laughed a little, as if she couldn’t believe what she was about to say next. “As a child, I remember a voice in my head that would echo the words from books read to me by my mother. You know, fanciful stories full of import and meaning, high morals and beauty prevailing. But soon they became little more than vastly impractical ideas and that little voice learned to stay quiet as I went about the necessities of diplomacy and governance. The other night, I heard that little voice again. It was yours.”
Nien looked back at her, self-conscious under her gaze and yet unable to look away.
“This Plan that your Commander Lant drew up,” SiQQiy said, “is a good one. It just might work. But I can tell it makes you uncomfortable.”
Nien sighed. “Yes, it does. Wing and I have agreed to help you and Monteray convince the other valleys that the Ka’ull are here, they’re preparing. But I…I’ve had enough of fighting, SiQQiy. I spent half my life training to fight and lost it all in one night. Even if the other valleys are able to spare themselves an invasion by the Ka’ull, and Rieeve is freed once more, I don’t know that I want to back. Ever.”
SiQQiy was nodding her head, listening. “Every valley, Quieness included, will be forever indebted to you, to your brother, and to Carly, for the information you brought us. None of you should have to do any more.”
“We have no idea if the Plan will work,” Nien said.
“No. But we do know that without it every valley on our continent will meet the Ka’ull on their own until we have all fallen. If the Ka’ull are brave enough to test Jayak, if they are brave enough to take my merchant ships and fire on my galleys, they are bold enough to perpetrate the worst fate for our continent we can imagine.”
Nien could only agree, silently.
SiQQiy said softly, “You’re still troubled.”
“I’ve always wanted to travel,” Nien said. “Now that I am entirely free to do so it feels hollow. Like I won’t be adventuring but running away.”
SiQQiy touched his face tenderly. “I don’t see it that way. But if you do, well, I say you’ve earned the right to run away for as far and as long as you like.”
Nien forced a smile he did not feel. “I hate,” he said, “feeling a prisoner of my own life. I once felt trapped in Rieeve, now I hate that some outside force has come in and made me feel like I can’t go home.” He shook his head. “Pathetic.”
“You may not want to, but I wish you’d tell me a little about Rieeve. No one knows anything except for that little bit in the Ancient Writings from the Poet Eneefa.”
Nien chuckled. “Wing’s favorite,” he said. He drew a breath and indicating a spot on the bank on the river, walked over to it and they sat down together. “When I say Rieeve is b
eautiful, I mean it’s not like anything you’ve ever seen. The mountains are so big from the depth of the valley that you almost have to look straight up to see sky. In Ime it glows beneath the moons, as if lit from inside itself. In Kive the valley and slopes erupt with wildflowers and grasses so green it makes your mouth water. It is fine and warm and never too hot. And Kojko, the turning trees transform the mountains into fire and the sky becomes such a deep purple it practically drips like amethyst from the clouds.” Nien found himself smiling softly. “The Village is small, quaint. Almost too quaint. Everyone knows everyone. Almost too well.” He grinned at her. “And the Mesko Forest.”
“I’ve heard of the great trees,” SiQQiy said.
Nien nodded. “They are that. It’s almost impossible to describe how big they are.”
“Still, for all their size, I’ve heard they are a fragile species. I’ve seen the canopy on my travels to and from Legran on the Preak side.”
“Many hundreds of revolutions ago the Mesko forest had begun to die out. It had dwindled down to even less than half its current size when our people discovered its secret and, with their efforts, the forest was saved, brought back from extinction.”
“And this secret was...?”
“Most baby trees of other species receive enough sunlight to mature into adolescence. But not the Mesko. Beneath the great canopy, the saplings don’t receive the sunlight they need to survive. It’s only in the selective cutting of the big trees that enough saplings are preserved for the next generation. It’s like pruning a forest.”
“It is a bit disheartening that such a grand tree must die in order for more to live,” SiQQiy observed, “but obviously worth the sacrifice.”
Nien’s mind came to a slow halt.
‘A bit disheartening that such a grand tree must die in order for more to live — but obviously worth the sacrifice.’
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