She moved next to the woodsman and peered around his shoulders. “Is Taradin undying?” she said.
Fyorn jolted back. “Turn that thing normal-side out!” he said. “You don’t let up, do you?” My uncle paused and turned to face her. Holly just looked at him, still expecting. He couldn’t be mad at that face.
“The answer is yes and no,” he began. “Taradin is undying like the Elderkin, but the roots of immortality did not take well with him, or his ilk.”
“What about the wraiths?” I said, casually strolling over and wedging my way into the conversation.
“They look like they’re half-dead,” I continued, “and the smell…” I made an awful face. “…and they most definitely are mad.”
“Now the wraiths are different,” explained Fyorn. “First of all, they despise all that fully live and especially those who are free to walk under the sun… but none more than the three Eternal Races. Even the touch of a wraith can be as cold as death itself. Taradin was never that way.”
“The wraiths came before Taradin,” he continued, “the result of even earlier experimentation with undeath. Yes… they are madder still, but serve the Old King and only the Old King. After losing him to the Jhinyari, and after the many years of toil and struggle that went with that loss, the wraiths recovered Taradin’s body and raised him from the bog. They were outcasts at the time, banished from Harrow and the cities of Men.”
“I’ll vouch for the despising part,” said Kabor. He looked a little more like himself again. “If they hate us more than they hate the Gropers, I can only imagine…”
“That’s exactly right,” said Fyorn. “They put themselves above everyone, but they still need others. You catch on fast.”
The woodsman suddenly became distracted. I was about to speak when he raised his hand and halted my words.
“A whispering wind is blowing,” he said.
My jaw hung half-open with the words still stuck there, not knowing where to go. The woodsman faced the steady westerly rising up the hill slope, and stared blankly down the rocky path to the lowlands. Stunted evergreens kept watch over the hillside like rough skinned guardians. Whether or not some were Hurlorns I could only guess. Our Hurlorns, the ones that had encircled us in the grove, stood in their former ranks atop the hill, tall and proud and deciduous. Fyorn didn’t look right.
I had seen him “fly off the handle” a few times over little things, and I also seen him calm and collective in the heat of battle. This was something else. Something was terribly wrong.
The woodsman began to shake his head. In a sudden fit of anger, he threw down the sticks. His tongue lashed out so vile the words made me cringe. Holly gripped my forearm. His arms flailed as he paced back and forth and cursed some more. It would have been enough to curl even a sailor’s ears.
“What is it?” I said, dreading what the answer might be. I don’t want to hear it. My heartbeat quickened. Paplov…
Fyorn’s tone came off somewhat accusing. “Bobbin and Gariff have been taken prisoner,” he said bluntly. “Apparently, there was a generous reward out for the capture of a certain escaped Pip and his Stout companion, caught thieving in the Iron Tower. Ring any bells?”
I felt my ears flatten with the way he said the words. My expression tightened. Thief? My lips trembled as I tried to shape a response. I muddled several consonants. “I dit… it’s shust… what bad luck,” I sputtered.
“Nud, it isn’t luck,” he said, irritation in his voice. The woodsman stooped over and began recovering the discarded sticks.
“I’m not mad at you,” he said at last. “This just complicates things. You don’t know how much it complicates things.”
Holly confronted Fyorn. “You said it would be safe.”
The woodsman shook his head in disbelief, holding the sticks. “I never imagined… I mean… no one could have predicted something like this could happen.”
Except maybe Hurlorns, I thought.
The Flipside girl stepped aside and gave me an odd look.
“I can’t even go to Harrow to put a stop to this. Damn it!” said Fyorn. He tossed one of the sticks to Kabor, who caught it in one hand. “Sending word to Gan is hopeless. They’ll debate for days and then decide to act after the consequences have already played out.” He looked to me. “You certainly can’t go with your papa sick the way he is, and…” He trailed off.
“Webfoot is obligated to negotiate,” Holly offered. She addressed Fyorn directly. “Did you talk to Mayor Undle about sending diplomats before you left, like you said you would?”
“I did,” said Fyorn. “We’ll need to have a word with them, if we can catch them before they enter the valley.”
Kabor chimed in. “The Webfoot Council will be either too slow or too accommodating – can’t be counted on either way.”
“Even if they did get their act together they would just send Councillor Mrello,” I said. “Besides being completely useless, he’s completely under Harrow’s thumb.”
“How do you know this?” said Fyorn.
“It’s true, just ask Holly,” I replied.
Holly nodded, and the notion seemed to make her worry even more. “Nud, you have to go,” she said. “You have to get them out. They’re on the chopping block because of you, y’know.”
I wanted to volunteer and straighten things out. I wanted to impress Holly. Bobbin and Gariff were imprisoned because they were trying to help me. But I could not abandon Paplov. I might never get to see him again. I didn’t know what to do. Not yet.
Fyorn sighed and nodded his head. “Not good,” Fyorn explained, “Not good at all. They could be put to work in the mines, or worse.”
“What about the ritual?” said Holly.
Fyorn took a deep breath, but did not reply.
“Ritual?” I said.
Holly huffed, and then explained the details. “A ritual where they sacrifice people, Nud,” she said. “What if they sacrifice Bobbin or Gariff? You have to get them out!”
“They do that in Harrow?” I said.
“That’s not going to happen,” said Fyorn. “That honor is traditionally reserved for intellects and high achievers – the best of the best among the city populace, excluding the ruling class, of course.”
Kabor shook his head in disgust.
“Nud, “ said Holly, “you have your colors now. Isn’t it your obligation to negotiate? You’re the closest representative from Webfoot, and the colors—”
I shook my head. “As long as Paplov is gravely ill I must go home, that is my obligation,” I said. “The Council is better equipped to handle this sort of thing anyway. We just have to make sure they send someone other than Mrello.”
Holly gasped in disbelief. “Ya right, the Council,” she said. “There’s more who are crooked than just Mrello. Gariff and Bobbin came here to get you, Nud. We all did.” Holly stormed off.
“What about the Bearded Hills, or the Triland Council?” I said.
“How do we know they’re not just as crooked?” said Kabor.
“He’s right,” said Fyorn. “If what you say is true about Mrello, there is no trusting any liaison to Harrow from any of the councils.”
“There’s no other option,” Holly called to the rest of us. “Nud has to go straighten this out.”
The woodsman sighed and scanned the grove, studying the treetops. A light, swirling breeze blew up. He grabbed my shoulder and spoke in a hushed tone. “More news is on the way. Nud, come with me this time. I sense it has much to do with you. Everything hangs in the balance for you right now.” We hurried to the north-west section of the grove.
Holly called after us. “I’m coming too,” she said.
Kabor stayed behind. With the woodsman’s back turned, the sickly Stout whipped the stick my uncle had given him over the edge of the hill. He searched through the pile and chose another instead. With all the strength he could muster, Kabor pushed himself to his feet, supporting his weight with his new walking stick. I recognized
the grain – deepwood. He hobbled after us.
Fyorn and I stopped at the summit’s edge. We stopped and just stood there. I was not sure what to expect. The woodsman went completely still. “I hear it,” he whispered. He crouched down and addressed me at eye level, the way he did whenever he was trying to teach me something important or show me a wild animal that I had failed to notice. “Nud, you have to be open to it. Relax your eyes like there is nothing to focus on. Then relax your ears the same way. Relax all of your senses. Let them go. Let them go and your mind will follow.”
“What about me?” said Holly.
“Shush,” said Fyorn. “Do the same. No talking, any of you.”
The wind rose up stronger and the leaves began to rustle more urgently. If the whisper was not in the wind, it sure sounded like it could be. And so very faint, I had to strain my ears. There were many whispering noises it seemed, streaming in and out and softly padding over one another. I tried to focus on one among them, but there were too many layers. I cocked my head one way, and then the next. Nothing changed. I plugged one ear, then the next, then both. Nothing changed.
I closed my eyes, inhaled deep, and let out a calming sigh. Then it came to me. I heard my second whisper, or maybe it was my first, but either way it was definitely a whisper.
It was a quiet rhythm of syllables, fully immersed among the other gentle sounds of morning. It was not smooth, like the whisper of a secret from one giggling girl to the next, but was as grainy a sound as the rustling of leaves. The words formed imparted a good feeling, or sense. “Better. All better,” is what I heard.
I turned to Fyorn. “Did you hear that?”
He smiled and nodded. “Your papa is going to be fine.”
Holly gasped. “I heard something too,” she said. “I don’t know what it was, but it felt good.”
By all accounts, the whisper was positive. Paplov seemed to be on the road to recovery.
“That’s odd… truly remarkable really, considering his condition when I last saw him,” said Fyorn. He looked introspective for a moment, and then snapped out of it. “Did you hear that part about the old gaffer being spotted up and about early this morning, tending to his garden?”
Evidently, I still had much to learn about whispers. “No,” I said. Holly shook her head.
“How about the fact that no one from Council has been sent to Harrow yet?” said Fyorn.
“Nope,” I said. “But I’m not surprised.”
I waited for Kabor to say something, like “It figures,” but he held his tongue. He had made it as far as the dug out fire pit.
“There is a lesson here,” said Fyorn, looking to me. “The whisper also picks up something of what it finds along the way. Do not think you have heard it all just because you picked out one intended message. The whispers collect as they propagate and the sources multiply.”
Holly looked to me. Her eyes lit up with anticipation. “Nud, that means you can go to Harrow and get Bobbin and Gariff out. You’re free to negotiate.”
The good news about Paplov and Holly’s pleading eyes were enough to seal my decision: I would go to Harrow. Webfoot was lagging, Gan ineffective, the need was desperate, Paplov was fine, and I had full diplomatic authority as long as the Webfoot Council did not oppose – and they wouldn’t. They couldn’t. And with the authority granted, I could negotiate for everyone’s release – even my parents, assuming they were actually prisoners. Paplov would be ecstatic.
It gets better. Holly would see me as a hero if I saved my friends – doubly so if I put a stop to Taeglin’s plans to mine the bog. I might even challenge the Iron Tower on the Treaty of Nature, for Fyorn’s sake. He’d like that. Paplov, of course, would be proud of me. The Hurlorns might even be proud of me. People would gossip, and when they spoke my name they would say “Nud Leatherleaf the wraith slayer, defender of the wrongfully accused, and protector of the bog.”
Kabor was silent on the matter. He caught me glancing over to him and seemed annoyed, or in pain, or some combination of the two.
“You’re right,” I said to Holly. I turned to my uncle. “I have to go back to Harrow, it’s the only way to make things right. Bobbin and Gariff are there because of me. And I think the Hurlorns want me to go as well. I think they whispered it.”
Fyorn raised his eyebrows and tilted his head sideways. “The Hurlorns are not sending you back,” he said. I knew then that he was wrong though.
“Bobbin and Gariff need me,” I went on, “Webfoot needs me – I can convince Harrow that they don’t need to drain the whole bog to find what they want. And I need to know… I need to know what happened to my parents. I think I heard a whisper telling me to go back. It happened when the wind came, before any of this. Did you hear it?”
“No,” said Fyorn. “There was no such whisper. And you don’t know if you can accomplish any of that.”
I didn’t argue the point. Maybe he was right.
“And this business about the bog is nonsense,” Fyorn scoffed. “They can’t mine it.”
“What about what Janhurl said?” responded Holly-miss-know-it-all. “You said there was a loophole about mineral rights and that for some reason it must be important.”
“Neither Harrow nor Gan are permitted to occupy the Trilands,” said Fyorn, “It’s a veritable no-man’s land according to the Non-aggression Treaty – Pips and Stouts exempt, of course.”
“Yes, it’s true,” I said. “Proudfoot had similar clauses in their dealings with Fort Abandon concerning the Flats – a rich agricultural borderland. There, a complicated land lease agreement has been in effect for decades.”
“But mineral rights are different,” I continued. “If we can’t deny them somehow, then Harrow might be permitted to initiate and maintain a strong, practical presence in the bog that includes ‘protection’ for their assets.”
Kabor interjected. “That matches up with those ‘HME’ claim posts we found along Blackmuk, right Nud?”
“HME… Harrow Mineral and Exploration,” I explained to Fyorn, “is state-owned and run by the Tor Lords. I know because it was in one of the legal documents for the deal with Proudfoot.”
“So,” said Fyorn, piecing it together, “you’re saying that if they staked claims all over the place and then started mining them out, Harrow might try to justify large troop deployments to protect their assets?”
“Something like that,” I replied. “HME already has several claims in the bog lands and around Proudfoot.”
“They can’t just send in troops like that. Harrow would need a strong basis to do such a thing,” said Fyorn.
Holly cut in, excited. “Well, get this: to justify the added security, all they have to do is make the bog lands a more dangerous place to conduct business.”
“Whoa. That explains the raiders on the Outland Trail, and worse things that have been happening,” I said. “It used to be safe, but now everyone in the Trilands worries about the dangers of traveling.”
“That’s dirty,” said Kabor.
“You can’t say that for sure,” said Fyorn.
“Harrow takes what Harrow wants,” I replied, repeating the common saying and remembering the frustration expressed by Mayor Otis. My uncle did nothing to deny that fact.
“They have their ways,” he admitted. “And Janhurl did find it important enough to whisper… hmm.”
Holly looked to me. “I’m going with you,” she said. I smiled at her. She smiled back, shyly.
Clearly frustrated, Fyorn shook his head at Holly. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said.
Holly ignored his words, which only served to frustrate him more. “I can help,” she said.
Fyorn crossed his arms. “Oh?” he said. “And what are you going to do when you get there?”
“They’ll kill you both,” rasped Kabor, who had taken to stirring up what little remained of the wraith’s ashes with his stick. “The wraiths will kill you and feast on your flesh.”
“Not if I can get to the gat
e first, with my diplomatic colors in hand,” I said. “I will have diplomatic immunity.”
“True enough… in theory,” said Fyorn. A complex look washed over him. He spoke to Kabor next. “Nud and any assistants of his would be protected by code of law. Harrow goes by the book on that, at least. Wraiths do not come out in the light of day and they do not eat diplomats. Thieves maybe…”
It was the Stout’s turn to scoff. I know what he was thinking. He saw what I saw.
I hadn’t thought everything through, but I couldn’t back down now, not with Holly behind me all the way and my uncle warming up to my way of thinking. “Maybe Taeglin can’t be reasoned with,” I conceded. That much was evident from everything I had ever heard about him. I got the impression that Taeglin considered himself supreme and that the rest of the world was just there for his entertainment.
“He couldn’t be bothered to meet with you anyways,” said Fyorn. “He would just send you to Garond, the city master.”
“But there is another I can meet with – the First King. If I can just convince him to listen—”
Fyorn cut me off. “That’s a big ‘IF.’ There are procedures and rules for that sort of thing.”
My uncle closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh. He was deliberating. I believe he understood what it meant to be chosen by fate for a task specially suited to one and only one. It was about being in the right place at the right time, with the right means and the right plan. And the fact that Holly and I were in that place together, both with stones that tapped into the Hurlorn consciousness, was no small happenstance. I believe he knew what it meant to put his trust in fate. He had lived his entire life that way.
And so it was settled. Fyorn grinned and shook his head in a gentle “no” that meant “yes.” Holly was coming with me.
“It’s nearly an hour’s hike, as the Hurlorn strides, just to get to the eastern shores of Dim Lake,” the woodsman started. “It would be best to get there bright and early.”
From there on, he explained how Holly and I could make our way past the docks, through the gate and the market square beyond, and then to the area that held the administrative buildings, the bethel named Karna’s Vessel, and of course the Iron Tower.
SPARX Incarnation: Order of the Undying (SPARX Series I Book 2) Page 15