Eyes in the Water

by Monica Lee Kennedy

  Brenol turned his own heels south, moving fast along the Pearia. He had pushed well into the center of the terrisdan by midday.

  Suddenly, the eye of Garnoble was upon him. The land here was no longer absent or asleep. There was a strange strength in it, like the clenching grip of a man on his death bed.

  He grimaced, momentarily unsure of what action to take. Tentatively, he crouched down and whispered across the grasses, “Hello, old friend. It has been some time.”

  He waited tensely, afraid of what might come.

  A weak whisper stirred. “You may…pass.” When Brenol compared this gasp to the terrisdan conversations of his youth, his heart strained in sorrow. The pain Garnoble must be experiencing was only too evident.

  He jumped forward with renewed purpose. “I will help. I will,” he promised, feeling his limbs pregnant with strength. He moved as he had been taught from Deniel’s memories: swiftly, quietly, observantly. His heart thrilled in the anticipation of beholding Colette after so long, but he was sobered even in that; there was a world crumbling beneath him, and he knew nothing of how to save it. He could not afford to be distracted.

  ~

  Arman pressed through the lugazzi, his mind attempting to sort through the terrifying reality nipping at his back. So much lay before them. So much.

  He did not typically contend with self-doubt, but now he found himself drowning in it. He was without direction.

  And Ordah holed up in the wilderness, refusing to help or talk. That man, he fumed.

  Arman did not have the skills of a prophet, but the signs were clear enough. Entirely aside from Jerem’s poison, something else horrendous was at play and had been for a terrifying length of time—orbits, likely. It had begun so gradually that he had nearly missed it, or had at least assumed it to be something else. At the same time, he wondered if he had chosen blindness over seeing such pernicious evil.

  I shall bake in the sun like a mindless toad if I keep ignoring the things that are in front of my face, he ruminated gravely. And all of Massada with me.

  The signs point to something…something…

  More and more bodies are emerging, with fewer signs of illness. And more scenes of violence are accompanying them.

  Indeed, Arman had investigated two more scorched bodies on his journey from the east, crossing specifically through northern Brovingbune to follow the rumors that the black fever had struck again. The second victim had been an aged man, his flesh black as a bruise and radiating heat. It had been enough to turn his own solid limbs quivering and insides cold.

  Arman was familiar with the devastation caused by the fever; for seasons he had traversed the country in search of signs and symptoms. This man, though, had been an old companion. His name was Carles, and he had been one of the freeal, the long-living. He would have been nearing his four hundredth orbit, with likely a centibit to add, but the fever had jerked his life from him just like any other.

  Carles makes twenty-two dead this season alone, thirty-eight this orbit.

  The numbers were increasing at an alarming rate.

  Why do they rise now? There is an element I’m not seeing. Or am I blinded by fear?

  Arman sighed and freely acknowledged his terror, but in the indifferent way that one might acknowledge an untied shoelace.

  No, it is not my emotion. I just do not have all the pieces…but I glimpse the truth.

  This is not a true disease. No mere fever.

  The juile plunged again through the stores of memories he had amassed. The parchment on Heart Render was not misplaced. It was nowhere to be found. It had been taken.

  By whom? Or what?

  He had searched the charred body and belongings of every victim of the black fever, but there was always little left to decipher. They were each scattered across the terrisdans without reason. This murderer was subtle—although getting progressively sloppier—and had power Arman had never before seen. The juile did not know how to find him, contend with him. The only clue was a trail of cadavers.

  Should I have told Bren? Maybe he would see something I have not…

  He shook his head in frustration. And have him chasing my conjectures? Thinking about a sword that to all of Massada is a mere myth? A sword I have pledged silence over anyway?

  Yet the truth was unavoidable: he had discovered little in the five orbits of hunting this evil. He could not delay much longer. He would need to seek help soon, regardless of his lack of information.

  For now, I hold, he thought determinedly. I must find out more. And deal with this poison.

  It startled him to realize that Jerem’s little endeavor, which was very likely tainting the terrisdans to their death, seemed an afterthought compared to the evil he perceived hovering.

  Could this be the malitas of the Genesifin?

  Arman shuddered at the thought.

  He had hoped that the terror of malitas was not to be faced in his lifetime.

  For who could contend with such a monster? Who?

  ~

  Brenol awoke in the night with a start. His body felt stiff from the cold, but he groaned to a seat and glanced about him. The fire had died hours previously, and even the embers had long ago flaked and grayed. Above, the dual moons shone in gentle glory. One was full and one waned, but both were awake and welcoming. He ignored their radiant beauty and clamped his eyes shut, seeking to grasp a missing thread of thought through the fog of his fading dreams.

  Maralane corpses had lapped the shores like foam from waves. Their bloated bodies had bobbed through Ziel, staring at him through half-lidded eyes. Preifest had been there. He had extended a translucent finger and called to him with the voice of the visnat Colvin. Standing suddenly next to him, the maralane leader had slipped something into his hand. His whisper had shot icy tendrils down Brenol’s spine. “Do not destroy us, Brenol. Do not.”

  Something in my hand…

  Brenol’s jaw snapped shut as he realized his error. He flung his blankets aside and leaped up. “What did you give me, Preifest?” he whispered.

  He dug in the darkness until his hands clutched his abandoned bag. He upended the sack, hearing items topple and thud to his feet. His jacket slid to the soil.

  He extended a hand hesitantly into its inner pocket. His grief had been so hot that he had shoved the item away for later examination. But travel, the emotional distress of burying the maralane girl, meeting Arman, and anticipating Colette had all combined to leave the gift of Preifest forgotten.

  Until now.

  Brenol’s fingers cupped the object and drew it out slowly, fearfully. His hands knew the piece, just as his dreams had. He opened his palm to allow the soft yellow moonlight to caress it.

  It was the hos Deniel had found in the cooling hand of the murdered man. The same green tails and opal eyes. And now, Preifest had returned it to the upper-world.

  Why?

  ~

  Colette woke before dawn, alert and rippling with greed for the nuresti power. She lay sweating in her sheets for several hours, waiting for it to dissipate. While it did lessen, it refused to leave entirely, and she was left with a coursing desperation. Eventually, the lunitata rose, dressed shakily, and left the castle walls.

  Outside, she headed south. She could not bring herself to return to her favorite garden nook after the flash of delicious power and her shocking behavior to Marnet, so she turned instead toward a small hill she had favored as a child. The wind whipped at her locks and flapped her silky cream dress about her, but her eyes were forever ahead, determined and hard.

  When Colette arrived, she inhaled heavily and threw herself to the soft turf. The vista before her was serenely lovely, and the morning breezes stirred the grass beneath her. She buried her face in its rich green.

  Veronia? Colette called interiorly.

  No sound returned.

  “Veronia?” she whispered. She rose to a seat, her legs curled to one side. Even now, desire thrummed through her. She ran her sweating hands through the
swaying grass. It was cool and smooth.

  A sigh seemed to rise from the ground, and a flurry of leaves danced around her in a gentle, synchronized circle. It was no mere play of wind. No breeze behaved so deliberately.

  “Veronia?” she repeated. Her voice was cracked and desperate, and her eyes were marked with a pained hope.

  The sigh eased up to her again, and she shuddered as comprehension filled her. It wasn’t the usual voice that filled her mind and blared through her senses. It was a soft, nearly unintelligible whisper: “Be brave.”

  “No!” she shouted with immediate violence, shaking her clenched fists. The world around her was silent, as if judging her unreasonable reaction. She attempted to calm her spirit and then, willing control, asked, “Why?”

  She waited for what felt like an eternity.

  “Remember your cartess,” the land eventually breathed.

  Colette froze. Her face paled, and her tongue felt dry and sticky. I must have heard wrong.

  “What?” she asked warily.

  There was no response, but slowly, so slowly, the remaining clutches of greed drained from her, and she felt as empty as a broken jug. Silence issued over the hill, and all that remained was the morning air tugging at her hair and garb.

  The lunitata peered down and realized that her feet were bare. She had traveled over a matrole, maybe two, without perceiving as much. It startled and shook her.

  Colette rubbed her pale face with shaking hands. She sighed and swallowed back tears. It was clear to her now that even these little moments were false. She longed for union with Veronia so much that she was imagining things.

  “I’m dreaming. My cartess is a false dream,” Colette said bitterly. “It is a lie. And Deniel is dead because of it.”

  She sank back into the grass and wallowed in self-loathing.

  ~

  Brenol ruminated upon the hos with every stride he took. It was almost a surprise when he neared the border of Veronia, for his mind had been so occupied elsewhere.

  He paused and glanced about anxiously. The roof of his mouth felt cottony as he stared before and behind him. For orbits he had feared this moment, and to suddenly be faced with it sent his stomach churning. In a mere three or four paces, the lugazzi would end and Veronia would begin. Brenol could feel the difference across the whole of his skin. He heaved in mouthfuls of air, staring stupidly.

  Do I still want it? Could I possibly still be a nurest? What will happen when I cross over?

  His mind spun in circles.

  Brenol tarried, kicking up dirt with his boots. Finally, he shook his head and inhaled purposefully.

  “Time to find out how much of a man you are,” he said defiantly to himself.

  He strode forward with clenched shoulders, gazed around him, and sighed.

  “Bountiful indeed,” he whispered and allowed a sweet relief to wash over him.

  There was no nurest connection, and satisfaction at its absence coursed through his veins. He allowed himself a grin; it is not every day that one finds one’s addictions no longer alluring. He drank in the freedom.

  Yet suddenly he perceived Veronia’s eye upon him. What he had felt from the other terrisdans had hardly prepared him for the gruesome and terrible gaze of Veronia. The land was more dead than alive. It was as if it lingered in its final moments.

  Oh.

  He fought the impulse to retch and urged his heels to haste. Never had he pushed himself harder. Two days later, just after nightfall, Brenol stood before the castle walls of Sleockna.

  Even Arman would have been impressed.

  ~

  Where is it, the spirit pondered. Its bony fingers strummed the parchment again. Where? Where did these stupid little bugs hide it? Or is it truly just a legend?

  It would have been much more pleasant—not to mention easier—to leave the sword as a silly Massadan fantasy, but the risk was too high. Legends had a way of holding a shard of truth, and the spirit feared this shard might one day meet its throat with a lethal and curving stroke.

  No, I must find Heart Render. I must destroy that stupid sword, else it destroys me.

  It laughed. It was a guttural hack that spoke of illness.

  Not that they even know I am here. The fools. The gnats. I loathe Massada.

  I miss my world, it thought, pausing in recollection. Abruptly, the spirit snarled at a surfacing memory. The other spirits had mocked it. They had dismissed it, calling it cruel, weak, thoughtless. Hot fury poured through its mind.

  Who is frail now? I see what I need to do. And I will do it.

  It sat at the desk in a slump, bent over in both infirmity and thought. Its fingers rubbed the image and words. It was the same motion it had used dozens of times, although the hand was rarely the same.

  The parchment was torn and handled, but the spirit folded it with care and tucked the aging page into its pocket.

  Again, a moment of grief tugged at it. It had been so long since it had known home.

  These wretched portals only go one way.

  The sadness—ever a bizarre sensation to mix emotion with the concrete—brought on a reeling nausea, but the spirit refused to surrender to its waves. Instead, it curled its lip in an angry sneer and fed the bleak hatred that burned in its core.

  They shall all answer for bringing me here. I am Chaul. I am no regular mortal.

  It sniffed in disgust, glancing up at the image in the mirror. Its skin was blackening as if a bruise ran under the entirety of its epidermis, and it could smell the putrid scent of seared flesh. The spirit puckered its lips in irritation.

  This fool barely lasted a day. It will be unfortunate if I cannot find another host because of his weakness. I will have to hide my parchment until I have ensured a suitable body.

  It pushed itself up from the desk, smiling anyway.

  If I cannot go back, Massada shall know pain.

  And war.

  ~

  Brenol stood waiting for the princess. The castle was only slightly warmer than the night he had wandered in from, and the hallway drafts sent fingers of ice slicing along his bones. He sighed. It would take both time and food to knead heat back into his sore body. He stamped his feet to keep the blood flowing, even if it ushered through with a prickling pain, and watched the flickering of the sconces as another breath clouded before his nose. He shivered and rubbed his fatigued face.

  But Brenol forgot his discomfort as Colette’s graceful frame rounded the corner. She was even more beautiful than he had remembered: dark, silken hair, almond-shaped eyes of deep green, milky complexion with fair and even features. She was still slender, but no longer the emaciated figure she had been in the soladrome. Her lunitata glow was subdued and dim, but he imagined this was likely due to the late hour. No, she was lovely in every regard.

  His heart melted and his stomach lurched. Brenol gave a small smile.

  This isn’t the time. Not the time, he intoned desperately until the direness of their situation steadied him. No, not the time. His pulse slowed and his mind calmed.

  “I didn’t think to see you for another day or more,” she said with evident appreciation.

  “It’s good to see you, Colette.” He felt blood rush to his cheeks and was thankful that the cold had undoubtedly already made them rosy and raw.

  She nodded, and her lips curled up faintly. “And you.”

  “What’s wrong?” Brenol asked gently. “I—” he said and stopped, for he found his tongue tighten in reserve. He did not, could not, mention how the terrisdan soil felt—as cool in his hands as a decaying corpse.

  And the eye, he thought, shuddering and fighting the roil in his gut. Even now, he sensed Veronia’s glance, but only brief patches of lucidity lingered between the lengthening stretches of terrible vacuity.

  Colette’s features creased, and Brenol perceived what he had originally missed: a ferocious and powerful wildness. It was startling to see in a figure of such beauty and delicacy. Colette smoothed her face. If he had bl
inked a moment sooner, he would have missed the transformation.

  She looked like a rabid animal, fighting in every direction…

  Suddenly he felt new reason to hold his silence; there was something dark in Colette, and though she sought to hide it, its shadows lingered and pressed coldly upon him. Perhaps it was only her mysterious nurest tie, but perhaps it was more.

  “Veronia is sick,” Colette said. “Or something horrible. I don’t know. But there’s something terribly wrong.”

  “How long? When did it start?”

  “Gradually,” she replied, pondering. “All was fine for several moons after you left. But then…” She blushed, as if embarrassed at the land’s demise. “Then the connection began to falter.” Her shoulders slumped heavily, and she drew her pleading and hopeful gaze up to Brenol.

  The young man nodded, understanding the circumstances only too well. He tried to conjure up compassionate and wise words but found none. His limbs ached and mind swam, so he spoke simply, “I must rest. Then tomorrow we’ll travel to Arman. If you can, of course.” Brenol gazed at her questioningly. The tenderness in his heart was brimming but still contained; he was certain she had not guessed his affections.

  “Yes. Of course. I’ll arrange for supplies. To?” She stood taller, as though this little action was already securing the health of her terrisdan.

  “Limbartina. Selenia.”

  She arched her eyebrows in surprise—and anger?—but did not utter a word. She plucked Brenol’s hand from his side and squeezed it, lifting it to cup her cheek within his cool palm. “Thank you, Bren.”

  She released his hand and allowed her lips to quirk up slightly. “Your hair is longer,” she said, teasingly flicking his ponytail.

  “Yours too,” he replied.

  She glanced down to her shoulder, where the glistening dark fell like a blanket, but returned her gaze to meet his.

  He drew in an exaggerated breath; he found her presence dizzying and feared that he stood with his mouth agape.

  “Ok. Rest, Bren,” she said, misunderstanding his reaction. She granted him a nod and left without a glance, unaware of his flushed cheeks and longing eyes.