The Forbidding Blue

by Monica Lee Kennedy

  Bren, you better return quickly. I cannot tarry with him long, Arman thought.

  “I have been interested in juile for some time. May I join you, and you can teach me all about your kind?” Darse glanced lazily around the campsite, taking in the scene with an odd indifference.

  “I am waiting for my friend to return.”

  Darse’s eyes sparked in a moment of interest. “Is he juile too?”

  “No. Human.”

  “Would he refuse your offered hospitality? May I not join you for a few minutes until he returns?”

  He pushes and pushes. This dance is too dangerous. Carn himself could not make the steps…

  “I do not know what he shall say,” Arman replied flatly.

  Darse’s face soured. His lips curled up in irritation, and his eyes hardened as he regarded Arman coldly. “I will spare a few moments, regardless. Perhaps he will be happy to see me. Who knows? We may know each other already.” He smacked the resin between his teeth and spread his lips into a snaky grin.

  “Perhaps you do,” the juile replied.

  ~

  Brenol slid into camp, hunched over his fruit-filled shirt with a happy smile painted across his flushed face. His clothes hung heavy and drenched upon his limbs but could not sour his mood. The fire would rectify the cold, and, most importantly, he had breakfast!

  He arched his back in a protested ache against Heart Render. He was weary of the burden and the awkward movements he made to ensure his safety from it. He scowled but then allowed his face to return to a grin. He had breakfast! His stomach felt raw from exertion and regular hunger. This would be a grateful feast indeed.

  It was only as Brenol drew closer that he perceived Arman and realized that the juile stood with a companion. His face tightened involuntarily, and his eyes squinted at the stranger. Brenol slowed his steps but continued forward. There was a familiar quality about the other figure…

  He edged closer. As he neared, he recognized him, but something prevented him from calling out. Brenol’s feet turned heavy, and he dragged them across the ground like millstones on leashes.

  It couldn’t be. It couldn’t.

  No.

  Darse stood, leaning lazily against a tree, smacking lips together as he mawed through a fresh piece of resin. The scent was too pleasant for the moment. Brenol stared weakly at his friend. Yes, the features were akin, but his frame was held differently, as though he were a marionette in a puppeteer’s hands.

  Darse raised his hand in greeting and moved over to plop himself on a log—soft from its carpet of moss, damp from snow—and stared at him expectantly. Brenol stared back, jaw gaping a crack.

  The juile clicks met his ears—Not Darse—and all the knuckle-clenched hope in him collapsed. Then Brenol saw the eyes. The ponds of black meant only the end. His chest felt soft, and the devastation nearly caused his legs to buckle. He drew in a rasping breath and felt his eyes smart.

  “Are you ok?” Darse asked, hardly raising a brow in feigned concern.

  “Yes.” Brenol reached an arm out to steady himself. His tongue felt leaden and his insides began to threaten their way up. He forced his mouth to relax from the near gag and spoke, “I-I… I just need to get back to my soumme. She’s with child.” Brenol instantly regretted revealing any truth to malitas, yet his mind felt sluggish and incapable of coping with reality.

  Darse pondered the statement with interest before asking, “May I join you for a few minutes before you go?”

  “We don’t have time,” Arman replied hastily.

  “I see,” Darse said. His voice was lined with a treacherous edge, and his lips pressed out in petulance.

  Suddenly, Brenol caught hold of the memory-feather that had been eluding him for moons, and his face blanched even whiter. He had just clambered out of the portal for the second time, with the mystery of Colette’s desperate voice ringing in his ears. It was so far past that it nearly seemed a dream, but yes, he had met those hard, hungry eyes before. Different skin, but still the same eyes. And they had hated him then, too.

  His mind reeled. There was more than just grief for Darse—and that alone nearly choked him. Death had stood before him in the flesh now twice. And neither time was a mere story, picture on a page, dream. This was malitas.

  The juile stared hard between the two and discerned there could be no more room for pretense. What must be done, must be done swiftly; this was too perilous a stunt. “Do it. There is no time,” Arman barked.

  The green berries fell to the earth in a shower, bouncing and rolling in every direction. Brenol reached for Heart Render. It came out clumsily, and the encasing fabric sliced clean before the keen bite of the blade. He blinked; it had been so near his skin all that time.

  Darse’s lazy expression was no more. “What is that, friends?”

  “You’re no friend!” Brenol shouted. Fury and grief pounded hot upon him, causing his hands to shake. The white blade quivered back and forth, but its beauty was undiminished. It could have been made of liquid, lethal white liquid.

  The dark eyes lingered in slight amusement before Darse’s face opened into a broad, evil smile. “You are more fool than the rest.”

  Brenol did not respond but stepped closer, moving with small, cautious steps. Dead ochre leaves, mingling with snow, crunched beneath his feet. He was now a mere arm’s reach away, but his limbs would go no farther.

  “You know nothing, child. You think to hurt me? Do you seek my money? My items?” He laughed derisively. “I will teach you regret as you have never known. You will live to weep over your friend’s torture.” Darse smiled, and his lips extended out cruelly. There was nothing familiar about his expression.

  “Bren, now!” Arman shouted, observing his friend’s face. “There’s no other time! Do it now!”

  The spirit hesitated, doubt suddenly clouding its untouchable experience of safety. It peered at the weapon shaking in the man’s hands.

  It could not be, Chaul thought. No… I could not find it. The sword is mere myth. A story… Plus, they do not know who I am. Still, fear narrowed the normally haughty countenance as it recalled a mistake: it had revealed its own name…

  The specks of gold remaining in the darkening irises flickered out at Brenol, and suddenly the young redhead doubted, as though the glimpse of yellow hinted at a Darse still hidden somewhere in the chaos.

  Could he be alive in there? Brenol asked himself. Could he?

  Desire for what could not be undid him. The love for his friend and near-father encompassed him, and tears blinded his vision and rent his heart. Brenol’s body crumbled, and he felt the rough impact of land meeting knees.

  “Not Darse, not Darse,” he mouthed.

  He racked and heaved, unaware of what beset the world about him. All he knew was bitterness. Yet, heaped upon the earth, Brenol’s hand still gripped the sword. He opened his eyes and as he peered at the white of the blade, an image flashed fast upon him: the milky-white maralane child whom he had buried so many orbits ago. Her beautifully crowned head of golden hair, her tiny and limp frame, iridescent and milky skin, her drooping tails. The memory was like a slap, as it had been once before, and his mind revolted from the maelstrom of grief, and his eyes pierced open to the present and all its pain.

  Brenol drove his vision up, with knuckles white around the hilt and fear gripping his gut. Arman stood alone in the forest with him, gazing down sadly. Darse’s corpse lay empty and inanimate upon the ground.

  Chaul had escaped.

  Brenol groaned in despair. “I’ve failed.”

  Arman did not answer, for indeed, he had.

  CHAPTER 12

  Guard yourself in every small action. Evil only leads to evil; benere to benere.

  -Genesifin

  Chaul raced across the land, flying through the terrisdans. A fear lodged in it that could not be undone. Could this be? Could that really be Heart Render?

  I should not have fled. I should have taken the sword. I should have destroyed th
em, the spirit thought, but it knew fear had turned it weak and left it skittish, like a trout beneath an osprey’s shadow.

  How do they even know what I am? I have not allowed any to know me. I have wiped my trail with their blood. No, it cannot be.

  Yet somehow, it was. The spirit could see as much.

  It scoured the terrisdans for a host, irritated at the sensation of being without a body. It was a discomfort in such a material world. Chaul ached for the place that once had been its home, before the portal had brought it through. It longed for the others—the iritaul, the spiritual.

  There is no point pining. The portals go in, not out.

  So now?

  How do I win against them with their sword?

  Chaul’s quick mind groped toward an answer. Pleasure bubbled up as it drew near an idea. The land. Their precious land.

  It would be strange to be in a terrisdan, but they would never suspect it. And even if they did, it would punish them… Oh, it would punish them.

  The spirit considered what course to take, and finally arrived at its decision. I will trick the land, it thought. I will cross the border as a child.

  Chaul lowered toward the ground and saw a girl playing by herself in the soil. Her light hair shone in the morning sun and flashed as she moved. She stacked colored wooden cups into towers while singing a song. The tune was irritating. It was tinny and child-like, so human.

  It whispered in her thoughts, Invite me.

  Her doll face looked up inquisitively, scanning around. She returned to her song after a moment, content as before.

  Invite me, it whispered to her again.

  Her tiny eyebrows raised in wonder as she glanced about the dirty clearing again. Little pudgy digits rubbed her toddler forehead.

  Chaul churned, irritated. It was so much harder to find a host this way.

  Ask me to come, the spirit whispered.

  Her face brightened, and she laughed, knocking over the cups. “Wanna come play?” she asked the air.

  ~

  Brenol could not raise his eyes to Arman. He could hardly breathe. It felt like the universe held his chest in its grip and was slowly tightening, crushing until he would no longer even be.

  Arman knelt at Brenol’s side. He placed a hand to the man’s forearm. “Bren, we cannot linger long. We must bury him.”

  Brenol shook off the arm in heat, but his inner fire sputtered out promptly. He peered across to Darse’s still body, then slowly about the campsite. It was a filthy muddling of snow and tracks and bracken. To lay his friend anywhere in this horrible ugliness seemed intolerable.

  “Not here,” he answered quietly.

  “Where?” Arman asked.

  Brenol was silent. Finally, he looked to the juile. “I don’t think…” The man’s voice trailed in despair.

  Arman nodded and straightened to a stand. He strode about with determination, but his olive hands trembled in their loose fists. After a brief circuit, he returned.

  “There is a softer piece of land, just around those trees.” Arman pointed in indication. “It will know sun but is sheltered from much by the stone mound just south of it.” His voice softened. “I think we can mark it easily so we may return when we please.”

  Brenol slumped silently.

  “Bren?”

  The man nodded.

  “Come.”

  Brenol touched the dead man gently upon the cheek. It was gaunt and surprisingly warm. The smell of burned flesh seared through his nostrils. “Darse,” he whispered in a choke. “Darse.”

  “Please, Bren. We must.” Arman moved to Darse’s head.

  Brenol dipped his chin in compliance and slowly worked his body aright. He moved to Darse’s feet to assist the juile. He collected the limp limbs, and the two hoisted the load up with a grunt. Darse’s dark eyes peered glassily out, and much of his salting hair fell away softly as the juile brushed against his head with chest and arms.

  Brenol dropped his burden and turned aside to vomit out what little rested in his gut. He heaved and racked, even when nothing more remained.

  Arman waited, but eventually just dragged the heavy body in a chest clutch, allowing the feet to trail in the snow and soil. He panted and sweated before arriving upon the chosen spot, where he finally lowered the blackening body to the ground. He touched Darse’s temple delicately and watched more hair sigh away.

  When Brenol joined him, Arman was burrowing a shallow trench using a few flat stones and thick slabs of bark. He had not made significant progress.

  “We won’t be able to dig a hole deep enough,” Brenol said softly.

  Arman jerked his head in a labored nod. “No. I realized that once I started.” He threw the chunk of wood in his hands aside, for even that had just snapped during his efforts.

  “I will stay with him,” Brenol said, peering down at Darse. “You could go find a shovel.”

  Arman shook his head emphatically and straightened from his work. “No. We must do this now. Now.” His eyes blazed with conviction. “The spirit knows us, or is a fool. We must move before the world meets its end.”

  Brenol swallowed and recalled Pearl’s words; yes, a gortei was a formidable oath. He could not forestall this task. He could not pretend reality away, no matter the anguish.

  “We will dig as far down as we can, bury him, and then stack the stones atop. It will keep the body safe. Later, we will have the extravagance of time and can move him to Veri if that is what you want. But now? Now we do what we must.”

  Brenol shuddered but set to work.

  ~

  The stones rose up in varying hues of slate and white to form a rounded mesa over the grave. The two had not marked the plot, deeming it unnecessary in the end; none would question the purpose of the mound, and it could be easily found again. Arman merely formed a triangle of rocks—a sign for the Three—to lay respectfully before the bed.

  Now that it was complete, Brenol stared ahead blankly and wished back the task. The bleary distraction of labor had numbed him from the ripping agony within. He wondered if he would ever breathe normally again.

  Arman reached into his soiled robes and slipped out his fentatta. He set the piece to lips without preamble, and its music carried out softly like birdsong. It was a morose tune, but lovely, that soared high and dipped low until Brenol’s face was a river of streaming tears. Darse would have loved it; he had ever been moved by beauty.

  The juile knelt before the mound and placed a dark hand upon the cold pile. Brenol crept forward and joined him.

  “Darse,” Arman began. His voice was laden with emotion but issued out with a flowing strength. “Orbits ago, you stepped in front of my house. I had no idea who you were or why you had come, yet it was but a breath before I saw benere bursting out of you. It wasn’t a weak goodness. It was hard and focused and alive. You were willing to battle all in this world to protect a girl you’d never met… There are few that walked as you did. You sought the right and the good, even at your own peril.”

  Arman drew in a slow breath and gazed at the mound of stones. “You’ve made the rest of us better. You made me better… And I thank you.” He dipped his head. “Would that this had been different,” he said softly. He prostrated himself flat in mourning, face resting in the soil.

  After a long silence, Brenol spoke. His voice was cracked and raw. The words emerged reluctantly at first, but soon they tumbled out with emotion. “Darsey. Oh, Darse. You… You were my friend, my good friend. You’ve always been there. Always.”

  Brenol paused, breathing. After a few minutes, he began anew, hoarse and soft. “Do you remember that time back on Alatrice? It was only a moon or so after that whole thing with Muzzie. I was so blind to anything but my loneliness and anger. I went out to Plantar’s Field and just stayed there. I’d had every intention of running and leaving Ma to trouble. But I kept thinking about you and couldn’t move past that wretched field. You were like a tether on me, calling me back. Calling me back to be better than that.r />
  “It only took one night before the wild drakies found and treed me. I was near dead with thirst by the third day and rattling from the cold. Up there like a bird without wings. I don’t know how you knew, but you did. You showed up ragged and tired, with a hind’s quarter draped over your shoulder. You threw it to the ground and beat those mean beasts back from the tree with stones. You’d even brought your hunting knife, but they didn’t bother us once they’d set to the meat.

  “Oh Darse, I couldn’t stop shaking. You climbed up in that tree with me and handed me an old warm shirt you’d brought. It was soft and smelled like you. And then you told me a story about your da. And let me drink from your pouch ’til I was nearly sick. And we watched the drakies rip that cut apart and snap at each other the way they do. Only after the last one had trotted off—I still remember him with fur as black as coal—did you climb down and help me out… It was then I knew for sure. You weren’t just my friend. You were my da, blood or not. You were my da.”

  Brenol paused, unable to speak between the heaving sobs. Finally, with streaming face, he whispered, “I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there for you this time. I wish I had been. So much. You’ve given me everything, and I wasn’t even there to say goodbye… I would have traded places with you if I’d been able. You were the best of men. The best in all the worlds. The best.”

  Brenol leaned forward to kiss one of the stones. His insides ached as he had never thought possible. “So goodbye, old friend. I’ll never forget you. Never.”

  Eventually, Brenol raised himself to a seat, but Arman remained prostrate. His frame had not moved. Witnessing the juile intensified his own grief but also somehow granted his heart the courage to muster action. Brenol reached out and took the juile’s hand.

  Arman drew himself from the ground and nodded. His face was grim and haunted.

  Together, they stood, and both intoned with whispers, “May death’s reins only lead you to greater heights in the next.”