World Whisperer

by Rachel Devenish Ford

  "What?"

  He shook his head, a frown on his face, and he was lost in his thoughts for a moment. "Sometimes they come when we need extra help, or when something important is happening. I've never seen them behave this way. I'm not sure if you saw, but they pretty much commanded me to take you to the city."

  "Oh. You didn't want to?" She felt her shoulders stiffen.

  He laughed. "Don't be so prickly. I just had never encountered a situation like… you… in my whole life. I didn't know what to do. It helped to have their approval. If nothing else, I can blame them if the elders are angry."

  Isika bit her lip. She was being prickly. He was right. "Not used to thinking on your feet?" she asked, stealing a glance at him and trying to relax her shoulders.

  Jabari's mouth dropped open. "Are you teasing me, Isika? You do have a sense of humor. I wondered if you even knew what a joke was."

  She smiled and changed the subject. "Are there more Othra? And why do I feel the way I do? Stronger every day? Do you know?"

  "There are others, yes. But not many of them take notice of us. They stay in their mountains and do whatever it is that they do. These three have always been part of life in the city. And as for your other question…"

  He trailed off, lost in thought again. Isika watched his face until she tripped over a tree root, thus making up her mind to pay more attention to her feet. It was a while before Jabari spoke again.

  "Well, it's to be expected," he said. "The same thing happens to the rescued ones. The poison is washing out of your body, and as it does, you begin to feel better. I'm a little confused because it usually takes a lot longer for the poison to leave. You've been out of the Worker village two days?"

  Isika felt as though they had been away a month but as she thought it through, she realized he was right. Yesterday they had met Gavi and Jabari in the morning. The day before, they had rowed after Kital. Yes, it had been two days.

  She nodded slowly. "What do you mean by poison? Why do you use that word so often?"

  "The poison is from the Great Waste: demon magic trying to destroy the world. It appears in many ways, but one way is in the growth of the walls. The poison is so strong that those within the walls can't see that they are poisonous. They keep others outside of their walls more and more until the walls form their identity." He glanced at her. "Some even believe the walls are sacred."

  Isika blinked at him. He had just described their way of life and named it poison, demon magic. His face was full of pity. He looked away, tilting his head. She really looked at him, noting how straight he stood when he walked, his wide shoulders, the sweep of his jaw up to his ear. She frowned and at the ground. She didn't want to stumble again.

  "We need each other, Isika," he said gently. "Mugunta, the Great Waste, wants us to die separately, to be suspicious of each other, to demand money for normal services to one another, to rob us of love. Why do you think your people cast their own children away? It's because of poison."

  "They cast them away because of the demands of the goddesses," she said slowly.

  "The goddesses are manifestations of Mugunta, our name for the Great Waste," he said, that anger back in his voice. "They are made of the poison, they are demons. No one should ever cast away something as precious as a child."

  She shook her head to clear it.

  "Who is Mugunta? What do you mean, the Great Waste?"

  "Mugunta is the cause of a baby crying in the night with no one to hear, a man without a home, people who live close to one another with no kindness between them. Mugunta and the Great Waste eat the hearts of people, they feed on fear and suspicion. They hate the Shaper for his beauty. They are disharmony and greed. They are the beginning of evil, those who eat light and spit out blood. And they do it through poison, because if they tried to do it through force, they know people would rebel."

  Isika was stunned. Jabari paused, then went on. "You honor the walls. Where do they come from?" he asked.

  "They—they just appear. They are gifts from the goddesses."

  "To separate you and keep people out of each other's homes."

  "Yes. A family's ground is sacred," Isika said, more firmly than she felt.

  "And who tells you these rules, Isika? That you cannot look at one another or enter one another's houses?"

  "The priest shows the way." Isika's voice was less certain as she spoke of the things she had always struggled with.

  "Where does the priest hear about the way?"

  "I—I don't know."

  Jabari's voice was gentle. "The rules come from Mugunta. He has a thousand ways to spin hatred. All the lies and tricks to keep people away from one another spill out of the evil that lives in the Great Waste. That evil is poison. And I think most of your rules come from one of Mugunta's most loyal servants, the Desert King."

  Isika blinked. "Who?"

  Jabari started to answer, then shook his head. "That's for another time."

  Isika frowned at him, thinking over her life. Oddly, she wanted to protect the village she had run from, but when she thought about it, she couldn't understand why she had this protective instinct. She looked deeper. Something was prodding at her, making her uncomfortable with condemning the Workers as people who were lost to poison. She saw it then. What she really wanted to protect was her mother's choice to live among the Workers. And she wanted to protect people like Jerutha, who were kind and good. But being poisoned didn't mean that Jerutha wasn't kind and good, Isika realized as she worked through it. It only meant she was… poisoned.

  Isika thought about the way she had trouble learning to avoid eye contact, and how she had always thought people's eyes were so beautiful, even though she wasn't supposed to look into them. She realized that she believed Jabari. She believed that she had been poisoned and that the seekers needed to rid the land of poison. She wanted to go back to her village and do it right then.

  "Why don't you come and tear down the walls of the Workers?" she asked. Jabari looked shocked.

  "We can't do that! We tear down walls that have begun to grow in our own land, not in the lands of others."

  "But they need you."

  "They have to want help," he said. "Otherwise it would begin a world of trouble; they would fight us and there would be war."

  She thought about that. They certainly didn't seem like they wanted help, but that was because they didn't know they were poisoned. Surely if they knew they were being poisoned, they would want help.

  "Does the poison come quickly?" she asked. "Are you always… patrolling?"

  "We call it seeking. It does come quickly. Maween is large, so we can only visit each place once a year, and we always have walls to tear down." He glanced at her, which she saw, because she was looking up at him as he spoke. His eyes were serious, and he considered her for a moment. Isika tried to remember to pay attention to where her feet went. Her pants flapped gently around her legs. She felt her new energy with every step. He went on speaking.

  "We had a queen once," he said. "The elders say that when she was with us, the poison was so slow that the Maweel could take care of it themselves and no seekers were needed. But she was stolen, kidnapped, over thirty years ago. Ever since then we have to send the seekers to take down the walls. We still look for her." His voice changed. "It's why I became a seeker; I have taken a vow to find her myself." Isika glanced at him, surprised by the passion in his voice. His fists were clenched.

  "Why was the poison slow when the queen was with your people?"

  "It was in my grandparent's time. My father was ten years old when the queen was taken. But that's a question I shouldn't answer. You'll have to ask one of the elders when we get to the city."

  Isika wanted to protest, but when she looked at him, she saw his set face and kept quiet. They walked in silence for some time. The jungle was thick on either side of them, exploding with plants that waved in the slightest breeze, and bursts of sound when small birds sang into the day.

  "You've mentioned t
he elders a few times," she said finally. "Who are they?"

  "They watch over the Maweel. There are many elders, but four main people, who used to advise the queen. Now they run the land."

  With a flurry of air and leaves, Nirral swooped down and brushed Jabari on the head with the feathers of one wing. Jabari jumped.

  "What?" he asked, coming to a halt because Nirral landed on the ground directly in front of him

  "You know, young one," the bird said. "Sing."

  CHAPTER 12

  The two female Othra landed and stood beside the larger male bird. Nirral spoke again, the words reverberating in the space between the travelers as well as inside of them. "You know the answer to her question, young Jabari," he said. "You must sing her the song."

  As Nirral spoke, calm descended on Isika and she heard a strain of haunting music. She looked up, but nothing was there. The sky was empty and blue.

  "I can't sing it," Jabari said, shifting his feet and looking uncomfortable.

  "You can," Gavi said, reaching out to punch Jabari lightly. They all stood in a messy semicircle around the Othra. "Sing, choir boy."

  Jabari glared at him. He rubbed at the short, tight curls on the back of his head. Efir clattered and growled, spreading her wings to their full span, and Jabari sighed.

  "Fine," he said. "But you had all better find a seat, because it's long."

  They settled themselves on the ground, leaning against tree trunks beside the path. Ibba sat against Isika's knees, and Isika reached out and stroked her sister's hair. Ibba squeezed her hand in return. Jabari stood before them, straight and tall. The sun dappled his skin with the shadows of leaves. He was handsome. The afternoon was hot and humid and Isika thought sleepily that the Maweel could make him their king if they were missing someone to rule them.

  Nirral began a long haunting call, exactly like the music Isika had heard moments before. The other birds joined in. The hairs stood up on the backs of Isika's arms, but she still wasn't prepared for what happened when Jabari began to sing. He stood with his eyes closed and sang to them. His voice was more beautiful than anything she had ever heard. But the song was a lament, and it brought tears to Isika's eyes.

  Black as beloved night, eyes like stars,

  Her smile the sudden glimpse of

  a crescent moon.

  A line to the Uncreated One,

  a thread into heaven's heart,

  Tied to the whirling sky,

  the planets, the stars, the mountain peaks.

  Protected by her love

  The Shaper's hand among us

  Light all around us

  we were brought in and encircled

  Loved and surrounded

  From her belly sprung

  A child of light and promise

  A child strong from the first

  Their love the sun rising

  The sight of them love itself

  But hearts break and the Great Waste

  Moved against us

  Thieves, they wanted her,

  They took our queen

  she was gone and her baby with her

  we wailed to the heavens,

  but the grasp of the cruel was strong,

  the Great Waste didn't give her up to us.

  Still we search,

  Still we search

  Still we search.

  As he was singing, Isika closed her eyes and images flashed through her mind until she was immersed in unfamiliar scenes. She saw the queen, crowned, tall, and austere, in robes of deepest red, a baby in her arms. She heard her singing a song to her baby. Then, a crack in the earth, a dead tree, black against the sky, men on horseback, swirling dust, the crown falling to the ground, a great shriek. She saw a dark-skinned king with a thin silver circlet on his head, falling with an arrow to the chest. The dead tree again.

  When she came to herself, she found that she was crying. She wiped her face quickly, with the back of one hand. Jabari was watching her. Isika felt as though her heart was broken. She couldn't understand the strange emotions coursing through her, how she felt so desperate over a song. Jabari and Gavi were frowning at her. She looked at Ben, and he raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

  "What?" she said.

  "How do you know it?" Jabari asked.

  "How do I know what?"

  "You were singing the song," he said. "You sang it with me. Where have you learned it?"

  Isika didn't know what to say. For one thing, she hadn't known she was singing, so lost in the swirl of images around her, and for the other thing, she didn't know the song. She had never heard it before, just now, here, with Jabari's voice soaring over her. She shook her head.

  "I don't know," she said. "I don't know any of this." She stood, needing to move away from watching eyes and escape the deep sorrow she still felt after hearing the song. "I need to run," she said. "I keep straight on this path, right? Let me go ahead, I'll run for a while and then stop to let you catch up."

  Jabari frowned, glancing at Gavi. "I don't think that's a good idea," he started to say, but he stopped at a sudden clicking from Nirral.

  "Let her go," Nirral said, "we will follow the young one to watch her." The feeling he sent with his words was unbelievably kind.

  Isika ran, and rather than growing tired, she gained more strength. The path seemed to help her spring forward, and the trees rushed by, the deep forest trilling with birdsong on either side. She felt angry and sad, even a little hurt from the look on Jabari's face when he had demanded to know how she knew the song. Isika didn't know how she knew. How was she supposed to know anything? This wasn't her land, she was a stranger here. He was supposed to be the one with all the understanding. The Othra had called him to guide the three of them. She had not asked for any of this.

  She grew angrier, shrugging off the memory of Jabari answering her questions so patiently. Instead she focused on the look on his face, laughing at her because she didn't know the ways of this land. He was nothing like the beautiful queen she had seen as he sang. Fresh despair nearly overcame her as she again saw the queen taken, and she ran faster, as though she could outrun it. It was a different day, she told herself. It was a long time ago. The sun was bright, the sky was blue, and she wasn't tired. Slowly, her mind began to calm as her feet took her along even faster.

  The landscape changed abruptly, and she slowed her pace. She had come to the end of the deep jungle forest. The path broke out at the top of a long slope, leading into what looked like farmland. The view was breathtaking; green and golden fields stretching out on either side of the road into blue hills on one side and the line of sky on the ocean side, though she couldn't see the water from here. In the distance, a small farm nestled between two fields, surrounded by cows.

  Something pulled on Isika the way the tree had tugged her, back at the beach. She shivered and surged forward, her legs flying, the wind rushing past her. The air and the sky fed her energy, the road beneath her feet sent her flying. She ran faster than she had ever run before. Dimly, she could sense the Othra flying high overhead, calling to her. Still she ran. She ran until she reached the farm and recognized where the sharp tug was coming from.

  Around the house stood a thick wall, much taller than the one Jabari and Gavi had torn down. For a moment she stood contemplating it with wide eyes, recognizing that she was possibly out of her depth. But the pulling inside her was strong and impossible to ignore, and as she looked at the wall, a deep rage filled her, a swirling, seething feeling that came from somewhere far inside her. It rushed over her until her eyes and toes tingled with fierce anger.

  She attacked the wall, grabbing it with her hands, pulling at it until it crumbled and disintegrated beneath her fingers. Again and again she reached out, pulling stones down, ripping the wall to pieces. It changed to dust before her eyes and before long the house was exposed to the road. She kept on, she didn't know for how long, until it was nearly gone. As she reached the last side and pulled the final part of the wall to pieces, sh
e heard shouts.

  Dimly she saw Jabari beside her as she pulled the last piece of wall down. He was screaming, with Gavi, Ibba, and Ben behind him. Ibba was crying. At first she saw them as though through water. Gavi grabbed large handfuls of his hair and looked around wildly. Isika began to come out of her trance of destruction, and slowly she understood what Jabari was saying.

  "The wall was too big! They'll die! What are you doing, you stupid girl? What kind of demon magic possessed you?"

  He rushed toward the house and pounded the door open without waiting for an answer. Isika followed, leaping over toy-strewn steps. Inside, there was madness. A man lay twitching and groaning on the bed while his wife screamed and hit her head against the wall. Two small children sat staring into nothing. Isika was horrified. This was the poison sickness Jabari had spoken of? It was terrible.

  She watched as Jabari quickly went to the man and lay his hand on the man's head. Gavi followed and did the same with the woman, but nothing happened to either of them and they continued to groan and scream. Jabari turned to her, his face twisted with rage and sadness, tears running down his cheeks.

  "Do you see now, Isika? This is what poison madness is. When the wall is that far advanced, you can't take it away without an advanced healer. The people feel unprotected. They go mad inside."

  Isika barely heard him. She felt another pull, a fizzing inside her chest. This time, instead of rage, it was exquisite warmth, like being filled by hot tea or climbing into a bath on a cold day. It felt like her mother singing to her.

  "Let me try," she said.