World Whisperer

by Rachel Devenish Ford

  This time, she felt life stir in the water. The water creatures were waking from their poisoned sleep, and they helped her. She pushed her arms through the water again, and small, brilliant lights sparked along her arms, outlining her in light. The poison vanished; the water rushed back to life. Now the water fed life back into her, but she was exhausted. She had taken the poison into herself to pull it out of the river, and she had extinguished it, though she didn't know how. Her body slowed and stopped swimming entirely, turning to look up at the surface of the river, thinking, Come on, Isika, swim up there. But she had no strength left and she could only drift along with the current.

  She watched the light playing across the surface, which seemed very far away. Her lungs felt as though they would burst with the need for air. She couldn't move her arms, couldn't swim. Her mind was light and strange, sad and resigned. Then a dark shadow crossed the sunlit surface above her head and a giant shape crashed into the water. She saw an underwater version of Jabari reach down and grab her, just before everything went black.

  Jabari looked up from Ben and knew Isika was going to jump two seconds before she leapt. He lunged for her, but he was too late and he watched her dive perfectly, her body cutting the water like a knife. Fear and anger flooded into his body, shaking him from head to foot. He waited for her to freeze as she hit the water, the way Ben had. Then he gasped. Under the murky water, he saw her swimming, and where she swam, gold lights flashed behind her, clearing the water.

  Slowly the river shifted from dull gray brown to a light tea color. Isika surfaced and took a breath, then dove again. Jabari was speechless. He sat down to take off his boots, glancing back at the river repeatedly as he did so. He couldn't lose her in the water. The lights coming off her now were gold, blue, and green. The water started to move properly, like a river, with the light of the sun glinting off of it in flashes that blinded him. It was a fully healed river. But Isika didn't surface, and Ibba was crying.

  "Don't cry, little one," Jabari heard Gavi say. "She'll be okay. Look, Jabari is going to get her."

  It was the last thing Jabari heard before he ran and jumped off the river bank, tucking his body into a dive as he aimed at the place he had last seen her. He broke through the water and was shocked at the purity of it, like new water, freshly born from the mountains.

  There! She drifted near the bottom of the river, pulled in an undercurrent. Her eyes met his and he saw sudden hope in them as he reached for her. He grasped her arms and pulled, but now her eyes were closed and she was limp. He put one arm around her and under her arms to hold on as he swam to the surface with the other arm. She hardly weighed anything as he towed her along, breaking through to the air and swimming as quickly as he could to the bank. She was so thin, like a child, he thought, though she was fourteen. Fourteen! How could a fourteen-year-old poison-lander heal a poisoned river? And how had she done it, without a cleansing fire or a staff? She had used only herself—he had never heard of such a thing.

  He reached the bank and Gavi leaned over the edge to pull her up, quickly placing his hands just under her collarbone. She coughed as Gavi sent healing into her, willing the water out of her lungs. She vomited water onto the bank, then curled onto her side and was still. Ibba threw herself at her sister as Jabari wearily climbed out of the water. Gavi let the sobbing little girl hold onto Isika tightly. He put a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  "Don't worry, little one. She's fine. She's just very, very tired." He looked up at Jabari then, and Jabari saw more worry in his brother's eyes than he was letting on. Jabari walked to Isika and took her hands in his. They were cold, freezing, though the day was still sunny and the water hadn't been that cold.

  "Let's get her warm," Gavi said. Together he and Jabari lifted Isika from the soggy riverbank. Jabari scanned the area for a good place to camp while they waited for Isika to recover. His eyes landed on a smooth, flat grove, a little way upstream, with several tall trees encircling a small clearing, guarding it from the wind.

  "There," he said. "Ibba, stay with Ben until we get back to help him." With two of them carrying Isika, she seemed to weigh even less. Gavi frowned as he tried to avoid rocks.

  "Not feeding children is despicable," he said.

  "Just give them a while in the city and they'll soon be strong enough."

  "That's the thing though," Gavi said. "They're strong. Frail but strong. I can't imagine what they would be like if they were stronger. Scary to think of."

  Jabari looked down at Isika as they reached the clearing and laid her down under a river tree.

  "She will make a good ally," he said. He was still unsure, still hoping that's what she would become, still nervous that she could become a terrible enemy. If she did whatever she felt, what would keep her from falling away from the right way? He felt that he was understanding rules for the first time.

  Gavi pulled a blanket from his pack and spread it on the ground, then they carefully picked her up again and put her on the blanket, wrapping it tightly around her with another blanket on top for good measure. Jabari gently moved her braids out from under her head and tucked the blanket around her face. Like this, so still and seemingly small, it was impossible not to want to protect her.

  "How did she do it?" Gavi said.

  Jabari shrugged, looking at his brother helplessly. "I was hoping you would know."

  "I have never seen such a thing before, as you well know," Gavi said. "I worry for her, it's as though she drank the poison to drag it out of the river. She's freezing and in shock. Where are the Othra?" They turned to go back to Ibba and Ben and help them to the new camp space, and Gavi continued to mutter. "Why didn't they come when their precious children were in danger?"

  "No one knows why the Othra do what they do. They don't feel the need to explain to us."

  "What about you, Yab? Are you going to explain to these poison-landers? Are you going to tell them who we are?"

  It was the Othra who had told Jabari to keep their identities a secret, but he knew it was also a way for him to keep control as he warily led them through his land with little influence over what Isika did. She was too powerful and impulsive to contain, as they had seen again today. What she had done so far had been benign, but she was like a wild young eagle trying her talons out. She wasn't safe, and he didn't want to tell her all his secrets.

  "They'll find out soon enough," he said.

  "But they'll be walking into it blind," Gavi replied, his face downcast. He kept his voice low as they drew closer to Ben and Ibba.

  "I won't hold you back from telling them if you want to. But you'll have to deal with Nirral afterward."

  "No," Gavi whispered. "I'll follow the Othra's sense of it. But I think we know Isika well enough by now to know that she is going to be very angry."

  CHAPTER 19

  When Isika woke, she found that she was curled at the base of a tree, dressed in the tunic and pants Jabari had loaned her, but they were clean and dry. She blinked. The sky was dark. Through the branches of the tree above her, she saw the round, full moon. Somewhere nearby a fire crackled and the murmuring voices she heard told her the others were nearby. She stayed where she was, enjoying the feeling of dry, warm sleepiness. She reached one hand out to touch the tree, which was tall and white, nearly silver, with papery bark, and felt its deep energy humming through her, this one different from the others again. This tree felt like a long drink of water, and she realized at once that she smelled food and that she was incredibly hungry.

  She sat up. Not far away, her brother and sister sat with Gavi and Jabari around a fire. She stood, shaky for a moment, but stronger after she regained her balance. None of them were looking at her, so she startled Jabari when she approached. He looked up and jumped.

  "Isika!" He leapt up from the log where he sat and lunged around the fire toward her, crushing her in a hug. She was shocked, but was soon passed into Gavi's arms, and then she came face to face with Benayeem. They looked at each other for a long time. His
eyes were dark and serious in his face, wide-set in that way that was Ben, like no other person in the world. He smiled at her and she felt wonder as she looked at him. There was so much more to him than she had ever seen, more than had ever been allowed to exist in their lives before. She wondered what he would become.

  "Thank you, sister," he whispered.

  Ibba clung to Isika's waist, the little girl's head buried in Isika's stomach. Isika put her arms around her little sister and squeezed, then sat on the ground and pulled Ibba into her lap. She sat back and looked at the four of them, and they looked back at her with strange looks on their faces. Fear, awe.

  "What?" she demanded, and Gavi laughed.

  "She's still Isika," he said to the others. "I'm relieved."

  "I don't get it," Isika said. "You're all in on something I don't understand. What's so funny?"

  "It's not funny at all," Jabari said, his face earnest. "It's just that we haven't ever seen what you did before. I don't even really know what you did. But it looked like you took the poison out of that river with your body." He grinned. "That's not something that people do, at least not ones with legs and arms and heads. And especially not fourteen-year-old people."

  She frowned and stared at the fire. Somehow she didn't want to talk about what had happened under the water. She couldn't explain it any more than Jabari could, and it was like a dream from long ago, like something she shouldn't pick up and try to figure out, something she should leave in its proper place.

  "How long was I asleep?" she asked.

  Jabari and Ben exchanged a look. "Two days," her brother said.

  She sprang to her feet. "What? What are we doing, then? We need to go now!"

  Gavi laughed and shook his head, and Jabari grinned. "We're not leaving in the dark," Jabari said, "so settle down."

  "Why didn't you wake me?"

  He raised his eyebrows. "What makes you think we didn't try?"

  Slowly, she sank back down to the ground, and Gavi passed her a metal plate mounded with roasted fish, hot from the fire. It was delicious, but she thought she might cry over the lost time.

  "We're close now," Jabari reassured her, looking at her over the fire between them. The light danced on his face, and Gavi's beside his, and she felt a sudden swelling of connection. Everyone looked more beautiful in the firelight, and there was conflict within her. She wanted to get to Kital, but she didn't want to break up this circle of friends she found herself in. As much as she sometimes wanted to wipe the superior look off Jabari's face, he had become a true friend to her. She remembered his eyes just before he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her out of the river. She smiled, and he smiled back, almost as though he knew what she was thinking.

  "Close to the city?" Ibba asked in her high voice. She was picking at the bones of her fish, getting every tiny morsel off, the way they were used to eating, if they ever got something as special as fish, which was rare. Eating fish was for rich Workers in their village.

  "Yes, close to the city."

  "What's it like?" Ibba asked. She looked up from her fish bones, her eyes wide.

  "What do you think it will be like?" Gavi asked her.

  "I have no idea," she said, shaking her head so her braids swung. "I've never been to a city." She frowned. "I can't even imagine. Actually, what exactly is a city again?"

  They all laughed and laughed, until Ibba's frown started to turn into wobbling lips, and Isika stopped laughing and pulled her close.

  "A city is like a very large village," Isika told her. "But I don't know what this one will be like either. The only city I remember was in the desert, before we left. It had walls, big ones. This city has no walls, right?"

  Jabari and Gavi shook their heads firmly. "No," Gavi said. "Definitely no walls."

  In the morning Gavi made coffee and heated leftover fish. Isika paced while she ate, she was so impatient to get going.

  "Come ON!" she said to Jabari as he washed his face in the river water for what seemed like far too long.

  "You know we have one more stop on the way, right?" he asked as he fell into step beside her.

  "No, we don't. You're kidding," she said.

  "We do! But it will only take a minute, don't worry. We'll be in Azariyah by tomorrow evening."

  "A minute? Really?"

  "Well, a few minutes." Jabari swung his staff and tapped a few nearby rocks with it as he walked.

  "Where are we stopping?" Ben asked from behind them, and they waited a beat so he could catch up to them.

  "To swim in Lake Ayo," Jabari said. He caught the skeptical looks she and Ben gave each other. "No, seriously. You'll love it. We can't come so close to the lake without stopping."

  "What's worth it?" Gavi called from where he was walking with Ibba.

  "Lake Ayo," Jabari called back to him.

  "Oh yes, it's worth it," he said, nodding with energy. Isika sighed.

  They reached the lake when the sun was high in the sky and left the road to walk through a large stand of the same silver trees that had been near the river. The trees were so ethereal that Isika caught her breath, but she was annoyed at the delay.

  "It's already been a few minutes," she grumbled as they walked.

  "Isika, calm down," Jabari said. He turned around and looked at her. "You could trust me, you know. This has been a long journey and we can all use some rest. Do it for Ibba if no one else."

  He looked hurt. Isika realized he was trying to do a nice thing for them, and though impatience seethed inside her, she decided to hold it in.

  "Sorry. Let's go on," she said, trying out a new, soft voice.

  Behind her, Ben laughed. "Nice, Isika. But now you don't even sound like you."

  They came out of the trees to a wide stretch of rocks. Before them, a lake gleamed like pure silver in the sunshine. It was perfectly calm, reflecting the trees with their white trunks and purple leaves like a mirror.

  Ibba gave a little gasp. "It's so beautiful," she said.

  Beside her, Isika's heart beat faster. "It is," she breathed.

  "Wait till you get in!" Gavi said. He tore his clothes off until he was dancing around in only in a pair of shorts. "Last one in the water has to clean the cooking pots after lunch!" He ran off down the beach toward the water, splashing in until he was deep enough to dive under. Isika watched him in shock.

  "But he's afraid of water," she said to Jabari.

  "Not this water." Jabari said. He smiled at her. "Some of our neighbors call this the Lake of Healing, and swim on its other shore."

  Isika wanted to ask about these neighbors, but she didn't want to wash the cooking pots and she wanted to try the kind of water that could stop Gavi's fear. She stripped down to her underclothes in no time, racing toward the lake. Behind her she saw Jabari lagging on purpose, allowing Ibba to reach the water before he did. She grinned.

  In the last few days, Isika had swum in the sea, and she had waded through rivers, and in both of those places she had felt the life and energy of the living things within. This water was different. It was as though the water itself was alive, friendly, and loving. She sighed as she let her whole body sink into it, opening her eyes to see the clear, smooth stones at the bottom of the lake. Exhaustion and worry melted away. The boys rested for a while, then wrestled each other into the deep part of the water until Isika had to go take Ben's side, splashing Jabari in the face until he let go of her brother. Ben slung his arm around her and laughed at Jabari's face.

  "I'm afraid of the two of you together," Jabari said, his eyes glinting.

  "What about me?" Ibba asked from Gavi's shoulders. "Are you afraid of me?"

  "You are the most terrifying of all," Jabari answered, and she nodded proudly.

  "That's right," she said.

  After, they sat on the beach in peace as Gavi sliced a loaf of bread he bought from a shop on the roadside. "When there aren't walls to tear down, we have to buy our food," he had told them as he ducked into the shop. "We're always glad when ther
e are no walls, though."

  He had bread, and a little cheese, and the reddest, most luscious tomatoes that Isika had ever eaten. She narrowed her eyes at him. "There aren't any cooking pots," she said.

  He pretended to look surprised. "I guess I miscalculated," he said.

  "It's too bad," she said. "I was looking forward to watching Jabari wash them."

  Jabari looked up, his food already half gone. "I'm sure you'll get your wish. Gavi nearly always makes me wash up, unless there are people who leap in ahead of everyone and wash without taking turns."

  Isika was mildly shocked. She had been teasing, but with his words she realized that she had assumed that because she was the elder of only two girls, it was her responsibility.

  "Well," she said. "Now that I know, I'm never washing another plate." She stopped talking to eat. After swimming she was hungry with a perfect, roaring hunger that sharpened the incredible taste of the tomatoes. Around her, the others ate silently as well. They sat in a cluster on the rocky beach of the lake, their eyes all turned toward its peaceful expanse.

  "Why are there so many beautiful things here?" Isika asked when she finished her food, waving her hand at the lake before them.

  Jabari sat with one knee up, his arm resting on it. His eyes grew thoughtful as he looked at the lake, then at her.

  "Beauty is a gift from the Shaper. The Maweel have been charged to take care of the gifts, and to enjoy them." He shrugged. "So we do. We try, anyway."

  "What else are you supposed to do?" Ben asked. "And how do you know?"

  Jabari leaned over and picked up a smooth, white stone. He closed his long, brown hand around it, then opened it and looked at the stone, tossing it up and catching it. Isika kept her eyes on his hands, waiting for the answer.

  "The ways have been part of the Maweel for thousands of years, told by Nenyi to Kings and Queens through generations. Now we work with the memory of what we know, as well as what we can see."