The Land's Whisper

by Monica Lee Kennedy

  “Bren?” The question rang out as though it had been repeated several times.

  “Yeah,” he replied with a soft exhale.

  “Where is it? Where on the map? Do you know?” Darse bent over, studying Brenol more than the well-worn page.

  Brenol hesitated. He knew precisely where the house lay, yet guiltily longed to withhold the information to ensure his own journey. Brenol peered up, and Darse’s golden eyes gave him pause. The man was careworn and creased. His face long and gray, tight and thin. Nevertheless, Brenol shook off his scruples.

  “When do we leave?” Brenol’s fingers unknowingly clenched the paper.

  “Bren.” Darse’s voice carried a stern edge.

  “But Darse…” the boy whined.

  Brenol’s eyes pleaded in desperation. He felt such longing to finally accomplish something. All seemed to culminate in this moment. He had been forced to walk away from Veronia and the power that electrified him. He would never get it back, he was certain of it. He had failed in saving Darse. He had failed in saving Colette. He would always be second to Deniel in Colette’s heart. He had done nothing…but here, here was another alternative.

  I can be the hero. I can save them. This is the time. Now.

  Brenol could not help but picture Colette beaming, Darse’s proud face, Massada rejoicing. His deflated heart grasped at this irresistible desire. He pressed his eyes up to meet Darse’s but found his voice could only issue out a single word. “Please.”

  Darse took a single step back. His jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed, but then, as though a string had been cut, everything sagged and went loose in him. The anger died from the sharp eyes and he simply stood, watching Brenol.

  I get it. It’s so difficult to let go, Darse thought. He doesn’t know he’s more than all this—he thinks he’s only as good as what he manages to win here.

  After a minute, he asked in a low voice. “Bren, is this about you or about people who need to be saved? There’s no way you can move fast enough. We need to send people who can save the nuresti. A wolf sealtor can be sent out as soon as you reveal the location.”

  Brenol rattled with fury and frustration. He knew he must yield, for haste mattered most, yet perceiving as much only incensed him further. Everything! I give up everything. He did not speak, but his clenched fists and stormy eyes told enough.

  “Bren, you chose to let go of Veronia. You chose the right thing. You chose it…and you did fight Fingers. And you did help find Colette. You cannot be the perfect hero in everything. But even if you were, it still wouldn’t mean anything.”

  Darse held up his hand as Brenol began to interrupt in protest. “No. One can be a pretty awful person but still rescue others. And one can be a pretty good person and never accomplish much, at least to the naked eye.” He sliced his index finger through the air between them, jabbing Brenol’s chest softly. “There’s more in there than this. Remember. You chose to give up Veronia for Colette…before you even knew her.”

  The battle ended in the boy. The triumphant cries of jubilee drooped to nothing. The beaming Colette vanished. Brenol was left with himself. He remembered choosing to leave, but he remembered the sickening greed that had stewed within him as well. He remembered contending with Crayton and Fingers but also collapsing in the shed, leaving his friend to figure out the rest. He remembered stalking away with the intent to flee to Veronia and the guilt-ridden return each time. Yes, he saw himself. It was a cross between shame and pride, love and loathing. To simultaneously see the good and the wretched within oneself is a delicate and complex experience. He did not particularly enjoy it.

  Nonetheless, he extended out and very carefully placed a forefinger where the house from Deniel’s memory rested.

  “There,” he said. “There. This is where the nuresti are.” He searched the eyes of the umbus to register their comprehension. “Enter from the rotting box outside—it’s a staircase of sorts. Another secret passage is below. Look for the scuffs and the rug hiding it… The wall of metal boxes—that’s it. The nuresti are there. Six or so. Maybe more, maybe none… Open carefully…”

  Brenol buried his face in his hands. “Oh please let them still be alive. Oh, please.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Every race is unique, each terrisdan has a voice.

  -Genesifin

  The juile library was tucked away in an unlikely corner of Conch. A hollow tree acted as door, revealing fifteen steps descending smoothly into the earth and opening into a rough bolt-hole the size of a generous closet. In rare instances, it had been used for protection, but in recent orbits it had served mostly as a stash for important documents.

  Arman sifted through the stores of parchment. He had come to peruse the scrolls with prophetic words, hoping to glean something new about the maralane. Yes, he had already read them, but often knowing just a single fact, such as that the lake men were perishing, would open his eyes to new meaning in the text. His invisible fingers slid over lines until he discarded one paper for the next. His mind never stopped roving over the possibilities, applying new pieces to see how they fit in the puzzle. If it did not come today, it would tomorrow, or the next; his mind was a powerful tool, and he wielded it with severe proficiency.

  The air underground was stifling, but nonetheless it was a relief to be out from the keening blasts that had buffeted him the last few days of travel. He breathed in short bursts and focused his eyes in the dim light upon the scrolls and books.

  Arman furrowed his brow in abrupt surprise.

  It’s not here.

  He had not been searching for the scroll on Heart Render, but having sifted through the parchments, his mind had finally tapped his consciousness awake.

  The realization did not elicit despair, just a new question to examine: Why would someone remove it?

  This place was concealed, though obviously not impenetrable. Still, it gave pause. There were only a few who knew of the scroll and Heart Render anyway. The sword was not a topic for any but nurses and children. He and the line of protectors had ensured as much.

  Arman’s lips twitched in a grimace as understanding began to settle. He had nearly missed it, it was so subtle.

  This is not Jerem’s work at all. These ripples are from a different spider, he thought grimly. But who? Who?

  His mind continued its connections until he nearly choked upon his breath.

  The question is not ‘who’ but ‘what.’

  Terror coursed through his limbs and turned them rigid. The scrolls fell from his invisible fingers in a soft papery scrape as he raised his hands to his face and rubbed his shocked features vigorously. A cold pit settled in his gut. He had never felt this degree of powerlessness.

  Jerem and the deaths of the maralane were nothing beside the possibility of this nightmare.

  ~

  Brenol’s mind eddied and swirled.

  How many moons? How many since the memory? How many? Did Jerem return? Did Deniel return to save them? Did Jerem collect more? Are the nuresti aware? Alive?

  He could not focus or sit for long, pacing like a parent with a missing child. Shouldn’t have let them go without me.

  I’m going crazy, he thought, but he knew there had been no other option. Speed. Speed had been the sole need.

  I wish I had more memories. I wish…

  Brenol glanced up to Darse, settling down at the table for breakfast. The man nodded in greeting but did not break the silence. Darse ate. Brenol fidgeted.

  Once Darse had pushed his tray away, he looked inquiringly at the boy. “Bren, when did you first get this memory—the boxed nuresti?”

  Brenol’s features clenched with regret. “It was one of the first.”

  He eyed him thoughtfully. “What made it clear?”

  “Colette. She was asking me about a memory where she was in a box. She wanted to know what the other side of it, Deniel’s part, held.”

  “Do you know anything more than what you told me outside the House of the Dead?”
r />   “Nothing.”

  “It just seems so strange.”

  “What do you mean?” Brenol asked irritably. People in boxes is strange.

  “Why keep them? Why? He killed before when they weren’t needed. Why hoard them like a collection?”

  “He’s sick, Darse.”

  Darse shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe.”

  ~

  Within several days, the news arrived, sending ripples through every span of the healing dome. The nuresti had been found.

  ~

  They were brought in stretchered, bodies contorted. There had been seven total, but two were already dead in their black, square coffins. Four humans and one juile remained. They were emaciated, and their faces bespoke the nightmarish horror they had experienced. Most had been unconscious; their boxes had worked to somehow suspend bodily functions. They were the lucky ones. Two had been awake before the rescue. Their screams issued out hollowly from their shrunken figures, shrill and electric. An opus of suffering. Little, besides sedation, could be done to calm them, but the umbus were loath to continue the regiment of narcotics and so allowed the wide-eyed nuresti to remain awake, aware, and paralyzed by reality.

  Brenol was both repulsed and fascinated by the creatures peeled from the boxes. They had lived with the power of the connection and then the helplessness of the caged.

  How could they endure it? How can they get past it now? Do they know that I knew? That Deniel knew?

  He walked the gardens, hoping to make sense of it all, clicking away his thoughts in code. Colette would join him at times, though she maintained a shroud of silence. She had known the life of the black coffin too, and the more she studied the twisted souls, the more her memories solidified. It was a suffering she found too grave to speak aloud.

  She brooded through a dark string of her own questions. Did Den find me first? Or had he opened another box before me? Did he leave them to save me?

  So they walked and hoped the pain and guilt would ease. For them, and for all the nuresti.

  ~

  The speed with which the nuresti pushed themselves to regain mobility was astonishing, for within a mere septspan, they were pressing their soft muscles to walk in tilted gaits. Their weak frames paced the corridors like ghosts, pale and quiet and eerie.

  One morning, Darse had finished breakfasting and was returning from the dining hall. His mind stirred with plans to return Colette to her mother, and he barely gave heed to his surroundings. As he swept around a corner, he shouldered a wiry creature and stood aghast as it crumbled to the ground in a whimper.

  Darse immediately stooped with concern, gently grasping the elderly nurest by the arm to help him to his feet. Even aright, his back curved in an arch that refused to straighten.

  “I am so sorry. Are you hurt?”

  The salt and pepper hair shook as the man grimaced. “No. No.” He wiped his quivering hands upon his trousers and raised his chillingly gold eyes to Darse.

  Darse’s tongue parched to a cottony dry. Yes, the rumors of the yellow-eyed nuresti had met his ears, but the sight of this man was a nearly unendurable slap; he did not have to imagine the torture these people had experienced.

  “Perhaps I should ask if you are hurt,” the man said. He gazed with concern upon the blanched face of Darse.

  “I…” Darse glanced around the hallway. It felt so exposed, despite the absence of people. He spied a bench along the wall and moved to sit, resting his head in both hands. Finally, he looked up to the eyes that matched his own. “Jerem. He took your memories?”

  The grimace returned.

  “I’m sorry… I have to know… Was there another with him? A large man,” Darse paused to swallow, “who moved his fingers constantly?” He searched the wizened face for answers.

  “I think I will join you,” the nurest said softly, lowering his bent body to a sit. He sighed and stretched his contorted limbs out before him. “I like stretching,” he said to himself.

  Darse watched silently.

  The man raised his eyes to Darse. “I am Goneal of Brovingbune, or so I am told. What is your name?”

  “Darse.”

  “Darse,” he repeated to himself. “We do not know each other, do we?” The question was asked sincerely.

  Darse shook his head. Goosebumps lined his flesh.

  “I just would not have known, you see. I barely have a memory for each finger.” He held up his wrinkled digits in showcase. “At least of my life before…”

  Goneal inhaled as if steadying himself and continued. “I do not remember any other man.” He gazed upon the far wall in concentration. “Jerem did his work in Selet, I am told. Making the invisible visible. I remember an old barn, but that was brief. He had a room underground where he kept me. I was alone and it was dark. Yes, very dark until he would come down with his lantern. For days he would slice my mind apart.” He stopped as the words brought a choke to his throat. “But no, he was always alone.”

  Darse nodded, unsure if this was the news he wanted or not. It simply was.

  “Why do you need to know this?” Goneal observed him with obvious concern. “You are upset.”

  Darse nodded again and tried out his tongue, hoping the words would manage to come. “It… It happened to me too.”

  Goneal’s eyebrows arched up in surprise. “But not with Jerem?”

  “No. The same place though—barn, at least—if I were to guess.”

  Goneal pressed his thin lips together in compassion, patting Darse’s leg gently. “I am beginning to realize that yellow eyes are not common?”

  Darse laughed in wry surprise. “No, no. Not in humans.” He found the action eased the tightness in his own chest, and he began to breathe without constriction. Even his voice loosened and issued more naturally. “I thought I had healed from this whole thing. I thought I’d figured it out and was all right.” He shrugged.

  The golden eyes twinkled. “I’m glad to have met you, Darse. You see, I was wondering if there was any way to live without memory… But I see there is,” he patted him again, “even if there is occasional distress as well.”

  Darse smiled, but it twisted sideways as he pondered the vast number of memories this stranger had lost. He shuddered involuntarily.

  “—your answers.”

  “Excuse me?” Darse asked, realizing he had not been listening.

  “I hope you can find your answers.”

  The statement struck Darse as odd. “Do you not have questions?”

  The man pursed his lips in thought. “I think it is fairly clear why I was tinkered with and kept safe for later.”

  Darse raised his brow in question.

  “No?” Goneal lifted his thin hands in genial surrender. “Oh. Maybe it comes from knowing the man and living in isolation for innumerable days.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I think he—Jerem—was convinced he could remove the nurest abilities.” The man snorted. “I don’t remember much, but even now that seems idiotic.”

  Goneal nodded with a pained expression. “Yes. Chilling. I would guess he was determined to rule over the entire land. If he could figure out how to steal from one nurest, he had all of us boxed away to dissect later… Had he succeeded, Massada would have been his without qualification.”

  “Oh,” whispered Darse. While he had known that Jerem was collecting nuresti, the extent of the man’s long-term plan made his heart drop. What they had stopped was far beyond the torture of a single girl.

  Goneal shook his head with misty eyes and said softly, “Thank the Three he’s dead. Thank the Three.”

  ~

  The company slowly grew stronger and healthier. The brittle frames fleshed out gently under the natural medicines of movement and nourishment, and the haunted faces colored under the kiss of the hete sun. A hope seemed to balloon in the soladrome; healing had begun.

  ~

  The warm day had ushered in a comfortable evening, and Brenol was out walking with Colette. The stars had just emerged with a mer
ry sparkle, but he could not make his quiet heart match their ebullience. He walked silently and aimlessly, eventually finding himself with the princess at the Davoc’s bank. The air was filled with the first summer’s fragrances of grass and pollen and lavender. Brenol sucked it all in: the sweetness, the vitality, the freshness.

  Colette glanced sideways at him. Her face was tight and her insides knotted. She waited momentarily until decision marked her features. She released Brenol’s hand, and he looked to her questioningly. Without a word, she picked up her skirts, left him, and waded into the water. Colette eventually resigned the battle and let the fabric fall from her hands, continuing to move out to the depths until she was clothed up to her waist in its dark blanket. The river was calm, as it tended to be this time of the season, and Brenol watched her wordlessly, taking in her every motion. She began to whisper, and while it was faint, Brenol heard every word.

  “My time in the box…when I would wake and shake from fear… That I was saved but they were left… Jer-Jerem’s hands… Deniel dying…” Her voice choked, but even in the midst of speaking she stood taller. “I feel so alone… I wish I still had my da… I’m so scared of seeing Ma after all this…”

  The water erased time. There were no longer minutes, seconds. Time was now the soft current and eddy that flowed around her. She breathed, occasionally whimpered, and continued speaking, but above all drew in the life of the moving waters.

  It was an hour, maybe more, before she picked up the folds of her dripping garments and left the water to scramble up the bank. Then Brenol saw it. Her skin shone. It was dim, but she emanated light like her mother. Brenol waited silently, his eyes as wide as an owl’s.

  She dropped her skirts from her pruned hands, allowing them to smack against her wet knees and calves. She scooped his hand into her damp one, leaned her head against his shoulder, and spoke tranquilly, “Thank you for waiting. I feel much better.”

  Brenol’s tight shoulders eased fractionally. He smiled gently. Somehow, he himself had found relief, as though her new health had seeped into his own person. His heart glowed in a soft comfort, and he was thankful.

  “In good accord,” he breathed. “In good accord.”