Eyes in the Water (5 page)

The burden of guilt weighed visibly on the
shriveled figure. It rent Brenol’s heart. The young man eased down
slowly—still sore from his swim—to rest his haunches upon his
heels, so his own eyes might be more level with Preifest’s. As a
gesture of kindness, he extended his hand out, palm up. “I forgive
you. And accept your apology for all the upper world. May it be in
good accord.”

The gentleness of Brenol’s response made
Preifest’s face glow alive in surprise. “Brenol, I do not know if I
will ever be able to predict you.”

“Nor I you, Preifest.”

They both smiled.

Brenol paused.
Should I ask? I don’t know
if I’ll ever have another chance… What if—

“What is it, Brenol?” Preifest prodded
gently.

“I… It’s just… How’s this happening? And why?
Why are the maralane dying? Can’t something be done?”

The elderly lake-man lowered his lids as he
considered his words. “It is no disease. Nor is it a thing to be
solved… This is merely the fruit dropping and withering away.”

“But this is a whole species! This isn’t just
the changing of the seasons!”

“Brenol, you know the Genesifin—”

“But I’m not cowering behind it,” Brenol
interrupted. “Fate isn’t locked in. You must be able to
choose!”

The yellowing fingers lay motionless upon the
blue screen. The scene—Preifest included—was far too placid. Brenol
felt suddenly sickened.

“I do not choose the end of my people. But
acceptance can be embraced. Do I spend my last days in fury?
Fighting? Then fighting who?” The violet eyes flashed with the old
iron glint. “Dresden himself would tell you there’s ultimately no
disease. There’s nothing to be done. The land and waters are,” he
arched his back suddenly and grimaced in pain before continuing,
“changing. Some are given the ability to survive, others are
not.”

“But—”

“It is not for me to question.”

“
Why
?” Brenol asked sharply.

“The creature knows not the purpose or design
of the whole.”

“You’re going to tell me that the
gods
want you dead?”

Preifest smiled weakly. It was a small
gesture, a tight coupling of humor and fragility, but it tamed
Brenol slightly.

“The Genesifin—you read it, but I don’t think
you truly understood it.”

The young man bristled but then released his
stern face; the maralane was not intending insult. “I haven’t had a
lot of time to figure out what it means for Massada.”

Preifest’s eyes twinkled, and he seemed to
rest easier in the water. “Continue, tell me what you know.”

Brenol sighed. “I don’t understand much.” He
had not wanted to voice it aloud, but once the words left him he
felt lighter. “How do you know I am that foreigner? And who is this
Lady of Purpose? And why must the maralane end? And what is this
creature malitas? And this ‘Change’ the book speaks of?”

“I do not know what everything means in its
entirety. I don’t need to. I do not question the design of the
whole.”

Brenol’s jaw clenched tightly.
How can he
accept it all so simply?
“Who is the designer, then? How do we
even know whether he is good?”

Preifest’s purple eyes widened under his
arched eyebrows. “How can the creators of the waters be bad? No, I
think it is our vision that must be mistaken.”

The waters…
Brenol’s eyes stung as he
recalled the flowing waters healing Darse, healing Colette. He
remembered the soft heat that had burned in his heart every time he
had crept to Darse’s cellar to whisper out his burdens upon the
ever-welcoming waters.

Brenol could not seem to place words to his
questions about the mysterious Three.
How could gods who cared
enough to heal be so harsh?
He recalled standing before that
foreign statue in Trilau—a representation of Abriged, the Eye—and
felt the same bizarre tug in his gut.

“I don’t understand,” he finally said in
defeated weariness.

Preifest nodded. “I doubt any truly do. But
do know this: the maralane shall pass, and the worlds will go on.
The Change is already upon us and will lead to the Final Breath. A
Lady will guide the remaining people through the passing of this
age, and she shall make things right. But as to the details, it
will only be clear in hindsight.”

The young man’s shoulders slumped. He could
not deem whether Preifest’s words were true or not, for all felt
askew, but his protests died on his lips, and he gazed blankly out
to the horizon.

“Is it not so?” the maralane asked
genuinely.

Can it really ache and be right at the
same time?
Brenol asked himself.
Can we really not change
anything that’s happening?

Brenol glanced down, suddenly aware again of
Preifest. The maralane’s sharp look helped to draw him back to what
was before them.

“What can I do, then? What do you need,
Preifest?”

“You can lead your people. Share the
Genesifin in the way you think best.” He held up a webbed hand to
prevent any interruption. “I don’t know how or why you’ve been
given this position to carry the book. But it
is
yours
regardless. So help them. There is change coming—the Change. This
Age is closing, a new one is beginning. It is good, but they will
fear it. Show them it’s not to be feared. Help them.”

“And if I can’t?”

“Find someone who can,” he replied
simply.

“When…” Brenol began, but he found he could
not complete the sentence.

“As the Genesifin says, there will be a
shower of light in the skies the day after we have met our end. It
will mark our passing from this world.” He coughed roughly. “And
then the waters will be yours to protect.”

“But you’re certain it will happen?”

Preifest nodded. “It will happen.”

Brenol studied the lake-man. Bent and opaque.
Passing, but alive beyond measure. Failing, yet somehow
strengthening his own young heart. Preifest was no ordinary
creature: steel willed, loyal, honest. Brenol wished he could
muster a fraction of his stamina and courage.

The maralane extended his arm out, raising
his hand so Brenol could take the tiny object contained in his
clammy palm. Brenol’s fingers closed around it, but he could not
see through the tears flooding his vision.

“You have the waters. Use them.” Preifest’s
voice was gentle in spite of its hoarseness.

“Thank you, Preifest. For everything,” Brenol
whispered.

“In good accord.”

Preifest descended into the deep, ripples
pushing out gently. Brenol stared at the site, frozen. He knew the
leader was unlikely to be seen again by the upper world.

~

Brenol maneuvered along the edge of the lake
for the rest of the morning. The cave had spit him out much farther
north than it had on his original journey. He knew he was in the
lugazzi—the neutral lands between every terrisdan and surrounding
Ziel—and guessed it was most likely the patch beneath Brovingbune.
He would need merely to press around Ziel to reach the Pearia
River
.
From there, he would find himself in familiar
territory, even if he had not a single freg to his name.

The banks were easy traveling, aside from the
brisk chill, and the monotony of his footfalls led his thoughts to
hover more upon the encounter with Preifest than upon the scenery.
The conversation, and the emotions that accompanied it, played
again in his mind. Preifest’s words echoed loudly: “You have the
waters. Use them.”

Use them.

Brenol sighed, realizing he could no longer
ignore the advice. He left his path, pack, and sandals, rolled up
his pant legs, and stepped gingerly into the water.

He cringed at the cold, but not out of
discomfort.
Why is Ziel—the heart—growing cold? What does this
all mean?

“I’m afraid Colette won’t like me.”

The initial reluctance to speak diminished as
he experienced the water’s catharsis, and his tongue shifted
naturally to the heaviest parts of his heart. “I’m afraid of
failing her. Of failing Massada. Of failing the gortei
.
Of
failing the Genesifin. I’m afraid… I’m scared I might find the
nuresti greed again inside me… I left Ma and there’s nothing I
could ever do for her… She thinks I’m a traitor… I feel so alone…
The maralane are dying, and I can’t do anything about it…”

And like every previous time, he inhaled
deeply and found the thirst of his heart slaked and health and
peace restored. The waters lapped softly around him, and the sweet
nectar soaked into his soul.

With a clear head, he dug into his pocket and
removed the Genesifin. It barely weighed anything, yet it had taxed
him unbearably for orbits. He paged through until he found the
passage his mind had been seeking. There, in code, it lay:
The
maralane shall perish. They shall pass from land and lake. No more
shall their songs echo out upon the waters. Their beauty will be
but a memory.

Brenol skipped back a few pages, perusing
earlier code.
Malitas shall come; its shadow heralds the
approaching Change.
It will destroy much before the
end…

He frowned and flipped forward a few pages.
A foreigner shall call the peoples of the land, and they shall
be obedient as never before seen… Many will pass with the ending
tide of the maralane… Healing can only be achieved from the right
hands at the right moment…
He flipped several more.
The Lady
of Purpose will arise, ushering in the next age: The Time of the
Tindel.

Brenol closed the book with care and gazed
out thoughtfully upon the shining expanse of waters. They were so
beautiful, alight in the midday. Yet something drew his vision, and
he peered into the sparkling depths with a furrowed brow, trying to
make sense of the floating mass atop the brilliance.

His stomach lurched, aware even before his
cognizant mind. He flailed his way out deeper, and the icy waters
pressed at his heaving chest until he clutched the corpse and
dragged it back to the bank.

Even in death she was lovely, a tiny figurine
of perfection. She had small lips and features as symmetric as a
porcelain doll’s, and her crowned braids still had a golden luster.
The white arms were limp and cool; the green eyes, glassily absent.
Her tails drooped over Brenol’s strong arms. She looked about nine
orbits old.

He tenderly laid the body down upon the soil,
deliberating what course was appropriate.

If I bury her, will they be angry?

But I can’t leave her floating.

The thought of pushing her back into the
water like refuse was repellent.

No, I will bury her.

He brushed his hand gently across the child’s
face, gripped his nerves together, and set about finding objects
with which to dig. He found he could work only so long before
returning back to the girl to softly caress her cheek—he did not
want to leave her alone on the ground. Her glassy eyes stared
beyond him, empty.

After several hours of determined labor,
Brenol lowered the lake-girl into the hole. Her tiny figure barely
took up any space, and her milky-clear skin contrasted sharply with
the darkness of the pit. The scene perturbed him; she was not meant
to be clothed in earth.

Brenol knelt and removed the finger-smoothed
stone from his pocket. He placed it in her palm, squeezed it shut,
and laid her hand to rest upon her small chest.

“I held this ’til it brought me home,” Brenol
whispered to her. “You do the same.”

The wind bit at him, but he gave no
indication of notice. He refused to turn his eyes away from the
child. It ached terribly to look, as though he might snap under the
pressure of the bitterness, but he held himself captive
regardless.

Then, it was as though his old self fractured
and collapsed to the ground and a change rose up within him. He
found a determination to do his fate, to lead, to help. His spine
straightened with a foreign strength. His foal legs were no
more.

He would not be a boy, he would not be weak.
More so, he
could
not be.

He had grown into a young man on his first
trip here, but Brenol always remembered this moment, crouched
before the fish-child, as the one in which his whole person seemed
to accept his manhood. At her graveside, he found he was fortified
for the work ahead of him.

He kissed her cool forehead and began the
task of covering her diminutive body with soil.

There was no room left for adolescence; death
watched and waited.

~

Colette’s skin tingled as Veronia’s presence
flowed fast through her mind. Her soul soared with elation, and she
grasped toward the power as though it were her very life. The
connection had returned in sputters at times, and this last empty
span had been the longest one yet. But she brushed aside these
thoughts and threw herself into the joy of being one with the land
again.

You’re here!
Colette thought to the
terrisdan.
You’re back.

Veronia did not respond, but that was often
its way. She gave no heed to the silence and scampered through the
castle, already reaching forward in her mind to see if her favorite
garden nook was vacant. It would be nicely cool. Her dark hair blew
behind her as she raced out to the gardens. She felt alive and
free, like a little girl. Colette wound through the pathways,
breathing quickly in triumph, and eventually arrived.

It was a sheltered corner. A hedgerow cupped
the area, and two
julicara
trees provided shade. In early
summer, the towering giants saturated the space with the fragrance
of their indigo blossoms, but for now, the trees simply spread
lovely dark green life across the sky. A small wooden bench rested
in one corner, and a stone bird bath lay a few strides away.

Colette leaped forward and took a seat. She
absently rubbed her hand across the surface, her consciousness
leaning into the connection. Scenes from across Veronia whipped
through her mind—
children dancing in an open field at a
lifing-day celebration, a man kissing his daughter’s cheek, a
school of ruby fish swimming in the Pearia
—and her heart
thrilled.