Eyes in the Water (8 page)

Realizing what was happening, Deniel flung
himself down to the earth and belted out a warning cry, hoping the
guards would be near enough to react. His cold and stiff ankle
rolled with the impact, and an intense pain launched through him.
Jerem, not realizing his opponent’s injury, drove his blade into
his companion and bolted.

The stranger crumpled into a heap upon the
ground.

No!

Gingerly, he scooted toward the fallen man,
already in a warm puddle of his own dark crimson. Seeing the
stranger’s empty face, he knew he need not check for a pulse. His
fate was evident. Deniel cursed.

The guards approached. He yelled directions
to them and they dogged their way off swiftly into the wood,
leaving him cradling his foot with regret and fury.

After a moment, Deniel returned his
attention to the lifeless stranger. A knife protruded from his
chest, teased down at an angle from the pectorals into the heart.
Deniel pulled it from the bulky flesh, and more blood flowed out
like red silk. Deniel examined the still-warm blade. It was curved
like a crescent and extraordinarily sharp. The smooth silver
sparkled in the light of the fingernail moon.

“
I’m sorry, stranger,” Deniel whispered.
“I should’ve jumped sooner.” He exhaled gravely and forced his mind
to task.

What was Jerem after?

The young man methodically examined the
victim’s shirt pockets. He lifted the fabric to peer at the body.
The soft pink-white flesh spoke of indulgence.

Nothing.

Deniel painfully crept around the corpse and
spied an object partially concealed by a nearby bush. Grimacing, he
ducked down and grasped hold of a soft gray pouch that was
splattered with fresh blood. He placed it in his own pocket,
indifferent to the crimson stains, and moved back to the fallen
man. He removed the shoes and found a few freg hidden beneath the
stinking feet. Deniel left them. Nothing was in the pockets of the
pants.

But the hands. A small article rested in the
curved and lifeless hand. He plucked it out and stashed it away
with the pouch. Carefully, he re-shod the body and hobbled his way
back to the light.

It was some time before the guards returned,
crestfallen. An alert was sent out across Colonastra: Tall man,
blonde hair. Jerem of Conch, murderer.

Deniel directed them to the stranger’s body
and gimped his way to the rooms he had been assigned to for his
stay. Bountifully, they were not far.

It was only when he was alone that he pulled
the pouch out for closer examination. It contained a journal that
soon enough betrayed its owner. As he read, horror etched itself
into the creases of his face.

This man is more monstrous than I
thought.

Deniel pulled the other item out from his
pocket—still sticky from the dead man’s palm. It was a small glass
figurine of a maralane, intricately crafted with shimmering green
tails and opals for eyes. He had never seen one but knew it
regardless: it was a
hos,
a plaything for a maralane
child.

What would this awful man want with a hos?
he pondered.
And who would have given it to him?

Brenol opened his eyes to the world again.
Arman was back in the river, perusing the Genesifin. As the young
man sat up, the movement caught the juile’s vision, and he fought
his way out of the tugging waters.

“You get to tell first,” Arman said with a
small smile.

“I need a drink.” It was only after many
drafts of cool river water that the pounding in Brenol’s head
lessened enough for his thoughts to regain sense. “I haven’t had a
new memory in over an orbit. I’d thought they were done. And the
headaches—I got them more when they first began. Ugh.” He cradled
his head with the gentleness usually reserved for newborns.

“How long was I asleep?” he asked. But before
he heard a response, darkness smothered him, and he fell
unconscious again.

~

Brenol awoke to the sound of clicking,
although it was not the cause of his jolt into consciousness. A
full bladder was. After fumbling into the bushes to relieve
himself, he returned to the campfire to find onyx eyes greeting him
eagerly. The night was well into its course, and both full and
crescent moons glowed in the dark heavens. His head throbbed, but
still the beauty did not escape his eye.

“It’s bountiful to have you return.”

“Bountiful indeed,” Brenol groaned.
“How—”

“Not long. This is the following night. We
met yesterday.”

“Oh.” Somehow, words seemed ineffectual. Or
perhaps that was his brain.

Arman ignored his slowness. “The memory. Did
you discover anything?” He spoke evenly, but his body was as taut
as a fiddle string, and his fingers clenched his worn beads.

Brenol nodded, but his mind still reeled.
Do I speak? Do I—

“Bren.” Arman’s voice steadied him.

Yes, he will know what to do,
he
thought. The young man massaged his temples, wishing the pounding
would ease, and began. “Jerem was given a poison. He had a
poison…”

Massada seemed to wilt around him at the
whispered truths. Arman waited, patient now. He loosened his
fingers, and his beads fell into transparent sight. They were gray,
and orbits of use had smoothed and patterned them until they looked
like smeared storm clouds.

“Jerem got it from a man he murdered. I don’t
know when.”

“Who was he going to poison?” Arman asked
with the confidence of one who has already defeated the enemy, but
Brenol knew that four orbits had not distanced them enough from
Jerem’s evil. No pleasant image of Colette’s tree would amend the
true disaster before them.

Brenol took a breath, and the words spilled
out. “The maralane. Jerem wanted to rule over Massada. He feared
being stopped—and knew the maralane would be the ones who could do
it. He wrote in his journal that he would make the maralane suffer.
Oh, Arman, and now he’s killed the world… Killed it.” The last came
out muted, as if a secret he whispered to the shadows.

Arman’s pupils constricted. “Tell me. How do
you know?”

Brenol relayed the memory: the twisted
journal Deniel had read, the knowledge that Jerem had been given
unimaginable power. A poison strong enough to destroy so much. And
now…and now…the maralane were dying and so were the terrisdans.
This could be the only explanation for the lands’ alterations, for
why they felt so asleep.

And this must be the reason why I was
compelled to pledge gortei. To save the terrisdans from Jerem—dead
and alive.
Brenol sagged in despair.
Colette’s tree?
Deniel’s obsession over her queendom? No, I was a fool for thinking
of them. The darkness is upon us. And it’s no child’s tale.

Arman did not react. He breathed steadily,
his half-visible chest filling and releasing. His frame remained
seated and erect. Eventually, he swept his left hand into the folds
of his cloak and removed a small wooden pipe—his
fentatta
.
It was a faded and rusty red now, but orbits previously it had
likely been a vibrant garnet. Brenol was mesmerized, and not simply
from the bizarre apparition of objects that occasionally happened
with Arman. Arman raised the piece to his lips and began. He played
his instrument masterfully, with the juile movement and rhythm that
coursed in his veins. The pipe’s sound merged between a recorder
and an oboe, yet the piece was constructed with both holes and
slide. It methodically twisted and sang under Arman’s sure fingers.
The song, slow and sweet, ended as mysteriously as it had begun,
and the same deft hand tucked the instrument away for another
unlikely moment.

“I needed to wash my thoughts away,” he
explained softly.

“I still do,” Brenol replied, queasy despite
the song.

Arman nodded and flicked his index finger in
the direction of the river. He rose, and the moons’ light painted
his half-present frame an ethereal yellow. Brenol sighed and
followed.

Why do I have such reluctance when I know
it’ll help?

He let the thought go, removed his footwear,
dipped his feet into the numbing cold, and whispered his burdens
out, allowing the sweet water to wash everything downstream. The
knot untied, the load released.

All felt right again, and he suddenly felt
that the nail biting could cease. He stood for several minutes in
silence, numb from his calves down, and allowed his mind to
settle.

All will be well. Somehow.

Brenol inhaled and stepped gingerly amidst
the stones. He plucked up his sandals and looked expectantly at the
juile.

“Now, we plan,” Arman said, placing his
sturdy hand on Brenol’s shoulder.

It was reassuring to have a friend so
capable, so alive, so determined to do right.

“Is this poison what is destroying the
maralane?” Brenol asked. “Because Preifest seemed to think it was
just the way fate was working.”

“The maralane are keenly observant. There is
no possibility that they did not know of the poison, even though
they never spoke of it to the upper world.” Arman nodded, as if to
attest to the truth of the statement. “Yes, if Preifest did not
tell you that the poison was the cause, it is not. There is no
reason for him to conceal anything for Jerem… Now, the Genesifin
indicates that there has been a spiraling of negative events at
work for many orbits. It makes me think that the maralane were
passing before, and perhaps Jerem simply accelerated the process.
Like a mild sickness touching the elderly. I think there are at
least two pieces at work now.”

Brenol gnawed on his lower lip. “Fate and
evil?”

“Precisely.”

Arman’s eyes sparked in sudden recollection.
“There was a time, shortly after you left, when the fish population
seemed to recede. But it was a mere orbit. Then they flushed back
and everyone forgot about it.” The juile met Brenol’s gaze
unflinchingly. “They must have been hardy enough to endure.”

“How can Jerem have thought the land would
not be affected?” Brenol asked. “It seems too great an
oversight.”

“Poisons can target certain peoples, if made
accordingly. Perhaps he had targeted such a specific aspect of the
maralane that he did not even ponder the possibility of the poison
affecting the land.”

“Do you think Jerem ever made an
antidote?”

Arman’s face was ugly and somber in the
darkness. “I doubt he would even consider it. He cared only for
himself. And power. The maralane have always been sentinels,
watching over Massada and its destiny. They would never have
allowed him to rule the world.”

“Arman?”

The juile met the young man’s apprehensive
glance.

“Did we kill Massada when we stopped Jerem on
the isle? Would we have been able to know of this sooner if we’d
somehow kept him alive? Could we have stopped the poison long
ago?”

Arman shook his head. His face was severe.
“Do not even unwind that string of thought, Bren.
He
was the
one choosing evil, not us.” The juile sliced his hand forcefully
through the air. “We are not to be blamed for this.”

Brenol nodded, recognizing the truth in the
words.

After a moment, he spoke again. “There are
indications in the Genesifin of the land meeting possible demise
too. Could this be the same thing you suggest? That the lands were
already faltering…and this sped it up?”

Arman nodded, considering the words. “It is
very likely.” He shook his head. “I feel something hinting within
me that poison is at work in the terrisdans, even if that is the
case. So I am not ready to abandon attempts to help our world
yet.”

Brenol felt his stomach calm in acceptance.
“Can we at least stop one—the death of the maralane or the
poisoning of the land?”

The juile frowned, but spoke compassionately.
“Bren, I doubt there is anything to be done about the maralane.
Yes, I will speak to them and offer help, but I think there is
little the people of the land can do. If there is health to be had,
they will find it themselves. They are a discerning and skilled
people. They know better how to care for their kind than we ever
could.” His gaze was strong and clear. “But as for the poison
harming the terrisdans? We will try. I have hope that since the
poison was not intended for the land we will be able to stop it. We
must. Somehow.”

Brenol felt that spinning arrow within twang
powerfully as it reached the bull’s-eye.
No matter the
cost.

Her life will be murky, a path unseen, yet it
remains forever engraved upon the fate of the world.

-Genesifin

Brenol flipped open the aurenal with a tiny click
and stroked his fingertips across the smooth sides as he waited.
Though he was only immersed to his feet, his entire body shook
involuntarily from the chill of the river. Her voice, when it came,
brought his stomach into his chest, but he calmed himself enough to
listen. There were no second chances to hear the aurenal’s
messages.

“Thank you, Bren. Thank you for coming. I
don’t know what you can do, but I know you’ll help.” She choked.
“There’s something so wrong with Veronia… Please come quickly.”

And so it begins,
he thought.
Colette perceives the poison’s effects, even if she doesn’t know
what she sees. How long do we have? Can we even save them?

Dawn licked the skies, and the sun jumped up
in haste. Brenol frowned at the morning’s alacrity; he felt the
sharp pressure of the world nipping at his heels enough
already.

Brenol wrenched his feet from the icy bank
and began to rub life back into them. “Arman?”

The juile approached. His face was
uncharacteristically morose as he deliberated over whether it was
right to tell Brenol of his suspicions. The weight of the juile’s
conjectures—that the black fever might be something more than a
simple epidemic—bore terribly, but he did not want to overburden
Brenol given the present dilemma.