The Land's Whisper (3 page)

~

That night Sim quivered like a dying wick.
His skin was icy to the touch and his body weak. Guilt had nudged
and gnawed at his insides until his soul had all but collapsed
within him. He was unaccustomed to crying, yet here in the secret
darkness of his own tomb, he sobbed and heaved uninhibited

Sim finally understood and accepted his
folly, and the shame clothed him with deeper grief.

If she knew what I have done…

And all because of those old crones’
stories.

Sim extracted the gray parcel from his coat
and peered at it with both loathing and desire. His hand lingered
hesitantly, but suddenly he surrendered. He unwrapped the cloth and
tilted his palm into a slide. The pods fell beside the heap of his
crushed body with soft thuds. They rolled gently away.

“Selet… I…” he whispered. “I stole from you.
I did it for Marietta… but it was still wrong. I’m sorry…” His
voice felt changed, as though it were no longer his own. “I chased
after a lie… I wish I’d stayed with her during her last moments.
I’ve lost her now, surely.”

He lay back and drank of regret and
self-loathing.

The hole, while still unpleasant, began to
change. It no longer stifled him with the tightening walls of fury,
but seemed to ease back and even widen. The ground warmed slightly
under his body, and his skin soaked it up greedily.

Is it just my own peace returning? Or is
Selet changing?

The ground itself answered him, and although
he had been swallowed in violence, he was disgorged in gentleness.
The soil multiplied and mounded beneath him like the surface atop a
mole tunnel, and it carried his body up until he was level with the
path. Selet stretched out before him again, and he could see the
lugazzi with streaming eyes. The stars shone down in loveliness;
the moons, in glory. He inhaled the sweet air drifting from Ziel’s
breezes.

As clearly as his own voice, Selet hissed,
“
Take a tenralily. One. And leave. Never return.
Ever
.
”

His jaw opened in awe, and closed as a new
hope sprung alive within his chest. The land would never love him,
but he was free. A pod rolled to his broken limbs, and he clutched
it beneath white knuckles.

“
It won’t work,
” Selet said with
derision. “
Nothing can stop malitas
.”

Sim ignored the jab and bowed his head and
whispered in Massadan fashion, “Your mercy is my bounty.”

“
I will send aid shortly,
” the
terrisdan whirred. “
Then get out.
”

Sim clung to the tiny hope.
She has a
chance. Maybe.

~

What a fool, this woman,
the spirit
thought, hovering over Garriel as she clung to the child in the
nursery.
I think I shall still have some fun. There is much
amusement for me here.

It returned to the bedroom and re-entered
Marietta’s cooled body. The sensation was strange, but somehow
appealing. It no longer had to tear through her soul for control.
All that fought back now were stiff limbs.

Yes, I will do this next time. Oh, how I
hated her squirming.

The spirit tugged the black lace from its
face with a swift movement. It lowered itself from the bed with
catlike grace and padded lightly across the room to a small chest
of drawers. With hands beginning to blacken, it gripped the small
knife that lay on its worn surface. A cold, evil smile spread upon
its lips, but its eyes remained lifeless and black. It could smell
the early reek of the body decomposing. It was revolting, but humor
served to outweigh the fleshly discomforts.

I could do this often. Indeed. She taught me
enough while alive.

It opened the penknife and began to etch
upon the floor boards. The motions were new, but it seemed to find
a rhythm, as if the woman’s original skills had seeped into the
intruder when they had shared one flesh and life. It soon completed
its task.

It grasped the black lace from the bed and
pulled until the cloth cascaded down to cover the flesh.

The spirit released its hold on the dead
woman, whose skin grew blacker with every passing moment, and
lifted up above her body.

Pleasure bubbled in its core.
I think
that should do.

It lingered in wait, pondering.
As if the
fabled tenralilies could stop me! Nothing could end the fire I
bring.

I will destroy the flowers,
it
thought smugly.
I want to crush every hope these bugs have. Even
the imagined ones.

~

Several hours elapsed before Garriel
returned. She laid Darse down and reluctantly moved to the
bedchamber to tend to the corpse.

I’ll at least pull her outside. The
stench’ll be too much by morning,
the nurse thought.

When Garriel entered, however, the lifeless
body lay on the floor. Cold ran through her veins. Her pulse
quickened, but she leaned forward to peer upon the strange sight
more closely. She noticed a small knife sticking up boldly from the
floorboards like a dart in a bull’s-eye. And then her breath left
her.

Etched into the floor was a single word:
LIAR.

The worlds are connected; the wise tremble in this
knowledge.

-Genesifin

The queue progressed slowly.

The
scrutar
Reven sat in the square,
wrapped in an air of importance, with his ledger and pen neatly
before him. He was a small man, soft around the gut and thighs, and
wore the usual uniform—navy blue slacks with copper buttons, tight
crimson shirt and collar, matching navy blazer, sewn gold emblem at
the breast—of his rank.

As it was a smaller Alatrician town, Hael
did not have a permanent taxation edifice, but the booth rested in
a prominent location in the town center, where all could observe
its dealings. Or lack thereof.

Reven scrutinized the local homesteader
approaching the table. His clothes were soiled and worn, with
mending that left him seeming more quilt than man, and he had a
face made ugly by orbits of toil. He placed two callused and filthy
hands to rest on the table. Reven leaned back in distaste.

“Treak Birch. My son is Mart.”

Reven scrolled his index down the list until
he came to the name. “Orbits?” he asked.

“I’m forty-two. Mart is eight.”

Reven nodded; the numbers matched his
records. “Have you enrolled the boy in study?”

Treak shook his head but refused to grant
any further explanation. He need not, though; Reven knew very well
that apprenticeships were costly commodities. This man, like most
Reven had seen in the various rural towns, could hardly afford
bread, let alone to pay a master to teach his son a craft for six
orbits.

“Is it only the two of you?”

“Yeah,” Treak replied softly.

“One male adult and one male child. Passes?”
Reven asked. “Or the honor of conscription?”

Treak did not meet the scrutar’s eyes. “I’m
to set Mart down.”

Reven’s brow narrowed harshly. “And you did
not bring him?”

The farmer drew up his gray, edgy gaze. “But
he’s not to go ‘til ten,” Treak pleaded.

Reven shook his head. “He still needs a
stamp and an assessment.”

Treak grimaced. He had left the boy
purposefully, in hope that the scrutar would be too busy to enforce
the tattoo signifying the boy’s allegiance. “When?”

Reven peered about in search of his inker.
The man was excellent at his job but rarely timely. “It will have
to be this evening before sundown. I expect you back before I close
for the day.” He glanced at the string of people waiting their
turn. “Yes, today,” Reven confirmed. There were only two more days
in Hael and then he would move his booth to the next town.

Treak nodded weakly.

“We will wait to settle your account until
tonight,” Reven continued. “But you shall collect this time, for
Mart’s induction will more than pay your pass, even though he is
young.”

Treak nodded again and strode from the
table. His gait favored the left leg, but otherwise he appeared
hale. Reven noted the limp in his ledger—old injuries did not
warrant a mercy slip—and gestured sharply to the next in line.

A man in the square frowned. He was past his
prime, with graying hair, a strong chin, and eyes the hue of the
sea. He leaned against the wall of the general store beside a
burlap sack of goods. He observed Treak stride from the stand and
maneuver his way past the few buildings of the town.

He idled, deliberating, and his face
appeared stern under his musings. Finally, he shrugged his
shoulders and moved forward to greet the farmer.

Treak glanced up. His eyes turned severe.
“What do
you
want, Darse?”

Darse met the man’s gaze. He did not return
the fire, but stood tall, evidencing his own strength. “Your son
Mart’s inducting?”

Treak flinched, and he drew his lips into a
false smile. “Requested the honor. I’ve been eager to send Mart
since he was born. I didn’t even try to find apprenticeships.”

Darse paused, again pondering.
I’ve saved
every spare drale all season. Why waste it on him?
Yet despite
his dislike of Treak, Darse found his hand already reaching toward
his money fold at his chest pocket.

“Treak? Don’t induct your son. Really. I…I
will pay his tax this season.” Darse drew out three marks,
extending them in hand.

Treak’s eyes sparked in a moment of hope,
but the sentiment flickered out just as abruptly, and his features
tightened in disdain. “You’re just as your da was,” he said. He
stepped forward to leave, but then turned and spit, first on the
palmed offering and then upon Darse’s boot.

Darse peered down at his damp, sticky hand,
then up at the farmer.

Treak glowered and strode from the square in
heat, his speed exaggerating the limp.

Darse shook his head.
That fool’d rather
give up his son than take my money.

He wiped his hand clean, returned to his
abandoned sack in the square, and slid into the queue to purchase
his annual conscription pass.

~

Darse’s day proved arduous, the bulk of it
elapsing under the sun’s blaze in the unending conscription line.
The scrutar had come but a septspan after Darse’s final harvesting
of
corz,
but even the poor timing could not be blamed for
the yellowing mold stretching across half their rinds. There was no
time to sell locally, let alone travel to a neighboring village. On
a whim, Darse had loaded a sack full of the unblemished crop and
hauled it into town. He had thought perhaps he might see some luck,
but it was not to be so.

Darse shouldered the burden back the five
matroles to his field and set the bag in the cool of the barn. The
remaining span before sundown became a race with light. He sprinted
about to his steel. They were empty, save for a single ragged
rabbit, which he killed and stuffed into his gaming sack. He
fetched and tended Button, his dairy cow, and chased his handful of
chickens into their coop. He glanced regretfully at the rows of
crops he could not attend, but he soaked in the sharp, striking
loveliness of the sunset for a moment, lighting his lantern before
entering the barn.

Darse upended the contents of the morning’s
sack upon the hay-strewn ground. The corz rolled gently and settled
while he selected and tossed the pieces that had turned in the heat
and reserved those that could keep until he had the chance to dry
the greenest and pickle the rest. He frowned, glancing across to
the barrel that held the molding fruit; it would take a miracle of
time to beat it.

He scooped up one of the ripe orange
spheres, closed up the barn, and strode back to his home. Now it
was dark, and the moon hardly shed a sprinkling of light for him.
He inhaled a few deep breaths of cool air before bolting himself in
for the evening.

Dinner consisted of the few bites he could
scavenge from the rabbit and the corz, which he cooked and peeled
and ate without relish
.
He drank a cup of milk and set to
churning the remainder.

His eyes gazed upon the smooth floorboards
that his father had placed, the beams at the ceiling he had
meticulously carved and set.

“I wish you had abandoned this house,” he
said under breath, as if his father’s ghost lingered beside his
handiwork. “And never made me promise to stay.”

Darse tidied the house for the night, shut
off his lantern, and crawled onto his pallet. His muscles ached in
their usual exhaustion, but that was not what wearied him most. He
lay silently, hearing the wind sway through the trees outside, and
eventually slept.

~

Darse awoke with dawn and groaned to life.
He milked and released Button, checked his steel, and collected
eggs. The brood pecked about with mindless interest while he toted
his pail back to the house.

Darse halted in stride and sighed.

How did I not see it before?
he asked
himself.

A large T had been painted onto his door, a
striking crimson atop the light pine. It looked as though it had
been a hurried task; the letter slanted down and ran into the wall
post, but its meaning was clear regardless.

Scowling, Darse kicked the door open and set
to cooking his breakfast.

~

The morning afforded no break. Darse handled
and harvested his fields until his back screamed, his skin slicked
to a shine, and the sun struck its hottest. Then, retreating to the
house, he dragged an armload of materials to the porch and set to
sanding and painting his door.

Evening came in haste, with the familiar
sensation of time slipping past. The days were spent in endless
toil, but he rarely made any progress, it seemed. He finished his
chores and restored his tools to the shed. He watched the sun’s
last trickles of light pass into night, and trudged into the house.
Exhaustion pressed on his chest and shoulders as he set to heating
water. Once warm, he removed the pot and added
sila
bark and
granum
root. The aroma was unpleasant and tangy, but he
positioned himself before the fire and soaked his hands. The cuts
from tending the corz vines were still red and stinging, even after
a septspan. Darse sucked air through his teeth and waited for the
burn to ease.