Eyes in the Water (21 page)

Sobbing filled the air, and the sharp scent
of the iron-rich soil saturated Arman’s nostrils.

When all the bodies were laid and wrapped,
the people stood silently for several moments, quiet in thought and
grief.

Finally, their attention turned to the
chieftess.

She swallowed, but then spoke clearly above
the wind. “Your lives were bountiful. May death’s reins only lead
you to greater heights.”

“To greater heights,” they all intoned and
set to burying their loved ones.

~

Afterward, the villagers made ready to
disperse. Arman excused himself quietly. While several noted his
departure, none commented. The mysterious juile had earned their
respect; he had honored their dead, and his music still echoed in
their souls.

Striding swiftly, Arman burned through the
ground of Callup. His mind churned through the unsettling events of
Taro, but he could not linger. Perception and action were his only
weapons. By nightfall he had passed into Granoile.

~

It took two more days of demanding movement
before Arman caught sight of Caladia. He had paused briefly in the
northern towns, requesting representatives to attend the council,
but his mind had remained staunchly focused upon the frawnish. He
sighed as he eased his aching limbs down the face of the final dune
and trekked the last matroles to town.

A frawnish scout swooped through the skies
above him, and although he was invisible, Arman knew it would not
take long for the frawnite’s sharp eyes to spy his pedasse trailing
his progress like an arrow. The scout did see, but instead of
lighting down, the ebony-winged creature circled and coasted back
to Caladia. Arman pondered its meaning. Not long after, a figure he
knew well swept past the afternoon clouds and careened down to the
earth. Arman smiled as she righted herself with a flick and landed
lightly before him.

“Arista,” he said warmly.

“Arman,” she replied. She offered a strained
smile, but her eyes were joyless. “I pray it will be bountiful,”
Arman said with a low bow, although she only heard the
movement.

“Bountiful indeed.”

“Tell me,” he said with sudden urgency.

Her face sagged in relief. “You got it then?
My note?”

“Yes. The murdered children. The black fever
in Ferita.”

“Do you know what it means?” Arista asked.
She took in a breath, attempting to bottle her emotions; the
freedom to finally speak after so long was an undoing sensation,
and her grief for her friend was still raw and harsh.

His eyes narrowed in thought. “Something is
happening. Someone, or some group, wants war. Hints of this keep
sprouting up across Massada.” He recalled anew a discussion with
Brenol from several orbits previously. They had been discerning
motives for the maralane bringing Jerem to the isle.

War. Bren had said it looked like an attempt
at war.

“It is happening in every corner,” Arman
added grimly. “And has been for some time.”

Arista looked out across the sandy terrain.
“Hetia saw the possibility immediately when he found the
children.”

“I don’t understand it. But I think there…”
he hesitated but then continued, “There might be a connection to
the fever.”

Arista’s eyes snapped back to Arman’s
location. Her face was strung with tension. “The fever?”

“Yes.”

“As if someone was purposefully giving the
fever to others? To incite conflict?”

Arman flicked out his fingers, unsure, and
began to stride forward. “Come,” he called back to her. “We must
start walking, but I have much to discuss with you before we
arrive.”

She jumped to join him. “You’re entering
town?”

“I came to speak to your people about joining
the council in Limbartina. I know Caladia received my seal, but I
was going to beg a frawnite to return with me.”

“None will come,” she answered
immediately.

He cast a sideways glance at her. “I knew as
much. But I had to speak to you about what you saw. Memorize every
detail. Think it through with you. It was the only way I could come
and know you would not be scrutinized.”

Arista exhaled, comprehending. “Of
course.”

Arman frowned. “Hetia has been watching
you?”

She bobbed her head in affirmation. “But he
thinks I’ve been silent. And as it has been some time, I don’t
imagine he’d see anything in you coming. We’ll just need to be
careful to avoid appearing secretive.”

Arman raised his face to peer at the skies.
“Who was lookout?”

Arista shrugged. “Some fledgling. But you’re
the only juile who comes out here, and they all know we are
friends. He merely returned to fetch me.”

The juile nodded to himself.

“Arman?”

“Yes?” He paused in stride, hearing a strange
strain in his companion’s voice.

“This is from the portals, isn’t it?”

Arman flinched invisibly. Arista had drawn
the conclusion faster than even he had, and with far less
information.

“Who else could wield such a disease?” she
continued. “Who else would seek to stir war in every corner?”
Arista thought back to the frozen wood and to all the children
dangling from the trees. “How does the fever affect the person
before they die? Can it make them do things they wouldn’t
otherwise?” She pictured Ferita bouncing about like a puppet,
stringing up nooses around the forest. She shuddered.

Arman reached out to gently touch the
frawnite’s hand. Her delicate skin was still cool from flight. She
sighed faintly at the contact, as if the consolation alone was
enough to combat such terrors.

“I do not know, Arista. But I know I’ve come
to the right place for help.”

She nodded, her eyes still wide and
pondering.

“I will need to hurry. I must get back to
Limbartina speedily.”

She looked at him incredulously. “What? Why?
How could anything be more important than understanding and
stopping the fever?”

“Perhaps not more important,” Arman replied
frankly. “But it is nevertheless nipping at my heels.”

Arista shook her head. “You’re tending the
boiling pot before you when the forest is ablaze behind you.”

Arman did not respond, for he perceived the
terror underlying her words and refused to allow his own fear to
swell. Instead, he paused, placed his hand momentarily upon her
forearm, and spoke in a low rumble, “We will sort it out, Aris. We
will.”

She remained silent, but her face and eyes
betrayed her reluctance.

“I need your help,” he said candidly.

The frawnite sighed, resigned, and gave him a
small grin. “You always have.”

Arman smiled and resumed his steps. “Come,
please. Tell me all that happened. Every little thing you can
recall.”

The world shall swirl in chaos, but chaos shall not
prevail.

-Genesifin

Although more than a handful of days had passed,
Brenol had barely found another moment to be alone with Colette.
His head spun with the council and their incessant arguing, and his
feet and hands itched to move, to do
something.
Guilt crept
upon him; he keenly felt his failure in this blunder of calling
council. It seemed he simply stumbled from one mistake to the next,
regardless of intent. But what could he do now? The council could
not be undone, and he would be forced to sit on his hands while the
terrisdan soil succumbed to toxicity.

Even if there was a clear path, they’d
never agree to do it,
he thought ruefully.

He toyed with the whistle—never far from his
restless fingers—but felt an overwhelming reluctance at the thought
of summoning Pearl. Then doubts eroded his convictions, and he
began to fear it was his own pride preventing him, but still his
mind arrived at the same argument again and again.

What could she do, even if I were to call
her?

Brenol withered further as he thought of
Colette. The afternoon retreat had been lovely, but it remained
apparent to him that she was not well. Whatever had happened at
Ziel had done wonders, for she seemed more peaceful, yet she was
also secretive and quiet. He feared that her mourning over the
maralane was consuming her, but he was loath to insist she speak.
He wanted her to feel freedom to discuss—or not discuss—with him as
she pleased, so he remained silent.

As the days tumbled forward, Brenol grew even
more doubtful. And Arman was not present to help sort through his
thoughts or swoop in with a solution. He was still out trying to
persuade the missing nuresti and terrisdan leaders to join the
council. Brenol had thought it premature for Arman to leave after
the first day’s meeting but once again found the juile right. The
council was like a dog, never relinquishing the chase upon its tail
until forcibly stopped. Some new force would perhaps be the only
way to change its course.

So Brenol waited. And waited.

Would that I could chop off the cursed
tail.

~

Colette ached to be free of the place. The
council was repugnant in its anger and selfish grasping and
terrified her because her own heart still beat with the nurest
claim for power and love of terrisdan. She berated herself for not
telling Brenol but nevertheless remained steadfast in her silence.
Try as she did to rationalize, she knew deep within that her
motives were not pure. It was not merely shame that made her hold
her speech.

Between sessions, she took to walking the
grounds to sort through her thoughts. Outside, she did not have to
stare, trembling with desire, at the hos, and could escape the hard
and curious glances of the group.

One afternoon, as the council wore her thin,
she slipped from the circle and crept from the hall. She sighed in
relief as her back passed the last pillar and the tapestry fell
closed behind her.

Colette sucked in the evening air. Shadows
stretched across the gardens and painted gray and black outlines
along the walkways. Twilight was but a breath away. She eased a
course down the winding stone and sniffed the nectary breeze. It
was thick with the bursting aroma of Ziel.

Could a storm be—

Without warning, the scent yanked her from
the present, back to the morbid banks. She could feel the trickling
sweat beading on her face and neck and back, the icy wind racking
her frame, the ache of her quivering muscles as she lowered the
dead fish-men into the soil. The maralane child’s kiss brushed her
face, and her ear tickled as it met the soft whisper. Colette
raised her hand to her cheek; the memory ushered in with such force
that she almost expected to find her face wet and lungs bursting
with the need for oxygen.

Her dark tresses whipped and blinded her as
the wind knifed through the path, and the recollection began to
recede. She shivered and stepped from the gravel walkway to lean
her frail body against the soladrome walls. She slid her weight to
the soil, tucking both knees to her chest and hugging them
closely.

The maralane changed me. I know it. Bren can
help me move past this terrible desire for the hos. He knew what it
was like to be a nurest. Why don’t I just explain it to him?

She recalled the transformation that had
occurred in her. The corpses had shaken her awake from hatred, but
the lake-child, while melting her hardness, had left her raw. Her
heart ached in loneliness.

Do I really plan to steal the hos
and run back to Veronia? Am I that foolish?

She pushed her face to her knees, letting the
warm cloud that escaped her lips heat her nose. She curled ever
tighter against the cold until her musings merged into the strange
world of dreams. When she woke, not a light remained in the skies,
and the cold night bit at her toes and ears. She shivered, her
muscles cramped and asleep.

“—much longer, do you?” a voice
whispered.

Colette stilled her quivering and strained to
listen.

“We have to at least try. How else will we
get past Brenol? He’s been plucked by that insipid lunitata.” The
tone was venomous.

Colette froze. She dared not move to glance
around the corner, but she did not have to. Both voices were
irritatingly familiar from the unending tedium in the hall.

“How long do we need to delay, then?” asked
Restar.

Colette pictured his tentative fingers
twisting and fidgeting before him. How
he
had found a royal
seat in Plune was a mystery to her. He seemed more vulnerable than
a spider beneath a sole.

“Surely not long. I was told Veronia was
nearing the end—already dying between her fingers when she left.
And that was over a moon past. Colonastra is the same. Bergin and
Granallat are pressed but holding. The west has drunk more of
Jerem’s vileness than the east,” Derpa said.

“I’m still not sure this should be the way,
though,” replied Restar.

The Callupian queen granted him a sneering
laugh. Colette could picture easily enough the snide smile widening
on her clenched and bony face. “You’d dare to back out now? No. We
wait until the west has died. Then we take the full measure of
serum for the east. We’ll have more power and control. The
westerners will be forced into tribute, to follow our ways.
We
will be the rulers of this next age.”

Restar pondered for a moment, but soon his
words flowed out in angst. “What if we wait too long for our own
lands? It seems a dangerous thi—”

“Hush. A worm has more sense than you do. You
will
do what we’ve agreed. Or there will be
consequences.”

Silence ensued for a few moments, and then
muffled voices traveled towards them.

“Not a word,” she hissed.

Their footsteps meandered off toward the
soladrome’s garden entrance, and Colette burned fiercely.
Veronia. My Veronia. I won’t let you die. My Veronia.
The
numbness in her muscles had vanished in the power of her rage.