The group feasted until they had barely room for breath, and even the maralane’s faces eased from their taut seriousness. Darkness crept around and blanketed the peninsula, turning the glassy screen a liquid black. The fire glowed on, flickering light upon the party’s faces, as they discussed news and travels, mostly of the “above” world, and the visnati’s laughter and booming voices filled the night.
Here, in this casual fellowship, the eerie lake-men made more sense to Darse. He still felt the keen sting of their refusal, but was determined to find a different approach to sending Brenol back. He must, and so he would manage a way. Like the dread over the secret of his parents, he decided it would be managed in time.
The conversation finally ebbed, and the visnati drew up their instruments for one last song. Their fingers danced as if in nimble salute to the night, and the fire crackled as its final traces of fuel kissed out a soft, fading light. Tranquility swept around them and drenched the moment before releasing all in a gentle sigh.
The visnati bowed their heads in farewell, and the maralane repeated the gesture. Their somber faces glistened as their white heads bobbed in the dark waters.
“First summer, then? Or second?” Samest asked.
“Hitze,” replied Rook.
Samest nodded.
Colvin bent down to the water’s edge, to Carest’s unmoving figure. She smiled briefly, then raised her hand to meet his. They touched for the briefest of moments before she slid her graceful form back from the thin strip of land. Her tails surfaced in a fluid cut across the screen, and, suspended in the dim light, she waited for the others to join her. Brenol could not help but stare upon her lovely face. She was like a perfect porcelain doll, with every feature even and smooth.
The maralane then slipped under the water, leaving only black ripples to mark their departure.
~
The return trip to Coltair, the visnati town, was a trek of several hours, but it passed easily in the cool silence. The path descended rapidly at times, yet it was well-trodden and even in the dark could not prove treacherous. The dual moons—one so large it seemed to Brenol like a hot air balloon about to lift—caressed them with soft light. The universe had rarely seen his lips so still. He had eyes only for the heavenly orbs.
Darse and Brenol arrived at the visnati grounds well into the night and found themselves bedded down in a warm barn before they could even tap a toe. Their tired minds sank into sleep as they lay in the peaceful dark of Garnoble.
CHAPTER 4
A relationship with the land is never one-sided. It is a dance, even if a perilous one.
-Genesifin
“Darse?” Brenol whispered. It was not the first time, and he had grown progressively louder to rouse the older man.
“Huh?” Darse squinted into the dense darkness. He ached in exhaustion, but his mind sharpened readily into alertness. “What is it? Are you well?”
“I feel funny.”
Darse sat up and furrowed his brows. He peered in the direction of Brenol’s voice. They could not have been sleeping for more than an hour, possibly two. He rubbed his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I…Tell me more about the whole terrisdan thing,” he replied.
Darse fell back onto his makeshift bed. “What’s going on, Bren?”
“Please?”
The man let out a long exhalation. “Ok…well, the lands are alive.”
“The whole thing again. Please.”
What is he thinking about? Darse wondered, but began regardless.
His words rippled out, and packed in them he found the memory of his father with neat white hair, recounting the genesis of the terrisdans like a story from a book. He let his own voice roll with the cadence of his predecessor, and it gave him a quiet joy.
“Water covered the world of Massada. It teemed with fish and water creatures, sweetness and warmth. The water had so much life that in its depths, lands began to grow and form. After some time, the lands emerged from the surface like seedlings poking out from the soil.
“There were thirteen different land ‘seedlings,’ and each matured into a terrisdan. They grew and eventually merged into one, or at least their pieces met to form a single solid ground. They drank so deeply of the water’s life that only the spring-lake was left. Yet from this, all of the lands continued to find nourishment.
“While the terrisdans were young and new, they held a bursting power for life. And in that, they birthed people. These people were the start of the varied races.
“Every man had a specific connection with his home terrisdan. It was a mysterious and real connection. He could talk to and know the land as though it were any other person. And like people, each terrisdan was unique: having likes, dislikes, opinions, and more.
“Gradually over time, as the lands grew older, men began to move across terrisdan borders, settling in the land that was neutral and without personality: the lugazzi. The connections in turn grew weaker. There remained only a strange and select few who still possessed the ability to communicate with the terrisdans. They were called the nuresti.”
Darse realized after several minutes that he had been silent in his own reverie. He had not recalled that memory for many orbits, and to be here in Massada thinking of his father was a slaking experience; while it was not much, it was infinitely more than the reticent walls of his father’s home. The nightmare and voice he had heard back in Alatrice suddenly seemed but a silly dream, for the visnati were good creatures and not likely to attack Brenol. Alatrice and Brenol’s mother were his greatest concerns.
He cleared his throat. “Did you just want a bedtime story? Or is something going on?”
“Yeah, sorry. I just was thinking things through and wanted some company.”
“That’s fine,” he replied gently. “But let’s sleep now.” Darse rolled over, but his memory lingered upon the white head of his father. Eventually he released all and sank back into sleep.
Brenol, however, lay with both hands deep in straw and eyes large but unseeing in the black pitch.
A sliver of a voice tickled the air.
Again, Brenol thought. I know I heard it.
It had been but a wisp, but suddenly his whole person felt receptive.
“I am Garnoble,” it said. “And you are Brenol.”
~
The morning light drew Darse’s consciousness to the surface, but he groaned and pulled the blankets up over his face. He felt the lack of sleep acutely, and it only intensified the hoary experience of aging. When he finally peered out from the soft folds, he was greeted by an empty bale beside him. Brenol was not there.
His stomach churned for a second before he pieced together his calm. The visnati are good, he repeated like a chant, slowly shifting his way from the stabbing straw pallet to a seat. The anxiety ebbed, and he rubbed his limbs to life.
“Breakfast and Bren. They are most likely in the same place.”
Darse rose and set off to find them both.
~
The previous night, Brenol had lain awake, his heart quickening and stomach squirming. He had sensed an eye upon him and felt like a fish in a bowl.
Something is looking at me. Watching me.
Brenol rose and walked the moonlit gardens. The air was cool about him, and the growing flora filled his nostrils with subtle scents. The downy lands were misty and dark, but Stronta and Veri provided enough light for him to navigate. He passed through orchards and fields, and still the strange sensation refused to abate.
His heels led him past house and habitation, as though they knew where to seek peace. The inner distress calmed only when he stood far beyond the visnati boundaries and in the cup of the land’s hand. He sat in the dewy grass and felt the cool moisture seep into his clothing. The trees whistled under a breath of wind that lightly sighed across the knoll. His skin quivered with damp and chill, but he refused to leave.
This. This is something I need to know. I’m not leaving until I figure it out.
Brenol pondered Darse’s story. The lands are alive. Often had his friend told him stories of Massada—and he had always believed them to be fantasy—but here he was standing in the midst of it. He had heard the land speak and felt a strange humming in his blood. His mind grappled with understanding, but his core bellowed that the ground beneath him was indeed alive.
Breathe, Bren, he thought. At least no one is here to see if I really am crazy.
A wry smile flickered momentarily upon his smooth face; he felt anything but alone.
Breathe.
“Garnoble?” he asked.
No sound returned, save the gentle kiss of the wind touching turf.
Brenol blinked. The silence punctured him with doubt, yet the sense of the hovering eye still held his spine with cold hands.
He tried again. “Garnoble?”
Nothing.
Brenol exhaled. He was surprised to not feel relief. Instead, disappointment pooled into his gut. He allowed his eyelids to fall, searching for the right words. “I’m not afraid anymore…and I want to understand.” Brenol opened his eyes to stare blankly at his hands: filthy cold, thin. He feared he was imagining it all. “Who are you? Will you talk to me?”
“Yes.”
It was a subtle voice, nothing like the one in the cave, yet hearing it convinced him of the reality of both. “I hear you,” he replied, dumbfounded.
The boy inhaled, suddenly awake with thrill instead of trepidation. He smiled and spoke. Their conversation flowed forward, although the land’s speech was trim and without flourish. It was entirely unlike conversing with another human, but Brenol found it made sense nonetheless. It was so natural for him—as natural as the heat of his blood and the hue of his hair. Pleasure bubbled within as he realized as much. It was easy. Simply easy.
The two spoke until morning light streaked the sky and the red sun warmed his forgotten limbs. Brenol roused his aching body and slid his way back into Coltair. Few were awake, let alone out of doors, to notice his movements, and he came to the heart of town without being questioned.
CHAPTER 5
Peace is but an illusion while malitas walks the land.
-Genesifin
Brenol did not tell anyone about conversing with the land. At first, he wilted before the difficulty of articulating the experience, but soon the initial silence turned into a burning secret that he feared to touch. While he did not doubt the land or himself, he wondered about how others would perceive him. And so the secret grew hotter within his chest.
Burning, burning, every night he slipped away like a creature of the shadows to converse with the land, and every day he became more aware that others experienced this place and the eye far differently.
Days merged as the two found a place amongst the visnati. They were a hospitable people, and Darse’s fear melted before the tangible world of fishing poles and tilled soil. His towering height granted him a confidence—however false it might be—and helped shake loose any lingering suspicion of dreams and voices and the evanescent.
The village of Coltair was a vast space of open and cultured land nestled beside Pearia, yet still close enough to the eastern ranges to invite a daily neck crane toward the purple and gray peaks. The visnati grew extensive gardens, stretching out for matroles, that they collectively termed Gardenia. They had hothouses for seedlings and other plants but concentrated the majority of their energies in the tilling of the open land. The small community—no more than three hundred persons—shared the crops from the Gardenia, and each family also had a side plot beside their house for private use. There was enough for all, for they knew their craft and labored hard, and the visnati were hospitable. Darse and Brenol were never made to feel unwelcome.
There was ample work in the Gardenia, and their hosts were eager to teach. They instructed the two on Garnoble’s crops and Rook accompanied the two fishing along the Pearia, demonstrating how to snag the larger fish in the nooks of the river bottom while leaving the smaller ones to grow and mature. They were even taught brewing and learned to gather the roots used to make the varieties of ale, which ranged from thick and bitter to creamy and sweet.
The visnati were an easy-going race. The slow pace of life and the working of the land showed in their sturdy but relaxed faces. Mirth flowed out in friendly speech, and there was little formality among them. Their eyes twinkled when they conversed, and Darse could see it plainly: they were satisfied. The day was meant for working with friends; the night, for rejoicing with them. The visnati lived every day doing what they loved and with the people they loved. Their life seemed to draw out all the beautiful aspects of his life in Alatrice, while abandoning the loneliness, politics, and toil. He breathed more fully every day.
~
Brenol’s laugh rang out merrily, accompanied in a breath by a chorus of shouts and whoops. Darse glanced up from peeling potatoes, face beginning to stretch into a grin, to determine the cause for the boy’s mirth.
Brenol had joined a party of children in the space of lawn beside the work tables, and all crouched in a ring, immersed in a game. The youth towered over the tiny figures, but each body crowded and pressed forward with equal excitement. Darse smiled at the evident eagerness of the group. A dark haired boy, likely Brenol’s age, stood suddenly in the center. He tipped several small objects from his hand and sent them rolling within the circle with an exaggerated swipe. Every face leaned in, and laughter rocked their frames as the boy hollered in frustration.
“Prags,” a voice explained genially.
Darse looked to his side. A round, coppered face beamed good naturedly at him. It was a visnat he had seen before, but only in passing. His most prominent feature was a pair of extremely furry eyebrows. They were brown and jumped with every expression.
“Prags,” the visnat repeated. “The game. The kids love it. In another moon they will play something else, but for now, it is prags and only prags at every chance.”
Darse laughed. “We don’t have that one on Alatrice, I think. But I know the behavior.” He glanced again to Brenol, whose back was to him now.
“I’m Tirol.”
Darse dipped his head in friendly acknowledgment. “Darse.”
Tirol settled himself at the table across from Darse and collected a knife, joining in the peeling. “You’ve been here a septspan?”
“A little over,” Darse replied, returning to task.
“Bren fits in well here,” Tirol commented. “He learns quickly.”
“He likes Coltair. That much is evident.”
They both raised their vision to the laughing children, suddenly aroar.
“Are you planning to stay long?” Tirol asked.
Darse shrugged his shoulders. “I do not know. I’m trying to find a way to get Bren back through the portal.” He sighed quietly, potato and knife forgotten in his hands.
Tirol nodded. “I’ve never heard of an allowance, but the maralane are not impossible.”
“No?” Darse said, flickering awake with hope.
“Different, but not impossible.” Tirol smiled. “They may not be interested in the little things about us, but they are for Massada. That is what motivates them.”
Darse considered his words silently.
“If you do stay, in several moons we have Velsfest. It’s our big celebration. Tents, lights, drinks, food, games.” He jutted his chin in Brenol’s direction. “Bren would like it. Every girl and boy likes it.” He grinned, revealing a crooked and happy smile. “I like it.”
Darse returned the gesture. “Perhaps. I have no idea what I’m doing right now.”
“What made you come?” Tirol asked curiously.
“Well, my da told me stories. But he also made me promise to come and see Massada at least once.”
“Are you finding what you expected?”
Darse looked around, pondering the new life he had discovered in such a brief time. It was difficult to assume this could continue, but even still, the holiday was appreciated. “I can’t sa
y I knew what to expect.”
Tirol plopped his peeled potato into the pail and stood with gusto. “Well, that’s because you didn’t know about prags. Here in Coltair it is prags and only prags! Come, come! I will teach you.”
Darse laughed, setting his own potato and knife down. “Prags it is,” he replied and marched obediently after his new instructor to join the rambunctious circle of children.
~
It was about two septspan into their stay when Colvin rounded out of the Gardenia to find Brenol and Darse resting in the afternoon shade after a long day of harvesting. Their faces were smeared with dark brown loam, and their clothes—loose pants and long sleeves gifted by their hosts—were stained knee down and elbow out. Their feet were as bare as every other pair in Coltair. The two alternated ladling the cool bucket water to their lips and watched tiredly as Colvin ambled up, similarly drenched in sweat and clothed in soil. He wore a straw hat to shield his head from the sun, and worn work gloves hung lazily from his trouser pocket.
“Hey, Colvin,” said Brenol after a large gulp. “It feels like ages since we saw you.”
I could have gone longer, thought Darse. He was unable to perceive Colvin’s intentions behind the casual demeanor, and he peevishly found it grating.
Colvin raised an eyebrow, allowing a brief twitch of his lips to play on his face. “Enough time to shake the skinny off of you,” he remarked. The twitch turned into a full grin.
Brenol looked down and laughed. Indeed, he was not as scrawny as when he had arrived, despite the brevity of their stay. Food here was plentiful.
Colvin’s voice was low and fell only upon their ears. “Will you join me this evening? I’ve a few things to discuss with you.” His face betrayed nothing. “I imagine you have supper plans, but come over after and we shall have a good talk. My house is the one across from Guntar’s.” He turned and pointed in the general direction. “You will recognize it because I’m the only one who uses his side plot for flowers.” There was no hint of embarrassment, it was just straightforward Colvin.
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