Fate is not merely a matter for kings.
-Genesifin
Day arrived, and Brenol knew he must find food. His head ached and his thoughts were muddled. He scavenged about and was eventually rewarded with a vined gourd. He plopped it in the fire, cooked it for a time, and, despite its bland flavor, consumed every edible piece of its pulpy flesh.
Renewed, he began again. Walking was pleasant, but monotonous and time consuming. Though he trod at a brisk pace, he refused to push himself too hard in order to preserve his stamina. After several hours, he flirted with the idea of throwing himself into the rushing waterway and praying he did not meet sharp rock, but in the end the temperature deterred him.
The day wore on, and he found himself yet again wishing for a raft. He paused to wash and drink by the water and realized that across the waterway was the road that split and led into the visnati village of Coltair. The ghosted lanes whispered to him of the past and of the massacre that had been the visnati’s fate. Brenol speedily abandoned his efforts for refreshment and hastened past, seeking distraction from the gruesome thoughts. He did not want to see what remained, or did not, of the town.
“Bren,” a familiar voice called from behind him.
He jumped at the sound, but after the initial shock, his face stretched into a grin.
“Arman!” Brenol turned joyfully but gasped when he saw his friend. For indeed, the juile was visible even though they stood in Garnoble. He gaped at the transparent image of Arman, working to make sense of it all. “How?” he muttered, half to himself.
Arman smiled gently at Brenol’s confusion. “It seems we both have something we do not understand… I pray it will be bountiful.” As graceful as ever, he bowed, his robes flowing smoothly down.
Brenol bowed in turn. “Bountiful indeed. But truly, Arman. What—Wait, is this part of the Change? You’re losing your invisibility?”
The juile drew his friend in for a strong embrace. “You have not lost your inquisitiveness, I see. Although I think that might be the only aspect to have remained as it was.” Arman’s dark eyes peered down—although not as far as they once had—into Brenol’s, examining him with patient care.
While Brenol’s face spread into a warm smile, the juile hesitated for a breath. He pondered yet again over his conjectures, the signs he had seen. Do I speak of my thoughts to Bren? Do I tell him of this strange, hidden evil? Unsure, he finally drew the man close again, and with a few clicks, coded out, You have been missed.
Brenol nodded and looked at Arman. Something about the juile’s expression seemed awry. “What is it, Ar?”
“Come, come. I’ll answer questions,” Arman said, swiping away his thoughts. “But first, let’s eat!”
~
Over a sating luncheon of fish and bread and vegetables, Arman listened to Brenol narrate his last four and a half orbits. But the juile exhibited especial interest in the recent encounter with Preifest.
“He has been waiting for your return,” the juile said quietly. “I don’t think any of us believed you would be gone as long as this.”
“No,” Brenol began, solemnly recalling the long orbits of anticipation. “But I am here now.”
“Indeed.”
“I found a maralane body in Ziel,” Brenol said softly, almost reluctantly.
Arman’s eyebrows tilted up. “One, or more?”
The young man’s face was incredulous. “This has become a common thing?” The images from his dream suddenly burst alive again: beached maralane corpses everywhere. He shuddered. The tiny girl had been in his arms but two days previously.
“They are dying, Bren. How can they care for their dead when they cannot care for their living?”
“What—”
Arman held up a transparent hand, begging for patience. “Their corpses began washing up on shore about an orbit ago. It did not take long for creatures to notice—the stench was unbearable. Especially after storms. I’ve seen it myself. Water lapping against their frail bodies spit up on the sand.” His face was ugly with pity. “The people of the lugazzi surrounding Ziel have established some kind of watch and burial system. Maralane do not rest long now when they come ashore.”
Is this what Preifest meant? About the upper-world showing unexpected kindness? Brenol wondered. “What does Ordah say?” he asked.
Arman’s face pinched. “He doesn’t say anything. He lives out in the wilderness. And refuses to talk to or see anyone.”
“Why?” Brenol asked. He never had a problem spinning his speech before, he thought.
Arman flicked out his fingers—the juile equivalent of a shrug. “The maralane dying? His shame at not having the intuit to perceive the true nature of his brother? His familial disgrace? There are numerous reasons I can think of, but he will not confirm or deny any of them. He chooses silence and isolation.”
Brenol shook his head. The prophet rarely made sense to him.
“And your invisibility?” the young man asked. “Where does that fit in?”
“You’re on the right pattern,” Arman replied. “I do not know. In fact, I had hoped you would know more. But time will reveal all. It appears as though both land and water are changing, and with it the creatures themselves.”
“Some survive, some do not.”
“It is provocative,” Arman agreed.
A dark thought seized Brenol. “The juile aren’t dying, are they?”
The black eyes looked upon him kindly. “You need not fear. We are not. But I do appreciate the concern.”
“Then why the fading invisibility?”
“It is not everywhere. It seems that the neutral lands are extending further in.”
Brenol scrunched up his face, trying to make sense of it all. “As if the lands are dying? This place is not neutral,” he said, waving a hand around him. “It is off though…”
The juile laughed. It caused his face to jump into an attractive alignment. Brenol’s chest loosened at the sight. He had sorely missed that smile.
“And here I thought you would be bringing me the answers!” Arman joked. “What does that book of yours say?”
“You knew about it?” Brenol asked. “The Genesifin?”
Arman’s glance narrowed in response. Brenol’s lips curled in a small smile.
Preifest was right, Brenol thought. Juile find out many things they aren’t given privilege to know.
Brenol dug out the manuscript and placed it in his lap. The book was strikingly clean atop his muddied clothing. At the sight of it, all amusement drained from his heart and face.
“It doesn’t say much…or perhaps I should simply say it doesn’t allow for much hope.” Brenol sighed. “It speaks of the passing of the maralane and some other creatures and says that a new age will come about because of what it calls the Change. There will be a Final Breath.” He shuddered, although he could discern no reason for it. “And that—the Final Breath—seems to really be the end, but it is not. Oh, it also mentions some creature I don’t know: ‘Child of malitas.’ I don’t know what it—or anything—means. It is a muddle in my mind.”
“Malitas?” Arman asked sharply. He paused, his mind churning. Could this be what I have feared? What I think is happening across Massada? “That’s disturbing.”
“Why?”
“You remember the concept of benere?” Arman asked. “The pursuit of wholeness, goodness? Malitas is the night to benere’s day: the seeking of ruin, chaos, corruption. A child of this? It would be evil enfleshed.”
Brenol’s memory flooded with the gripping sensation he had known in the soladrome: there was a darkness upon Massada, and he must do everything to save the land from it. The deluge of images and emotions—the bond of the gortei, the whistle, Pearl’s owl-like eyes and dappled gray feathers, the hoard’s eyes staring expectantly at him—blinded him to his present surroundings.
“What is it, Bren?”
The young man inhaled slowly and gave the juile a sideways glance. “I don’t know why I’m reluctant to tell you. It’s silly.” He glanced down at his dirty fingernails before meeting his friend’s eyes.
“Hmm?” There was an unreadable expression on Arman’s intense face.
Brenol opened his mouth as if to speak and then shut it again.
“Is it truly that terrible?” Arman asked. His handsome grin returned.
The young man allowed himself his own brief smile and finally spoke. “I promised an oath of gortei when I was last here.” A hot flush hit his cheeks.
“Yes?” Diversion sparkled in the coal-black eyes.
“Yes,” he repeated.
The juile laughed, the deep rumble spilling from his lips. “Good. It is an honor to have you to care for my land. I thank you.” He dipped his dark head in respect and, despite the smile, betrayed no trace of mockery. He meant every word, as he always did.
Brenol did not have the patience to decipher Arman’s amusement. Instead, he raised the clean white book and slapped it with his left hand. The noise was meager compared to the gesture. “What does this mean?” he asked curtly.
The juile flicked out his fingers again. He extended a hand, and Brenol passed the book readily. Arman smoothed his long digits across the white album for several moments without breaking open the cover.
After a spell, the juile stood, brushed the grass from his gray attire, and strode toward the river. “And you said it was in juile code too?”
Brenol nodded, but Arman did not glance back to see the man’s response. He was merely thinking aloud. The juile lifted his robes and waded in several strides. A monument of swarthy skin and dark hair, lost to the world of sun and breeze and forest, he showed no concern regarding the cold waters licking his clothing.
Brenol lay in the cool afternoon light and occasionally glanced over at the towering steeple in the water. Hours passed, and finally Brenol awoke in a muddled fog to find Arman crouched before him, eyes hooded with mystery.
He yawned. “You read it all?”
The look Brenol received was both answer and slap awake.
“What is it?”
“Bren, this is not simply a jump to the next age.”
He sat to attention. He felt some power spinning inside him, like an arrow about to stop, pointing him in the direction where he should thrust his entire being.
“If you are this foreigner, you carry much of the fate of our world in your hands. This Change, the Final Breath—these are not merely stories to tell at eventide.”
Brenol’s chest sunk slightly, and the inner arrow swung wildly within him. “It’s something I’m still trying to swallow.”
Arman gave him a quizzical glance—idioms forever intrigued him—and asked, “What would Deniel see in this?” He lifted the book and tapped it twice with a clear index finger.
“I have often asked that question.”
“Bren.”
“Yes?” The young man met the intense gaze of the juile.
“Search your mind. He gave his to you for a reason.”
The thought startled him—handing over a mind like a bite of bread?—but he closed his eyes, delving into the mystery of the man’s memory. I know so much of him, yet so little. He perused through the mess of pictures and scenes and sighed. He had sifted through them for orbits. There was nothing new to unearth.
“Push into it, Bren. Push.” Arman’s voice was steady and soft, yet as imperative as a hypnotist’s.
Brenol thought back to the cave, to the look that had comprised more than any language could transcribe, and finally to Deniel’s death. He hesitated—of all the places to visit again, he would not choose this one—and pursed his lips in determination.
Here we go.
And he pushed, falling into picture and sensation. The memory opened for him like a screen of water finally releasing its long-held surface tension.
He gaped, shocked. Silently, fearfully, he walked the length of the cave. It was the same place, cramped and rank with Jerem’s scent, but utterly disconcerting to experience afresh. The happenings were as real as the first time, but he felt intangible and ghostly before the concrete figures around him.
Jerem spoke to the boy—himself many orbits ago—in the corner. “I see we have a guest, Colette. Did you invite him, Deniel?” He paused to drive a rough foot swiftly into Deniel’s side. The young man did not flinch, but Brenol did.
Brenol padded carefully over to Deniel. He hesitated, but then with a determined nod gently lit his hand upon the man’s back. There was no reaction. While he had not entirely expected one, Brenol still exhaled in relief. The memory remained but a memory, even if he was permitted to walk in its folds.
He glanced at Colette. A fire sparked awake in him. He hated seeing her like this, and he was powerless to change her circumstances yet again.
The scene unraveled just as it had when he had lived it as Brenol and then, later, as Deniel. Of all the memories I have to relive so many times, he thought ruefully. He scanned the space, but it was the nightmare it had always been.
Nothing. Nothing here.
He rose from the memory, the experience akin to awakening from a dream. Brenol opened his eyes to find the juile’s obsidian eyes intensely upon him.
“Anything?”
Brenol shook his head. “But the method was effective.” He blinked, hoping to subdue the reeling sensation. Memories of memories within memories. His stomach flopped.
“A different one, perhaps?”
Brenol inhaled slowly. “I suppose. But I don’t know which. I have dozens and dozens…and I don’t think I’ll be able to do this to each one.” He glanced around, scooped up a cool stone from the ground, and held it to his forehead. It was relieving, even if it could not fully calm his spinning insides.
“Any with other people?”
“No. Just Colette.”
Arman paused, rubbing his fingers together in consideration. “Maybe she is the most important. The missing piece.” His voice was an absent rumble: a roaming mind made audible.
Brenol’s body grew taut, as a dog coming to point. “What did you say?”
“Maybe Colette is the missing aspect.”
“Before that. Why did you say she was the most important?” Brenol’s heart thundered in his ears.
“Perhaps she is the most important.” Arman’s quick mind clicked. “So you’ve heard that phrase associated with her before? Where?”
“Maybe?” Brenol closed his eyes, delving. It took him several moments before he was able to place it. “Veronia said it long ago. Back when I was a nurest. Before I’d met her. I said something about Veronia not even caring about her, and it said she was the most important. Wouldn’t say much to me after that… I couldn’t figure out what those words meant, so I eventually let it go. Forgot them, even. I guess I concluded that the land felt that way because of the connection.”
“But yet, you don’t believe that.”
“Not really. Veronia is not one to speak without intention.”
Arman released his long legs from their tight crouch and extended them, as though their freedom might enable inspiration. “What did Deniel think—about Colette?”
Brenol shrugged. “He thought her pretty significant. He was her cartontz. Plus she was basically a sister to him. I think it all combined to a near obsession when it came to protecting her.”
“Yes. And the abandoning of his own terrisdan to serve another nurest is puzzling itself. Mastering the desire for the connection’s power is battle enough without adding service to another nurest onto it.”
“Mmm,” Brenol mumbled in assent. “There was another thing…” The queenship…the tree…the feather…
“Yes?”
The young man laughed, realizing his love for Colette’s tree was more than likely clouding his ability to see the truth. She had been but a child when she had thought she would be queen over the whole world. And Deniel had not actually seen or heard anything himself. No, it could not be a reality. “Nothing. My mind is not making sense to me right now.”
Arman raised a transparent eyebrow but did not pursue it further. “And Jerem?”
The hair on Brenol’s arms prickled. “What do you mean?”
“Was his obsession with her only because of her connection?”
“Oh.” It was as though Arman had unlocked the door, even if it remained shut. He groped forward in this strange new torrent of thought. “Both of them seemed to know something about Colette. Jerem boxed up the other nuresti to save for later, but she was his experiment and object for orbits on end. He was fixated on her. And Deniel could not get past his cartess. Cartess this, cartess that. He said it was to protect her…but there was more. Because there was always some kind of insinuation that in saving her—”
Arman interrupted, “He saved Massada?”
“Yeah,” Brenol breathed.
“Do you know the memory now?”
The image of Colette’s tree blossomed again in his mind. Even the glimpse robbed him of his breath.
“Yes. But I—”
Flash!
Deniel crouched in a tree, concealed within its boughs and leaves. He was fully alert. He could hear every sound, every whisper tickling through the wood, every creeping thing in the night.
I will know. I must. It is my cartess, he thought.
Time passed. Hours. His legs ached, his bones grew cold and stiff. Yet still, he refused to move. My cartess, he thought, willing his muscles to endure without breaking into shivers. The strain grew unbearable, each moment a concerted effort to remain motionless.
Is this the wrong place? Was my information wrong? he wondered. But he remained. He refused to let anxiety steal his hope.
More time passed.
And then, in the hour before dawn, Deniel heard someone approach.
He thinks he hides his walk well, but I hear his pride leagues away, the young man thought.
Ugh. The stink.
Deniel knew it was Jerem simply from that awful scent. It was earthy—a deep down earth, too—but with a heavy spice. The mixture itself was not unpleasant, but it heralded its owner, who was.
I know you’ve done something with her, Deniel thought. I know it. You’ve been too many places at key times. Yes, we’ll see what web the busy spider spins.
It was not long before another approached. A stocky, greasy man shuffled in from the bushes, decked suspiciously in black and fidgeting as only the guilty do.
“Jerem?” he whispered into the darkness.
“Hush. You might as well trumpet your presence to the polina.” Jerem’s voice was dangerous and icy; it would take little to unleash whatever corrupt designs loomed in his heart. “What do you have for me?”
There was movement below, and Deniel could not discern their faces through the greenery, but he heard Jerem’s murmur of pleasure.
“Is there an antidote?” Jerem asked.
“I did not make—you never said to make one,” the shorter man whispered.
Jerem growled triumphantly. “Tell me how it affects the maralane.”
“It is slow—” the man started hesitantly.
“What?” Jerem asked, still distracted by his grasped treasure.
“The poison takes a long time to affect them,” he replied nervously. “It destroys their side gills, but it isn’t a fast process.”
Jerem’s voice was tainted with a controlled fury as he spoke, “How long?”
“Stop!” the stranger squeaked. “Please! I only tested it on the one. Maybe if you had me test another—”
“I will ask you again,” Jerem said slowly. “How long?”
A sudden fear sliced through Deniel’s chest. He is—
The young man tried to look down to see what was occurring, but the branches obscured his sight.
The shorter man moaned below. It was a cry of a man who realizes his peril too late. “I—” he whispered, clearly in pain.
A sharp whisper hissed through the leaves. “You will tell me. And you will tell me quickly. That was just a small cut. This blade can go deeper.”
The stranger groaned again, but words did not come.
“Tell me!” Jerem spat vehemently.
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.