Death shall claim many; malitas breeds ruin.
-Genesifin
Brenol and Arman spent the next several days scrambling to resupply and locate the latest incident of the black fever. Rumors spilled from both the north and south, but it was difficult to determine which held the most recent stories. They began to push north in a wild hope—for it meant less travel, and Brenol was reluctant to grant two steps into the dreaded Selet—but soon found the trail false, the whisper of a scent lost in the wind. Whatever ghost they sought was no longer in Selenia or Callup, so their heels sped around Ziel, through Conch, and towards Selet.
They had dispatched a new seal to Darse, and waited on his reply with great hope. No word had yet come, but perhaps the man had met difficulty in finding a sealtor willing to search them out as they themselves scoured the land like flushing dogs.
The journey was composed of an exhausting series of unknowns. What would they find? Did they even run toward the evil? Was this to be an unending chase? Did malitas travel by foot?
The shifts for sleep at night were also taking a toll after the heavy travel. Brenol’s eyes were bleary and blood-shot, and even Arman’s back curved under the frigid hand of the wind. The burden of the sword they also divided, swapping the load to fresh shoulders every few hours to avoid overtaxing. It was a distasteful task entirely. The blade itself was not exceptionally heavy, but the weariness came from the nature of the burden. One had to guard every step taken to ensure there would be no backlash from branches, that one’s calves or heels did not kick too high, that every twist of the body would keep the sword covered and secure from one’s skin. The white blade was a terror to he who possessed it; the bearer was forever conscious that it could undo with a mere nick.
“Ready,” Arman said. His eyes hovered over the cobalt fabric and the hanging bundle, but it was as secure as it could be. He blinked again. It remained tightly knotted.
“You find this amusing?”
“Oh,” Brenol replied, realizing his lips had curved into a faint smile. “Well, back in Alatrice there’s a saying. ‘Walk with an open blade and your enemy shall truly fall on it.’” He opened his hand in explanation. “Except the joke is a pointed way of saying that if you’re dumb enough to dance around with an open knife, you’re your own enemy.”
Arman did not respond.
“You are anxious,” remarked Brenol, obviously concerned. They both were, but the expression on Arman’s features was uncharacteristic. His transparent face was as taut and stern.
“This is when it gets dangerous,” the juile finally said gruffly.
“I don’t think that Limbartina was having a carnival,” Brenol replied with grim humor.
A dark look quieted Brenol. “We are tired and clumsy. After all this travel, we think we know how to handle the sword, but that very idea makes us fools. We must not let down our guard or lose vigilance—with ourselves, with the sword, with malitas.”
Brenol did not speak. He was too fatigued to waste any more speech on arguing. Arman was right, anyway. He stowed the advice in his cloudy mind and trudged onward.
They stepped across the lugazzi and into Selet by nightfall. Arman’s appearance became solid, concrete. He was even more ominous fully fleshed, although Brenol had not thought it possible. The juile paused and turned to his companion with eyes full of patient expectation.
Brenol grimaced and dipped down to the earth in a squat. He himself was not carrying the weapon but found his thoughts ever racing to its location upon his back and the movements of every muscle. The strain of the burden had leeched into each breathing moment, whether it was upon him or not.
He forced the angst to settle—at least for a moment—and touched the ground hesitantly. The land was foreign and rough, and he could feel it in the air. The eye bore into his spine.
“Selet, this is Bren.” He held his breath. “I come with Arman,” he added, as if the juile were a marble in the land’s collection box.
Brenol paused. He knew they would have to move forward regardless, but he hoped it would not be a battle. “May we pass?”
The eye stared, cold and calculating, and Brenol felt the elements blast upon him fiercely. Silence.
Arman clicked within his pocket. The familiar sound surprised and calmed him before he even had deciphered the words. Tell it we come to seek the malitas. It must know.
Brenol let the hard, cold soil fall in clumps beneath his hands. “We’re looking for malitas. We want to destroy it.”
Arman looked about, waiting. The whole world seemed tense, to be lingering on the last wave of an inhale.
Brenol sighed softly. It would have to do.
Anything at all? Arman’s beads finally clicked.
No. But the eye does not glare as harshly, Brenol responded.
Let us move, then.
The juile’s glance warned of caution, but it was gone within a blink. Brenol jutted his chin down in a swift nod.
The ice was thin, but they would have to run regardless.
~
The two made camp within the hour. The land was bitterly cold, and the skies held a sinister purple-gray that seemed more bruise than sunset. The air was thick and damp, turning their skin and clothing to sponges, their hair to mops. Brenol shivered but was somehow comforted by the ominous weather. It reminded him of Deniel’s wanderings in Selet. The land had fiercely fought him, as though playing a game, but Deniel’s determination was unparalleled. It drew the corners of his own lips up; Selet might play, but he would win.
Arman busied himself with starting the campfire. It smoked up huge clouds that sent their lungs hacking, but the wet wood eventually succumbed to the flames, and the two nestled under the canopy of trees and allowed the fire to work the damp from their bones. Their breaths plumed up like tiny mushrooms, and the stars emerged from the velvety blanket of night. They ate an unsatisfying meal of dried fish and fruit and finished it off with a steaming mug of amber tea.
Brenol breathed deeply, taking all the scents of pine and straw and mist into his lungs, and glanced bashfully at Arman. “Would you play a song? I have an itch for one.” He had never asked the juile to play before, but the moment seemed right for music.
Arman’s face was impassive, but he plucked a small red pipe from the folds of his robes and lifted it to his lips. Music swept the copse and seemed to silence the screaming of the wind and hold the very forest under its spell. The trees hovered closer, and the fire crackled up in time as if part of the symphony. The melody was familiar. It was an old juile tune that Brenol—and any Massadan—had heard a hundred times before, but here in Selet, in the dense moment of peril and peace, the notes wrapped around him with invisible cords and stole him into an inner quiet.
The music stopped, and Brenol opened his eyes. Yes, the magic had ended, but he grasped hold of the fleeting ribbon of calm and again inhaled the frosty night air.
“Thank you,” he said simply.
Arman tucked away the little instrument without a word. It clinked lightly against his side, and he patted it with a fond familiarity. The music had moved the juile more than he had expected. His interior now felt aligned and ordered. He patted his side again and leaned into a supine repose.
Brenol bathed in the light of Stronta and Veri, refusing to stir. He wanted to soak in the memory of the song and all that it had evoked. He remembered his mother, awkward and broken; Colette, his cherished one; Darse, both father and friend; Deniel, the man who had sacrificed his life; himself, with his gortei and his weakness. He faced his deficiencies daily, but in this moment saw them all for what they were and was not frightened. He peered at everything with thoughtful consideration and finally wrapped up in his blankets and slept soundly.
~
Morning light splashed upon Brenol’s face, and his eyes blinked open in surprise. He stared with horror at the sword and dipped his head in shame. Arman had woken him earlier, telling him to watch the sword while he went to scout the land and seek news. But despite his attempts to focus, Brenol had promptly fallen back asleep. Now, it was easily three hours past dawn, and he still lay in his blankets.
“You’ve got to be more careful,” he scolded himself sharply, but sighed, grateful Arman was not here to further berate him.
He sat up and looked around. If his body could have spoken, it would have wailed in complaint.
“You’ve gotten more sleep than you deserved. Stop harassing me,” Brenol mumbled.
His body did not listen.
The man rubbed his copper head and groaned his frame aright. The night’s flame was mere ash and char. He toed the gray heap but made no move to rekindle it. Instead, he rubbed his hands together to heat his chilled bones and set off to scavenge the area for breakfast.
Brenol had not gotten ten strides from the site when he realized his error. He stumbled back, flooded with humiliation and relief, and collected the detested sword.
Can I do nothing right this morning?
If I’d left it behind… If something had happened… If someone had taken it…
Arman’s dark face flashed fearfully in his memory. “Now is the time of error,” the juile had said. “A simple mistake could cost us the world. Remember the sword always. Always.”
Arman was right. He was always right.
Brenol waited for his hammering heart to calm before fumbling with the straps. He was unused to tying the sword upon himself, but the knots were familiar enough from the scores of times that he had secured the loathed weapon upon his friend. Brenol arched to look over his shoulder and saw enough to allow his lungs to breathe freely; he would likely survive his hunt for breakfast.
The morning was sullen and chilly. A low fog lay about the land, but the wind was still, which was a relief rarely felt. He burrowed for a few edible roots near a lichened terilo tree and soon happened upon a patch of oleni. The bush was hardy, producing a tart fruit in the heart of winter and a soft, edible orange flower in summer. This oleni was hidden among some shrubbery, its branches still full of the plump, green berries. He thrust a few into his mouth, and they burst with the smallest touch of his teeth: ripe! His lips puckered from the sour flavor, but then he smiled happily at his find. It took him about half an hour, but he plucked the bush clean and carefully conveyed the treasure back towards the camp in the bowl of his shirt ends.
Arman’ll be pleased.
He grinned. I’m pleased.
~
It is worse than I feared, Arman thought.
His heart beat in a strange cadence, but he knew it for what it was: the rhythm of dread.
He stood near a precipice, with back toward the lovely panorama. Behind him, matroles down, was the Songra. She was frozen, a still snake winding across the land, and Trilau sat on the opposite side of the vista, nestled in snow.
Arman had hiked the pass, hoping to spy a residence or two where he might inquire about the fever. He had barely glanced around to survey the area before turning on his heels at a light noise. He gave no indication of surprise save his lips tightening and eyes narrowing for a fraction of a second.
He did not need time to comprehend disaster.
Dark eyes stared into his. They held a strange mixture—perceived by the juile as loathing and lethargy.
As though if he were truly roused, he would douse the universe in flames…
They were the dark eyes of Colette’s drawings, the eyes he had regarded before with grim expression, except now they were not vacant. Now they were animate orbs of insatiable hatred, black pools leaking into the golden spheres of a man he had grown to love.
Darse, had you known…
He had the same sturdily built frame, but now there was a lithe, feline quality to him. He emanated mystery, like he could slide from your fingers as easily as smoke. The golden irises were no more than flecks of yellow amidst the leeching darkness of his pupils.
Darse regarded him coolly, but still Arman’s face did not flicker for an instant. He merely bowed in greeting, although not the usual deep bow of juile courtesy; Arman refused to take his vision from the creature.
Darse spread his mouth into a broad grin. It made the once wizened face look impish and stretched. He sliced through the distance between them with swift strides.
The sword, lying back by the fire, engrossed Arman’s mind. There were too many complications, too many possibilities. He silently prayed that Brenol would be prepared.
“May I join you?” The voice was honeyed and deep. It was Darse’s voice, yet altered. The words were accented differently than Darse’s usual speech.
He reached out to touch Arman’s shoulder. The juile did not flinch but used the opportunity to slide his glance down to the man’s hands. The fingertips revealed what he already knew: Darse was no more. He slid out of the hold with a fluid twist of the shoulder and separated the space between them with a backwards step.
Darse’s eyebrows furrowed at the movement. “May I join you?” the man asked again, with bass deep and soothing.
Arman gave no indication of having perceived the question. He heard his own voice, directed to Brenol, echoing in his mind: Choose your words carefully. They can easily be your death.
“What terrisdan are you from?” Arman asked simply. He pointed with a hand to indicate the direction he was taking and ambled south down the hillside. It was a steep grade but not more than thirty minutes from the campsite.
Darse followed without hesitation. His limbs moved with an agility Arman had never seen before in the man.
“The lugazzi,” Darse said genially. “But I travel a bit. I find each has its own charm.”
“Your name?” Arman queried.
“I have had many,” Darse said with a wink. The flecks of gold sparkled in the early light of morning.
Arman nodded as if in understanding. “Your preferred name, then?”
Darse paused, as if he was unsure whether to speak or not, and then with hubris glinting in his evil orbs, he spoke. “Chaul.”
There was a truth there, and Arman felt it. He knew it in his marrow. He was reluctant to tell me… There must be power in his name. But why would he say it, then? Is he a fool?
No, Arman realized. He just drips of pride.
The specter-black eyes regarded him lazily. “And you? Your name?”
“I have had many as well,” Arman replied with equal nonchalance.
Darse fished through his pocket, collected a piece of resin, and posited it into his mouth. He chewed absentmindedly, and the scent of the hulio clung to the moment. It was fresh and sweet, a mingling of mint and maple. “So tell me one.”
“Terent,” the juile said.
“Terent,” Darse repeated, rolling the name on his tongue. His eyes never left Arman, and they swirled with emotions the juile found difficult to decipher.
Arman led through a stand of pine, and soon the ground leveled. After several minutes, the two entered the campsite, and the absence of both sword and Brenol was evident. The fire was lifeless and cold. Brenol had not even made breakfast before leaving, although his strewn belongings reassured the juile that the young man had not left altogether.
Bren, you better return quickly. I cannot tarry with him long, Arman thought.
“I have been interested in juile for some time. May I join you, and you can teach me all about your kind?” Darse glanced lazily around the campsite, taking in the scene with an odd indifference.
“I am waiting for my friend to return.”
Darse’s eyes sparked in a moment of interest. “Is he juile too?”
“No. Human.”
“Would he refuse your offered hospitality? May I not join you for a few minutes until he returns?”
He pushes and pushes. This dance is too dangerous. Carn himself could not make the steps…
“I do not know what he shall say,” Arman replied flatly.
Darse’s face soured. His lips curled up in irritation, and his eyes hardened as he regarded Arman coldly. “I will spare a few moments, regardless. Perhaps he will be happy to see me. Who knows? We may know each other already.” He smacked the resin between his teeth and spread his lips into a snaky grin.
“Perhaps you do,” the juile replied.
~
Brenol slid into camp, hunched over his fruit-filled shirt with a happy smile painted across his flushed face. His clothes hung heavy and drenched upon his limbs but could not sour his mood. The fire would rectify the cold, and, most importantly, he had breakfast!
He arched his back in a protested ache against Heart Render. He was weary of the burden and the awkward movements he made to ensure his safety from it. He scowled but then allowed his face to return to a grin. He had breakfast! His stomach felt raw from exertion and regular hunger. This would be a grateful feast indeed.
It was only as Brenol drew closer that he perceived Arman and realized that the juile stood with a companion. His face tightened involuntarily, and his eyes squinted at the stranger. Brenol slowed his steps but continued forward. There was a familiar quality about the other figure…
He edged closer. As he neared, he recognized him, but something prevented him from calling out. Brenol’s feet turned heavy, and he dragged them across the ground like millstones on leashes.
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t.
No.
Darse stood, leaning lazily against a tree, smacking lips together as he mawed through a fresh piece of resin. The scent was too pleasant for the moment. Brenol stared weakly at his friend. Yes, the features were akin, but his frame was held differently, as though he were a marionette in a puppeteer’s hands.
Darse raised his hand in greeting and moved over to plop himself on a log—soft from its carpet of moss, damp from snow—and stared at him expectantly. Brenol stared back, jaw gaping a crack.
The juile clicks met his ears—Not Darse—and all the knuckle-clenched hope in him collapsed. Then Brenol saw the eyes. The ponds of black meant only the end. His chest felt soft, and the devastation nearly caused his legs to buckle. He drew in a rasping breath and felt his eyes smart.
“Are you ok?” Darse asked, hardly raising a brow in feigned concern.
“Yes.” Brenol reached an arm out to steady himself. His tongue felt leaden and his insides began to threaten their way up. He forced his mouth to relax from the near gag and spoke, “I-I… I just need to get back to my soumme. She’s with child.” Brenol instantly regretted revealing any truth to malitas, yet his mind felt sluggish and incapable of coping with reality.
Darse pondered the statement with interest before asking, “May I join you for a few minutes before you go?”
“We don’t have time,” Arman replied hastily.
“I see,” Darse said. His voice was lined with a treacherous edge, and his lips pressed out in petulance.
Suddenly, Brenol caught hold of the memory-feather that had been eluding him for moons, and his face blanched even whiter. He had just clambered out of the portal for the second time, with the mystery of Colette’s desperate voice ringing in his ears. It was so far past that it nearly seemed a dream, but yes, he had met those hard, hungry eyes before. Different skin, but still the same eyes. And they had hated him then, too.
His mind reeled. There was more than just grief for Darse—and that alone nearly choked him. Death had stood before him in the flesh now twice. And neither time was a mere story, picture on a page, dream. This was malitas.
The juile stared hard between the two and discerned there could be no more room for pretense. What must be done, must be done swiftly; this was too perilous a stunt. “Do it. There is no time,” Arman barked.
The green berries fell to the earth in a shower, bouncing and rolling in every direction. Brenol reached for Heart Render. It came out clumsily, and the encasing fabric sliced clean before the keen bite of the blade. He blinked; it had been so near his skin all that time.
Darse’s lazy expression was no more. “What is that, friends?”
“You’re no friend!” Brenol shouted. Fury and grief pounded hot upon him, causing his hands to shake. The white blade quivered back and forth, but its beauty was undiminished. It could have been made of liquid, lethal white liquid.
The dark eyes lingered in slight amusement before Darse’s face opened into a broad, evil smile. “You are more fool than the rest.”
Brenol did not respond but stepped closer, moving with small, cautious steps. Dead ochre leaves, mingling with snow, crunched beneath his feet. He was now a mere arm’s reach away, but his limbs would go no farther.
“You know nothing, child. You think to hurt me? Do you seek my money? My items?” He laughed derisively. “I will teach you regret as you have never known. You will live to weep over your friend’s torture.” Darse smiled, and his lips extended out cruelly. There was nothing familiar about his expression.
“Bren, now!” Arman shouted, observing his friend’s face. “There’s no other time! Do it now!”
The spirit hesitated, doubt suddenly clouding its untouchable experience of safety. It peered at the weapon shaking in the man’s hands.
It could not be, Chaul thought. No… I could not find it. The sword is mere myth. A story… Plus, they do not know who I am. Still, fear narrowed the normally haughty countenance as it recalled a mistake: it had revealed its own name…
The specks of gold remaining in the darkening irises flickered out at Brenol, and suddenly the young redhead doubted, as though the glimpse of yellow hinted at a Darse still hidden somewhere in the chaos.
Could he be alive in there? Brenol asked himself. Could he?
Desire for what could not be undid him. The love for his friend and near-father encompassed him, and tears blinded his vision and rent his heart. Brenol’s body crumbled, and he felt the rough impact of land meeting knees.
“Not Darse, not Darse,” he mouthed.
He racked and heaved, unaware of what beset the world about him. All he knew was bitterness. Yet, heaped upon the earth, Brenol’s hand still gripped the sword. He opened his eyes and as he peered at the white of the blade, an image flashed fast upon him: the milky-white maralane child whom he had buried so many orbits ago. Her beautifully crowned head of golden hair, her tiny and limp frame, iridescent and milky skin, her drooping tails. The memory was like a slap, as it had been once before, and his mind revolted from the maelstrom of grief, and his eyes pierced open to the present and all its pain.
Brenol drove his vision up, with knuckles white around the hilt and fear gripping his gut. Arman stood alone in the forest with him, gazing down sadly. Darse’s corpse lay empty and inanimate upon the ground.
Chaul had escaped.
Brenol groaned in despair. “I’ve failed.”
Arman did not answer, for indeed, he had.