Eyes in the Water by Monica Lee Kennedy

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