When the sandwiches come, Iahel, a dedicated veggie, passes her lyn portion to Bernard, who in turn reluctantly shares half with Brute, to the laughs and amusement of the others. They all eat and drink ravenously, and soon, as dawn becomes dusk and after much coin and many more rounds, they find themselves entirely jarent. Logan hangs on Sanet’s every breath, his hands unable to leave her inner thigh, and any thoughts of Victors lie buried deep inside. Iahel had long since disappeared, having run off with the server when her shift ended, and Bernard is himself in an arcane conversation with a sociable friend about the various religions that have stemmed from Lincoln and how others outright despise the old god.
The rest of the killhung has mostly emptied. With the tournament over for the day, most friends have either returned to their sleeping rooms or continued on their various journeys.
Sanet holds Logan by the collar. “Should we slip now or later?”
Having suppressed his hesitations to be moved by Sanet’s warm eyes and irresistible smile, Logan replies simply, “Yes.” He then kisses her, a hand behind her neck, and after a major he pulls away, staring deep into her striking brown eyes. Shnite, she’s beautiful. As they stand to leave, Logan turns to Bernard, who’s still engrossed in conversation and unaware the two of them even moved.
“He’ll be wisnok,” Sanet says, pulling Logan by the hand.
They giggle and stumble back to their room, and when they close the door behind them, Sanet rips Logan’s shirt and fumbles with his belt. Logan stands back, hands on his head, letting her undress him clumsily, with intent and glee and sensual bites of her lower lip. His breath is heavy. Nervous. He imagines the black ooze waiting in the corners of the room. The image fades as he closes his eyes.
When he’s fully undressed, he starts on her, taking his time to remove her clothes, kissing and caressing each area of skin he exposes, the room spinning endlessly around him. He gently kisses each finger, each breast, each inch of skin, and eventually his worship ends between her thighs. He pulls her into the soft bed and they roll together, slipping in and out of each other. They sweat and laugh and groan. They talk without speaking, their eyes watching each other, adjusting to the other’s flinches and subtle movements. Faster when it’s right. Softer when it’s close.
The night moves with greater and slower speeds.
Later, Sanet falls asleep while Logan toys with her hair, moving it behind her ear and across her face. He gives her a mustache and smiles to himself. He moves to the relief room to piss and looks at himself in the mirror, sweat covering his body. He lifts his hand to see the rough blisters and bruises from the black stone. Quite the prize for some meaningless piece of brass.
With the brass in his thoughts, he returns and decides to search through Sanet’s rucksack, pulling the small fragment out and looking it over, unable to discern how it has any significance. A flam chunk of metal. A rock with little weight. He turns it over and rubs a surface that’s perfectly smooth, though on its other side it’s jagged and chipped. He puts the fragment back and retrieves the smaller sliver that Bernard found inside the neox. A portion of its surface is also smoother than the others. He returns the sliver and comes across her pad. For a minor, he wants to read it, curious about what she writes in there at night, but decides against it. With the ale still spinning inside him, he continues to dig through the rucksack and discovers a small and folded note. She won’t mind if I read this. He smirks to himself and takes the note in his hand, his heart beating like a child snipping from the sweets jar. He looks over his shoulder at Sanet, who sleeps, tranquil and soft, lost in a boundless kiptale. Carefully, he unfolds the note and finds, written in neat cursive handwriting, a letter addressed to Sanet.
My Dearest Sanet,
When I found you all those years ago, alone and frightened, I brought you into my life against my acolyte’s wishes. And during those years, your presence in my life has been overwhelming. You have become a daughter I always wanted. In some ways, ways you may never know, it was fortuitous that we met. And so, I am sending you off with great reluctance even as I am aware it is time for you to see more of the Land. I hope I have taught you much and that you know how important it is to me that we reunite the brass. Even if we disagree with whom should recover it. I hope you trust my judgment in this matter.
However, this note is not to reiterate what I’m sure you already know, but rather to set you upon our other task. One with a purpose I know you do not understand but that you must trust is in the interest of us all. The man I spoke of last eve is curamed Logan Hunst. From my research, I’ve learned he is tall, with dark hair and friendly eyes. He should be near the same age as you and, according to rumor, should be traveling south through the Carvinga Tunnels around early spring. As it will be difficult to find him there, you’re likelier to find him at his mother’s haynest in the Radiba Highlands, the closest house north of the Lothatin Bridge. It has come to my attention that he owes an immense debt to the Victors of Organsia. You could use this information to encourage him to return to me. To us. We can alleviate that debt if required. You’re also welcome to use whatever means you desire to bring him back, but as we have discussed, he is as important to our history as much as is the brass. If you should miss him altogether, we may be able to send for him after he’s taken in by the Victors, but I do wish that you meet him on your own. I think you’ll agree that this is the best way. If we are to fulfill our futures.
I cannot stress enough how vital this task is. The Land has called upon us to act. I should return by late summer and hopefully in time to greet you and your newfound body, Logan, in kind.
Yours in true, with luck and praise,
Ranpart Cadwellion
Logan turns back to Sanet. His face contorts in unexpected anger and utter confusion. He stands and his naked body suddenly feels vulnerable and flam. She knew me? Was this an act to make me follow her? His mind races, replaying all their interactions and trying to recall every way in which she might have manipulated him. His feelings for her turn his stomach. How flam was he to fall for her?
And who is this ranpart? He thinks of all the things he knows about them but can only remember how secretive they are, bargaining in the ways of the Land most friends could not understand, studying histories and the old ways. He remembers Sanet’s confession that Bernard is some Dark Valor and how that should have clued him in to her devotion to a ranpart. Such fleeting affection comes built on ulterior motives. He remembers hearing rumors and beliefs that ranparts are, in truth, monstrous freks who disguise themselves like cave-dwelling protnuks or shrillers of the frozen south.
And then he thinks about his father. Was this ranpart a part of that? The Victors had refused to divulge to him what they’d uncovered in their short investigation of his father’s sending until he paid them the coin they were owed. If this ranpart knew him, if this ranpart knew about the Victors, he must know about his father. This thought boils him even more, anger evolving into an outright hatred of Sanet.
Without a minor’s pass, Logan quickly dresses and grabs his rucksack, leaving a few coin on the bed for his portion of the room. In the hall, he decides to get Bernard, afraid of what she might have in store for the old man. Logan knocks on his door, but no answer. He knocks again, impatient. No answer. He knocks a third time, pounding without pause. The door opens, and Bernard, half-dressed, peeks out.
“Logan? Are you mad?”
“We should leave, Bernard. Something is going on here, and I don’t think it’s safe for you or me.” He looks up and down the hall in a bit of paranoia. What if Sanet wakes up? He doesn’t want to face her.
Bernard looks at him perplexed and annoyed. “Come in.” He opens the door farther and Logan steps inside.
“I know this sounds mad, but I read a letter in Sanet’s rucksack that says she is supposed to find me. That she’s to bring me back to her ranpart.”
Bernard looks flustered. “What’s that?”
“Sanet’s a shadow self.” Loga
n crosses his arms, his whole body shaking with anger and confusion and a growing fear that Sanet was going to know he found her out. “We should leave before she wakes and tries to talk her way out of it.”
“What about Iahel?”
“I haven’t gotten to her yet.”
“Well, did you ask Sanet about it? Maybe she does have an explanation?”
“Ask her why she’s labored to stalk me? Why some ranpart wants me? What explanation is there?”
To this, Bernard shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m tipst, and all this paranoia seems unsung. I’m not sure we shouldn’t take the night to cool. Perhaps we can talk about this in the morn?”
“I don’t need the night. We need to leave. And I don’t want you to stay.”
“Logan, friend, don’t go. Don’t you like this girl? Maybe this is a good thing? Did it say for what purpose?”
How can he be so flippant? So careless? “Something’s not right, can’t you see that?” Logan pleads.
“In truth, I don’t. And it’s probably because I’ve had three too many ales.” Bernard smiles and pats Logan on the shoulder. “We should talk in the morn over some coffee sticks and with clearer heads.” He ushers Logan back into the hall. “Now don’t think me dismissive, but I believe you’re a bit tipst as well.” Bernard pauses. “Grats moon, Logan.”
He closes the door, leaving Logan standing alone and frightened in the hall. Maybe I am paranoid. Maybe I should confront her? But what is she going to say that I don’t already know?
And with that last thought, Logan decides to leave.
He’s sure that Iahel will give him the same speech, and if he’s honest with himself, he wasn’t going to stay. The Victors would be sure to find him. Maybe it’s best Bernard and Iahel are not with me when they do. He sets off down the hall, through the various vendor booths, and leaves the Crossroads proper, heading toward the trail of the Misipit Valley. All that time I fretted over whether to stay, and all along it was but one choice to choose.
❖❖❖
As the dawn hits crest, Logan’s eyes droop. Tired and sore, he barely plods along, with the Crossroads hours behind and the Misipit Valley, a warren of deep canyons that produce, in some, a severe and imposing depression owed to an interminable gray fog for weeks and weeks, ahead. He continues to trek down into the valley, along switchback trails a mile below, his mind drifting through a surplus of Sanet’s actions and words. He questions her every minor over the past month and attempts to sort his boalerboy crush and place her betrayal square on the ranpart’s door. He imagines the midfrek to be a tall and looming shadow, nestled silently behind Sanet, reaching around her with lurid claws like some unleft welking from beneath the stonetin.
The air grows colder as the fog rolls in around him. Soon he finds himself completely alone in the valley, unable to see more than twenty strides ahead, stepping in a measured pace, like the krakes of the Tunnels, his soft footsteps in the dirt the only noise for hours at a time.
Past full sun, he reaches the canyon base to find an etched wood sign pointing in three directions. Renant is six hundred thirty-two miles to the south, Quemon one hundred forty-eight to the north. The Crossroads behind him only seventeen. She’s still so close. Closer than he is to them. He turns south for Renant.
A friendly tavern, Bluesteep Sleep, lies only a few hours ahead. If he can carry himself there, he can finally rest his eyes and settle his mind. The valley is a quiet trek, especially heading southwest toward the ashen, abandoned state of Renant.
The fog buffers the full sun overhead and limits Logan’s view to irregular patches of trench-limb shrubs, and he hears only the trickles of an unseen creek. A couple of getwishes pad by. In the dense fog, the tall harmless freks are merely a pair of knobby legs that approach and pass in softly padding steps that grow louder without incident. Majors pass, and Logan’s eyes continue to droop heavily, making him unsure he’ll last the remaining hours to Bluesteep. After a few more strides, he decides to lie out on his rucksack to catch a few minors of rest.
Setting it down on the trail, he finally closes his eyes, which might have led to an excellent nap—if it weren’t interrupted by an echo of approaching footsteps.
Part Three IAHEL
Chapter 15
LEFT WITHOUT A WAVE
Across the promenade, she looks like any other. Plain. Not especially handsome, not especially disagreeable. An average heavyset woman playing a timple. The breeze carried over the sea on this particular day brushes through the woman’s light-brown hair. It’s romantic, if not brisk. Iahel holds herself, rubbing her hands against her arms to keep warm, as she watches and hears the distant notes of a melody she’s never heard but would never forget.
When the woman stops and saunters over, edging closer and closer, Iahel isn’t sure how to react. She steps backward and hits against the rail. Only fifteen years old, having stowed away on this passenger’s kleep curamed Gilraymond and sailing from the smog-ridden state of Niance to what she heard was the picturesque expanse of the Yikshir Sands, she is sure the woman will report her to the captains in charge. Would they throw her overboard or send her below to await a trial? Are there trials on a kleep? Laws she’s unaware of? Fear rises against the unimaginable conditions that await her.
Iahel steps east, making her way to the kleep’s stern. Waves churn below from a recent storm, breaking on the port side. Gray clouds agitate and swirl above, while in the distance, the abnormally thick red-and-aqua-blue glow emitting from the abandoned state of Trimod catches the attention of the other citizens aboard. Iahel decides to return to the hold where she’s slept and remained secret for the past week. Return to the quiet trip across the sea. No more day trips, Iahel.
Before she’s able to reach the door to the companionway, the woman grabs her by the shoulder. “Why are you running away, girl?”
Iahel spins, taking a deep breath. Afraid. This can’t be the end. She escaped being sent times before, such as when the caretakers of the children’s square sat her down to say that she was being spared after the destruction in the South Province. It hadn’t made much sense at the time, but as she’s grown older, she’s realized how significant that was. How narrowly she escaped the short life. Most children who turned five without parents, without a haynest, were sent left. The idea bothers her—that an explosion somewhere south of her, in an unknown place and where unknown citizens were sent left, gave her another chance at life. But why?
Up close, the woman has the most striking eyes. A dark green that pierces straight through Iahel to underneath, where no lies, no hiding are allowed. She feels naked before her. Iahel blushes.
“I was going back to my cabin.”
“And who are you here with? Where are your parents?”
Iahel swallows, annoyed at being treated like a child, though being small for her age and looking no more than twelve doesn’t help. Nor does having short-cropped blonde hair. So much so, that her natural position is the offense when adults treat her as if she needs someone. She has been alone her entire life, and this day is no different.
“I’m alone. And I’m old enough.”
The woman laughs loudly. “Well, sur lady, my appizement.”
Iahel waits quietly, unsure of what the woman wants.
She continues, “If you’re old enough, then may I invite you to have a bit of fruin with duskmeal? Because, if you’re not too bothered by the words, I say you look absolutely starved.”
Iahel stands tall and defiant. Her stomach, however, rumbles with agreement. The woman grins.
Below, in the kleep’s opulent dining hall, the woman and Iahel sit on opposite sides of a white-cloth-covered table set with utensils and rounds carved in ivory and porcelain. Iahel attempts to eat with precision and care but caves to her hunger after the first course of braised lyn is set before her.
“Carnivorous, aren’t you?”
Iahel looks up, her face stuffed with bread and gravy. She smiles and nods. Her game is ruined, but it doesn
’t matter to either of them.
After eating, Iahel notices that the meats on the woman’s round remain untouched. How can she let them grow cold? The woman looks to her, studious, and pushes the plate to Iahel. Without question, Iahel grabs the food.
“Manners, sur lady. You’re not a frek in the wild.”
Iahel drops the food. She licks her lips and then carefully uses her prong to pierce the lyn and place it on her own round. She eats using blade and prong and starts to imagine herself a decent woman, like the one she sits with.
As the duskmeal finishes, Iahel notices the woman’s expressions have changed. Though elegance and sophistication still blanket the woman and pull in Iahel, who sits straighter in her chair in an attempt to meet the woman’s standard, she appears . . . softer. The woman says little. Iahel starts sentences as if to state something, all mundane things, but anything to burst open the silence. Instead, she mumbles halfway through words, which hold little substance or encourage additional comments. Iahel had been nearly noiseless over the past week. Alone. She realizes at that minor that she misses those full-moon conversations with some of the other girls and boys in her children’s square, and giggling until the sun rose.
The wonderment of the woman before her makes her body ache with pangs of wanting to touch her and be her and know everything about her. Instead, Iahel blurts out, “Who are you?”
A pause as the woman smiles with consideration. “My curam is Aerial. And I’m returning to Yikshir from Canerio for my mother, who was recently sent left.” She speaks with confidence and calm.
Advent of the Roar (The Land Old, Untouched Book 1) Page 17