“It was a mistake. Logan was grief-stricken. They took advantage of him.”
“That may be so, but many people suffer from grief. Not everyone makes a bargain they can’t afford.”
Carson’s lack of empathy frustrates her. His lack of understanding. Logan isn’t a bad person. In some ways, he’s too good. It hurts her to see someone without a chance. Without a choice. I made my choice.
They walk around the house a bit, the little girl dancing playfully in front of them. When they step out into the front yard, Iahel is accosted by the horde of pink cogs.
“Back now.” Carson shoos them away.
“It’s wisnok.” Iahel starts to walk on her own. Stretching her arm and legs. She rolls her east shoulder with strain and effort and winces. “Perhaps not everything.”
Carson smiles. “You should feel much better on the morrow. I, well, now that you’re awake, I’d like to ask something of you.”
She turns back, rolling her neck. “What is it?”
“This woman. The one working for the ranpart. Do you know where she is now?”
Iahel pauses. After the Victors, her trust in Carson, family or not, is shallow. “Why?”
“I ask only because things are . . . escalating. The tenfooters are raising their own march.”
“So this whole thing about the Roar is happening? A war is coming?”
“I don’t know if you were awake, but there were celebration lights a few days ago. The whole sky lit up in color.”
“Days ago? How long have I been asleep?”
“You were in and out for about a week.” A week? “Whenever a member of the royal family crossed a state border, it was tradition to send off sky colors. My assumption is the Roar, or someone folk believes is the Roar, has crossed the border into Misipit. And if he’s marching with any sort of pace, he could be at the Carvinga border within the month.”
“And you believe the brass orb could end it, end the war?”
“While you’ve been asleep, I’ve been communicating with a friend of mine. He believes that the orb is something more than that. He believes that it could be used to end the Land. He believes this whole affair is only a proxy war and the real purpose is to regain control of that orb and what it creates.”
“The ranpart wants to end the Land?”
“Or the crimson men do. Perhaps the ranpart knows this and is trying to prevent them from reuniting the brass. In either case, whoever has the orb has the power,” Carson states.
“Then how does this Roar fit in? What does it have to do with a proxy war?”
“In truth, I think the Roar is merely a symbol. A false light. Propaganda to convince the twofooters to go to war.”
“Why would someone want to end the Land?”
“They don’t like the system. The states. The thousands of priced folk. They don’t like entities like the Victors. Or the Laws. There’re any number of reasons why the Land isn’t working. Why someone might want to cleanse the whole thing. There’s a hundred and thirty-three states out there. They can’t all be as wonderful as Radiba.”
“So, what can I do?” Iahel asks. I’m just a girl from the Tunnels. A stowaway.
“My friend in Carvinga is willing to meet you. I’m not as well versed in the brass. And you said you found another piece in a stonetin, right? He wants to show you something. About the dangers the brass pieces hold. He wants you to warn your friend. Before everyone is sent left.”
“Wait. He’s in Carvinga?” Iahel says, skeptical.
Without pause or care, Carson answers, “Yes, he’s a tenfooter.”
“A tenfooter?” Iahel reacts: scared, shocked, nervous.
“Yes. But he’s not like the children’s tales. He lives on the outskirts, like my family and me. As I am not with the twos, he’s not with the tens.”
“This sounds mad.”
“I’m sure. But if your friend has those pieces, if she’s trying to reunite the orb, that may be the wrong course. If this orb is for the good of the Land or to end a war, why was it broken into all those pieces to begin with?”
Iahel stands quietly. The cogs simpering around her oblivious. She turns to the calm plateau. In the farthest distance looms a cloudy storm.
“That’s the march of twofooters out there,” Carson states.
The peace of the manor runs warmly against the thought of war. The last conflict between states had almost exterminated everyone.
“So you want me to meet your friend?”
“He’s more studied in things like this orb than I am. Let me show you.” He leads her back inside and to his office. She stands in wait as he digs through stacks of paper on his desk. “I haven’t been there myself in some time. Not since we brought home Willow. Here it is.”
Iahel steps over.
Carson grabs a stick and begins to mark the map. “If you cross here, it should be safe. There’s a trench that runs along the border, south of where the march is headed. His house is about three miles east of there.”
“And how will he know it’s me?”
“I told him about you, but you should give him this.” And from the desk, he pulls out a small round imprinted metal with the letters CS on one side and on the other SC.
“SC?”
“His curam is Crench. You shouldn’t worry. We’ve been talking back and forth.” He points to a small tapping device with a wire that falls to the floor.
“You have a tapper?” Iahel says.
“Not many do, but yes. We’re collectors.” He smiles.
Distracted by the idea of being able to talk to people across state lines, she returns to the idea of going into Carvinga. “This is mad. Why can’t he just tell you to tell me?”
“He says he has to show you. That you won’t understand, you won’t believe him, without seeing it.” Seeing her hesitate, Carson continues, “I’ve made the trip many times. If you stay on course and don’t wander, don’t get lost, you should be fine.”
Iahel laughs.
He smiles back and then becomes serious. “A war is coming. There’s not much time, and if these crimson folk are trying to unite that orb, they’re sure to seek out your friends. They’re in danger.”
The sentiment hits her. She likes Sanet. She is friendly, even in her cold demeanor. And Bernard is a nice older man, but they aren’t friends. She didn’t let them become friends. If her history was any indication, getting close to them would only get them sent. Do you want to send them left or do you want to leave them? That’s the Iahel life.
“We can refresh the bandage and get you any supplies you’ll need before you leave.”
On the road, again. It might have been nice to live here. To be a family. As foreign as the idea is to her, the small taste of a haynest life is like a hit of violet. Intoxicating. Addicting. And yet, every time she feels comfortable, it’s taken away from her.
“Why do you care so much, Carson?”
“Because I want a Land to pass along to my children. Maybe I’m overreacting, but it was the apathy of generations past that allowed the Land to nearly eradicate them before.”
She doesn’t counter.
Iahel sits down with the family over duskmeal as a cog curls up on her lap and buzzes. The hearty meal goes down noiselessly, with her imposing duty lying heavily over the evening.
“You appear to be great with freks, Iahel,” Mareen points out.
If only that were true of denizens. That night, Iahel tosses and turns. Thoughts of Logan. Of Sanet. Of the Victor’s mask. Of going into Carvinga. Of Jules. Who am I to any of them?
The next morn, with rucksack packed and ready, she hugs the family. Willow, the little girl, gives her the biggest squeeze. “I liked having a sister.”
Iahel smiles and presses the little girl’s nose. “You’re sweet. Take this.” She slips a secret something into the little girls hand. They grin in knowing.
She stands, nods to Carson and Mareen, and sets off.
A thin trail leads her from the rea
r of the manor down a small hill and eventually back down into the valley fogs. Before descending once more through the switchbacks, she looks across the wide crevasse as a quiet breeze brushes the tall grasslands of Carvinga. In some ways, she understands their private nature. She understands keeping the Land, and all it carries, away. She looks to her east and watches the impending battle storms marching in the same direction.
Is this my choice?
Chapter 21
INTO CARVINGA
Returning to the Misipit Valley fog amid the looming threat of twofooters on patrol, even for a short while,
makes Iahel’s uneasiness resume. Not to mention her heightened awareness of war and bloodlust, which makes this limited visibility even more terrifying. As the hours pass, with nothing to pursue or pay attention to, her mind wanders.
At first, it’s full of thoughts of Logan. What state is he in? Is he in pain? Is he going to survive? What will they do to him? She grows angry at how flam he was to give up so easily. Just what you do, Iahel. The weakness of Logan leads to thoughts of the strong will and coldness of Sanet. How secretive she is amid her calmness and evenness. Her outward behavior reminds Iahel of Jules, who floated with the Land wherever it took her. She was a believer in the Flow. Which meant Jules didn’t have secrets—or, in truth, live long enough to earn them.
The trail eventually leads back upward. Iahel looks to the map given to her by Carson and finds markings in the rock that should lead her to the tenfooter curamed Crench. A sign on the path leading upward warns denizens of entering Carvinga and in no uncertain terms that death will be immediate and without judgment upon stepping across the border. It also offers directions to a Tunnels entrance fifty miles south. Maybe I could just turn away, head back to Earls. But, instead, she buries the thought when Willow, Carson’s small and sweet daughter, flashes through her mind. She can’t let her own fear send an innocent girl. It’s cruel. And selfish. With a swallow, Iahel ignores the warning sign and ascends upward, out of the canyon fog once more.
Arduous. Step after step. This trail is less traveled, most of it comprising large rocks hanging precariously over grander ones. Every hundred strides or so, the stones below her feet shift and slide, causing her to catch hold of an outstretched rock or suffer a fall.
The trail ends above the fog and with the top of the canyon wall nearly ten feet above her. She checks her map but is unable to decipher if she’s still on the correct path, though she attempts to recall the switchbacks and forks leading her here.
Looking up, she can hear an implacable wind howling across the prairie. Below, a sheer drop through dense fog and jagged rocks waits. With a deep breath, she grabs on to the nearest outcropped rock, steps onto a lower one, and hoists herself upward. Another rock hangs barely in range. She stretches, her fingers nearly pulling from their sockets, and grasps. She tries to look down, but her body is so carefully, fearfully pressed against the wall, she’s unable to see. So, without looking, she begins to move her free foot around slowly, attempting to find the next foothold. Her toe hits a rock. She presses on it with her foot, testing the weight. It holds. She steps up.
Halfway.
Adjusting her weight, she looks for the next handhold. This one is only a foot below the top, but about two inches from her actual reach. She’ll have to jump. What if the rock can’t hold my weight? Thinking makes it worse. She jumps. Her fingers grasp the rock and she’s successful. With every grunt in her body, she pulls herself into position to grab the top of the canyon. The grass at the top is thick and hearty, and she takes hold of a large handful and pulls herself up. Her body rolls across the top, landing on her back. Iahel begins to laugh.
Now I know why Carson didn’t want to go.
She recovers a major longer before rolling to her knees and then standing. The air here is gray with a storm gathering in the distance. The wind smacks across her face, thrashing little sandstones against it. Behind her, the boulder-strewn plateau looks quaint across the deep canyon valley.
She’s entered Carvinga.
Looking to her east, she attempts a glimpse of the twofooter’s march, but the gray and looming storm only darkens the Land. Without much else to go on, she begins her trek into the grasses, the blades of which grow thicker and taller the farther she travels in. Before long, the grass is over her head. Carson told her to use the shadow after full sun to keep in an easterly direction, so she raises her hand until her palm is fully lit and catches where the shadow falls and then follows in that direction. Crench’s house is only a three-mile trek from the border, which should take her no more than an hour.
Every few hundred steps, she raises her hand again to check her direction, and she notices at some points that she’s walking entirely north. Frustrated, she adjusts to an eastern trajectory. The dark-green grass in front of her needs to be continuously brushed aside, but after the strenuous climb up the canyon, her arms are weak and tired. Ready for rest, she repeats to herself that it’s only an hour. It’s only an hour.
When the hour passes, the grass around her remains as thick and as monotonous as it was when she first began. She raises her hand and notices she’s once again moving north. Shnite. There are no landmarks or ways to get above the grass. She begins to feel a bit claustrophobic, the grass becoming a source of paranoia. The fear of running into a tenfooter grows with each passing major.
She raises her hand, finds her direction, and starts to trek again.
Another hour passes. Panic starts to set in. When she raises her hand, she’s no longer able to discern any shadow. The sun is setting. The thought of being in the grasses overnight brings back a heavy breathing, each breath profound and uncontrollable. She raises her hand again. Darker again and no telling in which direction she’s headed. Do I turn around? She looks behind her and finds it looks the same as ahead. The same as the east. The same as the west.
Without another minor’s thought, she runs. Grasses thwack her in the face as she tries to brush them aside. All she wants now is to find something. Anything but the tall green grass. She continues to run, and her mind believes she’s turned north again, so she corrects herself. Turning east. Did I overcorrect? There is no way she’s going to make it to Carson’s friend’s house by the full moon. And at this point, she just wants out of the grass. She needs to escape the torture of the nothingness.
There is no end. The grasses grow darker and darker. The moon above her, which had been so bright the previous night, is on this night blanketed with storm clouds. She continues to run in the dark, her hands outstretched, sure she’s going to run into some monstrous frek or a tenfooter. Carson sent me left. Carson is the one who told the Victors where Logan was. I’ll send that man.
She stops to catch her breath and take a swig from her water jug, then begins again. This time walking. Resigned. She can’t rest. She doesn’t want to be caught sleeping here.
And then—a trunk.
She feels around and finds it’s a small tree with three separate trunks interwoven together. “Approsh Dustian,” she says aloud, regretting it immediately. She climbs, branch to branch. Her arms are sore from the rock climbing hours before, from brushing the grass away.
And then, for the first time in forever, she’s above the grass. In every direction, in the soft translucent moonlight flows an endless sea of grass. There are no signs of houses or tenfooters or life of any sort. Off in the farthest stretch of her sight are little fires and explosions, thin white lines zooming across the night sky. And delayed thunderous, diluted booms.
The war’s started.
She watches the fire show in the distance. Within it, she discerns no denizens. No telling who is a twofooter and who a ten. Only a blur of explosions and muffled blasts. An impressive, if not terrifying, sight. Iahel clasps her hands over her mouth as she realizes what she’s witnessing. The first war in thousands of years. Right there. Denizens, bodies, friends, slaughtering each other. For what purpose? The stories her caretakers told of the Last War, how every
one was nearly sent, how war was the end of everything—on hearing those, she felt something greater than fear. Watching now, the belief the friends and denizens of old must have had that war would bring good is completely and entirely lost on her.
She begins to cry and hold herself. The storm chills the air. For all her life, she has been alone. She’s chosen to be alone. She’s run and disconnected; but in this minor, seeing the destruction of denizen against denizen, she wants someone to embrace.
Watching the battle throughout the night, she balances between branches, keeping her safe but not stable enough to close her eyes or rest, though any thought of sleep would be wasted while the battle rages throughout the night and into the first sun. In the fight, there are sometimes long stretches where nothing chances, and then another explosion catches her eye. The front of the engagement appears to move deeper beyond the Carvinga border. The twofooters are winning.
When the sun finally peeks over the crest, Iahel attempts to observe anything more in the brighter light and continues scanning the grassland as it reveals the surrounding area. There, behind her and maybe a mile to the south is a house. She studies the crest for any other homes and finds nothing else nearby. That must be Crench’s.
With everything in her power, she focuses on that point. She looks at the shadow of her hand, knowing it will only give her a mild, if not flawed, indication of the right direction.
She climbs down and begins her trek toward the house, walking slowly and purposefully. This time, she keeps her palm in front of her. Her eyes and mind on nothing else. It takes about a half hour before the grasses begin to thin, and she glimpses the house through the foliage’s cracks. She lowers her aching arm and hurries forward.
The grasses suddenly end and she stops. A denizen walks around the house, and Iahel finds that the tenfooter title is no grand invention. He stands twice her height, covered in fur from head to toe, wearing a ragged assembly of clothing. His facial features are barely visible within his mangled hair. He walks with a hunched back. The house itself accommodates the tenfooter’s high stature, with doors and windows double the height of any she’s ever seen. The roof is thatched with mud and multiple layers of grass. The sight is so outrageous, at first Iahel thinks she should instead run. Why is she meddling in the affairs of these dangerous denizens?
Advent of the Roar (The Land Old, Untouched Book 1) Page 24