Before she’s able to have another thought, another step, another decision, the tenfooter detects her. “Who’s there?” His voice rumbles and vibrates with fury. He stomps toward her.
Iahel—no choice—steps out in the open, hands on head.
“Please, apory. I come in peace. I am a friend of Carson’s.”
The tenfooter stops. “How are you a friend of Carson’s?”
Remembering, Iahel fumbles to retrieve the metal piece she was given and holds it out. The tenfooter reaches out his arm, easily the length of her entire body, and grabs the coin with his massive, fearsome hand. He turns the coin over in an examination and then swallows it.
Iahel gulps and waits.
“Are you the girl, Iahel?”
She nods, unable to look the tenfooter in the eye. She watches as his shadow, looming over her, stands and steps away.
“Come inside then.”
Taking her first breath, she follows a few paces behind. He steps inside the haynest, leaving the towering door open behind him.
Inside is a mess of sticks and mud and fecal matter. The miasma inside the house is thick with a putrid whiff of urine and rotting foods. Iahel covers her mouth and swallows her gag reflex, unsure how the tenfooter would react to her retching in his living room. He turns and sits on a pile that crunches beneath him.
“Carson tells me you know where the other pieces of brass are?”
“I know where two are, yes.”
“Did you bring them here?”
“No. A friend has them. In Yikshir.”
“Yikshir? That’s not far enough.”
Iahel doesn’t answer. The tenfooter picks up a mess of bones and begins to suck on them. They look to be her size.
“Do you know what the brass is for, Iahel?”
She shakes her head.
“The brass pieces form an ardroke’s eye. If that brass is reunited and returned to Carvin’s Grave, it will only mean the utter destruction of all us Carvingians. And then you Yikshirs. Of all the state’s denizens. Even the passive little Radibians won’t be safe.” He waits. “You seem afraid of me. Imagine a frek one hundred times larger. Looming over the state with a strength to kill hundreds with a stroke of its arm. A stomp of its feet. Would you be afraid of that?” The tenfooter leans forward. His teeth and eyes lurk through thick, matted fur. They’re black and yellow each. His breath reeks of death.
“Yes,” Iahel says meekly.
He leans back. “I would be afraid of that. My fellow Carvingians think it’s something to worship. Why they’ve spent generations sending back the weak, the short, the denizens like you. They’re attempting to be as broad and vigorous as the ardrokes. It’s a mad waste of time.”
Drawing from Sanet’s cold strength, she risks asking, “Why did you want to see me?”
“You need to warn them. Warn your friends. But you must be shown first. You must see it. To know what real dangers await this Land if the twofooters get their way.” At this, he stands again. Though she knows how tall he is, the sight is still impossible to understand. Iahel steps backward, crunching mud and shnite beneath her feet.
He exits through the front again, Iahel gladly following. The air outside, the wind, and the chill are a welcome reprieve from the stifling odor of the tenfooter’s haynest.
“My curam is Scover Crench. And I give you permission to climb onto my back so we may travel faster.” He kneels on one knee. Iahel, apprehensive, steps closer, cautious but attempting to be brave.
Scover snaps his teeth at her, then laughs. “If I were going to bite you, girl, I would have done so when we first met.”
She gulps and grabs on to him. His fur is wet and dirty. It has the lingering smell of his haynest. She holds his neck as he stands and begins to trudge through the grasslands.
“If we’re caught, I can’t cross that others won’t want to eat you. They find young girls like you to be most delicious.”
Scover continues along. His steps are broad and hurried. The wind at her face beats against her as she looks out across the grasslands. Within a few minors, they’re passing the tree she rested in the night before. The battle far in the distance has faded some, even farther into the Carvinga state.
“The twofooters think they have the upper hand, but they don’t know what’s in for them once they’ve fully crossed those handmade bridges of theirs.” Scover laughs at this. “That pathetic march is embarrassing. The leaders directed some of our weaklings to fight the first surge of them. Get them feeling cocky and brave. Unseat them from the safety of their valley fog.”
The battle takes on a new shape. All those ingreves and getwishes. All the hatred and pride the twofooters are fighting for. Useless. Iahel hates the tenfooters. She hates Scover, even if he means to do the right thing.
They journey for a time until they come to an enormous stonetin, ten times larger and more ornate than the one buried deep in the tunnels below. From it, dozens of towers spiral to the sky. Scover stops and kneels. Iahel climb down but remains standing on his knee to keep a closer view to the top of the grass.
“There is one of our stonetins. Where we keep the remains of ardrokes. Do you see its shape?”
She looks at it more closely. It is symmetrical, with four main towers—two larger ones in the back corners, two shorter ones in the front corners—then many more between them and around.
“It looks a little like a throne?” she suggests.
“Exactly, girl. And do you know what a chair that size would be for?”
She looks back to the mammoth stonetin, imagining it to be a prodigious throne. A frek that could sit upon it would easily be the size of a mountain. The thought sends grenspimples down her spine. “Dustian.”
“You’ll need more than a god to save you if that brass finds its way to one of these.”
She nods. “One of these? There are more?”
Scover laughs. “You think there’s only one ardroke bell toll?”
Unsure of what he means by “bell toll,” she still understands the dangers everyone is about to face. “Can you take me to the Yikshir border, to ensure I make it out of here?”
“I may. But it might be easier to just use my tapper. Do you know if your friends have one?”
She shakes her head, unsure.
“Scover. What are you doing here?” a voice booms to their east.
Iahel turns to see a group of tenfooters walking toward them, then quickly drops into the grass, out of sight.
“Run, girl. Or you’ll never see another day.”
On instinct, Iahel aches to run, but her feet don’t move.
“Run, girl. Don’t be mad.”
And then, to her surprise, Iahel responds, “I’m… I’m staying.”
Part Four ETHAN
Chapter 22
THE WOMAN WITHOUT A PAST
Mercet always falls asleep after Ethan reads the fourth page, likely because the first page takes more than a half hour to finish. Mercet needs time to settle into sleep. His process is to first use the relief room. Then to recite grats moon, a second time, to his mother. Nor can he forget to check for decomps or tenfooters in the closet. Eventually, the time comes when Ethan can begin reading. On this particular night, the cartoon details yet another seafaring venture of Dread Copla, the dashing and courageous captain, but before Ethan can turn to the fifth page, Mercet is fast asleep.
At the sight, Ethan pulls Mercet’s sheets up, kisses him on his forehead, and leaves the room, keeping on a small neonlight that fills the room with a soft orange glow. This night’s ritual, like countless others, is the same. Ethan even knows which spots to avoid on the floorboards that will squeak and wake Mercet. For the past few months, Ethan has been laboring on a regular and unchanging schedule, coming home in time for the same lyn-and-garon casserole, a duskmeal that has become so commonplace that he is reduced to seasoning it with varying amounts of hass and pestler. Sometimes a pinge of one or a gob of the other.
Returning to his ow
n sleeping room, Ethan finds Undess already asleep herself. He walks up and removes the pair of clears she uses to read, pulling the novit from her soft and sleeping grip. This novit is entitled “You Had Better Not.” Another flam romance. The idea of her reading some salacious affair, with gliding bodies and unrealistic themes of single souls, digs irksomely into Ethan’s skin. It has been a long while since the two of them have slipped together. Over the past years, she has let herself go and blamed it solely on their older son being sent left. But it isn’t the appearance alone that keeps them from being together, though they do frequently grit on the subject. Ethan often suggested that she exercise and eat better, find new recipes perhaps to make for duskmeal or let him cook something for once. He liked to cook. But she declined. He insisted that constant, unchecked wallowing only sets an unbinding of friendship and of their single soul. She counters with accusations that he has a callous attitude toward their son’s sudden sending and how much it unsettles her. She likes to double that Ethan is no fresh lyn himself. And their lack of conjugal intimacy isn’t due to any of these rotating points, but specifically one figure: Cadwellion.
Ethan takes his nightly shower, relieving some pent-up hormones with the rough splash of the shower head. She’s reduced me to a horny adolescent. He dries himself and creeps into their bed, kissing Undess quietly before turning over, sleeping with his back to her. He drifts a bit, forcing himself into a sleepless kiptale, before—
A knock.
He sits up, looking over at Undess in her peaceful sleep. Unstirred. He leaves the master, tossing on a robe, and steps softly down the hall to the front door. Their pet cog, Captain Reset, comes running underfoot. At the minor, the frek is a cautious-colored green.
Opening the door, he finds a female guard before him. Emotionless. The guard waits, dressed in dull-orange robes and a short cape. She is handsome, and if he remembers correctly, her curam is Amil.
“What are you doing here?” Ethan starts, looking over his shoulder.
“Cadwellion requires your assistance,” the woman states plainly.
Ethan pulls his robe closer as a thin, crisp air presses into the house. He holds his tongue, not wanting to cause a scene in front of either Undess or Cadwellion’s guards. “Give me a major to change then.”
The woman nods and steps back as Ethan closes the door. He paces toward his master when Mercet steps through the hall, yawning and rubbing his eyes. Captain Reset bounces joyfully at Mercet, knocking over the two-year-old.
“Go away,” Mercet whines as the cog hops backward. Ethan walks over and picks Mercet up in his arms and carries him back to his room. “Who’s that, Daddy?”
“Cadwellion. You should go back to sleep.”
“Are you leaving?” Mercet asks in stumbling words.
“Just for a minor.” He sets Mercet back in his bed and attempts to pull the sheets over and tuck him in.
“I’m not tired.”
“You are tired. You were yawning and rubbing your eyes.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
Ethan huffs. “Hmm. I think we need to invite the tucking freks to help you.”
“No!” Mercet laughs, swinging his arms wildly.
“I think the tucking freks are coming.”
“No, Daddy, no!”
As Mercet protests, Ethan lifts his hands, holding them straight and flat. He begins to make a chugging sound as he flutters them toward Mercet. Mercet shakes and wiggles but is easily overcome by Ethan pressing and stuffing the sheets around the child, bundling him in tight and barely able to move.
“Apory, Mercet. You’re all stuck.”
Mercet giggles and squirms but is held firm by Ethan’s hands tucked under him.
Ethan asks, “How do we get rid of tucking freks?”
Mercet immediately closes his eyes and starts to count. “One . . . two.” He pauses.
“Three,” Ethan helps.
“Free . . . four . . .”
As Mercet counts slowly, Ethan releases his grip. Mercet keeps trying to count. “Five,” Ethan says.
“Five . . . six . . .” Mercet opens his eyes. “Grats moon, Daddy.”
“Grats moon.”
Ethan leaves the room as Mercet closes his eyes, counting again. “One . . .” As Ethan returns through the main room on his way to the master, another knock comes to the front door. She’s going to get me caught. He hurries back to the master and picks out a set of clothes from his dresser and changes.
Undess wakes up as Ethan finishes buckling his belt and starts tying his shoe. “Where are you going at this hour?”
“Cadwellion needs something.”
“Now?” Undess says, affronted.
Ethan shrugs. “Mercet woke up, but he’s counting. He should be wisnok, but he may pop up in a few majors.”
She huffs. “Fine. When will you be home?”
“Don’t know. So don’t wait up.”
“I’ve gotten to an exciting part in my book, so I may.” She smiles.
“Sounds nice. I’ll see you on the morrow, I suppose.”
He leaves the room as Undess grabs her novit and clears, commencing to read again. A third knock, this one more insistent than the others, pounds at the door as he approaches. He opens the door, grabbing his waist-length cloak from a nearby hanger. Amil stands in wait. “You’re keeping him waiting.” Her face bends in secret apory. You can’t kiss the girl, Ethan.
“Apory, my son woke up.” As he leaves, he kisses two fingers and touches them to the side of the door. Lincoln protect me.
The guard leads him to a large carriage. The wind outside sprays them with specks of red dust. Ethan wraps the orange cloak around himself, lifting an extended collar to protect his neck and half his face. The guard opens the door and Ethan steps inside where, to his surprise, Cadwellion waits.
“Cadwellion, I didn’t know you were here.”
The ranpart is an impressive body with his face hidden in the shadows beneath a thick overstretched hood. Impossibly thin, Cadwellion wears a black-and-orange robe draped loosely and unevenly over his frame. Cadwellion reaches out with an angular arm, grabbing for a small mug, and closes his elongated fingers, twice the length of Ethan’s, around it. He drinks before speaking.
“What I found tonight is important. It cannot wait.”
Ethan has known the ranpart for a while, their first encounter occurring in Ethan’s early twenties back when he lived in Quemon. That was nearly ten years ago, and he’s since labored as Cadwellion’s acolyte, helping him research different phenomena and tricks of the Land. In that decade, Ethan has observed many incredible sights and findings, especially after Cadwellion would trek off on extended trips and bring back objects that seemingly had no significance but, after research and experimentation, were revealed to hold all sorts of unusual properties.
Over the last few years, Cadwellion has been particularly interested in Niance, the state beyond the eastern Merurro Sea, and particularly the last royal family from some three centuries ago. They speak often; or, more plainly, Ethan listens often to Cadwellion’s disgust with the station of the various states, and his proclamations that the “peace” established after the Great Migration could not be sustained by the Three Laws on their own. He fears that even the smallest battle could escalate into all-out war, which in turn would finish off what the Last War almost did not: humankind.
After his declaration of importance, the remains of their ride to Cadwellion’s stonetin are silent. Ethan has learned that it is best not to ask too many questions. His job is to act only as assistant to Cadwellion while he executes his researches.
Ranparts, in general, are feared across the Land; acolytes at times have to act as intermediaries in purchasing supplies or inquiring with various bodies on histories or accounts that interest a ranpart. Many believe that ranparts have abilities beyond normal bodies, but Ethan learned early on that it is only a trick to keep others at a distance and to keep a ranpart’s experiments and knowledge secret. Ranpa
rts prefer little interference from the peering eyes and minds of others.
The wind continues to accelerate in the cold and wintery night as they bump along, red sand peppering the windows in a nearly constant barrage. After an hour, they arrive at Cadwellion’s foreboding stonetin, an impressive structure that overlooks the city of Salsman proper. In the full sun during clear and bright days, if you climb the back side’s walls, a view could be had all the way to the Merurro Sea or, in another direction, across miles of the red desert sands. However, in the thick of winter, the dense sandstorms conceal the sight.
The first year of Ethan’s labor with Cadwellion, the stonetin was ransacked by angry city bodies who were under the impression that Cadwellion was snipping children in the night. There was an expeditious trial, and it was found another body was guilty. But this verdict didn’t subdue their suspicions, for if anything odd occurs in Salsman, it isn’t long before Ethan’s employer is at the center of the conspiracy.
Once they are parked, Ranpart Cadwellion gestures for Ethan to exit. Ethan steps outside and looks around. Thirty guards stand on various high walls, all dressed in similar drab-orange robes, around the stonetin. Each of them is armed with a crossbow loaded with flaming bolts that flutter in the high winds, and they wear headgear that shields them from the pelting sand. After a minor, a set of guards deftly escorts Cadwellion from inside the carriage to the stonetin halls.
An air of paranoia lingers around the ranpart whenever he might be exposed to an open environment. Even within the protective walls of the stonetin, guards act as if enemies of the ranpart slink in the shadows. Ethan follows the entourage, welcoming the warmth of the fire-lit halls over the chilling sand winds outside.
Once in the safety of the stonetin, the lanky and towering Cadwellion pulls back his hood, exposing a sunken face inset with black and bloodshot eyes. His nose has long been cut down the middle and forms two split halves. Because so, Cadwellion carries hankers to wipe what is a perpetually running nose that, with any undue exertion of energy, bleeds a dark-blue blood. This off color is a result of experiments the ranpart performed on sneks when he was younger. Or so he’s said.
Advent of the Roar (The Land Old, Untouched Book 1) Page 25