Advent of the Roar

by Benjamin M. Piety

  “Wisnok.” Mercet leaves reluctantly.

  Ethan, patting her brow dry, “Do you need anything. Water?”

  “No. Everything’s just right.”

  Ethan wipes his hands and gathers the towels and pot, then leaves the room, leaving Sanet alone with her newborn baby boy.

  Wellion had his way in a way. Uniting the states. Having this child with Logan. But did he know it would be born and not chosen? She caresses Jame, who at the minor has fallen asleep. Where is Logan now? She wonders if he has any sense that his son has been born all the way across Merigen. I hope he knows. Bernard told her a few weeks ago that once she had the baby, he would make the trip to Organsia to discuss releasing Logan. “By force if necessary,” he said with a grin. With their coin from the brass somewhere at the bottom of the sea and no longer an option to pay Logan’s debts, Bernard hopes he might figure another way.

  As she lies back, feeling sore yet surprisingly content, gently stroking the silky head of her son, her mind drifts over all she’s witnessed over the past year and what’s become of this small circle of friends.

  Bernard—he’s the one who’s most changed. There is a confidence in him since the Two Tens Battle. Once Bernard grew well, the gang sneaked away south to Radiba, where they decided to rebuild his haynest. Ethan returned to Salsman and ended his marriage with Undess, then took Mercet away with him. He had taken the sending of his friend Amil hard and wanted nothing to do with Wellion or decidedly the entire state of Yikshir.

  When Ethan and Mercet arrived back in Radiba, the four spent the next few months finishing Bernard’s haynest rebuild. After the stress and immediacy of their past travels, they found welcome simplicity in the woodwork and painting. Pitch back the old, catch front the new.

  They took a meandering marvelous trek to southern Radiba and purchased new furnishings. The new house, though principally the same, was planned to include additional rooms because it would now be haynest to Sanet, Ethan, and Mercet. After releasing Logan—if they could—they planned for Ethan and Mercet to make haynest somewhere nearby and for Sanet and Logan to move into their own. Should Logan forgive me . . .

  The baby stirs, burbles in his sleep, and stills. Sanet smiles. Rumors of Wellion and the young Yannick boy have thinned since the return of the ardroke and the battle before it. In the wake of the ardroke’s death, a sudden peace spread through Carvinga and reconstruction began across the state. The anger and blame for the fight rested entirely on the ranpart after the Misipiants executed a formal appizement and sent resources to assist in rebuilding. Most surprisingly, the Carvingians opened their borders, and rumors say the Tunnels beneath have fallen into economic turmoil. Gossip at Bomwigs has it that a group of nefarious coinhires have taken over Greren and Tapsters after the sending of the demvirst. Where once was a place of natural lasciviousness, now has partners in a darker, more sinister denizen.

  Underneath his confidence, Bernard doesn’t express much of his feelings about what happened to him. When he woke up in the Carvingian’s haynest, his only desire was to return to Radiba. He missed the Highlands, and to Sanet, the idea of returning was excellent. For the past seven years, she had been unplugged. Removed from herself and left on the path of Wellion’s control. Even though she still didn’t know her history, didn’t have an idea from where she came, it was freeing to be out from under Wellion’s eye. To live where she wanted without the looming threat of a cataclysmic event to tend to. Her joy was that now she could learn to night garden and forget her skills and training as some Green Valor. She grins at the reference.

  Despite their remote location, there is a looming dread that Wellion might seek her out. And she’s had more than enough kiptales of Wellion slinking into her sleeping room at night to snip her son. His presence looms in the shadows of the haynest, even as at the minor she knows she’s safe. Alone. Quiet. Her chosen family in the other room, ready to protect her.

  After a few hours, Ethan returns with a solemn expression. “Doing wisnok, Sanet?”

  She nods, brushing Jame’s head.

  “Can we talk? Now that you’ve had Jame, now that we know it is possible. I think there is something important to discuss.”

  “What is it?” Sanet asks, sitting up in bed.

  Ethan pulls up a seat from across the room and sits beside her. “As you know, this child is . . . unispar. More than just being yours. But, having him. The way you did.” Sanet knows. No one can have a child the way she did. “And it’s important to keep him safe. And away from . . . well, I think Wellion’s foretale about your son was true, but not in the way he originally believed. Which is why he kept changing his understanding about it. He had information that was right, but didn’t seem so. I think when he discovers the truth, he will come for him.”

  “But do you know how this is possible?” She says this, unconsciously holding Jame closer. “If no one can have a child, if everyone is created through the Paseco, then how could I?”

  Ethan waits before speaking again. “When our foreparents crafted the Three Laws, they assigned Protectors to the Laws. The Law of Population’s Protector is the Paseco. What it does, or what it is, is lost or hidden with time. But the fact remains that no family or woman has been able to have children since the Last War. Instead, the children’s squares provide them.”

  “And no one knows where who what this Paseco is?”

  “I don’t believe so. Whatever it is was forgotten over the millennia or was made to be forgotten. What we do know is that every year children are brought to children’s squares around the states, and bodies go and choose their sons and daughters there. When children who are not chosen turn five, they are sent left. All a means to protect the Law of Population. Of course, this doesn’t stop people from traversing from one state to the next, making some more populated than others. That’s still a problem that even a Paseco could not stop.”

  “Why are friends so concerned with population?”

  “With so many bodies to feed. So many bodies consuming the resources of the Land, there grows conflict. It is what nearly destroyed us. It is a fact hard to grasp. We all want life. We all want to live happily. And long. And we want our families to grow and be well. Which is why most don’t talk in detail about the Law. Only the broad stroke. No more than ten thousand. The bigger point of this is that he,” he points to Jame, “is something quite extraordinary. And we’ll need to protect him.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

  “In truth, I didn’t believe it could be. That you were, as they once said, pregnant. And I didn’t know if Jame would or could be born. When I thought it might happen, on Paulo’s kleep, when you were sick, Bernard and I decided it would be better to keep you here. Keep things small and quiet. I didn’t want you to stress. To only focus on being healthy. Jame may be the first natural-born baby in two and a half thousand years.”

  “But what about Wellion’s Roar?”

  “Perhaps that’s why everyone made such a big deal of him. But that child was at least six when we saw him. I think wherever Cadwellion found him, he was not born naturally. That Roar, that little boy, is only a machine for propaganda. For whatever thing Wellion’s trying to accomplish.”

  Sanet looks down at Jame with new eyes. The first in two and a half millennia. Perhaps here’s the true advent of the Roar.

  ❖❖❖

  A few weeks later, Ethan calls the family to duskmeal. Sanet walks in from the sleeping room with Jame nestled in a wrap. A knock comes at the door, and Sanet steps over to answer, finding Iahel and Ruth standing there. “Sanet!”

  “You made it!” Sanet exclaims, hugging Iahel.

  “We did. And is this the little one?”

  “Yes, this is Jame.”

  “Jame, how sweet.” She peeks in through the wrap. “Oh, he’s the tiniest.” Ruth peeks in as well as Iahel introduces her. “This is Ruth. Sanet, Ruth.”

  Sanet smiles. “Nice to meet you officially. We were just sitting down for duskmea
l.”

  “Well, we’re both starved, so this makes a perfect minor,” Ruth states. They step in as Bernard comes around the corner.

  “Iahel, nice to see you.” They embrace.

  “The Dark Valor, how are you.” Iahel grins.

  “You can call me Stone Fingers, apposh.”

  “I think it’s best you remain our little madman,” Sanet doubles.

  With an exchange of laughter, they return to the kitchen, where Iahel introduces Ruth to Ethan and Mercet.

  The gang sits and eats and laughs and tells stories. Iahel talks about the reconstruction of Carvinga and how much different the tenfooters’ attitudes are toward passersby and travelers.

  “It’s like going through Radiba,” she says. Ruth and Iahel are now leaders at Radnicks after the owner retired.

  Bernard goes on again about meeting Jame in the forest when his leg was caught in the trap. They lift mugs in memory of Bernard’s late partner.

  The night goes deep past full moon, with Bernard carrying Mercet off to bed earlier. Iahel and Ruth are completely jarent, but not more so than Ethan, who appizes every few sentences, especially to his sleeping son, who found the whole evening with the adults to be “absolutely hilarious.”

  When Bernard doesn’t return, Sanet stands up and wanders the house, finding him outside tending his garden. She rocks Jame back and forth in her arms and watches Bernard for a few majors. When he looks up, he smiles brightly.

  “Doing a bit of night gardening?”

  Bernard chuckles. “Yes. I think it’s what I do. When Jame would fall asleep, I would come out here. Relax and reflect on the day. Enjoy the fresh night air.” His talk fades a bit. “I’m also nervous I didn’t bury this far enough.”

  As he says this, he pulls a large fragment of brass from the ground before returning it to another deeper hole. The gang had decided to give the remains of the shattered brass pieces to each of the factions that participated in the Two Tens Battle: the Carvingians, the Misipiants, and even a piece to the crimson men, over Bernard’s disagreement. If everyone had one of the pieces, they believed no one group would be able to reunite the brass.

  A shuffle comes from the wood as Brute emerges from the trees. Behind him darts a second and smaller creshwillow. “Brute, what are you up to?”

  “Another little Roar, it seems.” Sanet laughs.

  Brute hurries over and hops onto Bernard’s shoulder. The other creshwillow steps into the yard and grabs on to Bernard’s feet.

  “Not sure I want two of you,” Bernard says to Brute, who suddenly begins to jump up and down. “What are you going on about now?”

  It hops down onto the short fence, squealing wordlessly at something in the wood. Sanet looks across the lawn, and to her surprise, she spots a neox standing in wait. Lincoln. Bernard doesn’t recognize it at first, and as he turns toward the neox, it quickly disappears into the forest.

  “Was that another neox? Isn’t it bad luck to let one go?” Sanet asks.

  Bernard turns to her, and for a minor, it looks as if he’s thinking about all the chasing the neox might entail. The dangers it carries. Their trek through the Tunnels, into Yikshir, across the sea to Trimod. The battle in Carvinga. Their losses and their gains. Jame.

  And then, with a quiet breath and simple shrug, he answers, “And leave my friend again?” He presses his lips into a soft smile just before a droplet of rain hits Sanet’s shoulder.

  She ignores it.

  EPILOGUE

  In the dark of night many years ago, a large woman with wild red hair walked in the forest. This didn’t often chance, as over the past few years, tormisands in Radiba had gotten longer and longer, and the time between them had grown shorter and shorter. So, when it came to be that the rain stopped, the woman took every opportunity she could. Her husband, sleeping at their haynest, didn’t like walks. He thought his long treks across the states were exercise enough. The moon on this night was particularly bright, and there was a chill in the air, the autumn showing its first breaths.

  Across the Lothatin Bridge and along the winding paths past the young Babek’s haynest, the woman thought that perhaps it was time to turn back, knowing it would be an hour’s walk back haynest. But her decision was interrupted by a small cry. It was soft at first, then rang out through the gentle breeze of the Highlands. There was a haunting sound to it. Curious, she followed the sound, wondering who in the Land would be out here this time of night. As the cry amplified, she determined that it was the clamor of a young boy. She quickened her pace, trying to orient herself to the noise, and grew worried that whoever—or whatever—was making the noise might be some frek that attracted its victims to a trap; but for all her readings, she couldn’t recall any frek that would mimic the voice of a child.

  She continued along and suddenly found a slight luminosity in the forest ahead. The cry here was louder as she proceeded toward the leaves glowing in the night. Looking closer, she determined that they seemed burned away at the edges with a thin light, like a neonlight, outlining where they were burned. As she looked around, she found that the thin lines created what amounted to a giant and perfectly round sphere, which encircled a space all the way to the upper canopy. A strange and unusual sight.

  Sitting in the middle of this sphere of light was a small boy. Naked and alone. Crying. She stepped up to the boy, unsure at first, but quickly scooped him up in her arm. She scanned the area, wondering where the person who brought him here might be. She called out across the forest without an answer. The boy instantly took to her, clinging to her neck.

  The air in the area of the sphere was hot, and her skin started to sweat as soon as she stepped into the circle. When she stepped back out of it, the Land returned to its evening chill, which the young boy reacted to by squeezing her even harder. She wrapped her shawl around him to keep him warm.

  She walked back toward her haynest, only once turning back to where she’d found the boy. The glowing sphere had disappeared. She hugged the boy tighter at the sight, the major holding a sense of foreboding and dread.

  In some ways, the boy was Lincoln-sent, as she and her husband had never taken the time or effort to choose their own child, despite her longing for a son or daughter. The trek to the Radiba children’s square was nearly two weeks long, a trip her husband refused to take.

  Reaching haynest, she decided to give the boy a warm soap and rinse to wash the dirt and grime of the forest from him, but she found in the bright relief room light that he was already perfectly clean. Despite this, she washed him anyway, if anything to warm him up. After the long walk and being in the warmth of her haynest, the boy seemed to calm and even gave her a wide and heart-melting smile.

  After a major, her husband, a short, balding man, woke and walked into the relief room. “What are you still—who is that?”

  “Don’t be angry, Lester, but I found him in the forest. All alone and crying.”

  “Whose is he?”

  At this, she shrugged.

  “What are you going to do with him? You’re not going to keep him, are you?”

  “I don’t know. But there’s nowhere to take him tonight. He was all alone out there.”

  The husband stood at the entrance to the room as the little boy raked his arms back and forth in the water, giggling and laughing.

  “Does he have a curam?”

  The woman turned back to the small boy. “Do you know your curam?”

  The boy looked at her with an expression of confusion and then shook his head.

  “Do you know how old you are?” He shook his head no. “Do you know where your parents are?”

  He shook his head no again.

  “He looks like my uncle,” the husband stated. “Maybe he left him there knowing you’d find him.”

  “He was pretty far south. If your uncle did this, he would have put him on the porch.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I think he looks like a Logan,” the woman stated, combing the boy’s hair from hi
s face. “Do you like that curam, Logan?”

  The boy grinned and nodded yes.

  Acknowledgements for

  ADVENT OF THE ROAR

  I wrote the first chapter of "Advent of the Roar" on March 28th, 2016. It was a Monday. And it was only going to be a creative past time. A hobby. I was going to write a chapter, think about it, and then, if inspiration struck, write another.

  I wrote the next chapter on March 29th. A Tuesday. And in that section, instead of going home, Bernard decided to go back into the cave where he met Zabjed the protnuk. And the riddle he received in this interaction intrigued me enough that I spent the next two days uncovering its mystery and forming the outline of a seven book series.

  On Friday, April 1st, I wrote the third chapter and within ten weeks finished the first draft. Over the next two years, I read and adjusted. Sent to friends. Got feedback and became obsessed with everything about it. I fell in love with the monsters, the characters, and the mystery.

  This story is a culmination of everything that's drawn me to art and entertainment. And I could not have finished it without some incredible and amazing people helping me along the way. I'd like to thank them here:

  NINA, VICTORIA, ERIC, KELLY, & TOM

  the first readers who gave me the confidence to finish

  TAMMY SALYER

  Line Editor

  www.inspiredinkediting.com

  CHRISTINA PALAIA

  Copy Editor

  &

  NAOMI EAGLESON

  Editorial Director, The Artful Editor

  www.artfuleditor.com

  JAMIE TAO

  Cover Illustration & Design

  www.jamietao.com

  ERIC ERNST

  Back Cover Synopsis & Best Bud