The Sundered

by Ruthanne Reid

“Feed your livestock?” I repeat like an idiot.

  “We ... feed it in order to alter it according to the desires of the rulers of this city, who are conducting experiments on the black water.”

  This has just gone in directions I didn't expect. “What kind of experiments?”

  She hesitates.

  I cross my arms. “I can't order him properly if I don't understand.”

  “To ... weaponize the water.”

  Weaponize? “What?” I whisper.

  She shakes her head, shaking a little.

  Weaponize it? It's already deadly. Unless ... unless they mean making it deadly when it's separated. In a cup. A bucket. A bowl.

  I feel numb. “And what do you need Aakesh to do, specifically?”

  “He shall be gathering black water for us. This will be combined with test substance from the Academy's alchemic labs, then fed to our livestock.”

  “What are they mixing in?”

  “I don't know, Mr. Iskinder.”

  Why is this city so messed up? “And you don't want me near, why?”

  “Because the livestock explodes, and the black water they drink splashes anyone nearby, killing them, too. We make our request out of consideration, Mr. Iskinder,” she says casually, like that isn't the most horrible thing I've ever heard.

  I gape at her.

  Ugh. Okay. Okay. This isn't my home, and this isn't my problem. “Fine. Aakesh?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “You are to gather the black water they ask you to gather, but no more or less than what's necessary for their experiment. Mix it as the experiment just described to me, and administer it to the livestock as requested. Don't get creative. Don't do anything that isn't part of what she's told me about here and now—and that means if there's some hidden connotation I don't know about, then you can't act on that, either.”

  They're both staring at me. Hello, paranoia!

  What the hell, in for a penny. “One more thing,” I tell him. “After you're done with this? What she described? You're coming back to me right away.”

  “Yes, my lord,” he says now, like all of this is perfectly normal.

  Did I give him the right orders? Should I have added more detail?

  I sound paranoid even to me.

  “If you will have a seat here, Mr. Iskinder,” says the hood, and behind me, one of the clothed Sundered Ones brings a little stool. He feels third-tier. His skin is yellowish, and his jaw is way too long, like a hairless dog's. He looks sweet, like third-tiers are, and he sort of grins at me and pants, tongue lolling out.

  “Thank you,” I tell him, because third-tier can be pretty sensitive.

  “You are welcome,” he says cheerfully.

  Aakesh is already gone.

  This is boring.

  I feel stupid, waiting here and missing the show. People are obviously observing safely from somewhere. I lean against the wall, tilting the stupid stool, my arms crossed.

  The dog-faced third-tier is worried. “Could I get you something, sir?” he says anxiously.

  “No, thanks. I'm good.”

  He looks horrified.

  Sigh. I must have tweaked his mothering instinct somehow. “Maybe something to drink?”

  He breaks into this huge smile, bows a couple of times—clothed or not, he's still a Sundered One—and hurries off on silent feet.

  So now I'm alone with nothing to do.

  I could go exploring, but I doubt I'd be unobserved. I close my eyes and try to imagine what Aakesh is up to.

  The stench of mud and dung and mammal-hot-breath hit me in the face so hard I gag.

  I hurl forward, landing on my hands and knees on the hard floor, gasping.

  What was that? What was that? That wasn't how I smell things. That was full of knowledge I could never know about cows, all in one whiff.

  Cows?

  I know it's cows.

  I cannot be feeling what Aakesh is. That's insane. Nobody can do that through Sundered Ones.

  But I have a first-tier.

  I lick my lips. The bitterness of air in a filthy paddock sours my tongue. I am feeling him. I am. I don't know how, but I am, and there is no way I'm letting this weirdness pass me by.

  I sit back down, feet wide, bracing myself on my knees so I don't fall and crack open my skull. Where are you, Aakesh? What's happening to you right now?

  There's stench.

  Horrible, unnatural, not the way it's supposed to be, a smell foul with excrement that does not belong in this world, does not heal or help to grow, but poisons and leaves a terrible flavor.

  Sky filled with weird, wide colors, bands of hue with movement deep inside, all of it living and active with meaning, purpose, thought.

  Everything is alive.

  Every step—life in the earth, life in the water.

  Speaking to him, to him, he's important, Aakesh is important, just an accepted fact—

  I fall off the stool again and smack to the hard stone floor.

  My lungs burn and my eyes sting. I don't think I was breathing. Aakesh ... that's what he feels? Meaning, sensation, so much input beyond my grasp?

  I have to go back in, have to see more.

  There's hot tea on the little table beside me, and I grab and chug it, burning my tongue and throat. Close my eyes. Hold my breath. Where are you, Aakesh?

  Outside.

  Filthy, dirty, this ground not right, dying and cancer-filled.

  The earth weeps gently beneath his feet, crying out to him like he’s some kind of god, but he knows helpless wrath because he cannot answer.

  Cows in a round enclosure, no roof, not even cleaned by marginal Sundered power because there's no point. They don't —

  Belong.

  Cows don't belong? What does he mean, they don't belong?

  Cold black water licks Aakesh’s foot, and I pull out of his head so fast I smack backwards into the wall.

  He's going into the water, under it, and I can't be there for that. No. I'll wait for him to come out. He won't take long.

  Ugh, there's drool on my chin. Maybe I'd better sit on the floor instead of the stool.

  Breathe. Try again.

  It's easier to slide into his thoughts now.

  Coming back from the deep water is leaving home, leaving precious silence, leaving the presence of comforter and lover. He hates leaving, hates coming out into the foul polluted air.

  But to stay under is to abandon them.

  Weak brethren, caring for cows, watching me/him with love.

  The bucket is filled to the brim with water that dies by the second, and a little Sundered brings a jar.

  Whatever he sees in the jar, my brain can't grasp it.

  Every filthy thing I've ever known, bubbling and viscous and horrid, somehow sentient.

  The jar holds evil.

  It's testy.

  The bucket trembles with testy and rotting water fighting within, fighting like some kind of dead dream of rage and revulsion —

  “Mr. Iskinder!” Somebody shoves me roughly onto my side, and I open my blurry eyes to find I've vomited all over myself.

  The third-tier hovers over me, trying to clean my windpipe, to clean my shirt. “Mr. Iskinder! Wake up, Sir! Are you all right? Are you all right?” The third-tier rubs my back, maternal.

  I retch again instead of answering. Blaaargh.

  Aakesh's impressions filter through without stopping.

  The bucket of testy. Foul, filthy, bitter, acrid, wrong-unnatural-laboratory born—

  I heave again, but nothing comes out. The third-tier holds me, cleaning me with soothing words and soothing fingers. What did I do, have a seizure? I don't know. I don't know.

  Pushing Aakesh's mind away is only half-effective, and I know when the cows explode.

  One last image smacks me, hides bulging and eyes exploding in their skulls and organs flying through torn flesh. Screams I didn't know cows could make.

  It stops. My mind is my own again.

 
I don't think I can stand.

  “Oh, oh, oh, no,” says the third-tier, all upset. “Oh, so sorry, so sorry.”

  “'S okay.” Don't upset them. Dr. Parnum taught me how to care for Sundered Ones. Don't upset third-tiers, or you could kill them. “Don't worry. You're doing great.” Ugh, acid-burps.

  The encouragement calms him. He gets me back on my stool, fixes my hair and the stains on my clothes. When Aakesh returns with the young Soothsayer, I'm mostly okay.

  Do they know what happened? I have no idea. All I know is Aakesh's mind is too much for me. At least right now.

  “It is done,” says the young hooded Soothsayer.

  Aakesh looks at me.

  His eyes—he looks at me pensively, like he's trying to figure me out.

  My body hurts. My head pounds. I already know, though, I'm going to look through his head again. I've never known the world like that.

  “And?” I croak.

  “It went as well as can be expected,” says the Soothsayer. “Neglect not your bags.”

  Did she think I was going to leave my maps behind? Fat chance. “If that's all, then?” I sway a little. The taste of bile isn't going away.

  “You are welcome in our houses any time, Mr. Iskinder,” she says, and I don't wait around to hear any more.

  I don't flee. I walk. I don't run. I keep my dignity, one step at a time, and get the hell out of this place.

  ● ●

  ● CHAPTER 9 ●

  Patterns

  My Travelers aren’t thrilled to be leaving before dawn. They're cranky since I woke them, and two are hungover, but I won't explain until we're well away from Danton.

  They are blowing cows the hell up in this place. Goodbye.

  It's not yet light when we paddle toward the exit. Danton's Sundered crawl the walls, parting them for us like they did on the way in, and I try to tell myself that I wasn't worried that they might not let us go.

  Aakesh could blast his way through, sure. But he wouldn't want to. He wouldn't want to hurt his weak, pathetic brothers, or whatever the hell they are to him, and right now, I don't want to give him any new reasons to screw me over.

  We paddle for hours in dreary silence. The sun rises, peaks, bakes us. I still don't know what to tell my Travelers about this crazy escapade.

  Do I tell them the truth? Part of it. My Travelers deserve that much. I can't tell them everything. Aakesh ...

  They'd be scared of Aakesh, and unhappy with me.

  We paddle until Danton is out of my system. Until the smells of the open air and the sounds of our keels slicing through the water erase the itchy-crawly under my skin. “Aakesh,” I begin, and I stop. I don't know what to ask him.

  “My lord,” he says, appearing on some tufts to my right.

  I didn't startle this time. Go me. “Why did the Soothsayers know your name?”

  “They have histories, too, my lord,” he says, and slips into the water without leaving ripples.

  The hell he does.” Get back here, Aakesh.”

  He appears in my boat, blip, his weight making no difference as I paddle. “My lord.”

  Okay. That did make me jump. “Why would their histories have your name?”

  He has no expression at all. “I am not permitted to say.”

  I am not in the mood for this. “I'm your master.”

  “Yes. You are.”

  “So answer me.”

  “I cannot. There are orders which precede yours, and cannot be dismissed.”

  What the hell is he talking about? There are no orders that precede mine. I own him. Anybody's former commands don't count.

  He lies there, looking innocently off into the distance, curved like dropped silk with his hair pooled around him.

  Obviously, there's some loophole I'm missing. I'll figure it out in time. “What did you feed the cows?”

  He bares his teeth and turns his gaze on me as if to set me on fire.

  I recoil, my skiff wobbling dangerously, and it's his hands that grip the sides, his balance that steadies it, with his teeth still bared. “That,” he says, quietly, crouching forward like some predator, “was attempted murder.”

  What? What? “Of the ... cows?”

  That's disgust, that look he dares to give me. “No.” And he lies back down in the stern, looking away like nothing matters.

  This is what I get every time I try to talk to him. Confusing things. No real answers. Crazy first-tier complications.

  No, I won't give up. I just need to ask the right questions.

  “You okay there, Harry?” calls Demos, looking suspicious.

  He doesn't miss much, and it's obvious I'm upset.” Yeah. Thanks.”

  Aakesh the Mighty suddenly feels like talking. “Danton is not guilty alone.”

  “Oh?” I say tersely.

  “Bek is even worse.” He gives me a sidelong look, his eyes gleaming orange like hot metal.

  I stop paddling.

  Bek is bad, bad news. Basically a pirate city, no market, no local government. Thugs live there, no children, few women. Nobody goes to Bek unless they want to die or make someone else die. “Bek is working on testy?”

  “I may say no more. For now.” He watches me.

  “Dammit, Aakesh—”

  “Harry?” Sandra says in her quiet voice, paddling up beside me.

  My boat's not in the lead anymore. I always lead, but right now, Demos and Tomas are ahead of me, and so is Jax. “Yeah. We need to talk before we go any farther. Hey, everybody, hold up! Hey!”

  They do, turning expertly in the water to face me with impatience in their faces.

  I hate it when they look at me like that. Haven't I earned better by now? “I need to tell you what was going on in Danton. It's happening in other places, too, and it's going to affect us. I came across government officials testing some kind of mutated black water on cows, and it made them explode.”

  “What the crap?” says Tomas, and then everybody's asking questions.

  I don't have a lot of answers. I can't let them know that. I hold my hand up, waiting for silence. “They're making weapons out of black water, and that's all I know. One of the cities involved is Bek. Does that give you some idea how bad this is?”

  “Weapons?” Kaia says.

  “Out of black water? That's crazy,” says Demos.

  “You know this for a fact, Harry?” Sandra asks me quietly.

  “Yeah. I saw it with my own eyes. It was horrible.”

  They're silent for a moment, their boats in a starburst around me.

  “We should tell someone,” Kaia suggests shakily.

  “Who?” My jaw clenches. “The governments of Danton and Bek are the ones behind it. I don't even know who else is involved. Do you really want to walk up to some lawman and talk about a conspiracy when they could be involved? How do you think that would go over?”

  Aakesh nods slightly, like he approves. I shouldn't be pleased that he's pleased. Something's really wrong with my head today. “I say we continue on-track. We search for the Hope. We find salvage. We be very damn careful where we go to sell. And we do not talk about this to anybody—but if any of you see any signs of weirdness, or hear anything about 'testy,' we leave. I don't care if it's in the middle of the night. We leave. Understand?”

  Oh, they understand. They're shaken, like I am. Now, no place feels safe.

  Those four new maps had better be real. I could use the boost. “Aakesh.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Is there landfall five hours in that direction?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  I need him on my side if I'm going to make it through this. “Thank you. I appreciate your help.”

  He tilts his head, watching me thoughtfully. “You are welcome.”

  The landfall is dry enough for maps, so I take out every single one I have: my father's, the new ones, and all the little scraps and pieces I've found at marketplaces or rescued from Academy trash piles. The four new ones are interesting.
Quadrant by quadrant, I start to compare.

  Minutes go by. The fire crackles. Demos laughs. Jax loses a hand of poker.

  My evening blows. These four don't seem to line up with any place identifiable in the real world. Really? After all that, really?

  “Stop it!” says Toddy, and I look up just in time to see Tomas being an ass, shoving at him, and the little bag of flour or something Toddy was holding falls to the ground in an expensive white cloud.

  Are they insane? Do they think we can conjure Sundered Ones every week to trade for something that valuable? “Hey!”

  They both freeze, staring at me guiltily.

  “What the hell are you doing? Toddy, is any of that salvageable?”

  “Um.” He bends over it, trying to gather the edges of the little bag so no more gets away.

  “Cut it out, Tomas. Leave him alone.”

  Tomas walks off, rolling his eyes.

  Take a deep breath, Harry. He's Demos' problem, not yours. Look back at your maps.

  There has to be something to show where they fit. A pattern of landfalls, something. I refuse to believe they're useless.

  “Harry? Can we use the fish tonight?” Toddy calls hesitantly.

  “Cook four of them.” Fish never lasts long, not even when Sundered preserve it. That isn't a lot of protein, but it'll have to do.

  Toddy goes back to work. Demos and Sandra set up our sleeping area. Jax and Sheldon maneuver buckets on staves to get water. Kaia laughs too loudly, flirting with them both.

  Once in a while, everyone glances at Aakesh.

  I should be ordering him to do it for them. I just ... after the buckets and the cows ...

  No. My Travelers come first. “Aakesh, please fill the buckets the way we'd do it, without accidents, making sure no one gets hurt.” I'm getting better at this loopholes thing.

  “I cannot obey that order,” says Aakesh smoothly.

  Headache. Rising. “And why not?”

  “Someone will be hurt.”

  Damn this whole day to hell. “Uh-huh. Who gets hurt?”

  “We do,” he says.

  Okay, nut-job time. “How?”

  He says nothing, just watches me, unreadable, neatly folded with his arms around his knees and his hair spilling prettily around his hips.

  This guy has issues. “Answer me, Aakesh.”

  “It hurts the water,” he says.