Don't think about it, Harry.
Don't think about it.
My breathing comes shorter and quicker than I like, but I keep walking.
Aakesh keeps pace beside me. It isn't steep enough for me to lose my footing, but any doubt I had about this place being made by somebody is gone by the time I reach the first turn. It's curved like the creators specifically didn't want anyone to see what's coming around the bend. First we go down, but when that bottoms out, it suddenly goes right. We take that turn, and it goes up—then down again, and around, so you can never see more than a few feet ahead.
After a few of these turns, I can't smell smoke or hear my Travelers, so my reasons for nobody else being here are kaput. I can still smell that alcohol, though. It's like somebody splashed it on the walls. It'd have to be recent, to smell this strong.
Aakesh walks silently beside me. It occurs to me now that I'm naked while he remains clothed. Like I'm the Sundered One, the claimed.
I want to rip his stupid white kilt right off his hips.
I won't. He gets to keep his dignity—and I sort of hate him for it. “Aakesh.”
“Yes, my lord?”
Don't make him go naked, Harry. Don't do it. It's not a lot for him to ask. Just let it go. “What's up ahead of us?”
“A treasure, my lord.”
“What, for real?” I blink at him. “What treasure? Whose treasure?”
“Whoever claims it, my lord,” Aakesh says looking at me and in the light of his flame, he's got this regal something that I could never have, something that makes him like a king, something I wasn't born with and could never earn, and for a second, I really do hate him.
No.
No.
I've earned the right to be a leader. I've earned it with years and studies and suffering. He may have been born with it, but I earned it. It's mine.
So's he. It doesn't matter who wears the clothes. “Show me.”
Aakesh walks forward. The cavern suddenly opens up, the sand cold and the ceiling out of sight. We thread around some random boulders at the bottom, scattered like uneven teeth, to find a little hidden alcove. And there, in that alcove, is—
“The treasure,” says Aakesh, pointing unnecessarily.
What the hell?
There's a crate, long stained with spilled spirits, reeking of wine. And next to it—
He's little and orange and kind of like a frog. He has long black marks on him like somebody burned him with an iron pole. He curls up in the corner and whimpers until he sees who we are.
“Gorish?” I blurt.
“Nice master!” he exclaims, springs off the sand, wraps his skinny arms around my waist, and then he starts crying. Oh no, he starts crying. “Nice master, nice master,” he says over and over even though I haven't claimed him, and I can't because I have Aakesh, and I really can't do more, but neither of them seems to care.
“The treasure, my lord,” Aakesh repeats, because boy, he wants me to get it, and won't be happy until I understand.
Well. I don't. I have no freaking clue what's going on.
The headache comes back with a vengeance.
● ●
● CHAPTER 11 ●
He Can’t Be Here
“He can’t be here,” says Tomas understandably.
“But we sold him,” Demos adds for the fifteenth time.
“We have to take him back,” Kaia insists.
“No way! He's ours now, come on!” Toddy says, shouting over all of them.
And me? I don't say a damn thing.
I sit in the sand, wearing trousers and Gorish, who's still wrapped around my waist like an ornament. He clings. Clung the whole way back, clung while I tried to get dressed, clung while they shouted at him, and every time I think about telling him to let go, I look at those long black marks and I just can't do it.
I know those marks. I've seen them on second-tier. It's done with a strip of malleum, of metal, heated until it glows, and it's only for severe punishment. They can't heal from it. It's painful and permanent. Low-tier Sundered don't usually survive because it hurts them so badly.
What the hell was somebody doing, doing this to him? It's Gorish. Freaking Gorish. What the hell is going on?
“We should keep him!” Toddy shouts again, and my headache ratchets up another notch.
I've had enough. “Shut up, all of you. Shut up!” Practice lets me roar louder than all of them, and they stare at me, eager or angry or startled or confused. I can barely stand to look at them. “I'll tell you what we're going to do. We are going to bed.” Gorish trembles with his head in my lap, my hand on his head. Shh. Not gonna hurt you. “We are going to sleep. Tomorrow, we will figure out what to do, but we can't do anything right now with the rain and the dark and the fact that we've rowed for a solid day without stopping.”
Silence for a moment. “But he can't be here,” Tomas says again.
“Obviously, he can,” I snap. “Use your head. Aakesh said this cavern was old. It was obviously built by someone. It doesn't take a genius to see we've stumbled on some kind of Sundered hiding place. When Gorish got loose—however that happened—he came here to be safe.” And then splashed alcohol on the walls to make sure we found him, apparently.
I know it's bull, and so do they, but nobody's calling me on it now. Somebody set this whole thing up, and if that somebody is Gorish, I'll eat my own shoes.
“Yes, but how'd he—” Tomas starts.
“It doesn't matter!” Go to bed, all of you just go to bed. “Will you please just go to sleep so we can deal with this in the morning?”
I could have handled that better. Nobody says goodnight to me as they wander off, not even Sandra, and she won't meet my eyes. They all move to the other side of the fire, giving me space, leaving me alone with one broken Gorish and one scheming Aakesh.
Is it paranoid to assume he's behind this? I can't figure out how or why.
Gorish shakes under my hands. The marks aren't just black. They're indented, like the rods were held on his skin long enough to start eating into it.
What did they do, Gorish? And what did you do to start it?
It doesn't take long for everyone to breathe like they're sleeping. You don't skip sleep when you're traveling, not unless you want to make a stupid mistake and get dead. I should sleep, but I can't yet. Not with the weight of the world clinging to me, wrapped around my waist. “Gorish.”
My whisper doesn't carry, but he peeks up with his rolling round eyes. “Yes, nice master?”
Him calling me that probably saved his little mind. My Travelers, inexperienced and without Sundered training, didn't try to claim him because they think I already have. I don't think anybody on earth could claim Aakesh plus one, but I'm not going to tell them that. “How did you come to be here? The truth, now.”
Gorish takes this seriously. “I came, nice master.”
“Yes, but how?”
“I came!”
That's so helpful. Right-o. I forgot conversations with Gorish are always this stimulating. “All right. Tell me what happened to you after you were sold.”
He wriggles like he's trying to burrow into the sand, or maybe into me, and when he answers, he does it against my stomach so I can barely hear him. “They gave me testy, and then I spilled, and then he died.”
“He?”
“My m-master.”
Everything slows down.
The fire crackles in the silence. I'm cold—but it's not cold in the cavern. Just inside me. He killed ... no. He couldn't have. He couldn't. “Gorish. Did you know what the testy would do?”
“Bad,” he says.
“It enrages the animus in the water,” Aakesh suddenly volunteers.
I stare at him.” What? What the hell is animus?”
“The word means hatred, Harry,” Aakesh says.
My voice sounds rough and used and tired and old. “You really do think the water is alive.”
He says nothing.
Out he
re in the middle of nowhere, safe in a secret Sundered cave, the idea almost works. Water that hates us, water lying in wait, water that pulls us in and destroys us if it ever gets the chance. “Why does it hate us? And why doesn't it hate you?”
“I cannot answer. If I could, things would be simpler between us.”
The way he said that —
Something filters through my head, thoughts that aren't mine, a sense of what he means: If he were free to answer, he'd be free to act. If he acted, I might not survive.
If he meant to scare me, he's doing a good job.
“Nice master.” Gorish pets my waist, fingers damp and suction-cuppy.
It's not fair.
Why do I have to carry all this? It's not bad enough that we're dying out, and the Sundered are dying out, and nobody's found the Hope for generations and it might not be real. Now I have this complication, too? “So when we take buckets of it out, it does hurt it. Somehow.”
Aakesh inclines his head royally.
“What am I supposed to do about it, huh? We need water to live.”
He says nothing.
“Nice master?” whispers Gorish.
My jaw clenches. “He killed a human, didn't he? You know the law. He killed someone, and that means he has to die. You know the law!”
Gorish peers up at me, and Aakesh just watches.
“Answer me!” I shout.
“What?” Demos says, sitting up and staring.
I woke all my Travelers. For a second, we all freeze, staring at each other through the flames.
Screw this. I invoke the right of you-go-to-hell. “Go back to sleep.”
“Who were you shouting at?” Demos demands.
I can't explain this. The second I do, Gorish is dead. “Go. Back. To sleep.” My Travelers deserve better than me tonight. I know they do. I can't give it to them. I don't have anything to offer except a thumb’s width of self-control.
Muttering, they lie back down, and it takes a while for them to sleep.
I can wait.
I wait until everyone's breath is calm, wait until I have control and can keep my voice down. “We can't avoid it, Aakesh. Without water, we'd die. That's just the way it is.”
He tilts his head. “I accept your apology.”
It wasn't one, damn you. “What happened with the testy, Gorish?”
“Spilled it on my new master,” Gorish says in a tiny voice, and peeks up at me hopefully.
I have to come to terms with this. “You spilled it on purpose?”
We both know it was. Gorish wriggles a little, then burrows his face in my stomach.
He killed his master.
It shouldn't be possible. He's low-tier, too weak for a reversal.
Aakesh suddenly stands and approaches with that smooth grace, and as he crouches next to me I realize he has no smell. That's weird, isn't it? It never occurred to me before. The rest of the Sundered smell like fish, or leather, or something. Not Aakesh. “My lord. I would like to offer an explanation.”
Oh, how generous! “Sure. This I have to hear.”
His eyebrows rise. “The water hates you.”
It's alive. It's really alive, the whole damn thing is alive. “Okay. You said that.”
“It is not a mere chemical reaction.”
“I get it. Is there more to this explanation?”
Aakesh's eyes flash orange, and he points at the black lines, the marks of punishing and trial on Gorish. “Gorish did nothing to deserve these marks. These came before the reversal. They were given to him simply because he was less than had been implied in the terms of the sale. The owner, once bonded, knew the truth—as did you, the moment you touched his tender mind—but you then did not insist that he attempt more, regardless. His new master did, and then punished him for being unable.”
My stomach twists, first because of what was done to Gorish, and then because a tiny part of me is glad the bastard who did it died. “Then why was he punished? For what? This is—” The most extreme thing you can do short of killing them. “Bad. Like if he murdered another Sundered One, or something.”
“Murder. An interesting term.” Aakesh tilts his head forward, studying me again.
“He can't have pulled a reversal, anyway. He's way too weak. I've seen Sundered Ones treated poorly before, and it doesn't just automatically lead to reversals.”
“Do not assume we are as your tiered system would have you believe,” Aakesh murmurs. “Our blood is black, and we are broken, but we are not like you. You can fracture and heal. We cannot. We are the Sundered.”
That freaks me out, the way he says that, and I don't even know why. What’s he talking about? “So I guess we're just superior, huh?”
I just blurted that out, but his look says I just pissed him off. I keep pushing, and I don’t even know why I do. “We heal. You don't. Your words. I'm just being logical here.”
“You heal because you are less,” he hisses. “Your little breaks and scrapes are nothing more than bruises and paper cuts! You are not superior. You are less. You are unaided, individual, and only have the power to heal from that which is pathetic!”
We both go still.
Aakesh's gaze burns into mine, his hair stirring in a non-existent breeze. I don't know what he means, and I don't move. Not yet. We're balanced on a knife's edge, pelted with tension and stress and questions, and if we fall, whatever's below us is something very bad.
“He is nice,” says Gorish suddenly. “Nice, not mean. He doesn't know, doesn't understand.” He presses even harder against my belly.
We stare at him instead. The knife's-edge moment hasn’t passed, not really. But the tension subsides.
I rub my eyes, pushing at the pounding behind them, at the wetness seeping from the corners because I'm so tired. “When we use water, we hurt you?”
“And the reverse.”
When we use them, we hurt it.
Animus in the water.
I'm getting sucked into this. Water is water. It isn't alive, and Sundered blood is red like mine. What if he's just lying, maybe to convince me to let him go?
What if he isn’t lying at all?
I'm in over my head. “I need to sleep, Aakesh.”
“Yes,” says Aakesh.
In way, way over my head. I need help. I need wisdom. “I don't know if I believe anything you said tonight.”
“Of course you don't, my lord,” says Aakesh bitterly, and leans back, blending in with the shadows against the hewn rock walls, almost disappearing except for his eyes.
Sundered Ones don't sleep. He'll watch me tonight, I don't doubt. Watch me like he'd burn me to ashes if he could.
He can't. I've claimed him, and he has strict orders.
I lie back on the soft sand, somehow managing to get comfortable in spite of my Gorish-belt. I can't trust my Travelers to help me with this. They barely see me as competent as it is, and they'd insist I turn Gorish in. I can't talk to my father—he's been gone for two years. Besides, I know what he'd say: lose the baggage, cut and run. Dump Gorish since he's not my problem, sell Aakesh, and go as far away from them both as possible.
I'm not going to do that.
Parnum—yes. I need to find Dr. Parnum. He was my Sundered teacher in Tenisia, and the most brilliant man I've ever known. If I go to Tenisia, if I find him, he will help me. He's the only authority figure I can think of who for sure won't turn me in.
Gorish snuggles me. He's a cute murderer, for all that's worth.
Somehow, eventually, I sleep.
● ●
● CHAPTER 12 ●
You Don’t Stay Dead Here
Last night feels like a bad dream.
Gorish proves it wasn't, and his presence strains things between my Travelers and me. We fold, cook, pack, and check the boats for leaks in silence. Tension wraps around us all like invisible cords, strangling conversation. Gorish isn't hanging off my waist now, but he's still following me like an orange shadow.
I share my f
ood with him because I’ve obviously lost my mind. He still likes carrots. So there's that.
Aakesh, of course, sits and watches. We haven't spoken yet. I'm tempted not to talk to him at all until I find my teacher. Aakesh is confusing, maybe dangerously so.
I don't even know why he'd tell me the things he has.
Nobody says a damn thing as we load up the boats. Boy, oh boy. This is gonna be a wonderful day.
Gorish is easy to keep track of as we row. He pops in and out of the water, playing, making happy sounds. I never realized how playful unclaimed Sundered could be. For some stupid, asinine reason, that hurts.
Soon, the sunset-sky is a deep pool of crimson-yellow, melting from gold in the west to dried blood in the east. I close my eyes to feel the sun, to feel Aakesh still snugly enmeshed with my own mind, intimate and too heavy to be comfortable.
I'm so tired. I fall asleep before dinner is even served.
In my dream, I can fly.
I fly above the black water, effortless, weightless, safe for the first time in my life, and surrounded by more Sundered than I've ever seen.
They must all be here, three or four thousand of them, in all shapes and colors and sizes from the tongue-head guy to lizard-like Bakura. One hovers by, covered in orange and black and white striped fur, with a long tail and kind of a big kitty-face. Coolest Sundered ever.
They zoom over the water like ghosts. For a while, I fly with them. Then I realize they're actually flying in tiers.
The low-tier Sundered fly down by the water, giggling, splashing each other, weirdly innocent. The numbers lessen as the tiers climb, fewer and fewer with more and more power, until at last, Aakesh hovers at the top of the pyramid, alone.
I'm not sure what this means. Somehow, it doesn't feel like the tiers as I understand them. Intelligence and power are easy to rank, but that isn't how this is working. Gorish—Gorish is near the top, above Bakura, near Aakesh. And Bakura—
Bakura sees me, bares his teeth, and hisses my name.
And it does something, his whisper, because suddenly the Sundered Ones moan. They grow louder by the second, overwhelming me with cries of torment until my nerves tangle and my teeth grind.
The Sundered Page 9