They do all the special effects, of course. The backdrops, the “machines,” the costumes, the vibrant makeup, the lighting and the sound. They do everything but recite the lines, and they do their jobs better than the actors.
In front of me, Toddy cheers wildly as the main love interest (I think he's the main love interest—I forget which one is the bad guy now) plants a big wet kiss on the female lead. All is forgiven, trust is restored, and now they can go away to the stars.
And all at once, it hits me.
The Hope of Humanity. What if it isn't something to fix the Earth? What if it's something to leave the Earth?
What if?
If.
The rest of the play goes by in a blur. I can't stop thinking about it now, about leaving the Earth behind, just finding someplace new, without black water at all.
My head is full of weird thoughts when the play ends, and it's really not late enough to go to bed. My Travelers say goodnight and wander off, determined to get drunk or whatever.
I think I want to find the local Soothsayers. I need to go relieve some stress. I want to have some leaf-dreams.
I also want to be absolutely sure they aren't working with testy in this place. If they are, we are leaving so fast we might as well have a ship to the stars, and I am damn well taking Parnum with me.
● ●
● CHAPTER 19 ●
Biology
The Soothsayers have never been freaky outside of Danton, and I refuse to be afraid. I'm going to go and check things out, make sure we're safe, and if we are, I'll enjoy the dream-leaves. It's going to be fine. After all, I have two Sundered Ones on my leash. Nobody's going to be able to get to me.
“I trust you to take care of me at this point.” My head hurts giving them both orders, like the heaviness is swelling and threatening to split my skull. “But given the way things went last time, I want to make some things clear. You may not allow anyone to paralyze me, or burn leaves that'll make me tell the truth, or make me sick, or do anything other than what I want this session to do: let me breathe the dream-smoke in and relax.”
“Nice master,” Gorish says, and it's not you are wonderful, nice master or I am hungry, nice master or pet me please, nice master (and how weird is it that I'm starting to understand the difference?). It's this is dangerous, nice master.
Uh-oh. “Do these people have anything to do with testy?”
“No, my lord,” says Aakesh.
Whew. “Then why is it dangerous?”
“Because it lessens you.”
I stop and stare at him. “Lessens me? How?”
“It reduces your thought process to drivel.”
I stiffen. “I get to relax. Is that so bad?”
“In this world, at this time, yes.”
I'm not listening to this. I don't have the chance to relax in my life, ever, at any time, outside those places. He's not taking it away. “If something bad is happening, I want you to just grab me and get the hell out of the Soothsayer house. Don't risk your life. Take me somewhere safe. To Parnum, or something.”
“Parnum is hardly safe.”
Is he trying to pick a fight tonight? “Are you kidding me?”
“He has tasted Sundered meat,” says Aakesh, like that doesn't win the award for the worst image ever.
I stare at him like he's some kind of lunatic. “He's eaten a Sundered One?”
“Yes.”
“Why the hell would he do that?”
“So we cannot hide from him.”
Oh, this is insane. “That doesn't make any sense!”
“Only because you have no knowledge of how our biology works within yours,” he states.
Parnum—the guy who's been writing and speaking about Sundered rights since before I was born—eating sliced Sundered? Uh, huh. Sure. “You're full of it. Parnum loves you guys.”
“He does,” Aakesh says. “For me, I believe he would opt for a sweet sauce.”
“Screw you.” Because what else am I going to say? It's Parnum. I know Parnum. “This isn't encouraging me to believe the crazy things you say, you know.”
He bows mockingly.
Prick.” Fine. Then don't take me to Parnum,” I say, because this mess can get handled after I've calmed down. “But the rest of what I said, do you have a problem with that, Princess?”
He bristles.
Oops. I forgot about his dignity. Well, he forgot about mine, too. I just ordered him not to risk his life, for the love of hell, and he reacts by—
“Your addiction is showing, my lord,” he says.
“I don't have an addiction.” My teeth grind. “If I had an addiction, I couldn't go wandering around for weeks without a fix, could I?”
“Your addiction is here.” He reaches up with both over-warm hands and touches the sides of my head.
I stare at him.
“You do not allow your fist to unclench, Harry,” he says gently, so damn gently it hurts. “You must always be forced. It is to that you are addicted, to the forced release of responsibility.”
My mouth opens. Nothing comes out.
“I prefer that you return to your room tonight,” he says, not removing his fingers. “I will provide distraction if you need it, and answers if you require. I will also protect you if you go to the Soothsayers, as is your order, but I would prefer you did not go.” He finally drops his hands, but not his gaze. Never his orange-rimmed gaze.
I have no idea what to say to any of this. “They gave me new maps.” I gesture at my bag. “You saw them. You touched them. This isn't about ... fists and relaxing! I get information from them! Information I need!”
“You do not need them for this.”
“Yes, I do! You saw the four maps I—”
“There is not a hand's span of this world I have not seen.”
It's my turn for my eyes to narrow, even if they don't have forges for irises.
Gorish hops from foot to foot beside us, wringing his hands. Apparently, he doesn't like it when mommy and daddy fight. “Nice master—”
“Not now, Gorish,” I say a little more sharply than I mean, but he doesn't cringe, so I think he knows it's not aimed at him. “You're full of crap, Aakesh. If you knew this world half as well as you say you do, you'd know where the Hope of Humanity is.”
“Oh, but I do.”
My head pounds. The walkway seems to tilt. “What? What? You know where it is?”
“Nice master!” Gorish grips my waist, steadying me.
Dizziness swims behind my eyes, turning everything yellow. I've felt like this before, when I didn't eat for days. What’s happening? “You know where it is?”
“My lord. Be calm. Look at me.” Aakesh moves closer, meeting my eyes. “Breathe. The strain on your neurological system is high, and your blood pressure is spiking. Be calm.”
“I can't be calm! You know where it is!”
“Shhhhh.” Aakesh looks pitying, like I'm pathetic, a lame bird flapping helplessly in the water. “Perhaps now you would consider returning to your room?”
He says he knows where the Hope is. Is he lying? Manipulating? Am I hallucinating? Am I already in the Soothsayer's quarters, and this is a dream? The dizziness grows, my heartbeat pulsing in my head, behind my eyes. “You owe me answers. Will you give me answers if I go back?”
“Yes, my lord. I will, once we are returned to the room.” His invisible hands move over my skin, doing something, calming my heart-rate. The dizziness eases slightly, but not enough. All the Aakeshes in the world couldn’t calm me down now.
● ●
● CHAPTER 20 ●
Collapse
The ache in the back of my head pulses with my heartbeat. My hotel room isn't as nice as Parnum's—there are no spleen-mountains on the wall—but the tubes of steam by my bed serve to keep me warm.
Keeping both Sundered claimed is beginning to cost me, but I don't know what to do about it. Gorish crouches in front of me, holding up a cold wet cloth and a glass of wate
r. “Nice master?” he queries, meaning are you okay?
“Yeah.” I take the water, though my hand shakes it out of the glass and onto my lap. Great.
Aakesh sits in the chair, draped like dropped silk, watching me like this whole thing is boring him.
“Answers.” I swallow water. “I want answers. Now.”
Aakesh sighs. “I'm afraid your answers—those I can give—will not be simple.”
Of course they won't. I laugh, and the steam-pipe rattles like it's laughing with me. “Tell me what I don't understand then. Tell me about the Hope. Tell me why Bakura's a general. Tell me why you say crazy things like, 'Parnum eats Sundered flesh,' and expect me to believe you. Explain it all, Aakesh. I'm waiting!”
“Harry,” Aakesh says with great, cloying patience. “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
What? What? “What the hell does that even mean?”
He sighs, eyes slipping closed. “Even your own literature is lost to you. You were planned for ignorance. You were conceived in hate, and intentionally raised to believe that which is untrue. You do not understand because the facts you possess are in the way, and this makes obedience difficult for me. I am unable to simply spoon-feed truth to you.”
I'm not sure if he just insulted me, my father, the system—I don't even know. “Are you actually telling me everything I know is a lie?”
“Yes,” he says mildly.
Confusion, half-lies, misdirection. I hate everything that's happened since I found him. “But you can't lie to me directly because you're claimed, can you?”
“That is correct.”
“But I still can't get the truth out of you directly because of mysterious other-orders.”
“That is also correct.”
“This is impossible.” I squeeze my head, pressing against the insistent headache.
“Nice master needs sleeping,” Gorish says kind of desperately, like he's really saying please don't lose it, or maybe we're trying to help you, I swear we are.
From him, I'd believe he was trying to help. From Aakesh, not so much. “Then why are we even having this conversation?” I rub my eyes. “You can't tell me what I want to know. You can just tease me with things like, 'I know where the Hope is and you don't, blah blah blah.—‘”
“I do not believe those were my precise words,” Aakesh says dryly.
“It's close enough,” I snap.
He opens his mouth and suddenly goes still.
Aakesh and Gorish look at each other, their eyes wide, and Aakesh stands. “We must leave.”
“What? We're not going anywhere.”
“My lord. We must leave now,” he repeats.
Someone knocks on my door.
Who the hell? “Is that a Traveler?” I stand.
“No.” Aakesh looks pained. “It is your Doctor Parnum.”
I can't get to the door fast enough. “Dr. Parnum!”
He looks so grim. There’s a strange light in his eyes, and his yellow traveling cloak is fastened as if he’s getting ready to walk outside. “We don't have much time. Listen to me carefully.”
“What?” The ache in my head grows. “What's wrong?”
“Harry ... what happened in Tenisia ... I am partially at fault.”
Raised blood pressure is bad. Bad shocks make it worse. “How is that even possible?”
“I am being pursued.” He pauses. “The men who chase me have perfected a weapon using Sundered power. A weapon that causes untold devastation.”
I lean against the doorframe. “Bek is chasing you?” I whisper.
“They know I'm here. I don't know how, but they do, and they're coming. Harry, flee with me.”
I've never had to think as hard as I do right now. “Are you saying the same thing that happened to Tenisia is going to happen here?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I don't know. Very soon, and I dare not wait to find out.”
My people.” I have to get my Travelers. “I wobble toward my closet and grab my coat.
He grips my arm.” Harry, please!”
“Dr. Parnum.” Pulling away from him is hard, and it wedges more pain in my chest. “I'm responsible for them. I have to warn my Travelers.”
“Then hurry.” Parnum opens the door for me. His blue and brown eyes look the same in the dimness of the hall. “Hurry, and let nothing hold you back. Meet me in Cape Horn. Do you understand? Meet me in Cape Horn. Flee, Harry.”
And then he's gone.
I'm left standing in the doorway with a body that's failing me and a timeline that chokes off my air. My Travelers are in danger. I'll sort out facts from fiction later, deal with questions and answers later. “Aakesh, where are my Travelers?”
He blocks my path, standing right in front of me. “There is no time. He is correct. We must flee.”
“The attack's coming that soon?” Doom dangles right over our heads. “Get out of my way!” I shove him hard and lope awkwardly down the hall.
I don't know where they are, and I don't know how much time we have. I hurtle down the musty tunnel, lungs straining in this horrible air. Everything around me is dark, and muck and dust fill the corners.
Aakesh appears right in front of me, and this time I rebound off him like he's made of stone.
I hit the floor hard. “Aakesh!” I struggle back to my feet. My clothing is wet with my sweat, and now it's picked up I-don't-know-what from the floor.
“My lord, we must leave now,” he says, and he's frightening. Implacable, too dark to see clearly, eyes glowing like miniature suns.
But I am the owner here, not him. “Aakesh, you will damn well help find them or I swear I'm letting Gorish go.”
He stiffens.
Gorish stands just behind me, his hands clasped together, very still. I would've preferred he didn't hear that. I didn't mean it.
Did I?
His life for my Travelers.
Maybe I did.
“This way, my lord,” says Aakesh very quietly, and moves quickly down the hall. Gasping for breath, I scramble after him.
The scents are the first hint we've neared the market, old food, fire thick with grease, and ash already burned a thousand times. The temperature rises, unpleasant and cloying, warm air flavored by living bodies and closed-up tunnels.
The market is a huge open space dug deep in the mound of this snow-city. Canals cut through like black gleaming metal, and on every side are gleaming torches. It’s huge underground dome of debauched fools, people so thickly thronged I can't make out one face from another. There's alcohol everywhere, burning happy spices, people laughing—“Where are they?” I shout over the noise.
“Scattered.” Aakesh is tense.
“I have to find them! Help me save them! That's an order!”
He looks at me for one moment, darkly resolved, then grabs my arm and pulls me into the crowd.
We're not flying. We're leaping. But it's happening so fast I—
A deep, low boom echoes through the structure, shaking the ground, rattling detritus from the ceiling.
I'm too late. The attack is already here. “Aakesh!” I scream.
He looks up, teeth bared.
The ceiling breaks.
Chunks the size of small houses tumble down, so large they seem to fall in slow-motion. We move, faster, blur-the-world fast, and then something sharp and heavy hits my head and all the sound goes muffled.
Blackness. Then sight again, pulsing in and out with my heart. My view is the floor, my breath disturbing loose ash. Feet pound past me—in and out, darkness and sight—and screams come dim and far away. Warm blood tickles down my cheeks, drips past my lips. I can't reach up to touch it.
My head is broken. I'm dying.
Darkness covers my eyes. I hear my slow, labored breath. Then silence.
● ●
● CHAPTER 21 ●
Brain Damage
Piercing light and oars thumping t
he side of the boat wake me.
I sit up too quickly and the boat rocks. Bright sunlight cuts my eyes, and everywhere is calm black water, normal black water, tufts in the distance and the smell of wet malleum and oil.
What the hell happened? Where am I? I grip the boat’s sides out of habit, trying to stabilize it with my hips, but I'm stiff, sore, weak.
“Whoa, easy, Harry! Easy!” Demos grips my hands and removes them from the hull, forcing me to relinquish control. His oar bumps against the sides as he balances it across his lap, steadying us.
My head feels whole, not gaping open, not spilling out. I turn to stare at him. “What happened?”
Demos' eyes are very wide. “You can talk?”
Far as I know, that isn’t news. “Um, yeah. What the hell is going on?”
“Oh, man.” Demos sighs deeply and slides his hand over his shaved scalp. “Oh, man.”
The others paddle near, wearing equal expressions of shock, settling in a starburst pattern around us. Tomas is in my skiff. Nobody has any salvage.
They look wrecked. Tired, dirty, hungry. I don't know where we are. I don't know what happened. This is a nightmare. This is my nightmare. “Somebody talk to me. What’s happening?”
My Travelers float around us like petals. “You’re awake,” says Sandra, tears in her eyes.
Demos sighs again. “Everybody back off. Back off. I'll handle this.”
They obey him at once, paddling a short distance away to confer with one another in hushed voices. They glance back at me with fear, real fear.
I don't understand what's happening. I feel Gorish and Aakesh, both still claimed, both nearby. I'm still moving with Aakesh's power, and I feel like hell.
“Didn’t think I’d ever talk to you again, Harry,” Demos says.
“What? What?”
“You took damage to the head. You've been drooling for a month.”
All that pain. The darkness. I had brain damage?
“The side of your head was caved in. I don’t even know how you were alive.”
“I. ... ” Damaged. Brain-damaged. Dead? Did I die? “I ... ”
“Even when they healed up the mess, your skull, you didn’t wake.” He swallows hard. “This is spooky. I won’t lie to you. It’s too spooky.”
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