The Sundered

by Ruthanne Reid

  “How did we get out?” My voice cracks. That’s okay, because my skull cracked. Got to expect some side-effects, ahahaha.

  I’m going to lose it. Got to hold it together. Hold it together, Harry.

  “Your first-tier brought other Sundered Ones, and they pulled us out of that place as it came down around our ears, plunked us in boats, and vanished. I don't think anybody else in the city survived.”

  How much brain did I lose? Can I even trust my own thoughts? Did I really die?

  My life could be over. Everything I was born for, raised for. I can't lead if I'm brain-damaged. I can't find the Hope if I can't think. “What happened to the Sundered Ones who helped you?”

  He shrugs.” Don’t know.”

  Breathe, Harry. “Okay. So Tauri's gone.” The words have weight. So much weight for city number eight. Laughter chokes me. I gag, but I don’t let it out. “Where are we now?”

  Demos grips his oar like he wants to hit something with it, and he glances to the left.

  Aakesh crouches there on the tufts, dark and mysterious. His irises are like rings of liquid fire.

  Demos speaks with quiet anger, anger that’s had time to grow. “He saved your maps, but he won't let us read them. He says we're going to Cape Horn, and we don't have a choice.”

  Aakesh ... giving orders to humans?

  This is bad. This is really bad. They'll execute him for this, first-tier or not. They’ll hunt him to the ends of the earth as dangerous, a rogue. If my Travelers report it. But he saved our lives. He saved my life. I can't let this happen. Think, you stupid, battered brain, think! “So he followed my orders, then?”

  It doesn't sound as convincing as I'd like. Demos' look sharpens. “You ordered him to take us to Cape Horn?”

  “Yeah.” Sound casual, Harry. Pull it off. “I ordered him to save you, and to get us to Cape Horn. What, you think he did this on his own?”

  Demos doesn't bother to look like he believes me. “You ordered him to take over if you were out of commission?”

  Careful. Careful. That’s a trap. “Not in those words, no. I told him to get you safely to Cape Horn no matter what. I guess he took that literally.”

  Demos isn't buying it.

  “Nice master!” Gorish splashes suddenly beside the boat, smiling, happy, and his eyes are cloudy-white.

  My heart stops. His eyes. That’s the sign of dying for a Sundered.

  Rage eats my fear, heats my tongue, and I almost lose it all over again. “Demos,” I say evenly, calmly. “Why is Gorish dying?”

  “For the same reason you're talking.” Demos frowns. “Look. If you're able to row, I could use the help.”

  “Gorish healed me?”

  “He and your first-tier, yeah.”

  Anger spilling out. “The first-tier has a name. You should use it.” You ungrateful son of a bitch.

  Demos stares at me like I’m a traitor, like I rigged all of this just to mess him up, and a long moment passes filled with nothing but our breathing.

  I can't fix this. I don't know how. “Give me the paddle.”

  He does. I row.

  It hurts and feels good at the same time, using muscles that were dormant for a month. Aakesh has been in control. Demos won't forgive that. I'm not sure if he should.

  I didn't order him to take them to Cape Horn. What's Aakesh doing?

  I row.

  Brain damage ... was it really repaired? A leader who can’t isn't a leader at all. It might be all over for me.

  I can't let the fear in. I can't freak out now.

  I row.

  I row.

  I row.

  My tent is a dusty, unused mess, and Gorish isn't well. His eyes are even more clouded in the gloom, and a slight trembling has taken over his limbs.

  “Hey, buddy.” My voice breaks. “You don't look so good.”

  “Nice master,” he says fondly, and pets the side of my head.

  How did I hold onto them both while brain damaged? How is that even possible? Did neither of them try to get loose while I was destroyed? “How do you feel, little guy?”

  Gorish wrings his hands, dancing just a little from webbed foot to webbed foot. “Tired, nice master.”

  “Yeah. I bet you do.” I take a slow, deep breath.

  Aakesh steps into my tent.

  I look at him. His silence toward me is so different from Demos'—attentive, expectant. But what's he expecting? “My lord,” he says.

  “You got us out.”

  He bows slightly.

  I swallow. “Thank you.”

  He bows again, graciously, and goes back to watching me.

  I wipe sweat from my face. “Did you heal me or did Gorish?”

  “I did, my lord. The brain is too intricate for his abilities.”

  Maybe this is all a puppet-act. Maybe I'm hallucinating, and he's running my body like a toy. “Then why is Gorish dying?” That came out like an accusation.

  “Nice master?” Gorish peers up at me. His eyes are so cloudy, not fully dull like a dead Sundered One's, but not clear.

  “Allow me to show you why.” Aakesh holds his hands in a circle. The air shimmers between them, solidifies, and winks in the dim light. Suddenly, I'm looking into a mirror.

  Okay, well, there I am. I look wiped out. Dark circles cup my muddy-green eyes, and my brown hair falls raggedly over my face. There's even some beard, though less than what should be there for a month of growth. Somebody shaved me. “Okay ... what's your point?”

  Aakesh reaches with one hand, touches my jaw with his too-hot fingertips, and turns my head to the left.

  A white patch of hair in the shape of a hand gleams dully on the side of my head.

  I jerk back from his touch, gaping at it.

  “It is Gorish's gift to you,” says Aakesh carefully, and oh, Gorish is watching me, motionless and wide-eyed and hopeful like a kid who just gave me his first-ever drawing, though I don't know what this is or what it means or how he wants me to react.

  “That's ... amazing!” I blurt. There's a handprint on my head.

  Only Gorish would believe me. “Yay!” he says, and bounces in place.

  “I repaired the internal injuries,” Aakesh continues as the reflection between his hands evaporates like smoke. “I failed to protect you in the explosion, as my full attention was taken by your last, terrible command.”

  There is a handprint on my head. “Terrible command? To save my Travelers? That's terrible?”

  He doesn’t answer that. “When I finished with you, your scalp retained scar-tissue damage. Gorish felt you would not appreciate this, and so intervened.”

  Wait.” He fixed how I look?”

  Gorish nuzzles my hand, demanding that I pet him.

  Aakesh's teeth gleam in the darkness. “It cost the lives of eight of my people to preserve your ungrateful crew.”

  Eight. Eight dead Sundered, more dead than the lives they saved. Why did they obey him? Why did they help?

  “Nice master!” Gorish says.

  Eight dead Sundered, and Gorish could be the ninth, all because I looked ugly. I can’t handle this. I can’t do this. What do I say? What do I do? Why did you let him, Aakesh? Why would you do that? I thought you wanted to keep him safe!

  They both look at me, one adoring, one cold, and I just want to cry.

  There is one fix, I know that. But it carries as much risk as anything else. If I set Gorish free, he might heal—sometimes they do—but if anyone else claims him, he’ll die for sure. If I keep him, he’ll also die for sure. I have to let him go to save his life. “Aakesh—”

  Wait.

  Wait.

  He knew.

  I look at them, Aakesh expectant, Gorish nuzzling my hand, and I know. Aakesh knew. He planned this. Hook, line ... “You want me to set him free now?” And sinker.

  “If that is what you intend.”

  I still own him. I don’t understand this, but I will regain control. “Is there a way to keep him safe uncla
imed?”

  Aakesh bows. It's slow, graceful, with his eyes downcast—a real bow, though he has no audience. “I can only keep him safe if you command it. My lord.”

  No, he does have an audience: me.

  Gorish trembles under my touch, fragile, so fragile. This is going to backfire. I can't possibly think clearly enough to find every loophole here, but if I don't. ... “Aakesh, dammit, don't screw with me on this. Protect him. Don't you dare hurt anybody else to do it. But keep him safe. Do you understand me?”

  “My lord,” Aakesh whispers. “I will harm no one while keeping him safe.”

  I don’t know what game he’s playing, but it's as good as I'm going to get. I let Gorish go.

  The weight in my head instantly vanishes, and I suddenly feel like I’m falling up through the top of my tent into the sky. I fall back on my sleeping pallet instead, the whole place spinning, and my heart pounds so hard I feel it in my fingers.

  Aakesh makes this low, soft sound as though he’s relieved, like a burden fell off him.

  Gorish’s eyes are already darker. Already. “Nice master,” he whispers and pets my hair, maybe meaning you'll be okay, or maybe just thank you.

  Eight Sundered lives.

  The lives aren't equal. It’s not even a contest. Humans are worth more. Right?

  There's a handprint on the side of my head because Gorish, my sometimes-slave, loves me.

  I don’t know the easy answers anymore.

  We set a steady pace going south. I take the lead immediately, paddling hard even though it hurts, straining my back beyond the power Aakesh lends me.

  They all ignore me. They follow Demos, who paddles in the same direction I do, but that doesn't seem to matter.

  I don't know how to fix this. I didn't “take” leadership the first time. It was given to me by my father, assumed.

  Allowed.

  They let me take over before, I think, and now, nobody wants to trust anything I say. Yes, my Sundered saved them—by acting in very un-Sundered ways, scaring them half to death.

  This is the price of leadership. In two years, I’ve made no friends. They don’t know me. They don’t have any reason to trust me. I’m lucky they even care if I live or die.

  I choose landfall, but no one accepts it until Demos says yes. At dinner, I try to portion out what food Aakesh brings—fish and roots, very basic survival stuff. They let me. But no one meets my eyes.

  At least they're talking to me. Toddy asks how I am, asks if the handprint hurts. Sandra asks what happened before Tauri fell. I can't tell her everything. She's spooked by Sundered Ones enough as it is, so she gets a short version: enemy coming, we had to escape.

  My Travelers care about me, they don’t really follow me. Maybe they never did. My father was gone for months before I stepped in, and what happened during that time? Demos. Demos happened. He’s the one they really follow.

  Dammit all. I will earn them. I will find a way to fix this. Somehow.

  Cape Horn is already on the horizon. I have just enough time to make a plan.

  There are only five cities this far south.

  Southern cities handle imports from all over the world, and they're intimidatingly large. They have to be. South is deep water, and deep water is where the monsters hide.

  There are no tufts or landfalls. Predators swim there: orcas big enough to swallow small boats, sauros with great ridged backs and impenetrable armor, and krakens with tentacles so heavy they can smash walls like dried mud. Southern cities are built to withstand these, with thick walls and heavy gates.

  Just beyond the last of the tufts, Cape Horn, Cape Hope, Cape Heart, Cape Hand, and Cape Harm curve like a row of dirty pearls. They're a mish-mash of cultures, brimming with crime and con-artists. Cynicism abounds. Nobody there believes in the Hope, or that it ever existed in the first place.

  I have no idea why Parnum wants to meet me here. I have less idea why Aakesh agreed.

  Southern cities house enormous factories, which produce malleum—metal mined by Sundered Ones from the mud and deep prison-like caves. It's the base for everything we build, from pipes to paints to paddles. It's even in the rivets that hold our boats together. Besides stone and mud, it's the only building material the black water left to us.

  I touched wood once, in a museum in Tenisia. It was beautiful. Someday, if I find the Hope, maybe we can grow more.

  Southern cities handle so many imports that they need extra canals, enormous water passageways complete with docking areas, shipping lanes, and cranes. It's all built to handle boats far bigger than ours.

  We enter instead through small passages in the walls, too small for predators to get through. Dock workers send their Sundered Ones swarming toward us as soon as we're visible, riding the chains down to us. It takes them only seconds to get our boats secured, and then up we go.

  These Sundered have cloudy eyes, and they cling to the chains weakly as we're all pulled out of the water. Work in the docks is notorious for guaranteeing a short Sundered life.

  Gorish is unclaimed.

  Maybe this was a mistake.

  “Careful! Swing it left!” shouts one of the dock workers, demonstrating the movement with his arms, and Sundered Ones scramble over the chains and pulleys to obey.

  Aakesh's soft voice carries without effort. “Do not fear for him, Harry.”

  I swallow. “I don't want to see Gorish end up somewhere like this.”

  “You will not.”

  “Without hurting any humans, like I said.”

  “You place so much faith in me, my lord,” he says innocently.

  That earns a glare.

  “Easy!” shouts a dock worker.

  The city seems to grow taller as our boats are lowered toward the skids on the dock. Everything is covered in ash. Southern cities may be the wealthiest in the world, but they're the dirtiest. Anything you bring with you wears a fine layer of soot in minutes. The walkways cough up little puffs with every step, and city-dwellers develop lung problems—which the Sundered can fix, fortunately, but it still kind of freaks me out. What the hell are we breathing?

  I'm so tired, but I have to keep thinking for just a while longer. This is my chance to take the reins back. With a thunk, my boat settles on the skids, and somehow I manage to climb onto the dock first. My legs aren't as steady as I'd like.

  Soot piles in the corners, windowsills, and doorways. It ruins the paint on Sundered-pulled rickshaws and stains the brightly colored tunics of the inhabitants. Buildings thirty floors high tower over everything, and smokestacks loom over them all.

  For the first time ever, we have nothing to sell and nothing to unpack. My Travelers were surviving, not thriving. I can do better.

  I step forward to take our boats' claim tags before Demos can. He blinks at me, startled.

  This is my chance. “I know it's been rough on us all this month.”

  It takes them a moment to realize I'm talking. One by one, they stare at me, but that's better than walking away.

  “This isn't the first time something like this has happened. Sometimes Travelers lose their goods. Stuff goes wrong. The good news is, I know what to do.”

  They all look at me, waiting, listening over the shouts of “Fresh fish!” and “Fresh bread!”

  They need me. If I believe it, they will, too. “It's going to take us a little bit of work, but we're going to be okay. Southern cities have plenty of job opportunities. I'm going to find us something to do, and we'll work our asses off for a couple of weeks. At the end of that time, we'll leave here wealthier and better provisioned than we've been in months. I promise.” They want to believe me. I've almost got them.

  “So sell your Sundered.”

  I look at Demos.

  He looks back, steady, impatient. “Sell your Sundered Ones. We'll have enough to leave right now.”

  Sandra chews her lip.

  My grip on them is slipping again. “No. And I'll tell you why.” I put every ounce of authority, surety,
and confidence I have ever had into these words: “My Sundered knows where the Hope is.”

  Toddy actually groans.

  “Harry ... this isn't a game,” says Demos.

  I stiffen. “It's real, and we can find it. Just before the attack—”

  “We don't want to hear about your Soothsayer dreams,” Demos snaps.

  “I did not dream it.” I brace with my boots far apart, arms crossed. “Aakesh?”

  “Yes, my lord,” he says, and my Travelers jump. Sandra lets out a little scream and stumbles backward.

  They had no idea he was standing right in the middle of them. Okay, so his sense of humor is a little funnier when it's not aimed at me.

  I raise my chin. “Is the Hope within reach? For me? For my Travelers?”

  “Yes, my lord. It is.”

  They stare at him, frozen.

  Ha! “Once we leave here, refreshed and renewed, will we be able to pursue it with imminent success?”

  “Yes, my lord, although it will take some effort.”

  “There you go, then.” I eyeball them, daring them to challenge me now. I don't care if I was insensate for a month. I'm not insensate now. “Who wouldn't want to be a part of that? We're going to save the world!”

  Nobody says anything.

  Be calm. Show no weakness. “Let's meet right here by this gate in six hours. I'll have some way for us to eat by then, and some idea where we're going to stay. Be safe. Don't go anywhere alone. I'll take care of us. I promise.”

  Demos sighs and nods. Apparently, that was the signal to obey me.

  They take a while to pair off, and nobody speaks to me while they do. I have to believe they'll come back. I have to believe they won't report me to the lawmen. They want to believe me. And maybe they don't want Aakesh's anger.

  I put my palm over the handprint on the side of my head. It doesn't feel any different from the rest of my hair, but I know it is. My Sundered Ones saved us, but the price was fear.

  “They sure didn't stick around, did they?” Tomas smirks.

  Why is he still here? “Neither should we.”

  “Hey,” says Tomas. “Mind if I hang out with you? See the great Iskinder at work?”

  Um. What? “Why?”

  He shrugs.