Paradise Cracked

by Jeff Hook

  Emotional dampening? Was that why he’d felt more alive since the disturbance? Was it being on fire or being free of the emotional dampening that had been the true cause of his elation? When he’d fought the devils he’d gotten a wild thrill, even though he’d been closer to death than he’d ever come before. He didn’t want to die, but the risk, the challenge, the act of testing himself had made him excited in a way that felt right.

  Did he want these emotions to go away? To be dampened? There had been some distressing parts, like seeing people crying, but he felt alive in a way he hadn’t ever felt before. Would that feeling go away after they fixed the crystal?

  Once they fixed it, once the dampening took hold once more, would he be forever doomed to that dull grey smothering feeling?

  “The sooner the better is all I can say. The mechanists are working as hard as they can, although I fear it’s been some time and they’re out of practice, and who knows how the enlivened emotions are affecting them. Some may even harbor thoughts of destruction.”

  There was a silence as both Elders pondered such a horrifying idea.

  “The crystal still holds strong enough to dampen hatred. Even the outer devils have that emotion appropriately squashed. If one drop of hatred enters our world…”

  “You know, there may be an upside to the Toraburu plan. We might be able to get rid of some of our home-grown disturbances…”

  The Toraburu plan? His grandpa had come up with a plan?

  A door opened, much louder than the other times, making him jump.

  It was the door to this room.

  Two Elders, ones he didn’t recognize. Council members?

  One sighed. “Of course he’s snuck in here.”

  “Might as well tell him,” said the other.

  What more could they tell him that he hadn’t already heard?

  “Okay, so…” The first Elder collected his thoughts, then began. “There’s more to this world than our island.”

  “I know,” said Karugo.

  “Right. Goodness knows what you’ve heard while breaking in here.”

  “Do all the Elders know?”

  “We have a mission for you.”

  “Is it the Toraburu plan?”

  One Elder groaned.

  The other shrugged. “We should’ve expected this. Might as well tell him the rest.”

  “I have to warn you,” began the Elder, “for this mission you’ll need to go away from our island, far—”

  Did they think the idea of departing the island would make him want it less? He’d heard that the dampening was coming back.

  “I’ll do it.”

  “What? You haven’t even heard what the mission is!”

  His grandpa had come up with it, so it must be good. “I’ll do it.”

  “This is a huge mission! You’ll be gone for so long! There will be dangers, risks, violence, even…” The Elder, after much hesitation, choked out the final word: “death.”

  Did they think that would scare him?

  His muscles clenched, like the entire class was staring at him again, and his stomach felt like it was floating.

  Whatever this feeling, he couldn’t let them chase him back into his old life.

  “I’d rather die out there than stay on this island and never feel alive again.”

  8

  Complex

  Hishano worked through the rubble of the school, helping his classmates orient themselves. The building was wrecked, and the boy who’d expanded and broken it was covered in splinters (and a burn from where the wood had been on fire), but everyone else was physically unharmed.

  The mental anguish, on the other hand... He’d never seen anything like this. He had to do his meditation exercises to calm himself before helping, and then he taught them to the other students. The Elders had given those exercises only to him and Karugo, but they’d never said he couldn’t teach them to others.

  After the first one calmed down Hishano moved on to the next. They mastered it much more quickly than he had... for Hishano, calmness was something carefully cultivated, while for everyone else except Karugo it seemed to be something that came naturally.

  That thought broke his concentration. Karugo was probably getting into trouble right now. Why had the Elder commanded him to tend to the other students? Probably absentmindedness. He almost considered disobeying, but fought back the urge.

  The Elders knew best.

  He heard a cough behind him, one characteristic of the fading, and turned to find Elder Choro.

  Elder Choro looked very serious. “Hishano, would you please come with me?”

  “Is something wrong?” Hishano blurted out. He would usually follow decorum, but this day had worn his nerves to the point of ignoring what was polite.

  “More than you’ll ever know,” said Choro gravely. He considered for a moment, then modified his statement. “More than you know right now, that is. We’re going to ask something of you, and it’s going to be a very painful and difficult task.”

  Hishano felt a rush of fear that was matched only by what he’d felt during the fire in the school and the battle on the beach. Was it beacuse this pronouncement was coming from an important Elder like Choro? Or was it that all his feelings were stronger these days?

  “What is the task?” he asked as bravely as he could.

  Choro walked away from the school and motioned for Hishano to follow. When they got far enough away from the others, Choro spoke. “We need you to protect the island.”

  “Okay,” said Hishano. His feelings fought briefly within him, but his desire to help quickly overcame his fear. “I’ll do it.”

  “You don’t even know what it is yet.”

  “It’s protecting the island. That means protecting my friends, my family, and my people.” It couldn’t get simpler than that.

  Choro seemed strangely annoyed that Hishano had agreed so quickly. “I want you to understand what you’re getting into. If you’re going to give up, I want you to give up now so that we can come up with another plan. If you give up halfway through, we might not hear of it for years… and then we’d truly be doomed.”

  “Wait… why wouldn’t you hear of it for years?” He could go to another village, but relaying messages was easy and only took a couple of days by runner, even from the farthest end of the world. “I would tell you if I gave up. The shame of a lie is even greater than that of failure.”

  “I know you would if you could,” said Elder Choro, “but you wouldn’t have a choice. You see the horizon?”

  Hishano looked toward the water. “What about it?”

  “You’ll be going out there.”

  “Why would I go to the endless ocean? Are we running out of fish here, and we must go farther?”

  “There are many large fish, but that’s not the important thing. There are other lands out there… lands with people. Many islands, some a thousand times larger than our own.”

  “How?”

  “Let me show you.”

  Choro started walking and Hishano followed obediently. Other lands? He’d learned that a thousand years ago the outer devils had wiped each other off the face of the earth, destroying themselves and sinking every other island except this one into the ocean. Had some of the islands resurfaced?

  As they walked through the village, they remained quiet. This mission seemed to be a secret of the Elders, so Hishano knew better than to speak of it where others could hear. Once inside the House of Elders he might ask more, although if this was a matter of the Elder Council he might even have to wait until they got into a private room.

  They reached the House of Elders and went in. This was the first time that Hishano had been in this building, and he tried to notice as little as possible. Even if the Elders had brought him here, he still didn’t want to accidentally see anything he wasn’t supposed to.

  After walking down a wood-floored hallway and passing a dozen almost-identical doors they turned towards a door with ornate decoration
s around the bottom, flames and sparks and tilted ovals adorning the part that Hishano let himself see, and went down some stairs into a dark, cool room with stone walls. Around the corner a blue light shone. Choro led him that direction.

  In the middle of the room was a large crystal that glowed with a bright white light. This crystal was the biggest he’d ever seen, almost half his height. Smaller yellow and blue crystals bobbed around it, and complex machinery framed the area where the crystals floated.

  Two Elders supervised a team of men in strange uniforms that Hishano had never seen before. Most of them seemed lost in thought, staring at the large crystal in the middle from different angles and making faces like they were thinking of a hard construction problem.

  “What is this?” he asked in awe.

  “This,” said Choro reverently, “is what keeps our island safe.”

  Hishano got as close as he dared, trying to get a better look at it without a chance of accidentally touching it or interfering with the workers. “It’s beautiful.”

  “It creates a barrier, one that has held for nearly a thousand years. But lately the power of the crystal has been weakening, and then when the two devils slammed into it… well, in past years it might have passed them over the barrier and they would have had no idea we were here. But now, in its weakened state, the crystal cracked and the wall crumbled.”

  Now that he looked for it, Hishano could see a spot on the crystal where it didn’t shine as brightly as everywhere else. When he squinted, he could almost trace the crack with his eyes. “How do we fix it?”

  “The wall has repaired itself, but the crystal has not. One more collision like that and it may burst completely. If nothing happens, then in twenty or thirty years it might crumble on its own.”

  Hishano had been caught up in the excitement and beauty of the crystal, taking its importance for granted because Elder Choro thought it was important, but now a question arose in his mind. “Why is the wall so important?”

  Choro got a pained look in his eyes. It shocked Hishano. A person should never have to feel like that! “I’m sorry I asked,” he said hastily.

  “No, no, it’s good to ask. It’s just that… we’ve tried to protect the island for so long, so no one would ever have to make a choice like this. Perhaps we’ve protected it too well. If you leave, you will encounter tragedy you’ve never imagined. Pain as an everyday occurrence.”

  “Why will I feel pain every day? Does the air out there sting?”

  “Not the air, Hishano… the people. The people out there are cruel, violent, and heartless. They hurt each other without a second thought. Children go hungry. Mothers die in childbirth. If you leave this island, you will encounter things that you’ll never want to see, but that you’ll never be able to forget.”

  “The outer devils are alive?”

  “That’s a story we made up. The outer devils are people… they’re like we were, before we created paradise.”

  Hishano started shaking. His whole body quivered in a way he had never experienced. “The outer devils are alive, and they live in constant pain?”

  “Yes, and—”

  “And we’ve done nothing?”

  “It’s not that easy!”

  “Of course it’s that easy! We must always do the right thing!”

  “Which is what we’ve done! Those people out there would kill us without a second thought, enslave us if we’re lucky, and life would be no better for them. It is complete and utter foolishness to help strangers at the cost of people you love!”

  Hishano was angry, angrier than he’d ever been, but he held his tongue. It was wrong to yell at an Elder. And, when he thought on it further, Choro had a point. “If I left, what would happen to Karugo? He’ll cause no end of trouble for himself and others. I… you’re right, if I left, it would hurt him.”

  Choro shook his head. “We did too well with you. An overcorrection, perhaps. I hope it doesn’t cost us.”

  What was that supposed to mean?

  “If it makes you feel better, Karugo will be going with you. Your task: search for a new Adiamite Crystal. One that will protect this island for millennia to come.”

  “I accept,” said Hishano confidently.

  He would save his people. Then, once they were safe in their bubble for another thousand years, he would save the world.

  9

  Goodbyes

  Ishū patted the thunderbeast’s scaly hide while feeding it unpeeled grapefruits. It was a simple thing, large and brutish, and it seemed to have already forgiven him for not talking during the peak time of power. Ishū wished he could be that simple. Making decisions was… hard.

  Should he accept the mission?

  He’d never really fit in on the island, and the Elders said he wouldn’t have children. No explanation was given, but he knew it was because he was weird. He wasn’t wild like Karugo, but he was still a bit of disorder in an otherwise perfect world.

  But now, at thirty-four years old, they said he was needed. Why him? Why not one of the fishermen? The Elders said they needed an adult to watch over the boys they were sending, one who could withstand the outside world, but it sure looked as if they were using this opportunity to send away all of their most troublesome citizens.

  “I wish I’d talked to you more,” he said to the thunderbeast softly. It might have forgotten, but Ishū hadn’t. By the time he’d gotten around to his companion, the power had been rapidly waning. “The birds are nothing to me. You’re my life. You talk softer, that’s for sure, but I should’ve paid attention to you when I had the chance.”

  The thunderbeast stomped in agreement. Or hunger. Ishū fed it another grapefruit. The beast had increased their crop yield, but sometimes it seemed as if it ate almost half of the gains it created.

  There wasn’t anyone else who understood it. If he sailed out with the upcoming mission, what would happen to the beast? The Elders would probably turn it loose on the rocky plains that couldn’t grow proper crops, to be among its own kind once more.

  “I hope you like grass. Not much fruit up there.”

  It nuzzled him. That hurt a bit — scales and skin didn’t mix well — but Ishū welcomed the pain.

  “Friends forever?” he said sadly. “Even if I take their offer?”

  ——

  Karugo’s mother made sandwich after sandwich, stacking them all on top of one another in the basket. “While you’re gone, be sure to practice your lessons. I don’t want you falling even further behind the other students than you have already.”

  She spoke as if he were coming back. “I’ll do what I need to,” said Karugo noncommittally.

  “Yes,” she said with a frown, “you always have.”

  Her hands moved with the skill of a lifetime, swiftly but unhurriedly. She wanted to pretend, more than anything, that this was any other day. The seventeen sandwiches beside her betrayed her lie.

  “That bread is going to get soggy,” said Karugo’s father. “You know sandwiches don’t do well at sea.”

  “Well someone needs to make sure he stays alive! I don’t see you doing anything!”

  “The Elders have decided to send him somewhere for a while. Don’t you trust the Elders?”

  “Your father had something to do with this, I know it, and I have no reason to trust him. Not after…” Her hands stopped their productive dance for just a moment, with one clenching around a slice of bread until it split in two. Both halves fell to the floor.

  “Go pack,” Karugo’s father commanded as he wrapped an arm around her.

  As Karugo left, he could hear a strange wailing, a taste of the pain that was outside this island.

  The cost of freedom.

  ——

  “Does it have to be like this?” asked Hishano’s father. “You’ve done such a good job protecting our island, keeping things in harmony. And really, the people out there… the Elders haven’t told us much, but they sound horrid. Even worse than Karugo.”

  Hish
ano’s younger sister nodded in agreement. She hadn’t been told anything about the outside world, but she knew he was leaving and she didn’t want that to happen.

  “Don’t go,” she said. “They’ll frown at you and say mean things, and then you’ll feel sad.”

  “That’s why I have to go,” said Hishano. “They’re all so sad out there. So many disturbances. And I… I was created to correct disturbances.”

  His father tensed, confirming Hishano’s suspicions.

  “It’s okay,” Hishano said gently. “Having a purpose is beautiful.”

  “You’re not just saying that to… you know…” A drop of water leaked from his father’s eyes onto a quivering chin. “This isn’t just to make my disturbance go away?”

  “I can’t fight my purpose. I don’t want to fight my purpose. You thought it would just be for Karugo, but now so many more will benefit.”

  “You’re too kind, too gentle. If what the Elders say about the world is true… I fear it will break you.”

  “If that’s what it takes to save the island, I’m happy to break.”

  ———

  “Grandpa,” said Karugo.

  The old man slumped in a chair, exhausted from the day’s activities but not yet willing to give in to sleep. “Yeah?”

  There was so much he wanted to say, so much excitement welling up within him that he just wanted to scream and shout… but Karugo had never been good at expressing himself, so he said it as simply as he could. So there would be no confusion.

  “Thanks for making me a hero.”

  10

  Evyleen

  Evyleen opened her eyes happy to see the familiar ceiling of her quarters. She listened hard for any sign that things might be off. If her ship had been overtaken, there honestly wasn’t much she could do — her power was about as useful in close-quarters combat as a fish on land — but if she was alert and clever she might get the jump on the boarders.