Song of Sundering

by A. R. Clinton

  Jon smirked slightly. Both Chloe and Dolores looked stunned. The surrounding crowd shuffled uncomfortably, looking for the Source-caster among them, but no one else seemed to recognize her. The shouts were growing louder at both exit ends of the marketplace tunnel and the sound spread through the crowd, everyone angry and nervous to get wherever they needed to go.

  Shara tried to speak, but they drowned her yells out. She let go of Jon’s hand and motioned in a circle around her head, then made a pushing motion toward the small nearby aqueduct that held a ladder. Jon nodded and started pushing his way around the crowd to move her to the front of their group. She grabbed onto his hand again, closed her eyes and focused again on the air and building more pressure. She moved the pressure in front of her, like a shield, took a deep breath and then pushed out and jumped into a sprint, pulling Jon behind her and hoping Chloe and Dolores had been ready. The air pushed people aside, and she kept running through the startled people as they yelled at her. She wished she had pulled her hood up. Curious eyes become loose mouths. There would be no hiding this adventure from her mother now.

  They reached the exit tunnel to topside. She kept running, only glancing back to check that she had all three of her companions with her. Dolores was missing.

  She stopped at the ladder, “Go up. Where did you lose Dolores?”

  Chloe was shaking, “When we started running, she lost her grip. I think she kept up for a little while—”

  Shara grabbed both of Chloe’s hands, “I’ll find her, Chloe. But I need you to go up and leave it to me, okay?”

  Chloe nodded. Jon put an arm around her shoulder and guided her towards the ladder. Once Chloe was on her way up, Jon turned to Shara, “That crowd could turn violent at any second, Shara. And if it doesn’t, you could get crushed or lost in it and still never find her. It'd be best to just leave and hope Dolores makes it home okay.”

  Shara looked back over her shoulder at the crowd, each person pushing and shoving and trying to make some headway back to safety. People were filling their small tunnel, having followed their lead. She saw a few punches being thrown. She couldn't leave Dolores stuck in that, especially if it turned violent. She turned back to Jon and gestured for him to go up the ladder, “I can’t just leave her. I’ll be quick.” She turned back and walked down the tunnel, weaving through people as she pulled her hood up.

  She reached the edge of the tunnel and used air pressure to push herself up into the air, hoping no one would notice the few extra inches she was off the ground. Using so much pressure in one spot was difficult, but she had enough mental energy left over to scan the crowd from her vantage point, hoping she could make out Dolores nearby. She heard her before she saw her. A shrill scream broke through the noise from a nearby spot in the crowd, followed by a punctuated curse in a voice Shara recognized. There was a slight break in the crowd where people stood around someone about twenty feet away. She dropped to the floor and headed toward the spot, manipulating the air to push people more subtly than before, creating small pockets that let her squirm through their bodies. The heat rising in the tunnel was stifling.

  She reached the spot and found Dolores on the ground, luckily not trampled, if only because the crowd still hadn’t been able to move very far. Her forehead was bleeding and her shirt had been ripped. Shara reached down and pulled her to her feet when an enormous hand grabbed the front of her cloak and yanked Shara off of her own feet. Dolores slumped back down. The crowd watched, half curious and half hoping to not get involved. The man smiled at Shara and said something she couldn’t hear, but she could make out the shape of one word on his lips: "Topsider".

  He thinks Dolores is one of us.

  She had to get them both out of there quickly, before anything coming out of this man’s mouth could become audible. She knew another overt display of precision Stromcasting, the mark of an educated topsider, had to be a last resort. That may have been what caught this guy’s attention, and she didn’t need more of that.

  She grabbed his arm and with enough force to convince him she was actually trying; she mocked a struggle against his grip. He smiled. He tossed her to the ground, half on top of Dolores, and kicked her in the stomach. She felt all the alcohol she had drank churn, and she closed her eyes and focused on her Intuition as she let her stomach empty itself all over the man’s legs and boots. She returned her focus to the alcohol within the fluid until she could feel it respond with excitement to the heat she transferred into it—an Inari source specialty. She rolled until she could grab Dolores. They clung to each other as they gained their feet and small licks of flame started up the man’s leg beside them. Shara quickly manipulated the air to clear them a path. The man reached out to stop her before he noticed the heat and looked down, but by then Shara was pushing Dolores through the crowd and he was just another scream in a crowd.

  Shara clung to Dolores as they weaved through the crowd, keeping one arm around her waist and the other clasping her arm. The crowd was bobbing and dropping with the waves of emotion, bursting with energy and nowhere to go. Shara’s small pushes of air were barely enough to create the gaps they needed to slink through, but she couldn’t risk casting with more force. They were close to the side tunnel that would lead them out when the force of the crowd overcame what she could safely cast. The surrounding bodies pushed the two of them together with a crushing force. They bobbed inside the crowd, inches in each direction, but couldn’t move forward.

  Shara felt Dolores grab her arm with her free hand, pulling herself in, facing Shara as the shifting crowd allowed. They held each other there for a minute, letting the crowd move them along with it. Dolores looked at her and said something, but Shara could not make out the words. She shook her head at Dolores. Dolores released her and grabbed her hand and gave it a firm squeeze, as if to say: we’ll make it out.

  Shara nodded at Dolores and smiled, then looked over the crowd near them. The amount of force she would have to use to push people at this point could seriously harm them. She wrapped her free arm around Dolores and held her steady, taking a deep breath and leaning in to yell in Dolores’s ear, then laughed at herself for thinking she should communicate by deafening Dolores. She focused instead on her crystals and the air, but rather than concentrating pressure, she removed it, creating a bubble around them of highly pressurized air that was surrounded by a layer of no air at all. The sounds around them fell off into slight vibrations that came up from the ground, the volume turned down to nearly nothing. Shara’s laughter filled their little bubble of silence. Dolores looked amazed but started laughing with her.

  “I can’t use the air pressure changes to get us out of here anymore, not without hurting people.”

  “Okay. No other crazy tricks up your sleeve?”

  Shara shook her head, “Other than things that would hurt the people here… no.”

  Dolores fell silent, and they both looked outside the small, calm bubble they stood in. They could see the panic, the frightened faces behind each shout that they could no longer hear. Shara watched a young woman near them bouncing along with the crowd, frantically trying to turn every other direction, and yelling a name over and over: Sam! Sam! As Shara watched, the emotion from the woman filled her mind with the image of the boy, his smiling face playing with a toy carved into wood, the unnatural Underground light paling compared to the light of his love for his mother.

  “She lost her son in this.”

  “What?” Dolores turned to look at the woman.

  “I saw him in her pain. He is here somewhere in all this. I never really focus on my Intuition, but her feeling was so strong… It just was there.”

  Dolores had the uncomfortable look of a Terran who didn’t know how to respond when one of the source races used Intuition, but beneath it, Shara could feel her understanding the mother’s feelings and a bubble of bravery burst over her concern, “We have to help her.”

  “We can’t even help ourselves.”

  Dolores looked at her with a
judgmental look, “I can’t. You can. There has to be something to help us and that mother and her child.”

  “I don’t even know why this is happening, Dolores.”

  Shara looked again at the mother and felt the press of Intuition forcing its way into her mind.

  “I’m going to drop the bubble. I’ll bring it back up if I think of a way to get us out of here and need to tell you.”

  She let the air gap between them and the world drop, and the sounds rushed over them as a wave of Intuition crashed down on Shara. She looked around her and saw into each person, seeing not the person in front of her, but the people and things they loved most. She felt her sense of herself expanding, as if her ribs and chest exploded open as she took in all the surrounding people with Intuition. She could feel the pressure on her body from the crowd and had a slight sense of her arm holding Dolores, but she let her Intuition guide her and her mind jumped through the crowd, meeting each person there and absorbing them into who she was.

  He fixes pipes, but loves to cook. His wife waits at home. Did he already cook his last meal for her?

  She was worried about writing a paper for class. She was in a makeshift library. Who will feed her dog if she doesn’t get home?

  He came to Prin, hoping for safety and a chance to sing in the bars.

  She wanted to paint, but found herself taking photos of all the refugees and filling her sketchbook with their haunted, misplaced faces.

  He was worried about his grandchildren. Their parents were gone. All they have is him.

  Shara knew quickly this was her way out. She could push back as hard into the Intuition as she let the Intuition into her. She could use it to turn this crowd away from her, to turn the force of the waves out from where she stood. She could make herself the seed and the source of all their fear and terror. She looked from face to face, breathing them in.

  I can’t do it. I won’t make this a weapon.

  She looked at Dolores and smiled. Well, I can do something with this.

  She focused on this new power and let a feeling of resignation and comfort wash over her and pushed that feeling into Dolores, a simple feeling. It’ll be okay. They would be okay. She felt Dolores’s grip around her tighten, and she returned it, holding the girl closer and letting them drift along with the force of the crowd.

  10

  Ayna

  Ayna hoped that the refugees that lived in the Nagata could not tell that today she was faking her pleasure to see them as she passed out bundles of supplies and inquired after them. Next to her, Shara helped carry and distribute the small packs. Ayna was still seething with anger at her daughter’s reckless behavior in the Underground. Her flagrant use of source in a crowd was all over the SatNet and Ayna’s own sources had confirmed that it was Shara. She had been biding her time all day to talk to her daughter, hoping the anger would subside enough to keep the conversation a discussion rather than an argument, but the day was going to be over in a few hours and Ayna was no less angry than when she had woken up to the news that morning.

  “I’m glad she is doing well in school. Has she made any new friends?” She asked a mother about her own daughter, a young child who had not yet conceived of running around at night and putting herself in danger.

  “One. It’s been rough. All the other children are—uh—native. They don’t really understand what she’s been through. But one of the girls lost her father to a Xenai patrol recently, and they’ve bonded. She is going to go to her home after school today.”

  Ayna smiled, “The other children are lucky to have not felt the effects of things. I hope it stays that way for them, but I am also glad that your daughter found someone who understands what she is going through.”

  The woman nodded, and Ayna leaned in and gave her a hug before shuffling off to the next section of the room. Shara followed wordlessly, offering a smile in farewell.

  The next two makeshift rooms were empty, so Ayna and Shara dropped off the packs inside the doorways and continued on. Ayna felt a tempest of changing emotions as they worked in silence. Anger, followed by sadness, followed by distrust and a sudden and odd desire to forgive, which she pushed away in anger. The two conflicting emotions felt like a war of wills inside her. Shara sighed next to her, dropping a hand to her side and balling it into a fist before relaxing it again.

  Was she just trying to change my mind with Intuition?

  Shara had practically disdained the practice before. She had refused to devote any of her time in training to sharpen the most basic of source abilities. And now, Ayna was certain that her daughter had just used it on her to see what was wrong, and even worse, to turn Ayna away from her anger.

  “Don’t do that, again.” She snapped at the petulant girl.

  Shara stopped walking and gawked at her. Ayna continued to walk and only looked back when she reached the last room. Shara looked down at the ground and moved to catch up. It was empty as well, and as they dropped off the last of their bundles, Shara spoke, “What caused the riot in the Underground last night?”

  “Why were you there?”

  Shara scoffed, “I was having a drink with friends. I am perfectly capable of protecting myself. What caused it?”

  Ayna moved toward the entrance of the Nagata, smiling and nodding at the refugees as she passed the ones she had spoken to already. Ayna let the debate of what to tell her daughter roll over in her mind when Shara answered her own question.

  “You let them into the Underground? Why?”

  Ayna turned on her daughter, her whispered voice coming out as a reprimand, “There are considerations for protecting Prin that you don't understand."

  Shara scoffed at her, "I understand plenty. The Topsiders would feel threatened and not support you if the Xenai infiltrated up here, but down there, it's fine. Any protest they put together would result in them being forced to register which would then result in their children being conscripted. If enough Xenai infiltrate and force their hands, you gain supplies for the army. Either way, you don't lose Topsider support."

  Ayna gave Shara an incredulous look, letting her feelings of insult rise to the top while hoping it covered her guilt if the damned child was still inspecting her with Inuition, "You really think I manipulate things that much?"

  "The Undergrounders do—and it's pretty fucking neat for a coincidence."

  Ayna paused and glared over at Shara before beginning down the stone Sourceforged steps from the Nagata's gaping air lock to the ground a hundred feet below. She faced forward again and began the descent with a poised air, "Well, I don't. It is a strategic decision made only for defensive tactics. We can control infiltration in the Underground better than any other point in Prin. It's a maze filled with chokepoints if they try to send more than a few. Leaving a few vulnerabilities for them to enter through, we can push them towards easy to control areas and capture is beneficial.”

  “And it's beneficial that those vulnerabilities are in the Underground? Those are our people, just as much as anyone up here!”

  “Yes, they are. The location of where we push Xenai infiltration has nothing to do with the citizens that might be impacted and everything to do with controlling the situation. We have some chokepoints Topside as well. It’s just… the Underground…works best. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the way it is.”

  Shara glared at her mother and shook her head, “And in 80 years, no one thought to try to fix that situation for the people that live down there? Did you actually see the tunnels? Were there video captures or did someone just tell you about it?"

  When Ayna did not respond, Shara continued, "I assume you caught your Xenai, so it doesn’t fucking matter, does it?”

  Ayna looked at Shara’s trembling, closed fists, “Of course it matters. It wasn’t this bad, before. But, with how many people are down there now—all the refugees—it just... got worse much more quickly than we expected. More quickly than we could do anything about.”

  “And you’re not going to do anything abo
ut it now, are you?”

  Ayna lifted her hands in a gesture of futility, “What can we do about it now? If you have a solution, I would love to hear it. But, as far as I can see, the only way we can solve this problem is to solve that one.” She pointed to the mountain range, hidden to the west behind the hulking body of the Nagata, “Until they are dealt with, we will keep getting more people that need protection. We can’t expand outside the walls Topside and so, we have to shove people anywhere they will fit.”

  “You know damn well what would help with that, Mother.”

  Ayna felt the slap in Shara’s words.

  Yes, I know.

  She turned and continued to make her way down the steps, “Come on, Shara, we have a shop to open in the market. Nothing stops because bad things happen. We do what we have to do.”

  Ayna heard Shara scoff again, but she also heard the resignation in it. Ayna had won again, for now, but her headstrong daughter would follow in her footsteps and and accomplish what she thought was best, eventually. There is so much you don’t know, child. Jo had encouraged her to tell Shara what she really knew, but of course, she couldn’t. Not yet. Someday, there would be no other choice, but that day had not yet come.

  Ayna stepped down from the metal floor of the Nagata onto the steep stone steps that the Illara founders had been built a generation ago and worked her way down to the streets of Prin. Families packed the path to the market already. The Artificers were going to be a big attraction, with source powered stringless kites and streamers and their own small Source-works display that would shoot off the roof as she cut the ribbon. It would be a welcome distraction.

  11