Song of Sundering

by A. R. Clinton

  80

  Fiher

  She was here. Somehow, she was here. Fiher restrained himself as he felt her presence in the middle of a pack of Xenai. He crept from his hideout, stalking down the hill, keeping at the edge of Intuition. He was lucky he had spent so much time tracking her with it; it allowed him to remain undetected as he followed. They took her into the fortified building.

  He retreated back to his nest. The Terrans had called it camping, but it felt like nesting. He liked to fill the tent with piles of blankets and curl up in them, leaving the flap open so he could see out. There was nothing to see, though. The nights were dark here, east of Shouding. The Xenai had little use for electricity or Terran technology, so they had let most of the grid fall dark. What was left was designed to run on its own power, and so it had. They kept the SatNet up and running, because it helped them keep an eye on the Pact, and that was all they cared about. From his nest, he could see the red blinking lights run up the SatNet tower to the south-east, and he could see the stars. Everything else he could only feel, but not see.

  He could only imagine the girl trying to make sense of this world. It was so different from hers. He wanted to rush to the gates and find a way to get her out, but he knew the Xenai there would kill him, whether they knew who he truly was or not.

  He will come. He loves her. He will give his life to protect her.

  Below him and a little north, he could feel the small Xenai settlement. It was only small compared to Shouding. Shouding was the source of all Xenai. City. The Xenai city. Millions of Xenai lived there. Millions more lived around it. It was a scale of life that Prin and the other survivor settlements couldn’t comprehend anymore. They read numbers in books and on the SatNet, things that remained from the old worlds, but they didn’t understand what millions, let alone billions, meant. Shouding was these words.

  The sermon rung out in his head as he thought of Shouding. He could see the bodies of his fellow Xenai, crawling over each other, as if oblivious to each other as they each went their own way, but the same way, all at the same time, all hearing the same words. They were all shadows of what they had been. Echoes lost in a void.

  Fiher slammed his hand down into the ground, listening to the ground’s vibration to break up the words in his head. He focused on the vibration and pictured the girl and the old man. Old man. Old man. Old man. Find the old man. He closed his eyes and tried to focus again on what he felt until the sermon again came over him. He hit the ground again, felt the sharp pain of a rock jabbing through his armored skin. He tuned into the pain and vibrations and refocused. And so his night went on.

  The sun rose and fell again. He felt and fell to the sermon. Lost and found, he repeated this cycle until one day; he felt it. A new presence. Old man.

  81

  Tani

  Tani was finally able to resume her real work. Delilah was practically humming with excitement that surgeries were going to resume and Tani had gotten approval to requisition one of the imaging devices from the Upper hospital. Vin had returned to the lab, although he remained oddly subdued. He spent most of his time in the kitchen, unless Tani asked for him. He seemed to be particularly worried about Kingston Cross interfering with the project, asking every morning when he came in if Kingston was at the labs. Vin had always had problems with authority figures, but he seemed extra paranoid after the move Topside. Despite his influence on the project, Kingston stayed out of the U lab, communicating entirely via messages. Vin was content enough with that, but not so content that he spent time around the people that were hired by him.

  The patients that had been moved from the Underground were all back at their homes, despite many of them having new homes outside of Prin proper. Tani was ready to start follow-up visits with body scans, but the backlog on surgeries had stacked up. This entire week was back-to-back operations.

  They had a new childless blood supply chain; Kingston had seen to it that blood donation was mandatory for all Prin adults. They had more blood than Tani could even imagine using. An entire room of the lab had been converted to a cold storage space.

  How is it that no Topsiders have made new progress in medicine with all these resources?

  The blatant disregard for how good Topsiders had it up here still bothered Tani. At least her team was grateful for it all. As they prepped the first patient for her operation, Tani found herself humming along to the song Delilah kept singing under her breath.

  It was all smooth until the end. After closing up the patient, blood pressure dropped dramatically. The room went into a panic. Nothing they did helped. Tani even opened the sutures back up and put in a second layer of Blight crystal, hoping her first layer had just been too thin. The unending beep of the patient’s heart stopping filled the room.

  Vin snacked on some dried bananas as Tani and Delilah approached his corner booth in the kitchen. Tani dropped onto the bench and slid over to make room for Delilah. Vin looked over at them, “Um—who died?”

  “The patient.” Tani said. Surprise covered Vin’s face.

  Delilah shoved her elbow into Tani’s side, “Tarma.”

  “What? What happened? You guys have been doing this for months now without issues.”

  Tani dropped her head onto the table, “I have no idea. We did exactly what we did before. Only difference is our lab. Maybe this one is cursed.”

  Vin slapped the back of her head, pushing her forehead into the table further.

  “Ow! Mystics above! You asshole!” Tani cried, looking up to glare at him.

  “You don’t get to pout. You lost a patient, not a friend or a family member. It’s your job to figure out what went wrong.” Vin said, as if commanding her.

  Goddamn it. “Fine. Let’s catalog the differences.” She looked over at Delilah and shrugged.

  “Well, I would say maybe it was her weak heart, but we did the operation on Jurol last month, and his was worse than hers—he’s fine now,” Delilah offered.

  “Okay, so very small data point that suggests it wasn’t her particular health condition. What else do we have? Same crystals. Better sterilization. Better equipment.” Tani plopped her head back down onto the table.

  Delilah slapped her head this time, “Blood! Different blood!”

  “Ow!” She jerked her head up, “The blood! That’s got to be it! Kingston made everyone donate—not just Source-casters like the BloodSmiths gave us. Holy fuck! How did we not see that?”

  Tani practically shoved Delilah out of the bench so she could get up. Delilah stumbled out, “What are you doing?”

  “We have to go right now and catalog the source of each pack we have. We have the numbers matched to the donor, we just have to get rid of anything Terran.”

  Vin stood as Tani scrambled up after Delilah. “Sounds like we are going to be busy.”

  “Yes, we will have to delay the next surgery until we have enough Source blood to cover it. A few hours. Vin, get everyone in the labs helping with this, then come join us.”

  This was what Vin had seen, and that he had not told Tani—the source of his strange behavior. She felt her anger rising as the crowd pushed against her in the stands. She remembered the candle kites rising in the air the night the troops had returned. She had thought about her own humanity then. Her own ability to feel empathy for others had been questionable, and now it seemed like such a childish concern as she stood in the same stands.

  She was much closer now. The dais was twenty feet away. The unwashed faces of the Shae family were on display, forced to their knees before all of Prin. Ayna looked forward over the crowd with her usual Stateswoman bearing, one arm around Jo’s waist, her other arm around one of her stepdaughters. Jo kept a similar bearing, holding his other daughter the same way while casting occasional glances at each of the three women.

  It was not the spectacle of the Shaes that made Tani angry. It was the judge. Judging the trial was Kingston Cross. Tani had never seen him before, but here he was before her, and she was trembling wit
h anger as he read each charge against the Shae family, mostly against Ayna.

  Collaboration with the enemy. Murder. Theft. Misappropriation of State resources.

  The charges were followed by a series of experts, who testified to corroborating the finding.

  Yes, the communique to Shouding, though sent through anonymous accounts and uniquely routed, was ultimately traced back to the Shae residence’s dedicated line, which was hooked into Ayna Shae’s desk.

  Yes, it appeared that Jo was aware of the scheme due to a satellite network routing conversation between Ayna and Jo after a lunch meeting.

  Bobi’s books had been found in the Shae home after their arrest. It seems there was video evidence of her involvement in his death, and using the Prin Guard to cover up the murder.

  The girls were a subject of a long debate. There was no direct evidence of their guilt or that they knew and could have told any authorities. A few legal experts testified that, due to the power and prominence of both families, exile was the minimum that could be allowed. Life in prison was an option, which sparked a lively debate about the cost to Prin for supporting the two girls for their entire lives.

  As the debate began to settle into exile for the girls, the crowd began to roar. A chant rose for the girls to be executed. The Prin Guard moved to quell the chanters in the back, and rioting broke out from the back of the stands, spilling into the market and spreading forward.

  Kingston Cross stepped forward, waving and yelling for silence for several minutes before there was silence enough for his voice to reach Tani, so close to the front. “Quiet! Quiet!” He paced the dais. “These are not light decisions. Especially for those against whom there is no evidence.” The crowd began to roar again and Tani found herself kicking to find the ground, even standing among the affluent Topsiders.

  Kingston’s hands went up into the air again and the crowd settled more quickly this time, “Before we look to find the fate of those that kneel here today, let us look first to ourselves. Who we are, and who we wish to become. This is no simple matter that lies before us today. We cannot ignore growths of treason, but execution also cannot be considered lightly. Taking a life, any life, no matter what it has done, changes who you are, who I am, who we all are, as people. It’s not something we can ever take back.

  “So, who are we, Prin? My friends, my family, my fellow citizens—let me start by saying what we are not. We have called this disaster that led us here ‘the Sundering’. But, we are not Sundered! We are not pulled apart! We are not diminished! We have come together, and together, we have gained power and strength and we are the foundation of the world that is being reformed!”

  Kingston paused, and the crowd erupted into cheers and yells of agreement. Perhaps this won’t go so badly for them, Tani thought as Kingston waved the crowd into silence again and continued, “In the Old World, an ancient branch of philosophy believed in the Music of the Spheres. The idea that the universe, its mathematical relationships and the energy of its existence was a song. We cannot hear it with our ears, but it is always there. It always here, with us, in our very souls. The planets sing to us, like sirens, and we must listen to what they tell us—this song of warning.

  “It is this song, this celestial chorus, that was broken in the Sundering—when the separation of our worlds blurred and collapsed. And, as hard as this is to hear—it is not yet over. Our Blight crystal project, run by Ayna Shae and now taken over by myself—has discovered that there are unaffected worlds out there, but they are on the brink of a Sundering—they don’t know what’s coming for them, but we do.”

  The crowd was silent, with a few murmurs of concern rising around Tani.

  Kingston looked out into them with a sad, yet reserved, expression, “I know, that is not what you wanted to find out today. But you deserve the truth. You deserve to know what lies before us and the actions we are being called to take, as the music of the spheres turns into a song of sundering.

  “Our fate, and who we are as a people, will determine the path of not just our world, but dozens of others that we are connected to, through this song. This is our mission, the mission that Ayna Shae wanted to keep hidden: to save the array of worlds from further collapse.

  “So, now that you know who we truly are—what we have been called to do—what path, right now, on this dais, takes us a step closer to that goal? I know you are afraid—I am too. But, we must do what we have to do. We must shoulder this burden because there is no one else who can. Let our choices today reflect our commitment.

  “So, what choice will we make today? Do we exile the family that has guided us in the opposite direction of our goal? Or do we step bravely forward, onto the right path? Do we eliminate the threat and forbid ourselves to be misdirected again? How determined are we to complete this quest, my friends?”

  The crowd rustled and moved, turning to speak to other people. A single voice called from the back, “We are strong! Show them our strength! Our determination!”

  Spattering of applause and yells of agreement started in the crowd and swelled until it consumed everyone, it felt like, except for Tani. She stared at Kingston, knowing what he would say next and dreading the words. She felt the decision roll over her like a boulder before he spoke.

  “So, we are determined to fulfill our calling! I am glad to see this—to see that Prin and its people are everything I thought they were.” The crowd cheered again as Kingston continued, “The immediate family will all face execution. The extended family, of both lines, will be exiled. We will not treat traitors with a light hand. There are no second chances when it comes to our safety and and the safety of our children and our world!” He turned to Ayna, “Any last words for Prin?”

  Ayna looked out at the crowd, most of whom jeered at her and her family. A shout rang out from the middle of the crowd, “Topsider Cunt!”. She struggled to rise to her feet with her shackles. She got her feet beneath her and stood, raising her head with pride. She turned to continue looking out into the crowd. Most of the people just continued yelling and mocking, but Tani could feel the hesitation and silence that fell over some of the crowd. Ayna turned her head to make eye contact with anyone who was not swept up in the frenzy of the crowd.

  “I have only one thing to say. Prin has never needed to prove it is strong. Why? Because we have always used our incredible intuition to band together and survive.” She turned to look at someone in the crowd to Tani’s right, “It’s all on you now.”

  Tears fell down Tani’s face and her cheeks lit up with heat as she looked at the two remaining Shae children, then back to the face of Kingston Cross, the man she had always known as Olivier. He waved his hand at the Warden. He stepped forward, one hand on his scythe, and grabbed Ayna, pushing her down as he kicked the back of her knees. She fell forward—Tani could hear the crack when she hit the pavement. The Warden dragged her up and over the top of the broken marble pillar. A guard ran forward and attached her shackled hands to the hook at the front base of the pillar. The Warden stepped to the side and raised his scythe.

  82

  Hafi

  There was no way in, which meant there was also no way out. Hafi had skirted the edges of the facility a dozen times. The Xenai seemed unconcerned about intruders here and didn’t even run patrols. The few he did see seemed to bring in sacks and crates and they left soon after they arrived.

  His supplies had long since run out, even what little fish he had managed to catch and dry at the lake he had found a few hours east. He was living off of what game he could trap. There were a few clusters of brush that had some edible nuts and fruit that made up most of his diet. The animals were slow to find his traps. Hafi felt the effect of the dramatic change in his diet. At first he had been sluggish and tired, but as his body and mind shifted into survival mode, he became more alert. He could feel the stretch of skin over muscle, whatever fat he had melted away. His beard had grown well beyond regulation. Dark strands of hair fell in his face and he constantly pushed it bac
k in annoyance.

  The old building occupied by the Xenai was unimpressive. It was the one of a few large buildings in the ruins of this small city that had been taken over by the Xenai, but the only one they protected. They had cleared away a lot of the rubble and Terran remains that filled the town by dumping it all at the end of the street. Hafi had climbed through the piles of garbage that slowly turned into piles of concrete, bricks, steel beams, and bones. There was a slight scent of organic decay, but it was so subtle that he knew the bodies in the pile had mostly already decayed to bone when they were placed there—they had placed something new into the pile in the last few weeks. He refused to assume the worst, but found himself looking for the white blonde hair of Shara each time he came near the hill.

  Beyond the impromptu dump, the Xenai had constructed a barrier of trees. They were manipulated to grow into a branching and overlapping pattern. Thin black tendrils like branches grew off the trees, almost in a hexagonal pattern. The obsidian embedded into the Xenai had also been embedded into the trees, making them unbreakable. With the proper tools he might be able to get through, but he could not find any mining tools around the town. He skirted the outside, looking for other weaknesses. He found none.

  When they needed to pass through, the Xenai manipulated the trees to grow away from a small opening, and they closed it behind them every time they left or re-entered.

  The building behind the barrier was made from brick, blackened by time and pollution from old Terra. Most of the windows had been blown out long ago, but the Xenai had placed lattices of a dark matte material over the holes, that looked like charcoal honeycombs. Juxtaposed against the aging brick, the smooth latticework looked like dead eyes. It felt as though the building itself was watching for intruders.