by Luke Arnold
When these cracks in Sunder started to show, nobody in the Faery community seemed to care. At least, not until Amarita Quay came to town.
I was waiting under the arch at the edge of the city, expecting someone in fine gowns similar to Hendricks, when a young nurse in uniform stepped up beside me.
“You’re the kid, right? Come on, then.”
She was tiny: a foot shorter than me with a fragile frame. Every grandmother in the world would ask if she were eating enough. Her hair was wrenched back in a severe bun that was half-hidden under a nursing cap. Her eyes were rainforest green, shining out from earthy skin, but her brief look in my direction was colder than a winter morning in the mountains.
“Uh, don’t you have luggage?” I asked.
“I already dropped it off. Your Governor, Mr Lark, offered me a room at his house. I assume it was just a courtesy but I accepted his offer. I’m going to have a lot of things to say to that man so the closer I am to him, the better. Come on, let’s get to work.”
Before I could respond, she turned on the heels of her white slippers and headed back down Main Street. I had to scurry through the incoming crowd to catch her as she went straight towards the slums without looking back. No wonder Hendricks had been smiling, she was a twig in a skirt with no manners and a death-wish.
“Excuse me!” I called, doing my best to keep my voice at a masculine timbre. “I think you’re going the wrong way.”
Without paying me any notice, she jumped up on the base of a lamp-post to have a good look around. Once she’d locked something in her sights, she hopped off and kept on marching.
We crossed over the causeway that separated the solid buildings from the self-made shacks and I had to reach out and grab her shoulder to stop her from heading into the darkest part of the township. She spun like lightning, and the anger in her eyes made me hop backwards, red-faced and ready to be slapped.
“Listen, kid, Lark has some rule about me coming here alone and I can’t get things done without the support of the city. That’s all you’re here for. So how about you let that jaw loosen a little and maybe we’ll have some fun. Okay?”
I searched my mind for some witty rebuttal. Instead, I said, “Sure.”
“And keep your hands to yourself. With a little luck, you might still have them by sundown.”
She went off again without waiting for my response, weaving her way into the crowds. With softly offered questions and an apparent inability to notice the state of those around her, she stopped and talked to the strangest members of the Sunder slums: Gnomish kids with missing limbs, head-sick soldiers and strung-out junkies who slurred all their words. Mostly, she just asked questions. Who had been to the medical center? Why were people turned away? Where did they get their potions?
Sometimes, she even offered help. We followed a beckoning young boy through the muggy streets to a small tarpaulin held in place by old rope and optimism. Propped up on mud-brick and rolled burlap was a fat Gnome with half his body sticking out from sweaty sheets. His face was pale, his eyes were red, and his leg was pea-soup green. Even with the stench of the slums all around us you could smell the infection as we entered the room. Either the sickness had made him mad or he was just an ass, but he snarled and spat at Amarita when she approached.
“Open my bag and keep the ingredients out of the dirt.”
Without taking her eyes from her slobbering patient, she took her arms out of the straps and let me pluck the pack from her shoulders.
The creature growled, sending a mist of green spittle in our direction. Unfazed, she motioned towards the offending leg. When she got within his reach, the creature raised an arm to hit her.
Before the Gnome or I even had time to squeal, a tiny but effective right fist was in his jaw. His head snapped back with a popping sound and the grumpy little bastard fell on to the pillow. She’d knocked him out cold like a prize-fighter and hadn’t even messed up her hair.
Her fist had changed, though. The smooth, nut-brown skin had been replaced with the cracked and colored grain of strong wood. She stretched her hand out to her side, flexed her fingers, and the timber faded from her pores over a few seconds.
I’d been outside the walls of Weatherly for almost two years, so I wasn’t a stranger to seeing the occasional spell. Every now and again, a scuffle at the bar would degenerate into fireballs or transformations. This was different. There was something effortless and almighty about how she carried her power. The magic wasn’t something she used but an intrinsic part of herself. It was primal and breathtaking.
It was also painfully attractive.
“Open up the pack,” she said.
I untied the buckles and opened the container. Inside was an apothecary of herbs and healing potions separated into little bottles of liquid and unlabeled powder. Her slender fingers danced over them as she selected her ingredients.
“Something for the infection,” she said, picking up an orange bottle of pollen. “And something for the pain.” She plucked up some pieces of recus bark, crushed them into her hand and mixed both ingredients into a sticky paste. Once she was satisfied with the mixture, she rubbed it on to the wound and covered it with her hand. An aroma of rich soil and fresh rain cut through the acrid stench of the room and after a few moments, it almost smelled pleasant.
Her fingers pressed down on the leg. For a moment, her hand, the mixture and the Gnome’s flesh become one element. When Amarita took her fingers away, the gash was sewn together with tiny strands of vine.
Finally, she turned around and looked up at me.
“All right, kid. How about you take me home?”
As we walked, Amarita gave me a brief rundown of her history. She grew up in the Farra Glades which was a lush rainforest filled with other Wood Nymphs. A decade ago, she became interested in merging the medicines of her people with other healing techniques from around the world. When her travels introduced her to Hendricks, they bonded over their desires to look past the existing prejudices of their people. Amarita helped out the Opus with their medical training and then Hendricks suggested that Sunder might benefit from her expertise and enthusiasm. She agreed, becoming the first of her kind to try to mend a bridge that had been burned, broken, stuffed into a cannon and blasted off over the moon.
She spoke so fast it felt like someone was counting down the time she had to talk. Her arguments shone like well-used weapons that sharpened themselves every time she brought them out to play. I hitched on to her conversation like it was the back of a runaway train and tried not to give away my ignorance.
We walked and I watched her mouth and wondered if I’d ever be as sure of anything as she was of everything. She held the world in her fingertips and tore it apart. Ripped strips off the language like it was rare steak and picked the politics from her teeth.
It wasn’t the first time I’d been over-my-head in understanding the magical world. I was used to feeling dumb, but this was different. She made me feel like a child. She turned the world in her hands to show me sides I’d never seen and stuffed light into the dark little cracks of my mind. I was a better man from the moment I saw her.
“Of course there’s not enough money for a hospital. There’s never enough money for anything but they don’t have a choice. From what I saw today, it’s clear that the medical center can’t handle the expansion of the city and the only solution is an updated and fully funded public facility. If we don’t do something soon, every creature in the slums will be eaten up by bugs, flu and infection.”
“So, you plan on spending every second of the day convincing him to build the hospital?”
“Almost. Priority number one is getting everyone out of that valley. The slums are below sea level. It might take fifty years, or it might come tomorrow, but if enough rainfall hits those mountains, we won’t have time to evacuate.”
Thousands of people all crammed together between sheet-metal and cinder-blocks, and she wanted the Governor to find a way to shift them. How do you begin
to break that puzzle apart if you don’t have the funding to put it back together?
She looked up at me and laughed. Every time she did that there were a few more notes inside.
“You’re clenching your teeth again, kid. Go home and get yourself clean. You know where to find me. Come back if you want to do some good.”
I’d been so wrapped up in our conversation that I hadn’t noticed where we were. An Ogre guard opened up the gates to the Governor’s mansion as Amarita turned and entered them. She skipped up the perfect set of stone steps, through the overflowing garden of exotic flowers, and paused at the front door. The marble sparkled under the rising moon. So did she.
She looked over her shoulder and gave me a look so hot it nearly fried a butterfly that flew between us.
And I was done.
While Hendricks was away, I served as guide and bodyguard to Amarita Quay (or Amari, as I started to call her) many times. When Hendricks returned, he also moved into the mansion. Every couple of nights, I was invited up to the garden to join them all for dinner and energized discussion.
Governor Lark was an old Ogre, shorter than most of his kind, whose beard and hair had become a single, bushy beast. His tusks pointed up to his wrinkled cheeks and were polished to an embarrassingly perfect shine. He had a penchant for fur and would adorn his shoulders with dead creatures that he professed to have hunted himself, though I never really believed him.
I ate better than I ever had in my life but the conversation mostly escaped my understanding. Amari fought for her hospital, Lark blustered back, and Hendricks played the man in the middle. I just watched, amazed that I’d been invited into an inner circle of articulate, charismatic decision-makers. I was in awe of them. Even Lark, who didn’t understand why I was there or include me more than he needed to, still had his undeniable charms. It is a rare privilege to be in the presence of geniuses. Even rarer for them to know your name. For them to be kind to you. To care.
Over the next two years, Hendricks and Amari came and left. Whenever Hendricks arrived in town, he would come by The Ditch to tell me stories of his adventures. When Amari was here, I helped her with her plans for the hospital. We also drank and we talked. We kissed, a couple of times, but it always felt like we were on the verge of something more. At least to me.
It was best when it was all of us and worst when I was alone. When Amari left, I would feel physically ill for a week. The common jobs that allowed me to survive in Sunder would feel like punishments. Where once I’d been happy to be the naïve, uneducated errand boy, now it seemed pathetic.
When she was here, I felt anxious. When she was gone, I felt trapped. I was in love. The next time Hendricks came to town, he saw it right away.
We were walking the streets on a summer night and Hendricks was telling me a piece of history I’d already heard twice before. Usually his descriptions were entertaining enough to enjoy a repeat performance but my mind was wandering. He noticed. So, he changed the topic to something he knew would snap me to attention.
“Amarita will be here next week.”
Even if he hadn’t been watching me closely, my reaction was impossible to miss. I went from exhausted to exhilarated in a second. Hendricks smiled, but there was something sad in his eyes.
“Fetch, I hope you don’t think me presumptuous, but I must admit that I worry about you. Your upbringing, from what you’ve told me, was quite different to those of us on the outside. You have strange customs. Different values. I have been thinking on it, and I believe it might have something to do with your shorter life spans. You cling to things. There is a possessiveness to your culture that, I imagine, will take longer for you to shake than a couple of years in the wild. And Amari, she is… well, she’s a forest spirit. A piece of nature brought to life. She’s…”
He looked up at me and something in my expression gave him pause. Maybe he sensed how much I hated him in that moment. It was ridiculous, of course. He had known Amari far longer than I had. He knew her world. They’d spent months on the road together, saving lives and walking through warzones. But I already believed that Amari and I shared something precious and entirely unique. I felt that I understood her in a way that nobody else ever could. So for anyone, even my dearest friend, to try to tell me something about her that I didn’t already know, it cut straight through to my deepest, most terrifying fear. That perhaps I didn’t know her at all.
I didn’t say anything. To his credit, neither did he. He just put a hand on my shoulder and we kept on walking and I did my best to push down the indignant anger that was curdling in my stomach.
The next week was hell. There was some kind of secret challenge going on inside my head. I needed to see her again so I could know for sure that Hendricks was wrong. So he could see Amari and me together again and acknowledge that there was a connection between us.
A week later, I was summoned up to the mansion. I was there too early. Too eager. When Amari arrived, she greeted me with warmth and sweetness but I felt wounded when she wrapped her arms around Lark and Hendricks in much the same way. There was no reason not to be happy but I was poisoned and selfish and I wanted her all to myself.
The conversation took flight and, as usual, I stayed mostly silent. I brooded, convinced that I could never measure up to the more interesting men in Amari’s life.
Hendricks had come back to Sunder with a mission. He was leading a recruitment drive to bolster the numbers of the Opus. In a north-eastern forest known as The Groves, the Hallowed War had been underway for six months. It was a battle between Centaurs and Satyrs that had spiraled out of control into the largest open battle in three hundred years. Surrounding areas were taking collateral damage and the Opus needed more members to quell the fight.
“As soon as I’m done here, I’ll be happy to help,” said Amari.
“You mean I’ll finally be rid of you?” bellowed Lark, in jest.
“Just get construction started before the wet season, like you promised, and I’ll be out of your tangled hair before you know it.”
Amari had finally got her way. A plot of land in Yorrick Park had been cleared for her hospital and workers were preparing to lay the foundations.
“Thank you, Miss Quay,” said Hendricks. “You know I’ll take advantage of your talents whenever they’re on offer. What we’re really struggling to find are worthy candidates to become Shepherds.”
The Opus was run by Chancellors who liaised with Ambassadors from each magical species. The Chancellors gave orders to the Rooks who managed teams of enlisted men known as Shepherds. Shepherds were essentially soldiers but also bodyguards, negotiators and peace-officers. They were trained in self-defense, crowd control, politics and diplomacy.
“It’s a contradiction from the very start,” said Hendricks. “We need loyal and dedicated soldiers who follow orders but we are drawn to bright individuals who think for themselves. It’s why we need a range of species. Personally, I am disgusted whenever I see a battalion of Elves all marching to the same beat like some terrible horde of Zombies.
“We need diversity but not to the point where the army becomes splintered. The lowest soldiers cannot be pawns but neither can they be independent cowboys. Far from mindless, but never conflicted in the heat of battle. There is no perfect soldier. We just need capable young people who are humble enough to be part of the greater cause without ever becoming a tool of it.”
“Good luck around here,” remarked Amari. “Every boy in Sunder is all muscle and ego. Look at our friend Fetch. He can’t commit to a career, let alone a cause.”
There were laughs all round. It was an old routine and, to be honest, one that I’d fostered myself. I was defined by being indefinable. Nothing was expected of me because I expected nothing of myself. I was never ashamed of my poor living or ripped garments. They sent out the message that I wasn’t trying to compete with anyone, especially those creatures who would always be superior. I was alone. I was happy with my place. I had played the same game since m
y days in Weatherly. I wasn’t ashamed of being uncommitted and unformed, and yet…
There was something in the laughter that night that sounded different to my ears. I’d never cared what people thought of me because I was quite convinced that nobody actually knew me. They could criticize “Fetch” as much as they liked because he wasn’t real. He was my creation and he was doing just what he was made to do. That had served me well while I walked among strangers but now I had friends. Friends that I respected. That I cared about. And the real kicker was that I cared about what they thought of me.
I looked down at the patches on my trousers and the vile, rope laces threaded through my boots. I looked at my hands, which were coarse from labor and long days, wondering what they’d ever done that really mattered. Those hands belonged to Fetch: a made-up name that started as an insult and then got comfortable. Rather than rise above the name, I’d lowered myself down into it, doing what was expected of me and nothing more.
So, for a change, I did something unexpected.
“What kind of commitment are we talking about?”
I said it so matter-of-factly that the laughter died. The Governor tried to revive it.
“Hoping for just a weekend or two? Ha!”
“If you can use me, I’ll give you whatever you need. I never considered it before because, let’s be honest, a Human refugee sounds pretty useless in an army of Wizards and Ogres. I always thought us non-magic folk would be a burden but, if you’re really desperate and you need some manpower, I’d be happy to help.”
Hendricks peered over his glass of whiskey and I was pleased to see that he looked impressed.
“Six months of training and a two-year apprenticeship,” he said, mirroring my directness. He did me the honor of keeping a straight face. “Of course, there has never been a Human in the Opus before, so your application would be a unique one. That said, I’ll make sure you’re not posted to some distant fortress in the Far-North or anything like that. There are places close to me where your talents would make a wonderful addition to our ranks.”