by Daryl Banner
“Is it working?” comes a voice at Tide’s back.
Tide scowls. “It better be, Dog. You sure you put enough dumb and enough gullible in the refreshments?”
“Well, I … I put trust in them. And compassion. A-And hope.”
“Sounds like a cocktail for an idiot,” murmurs Tide with mild admiration. “Better do the trick.”
The guard takes off his helmet. It is a man. He gives it to Gin, then heartily pats her on the back and extends a hand for a brutish, well-natured handshake. Gin returns it, then gives a nod at his armor and asks a question, to which the man’s face lightens as he breaks into a belly-wiggling laugh.
“It worked.” Tide can’t believe his eyes. “It fucking worked. What a bunch of idiots.”
“Hope makes an idiot of us all,” Dog notes mildly.
“Good job,” Tide says automatically, his eyes still on Gin.
“I, um … Th-Thanks.” Due to the crowd, the boy is pressed up against Tide’s side, his every breath falling over the hairs on Tide’s arm. “I wish her … I wish her luck.”
“No you don’t,” grunts Tide, knowing better. “You wish her to fail. He’s going to die today, Dog. The world will be better for it.”
“I wish you’d give him a listen at the very least.”
“What is the Slum King’s Legacy?” asks Tide suddenly, feeling foolish that he hadn’t asked before. “I mean, will he be able to sense anything? Or will he have a way to retaliate?”
“I don’t know. I’ve heard many things.”
Tide’s heart gives a jump. “What sorts of things?”
“I heard he is a healer. I heard he can make you feel better about an emotional woe within you. That sounds nice. I, um … I also heard he can, uh …” Dog coughs. “I heard he can give you an orgasm just by looking your way.”
Tide guffaws at that, perhaps a touch too hard. “Dumb Dog. You’ve heard rumors. I want facts, Dog. What can he do …?”
“No one knows. N-Not truly. Some even say he hasn’t a Legacy at all. That he is just a man.”
“No one is just a man,” grumbles Tide, watching as Gin assumes the armor of the guard, and the pair of them continue to talk heartily while the guard helps himself to a strawberry on the platter of a man in a grey robe who walks by. “Yeah, eat it,” mumbles Tide, watching. “Get dumber.”
“I didn’t touch the strawberries,” notes Dog quickly.
“Hmm.” Tide gives his lips a lick, watching.
Then there is stirring in the crowd. Suddenly a wave of cheers explodes over the people as a man ascends the steps to the stage. For a second, Tide wonders why the hell everyone is cheering this kid who’s taking the stage. Is he someone who runs the Giving or who runs a popular tent in the market, come to present the King? He’s young—twenty or so, from the far-off looks of it—with messy red hair and freckles, and he wears a simple white shirt with jeans that are torn at the knees. He gives a wave to the crowd as he crosses the stage, flashing them a charming smile that reveals dimples.
The young man reaches the center of the stage and the crowd grows quiet. “Greetings, my friends, my helpers, my healers,” he says with a buoyant, carefree voice that seems to float. “And thank you!”
Tide stares at the man incredulously. This can’t be him.
“It’s such an honor to, well, come up here and … and just stand before all of your bright faces today,” he goes on with the casual ease of a buddy kicking back and sharing a flagon of dizzy-head with his friends. “Enjoying the fruit?”
Someone in the front shouts, “Tastiest fucking berries I’ve ever put in my mouth!”
“Aye, but don’t let your wife hear that,” the young man japes back at him, and a chorus of laughter radiates outward. “Forgive me my ignorance, but how’s the weather been? If I’m not mistaken, the Light hasn’t touched us in over a week, yes?”
“Fuck the Light,” shouts someone else from the other end of the crowd. Three others shout their similar remarks, and another ripple of cheers erupts.
The man smiles out at the people. “You are the reason I keep doing this, you know that? Your spirit gives me spirit. I keep being reminded of the days when I was just a boy in a little shack at the end of the fifth, staring on at the rich boys and girls across the street. My daddy kept telling me to keep my head low, to keep my voice down, to know my place in the world. He’d give my ass a beating every time I so much as lifted my chin.”
“I’d give that man a beating back!” shouts someone in the front.
“Hey, hey, that’s my daddy you’re talkin’ about!” teases the man on stage, to which a few chuckles respond. “I’m not in the business of retribution … of vengeance. It’s so heavy, isn’t it? Vengeance. Taking blood for blood. If you spend your life making others bleed for all the blood you’ve bled, what the hell will you have left in the end? I’ll tell you what. A pile full of pale, bloodless carcasses.” The man gives a sudden chuckle. “Say all that ten times fast.”
Tide doesn’t know what to make of the man, his eyes wide and his world turned on its ass. Why did he always picture the Slum King as an old bearded man who prays to the Sisters twelve times a day and commands his people with a lightning-covered hammer? This young man before him on the stage, he could be a schoolmate. He could be a boy living down the street from him. He could be another guy in the schoolyard that Tide observed, someone that may have distracted him from the annoying likes of the Lesser boys.
This is not the Slum King he envisioned.
“Hey, listen,” this boy King says, his face sobering from the chuckles and levity he shared with the crowd. “I really, truly … I just want to say, I appreciate you all comin’ out and wrecking your day to hear little ol’ me speak. I know you have things to do with your day. Farming. Trading. Families to feed. Games to play. Chats to have and meals to share. And it’s my life goal to make sure you’re going to have all of those things for the rest of your days. No fear. No men and women of power to answer to. Just a sunrise to smile up at, and a sunset to send you off into another peaceful night. That’s all I wish. That’s all I’ve ever wished for.”
When Tide gives a glance at Dog, prepared to say something snide, he finds the boy staring wide-eyed at the man on the stage. His eyes are flooded with adoration and hope. Tide wonders if Dog ate his own food, but finds that even he can’t say anything about the Slum King. He finds his heart hooked by the dream. Everlasting peace and no power above to answer to. No Queen of the Abandon. No King in the sky. It’s always been my dream too.
“I’m not happy unless the world’s happy,” the Slum King goes on. “And why shouldn’t we be? We have breath in our lungs, yes? We have food in our bellies, and we have years … nah, decades left to live. Long and fulfilling decades.”
“What’s the news with the fourth?” shouts out a man.
“Yeah,” joins in a woman near him. “Scare them out of hiding?”
The Slum King chuckles. “Aye, those fourth peeps are protective and guarded, they are. And who can blame them? Under a sky that once rained screams and now rains red lightning, I don’t think any of us should blame them for their hesitation in joining our cause. Give them time. We have time. No matter who joins us or who doesn’t, we are—all of us—slumborn, and thereby, of slum hearts. We all beat as one. We are stronger together, my friends. Never forget that.”
“Stronger together!” shouts someone else. “Stronger together!” another chimes in, until countless are crying out the slogan and it becomes a chant that lasts a short while. Tide turns his head, taken by the spirit of the crowd. The man with the platter of strawberries passes by, and Tide grabs one and pops it into his mouth, chewing as he listens to the cheers of the crowd. Stronger together! Stronger! Together! This Slum King isn’t anything like he’d imagined. He could even be Tide’s age for all he knows. And the man isn’t wearing all white like the Queen accused him of. In fact, other than his plain white shirt he wears, his jeans are torn and threadbare. This King
looks more like a slum rat than a King, and all these people revere him. These people love him.
“It is not my desire to fill your hearts with bloodlust,” the King states. “I trust you to know that. Stronger together, yes, but do not wish ill of the ones who are not with us. The ones who are guarded. The ones who doubt our goodness. Let them doubt it; it is their right. My friends, it is not my wish to win back our beautiful Last City of Atlas through war and weaponry and death. No. Haven’t we warred enough? Hasn’t there been enough death? Haven’t we all lost loved ones?” His eyes go skyward suddenly, his hands dropping to his side. “Sisters, haven’t we had enough?” He brings his gaze back down to observe, one by one, each of the men and women in the crowd. “Be strong, now more than ever. And be kind. And be giving.”
So taken with the speech, Tide forgets that he’s in the midst of a mission. He glances suddenly at the guards on the stage and, with a jerk to his heart, realizes he can’t tell them apart, covered in armor with their faces hidden behind closed-visor helmets. They’re even the same height. Is Gin on the left side of the stage where the guard had been, or could they have possibly switched places when taking positions at either end of the stage?
“Which one?” whispers Tide, his eyes flicking back and forth.
Dog lifts his chin to get a look. “That one, I believe.”
“That one? You sure?”
“Yes. I … I think I’m sure.”
Tide wraps an arm around Dog’s neck, yanking him close and bringing his lips to the boy’s ear. “You better be more than sure,” he says in a voice so low and deadly that Dog’s the only one who could possibly hear it. “You better be fucking certain before I use my wind to help that Slum King die and help that Gin girl live. You better be so fucking sure that you’d wager your dick on it.”
“I-I wager. I mean, I’m sure. Certain. C-C-Certain that’s her.”
The Slum King has finished saying something—maybe even the inspirational end of his speech—and the crowd goes crazy, cheering and howling and applauding. The man lifts his hands, smiling, and he gives the crowd a little bow and a wave. Fuck, he finished already? Tide’s heart slams into his chest as he lets go of Dog and focuses, his eyes like needles as he studies the guards on the stage. You better be Gin, he thinks, staring intently at the guard on the left closest to him. You better be Gin.
And the Queen better reward him when he returns with Gin alive and both their missions complete.
But then he thinks of the last gathering of heads that Scorp and he brought in. There was no reward. “Ten more,” the Queen ordered, sending them off.
He thinks of the stories Scorp shared of the missions he was sent on to fetch supplies and guard the exits to the Abandon. “Fetch more,” the Queen ordered when he’d finished. “Keep guarding.”
Tide thinks on his father, who’d grip him by the neck and toss him out of the house some mornings. “To school with you, fool. Get us a name to be proud of.” Even when Tide was but ten years old and had no concept of his future or what he was supposed to do with his little slumborn life. What kind of accomplishment could the Wellport family ever be proud of? What was Tide supposed to do?
“To school with you, fool!” The voice of Tide’s father rings in his ears. His mother, silent and tired all day long, she never even lifted her eyes to observe the cruelty of her husband.
Dream big … Professor Frey kept urging him, yet Tide worries he’s never dreamed at all. Not truly. What’s the point if every dumb dream Tide dares to have is so miserably out of reach that he thinks serving a cruel Queen is what he deserves?
“Tide,” mutters the boy at his side. “Tide, Tide, Tide.”
Tide looks up at the stage, his eyes focusing. The Slum King is already shaking hands with the first guard. Everyone around him is cheering and screaming their delight.
Tide rushes forth, his eyes on the King as he pushes people aside. No one seems to notice, too busy applauding and acting like the dumb, gullible, idiotic fools that they are. Wind already begins to stir over the plaza as Tide pushes, pushes, pushes, getting as close as he can. He doesn’t need to get close to the stage, but he wants to, desperately. What has come over Tide?
The Slum King turns to face the other guard, Gin. She’s already removed her gauntlet, her bare hand at the ready.
Tide stops at the foot of the stage and presses all his wind at the pair of them. Gin doesn’t even have a chance to touch the King’s hand. She gasps as the wind, strong and unrelenting, blows off her helmet. Figuring the plan ruined, she whips out a knife, but the wind takes it too, flinging it through the air and stabbing it to the wall of a nearby house. Gin shouts a curse of frustration, then seems to make a mad dash for the King, but he’s backed away from her in alarm, and the wind is too strong, pushing her so fiercely that she herself lifts off of the ground, her feet kicking wildly as she flies through the air. Gin lands somewhere in the crowd at the side of the stage.
And the people are not kind to her, despite the King’s speech of bloodlust and compassion. Gin screams as they grab her, subduing the woman with force as she cries out for the murder of the King.
Tide watches in horror. “Stop!” he shouts out, pulling his wind toward the people fighting and yelling and scratching at Gin, who has gone mad with rage. “Stop it! Hands off!”
The wind pushes and whistles and squeals, but with so many bodies in the way, the wind cannot build, and its force does nothing but stir the loose hairs on the heads of the angry men and women who fight without end.
“Do not harm her!” calls out the Slum King, standing at the end of the stage. “Please, my friends! Please! Do not harm her!”
Tide raises his hand to draw more wind, determined to break apart the crowd and rescue the girl. She must be alive. She must be alive or I fail my mission. She has to survive.
But then someone clasps Tide firmly by the shoulder and spins him, thwarting all his wind. An angry man’s bearded face is before his. “You’re in on it with her!” he shouts, flecks of his spit slapping Tide in the face. “This boy is an accomplice!”
“Who you callin’ boy??” barks Tide, shoving against the man as he pulls his wind, but too soon there is a cluster of men and women dragging upon him now, and the wind does not come to his aid. A fist flies into his back, which he regards as much as a fly landing on his neck, but then a leg sweeps under him, and Tide is sent tumbling to the ground like a fallen tree. He shouts angrily and kicks against the lazy, ineffective blow of wind, but the feet in his face and the slams to his gut are endless. Bringing his arms up to shield his face is all he can do to weather the onslaught.
0205 Kid
The days pass more quickly without Ames. Kid can’t decide whether that is a good or a bad thing. Where once his desire to leap out into the world and change the course of history was dangerous and reckless … Kid suddenly finds that she now misses it.
“We can’t just slip into the Lifted City and save him?” Kid had suggested once. “Do ya think we could just—?”
“No,” Link said at once, his voice pained. “He made his choice. We can’t do a damn thing about his measly existence, not without risking our own.”
‘He made his choice.’ The words sit heavy on Kid’s chest, and it weighs more and more with every passing hour, with every sunrise and moonrise. I am the liar now.
One Friday turns into another Friday. Kid spends so much time at the window of her room staring down at the street, she loses track of where Link and Faery are. She’s grown so comfortable around them, it starts to feel like home to her.
The two of them have stopped hiding their kisses. Sometimes when they are gathered on the floor of the den eating whatever food the three of them scavenged, the two keep shooting glances at each other and giggling. Kid eats in silence while she watches them. Their mouths are busied with giggles and quick kisses. Kid’s is busy with chewing.
“Does it bother you when you see us kissing?” asks Link one night when the house is dark.
Faery is upstairs while Kid and Link are gathered by the back window in the kitchen, peering out at the lawn and the moonlight spilling over it. “Is it gross?”
Kid shakes her head no, picking at her nails as she leans against the kitchen sink.
Link’s eyes are full of the moonlight when he speaks. “You’re all moody today,” he teases, to which Kid doesn’t respond. “Hey. Don’t feel alone. We’re all in this together, Kid. For the next ten years. I doubt you’ve even been alive that long. It’s a very long time.”
“I know.”
He inclines his head toward her, trying to catch her gaze. She finally looks at him, her lips pouted. “You okay, Kid? Like, honestly okay?”
Honestly. Honesty. Truth. Lying. Kid doesn’t know a damn thing about anything anymore.
“Are you thinking about the cold boy again?” he asks.
Kid wasn’t, but now she is. “He’d be ten years younger today.”
Link nods. “Does that worry you?”
“He said he did things. He saided that … said that he was bad.” Kid bites her lip, trying to picture the boy’s pale face and his dark, messy hair and his eyes, which looked like bottomless black holes.
Link nods knowingly. Kid told him a lot over the weeks they’ve been cooped up in the house with nothing to do. She told him all she could remember about the cold boy Kendil and his raw relationship with Sanctum and his desperate desire to kill the Rain Frog.
“So you thought he might hurt you,” Link mutters.
“Maybe Ames was right.” Kid can’t stop picking at her nails. “I wonder if there’s some way I could meet him now. If I might be able to … help. Or save him.”
“We’re already too late,” Link points out. “His mother’s already frozen. His father’s already dead. The Rain Frog has taken him away and given him to Sanctum. We’re …” He sighs suddenly. “… too late.”
Kid looks at him, for the first time having her attention pulled from her annoying fingers. It’s now her turn to point something out to him. “We’re not too late for other things.”
