The Sundered

by Ruthanne Reid

  We shouldn't be close enough to see the walls.

  Did he lie to me about how far we were? No, he can't lie to me—and why would he, anyway? What's there to gain? Making us afraid? Making us push harder, row longer, and tire ourselves out?

  This is stupid. I'm getting worked up over something I'm going to sell.

  Still. The city's closer. Too close.

  I don't like it when things don't make sense.

  I can smell it before we arrive. Lucky us: it's going to be a typical equatorial city.

  Because of the number of people and the way the walls are built, central-western cities have limited airflow. In years past, there were machines built into those walls to pump fresh air in and cycle old air out, but most of them have broken.

  Nobody knows how they worked. Yet another technological wonder lost to our dying world.

  This city has huge walls, reaching up into the sky in a nasty brown that never looks clean. There's no gate. There are Sundered Ones, claimed by people who hide in the towers, and those people get to decide who can enter. If you're allowed, the Sundered make a way. If you're not, they don't.

  My Travelers are quiet, all too aware we got here in half the time we should have. Together, we row toward the main tower, which juts from the water like a big ugly phallic symbol. The city's official Sundered Ones swarm through the windows to meet us, getting a good look at who we are.

  They're mismatched, mostly fourth-tier and lower, and vaguely animalistic, though no one Sundered looks quite like another. I have no idea how their species developed. Some have fur and some don't. Some have scales, or lizard faces, or big hairy limbs. That one is purple with a pig snout, but his tail is long and clever. They all cling to the walls like spiders, like their “down” isn't the same as ours.

  Some of them look like they've been claimed too long.

  It's easy to tell. Their eyes go white, pupils disappeared, and they're slow to respond to orders. A couple of these guys are past that point, so gone I'm surprised they don't just die right here and fall into the water.

  I can't believe the waste. This city is run by fools.

  We're running out of Sundered Ones. Nobody knows how they reproduce. It's obvious which are male and which are female, but that doesn't seem to matter. Breeding them does nothing, and every generation, there are fewer Sundered to go around.

  They can still be caught in the southern portions of this world, but every year, there are fewer found. Without them, we won't be able to eat. Without them, we won't be able to build. Everything will fall apart.

  “Announce yourself!” shouts one of the guards, as if we don't know the real threat comes from the Sundered Ones clinging to the walls.

  My name means something. People expect crazy but great things from my family. Crazy: searching the world, traversing the vast open spaces after some imaginary thing. Great: nobody scavenges quite as well as an Iskinder. We come up with saleable items nobody else can find, things everyone thought were long gone. “I am Harold Iskinder. We travel for the Hope, searching for the cure. We come to you with goods to trade and benefit for your city.” Blah, blabitty, blah.

  “Hold, Harold Iskinder.”

  Their Sundered scan us, trying to determine if we're a threat.

  I let them. They're low-tier, all of them. I bet Aakesh could keep us safe from anything they could do. That's kind of a nice realization.

  “Harold Iskinder, you are welcome in Danton!” announces the guard, and then the Sundered make a way.

  They plunge their fingers into the wall, into material that was rock-hard a second ago, but now shivers like chilled fat. It wobbles, gapes, and parts, curtains like trembling flesh on either side.

  We paddle through.

  They close it behind us. It's solid again.

  The smells and sounds of equatorial city-life engulf us: grease and burning food, filth and unwashed bodies. I don't know how anyone can stand it.

  Everything in Danton is the same ugly brown. The walkways are separated by long, straight canals of black water, like arteries—dangerous, but there's no choice about that. A city that doesn't allow the passage of black water through it crumbles apart in less than a week. Buildings rip themselves to pieces, twisting and cracking until a canal of some kind is formed, and if the structure didn't survive, well, too bad. It's like the canals relieve some kind of pressure.

  Danton was poorly planned. Flat-faced buildings on either side rise five stories high, gaping with square black window-eyes, the source of even more heat and smell. There's barely enough room to crab-walk past the poles and awnings that cover the doorways of shops, especially if you've brought goods to sell.

  Men with spears wait along the loading areas of the canal, watching us unload our stuff. “It's late and the market's closed,” one of them says. “Be needing a claim ticket?”

  Like I'm leaving anything valuable in their care. “No, thanks. We'll be taking it to our rooms. Aakesh?”

  He's behind the guards, posture-perfect and deathly quiet. “Yes, my lord?”

  They jump. Those hardened bastards jump out of their skins, deeply startled he was there. That's odd—but satisfying. “We need something to carry our wares. Can you help?”

  He actually bows.

  He hasn't done that before. It's almost like he's showing off for the gua—

  The canal shakes.

  It's a low, quick tremble, terrifying in the way it makes the water move, and then comes a thump. A pause, just long enough for Tomas to start, “What the sh—”

  Six narrow boxes rise out of the walkway, right through the ground, like some kind of magic show.

  They're glass and brass with elegant construction, corners ornate with brass scrolling that climbs the glass walls. They hover inches off the ground as if they were sitting on rails, and the ground is smooth beneath them.

  I've never seen anything so beautiful in my life.

  Everybody freezes, eyes huge, maybe ready to run. The guards stare at Aakesh.

  If I can sound casual about this, I'll look like I knew it would happen. “Thank you, Aakesh,” I say loudly, evenly, as if I do this every day. “All right, people, load 'em up. Tomorrow we sell.”

  Aakesh stands there, calm, perfect, elegant. Wow.

  My Sundered did that. Mine. Maybe selling him is a dumb thing to do. Wow.

  Demos is the first to move, and once he piles his salvage into the boxes, the others join him.

  “Market's open in the morning,” one of the guards mumbles, remembering his duty. He adjusts his skullcap, giving Aakesh sideways looks.

  My orange-eyed Sundered doesn't seem to care. He watches me, almost effeminate in contrast with these hairy guys.

  “Thank you, gentlemen. With me!” I like it when my voice does that—deep. Authoritative. A leader's voice.

  The carts float along behind me as if tied to me with string, and the hardest part is pretending it doesn't feel like they're stalking.

  ● ●

  ● CHAPTER 3 ●

  Danton

  The buildings are dark inside. Those black window-eyes hold all the city has to offer: Living quarters. Brothels. Shops. The only thing outside is the market. Everything else here happens in the dark, with walls between it and the black water.

  Odors from old cooking oil and over-curried rice choke us. Crowded with people in spite of the heat and the lack of light, the doors show nests of shadowed movement, like swarms of insects with gleaming eyes. Their sweat is acidic in my throat. We walk on.

  The whole place stinks.

  “Testy coming!” somebody shouts, and a Sundered One leaps down from one of the overhead living areas. He's blue, kind of fish-shiny, and shaped like a sack pulled over a fist. He has buckets in both hands, with something black and liquidy sloshing over the sides. I guess he's not high-tier enough to just burn it, whatever it is, but he doesn't dump it in the canal, either. Instead, he bounds down the street, warning people to get out of his way, going, “Testy coming!
Testy coming! Ooh, look out, testy coming!”

  Testy? What the hell is testy?

  Aakesh's mind shifts around mine as if drawing my attention, alive and warm and breathing, and suddenly, I realize he's walking.

  Not skipping or hopping. He's walking, upright like a man, foot to foot as if this is normal.

  It isn't normal. Almost no Sundered Ones just walk.

  “He carries danger in his hands,” he says.

  What? “Who does? That little Sundered?”

  “Yes.”

  This is quite the conversation. Aakesh's weirdness makes me shiver, like snow down my spine. “What's he carrying, and why should I care?”

  Aakesh gracefully steps over a drunk who lies sprawled with one arm around an awning-pole to avoid rolling into the water. Even the world's wastes know not to get too close to the edge. “There is an interesting order to your questions, my lord.”

  What? He didn't answer me. “What does that have to do with my question?”

  “Nothing, my lord. It is merely an observant statement.”

  I stop and look at him, really look at him, trying to read his dark face and his orange eyes. He's standing so close to me, so still, more still than a human could be, and I can't read him at all.

  “Is there a problem, my lord?”

  “I don't understand you.”

  He knows what I mean. It's in his eyes. The corners of his lips quirk before he answers. “I could speak more slowly, my lord.”

  Did that son of a bitch just taunt me?

  “Harry, you all right?” asks somebody in the line behind me, the whole group of them waiting patiently while I stand here and stare like an idiot.

  If I keep talking to him now, he'll keep subtly mocking me. I don't want my Travelers to see that. “Yeah, I'm fine. And you,” I say to Aakesh with every inch of authority I have ever had, “will answer me later.”

  He bows again, taking his time, and now I'm sure the son of a bitch is mocking me. “Yes, my lord. Whatever you wish.”

  I clench my jaw and stalk on.

  My head is way too heavy, making me dizzy. I can only hope I don't look scared.

  For the first time in months, we meet other Travelers. It happens sometimes. You find a place to sell your loot, and lo and behold, another group of exploring bandits chose that city, too.

  The problem is competition. Travelers like us make money by scavenging abandoned, rusty vessels, or searching settlements that are not on the map and for some reason were abandoned.

  It's not always worth it. People die. Big rusty palaces sink. Obviously, it's easier with a Sundered One, but they don't live long if you use them that heavily.

  The group of Travelers coming our way is loaded down with heavy boxes of salvage. This isn't good. We can't pass on this narrow walkway.

  “Hey,” says somebody by my chest, and I look down to find a kid staring up at me. He's not even in his teens. He also looks like he tried to wear dirt on his face in the shape of a beard to seem older.

  Okay, little guy. You're really tough. Sure thing. “Hey.” I look up and address the man behind him. “So how are we gonna do this?” Somebody's going to have to go into those nasty, dirty doorways, and if I can help it, it won't be us.

  The kid glances at my Travelers, at their floating glass boxes of goods, back at me. “Selling your stuff here?”

  Um. Why is he doing the talking? “Yeah.”

  “That's too bad,” says the kid. His group looks ... weird. Nervous, even scared. They look at the kid for cues.

  He's their leader? He's a child. What's wrong with these people? “What do you mean, too bad?”

  The kid turns and spits a sticky glob into the canal. “They'll be talking about your accident for years.” He smiles.

  Oh, so that's why he's their leader. He's out of his damn mind.

  The kid snaps his head in the direction of his Travelers, and they respond like they've been practicing: they bulk together on the walkway, dropping their boxes and pulling out weapons.

  They're filthy, these Travelers, a little too thin, with kind of a whacked-in-the-head wideness to their eyes. Something is very wrong here. “Okay. Take it easy.” I'm playing peacemaker. “Let's talk about this before someone gets hurt.”

  “It's my market! Mine!”

  Psychotic little brat. “The city's big enough for us both. Calm down, man.”

  “No. It isn't. You can drop your goods in the canal, or we can push them in for you. It's up to you.”

  I can't believe he wants to fight this out. We're a foot from the edge. We could die. “Look. Moron. We're in a city with open windows and no doors and lots of witnesses. You really want to try this? Maybe you'll get some of my stuff in there, sure. Maybe you won't. Maybe a person will fall in instead. Know what happens then?”

  “We sell our crap, that's what happens.”

  He's got a lot of balls, but nothing in his head to back it up. “No. It isn't. You get arrested. All your stuff is confiscated. If they don't feed you to the black water for murder, they'll kick you out for life, and nobody makes any money at all.”

  “Not with my pet they won't,” he says, smiling with yellow teeth that he's filed to points for some stupid reason, and suddenly he's got a Sundered One by his side.

  He's big.

  Really big, with green, pebbly lizard-skin, vaguely man-shaped but with a head like the Tyrannosaurus Rex I saw in my old schoolbooks. His teeth are big, and he has slitted black pupils in his big yellow eyes. His cherry-red tongue flickers out, as if tasting the air. “Issssskinder!” he hisses.

  What?

  He grabs my throat and lifts.

  My feet dangle. I kick, flail, kick, but can't breathe. Kaia screams, somebody else shouts, and then I fall, dropped so suddenly I almost stumble into the damn canal.

  Demos catches me. “What the hell happened?”

  I can't talk yet. I shake my head, clutching his arm. Demos stares, but he doesn't stare at me.

  Lizard-dude is even bigger than I thought, his tail larger than my whole body, and he's wearing some clothes—leather straps over his shoulders and a worked leather chest-piece with weird symbols on it in yellow and orange. He's terrifying. Second-tier. Violent by nature. Seven feet tall at least, his extremities tipped with huge white claws.

  Did I mention Aakesh is holding him off the ground with one hand?

  My first-tier Sundered just stands there, calm and unprepossessing in his short kilt and long hair, with one hand firmly on the lizard-man's crotch. Nothing was dangling there, but the lizard clearly has some tender places, and they are not happy.

  “Nn-gle,” says the lizard, which I think means for the love of hell leggo my balls.

  Aakesh isn't even straining. “I will thank you to leave him unmolested, if you please,” he says in his soothing voice.

  Don't laugh, Harry. No, really. Whatever the hell is going on, you will make it worse. Don't laugh.

  “No!” shouts the kid, and he has tears in his eyes.

  He can't be more than twelve. I know I couldn't have claimed a second-tier at his age. He can't be that good, and he's a psycho, to boot—there's no way he claimed this beast. “Kid, take it easy.”

  He bares his teeth like some feral dog and points at me. “Kill him!” he shouts at the lizard.

  “Bakura.” For a moment, I didn't realize that was Aakesh. His voice is so cold, making me shudder, a physical and uncontrollable response. “Enough. This one is mine.”

  What? Did I hear that correctly?

  Everybody's shouting—my Travelers, the kid's Travelers, the kid. I can't have heard that right. Surely I didn't.

  Bakura-lizard hisses, crouching as if to attack, his big muscles flexing under his pebbled hide. He looks down at the kid. At Aakesh. At the kid. Then, he nods.

  And suddenly, he's gone.

  Nobody responds. The Travelers, his and mine, continue shouting and gesturing as if they don't know what happened, but something did happen. Something
did.

  The kid's gone, too.

  “What the hell?” I manage, breathless, and the other Travelers finally realize their little leader's missing.

  Everyone looks around for a second.

  “Run!” one of them shouts. They all look around, twitchy, and then they just take off, scrambling back the way they came, abandoning their goods, just going, just gone.

  What just happened?

  “Harry, you okay?” Demos demands, gripping my arm, protecting me though there's barely room to do so. Not that it matters right now.

  Aakesh stands there, his hands free of lizard-crotch, innocent like nothing happened.

  Bakura and the kid don't come back.

  I am dangerously close to freaking out.

  I need to do this in private. Not here. Not in front of everyone. “Gather their stuff. Add it to ours.”

  “But ... are you sure?” Demos says, rubbing the back of his shaved head.

  “Yeah. His Travelers aren't coming back.” I know they're not. I share their very real fear.

  My Travelers look at each other and kind of shrug, and as we move forward, they do as I ask, picking up boxes and putting them in our crates.

  I shake, my ribcage dancing from side to side with fear-shudders. I can't look at Aakesh. Won't.

  Freak out in private. Be a leader now.

  I’ve never wished so hard I had someone I could talk to.

  ● ●

  ● CHAPTER 4 ●

  The Academy

  The room I left behind is dark. Not the open dark of nighttime in the outside world. No, this reeks of every jackass who's ever sweated and smoked and screwed in this room, and that's Danton, all in a nutshell.

  At least the sheets are clean. There's nothing I can do about the walls.

  My window has no glass or shutter. It's a square cut into the thick wall, two feet deep and twice as wide. I lean out, looking down at the canal and walking areas. People pass below—not many, since it's late and the market is closed. They're going to the bars, the brothels, home. All of them look the same from above: greasy hair messily parted, and worn clothing in dirty colors.