The Sundered

by Ruthanne Reid

  It never ceases to amaze me that some people are happy like this. I never go more than a day without bathing. What the hell do these people do? How long do they wait?

  “My lord.” Aakesh stands behind me, and I stiffen.

  He won't push me out. He can't. I think. I don't want to look at him yet, or he'll see the fear in my eyes. For the love of hell, I own him, he can't hurt me. “What?”

  “You had questions for me, and now we are alone. We will not always have such chances. This would be the opportune time.”

  Great way to make me less nervous, Aakesh.

  I push off the windowsill and turn to glare at him. He's a shadow against the backdrop of this dingy room, where everything is sand-brown from the door to the basin to the bed. “That's not normal. What you just said? That isn't normal. You're not normal. I've had plenty of Sundered Ones before.”

  “But never first-tier, my lord,” he says, and now there is no bow. No, he just stands there, meeting my gaze, the orange of his irises gleaming like his brain is on fire.

  He wants a question? Here's a question. “What did you do to the lizard?”

  “Bakura? He is free.”

  I lean close to his face. “Explain that.”

  He shies away from me like some kind of bashful belly dancer and falls into the chair with all the grace in the world, leaning on his arm, his hair spilling over the side. “That is difficult to do.”

  I don't need to be afraid. I have him claimed. I can still feel him pulsing around my mind.

  The kid clearly thought he had Bakura claimed, too. I don't like where this is going. “Answer my question. What the hell did you do to that kid?”

  There's no breeze in this place, with one window that looks out on a valley of stifling air, but the very tips of his hair lift as if the currents moved just for him. He studies me, curled sideways. “The boy claimed Bakura. Bakura broke free. You yourself know the dangers of reversal. Bakura has taken revenge.”

  My chilling sweat leaves tiny stinging points of salt on my skin. “That isn't what I just saw.”

  “No?”

  “No.” I know what happened, know it like I know my name and my purpose. But what I know can't be. “He faked claiming.”

  “The boy was not truly his master. It was not a true claim. Surely you could see that.”

  Is that disdain? Toward me? “You can't—you don't fake claims. That doesn't happen.”

  Aakesh smiles sweetly. “Truly?”

  He's saying things that make no sense.

  We know they can't fake claims. That isn't even possible. They're broken, sundered, screwed in the head. When we take them, that's that. “You're telling me nonsense.”

  “Perhaps, my lord, what you think of as reversal is not reversal at all.” Aakesh slides forward a little, still bent over the arm, curving toward me like a snake. His body looks human, but it never was, not even close. “Perhaps some merely pretend to be claimed to avoid being damaged.”

  To avoid claiming, they pretend it? To avoid being used, they fake claims? Nobody knows about this. I swallow around the lump in my throat. “Are you telling me you're faking your claim now?”

  “I am not.”

  A seriously messed-up laugh breaks out of my mouth, barking like gunshots. This conversation can't be happening. “Lucky me. Really? How am I supposed to believe you?”

  His mind gives an enormous yank.

  I scream and grip my head to keep it from flying to pieces. That hurt, hurt, hurt so much, like fishhooks deep in my brain.

  “Your claim is true,” Aakesh whispers. “Else, I would tear free of you—right now.”

  Yank.

  I stagger forward three steps. If he gets free, he'll kill me. Reversals always do.

  Hold on. Hold on! Hold on to him!

  He bares his teeth, straining, half-sitting up in his chair and tearing at the edges of my consciousness. “Let me go!”

  No you don't, no you don't! “No! No, I won't!” Is that my voice, so harsh, so loud? I yank right back, shoving my mind-fingers into his skull with a scream.

  Aakesh rears back with his mouth open. His orange eyes flash, and then he leaps off the chair and onto me. We slam to the floor, his shockingly hot hands on my throat, and blackness shutters down on my mind.

  I sit straight up and flail, but there's nothing there, so I flail my way right off the bed onto the floor.

  Thunk.

  My breath is ragged and strained, like my throat is bruised. Breathe, breathe Harry. Where is he? Where—

  Aakesh sits on the wide windowsill, his knees up, his hair spilling over his shoulder, looking out at the stifled walkways as if they hold all the freedom he could ever want.

  What? What's he doing? Why's he still here? Why am I alive?

  I scramble to my feet and run to the mirror, inspecting my throat from every angle.

  No bruises. I look fine.

  What is going on here? “What happened?” I choke.

  Aakesh sighs, sliding his hands down his knees in an almost feminine gesture, and turns to look at me with his damned-to-hell orange eyes. “Good morning, my lord. How may I serve you?”

  Morning? Morning? “What did you do to me?”

  He stares at me blankly, innocently, eyebrows raised as if I'm being dramatic.

  My head pounds. “Answer me!”

  He tilts his head slightly, watching me like I'm doing a trick. “I attempted to free myself, my lord. I failed.”

  I rub my throat again, expecting soreness and finding none. “You attacked me!”

  “No, my lord. I am incapable of such a thing,” he murmurs. “Your dreams and subsequent subconscious reactions are surely not my burden to bear.”

  Wait. What did he just tell me?

  The natural, unthinking response to something that hurts is to shove it away, isn't it? You shove it away, and try to make it stop touching you.

  He gave me some kind of illusion to get me to release my claim.

  I've never heard of behavior like this. I go to the washbasin and lean on it, too angry to look at him, too angry to think. I have to sell him, get some money. He's dangerous, crazy, clever. But is that the responsible thing to do? Sic him on somebody else?

  No. The responsible thing is to hang on to him, go to the Academy, and find out just what is happening. “I didn't let go.”

  “No, my lord. Your claim is true—and now, I believe, you are certain.”

  Yeah. I am certain. “You,” I mutter. “You may never do that again. You attacked me. I don't care if you did it in a dream or for real. You attacked me. Don't you ever do it again.”

  “My lord,” Aakesh says mildly. “I did not harm you.”

  Is he saying I left him a loophole? “When I said no harm, I meant my definition, not yours.”

  He bows in place, acknowledging, like we're playing chess.

  In my mirror, this room is almost too dark to see him.

  I use the stale water in the basin, washing under my arms and the back of my neck. A real bath is going to have to wait. “We're going out. Stay close,” I order him, hating how shaken I sound, and grab my maps before I storm back out to get my Travelers ready to sell at the market.

  They're going to handle the market stalls on their own today. I need to go to the Academy and get some advice before I drown.

  I feel a little less crazy in the light of day.

  People walk and laugh and talk, hurrying to wherever they're going. More low-tier Sundered bounce by with buckets, shouting, “Testy! Testy!” Nobody's tense. Nobody's straining, wide-eyed, or muttering about freaky dreams.

  I'm okay. Yes. I'm a little testy—haha—but I'm holding it together.

  With such narrow walkways, there's only one way to build an open market. At the very end, against the far wall where there are no windows or doors to block, platforms rise over the canals like giant stairs. A great big endcap of greed and ambition, every level has merchants with piles of boxes to sell, and customers swarm the
m like bugs on dropped meat.

  My Travelers snagged a good spot: second level from the bottom, in the corner. I make sure they've got money to make change, and then head off to do some quick shopping of my own.

  It's relaxing to do normal things, anchoring, calming. A good leader pays attention to what his Travelers need, and Demos needs a new compass since his went into the water last month. And Kaia—she drives me crazy, but she's still my responsibility—needs a new formal shirt, because hers mysteriously disappeared two cities ago.

  I'm pretty sure she just left it in the hotel, but whatever.

  That one will do. It's green, and sort of frilly. The sleeves flutter in the breeze from people passing by.

  My purchases go in my knapsack. Here I am, responsible leader. “Hey,” I ask the vendor. “Where's the Academy?”

  Silently, he points. His Sundered Ones move around behind him, fetching things, replacing items, making change. He has three of them on his mental leash, all very low-tier. These guys are good gofers, but they can't handle much.

  Every city has an Academy of Sundered Sciences. Even kids who don't graduate need to understand how the Sundered work within our world, how they can be claimed, and what to do with them once you've got one.

  With so many of them dead in recent years, first-tier have to be worth even more than they once were. I really have no idea what a first-tier would cost. Do they die like normal Sundered do? Surely not as easily.

  I walk carefully, pressing past the cheerful morning crowds. “Aakesh. How many of you are left? First-tier, I mean.”

  He answers from behind me. “We Sundered are always as we have been.”

  That was a weird answer. “What the hell does that mean in Common Speak?”

  A woman runs into me, drops her bag, and food splatters on the pavement.

  Eggs, milk, valuable things. Oh, no.

  I kneel with her, helpless in the wake of ruined perishables that probably cost her a month's salary.

  “Oh, no, oh, no,” she says, and starts to cry.

  Dammit. I can't afford to replace all this. I can't comfort her. These aren't roots and dried fruit. These come from living animals, livestock, rare and valuable.

  But I have Aakesh. First-tier. Crazy powerful. “Hey. Can you help her?”

  He looks at me, his orange eyes unreadable, the very tips of his hair stirring as if in a breeze. “Yes.”

  Tingles race down my spine. I feel like testing him. “Do it.”

  Aakesh kneels.

  He lifts her by her shoulders first, tenderly, moving her out of the way, and then kneels again. He slides his hands over the pavement like he's scraping together a pile of sand, shaping the air—air that darkens between his hands. His shoulders shake, his hands tremble, and her bag is suddenly whole.

  Whole.

  There's food inside it. The pavement shows no stain.

  What?

  How? How did he do that?

  He looks up at her, unreadable and alien, his hair lying in delicate whorls on the pavement.

  All around us is silence. Stillness. A circle of awe and fear and horror in anyone who saw. The woman doesn't even say thanks.

  That was way beyond normal Sundered power. That was like the Sundered of legend, who could create things out of thin air.

  Look like you expected it, Harry. “Thank you, Aakesh. We're going now.”

  Merchants and customers stare after us as I shoulder my way through the crowd, past people who say nothing and are more afraid than impressed.

  “We are as we always have been,” Aakesh whispers in my ear.” That is your answer.”

  I hunch my shoulders. His hair tickles the back of my neck. “That's ridiculous.” It's like he's saying they haven't died, or they've reproduced the same number as the ones who've died, or something else I don't understand. “You can lie to me, can't you?”

  He hesitates, tilts his head slightly. “No, my lord. I cannot. I am claimed.”

  Sure. Not as much as I'd like. “Not like Bakura?”

  “Not like Bakura. I can ... be clever. But I cannot lie to you.”

  Some small comfort that is.

  I work my way through the crowds, past more stinking shops and door-holes, all the way to the Academy at the other end of the city, and wonder what else my first-tier Sundered can do.

  Could he just take me to the Hope? Or tell me where it is? Could he end all of this torment, all this suffering, right now?

  If he can, I can't afford to sell him.

  If he can't, and I ask, the attempt could kill him.

  And I think if I don't phrase my question or command right, he'll use it against me.

  I'm in over my head. I'm not saying anything else to him until I get professional advice.

  There. That particular ugly tower is the Academy. I'm going to get my answers, or some of them, and then make up my mind what to do.

  This particular penis-tower leans at an angle. It's crumbly, but Sundered power keeps it upright. It's crawling with vines like veins, fed by Sundered power, and it looks like this because it can.

  There's a second-tier Sundered guarding the door, and he's actually wearing clothes, sort of: some kind of skirt made of long metal strips. He's got to be seven or eight feet tall, but he's hunched over so his eyes meet mine. He's half my width, so the effect is freaky. He's covered in wiry brown fur, has a long rat-like muzzle, and eyes of a deep, violent red. “Name,” he demands.

  Second-tier. Always looking for a fight, on the edge of absolutely feral. “Harold Iskinder. I come with questing mind and open heart to learn about the Sundered.” Blah, blah, blah.

  He sneers at me and gives us a perfunctory bow. “You may enter,” he says, and thrusts his hand at the door.

  It opens all by itself, creaking for effect, revealing stairs.

  Every Academy I've seen has this entrance: a spiral staircase climbing up and to the right, theoretically so anybody coming down can more easily defend it. Assuming they're right-handed and fighting with freaking swords. And assuming there are no Sundered, to boot. I don't know, okay? Some teacher read it in a book somewhere and thought it was a good idea.

  The rest of their ideas are better.

  The top of the tower is one huge open room. Beds are stuffed into one corner, working showers in another (don't get used to those, kids), and there are a few tables scattered around, but the central area is clear. The domed roof is so high that the floor-to-ceiling windows actually allow moving air. It smells clean.

  Academy students all wear a dark purple robe—the robe I once wore—though the Sundered are, of course, naked. Male and female, it's all just hanging out there, but nobody thinks it's lewd. I guess the fact that they don't look human makes it easier.

  “Mr. Iskinder!” One of the professors hurries toward me. His robe is a nice rich red, which just emphasizes the fact that his old-butter-color hair is a comb-over and his beard is really ratty. He takes both my hands in his. I don't pull them away. Professors are always touchy-feely. “It's such an honor to have you here! How is your father?”

  Ow.

  How is my father? I don't freaking know. He left and never came back, dumping the whole burden of being an Iskinder on me, that's how he is. “Deceased.”

  The professor freezes for a second, and in that second, I know the score. He really doesn't give a damn about what I want if my dad isn't alive to donate.

  There's a perilous moment where nobody moves. The professor still has my hands in his, and he shakes them a little while he thinks it out. “I am so sorry to hear that, Mr. Iskinder. His donations were priceless to us in the Academy network.”

  Yeah. Let go of my hands. “I graduated from Tenisia.” I got your hint. Let go of my hands.

  “Oh! How wonderful! Do you know, I used to teach there,” says the professor, as if I wouldn't wonder what he did wrong to be transferred from the great city of Tenisia to this dump. He shakes my hands some more, then starts pulling me toward him. Oh, boy. “There
is so much to show you here. If you have the time, I'd love for you to see our current projects.”

  Translation: here are the things you can throw money at. “Thanks, but no. I'm actually here to look for advice. I have a first-tier Sundered, and I have questions.”

  He sort of jolts. He blinks, shakes my hands again to cover his surprise, and stares at me like he's seeing me for the first time. “You what? You have what?”

  He can't see him. This is creepy. “Aakesh, would you please step forward?”

  He does, right against my side. Power wafts off him, palpable, so clearly superior to anything they have in the building. Heat wafts off him, too, like he's a person-shaped oven.

  The doc drops my hands and steps back, gawking for a long, satisfying moment.

  It's not mature of me to grin. I do it anyway.

  The professor keeps gaping. “He ... he is first-tier.”

  “Yeah. That's what I said. I have some questions.”

  “Where did you find him?” The professor runs his hand over his head, disturbing his thin comb-over.

  “Outside.”

  “Yes, clearly, but where?” He takes glasses out of his pocket—beat-up things, missing one arm—and peers through them.

  “Outside,” I repeat, because I'm not going to reveal where I found anything worth scavenging. The importance of that was drilled into me before I could walk.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” says the professor, peering closer.

  Aakesh bares his teeth. It's a grin, really.

  “I have some questions about first-tier Sundered Ones,” I repeat.

  The professor twitches. “Yes, of course. Come with me,” he says, glancing over his shoulder one last time. “We have ... plenty to discuss.”

  Uh-huh.

  “Funny master,” Aakesh whispers to me, almost like Gorish.

  Ha-ha. Really funny.

  We'll see who's laughing.

  ● ●

  ● CHAPTER 5 ●

  Tiers

  The professor’s name is Standish, and he's a douche. Really. He's a douche. I'm not backing down. Is he crazy? “No. You can't measure his penis.”

  “If you won't allow me to test him in any way, I don't see how you can expect me to help you!” The professor shrugs violently and glares at me. “I am not asking for much.”