The Sundered

by Ruthanne Reid

  Weirdness. Is he a spy, or something? I really don’t want him around, but I’m too tired to be nice. Go screw yourself is not a relationship-builder. “Fine.” I walk away. Whether he follows is completely up to him.

  We make a weird little group, Tomas, Aakesh, Gorish, and I. City-dwellers wear loose, sleeveless tunics in sooty-but-vibrant reds, greens, and yellows. Tomas and I wear brown leather and root-weave flax, loose and comfortable and hearty. Also, pants. I never got into the whole robes idea, even in Tenisia.

  The scent of flavored oils and dipping sauces, of food seared quickly in woks, taunts me. Rickshaws barrel through the crowds at suicidal speeds. Drumbeats entice us, a light insistence of fingers on hide whispering to come buy things. The gutters are full of trash, even food people threw away.

  I’m hungry. Everything sucks without money.

  Tall buildings make the sunlight fade early, creating valleys of shadow. Extra canals and wide roads make for narrow walkways. You can't pass someone in an alley without practically braiding pubic hair, and there's so much ash in these wind-free gaps that everyone who comes out the other end has to bend over to shake it out of their hair.

  Gorish squeaks and grabs my knee.

  “An attempt, my lord,” Aakesh says, and disappears.

  What? An attempt at what?

  “An attempt at what?” Tomas says.

  “Nothing.” I don't know how I know what's happening, but suddenly, I do. Someone is trying to claim Gorish.

  “I'm serious, what's he talking about?” Tomas says, and before I can think of a lie, Aakesh reappears. Poof.

  There were no explosions or screams. I have no idea what just happened. “It's just a precaution, that's all.”

  Tomas looks around like he expects more Aakeshes to pop out of the shadows. “The last time you talked about precautions, the city blew up.”

  He’s not wrong. Dammit. “Let’s just drop it, okay?” I turn and walk on.

  Tomas shrugs sullenly, shoves his fists in his pockets, and follows.

  We come out through a narrow way and find another docking area, this one filled with the one thing that makes southern cities worthwhile: a cargo ship.

  It's glorious, its hull glass-smooth and gleaming smoky brown in the light. The deck is too high to see, but enormous silver and black masts rise above, somehow taking energy from the sun to power the enormous engines hidden below the water. I can feel the engines through the ground, rumbling, churning up the black water and changing it from a dark mirror to froth.

  Two centuries ago, there were hundreds of ships like this. Two centuries ago, all the cities had that kind of sunlight-soaking power, keeping the air clean and the plumbing flowing. Two centuries ago, we weren't running out of Sundered Ones, but now, each generation of Sundered we catch is weaker and more ignorant. Any of them who knew how to make these things has been dead for a long time.

  Aakesh might be an exception. Or maybe I'm just telling myself that because I'm afraid when I think about what his ancestors could do.

  “Wow,” says Tomas, staring at the ship like he's never seen these things before.

  It's my turn to seem like the cynical grown-up. “Yeah, it's pretty neat,” I say, all nonchalant.

  “It's huge!”

  “It has to be. These things go all the way across the deep water to cities on the other side of the world, remember.”

  “Uh-huh,” he says, gawking.

  I wish I could gawk, too, but my Travelers need food. “Come on.”

  The docking area is pretty busy. Men and Sundered Ones move goods along the gangplanks, and their sweat puts a tang in the air.” I wonder if they've got any jobs,” I mutter. “It'd be good if we could all work in the same place. Less to keep track of.”

  “Won't have any jobs here that'll spare your Sundered, that's for sure,” Tomas mutters back.

  I hesitate just a moment too long. “Drop the attitude, Tomas.” I can't believe he said that. If anybody important overheard that, I could get arrested.

  A row of short green awnings indicates waterside shops. All of them are crowded with the smell of fish and sailors who bathed sometime last March. I push between them, keeping my hand on my money pouch, and stop in front of an old lady with leathery skin, who's selling cooked fish-heads by the bag.

  Fish-heads are a favorite Sundered treat, or so I'm told. Gorish stares like their little brains are the most delicious things he's ever seen, so I guess it's true. “Hey!” I shout over the orders, directions, and general noise. “Grandmother! Got any job openings?”

  “None. Go where the ash is fresh!” she croaks back and gives me the finger.

  The sailors laugh.

  Right, no jobs here.

  Tomas looks vaguely insulted when we make it out. “What did she mean, go where the ash is fresh?”

  “I think she meant going to the factories.” I look up at the smokestacks, looming high above everyone and everything. No matter where you go in the city, those things are visible, the polluting gods of this place. “I'm not sure I really want to breathe whatever's in there.”

  “It's just for a couple of weeks, right?” Tomas shrugs.

  “Hopefully.” I shrug back. Still not applying in the factories.

  It's an hour before I find work, but we were lucky: the crusty old captain who hires us owns a vessel that transports malleum, and he considers Sundered Ones unworthy of cleaning it. It'll be grunt work for us, but it will pay well. He even gives me an advance. I could be wrong, but I think it's enough for one meal each and a night's lodging. Score!

  Tomas watches all of this, looking annoyed, rolling his eyes when I ask questions. I do my best to ignore him, but I want to shove him away. Why in hell did he come with me?

  I count my coins, then secure them in the bag on my belt. “That was perfect. Back to the gate we go.”

  “You're gonna give that money to Demos, right?” says Tomas.

  I look at him hard. “No.”

  He takes a step toward me. “I don't know what you think is going on here, but nobody trusts you. Okay? Do you get it? Nobody trusts you.” Tomas' voice is low, a violent warning. “If you hang on to that, I'm sure we're going to end up sleeping on the street.”

  The weak grip I had on my leadership is riding out of my hands so fast it's leaving rope burns. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “No. But I think you are. Hand the money over.” He takes another step, then stops, staring over my shoulder.

  Aakesh is back there. I don't dare turn away to see what he's doing, but stay focused on Tomas. “Take it easy. I've led you right before. I'm not going to lose this. I'm taking care of you.”

  “Yeah. Right.” He looks spooked because of Aakesh. Aakesh does what Sundered can't do. Aakesh had control of them for a month while I drooled in the bottom of a boat. “You know what I think?” Tomas says coldly. “I think you care more about them than you do about us. I think we should go see what the lawmen have to say.” He turns away.

  “Tomas!” I reach for him.

  Gorish leaps between us and shoves Tomas into the street.

  The rickshaw comes out of nowhere. It runs him down like it ate him, swallowing him between the wheels and shedding his blood between the spokes. It spins in the wheels, hitting me, getting in my mouth and my eyes.

  I can't ... what just happened?

  “Oops!” Gorish chirps, innocent and wide-eyed. Against his bumpy-all-over-orange, the blood looks horribly dark.

  ● ●

  ● CHAPTER 22 ●

  Oops

  I think I must be in shock. That explains the numbness.

  Tomas was flayed open like a fish, showing guts, showing lungs, showing things that shouldn't be shown to the world. Crowds came out of nowhere as I stood there, useless, staring.

  Gorish said oops after he did it.

  I know Tomas should be dead. He isn't. Because of Aakesh.

  I guess that's how it looked when Aakesh healed me. He made motions over Toma
s' twitching body, smoothing his hands along wounds like seams, and before anybody important arrived, Tomas was whole again.

  Still unconscious. His blood still everywhere. But he was whole.

  Why is this happening?

  The Sundered who ran him over got carted away. It was an accident, and it doesn't matter. The injured party was human, and the other party was not. The red-alarm-colored Sundered who took the blame had a long neck and lots of scales, and I have no idea how low his tier was. They dragged him to the docks, where they'll either kill him or put him to work, and that'll kill him, anyway.

  I didn't say anything. If I did, Gorish would be carted off instead.

  It wasn't the red guy's fault.

  Aakesh didn't speak up, either.

  I feel like I've committed murder.

  “Harry?” says Demos for the third time.

  I shake my head, trying to push this daze away. I feel like I'm thinking through thick mud. “Yeah?”

  “You did good here, man,” says Demos, looking over our contracts. “We even have injury compensation. Well done.”

  He's complimenting me like I'm one of his Travelers. This doesn't help me feel any better.

  Tomas ignores us. He seems to think he tripped and fell in the street, and he's fine now. He also seems to have forgotten completely about turning me in.

  Did Aakesh do something to his head? Did he do something to my head? “I got us rooms, too. They're not great, but anything's better than the street, right?”

  “Good job,” Demos says, like I'm the one working on his orders and not the other way around.

  Sickness threatens to pop the bubble of no-feeling, just for a moment, then sinks back down. I'm okay.

  Gorish nuzzles my arm with his froggy head. I can't look at him right now. He said oops when he did it. He said oops.

  I hand out room keys. I should make a speech, or tell them everything will be great in a week, or something.

  I can't. I need to be alone.

  Gorish nearly killed Tomas.

  Aakesh healed him.

  A red Sundered died so it could all come to pass.

  I'm vastly not okay.

  By the time I get to the little room I rented for us, my head has turned into a storm of angry clouds.

  The room is small for three, tiny and gritty with yellow paint and overhead lights. It's cramped with a couple of chairs, a bed, a bureau, and a sink. At least there's a toilet. That's a nice convenience, and a rare one. Of course, there's nothing to clean myself with. The weeds needed for paper goods are a lot harder to come by than factory-powered running water, so we're all expected to just use the sink and our towels.

  I sit by the window, watching the pink sunset turn pink-charcoal-gray in the factories' smoke. It's just as noisy out there now as it was during broad daylight, but that's fine with me. I don't think I'll be sleeping tonight.

  If I ask for an explanation, and Aakesh gives his I cannot answer you speech, I think I'm going to get violent. Yes, he saved me, more than once—but I can't shake the feeling he didn't save me for me.

  This is about something else. There's some other plan going on here, and if I let myself think that I matter in it, I'm going forward blind.

  Aakesh sits on the bed like the prim and proper princess he is. Gorish crouches by his feet, fiddling with nothing, pressing his suction-cup fingers together and pulling them apart. Maybe he's masturbating, for all I know.

  The sun sinks, leaving us wrapped in yellow electric light. It creates a sheen on Aakesh, playing over his ebony skin like some kind of slick oil. The light turns Gorish so orange it almost hurts to look at him. Here we sit, the three of us, as if everything's okay.

  Aakesh looks at me in silence. One hand dangles down to caress the top of Gorish's head.

  No more putting this off. “Gorish.”

  “Yes, nice master?”

  “Why did you push Tomas?”

  He looks at me with adoration, his huge round eyes wide. “He was mean, nice master!”

  This is not happening. I close my eyes, rubbing the tender spot between them. “Mean?”

  “Nice master!”

  “What do you mean, he was mean?”

  Gorish goes squirrely, huddling on the floor until he's even smaller than usual.

  I don't want to see him in the docks. I don't want to see him sentenced to death, pulling boats out of the water until he's dull-eyed and still. “Please answer me, Gorish.”

  “He was going to hurt you!” Gorish shrieks, and scrambles right under the bed to tremble in the dark.

  So that's twice for sure he's shown violence against a human.

  Time ticks by. Pipes flush in the walls, shouts rise from the dock area, and the factories still rumble. People all through this building talk, laugh, cry.

  Aakesh closes his eyes and shakes his head once left and right, as if I'm being dense. “Tomas Doulos believes you have betrayed your species, purposely and knowingly choosing the welfare of your Sundered Ones over that of the humans in your care.”

  I figured this out. I don't want to hear about it. “Yeah. Obviously.”

  “Had he brought lawmen to you, replete with accusations, your freedom would be compromised,” says Aakesh.

  “My freedom matters so much to you?”

  “It does.”

  I shake. “Why?”

  “I cannot directly answer that. I wish that I could.” He sounds sincere. Good for him.

  Outside on the stairs, people laugh, and rickshaw-wheels grind in the street. Horns and crashes and distant cries make up the backdrop of my world, but my focus whirls in the tight, tiny circle of this room. My voice cracks. “He's wrong. I didn't choose you over humans. I gave you specific orders—”

  “Which I followed.”

  “—which you followed, and why would he do this, anyway? Why would any of them? I never hurt them!”

  I screamed that, and it startled me. I feel betrayed. Couldn't admit it before, but I do. I tried so hard. I've worked to see them paid well, to keep them healthy, to make sure our tents never even had any damn holes. I tried.

  “They do not find you important enough to hate,” Aakesh says gently, as if that's any better.

  If I had fur, it would be on end. A woman shrieks laughter in the room overhead, followed by the big guffaws of men, all of them sounding slightly drunk. I think I need to get out of here.

  “Your father was a fool.”

  What? Where did that come from? “Don't you talk about my father! You know nothing about him! Nothing!”

  Gorish shakes under the bed.

  I can't stand this room anymore. I don't belong in here. I belong in the outdoors. “We're going out.” I grab my jacket, snatch up my boots, and yank them on without any consideration for anything but getting out that door.

  “Yes, my lord,” says Aakesh, barely audible.

  “We're finding a private place, and we will find a way for you to answer me.”

  “Yes, my lord,” says Aakesh, who has to have the last word.

  He can have it. I don't care.

  ● ●

  ● CHAPTER 23 ●

  Bambi

  It’s hard to find privacy in a city like this. It's packed, day or night, and the night crowd isn't very friendly. We walk until the crowds thin, until the shops and restaurants mutate into flat, gray buildings, until the residences give way to the all-encompassing sprawl of the factory.

  A small gang of thugs eye me from an alleyway. I almost wish they'd try something. City-dwellers are never as tough as they think, and hitting people would feel wonderful right now.

  Something in my look tells them I'm too eager. They back away.

  Cowards.

  There's a thrum in the ground here, a constant tickle through the feet, a too-deep bass that I can't quite hear but almost hurts. Somehow, it's fitting to finally find privacy near our greatest industrial achievement.

  Gorish doesn't look okay. He's pale like a bled orange, if an
orange could bleed out. His gaze darts around, and he wrings his hands.

  Him being upset upsets me. It's like a process: hurt Gorish, hurt me. Tomas noticed it. Everybody noticed it. I've been played.” Aakesh.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Aakesh appears, dark in the corner of my eye, sable against the sunset.

  I figured it out. He's been tugging on my emotions, positioning Gorish—and for all I know, himself—in order to send me in certain directions. But why? What about me is so important that a damned first-tier would let himself get caught? “You've been messing with me.”

  “Messing with, my lord?”

  “Yeah. You want something from me, and I want to know what it is.”

  He shrugs elegantly. “The answer is not as simple as you wish it to be.”

  “I don't care if it's simple,” I say, irritation spilling into my voice. “You gave me the same line in Tauri. It's time for answers, Aakesh. What do I have to do, reclaim Gorish and force answers from him? He'd answer me. I'm sure of it. Will you risk his life to keep me in the dark?”

  Aakesh is very still. “I am attempting to aid you,” he says in a careful, measured tone.

  “Bull!” My fists clench. “You trust me enough to put Gorish in my hands, but then you turn around and do crazy things, and lie to me, and lead me along toward some goal you won't even tell me about! I know you let me catch you! I know you arranged half of this! For all I know, the attacks on Tenisia and Tauri were your fault!”

  “They were not my fault,” he hisses, his teeth white in the shadows. “Sundered lives were lost in those events, or did you forget?”

  I did forget. That tunnel ... I think more Sundered were lost than humans, and I know that isn't something Aakesh would ever want. “Fine. Just try to see this from my point of view. Anyone else would turn you over to the lawmen and breathe a sigh of relief, and I'm not doing that, and it should damn well count for something.”

  “It does count for something, my lord,” Aakesh soothes. “It counts for more than you know.”

  Gorish looks back and forth between us like a trapped animal. “Nice master?” he whispers.

  “What?” I keep my eyes on Aakesh.