The Sundered

by Ruthanne Reid

  She. A person, with a name. You know what, Aakesh? You and your “he has tasted Sundered meat” can go to hell. “She's kind of cute,” I add lamely.

  He laughs. “Yes, quite cute. I won't have her long, though—I like to release them once I've left the city. Now: I have a place not too far from here, and there is much we must discuss. Do you have your map?”

  My world shifts again. Why does he want to know? I nod.

  “Good, good,” he says. “Jambi, if you wouldn't mind, carry Quimby. Harry—your little one looks a bit tired,” he says sternly, indicating Gorish.

  I feel sudden guilt, like I haven't taken good care of him. But I have, I swear. “He ... he's okay.”

  “Is he good to walk on his own?” Parnum says with concern.

  “He'll be all right.”

  “I see. Well, on we go,” Parnum says.

  I guess he trusts me to act as an adult. It's weird, though. When he does, I feel a little less grown-up.

  He leads the way out of the horrible low-tier market and back onto the streets, where everything smells better. If I didn't think it'd kill the Sundered Ones, I'd be tempted to set fire to the whole damn market.

  Parnum asked about my map. If he sees it, and sees the next clue, he'll be gone while I'm stuck here.

  I don't know what to do.

  This part of the city is beautiful. There's fresh air, and Sundered Ones keep it almost clean.

  “Come, come!” Parnum says, and leads me to the Sundered-operated elevator.

  I haven't seen one of these since Tenisia. A quartet of fifth-tier Sundered wait around the box, dressed in chains and harnesses, ready to climb the tower and pull us with them. “I didn't know they had elevators here.”

  “A small convenience.” Parnum smiles, his hands behind his back. He's taller than I am, broader than I am. He looks like a hero, like the one who should be seeking the Hope of Humanity on the black water, and not to destroy it. “Floor nineteen, please, gentlemen. Harry—when did you arrive?”

  I lurch a little as the fifth-tier Sundered begin climbing the shaft, harnesses tight on their chests. For a second, I think about their lives. Climbing up and down this stupid shaft all day long, carrying lazy people. It wouldn't put me in a good mood. “A couple days ago. It's taken a while to get my Travelers settled.”

  “So they survived.”

  “They did, but ... ” Flashes of dead Sundered, of the roof coming down and rushing water blind me. “It's kind of a long story.”

  “What isn't, in this world?”

  In the corner, Jambi turns back into Bakura, with Quimby in his arms. He gives me a look of such hate, like if he could, he'd rip my head off with the slow consideration of peeling fruit, or maybe dig his clawed hands into my stomach and spill my insides to the floor.

  It's a damn good thing Aakesh is here.

  We're awfully high. Nowhere near as high as the smokestack, or anything, but I was climbing the ladder then, in control of my own ascent. I hope those harnesses hold.

  “Don't be nervous,” Parnum says gently. “Jambi has strict orders on what to do if something unfortunate occurs.” He says it so casually, like it's normal to think a third-tier could prevent disaster.

  “Don't you mean Bakura?” pops out of my mouth.

  He studies me. “Yes, I do. So you can see him.”

  No denial. No shock. I run my hand through my hair. “I can see him. Doctor, he's not safe.”

  Bakura growls.

  Parnum sighs deeply. “I know this. Having attacked a human, Bakura was slated to be executed. I purchased him to prevent that.”

  I stare at him. “Even though you knew he was dangerous?”

  “He's second-tier,” he says gently. “Violence is his nature, and I can no more hold that against him than I would a bird for flying. I needed the service of a powerful Sundered One. I will admit I saw an opportunity in this.”

  I don't know if this is betrayal or just keen, cold intelligence. Would I have done the same? I kept Aakesh, knowing what I do about him.

  But he didn't tell me. Bakura attacked me, and Parnum didn't tell me who Jambi really was.

  The fifth-tiers stop crawling. “Your floor,” one of them growls, like if we don't get out, they're going to drop us for spite.

  Parnum directs me to his apartment with his hand on my back. “I suspect that since you claimed a first-tier, you have seen many things you have not seen before. Bakura's disguise would merely be the latest.” He moves around the large room, turning on lights. “Bakura, bring her here.” He has a little sort of nest in the corner. Blankets, pillows—fish-heads. A tiny recovery center for the Sundered One he plans to let go.

  I stand just inside the doorway. I don't know what to do. This man doesn't want to destroy the Sundered. I think. Then why is he being pursued by Bek?

  This corner apartment isn't as high as the smokestacks, but it has a great view. He goes to his balcony and beckons.

  We watch the sun shatter on the black water's surface. The rooms he rented are gorgeous, cream colors with black accents. Very clean. No spleen-mountains here. Decorators in Cape Horn have better taste.

  “Harry?” he says.

  I'm distracted. “Sorry. What?”

  “It's beautiful,” Parnum says quietly. “It is incredible that something so deadly can be so beautiful.”

  Like Aakesh. “It's hard to see that when I'm out in it, looking for landfall.”

  “Indeed.” Parnum sighs, leans on the balcony. “There is much we miss when we're too close. Harry ... ” He looks at me. “I have feared for you since we parted last. I've learned many things.” He hangs his head, bent with the weight of knowledge. “I have reason to fear for your safety, specifically.”

  “You mean before Tauri?” I blink at him.

  He meets my eyes with his mismatched own. “How did you escape?”

  “Um.” I shrug, trying for casual, trying to seem calm. “Aakesh got me out. But I was injured. Badly.” I suddenly can't look at him. “I remember the impact. And pain. Weird pain, disconnected. And I remember feeling dizzy and sick. And, um.” I point at the white hand in my hair.

  “I had noticed that,” Parnum says gently.

  “Gorish did this. I mean ... cosmetically.” I indicate Gorish, hovering over Quimby and wringing his hands. Quimby, meanwhile, wriggles slowly in flesh-star agony and seems terrified we're going to roast her or something. She hasn't touched her fish-heads.

  Focus, Harry. “See, I had brain damage,” I manage, and my voice cracks. All the doubt, all the fear rush back in, and for a second I want to scream: what am I doing here? Do I really think I can handle any of this? That I'm capable of playing in this league?

  “Oh, Harry.” Parnum hugs me. “Breathe. Steady. You're all right now.”

  I'm shaking a little. “That's what they said.”

  “I think I would notice if you were damaged. You are not.”

  He would notice, wouldn't he? I close my eyes in relief. “Gorish did the hair. I didn't ask him to.”

  He nods. “I have had Sundered Ones who loved me. I understand.”

  Gorish really does love me.

  I haven't treated him well enough. Not even close. “It's been a rough couple of weeks, Doctor,” I manage, strangle-rough, old-man tired. “I've been in such a daze. I mean ... I have to lead, you know? But Demos led while I was out of it, and my Travelers know that, and it's like I lost them. I lost them all, and I don't know if they're going to trust me again or how to get them back. And I lost two of them for good in Tenisia because they quit.”

  Parnum holds me. Just holds me, like a father should, then leads me back into his living room, where he presses another drink into my hand.

  This one has kick to it. I gulp it down.

  Our Sundered Ones stand around, eyeing each other with that wariness they always show toward each other. But it's another lie, pretending they're happier alone. A lie that keeps them alive. It makes sense now.

  The alco
hol is good, light and hard and perfect.

  Parnum hangs his head. “I'm glad you could not see what became of Tauri. The cold alone began to kill survivors on the first night.”

  “Survivors? You ... you went back in?”

  “For a while.” Parnum sips his drink. “Until I could do no more good. Until it came to the point that I was simply eating and drinking resources they needed to keep themselves alive. It was a terrible situation. I am glad you did not have to go through it.”

  “But that's like what happened in Tenisia,” I say, shuddering as if a cold breeze just went up my shirt. “Giving and giving and in the end it's like throwing things into a bottomless pit.”

  “Yes. It is.” Parnum leans back, sighs. “It addresses the symptoms, not the disease.”

  Wait. What?

  He studies his glass, which glints in the light of his lamps.” We survive. That is what matters, and something I hope you retained from my lessons: above all, humankind must survive.”

  He's going somewhere with this.

  I'm afraid of where. Aakesh couldn't be right, not about him. “I know. You taught me well, Doctor.”

  He smiles a little.

  I cling to that smile. It's not going to last.

  “Harry ... ” Parnum hesitates, and his brow knits.

  The Sundered shift around the room, the higher-tier by the walls and the lower-tier closer to the sofa. They aren't communicating as far as I know, but who can say? And little Quimby is silently crying. Why? Why the hell is she still crying?

  “Harry. I need to see your map,” says Parnum.

  And there it is, out in the open. “My map? Why?”

  No smile now, no blinking, just an open stare. Trusting. Heavy. Grown-up. “Harry—you've spent your life pursuing a goal that was pressed upon you without your input. You used to cry about it when you were young. Do you remember?”

  It's true. It's all true. Everything Aakesh—

  No. I don't know that. Just because he wants to see my map doesn't mean he's looking to destroy the Sundered. “Of course I remember.”

  He nods. “You used to say it wasn't fair.”

  Something thick and familiar settles in my chest, nauseating. The words echo in me like rocks thrown down a hollow pipe.

  “You used to tell me people should be able to choose what they did in life. That you wanted to be a teacher, maybe a painter, to be someone who did not have to leave the cities and pursue a dream through the black water. Do you recall?”

  One night, I wouldn't leave school to go home. I outright refused, and Father had to come get me. I didn't see Parnum for a while after that because father pulled me out of school for five months. Parnum was not invited to dinner anymore. From that day on, in my home he was called “that damn fool,” and that was that.

  I found Parnum again as soon as I entered the next grade, of course. Father couldn't make me hate him. “I recall.”

  Parnum nods. “It wasn't fair. I agreed with you, and I'm afraid that made me your father's enemy.”

  “Because of finding the Hope,” I mutter.

  “Because of blind faith in the Hope, Harry,” adds Parnum. “Do you understand what I am saying?”

  No. But I'm scared as hell that I will.

  Parnum refills my drink.

  The Sundered Ones watch this conversation between humans in silence, helpless against this simple exchange of words that could determine whether they live or die. They can't do anything to stop it, to alter it. They can't make up our minds for us. They can't do anything but stand by and watch.

  Or can they? Just how much of what Aakesh has told me is designed to make me feel for his side?

  I must look really lost because Parnum takes mercy on me. “I'm upsetting you,” he says gently.

  Uh-huh. “A little. This is my whole life you're talking about.”

  He stands and begins to pace, hands behind his back. “Do you believe in fate?”

  Uh. ... “I don't know. Sure?”

  The pink from the setting sun turns his yellow traveling cloak a warmer, soothing shade, like cooked fish. “You and I did not meet in Tauri by accident.”

  I just stare at him.

  “Fate is not simple, Harry. It involves both choice and direction. It is, in fact, largely self-created.”

  Yeah, I'm still staring at him.

  “Do you understand what I'm saying?”

  “No.”

  “Good boy.” Parnum sits across from me, hands folded on his knees. “Thank you for not lying to me.”

  “I wouldn't—I—”

  “Shhh. Harry ... what would you do if I told you a tale of aliens?”

  “Aliens.” This isn't a word I use often. “What do you mean, aliens?”

  “Beings from a world not our own. From the stars above.”

  I clear my throat. “I'd wonder what the hell you were drinking and where I could get some.”

  He laughs quietly. “A good response.” And he upends his own drink and gulps it down quicker than I ever could.

  I've never seen him do that before. “Doctor?”

  He wipes his mouth on his handkerchief. “I am trying to build courage. This is not an easy thing to say, but I must. Our choices make our fate.” He looks at me, visibly sober. “Harry. Aliens are real.”

  I laugh. I mean, what the hell?

  He doesn't laugh.

  I know where he's going with this. I know, and don't want him to. “If you're talking about the Sundered Ones—”

  “There,” he interrupts me. “You know. By instinct, you know. They do not belong on this world.”

  My swallow is so loud in my head. “But ... ”

  “I know your grandfather taught you how things used to be. Continents. Saline oceans. A society based successfully on the burning of fossil fuels and the harnessing of electrical power. I know he taught you. Did you think the world just changed to this hell by accident?”

  Aliens. Aliens reading our minds, manipulating us. “Doctor ... ”

  “The Sundered do not belong here. The condition of our world is due to them. When they came, they changed it to resemble their home, friendly to them and inimical to us.”

  It makes so much sense.

  What was versus what is. How it all came to be that way. A year ago, I would have laughed the idea away. But now, I know: first-tiers could do this.

  First-tiers could change our planet until it became their friend and the water became our enemy. Until we had to enslave them in order to survive. I glance at Aakesh.

  He looks at his fingernails, as if bored. Nothing to say, apparently.

  Fine. Then Parnum keeps the floor. “Go on, Doctor.”

  He takes a deep breath. “The Hope of Humanity is not what you were taught. It is not our tool, but theirs—and the one they used to alter our world. It enhances their powers, unites them. They were using us for sport, for prey, for food. Our brave ancestors managed to hijack the Hope, Harry. They took control of it, and used it to lessen Sundered power, rather than enhance it. They made it our hope instead of our bane, and used it to break the minds of our invaders.”

  To sunder them. My ancestor Iskinder sundered them. And maybe saved us all.

  “It is tied to these aliens inextricably. But this is the important part.” Parnum leans in, his face inches from my own. “The Earth can heal, but there is only one way. The Hope is what the Sundered used to change our atmosphere. As long as it exists, we are in danger. Harry. It must be destroyed.”

  I choke on my drink. Parnum is talking about genocide. What Aakesh said was true. Or part of it was. Or Parnum's lying about part of it.

  Or they both are.

  I can't breathe.

  “The Earth will revert in time. Our planet will have a chance to heal—Harry?”

  Can't answer. Choking.

  “Harry!” Parnum slaps my back, bending me forward so my head is between my knees. “Breathe! Breathe! Bakura, clear his airway!”

  And then lizard-man
is in front of me, but he doesn't use his power to help me, oh no. He sticks his freaking tongue right down my throat.

  Aakesh and Gorish and Quimby all make shocked faces as I gag like a pro, ready to puke at any second. I flail and he pulls that thing out of my mouth, his spit flying. I cough hard, eyes watering. I can breathe. I can breathe, but what was that? I scrape at my tongue. He tasted like celery, for the love of hell!

  “Breathe, Harry,” Parnum says, relieved.

  Bakura thinks this is funny. Oh, hell, I can never eat celery again. “You c-can't destroy the Hope.”

  “I can,” Parnum says quietly. “And I must. Breathe. Steady in. Steady out. I'm sorry, Harry. I know this is hard to hear.”

  I laugh a sob, or sob a laugh. “The Hope of Humanity is supposed to fix the world. We couldn't be this wrong!”

  “The Hope was hidden by our forebears for a reason,” Parnum says evenly. “If the Sundered regain control of it, they regain control of us.”

  “Why wasn't it just destroyed, then?” I demand.

  “Because they were unwilling to face the consequences.” He watches my face with concern. “Breathe, boy. You frightened me.”

  What do I do now?

  Aakesh knew—but he told me half the story. Maybe he does plan to take control back. That would figure, wouldn't it? Using me, stupid Harry Iskinder, to bring him to the Hope, when he isn't allowed to just go there himself. I could be delivering my species into his hands. “How do you know all this?”

  “Three ways,” he says quietly. “The first: my family told me stories of the past, as did yours. I'm cursed with an analytical mind, and I could not see how the world would change so much, so quickly, without an external force. The fact that water alone mutated on a chemical level is impossible by any natural means, and so I began to study.”

  I nod again. My eyes are finally clear. Breathe, Harry. Don't puke on the nice man's carpet.

  “The second way was the Sundered themselves,” he says, and looks at them, his claimed and mine, silently posted around the room as he reveals their great, horrible secrets.

  They tried to kill this world to make it their own. Maybe. You wouldn't know it to look at them now. Aakesh still seems bored.

  “I finally claimed a high-tier,” Parnum continues more softly. “Third-tier at first, which as you know is just a bit above the usual school fare.”