The Sundered

by Ruthanne Reid

  “Yeah. They don't go above fourth unless it's advanced classes.”

  “For good reason. Teachers know better than to ever give the Sundered a chance to harm us, and a reversal—while rare—is always fatal,” Parnum says softly. “So I found a third-tier. Then second-tier, and discovered the second-tier knew a great deal more than the third. Once I realized this, I began to force them to speak to me.”

  “Force?”

  “They are people, Harry. That means they have fears and desires just as we do.”

  That doesn't make “force” better. I swallow. “We're talking about this right in front of them. How is this all right?”

  “Hear me before deciding if I am wrong,” Parnum says softly. “The second-tier, when properly motivated, told me just enough to prove I needed to know more. Barely a week after I caught him, he died. Before he died, he grew ... dangerous toward me. Attempting to slip my leash via hallucinations and trickery.”

  Oh.

  I know how those tricks work.

  Parnum reads me well. “When Aakesh tried to escape from you in Danton, it was part of a pattern. It is part of what they do. But you held on.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Harry ... you are a very unusual man.”

  Feels good to hear that. Even from the guy who's maybe planning genocide.

  “How long have you held him now?” he asks.

  “I ... I don't know.” Have to think about it. “A few months, I guess. Something like that.”

  He's silent for a long moment. “I know no one else who has held a first-tier for that long.”

  I blink.” But the textbooks—”

  “They lie,” Parnum says quietly. “If the general populace knew first-tiers were nearly unclaimable, they would revolt in fear. Thousands of innocents could die.”

  Innocent what? Humans? Sundered? Both?

  “The important thing is you still have Aakesh claimed,” he says.

  “Yeah. “And he let me claim him in the first place.

  “Is Gorish claimed, as well?”

  “Not any more. He was dying. So I let him go.”

  Parnum nods. “I need to speak to your first-tier.”

  I look over at Aakesh.

  Aakesh stands in the corner of the room, farthest from the windows. He's relaxed, hands limp at his sides. Gorish dances from foot to foot, Quimby smears the tears on her flat face with one pointy flesh-arm, and Bakura bares his teeth, but Aakesh looks fine.

  I can believe the Bakuras of this world are out to get us. But the Gorishes? The Quimbys? “I don't know.”

  Parnum doesn't miss a beat. He doesn't push me. “Then perhaps you could speak to him for me.”

  It's reasonable. “I can try. Though I don't know how helpful he's going to be. Or if he even knows anything.”

  Parnum smiles bitterly. “Oh, he knows. First-tier share information in some visceral way I have not yet uncovered. I haven't said anything here he doesn't know.”

  Give me a sign, Aakesh. Something. Do you want this? Will you die to prevent this? Give me something.

  Nothing. He does nothing.

  Fine. Have it your way. “Ask your questions, Doctor.” I barely recognize my own voice.

  “Ask him if he knows the location of all the clues.”

  I think he does. “Aakesh? Do you know where all the clues are?”

  “Yes, my lord.” He's completely relaxed.

  “Bakura,” says Parnum. “Is Aakesh lying?”

  “No, master,” Bakura growls.

  Dammit. He's going to double-check everything Aakesh says.

  “Can he lead us to them?”

  “Can you lead us to them, Aakesh?”

  “If I do it too often, my lord, it would mean leading you to the Hope, and I am forbidden. I can only lead you to a few.”

  “Bakura, is he lying?”

  “No, master.”

  They're pretty good at putting up a blockade.

  Parnum sighs. “Then the map truly is the key. I have waited a long time to ask a first-tier these things.”

  I look at him. “When were you going to tell me there were clues?” It comes out angry, accusatory. I have reason to be. Why did no one tell me there were clues?

  He looks startled. “What?”

  “Clues. Nobody told me about them. My father didn’t tell me about them. You didn’t tell me, either. I found out from Aakesh.”

  Parnum stares at me for a long time, and there is anger there—but not at me. “Your father knew. He planned his scavenging around them. I assumed he'd told you.”

  No. He didn't. I can't speak.

  “I see.” He closes his eyes. “Our ancestors forced their Sundered Ones to build clues after hiding the Hope, in case we needed to find it again. Clues carved into the very ground and walls and glass of our cities, clues that cost the Sundered who made them their lives. Allow me to fetch my own map and show you what I know.” He heads off to another room and rummages.

  Aakesh said our ancestors didn't know about the clues. Parnum says our ancestors made the clues. One of them is lying. I stare at Aakesh.

  He's unreadable, giving away nothing, like he feels nothing. I know that's a lie. Because it's such a good lie, he's survived.

  Why am I even concerned about the possible murderer of my species? Because I'm talking to the possible murderer of his.

  Everybody involved in this is more experienced than I am. I'm so far out of my depth I can't even see the shore.

  ● ●

  ● CHAPTER 26 ●

  My Father’s Map

  “This was my introduction to the genius of our ancestors,” Parnum says, and slides his finger over his small parchment map. It looks like a tiny, hasty replica of my father's, Eastern Hemisphere on one side and Western on the other.

  Guess I know now for sure he showed it to him. “This looks like mine.” Boy, do I sound shocked. And I still taste celery. I'm never going to be able to eat it again.

  “I know. What do you see?”

  I've stared at these cities with more attention than he could dream. I've pored over them, wept over them, traced them with my fingertips. This map really does look like he had two minutes to copy down as much as he could. It's missing stuff. “A half-assed map.”

  He smiles weakly. “Watch,” he says softly, and looks at Bakura.

  Bakura snarls. He stalks over, huge tail folded over his shoulder, and holds his claws over the map.

  The eastern cities lift away, float over to the western cities, and settle back down again.

  Wait. I've seen this. I have this. This is the map the Soothsayers gave me, the world in a circle, with cities from both sides of the planet showing on one side. Only mine is complete. On his, several cities are missing, including Shangri-la.

  “Now look at it,” Parnum says.

  Oh, I'm looking. My heart's pounding in my ears, but I'm looking. “You've kind of made it useless like this, haven't you?” I manage, but it sounds bad. It sounds like a lie.

  He doesn't call me on it. “No.” That look is a man-to-man look, like we've moved beyond student and teacher. “On the contrary. It has revealed its true nature.”

  “What nature?”

  Parnum glances at Bakura. “Show him.”

  “Yes, my master,” growls the lizard-man, and holds his big claws up in a circle the same way Aakesh did when he was making a mirror out of air. Between his claws, the air shimmers white. It flickers like distant fire, forming a sphere with curved horns on top. Two more shapes appear in the center of it, jagged like lightning-bolts turned on their sides. The white symbols float over and superimpose themselves on the map.

  Oh, look at that. The cities are following a pattern.

  They're laid along the symbols, like the city positions were planned on purpose. But that's impossible. You don't plan landfalls. You can't plan where landfall's going to be.

  Humans can't. Maybe first-tier Sundered Ones can.

  “Do you know them?” Parnum say
s, quiet, intense.

  “Know what?” I don't understand what I'm seeing. Did I really think I could figure out these clues on my own? I'm an idiot.

  He slips back into teacher-mode like a second skin. “These are star symbols, ancient ones, going back to a time before threats from the stars themselves. The jagged lines in the center are called Aquarius. The horned circle is Taurus. One represents the element of water. The other represents the element of earth.”

  “Okay,” I say cautiously, because I have no idea what he's talking about.

  He points. “These cities were built after we regained control of our world.” He traces the shapes again. “These two symbols, Aquarius and Taurus, were shown to me by a second-tier Sundered right before she died. This is a clue. We are the element of earth. The Sundered are the element of water.”

  I feel so small. “But the landmass—the power it would take to do that— ”

  “—is the reason why we can never risk the Sundered being set free,” he says softly.

  If they got free, they could kill us all. I glance at the four Sundered listening in the room. Quimby is still crying, Gorish is wringing his hands. Aakesh is unreadable, and Bakura—Bakura grins at me, baring his teeth.

  More cities mark my father's map. Parnum needs that map so he can figure where to go next. But I already know where.

  I shudder. “And why are these cities important?”

  Parnum slides his finger along the map. “Each of these contains a clue to the location of the Hope.”

  “But where? What, we just go to every city in this pattern and look?”

  “That is what I have been doing for the past six years. The clues do not lead in a straight line from point A to point B. In an attempt to ensure no one accidentally found the Hope, they made it nearly impossible.”

  Six years? That's before he left Tenisia for good. He could've found the Hope and destroyed it at any time during the last six years, and I would never even have known.

  “My boy, you are pale,” Parnum says.

  Yeah, you think? “I don't feel well.”

  He smiles a little. “I see my lessons in grammar were not wasted, at least.”

  Funny man.

  “Bakura, if you please—dinner would be appreciated,” says Parnum.

  Bakura starts prepping fish with leeks and garlic, good things that sizzle in a wok and smell divine. He looks funny hunched over the stovetop in the corner with his big tail draped over his shoulder.

  “How can you do that?” I ask quietly. “How can you order him to help you when you're planning on killing him?”

  Parnum just looks at me. He's not old—I mean, he's under fifty, and he only has a little gray in his beard and hair—but that expression is old. It's weighty, tired, like he's already struggled with this question, already wrestled an answer from the air and dissected it, and it only made him sad. “You have a first-tier Sundered. You know his craftiness and violent tendencies. My second-tier has attacked you without provocation. Do you really need to ask that question?”

  I don't like this. “Doctor...”

  “I am going to release Quimby. I am not going to release Bakura.”

  “But Doctor—”

  “Work it out, Harry.”

  “He isn't safe freed?” I venture quietly.

  He nods.

  It's not that simple. “And Quimby? Others like her? They're going to die too.”

  “I know.” He speaks so softly. “I can only choose the survival of one species, Harry. I choose mine.”

  I stare at him. I could never make a decision this heavy. Does anyone have the right to make that choice?

  Nobody does. I feel this, know this in my core. Nobody does.

  “I need your map.”

  But I have to make that choice right now.

  I lean forward, putting my head in my hands. “Why didn't my father tell me he had clues?”

  Parnum doesn't answer.

  My father disappeared two years ago, which means he's dead. I'll never know why.

  “Nice master?” Gorish asks very quietly.

  I can't spare the brain cells to look at him right now. “Doctor. I need to think about this.”

  Parnum looks just slightly disappointed.

  It wounds me. This is stupid. I'm a grown man, I don't need his approval. It still wounds me. “I'm sorry. I really need to think about this.”

  “We don't have the time—” He stops. That is the closest he's ever come to being impatient with me. “Harry, I trust you, and I understand if you cannot trust me. I know I'm asking you to move against everything you were raised to believe, but this is bigger than we are. This is far more important than you and me.”

  Great. I feel even worse now.

  “Nice master?” Gorish whispers, a little more urgently.

  “Not now, Gorish.”

  “Harry, you must understand: regardless of your decision, I must continue on this path.”

  Whatever Bakura's cooking smells really good. Hope it's not poisoned. “I know.”

  “Even if you continue to search for the Hope yourself,” Parnum says evenly.

  He's warning me. I look up slowly. His gaze holds hope and disappointment, and so much determination that it shakes me to my core. Warning me—

  Gorish wails and grabs my leg, and I realize with a shock Quimby is dead.

  “No!” Parnum shouts, and flings himself to the floor to grab her flesh-star body, cradling her to his broad chest. “No, no, it wasn't too late, it wasn't—Bakura! Help her! Now!”

  “I cannot.” Bakura's tongue flickers. “She is beyond my power.” He keeps cooking.

  “She was not this ill!” Parnum roars, the power of his personality and the force of his anger an open flame, and I press back into the sofa to get away from him.

  He's terrifying. This is the man capable of 'forcing' a second-tier to talk, of searching alone for years for the secret weapon called the Hope, and his fury makes the air crackle.

  “Aakesh, can you help her?” My voice sounds weak next to Parnum's, shaky and thin, but I phrased that damned carefully. She might be better off gone from this place.

  Whose side am I on?

  Aakesh moves. He sweeps next to Parnum with such suddenness that Parnum startles, and holds out his ebony hands. “Give her to me.”

  Parnum still wears his fury, emphasized by the lock of hair that falls down to cover his brown right eye. But he hands her over.

  Aakesh cradles her, mottled red against smooth black, and his hair moves on its own. Something tickles through my nerve endings, a weird static-breeze that I feel because of the time I've spent in his head.

  Quimby shifts once. She makes a tiny little squeak, looks at Aakesh with her odd slit-eyes, and reaches up one stubby, pointed arm. Aakesh holds the tip in his hand, his orange irises locked on hers.

  She goes still again. Her eyes are white. She's gone.

  “I am sorry.” Aakesh isn't saying that to us. Just to her. “She was too used.”

  Parnum is quiet. His mouth twists a little, like he can't decide between anger and grief. “I see.” He takes her back, stands. “A moment, please.” He carries Quimby's body into the other room.

  Aakesh stays there, on his knees. His hair's settled down.

  I rub my arms. “Was that helping her?”

  He nods.

  “Could you really not save her?”

  He doesn't answer. That's probably good, because Parnum comes back and collapses on the sofa, weary. “I'm sorry, Harry. It must not be easy for you to see me vulnerable.”

  I don't have a reply, so I sit next to him, silent.

  Aakesh stays on the floor, looking at nothing. I think he's grieving. Gorish isn't capering, either—he crouches with his hands over his face, not even brave enough to peek out. Bakura's the only one who seems fine. He scrapes the wok, tosses a mix of vegetables and rice into bowls, and brings those over to us. His tongue flickers.

  “Thank you, Bakura,” Parnum
says quietly, and takes them. “Eat, Harry.”

  “I really don't want to.”

  “Nevertheless, you must. You must stay strong. Regardless of what you choose, you are among those humans I think of when I fight so hard to protect our species. You must stay strong.” He puts his hands over mine on the bowl.

  I can't taste a bite of it as it goes down, but I eat the whole thing.

  ● ●

  ● CHAPTER 27 ●

  Saying Goodbye

  He lets me go after.

  Parnum says he won't leave Cape Horn until I make up my mind, however long that takes, because we can never know what comes next and he wants the chance to say goodbye. I can't say anything at all because no words feel genuine to me anymore.

  I have to make my choice.

  I walk through the city, past the docks and bars, past various living quarters. Past the low-tier Sundered market, where it sounds like they're having a party, whooping, laughing, drinking. I hope they all die.

  Aakesh and Gorish follow me in silence.

  I can't believe Quimby's dead. I don't think Parnum meant for that to happen. Aakesh could've stopped it—maybe. Was letting her die helping her? This was one of his own people. How is death better than being set free? And as for Bakura ... ugh. I don't know what to make of that freak anymore, or his stupid tongue. No celery for me ever again. I'll starve first.

  I guess it's inevitable that I find myself back at the smokestack. After all, it's the heart of the city. A good climb could clear my head.

  By the time I reach the high balcony, sweaty and panting, I'm a lot more calm. It's close to midnight. I don't even mind the soot—the gritty feel is sort of anchoring. I lean on the railing and look down.

  Aakesh stands beside me, his hip against the rail, so dark he makes the soot-covered metal look like burnt silver. “You did well.”

  Sure I did. Bitterness makes my laugh jagged. “Yeah, I drowned like a pro.” I have to decide if his whole race lives or dies. How can I do that?

  “Parnum is a dangerous man,” Aakesh says simply. “If this were a fairy tale, a story to frighten children, I would call him a worthy adversary, but it is not, and I will not grant him the compliment. He is exceedingly motivated, startlingly observant, and a remarkable manipulator. You did far better with him than I thought you would.”