The Sundered: Chapter One

The world I know is flooded.

The water’s black. You don’t go in the water. You don’t touch it. If you do, it will get you, drag you down, and you’re gone. You’re only safe from the black water in boats or on land, at least if you’re a human. The Sundered can do anything they want in the water. Who knows why.

I believe the world wasn’t always that way – that once there was land that stretched forever, that there was no danger from the water – but that doesn’t set me apart. What sets me apart, makes me different, is I believe it can go back to that.

“Hey, Harry!” Toddy, one of my younger Travelers, is pointing at something. He straddles the black water, each boot on a different tuft, standing with the easy balance we all must learn or else we die. “There’s something over there!”

I hate tufts, knob-sized lumps of land sticking out of the water with limp grass like dirty hair. If there are a lot of them, we have to carry the boats. “Coming, Tod! Hold there!” I grab one of the smaller skin-skiffs and go hopping toward him, nodding at my Travelers who move to other tufts so there’s room for me to leap past.

I don’t really give a damn what Tod wants. Whatever he wants to show me, it’s not the Hope, not the reason I’m out here in this utterly screwed-up place, but I’m young, and I can fake interest.

The last space between us is water. I put the skiff in, untie the paddles, and skim right toward him.

“There are eyes,” Tod says, crouching now as I float near. “In the water. It’s a Sundered One, I’m sure of it.”

Sundered? Here? Weird. “We’re not near any cities or catching grounds. Think it’s unclaimed?” Like Toddy would know.

“Yeah. Yeah, he must be!” Tod’s whispering now, he’s so excited. “Can I claim him? If he’s unattached, I mean? Can I?”

“No.” Damn. I said it too sharply – there’s shock in his eyes, some hurt. “Not yet, Tod,” I add, making my voice gentle again. “You’re too young, and we don’t know what level he is. What if he overpowered you?”

Toddy nods, trying to be grown-up about this, but I’ve hurt him. That’ll take fixing later. I give myself points for not mentioning he flunked out of Sundered training.

I skim where he pointed.

Black water. Limp grass, always brown. Oh – he was right. Round eyes stare at me, bulging things in a head that looks freakishly orange.

This guy isn’t even close to high-tier. It realizes I’m staring at it seconds too late, and ducks back under the water as if it thinks it can hide.

Why is it out here? Sundered only run wild in the south of the world. Is it a spy? Some other scavenger’s pet?

There’s one way to find out. He’s so low-tier even Toddy might be able to handle him, but I already said no, and to go back on my word is to regress as a leader.

I half-close my eyes, focus my will, and grip that slick-slime mind under the water. The ugly incompleteness of him, like parts of his brain frozen alive but aren’t fully functional, or functional but not really there, tightens around me like already-made holes that don’t really fit but will fit because I make them. In those holes, in that ruined Sundered mind, I pull.

Pull with will and thought and purpose, like lifting a weakly struggling thing out of thick, sucking mud. The mind suddenly becomes easy to pull, easy to lift as raising my own head, and I know he’s mine. “Come up and let me see you.”

He hears the words. Sundered have different ears than we do. Any vibrations seem to get through. He obeys and clambers onto the tufts.

He looks like a frog. An orange frog-man, with bumps all over, with big googly eyes too far apart for a man’s but not wide enough for an animal’s. Definitely low-tier. Toddy gasps, my Travelers paddle closer to see, but I can’t look at them right now. I’m fitting my brain to this little guy’s. “Ugly, aren’t you?”

He sort of ducks twice, acknowledging what I said with a humility so low it’s self-hate, and I realize he’s actually got suction-cups on each fingertip and webs between his fingers to boot. Wow. Really low-level, then.

“What is your name, Sundered One?”

“Gorish,” he says.

I can hear Toddy telling the others how he spotted this one, so it’s sort of his even though it’s not. Five years ago, I would’ve found that endearing. Not anymore. Not after all this time. “Hello, Gorish. You know you’re mine now, right?”

“Oh, oh yes, master, sir,” he says, doing that ducking thing again and again and again.

An unclaimed Sundered in the middle of nowhere. This is really weird.

My mind goes in all the usual directions, all about the Hope. Am I wasting time here? What if he’s got something to do with the Hope? What if I missed a clue because I was bothering with him instead of watching?

Maybe there’s no Hope involved, and he just overpowered his former owner and got away.

Yeah, right. Not this little guy. He couldn’t overpower his way out of a wash bucket.

I can’t question him now, anyway. If his answers somehow diminish me in the eyes of my Travelers, I’m screwed. I can’t do this alone. If they choose not to follow me….

Gorish’s explanations will wait until we’re alone. “I need a place to make landfall, Gorish. You know anywhere around here like that?”

“Oooh, yes, yes, master!” the orange guy says, and he capers. In and out of the water, back up onto the tufts, showing off or – no, he’s just playing because it’s something he knows how to do.

This guy’s head is shattered. Whoever claimed him last was rougher on his mind than I am. “Lead the way, Gorish. It’s getting dark, and we have to set up camp by then.”

So Gorish does. Away from the tufts.

I say nothing as we paddle, my single-person skiff cutting through the black water. This wasn’t the direction I was going. This wasn’t even close. Gorish is leading us completely away.

I see land, or what could be called land. Islands sticking out of the water, nothing but bald mounds of mud. Sometimes there are even animals on them, cattle or something abandoned by merchants and mostly starved. What I’m looking for is a simple matter of size: what can handle twenty people and all their gear, their tents, and a fire? What’s big enough, sticking out of the water but without such a slope that sleeping people could roll down in the night and be gone forever?

Like all Sundered Ones, Gorish just knows where proper landfall is, like magic.

This one is almost flat, a rounded mass of mess rising from the water. I whirl my hook-and-rope over my head and send it hard into the mud, anchoring myself so I can pull my boat to shore. My boots make sucking noses. This is one messy landfall.

Nobody cares.

Messy is worth solid land, worth the relief of space between us and the water.

Tents and voices rise, our boats all lined up along the shore like silent guardians.

We’ll rest well tonight. We’re going to need it.

My Travelers set the fire, though we’re running low on kindling, and start cooking fish.

#

I’m more tired than I thought, but I shouldn’t be surprised. Claiming a Sundered One is never easy. “Demos.”

He stops and looks at me, his shaved head glinting with the barest hint of blond stubble. “Yeah?”

“Gorish can fetch the water for tonight.”

Demos looks relieved.

Gorish bounds around camp, scooping up water in the buckets we give him, splashing like crazy in the shallows. See, he can do that. Safely. We can’t.

Black water is dangerous when it’s part of the sea that covers our world, but separate it – in a cup, a bowl, a bucket – and suddenly it’s just water, safe to drink, safe to cook with, safe for bathing.

Nobody knows why.

Will the Hope have an answer? I was taught so. I want to believe so. The alternative is ignorance. Extinction. Doom.

Kaia cheers suddenly, catching my attention, and when I look over, I see her biting into an apple, crunching through the skin.

What? What? Whose idea was this? “Hey!”

Everybody freezes, guilty, eyes wide. Tomas has his hand in the apple bag. Caught.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demand.

“Heeeey. Haaaaarry,” says Tomas, drawing the words out as if to give himself extra time to come up with a crap excuse. “You want an apple?” He grins, challenging, daring me to argue. Distinct from his brother Demos in every way – shaggy hair, stupid arrogance.

Undermining me.

This is why my Travelers need a leader. They don’t know what they’re doing. “No. Put them back.”

Everybody groans, children denied candy.

“Tomas!” Authority in my tone, roughening it, sounding older than my twenty years. “Now! Put them back!”

And the idiot scowls like the biggest brat of all and hurls the bag at me.

I catch it – you learn to do that quickly here, or a lot of stuff goes into the water and is never seen again – but it’s heavy, bulky. I’m braced with one leg back and one leg forward, and I catch it without staggering.

I can’t believe he did that. Was he hoping I’d fall?

Be the leader, Harry. Stand up. Hold it out, open. “Rations must be conserved. We’re not in a known area, people. You had fruit this morning. Put them back, now.”

There’s a pause, a horrible, dreadful silence. Then my Travelers obey.

Some of them do it grumbling. Some of them with guilty smirks. But they obey.

I haven’t lost them. Not yet.

Tomas is still being stupid. “Come on, man. We haven’t made landfall in four days,” he mutters at me, covered in mud.

Sometimes I hate him.

All Travelers matter. They are all valuable to me, my backbone, my help. Father taught me this. But Tomas pushes the limits. “Put it back, Tomas.”

He does, throwing it in hard enough to bruise it. Nice.

“Wha’ ’bout ‘is one?” Kaia says, holding up her apple – she’s already eaten half of it. She licks her lips at me, thinking she’s being sexy. Um, no.

“Guess you have to finish it. But next time we open this bag, you don’t get one. You had your portion now.”

She laughs, like she doesn’t believe me.

Guess she’s in for a surprise.

Beside her, Sandra smirks.

Sandra knows I mean business. She never says much – pale, small, she doesn’t look like she’s big enough to have an opinion, but she knows me. I mean what I say.

Far be it from her to address Kaia to her face, but that’s all right. Not everybody can handle conflict.

I tie the bag up and put it back in the boats, and after a few minutes, things go back to normal. Tents are raised. Small stakes with string barriers are placed around the perimeter – just a small reminder not to wander too far at night.

I feel so weary now. “Hey. Gorish.”

My new little orange guy comes bouncing up to me, crouching over like a frog, misshapen. “Yes, master!”

“Are there any other people close by?”

“Oh, yes, sir!” He holds his hands out wide and spins in a circle, encompassing the world.

I forgot I’m talking to an idiot. “Close by human standards?”

“Oooh.” His eyes go all big. “No, sir. Not for days that way, or that way, or that way, or that way.”

North, South, East, West. Oh, yeah, this one’s a winner. Maybe he’s so dumb his old master didn’t want to keep him. Low-tier don’t live all that long, anyway. I better not over-use him, or there’ll be nothing left to sell. “All right. Relax. Rest. We won’t need you for a while.”

He stares at me in amazement, shock stretching his features.

Um. What?

“Harry.” Demos walks up with a pot, filled with ingredients for tonight’s dinner.

Yum. Boiled things. Ugh. “Yeah, good choices. Wait – take out a few of the carrots. According to the Sundered One, we’re a long way from any city. I don’t want to run out.”

Demos nods and does what I say without arguing.

And there’s the reason I haven’t kicked Tomas out. If I do, I might lose my right hand.

Right. Time to pull out my father’s map.

My father, grandfather, his father and his father before him all owned this, wrote on it, marked it. It lists known cities, predator-rife areas, places with tufts too numerous to paddle through. There’s no mark for how many weeks it takes to go from one city to another. That’s something you just have to learn as you go.

By my calculation, we have about eight days of food left and enough tinder for six, and we’re at least ten days from any city I know of.

Easy. Easy. Deep breath. We’ll be all right. We will.

Old, familiar fear settles in my belly, keeping me quiet, even as dinner is served. Fear that rushing to find civilization means I’ll miss the Hope. That the immediately need for survival will eclipse the long-term need for the Hope.

Calm down, Harry. You won’t miss it. You can’t.

Dinner is done. The sun is setting. The guys laugh, crouching nude around their bucket on one side of the fire, washing the sweat and travel-nastiness from their bodies. The ladies crouch on the other side, separated only by the flames.

Sometime in the past, we used to have showers and baths. We used to be able to swim – a terrifying concept.

I have to believe it can go back to that. Or I’m wasting my life out here, and there’s no hope for humanity at all.

#

I could stay up all night in a city. Always lit, always open, every shop and bar gives plenty to do. But here, in the dark, there’s nothing to stay up for besides the stars.

My Travelers sleep, clean and full of boiled food. I see them in the faint light of flickering fire, and beyond them, there’s nothing. Just black water, black sky, black night-sounds.

That sound, though, was all wrong.

I know this world and how it feels. I know the tiny, cruel lapping of water on the shore, and the sound of my travelers sleeping before tomorrow’s hike.

I also know the sound of Sundered feet landing on a nearby tuft.

It wasn’t Gorish. He’s sitting next to me, staring at his hands.

My heart beats faster. If it’s owned, then we’re dealing with possible pirates. If it’s not -

Two free ones in the same area? That never happens. If we claim it, we’ve got a gold mine. We could trade two Sundered Ones for food for a month.

The fire crackles. Thup-thup go Sundered feet on a nearby tuft. They leap like fleas, and they never miss coming down, not even the stupid ones. I lick my lips. “Gorish.”

Gorish looks up from the little suction cups on the ends of his fingers. “Yes, master?”

I feel my mind-fingers deep in his skull, filling those holes never meant for my thoughts. He won’t last long if I over-use him. “Is there another Sundered One out there?”

His gaze is steady. “Always, master.”

Yeah, not what I was asking, but okay. I speak even more quietly. “There’s one very close. Are there any people are with him?” That’s not specific enough. “Any humans? Is he claimed?”

“No, master! He is not!” Still crouched, he does a weird little shuffle, like he’s celebrating giving me the right answer.

So the new Sundered is free. I’m not letting this chance pass me by. “Can he see us?”

Gorish sort of sniffs. “Oh, yes, master. He’s quite close. He’s superior!”

“Wait. He’s high-tier?”

“Yes, master!”

Oh, hell. Third-tier, I can handle, and he’d be worth the risk. A hundred Gorishes wouldn’t fetch the kind of money a third-tier would, but if he’s second-tier, I’ll have a struggle on my hands. They’re violent, hard to claim. I’ll be out of my league. He’ll pull a reversal, kill me, and get away. Is it worth it? Is he worth the risk?

I’ll hate myself if I don’t try. “Which way is he, Gorish?”

“He’s – ” Gorish stops and blinks. Thup-thup sounds to my left, and Gorish points and whispers. “He’s looking at us, master.”

I bet he is. Well, little guy, your curiosity just cost you your freedom. I reach out with my mind and my will, trying to find that oddly incomplete sense of a Sundered One in the dark. Emptiness, heat, everything moist and muddy and alone –

I jolt, spasm, and everything goes black.

Gorish stops me from falling, catching my waist with his suction-cup hands, but my head is coming off, I swear my head is coming off, and if he lets go I’ll fall in the water but if I don’t let go of him I can’t hold on to this new huge mind.

And it’s huge, holes big enough to swallow and lose me, angles too sharp to touch without cutting, taste too foreign to fully know. First-tier? Has to be first-tier because he’s too different from third to be second, and I’m crying out, shouting, screaming, twisting in Gorish’s grip -

More shouts join mine, and more people grip me to pull me backwards because I am trying to hurl myself into the water to get closer to to that mind.

No, no, no, he’s made me insane – “NO!” Can’t hold them both! “Somebody claim him!” I scream and loose Gorish with a flick of my mental wrist, and he makes all of one hope on his own before someone else claims that bruised mind.

And this huge mind and I are wrestling, but now, without distraction, he’s mine.

I’m whole. He is not.

Gripping where there is no grip. Fighting where my will batters his, and he’s losing now, losing, and I’m flying up out of the dark as his empty spaces conform to me.

So suddenly, I’m back home in my skin, kneeling in the mud, dripping with sweat. It seems so much quieter, even though people are still shouting.

Don’t care.

Come to me, Sundered One.

Come.

To.

Me.

And he lands in front of me with grace like gravity doesn’t matter, with a shape so completely human that if he weren’t flawless ebony black and so eerily lovely I might think he was. Long straight hair, the same black as his skin, and irises of bright freaking orange. He wears a short white kilt slung low on his hips, though Sundered always go naked unless we force them clothed. “Lord.” His voice is young. Like mine. Barely into adulthood. Like a human servant, he kneels.

First-tier. I caught a first-tier. Ung – my head is so heavy it’s going to fall off my neck.

Gorish makes worried noises. My travelers are scared, startled, demanding answers. I can’t answer yet. I can’t take my eyes off him. I’ve bagged a first-tier Sundered. From now on, everything in my world is changed.