The Society of Two Houses (Dissolution Cycle)

by William C. Tracy

  Inside the study, I closed the door, frowned at Speaker Thurapo’s body, and scanned the room. The desk was the only other place to look, and the fading music pointed in that direction, though it was nearly inaudible.

  The Speaker brought the paper from his desk. Why? To give to the killer?

  I positioned myself where Speaker Thurapo would have sat, though my legs dangled as if I were a toddler, and spread one hand across the writing mat on the desk. It was leather, dyed green, with filigree around the edges. The Symphony of Healing held a last leitmotif woven through the writing mat, swirls of notes corresponding to the swirls of writing. The source of the paper’s trail was here, maybe copied from another place. I only had a few more moments before it faded completely.

  I closed my eyes, tracing the most recent indentations in the mat with a finger as I followed the music along a measure. I could almost make out what was written. It was a list of some sort, with names and…titles? Translating notes of the Symphony into writing was not something I had done before, and I hoped the tactile input from my finger would help me decipher the script.

  My eyes flew open and the Symphony left me in a crash of noise. I was tracing my own name.

  My finger continued its path, unaided now by the music in the back of my head. It would be even harder to catch hold of that particular sequence of notes before it disappeared. The Symphony did not like maji fiddling with it overly much.

  Mandamon Feldo – Investigator

  Why would this contain the name the Society used for my combination of houses? Only a member should know of them. I traced the next line, now more familiar with the indentations.

  Tethan – Overwhelm

  The name was vaguely familiar—another member who worked in chemistry, I believed—and I felt farther down.

  Timpomitnob Gompt, Watcher – Archeologist

  It was the name of my friend and colleague, working on the System Beast project. The little prototype was modeled after her. That meant the next line was probably…

  Kratithakanipouliteka – Engineer

  Yes, Kratitha, our project team’s third member. It was conceivable the Speaker had all our names, likely even, as I had been scheduled to speak with him. But why and how were our Society titles included? What had this Tethan to do with it? The list went on.

  Plithin A’Tyf – Psychiatrist

  I knew him socially, a boorish Lobath.

  There was one more indentation I could make out, below Plithin’s name.

  Moortlin – Biologist

  No, this was no list of appointments. This was a list of the members of the Society of Two Houses with our internal titles, which no one outside our group should have. My heart sped at the implication. The Speaker is not a majus, thus not a member of the Society. How did he get this? Someone else knows, but what do they know?

  I knew exactly who I needed to see.

  Moortlin wouldn’t like this. The Benish was paranoid about anything hinting at the Society’s existence. Could I get proof for them?

  I ran a hand over the desk drawers to search for paper to make a copy of the names, but a sustained tone rang in the back of my mind, and I held my chronograph to eye level. My time was up.

  I sprang from behind the desk, grabbing my prototype model and then the extra chair as I went. The Symphony of Potential’s beat grew louder as I dragged the legs across the rug beside Thurapo’s corpse, creating friction. I flung open the door, stepping out into the surprised secretary’s path, and left the chair teetering behind me, grabbing notes from my being and sliding them between measures in the music. I redirected the energy of friction and the movement of the falling chair into slightly different rhythms.

  The door banged shut behind me, covering the noise the chair made as it reversed direction and hit the handle. “Just in time.” I smiled at the secretary. “Thank you so much for coming to get me. The Speaker asked not to be disturbed for a few minutes, to write up a report.”

  I listened as I babbled, hearing the syncopation of the beat as the chair fell slowly, then stopped, fell up, and wedged under the door handle. That should keep prying eyes away for a short time.

  “That is no problem at all,” the secretary said. She flashed me a wide smile—she seemed more composed than she had been before, and I attempted to stretch my face into the same expression. “I was going to pop out for some tea anyway, to wake me up.” She matched pace with me as we walked down the hall, away from the bloody mess in that room. My mind raced in the silence.

  Just leave it alone. It’s to your advantage. But no, I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question.

  “I…thought he had another appointment?” The secretary had checked his schedule.

  “Oh…no.” The Etanela’s face creased in confusion for a moment, then cleared. “The Speaker is very busy, but it’s not all meetings, naturally.”

  “I see,” I said, trying to keep the anxiety from my face. We reached a branch in the corridor, and I listened for any hint of the musical trail I was seeking. It was gone, the music erased by new actions. “Well, enjoy your tea.”

  The secretary nodded and turned in the other direction. I picked up my pace. I would surely be implicated in this murder, once someone found the body. With the Society involved, I could not go to the Imperium guard. Fortunately, the Society had a lot of practice cleaning up embarrassing messes. Was it possible to fix this before the secretary returned from her tea?

  * * *

  The Spire of the Maji was a good few minutes’ walk from the Dome of the Assembly, but my feet ate up the cobbles. I barely looked at the people I passed. Any of them could be the killer, and I had to work quickly. I was used to the alleys of the Imperium, the largest city and capital of the Nether, even if I didn’t live here.

  I circled one of the immense crystal columns—reaching higher than I could see—that dotted the enclosed, planet-sized interior of the Nether. This was the central hub for the ten species of the Great Assembly, rather than a homeworld, which meant there was a lot of traffic, with representation from every species. It also meant my list of suspects could have been quite long. However, it was reduced to those who knew about the Society of Two Houses—a very small number.

  Inside the Spire, I passed the chamber of the Council of the Maji. The Council wasn’t in session at this hour of the morning, but the one member who knew about the Society was nearby. I found Moortlin in their lab three levels higher in the Spire.

  “Mandamon, hm, come in. None have followed this one, yes?” I shook my head at the question my mentor had asked every time I visited them in the Imperium over the last two cycles. Moortlin’s paranoia was as healthy as ever.

  Councilor Moortlin stepped away from their current project—a hybrid species of sticky trap tulip, meant to reduce the scritling population in the lower levels of the Spire. They were getting into the flour stores. “Then what is this one’s, hm, question?”

  The Benish was old, though how old they’d never shared. All I could do was compare with the others of their species I had seen. Moortlin’s rough skin was no longer continuous, but peeling in fine strips, lighter patches showing beneath the walnut-colored exterior. Their unblinking yellow eyes stared into me.

  “I have some unsettling news,” I said, though my shaking hands and the sweat running into my beard showed that was an understatement. Not all of it was from my pace getting here, and I took a moment to straighten my suit. I had worn my best one to see Speaker Thurapo.

  “The request for an audience with the Assembly? This one did not get a, hm, time to present?”

  I paused. My presentation was such a small part of this. The Society might be able to arrange another speaker to sponsor the System Beast project, but this murder had to be tied up in a neat knot before then.

  “That isn’t it,” I said, “but no, I could not schedule an audience.”

  Moortlin cocked their bald head with a creak like a teak tree shifting in
the wind.

  “Speaker Thurapo is dead.” I let out the revelation in a breath, but then held up both hands, warding off my mentor’s questions. “That is still not the extent of things. I did a little…Investigation.”

  Moortlin’s pupil-less eyes flashed at my phrasing—a sign of concern in Benish.

  “The Speaker had a list of Society members’ names—potentially all of them,” I said. “I think whoever killed him took it.”

  Moortlin crossed to the door of his lab—quickly for one of their species, which meant an odd straight-legged gait, sounding like someone snapping kindling into pieces. They closed it with a click.

  “Killed then not, hm, died? And how does this one know what was on the list if it was not there?”

  “The…incident must have happened moments before I arrived,” I said. “There was still fading music in the Symphonies of Healing and Potential directing me to where the list had been. I found indentations on the Speaker’s writing pad.” I pressed a shaking hand to my pants leg to still it.

  “This one came here first, yes?” Moortlin questioned. “Not to the, hm, Effature’s guard?”

  “Of course.” I was slightly offended my mentor didn’t trust me to keep our organization secret, and tried to remember they had seen many more cycles than I had. “I couldn’t have said much with the geas, could I? I knew you would want to know first.” My mentor’s paranoia when dealing with the Society knew no bounds—warranted, in this case. I had absorbed some of those fears in the last half cycle I had been a member.

  “It is good this one did not,” Moortlin said. “Not even the Effature could prevent, hm, retribution against Society members if certain actions were discovered. There are…costs to how the Society brings new opportunities and conveniences to the public.” They shook their head to another chorus of creaks and cracks, and I felt more justified in not going to the authorities.

  “The Great Assembly must be protected from, hm, dangers it does not realize. That task falls to the Society.” Moortlin’s eyes held me. “What of the body?”

  That was the more immediate problem. “I barred the door to the room, but I don’t know how long it will hold,” I replied. “Speaker Thurapo’s secretary was going out, but will break into the room eventually, and call the Imperium guard.” The energy I put into the chair would keep it snug to the door for several minutes—maybe up to a full lightening. “We need to clean up the body.”

  “One will manage that task soon,” Moortlin assured me. “The Speaker will be discovered to have had a natural, if sudden, hm, death. After this one left.”

  What then? A speaker of the Great Assembly was still dead, and there were only sixty-six speakers among billions of inhabitants of the ten homeworlds. It would cause an upset, though the Assembly had procedures to replace a speaker who suffered a sudden death.

  But procedures would not extend my time available to find the killer. Moortlin was on the Council of the Maji and also the head of the Society of Two Houses, but even they had only so much power to impede an official investigation if foul play was suspected.

  “Could the names this one found be, hm, coincidence?” Moortlin asked.

  “No.” I wished they could be, but five, or more, names were a pattern. “Our Society titles were listed as well. Whoever wrote the list knew details about us, or copied them from another source. Someone has gotten around the geas.”

  I had only been in the Society for a short time, though long enough to see why our methods had to be kept secret. Many would condemn how we achieved such a rapid pace of innovation. During my six months in the Society, albeit with some diligent searching, I learned of those experiments involving sentient beings—voluntary and not, and others that included stolen and sensitive materials. Moortlin did not give out information easily, and the geas kept us safe. If someone got around its security, half our protection was gone.

  “Then the Speaker’s killer knows of this group,” Moortlin said. “If word gets to the rest of the Council and the Assembly, the Society’s days will be, hm, numbered. One will not allow this. Aegrino will be the best choice for these ones to talk to. The Society’s record keeper will arrange things.”

  Moortlin took a key from a pocket in their loose vest. Benish rarely wore pants, as they were much more resistant to cold than the other species, and had no genitals to hide away.

  They locked their door and creaked back to the middle of the room. “Stand back. These ones will go there directly.”

  “By portal?” I asked, surprised. The nearest portal ground—the one I used for my usual commute—was outside the Spire, not more than a few minutes’ walk. Making a portal outside designated grounds was illegal, for reasons of safety, and even the Society mostly followed that rule, save for transfer of materials that might generate too much notice.

  “These ones do not need more, hm, eyes making connections, especially so soon after Thurapo’s murder. This one knows the Spire portal ground activity is recorded.” I looked down. I should have remembered that, but the events of the morning had rattled me more than I thought. “All travel can be reported to the Council. Even though one is Head of Healing, one can, hm, only divert so much.”

  An oval of blackness rotated into being in the center of Moortlin’s study, ringed by green and white—the colors of the Benish’s two houses. I heard the music of the House of Healing changing, since I shared that house with my mentor. The melody of their lab in the Spire—tranquil phrases looping in repetitive chords like a chiming clock—mixed with the familiar melody of the mansion in Poler, all the way on the opposite corner of the Nether. The music there was in another key, slower tempo, and lower pitched, but the two phrases melded together as the portal formed.

  Moortlin gestured for me to step into the blackness. They would be last through the portal, as it would close when they reached the other side.

  As I exited the portal, the musk of Moortlin’s study in the Society of Two Houses made me wrinkle my nose. I could see flakes of their skin dusting the floor around the place where the Benish usually stood behind their desk. Their species was not well-equipped to sit.

  Moortlin followed my gaze as they exited and the portal closed in a splash of white and green. “It is nearly time for one to return to one’s homeworld of Aben and bud. This life has been long, and one has, hm, seen much. Perhaps this breach of the Society is a sign.”

  I frowned at my mentor. “Don’t say that,” I said. I had worked under Moortlin for a little over two cycles, ever since my original mentor in the House of Potential passed away. Majus Abarham Garhuk had led me through apprenticeship, though I had been close to him since I was a child. I let the usual tug of emotion wash through me at the memory, and my right hand rose to finger the scar around my right eye. I had almost lost it in the accident. But now was not the time to wallow in Abarham’s death—even if it had caused me to become a member of the Society.

  My breathing came easier with the great distance from the Imperium, and the murder, but the incessant beat of the chronograph in my vest pocket urged me to action. “How can Aegrino help us with the body?” Clearly, the Society’s record keeper held a lot of information, but I hadn’t known he also cleaned up the Society’s messes.

  Moortlin’s yellow eyes flashed again, deep emotion from the Benish, then they turned for the door, which was closed and locked. They were not one to let others see what they did not wish revealed.

  “Aegrino will likely be in the library. These ones must let the record keeper know of the breach, and the Speaker’s, hm, death, of course,” Moortlin said. I felt that was second in their thoughts, only relevant by the threat to the Society. I followed them down the carpeted hall, doors lining the walls.

  Hallways branched off at intervals in the sprawling structure. The Society of Two Houses was a mansion in Poler, the city on the opposite side of the Nether from its capital, the Imperium—where the Effature, the Council, and the Great Assembly were all based. With
out a portal made by a majus, it would take a very long time to traverse the distance between the two.

  We passed members of the Society along the way, some familiar, and some not. Even though the murder pressed me onwards, I slowed and stared at a strange being strolling by. I knew the individual must be a Lobhl, though I had not seen one of their species until now. They had only joined the Great Assembly a cycle ago.

  My eyes naturally fell away from the Lobhl’s face and down to their hands, which were extravagantly tattooed, with five fingers and two thumbs each. They gave me a quick twirl of their fingers in greeting and I waved back.

  “Touching Digits is our newest member,” Moortlin said. They must have heard the hesitation in my step. “One gave that one the geas not three days ago.”

  Down two more hallways and another three turns was the library, the repository of information the Society collected over the cycles and deemed too revealing to give to the larger maji community. It was put to better use furthering the Society’s contributions to the Great Assembly.

  Aegrino was the current record keeper, and the Etanela had been at the job for over twenty cycles, so I was told. There were still many secrets in this place, as Moortlin had only decided I could be trusted with the Society’s existence after a cycle-and-a-half training under them.

  Majus Aegrino Plumera Lunigi met us a few steps into the library. Aegrino was tall, even for an Etanela, reaching nearly half again my height, and I couldn’t help but make comparisons to Speaker Thurapo. They might have been of an age, though Majus Aegrino had a mane of golden hair tied back in a severe bun, revealing the thin blueish planes of his face. His eyes were bright and large as his hands waved in the air. Something tugged at my thoughts, but his next words blew the feeling away like a cloud on a windy day.