He met Enos at the arch with the dead flowers above it. It was a walk of maybe a city block, at a halting pace, but he had done it by himself—no one else helping. The edges of his mouth pulled up.
Enos looked startled as they rounded opposite corners and came face to face. “You are up,” she said.
It was the defining struggle of his life summed in three words. So simple. His smile faded.
“What did you find?” He tried to keep frustration from his voice. Enos couldn’t know what he went through. She hadn’t asked, either.
“Come see,” she said, and he followed.
On the main street, Sam walked close to Enos. Yes, he had moved through the strange city on his own, but that didn’t mean all of his anxiety was gone. He took her hand, and Enos knitted her fingers through his.
“Are you well?” She was watching him.
“Better.” Sam tried out a shaky smile again. “I had a little breakthrough, while you were away.”
Enos raised her eyebrows in invitation, but she didn’t press, and Sam had no idea how to express his contemplation of the Symphony, especially to one of another house.
“If you can, take a look.” She lifted her free hand.
Sam hadn’t raised his eyes past Enos’ face, and she was shorter than him. Try looking up. She’s there to help. You can do this.
The Drain was gone from the sky, and streets previously in shade were now in full sun. It had vanished like the one in ChinRan, but the devastation here was far worse, as if a giant had taken a melon baller to the city, scalloping out buildings. At its fullest, the Drain had touched down only a few blocks farther on, making a spherical depression in the foundation of the city. It must have disappeared minutes after they passed out.
“I wonder if the others are alright,” he said.
“We cannot know,” Enos answered. “We could try looking. I wanted to, but I told you I would come back.”
“Thanks,” Sam mumbled. His legs were jelly. She came back—she can’t think I’m worthless, can she?
“I wonder where it went.” Enos was looking up, but Sam kept his head down. He had seen enough.
“Did the Drain in ChinRan do the same thing?” he asked.
Enos shook her head. “My brother made his portal before—” She blinked rapidly. “Before it was finished.” Then she turned to him, brows drawn in tightly. “Could you make a portal?”
Can I? I have before. He had no idea how. It had been an instinct, a flight mechanism. “Majus Cyrysi never got that far. I can barely make simple changes with my notes. Portals seem even more complicated.” So why can all maji make them? He would have to ask when they got back. “What about you?”
She wilted slightly, before recovering. “No. The councilor has not taught me either.” Now Enos’ back was straight, chin up, as if she was receiving important guests, and hadn’t been knocked unconscious in an alley.
“What were they waiting for?” Sam said, frustrated. “Portals should be the first thing we’re taught.” He shook his head. Getting angry won’t help. “I don’t think anyone else is in the city. Where do we go?”
Enos looked down the street. The buildings had been eaten away to below street level. Sam looked where she did. They walked nearer the worst of the devastation, by unspoken agreement. “Down here?” she suggested. She squeezed his hand.
“Maybe there’s some clue where it started,” Sam said. “We were taking samples, after all. Maybe there’s something left. We never got all the way to the center. We’ve got to get back to Inas and the others.”
Enos squeezed his hand again, then Sam realized she was pulling him to her, crossing the small space between him. Her face was close, dark eyes looking into his. Then her lips were on his.
Sam’s eyes went wide, his heartbeat spiked, and the Symphony bloomed in his mind. Oh! He relaxed into the feeling, closing his eyes.
After a moment, Enos pulled away and Sam stared, at her eyes, her lips. “What—”
“Thank you,” she said, “for being so good to me and Inas. For helping us. For saving me.”
Helping you? Sam almost laughed, but that would have spoiled everything. “I…I’m really glad I found you two.” Now he did laugh, a snort of disbelief. “I wonder what Rey’s doing?”
They started walking again, Enos swinging his hand. “Probably sleeping in, or getting into trouble. The usual. When we get back, we’ll finally have our own stories to tell instead of those far-fetched things he’s always spouting.”
Sam bumped her shoulder, just for the contact. She kissed me. He waited for the fear to rise up again, but it didn’t, even as he watched the buildings on either side of the street, carved down to sloping ruins. “I thought some of them sounded too incredible, even for the Nether.”
Soon they passed where he and Majus Cyrysi had collected samples from the Drain. They were only a block away from the epicenter. If they hadn’t left, it would have consumed them. Sam shivered, not because of the lingering chill.
Something caught his eye in the middle of the dead street, and he released Enos’ hand. Near a drift of fallen, blackened leaves was a small pile of metal containers and plates—Professor Riteno’s equipment. He gathered it up reflexively, then stood there, looking around for a place to put it. He could try to stuff it in the many pockets in his now dirty vest, but they weren’t big enough, and he would end up looking ridiculous.
Enos shook her head. “Leave it. We can tell them where it is if the professor needs them back.”
She was right. I can’t hold her hand, either, if I’m holding this stuff. He set the pile down carefully, plates stacked in order of size, jars and beakers on top. A little cairn, for Dalhni.
The last block of buildings was trimmed from head height, sloping down to ground level, then below. The Drain had started above a building, but now there was only a shallow crater in the packed dirt of the street. Enos dragged him over to a piece of iron buried in the dirt at the edge of the crater.
“What is it?” he asked. Enos didn’t answer, and he leaned over her shoulder to get a better look, taking in her warmth, her smell, as he did. The silken shirt she wore had been a rich burgundy when they started, but between the ride back to ChinRan, the trip to Dalhni, and running from the Drain, it was stained with dirt and creased from being frozen and thawed.
She pulled the iron free and laid it on the ground. It was a piece of metal carved to resemble a dog’s leg. Sam tilted his head at it. “What is that?” I’m repeating myself.
“I do not know.” Enos stood and he followed. She looked up at him. “Though it tells us one thing.”
He made a face. “Which is?” Doesn’t tell me anything. He took in her face. A smudge of dirt spread from her temple to her cheek, and he gently brushed the dirt away. He couldn’t get it all off, and Enos shook him away, then brushed her hair back over her ears.
“The Drains are not natural.”
Sam stared, then realized his hand still hovered in the air. I look like an idiot. He let it drop. “How can you possibly know?”
Enos lifted her chin even higher. Any higher and she’d be looking up into the sky. “My family members were traders.”
“I remember,” Sam said. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Enos turned away slightly, pointing to the leg. “This is not something made by Methiemum hands. My guess is Lobath or maybe Festuour. Methiemum do not use such fine detailing.” She pointed out deep crevices in the dog’s foot, indentations between the toes. “See those? They are too impatient for such meticulous craft.”
Sam raised his eyebrows. They? Well, if Enos’ family had been merchants, she was probably used to clumping species together.
He thought about all the clothes and decorations he had seen here, whether in the Nether or on Methiem. They were incredibly detailed, more than anything he could buy on Earth.
“Someone could have bought it,” he countered.
Enos shook her head. “This town is poor. People here buy little from outside Dalhni, much less from off Methiem. Our caravan never came here. It wasn’t worth the travel fees. See how new it is?” she ran hands down the leg. “In the normal humidity of Dalhni, this would have rusted in a ten-day or so. It must be part of something larger, so why is this at the center of the Drain, when nothing else survived?”
Sam let out a breath and looked at the raw dirt around the depression. There was nothing else but dirt. The leg seemed like something left at the last minute. “I see. You think this might have had to do with the Drain? Could we prove it?” If we can even figure out how to get back to the Nether.
“This, it is not enough to prove anything,” said a sibilant voice behind them. Sam spun, feeling Enos do the same. He grasped at her arm, panic rising. The voice belonged to a figure almost as short as Enos. They were dressed all in black—pants, loose shirt, a cowl covering their face, even down to a pair of black gloves covering their hands.
“You’re a majus,” Enos said. Sam stared at her. “She understood us,” she told him in a low voice, and Sam grunted in realization. This person certainly couldn’t understand English away from the Nether, unless she was a majus.
“Who are you?” Sam said. She was standing not ten feet behind where they had been examining the metal leg. Sam had seen the black-clothed species before, but didn’t remember the name offhand to match to it.
“Me, I am a majus, as you say,” the figure confirmed. “We are looking for survivors of this catastrophe.” She spread her arms wide, taking in the ruined city.
Enos’ grip on his hand tightened, and he frowned at her. Scared? Why? We’re saved.
“You will take us back to the Nether, then?” Enos asked.
Why would they not?
“I, and my search party, we will take you to safety,” the figure said. “I am Dunarn.” The Nether wasn’t here to help with the subtle body language, and the black clothes hid everything. Sam realized how much he had depended on the intrusion of the Nether in his head.
Dunarn turned and gestured sharply. Two more black-robed figures stepped out from behind a sloping building down the street and approached. The majus gestured to one of them.
“Gaotha, take these two with you. We will all leave here together.”
Sam moved forward, to the Nether, to safety, but Enos’ held him back. “I do not like this.”
“They’ve come to help, haven’t they?” Is it normal for maji to pop up right where they’re needed? They can use portals, after all.
Enos only shook her head. Her eyes were wide, and Sam felt puffs of her breath on his arm. She was exhaling heavily, and he wanted to comfort her, but what was there to fear?
“Come on,” he said, and pulled her with him. She came, but grudgingly. She was going to leave marks in his arm. Now I’m the one going toward new things. His heart raced, but it was as much pride as terror.
“You two, you will come with Gaotha,” one of the two figures repeated, in a much lower and gruffer voice. Sam was fairly sure Gaotha was male, where Dunarn was female.
Gaotha reached out a hand, but jerked it back as they got closer, as if unwilling to touch them. He and the unnamed other turned back down the ruined street. Sam started to follow, but Enos poked him.
“What—” He started then followed her gaze. Dunarn was watching them go from under her cowl, standing near the destroyed building. The metal leg was gone. He looked back to Enos, slowly figuring out what she meant. Someone looking for survivors wouldn’t pick up random trash. Even if they did, they wouldn’t hide it.
Sam dug for his watch. Enos’ fingernails were biting into his skin, and he let them. Dunarn knew what the metal leg was.
“Sam,” Enos whispered.
“I know. I figured this one out.” He tried to watch Dunarn out of the corner of his eye. She hadn’t moved. Sam looked ahead to Gaotha, a few steps ahead.
“Gaotha, wait for one moment please,” he said. We can sort this out now. He was panting. If I don’t faint.
Both figures in front turned. “You two, you will come with us,” Gaotha repeated.
“He cannot understand us,” Enos said. “He is not a majus.”
“Do you know their language?” he whispered. She shook her head violently.
The guards had stopped. Gaotha took a step forward. “You come with us,” he said. He took another step.
“I don’t think so,” Sam said, and took a step back, Enos with him. Hide. Get away. Open a portal! The panic filled him and he reached for the Symphony, but it pulled away, chords fading into the silent air.
“We will take you to safety,” Dunarn said behind them. Sam jumped and turned. The majus had come up quickly. Enos hissed out a breath, and stepped away from Sam, her body suddenly lighting with a white aura.
“No, thank you,” she said.
Dunarn ignored the aura Sam knew she could see, stepped closer. “This, I think is the best course for you. You should come with us.”
Breathe. Relax. He heard a few measures of the Symphony before it faded again.
“Do not come closer,” Enos warned. The aura concentrated on her right hand, and she raised it toward the majus. What has Councilor Ayama taught her?
Dunarn reached out with a gloved hand, glowing with emerald green and specks of burgundy.
“Don’t—” Enos broke off as Dunarn grabbed her arm. The white warred against the green, until a spike from the House of Strength drove Enos’ color back, and he heard her gasp.
“Now, now, apprentice,” Dunarn warned. “Using your song against a full majus, it is not a wise thing to do.”
A hand fell on his shoulder and he tried to twist away, but it held like a vise. Should have been doing something. He snatched at the Symphony but the notes slipped out of his grasp. He turned to confront Gaotha, but there was a sharp pain in the back of his head, and his eyes rolled back.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
An Unexpected Prisoner
-So little is known of the Aridori’s abilities that a thousand cycles after the last one was seen, people still ascribe new stories and powers to them. Examples include telepathy, moving through shadows, impersonating leaders, and disrupting transportation between the homeworlds. There is, of course, no evidence for any of this.
Excerpt from “A Dissertation on the Ten Species, Book XII”
Origon checked on Rilan several times the next morning, but she hadn’t gotten out of bed. Each time, she told him to go away, in a small, sad voice, like nothing he had heard from her before. He strained for some way to help.
It was nearly lunchtime when he knocked once more on the door to her room—Sam’s room.
“Go away.” The growl was still quiet, but this time it had a little of Rilan’s usual force behind it.
Coaxing was not working, and he tried a different tack. “We must be going back to find the apprentices.” Rilan’s sense of duty had dragged her through much over the cycles. It might get her through this.
“They’re lost. Dead,” Rilan said through the door. She sounded dead too, and Origon’s crest spiked in shock. This was not like her. He had never seen her so helpless.
“We will not be knowing until we look.” There was still a chance.
There was a heavy thump, and slow footsteps. The door creaked open enough for Origon to see one bloodshot eye.
“I’m through, Ori,” she said. “I have no power to make these choices any longer. The Council and the Effature made sure of that.”
Origon snorted. “When has their opinion ever meant anything to you?” Rilan was strong enough to have been Speaker for the Council, instead of Jhina, if its members hadn’t been arrayed against her.
Rilan’s eye considered him a moment. “The other councilors, yes. I can do without those blowhards.” The one eye squeezed shut. “But the Effature, Ori. He was there. He has never shown such disapproval. He thinks my tenure on the Council was a mi
stake.”
Origon almost spit out the first thing on his tongue, stopped. Then he cocked his head. Why not say it? It was true, or at least he had always believed it, and an angry Rilan was a Rilan in motion.
“Maybe it was.”
The eye indeed grew angry. Ah. She was still in there. He could get her moving again, get her out of the self-loathing she was trapped in.
“You are knowing my original opinion on your nomination.”
“You said I wasn’t ready.”
“I am proved correct.”
“For eleven cycles I have been on the Council, Ori.” The door opened more and Origon kept his crest neutral. “Some maji say I’m the best councilor for the House of Healing in two hundred cycles. I’ve proven again and again I know what I’m doing.” The door opened farther and Rilan took a step toward him. Origon suppressed a toothy smile and took a small step back.
“Were you simply proving yourself, the entire time?” he asked.
Rilan growled, stalking toward him, and Origon wondered if he might have gone a little too far. He backed up. He was trying to get Rilan moving, not make her eat him.
“You have done good work, I agree,” he said, serious now. “It is time to continue it. We are maji, Rilan. Yes, maji.” He brushed away her grimace’s meaning with one hand. “The councilors have no more power in the Grand Symphony than we do, and we are having so much more than those who cannot hear it. We are bound to use it. This is why I am spending so little time in the Nether.” He flicked an angry finger at the walls of his apartment, letting his crest bristle. He had spent too much time here already. More than about three ten-days and he got itchy. “The maji here huddle in their own little worlds, thinking they can make a difference by telling others what to do.”
“The Council isn’t the only reason—”
“Your father.” He didn’t try to soften the words, and Rilan’s face crumpled as he said it.
“He’s gone.”
Origon had lost his own parents before he met Rilan. She had helped him through the loss of his brother, and he remembered the numbness when they viewed the body. Had it really been so long? Almost twenty cycles. They had both been so much younger.
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