Below the Drain, a black portal gaped, horizontal. Color surrounded it, but not the yellow of Communication. It was subtly different, shining, and gold.
Sam poured notes into the portal, expanding the measures. His song was base rhythm, unadorned, but he would get most of his notes back afterward, if he lived. Have to make it bigger. Sam uncurled, shoved up on his hands and knees, skin freezing against the Nether floor. Don’t look down again. The edges of the giant portal slid past the extent of the Drain.
This was not enough. He had seen another shadow when he glimpsed the possibilities of cause and effect, a permanent change. He found another strain of music, this one high, almost sonic, and thrust more notes toward it, making a bridge to that other time—to the waves and the sand and the cold. Another color joined the gold, lighter metallic, like liquid silver. The music harmonized and the portal moved, spinning slowly upward, the black nothingness between here and there just touching the bottom of the Drain.
Sam gasped in air, though it froze his lungs. The Drain sucked at his song, eating notes, but he tugged them back, pouring them into the portal instead, feeling it slide up and around the malevolent sphere’s diameter. The bottom quarter of the pus-like blister vanished into the blackness. Just a little more. A little more.
No! The voice was outside his consciousness. Some other force pushed back, as if from within the center of the Drain. I will not let you do this.
The grasping fingers returned, tearing out memories of his parents. Sam forced notes into the music, urging it faster, allegro. He tried to fend away the fingers at the same time, but there was not enough concentration in the universe. The portal wavered, and the Symphonies began to separate. Sam had no idea what would happen if the portal were unwound while open and while the Drain passed through. He reached for more notes, but there was not much left to his song, and the Symphony resisted, like someone had trapped the bow of the universe against the strings of creation.
Sam let his thoughts slide away from the mental fingers in his mind. This was why the Drain had disappeared, on the beach. It went somewhere else, but there was only one other place he could send it. He dared not even think it fully. To send the Drain there was unthinkable, yet if he let it destroy the Assembly, he knew something much worse would be freed, something connected to the voice that commanded in his head. He had to send it away from the focus point of the Nether.
He let the memory spring fully-formed into existence. He had spent the last ten years there. The Symphony of Aunt Martha’s home appeared in his mind. He meshed it with the other two, and even as the opposing force swirled away the memory of the icy ocean in Alaska, Sam let the new memory take its place. This was no old recollection, buried at the back of his mind under layers of trauma. This was a memory he’d revisited every day since coming to the Nether.
Majus Cyrysi hadn’t been able to open a portal because the Drain changed the house. Sam didn’t connect this portal with the house in the present. He connected it to the past, like he had to his memory of his parent’s death. Mother, Father, Aunt Martha, forgive me.
Liquid silver swirled around the edge of the portal, and Sam felt another portion of his song taken. A portal through time was a permanent change. But he would win this fight against the foreign presence, because it had already happened. He had already sacrificed so much, before he even knew he was doing it. This Drain forced me from Earth. This Drain killed my parents. I will not let it win again.
No! Stop— The voice faded from his mind as the top of the Drain vanished through the portal. It was above his house, weeks ago, no longer connected to the network the Life Coalition had created between the ten homeworlds. Sam let go, and notes snapped back to him, almost as painful as the cold. There was a large hole in his song, and another in his mind.
I am responsible for my parent’s death. He couldn’t remember their faces anymore. For Aunt Martha’s. The thoughts drilled into him, and he curled again, fingers clutching to knees, shaking. I did it because I remember it happening. I experienced it, so I knew it was the right thing to do. But did I cause it? Was there another way?
The tears ran sideways down his face, rolling to the still frosty Nether floor. He listened, probed his mind, but the voice was gone, vanished with the Drain. Sam was certain the voice was connected, that the real aim of the Life Coalition had been to bring their god back to life. How could he tell that to anyone? To talk of some all-powerful mental presence would mark him as insane, even in this society.
His head knocked against the leg of a chair as he shook, and he welcomed the pain as a penance.
* * *
Rilan’s stomach clenched as she helped untie Vethis. He stood on his left foot, shrieked, and collapsed into their arms. The Life Coalition had cut off his toes, and two of his fingers. A desecration of form. She almost felt sorry, for an instant. Compare this to what is waiting in the Imperium. She pushed away visions of the void eating through High Imperium, bodies of the dead in the streets, just like Dalhni.
The other chambers were empty, and they half-carried Vethis along. He was free with information about each room, from one used for studies of the Grand Symphony, to an armory with dozens of black cloaks hung up on one wall, to a cafeteria, remains of the latest meal still in massive iron pots. The space wasn’t large enough to house the army that had attacked the Great Assembly. They must have funneled them through this cavern, with a second portal open to another hiding spot. Rilan clenched her fists.
“We have to go back,” Ori finally said. They had searched through the tunnels for more than a lightening. There was nothing to tell them where the Life Coalition maji had gone, and Vethis hadn’t been to another location. Caroom had stopped helping some time ago to tend their wounds. Green washed over their wide body, strengthening against their many cuts and injuries.
Reluctantly, Rilan agreed. “They’ve taken their records with them.”
“They’ve taken Inas, too. We cannot go, not yet,” Enos said. “We must find my brother.” She looked a mess, her shirt stained with dirt, and tears in her eyes.
“Believe me,” Rilan said, “I’m just as interested in removing him from the Life Coalition’s hands as you are, but we won’t find him here. Any portal is long closed. Our best bet is to reconvene with what’s left of the Council of the Maji and the Effature, let them in on your secret, and organize a search.”
Enos stared back, eyes wide. “You cannot,” she breathed.
Rilan stared her apprentice down. “You’ve proved you’re not a threat to us.” As far as I can tell, she didn’t say. “Prove your worth to them. At least three Aridori are alive, when we thought there were none. Who knows how many others exist? The leaders of the Great Assembly have to be told.” If she thought about that revelation for too long, she might just collapse here.
“We will not be letting you come to harm, but those in power must know,” Ori added.
“Those in power, like Councilor Vethis?” Enos asked, and Ori paused with his mouth open, crest fanning up. Rilan smoothed her braid back in place to give herself time to think of an answer.
“What about him?” Rilan jerked her head at Vethis, propped against a wall. “The little sneak will let everyone know as soon as he can.”
“It is worth a try,” Ori said. “Though we still are needing the locations of the Life Coalition’s other staging points.”
“If only to find my brother,” Enos said. She thrust her chin out. “He and I are the last of our family.”
That remains to be seen. “We will find him, but we won’t do it here.” Rilan looked around the room. “Are we ready?”
“I believe so,” Ori said. “I will be making a portal.”
“To the Spire portal ground,” Rilan told
him. She hoped it would be far enough away from the Great Assembly to avoid the aftermath of the void.
The portal appeared, ringed in orange and yellow, seemingly without resistance. Was the void finished expanding then? If so, they still had to give Vethis over to the Council. She hoped leaving Sam with the void had been the correct choice. He must have escaped in time—no one could be that foolish. I can’t have another lost apprentice on my hands.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
A Seed of Dissolution
-The Dissolution has come before, and it will—[text unreadable]—the beginning, and the end, and the end of the beginning. All things change before it, and—[burn mark]—still alive view creation in a new light. The Dissolution cannot be kept away, or hurried. This way lies only madness and—[parchment ripped]
Fragment of scraped parchment found preserved in the ruins of a structure underneath the Spire of the Maji. Dated at over twenty-three thousand cycles old (contested).
The hedges surrounding the Spire portal ground were untouched by the Drain. They rustled, healthy and green, in a breeze that brought scents of the Imperium. Origon hurried to the fence marking the boundary of the ground, the others following. There was no majus on duty, which in itself told of something amiss.
Origon peered between the Houses of Strength and Communication, toward where the massive walls of the Nether met. It was just after midday, when the walls were brightest. The dome was there, glinting in the light—no, there was something wrong with it.
“Are you seeing this?” he asked the air around him.
“I see it,” Enos said, coming abreast of him. “The Dome of the Great Assembly looks squashed somehow. It must be the Drain.” She held herself rigid, arms straight by her sides. “If Sam is gone then I will have lost my brother and…and a close friend in the same day.”
Origon looked down at the short young woman. He let his crest spread out in sympathy. “Your species is much less an issue now, is it not?” Strange how Enos being an Aridori was such a concern only a few days ago.
“What’s wrong with the Dome?” Rilan asked, on his other side.
Origon looked back to make sure the other two maji held on to Vethis. He need not have bothered. The Methiemum was as pale as a grub just dug from the earth. “We do not know. Shall we be going to investigate?”
“Are you volunteering?” Rilan asked.
Caroom took an unsteady step sideways. Origon wasn’t sure whether the Benish was holding Vethis up or using him for a crutch. “This one is, hmmm, very tired, and shall stay here with Hand Dancer to keep an eye on that one.” They tilted their head at Vethis with a creak. Origon tried to ignore the ache in his own bones. They had all been up for more than a day.
“Agreed,” Rilan said. “Come on, Ori. We need to find where Sam has gone.”
“These ones will take Councilor Vethis to, hmmm, the Spire, where maybe that one can help determine Inas’ location,” Caroom said. “In any case, that one will aid in ending the Life Coalition’s influence.” Their eyes flashed, and they stumped off with Hand Dancer, Vethis sagging between them.
The streets of High Imperium had fewer crowds than normal, but not abnormally so. Only when they got closer to the Dome did Origon see closed shops, and the Effature’s guards in the streets.
“The void obviously didn’t get this far,” Rilan said. The Dome filled their view. “If it was as big as the one as Dalhni, it would have swallowed half the Imperium, and it showed no sign of stopping before we left.” She shuddered. “It seems the Life Coalition failed to destroy the Assembly all the way.”
“Drains are unpredictable,” Enos said, then stopped. Origon gestured for her to continue, and she shrugged one shoulder. “The one my family, ah, encountered grew in starts, fast one moment and slow the next.”
“Survivors reported the one at Dalhni flying up and out of sight,” Rilan added.
“Then we do not know what this one would do,” Origon said. “However, if they were being focuses for the Life Coalition, I would expect more signs of them in the Imperium. Did they merely hope to kill as many delegates and maji as they could? I feel there must be something more, an endpoint we have not yet seen.” There was something unfinished, as if the Life Coalition was playing a game with different rules, decided they won halfway through, and abruptly left. It made his feathers itch, and he rubbed his hands together, unnerved and faintly annoyed.
“I agree,” Rilan said. “We have to track them down, if only to find out what they thought they were doing—why they wanted to destroy the Assembly.”
They reached the sloped road leading to the entrances of the Dome, bare of delegates and speakers. Two Lobath guards blocked their entrance, one wari, the other female, though both had their head-tentacles bound up under conical caps. They also held short blunderbusses.
“The Assembly is closed, by order of the Effature,” one burbled in hir watery voice. Large, surprised-looking eyes stared up at Origon. “No one is to enter until the site is deemed safe.”
His crest ruffled in anger. “Someone may still be in there.”
“Do you know who I am?” Rilan asked, stepping in front of him.
The other Lobath guard poked the first with a long finger, and showed a card with faint sketches on one side. The first guard looked even more surprised than usual, and stepped back. “My apologies. You are allowed, also by order of the Effature.”
Inside, fallen bodies of the Life Coalition troops, black cloaks splayed about them, littered the floor of the rotunda. There were fewer bodies of guards, mixed in. Insects and scavenger birds were already gathering. Though there was little structural damage, cleaning up the bodies would take time.
A few bodies of unlucky maji and representatives slumped in chairs above the retaining wall. Some were pierced by crossbow bolts, though bodies in the lower seats had crimson slashes—a sign of how far the small army had intruded.
“Look!” Enos pointed, and Origon followed her finger. Ah, that was why the Dome reflected light strangely, and how the animals got in. The great crystal Dome of the Assembly, made of the same stuff as the Nether walls, had a perfectly circular hole cut in it. A shiver ran up Origon’s spine and his crest contracted. The material of the Nether was indestructible, the making of it lost. Yet the Drain had cut a hole through it as easily as it destroyed other matter.
They found Sam halfway around the rotunda from them, curled on the Nether floor by one of the speaker’s chairs. Enos hurried to him, and Origon barely kept his crest straight. Was the boy alive? Why had he not run when the Drain came too close?
Enos touched his arm with two fingers, and he bolted upright, wiping his face with a hand. Origon breathed a sigh of relief. The young man would send him to the ancestors before his time.
“Oh! Oh, it’s you,” he said. He looked up at Enos, then took her hand. “Did you find him?” Enos shook her head. Their hands tightened together, and she rested her forehead against his. Their eyes closed for a moment.
Rilan cleared her throat. “You have a talent for surviving the voids.” Her voice was sharp. “What happened?”
Sam hesitated just a moment while answering. “I…made it go away.”
Origon thought Rilan’s eyebrows might climb up into her hair. “You did what?”
“I’m…I don’t remember everything, but I’m so tired. I fell asleep.”
“You were making a permanent change with your notes,” Origon guessed. He knew what that looked like, knew the bone-deep weariness. What had his apprentice done? “The Drain cannot be touched by the song.”
Again, hesitation before Sam answered. “I, well, I made a portal that went around the Drain.”
Rilan drew back, and
looked up. “The void must have been half as wide as the Assembly when we left. No one can make a portal that big.”
“I can.” Sam pulled his lower lip up between his teeth. Enos sat beside him on the floor and he gripped her arm. His other hand snaked into a pocket for the watch.
“He is strong,” Origon told Rilan. He had heard changes the young man made in the Symphony, controlling basic themes and multiple melodies at once. He pushed down the wave of jealousy. Origon could at least be the one to teach him.
“Any majus can make a portal, but not this big,” Rilan insisted. She glared at Sam and he shrank down. Enos slipped an arm around him and squeezed. Sam looked back to her. “You’re a Methiemum, but not from Methiem,” Rilan continued. “You claim to be from a homeworld no one knows of. You say a void attacked your world—how I don’t know, if the Life Coalition was creating them here—and now you make a portal large enough that the entire population of maji could run through at once. Who are you?”
Sam flinched at each accusation. Rilan was leaning over him, braid dangling over her shoulder. Origon almost defended him, but Rilan was correct. Sam was a mystery in a hidden egg.
“I…I don’t know,” he said. He was hiding something, but what?
Enos got up from the floor, making Rilan retreat. She still held Sam’s hand. “Stop threatening him!” she said. “Can you not see how tired he is? Sam and I discovered the Life Coalition, not you. We survived the Drain. Inas is missing, and four full maji couldn’t get him back. You mistrust me because of my species. So Sam is different too. Why can you not accept us?”
Rilan was silent, blinking at the young woman’s onslaught, and Origon smoothed his moustache with one hand, recognizing the nervous gesture as he did it.
The Seeds of Dissolution Page 45
