The Seeds of Dissolution (Dissolution Cycle Book 1)

by William C. Tracy

  “This is second report I’ve heard this ten-day of a group of low-lives with nothing better to do accosting residents of the Imperium. The Civil Committee is going mad over the disruption to their watch roster. Double overtime.” She watched Sam nestle next to the twins, giving them a shaky smile. Enos patted his hand.

  “I’m afraid healing is not my forte,” she told Rey, “though I can block the pain receptors for a time. The change to the Symphony will eventually reverse, of course.”

  He nodded quickly, eyes squinting up at the movement. The tips of his ears were curled in pain. Rilan dove back into his melody, taking a few notes of her own song to bridge from one cadenza of his brain to another, bypassing the pain. She would take her notes back in a few lightenings so the change would not be permanent. Rilan next turned her attention to the off-key phrase of his ribs, attempted to grasp the chords, but as usual, they slipped away from her grip. Brahm-cursed physical injuries. Like I’m an apprentice with Vethis showing me up again. She wouldn’t be healing that.

  Rey relaxed back, his face slack, and Rilan pushed to her feet, straightening her vest with a tug. She turned to the other three.

  “Now. Tell me details.”

  The three stumbled over each other, laying out how they hid and the stone throwing. Sam excitedly praised Inas and Rey for using their song to fend off the attackers. Rilan frowned at Enos’ brother.

  “We don’t need to give them another reason to hate the maji,” she said. “Vish knows there’s enough anti-maji sentiment as it is.” She peered closer at Inas. He looked tired. “Cracking the stones like that, it was a permanent use of your song, wasn’t it?”

  The young man blanched a little, and Sam stared at him. “It was unintentional, Councilor,” he said. “I was upset by the mob, and the melody of the stones was so close, so easy to put a few of my notes into them to disperse the themes—”

  “Talk to your mentor about it,” Rilan told him. “Caroom would teach you better than that, I know.” She swung to her apprentice. “And you.” Enos shrunk down, and Rilan realized she was channeling her inner councilmember at them. They were hurt, and confused, and she didn’t need to compound that. She took in a breath, held it for a moment.

  “It’s on me for not teaching you about healing. It’s not easy for me. However, there are other ways to work around pain.” Her father taught her that, with long hours helping him tool leather and stitch thick cloth. “Don’t just think of the physical part of healing. The nervous system and mental states can also be adjusted.” Gods know I’ve had to work around it.

  “Yes, Councilor.” Enos still looked cowed. Next time, Rilan would handle things better. Having an apprentice was not like bringing errant maji before the Council. There would be chances later to train the young woman properly. For now, she put it out of her mind.

  “The Sureriaj,” she mused. “They have made some interesting speeches in the Assembly. They seem to be targets as much as the Sathssn are afraid of becoming targets.” With the question of the Sathssn secession question ongoing, she didn’t want to add another species’ voices to those calling for separation. “I’ll bring this up to the Council. If four apprentices getting attacked doesn’t make them come to a decision, I don’t know what will.” She looked to the door. “Anything else before I go? I’m already late meeting with some maji.” She gave it a moment, and was almost ready to leave when Sam spoke.

  “Councilor, I…do you think…would you be able to, to see if I’m alright?” He had that watch back in his hands, playing with it. She looked him up and down. His anxiety had seemed more controlled since he’d found friends and gotten new clothes to wear, found a schedule. Now he was sweating and shaking again. He was close to a full attack, just barely holding it together over something. She had been so focused on Rey’s physical injury, she hadn’t paid attention.

  “Certainly.” She scooted Inas aside, and the boy took the hint and stood. Enos tried to stand as well, but Rilan glared at her until she sat back down. There were some parts of teaching an apprentice that were like sitting on the Council. “Do you mind if Enos assists me?” she asked Sam. He looked to the other apprentice, and a look passed between them. He shook his head.

  “Councilor, I do not need—” Enos began, but Rilan overrode her.

  “You must be able to use all parts of the melody to which you are attuned. I am passable at anatomy, though that is not my specialty. You must learn of the mental aspect of the House of Healing, if you are to be my apprentice.” Enos swallowed, but stayed sitting. “Observe the Symphony with me, and try to follow the phrases as I do.”

  Sam sat, hands clasped with his watch between them, breathing heavily. Rilan put a hand on his shoulder, listening to the frenetic timing of his melody. White and olive dripped from her hand. Enos screwed her eyes shut, laying one hand on Sam’s other shoulder. There was a faint sheen of white around her. Good.

  She touched Sam’s forehead with her other hand, feeling him shiver under her fingers. The phrases defining fear, worry, embarrassment, and loss were much faster and louder than they should be, as expected with Sam’s type of anxiety. She could artificially tamp them down as she had before, but the effect was temporary, and draining. Better to come to an understanding and cope with the anxiety.

  “How many attacks have you had since you got here?” she asked. “Any I haven’t seen?” She watched Enos, who looked as if she wanted to run away. Her eyes were wide, shoulders tense. Maybe Rilan could forge just a little into her apprentice’s mind, through the connection with Sam. It might tell her why she was so afraid of the mental aspects of the House of Healing.

  “I’ve been out with them most of every day,” Sam told her, and Rilan’s attention was drawn back. “I wanted to see more, to be with them, but there’s so much here.” She could feel his muscles cramp up.

  “You can’t keep pushing yourself. Save time for training and relaxation.” Rilan traced a thread of his melody. Too much pent up, over too short a time. “Where has Ori been? He’s supposed to have been teaching you. Is that man stupid or just self-involved?” Not that she needed an answer, with Ori so focused on his voids. She sighed, and Sam flinched. “Shiv’s toenails, I’m not going to eat you.”

  She reset her fingertips on his forehead, nodding for Enos to do the same. Hesitantly, her apprentice copied her. “Listen to how his melody changes compared to your own song.” Sam was trying to eye both of them at once, and she heard a snort of laughter from Rey. Sam’s shoulders vibrated under them as he tried not to join in. Even though she had done nothing, Rilan heard the phrases defining his panic unraveling. Laughter was as good as many other medicines.

  “Feeling better?”

  Sam nodded slightly, skin wrinkling under fingertips.

  “You do seem like you’re getting used to this place a little at a time. You’re doing a good job, but you have to take it slowly, and tell your mentor to do his job.” She narrowed her eyes. “Or he’ll answer to me.”

  Sam smiled back, and his shoulders relaxed. The frantic rhythms in his mind were slowing. She drew her hand back, letting the side of her finger brush Enos’ for just a moment.

  Another melody erupted through her mind, and then was gone as Enos jerked back. Rilan kept her face neutral. There was something different about her, like how Sam seemed a Methiemum raised on a different homeworld. It could be her merchant background, traveling with no fixed home, but Rilan needed more time with her to make sure. Enos was eyeing her, jaw tense. She had likely felt some of the invasion. What was she hiding? Rilan looked away casually, her gaze passing over Inas. There was another chance to find out more, but tampering with another majus’ apprentice was even more frowned upon than the brief glimpse she had stolen inside Enos’ mind.

  Rilan stood up. “Well, if that’s all, I need to be going.” She stabbed a finger at Rey, who was sitting up straighter. “Be careful. Even though you can’t feel the pain now, you still must be careful not to injur
e yourself further. The sensation will return soon.” She looked back to the others. “At least no one was hurt more. I’ll bring this attack to the Council’s notice. I have a feeling we haven’t heard the last of this. You apprentices must be more careful when you go out.”

  She left to a chorus of agreement.

  * * *

  Origon knocked on the door of a lab tucked into the back of the university. In the background, a machine chuffed to an unknown beat. He hadn’t visited the University of High Imperium for several cycles, and had taken the chance to swing by his old offices to see what they had done with the place. That had been a mistake, as usual. Some Pixie had taken over, repainting his office walls to a dull shade of nothing and removing all the furniture. Thankfully, he had taken everything he needed when he left the post.

  He burped. Another reason, besides the endless bureaucracy, he didn’t stay for long periods in the Nether. Those bog grubs at lunch had been virtually dead—probably sitting in the back of the kitchens for a ten-day. He preferred wandering the homeworlds, seeing what was really going on between the ten species, and enjoying fresher food.

  There was no answer, and Origon knocked again, then peered through a tiny window in the door. The sign outside had the correct name, though he hadn’t been this way in maybe fifteen cycles. He hoped the ancestors would smile on him today, because if not, he was out of options.

  Another knock, and still nothing. Origon sighed and turned the handle. Fortunately the door was unlocked.

  The clanking, grinding sound that had been muted in the hall was louder here. A boxy construct puffed steam into the air, chewing on a ream of paper. Farther into the laboratory, half-empty flasks sat beside racks of chemicals on wooden blocks discolored by cycles of use. He tapped one as he passed, listening to it chime.

  Mhalaro Ipente Riteno was hunched over one of the metal tables, fiddling with a sample of rust-colored material. He did not look up as Origon approached.

  “I can be finding you much dirt to look at outside, Mhalaro,” Origon said.

  Mhalaro started and spun on his stool, eyes widening behind his tiny round glasses. Even sitting, the Etanela’s head was even with Origon’s. A smile split his thin bluish face, and he rose to his feet. Origon craned his neck and clasped forearms with the scientist.

  “What a surprise to see you after so many cycles, Origon!” Mhalaro said, his words flowing together, like all of his species. “Have you been back in the Nether long?”

  “Nearly half a cycle, old friend,” Origon let his crest fluff in pleasure to see his former associate. “Are you still to be teaching recalcitrant youngsters?”

  Mhalaro tipped his head forward on his long neck. “Still teaching, yes. You should have stayed. The philosophy department has been pitiful without you. Pluatri is too aggressive in her teaching. I think the old Pixie has scared off more students than you graduated, before you started your—travels.”

  Origon waved a hand, his crest flattening. His university time felt like another life, before he met Rilan, and discovered her fiery spark. “I would not have done it differently, given the choice. Though I have not simply stopped by to speak of old times. I have a proposition for you.”

  “Oh? What is this? The famous adventurer has finally found dirt interesting?” Mhalaro’s face turned serious, and he brushed stray bits of his auburn mane of hair back into shape, tied down his long neck.

  Origon took a proffered wooden stool, perching on it across from the scientist. He had yet to meet as sharp and analytical a mind as Mhalaro Ipente Riteno. “It was beginning with the Methiemum’s space capsule,” he began. Even Mhalaro had heard of that disaster. Shortly, he outlined the danger posed by the Drains, and the inability of the Grand Symphony to touch one. Why had he not thought of his old colleague before? No one else had taken him seriously. “I am wondering, if maji and the Grand Symphony cannot touch the Drains, perhaps manufactured scientific equipment can determine their makeup.”

  Mhalaro was silent for several moments, staring over Origon’s head. Then he abruptly went to the far side of the laboratory, coming back with an object as long as his arm, made of bent, burnished metal and a blown sphere of glass, with protrusions on each side.

  “What is it?” Origon asked.

  “A device for measuring the spectrum of material of a sample. A fairly new invention, created since you left.” Mhalaro cradled the device as if it were an infant, eyes glinting behind his little glasses. “It can break down a specimen—it runs using a System crafted by the maji I have been working with—and let me see what else has come in contact with the sample.”

  Origon sat forward. “This could show what objects touched a Drain?”

  “Indeed,” the Etanela answered. “The masseous spectrum-analyzer can even show if there have been changes to the material itself.”

  Origon made a note to light a candle for the ancestor who sent him to visit his old friend. “What do you think about making a camping trip to the Prishna Mountains on Methiemum?”

  * * *

  Sam sat in meditation in the room Majus Cyrysi had given him. His legs were crossed on his bed, a throw pillow propped against his back. Based on the councilor’s advice, he had decided to stay in today. After the mob of people the day before—he shivered. He needed some time to himself. I’m still not sure if Enos and Inas have forgiven me. I’ll ask them tomorrow. A day will let them cool down.

  Meditation sometimes helped him over a particularly rough day, and in any case, Majus Cyrysi had told him in no uncertain terms to practice when he related what the councilor said. Silence permeated the apartment, except for the far-off ticking of a clock the Kirian kept in his room, and the answering pulse from his watch, laying on an end table close by the bed. The majus was off on an errand and Sam was alone. I’ve been around too many people, too many new places over the last few days. Am I flailing with the twins? I feel like they like me. His eyes popped open. Will they make me choose between them? Enos was stern, but kind. Inas was warm, gentle. Did he have to decide one over the other? He felt a bond with both of them, and he thought they felt the same. Aunt Martha had encouraged him to get out more, find friends and have relationships. This was about as far as he could be from his house.

  The memories of the frozen room still stabbed at him—icicles of grief—but every day they melted a little. He hadn’t even seen the Drain that affected him. Now I know more about them, how big was mine? Did it affect my house, or all of Earth? Learning was the only way to get back.

  Sam pushed the thoughts away. Don’t let your mind run wild. Concentrate. Meditation didn’t help if his brain spun like a gerbil in a wheel. No sadness. No anxiety. No fear or even happiness or affection. He shut his eyes and leaned back, forcing his body to relax.

  The tick of both clocks made a syncopated music in the silence, and denying it anything else, his mind fixated on it, hearing the two beats combine, separate, and combine. There was a pattern there, if he could only figure it out. Was his watch slower, or the majus’ clock? Did they even define a second the same way here?

  A steady chord joined the two timepieces, weaving between the two. Sam almost opened his eyes to see if someone else was in the apartment, though he knew the majus was out. Breathing steady. Mind calm. He tried not to be aware of his body, even while bringing his focus to himself. The chord was still there, like the thrum of several deep reed instruments, just on the edge of hearing.

  Then the reeds multiplied, chords overlapping each other. Sam inhaled at the complexity, the beauty. Don’t lose it.

  The chords split again, competing harmonious Symphonies, all in the same low register. The clocks were lost in the background. Like a fractal spiral, the melodies split off until Sam thought the sounds would fill his entire head. His breathing came in short gasps, though he could somehow keep track of each thread of music. Slow, fast, loud and quiet, he could hear each Symphony, each one more complicated than the last. The pure sound was beautif
ul—it was primal and right.

  Shoulders down. Hands unclenched. He opened his eyes, slowly. The sound was still there, in his mind, and now he could match the Symphony of Communication to what it meant. The Symphony contained a multitude of information, not only dealing with communication, but with air and pressure difference, with the way signals interacted, with speech patterns.

  The quick, quiet trill was air leaking in through cracks around the window frame. He could tell it would be windy in the Imperium the next day by a far-off rumble of bass—a horse at full gallop. A fluttering tremolo gave him the path of a group of birds passing by the window. The brightly colored creatures shared with each other the locations of fruits growing in the gardens of the Spire. The almost martial beat of another Symphony outlined the path insects made on his floor, communicating locations of crumbs. Even far away, he felt the paths of speech in a chaotic, discordant chorus as aliens spoke far below on the ground of the Nether.

  He blinked away wetness, and reached out with his mind, trying to change one of the melodies he heard. I’m made of notes too. There was a flowing and ever-changing melody that defined him as a body, as a personality. He tried to catch an individual note, but it slipped away like an oiled pebble between his fingers. If I can catch them, I can change the beat, the volume, the order of the music. He could insert his notes into the songs around him, adjusting them to meet his will, changing the makeup of the world.

  His body was outlined in a faint yellow glow—the visual representation of the House of Communication. He tried once more, straining to catch his body’s notes and the music in the air currents circulating through the room, but as he did the fractal Symphonies collapsed into themselves like a whip, and the resulting thrum slid across his soul. The glow around him faded.

  Sam slumped, empty, then drew in a ragged breath. He was calm. I’ll be scared and anxious again in the future, but right now—it’s peaceful. This was what Majus Origon spoke of. Whether magic or science, Sam could touch his song, and songs around him. The House of Communication. He wiped the tears from his face and settled back to try again.