Facets of the Nether

by William C. Tracy

  “In addition, we may be able to be capturing some portion of their leaders, or perhaps learning the method by which they were creating the Drains.” Ori’s crest was high with excitement.

  “This, it is a perilous method of travel, majus,” Kheena cautioned. “Are you certain it will work?”

  Rilan clamped her teeth together to keep from making a snarky remark. She nearly succeeded.

  “There’s one way to find out.” The music tugged at the back of her head, begging to be made into reality.

  “I must make one more observation,” Panen put in. “We are not at a registered portal ground, so technically this is illegal.”

  No one said anything.

  Then, “This group is aware of, hmm, the risks,” Caroom said. “Yet one wishes greatly to see one’s apprentice. If others of this group are not satisfied, those ones could leave before, hmmm, being a party to this illegality.”

  No one moved.

  Rilan could feel the rhythms she’d built up rising from her center. They could surprise those murderers right now. Stop the Assembly from falling apart.

  “I’m going to try the portal,” she called out, already taking notes from her core. She placed them in the sequences she’d grown to know well in the last month. Feet in dirt, darkness around, rough walls, musty air, echoes of speech from the close walls…

  Someone might have called out for her to wait, but Rilan closed her eyes and placed the last notes in the musical sequence. A portal was a bridge between the melody of the place one was in and the place one wanted to go.

  Rilan could feel the portal trying to connect. Just a little more. Change one more note. One more adjustment.

  Now someone did cry out.

  That was Enos.

  She swallowed and opened her eyes. The others were staring at her. Panen had one foot forward, as if zie would stop her, but there was no oval of black rotating into existence. The resistance in the Symphony weighed against her like a lump of lead. The composition wasn’t yet complete enough to open the portal.

  “It was not opening,” Ori said, always willing to state the obvious.

  “I can tell that,” she snarled, then ran a hand through her hair and down the braid that trailed down her back. She stared up at the vaulted ceiling of the little meeting room. “Shiv rot my teeth!” she cursed, then looked back at the assembled maji.

  “Well, this was a waste of time. A secret one person holds is still secret. But now you all know how close we are, we need to strike before the Life Coalition gets word, through whatever means, that we have found their base of operations.”

  That was when she saw Enos, fingers curved and grasping her head. Sam bent over her like a hen poised over her eggs.

  “What happened?” Rilan called. Several of the others were watching Enos silently gasping and writhing. Rilan was two steps closer before she realized what she was doing, one hand extended with olive and white swirls forming around it. The music of the portal faded into the background, replaced by the strains of the House of Healing. Now it would be doubly hard to open the portal any time soon. The Symphony would resist her.

  “Let me help—” she began, but a frantic Methiemum apprentice burst into the room, panting.

  “Maji and apprentices,” she gasped, “you are all required immediately at the Dome of the Assembly. The leaders of the Life Coalition have appeared, and demanded a place in the Great Assembly.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Becoming Anew

  - In the four ten-days since the attack on the Assembly, we have discovered eight locations where the Life Coalition has hidden supplies. We also determined they had an army of at least eight thousand troops before the attack. Not all were trained, but the Coalition co-opted several well-known commanders of military divisions from all over the ten homeworlds. The troops they committed to the push in the Dome of the Assembly were their least trained, and, I think, expected to fail. Only because Sam redirected the void of energy—I still don’t know how he managed it—were we able to cut their takeover off at the knees.

  From the notes of Rilan Ayama, majus of the House of Healing.

  Sam followed the others, half supporting Enos. She waved off her mentor’s help, saying she was well. Sam wasn’t convinced, but with the flood of maji leaving the Spire and heading for the Dome of the Assembly, there wasn’t time to stop and investigate.

  “Did you see him again?” he asked Enos. She had been silent since they left the chamber. Sam had been busy negotiating the twisting halls and stairs without having a panic attack. He’d been holed up in Majus Cyrysi’s apartment too long.

  He marked features of the landscape as their group headed to the tram connecting the Spire and the Dome. It kept him calm and made the Imperium more familiar. Sam squinted against the bright midday light from the walls of the Nether, which towered above and passed out of view far overhead.

  “I did not see anything,” Enos whispered. “But I experienced Inas’ presence again. My skin was cold, as if pressed against metal.”

  They walked a few more steps.

  “Fear.” Enos raised her head, though she still leaned on him. “He was afraid. Sam, I have no idea what the Life Coalition is doing to him, but it must be terrifying for me to feel so much from him.”

  “And we can’t do anything. I thought Majus Ayama’s portal would work. Everything she does is successful,” Sam said.

  Not like me. I’m useless. Can’t even walk across the Spire grounds without getting anxious.

  Ever since the presence forced its way into his head, his thoughts had been scattered. Though the voice had vanished with the Drain and hadn’t returned, he struggled with daily fear as he had when new to the Nether. Now, instead of fretting he wouldn’t find a way back to Earth, he simply couldn’t remember Earth.

  “While what she did obviously didn’t work,” Enos said, “it created a bridge between me and my other instance.” That sounded more like her regular self, though the last two words were so quiet Sam almost couldn’t hear them. “I think the portal may have almost opened—enough to give me the impression of being near my brother.”

  “Then she’s close to opening the portal and finding Inas.” Hope rose in him. Sam rubbed his free fingers against each other, imagining it was Inas’ hand and that he was here with them. “You felt all that from him?”

  “Our connection is stronger than it was,” Enos said. “Though I am uncertain why.”

  Rey dropped back from the rest of the group and Sam shot a wary glance at the Sureri.

  How can he defend the Life Coalition, even a little?

  When they’d first met, Sam thought Rey was a carefree joker, like some boys he’d known in school when he was young. Now he thought Rey might be the kind of person who hid pain and loss under their humor.

  “Hopefully the tram won’t be too crowded,” he said to Enos, trying to gesture with his eyebrows that he wanted to get away from Rey.

  Enos looked up at him, then frowned. “Yes. What are you doing with your face?”

  Sam stopped twitching and whispered. “We need to talk with Majus Ayama about why…you know…”

  Enos thumped his arm with one hand, darting a look to Rey, who was watching them curiously. She spoke in a normal tone. “Yes, I think Majus Ayama might open the portal on a second try.” There was the barest pause, then Enos went on. “The impressions that make up portals are vague, after all. Maybe a memory added in a different way will work.”

  Rey shrugged. “Might do. Me, I’ve been studying portals too. It’s sommat Majus Kheena likes. Bit of a hobby. Strange things, portals.”

  He’s so calm, as if he wasn’t recently defending a genocidal cult.

  Rey could never know about Enos and Inas. Sam wished he wasn’t so dumb around people. At least Enos hadn’t asked him about the voice, ever since the chime rang at the apartment.

  Doesn’t fit in, hears a different Symphony from the other maji, has strange panic attacks, and has a voice is his head? I
f I tell anyone else, they’ll think I’m even more disconnected from reality.

  They caught the tram passing between the Spire and the Dome. There was a special carriage waiting for the maji, and their group filed on, between representatives of all ten species.

  In their car, Majus Caroom and Majus Cyrysi spoke in hushed tones. Sam sat next to Enos, and Rey across the aisle. Sam made himself look up and take in the city, though his heart was climbing up into his throat. The columns rose on either side like massive translucent redwoods among underbrush.

  Enos sat completely straight, her hands in her lap. Sam followed her gaze to Majus Ayama, deep in discussion with the Lobath Majus Panen I’Fon and Majus Hand Dancer.

  “Come on,” he said, reaching for her hand. “I’m sure she won’t mind if we interrupt her to tell her about—”

  He jumped as a deep pealing sound shimmered through the Imperium. It was the same noise, as if a giant had rung a bell the size of a house. The tram vibrated on its tracks and Sam clutched the back of the seat in front of him. The noise from the others on the train jumped a level, everyone talking at once.

  “Again?” He peered out a window. Outside, the sound was more resonant than what he heard in his room two days ago. It filled the Nether with a thunderous call.

  “Where is it comin’ from?” Rey asked. Enos’ hands clenched on Sam’s.

  “This is to be the second time this has happened,” Majus Cyrysi said, breaking off his conversation with Majus Caroom. “I was attempting to research it, but there is to be nothing in the archives with similar occurrences. Only a few references I am not yet understanding.” He peered back toward the House of Communication and Sam turned with him. The tower-like House was just visible. Dust sifted from the strange bridge that arced from it to the wall of the Nether, catching the light.

  Majus Hand Dancer had his many-fingered hands pressed to the wall of the tram. Lobhl did not hear as well as the other species.

 

  The noise was already starting to fade.

  Majus Ayama shot the Lobhl a look. “Indeed. I wonder if it has anything to do with the Nether? Maybe it is a byproduct of the damage to the Dome of the Assembly? Or could it be a remnant from the Drain?”

  “Then why would it start now?” Majus I’Fon asked. “Far after when the damage was done?”

  Majus Ayama turned to Sam, and he shrank into the seat, trying to be unnoticeable.

  “Was there something you did when you…caused the Drain to disappear? Might it link to this?”

  Sam shook his head, and Enos put a reassuring hand on his leg. He wished Inas was on his other side to balance him. The spike of loss passed through him like a bolt of electricity and he swallowed a lump. “It’s not what I did,” he said, once he could breathe again. “I have no idea what it is.”

  Don’t throw up.

  “Are you sure?” pressed the majus. “We’ve seen you do—” she broke off, as if realizing how many people were around them. They had kept Sam’s abilities quiet, and he hadn’t changed the Symphony where others could see his color. He’d been hiding in his mentor’s apartment. Only Majus Ayama and Majus Cyrysi had been there when he’d showed what he could do.

  “—do strange things with the House of Communication,” Rilan finished. “We may need to test you to see if there is a connection.”

  “I was conducting research yesterday,” Majus Cyrysi added. “Though I was not thinking to examine this connection as well. If we are having Sam describe what he hears in the Symphony when the sound happens again—if it does—it would shed more light on this phenomenon.” His mentor was staring at him, his head cocked to one side. The crest of feathery hair Kirians used to display emotion was up and spread wide. The Nether translated it to Sam as intent curiosity.

  “I…I don’t know about it,” Sam said. “I can’t hear anything special in the Symphony.” He tried to touch the notes flying through his head, but they were slippery, sliding away. If he could only get a grip on them and dig into the core of his being, he would stop being so anxious. He’d done that before, in Dalhni, the city the Drain had destroyed. But it had been four ten-days since the attack on the Dome, and he hadn’t done so a second time.

  The peal of sound finally faded, though Majus Ayama still studied him. Sweat broke out on Sam’s neck.

  He spent the rest of the trip to the Dome in silence, watching the maji discuss what the chime might mean. Sam caught Rey staring at him too, a pensive look on his uneven and craggy face.

  * * *

  Rey trailed the others out of the tram, next to Majus Kheena. His mentor was watching the walls of the Nether as if they might show cracks after the recent deluge of sound.

  “So the Life Coalition’s finally slouched up and shown their faces in the Assembly. Reckon yer know aught of their leaders?” he asked his mentor.

  Majus Kheena made an annoyed sound, then pushed his cowl back to better see Rey. “Possible, but not likely. Me, I know many of my fellow species. Though I try not to become enmeshed in political machinations.”

  “Sam and Enos say the leaders’re maji, like us,” Rey said. Majus Ayama had been sneaking around just as much as the Coalition. If she and the others were so holy and right, shouldn’t they be in the open, revealing what the Life Coalition’s aim was, instead of skulking? They’d lost Inas by going behind the backs of the Council. What was to say they wouldn’t lose other maji?

  Now the Life Coalition was coming clean, ready to talk like civilized beings. Yes, they were Snakeys, but so was Majus Kheena. Rey’d learned not all prejudices common on his homeworld were valid. Some were, but each species had their good and their bad. The Coalition definitely fell in that latter category, but by how much? They’d hurt some people, true, but the Methiemum had also fought the Sathssn over trading rights, some thirty cycles ago. More people had died then than all the ones injured in the Drains.

  His mentor hadn’t answered. The Dome of the Assembly rose above them, with the new hole in its top from the Drain. The one the Coalition had caused. Rey let his head incline, following the architecture of the massive stadium-like building. Back on Sureri, all the buildings were flat and boring, made to house as many family members as possible. Efficient family hierarchy was more important than beauty—at least outside, where anyone could get an impression of your wealth and standing. In the Nether, people put everything they had on show, from their names, to jewelry, to buildings, to fancy contraptions. He glanced back to his mentor. The majus’ scaly brows were drawn down, shading his slitted eyes. He was also looking at the place where the supposedly impenetrable Nether crystal was missing, pondering heavy thoughts.

  “There’re only so many Sathssn maji,” Rey pressed. “Could be yer know some of them. Maybe-like all of them.”

  They crossed the street in front of the Dome, waiting for one of the new-fangled steam cars to go by. It drowned out the music one of the tall and skinny Etanela was belting out on his set of longpipes, standing on a corner.

  Majus Kheena took another moment to answer as they huffed up the steps of the Assembly. They arrived at the set of entrances leading into the lower section, where the maji sat. “About these maji, I may have heard rumors, passed through the elders of my diocese. But it only confirms statistical fact to admit that. There are only so many maji of my species, as you say. The Council, they have been asking Sathssn maji for their affiliation lately. It is not wise to advertise any wavering.”

  That wasn’t good. Rey could see the start of sommat he didn’t like, growing in the Assembly. All this fighting over Aridori, and the Life Coalition, and over who was better than who meant tensions were running high. His species and his mentor’s were suspected whenever sommat went wrong, just because they liked to stay to themselves and call the other species on their gaffes. Rey had seen plenty of suspicious behavior from the other species. The Methiemum were one of the tric
kiest. They’d steal your valuables off you and sell them back at a profit. Inas was one of the only ones he didn’t doubt. Inas was warm and likeable and…just a good friend. He shook the thought away. That was why he and his mentor were helping—to get him back.

  “Our group’s slidin’ around like we’re just as guilty,” Rey argued. “Mebbe Majus Ayama has the Council’s approval. Mebbe not. She’s lied to us before.” He turned to his mentor, making both of them stop as the rest of their group continued into the Assembly. “Don’t yer wonder what this Life Coalition has to say? What possible reason do they have for settin’ these great Drains into motion? For this?” he gestured upward. “Seems like, to me, there must be sommat behind their efforts. Why do they go to so much trouble? If we were just to listen to ‘em for a moment, might be we’d learn what it is.”

  Majus Kheena regarded him for a moment, his eyes roaming over Rey’s face. Rey resisted the urge to rub his nose. Finally, the majus reached up to stroke the little wisps of hair which grew between the scales on his chin. “About this, you speak logically,” the majus said. “I too, think Majus Ayama and Majus Cyrysi, they may be hasty in hunting down the Life Coalition. And this, it is not because my own species leads them.”

  “Then we two will listen to what the Life Coalition says, in there, eyah?” Rey wagged his head toward the Assembly.

  “Potentially,” the majus allowed. They began walking again. “At least to see what the Life Coalition means to do, in claiming this legitimacy to the Great Assembly of Species.”

  Inside, the Assembly was in an uproar, everyone talking about what they would learn today. But that was like every time Rey had been to a session. The various representatives, speakers, and maji were always upset about this or that. Could be the Life Coalition, or mebbe the weird noise that thrummed through the Nether on the way here. He didn’t think it was a big deal. The Nether did strange things all the time. Who knew what a semi-sentient giant crystal got up to? Mebbe it was bored—hadn’t dug into enough people’s heads lately, or whatnot. Rey admitted the translation it offered was helpful, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t creepy. He suppressed a shudder.