Facets of the Nether

by William C. Tracy

  Enos shook herself. What was she thinking? She was an apprentice to Majus Ayama, the best head of the House of Healing for two hundred cycles, to hear her tell the tale. Had Enos been listening and learning for the past few months, or hiding like a scared child?

  Both.

  Enos let the Symphony of Healing rise up in her mind, like a concerto played on a thousand bells, by a hundred different performers. She blocked out the strains belonging to other people, narrowed it down to music of her own body, then of her head, and then her eyes. She used the notes from the core of her being—those that defined her—and adjusted the music, bringing the beat up, changing the key to a higher, tighter register.

  When Enos looked at the box again she could see it clearly, though anything closer than the edge of the seats looking over the Assembly floor was a blur.

  Their parents had never shared with Enos and Inas the true form of their species. She wasn’t certain they knew. Their people had been in hiding so long that the women who had children—the few who did—gave birth by the regular Methiemum way, to Methiemum children. Their society did not allow changing form, except in the greatest need, and maybe not even then. To see an Aridori—a true, ancient, Aridori—was something she never thought she’d encounter.

  The head had form now, shining black, with a pronounced snout. The body was bare, with scales that transmuted in the light from the walls, shifting from green to purple, to green. Long arms grasped the sides of the box and pulled the form up, as if rising from a shaft beneath the box. That tiny volume could never hold the being that came from it, but it rested on the faintly glowing—and impenetrable—floor of the Nether. The body had been compressed into a tiny cube.

  “This, it is an Aridori,” Zsaana said. “A form not seen in a thousand cycles.”

  He clasped a glowing white collar around the being’s neck. The white would be invisible to a non-majus. It must be a way to control the Aridori. Zsaana was probably listening to any change in the Symphony around the being.

  Her stomach roiled. At Zsaana’s curt motion, the being lifted one foot from the box to stand on the floor of the Nether. It wore no clothes—none would have fit in that box with it—but Enos could find no sign of genitalia, hidden or otherwise. Even she did not know how her species reproduced, back when they lived in the open.

  If not constrained, would the Aridori have sprung forward and started killing? That’s what the tales from the Aridori War said, when her species was supposed to have massacred thousands, maybe millions of beings.

  “Are you sure this isn’t Inas?” Majus Ayama’s breath in her ear made Enos jump and put a hand to her chest. “Do you really look like that? I’ve not seen that shape in even the oldest books of the maji. It’s like all the records have been purged.”

  The Aridori made no other move, save to step fully from the box, their iridescent scales vibrating as if in a breeze. Their long fingers, black or deep blue like the snout, were clasped in front of their belly. They looked at peace. Their head swiveled to take in the multitude of people sitting above them, fleshy ears surrounded by curls of hair and twisting and turning like a cat’s. The wide nostrils at the end of their snout flared.

  Enos shook her head, then put her lips to her mentor’s ear. “It can’t be Inas. I would feel something. We didn’t know about this shape. Our entire family was Methiemum.” She leaned back, then glared up at her mentor, challenging her to say that Enos was less than that. She took back the change she’d made to her eyes, reveling in the energy granted from regaining her notes. But the majus’ gaze was turned inward.

  “We have a much larger problem,” Majus Ayama said.

  Enos looked up at her, heat growing in her belly. She didn’t bother to whisper—everyone was talking over each other, enamored by the being below. “A larger problem? Larger than my brother being taken? Larger than the Life Coalition weaseling their way into the Assembly?”

  “Yes,” Majus Ayama stared directly at her. “Don’t you see? The Life Coalition has more than one Aridori. Maybe a whole army. The soldiers they sent to attack the Assembly were just a distraction.” She bounced one fist off the railing in front of them. “I don’t know what Janas was talking about with their source of unlimited power, but it has to be related to the voids. We must open that portal and find where they’re hiding.”

  Enos stared back at the Aridori, holding one hand in front of her to compare her warm copper skin with the black scales of the being who had risen from the box. Was that what she really looked like? Had Inas taken that form, imprisoned by the Life Coalition?

  She watched the Aridori as they made a polite bow to the Effature, determined to remember every nuance of their movement. It was more important than ever that she find Inas. Whatever it took.

  * * *

  “Sit down, Enos,” Sam said for the third time. He made a grab for her hand as she passed his seat in Majus Cyrysi’s living room, but only caught a finger. It slowed her pacing, and Enos turned to him.

  “They have Inas. He may be in a box just like the one we saw today. How can I relax? How can you be so calm?”

  Sam gave a strangled laugh. It shouldn’t have been funny, but it was. He was acting like the centered one, in control, while Enos was anxious and pacing. He should have been curled in a ball over the Aridori the Life Coalition had shown earlier that day. He was terrified.

  Is it the lack of memories? Am I missing what I should know? At least for once I’m not taking all the attention.

  “I don’t know how,” he said, “but I am. Can I help you?”

  He recalled the sleek, handsome form that had risen from the box. Dark snout, iridescent scales, bright eyes, and mobile ears—like a cross between a bipedal lizard and a cat.

  Or a miniature dragon.

  The Aridori had bared their teeth, but Sam had seen the ring of white on the metal collar Zsaana clasped around their neck. The being was a prisoner of the Life Coalition, just as he and Enos had been.

  Enos plopped down beside him on Majus Cyrysi’s mint green couch, and buried her head in his shoulder. “It could have been Inas. I felt that cold surface through him. He might be trapped in another box, just like that.”

  “I knew that Aridori wasn’t Inas as soon as they stepped out of the box,” Sam murmured into her hair. It smelled of flowers, not ones he could name, but definitely flowers. Light and sweet.

  Enos nestled closer. “How?”

  “By the way they moved. Couldn’t you tell? That wasn’t my Inas,” Sam said. He missed Inas’ firm hand on his shoulder, his steady voice next to his ear, telling him things would turn out right in the end. Inas was nervous in closed spaces, just as Sam feared spaces that were too wide open, and filled with crowds.

  “That means the Life Coalition still holds him, in another box,” Enos said.

  Sam’s mind went back to the little box, far too tiny to hold the majestic Aridori who had stepped from it. “It doesn’t have to be a box,” Sam said. He could think of plenty things that were cold and hard. “Maybe he was only touching metal.”

  “Like those collars?” Enos asked, and Sam hesitated.

  “Well, yes. Better than a tiny box isn’t it?”

  Zsaana had explained the restraint System in the collar. He said it was all that was keeping the Aridori from tearing into the nearest person. Sam didn’t believe that. The Aridori he knew wouldn’t do anything like that.

  “We still must rescue him,” Enos said. Her face was still in his shoulder. It was comfortable. That was him. Comfortable when he should have been acting. Saving his Inas.

  “We can learn from this,” he tried. “The Aridori changed much faster than you.” Enos flinched against him. He didn’t mind her changing form, but she seemed to think it would drive him away.

  The Aridori had lifted one dark scaled hand, then transformed it to a long-fingered Lobath hand, then a scaly Sathssn one, then a wing, then a wicked looking scythed blade, all in the span of a few moments. It was an effective thr
eat.

  You can’t drive me away from you.

  “I do not know how,” Enos answered. “Inas and I have no memory of the form that Aridori took. Our parents taught us we could change, but not how. It was forbidden. What they taught us was fragmented. I don’t think my family knew much about the war.” She raised her head and looked Sam in the eyes. “And now they’re gone. They were so scared of being found out, but despite that, my people are in the open again. All our efforts at hiding were useless.”

  Sam held her for a time while she cried. He would have cried too, but without Inas’ warmth holding them together, he had to be strong for her. They needed Inas.

  And I need to figure out how to center myself again. I must find my own melody, where the anxiety sits.

  Sam frowned down at Enos, and wiped a tear from her cheek. “You’re working with Majus Ayama on the portal again tomorrow?”

  Enos nodded, swallowed, and sniffed. “She still doesn’t have it right. If I can connect with Inas again, that might give enough information. I wish I knew how it happened.”

  “How—” now Sam paused. “Can I ask how that works? Your other instance? Inas?” He didn’t even have the words to make the question.

  Enos sniffed again. “All Aridori are born in two, but not just twins. We’re closer than that, linked mentally, and even physically, when we are born. In our family, both babies shared one umbilical cord. I do not know how it works with…” She waved a hand, encompassing the events of the day. “Our family was Methiemum, in all ways.”

  “But you are linked to Inas,” Sam prodded.

  I can pry without her getting angry at me. She won’t push me away, just because of this.

  “It’s a feeling, when we’re close,” Enos said, oblivious to the thoughts tumbling around in his head. “Like I could finish his sentences. He would know when I was hungry. I knew when he got a good sale on our wares. When one instance dies, the other may live on, or sometimes choose to die, or may go through a significant emotional change, as my uncle did. Our parents didn’t teach us about that either, not really. I suppose there could be more to it.”

  “Like how fast they changed.”

  Enos nodded into his shoulder. “I know so little. The Life Coalition must understand more about my people than I do.” She scrunched up her face. “I hate them for that.”

  * * *

  It was four days later and Sam was working with Majus Cyrysi when the summons came. The Imperium had still not calmed down from learning Aridori existed. The Assembly had been in session every day, arguing about what they would do. Sam hadn’t ventured out into the crowded streets. He’d heard there was a spontaneous protest in front of the Dome. Even the music in the House of Communication seemed more martial.

  Sam shook his head to clear it as Majus Cyrysi spoke.

  “If the sequence is to be holding,” his mentor said, “the chime will be coming in a few moments. Open yourself to the Symphony. See if you are able to determine the resonances this time.” He twisted a dial on a contraption built of metal and cogs, and bellows pumped as a little hand began drawing a line on a sheet of vellum. Sam had no idea what it was supposed to do.

  Sam also hadn’t been able to divine what his mentor wanted from the great, resonant, bell-like sound. With the larger threat of the Aridori, everyone had settled on calling it a ‘chime,’ even though it was as like to a chime as a church organ was to a doorbell. The only similarity was that it rang.

  The chime rang every day now, at the same time. People were getting used to it, and even incorporating it into advertisements: ‘Get a bowl of Kirian maggots half off—today when the chime sounds!’ Some of the street musicians were trying to harmonize with it, making it a backbeat to their compositions, though others sang of marching against the returned Aridori.

  Sam pulled his pocketwatch out. Hours on Earth didn’t line up with lightenings in the Nether, but he reset his watch every morning, and had figured out how they reconciled. It should be in three…two…one…

  The little laboratory Majus Cyrysi had co-opted vibrated with the rest of Spire. If anything, the Spire vibrated more than the House of Communication, perhaps because it rested against one of the immense columns.

  “Now! Tell me what you are to be hearing in the Symphony!”

  Sam closed his eyes to block out the chugging equipment the majus hovered over and listened to the Symphony. The chime was giving all the chords a strange vibrato, like a struck gong.

  But that was it. There was nothing to the music of the chime. He couldn’t find its source. It seemed to be everywhere. He opened his eyes.

  “Anything?” Majus Cyrysi’s crest was spiking and waving with excitement. Sam shook his head, and his mentor deflated.

  Unless…

  Sam went deeper into the melody, swimming through layers that defined the stone of the Spire, the metal of the machine, and the flesh of their bodies. There was something solid beneath it all—a mass of roiling notes which at first had no rhythm. Then he realized it instead had an incredibly complex rhythm.

  “I can hear…”

  “What? What is it boy?” Majus Cyrysi must have been worked up. He hadn’t called Sam that in a while.

  “I’m not sure.” Sam reached out, trying to grasp even one of the complex jumble of notes. His focus bounced off them, and he gritted his teeth at a sudden spike of pain and an instant headache. Sam grunted, and pressed fingers to his temples.

  “I lost it,” he said, and that was when the chime stopped.

  “Not completely,” Majus Cyrysi said, and pointed to the graph the machine had made. The needle was drawing a straight line again, as it had before the chime, but the intervening space was filled with a spiraling, fluting, sequence of whorls. One small section at the end went wild, the peaks of the graph stretching to edges of the page. Sam squinted at it, then looked at his watch, counting seconds to get the time of the graph.

  “I think that last section is where I almost touched the music of the chime,” he said.

  Majus Cyrysi was hovering over him in an instant. Sam tried not to draw back from his faintly fishy breath. “You touched it? You are to be getting better at this. What was it like? What were the tempos of the music? The phrasing?”

  “I…I…” Apprentices were taught musical theory, but he had hadn’t gotten very far. A lot of the concepts were more difficult than when he’d tried to learn the piano one time.

  Hey—I remember that. Playing the piano.

  “Out with it! What were you hearing? Do not keep me in suspense— ”

  There was a knock at the door of the chamber.

  Majus Cyrysi grumbled over and jerked the door open. “What are you to be wanting—oh. I see. Yes, I suppose he could come. Not as if I were conducting an important experiment with my apprentice.”

  Sam frowned at his mentor’s scowl and spiky crest.

  “The Effature is to be requesting your presence. Alone. Immediately. You had best be going. Just be thinking how to write down what you were to be experiencing. We are to be getting very close to an answer. I can feel it in my feathers.”

  * * *

  Sam kept his head down, though he glanced up often enough to follow the Lobath attendant in front of him. This place was a maze of corridors. He flexed one hand, closing and opening.

  He pressed his right forefinger into his left wrist, timing his heartbeat. Too fast. He fumbled into the pocket of his vest—the green one, which he thought would make the best impression. He’d at least had enough time to spruce up before he saw the Effature. The steady ticking of his grandfather’s pocketwatch calmed him, and he brought it to his ear.

  I have a grandfather, though I never met him. That means I have parents too. Why can’t I remember them?

  The question nagged at him, even with everything else happening. If he could key into the music he heard in Dalhni, then maybe he could get his memories back.

  Sam turned a corner into another corridor, keeping the Lobath’s braide
d head-tentacles in view. This hallway’s walls were festooned with paintings, probably gathered from all ten homeworlds. Sam was learning to tell the difference between the species’ favored expressions of art. His heart rose into his throat at the newness of the place. He’d never been in the Effature’s palace before.

  “This way, sir,” the Lobath called, and Sam started. He looked up and found his guide standing in front a set of wide doors formed of purple heartwood from an unfamiliar tree species. He squinted at the wood, trying to place it. His father had…woodworked as a hobby? Was that correct? It was another detail the being in the Drain had missed scrubbing from his memory.

  He shook his head and looked to the Lobath, forcing himself to meet the large, silvery, surprised-looking eyes. Sam glanced back down at the plush carpet. It was an expensive Festuour product. Strange that he could come to that conclusion, but couldn’t remember what his father did in his spare time.

  “He’s in there?” he said, to put off going on the room.

  The Lobath gave a curt nod, and placed a hand on the wood, ready to push the door open. “And quite busy.”

  “Oh. Ok,” Sam said. “I’m ready.”

  The Lobath bowed him in, and Sam entered a comfy study, with bookshelves lining all four walls, even above the door frame. There was a little ladder in the corner, the fading light from the walls illuminating it. A System Beast in the shape of a large cat licked a paw, sitting on an end table. The mannerism was just a front. The creature could fetch and carry, vocalize reminders, and deliver messages.

  The Effature’s palace was set with its back to one of the great walls that towered over the city, and they must be at the rear of the building. One giant facet of Nether crystal took up the entire view from the window. Sam pulled his eyes away from it so he wouldn’t have to stare into those endless depths.