If it didn’t, she would forever be a small voice inside another being, slowly driving them mad. Madder.
Enos shut away all other sensory input—easy as the thing around her covered her eyes and ears. It encased her, and every part of her body was under the same pressure. She delved deep into her mind, struggling to find that place where the Symphony lived. It was only a faint echo, barely loud enough to hear individual notes.
Have to touch the music.
Her left foot went numb, and the feeling began climbing up her leg.
I am a majus!
She didn’t even need control—merely to touch the music, to make one change. If this was anything like the System in the room where she and Sam had been held, she could overcome the barrier.
There. One sequence of music, louder than the rest. Her own body was clearest to her, even over the body of the other Aridori pressed around her. She was still distinct, and the music of the Symphony proved it. She was still a person.
Enos reached for a note, straining as if it was just out of her reach. The barrier was there, but it flexed, like a thick sheet of paper.
Her other foot went numb. There was no feeling up to her left thigh.
Just have to make one change.
Her mental fingertips scrabbled at the invisible wall, stretching it, pressing through a tiny hole. The music was so far away, but her will curled around one note, and she pulled with all her might, forcing the nonsensical change to the melody. One change was all she needed.
Enos remembered the effects of the Life Coalition’s barrier all too well. She had been shocked into near unconsciousness when she and Sam were trapped. She was ready when the lightning surge passed through her body, and by extension, the body wrapped around hers. She went rigid as the spasms passed through her.
The other Aridori paused, and Enos got the feeling of a retreat. However the shock was nothing like what Enos had experienced after several attempts in the cell with Sam. The charge would only grow with repeated attempts. It was not enough to permanently stop the thing trying to absorb her body. She could feel them gathering again. It would take too long to build the charge up enough to halt their advance.
Then she realized the true advantage she had over this ancient creature—over all other Aridori she had met.
I cannot change the Symphony, but I can hear it change.
Enos shifted, listening to the notes change as her body transformed. They were far away, but audible. The Symphony of Healing defined their bodies. The big Aridori had partially meshed their music with hers, adjusting key and tempo so their music pulsed as one. Good. Enos made small adjustments to her form, listening to how it changed the song.
She couldn’t change the notes, but she could spread her change to the lump of flesh attached to her, listening to the Symphonies of their entangled bodies. They had nearly the same musical structure.
What—what are you doing?
The voice was not hers. It was from the big Aridori, now they were so closely linked.
I am correcting your mistake, she replied.
The change flowed as her rage pushed for revenge. The other’s music was complex, but not as complex as it should have been. The mind was stripped of specifics, burned away over cycles of captivity and deprivation. The body was even simpler, especially in this fluid form.
Enos followed the melody as it sped up, a rampaging crescendo of anger, letting her body change with it. Where there was only hunger and impulse in the other’s mind, Enos replaced it with her ambition, her strength of will, her love for Inas and for Sam, her appreciation of Majus Ayama as her mentor. Where the other’s body was unfounded, loose in structure and identity, Enos replaced it with her life as a Methiemum. She knew who her parents were, who her society was, and how she contributed by being Methiemum and a merchant. She shifted her body, and listened.
The other tried to hold her off, but with weaker and weaker surges, until the impressions she received from them were blatant, weepy, imprecations.
Don’t take us. We can show you new things—many bodies and ways to change.
Enos gained traction, bringing feeling back to her hands and feet.
We have power, and experience. We are so old. Yes take our body, take control from us. No! You cannot! We must be in control. That has been the way for so many cycles—since the Great War.
There was more than one personality rising to the surface, each battling for dominance. It only weakened her prey.
Stop resisting. It is time for us to be absorbed, as we have absorbed others. That was all from one voice.
Do you not remember the path of the Pillars? This one does, even if the other is stock from the Blessed. This was another voice, calmer than the others.
Take us, child, and learn of your ancestors.
The big Aridori suddenly stopped fighting, and Enos flowed over them. There were…accommodations, and Enos could breathe, and feel, and hear, and then she could see.
Enos opened her eyes, and found Zhaddi and Putra standing over her. The ones with no names watched her from the corners of the room.
“I told you I liked her,” Putra said. They were smiling. It was not at all pleasant, but Enos didn’t care. She hadn’t meant to go quite so far.
The other Aridori was gone and she felt…full.
Enos rose to her feet, peering in the darkness down—down?—at the two Aridori. She was big. Why?
“I can show you how to get rid of the unneeded parts,” Zhaddi said. “You’ve more than proved you are capable.” Enos looked down in revulsion. Her body was half Methiemum, half a conglomeration of other species. Two of her left arms ran hands down her side, feeling a mix of scales and feathers, fur and skin.
“Please, help,” Enos said. “I don’t want to look like this.” Something buzzed at the back of her head, and it wasn’t the Symphony.
“You still need to absorb your other instance,” Putra warned. “The Sathssn are very strict. But this is an excellent, if unconventional, start.”
“Now, watch carefully,” Zhaddi said, and proffered an arm, a mass of flesh rippling down it as if it were sliding off. “Look inside for the parts that are no longer needed, or do not work as well. Make yourself more efficient—faster at changing, better at breathing, more useful for our masters.”
Enos followed the other Aridori’s lead, and for a time the room they were in became messy. Blood was not an issue, but organs kept their images of what they had been for the longest time. There were several from the big Aridori which added new and exciting abilities Enos never imagined she could have. Yet there was only so much space. She would not change the overall shape of the form she had lived with so long. Or not much. She had to make hard decisions.
The others drifted over as she worked, some accepting parts she discarded, as they were better than ones they owned. Zhaddi and Putra even took a few for themselves. The big Aridori had been powerful.
Enos found parts had been damaged in the struggle, and she hadn’t even noticed. One of her eyes was punctured, though she was no longer certain who it belonged to. When she finished, she was back down to two, but they were different colors. She wondered what Sam would think about that, and about her new height. She had always wanted to be a little taller—not the monstrosity she had been after the merger, but a little. It would be easier to reach Sam’s mouth when they stood close.
Enos found herself lost in thought, while the others moved around her. The release of extra parts washed away the building rage, replacing it with familiar emotion from when she was close to Sam, but not one she would have thought to encounter here. He was always so sweet, and with the new changes, she could be so much more with him—to him. There were positions she’d show him, especially if she adjusted, just a bit. So many possibilities.
Enos shook herself, and heard Putra chuckle, low and knowingly.
“I know what thoughts drift through your head. It is always the same, after one absorbs another, and the one you took was strong.”
&nb
sp; The buzzing rose in the back of Enos’ head, and she made out muttered words like “feast” and “taste” and “stroke.”
“Would you have let them take me instead of the other way around?” Enos asked Putra. Putra cocked their head, but the other Aridori didn’t answer. None of them did.
Enos slept soundly for the rest of the night.
Nakan finally came back the next morning, and set to grumbling when he saw the state of the room.
“These Aridori, like snakefish from the lakes back home. Put a new one into an established habitat and you’ll find only a single fat one left in the morning. Disgusting.” His cowl panned around the room, settling on Enos. “Are you taller, or me, am I imagining things?”
Enos didn’t answer. She was too busy looking over the Sathssn’s robe with her new eyes. She could see the insignia all over his cloak. They were woven in, but the markings were not visible to the other species. None of them saw into the spectrum above the purple colors.
Nakan was festooned with weapons and equipment, as if he planned some operation. A nasty looking knife gleamed at his waist and its blade caught the light strangely, as if it was not reflecting solely into this place. He was going somewhere, but Enos didn’t dare ask.
After more grumbling, Nakan went back to the door. “You, try not to eat any more of your group. The Life Coalition needs more than one assassin. There is still important business to be done, especially after I return today. My actions, they will change everything.”
“Changing things again, captor?” Putra taunted. “Last time the leaders did not appreciate your initiative.”
Nakan bristled, turning from the door. “Janas and the rest, they do not understand tactics as I do. You beasts, you wait until the end of today. The Effature will not run his assembly forever, will he?”
He slipped from the room, closing the door and locking it after him.
The Effature? What does that mean?
“Ha, I wondered how long Palmoran would run things,” Zhaddi said. “That one was always too twisty for his own good. Always got the good roles.”
Enos stared back at the Aridori.
And what does that mean?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A New Facet
- For hundreds of cycles, maji have asked where the Nether is placed physically in the universe. The answer is: nowhere. As far as we can ascertain, the Nether does not share physical reality with the galaxies the ten species inhabit. One could not fly across the stars and reach it. Yet maji arrived by portal, far in the past, and transmitted those coordinates to others. I interviewed the Lobhl majus who first contacted the Nether, and they said the experience was not one they could describe. It was completely by accident that they opened a portal here. They were attempting to travel across their homeworld and missed, badly. We still have no data on where the Nether exists, though some of us live our entire lives in it.
Transcript of a paper by Jarrol Maertn, Councilor for the House of Grace, 971 A.A.W.
The crystal bent around Sam. Wor Wobniar, close enough to hug, skittered forward, pushing through solid material, and Sam and Inas followed, arm in arm. All the colors of the Symphony surged around them, leaving trails through the translucent crystal. Some trails pinged off the shield of silver Wor Wobniar had erected as soon as xy pushed into the wall.
They had been walking for several minutes—walking both on and through the crystal. Or maybe it had been a full lightening of the wall. It was impossible to tell in here, as Sam slowly dragged one foot in front of the other. Inas did the same beside him, and that was the only thing that kept the panic deep inside Sam from exploding outward.
Am I breathing? Why am I not sinking?
His heart should be hammering, but Sam couldn’t even feel it beating. Inas had his left arm captured in a death grip, and Sam had to use his right as a counterbalance to surge forward, like walking through water.
He should be panting with the effort of forcing his way through. He should at least feel the need to breathe. There was nothing, except his thoughts echoing through his head.
Is this in the Nether? Can it feel me moving through it? Majus Cyrysi said it supplies nutrients and air. Is it doing the same to me?
There was no answer from the Nether, of course.
Another step. Another step. Wor Wobniar’s piston-like legs chugged forward mechanically, taking them further from the only home Sam had left. He knew Earth existed, or probably did, and that there were people who had raised him, but memories were scarce. The Nether was where he lived, at least for now.
Is the silver glow around Wor Wobniar pure Time? It was around xyr when xy came through the first time. I can hear it too. I can hear two houses.
The music was as if from chimes made of spiderwebs and glass, the sound so light in his head he could barely make out individual notes. It had been overwhelming to make the portal to remove the Drain in the Assembly. He’d put notes into that change and never gotten them back. It had been a permanent change to the Symphony. Was this one too? If so, how could Wor Wobniar hold it for this long?
It was a few minutes, or a few lightenings, or a few days later when the vague blur in front of them cleared.
There is crystal directly in front of my eyes. It’s touching my eyeballs!
Best not to think about it.
Sam could see shapes, growing clearer as they came closer. How far away was—
Wor Wobniar lurched forward, and the dome of silver around xyr fizzled and disappeared. The need to breathe surged—the gulping, horrible pulsing of drowning—and Sam swung his head around looking for help. The pressure from his chest grew into a desperate need for fresh air. He couldn’t move fast enough. He would die here.
Inas’ grip on his arm tightened into a painful grip. He must feel the same need. Was this all a lie? Was Wor Wobniar going to leave them here, encased in the wall…
Another step forward and the crystal parted around him, turning into chilly air, and Sam sucked in great lungfuls, cooling him. Inas dropped his arm and gasped, hands on knees. Sam kept his footing with an effort and looked up to Wor Wobniar, who showed little sign of distress, save that xyr mouthparts were flexing open and closed, like a fish gasping in air.
They stood on a bridge that was the twin of the one on the other side. This one was of stone, as the other had been before Sam accidentally transformed it. He hadn’t noticed when the structure disappeared inside the wall, though it didn’t connect all the way through the crystal.
Stairs ran down from the bridge to a small hill of earth, butted up against the wall. At the bottom, buildings marched into a city that was definitely not the Imperium, yet had a similar feeling. Sam could see strange creatures passing between the buildings, the largest portion of which looked like Wor Wobniar.
Then Sam heard the memory of xyr voice in his head, and looked up to catch the end of a trail of colored lights across xyr brow. “The transition was not pleasant, even according to the accounts left by previous prophets. The chime announces the closest conjunction of our facets, though perhaps they were not as close as in eras past.” Xy shook all three arms, as if getting rid of a feeling. “Nevertheless, we have arrived in my facet of the Nether. Be welcome. The transition would have been impossible had I not protected us.”
Inas straightened, hand on his back, breathing in deeply. “The protection was the silver dome you made?” he asked. He appeared more attentive than he’d been in days. The air here was richer—a different mix than in their facet.
“Yes, of the House of Time. I can teach you this.” Xy directed this at Sam.
“But I’m also of the House of Matter,” he said.
Wor Wobniar’s head flaps centered on Sam, with one of the three flicking toward Inas. “It is common practice for one who can hear two houses to have a primary teacher. The House of Matter will be harder for you to master, as there are no others who can hear that aspect, but it is your primary house. It is the one you attune to more naturally.”
> Sam snuck a glimpse at Inas, whom he was taking away from Majus Caroom and his training, no matter how much everyone agreed this might be better for him. He already seemed more awake. But Sam hadn’t forgotten his promise to talk about his imprisonment. As soon as they had a few minutes free.
“If we are ready to continue?” The prophet tapped a foot impatiently. Inas pulled himself upright, and Sam saw the struggle it took him. He grasped his friend’s hand, ready to help in any way he could.
Wor Wobniar’s explanation that he was closer to the House of Matter made sense. Everything Sam sensed about the Symphony was tied to a physical characteristic, rather than the odd conglomerations the aspects appeared to be. Those of the House of Communication could control air, but also affect speech. The House of Grace could affect water, but also how people moved. He affected matter at its basic level. And he could also hear a house that affected time itself?
Wor Wobniar, oblivious to what was passing between him and Inas—or xy just didn’t care—waggled one claw in the air in an indeterminate gesture. The lights on xyr brow blinked, then continued a progression as xyr mouthparts beneath grated together. “Seeing time is not as useful as one would think, to an intelligence which lives inside it. Compare it to a water bug swimming through a reservoir, yet able to see the currents. Does it help them steer? Maybe yes, maybe no.”
Sam took in a quick breath as he understood. If you tried to change the course of currents as they swept by you, any effort you put into it would immediately be lost.
“Any change is a permanent use of your notes, isn’t it?” he asked. Wor Wobniar’s head flaps snapped toward him.
“What do you know of this?” xy asked. “You have adjusted the Vloeinkaal? This is not a practice a novice majus should attempt.”
“I…” The words stuck in Sam’s throat. He had told no one of the silver aura mixed with the gold when he made the immense portal. If that was even what Wor Wobniar meant by ‘Vloeinkaal.’ “I don’t know,” he finished lamely.
“Sam, what did you do while I was away?” Inas asked. “Is this like what you did to the bridge? When did you discover you weren’t of the House of Communication, like Majus Origon?”
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