Facets of the Nether
Page 30
Touching Digits came around, holding a stack of tiny vials and signing with one hand.
Mandamon sniffed at his. A pleasant aroma rose from the vial, with hints of pear, sandalwood, and rose.
“To luck!” They downed their vials. It burned the back of Mandamon’s throat, and he took in a deep breath.
“Turn it on.”
They’d adjusted the startup sequence so it drew power slower than last time. Gompt and Emma controlled that aspect, while Touching Digits and Laryn regulated the current to avoid spikes in the flow. Gretahn, the young Sathssn, ensured the biological membranes did not overheat.
The upright arms in the middle spun around the focal point, and Mandamon listened for the Symphony of Potential’s key change that would signal when the barrier between this universe and the next was breached.
This time, the fuse held when Gompt threw the switch.
“It’s opening!” Mandamon called as he pulled his goggles down. The glow between the arms was brighter than the walls. It would have burned his eyes if they weren’t protected.
Touching Digits signed.
“Power fluctuating!” Krat rasped, and Gompt reached for the controls, rings of orange flowing down his arms.
“Hold it together!” Mandamon called. There was a flurry of movement on the other side of the rotating machine. Shapes ran to correct variations in the equipment. But in front of him a doorway formed. At first it looked like a ball of off-white substance, completely smooth, like a malignant egg. Where had he seen an object described in that manner? The report had passed through the Council recently.
The thought flew from his mind as the sphere modulated, transforming as if it were a cell dividing.
“There’s a funny hiccup in the power requirements!” Gompt called. “It’s pulling more than the new fuse should allow, but it’s still working—somehow!”
“The base process is degrading,” Laryn shouted. “It’s collapsing.”
“Keep it steady!” Mandamon called. He took several notes from his core, tentatively placing them where the Symphony of Potential vibrated so fast it was in danger of fraying the melody.
The bubble in the middle of the rotating arms grew, then shrank, then divided into two and four and eight. It was like a mesh of soap bubbles, roiling as if boiling in a pot of water.
Then the bubbles smoothed, and peeled away from the focal point. For an instant, Mandamon glimpsed a shape, or figure.
Then it was gone.
The tear in their universe snapped shut, and an arm broke with an earsplitting crack. Maji scrambled out of the way as the rotating machine flung the appendage across the room, embedding its length in a wall.
There was silence, save for the grunt of Gompt’s heavy breathing and the dying whistle of escaping steam. The device tottered, lopsided and bent past easy repair. A valve slowly deflated.
“What happened?” Mandamon said as soon as he could breathe.
“Everything was on target as far as I could tell,” Gompt said.
“Then where is the three-house majus?” Laryn asked.
“Stolen,” Krat grated.
“What do you mean?” Mandamon barked. “Stolen by whom? Where?”
“Readings report tear opened, but redirected to different place,” Krat said. “Whatever came through is loose somewhere in this universe.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Seeds Will Bloom
- In all my studies of the Drains, there is only one consistency, and that is that they are not to be consistent. Though I do not know the starting conditions, save the one in the Dome of the Assembly, each Drain has reacted differently. The one the twins told me of consumed most of a merchant caravan, then appeared to depart. The one in Dalhni was destroying the town’s center—a much greater area—and then was reported to lift off into the sky. Others have been smaller in scope, such as the very first one I encountered on one of Methiem’s moons. Is there to be any true prediction what a Drain will do, or will I be doomed forever to chase their aftermath? Perhaps there is an underlying meaning or mechanism to the Drains, and the destruction they enact on this universe is simply a side-effect?
From Personal Journal of Origon Cyrysi, Majus of the Houses of Communication and Power
Rey stepped through his portal from the bridge where they fought Nakan to somewhere dark and musty. There was a smell like old oil and rusted metal. He could hear the others shuffling around, and Majus Ayama taking roll. Majus Hand Dancer showed up from her canceled concert in High Imperium just as Majus I’Fon found a couple maji of the House of Communication to take care of the Effature. Majus Ayama had strong words for them about taking the old man to the medical ward attached to the House of Healing. Rey couldn’t imagine him being gone. He’d been around forever.
She had finally relinquished her charge just as Rey thought he couldn’t hold the portal open any longer. Then his mentor arrived with six of the Effature’s guards, all Lobath, who happened to be patrolling near the base of the House of Communication, and they’d all gone through.
Rey took the notes of his composition back and the portal imploded, colors fading, though they hadn’t illuminated the dark room. The light and color created by changes to the Symphony was funny like that. It didn’t touch real life, as if it were overlaid on top. He exhaled in relief, as his exhaustion dissipated. After the precious minutes they’d taken to follow Nakan, he was surely long gone from here. Wherever here was. It was dark as a cave.
“Panen?” Majus Ayama called.
“I am here,” the Lobath majus said. “I will translate our words for the guards, as we share a dialect.”
“Ori?” Majus Cyrysi answered her. “Rey?”
“Accounted fer,” Rey said, and the majus grunted. Rey took a tentative step toward the noises. There were metallic rattlings. He remembered the guards having swords. His feet felt like they pushed against the ground too hard, and he bounced like a rubber ball. The ground felt like either dirt or rock.
“Then we’re all here. I would have liked more, but that’s what we have.”
“Where, hmm, is this?” Majus Caroom said.
“I suspect we are on the asteroid orbiting near Sath Home—the Life Coalition’s last hideaway,” Majus Ayama answered.
“Yet we are not engaging the Coalition, as we agreed?” Majus I’Fon asked. Zie sounded worried, as well zie might, after fighting Nakan. That Snakey was formidable. “They must have many soldiers, especially if they are all here.”
“Not if I can help it,” Majus Ayama answered. “Our best course is secrecy, for now.”
Rey rolled his eyes. Who’d put her in charge? She was a majus like the others now, no longer a councilor.
“We must find Enos and secondarily Nakan, if he is alone. Once we have details of their hideaway, we’ll come back with the full force of the Effature’s guards instead of six.”
Rey had to admit the plan was sound. Maybe there was a reason Majus Ayama had been on the Council.
“Can anyone be seeing an exit from this place?” Majus Cyrysi asked. “I am to be wondering if we have arrived in a closed pocket of this asteroid.”
“My aim weren’t that far off,” Rey said. He’d placed the portal exactly where Nakan made his. The information he’d gotten from Majus Cyrysi was jumbled, but also very complete. The other portals he’d practiced with Majus Kheena didn’t have nearly as much context—they depended on familiar tags in the Nether, from Gloomlight to Poler, to several places out in the farmlands. After being here a lightening
or so, he’d be able to make a portal on his own, without piecing it together from multiple sources.
“Me, I see there is more illumination in this direction.” That was Majus Kheena’s voice. Rey’s mentor sounded shaken, with good reason. They’d met a new species, seen the leader of the Nether possibly assassinated, and learned of new Houses of the maji, all in one day. In fact, it was near night in the Imperium. Rey wondered how those living here told time.
“How can you see— Oh, Sathssn eyes process more wavelengths of light, don’t they?” That was Majus Ayama again.
“This light, you cannot see it?” asked Majus Kheena.
That was Hand Dancer, presumably waving her hands about. Rey tried not to think about the translation implications. Even worse, they were no longer in the Nether. Any translation happening was because the strange crystal had gotten in their heads. Rey shivered. Yes, it was useful, but anytime he thought about it, he got the creeps. His imagination had fuel in this pitch dark.
“Then Kheena and Hand Dancer in the front, with the guards behind them,” Majus Ayama said. “Let us know if you see anyone. Be ready.” Rey heard her shuffle and grunt, moving nearer and testing her footing in the reduced pull. “Anyone else see anything?” There was no response. “Right, then Caroom, Panen and Rey in the middle. Ori and I will bring up the rear—we have more experience with this sort of thing. Feel around and call out when you’re in place.”
Of course Majus Ayama and the old Kirian had done something just like this back fifteen cycles ago, when they’d tracked down the legendary whatsit of whocares… He wondered if anyone else got tired of their bossy condescension.
“Follow,” Majus Kheena said, and Rey heard the scrabble of hard boots in a step too long for the majus’ legs. It sounded like a slow jump.
The hallway they entered was just as dark, but Majus Kheena and Hand Dancer directed them forward.
After bumbling around for several steps, Rey was already sick of the charade. “Oy,” he called. “Can anyone make a light? Anyone got a light on yer?”
“Either Hand Dancer or myself could be making light with the House of Power,” Majus Cyrysi said from behind him, “This would be permanently taking some of our notes to achieve, and if we are to be encountering forces of the Life Coalition—”
“Eyah, I get it,” Rey broke in. “Yer not wantin’ to waste yer notes.”
“I have, hmm, a set of flint and tinder if one of this group has a combustible object,” Majus Caroom rumbled. They were bumping down the corridor with as much noise as a troop of drunk sand slinkers.
There was more fumbling and a spark of light, revealing Majus Caroom with a torch on one side. Rey turned to see Majus I’Fon’s wide surprised eyes to his other side, next to the guards. The wari Lobath looked uncertain, though it was hard to know with a Lobath’s perpetually unblinking eyes. Hir skin was clammier than the guards. At least they had one majus who could counter Nakan in the House of Grace, though Majus I’Fon hadn’t been able to hold him on the bridge.
“Are you certain you placed the portal correctly?” zie asked Rey as their group continued down the corridor. There had only been one passage so far, with no branches, stretching from the dead end where the portal opened.
Rey tried not to sigh. “I’m certain.”
“It is only I do not wish to be trapped in an unknown place, with potential enemies on all sides. The Symphony has several odd sub-themes demarking what appears to be highly volatile—”
“What’s that?” Majus Ayama’s voice rang out behind. A cross-corridor loomed out of the dark a few paces ahead, and as they quieted, they could hear footsteps. “Back, and hide the light.”
Majus Caroom and Majus I’Fon shielded the torch with their bodies as the group shuffled and bounced back down the corridor. The guards pressed their swords to their legs to keep them from rattling. When Rey looked back, he saw another light growing. Soon a group of black-cloaked individuals passed perpendicular to their path. Not one turned their hood to look in their direction, but he imagined the other group’s torchlight would have blinded them anyway.
Rey’s mentor grumbled under his breath. Majus Kheena had his cowl back and shook his head. Rey caught the end of what he was saying.
“…deserve to wear the clothes of my people.”
After they passed, Majus Ayama grabbed the torch from Majus Caroom and peered down the three directions available to them. “Forward, away from that crowd, or after them?” she asked. “Where would they keep Enos?”
“That group may be traveling toward some place with more people,” Majus Cyrysi said. “Do we want to be going there?”
“And instantly be captured?” Majus I’Fon asked, between translating for the guards.
“We may be able to pry information from them if we capture one first,” the guard leader said.
“Secrecy, remember?” Majus Ayama said. “Let’s try to avoid noisy fights.”
“That group, they may also be heading away from a concentration of soldiers,” Majus Kheena added.
“We, hmm, at least know we are in the right place,” Majus Caroom observed.
“We must keep our element of surprise,” Majus Ayama countered.
“And another group will find us here dickering if we wait any longer,” Rey said. “Why not keep our same direction thataway, until we all ken what’s happenin’ here?” He threw a hand out in front of him. “This place can’t be that big.”
“He is having a point,” Majus Cyrysi said.
“Fine. We go straight for now. But we’ll need to follow Coalitioners at some point, if only to find where they are keeping Enos,” Majus Ayama said, and set off without even waiting for the others to agree. They were forced to keep up as she half skipped through the cross-corridors and along their original path.
They bounced through rough tunnels without seeing any others and Rey counted away the minutes. He realized this place was much bigger than he’d expected. Enos could be anywhere, as could Nakan. If they’d traveled this far in the Nether, they would have run into someone else by now. So where were all the Life Coalition members?
“Should this group, hmm, split up to cover more ground?” Majus Caroom asked, a little later. “These ones may find both Enos and, hmm, Nakan with this strategy.” They had passed several more cross-corridors, a large dead-end room, and a set of closed stone slab doors on either side of the corridor. The guards had volunteered to check them, but found them all deserted and disused, as if the Coalition had hollowed this area out cycles ago, then forgotten about it. Perhaps they had expanded their base, but how long had they been here to do so?
“No—stay together,” Majus Ayama answered. Rey agreed, this time. No telling where all these passages led. “If we can find Enos, excellent. If not, we might find an armory or Nakan’s room, to discover what kind of weapon he used. If we find nothing in the next lightening, we memorize coordinates for a future portal and come back with more reinforcements.”
“Us, we must also discover the Life Coalition’s reasons for what they do,” Majus Kheena said. “For them, there must be a reason to go through this trouble disrupting the Assembly. Before they are destroyed, we must know why—oof!”
Rey’s mentor ran straight into another cloaked figure, emerging from a cross-corridor.
They must have heard the discussion and come running. The figure held a barbed club and swiped at Majus Kheena, who fell back.
Majus Ayama sprinted forward, the guards to either side of her with swords drawn, as more Coalitioners poured from the tunnel. A white and olive green aura erupted around the majus’ arms and legs, and she was in the group’s midst before Rey could even react, throwing punches and kicks like an angry dust storm. Cloaked figures grunted and fell, and metal clanged against metal in the confined space. Majus I’Fon was nearly as fast, and the wari Lobath went sliding around the group, which Rey could now see was ten or more strong. Some were obviously not Sathssn, by their height or width.
The pressure in the cavern dropped and Rey shook his head to clear it. Majus Cyrysi had both hands out, ringed in yellow and orange. Two more Coalitioners dropped to the ground. Rey hadn’t even moved, and there were only a few left upright. Majus Ayama, Majus I’Fon, and the guards had taken out the rest.
The last two ran, yelling, and Majus Kheena growled, rings of brown coalescing around his hands. Rey heard his mentor change the galloping pace of the energy the fleeing Coalitioners put into the ground. The music became a soft echo of what it had been, and their steps grew smaller, as if the ground resisted them moving. Majus I’Fon caught up to them, and did something complicated with the House of Grace, waves of blue moving with hir arms. The two slumped to the floor.
“That were right impressive,” Rey told his mentor. “I’ll be usin’ it in the future, if yer don’t mind.”
Majus Kheena gave him a long look. “In the Symphony, it is easy to be destructive. The most elegant changes are those that create.”
“Still, it’s right useful in a pinch,” Rey said, and his mentor nodded reluctantly.
“Were we getting all of them?” Majus Cyrysi asked. He peered down the dark corridor where the group had emerged. “I am not seeing any other lights, but there may be a bend in the tunnel.”