Tales of the Dissolutionverse Box Set

by William C. Tracy

  This would be great for climbing ropes.

  “What a jewel night,” Avi said, as we finished rolling out the mat.

  “A jewel night? What do you mean?” I looked up as we attached the other side of the mat to hooks on a beam. “Oh. I see.” The ceiling was almost dark, but the water collected on it reflected the last bits of illumination, bouncing the light in all directions until it looked like a sky full of stars back on Etan. It was a relief from the hemmed-in feeling I’d had all day.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Avi said.

  “It is,” I agreed. We sat there for a few minutes, taking in the vast ceiling of the Nether. Not far off, I could see where the nearest column—the one I’d kept an eye on the whole climb—met the ceiling. Around its edge, there were even more shining water droplets, like hanging bunches of grapes that glowed green and blue and purple.

  “Come on,” Avi finally said. “We should get to our hammocks. I’m sure your mater and the others want to explore the town tomorrow.”

  I agreed, and we climbed under the roofing mat.

  “How do we make those lights stop glowing?” I asked. I looked at the five wooden posts placed around the circumference of the bowl-like mat. On the top of each one was a small glowing object like I had seen around the town.

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Avi said. They went to a post, and picked up the little object. Its light faded away, and they put it back. “Just think about the light going off.”

  Just think about it? That’s strange. But I walked to the nearest light post and picked up the rough object sitting on it.

  “This is like the Nether wall!” I said. After climbing up it for so many days, I knew exactly what the smooth, almost slippery crystal felt like.

  “That’s right.” Avi went to another light. “We sing to them to harvest them. Don’t you have them on the floor of the Nether?”

  “Harvest them? No, we don’t. Wait—sing?” I stared at the crystal. Turn off, I thought. The faint light faded from the crystal and my eyes widened.

  I need to tell Mom about this. Before Wailimani learns about it.

  “Avi, your people can break off parts of the Nether wall? I thought that was impossible!”

  Avi shrugged expansively, opening their wings. “Sing, not break. That is impossible. And the singing takes a really long time to learn. It’s not like we can do whatever we want with it.”

  I placed the lump of Nether crystal back on the lamp post. “It’s still something special. None of the ten species can do it.”

  In the dim light, we climbed into our hammocks, made of more Arach Hanar silk, and despite my excitement, the comfortable bed lured me to sleep.

  * * *

  The next morning, I found Mom as soon as I could. She was in front of the building we’d slept in, running a hand over the trellises that made up the streets of the city. The planks were set in a mesh, just far enough apart so we had to watch where we stepped. We couldn’t fall through the holes, but we could certainly slip a foot through if we weren’t careful.

  “Where’s Wailimani?” I asked.

  “He went off with those new friends of his,” Mom said, pointing toward where the nearest column stretched up through a section of beams. The Grumv’s city extended past it, all the way to the next four columns. There must have been thousands of Grumv living here to take up that much area.

  There was a stairway winding partway around the column, reaching toward the ceiling, and I could just make out mesh strung around it, as if to catch something—like crystals sung from the Nether wall.

  I bet he already knows. That Kirian was devious, cowardly, and would take any advantage he could find.

  I told Mom what Avi and I had talked about last night. Fortunately, the Grumv was off getting their breakfast, so we had a little privacy.

  “I think Wailimani wants to make a deal with the Grumv, but he will make sure he gets a lot more out of it than they do.”

  “Hm.” Mom bit at the end of one of her fingers. “You might be right, but if he makes a deal with the Grumv, I can’t stop him. As much as I dislike him, and…what happened, he has a right to negotiate on his own.”

  “Partino would still be here if Wailimani and his assistant hadn’t joined us!” I said, louder than I meant. I’d thought about him less and less each day. Does that mean I’m a bad person?

  “What happened to throwing him off the wall? We never found out what really happened.” I tried to lower my voice. “What if Wailimani told his assistant to cut Partino’s harness?”

  “First, we’re not on the climb anymore,” Mom said. “We’re in civilization, and I’m sure the Grumv have rules for people who don’t fit in with regular society.” She passed a hand around, taking in the buildings. “Second, he’s done nothing since I gave him that warning. He’s been good.”

  “Wailimani hasn’t done anything because he needed us,” I said. “He practically told me when we entered the city that he would take as much from the Grumv as he could.”

  Mom’s lips tightened. “Then we’ll both watch him. I trust him just as little as you do, but if we tell the Grumv they should lock him up—or whatever they do here—with no reason, we may lose any chance we have to trade with them. They have things here the rest of the ten species could use. Did you see the Arach Hanar silk? It’s stronger than anything I’ve seen before.”

  I nodded. “I noticed it last night at dinner.”

  “I’m going to do tests on it today. Kita is letting me set up my equipment in their medical clinic.” Mom looked up as Majus E’Flyr came toward us from one of the other cylinders.

  “Have you asked her about the portal back home?” I asked.

  Mom shook her head. “I didn’t have a chance last night. The majus was talking with the holy one all evening.”

  The Lobath stumped up to us, the ends of her head-tentacles twitching around her shoulders, unbraided. Her surprised-looking, silvery eyes took us both in.

  “Before you ask, no, I can’t make a portal back,” she said. “That strange interference from the wall is still too great, and the ceiling being so close only makes it worse. We have to get farther out. The holy one and I will visit the edge of the city to see if it will work out there.”

  My shoulders slumped. I don’t want to climb all the way back down.

  “We need a portal somewhere if the ten species are going to trade with the Grumv.” Mom said. “Don’t they go back to their homeworld, or visit the other Grumv cities up here?”

  Majus E’Flyr lifted a long purple finger. “That’s the interesting thing. Their holy one didn’t know about portals. The Grumv travel the long way from city to city. They have waystations along the path, reaching between cities. Gami the city announcer is responsible for calling to the next waystation. It’s a position of high status.”

  “Oh!” I said. “That makes sense. Did you notice how deep the Grumv’s voices are? That must be so they can hear each other across long distances.”

  Mom was nodding along. “That’s a good observation.” She put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Remember when you thought being a naturalist and explorer was a silly thing to do?”

  I dipped my head. “I kind of got to like taking notes while we were climbing,” I told her. “And it’s better exercise than sitting at home. I’ve almost filled up the notebook.” Mom looked surprised. “I can show you what I have.”

  A big smile crept over Mom’s face, and I felt like there was a little fire in my chest. “I’d like that,” she said. “Perhaps we can write about what we’ve found up here together.”

  I felt my eyes widen. My name, on a scientific paper like Mom publishes?

  “Touching,” the majus said, drawing our attention back. “But you missed the other important point. The Grumv don’t know about portals.” She waited, eyes flicking between Mom and me.

  Both of us drew in a deep breath at the same time.

  “They don’t have
a homeworld!” I said.

  “That’s right.” Majus E’Flyr’s head-tentacles flopped as she nodded. “They’re isolated here. Maybe they came from a homeworld originally, or maybe they somehow evolved here. We don’t know enough about the Nether to say for sure. In any case, they’ve been here for centuries. They don’t remember any other home.”

  * * *

  Later in the morning, Avi’s friend Luna came by. Luna Anul Nulu Nali Luina was Avi’s best friend in the city, and had already gone through her molting. She had chosen to be female, and I could see the small differences between her and Avi, like more curves and a slightly shorter beak. Luna was friendly, but more aloof than Avi. She only stayed a short time, more to see the strange new species, and report back to her other friends. Avi promised to tell Luna all about our first meeting, once they were finished helping us out.

  I spent the rest of the day with Mom and Avi, setting up her equipment in the medical bowl. This space had its roof rolled out all the time, because there was equipment in here the Grumv didn’t want getting wet. We saw a lot of other faces peek in through the windows, and the mayor came by a few times too. The Grumv were as interested to find out about us as we were of them.

  Everything in the city was made of wood, and that made a lot of sense now. They couldn’t mine for metal up here, and couldn’t go to a homeworld to do so. They used the Arach Hanar silk for binding things together, and even had a process using an acid made from an insect living in the trees to turn the silk into resin.

  They also used the Nether teardrops for many things other than light, like lenses and focusing devices. Avi told me there were ways to sing the crystals into different shapes while harvesting them. It took cycles to do so, by Grumv trained their whole lives to sing in a certain way. The shaped crystals were some of their most prized possessions, traded with other cities and handed down as heirlooms.

  I wrote all this down in my notebook, and even showed Avi a small coin of Nether crystal—the money most of the Nether used. Mom had given me a piece before we started and I’d forgotten about it, tucked in a pouch in my clothes bag.

  “This has been sung,” Avi said, holding the small triangular piece of money, “and to a very precise shape.”

  “It’s what the people down below use for money,” I told them.

  “Then you do know about crystal singing!” they cried. “You lied, last night!”

  I held up my hands. “I didn’t—I promise!” I took the triangle back. “All the money for the Nether comes from the Effature’s palace and the Council of the Maji. No one knows how it’s originally made.”

  “This Eff—Effature must know,” Avi said, still peering over their beak at me suspiciously.

  I nodded. “Probably, but there’s nothing else made from this material, not like what you do. If the people down there could make other things out of Nether crystal, they would have. Maybe there’s only a fixed amount?”

  Avi lost interest soon after that, but I drew the triangle in my notebook, just in case, and then one of the unshaped lights, and a crystal lens one of the Grumv doctors let me hold.

  Wailimani had snuck out that morning, before any of us realized where he was going. We didn’t get a chance to find out what he was doing until that evening. He had found out about the crystals on his own, and I could tell from his pointy-toothed smile that he thought he had an advantage over us. I glared at him as he passed by the medical cylinder.

  The majus came back that evening, after walking all around the edge of the town.

  “I think I can make a portal, but it will take a few days,” she said.

  “A few days? Why?” I asked.

  “The Grumv will have to build a special platform,” Majus E’Flyr told me. Then she looked to Mom. “The edge of the town is far enough away from the wall and ceiling’s interference to make a portal, but the streets of the city are not quite low enough. I could hang down on a rope and open a portal back to the Imperium, but when I tried to return, it would be as risky as opening one halfway up the wall.”

  “We’ve had enough of falling on this expedition,” Mom said, and I shivered.

  “That’s what I thought,” the majus said. “So I explained the situation and the holy one agreed to have a special platform built, but it will take a few days. He’s keen to learn about portals. He’s been to the Grumv city on the other side of the Nether in his youth, and believes he may be able to open a portal there, once I show him how.”

  “We’d be able to trade with all the Grumv, not only this city,” I said, and the majus nodded.

  “Then we’ll use that time to study,” Mom said.

  * * *

  The next day, the Grumv began working on the extension to their city, under the supervision of the majus. There was a quick-growing tree they harvested and sawed into beams to form their trusses. The wood was soft, but the intersecting planks of the trusses made their walkways very strong. Without metal, the trusses were bound together with clever joints and resin made of Arach Hanar silk.

  Mom and I did a little research that day, with Avi’s help. My new friend showed off their wings, and how little their body weighed, compared to us.

  “Hollow bones, like a bird,” Mom said, using the little portable scale she brought. It wouldn’t have been able to hold my weight, but Avi was much lighter.

  “If you’re so light, why haven’t any of your people tried to come down to the bottom of the Nether?” I asked them.

  “Cross the white sea?” Avi asked, then shrugged. “There’s nothing to grab onto, below where the plants stop growing.”

  “Without portals, it would be a one-way trip for them, much as for us,” Mom said. “Though they would be much less likely to be hurt, since the Grumv glide.” She peered at Avi, as if considering her size. “Do you have a cemetery, or museum, or someplace you put your ancestors who have died?”

  “There is the temple of the honored dead, except no one is allowed in there but the mayor and the holy one,” Avi told us.

  “Maybe you could ask them,” I suggested. I wasn’t sure what Mom was getting at, but she probably had a reason for asking to get into somewhere off limits.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Avi said, but they looked dubious.

  That night, when Majus E’Flyr came back from helping with the new construction, Avi was still off talking to someone about getting us into their temple.

  “Tomorrow, you think?” Mom asked her when the majus had finished washing sawdust off in the bathing bowl, woven of tight silk fibers coated with wax.

  The majus looked even more surprised than usual, her wide silver eyes reflecting the wall’s evening light, then counted on her fingers. “Tomorrow’s the fourth day again, isn’t it?”

  Fourth day? What’s that mean? I looked at my watch. I’d gotten out of the habit of using it, while climbing, and stuffed it into my carry-bag. Only now, when we were on relatively stable ground, had I started wearing it again. I counted back in my head. It was the thirty-fourth day since we began preparing the expedition in Gloomlight.

  “What’s that mean?” I asked, and both Mom and the majus looked at me.

  “I was meaning to tell you,” Mom said. “I honestly thought we would reach a place to rest before now, but we’ve barely had a chance to stop.”

  “Tell me what?” I thought I knew everything she did about this expedition by now. Am I still too young, after all that’s happened?

  “It’s in here somewhere,” the majus said, and went to a bag still partially packed with Mom’s equipment.

  “What are you hiding?” I asked Mom, and she looked away from me.

  “I did really mean to tell you, but it was decided before I asked you along and…it’s complicated.”

  I opened my mouth to ask her again, but a shout from the majus interrupted us.

  “Got it!”

  Majus E’Flyr pulled out the box of spongy wood with the strange hexagon on top. I’d com
pletely forgotten about it. She poised one hand above the hexagon, the other holding the box up. “The majus from the House of Potential tuned this lock to the House of Strength so I could open it,” she said. Her hand didn’t touch the metal, but something inside clicked. She must have changed the Symphony.

  We all peered into the box. The walls bent under Majus E’Flyr’s fingers, like the wood was from a mushroom instead of a tree. The inside was filled with shredded pulp, and I hesitantly reached a hand out to draw some of it back.

  “Go ahead,” the majus said.

  I pulled the fiber back. Now I’m allowed. I remembered the majus’ reaction when we started the climb. I must have impressed her along the way.

  Inside was a perfect sphere of Nether crystal, bigger than both of my hands together.

  “What…?” I said. What reason is there to ship even more crystal up here?

  “It’s from the Effature himself,” Mom said. “He gave it to us when he approved the expedition. We were alone with him at the time. I don’t think even the Council of the Maji knew about it.” She looked to the majus.

  “I didn’t tell them,” Majus E’Flyr said. “The Effature has reasons for doing what he does, not that I know what they are.”

  “It’s so smooth,” I said, tracing my fingertips across its surface. I could barely feel it—only as coolness under my hand. There were no imperfections and almost no friction to the surface. Colors rippled in the wake of my touch. “Oh—I didn’t mean to—” I took my hand back quickly.

  The majus chuckled, and put the lid back on the box. “It won’t connect properly until I make some adjustments. I’ll probably need the help of the Grumv’s holy one as well.”

  “Connect?” I was still lost, and looked from the majus to Mom, who shrugged.

  “I still don’t completely understand it,” Mom said, “but the Effature says he has a matching one down there.” She pointed.

  “Another of his toys locked away where the maji can’t find it,” Majus E’Flyr said, with a frown. “I’ve told the Council more times than I can count that the maji should have free reign to explore the Effature’s treasure trove, but somehow my request always gets lost going from them to him.” She shook her head. “We should be able to talk to him directly with this. He gave us a window every fourth day when he would be available.”