The Seeds of Dissolution

by William C. Tracy

  “I—yes. One moment, please.” The officer frantically gestured with long fingers to another guard. “We were not aware you would visit so soon.”

  Rilan traded glances with Ori. So the councilors might be on their way. If she knew the real Feldo, they would be. Their group would need to be in and out quickly, then disappear.

  The other guard brought a sign-in sheet, making quick notes as he scanned their party. Rilan looked back to others. If they had full descriptions of their group, they could be tracked. She glanced around, looking for a solution, and saw Hand Dancer had both hands up, fingers flying through a complicated knot of orange. Zie took a moment, one hand away from the construction, to make a placating gesture toward her. Was zie camouflaging them somehow? Could the House of Power do that? It must be something with the connections in their group and the way people recognized them. She would have to ask Ori later.

  “—only four at maximum,” the officer was saying. She had missed a few words, but the twins were looking between each other, and Enos turned back, her cat’s eyes passing over Rilan with a question.

  If they would only let four of them in, Rilan would be torn apart by elephants before missing out. She swiveled two fingers between her and Ori. Enos faced forward.

  “Councilor Feldo and I, we will take two of our assistants.” She marked Rilan and Ori with a black-gloved hand.

  Rilan spun to the others, whispering. “Get away from here before they make too many guesses. We’ll meet back at the same overhang.” Caroom’s eyes flickered in agreement. She looked to Sam, huddled in the back. He was shaking, breathing hard, and he was holding his watch against an ear. He looked pale. “Take care of him.” No matter how much he had been drawn in by the twins, revealing their secret, even accidentally, must be very hard for him.

  Hand Dancer made a motion of agreement, and zie guided Sam away. Caroom stumped after them.

  The guard who had taken their descriptions, hopefully muddled by Hand Dancer, gestured them forward. His head-tentacles were tied in a neat knot. They followed him into the depths of the prison, down stone corridors with flickering torches. They did not use Systems where they did not have to in the prison.

  “The System Sam encountered would have been useful here,” Ori whispered on the way.

  Rilan nodded. “I believe Zsaana had something to do with those plans being ‘lost.’ When I was first accepted to the Council, they spoke vaguely of the possibility, but I got the impression the development was tied up in technical difficulties.”

  Ori snorted. “I am wondering how long this Life Coalition has been working behind the scenes.”

  Soon they hit the bottom of the Nether, the floor the same rough crystal clarity of the walls. Looking through the vast distances of the crystal always made her uneasy, and she focused ahead.

  Two more guards were stationed at a solid door in a solid wall. Their guide held a low conversation, gesturing back toward them. One attendant opened the door with a hiss, and Rilan saw Ori’s eyebrows go up, his crest perk. There was a faint yellow haze visible, which must indicate a seal on the door.

  Inside the cell, Rilan nearly bumped into Ori. She peered around his shoulder as the door closed behind them.

  In the exact center of the room was a small box, no longer on a side than her forearm. It was solid steel with no symbols or decorations save one small hole in the center of the top. There was a film of glowing yellow and white surrounding it.

  “A filter,” Ori whispered to her and she nodded.

  “It won’t let anything organic through.”

  Enos reached a shaking gloved hand toward the box. She hesitated a mere breath above the metal surface, then pushed a finger down to touch it. Immediately, she snatched it back with a moan, and swayed. Inas moved close to her.

  “There is someone in there,” she said, her cat’s eyes locked on her brother’s.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The Prisoner

  -Those from the House of Healing are thought of as healers, but in truth, they are better described as biologists. Only rarely is one of the maji able to speed the healing process, and only at a great cost. More often those of the House of Healing occupy the forefront in positions of learning and science, though I have seen as many become great fighters or politicians.

  From “A Discussion on the House of Healing” by Ribothari Tan, Knower

  Enos pulled her finger back as if it had been burned. One of her species was in that box, though not a close relation. The subtle link pulsed in her head—the same one that bound twin instances at close range, and evident when many of her family came together. It was normally only felt when both halves of an instance were together. This one Aridori exuded more of that link than the rest of her family combined. Who was it?

  Inas caught her arm, offering assistance in response to her thoughts. She shook him off, gently. She could feel Majus Ayama’s eyes on her without turning her head. For cycles, her family remained hidden in plain sight, only to be exposed by Sam's innocence and his mentor's observation. She clenched pointed teeth. Even the thought of him sent spikes of rage through her, though that was the effects of her changing, ramping up emotion and every feeling. She hated that too.

  If she was rational, if she had not had to change twice in five days, she knew she would have expected their secret to come out, after his first reaction, and inability to keep his mouth shut. She knew he cared, and she still cared for him, as did Inas, no matter what came between them. Right now she wanted to tear him apart. Only the threat of the maji revealing them had kept her from running.

  Their parents warned them, as all children of the Aridori were warned. Once free, knowledge of their species could never be contained. They each had to be vigilant for themselves and each other. Their family had kept their nature secret for hundreds of cycles, until she went and told Sam. Stupid. She was mad at herself too, if she was being honest.

  Enos looked to her brother. The Drain, their capture, both of them revealed as maji—everything at once was too much. Sometimes it threatened to break all the bounds inside her, gush out over all the homeworlds. She tightened one hand into a fist.

  “There is someone in there,” she told Inas, willing her eyes to give him the rest of the information. He felt enough, through their connection. He was never as composed as he appeared. It was one reason Sam was so good for him, for them.

  Though he appeared as Councilor Feldo, he was still the same underneath. Curse this Sathssn skin she wore—it was like a thick wool cloak, blotting out everything she was used to, living as a Methiemum. The Sathssn panted more than sweated, and her breath felt short. Yet to change again would give them away, raise her emotions more, and take too long, all at once.

  “Is it anoth—is it an Aridori?” Majus Cyrysi asked her. Majus Ayama threw the Kirian a dirty look. Enos wanted to do the same for his sloppiness. Was everyone so careless? Did everyone not have some secret they wished guarded? Who knew who was listening to them?

  Carefully, she nodded once, making sure both maji saw.

  “Can you talk to it?” Majus Ayama asked. Emotions ran across her face, too fast to catch them all. There was distance between them, a barrier made of centuries of hatred and bigotry, yet Enos still wanted to be apprentice to the woman. Could time heal this rift? Or were Inas and she headed to another cell in this prison?

  “I believe I can,” Enos said.

  The majus gestured awkwardly to the small box. “How is it surviving in there? Is it curled up? Is it in its natural shape?”

  Enos was uncertain. She and Inas never changed unless absolutely necessary. She also did not want to give any sign she or Inas were unfamiliar with this Aridori. She was useful for now, as an expert.

  “I will attempt to find out,” she said, and steeled herself to touch the box. She subtly changed the surface of her hand—it would not affect her emotions much more—by removing the fingertips of the black glove and transitioning back to
flesh, even if green and scaled. It should make no difference, but psychologically, the contact would be fuller, and she needed the reassurance. She was used to wearing clothes, not making them of her own substance, but there had been no time to search for a suitable black cloak and accompanying accessories. She reached out and down.

  Free us—

  The words caught her by surprise and she jerked back, air escaping her alien throat in a hiss. It—they—must be pressed against the inside surface of the box to transmit so clearly. Even with Inas there were never transmitted words, just images and feelings. With all the family gathered, there were only vague sensations of intention. She eyed the maji, and gave a quick shake of her head to Inas so he wouldn’t come nearer. She pressed her entire Sathssn palm to the metal.

  Free us to slash, to tear, to bite and squeeze and pull and rip and taste and—

  Enos gasped before she could help herself. A smell of dark, rich blood welled up in her mind. Inas was at her side, offering comfort.

  “What is it?” he whispered.

  She eyed the maji. Too close for truth, for what they might overhear. “There is more than one in there,” she said.

  Inas’ eyebrows lifted, coarse black and white hairs in his disguise. He understood. Both instances were in there, together, mixed. A muscle in his jaw jumped. “Shall I try?” Even his voice was different.

  Enos shook her head and shoved him away. Keep him in shadow, out of the maji’s notice.

  One more time, she pressed a hand to the cold metal, feeling the rush of insane words and images rush over her. Curtains of blood. Striking for hot flesh, tearing, using knowledge of weak spots. The non-Aridori, they were frail, unmalleable. There was a need to make them malleable, maul-able.

  Enos cleared her throat.

  “Can you hear me?” she said out loud, aiming at the little hole, covered by an aura of yellow and white. She could hear some of the phrases in the House of Healing. The regimented rhythms were like bars, keeping the unwanted songs from coming through.

  —to drink sweet and thrive in the sun and the rain and the blood with the change and…

  The rambling broke off.

  Another part of me? Come back at last? Where are more?

  “I said, can you hear me?” Enos repeated out loud. Please speak, she begged mentally. Don’t just be a voice in my head.

  The box vibrated, grew warmer, and Enos drew back. Something was forming, from a constant state of flux. Bile rose from her Sathssn gullet. The prisoner was completely without a shape.

  Thoughts swirled together without separation—more than one consciousness, thinking at once. She concentrated. There was no telling how many instances were fused together. She coughed, hiding a gag. This was all her family rejected.

  Air whistled through the little hole, and Majus Cyrysi leaned forward, his crest rising, maybe listening to something in the System. Enos took her hand back hastily.

  The prisoner spoke, an oddly melodious voice. “It has been long cycles since we voiced our thoughts. Could voice our thoughts. Was free to have voice.” The speech grew hoarse. “Voices. Longer cycles since speaking to one of our kind, separate from us.” The timber was rusty chains now, dragged along rock, blood dripping from walls.

  Four sets of boots, shuffled back.

  “Why did you attack Councilor Feldo?” Majus Ayama asked. Her voice wavered, just slightly.

  There was a pause, long enough that Enos almost spoke again. Then the dead voice issued from the little hole.

  “We would see who questions us.” It grated against her ears.

  “No,” said the majus. “Answer.” Her voice was steady now.

  There was another silence.

  “Let us see you, smell the air, taste for us the fear you drip and sweat.”

  Enos put her hand against the box again. That was too close to the insane thoughts she had heard before.

  Drip and sweat and bleed the blood that fills the rips and tears and scars and—

  “Talk to us,” Enos commanded, breaking into the thing’s mindless gibbering—she couldn’t think of it as an Aridori, or even multiple Aridori, not like her family.

  “We must see to whom we talk,” the grating voice insisted, and an echo drifted through the strange link to Enos. To whom we talk to shred and gaze upon the death and loss and—

  “We’re getting nowhere,” Majus Ayama said, sharp and low. Enos looked up, at the mental prodding from Inas. It was weak, compared to intense insanity from the box. Her mentor was close to losing her temper. Majus Ayama couldn’t hear what it thought, how dangerous it was.

  Her mentor flicked a finger at Majus Cyrysi. “The risk is worth it.”

  Enos realized too late what she was doing. “Don’t—” she began, but it was too late. Majus Cyrysi leaned forward and waggled long fingers at the yellow glow over the hole in the top of the box. Majus Ayama closed a fist. The melody of Healing describing the bars shredded into dissonance, and both colors vanished. The thing’s litany soared as the filter keeping it from the rest of the Nether was erased.

  The smell of fear and sweat is close! It comes we come to see to treat and rend extend and form oh form of constant sight and smell—

  Enos pulled away from the box, shaking her head, driving the voice away. Inas was tense beside her, taller than usual, covered in false hair, wearing glasses he didn’t need. He reached for the Symphony of Strength. She could almost hear the music when he did, as he could almost hear her changes to the Symphony of Healing. Could he feel the words the thing in the box thought?

  Out of the opening a pseudopod extended, probing like a blind worm. The hole was only the width of two of her fingers, but once through, the questing stalk thickened, as if something inflated it from the other side. It was purple and yellow and blue like a deep bruise, the surface mottled and pitted.

  Majus Ayama drew in a breath as the end of the mass changed shape and color, forming a single eyeball, the size of Enos’ head. It looked them over one by one, unblinking. Even Inas took a step back. It changed fast, from a constant state of flux. The emotional turmoil that would rise from that was more than she wanted to think about. Cold rose, deep in her belly, and she reached back for Inas’ hand, right where she knew it would be. Enos was suddenly positive this creature had been around since the war, maybe had been one of those—several of those—who had killed innocents.

  A gash opened across the center of the eye, splitting the pupil in two. Each half contracted, still seeing. Strands of flesh linked the sides, stretching as it moved.

  “We speak,” it said, and Enos could almost hear the continuation of the sentence contained in the thing’s thoughts. We speak to treat to ply and learn and slide—

  “Why did you attack? Do you—do you work for someone?” Majus Ayama asked, and this time the waver in her voice was very clear.

  “We do the work of ones of black and cloaks that set the path to ripe blood’s drip and color mighty color pooling above to sing the song of stars and planes and—”

  “Shut up!” Majus Ayama shouted, and the thing ceased its babble. The large bisected eye, like an overripe melon, hung suspended toward her, the mouth in the middle gaping open in silent laughter. Her face was gray, as pale as Enos knew she must be. Majus Cyrysi looked surprised and disgusted, one hand stroking his thin feathery moustache repeatedly. His feathery crest was disarrayed. Enos clutched at Inas, his steady warmth a bastion. They couldn’t think this insanity was anything like her.

  “Majus,” she began.

  “You shut up too,” the majus snapped. “I only want to hear answers from the Aridori here, or by Brahm’s sacred hands, I’ll—” She trailed off, shaking her head.

  “We are not anything like that, that abomination,” Inas growled. His voice was taut as a wound string. Deeper than normal. His lip curled, covered in a bristly moustache.

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” the majus said, though Enos saw Majus Cyrysi cock
his head in thought.

  “Why have you attacked the maji?” Majus Ayama tried again. The thing in the box eagerly strained forward as she spoke, talking over her last word.

  “The souls of songs that sing of life and death and color and fear to take and wind and coil inside to hear the pain and blood the pounding voids that still and kill and die and—”

  “Enough!” The majus shook, then clasped her hands, fingers knotted, as disarrayed as Enos had ever seen her.

  Majus Cyrysi put a gentle hand on Majus Ayama’s shoulder. “It spoke of black cloaks. It must have been in contact with Nakan and the Life Coalition.”

  Enos waited for their condemnation. Surely they couldn’t think she was anything like this? She looked to her brother, who sneered at the eyeball with its gash of a mouth. His expression, on a different face. She should be angry, but she only felt cold, and afraid. The dank space stank of fear and, somehow, blood and rot. The thing in the box had no blood—no rot. Where was the smell coming from? Was it projecting the smell into her mind?

  Majus Cyrysi was obviously contemplating something. “Is it to be talking of the Drains?” Majus Ayama’s brow lifted slightly, her eyes focusing.

  “Voids, yes. Could this thing be connected to them too?”

  “Connect the pain and drain and stars and song and all the dark extends unseen to pass the rift and block and patch of pain on wounds of time and place—”

  Majus Ayama shot the thing a look. “Shut it.” It subsided into a barely audible chant of gibberish. “It’s clearly insane, just like the stories of the old Aridori.” She glanced at Enos, who swallowed a lump in her throat. That was the look she expected. She couldn’t even defend herself looking as she did. She flexed her Sathssn hand, watching the little scales move against each other. She was stupid to have agreed to do this.

  “Surely we can be getting more information?”

  Majus Ayama shook her head. “The only thing it’s told us is that there are Aridori still in the world, and they are just as deadly as we thought.”