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.”
“I will admit I was not thinking that was the case a ten-day ago,” Majus Cyrysi said, his crest fluttering as he watched the pseudopod.
Enos clutched her brother’s arm. They would leave here, and the maji would lock them up. There was no defense that could save them. I cannot think of anything. Inas, help us. He was her rock, her protector, her other half.
She wanted to save the mess of Aridori captured in that box as much as she wanted to run from them. They might represent the rest of her species, but they were also insane—hardly even sentient. They must have lost their minds while forced to stay in a permanent state of change, in a space too small for them.
No. That wasn’t right. Enos frowned, and the little scales at the corners of her mouth flexed. It had been captured only days ago. There was no way that short amount of time would have driven them mad. The Life Coalition must have held them, in some other small container. Where had they been when the rest of their species were traveling as merchants to the ten homeworlds? Were others still out there? What was in the box was in no way a viable being, or beings.
Inas patted her arm and she looked up at him. He was staring directly at her, through Councilor Feldo’s glasses, trying to tell her something, in the way they had. Maybe it was this Sathssn skin. She didn’t understand.
“Watch over me,” he said. What was he doing? He brushed her arm off his, cutting the contact between them.
Majus Ayama was turning to leave, but Inas took one step forward to the pendulous eye and maw.
“I can help,” he said. Majus Ayama turned back around. Majus Cyrysi had been watching the whole time, but made no move forward. He still had his head cocked, like some giant bird.
“What are you—?” Her mentor’s words cut off as Inas reached a calloused hand forward, the fingers slowly blending together into a mass of flesh. Out of the bloodshot white of the thing’s eyeball another pseudopod extended, reaching hungrily toward her brother.
“No!” she said, but he ignored her. She reached out one hand, drew it back. The maji were making similar protests. What would happen if all three of them made contact? Did she dare contaminate both her and her brother?
Too late. Tentacle and hand touched, blurred, came together. Something like a sigh escaped the thing’s mouth and the eye melted back into flesh. Once there was no distinction between the two, the animation went out of the extension of flesh emerging from the box.
“Ask again,” Inas said, staring at nothing, and the echo came from the gaping slit of flesh:
“…again and hear the words of death and birth and rain of blood…” They cut off sharply.
Majus Ayama was looking at her now. “What did he do?”
Enos shook her head. “I am not certain. He was always better, the few times we were allowed to change. It is something our parents may have taught him.”
“Ask again,” Inas repeated. “…again and hear of slashing claws and shadows…”
Majus Ayama seemed frozen, and Majus Cyrysi spoke for her.
“Are the attacks on the maji having anything to do with the Drains?”
Inas and the thing in the box responded at almost the same time, his voice coming just a fraction of an instant later, enough to set a discord to the speech.
“The attacks are distraction (of sweet flesh and tearing ripping…). The Life Coalition (life and death and dripping pus of infection…)—the Life Coalition has another goal (of sucking space like marrow from bones so sweet like honey…).”
Inas’ voice was strained, and Enos could tell he forced himself to stop after each phrase. The thing would rattle on a few words before falling silent. Sweat was dripping through the thinning hair that was not his, his eyes rolled back. Enos hovered. She wanted to make contact, to touch her other half, to comfort him. The touch of this thing was poison.
“What is the other goal?” Majus Ayama asked. Her voice was soft, as if the question would be easier for Inas to answer. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the thing in the box and Enos’ brother, brows creased.
“The goal of life from death (and death of life of pushing through the rot and springing forth in fount of blood…). They are making (making hurting seeding sucking…)—making the voids themselves. The Aridori are to distract (and rend the flesh so sweet in blood like rain to suck the flesh…). They distract from the voids (of death and life of all that is so empty place of nothing send us nothing there to die in pain for all…).”
Inas was trembling, near to a seizure. His knees wobbled, beneath the hanging coat of the councilor. Enos stood as close as she dared, regretting not finding real gloves. Could she shield herself from contamination? Maybe with the House of Healing? She listened for the Symphony, but it was spotty, coming in and out of clarity. She was too anxious.
“What is it to be a distraction from?”
“They take the Assembly’s focus from the voids (oh nothing cease to be to die and color blossom in the nothing take us kill us send us…).”
The thing was losing cohesion. Bits of it rotted as she watched, and plopped to the surface of the box. It spread like a pox along the pseudopod extending from the small air hole.
“What is—” Majus Ayama began.
“Leave him alone!” Enos shouted. She moved around him, shielding him, but Majus Ayama raised her voice.
“What is the Life Coalition going to do?”
“They will open (and send us promised oh they promised sing of death and nothing free from pain and life of prison save us free us kill us send us…). They will open a huge void (we helped them help us send us free inside to die the nothing silence of the pain so long to stand to wait on them we wait and act…).”
Inas panted, sagging. While he fought to get his breath, she forced her hands forward. The Symphony surged in her mind and she put her notes into the rondo of music along the skin of her hands and arms, making it thicker, stronger, keeping her own brother out. When her hands, shining white, touched his other arm, she felt nothing from the thing in the box. It was dying quickly from injuries sustained while fighting the councilor, and with her brother’s help, she suspected. It was dissolving in body and mind. Silently, she supported Inas, leaning her weight into him. The tentacle was almost gone, rotting fast, dripping like a putrescent fruit left in the gutter. Only a string connected Inas’ hand to the air hole.
“Where?” Majus Ayama hissed. “Where will they make it?”
“—opened in (so big so large it kills and kisses sweet like honey of oblivion takes all away the pain away…). Opened in the Nether (it kills the others dissolve dissolute it brings and hates the others so perfect form unchanging why the void of ending death it goes we go…)”
Inas’ head snapped forward as the last string of flesh melted away. “In the Nether,” he gasped. “They will open it in the Nether.” He fell back into Enos’ arms, an unfamiliar weight and smell, but she hugged her brother to her, relishing his touch.
A stench rose in the little cell, like carrion and feces and all things foul. The maji gasped and stepped away from the box. Enos almost gagged, but held on to her brother.
“Get out!” Majus Ayama commanded, and pounded on the door. “Open up!” she said.
A bolt screeched as it moved, agonizingly long in the overpowering stench. Enos raised an arm to cover her face, even as she supported Inas. He was unconscious. Finally the door creaked open, and Majus Ayama pushed through. Enos heard surprised murmurs from the guards. She didn’t care if her cowl was back, revealing her supposed secret Sathssn form. She had to get Inas away.
Enos followed the maji quickly down the hall, ignoring all the questions from the surprised guards, dragging her brother’s body. Partway down the hall, her load lightened, and she glanced up. Majus Cyrysi was helping, and gave her a tentative, but tight, smile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
New Information
-Is the music of alien worlds more familiar to us in the confines of the Nether? Certainly some say it is better to appreciate the great Etanela operas in their natural semi-submerged element on Etan. Others insist the Nether’s translation allows one to appreciate it as a native would.
From “A Dissertation on the Music of the Ten Homeworlds,” by Festuour philosopher Hegramtifar Yhon, Thinker
Sam heard the others coming, their themes twining through the Symphony of Communication. He shook the rain off his overcoat, a hot thing with some sort of oiled-suede outer lining. The steady dripping wetness hadn’t stopped with the night. He was sheltered with Maji Caroom and Hand Dancer under the same communal corner overhang as before. Waiting had been an agony, with both Enos and Inas away from him. I need to make it right between us.
The rain made a steady drumline through the Symphony of the air, and the four coming out of the prison cut through both in a shrill accelerando.
“Get ready,” he told the maji. “They’re coming fast.” Caroom shifted with a creak of splitting wood, and Hand Dancer made a nervous gesture with hir hands, one twisting over the other. Something’s wrong.
They intersected Majus Ayama, then Majus Cyrysi and Enos disguised as Hathssas. She was half-carrying Inas, still wearing Councilor Feldo’s face. All four were huffing, almost jogging.
“No time for explanation,” Majus Ayama said, preempting any questions. “We got away from the guards for now, but we need to get back.” She pushed past, and Sam joined them.
“Back to the, hmm, rooms?” Majus Caroom asked, catching up with their constant stumping rhythm.
Majus Ayama shook her head. “To the Imperium. Something will happen soon, and I’ll be Shiv’s breakfast if I’m going to let it threaten the Nether. We need to get back to the portal ground.”
“Will the Council be watching the portals?” Majus Cyrysi asked.
Majus Ayama shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s worth worrying over yet.” They fell to discussing logistics of travel, Majus Hand Dancer gesturing broadly to speak over the others, and Sam fell back to the twins in their disguises. Majus Cyrysi had abandoned his post and Inas/Councilor Feldo was stumbling, his head lolling. He looks drunk. How did they get away?
“Is he alright?” Sam asked, ducking to Inas’ other side.
“I have nothing to say to you,” Enos hissed back, and turned her head away, but she let him help.
“Nothing ever again, or nothing right now?” he asked. I can’t let them leave me, no matter who they are. They didn’t look like his friends right now, but he could see Enos, through her mannerisms and the way she walked.
She didn’t answer, and Inas’ head, with its full beard and wild hair, wobbled side to side as he lurched along. He was mumbling something too low to hear.
“Look, I don’t know what went on in there, but Inas obviously needs help,” Sam said into Enos’ silence. The maji were still arguing, heading toward the edge of town and the portal ground. There was no one out yet, and this path was familiar from walking it for the past few days. His breath came fast, and his heartrate was elevated, but that could have been from supporting Inas. His mind went to his watch, then found an outlet in the continuous fractal Symphonies always in the back of his head. Have to try again. She has to say something.
“I’m sorry for what happened. I wish to God it hadn’t. I wish Majus Cyrysi hadn’t figured it out so soon. But now that he did, can you forgive me? Can we still be together?”
Enos kept her head forward, the black cowl blocking her face from view. “You nodded. You confirmed what the majus only suspected.”
Inas briefly raised his head, seeming to continue some sentence he had started beneath his breath. “…to free them to find their way. I had to do, we had to do what we did. What we have done. It was the only way. Tell him sister tell…” His voice faded away.
What happened to him? Aridori or not, Sam pulled Inas closer to him, his chest tightening with concern. Inas even smelled different, old, disguised like this.
The black cowl turned to him, and Sam caught a worried cat’s eye.
“Yes, I nodded. Would you rather I didn’t say anything and the maji suspect all of us? This way I can stand up for you. You need me,” he told her. “He needs me. I can at least start to make up for what I did. You don’t have to tell me. Just let me help.”
Enos sighed, but didn’t object as they followed the maji through the dark of Gloomlight. Finally she spoke.
“We still want to be with you. I—we—will forgive you, in time. It’s only, this is something new for us.” She paused under an overhang to readjust her grip on Inas. “Our family was careful with secrets. This is why we do not give them out, and what we were warned against.”
Sam ducked and swung Inas’ limp arm around his shoulder. His fingers aren’t right. They were always so warm, but now they were ice cold, strangely stiff. Enos looked over at his indrawn breath.
It looks melted. The fingers were stuck together in a claw, what remained of the thumb tucked into the palm. He looked to Enos for an explanation, but she was staring at the hand too, Sathssn eyes wide. She didn’t know about it either. There was no time to ask the maji, and Sam wasn’t going to without the twins’ permission.
Majus Cyrysi didn’t let the tired-looking Lobath majus at the portal ground ask questions, talking over her objections. After the one hissing chemical light illuminated Majus Ayama’s face, tightened into a rictus of anger, the Lobath backed off to a corner of the fenced-off ground, her head-tentacles trembling. Majus Hand Dancer opened the portal to the Spire, the dark hole ringed in orange and a bland gray.
Enos went through first, dragging Inas. Sam swallowed against the lump of fear in his throat and closed his eyes. He let the others pull him through the blackness.
At the Spire, the maji discussed where to go, finally settling on Majus Hand Dancer’s apartment in the House of Power, mainly because zie was less implicated than the other three.
Sam helped Enos lay her brother down on the springy, cork-like floor of a side room. Enos lay down next to him, and was asleep almost immediately. Sam watched them for a moment. Both their faces were softening, Enos’ scales already losing their green tint, Councilor Feldo’s beard growing shorter. Sam waited for the surge of disgust at seeing them change, but it didn’t come.
He set a low, flat chair just outside the room and fell into it, drifting off in moments.
* * *
A faint but insistent buzzing woke Sam, and he blinked blearily at light from an open window, through which he could see part a wall of the Nether. Where am I? Colors swirled through the air, combining and dancing like fireflies painted in many hues. The vision changed, becoming a vast swirl, which gave way to a vista of a moon over a dry planet, or was it a sun reflecting in water? The sun, or moon, took flight, changing to a fantastical bird—white and silver with scales for feathers—which dove into the waves and became a fish. The colors changed and flowed. Sam’s lungs complained and he realized he was holding his breath. He sucked in air.
The vision faded, and Sam saw Majus Hand Dancer sitting cross-legged on the floor, large dexterous hands splayed into crevices in a fluted box of shining wood and glass. The buzzing faded as the Lobhl lifted hands away, tattoos catching the light from the window.
“What was that?” Sam asked. He—she?—zie?—had been making the visions. “Um. How do I address you today?” The Nether wasn’t giving any clues.
The majus started, and fingers twisted around words.
“Were you changing the Symphony?” Sam asked.
Hand Dancer made a negating gesture, tempered with a motion expressing a shy smile.
Sam looked at the strange box it was holding. “Music? I only heard buzzing.”
Majus Hand Dancer gave him another finger-smile.
“It was very beautiful. Is that the, um, instrument?”
“The Hand Dancer?” Sam was sure he looked confused.
A rumble of conversation started in the next room and Majus Hand Dancer looked around vaguely, as if unsure where the sound was coming from. Sam peered around the corner to see Enos stirring.
Majus Hand Dancer carefully tucked the instrument—the Hand Dancer—into a little ornate box and put it on a stand. he signed.
In the other room, Majus Ayama stood over Enos, Inas lying beside his sister. His eyes were open now, and he looked like himself. Enos’ skin was still freckled with little scales, as if someone had drawn lines on her, but they were fading.
Maji Cyrysi and Caroom appeared, carrying boxes which smelled of fresh hot bread. Sam’s mouth watered. When did I last eat? From the light of the walls, it was still fairly early in the morning. Even Inas perked up a little, though he swayed when he sat up.
The Seeds of Dissolution (Dissolution Cycle Book 1) Page 36