Ever since he’d changed an arrow from wood to iron, Majus Cyrysi, Majus Ayama, and Enos had known he wasn’t of the House of Communication. He was a different house than Majus Cyrysi, his own mentor. Maji could only teach one who heard the same music. Maybe that’s why the majus spent so much time in the library.
Majus Ayama’s questions about him had increased in intensity since then, driving him to seek solitude. At least she didn’t think he was Aridori any longer.
The heat of embarrassment filled him as his hands clenched around Enos’. He didn’t want anyone else to see the golden glow when he changed the Symphony. Gold, not yellow.
Why am I always different?
“Has Majus Ayama found any more of the Life Coalition’s hideouts?” Sam tried to turn the subject away from himself. The majus had been eliminating pockets of the Coalition’s army for the last month and a half—the same length of time Inas had been missing. He hadn’t been with any of the remnants, which meant the Coalition leaders likely held him close.
“Not since yesterday when you asked,” Enos said. “I’ve been working with her to see if my connection with my brother might help locate him. Nothing yet.” She winced again. “Today was rough.”
He should have been there, helping. Enos checked on him every day. He wanted to go with her, but there was so much he’d done wrong.
If he concentrated, Sam could remember Inas’ skin under his hands, Inas’ breath against his cheek, his lips on Sam’s neck. They were incomplete, only two out of three.
If only I had been faster, done more.
But he’d cowered behind a crate, when the Life Coalition attacked them outside the bazaar. Could he have stopped them from taking Inas if he’d known he was different? Sweat trickled down his spine, and he swallowed.
“Sam!” Enos said. He started and looked at her. Had she been talking? Had he missed things again? That infernal chiming sound was like a hammer to the brain, making him lose his concentration.
“I know what it’s like to lose people,” she said, and it snapped him upright. She knew him too well. “You either have to move on, or take action.”
Sam looked away from the conviction in her eyes. Her family had died in a Drain, in front of her and Inas. He couldn’t even picture the faces of his parents, nor of the person who raised him, on Earth. He couldn’t remember what happened to his aunt, in the cold. The details slipped away like trying to hold melting ice.
Under the Drain in Dalhni, Sam had changed the music defining his being. He’d muted the strains of panic and frenzy that made him so anxious. It had helped, until the being in the Assembly stripped memories from him. Ever since, he’d been missing an important piece of himself. Experimentation with Majus Cyrysi showed he could hear another, deeper, part of the Symphony, but he couldn’t reach that musical phrasing again, no matter how deep he dug.
It was as if the melody of his anxiety was unrecognizable—he didn’t know himself any longer. He had been the one to move the Drain from inside the Nether to another place—a place he could no longer remember. If he could just change the music of his being again, he’d be able to go out, to help the others find Inas.
“It won’t help to stay in here brooding on it.” Enos pulled him toward the door. “Come help us. Majus Ayama says we’re getting closer to Inas with each hideout she finds.”
The last two members of the Aridori species. My closest friends. Linked, two instances of the same life. I have to find him.
But he resisted, keeping her in the room. It still thrummed with the strange, deep vibration. “Just talk to me for a while.”
He was being selfish. How could she stand to be with him? He was always thinking only of himself.
Enos frowned, but came back to wrap her arms around his shoulders so she could look up into his face. “What is this, Sam? You’ve barely spoken with anyone beside Majus Cyrysi. You haven’t helped look for Inas. You avoid the outdoors more than when I first met you. Why won’t you tell me?”
Sam leaned into her, but kept his face to the window. The Symphony came to him easier now, and he hummed along with the trills and glissandos defining the flight of the flock of birds, swirling outside like a feathery whirlwind. The notes he heard were primal to the universe—sound and rhythm underlying reality. They were scattered, as if whoever conducted the music was distracted. As if the vibration was throwing off the Grand Symphony itself.
“I can’t face everyone else, out there,” he said into Enos’ hair. “I did something terrible when I moved the Drain, but I can’t remember what.”
Abruptly, the sound faded, and the building stopped vibrating.
“That’s better,” Enos said, with a sigh. She pulled away and caught his eyes when he turned back. “Now tell me. You can tell me anything. We don’t have secrets. Not anymore.”
She had bared everything to him when she revealed her species—an underground remnant of a genocidal war, hidden for a thousand cycles. Why couldn’t he tell her?
“What I hear is…different,” he said. “Majus Cyrysi thinks I may be part of a new house of the maji.”
“That’s obvious from the gold aura,” Enos said. “You need not be embarrassed about it. Majus Caroom asks about you. They have been depressed, I think, after losing Inas.” She raised her chin, and he knew she was trying not to show her own pain.
“That’s not all,” Sam said. “I think the new parts of the Symphony I hear are linked to the way I moved the Drain.” He was hedging, and he could tell Enos knew it by the look in her eye.
“Yes, that follows, even if I don’t understand how it works.”
There was plenty he didn’t understand either.
“I’m getting to it.” His stomach cramped. He’d kept this from her, when he was supposed to share. It had been almost four ten-days since the fight in the Dome of the Assembly. He’d had so many chances to tell her. He swallowed and tried not to throw up.
“I don’t know how this new Symphony works. I could only move the Drain because…because someone told me how.” There it was. The part he hadn’t shared with anyone. He watched for her reaction.
Her brows drew down over dark eyes. “Told you? How? Who?”
“It’s…strange.” He flung his hands out to his sides. “There was a voice. I thought I was crazy—that I was hearing things. Then it told me it could control the Drains, that it was the Symphony. And…and it took some of my memories away. I sent the Drain somewhere terrible, but I’m not sure where. I hurt someone, but I can’t remember how. Then the voice disappeared.” His knees crumpled as the defeat welled up in him.
What did I lose? Part of me is missing.
He fumbled in a pocket of his vest for the pocketwatch. It was from his grandfather. He remembered that much. He held it up to his ear, closed his eyes, and let the regular ticking time his heartbeat until it slowed.
Arms wrapped around his back. “Sam, I didn’t know.”
“You couldn’t have,” he mumbled. “I didn’t tell you.”
While Enos held him, he let the music fill him, driving away the anxiety. The Symphony had that effect, at least. Even if he was useless, he could coddle himself with the fundamentals of the universe. He let it play in the back of his mind. The Symphony was a rich, full expression of the environment, each note linked to a physical representation, depending on the house the majus belonged to.
The alien birds swooped by the window in a “V,” probably looking for bugs. The morning light from the titanic walls of the Nether washed out the colors, and lent a legato theme to the Symphony.
A majus of the House of Communication—which Sam was supposed to be—might hear trills in the melody that was the speech of the birds, but that majus would not hear the low thrum of the elements making up the flying creatures’ bones, muscles, and scales. That rhythm was deep and solid, as if the rest of the music depended on its beat.
Sam found himself nodding in time, mentally reaching for the notes to adjust them to a different tempo. The
golden glow began around his hands, but he pulled back sharply. Enos grunted at his movement.
What am I doing?
If he changed the key of the notes that defined the bird’s bones, they might become wood, or iron, or oxygen. Sam had experimented with the new music he heard, but was no closer to defining it, at least not to Majus Cyrysi’s satisfaction. The changes he might make skittered around his mind, like a forgotten word on the tip of his tongue. It flitted away, just like everything else.
“What happened?” Enos asked. He only shook his head, then noticed she was squinting.
“Headache?” he asked. Did Aridori get headaches? Maybe it would divert her from what a failure he was.
“It’s nothing.” Enos brushed away the concern. “Probably just that chime. It went through everything. I couldn’t block it out.”
“Any other news?” he asked, to shift the topic away from him. Again. “Besides a giant gong hidden somewhere in the Imperium?”
Enos shook her head. “Majus Ayama wants everyone who’s been helping track down the Life Coalition to meet. I’ve been working with her on ways to track down their last outpost. My connection with Inas—” she paused, whispering the next words even though they were alone, “—means I can get a…a feeling from him every once in a while. Majus Ayama and I have been working to hone that feeling.”
Working while I’ve been in here, moping.
He knew she wasn’t implying that, but it was so easy to see she’d been working while he’d been useless.
“How does it work? Your connection with Inas—your other instance?” Sam asked. She’d spoken a little about it, but he still didn’t understand. He hadn’t had enough time together with the two of them after discovering they were Aridori. And before the Life Coalition took Inas.
“It’s strange,” Enos told him, gently tugging on his hand. She headed for the door, but Sam dug his feet into Majus Cyrysi’s plush Festuour-made rug. Couldn’t they talk just a little longer? “I’ve never been away from Inas for this long, so we’d never explored the connection. It’s like…it’s like a feeling someone else is in the room, but stronger.” She rubbed her temple with her other hand. “It’s almost not there at such a distance. Almost. I’ve been helping Majus Ayama reconstruct the location for the Life Coalition’s headquarters with what I feel of him.”
Then they might have a chance of finding Inas.
“You can go on without me,” Sam said. “I won’t be any help.”
Enos pulled harder. “You aren’t being helpful now, Sam. You know how long it takes to climb up the stairs to this apartment. I come by every day. You’ve waited until today to tell me you heard a voice connected to the Drain. Every day you say you can’t leave. I—”
Enos clamped her lips shut, and spikes of icy certainty pulsed though Sam’s stomach.
She’ll say I’m not worth it. She won’t come up here anymore.
Then he took in her messy hair again, the bags under her eyes, felt her chewed nails in their joined hands. She was dealing with the same things he was. And taking care of him. He was being an ass. Like always.
Sam opened his mouth. “Enos, I’m sor—”
Enos’ head jerked back, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders.
She fell backwards, and Sam leaned forward to catch her before she hit the floor. She was limp, but her hands shook.
“Enos!” Sam called. “Can you hear me? What’s wrong?” She didn’t answer. Icy claws climbed up Sam’s spine. He checked her pulse, but it was still strong.
Then what’s wrong with her? Is it related to the Aridori?
He told himself he was comfortable with that part of Enos and Inas, but some part of him always looked for anything…strange.
Then I’ll know if something is wrong between us. If they decide I’m more bother than I’m worth.
Enos shook once more, then opened her eyes. “I saw—felt—him,” she said. “They pushed him into a box like the one in Gloomlight. They were hurting him! We have to get him out.”
Enos had finally made a connection?
“We don’t know where he is—that’s the whole problem,” Sam said, trying to push away the clinging terror at his Inas being hurt.
I have to do something.
He helped pull her to her feet.
“I…I might know more now.” Enos looked up into his eyes. “I experienced snatches of sensation. What Majus Ayama and I did must have prompted it. Finally. It has to be enough. We need to find him now.” She bit her lip, shaking. Sam’s hands trembled. Inas was more important than anything else. They needed to be together again. Their trio was bigger than just he and Enos, and the two of them couldn’t hold everything between them. Had the Life Coalition hurt him before? Was this simply the first time Enos felt it?
Have to get him out.
Sam turned to look out the apartment’s window. He could see the top of the Spire of the Maji. The higher rooftops of the Imperium stretched out behind it.
“You have to leave the apartment, Sam,” Enos said. “Inas is in pain. You’ve had your rest, but you need to come back to us. Tell Majus Ayama and Majus Cyrysi about the voice. We need to find him.”
He looked down at her, then leaned forward and rested his forehead on hers. “I know,” he whispered. Even just thinking about Inas in pain made his heart pound. He’d been hiding, after what happened in the Assembly, what happened to his friend. It was time to stop hiding. He reached for his pocketwatch, to feel the smooth metal casing.
“For Inas.” For the three of them.
Enos gently pushed him away, then brushed her warm hand down his cheek. “I know what you’ve been going through, Sam, but Inas may not have a lot of time.”
Sam closed his eyes, but Enos tugged at his arms. “Come on.”
He gave in to her tugging and took a step forward. “You’re right. You’re always right. Just stay near me.”
Together, they opened the door to Majus Cyrysi’s apartment. For Inas.
CHAPTER TWO
Hunting Notes
- The physical building of the House of Communication is a source of pride to those who belong to the house. It is the tallest of the Houses, only second in height to the Spire itself, and that building rests against one of the endless columns of the Nether. Why was the structure built so tall? It generates complaints from many who do not wish to climb the stairs, but the original intent is forgotten, as it was built before the Aridori War and all records have been lost. Some argue the bridge connecting the tower to the wall of the Nether is a reason for the height, but as far as my research shows, it has no actual purpose.
A section of a report on the Houses of the Maji, filed in the Spire archives, 458 A.A.W., Author unknown
Rilan stomped along next to Ori, down a corridor in the Spire of the Maji. The more space she put between her and the Council’s chambers, the better. She kept pace with her good friend for once, which showed how angry she was.
“So that meeting was not to be as bad as it could have been,” Ori offered.
Rilan growled at him. When she looked over, his crest was flattened in submission. She sighed.
“I’m not angry at you, Ori,” she said. “It’s just…Shiv’s eyes! I can’t believe they have the gall to offer me a position as adjunct to the Council. As if they aren’t sure I can handle the job!”
“They should not have been giving your old position to Szaler in the first place,” Ori said.
Rilan waved a hand. She wasn’t angry at Szaler either, though he had looked down at her from her old seat. He was a highly skilled surgeon, and deserved the position. He was competent in the Symphony, and ran the medical ward attached to the House of Healing.
“I refused it the first time they offered,” she said, stepping around a pair of Lobath maji, deep in discussion. The Spire wafted in music from one of the newer quartets in High Imperium. They must have captured a live recording of a performance. “Truth be told, I don’t want the position back. I’m too busy
hunting down the Life Coalition and trying to find Inas. But I never realized without it, I’d have to beg for resources to track down the organization responsible for almost killing the entire Assembly!” She threw her hands up. “Bleagh.”
“They are to be watching our progress,” Ori offered. “We are close to finding the last concentration of their forces.”
“It would be easier if Councilor Feldo was with the rest of the Council, but no one’s seen him lately. The others are incompetent. We’ve been ‘close’ for a month,” Rilan said, “and all that time, Enos’ brother has been in their power. Who knows what they’re doing to him? The Assembly Speakers think the Life Coalition is on the run, but they’re consolidating their strength as fast as we find their hiding places.” They exited into a vaulted hallway, populated by statues of previous members of the Council. Rilan’s eyes were drawn to the stout plinth representing Ribothari Tan, Knower, one of the best known historic Council leaders. Every apprentice could quote his treatise on the House of Healing. They passed along the atrium, nodding to other maji.
“The girl says she can connect with her brother, creepy as that is, but we’re going too slow,” Rilan said as they got to the other end and turned left into one of the perimeter corridors. “I’m certain Inas is the key to creating a stable portal, but we need more information to provide the correct location vectors.”
“Then you are not to be against using the Aridori’s abilities when it suits your purpose.” Ori’s crest was carefully neutral.
Rilan barely kept from making the old superstitious gesture—two fingers across the eyes—when talking about the Aridori. She should be past that, since one was her apprentice.
“The adage says ‘never trust what an Aridori says or does,’” she grumbled, “not ‘don’t take advantage of an Aridori.”
“Are you really believing that?” Ori asked, and Rilan sighed.
“No, I don’t.” Enos was a good apprentice, and a staggeringly smart person. She was trustworthy and she’d go high in the House of Healing, one day. Rilan needed to stop acting like a bigot. “I’m frustrated at our slow progress. We’re so close to finding the Life Coalition’s main headquarters.”
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