“Nothin’ good, Enos,” Rey called. He sounded far away. “I think I was mebbe wrong. Come back with me!”
Enos lifted her chin to stare down her nose at Dunarn. The Sathssn were a short species. “Where’s your resolve now, Rey? No. I’m going to check him, to make certain he’s well.” The Sureri wasn’t as committed to Inas as she thought, not when it really mattered.
She took another step, next to Inas’ body, then squatted down, still trying to keep an eye on Dunarn. The Coalitioner did nothing, but Enos held the music of Healing ready. Something was wrong with this whole situation, but she couldn’t understand what. Why had the Coalition agreed to meet her?
“Inas. Can you hear me?” she whispered to the shape on the ground. She put out a hand, touching warm skin. Too warm. Inas was feverish, his face almost scaly. He didn’t move under her touch, but he groaned. She quickly ran her hands across his body, checking for anything out of place. Her other instance. That path which could have been hers, under different circumstances.
Inas’ body was not in its usual shape. His arms quivered under her fingers, as if he was starting a shift. His face felt too rough, and he had the beginnings of a beard. His legs were bent, and twisted. There was another toe, or claw, on the back of one calf.
“Oh, Inas,” she whispered.
“Now, assassin,” Dunarn called. “Take your due and accept your power!”
Under her, Inas’s flesh, though he was still unconscious, molded around her hands. Enos jerked back, but his skin stuck to hers, trying to bring her into him. Trying to enfold her as the Aridori in Gloomlight had contained others. As it had infected Inas.
“No!” she cried. “What did you do to him?” She struggled, climbing through the song of Healing to disengage their bodies, but his song was so similar to hers, she couldn’t differentiate. He was pulling her in!
“No! Inas—stop!” She shouted but the relentless creeping of his skin over hers continued. He moved as if asleep.
Tortured. Coerced. They had made him do this. She dove deeper into the music of Healing, searching his body.
There. The thread of corruption coursed through him, as if it polluted his very makeup. That was what was reaching for her, pulling him along with it. She snipped the notes that made it up, in a surgical application of her notes, and jerked her hands free.
“This, it will not do,” Dunarn said, and an aura of green surrounded her. Enos’ knees adhered to the floor, pinning her in place. “Me, I was sent to bring both of you aberrations back to Nakan and Zsaana. I will do so.”
“Rey, help me!” she called. She felt his presence more than heard it, a wave of energy as the House of Potential bolstered her.
“Yer were supposed to bargain in good faith,” Rey said, and now his voice was harsh, strained with changing the Symphony.
“There is no bargaining with the cursed ones who started the war. You, you may bargain, but not her.” Dunarn laid gloved hands on Enos’ shoulders, gripping hard. Enos struggled to throw off the grip, but it was like iron. Her body was compressing, held rigid by the House of Strength.
“Not acceptable,” Rey said, and Enos’ limbs loosened again as spirals of brown Potential combatted the green of Strength. He had both hands up, his eyes casting around for anything else he could use. The room was bare.
“I have to wake him up,” she told Rey, and hunched against the hands trying to pull her away. “Keep her off me.” She dove back into the Symphony of Healing, searching for how Inas’ consciousness had been repressed. At a guess, it was Zsaana’s work, and he had taught Majus Ayama. Could she ever hope to undo that?
Yes, she could. Inas was like her. She simply had to listen, to see the differences between them and make the music the same. As she changed notes, she felt Inas stirring, the connection between them sending feelings and emotions back and forth with intensity. They would be three against Dunarn’s one.
“Stop this game. Both Aridori, they will come with me,” Dunarn said and Enos rocked backward under the Sathssn’s grip. She grasped at Inas, trying to hold them both to the ground.
“I…canna…hold both of yer against her!” Rey’s brown warred with Dunarn’s green, and the wiry Sureri slid forward across the floor. Whatever he was doing with the House of Potential wasn’t strong enough to resist the House of Strength head on. None of the other houses were. Even if Enos changed their bodies with Healing, she had a feeling Dunarn would overcome them. She was too strong, a full majus vs two apprentices, with Inas still incapacitated. It was a simple equation, and one which did not fall in her favor. All three of them might wind up under the Life Coalition’s control. Unless she changed the rules.
Whatever it takes to rescue Inas.
She bent down to her other instance, straining against the Sathssn’s hands, whispering in his ear. She didn’t know if he could understand the words, but it was worth a try.
“Go with Rey. Find Sam. Help him, and let him help you. Tell Majus Ayama why I had to do this.” Then she called to Rey. “You can’t hold both of us. Get Inas out of here.”
They want an Aridori? They’ll have one.
She stopped adjusting the music of Inas’ body. He would wake soon. She turned on Dunarn, rising to her feet, fighting against the Symphony of Strength and forcing the Coalitioner to confront her not only physically, but with song. She dove into the melody of the Sathssn’s body, trying to weaken bones, loosen tendons.
It was a losing battle, but she wasn’t trying to win. The House of Strength was like green spears of song, striking her changes down as fast as she made them. The Sathssn growled as she pulled Enos forward, and Enos let her. Rey had his hands around Inas’ legs, dragging him out of the warehouse. She had to keep the Sathssn occupied so her other instance would have a chance.
Behind Dunarn, a hole even darker than their surroundings spun into being, surrounded by green and burgundy rings.
Enos looked back to Rey, silhouetted in the door. “Take care of him,” she said.
“I will,” Rey answered, and Enos stopped resisting Dunarn. They tumbled through the portal.
* * *
Sam awoke to fevered knocking on the door of Majus Cyrysi’s apartment. He swiped at his eyes, trying to breathe deep to calm the surge of adrenaline. Nothing happening at this time of night was good.
He made his way cautiously to the door, threading a path through a few items he had stored on the floor when he ran out of space on the shelves. He knew where each of them lay. There was more light in the hallway, and Sam found a window with the barest glimmer from the great wall of the Nether.
It must be, what, first lightening? Just after midnight.
The knocking continued, and as his mentor was not getting up—or more likely, he was spending the night at Majus Ayama’s apartment again—Sam crept to the front door. He stopped there, staring at it.
It’s just a door. Open it.
The knocking was turning into banging.
Sam gulped, reached out, and pulled the door open.
Rey nearly fell on him, supporting someone who was groaning, their head of dark shaggy hair covering their face.
“Were yer gonna take all night about it? Leave us out there on the landing? Took me ages to get him up all the steps.” Rey was babbling. “I would nae have come, but I didn’t know where else to go. Any majus would have me skewered. Speaking of which…” Rey looked around Sam.
“Uh, he’s out,” Sam said, assuming Rey was looking for Majus Cyrysi.
Rey slumped a little, bringing the other person forward a few steps. “Oh thank the Greatmother. I’d hoped he were visitin’ Majus Ayama tonight.”
“Why?” Sam asked. “Did you want me? Who is this—” He broke off as the figure raised their head.
“Oh my God.” Sam rushed to Rey’s side, taking Inas’ head in his hands. He ducked under Inas’ arm and helped the two of them into the room. “Where did you find him? How? We have to tell the others. We have to tell Enos!” He struggled with the t
wo to Majus Cyrysi’s couch.
Inas looked bad. He had a beard, and dark circles under his staring eyes. His body didn’t feel the same shape as Sam remembered. There were odd misshapen lumps on his torso and his legs were bent.
“It’s ah, not that simple, yer understand,” Rey said, once Sam had run out of words.
“S…Sam?” Inas mumbled. Sam laid his friend down on the couch, moving around to his face. Whatever Rey said dissolved into the background.
“I’m here.” Sam laid his hand on Inas’ chest, his forehead. He was even warmer than normal. His hair was uncombed, and the clothes he wore stank. They were torn and ripped, and as he watched, they twitched on their own.
Those aren’t real clothes. Inas made them.
“Enos,” Inas said, and Sam nodded, brushing Inas’ hair back.
“I know, we’ll tell her,” he said.
“She said to take care of you,” Inas said.
Sam frowned, running fingers down Inas’ cheek. “You’re not thinking straight.” Inas’ skin was burning up. It almost felt like it was moving under his fingers.
“Er…he’s right,” Rey said from behind them. Sam whirled around, but kept one hand in contact with Inas, as if he would disappear again.
“What do you know? Where is she?” he asked.
“Enos saved Inas, though I had me some doubts,” Rey said, his face screwing up into a grimace.
“But she’s safe? What happened?” Sam’s stomach was churning.
Don’t throw up. Have to help Inas. And Enos.
“Fought her off. Saved me,” Inas croaked out.
Sam leaned back over him. Why wouldn’t anyone tell him what happened?
“Fought off who? How? How did they get you here?” He wanted to shake Inas, and also to kiss him. He’d been asleep moments ago, and now everything was falling down around him.
“Life Coalition,” Inas said. One hand waved toward Rey. It was the same one that had been melted into a fixed shape after Inas spoke with the captured Aridori in Gloomlight Prison. But that hand was back to normal now. No, not normal. One finger lengthened, then another shortened. Inas was changing shape uncontrollably. Just like they said the trapped Aridori had.
“You found the Life Coalition?” Sam asked Rey, who shook his head.
“More like they found us. Majus Kheena set up a meetin’ with ‘em, but they were…amenable to Enos seein’ her brother to fix him up.” He must have seen something in Sam’s face because he held up his hands. “Eyah, it was a stupid idea, now I’m thinkin’ straight-like. It was a trap. Of course them Snakeys wanted both of them.”
Now Sam’s hand left Inas. He was across the room before he could think, pushing Rey back into a wall. The thin Sureri wasn’t as strong as Sam was. That was a surprise. Rey’s eyes widened.
“You gave Enos to the Life Coalition? Do you know what they’ll do to her? Didn’t you see him?” Sam threw a hand back toward Inas, but its movement was halted. Sam turned.
Inas was on his feet, and held his arm, his other hand reaching toward him. He eyes were dark. “They want us, Sam,” he said. “They’ll stop at nothing to control the Aridori.”
When Sam glanced at Rey, he saw from the Sureri’s grimace that he knew, and wasn’t happy about it. Rey and Inas had been friends before Sam met either of them.
Inas tugged on Sam’s arm, bringing him closer. “Thank you for trying, but she…she did this to save me. I sensed her resolution to bring me back when she fought Dunarn. She’s so much stronger than I am. She’ll hold on until we rescue her. Not like I did.”
That sentence would need explanation, but Sam let himself relax into Inas’ embrace, pulling the other man closer, his coarse beard rubbing against Sam’s cheek. “I missed you,” he said into Inas’ neck.
“I missed you too.” Any further words were cut off as Inas pulled him into a kiss, hard and needy. Several ten-days of tension drained from his shoulders. Even with Enos gone, even with the Life Coalition trying to coerce a place in the Assembly, he felt more whole than since before he moved the portal in the Dome of the Assembly.
Rey cleared his throat, and Sam moved back from Inas, running a finger down the other man’s face. The shifting had stopped with the kiss, though Inas’ eyes were locked on his. He looked…hungry.
“We should, er, probably let Majus Caroom know Inas is back. The Benish has been right gloomy.”
“Let’s get you cleaned up first,” Sam told Inas. “You can use my stuff. You’ll feel better with a shower and shave. That beard is itchy.”
Inas gave a shaky smile, but Sam caught the flash of teeth behind his lips. Just for a moment, the light made them look pointed.
CHAPTER NINE
Halls, Doors, Locks, and Collars
- For the last thousand cycles, no one’s been certain of what an Aridori looked like. There were more stories than you could shake a stick at, but nothing more definite than what your third best friend heard from their next door neighbor, who heard from their optometrist. Now, we have an eyewitness of over sixty thousand people at the same time, who all saw that creature rise from the box in the Assembly. I was representing my province of Blarth at the time, and I can back up what everyone else says. I’ve seen one of the fabled nightmare beasts with my own two blue eyes. They’re not as scary looking as I thought they would be.
Report by Floripartaren Fult, Speaker, to her head of state.
Enos pulled against Dunarn’s iron grip as the portal collapsed behind them.
“Let go of me!” Her notes were constricted by Dunarn’s emerald green aura surrounding her. Her hands trembled by her sides, like they were moving through concrete. Majus Ayama always told her not to go head-to-head with a member of the House of Strength. Now that horrible wall of music pushed against her skin, keeping her from moving faster than a crawl.
“Inas and Rey will go straight to the Assembly. They’ll know what you’ve done. Your negotiations are doomed if you’re kidnaping apprentices.” At least Inas was free. Enos stretched away, trying to pull Dunarn off balance, but the cloaked Sathssn was rooted to the floor by her music. In contrast, Enos felt much lighter than in the Nether. She tried to turn the quarter notes of Dunarn’s grip to loose sixteenths, but when she attempted to insert her notes into the music, she met with a wall of force she couldn’t hear.
Dunarn chuckled—an unpleasant sound. “None of that, apprentice. Your mentor, she must have told you the advantages of the House of Strength. As to the Assembly, them, I do not think they will hear much, unless your other instance is willing to share his species as well.”
Enos gritted her teeth and dug her feet into the packed dirt of the floor. The Sathssn was right, unfortunately. “I will not be one of your trained assassins.” She took the chance to gauge her surroundings. They were in a small room, the walls of unfinished gray rock. They could be anywhere, but from Majus Ayama’s guess, this was a cave in a moon around Sath Home. The air was breathable. The Life Coalition must have used maji from the House of Communication.
“Your brother, he said much the same when we first brought him here. Yet it only took a few days to persuade him to our thinking. You too, you will serve the Form.” Enos didn’t like the sound of that.
Dunarn jerked her arms, and she rose from the floor in a bouncing arc as if she were only a fraction of her weight, twirling around the Sathssn, who shoved her down in front of a tunnel.
“You wear at my notes,” Dunarn said, and beckoned. Two cloaked figures who’d been standing in the hall came closer, iron manacles held between them. An aura of colors swirled around the restraints.
No. Escape. Must change.
Changing her form was the last thing she should do, but what else was there? She was effectively cut off from the Symphony by Dunarn’s music.
Enos stiffened, her hands in fists. She focused on her wrists thinning, to slip from the manacles, but she was too slow. It would take several minutes for her body to react. Dunarn held her arms in a grip as tigh
t as those manacles would be.
“You are too cowardly to have me unbound?” she taunted. It was her only remaining weapon, but the tightness in her stomach was a counterpoint to her bravado. Her eyes roamed the dim room. Plain rough stone and floors scuffed from the passage of many boots. If she had a few minutes, she’d understand the melody of this place, and once she did, she could push against the Sathssn’s control to make a portal away.
“Too smart,” Dunarn countered, forcing Enos’ arms closer to the shackles. The other figures were on either side of her. “I wish not to waste notes making you comply. This, it will be faster until you understand as your brother did.”
Enos gave one last desperate tug, but though the Sathssn was smaller, her grip was unbreakable. Panic rose like shards of ice in her belly as the attendants clamped the metal restraints tight around her wrists.
She gasped at the sudden quiet. The Symphony faded to a buzz in the background, its notes no longer within Enos’ grasp.
No. I can’t lose the Symphony. Her eyes darted back and forth, searching for anything that might help. Even without the Symphony, I can still slip away given time… Her wrists were still thinning, and her thumbs moved inward. She’d be able to slip out of the manacles soon.
“That is not all,” Dunarn said. “For you and your other instance, you require not only the wrist-cuffs.”
A shock of cold metal against her neck made Enos shiver violently, and Dunarn pushed her face-first to a rough wall, clicking something tight around her throat.
A shock coated her spine like liquid lightning and Enos collapsed, gasping. Her arms returned to their normal shape. She raised her manacled hands, feeling the unbroken surface around her neck.
Like the one they brought to the Assembly. To control the Aridori.
“Changing your form, this is inadvisable,” Dunarn chided. “This blasphemy, it will hurt greatly without permission from one of your guards.”
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