Facets of the Nether

by William C. Tracy

  “Up to the bridge,” Majus Ayama directed them, pointing around the circumference of the House of Communication, the tallest of the houses. “I can’t concentrate on refining the music for the portal with this thing going on.” Sam saw her hands clench. He was not the only one sick with worry for Enos.

  The chime hadn’t stopped, and people were milling around the Spire grounds. No one would accomplish anything while the noise and shaking continued. Sam imagined the rest of the Imperium was in as much unrest. He jumped as one of the moving sculptures in the Spire grounds crashed to the ground. That was the third one to fall in the last two days.

  “Why the bridge?” Majus I’Fon asked.

  “Ori has been doing research on this Shiv-cursed chime,” Majus Ayama said over the noise. “The bridge has some connection in the old texts he’s found. There are notes about the Nether shifting, like this is a warning bell, or things are moving. He feels something is coming, so up the bridge it is.”

  The bridge was only midway up the height of the tower, and Sam breathed a sigh of relief at not having to climb the whole stairway, though he’d gotten a lot fitter since arriving in the Nether. Multiple flights of stairs were the norm here.

  He had peered at the bridge a few times from the doorway that connected it to the rest of the tower, but only while passing its floor. It was constructed of polished and fitted stone, with rails that came to his waist. The stone was like that of the House of Communication, white with variegated stripes that caught the light of the walls. They could see Majus Cyrysi on the bridge when their group arrived, but he wasn’t alone.

  “Sir!” Majus I’Fon called out to the Effature. Hir tentacles were unbound, and they hung around hir head. The old man was standing next to Majus Cyrysi, one finger stroking the edge of the diadem that graced his head. “How did you get here?”

  The Effature turned back, his robe swishing around his feet. He cast an eye over the assembled maji, nodding to himself. “The usual way—by foot.”

  Sam stifled a snort of laughter, and even Inas gave a shy smile, though he didn’t look up. Sam watched his hands to make sure they weren’t changing in front of the old man. Inas was stable, for now.

  “The Effature was to be meeting me up here,” Majus Cyrysi said, his crest wild. “He was listening to my conclusion that this artifact of the House of Communication might be a meeting place of sorts.”

  I guess I won’t have to make an appointment with him, then.

  Sam wondered whether the Effature had spoken to his mentor about their discussion. How did the old man know these things were so important? The Effature rubbed his diadem again, and Sam’s eye was drawn the crystal. Was it connected to the Nether? Had it told him why the chime was ringing?

  Palmoran passed his gaze over the collected maji, stopping on him and Inas for a beat longer. “I have dredged up ancient records lately from the storage rooms beneath the palace. Our civilization lost much when the Aridori War occurred, but the worst was the loss of information, from what I can tell. Yet a few documents mentioned a ‘great sound’ in the Nether. They hearken to a meeting, and pointed me toward this bridge.”

  “And you did this all yourself?” Majus I’Fon asked. The Effature nodded. What other resources did he have?

  “But if this is a call to dialogue, hmm, who will this group meet?” Caroom asked. The Benish looked side to side with a creak, barely heard over the ringing chime. It seemed louder, this close to the wall. They gestured to the other end of the bridge. “There is only the wall of the, hmm, Nether. This bridge has never had, hmm, a purpose.”

  It was true. The bridge arced out from the House of Communication—the closest of the six houses of the maji to the tremendous wall. But it was a dead end. Why would anyone make a bridge where there was no entrance?

  Sam looked down its length. It not only ended at the wall, it looked like it vanished into the wall. By mutual assent, their group walked down the bridge’s length, probably a hundred paces. Sam stopped close to the massive wall, trying not to look too closely. Its crystal depths went on forever, and it was disorienting to look into the translucent material for more than a few moments.

  “When was this built?” Sam pointed down to the bridge, but Majus Cyrysi shrugged, his crest flaring.

  “Unknown. The Houses of the Maji have been here since before the Aridori War, and this bridge was to be here since the house’s construction, if I am to be correct.”

  “I believe you are,” the Effature added in his deep voice. It carried through the chimes. “Sam, will you look at the very end of the bridge?”

  Sam did so, and ran a finger around the intersection of the stone bridge’s railing and the crystalline wall. It wasn’t a reflection. He could see the bridge passing into the crystal. Colors trailed his finger, in green and blue and brown—in fact, all of the colors of the Symphony.

  “How can the bridge be inside the wall?” he asked.

  Majus Ayama came forward, Majus Cyrysi and Caroom following her. “As we told you a few days ago, maji enter the crystal of the Nether on their testing, though that usually happens in the columns, not in the wall. It would be pointless to go into the wall, but the builders must have used that ability to fasten the end of the bridge so it wouldn’t fall. Maji could go a short distance inside before running out of air.”

  So it’s not a bridge to nothing. Just not something anyone can access.

  “No one knows what’s on the other side?” Sam looked between the maji. Majus I’Fon was staring up the height of the wall, hir large silvery eyes reflecting blues and purples from the crystal. Rey just shook his head, and Inas was staring at a spot of lichen on the bridge, not paying attention. Sam ached to put a hand under his chin and bring him back into the world, but there wasn’t time.

  “I have been saying before,” Majus Cyrysi said, “The Nether is not exactly inside the universe. I am not to be knowing if there is even anything at all on the other side.”

  “Yet, hmm, there is a bridge,” Majus Caroom rumbled.

  Majus Kheena stepped up beside his apprentice. He’d been silent, watching everyone. He differed from most Sathssn Sam had met, almost never wearing his cowl. Today he didn’t even have gloves on.

  “The Nether, it sustains us, but there are limits to what even it can do,” Majus Kheena said. The other maji turned to him. “The walls of the columns, they are thin, relative to this wall.” Majus Kheena gestured with one scaly hand back toward the Spire of the Maji, towering above them, slumped against the column in the middle of the circle of Houses. Then he swung the hand back to the wall. “This, it is extremely thick. The Nether, it can only sustain the oxygen and nitrogen required for continued breath for a brief time. The column wall is thin enough that this, it doesn’t matter.”

  Sam placed his hand on the crystal. “Then why are we here? Does the Nether want us to walk into the wall?” Colors played around his hand, and he could feel the chime reverberating through the crystal, as if it was being generated, or something was moving deep in the limitless facets of the Nether. He would be alone, confined, inside the wall. It was the opposite of what made him panic.

  “You could,” Majus Cyrysi said, and when Sam looked back, he had his head cocked, as if he wanted to see Sam try. “But only maji can do such a thing, and you would have to be returning to us within seconds, or you would be asphyxiating.”

  Sam pressed his hand harder against the blue and purple surface, and just for a moment, he thought it shifted beneath his hand. He stepped back, looking at where the ends of the bridge disappeared into the wall. Rey stepped up beside him, frowning at the crystal expanse.

  “Though non-maji may be brought along,” the Effature said. Everyone turned to look at him at the pronouncement.

  “Brought along? I’ve never heard that,” Majus Ayama said. “You seem to know more than even the Council, and they have records of the maji going back to the war.”

  The Effature shook his head. “The Council does not know everythi
ng. It has been quite a while since it was done.” His eyes fell on Inas, and some expression Sam couldn’t place crossed the old man’s face. “I suspect a connection between the chime, the shaking in the Imperium, and this bridge. I am very close to remembering what that is.”

  Both Majus Ayama and Majus I’Fon were staring at the Effature as if he held many more secrets. Sam suspected he did.

  “Were you also finding the mentions of movement within the Nether?” Majus Cyrysi asked the Effature. “If so, your information is to be as good as the best offered in the Spire of the Maji. We must only be decoding such knowledge.”

  Sam sidled to Inas while the others talked and reached for his friend’s arm, wanting the comfort of his presence. Inas tensed as he did, looking up from the rail of the bridge. He let Sam take his arm, and Sam could tell he was trying to relax. Maybe he would, with time.

  The Effature gave a slight nod to Majus Cyrysi’s words. “I saw the same information. As some of you doubtless suspect, I have been reticent with information in the past, and perhaps held too much back. The most recent cycles are teaching me this.”

  It was a strange semi-apology, and Sam searched the other’s faces, trying to figure out what was going on. Even he could tell the Nether’s caretaker was acting out of the ordinary. Majus Ayama was squinting like she did when she was almost at the solution to a puzzle.

  “Would you mind telling us exactly how long you have been holding on to this information?” she began. Her tone held nothing but respect, yet it was firm.

  “I believe I am having the same question,” Majus Cyrysi added. His crest flattened, and the Nether translated it as embarrassment to Sam. “I have been making discreet inquiries, but few know anything more.”

  The Effature sighed, and pulled a hand down his long white beard and moustache. “Yes, it is about time for that question again, isn’t it? You are wondering how long I have been in charge of the Nether.”

  Hints of their conversation ran through Sam’s mind. I have been the caretaker of the Nether for quite a long time—long enough that old details tend to fade after time. He remembered the Effature touching the diadem he wore several times, as if it were giving him information.

  “Me, I think the question has crossed every majus’ mind at some point,” Majus Kheena said. “Especially when we hear stories from those much older than us.”

  “And when the maji request, hmm, material from the palace archives,” Majus Caroom added.

  “Not that they often honor the queries,” Majus I’Fon huffed. Sam wondered what information the Lobath had requested. How often did the Effature interact with maji outside the Assembly?

  “I have discovered further details past what we discussed at our meeting, Sam,” Bolas Palmoran addressed him, and Sam’s chest seized as everyone looked at him. “You did not take that walk on the bridge I suggested, did you? What about other connections between the strange occurrences since you arrived in the Nether?”

  “I…I…haven’t made much progress,” Sam whispered. He tried to keep his gaze on the Effature’s face, so he wouldn’t have to see Majus Ayama’s eyes boring into him.

  “I feel we may discover more quite soon,” the old man said. Sam realized he had avoided answering the maji’s questions about his age.

  “Aye, that’s a fact,” Rey said. Sam looked around. The Sureri was still at the wall, staring into the disconcerting depths, one hand cupped around the edge of his face. “Yer all should better get over here. I think someone’s comin’ through.”

  That was when the incessant chime finally stopped.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Emissary

  - Lately, my mind has conjured ancient memories to the surface—likely as aspect of the diadem I wear, and its connection to the Nether. It has access to far more than I can comprehend at one time.

  I begin to remember the crystal of the wall is not all it seems, nor is that which we know as the Nether. The Nether is said to exist outside the universe, yet what we know of it is far smaller than what it encompasses.

  From the Journal of Bolas Palmoran, Effature of the Nether, 1003 A.A.W.

  Sam worked his jaw in the sudden silence. The lack of sound was a heavy pressure in his ears. He’d gotten so used to the chime over the last several lightenings he’d begun to ignore it.

  “Someone is to be coming through the wall?” Majus Cyrysi was the first to realize what Rey said. “How is this to be possible? Is this what the chime was for?”

  “Eyah, right there.” Rey pointed one long finger at where the bridge would sit, if it continued through the wall. Sam squinted, trying to ignore the distracting facets of the Nether crystal. Their group came forward to huddle at the end of the bridge. The wall was not quite transparent, and Sam could see some way through it, but it was impossible to determine distance.

  There was a figure, growing larger, the shape unlike any of the ten species. It seemed distorted, shorter than a Lobath and taller than a Pixie, but the proportions were wrong, like the figure wore a flaring dress or robe.

  “This, it is impossible,” Majus Kheena said. “The Nether would not sustain a person long enough to travel from…” The Sathssn paused.

  “From whatever is to be on the other side.” Majus Cyrysi finished. His crest was wild, shifting shape every few moments. “This cannot be! The Nether is to be existing outside space and time. There is no ‘outside.’”

  “True to a point,” Bolas Palmoran said from behind. There was a collective shuffle as they turned to him. In the wall, the figure made slow progress, and Sam was loathe to tear his gaze away, as its approach drew him. “Perhaps I found more than Majus Cyrysi in my research. The exterior of the Nether links to no place in the known universe, but an interior wall like this one may lead to…” The Effature squinted, and stroked the diadem on his head. “To other facets?”

  Majus Ayama cocked her head. Sam was glad to see everyone looked as confused as he felt. Even Inas had looked up, his eyebrows drawn as he frowned. What did the diadem do?

  “What do you mean…other facets?” Majus Ayama said, very slowly.

  “There is more than this?” Majus I’Fon spread hir long fingers out to encompass the Imperium, Gloomlight, and further. “Yet we have never seen it.”

  “Yes.” The Effature seemed animated, his hands moving faster, his eyes brighter than Sam had even seen him. “The Nether communicates such wonders as I have…forgotten?” He sounded confused, unheard of for the Effature, and looked up. His diadem caught light from the wall, throwing it back in a rainbow of color. The Nether’s caretaker reached up both hands, whether caressing the crystal or trying to hold his head, Sam wasn’t sure. Something new was happening—another of those events the Effature warned him of.

  “The diadem tells me ever more. The chimes—they warn of facets of the Nether in transit. It has been many centuries since we were so close to…” The corners of his mouth drew up. “I remember. Those memories have been gone so long. Oh my. My. Yes. However could I have forgotten her?” Palmoran took one unsteady step toward the railing, delicately placing one long-nailed hand on the polished stone, as if he would fall over without its support. “You must understand, the diadem I wear both aids me and constrains me. There was no need to remember such information—” he broke off and winced, the wrinkles on his face seeming to deepen, “—for so long. So many centuries.”

  “Forgotten who?” Majus I’Fon asked. The end of hir head-tentacles wriggled in exasperation. Majus Kheena gestured at Majus Caroom, both of them talking in indistinct voices.

  Majus Cyrysi whirled in a circle, looking at the walls. “You are saying this facet of the Nether is to be encircled by these walls?” He was animated, his crest spiking. “The Nether is to be large enough that maji can be opening portals from the Imperium to Gloomlight, and from Gloomlight to Poler. It is to be nearly as large as one of the homeworlds. Yet you are to be telling us this is not the only section of the Nether?” His crest stuck almost straight out, and he p
ulled at his moustaches with thumb and forefinger. Majus Cyrysi stopped his twirl, his eyes fixed on the diadem. It was a miniature mirror of the wall, crystal reflecting crystal.

  The Effature gave a slight bow. “Indeed. A fact I had forgotten until moments ago.” He looked up at the wall. “I am as surprised as you.”

  “What else have you kept from us? Have you endangered the Assembly or the Council by your omissions?” Majus Ayama asked. She was next to Bolas Palmoran, one hand ringed in white and olive, as if she would take the information from him. The Effature waved her away and stood straight.

  “Much, I am afraid, but I do not think I have put you in danger. There is no time to explain further. After the coming events, I must reveal several secrets I have kept for a long while.” He put one thin hand to the green and purple variegation on the front of his robe of office. Sam peered at the hand. Some of the liverspots were gone, the joints smaller. It looked like the hand of a man much younger than the Effature. His pale cheeks had sparks of color in them, as if his body reflected a memory of an earlier time. Was all this an effect of the diadem?

  “Until then, it will be a delight to see Crominu Vaevicta after all this time. There is so much I have forgotten.”

  “This person is, hmm, who?” Caroom asked. Their eyes flashed with curiosity and their body creaked like an oak in the wind as they shifted back and forth.

  “Why, the Effature of the next facet of the Nether,” Palmoran said. “My…a good friend of mine from long ago.” Sam caught the hesitation. That was not what the Effature was going to say. Closer than friend, then? “This must be her representative. Yes, the diadem speaks to me—an ancient ritual I had no need to know for long cycles. Their side must have also recognized the changes that are coming.”