Majus E’Flyr grasped the anchor, and tightened her grip on my arm. Her eyes were looking far away, and her head-tentacles twitched in time to music I couldn’t hear.
I gasped. The pain where the harness chafed me suddenly faded away, and I felt like I could climb for days. As the majus took her hand back, I reached out to the nearest anchor, raising myself up with one arm.
“How’s that?” the majus asked. She was panting, and the wrinkles in her face seemed deeper. “You’ll feel more tired at the end of the day when I take back the changes I made to the music.” She looked up to Mom, and then farther up to where Partino hung, listening in.
“Much better,” I said. “I’m ready to go!”
* * *
The view on our second night sleeping on the wall was like the first—the wall and columns didn’t change, and the ground was so far away that our climb today didn’t make it any smaller. It was peaceful, like I was one little speck of dust on the face of a god. Partino and Majus E’Flyr tied a bunch of ropes from the topmost anchors, and we unrolled the mats we kept in the supply nets. Each of us had our own hammock, tightly bundled up so we didn’t slip out in the middle of the night and fall. The rope up to the beetle trailed down, and I assumed she would climb through the night until she’d drilled as many holes as she could.
I looked up, nestled in my hammock. The wall undulated above me, like the sea on a calm day. How high could it be? We had enough rations for several ten-days, but I couldn’t imagine the wall was that tall. We were at the first layers of fluffy clouds that broke around the columns like waves around a buoy. We’d covered a lot of ground—or air—in the balloon. What was above the clouds? More of the same, or something new?
* * *
The next morning, we found the crystal beetle drill stalled.
“I could barely make it out, now the wall is bright enough,” Majus E’Flyr said, when she came down to talk to Mom and me. “It’s not moving, and looks like it hasn’t since sometime last night. The rope up to it isn’t taut.”
“Any idea what’s wrong?” Mom’s voice was tight with anxiety.
If the beetle can’t drill holes, we can’t climb. We’re stuck! Could we climb back down, replacing all the anchors? I swung my harness closer to listen.
“Don’t know yet,” the majus said. “We’ll have to climb up to it and find out.”
“Hold on a moment,” Mom said, and lowered herself down to the nets with our rations. She searched around the wafers and jerky and water before I heard her make a noise of triumph. When she climbed back up, she held a long cylinder.
“I should have been using the telescope before now to keep a watch on the drill,” she said, opening it up and holding it to her eye. She stared up, then growled, and shielded the end of the telescope with one hand. “Stupid wall is too bright,” she said. “Ah, now I can see it. It’s right below the cloud layer. The drill is stuck in the wall and it’s just hanging there.”
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked. “Can Majus E’Flyr fix her with the Symphony?”
Partino chuckled at that. “The majus’ music can’t fix everything, little one.”
The majus held up one long finger. “I might be able to do more than you think,” she said. “The House of Strength can’t do what the House of Healing can, but the mechanical components of the drill far outweigh the organic ones. I can do a lot to increase the constitution of—”
“How did they get up here?” Mom cried. We all turned to look at her. She was looking down, not up.
“Who? Where?” I asked. We were so far above the ground I couldn’t even make out the individual shapes of the farm plots anymore. No one else could be up this far.
Mom shut the telescope with a clack. “It’s that hack, Surigran Wailimani and one of his thugs. I knew they ransacked my dig site. They’re…they’re riding the other drill!”
“The broken one?” Partino asked. He reached for the telescope and looked through it. “It was still buried when we left. How did they get it out and working so fast?”
“They must have pulled it out and started right after we did,” Mom said. “If I’d been using the telescope, I would have seen them before now, and we could have climbed faster.” I doubted that was the case, knowing how hard it was to climb the sheer wall. “Wailimani has always been as crafty as he is ruthless. Whatever he did, it worked. The point is they’re gaining on us. We need to get started, quick!”
My muscles were aching from the day before, but Majus E’Flyr went around to each of us, and did something, her head nodding to music I couldn’t hear. Again, I felt ready to climb the wall with no ropes. But the majus looks tired. Her wrinkles were more prominent, her skin dark and dull. I made sure she had a good grip on the anchors before she climbed to the front of our group. She couldn’t even rest and ride the rope from the beetle, since it was stalled.
“Pack up that mat, Natina, now,” Mom said, her fingers twitching toward me. “Get your things stowed in the net so we can leave.”
I glared at her. She of all people should understand climbing safely. My mind jumped to the clump of anchors I’d lost down the wall. “Mom, I’m going to drop something else if we keep rushing,” I said.
Mom tsked at me. “Then drop it on his head. The last ones must have missed.” She pointed down. “We have to stay ahead of Wailimani. This is my expedition. The Council approved me, not that Kirian scum.” She pulled herself up to the next set of anchors.
* * *
It took a full day of climbing to reach the crystal beetle drill, and it was too dark to continue when we got there. Mom had pushed us all day, and even Partino was drooping. The majus was barely awake, but when she took back the change she made to us, she visibly straightened. She’s losing a lot of herself to keep us going.
“What’s the problem?” Mom asked, almost before the majus got a chance to look at the drill.
“Give her a chance, Mom. She’s exhausted.” It’s like she’s got a giant squid swimming after her. Maybe she did. It was obvious Wailimani and the other beetle were catching up.
Majus E’Flyr ignored us both, sticking long fingers inside the black shell of the beetle as Partino held one of our few torches over her head. She took a long time to respond, and now both Mom and I fidgeted in our harnesses. Partino glanced down every few moments at the other beetle and the Kirians.
I can see them clearly now, even in the dim light. They were lying on the back of their beetle, riding it lengthwise, since there were only two of them. That was how they had caught up. Wailimani was obviously the one in front. He was pointing things out to the other Kirian with him. Both had the feathery hair like the rest of their species. The beetle was moving jerkily up the wall, using the holes ours had already drilled. That’s cheating!
The mandibles seemed wrong on that one—was one of them broken?
“It’s the main drive shaft,” Majus E’Flyr said, and I looked back up to where she and Mom were hanging over the beetle.
“Sounds bad, doesn’t it,” Partino said, and I nodded.
I haven’t gotten to talk to him much the last couple days. He’d been climbing up above with the majus most of the time. I looked down at the other beetle limping toward us. It must have been climbing day and night, with those Kirians strapped on tight.
“Mom will blow a gasket,” I said. “Or maybe throw the Kirians off the wall.”
Partino chuckled. “Or both. Let’s see if we can help the majus out.”
I realized Mom and Majus E’Flyr were arguing. “What do you mean, you can’t fix it?” Mom asked.
“What I said,” the majus replied. “I can’t just throw notes at a problem. It doesn’t work that way.” She pointed into the beetle. “Look there—the driveshaft for the left drill is stripped, and the one on the right doesn’t look great. Probably hit something inside the wall that didn’t agree with it, though I don’t know how. This crystal all looks the same.” She flung her other
hand out toward the shining wall, while gripping the beetle’s shell. “Whatever happened, I can’t fix it.”
I looked down at the other beetle again. At the rate they were going, they would catch up before morning.
* * *
We camped for the night, once it was clear Majus E’Flyr couldn’t do anything with the beetle. She managed to get the mandible drills backed out of the wall, but when the majus tried to start the beetle climbing again, the metal construct let out a high-pitched whine when the crystal mandibles hit the wall, and the metal construct skidded to one side, grappling for the holes in the wall with her six legs.
“Watch out!” I yelled. She’s going to fall off the wall!
Majus E’Flyr moved faster than I thought possible, and put one hand on the beetle and one on the wall, grunting with the effort. Mom and Partino swung out to each side, their arms out. Partino’s strong arms might be able to hold the beetle for a few seconds, but not Mom’s. Then the beetle found the holes she had drilled and clung. The majus slumped.
“I didn’t need to spend those extra notes,” she complained. “This wall resists any change to the music around it. Everything I’ve done so far, altering the Symphony, has been harder.”
“What did you do?” I asked. I wish I could hear the Symphony. But that would never be.
“I increased the connection between the music of the drill and the wall,” she said, then looked at me when I didn’t say anything. “Like when I stood on top, under the balloon, without falling off.”
How does that sound? I tried imagining the Symphony. What music did the drill make?
“That’s all I will do tonight,” the majus announced.
“But what about—” Mom gestured downward, but Majus E’Flyr cut her off.
“Let them catch up. I won’t risk my neck trying to climb at night, and climbing with six will be easier than climbing with four.”
At least I’m not the only one she interrupts.
The four of us didn’t speak as we went to our hammocks. I heard Mom shifting around far into the night.
* * *
In the morning, we woke to the second beetle stopped a short way down the wall, within easy climbing distance.
Mom was fuming. Did she even sleep last night? About once a minute she would push all her hair back and away from her head. It sprang right back, each time. I had the same hair—all curly and poofy, and unless you tied it tight there was nothing you could do with it.
The rest of us stayed out of her way, as much as was possible when we were all strung together like stingers on a jellyfish. I watched the two Kirians stretch and eat something, as if there were nothing unusual about the metal hulks perched by each other on the huge expanse of the wall.
Majus E’Flyr and Partino studied the wall where our crystal beetle drill was stuck, as Mom hovered over them. As much as anyone can hover while hanging in a harness. She still manages it.
I watched the Kirians and the other beetle. It was shaped mostly like ours, except where ours had two long crystal drills in front that looked like mouth parts, this one looked like it had horns, one over the other. Or it should have. Where our beetle was nice and helpful, theirs looked mean. Definitely a boy. The top horn was missing completely, leaving a hole.
“Are you to be having trouble with your contraption?” the Kirian I thought was Wailimani shouted, as if we had met while out for a walk.
His voice is really squeaky. I almost laughed at the strangeness of it. He was big, even for a Kirian, which meant he was taller than me, though nowhere near as tall as Mom, and certainly not Partino. His assistant was busy in the back of their beetle, tightening straps on the provisions attached to the back. It looks like they threw a bunch of stuff together in a hurry to catch up with us. I shook my head. Don’t they know how important it is to plan out an expedition? Even I know that. We’d spent several days in Gloomlight, planning and buying our provisions.
Both wore the colorful robes Kirians liked, Wailimani’s with yellow and red stripes, and his assistant with green and gold and purple. The robes didn’t seem practical for climbing, but then, they were riding their beetle. Unlike them, Mom and I had tied back our sleeves, wrapping them around our arms so they wouldn’t catch on anything. We’d wrapped the flowing split pants we liked to wear around our legs in the same way.
I stared at the bag I thought must hold their food. That’s not nearly big enough. It should be about half as big as our bag of rations, but it was less than a third the size. Were they planning to use ours when they caught up? There won’t be enough.
“What are you doing here, Wailimani?” Mom called down. She was using the same voice as when my brothers or I did something we weren’t supposed to, and I tensed without meaning to. Even Partino jumped a little, and I smiled. Glad it’s not only me.
“My assistant and I were to be thinking an expedition of such magnitude should not be witnessed by so few,” the Kirian answered. “Such a momentous occasion calls for assistance, so we came as quickly as we were to be able, to make sure no disastrous events befell you.”
I’ve met other people who like to use big words because it makes them sound important. I decided I didn’t like Surigran Wailimani. I gripped my rope and glared at him.
“You thought wrong,” Mom said. “And you stole that drill. That’s my salvage. You couldn’t have gotten up here without us.” Then she narrowed her eyes. “How did you get up to where we started drilling, anyway? We came by balloon.”
“I am to be well aware of this fact,” Wailimani shrilled in his high-pitched voice. He gestured to the single blunted horn on their drill and his robe’s sleeve swept out like a wing. “I am afraid this drill was not to be designed for operation with only one of its fascinating crystal extrusions. When we pushed our contraption to, ah, be making up time, the extra exertion wore down the drill. We were barely making it to your graciously offered handholds.”
“They weren’t meant for you,” Mom said. She crossed her arms, but that meant she swung in her harness. She uncrossed them again and held onto an anchor.
Wailimani bowed his head, his crest of feathery hair spreading out in what was meant to be apology, but I knew it wasn’t. “Nevertheless, this contraption was available, with simple repairs, as your permit for the area around Broken Column is not exclusive, despite what you think. My team was able to—”
“If you all quit your arguing for a few moments,” Majus E’Flyr interrupted, “we could fix this problem and be on our way.” Both Mom and Wailimani fell silent. The assistant even looked up from the back end of the beetle. Both Kirians were pale-skinned with brownish spots, like some older people got. It was just how Kirians looked. They probably thought my blueish skin and the majus’ head-tentacles were strange too.
“The problem is right here,” Majus E’Flyr said. “Partino found it.” The big porter had been silent, frowning down at the Kirians, but now he held a hand out to the last hole our beetle tried to drill.
We all peered closer. Wailimani shaded his eyes from the glow of the wall, put I didn’t think he could see from where he was. They didn’t bring goggles either. I climbed up the anchors until my nose was almost pressed to the smooth crystal.
Is that a crack?
“The drill hit right between two shear lines,” Majus E’Flyr said. “I don’t know how Nether crystal forms cracks if nothing can break it, but one starts right here.”
“And continues up there,” Partino said. I followed his finger straight up. We hadn’t seen it because of the light. The crack got bigger and bigger the higher it went, until it ended in the first real sharp edge I had seen on the wall. It would take a lightening or more of climbing to get up that far. There was an indentation, and I could see something dark against the glowing surface.
“Is that a tree?” I asked. I had seen no other plants on our climb. There weren’t even birds up this high. At least I didn’t have to worry about insects biting me.
/> Partino nodded. “Dirt and seeds must have gotten up here somehow. Maybe it was a freak storm.”
“It’s also not helping us climb,” Majus E’Flyr said. “Wailimani—you arriving here might be a blessing in disguise.”
Mom actually growled.
I would have picked another way to say that.
“I am to be very pleased we could be of service,” the Kirian said. He gave a little bow, but I wasn’t fooled.
The majus waved her long fingers at Mom, her head-tentacles twitching. “I don’t care what’s between you. The Effature and the Council of the Maji are interested in getting information on what’s at the top of the Nether. We couldn’t complete that task with this drill broken. Now we can.”
“How?” Mom sounded reluctant.
“I assume the two machines are compatible, since they were found together. If these fools haven’t burnt out their driveshaft too, we should be able to combine the two machines and continue up the wall,” the majus answered.
“With us included, of course,” Wailimani said. “Since we are to be contributing parts to your noble enterprise.”
Mom took in a deep breath. “And taking some of the credit. It might be better to go back down.” Even I could see that wasn’t a choice—she was just angry at the Kirian’s for poaching her expedition.
I was too. I frowned at the two newcomers. They dug up Mom’s site. I knew how much pride she took in keeping her expeditions neat, and if the way the two packed their beetle was any indication, I didn’t want to see how they got the machine out of the ground. Maybe they broke off the other horn.
I haven’t come all this way to go back.
Majus E’Flyr shook her head. “You could. I’ll stay up here.”
“What about a portal?” Mom asked. “We could go back to the Imperium, get rid of these two, make repairs, and come back here.”
I cocked my head. Portals were the only way to get from homeworld to homeworld, and to the Nether. Only the maji could open them.
Tales of the Dissolutionverse Box Set Page 50