The Seeds of Dissolution Read online

  “Sorry about the—” Sam gestured at the floor. Majus Cyrysi eyed him, nervously picking at his moustache with one hand. His crest was spiky with agitation, though Sam could tell he was trying not to show it. “I’m alright now, I think,” he said. Hesitantly, he reached out a hand, passing it through a spiral galaxy. His hand left a wake of stars behind which then reformed, undisturbed. “It’s beautiful.” His physics teacher would have loved to see this.

  “Can you—” The majus looked him up and down. “Can you be finding something familiar?” He went to the mess on the floor, one hand glowing orange. The patch smoked, then glowed, the liquid evaporating, and the majus slumped. Then the smoke disappeared and what was left solidified into a cold lump. Majus Cyrysi drew in a deep breath. At Sam’s questioning look, he said, “I was changing the notes of the Symphony of the temperature with the House of Power, first to warm the spot, then cool it as I was reversing the reaction and reclaiming my notes. I will get someone to clean the rest.”

  Sam nodded, embarrassed, then studied the galaxies hanging in front of him. It’s like an astronomy app, except using a hologram. Or the Symphony, I guess. He hadn’t made a habit of stargazing, back on Earth. He could find the moon and maybe the Big Dipper on the rare occasion he looked outside at night.

  “I don’t see anything I know,” he said. His breathing was almost back to normal. Just don’t look down.

  “Over here.” Majus Cyrysi poked a finger at a set of stars. When Sam stood beside him, the cluster compressed to something like the letter ‘J.’ “This is the Scimitar; a common constellation the children of Methiem learn.”

  Sam shot him a look. “I’m not from Methiem.” How can we find Earth if he doesn’t even think it’s real?

  “Of course.” The Kirian’s crest spiked. Annoyance. “Maybe we should try another view. This would be much easier if we were to use the whole room.”

  “No,” Sam said quickly. “No bigger than it is now.”

  “Very well.” Majus Cyrysi zoomed the view out and back in. Sam closed his eyes against the motion. When he opened them again, the stars were stable.

  “This is the Festuour homeworld, on the other side of the galaxy they share with the Methiemum.” The majus said. The view centered on the fourth planet orbiting a large red sun.

  “What about the other eight species?” Sam asked. I’ve only seen humanoids, he realized. They could just as easily be intelligent bananas. He’d need to find books, read up on the different species, what sort of laws and government they had. It was a lot easier than asking people questions.

  “Our objective is to be finding your home, where I will be able to study the Drain you escaped.”

  “Humor me,” Sam said, smirking as the majus’ crest fluffed. The last vestiges of his brief panic were fading. Maybe he could get used to this place. Turn the unfamiliar into the familiar, his therapist told him once.

  Majus Cyrysi slid the view back as he pushed buttons. Sam kept his eyes open for this change, though it almost made him lose his balance. Large swaths of space were unfilled with data. Nine points of light emerged, artificially highlighted.

  “This galaxy is the one we were observing,” Majus Cyrysi pointed at a collection of stars, “containing the homeworlds of the Methiemum and the Festuour.” The other eight lit galaxies were in no order, six in a loose group. “Aside from them, only one planet in each galaxy is to be inhabited, as far as we know,” said the majus quietly.

  “It’s so big,” Sam said, He swallowed and fought down the sensation of falling.

  “Yes, and empty.” Majus Cyrysi’s voice was low. “We are knowing little of the shape of the universe.”

  “It’d take years to find my home in this,” Sam said, waving a hand through the starmap. Displaced galaxies snapped back into place afterward. I’m alone, very far from home. I still don’t know what the Drain did to the house. A memory of Aunt Martha sewing tugged at him. He wondered if the Nether had sewing machines. He had sewn a few things, and the back and forth motion always calmed him.

  “We can try,” said his new mentor, but his voice was less confident. “What differentiates your homeworld, your sun?”

  Sam thought. “There are nine planets in my solar system. Eight if you want to be technical.” My Very Earnest Mother—

  The majus cocked his head, feathers ruffling in thought. “I am believing the Pixie system has eight planets. All the others have either too many or too few.”

  “There are big planets farther from the sun, small planets closer,” Sam said. “Earth is the third planet out.”

  Majus Cyrysi made a sound of annoyance, his crest separating, resettling. “This is not telling me anything useful. Do you think we are able to see planets in another solar system? Our best telescopes can barely tell us about other stars.” He poked at the starmap, his other hand pressing buttons. The view slid into one of the home galaxies, and Sam realized the representation was crude. The view centered on one system.

  “This is my home,” the majus said. “Kiria is here.” He poked at the fourth planet out of twelve, white with clouds and blue with ocean. “But farther,” the view slid back to incorporate several star systems, the rest merely blurs of color, “we are not knowing. If you could give me a constellation of stars, finding the system would be much simpler.”

  “Oh,” Sam mumbled. His shoulders hunched in, muscles tightening. Thinking on this scale made his heart race. He listened to the rhythmic ticking of his watch. What else can I tell him?

  “The Big Dipper is a constellation I know.”

  “Good, good. What stars make it up?” The majus’ crest spiked forward.

  “Um.” He had no idea, and even if he knew, would it look the same from here? “It looks like this.” He drew the shape in the air, but Majus Cyrysi only frowned at him. Well that won’t work.

  “How about this: Earth is in a spiral galaxy.” What is the Andromeda galaxy? That’s the next nearest, right? Sam had known, once. “Um, the sun is a yellow star?” He couldn’t think of anything else.

  “That is to be some help,” the Kirian allowed. He selected several buttons on the pedestal, turned a crank. Gears clanked and the view slid out again.

  Sam swayed and looked for something to steady himself in the empty room. He caught a glance at the bottomless floor and pulled his eyes back up. Not helping.

  More than half the shapes in the starmap lit up. “These are spiral galaxies the ten species have recorded,” Majus Cyrysi said. “All have yellow stars, though the fact is lowering the possibilities significantly. Can you tell me more about where yours is to be located?”

  Sam slumped. Hopeless, without knowing how to stargaze, or at least an internet connection. He turned to the majus.

  “I had no idea there were so many.” His eyes burned, but he would not cry again. “I want to get home.”

  Majus Cyrysi grunted assent, stroking his feathery moustache, but Sam could tell he was about out of suggestions. “Maybe if I am showing you views from the other homeworlds, you could be recognizing familiar views.”

  Sam shrugged. He watched Majus Cyrysi fiddle with the pedestal’s controls, certainty settling over him like a stifling blanket. The only thing I truly remember about Earth is the inside of my house, but the Drain might have affected the whole East Coast. Aunt Martha always wanted me to go out more, meet more people. Now it’s too late.

  “I’m not going to get home, am I? I had a plan, or part of one. I was planning to go to college, train to teach students about laws and ethics.” The unfinished application was still lying on his desk. But with Aunt Martha gone, what did he have tying him to Earth any longer?

  At the question, the majus straightened and looked directly at him, large eyes earnest. “I will not lie, chances are seeming small. I would help you back if I could. Your home is holding the key to researching the Drains, important to me as well. However, until we gather more information, you are,” Majus Cyrysi’s crest t
wisted, “welcome here.” Embarrassment was a strange look on the Kirian.

  “Here—in the House of Communication?” Sam looked around the vaulted basement. He was getting used to the space, though he hadn’t seen the aboveground portion.

  A strange expression flickered across the majus’ face. He stared past Sam, his crest relaxing completely, then puffing up. His eyes focused again. “Well, what is stopping me?”

  “Stopping—what?” Sam felt the conversation leaving him.

  “You were creating the portal here from Earth. There is some part of you which must remember another location. We only need to draw it out. To train and apprentice you, as a new majus. I am not having an apprentice. You want to learn to teach? I was a professor of philosophy, in my younger days. It could be beneficial, for both of us.”

  “You want to—to teach me?” Teach me philosophy? Magic? To change the Symphony? Sam stared at the stars and planets, made by other maji.

  “Yes, yes.” Majus Cyrysi paced back and forth across the floor, his strides taking his head through the lower half of a galaxy. Sam didn’t think he noticed the bits of the map trailing his crest. “The portal—it was surrounded with yellow, yes? Maybe with another color, rare for a novice, but not unheard of—”

  “What…what are you talking about?” Sam tried to remember the hole in the air, connecting his home and the Nether.

  The Kirian stopped abruptly, staring at him. “A majus may only teach another of the same aspect, or house. This is to be obvious, as each house can only hear the Symphony they were born to, that portion of the overall Grand Symphony that leads the universe in its dance. You were having yellow around your portal, which means you must be of the House of Communication. If this is the case, then I can teach you of that Symphony. When you know more, perhaps you may be finding your way back to your home.”

  “That seems like it will take a while.” Months, even years before he could send that application in, if he even wanted to go back to an empty house and no family. His heart was speeding. He should have finished the thing when Aunt Martha first told him. Then at least he’d have some deadline for when he had to get home.

  “It is a lifetime of study, to change the notes that create our universe,” Majus Cyrysi said. “To be granted the ability by the ancestors is a great honor, but you may also be finding peace doing so. Of course, if you are wanting to discuss philosophy, or law, I can be doing that, too.” The Kirian smiled, showing a mass of pointy teeth.

  Sam looked back at the starmap—Earth was in there somewhere like a single bead lost in a pile of sand. Back to Majus Cyrysi, whose eyes were wide, crest erect in anticipation. Which I can tell because the Nether is invading my mind. Honestly, it was more surprising he hadn’t broken down completely, lying comatose on the floor. It’s the only way, isn’t it?

  Slowly, he nodded. He was going to be a majus. Could he still teach if he was a majus?

  “Excellent!” Majus Cyrysi rubbed his long hands together. “Then we have even more to tell the Council. Come, we must be on our way.” He punched a button and the starmap sucked back into the pedestal, leaving Sam blinking in the absence of the display. “New evidence of Drains, a lost homeworld, and now a new apprentice. We will drag the Council’s nose out of those inane Aridori rumors after all.”

  The majus made for the door, leaving Sam to scuttle along behind him. He cast one last look back at the now dark pedestal. Can I lead a full life here, if I never get back to Earth?

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Council of the Maji

  -The Aridori war was more than a thousand common cycles ago, waged across every homeworld. We know the species’ attack was unexpected, and pitted all the species in a joined effort against them. At the end of the war the insane beings were completely extinct, hunted by Sathssn-led extermination squads. What was the reason for the attack? The war destroyed many records from that time, and we are still finding “new” history buried in forgotten ruins across the assembly of homeworlds. One such piece has speculated a societal shift centuries before, given little heed until too late. But can we believe any hypothesis which takes the Dissolution as an accepted fact?

  From “The Great Assembly through the Ages”

  The trip up to Origon’s apartment was tedious, with the young man complaining about the stairs on every flight. What was the Methiemum’s problem with a little exercise? Losing one’s home must have put him out of sorts, though Rilan complained almost as much, on her increasingly rare visits. That was more a ritual, though. She had earned the chance to grumble from so many repetitions of this climb. Origon let his crest wriggle in amused remembrance. A strange species. The view from the top of the House of Communication was worth the climb.

  He looked out one of his windows toward the Spire as he listened to his new apprentice—apprentice!—shuck out of his heavy coat. When he turned back, the young man was carefully hanging it in a closet. Origon would rather have thrown the thing somewhere and been on their way, but Sam was deliberate, if nothing else. He washed his face and used the facilities while Origon tapped a foot. The Council would be in session most of the day, but that did not excuse such slowness. By all the ancestors, it was like being mentor to a turtle, though any wait would be worth getting to research the Drains.

  “So what does being your apprentice mean?” Sam asked.

  Origon drew away from the window. It was worth a brief explanation before they went before the Council. “I will be showing you how to listen to and change the Symphony of Communication.” He held up a hand and let the music defining the air currents in the apartment fill him. “Do you hear the Symphony?”

  Sam squinted, then shook his head. “Maybe a little. Like someone playing music a long way off.”

  “It will be coming to you in time,” Origon told him. It wasn’t unusual for new maji to have difficulty. There was time to teach him later. For now, he grasped for the notes that made up his being, and a portion of his self separated, like a bandage ripped away. He placed those notes in the soft sonata that was the air. They doubled the tempo, making the music allegro, and a breeze blew through Sam’s hair, which was slightly longer than Origon’s topfeathers. The young man’s eyes tracked the streams of yellow, visible only to another majus, and his body seemed to relax for the first time since he had arrived.

  “I can see the colors,” Sam said, and a shaky smile appeared on his face. “Beautiful.”

  Origon drew his song back, trying to ignore how much it took out of him. The breeze reversed for a moment, then faded away, as did the color. “Any majus will see any other majus’ colors, though we can only hear that portion of the Grand Symphony that is defining our house. It is what naturally divides the maji’s abilities. As I have said, mine are better suited to the physical side of the spectrum, though I can introduce you to other sides of the House of Communication. For now, though, we should be going.”

  The young man agreed, and they were off, Sam trailing him down the spiral stairway as he had going up. The bridge to the Spire was only halfway back to the ground. Origon kept a careful eye on him while they crossed high above the Spire’s garden. This bridge was enclosed. Others were not.

  “Are you to be experiencing problems with this height?” he called back. Sam was several paces behind, shaking and face pale, one hand to the plaster wall of the bridge. The other hand was in a pocket, no doubt clutching that pocketwatch of his.

  “I’m okay,” he said, though he didn’t sound convincing. No crest to show his emotions, but the Nether told him Sam was not happy. “It’s not the height so much as the view. I have to find Earth, and that means I have to learn about your world. I have to make the effort.” He took another small step forward and Origon frowned. Maybe getting food in him was in order, after meeting with councilmembers. He certainly felt better when he ate. Too late to get any now—he would just have to hope Sam didn’t collapse.

  “Not my world—that would be Kiria,” he answered, “Tho
ugh I am seeing your point. Keep up then. We will soon be free to explore the Drains together, and in the process, find your homeworld again.”

  Sam mumbled something in agreement.

  The bridge deposited them into the main atrium of the Spire, and Origon did another dance, coaxing Sam out from the bridge, getting him used to the vaulted ceilings, the sight of the sheer walls on this floor of the Spire, the orange auras of Systems glowing around the lamps, providing light as long as the majus’ song that fueled them still played.

  A few minutes later, Origon burst past the door guards into the Council chambers, Sam trailing behind him. Rilan should have prepared the rest of the members for his entry. A shame he hadn’t thought of taking Sam as his apprentice in time to tell her that.

  The six heads of the houses of the maji—who made up the Council—were spaced around the semicircular wooden table they used to variously debate policy and interview maji who came to them with problems or suggestions. Origon’s eyes were drawn to a spot on the table’s impressive center carving of the ten species, working in harmony. His eyes went straight to the chip in the Sureri figure’s ear, a reminder of a meeting many cycles ago where he had…disagreed with the then head of the House of Communication. Her replacement, if possible, was even more contrary.

  Light spilled in from windows set high in the rear wall of the room, illuminating the pile of paperwork in the middle of the table, sheets pulled toward one councilor or another. Rilan sat with arms crossed and mouth open, as if she had just finished making a point. Several of the others scowled up at him as he and Sam entered.

  Rilan gestured as if to introduce them, but Bofan A’Tof got there first. “You were supposed to enter when called. Rilan has already informed us you are here about your voids again.” The Lobath head of the House of Power looked like a stuffed sausage: his reddish skin bright on his cheeks, his old maroon jumpsuit about to shed its buttons. Even his three head-tentacles looked about to burst. He was nominally in charge of Origon, since with being able to hear two of the six aspects of the Grand Symphony, Origon’s second allegiance was to the House of Power. That didn’t keep Origon from disagreeing with almost everything the Lobath did.