November 19, 2000 AD, Xaian Standard Calendar: Jade Shalesdaughter
The Nax doesn’t look much different, except for all the “Psychic Incident” signs posted by the Gendarmes. It feels different though, a kind of twisted-inness that claws inside my head. Also, I can’t escape the feeling its squatting there in the afternoon sun, looking at us, like prey that escaped once before.
“We’re ready., HuanJen says calmly
“Yes” Kevin nods, holding his spirit staff in front of him like a shield, the rattles on it swinging gently.
Silence. I hear the cars on the nearby streets passing by.
“We, ah, should actually, ah, go in.” Rake finally speaks, beating me to the punch.
He’s right, we’re not exactly looking competent here.. Behind us, a crowd is coagulating around Richard and his crew and a few nervous Gendarmes who’d probably rather be somewhere else. The Gendarmes never seem to like getting involved in Esoteric business except the Clerics of Thymis, and they really can’t avoid it.
“Come on guys,” I take the keys Rich gave us and unlock the door. HuanJen takes the lead, probably because he’s the most used to this, or has the least sense of self-preservation.
Inside, it’s definitely eerie. The shadows aren’t right, the light from the flashlight looks wrong as does the light coming through the windows. On reflection, bringing only flashlight may have been a bad idea on my part, but the guys need their hands free.
I swear some of the shadows are moving, black-sheet spiders skittering around noiselessly. I pretend not to care - many haunts feed off of attention. There’s even things I think called Obsidians that come about when you’re conflicted.
“Do it, ah, Huan,” Rake says, catching a dirty look from the boss, or as dirty as you get from him.
“We hadn’t quite decided,” The boss says politely.
“You’re the one with the people skills.” Kevin adds, eliciting another look from HuanJen. Sometimes I’m amazed these guys get anything done.
“Fine.” HuanJen slides forward. I can see him looking around, feel him sensing things. He’s like a hole into which information flows.
“I am HuanJen of Guild Esoteric, of the Order of Sanctum. I am here regularly. We saw your presence. I wish to talk.” His voice fills the bar and falls into emptiness.
Nothing much happened. I still feel weird. It’s sort of like standing next to, well, a big balloon. It was a stupid metaphor.
Of course, I realize too late, balloons pop.
“Shit!” HuanJen swore. He actually swore. Of course there’s also a burst of not-quite-light and he’s flying backwards, so I figure he’s got good reason t cure.
HuanJen lands at our feet, covered in some kind of goop. The air smells like ozone and he looks like a used handkerchief. Sort of a familiar scene, but I can’t quite place it.
“That was singularly ineffective,” the boss mutters. “Ectoplasmic superfluid. This is something. I’m impressed, I’m …”
“Ah, rambling?” Rake asked.
“That too.” HuanJen tries to sit up and very nearly does so. “I’m betting we’ve got a conscious one or two that’s manipulating the usual haunts. I don’t think we’ve got anything beyond that”
“Damn.” I manage to assemble enough information. Probably Richard’s latest decorations were haunted or had enough of a mindless haunt in them for the usual spooks to manipulate. At least this was normal stuff, to speak.
“Let me.” Kevin strides forward. HuanJen barely says anything, but Rake nods. I hold my breath.
Kevin shakes his spirit staff, the rattles making a strange, hypnotic sound. His breathing is heavy, deep, but not labored. I’m not sure I believe in spirits in the sense the shamans talk about them, but I knew he was calling them. Around Kevin, sometimes, out of the corner of your eye, you can see things hovering around him.
Only now, I don’t. Kevin’s muttering to himself, shaking, and then I do catch something, like a sheet of red dropping over him. He seems to get bigger somehow, like something is inflating him.
“Arodano!” The young shaman’s voice pierces my ears as he yells the name of the Xaian wargod. I hear HuanJen mutter something fearfully. The bar seems to be falling away from me for a moment and the air is thick, like blood.
He’s being ridden. He’s calling one of the gods into himself. I heard of it but I never saw it before …
Kevin whirls around wild-eyes, staff swinging through the air, hands moving in complex gestures that look like some deranged kind of martial arts. The air is like sludge now. Rake is backing up and HuanJen is managing to do the same. I feel like there are rubber bands snapping in my mind.
He’s not Kevin, he’s something else, or at least partially someone else, but he looks miserable. His gait is spastic, pained. The shadows slide around him uneasily.
Then, Kevin collapses. He just falls over and lands on his face, shuddering in a rather unclerical manner. The air echoes with almost-voices.
Whatever’s here is not happy.
A glass flies off the bar and nearly hits Rake. I whip out the Lakkom and point on instinct, just in time to blast a swarm of plates angling in at me. The jukebox begins playing some old jazz tune, despite the facts the Powersmiths cut the electricity yesterday.
“We’ve pissed them or it off!” I yell, feeling like someone has to state the obvious.
“I noticed!” HuanJen staggers to his feet in time to avoid a very unedible steak. “Get Kevin out of here! He’s gone windhorse! Do it!”
I’m not sure what windhorse means, but HuanJen has actually raised his voice, which in my book is an important sign of “bad”. I hit the floor, drop the flashlight, grab Kevin by his collar, and scoot away, Lakkom firing, feeling like an idiot. The height of my career will not be me on my ass, kicking myself toward a doorway, dragging a shaman and blasting away with a kinetic discharge weapon.
“Stop!”
It’s Rake’s voice, or something like it. The world becomes chains and I want to obey the single word.
“Hold! Do not move.” Rake almost appears to be lifting off of the ground. “Calm yourself.”
I’ve got to keep moving, and its difficult. I wondered how Rake could do a sermon, I wondered how come his congregation didn’t want to kill him for stuttering. His voice is not a normal voice now; his words are screaming down from Golgotha. I never, ever want to see what happens if he says ‘let there be light’ with that voice.
I’m scared, and that pisses me off. In over my head, way in over my head. What the hell happened to Kevin. I’m worried and I want to beat him senseless at the same time.
I see HuanJen walking forward, arms spread wide. I see Rake, all strange, reminding me of a magnet for some reason. I feel so tired and Kevin’s a rag-doll and nothing makes sense - or makes sense in a way I don’t understand.
“Jade?” Kevin whispers as I drop him on the sidewalk.
“Shut up Kevin.” I mutter, leaning against the side of the building.
The crowd is looking at us. I give them a good glare and a toothy smile.
“We’re having … a bit of difficulty.”
Inside the bar, I feel the other side of reality, and I think of all I’ve done these last weeks, the last months; its squat. I don’t know anything.
November 19, 2000 AD, Xaian Standard Calendar, Evening: Kevin Anderson.
I’m sitting in the kitchen at my place, well Green’s old place. HuanJen is pacing around the oddly-angled, often-remodeled kitchen. I’m waiting for him to speak.
My friend is nervous, bordering on angry. Him. Angry.
“You were more than distracted with all the changes.” He says finally. “More than you told me, and I trusted you.”
“Yeah.”
“You were windhorse, Kevin. Unsouled. Lost. And you didn’t tell anyone. Not even me. Not even Jade. And you went ahead with the exorcism.”
“I thought …” the words were bitter in my mouth. “I thought it would heal me. I just ne
eded to … do my job. Be me. You understand.”
HuanJen nodded. I almost expected him to yell at me, but he didn’t. He rarely yells.
“I do. But you had to know it was unlikely to do so. Kevin, if you continue …”
“I know! I know what happens. Heart attacks, cancer, insanity, suicide. I know. I’m not new at this, HuanJen. I …”
He’s looking at me, just looking.
“I’m just acting like it I’m new at it,” I finish. Years of training and I’m acting like an apprentice who discovered his first Virtue.
“Kevin, you tried to manifest one of the gods of Xai, your … imbalance allowed you to feed the haunts. There was at least one prime conscious one. You couldn’t even reach your familiar spirits, and I’m betting you took some Farcall as well before the exorcism, judging by your breath.”
He’s talking about the spirit world and our holy elixirs like a business man does about money. It always amuses me. Well, usually.
“I have them, I have trouble reaching them.” I hear sad sighs in my ears, distant. They know. “I wanted to try more. I reached Arodono, I did …”
“Being ridden? That quickly?” HuanJen’s eyes are almost wild, and it’s a strange contrast. He looks very pale, almost scared.
I can’t say anything. Arodano is easy to call, powerful, but it was a stupid idea anyway. The war god of Xai is not a gentle god to manifest, as accessible as he is. With that power, I just had to open my mind, focus on his image, bring all my training to bear and let him replace me for a time …
Or in my case, open my mind, reach him halfway, and let the energy of my own arrogance power the haunts and drive them crazy with fear.
HuanJen takes a chair and sits. I’m not sure if he’s going to scream or cry.
“I should have helped, I should have been there.”
“Jade tried, she …”
“No.” HuanJen makes a slashing gesture with his hand. “I should have paid more attention.”
“I’m a shaman, more or less, full, more or less.” Suddenly I’m angry. He thinks its so easy? What does he know? “You gave me the space and I fucked up. Jade, well, she just got nosy. Probably just overenthusiastic.”
“That’s most of it.” HuanJen seems to be unhappy and guilty at the same time. “Kevin, you’ve lost it, lost the Center, the connection. You need it back.”
“I know.” I steel myself, I close my eyes. “HuanJen, I have to fix it. And I have to show people I can handle it.”
“That,” my clerical friend says dryly, “will take time. This was a rather public failure.”
“I have an idea. An appropriate one. A good one I think. I need your help my friend. For old times, for Green’s legacy, for the people I care for.”
He can’t resist, I know him. I feel a bit guilty, but he is predictable in his own way, like you know water will be wet.
“Go on.”
November 19, 2000 AD, Xaian Standard Calendar: Jade Shalesdaughter
HuanJen comes in the apartment door and I launch myself into his arms. It feels pathetically dependent, but damn it, I enjoy holding him, and I want to so very badly after the fiasco at the Nax. I want to feel something real.
“Hello?” he staggers as I embrace him, nearly falling out of the apartment. He sets me down and closes the door calmly.
“I made dinner, or something like it, have your tea ready, and Clairice is … I handed her a twenty and sent her out for the evening. I figured you needed peace and quiet. And I told her you’re OK.”
“Thanks.” HuanJen falls onto the couch. “You did good back there with the Lakkom getting Kevin out.”
“Thanks.”
“And I’m not happy with you spending so much time perusing his problems and not telling me. Jade, you should have thought ahead.”
I look down at him. “I did. You were busy. You backed off. You’re always busy, so I helped out.”
“You should have told me.” He’s got a paternal edge in my voice that tweaks my temper. “Jade, if you spent some more time studying as I’d asked …”
“Well excuse me, but we were busy in the field. You ever think that there’s only so much studying I can do anyway? We’re a team, remember? In more ways than one, I hope.”
“Yes, but I need you to listen to me, Jade. You have to trust me here.”
“I do, but this is damn difficult. We got Clairice living here, I’m trying to get my head straight, the only time we have together is in the field …”
I catch myself just as the words escape. HuanJen’s eyes turn into black lava.
“Working in the field is not a substitute for our relationship and not a reason to flee solid studying!”
Oh, screw this. What does he know? “Well its goddamn all I had, wasn’t it? Hell, I’m trying to do it all, be a girlfriend, be your apprentice, damn well get back to whatever the hell I touched in the Ossuary, be a cleric, and all you can do is say ‘read this book’, ‘brew this potion,’ ‘I’ll be home in an hour’ What the hell is that going to do? It does shit!”
“I’m trying!” He’s actually yelling, and if I wasn’t so pissed I’d probably be scared. “Damn it, Jade, you may forget I am new at this in a way. We are a team, we also have responsibilities, I am trying.”
“And Kevin is a friend, and he is a responsibility, and your damn responsibility is to teach me, and our damn responsibility is to try and be a fucking couple despite all this crap getting thrown at us! You said you wanted to give it a try last month.”
He throws up his hands, turns away, and sits down. His face is red, he’s as angry as I’ve ever seen him, and yet he looks utterly miserable. The effect is like seeing some ancient monster arise from a placid ocean.
“I … don’t know.” He says softly. “I tried. I did try.”
“Fuck.” I sit next to him, trying to quash my instinct to sit far away. “I’m an idiot. I figured I’d have it all if I was just … doing something. You. My education. I wanted it so bad …”
“My fault.” HuanJen sighs. I swear he’s about to cry. “I knew you were tearing around, you didn’t want to slow down. I let you, I figured you’d come back eventually, settle in, make the effort.”
“Hell, you should have known better.”
“No.” He manages a smile. “I had faith in you. See, you did, you finally told me.”
“This doesn’t count, Mr. ‘doing-by-not-doing.’ Damn, it’s our first fight!”
“I know.” HuanJen grimaces.
“Sucks enough for me to clean the carpet.” I try to be funny. I hope I succeed.
“It’s my fault, you know.” HuanJen begins sadly. “I’m new at this, all of it. I really didn’t know what to do so I let you run all over.”
I wave him off. “Huan, it was me. I … geez, it’s fucking obvious. I wanted you and I wanted that … what you call Tao, the Eternal, whatever. I wanted it all so damn bad. I tied it all together and hung on you as an apprentice to be your girlfriend and mucked it all the hell up. I wanted it all and got jack. I fucked up.”
“No, I let it happen. I stood by. I wasn’t there for you - I pulled away, Jade, I didn’t follow my heart, my Way. You paid for it.”
I open my mouth, close it, and open it again. “Are we going to fight over which of us gets to hog the most guilt?”
“It’s getting there, isn’t it?”
He shuts up. I shut up. We sit there, inches from each other and miles apart. My anger is gone, dead and buried, and I can only think of him. He really does something to me, I feel things around him I never felt before and I want to hold him so badly.
“I just waited.” HuanJen’s voice is torn with sadness. “I didn’t know what else to do when I wanted to do more so badly.”
“I just ran around like an idiot, trying to do everything and got nowhere.” I add.
More silence. I feel like I’m going to fall into HuanJen’s quietude, sink away. Theres something about him like gravity that pulls my heart.
“
You’re worth waiting for,” he finally speaks, and I almost giggle. He says little, meaningful things like that at times. They mean a lot, more than when he overdoses on words.
“You’re worth running after.” I smille. He gives me a quick kiss. It’s not passionate, but its something.
“We’re going to have to work this out.” I say calmly. “Apprentice/mentor, lovers. We got it mixed up. I like both, but …”
HuanJen shakes his head and smiles at me winningly, affectionately. “Let’s stop trying to solve things. Let’s be honest and talk about things. Let’s let things … be what they are. We were fine until we started labeling everything.”
“Yeah.” He has a point, and he’s making it without getting to pretentious. “Ok. We’re going to talk about stuff, right? Not assume? Not wait? Not run around?”
“That’s my idea, yes. You know, we got arrogant, ‘here we are going to have a relationship and be mentor and apprentice, and we get along so well, and now we’ll walk through the world hand-in-hand having supernatural adventures and making witty banter.’ We assumed.”
He’s right, of course. I did. He did. We did. I look back on it all, and damn it, it was close to perfect. I should know from my past and HuanJen’s teaching that life balances out. You get balance, you don’t get perfection.
“Yes.” I lean against him and he puts an arm around me. “Kevin … Kevin wasn’t well as you guessed. Loreli says Harkness isn’t sure about him, you know, other stuff. I figured this’d help. I was wrong. I … Rake told me and I read up. Windhorse.”
“Loss of Soul.” HuanJen nods. “Windhorse is a term from Nexial Buddhism applied semi-appropriately in these cases. Technical definition of his condition from your readings?”
He looks at me, testing my knowledge, combining the didactic with a warm embrace. I nod, close my eyes, and try to recall. “In most noted traditions we find that one can reach a state where the connection to archetypal/non-localized consciousness is completely subsumed by linear, localized ego-systems. The person’s identity only covers limited functions of the overal self.”
“And in English?” The boss smiles his fortune-cookie smile, but its not very enthusiastic.
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