“Nah, I’m not going to sit here. Got stuff to do.” The Vulpine stood up determinedly.
She was not going to sit here and mope like some heroine out of a bad romance novel. Women of Colony were made of stronger stuff than that - they had to deal with the men of Colony.
Jade reached into her jeans pocket and withdrew a daytimer. She was HuanJen’s apprentice, he was out, she was filling in. He hadn’t really let her get to the stage of counseling, officially, but there were people to check up on. Potions and elixirs needed to be delivered, a demand even higher now that the merger of some of Guild Medical and Guild Esoteric’s services had left people wondering about who would take care of their needs. Rumors needed to be checked on, and all those little indescribable things Zone Clerics did to act as the oil on the gears of life had to be done.
It was what she did.
She was just doing it alone this time. Not that HuanJen always went with her in the field or vice versa.
This, however, was a different kind of alone.
Aeons ago, so the stories goes, the first humans arrived on Xai in a shallow valley split by a river tributary. Something in the vale seemed to call to those first visitors, those whose discipline or gifts let them cross the barriers between worlds. In that valley they built their homes and then their shrines and then their tombs. Soon, it became a place to bury the dead or attend to ones gods, and people moved on, or entered through other areas where the skeins of worlds entangled.
This place of first-coming became known, rather logically, as the Valley of the Crypts. As the inhabitants expanded outwards, the shamans and the hermits and the holy men took it as their refuge. Eventually the loose association of mystics formed Guild Esoteric, demarked the proper boundaries of their territory, and went about their business. Everyone needed a place of coming-from, a place to return to.
It was assumed by many that the area was somehow developed and under control. After all there were establishments such as the Lyceum, or the temple built around supposedly nonexistent Portal Tzaddi. Those outside the Guild assumed that the Valley was perhaps unusual, but that the Esotericists had tamed it.
They were very wrong.
They Valley was wild, the Valley was haunted, the Valley was always more than it seemed. You couldn’t tame it or it wouldn’t be what it was, and if it was itself, then it was untamable. The reality of Guild Esoteric was beyond form, and their ersatz home was thus not developed in full. The areas of wildness, of strange old crypts and shrines to forgotten and remembered gods had their purposes.
Those wild areas were places you went for your own reasons. Some sought knowledge, to contact the entities that lived in or manifested in the valley. Others sought solace away from humans for thought and contemplation. Still others wanted challenges to face, to learn about themselves or prove themselves to others.
HuanJen looked at the small, tree-surrounded hill. Atop it, Kevin was making final preparations for his ritual. He himself wasn’t sure what category his friend fit, but he was sure the latter was close.
Kevin had lost himself after the death of Old Man Green. Some people talked about not feeling like themselves, but for a man whose life was connected intimately to the spirit world, it was far more traumatic. Unable to focus, unable to connect to his spirits and sources of power, he had come here, to re-create the ritual that had made him a shaman. To reach out to the gods of Xai and be accepted.
Kevin walked in a circle, one end of his spirit staff drawing a rut in the grassy ground. When he’d managed to make something vaguely round, he squatted down in the middle of the circle and ignited a fire with the highly mystical act of using matches to light a wad of old issues of the Metris Times (“The Crossworld’s Most Reliable Newspaper”).
“You understand you not to rouse me unless there is an emergency,” Kevin said, ensuring the fire was going properly. He was not a natural outdoorsman, or even an unnatural one - Green had been a city-shaman and had been proud of it, and Kevin had followed in his footsteps.
“Yes,” HuanJen answered, standing respectfully on the periphery. “I am familiar with the rituals, Kevin. I know my trances as well.”
“Good.” The young shaman unrolled a blanket with a swift kick. “I hope you understand this too.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Kevin withdrew a vial from his belt and shook it with a forlorn look on his face. HuanJen’s surprised inhalation was easily audible.
“That’s why you only needed a day.” The magician-priest said accusingly. “If that.”
“Yeah.” Kevin sat on his bedroll. “I figured you’d guess, but … and don’t give me that look.”
It was hard for those who knew him to imagine HuanJen giving anyone an angry look, but he came close. Kevin shook his head, tipped the vial into his mouth, and swallowed its syrupy contents. Then, feeling the magician-priests burning eyes on him, he lay down and covered himself up.
“That admixture is two ingredients away from Pandemonium, Kevin. If we were on a Watcher’s barrow you’d be someone else within minutes.”
“I know.” Kevin closed his eyes, carefully regulating his breathing. “I know. I don’t have anything else, Huan. I know I’m fucked up. I got that and I got you and its up to me. You won’t stop me, I know it. So just guard me, OK? Stand by me, my friend.”
HuanJen merely nodded, turned, and sat cross-legged on the grass, facing west.
Kevin Anderson, once apprentice to Old Man Green, shaman of Xai, closed his eyes, began breathing deeply, and turned his mind onto itself and looked into the place the gods were, a heartbeat away, across the depths of the soul.
It was a divide that, once, had been a hairs-breadth. Now, it was one of world-lengths.
Jade walked out of the Crosspoint, a full backpack slung over one shoulder. Of course, when HuanJen had planned to help Kevin, he had tried to clear his schedule so she wasn’t overworked. This of course promptly changed starting about two days ago, and her day promised to be unexpectedly active.
She actually wasn’t glad for the distraction. Something had happened since her … well, her first argument with HuanJen. She couldn’t quite define it, but it was a feeling that she was closer to making some sense of things. Understanding and having her relationship with HuanJen. Evolving her apprenticeship into what it was supposed to be. The two were the same in a way, but she’d gotten it backwards and inside-out.
Jade wasn’t happy with the situation, but she was going to try and make the best of it. She’d learned when young never to discard an opportunity, never think of something only as an obstacle.
It wasn’t being alone while running a ton of errands; it was a chance to think. To evaluate. To learn.
Alone, unfortuantely.
Kevin’s mind whirled, things falling away into the drug-and-meditation induced maelstrom at the edge of his mind.
He’d done this before. You did it as part of your initiation, and it often took days without ritual drugs, meditating and fasting. You went to visit the gods, visit the Heart. Its how you returned to the Source of things, how you began your relations with the gods and spirits.
Or how you repaired it when you fell apart inside.
Kevin rememered how it had been before. He’d gone to the Valley too, with Green, perhaps five years ago. No drugs then, just fasting and ritual dancing and godcries. All of that again and again until he had collapsed from exhaustion and revelation, and his mind had spun away, gloriously free …
… this is how you find the Island of the gods of Xai.
Look up to where the sky seems to turn.
Imagine the World Tree, the Axis of Creation. Hold it in your mind until it is real. The bark is silvery, the leaves like emerald, and it breathes like a living thing.
Then reach out and climb the branches to the Outer Sea.
Kevin felt the bark beneath his hands, smelled the blood-like sap, heard the World Tree’s breats. He knew it was his mind, his soul climbing, but it was also him, fueled by
drugs and desire and frustration …
HuanJen looked at Kevin’s bedroll-mummified form. The magician-priest’s high brow was furrowed with concern.
Suddenly, the mystic turned, dark eyes searching the nearby trees. Finally, he spoke.
“I see you,” the cleric said quietly. “It’s Ok. Come out.”
From the foliage surrounding the hill, a dark shape emerged. It looked like a dog, flickering between fluid movement and statuelike elegance, a creature carved out of flowing obsidian. Two red eyes glowed like the hearts of ancient suns.
HuanJen took a small package from one of his belt pouch, unwrapped it, and set one of the infamous Xaian meal-bars on the ground. The spectral hound padded over and swallowed the ration in a single gulp. Cautiously, the cleric reached up and stroked its rough fur.
“I haven’t seen a guardian in some time. Come to help?”
Ruby red eyes alit by unknown fires.
“I see.” HuanJen nodded. “Good. See him?”
A black-furred canine brow furrowed.
“Yes. Yes, that was stupid. I’m glad you agree. He’s off to the gods, to the Heart. To heal. Soul-loss, you know, a loss of other-self.”
There was a confused growl.
“I’m watching him. He’s … rushing things. Here, in the Valley.”
There was another growl, one that resonated with understanding and concern.
“Well, yes. You can see why I’m glad you’re here.”
Jade wandered through her Zone of Keeping. She knew she had a purpose, but it felt like wandering anyway, and her mind was certainly wandering.
She felt like an overemotional idiot and an insensitive bitch at the same time. Part of her missed HuanJen and feared for him with a crossbreed of doting love and terror. Another side of her decried her weakness again and again, arguing that she was strong enough to handle the situation just as HuanJen could handle his - if not moreso.
She was crushed between two slabs of self.
Life was bearing down on her again, like it seemed to every few months. Her duties had certainly given her time to think, and what she thought was “what the hell have I been doing and why am I so worried?” and “OK, how do I keep from screwing up where I’m going in life?”
It wasn’t helpful.
The final shrine was checked, the final delivery made, the final person talked to. All sooner than she expected, but then again she had become HuanJens partner months ago for her organizational skills. She found herself in the afternoon, with suddenly nothing to do, and even more time to think about how stupid she was.
What kind of future Magician-Priestess was she? HuanJen was off in the Valley of the Crypts, where spirits were as thick as grass on the plains, doing all sorts of occult stuff or something. Kevin’s mind was elsewhere while he sought his soul and his sanity. Rake was running his church and praying for people. She couldn’t sit and calm her mind and they were off being mystic left and right …
Mystic. Mystic methods. She had an idea. She may have been an apprentice, but there were other people with talents that could be helpful.
There is the Outer Sea, where the roots of the World Tree are. It is a sphere with no true edge and an infinite center, made of crystalline water beneath a sky of all colors. On it floats the Isle of the Gods and the lesser Isles of the Outer Sea, connected by the iridescent Bridges of Outer Air.
Kevin stood at the base of the World Tree, where it grew from the Outer Sea, and looked up at the first god of Xai he had seen in awhile. He had been ridden by them as a shaman, but seeing them was something rarer - you saw a god with your eyes instead of a god seeing through yours.
Jani-Thar the Watchman, brother of Thymis, son of Jynin the Lordlady of Gates, guarded the first Bridge of Outer Air. Tree-tall, implacable, he stood at the base of the World Tree, net and axe ready. If you watched his star-silver armor, all that went on in the Outer Sea was reflected on it.
One of the first lessons the shamans of Xai teach their apprentices are that gods are masks. The universe is vast, and the complexities are sometimes best approached in metaphor. You could refer to lightning as electrical discharges, but calling them the Spears of Fulmineus added a personal touch, the ability to relate. From that ability the shamans drew their power.
Jani-Thar may have been a metaphor, but to Kevin, he was very real. The god’s deep breaths echoed in Kevin’s ears and his presence seemed to draw space into his massive form. You bent within his presence.
“Lord Watcher,” the young shaman said quaveringly, “I seek to cross to the island. I see to journey to the Heart. I am Kevin Anderson, apprentice to Green who has passed into words. I have come before and wish to do so again, to assert my connection to our gods and to the Heart.”
Silence roared about the base of the world tree. The watch-god said nothing. When he had first come here, he had heard Jani-Thar’s booming voice, answered his questions, and passed onward. The god had seemed pleased then, smiling at him as an older brother would smile at a younger taking his first steps.
Kevin walked closer. “Lord Watcher, I beg of you. I have lost my self. I do not feel the Heart. I do not feel your brothers and sisters, our family. Many depend on me, I do not wish to leave them without my help.”
There was no response. Kevin’s heart, even the one he envisioned in his spirit-form, was pounding. Jani-Thar ignored nothing; his followers prayed to him for vigilance and clear-sightedness, and surely he would never ignore a visitor to the Outer Sea.
“Lord … screw this. OK, fine.” Kevin felt a tinge that he could only call the fear of blasphemy, and walked under the gods legs onto the first Bridge of the Outer Air.
Jani-Thar did nothing.
“Oh, crap,” yhe hopeful mystic swore uncreatively and unmystically.
Something wasn’t right.
Kevin reflected on this a moment. Actually, that was a terribly obvious statement. He was killing himself, confused in mind and soul, intoxicated on home-brewed hallucinogens, and had been ignored by the god-who-saw-all. “Not right” seemed a rather weak term to use.
Night was falling in the Valley of the Crypts. Shadows of tress and stones and obelisks lengthened as the sun set in the west. Long fingers of darkness inches forward minute by minute.
HuanJen sat looking at Kevin’s motionless body, the ghostly canine curled up by his side. His expression was one of concentration and vast depths.
Part of him wondered about Kevin. They were not close, but they were friends. Kevin wasn’t like Rake, not someone to debate with, but a solid person to talk to with similar experiences. He did his job and did it well, years ahead of other shamans and mystics his age.
Much of his thoughts turned to Jade, alone in the city. He found it ironic that she, of all people, triggered some of his protective urges. HuanJen found himself worrying about her worrying about him. Worried that black-furred lignig-flash was troubled.
The haunt-hound sat up, looking at the cleric inquisitively.
“My … lover,” HuanJen answered the unspoken question. “She’s my apprentice as well. It’s complicated, and I think she’s taking my trip here rather hard.”
An odd growl sounded.
“It’s part of … what several of us are going through. She thought she could seek that which you can’t run after, and is finding it out. He …” HuanJen gestured at Kevin. “did much the same, and lost what Jade sought. They are coping with things now. Paying prices, as do we all.”
The black dog gave the magician-priest what could only be described as a quizzical look, or as quizzical as a being with canine features could manage.
“Me? Yes, me. I hate being alone.” HuanJen looked over the strangely still valley. The trees, the rocks, the geographical features visible seemed to stretch on forever. There wasn’t a silence, but one could hear the silence behind the sounds of nature.
“I definitely hate being alone.”
The magician-priest’s otherworldly companion stood, and paced around him a few t
imes, before sitting back down. It favored him with a curious look. He knew the look well - it was the one that ensured people talked to him.
“I was left on Sanctum by my father,” HuanJen continued distantly. “I was a curiosity, then a fixture, the boy who haunted the library and helped the cooks. The Celestial Master died, my friends’ parents moved on, she left me after telling me it was ‘fun.’ I belonged nowhere and everywhere, and everone left. But here, here in the where-we-all-go, I am home. Here, beyond the edges, where the worlds are coming.”
The cleric shook his head. “I held back with her, when she was reaching out, not wanting to interfere. I held back with him when he asked me not to bother him. There is the art of non-acting, then there’s restraining your heart because you’re afraid to make things worse, and that is an action which will burn your soul. I love her, and I wanted to hug her and tell her to wait and relax and see the wonders with me, and instead I just hoped she’d learn. Instead, she went far away trying to get back to me, I went far away in my heart, just as I am far away by distance now. Now, this … reminds me.”
With a strange bark, the ghost-hound rolled onto its back. HuanJen nodded.
“No offense. I am glad you are here. But I want to be home. She and I finally stopped missing each other’s feelings after these weeks, and … she fills my heart. Just by being there. My dearest Jade.”
A low moan. Ruby-flare eyes glared at him pityingly. HuanJen laughed.
“I sound like that sometimes, its my upbringing. Look, don’t … they’re coming.”
The crimson-eyed canine got to its feet and HuanJen whirled around. Nothing was behind them. Nothing visible to the normal eye, at any rate. However, what was visible to the normal eye was perhaps nine-tenths of the contents of the Valley of the Crypts.
“We have visitors.”
On the southern edge of HuanJen’s zone of keeping was an odd little area of tiny shops that served the surrounding neighborhoods. Unusual little businesses accumulated there like dust, some temporarily, some for years or decades.
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