“I understand.” Huam-Jen lay a friendly hand on Riakka’s shoulder for a moment. “I’m trying to help people, Riakka.”
“I’m scared Paldayne did something stupid, something incredibly stupid. If anyone could do what Jade said, he could. As for would … I could never figure him out. He was sort of like you. I mean, is like you.”
“I … see. Are you willing to help me? Help my fellows? Continue our investigations.”
“Yes. But I want you to promise me something and tell me something. Promise me that you’ll handle this well, promise me that you’ll keep in mind that … whatever some members of my Guild do you’ll keep that in mind. And promise you’ll keep me informed.”
HuanJen nodded after a moment’s thought, and gave her a geniunely warm smile. “I promise. I will extract that promise from my fellows. And what should I tell you?”
“Why you trust me.”
“Because I can. I’m good at knowing people. Besides, trust has to be given to be received.”
Riakka smiled at the last statement, there was a whiff of self-deprecation. “You sound like a fortune cookie.”
“Jade has said much the same thing. At least, that I am yellowish, filled with pretentious well-meaning words, and something about taste that I shall not repeat in mixed company.”
Riakka tried not to laugh. “Thanks,” she managed.
“You are welcome. Now, let me know what you can find. And if I can help, help you cope, let me know. It is what I do.”
May 16, 2000 AD, Xaian Standard Calendar
Books again.
Riakka’s life was information and data, paper and disks, pen-scratches and keyboard-strokes. Libraries and archives and classes were the parameters of her lives.
And the Hall of Archimal. The grand storage place, the library of the Historians. It dug several floors into the skin of Xai and several into the air. It was the home of their work, all her Guild’s achievements.
It was also the home of secrets. Riakka knew secrets. She’d been in the Historians for over seven years. She still remembered prayers on her lips and the hope of winning her scholarship, and the bright blue light of victory. People taught the youngest Historians easily, without fear; after all they were the future.
So she had scampered among rooms and meeting rooms, shelves, and archives, making her way into the depths of the Hall. She did nothing that would attract undue attention - she knew where to look, and no one suspected as many of them did not.
She looked through the stacks of the Theologic room, in those distant corners where people rarely went because some facts just weren’t interesting. Possibilities and potentials here and there. Checking a hand-scrawled list of notes, making analysis.
“Ah, damn.” she whispered closing her eyes. A few more facts had slid into an undeniable configuration.
All this crap in the city, her life, and now this. When you lined up the facts, they fit what she’d been told perfectly. HuanJen’s and Jade’s statements about Paldayne chittered in her head.
It fit everything. It fit Byral’s statement and books that were checked out and papers published and inquiries made. Cold evidence that Paldayne was a monster.
Riakka stood from her sitting position, and stretched. She tucked her notes into the folds of her robes. The world seemed wrong, now, the …
She checked her watch. The hand didn’t seem to be moving.
“Shit.”
The lights seemed wrong. She saw little rainbows in the corner of her eyes. Riakka took off her glasses, and found the strange distortions were still there.
“And what have we been doing?”
The words came from behind her. Riakka turned around slowly.
“Paldayne?”
“Somewhat, my dear, somewhat.”
It was Paldayne’s voice. In the shadows it seemed to be his form, thin and wiry, wearing his robes like other people wore their identities. His smile was there, but his face was covered with a mask of black. Part of Riakka thought he looked like he’d shoved his head in a black bag and tied it so he could look menacing.
Most of her, however, was scared. What he looked like wasn’t frightening - it was what he felt like. His prescence like a saw going through your teeth.
“What are you doing, Riakka? Don’t you have things that we need done?”
She told herself that it was probably not him. One hand clutched the papers in her pockets like a talisman. It wasn’t him one way or another, if HuanJen and his allies could be trusted, and she was sure they could be.
“No answer?” Paldayne asked sarcastically.
“Research.”
The strange figure slid forward. “Yes, research. Prod and peek and write and store and worry and fret and wear out and die. What a sad lot we inflicted on you, dear Riakka.”
Riakka reached into herself. The part of her that dealt with unruly students rose to the fore. The part that had once told someone to sit down, shut up, or ask for a tuition refund.
The part that really didn’t want to put up with other people’s crap.
“I know what you did,” she said angrily. Something began to burn in her soul.
“So what?” Paldayne touched her cheek with a long-nailed finger. He smelled of sour sweat. “Riakka, I grew so tired. Do you know the Guilds asked me what could happen concerning the Communicants a year ago? We described in detail what is happening today, even that tiff with the Merchants and the University. They did not listen. It was you younger people who made me think. What are we leaving to you, I had to wonder, more days of logging idiocy and putting stupidity on record. So I’m changing it.”
“This way?” Riakka tried not to plead.
“What other way?” Paldayne leaned close to Riakka, whispering in her ear. “Who would have seen it, Riakka? No one, not even the Esotericists, or so I thought. It’s not what you can’t see that will get you, it’s what you can’t even think of. Who thinks the boogeyman is going to play politics? I have done so much, hoarded secrets, and even revealed a few, to see what will happen, what I can do …”
“Stop it.” Riakka felt the fire in her head grow. “Stop it, end it, Paldayne. Don’t do this, in Galcir’s name …”
“Galcir’s name? I touched him, Riakka, felt his power. I rode the fears and the myths into the realm beyond. Don’t invoke him. Go away, tell your cleric and his slut and the rest you can’t find anything. Trust me. Don’t you trust me?”
“No.”
Riakka screwed her eyes shut, then opened them. She felt the world come back to her.
“No, Paldayne. No, not this, none of this. I have been here for seven years. I will not let you ruin this or anyone else. I …”
Paldayne snarled …
“You can’t hurt me, can you?” Riakka snorted, “Still part of the god is in you, Great Galcir, father to us all, living embodiment of the Guild. You can’t, can you? You and that thing …”
“Me. Only me. The Historian.”
Riakka felt some of her anger melt, except some razor-edged ruby chips of something vicious. “You can’t hurt me. You’re stuck in what the Esotericists call the Pattern. You play the game of spirits and archetypes and myths, and you’re stuck. And you kill because that thing compels you and you seek because of what you became you, but can you kill one of your own? You’re still part of us, and that’s part of your Pattern.”
“No.” The word tumbled out of The Historian’s mouth like a drop of venom “No, I can’t. But you can’t stop me, Riakka. I know all to well how people work. So you can write it down when it happens, or you can let what is to come roll over you. We all have a Pattern, dear, dear Riakka. So do you. Pattern … is the only way to win.”
The Historian backed away from his younger counterpart, a finger raised to his lips. The darkness seemed to adsorb him, and then he whirled, and moved in a direction that didn’t quite make sense.
Riakka Bale was alone.
She sank back to the floor, arms wrapped around herself, breathin
g erratically.
May 17, 2000 AD, Xaian Standard Calendar
“I am fine,” Riakka said petulantly.
She was surrounded by Esotericists, not a proposition she would have normally welcomed. Three was Rake, the spastic muscular minister with dirty-blond hair There was Ahn, the young one in orange Buddhist robes who always looked sorry. There were HuanJen and Jade, he still in dark clothes, she much the same, her fur making her a figure carved from blackness. Dealer Zero, a scuzzy-looking guy with long hair and trenchcoat hovered around the edges of the group.
At least a native shaman was among them, though Brownmiller was more a Shaman and a quarter, his motley outfit making him look like a rainbow that needed a diet plan. Still at least someone representing her religion was present.
They were also being nice to her. Aggressively so. HuanJen and Jade’s apartment overflowed with niceness to the point where it was annoying.
“Ah, sorry,” Rake apologized. “I was, ah, worried. The, ah, attack.”
“I’m fine.” Riakka pushed a sheaf of papers across the kitchen table, almost knocking over the tea Jade had made for her. “Here’s what I found. I think … hell, screw this, I’m sure, you’re right. HuanJen?”
“Yes?” The ever-calm voice. She found that once you got used to his strange placidity it was rather calming. He was sort of a security blanket with feet.
“I’m sorry if I was any trouble. Thank you for trusting me.”
“Thank you for trusting me.”
“Huan’s good at that,” Jade smirked. “So now what.”
“Now, it sucks.” Brownmiller said, leafing through the papers. “Paldayne obviously had a good cover for he and his assistant. If what Riakka suspects is true from the research on his research, there’s no doubt …”
“Um, guy?” Dealer Zero raised a cautious hand, “What the guy said kinda confirms things. I can’t read Paldayne, and I can’t read Ziggurat Jack, but I get something on both of them.”
“He did it,” Riakka said flatly, bitterly. “I met him.”
Jade nodded. “So what do we do?”
“We barely, ah, understand what, ah, happened,” Rake responded, his brow furrowed in thought, “I, ah, can’t say where to, ah, begin.”
“Summon Galcir,” Ahn suggested calmly.
The room reacted the way most groups of people would react to suggestions like “let’s lick plutonium” or “anyone for playing catch-the-nitroglycerin?” Shock, disbelief, and some fear.
“What?” Rake managed.
Ahn looked around, hoping for some support. “Well, we’ve got two natives here, and he obviously is involved …”
“Uh-yeah,” Jade replied. She’d see shamans she’d known be ridden or attempt being ridden by their gods.
“That is dangerous,” HuanJen remarked, “I … hmmmm.”
Brownmiller shook his massive head slowly. “Galcir, only comes to the Historians. We’d need …”
“Me.”
All eyes turned to Riakka. She looked back at the gathered holy men calmly, though it was a fatalistic calmness. She appeared several years older, and her eyes had aged centuries.
“I’ve been in the Historians for years. I know enough, especially after the last few days,” Riakka continued, “Whatever he is now, he did touch Galcir, and he is the Lord of Records.”
“Have you ever been ridden?” Brownmiller asked pointedly. Though the shamans of Xai often let their gods act through them, many people took it all to casually.
“No.” Riakka closed her eyes. Jade walked over and put a kindly hand on her shoulder.
“I … great Korsufar Bex and all his makings, what else are we going to do?” Brownmiller slumped in a rather tectonic movement.
“We could get more help,” Dealer Zero ventured before suddenly rolling his eyes, “who the hell am I kidding, Cardinal Byrd will rip us new ones if we call anyone else in.”
“Not to mention if the Guild Council hears and then proceeds to panic,” Ahn added to the scruffy diviner’s concerns, “which may be what he wants considering his disruptive approach.”
“If I meet Paldayne I will twist is head off and shit down his neck and then I shall get extremely unpleasant and mean.” Brownmiller crossed his thick arms. He then turned his attention to Riakka, “I want to be there.”
Riakka nodded, then looked at HuanJen. “You too, please.”
The Fang-Shih appeared to be taken aback, then nodded after a glance at a curious Jade. “I will.”
“Are we, ah, rushing this?” Rake asked. “I feel …”
“How long until we can rush no more?” Ahn replied with a question.
“True, ah, so true,” Rake scowled. “We’ll use the chamber under the church. It’s been holy ground one way or another for centuries.”
“Aren’t we going to debate this?” Jade smirked. “Ah, silly me.”
“No,” Riakka answered, “My god, my Guild, and my … leader. I’ll do it myself.”
No arguments were forthcoming in the glare from those angry, fiery brown eyes.
The streets of Metris were safer than many large cities on many Earths. Crime was low on a world of tight relations and a good economy. However, when you knew the city was haunted by a possessed academic, you wanted someone there.
“Thanks for walking me home, Jade.”
Riakka smiled at the Vulpine future Cleric. Jade, she found, was easier to get along with once you accepted she was like rain, and was just something that happened. Besides, Jade wouldn’t have nearly wet herself confronting Paldayne - she probably would have kicked his testicles into next week.
Jade shrugged, apparently unsure of what to say. “Hey, can’t let you go off alone, not with the crap you’ve just been through.”
“What about you?”
With a flash of confidence in her green eyes, Jade tapped the Lakkom holstered on her back. The dark artifact seemed a kind of total blackness, even with the streetlights. “I’m covered. This thing hurt him good last time, and I know what to look for.”
“Heh. Good. I hope you didn’t mind me asking HuanJen to watch. He … you know, as weird as he is, he makes me feel kind of confidence.” Riakka fidgeted.
“You defined about half our relationship,” Jade acknowledged with a nod, “it’s OK. Brownmiller’s a solid guy too. He’ll make sure things don’t go wrong. He knows the stakes.”
“Bad?”
“Yeah … we’ve got an increase in Obsidian reports. Appearances near specific individuals, suggestions of fears coming out, even if unconscious. We think Zig … Pald … whoever, The Historian, is pushing himself. We don’t know what he’s doing, but we have an idea of what he can and will do. We need to end it. Hell, a lot in this city needs to end.” Jade’s usual cocky demeanor faded into something more sober.
“I will. I’ll help.” Riakka nodded. “I used to believe in him, you know. Paldayne, best of us all. This … no, not this. Faith sucks. Er, no offense.”
Jade laughed. “Faith of that type isn’t HuanJen’s stock. We’ll do our best, Riakka. Er, you sure you don’t want to take Rake’s offer? I mean you’d be a lot safer at the church …”
“No.” Riakka snapped. “He won’t hurt me, and I … won’t let him scare me. I’m not backing down.”
May 20, 2000 AD, Xaian Standard Calendar
Thus, Riakka found herself in a basement, tied to a chair, and all without the benefit of having visited the Prostitutes’ Guild.
She’d not been inside a Christian church in recent memory, but Rake hadn’t seemed to worry about performing the ritual in, or actually underneath his Church. He’d had some small chambers there, that intersected or used to intersect some of the Maze. Perfect for what she had to do.
And those she had to do it with.
HuanJen was calm, but obviously concerned. Brownmiller was pacing, a vast mountain of a man expelling nervous energy. She felt like the most emotionally stable person there, and she was the one with her wrists tied to a chair su
rrounded by incense.
“Are you ready?” Brownmiller asked after checking the contents of one of the satchels of religious equipment he’d brought with them.
“And are you sure you want …” HuanJen began.
The hulking shaman waved off the Magician-Priest’s comment. “She’s inexpert. I know you had incidents with your friend Anderson, but she’ll need the brew.”
HuanJen didn’t answer. He looked at Riakka, who gave him a reassuring nod.
Brownmiller strode over and held up a small vial. “Gods watch over you, my friend, and if you see Korsufar Bex or Zelzina , tell them I said hello.”
Riakka laughed, and then simply said, “I’m ready.”
The vial’s contents were a mixture of sweet and bitter, tastes layered upon tastes. It was an admixture aeons old. Variants had created the infamous drug Pandemonium, others were used for exotic surgeries done by the experts of Guild Medical. It was the gateway to the Godworld, an express ramp when you didn’t know the directions.
It spread into her bloodstream and brain, silver and garnet fire running through her body.
She began to chant.
“Galcir, come to me, Lord of Records, Great Galcir, I your child call you. Appear to me in the Robe, open the Book …”
In the cluttered offices of the Church of the Works of Christ, Jade, Rake, Dealer Zero, and Ahn sat around a hastily-cleared table, attempting to amuse themselves. It was hard to do when you had four people from four different religious backgrounds waiting for a young woman to be possessed by a mysterious deity. It took the edge of all attempts at fun.
“So, only English words are allowed in this game?” Ahn asked, fingering some strange tiles that were scattered across a board.
“Ah, yes. Nexial English dictionary if there are, ah, questions.” Rake answered.
Jade squinted at the gameboard. “Do we have a Nexial English dictionary?”
“We can, ah, work it out,” Rake suggested.
“I asked if, ah, you had one,” Dealer Zero said petulantly.
Ahn tapped on the board. “I feel we are using this to avoid our worries.”
“Yeah, and you’re surprised how?” Jade asked.
This is how you reach a god.
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