“It is obvious to me. I’ve done marriages. I’ve consoled when there is trouble.” The answer was reassuring, warm, if tired.
The head Rancelman clasped his hands together, gloved fingers interlacing nervously. “Miriam and I … it wasn’t … I’m not the kind to cheat on my wife, HuanJen. It was … lonely, confused. Now so is Miriam.”
“I wish …”
“I’ll talk about it when I need to. If I need to.” Dell’s words were the slamming shut of a vault door.
“My apologies.” HuanJen nodded.
“I … no. It’s hard to deal with. Thank you, though, HuanJen. It is nice to have these talks. How … are you?”
HuanJen blinked. “As well as can be expected. The herbs I’ve taken should help with the adverse effects of last night. I … am glad things are better.”
Dell laughed. HuanJen had an odd way with words. The world to him was a different place. “Better. Hell, I’m … almost greatful for the damn blackout. It put some sense into people. The Powersmiths are the pinnacle of decorum in investigating it and finding those responsible. The chaos with getting fire and Gendarme servicess just made it obvious how dumb the Guild Council got, arguing over the Communicants and then arguing over nothing. I hear the Communicants own Council is on the verge of being disbanded for their actions. I …”
“Guild Esoteric?”
” … I was getting to that,” Dell groused, “Good job. That was … brave.”
HuanJen didn’t seem moved. “I had help. If I had not …”
“I heard. I do hear a lot, HuanJen. Our great Dean of Historians would have haunted us like the ghosts of our own stupidity. Still, you’re the one on record as jumping off of a balcony to stop him.”
“It’s what I do,” HuanJen sounded somewhat defensive. It was a surprising experience for Dell. Normally, he found the man harmless, but immovable, like a pillar or an old tree. Now he wasn’t so stable.
“I see … hoping for things to go back to normal?”
HuanJen nodded after a moments deliberation. His dark eyes were focused on Metris below.
“Yes. Solved and over. My Zone, those I care about, those I care for, and blessed peace.”
Dell grimaced sadly. “And you don’t believe a word of it.”
“No.”
The Head Rancelman drew himself to his full height, tryng to feel vaguely authoritative. It didn’t work very well. Xaians were raised to respect holy men, and he’d dealt with enough shamans who seemed to know him better than he knew himself that it was hard to feel in charge around any mystic.
“You shouldn’t. You can’t go back, HuanJen. You were in the public eye, you and your friends were some of the heroes of the blackout. People will treat you different even if you haven’t changed. Believe me, I know.”
HuanJen nodded wearily. “I know. People in my Zone treat me different, at least the newer people. I’d rather they act like my neighbor, she just baked a nice cake for Jade and I. People, however, too often assume an action is a change of a person, not a manifestation of their nature. Besides, those who praise you for being yourself may one day condemn you for the same.”
Dell crossed his arms and laughed. That was part of the HuanJen he knew, the philosopher-healer who had clamly turned down his job offers and made him feel like an idiot. The man whom he’d found himself talking to once a month, just to talk to someone that didn’t see him as anyone but … Solomon Dell.
“Well said,” the Head Rancelman commented, “At least you’ll be yourself no matter what, if I know you. I was not always so wise.”
“I remember, Jade noted you acted like an asshole. Her words.”
“I believe it. I was trying to sell to people who weren’t buying, stock the Rancelmen like a store or a museum. I learned. I acted myself.”
“As I will continue too.”
“No matter what people want?” Dell queried with a raised eyebrow. He knew the answer, but he admitted he liked hearing HuanJen’s philosophies. He could make things that would sound pretentious seem sincere, even be sincere.
“I am as I am.” HuanJen grinned. “That is the kind of answer you were expecting?”
“Yes, yes it was.”
A breeze stirred Dell’s braids. The Rancelman looked down at his timepiece.
“Lunchtime, soon.”
“For me as well,” HuanJen added.
“Once you avoided being seen with me, because you wished to avoid political and social entanglements. Now … I understand.” Dell sighed.
“Mr. Dell … Solomon. There’s a nice deli a few floors up. It was the site of some rather unpleasant incidences, but it is open. Let us get something to eat separately, bring it back, and talk. People rarely come here, the view isn’t that good, and most who may would be tourists.”
“I’d … like that,” Dell admitted. “I won’t talk about my marriage, I want you to understand.”
“I won’t ask.” HuanJen nodded. “Let’s get lunch and … be ourselves.”
“I hope I can manage that,” Dell said wearily, turing to the balcony door.
“I shall do my best as well.”
June 21, 2000 AD, Xaian Standard Calendar
Cardinal Byrd was a busy man.
Actually, he’d argue he was busy enough for a man and a half. He wasn’t just a Cardinal in the Xaian Catholic Church, but he was also a member of Guild Esoteric’s Council, it’s somewhat disordered so-called ruling-body. He didn’t feel like he did much ruling, but then again it was to be expected - Guild Esoteric consisted of people that figured out how life worked, they usually didn’t need to be told.
He just helped things along. Occasionally loudly. He supposed it could be worse, he could be representative to the Guild Council, the Council of all Guilds. However, for longer than most people would feel comfortable remembering, that post had been filled by M.
Cardinal Byrd looked out of his office window and at the rising sun.
He was envying M. M got to be in the Guild Council, and Byrd …
The large, staturesque man was looking through a plain folder, rifling through papers, each on the same thing.
He was figuring out how to deal with The Scribe.
It was the kind of report that could make your hair go gray - or in Byrd’s case, grayer. And to think, some years ago, the Vatican on his world had thought about opening up relations with Xai, and he’d gone, and of course he hadn’t planned to stay …
Now he had to figure out what to do with a fifteen year old boy whose head was full of culled secrets and rumors and hidden truthes. One of the problems that had built up during the chaos over the Communicants, the chaos when people forgot the goal had once been “how do we put the Communicants under control,” and stupidity after stupidity had started.
One of many problems. Only this problem was alive.
Byrd looked over one printout in particular. An email sent to his private account …
Email. The Communicants still needed to be dealt with …
… from an expected yet unexpected source. With a very obvious solution that he wasn’t sure he wanted to think about. One of those hideously obviousl solutions that never came right into your mind.
A solution on paper in plain words.
“Damn.”
Byrd thumbed the intercom button on his desk phone. “Melanie? I’m … taking a drive.”
And so, Cardinal Byrd went to the Shrine of Saint Cynthia.
He wasn’t a person that went to religious places or buildings more than he had to - his job required enough of that as it was. One of the Five Cardinals of Xai, member of the Guild Esoteric Council, and theoretical representative of Christians on Xai - he had enough of religion.
Except, sometimes, you needed to stop dealing with other peoples religion and handle your own.
Out on the fringes of the Valley of The Crypts, if the mysterious area could be said to have definable fringes, was a small, well-kept building made of white stone. You could reach it easily i
f you knew which side roads to take, perhaps thirty minutes from Metris at a reasonable speed.
The Shrine of the first Saint of Xai.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Byrd told his driver as he climbed out of the back of the car. An official car, or at least as official as Guild Esoteric got. He felt hideously pretentious.
Looking around the small parking lot, Byrd noticed only two more cars, one of which was probably the curator’s. Good. He needed space, he needed time - just a little of each.
The door to the shrine swung inward, and Byrd was surrounded by riches.
The Shrine of Saint Cynthia, in his opinion, didn’t exactly fit the relative modesty he and his fellows emphasized in the Xaian Catholic Church. There was sculpture, there were some semiprecious stones and there was gold and silver. Considering that the Miner’s Guild had always emphasized the mining of practical metals with their limited resources, Byrd always cringed to imagine the cost of importing the materials.
“But,” said a voice in the back of his head, “she was worth it.”
A offworld couple kneeling in front of the altar saw him walk in, hesitated, then stood respectfully. Without a word, they left, leaving him alone.
And Saint Cynthia looked down on the lone visitor of Cardinal Byrd.
Her body lay inside a glass-fronted case, decorated in gold-plated abstract designs. Her actual body, still dressed in a nun’s habit, was barely visible - all visible flesh covered with silver.
Except one nut-brown, withered, but still fleshed hand.
Byrd looked around the single chamber, the mix of shrine and cenotaph. On the walls were frescos of Cynthia’s life, a life begun 400 years ago, on another Earth.
Follow one fresco to another, piece by piece …
“And during that time of change, when the Church Fragmented, Cynthia found the gate …”
… a life told in tiles and gilt and stone and metal …
” … and the Lady of the Crown of Stars appeared to her …”
… all surrounding a hidden corpse of a woman who long ago left her flesh behind …
” … and Cynthia pointed, and they followed, and they came to the world known as Xai …”
… a story.
” … and therein the Xaian Cahtolic Church was built around those refugees …”
Byrd sighed. It wasn’t as simple as that, of course. Cynthia’s crossing over to Xai had been a hard time for her, according to what he’d read in her journals. The woman had been tough and practical, but discovering a place to cross over to another Earth, something she’d never imagined, had been devastating. Wrestling with new ideas, with visions, and a time where a reform movement had become an uncivil war, she’d still thought about her family, her people, her church.
But, she’d endured, and she’d brought people back before the temporary Portal she’d found closed. She pointed, and it opened, the mark of a Navigator. In another time, she’d probably have found herself courted by the Traveler’s Guild.
Silver-shrouded eyes looked down at the troubled, thoughtful cleric.
She’d gone to Sanctum in her later years, and died there. There was a ring on her hand when she’d died, some said given to her by Christ, though having seen it up close, Byrd suspected it had been an early symbol of the Magdelinic Order. Christ would have purchased much better workmanship.
The ring glinted on the mummified hand, the candlelight reflecting oddly.
So they’d brought her back, and buried her, and then like many saints on many worlds, someone dug her up, and found her hand, the guiding hand, wasn’t rotted. Xai experienced its first canonization, another experience to bring order to the church.
Saint Cynthia of Metris. Enshrined in more riches than she’d probably feel comfortable with, a world away from her birth.
Byrd looked at the votives scattered about. Candles. Coins. Photos. Tokens of faith and hope from those who visited. To be cleaned up and removed so the next day the shrine was ready for other visitors.
Saint Cynthia of Metris. Some prayed to Saint Anthony to find things that were lost. You prayed to Saint Cynthia when you yourself were lost.
He’d wanted to ask her if she’d ever expected it would be like this. That Xai would have its own Catholic Church. He wanted to ask if she’d foreseen a day Cardinals and Crones and Magi and the like would share responsibility for the souls of a world. He wondered if she’d forseen someone like himself, one foot in the temporal, one foot in Heaven.
Saint Cynthia. Cynthia Steer-Us-Home.
What would she say?
Byrd smiled. He knew the answer.
Get the back to work. Stop whining. People need you and you made promises and vows. You know the answers, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. Stop looking at me and look where I’m pointing.
Byrd nodded to himself, and exited the small sanctuary, got into his car, and headed for home.
He had to talk to a Taoist.
HuanJen walked into Cardinal Byrd’s office, dressed as anyone would expect - if he was going to a business dinner. He wore a dark suit with a white shirt, which, combined with the white streak in his black hair, gave him a strangely artificial appearance, like a statue painted with a limited palette.
“Guild Medical duties?” Byrd asked tiredly.
“Yes,” HuanJen took a seat, “I wish we could get some dispensation to dress more appropriate when we do monitoring duty …”
“That’s … not my area.” The Cardinal dismissed the half-complaint. “I needed to …”
“Have you read my proposal?” HuanJen asked.
Byrd nodded. “I …”
“It’s the only thing I could think of, Cardinal, and time is short.” HuanJen was more serious than Byrd had ever seen him. The mystic suddenly seemed to be in focus in scalpel-sharp clarity.
“It … is agreeable,” Cardianl Bird acknowledged. “I wish there was another way, but I’m supporting it.”
“I understand.” HuanJen Stared into nothingness. “But it is the best I can come up with. He will be protected, he will be far away, and no one would be fool enough to try and kill there. And no one will have to defend him. He will be gone, and he will have a chance at a life of his own.”
Byrd removed his reading glasses. He didn’t need them very often, but they seemed to keep his eyes from getting tired. “Are you sure? I hate going offworld for this.”
“The problem is him being … in this one.” HuanJen took one of the visitor’s chairs. “His presence has effects, but I do not know how long they’ll be positive.”
“Oh, I know. It seems that many Guilds are, forgive the pun, going to confessional. I don’t know how long that will last … not that I’m complaining.”
“Fear is a poor long-term motivator,” HuanJen acknowledged. “The side effects will come eventually. I fear some may come soon. He will suffer them.”
Bynrd nodded. “And, we in the end, will ship him off to …”
“Sanctum?” Jade asked.
HuanJen could tell that Jade wasn’t happy. You didn’t need his mysterious intuitions to tell when she wasn’t happy - you merely needed a pulse.
Of course, he reflected, that coming home in the evening, going into the study, and telling Jade his plans for Scribe right away had lacked some subtlety. She, for a person that lacked subtlety, was offset by its lack at some times.
“Sanctum,” HuanJen said.
Jade looked at HuanJen strangely.
“Its the best I could think of. I was treated well there, Jade,” HuanJen answered, bustling around the study, packing a few books into a satchel.
“He’s …” Jade began, “why didn’t you tell me you were going to suggest this?”
“I hadn’t thought to.” The answer was unexpectedly frank.
Jade felt her temper begin to rise, though she wasn’t sure why. This was the fuzzy tightrope-area between her job with HuanJen and their relationship. This was the area where words became knives and feelings got hurt.<
br />
“Huan, look, I think … I can be trusted with these things.” Jade picked each word carefully, with a jeweler’s precision.
“You’re upset.” It wasn’t a question.
Jade crossed her arms. “A bit. Let me guess, you ran it by Brownmiller, Rake, and the rest?”
“Brownmiller and Rake,” HuanJen corrected, “I needed some input, but I also had to hurry. I can type, you know, I can do email myself.”
“It’s not that, I … would like to be included. I mean, you’re going to throw this kid onto another world, I mean …”
HuanJen paused in his actions and turned to face his lover. “Jade no one knows more about being placed in a world you never made than I.”
“I … ah, shit.” Jade shook her head. “I’m not even going to start. I’m … I wish I was kept in the loop sometime. I’m kinda getting used to it.”
“Worried about Scribe?”
“Damn right. Fuck, I don’t know anything about this kid except he’s royally scrwed.”
HuanJen looked into his satchel, zipped it, and sat on the edge of the study’s large, worn desk. He was pensive for a moment, then spoke.
“It’s the best we can do, Jade. This morning, the League of Assassins announced that they wouldn’t take any action against people involved in the blackout or related events.”
Jade shrugged. “Good. I’m surprised the old bastards dusted themselves off to make a statement. I mean with the Charionites … oh shit.”
“Exactly,” HuanJen nodded.
“If they announced it … someone asked,” Jade said with glacial slowness.
“Yes. It is time, Jade.”
“You … “
“I want you to go with me, Jade. Please.” HuanJen asked sincerely. “Jade, this is my home, I’d like you to see it, and to be frank, I am not sure how to deal with Scribe. You have a way with people.”
“I … think you give me too much credit. I … it’s all we have. All we can do.”
The Magician-Priest’s eyes seemed to stab through Jade’s head. “It is, Jade, all we have …”
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