“Not since I met you. I take it you heard about everything?” Lorne asked.
“Rumors.” Xianfu shook his head, “Gods, is it true about HuanJen …”
Lorne nodded thoughtfully. The last few months of life on Xai had been complicated by Guild politics, and Xianfu had spent much of that time doing scientific work worlds away from the morass of politics. “It was … well, let’s just say people still remember it.”
“Fang Xianfu.” Xianfu stopped in front of one of the booths that housed an Inspector and handed over an identity card from University. “Politically? Or more?”
Lorne continued. “I’ve saved some newspapers, it’ll be easier. It’s … I’m glad you’re back.”
“Same here.” Xianfu smiled, then frowned as the inspector passed him a certificate through the small opening in the booth’s window.
“Strip search?” the Outrider asked. He knew the Rancelmen of the Traveler’s Guild were fussy, but he’d figured his reputation as an Outrider and record would give him some level of trust. He certainly had hoped it would keep his clothes on.
The dark-uniformed inspector nodded. She seemed rather sad, and rather tired. Shifts at the major portals of Aleph and Beth were notoriously stressful.
“We’ve had some trouble with smuggling,” Lorne said apologetically, “Even biologics. Security is tighter.”
Xianfu sighed. “Fine. There better not be a cavity search.”
“Want me to help?” Lorne grinned from ear to ear.
“No, that’d only make things take longer … “
July 19, 2000 AD, Xaian Standard Calendar
Metris. Capital City of Xai - even if by default.
A metropolis of some two million people, centuries old, composed of architectural styles of hundreds of worlds and hundreds of years. Home to the many Guilds of Xai and their Guildhalls, from the expansive University to the modest building belonging to the Guild of Beauticians.
In the middle of the City, the great, irregular spire Shard Tower rose toward the sky. The oldest building in Metris, constantly altered, constantly rebuilt. Center of government for the city and the powerful Guild Council, which tied all Guilds together. Symbol of the city in tourism, and magazines, and …
… housing guides, at least when the production staff didn’t have other ideas. You always needed to have some impressive picture on your issues and it only took a few minutes and a camera to get a shot of Shard Tower. When deadlines were looming and you’d just had to worry about what language translations hadn’t been printed - it was easier.
Slate folded the latest issue “Metris Housing Weekly” up with his large, gray-furred hands. Another Shard Tower cover. You’d think they’d realize people didn’t want to be reminded of politics - and he was definitely in the not-to-be-reminded mood.
The huge man stood from the couch and paced around the small living room of his apartment, stretching. Slate would have been an odd site on many Earths; his muscular body was covered in gray fur, except for black highlights on his hands, bare feet, and pointed ears. There was a peculiar angularity to his face and features, that put people in mind of a fox or a wolf in a strange, exotic way.
However this was Xai. Everyone there knew about Vulpines and other genetically engineered variants of humanity. On Xai, normal was a term that was very elastic, and Slate was well within the boundaries of Xaian normal.
Besides, anyone seeing Slate as an bizarre alien creature would have been put off by the worn blue-jeans and t-shirt he wore. One couldn’t look that exotic when dressed for sitting around the house.
“There’s nothing good there, Garnet,” Slate boomed. He had the kind of voice that boomed even in a whisper.
“Wonderful.” A female voice wafted out of the lone hallway leading out of the living room. It wasn’t a sizable living space - the kitchen really was a small extension of the living room. Only a patio added any sense of openness, and that barely so.
Garnet strode out of the hallway. She made an odd contrast to Slate; a short female of his kind, with long red hair and fur of a similar color.
“Well, we can go online … “Slate began as Garnet leaned up against him affectionately.
“I did, remember?” Garnet mumbled, her face pressed against Slate’s broad chest. “Right to housingmarket.xai. This is not proving to be that easy.”
“It was fun until … about a week after I proposed.” Slate put an arm around his fiancee. “A house.”
Garnet sighed. “We could get married before, but … we’ve waited this long.”
“Two years since we first met,” Slate said, eyes looking into the past, “and in a few more months, once we settle in, HuanJen will get to do his first free wedding ceremony in awhile.”
“Free?” Garnet’s brow furrowed. “I thought Guild Esoteric was pretty strict on major events …”
“I …” Slate grimaced. He sensed a bit of social confusion that would require explaining. “It’s a present. He’s paying the Guild tax. I thought he told you. He offered right before, well … at the party, before I proposed.”
“No, he didn’t tell me,” Garnet gave Slate’s broad chest a playful punch. “You should have. He gets forgetful. Oh, and secretive.”
Slate nodded, sitting back on the couch. The sound of the springs reminded him to get a new one. So much to do, between Garnet running the household and his job at Corona Security …
“Garnet?”
“Yes.” The red-pelted woman noted Slate’s concern and sat next to him.
“Two years,” Slate’s voice was as serious as the passage of hours, “you ever wonder if we’ve gotten it right?”
Garnet shrugged. “I … sometimes. You know, I look at Xianfu and Lorne and they seem so … free. You saw them last night.”
Slate raised a thick eyebrow. “Really. I’ve … well I’ve wondered about HuanJen and Jade.”
“Slate …” Garnet’s voice held a warning’s razor edge. Her past with HuanJen and Slate’s rocky relationship with his sister had been a source of stress in the past. She was quite admant that the stress didn’t find its way into the future as well.
“No. Not like it was. Just … despite … issues I may have with them, I envy them. After all the incidents with the Historian, they seem so stable …”
July 20, 2000 AD, Xaian Standard Calendar
The Crosspoint Apartment Complex.
Establishments like the Crosspoint dotted Metris - apartments and communities partially run by their tenants. Community was a valuable commodity in a city where some half the residence were born on another Earth, and an important part of native tradition. People you could rely on were more valuable than Guilders.
At ten stories, it was a building of notable height in Metris, home to perhaps one-hundred-fifty people or so. It had its apartments, social areas, laundry rooms, and on the roof, a garden; for decorative purposes and, also, because many residents had pets.
A Yorkshire terrier bounded through the roof garden happily, a comet-streak of brown fur and enthusiasm. A fence on the roof ensured no potential tragedy of vertical experiences, and thus the dog bounced around like a rubber ball in a small room.
A lone man sat on a bench, watching the dog explore the garden.
The observer was tall and slender, as if built from lines and angles, his plain features having an oriental cast to them. His clothes consisted of an unremarkable black coverall and a belt bearing several pouches. Indeed, the only noteworthy trait he possessed was a white streak in his shock of short, black hair. He seemed to be an afterthought in the world.
Until one looked at his eyes.
Xai seemed to fall into them. He wasn’t observing in an active sense, but he was open, like a field, like an ocean. Everything had room.
“Hello, Jade,” the man said calmly. His accent was odd, smooth, each word seeming quieter than it was. A voice like a stream.
“Hey, HuanJen … er, Huan, sorry to get formal.”
A Vupline woman with
jet-black fur and leaf-green eyes stood at the entrance to the roof. She blew HuanJen a kiss off of one white-furred hand, then strode forward, tiredly, but in a determined manner. A strange black staff in a harness on her back bobbed and swayed with every movement, light running along its surface as if it was uncertain of where it was.
“Mrs. Kline told me you’d taken Buster our. How is the little bastard?”
“Enjoying his adventure,” HuanJen answered. “How … was the day.”
“Fine, doing my job as apprentice to the local Taoist cleric …”
HuanJen let out a small sigh. Jade’s tone of voice didn’t bode well.
She had spent over a year with him, first as his assistant, then his apprentice, and later, his lover. Before, he’d been just an odd Taoist Magician-Priest, but with her, he’d had someone to share it. She had taken on the job of Zone Cleric with him, leaving her life on her world behind to become an odd mixture of social worker and mystic, one of Guild Esoteric’s ways of maintaining social cohesion. Jade seemed to like he job …
… but the tone of voice suggested ‘like’ could not be applied to the current situation. Jade not liking things rarely boded well. It was, overall, bad boding.
“What happened, Jade?” The cleric asked with a bemused exhaustion.
“Nothing on the job, just got the latest Metris Monthly … and it has extreme coverage the gang.”
“I would figure.” HuanJen extended a hand. Jade set a rolled-up magainze into it primly.
“I folded over the pages about us before I realized you were here, love.” Jade’s voice held a hint of chiding. “Should have left a note.”
“Buster, apparently, needed the exercise,” HuanJen answered, thumbing through the magazine.
Metris Monthly, the guide to everything happening in the city, the fusion of gossip and recepies, and news - and for the past few months they’d been reporting on the politics and the chaos on Xai. What had happened as a simple attempt to put the Communicants Guild under control of the Guild Council had turned into a plague of politics and backstabbing and confusion. When a blackout had enshrouded the city due to an error on the part of the Powersmiths, it had driven home how disordered things had become.
For HuanJen and some of his clerical companions, it meant confronting some of the troubles involved in human form.
The magazine fell open, revealing a grainy photograph of what looked like two figures plunging down a skyscraper. Shard Tower, if one examined the bizarre architecture in the photograph.
“Security camera,” Jade said sadly, “well, you can barely tell it’s you, though the caption doesn’t help.”
“People know, Jade,” HuanJen grimaced, “People know. Me, and The Historian.”
The Historian.
He had been Dean Paldayne of the University, Dean of Historians. He’d used hidden knowledge and rituals to capture an old urban haunt, and used that power to contact the god of Historians, Galcir. He had hoped to ferret out the secrets of the Guilds, to embarrass them in their political confusion. Instead, Paldayne had become something else, leaving his god for darker dreams, and in the end, he was only a new kind of specter, a haunt born of the fear of discovery and of politics.
So, when he’d thrown himself off of Shard tower, to break open his physical body like an unneeded cocoon, to complete his strange birth, HuanJen had gone after him.
Jade watched her lover scan the article. HuanJen had survived, obviously, his training on the world of Sanctum coming into play, a few disciplines allowing him to transport himself to the ground. He’d managed an exorcism, before passing out in a stunningly undignified way.
Then, he had to face the public. The others involved, Rake, Brownmiller, Ahn, Dealer Zero, they hadn’t thrown themselves off of a building. HuanJen had become involuntary poster child for the mixed gang of mystics that had tracked Paldayne. He’d heard himself discussed in so many different ways he felt like a Rorsach blot, always looked at, and always reflecting what others wanted.
“I do hope this passes,” HuanJen’s words were hopeful, but colored with cynicism, “thank you for handling so many field duties.”
Jade sat by HuanJen and put her arm around him. “I’m … actually pretty good. I can still feel … the Unity or the Tao or whatever you want to call it. The whole city, all the confusion, it’s that loss-of-center. But that reminds me of the center, of what I see in my meditations.”
The Vulpine closed her eyes. Sometimes those moments of losing sanity reminded you of what sanity was. It reminded her of what HuanJen had pointed her towards for over a year, of that where-come-from he called Tao, or Unity. That place she wanted to reach, that place she’d seen in him so early.
HuanJen gave his lover a quick hug. “Good, good, you are doing so well, love. I merely hope … the attention fades. It is false and inconvenient. I rather preferred things before people knew me …”
“I know.” Jade smiled, and rubbed his shoulder. “I …”
A furred torpedo launched into her lap. Buster looked up at the Vulpine, panting happily, his breath an agonizing symphony of ugly smells. Buster, Jade suspected, had to be a subspecies of Yorkshire terrier who’d developed halitosis as a weapon. On Xai, you never knew.
“Hello, fuzzbrain,” Jade fought to keep the dog from licking her face and damaging her sense of smell, “So, look, I …”
“We will endure, and it will pass. We will merely find it … annoying.” HuanJen replied. He thought for a moment, then continued. “I’m looking forward to some peace and quiet. With you.”
“I … yeah. ” Jade managed to keep Buster at bay. The dog curled up happily on her lap. She’d never figured out why Buster liked her, and wasn’t anxious for an in-depth analysis of the dog’s walnut-sized brain.
“We do seem to have a lot of strangeness in our relationship,” Jade admitted, “I envying Slate and Garnet sometime, they seem so … regular. I …”
“I’ve been thinking about the future.” HuanJen’s eyes were focused on years to come.
Jade nodded. She’d known this was coming. She smiled to herself; she’d known it was coming and hadn’t dreaded it, really. The future, in the last year or so, had been something not to dread.
“I know,” Jade said, “Slate?”
“Solomon Dell, actually. He’s married. Talking with him, I have been thinking about us. We’ve been together as acquaintances for over a year, and as a couple for perhaps half that. Now, I find myself thoughtful.”
Jade found HuanJen taking her hand in his. His touch was like warm quicksilver. Touching him felt like touching the core of the world.
“I don’t know what to say,” Jade admitted, “this is usually the point of a relationship where I’ve told the guy to get lost because he’s an asshole. Needless to say, that’s not happening.”
“Let us just see, but be aware. I am to marry your brother to his fiancee in a few months, I am going to think of these things.” HuanJen gave Jade’s hand a friendly squeeze.
“Yeah, yeah. I guess we’ll have to see what happens,” Jade said, closing her eyes “I feel good about it though. Peace. We got through a member of the Historians going nuts, talking to a god, and you as the flying nun-of-the-above. Hey, I said your life was interesting shit when I signed on.”
“You did indeed. Well, we have our summer, or some of it, let us enjoy it.”
“Indeed. Let’s try and have something normal. Oh, and speaking of normal, Huan,” Jade began questioningly, “there is one thing we need to change …”
Stories have an odd way of starting. Most don’t start simply. There’s many more “well, this sort of happened kind of …“s than there are “Long ago in a far away land”s.
The problem is that people usually pay attention to the stories with clean, defined beginnings. Those have enough shorthand of the soul to catch a person’s attention
The other kinds of stories can catch the attention too, but usually its more of the bear-trap-in-the-fallen-leaves variety
of catching.
June 25, 2000 AD, Xaian Standard Calendar
Metris is a strange place. This was not an insult. It’s a point of pride with Metrisians, immigrant and native alike. Xai does weird professionally. It sells it on the street and in the stores, or rents it at a reasonable price.
And, there is the place the strange gather.
Start at Temple Street, the gods-a-walk patchwork of churches and strange shops and temples and even more odd establishments. Even as night fell on it, there were lights and voices and the sounds of many things.
Children in on the sidewalk, playing in chalk-drawn circles, the game known as Versewalk.
” … Jack heard the call, but Paldayne chose the fall …”
Temple Street was near the University. Great, sprawling University, spreading outward, lancing upward, burrowing downward in the skin of Xai. The halls and the laboratories and the libraries. Great archives of the world, pulsing with knowledge. Many roads lead to it, but one of the major ones is Alexandrea Street
… and near where Alexandrea and Temple intersect is a bar and grill that you wouldn’t notice unless you knew to look for it.
The Nax.
A newcomer to the bar would find shamans and diviners and teachers and adventurers there, drinking and chatting among decorations and idols and wards and protective artifacts of a hundred Earths. A place where the masters of the edge dwelt, a place for the thinkers and researchers and visionaries.
An inquisitive newcomer might wonder what happened in the private back rooms. Said newcomer would find that Mr. Nax liked some of his guests who needed lower profiles to be there. It saved on unneeded popularity.
Any good thing, given too much of it, became a bad thing. Popularity included.
Richard Nax, a great nervous walrus of a man, knocked on the door of one of the various private rooms. He was being friendly, as it was in the job description, and he was being worried, because of neurotic habits gained by his parents. Despite his girth, he seemed to pull in on himself.
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