Crossworld of Xai

by Steven Savage

  “I doubt he goes for three-ways.”

  Jade blinked. “You’re surprising me.”

  “I … had my life turned inside out. I’m busy surprising myself …”

  September 5, 2000 AD, Xaian Standard Calendar.

  Domino was sent off to the farming community of Cinnibar by a few members of Guild Esoteric, with the idea that fresh air and less people would be better for all concerned. Domino didn’t protest, and was at least glad someone was paying attention to him. He didn’t want to be written off.

  HuanJen, of course, faced more unwanted attention, though was at least thankful he had been filmed in an act of spontaneous indignity. It was his sincere hope that hitting a confused psychic with a large onion would have people take him less seriously. Normally he relied on Jade not to take him too seriously, and wished other people would follow her example.

  Domino got a new life. HuanJen just went home to Jade.

  Ironically, both felt they’d gotten the best out of life.

  HuanJen and Jade sat in one of the parks dotting Metris. Many communities maintained a few, often near Trolley stops, for their own convenience and for public places. As it was late at night, one of the parks near the Crosspoint was empty.

  “Peaceful.” HuanJen intoned, sitting back on the bench. “The Nax was quiet too.”

  “I know. It’s nice to not be in the back room,” Jade answered, leaning against her lover. “I …”

  “Tell me about how things went with Riakka.”

  “Thanks for not prying,” Jade smirked, “She’s fine. I think she had somethng for you …”

  “How flattering,” HuanJen speculated. He had, despite a reasonably colorful sex life, little concept of women being attracted too him.

  ” … well she agreed she had a thing for creepy mystic guys. So don’t get your ego going.”

  “Perish the thought. And you?”

  “I understood. I think she may keep her distance for a bit but … well I’m very sure sex isn’t an issue. Trust me.”

  “Is she …” HuanJen began.

  “Just trust me. Anyway, I got thinking,” Jade began. She took a deep breath. The night air seemed to calm her.

  “Yes?”

  “I realized with her, that … well we’re us. We’re a team. We’re two people interested in the beyond, and that’s us. We’re not Slate and Garnet or Lorne and Xianfu or anyone else. And … I think you spent time with Riakka because we were trying to be normal, but the weird part of you … went elsewhere.”

  The cleric nodded thoughtfully. “That would make sense. I suppose … well I just did what I did.”

  “I know. I wanted to play happy Miss Perfect Date, and I’m not.”

  “Really?” HuanJen’s sarcasm was as obvious as the moon above.

  “Stunning, isn’t it?” Jade’s own sarcasm was evident. “I am your apprentice, I am the woman who hung out with you because I wanted more, because I want the Way of things. I am part of the … all of this. With you. That’s me.”

  “Very nicely said. Though … I have been thinking about the long term.” HuanJen chanced.

  “I know.” Jade held his hand. “I … don’t know about anyone else. But I know me and you. I know we’ve been inseparable for the longest time. I’m … with you for the long haul, HuanJen. We may not be normal, but I can say that. I’m not giving up.”

  HuanJen kissed Jade’s furless palm, then held her hand against his cheek. “I think I knew. I like hearing it. I am with you too, Jade, never doubt that. In all of this chaos, even in your efforts, I was never anyone to you buy myself. We are a team, you and I.”

  “The team. As always. We’re not other people, like Garnet kind of said. We’re us. And part of me … is learning from you and loving you. That’s me.”

  “I love you, Jade.”

  “I know.” Jade felt a flush under her fur. “I wish I hadn’t forgotten. Gods, I got so jealous of Riakka. I can take the city going to hell but not jealousy.”

  “Perspective.” HuanJen’s voice held a hint of lecture, but she didn’t mind it - she knew it was for her. “There are three things that separate us from the Unity; sense of separate self, sense of objective judgment, sense of profit or loss. Any imbalance in one produces the three. You got lost.”

  “Yeah.” Jade nodded. “It’s all a cycle. And when you get it, life’s a circle, and you’re OK. And when not, it sucks. Any part can get out of wack.”

  “Crude, but effective.”

  “Huan?”

  “Yes, love?”

  “You’re the one with the occult senses. Why didn’t you know I felt taht way?” Jade queried.

  “I …” HuanJen blushed, just a bit, a hint of crimson. “I never thought to look.”

  “You’re kidding?” Jade’s words were leaden.

  “No. Why would Riakka be attracted to me? It hadn’t crossed my mind.”

  Jade’s face wrinkled in thought as she chose the proper words. “It wasn’t the healthiest thing.”

  “I see. Well, I have you, though.”

  “As always …”

  September 9, 2000 AD, Xaian Standard Calendar

  Rancelman Headquarters was an ugly, squarish building that looked like it wanted to scare other buildings off. No one went there unless they had to, and the Rancelmen liked it that way.

  HuanJen sat at a table a small, private room on the top floor, a room obviously reserved for conferences. He’d wanted to go there. He had a reason.

  “So, how do you like it?” Solomon Dell asked, setting down a tray with a few cups on it along with some pastries. He set a small sack on the floor. “Welcome to my world.”

  “It’s certainly different from the outside,” HuanJen acknowledged, selecting a cup of tea.

  “I’m glad you visited. I was a bit worried, but … well with your changed stature, I think I can meet with you without people suspecting … you’ve become my therapist. To an extent.”

  “An extent, yes.”

  Dell took his own chair. “So, how did the summer go?”

  “I learned how to drive. Jade and I had some trouble. Two friends are getting married. And I hit a man with an onion on television. A full summer.”

  “I saw.” Dell looked down at his cup. “Why the hell did you go on that show?”

  “I had hoped that if I didn’t succeed in the competition, people would forget me. “Cleverness leads to bizarre cunning said Chuang-tzu,” HuanJen stated simply, “strange calculation and plotting usually waste time.”

  “Obviously,” Dell acknowledged, “Well, hopefully the XWF newcomer will take the spotlight off of you, or at least get you taken less seriously.”

  “XWF. What does the Xaian Wrestling Federation have to do with this?”

  “You didn’t hear?” Dell sounded surprised.

  “I don’t follow wrestling. A few friends watch it occasionally.”

  “Oh, you’re missing out. A lot of fun, very wild. Here. I thought you may want this.”

  Solomon dug into the bag he’d brought, and handed HuanJen a small booklet. The mystic looked it over carefully.

  “New wrestlers?”

  “Yes,” Dell said, nodding.

  “The … Exorcist,” HuanJen stated. His words held an alloy of curiosity and horror.

  “Yes.”

  ” … and his manager …”

  “Yes,” Dell nodded.

  ” … the Dark Fox,” HuanJen finished.

  “Yes. Don’t see many Vulpines in the XWF. I wonder how the dug her up. I think she was a stripper in Vixxen Six. I only know this from talk around the office, by the way.”

  “Of course.” HuanJen handed the booklet back to his companion. “I will endure. In time, fame will fade.”

  “Don’t want to be like me?” Dell asked humorously.

  “Do you want to be like you?”

  Silence.

  “Not always,” Dell answered, “not always. Marriage is better. It’s going to make it. With the political c
raziness over, maybe people will stop seeking influence with me. I used to envy you your obscurity.”

  “I know.” HuanJen nodded. “I could tell. It will return.”

  “Well, until it does …” Dell pulled the bag from underneath the table. “A gift.”

  “I think this is …”

  “Onions,” Dell stated, “I figured you may need some spares. Until things calm down.”

  Solomon Dell knew stories. He’d had one himself. Several, actually.

  He didn’t talk about them to anyone in detail except HuanJen. HuanJen had many stories, HuanJen was occasionally confused about his own life.

  But he listened.

  And, after all, stories are best when shared.

  THE EDGE

  September 17, 2000 AD, Xaian Standard Calendar

  The Lyceum was the old home of Guild Esoteric, before the Guild had moved into Metris. It had stood for centuries, changing and growing, home to clerics and mystics, diviners, and sages, plus the occasional person with an utterly spectacular mental illness.

  It was, when one examined it, vaguely circular. The Guild may have represented many faiths, but the circle was a universal symbol - and, admittedly for architects, relatively easy to base a design on. Architects who were willing to spend a lot of time in the Valley of the Crypts, home of the Lyceum, were a rare breed.

  Of one of the many architects to work on the Lyceum, one had designed a series of meditation rooms at the top - windowed domes for contemplation and observation.

  All domes. Circular, of course.

  … and in one of the small meditation domes …

  Jade sat on a circular couch, still as the North Star. The Vulpine mystic’s breathing was shallow, slow, regular. She seemed more a statue with the potential for life than anything else - her black pelt and white-furred hands and ears contrasted eerily, like two colors of stone.

  … and her thoughts weren’t there. Just her breathing. Mind rested on breath, breath on mind, and when the two were harmonized, there was noting there. The nothign that could be everything.

  A yin-yang pentant hanging from a silver chain about her neck glinted in the light of the setting sun that peeked through the windows. Circular.

  “Jade … oh, sorry.”

  Jade’s namesake-green eyes opened slowly. There wasn’t any sign of shock or distress. She turned around and looked at the doorway to the meditation chamber.

  “Hello, Cardinal.” The Vulpine said with a smile. Cardinal Byrd, semi-leader of the Xaian Catholic church and Guild Esoteric Councilmember stood in the doorway, looked at Jade rather sheepishly.

  Sheepishness was hard to imagine in the case of Cardinal Louis Byrd - despite his clerical calling, he was an impressively muscled man with short gray hair, making him look more like a fitness instructor than a Church leader. You’d expect him to release books with titles like “Find Firmer Abs through Jesus.”

  “Just meditation, almost ready to go to the lecture …” Jade began.

  “You were there?” Byrd asked, curiously.

  Jade thought for a moment, then nodded. You know where “there” was when mystics didn’t use words. “There” wasn’t where words were. It was outside of words.

  “It comes and goes,” Jade said, unfolding herself and arising from the couch. She didn’t feel a need to explain more.

  “It always does.” Byrd clasped his hands behind his back. “Saint Cynthia herself decried moments out of the Presence. Gethsemene moments, she called them. Moments of being all alone when you know you are not. She was … rather colorful in her descriptions.”

  “Oh, I understand. I’ve decided to stop screwing around.” Jade shrugged. “Huan and I … well, you have to keep perspective with him. If you loose it, you sorta loose what he is. What I’m doing and what I have with him isn’t worth loosing.”

  Byrd nodded sagely. “I understand. Your relationship is something … unique. Ah, is he happy with the change we engineered for him? I haven’t asked him lately. You know how he is.”

  Jade grinned from ear to ear, a crescent of ivory. “He’s out of the suit and back to weirdness. You better believe it Byrdie. Look, he cared but … working directly at Guild Medical drove him nuts even before the latest crap.”

  The Cardinal smiled, a bit sadly. “Well, he’ll still review information for Guild Medical’s shared practices with out Guild, he’ll just do it at a higher level … in private. Does he like the other half of the offer?”

  “Oh, yes.” Jade nodded. “Lecturing and being ‘on call’ for troubleshooting. You’re a genius, Byrd. Honestly, paying him to do what he likes to do and do what people expect him to do after dealing with the Historian.”

  “I’m just helping things out.”

  “What kind of twisted mind coms up with an idea like ‘if we give him a job like people expect, they’ll ignore him.’ Make HuanJen an on-call troubleshooter and reference, just like they expect. Now people have started leaving him alone because they assume he’s busy. Twisted, my dear Cardinal, wonderfully so.”

  “The twisted mind of a man with many decades in the field.” Byrd wagged a long finger. “I would have thought Huan of all people would have figured going with the flow would make him invisible. Consulting for the Guild, he will no longer stand out, and thus, have some peace.”

  “He was a bit stunned by the fame.” Jade crouched and massaged her calves carefully. “Hell, I was stunned. Well, then I was pissed off and violent, but stunned first.”

  “Are you over the stunned part?”

  “Yeah, the pissed off and violent part comes and goes naturally. So, to the lecture?”

  “Of course. Are you …” Byrd began.

  “Just gonna peek in. I’ve heard it all before, but I like to keep track of the guy.”

  “I rather imagine.”

  The Cardinal and the apprentice Cleric walked through the corridors of the Lyceum. The building held a strange atmosphere, a weight of ages. Decorations, sculptures, paintings from the religions and spiritualities of a hundred worlds loomed over them. The Lyceum was practically a museum, though a bit less orderly than most museums would be allowed to get, and few museums had janitors that knew how to clean statues that spontaneously wept blood or paintings that hung themselves.

  Jade found it rather comforting, even with the oddness. She’d seen museums many times, even if not during business hours, and Colony had a rather extensive collection of stolen and supposedly lost art. History was a reminder of continuity. She liked continuity.

  “Cardinal?” Jade hazarded, some of her curiosity piquing as her thoughts raced.

  “Yes, Jade?”

  “You don’t wear native beads. You’re not from Xai. How the hell did you end up here?”

  Byrd’s voice was calm and businesslike. “The Vatican on my world was aware of Xai and some of the other crossroads worlds, and wanted representatives to them. They sent me here, making contact with the Xaian Catholic Church.”

  “And?” Jade asked. “That’s not the whole story, is it? I know when people aren’t giving me the whole story.”

  “They … did not understand this place. They had plans, plans for this and that, a host of half-thought ideas. They had plans before they sent me Jade. The devil was in the details, and I smelled brimstone. So I told them to go to hell, figuring they were well on their way.”

  Jade nodded, obviously impressed. “You told the … well your Vatican to take a flying leap?”

  Byrd shrugged, for a moment seeming just another man as opposed to one of the religious leaders of Xai. “Loyalty is important, Jade. Loyalty to what, however, is an important question. And so, I am here.”

  The Vulpine thought about prying for more details, but felt she’d be in the Lyceum all night if she did. There was a larger story lurking beneath Byrd’s simple words, waiting to pounce.

  “Yeah. So … we’re almost there. You going to watch the lecture.”

  “I had hoped, but I do have an appointment with some Ra
ncelmen. Long story.”

  “More false Spears of Longinus?” Jade asked, raising an eyebrow. Strange artifacts made their way across Xai, and even more frauds followed.

  “I can’t say. I think your young man knows enough about Solomon Dell and his business.” Byrd nodded, looking up. “Well, we’re at the hall. Good evening.”

  “Take care, Cardinal,” Jade said pleasantly, “And Dell’s business … well, enough said.”

  The Blue Lecture hall of the Lyceum was inappropriately named. It had, indeed, once been blue, but due to disorganization and a poorly-instructed group of painters, it now had very little blue in it. It was remincient of an indoor ampitheater; softly lighted, muted colors, and strange, pillared walls.

  Jade peered in through the doorway, then let herself in, standing as still as night. In the dimness, her black fur gave her excellent concealment.

  One man stood on the stage, a slender, angular oriental man with a white streak in his hair. Behind him, projected onto a screen was a simple white circle.

  “Good evening, I am HuanJen, Zone Cleric of six years with Guild Esoteric. I am sure some of you know me already.”

  There was a moment of polite laughter from the audience. HuanJen began walking across the stage …

  … and from her vantage point, Jade recognized HuanJen’s usually lecturing approach. Walk around, casually, but always in motion. It seemed to help people accept him, as he could appear, bless his heart, a bit full of shit.

  “I will be speaking on Taoist concepts applied in general mysticism. Specifically, what is it that we look for, what is it we seek, in our spiritual quests. We seek something, we seek not to suffer. You find similar concepts in related faiths evolving in similar conditions.”

  HuanJen kept walking. Walking in circles.

  “The three pillars of our suffering as I explain it are self, profit, and judgment. To have a self requires it to know what profits it, and thus to judge that profit. To know profit requires a judgment to make the profit and a self to make the judgement. To know judgmeent requires a judge and a division to judge.”

  “Thus, any one of these produces the others, just as hot may produce mild and cold, or long produces medium and short. But separation is limitation, separation is suffering, and separation means definition, and all definition ends at its limits. By naming, we loose.”