As people would tell tales, those listening would imagine it - the center of Xai, the great Crossworld, place of adventure and mystery.
They almost never asked about the people who didn’t have world-spanning adventures.
After all, everything had its parallel.
Metris. Pivot-point of Xaian culture.
The city sprawled around the river Nhal, a collection of buildings in a riot of styles and shapes. There was an order to it, but one got the impression it was more an organic order than a result of careful planning. Metris had been grown, not planned.
Right now, it wasn’t as orderly as it usually was. Lights from ambulances and the Gendarme police cars were more prevalent than one would expect. The sounds of the city were off. If you knew what to look for you could tell something wasn’t quite right.
Garnet Shaleson-nee-Rubissom knew what to look for.
She stood on a balcony on the tenth floor of the Crosspoint complex, one of the various apartment-community buildings that dotted Metris. Looking into the night, she could tell things weren’t normal for the city.
… there would be Gendarmes running around trying to figure out what was going on, Esotericists hunting spirits and spiritual crises, the City Services looking for fires … an abnormal amount of activity, even for Metris.
Garnet, to the various people who hadn’t encountered the inhabitants of other Earths, would have seemed abnormal herself - a short woman covered in fine red fur, except for some darker coloration on her hands and pointed ears. Even her long hair was the same red color. Blueish, luminous eyes looked into the darkness.
However, to anyone who’d spent time in Metris, she was unsururpsing. There were the genetic variants of humans called Vulpines, perhaps the most common in the city, but not unknown. Stranger variances among humanity could be found easily - several of them had entered the fields of religion, entertainment, and of course, stripping (which despite continuous statements to the contrary by the Guild of Entertainers, was still treated as a separate profession).
She wasn’t remarkable, in her own way. She liked that. Garnet had no ambitions to be remarkable, she found it caused trouble. Certainly her friends had taught her that.
“Well, I see everything is a perfect mess,” Garnet whispered. She shivered a bit - spring was coming, but the winter had been colder than usual.
Garnet turned to the large, glass doors that separated the patio from the apartment and walked inside. The apartment wasn’t hers, but instead belonged to HuanJen and Jade. HuanJen the Taoist mystic of Guild esoteric, Jade his …
Garnet’s round face scowled for a moment as she tried to classify Jade. Jade defined both authority and classification.
Jade was her sister-in-law. She had been HuanJen’s assistant, and then his apprentice, and then his lover. It was a bit hard to keep track of actually, but the two of them seemed happy … though she doubted they were happy now …
“Damn it, what a freaking fiasco!” Jade charged into the apartment. She had opened the door, but one got the impression that the only reason she had done so was that it was unlocked. “You and I plan this big double … multiple date, everyone is out there at the movies, and then …”
Jade was a Vulpine like Garnet, but that was where any resemblance to Garnet ended. Jade was larger, black-pelted with some white highlights, and had occasional bursts of temper the same way volcanoes occasionally got a bit unpleasant. She wore a green dress that looked rather fashionable had it not obviously been through some unfashionable circumstances.
Jade’s eyes were green as well, and they had the look of murderous rage with no appropriate target.
“It is, admittedly, not surprising,” came a voice from behind Jade, the kind of voice of reason. There was only one person Garnet knew who could sound rational in the midst of any disaster, and that was HuanJen.
The Magician-Priest slid into the apartment calmly, giving Garnet a friendly not with a hit of conspiracy to it. Garnet sighed slightly. She knew what he was trying to signal, and knew it was not the best of times.
HuanJen should have had an exotic appearance, but he didn’t. He was a tall, thin oriental man with an odd white streak in his short dark hair. He wore black a lot. He had been raised on the strange world of Sanctum, home to a plethora of religious colonies. He was taught in the mysterious Taoist organization called The Order. He functioned as a Zone Cleric, a kind of social worker, while quietly placing money in his bank account earned through exorcisms and troubleshooting for Guild Esoteric.
Instead he appeared to have stepped out of a group of extras in a film that needed “generically oriental people.”
“This was a disaster,” Jade moaned. “A double-date ruined. OK multiple-date. Misfiring hotline system. Hi, Garnet.”
“Hey.” Garnet nodded. “Xianfu’s in the bathroom. What happened?”
“False fucking alarm,” Jade said, green eyes afire, “Looks like the hotline system’s test reactivated. Can you imagine the odds …”
“Yes,” Garnet crossed her arms. Behind Jade, HuanJen smiled slightly.
“Oh. I guess you can.” Jade ran a hand through her jet-black hair. “Huan?”
“You clean up. I’ll go to the study and check in with the Guild,” HuanJen said simply. His words seemed to remove Jade’s distress.
“Fine, thanks love.” Jade sighed. “Garnet… “
Garnet intuited the question. Jade was always like this when she realized she’d been temperamental. “I got home fine. Folks are heading here as HuanJen instructed … suggested.”
“Good,” Jade nodded, “loverboy?”
“I’ll go to the den, you change, as noted.”
“Right.”
The two of them headed in opposite directions, down the two hallways that ran out from the living room. Garnet smiled a bit - they worked like a machine, even if it was one that occasionally argued.
And she was alone again. No one worried about her much, except Slate because he was her husband and HuanJen because of his nature and a few past incidents Slate didn’t like to think of. She rather enjoyed being treated competently, it gave her a lot of free time.
“Poor Jade.”
Jade honestly loved the unusual things she faced with HuanJen, as well as the contact with people. But she’d gotten it into her head to do a double-date, and that had become a multiple date with every couple in their group of friends, all in a vague attempt to take a break from the job she loved. Her timing of course, had been terrible ��� the new Guild hotline had gone off and summoned most of them to emergency duties.
Garnet sat on the large, white sofa in the living room, took the television remote control from the coffee table, and turned on the television in the corner.
” … again, to those watching, the alerts were due to errors in the new Guild Hotline. Now, back to Thomas Carmile’s speech at the University …”
“I see that Windbag is still here. Good old Tommy Hairball.”
Garnet looked over her shoulder to see Fang Xianfu standing behind her. He was a short, stocky, oriental man with deeply tanned skin. His hair was short, which was highly unusual - most native-born people had at least one braid in their hair, the men with blue beads, the women with green, to mark their native status. He didn’t even wear the more colorful native garb - even on a supposed double-date (multiple-date, she corrected herself), he’d worn jeans and a jacket.
Then again, considering what his job had been a few months ago, this probably counted as fancy. Last year he’d been slogging his way through Earths, mapping territory and getting samples for clients or the University.
“Yeah. And they’re announcing the Hotline glitch now. As if people couldn’t have guessed. Jade’s in …”
“I heard.”
“The hotline’s test system reactivated, apparently,” Garnet said sadly.
Xianfu sat next to the Vulpine. “It … was a good idea …”
“I know,” Garnet nodded, “Many things that go
terribly wrong are.”
Xianfu merely nodded. There wasn’t much to say about what happened recently.
The Guilds, the great powers of Xai, were in Garnet’s opinion, rather benevolent considering they essentially controlled the planet. The Mercantile Alliance for merchants, Guild Esoteric for clerics and mystics, Gendarmes to enforce the law, Guild Medical for the doctors, the University for intellectuals … and so on. All had their own spheres, and all seemed happy, no one wandered into each other’s territory. Much.
However, now and then things changed. The Traveler’s were subsumed under control of the other Guilds in the Guildwar thirty years ago, and then later the Communicants. And, finally, some wit noted that Guild Esoteric, the Gendarmes, and Guild Medical would work well if there was some emergency hotline to combine their services and deal with major alerts in Metris.
Which, was tested. Tested very well. This of course should have been an instant signal to anyone with an IQ above room temperature that something would go wrong. Xai was a place of balance.
Jade of course had gotten the idea of having a double date after the tests. She should have known better, Garnet thought.
“I hope Lorne and Slate are OK,” XIanfu said distantly.
Garnet smiled. Xianfu had spent a good deal of his career mapping alternate Earths, and he could still worry about his boyfriend Lorne, who as a Gendarme faced much less serious threats, even being one of the Gendarme Weaponeers.
The red-pelted Vulpine caught herself. She worried about Slate as well. Maybe it was part of being the wife of a policeman, but …
“They’ll be along,” Garnet gestured at the television, realizing she should change the subject, “I doubt Piscion is going to adopt their own hotline after this.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Xianfu shrugged, thinking about the second-largest city on Xai, “they do get envious of everything in Metris.”
“They get coastal fishing. We get crappy hotlines, it balances out …”
There was the sound of footsteps. The two of them went silent.
” … Lorne, please, let it rest.” Slate’s voice boomed outside the door. Slate’s voice was easily recognizable - he could sound loud while whispering and his voice carried. In another time he would have been an opera directors dream come true.
Garnet and Xianfu almost rose to get the door together, and then shot each other odd looks. The significant others of policemen. They had the same habits. Those were part of what you had to accept.
Slate entered the apartment first, apparently not even checking to see if the door was locked. Considering his size and musculature, it wouldn’t mattered if he had checked. Slate was a large, gray-furred Vulpine with the kind of expression that put one in mind of a brick who liked peace and quiet.
Lorne Thompson followed behind his friend. He and Slate seemed to be built along the same designs, as if there was some diety that created large, muscular policemen. Lorne was a gene-normal human, however, with almost artistic features and curly blond hair tied in a ponytail.
Both were rather well-dressed. Both did not seem happy. The looked like a pair of businessmen who’d had a very unfortunate meeting.
“Discovered the hotline glitched, honey?” Xianfu asked.
Lorne gave his boyfriend an odd look. Garnet tried not to giggle. Lorne just couldn’t manage angry very well.
“He was quite enthused about things,” Slate said, his voice an odd admixture of stress, anger, and humor. “The words, ‘I am here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I am all out of bubblegum,’ are much more impressive when one does not confuse ‘gum’ and ‘ass.’ Especially in front of a bunch of Gendarmes who already know the hotline misfired.”
There was a moment of silence. Lorne blushed red enough that he could likely be seen in the dark.
“No comments?” Lorne finally asked.
“None,” Garnet said brightly.
“Not at all,” Xianfu confirmed.
“Good,” Lorne looked around, “Where …”
“HuanJen is in the study, Jade is …”
“Changed!” Jade said, walking out of the east hallway, dressed in less formal clothes than when she’d entered the apartment, “and heading off to see what fortune cookie is up to.”
The black-furred Vulpine vanished into the other hallway. Garnet noticed the quizzical looks Slate and Lorne had.
“All false,” Garnet gestured at the television, “Looks like the hotline’s test sequences were saved in the backup, so when it was restored …”
“Instant emergency,” Slate sighed, walking over to stand by Garnet. She placed one of her small hands in his.
“I see Carmile is still making the news,” Lorne said bitterly. “Overblown glory-hog. You know, right …”
“Don’t say it,” Xianfu warned, “Yes, he’s a famous Outrider who hasn’t done anything useful in fifteen years. Yes, I know it’s annoying to have someone like him in the spotlight, yes …”
Garnet tried not to close her eyes. Everyone talked about Carmile. Carmile from after the Guildwar, Carmile the explorer, Carmile who had returned to Xai and Metris in his retirement and was chasing the spotlight the Communicants Guild offered. He’d been the source of jealousy for some of Garnet’s friends, who spent a lot of their time doing very difficult work and receiving very little attention. Even HuanJen’s unpleasant experiences in the public eye didn’t deter some jealousy.
” … what’s that stomping noise?” Xianfu asked suddenly.
“Well, everyone on Jade’s failed double-date is here except Zero and Riakka …” Garnet said, “and gods know where they are, it sounds like a rhinoceros, so I’d say it’s Rotan and Eileen. I imagine they had a lot to do.”
“Eileen?” Slate’s brow furrowed. “She’s with the Guild of … oh, like I want to know.”
There was a knock at the door. Before either of the two couples could decide who would answer it, HuanJen virtually appeared, Jade in tow. Jade sat down on the floor next to Slate and Garnet, giving her brother a friendly pat.
HuanJen opened the door smoothly, and it was filled with Rotan Brownmiller. This was a very accurate description, as Rotan was a large man in a sort of archetypal way - his largness was physical, but there was a certain preternatural quality to it.
He was large. He was hairless. He also wore the riot of colors that native Xaian shamans wore, giving the impression of a very friendly, muscular quilt. A shaman of construction-god Korsufar Bex, he had taken a Zone Cleric position next to HuanJen’s thanks to their previous acquaintance in far more esoteric activities. This also meant he had become part of the rather disastrous multiple-date Jade had dreamed up.
“False alarm,” Rotan rumbled.
There was a chorus of assent from the room.
“Where’s Eileen?” Jade asked. She’d rather gotten to like Rotan’s wife lately.
“Sent her home,” Rotan jacked a thick thumb in the general direction of outside. “You know how Junior is when things like this happen.”
“Worried?” Lorne asked.
“More like he wants to help out.” Rotan looked over the group. “The hotline got tested a second time.”
“The news is talking about Carmile again,” Lorne gestured at the television, “broadcasting his little lecture.”
“You know, you’d think … ” Slate began.
“Please …” Rotan raised his hands, “of all …”
Garnet looked down. This had been going on for awhile. Even before Jade had arranged the dobule date.
Most of them, when one thought of it, most of this group, acted to keep things running. Holy men, policemen like the many people here. Clairice the Nurse, Brandon the Technologist. All of them. A few of them had had brushes with fame, but sometimes …
She caught HuanJen’s eye. He smiled and nodded.
… sometimes people lost perspective. Sometimes they thought Metris should be like the stories. Even the people here. Even those who should know better.
There was a good way to remedy that.
“I’m pregnant,” Garnet said simply.
The conversation faltered, words cycling around like a pebble rolling around in a can.
“What?” Slate finally asked. It wasn’t one of his most articulate moments.
“I’m pregnant,” Garnet said simply, “now, please go on about your talk. It’s fascinating to listen to people complain.”
“When did you find out?” Slate asked, still dazed.
“Not too long ago. I wanted to tell people tonight, but, please, go on … “
The conversations started up again, though with a far different subject.
HuanJen looked at Garnet, then winked at Jade, and watched people’s focus suddenly change …
Metris went on. There were less lights, less people running around, and quite a few jokes.
And on other Earths people kept talking, and spinning tales, and theorizing. And for some of them, one day, they’d come back to reality as well.
Copyright 2001 by Steven Savage. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, except in the case of historical reference, is entirely coincidental
DIVISIONS
PROLOGUE:
This is about stories.
People sometimes think stories are about one thing or another. The thing is stories merely “are,” and people can find lots of meaning in them. The mistake is thinking they have to be one thing. A lot of very good stories get killed, mummified, and worshipped as graven idols.
Everyone has a story.
Many of them make the mistake of assuming it’s only about one or two things. The story is about the story. There’s no outside to it.
April 17, 2001 AD, Xaian Standard Calendar
Solomon Dell was a busy man.
It wasn’t just busy at work. It was a kind of always busy. A kind of transcendent business. He could seem overworked when he slept.
He looked, if people were to be frank, more like an artist - a slender man with long blond hair in braids, an almost elfin face. To see him in the brown-colored Rancelman armor, the strange other-Earth cast suits his people wore, was a jarring contrast for people who tended to preconceptions.
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