Aware

by Andy Havens

  “It’s a good point,” agreed Fayton. “Their Ways are older than anything but Earth and were forged through millennia of trial and error. The balances between tribe, Clans, chiefs and disciplines is complex. But it’s hard to manipulate.”

  To his credit, Ezer wasn’t fazed or irritated. He simply asked, “Then how do you explain Vernon’s role in this? He and his creatures of Earth were clearly working with Blood thanes to hunt down specific Reckoners. They were involved in the attempt on Kendra’s life. Vernon had also been manipulating her treatment for years. Then, when she wouldn’t join Earth, he tried to kill her.”

  “That is odd,” said Annie. “She hadn’t declared for another House. What was the hurry? Maybe she would have changed her mind over time. Or he could have just grabbed her rather than stating an ultimatum so baldly.”

  They were all silent a moment, considering both sides of the case. McKey stalked. Annie played with a lock of her blue hair that had come undone. Vannia perched precariously on the ledge. The others just sat, sipping the greatest coffee of all time, waiting for someone to say something.

  It was Fayton who finally broke the silence. “Well, we don’t have to decide anything today. And it is getting late. I, for one, am somewhat Way-lagged.”

  Several nods all around, including Ezer. “One of my men is doing some additional detective work,” he said. “Monday’s clerk is involved in ongoing research. Perhaps they’ll turn up some new data over the next few days.”

  Sa Martin stood and said, “I will have one of the Sae escort you to guest quarters. You’re welcome to explore the Zambar, as long as you respect the privacy of closed doors and do not bother anyone involved in training or meditation.”

  “Zambar?” Kendra asked.

  “Ah, I’m sorry,” Martin said. “I assumed you knew. The western half of the Cathedral has recently taken the nickname ‘Zambar,’ after the locals’ name for the hill below. The eastern half is ‘Ibrahim.’”

  “And the… Ibrahim… is off limits?”

  “Oh, no,” said Martin. Feel free to explore it if you wish.”

  “If you wish to be lonely, tired, hot, thirsty and covered in dust,” said Fayton with a chuckle.

  “Sorry?” asked Kendra.

  “He means it’s a dump,” Vannia explained. “When the Cathedral was broken, they decided to only fix up the western half. No reason to have anyone in the other part unless you’re going to have an official meeting. Since the Gate is only open for, well… official business.”

  “Also,” added Monday, “by tradition, the first House to sue for an accord is granted use of the Zambar. While the House who comes second to the table approaches from the desert through the Ibrahim Gate.”

  “Nice,” said Kendra. “The side that moves toward peace first gets the better rooms.”

  “And the coffee,” added Vannia.

  Martin chuckled. “There are some in our order who believe that our brew has prevented battles more than once.”

  Vannia nodded. “True story,” she said. “I was there for one of those.”

  Kendra was about to ask about that when Parrot Girl grabbed her hand and said, “C’mon. We’ll go exploring. I haven’t been here in a while and sometimes the Sae will spar with an outsider if given the right motivation.”

  Leaving the group with a look that clearly said, Whaddya gonna do?, Kendra followed her friend inside.

  “I’m going to get a nap. Or sleep through until tomorrow,” Annie said. “Somebody wake me when there’s any news.”

  She left, Martin leading her away, Ezer and Monday trailing behind and talking in voices so low no one else could hear.

  Niles Fayton walked to the edge of the terrace and stood next to McKey, looking down at the desert.

  “You seem preoccupied, Aoibheall,” he said quietly.

  She turned abruptly, scowling. “That’s not a name I’ve heard in a very, very long time. And it’s not one I currently answer to. Certainly not from strangers.”

  “My pardon, Mrs. McKey,” he said, hands out in a gesture of supplication or surrender. “I meant no offense. While we have not met, in certain circles of Release, Aoibheall t’Aeval is remembered with great, almost legendary respect.”

  McKey maintained the scowl. “We were all young once. Even the oldest of us.”

  “That is very, very true,” Fayton agreed.

  She looked at him for a moment, then, and saw that, up close, he wasn’t as nondescript as he’d seemed at arm’s length. There was character to his face. But it wasn’t initially obvious.

  Some worry. Maybe some wisdom. The bland Seeming is, I suspect, part of a Way of Release. One that helps him get in and out of situations without being well recalled.

  “You feel it, too,” he said.

  “What?”

  “How close we are to the Otherwhere. The Beyond. That’s what’s making you nervous.”

  She nodded. “I don’t like it.”

  “It weakens all our Ways a bit. It happens in every Sanctuary.”

  “I know. It’s why I don’t let him visit them.”

  “Solomon Monday? Let him?”

  She shrugged. “I try. It’s been a long time since he’s been out of the Library.”

  “Or libraries.”

  “Same thing.”

  Fayton nodded and turned to look at the desert beyond the wall of the terrace.

  “I felt it as soon as we arrived,” he said. “The fading of my Ways. And it’s stronger here than in almost any other Sanctuary.”

  “I suspect that’s purposeful. When the Gate opens, it gets much worse. Which makes sense, given the purpose. But I don’t have to like it.”

  Now it was Fayton’s turn to shrug. “Who knows exactly why it was made this way? Maybe your Master. We could ask. Gareth certainly isn’t old enough to remember the forging of the Peace. Nor am I.”

  McKey smiled a bit. He won’t directly ask if I do, of course. That would be rude. Instead of telling him, she asked, “What about the little assassin?”

  Fayton chuckled. “With Chaos it’s hard to tell. Yes. She could be antediluvian. I wouldn’t put it past the Brothers to hang so great a potential menace on such a diminutive form.”

  “She’s a hoot,” McKey agreed. “But I’m pretty sure she hasn’t been in this Seeming very long. I would have heard.”

  “Indeed. Birds of a feather, etcetera.”

  “Something like that.”

  They both went silent again, watching a few dark clouds scuff the hills in the distance.

  “Well,” said Fayton after a minute or so. “As I said. I’m going to get some rest as well. If there’s a late dinner and I’m awake, maybe I’ll come down. But if I manage to actually get to sleep, I won’t see you until tomorrow morning.”

  “Good night, Mr. Fayton.”

  “Please. Call me Niles.”

  “And you may call me: Helen,” she said with a half grin.

  “Quite.”

  He took two steps toward the door to the inside and stopped, turning, to say, “If you wait a bit, you’ll see the sunset. It’s spectacular this time of the year in this desert.”

  “I may do that. The interior of this place makes me itch.”

  “Understood. Goodnight, Helen.”

  “Goodnight, Niles.”

  She stood there leaning on the balcony for quite some time. Trying the limits of her Ways. Sensing the Gate behind her. Fretting the weight of this huge, stone slab.

  The sunset was, as Niles had predicted, quite spectacular. The sky turned from pale, powdery blue to deep indigo and then dark purple with veins of pink. She had begun, maybe, to relax a little. Edging toward a kind of resigned sleepiness. The slow slide of colors in the sky helping calm her nerves.

  As the sun’s disk dipped below the horizon, though, McKey heard, at the edge of her senses and Ways, a scream loud enough to pierce thick rock and the presence of the nearby Beyond.

  Before she’d moved, another scream. Louder. Then an
other. And another.

  With a muttered, “Cachu hwch!” she pulled as many of her Ways around herself as possible and sprinted into the Zambar.

  * * * * *

  Kendra sat under a gorgeous skylight in a gorgeous, large gymnasia and watched Vannia spar with a few of the Sae. Some were clearly male, some female, some interestingly androgynous.

  In some ways, those are the most beautiful, she thought. You can stop worrying about ideas of male and female beauty and just enjoy them for exactly what they are.

  They were awesome fighters and athletes. The way they moved as they practiced put any Kung Fu movie she’d seen to shame. There was a smooth, almost delicate flow that masked amazing precision and power.

  She’d never seen Vannia have so much fun, and that was saying something.

  The petite, girlish assassin had shed her Alice in Wonderland getup and was wearing, basically, sweat pants and a t-shirt. Something she’d borrowed from one of the smallest of the Sae. And while her style was much different than theirs, it was awesome to behold in its own right.

  For just as you thought you knew where the girl would come down or strike or jump, she’d be somewhere else. She was entirely impossible to predict, even – especially – when you thought, Ah! I see what she’s up to! She’s about to… nope! Wrong again.

  The Sae were obviously enjoying themselves, too. At the point where it was clear that Vannia would be able to evade any one of them, two more joined in, trying to pin her down by boxing her in.

  When that didn’t work, they brought in one of the masters – not an official term, but clearly someone who was involved in teaching. This Sae was young-seeming; one of the beautiful, androgynous ones Kendra had noticed.

  Sa Lyn, they were called. After a short bow and a moment of circling, Vannia and Lyn began to move through a series of sparse, almost hesitant strikes and blocks.

  “Sa Lyn is also of Chaos,” the monk next to Kendra whispered to her. “Can maybe deal with the little one a bit better.”

  Kendra nodded and noticed the similar markings on the narrow scarves of the Sae standing near Lyn’s side of the ring. The different marks on the shawls, she realized, indicate House affiliation.

  For several minutes the two fought, neither really landing a blow. Kendra couldn’t even really follow it, though she could tell they weren’t really using Ways like the fighters at Bardonne’s did. They were just soaked in their Domain to the point where it infused their styles.

  Like Ezer with Increase…

  Finally, Vannia managed to smack Lyn on the behind and the crowd let up a cheer. Laughing in the joy of the exercise, Lyn bowed to Vannia who made a very low, deep bow of her own.

  “Who’s next?” the blonde girl asked, shaking out her hair and retying her ponytail.

  Several hands went up, but Kendra shook her head. “Parrot Girl,” she said loudly. “I’m going exploring. I’ll meet you later for coffee and cakes.”

  Vannia waved at Kendra without really looking and took a bottled water from one of the Sae nearby.

  “Parrot Girl?” the monk next to Kendra asked.

  “Term of endearment,” she answered, turning and walking out of the gymnasium. I’m not sure Vannia will thank me for that later if the name sticks, she thought.

  Which is fine. ‘Cause it’s kinda funny, and she needs more funny.

  Sa Martin had offered to provide a tour guide, but there was only one part of the Cathedral that she was really interested in seeing: the Gate itself. From what she’d gathered, all she had to do was head downstairs and follow the larger corridors east.

  Sure enough, after walking down three long flights of stairs and passing by a bunch of empty conference rooms, dining rooms, lecture halls and lounges, she located the main corridor without needing to ask anyone for help. It was wide and palatial and two stories tall, arched in the middle and looked like it should have been the movie set for a royal wedding.

  She encountered a few Sae as she walked east. They nodded at her and she nodded back. She knew that Sa Martin had informed the entire order about the conference. Because of the presence of the Warden and the Librarian, they were all getting a bit of the VIP treatment. Vannia had promised that the baths were almost as awesome as the coffee.

  That’s fine, Kendra thought. But I want to see this Otherwhere Gate up close.

  At the end of the long, tall hallway there was simply an archway. No door, just an open space that let her into a huge, domed room circled by row after row of amphitheater style seating.

  Well, a half-domed room anyway, she corrected herself. For, as she’d been told, it looked as if someone had sliced through the center of the structure with an enormous mirror.

  Seven of the Sae stood at attention about half way between the entrance and the Gate itself. The markings on their shawls were all different, and so Kendra assumed that one was from each House.

  They were each armed with a distinct weapon, but seemed at ease and relaxed. Kendra smiled and waved at them and they all smiled, two of them giving her a friendly wave, too.

  She walked up to the one in the middle. A female of Chaos, Kendra could tell, because her colors matched Lyn’s. “Is it OK to approach the Gate,” she asked.

  The Sa answered, “There is a line in the floor, there. Where the tile goes from cream to blue. It’s unwise to get closer than that, but it’s not a rule. Just a suggestion.”

  “I’ll take that suggestion,” Kendra replied and the woman of Chaos smiled and nodded.

  The room was truly enormous. Easily one hundred yards across, rising up just as high. The Gate, therefore, was a half circle of silverish-blue smoothness larger than any airplane hangar Kendra had ever even heard of. It was startling, beautiful, odd and scary in its size and uniformity.

  It’s like someone rotated and suspended half a lake from the ceiling, she thought. The most still, calm lake you’d ever heard of.

  She approached to within a few feet of the blue tiles. Looking down she saw that the floor was surfaced in thousands, maybe millions of small ceramic squares. Most of the room was covered in a light, cream color with the last few yards near the Gate in blue. The shapes they traced were subtle, since there was no change in color other than the line from cream to blue. But they were in different sizes and the mortar between them pricked out a thin, spidery pattern.

  From where she stood, Kendra could see the archway that supported or surrounded the Gate. Not sure which it is, not sure it matters, she thought. Seven lines of the blue tiles traced their way up and over her head. Though diminished by proximity to the Otherwhere, she could still sense the Ways of each House within the patterns. They did not blend or intersect, really. They were just all there together. Like a rope made from seven different kinds of fiber. And just on the other side of those lines, the huge, dark surface of the Gate.

  It’s not a mirror, she realized. I can’t see myself in it. But it reflects light like it should. Weird.

  Kendra wanted to run her hand along the patterned tiles lining the archway, but to do that she’d need to get well within the blue zone.

  Something… something is so familiar here. Something wants me to touch the Gate. Or at least stand very, very close to it. To try to see my reflection. Or whatever is on the other side.

  One of the Sae behind her coughed and Kendra realized she actually had moved closer to the Gate, one toe moving over the blue tiles.

  “Sorry,” she said, blushing.

  “No worries,” the Sa said, a man, whose House she couldn’t tell. “Lots of people get a little lost while looking into it.”

  “Lost. Right.”

  She didn’t trust herself not to get mesmerized again. So she moved back beyond the Sae and looked around the hall a bit more.

  It was mostly taken up, as she’d seen, with rank after rank of bench seats. Like an indoor coliseum.

  The ceiling was painted to look like a blue, noon sky with puffy clouds. Vivid, Way-lit lamps hung from chains at various heights throu
ghout the space, making it almost as bright as the painted sky suggested. And while the Ways that formed the Gate itself were the most clear and obvious, Kendra could tell that the walls themselves were also etched in power. But from where she was, below the first rank of seats, she could not see them well or touch them.

  “Is it OK to go up?” she asked to the man who’d spoken to her last.

  He nodded, so she turned and began climbing up. Might as well get a good view while I’m here, she thought, ascending a series of low, broad steps, every third of which marked a new tier of seats.

  As she climbed, she realized that each row had fewer seats, because the wall at the far side of the hall curved to meet in the middle. The last row, the highest one, looked like it only had room for a few people.

  That looks like a good place to perch, she thought. She also saw that, from there, she’d be able to reach back and actually touch the wall.

  I don’t know why, but I want to feel what’s going on in here.

  She heard a noise down below. Turning, she saw that there was a “changing of the guard” going on or some such. Seven new Sae coming in. Several of the new ones were talking in a group with a few of the ones who’d been there before. It didn’t look like a problem so much as an explanation. In a moment, the old guards left and the new ones took up their spots between the doorway and the Gate.

  I wonder what that’s about? She shrugged inwardly. Cathedral business.

  Finally, panting more than a little, Kendra reached the last row and sat down, gratefully, on the last bench. It wasn’t split by the stairs, as all the other were, since the stairs didn’t extend any further. It was one, solid piece of stone with enough room for about four people to sit. It was close enough to the curve of the dome to make her feel a little claustrophobic, which was odd in such a large space.

  She caught her breath and then looked up at the wall… or ceiling, she thought. I guess it’s kind of both in this case.

  The tiny lines between the cream-colored tiles made the same subtle, delicate patterns up here. With more than a little unease, Kendra leaned back, raised both her arms, palms up, and placed them against the tiles.