Jade carefully selected a small, nondescript first-floor shop, and knocked on the door. Moments later, it was answered by a short man in a trenchcoat who appeared to mainly consist of long-brown hair, a goatee, and a nervous pair of eyes.
“May, I … oh, you.” The man appeared to deflate into a tiny, defensive ball. “Look, what is it this time? Is he going to send you to bug me now? Is this some sick Taoist training exercise?”
“Glad to see you too, Dealer Zero.” Jade flashed a feral grin, a slash of sarcastic white in her black-furred face. “I’m not here to bother you.”
“Right.” Dealer Zero crossed his arms. “You’re here as a client - or, wait, let me guess, you’ve decided I’m really your dream man and you’re dropping Mister Tall-and-cryptic.”
“The former, smartass.” The future mystic held up a fifty-guilder piece in her right hand. Dealer Zero’s eyes widened. “I’ve got the lucre if you’ve got the time.”
“You’re serious?” Zero’s voice cracked in disbelief.
“Aren’t I always?”
“No, but you usually aren’t handing out guilders.” The coin vanished from Jade’s hand. Dealer Zero tucked his payment into the depths of his coat, and gestured for Jade to enter his shop.
Inside, Jade found a standard Xaian diviner’s setup - there was a certain way most of the odd collection of dowsers, card-readers, and psychics set up their establishments. You had to have the usual mystic diagrams and bookshelves, the table the client sat at, and the usual doorway that led to the proprietor’s own quarters. Dealer Zero was no exception, though he had added lovingly preserved posters of older bands in addition to the usual decor. One had the feeling of walking into a particularly magical record store.
“Its not much, but it’s home.” Dealer Zero smiled nervously. “Tea?”
“No, I’m in a bit of a hurry. I need a reading.”
“I figured that.” The diviner sat at the table and gestured for Jade to join him. “So, what’s your question.”
Jade took a seat. “I’m not sure.”
Dealer Zero raised an eyebrow. “I kind of need a question asked. What, money?”
“HuanJen and I manage. No. More … general.”
“Love?”
“Think I got it. Look, do you do like a general ‘what’s up with my life thing?”
Dealer Zero stroked his goatee. “I have an idea. Here, let’s go. You get the full treatment.”
“You’re such a gentleman.” Jade said sarcastically.
The scruffy diviner drew a lacquered wooden box out of his coat and set it on the table. Lovingly, he lifted a deck of cards from it, and shuffled them with long, delicate fingers.
Zero’s voice was distant, an echo down a long hallway. “Ask me ‘who am I?’”
Jade shrugged. “Who am I?”
The shuffling of the cards stopped suddenly. Dealer Zero proffered the deck to the Vulpine.
“Take the top card.” Zero’s voice was still world’s away.
Jade did as instructed, and found herself staring at a Tarot card of indeterminate age but of unmistakable design; Death. The entire skull-scythe-dark cloak routine. It really wasn’t a pleasant image to see in regard to such a question about one’s identity.
“Death.” Dealer Zero’s eyes were focused on the deck. Jade felt the fur on the back of her neck rise as it came to her that she was the only one who had seen her pick. Zero was definitely not what he seemed.
“Yeah, this is kinda depressing here …” Jade wasn’t sure what to say, but felt she had to say something.
“Death is transformation. Change. The end-of-cycle. The start of rebirth. You’re a Scorpio, aren’t you. Black and green. You are changing, all things are changing. If you have become death, there is nothing to fear. You are change.”
Jade raised an eyebrow as Dealer Zero snapped out of his trance. Smiling, the diviner grabbed the card from her hand, shuffled it among its brothers, and placed them in their box.
“That’s it?” Jade asked. “That’s what I get for fifty guilders? If I need overblown mystic babble I know plenty of people who provide it for free!”
Dealer Zero slammed his hands on the table, causing Jade to start. Seeing the inoffensive fortune-teller display anger was surprising and unsettling.
“Look, first your boyfriend gives me shit about faking things. OK, I embellished, I learned my lesson. Now you’re on my case? This is for real here! If you can’t make sense out of it its you’re problem. I …”
“I’m sorry.”
“What?” Dealer Zero asked, taken aback.
“I’m sorry.” Jade shook her head. “Hey, I’ve even told Huan to go easy on you. It’s frustrating, OK? I’ve got a lot in my head. It doesn’t make sense.”
“You don’t connect.” The scruffy seer nodded sadly. “Look, I’m not the best, OK? That’s fairly obvious. But I felt it, its real. You just are afraid to connect to what I told you. You have to make it real. You gotta look.”
Jade crossed her arms and favored Dealer Zero with a humorous smile. “If I look deep enough, I’d find meaning in anything, slick.”
“Your point being?” Zero returned her smile, eyes twinkling.
The Island of the gods of Xai is a reflection of the cities of those who worship them - or perhaps, the converse is true. You could ask one of the Xaian shamans, but they’d only confuse you, and enjoy it in the process.
The Divine City is an idealized version of the urban maze of Metris, built in marble and gems and glowing god-metals. Its buildings soar, its streets are busy but not too busy, and the smells are notably more appropriate for gods than for people who need to give their sidewalks a good cleaning. It was Metris idealized, future and past perfect.
Despite the fact it felt like his home, Kevin did not feel welcome. His soul-self walked the streets, past gods and their servants, past temple-homes and souls of those who had come to stay with their divinities. Many walked or flew by him.
Some passed through him.
Regal Thymis herself had walked by and through him, his image not even appearing in her famed Mirror. When the goddess of Law walks through you, it’s a disheartening experience for any religious person.
Kevin Anderson, apprentice to Old Man Green, shaman of Guild Esoteric, was scared. This was wrong. He was a ghost to the gods, his gods. When he had been initiated he had fasted and meditated for three days until he had seen the World Tree and come here, to meet his gods, receive their blessings and spirits to assist him. They had welcomed him then.
His divine family couldn’t see him or touch him. He wasn’t home now.
Legante the messenger-god passed Kevin, laughing musically at a joke from one of his outrageous collection of couriers, friends, sycophants, and lovers. Fierce Fulimneus stared down at the city from the Pillar of Storms, almost succeeding at hiding his smile beneath his dark beard. Gods and spirits and souls talked and passed and interacted, and Kevin was alone in a city filled with divinities.
“I am lost.” he said softly.
He had never been alone on Xai. You never had to be alone on the Crossworld. As a shaman, even in his darkest times he had felt the pulse of spirits and gods beneath the surface of Xai and Metris.
Now, he felt nothing.
No connection.
Nothing at all.
“I have chosen to be his protector,” HuanJen intoned to the darkness in the Valley of Crypts.
The wind whistled. If one listened, you could hear hints of voices.
“HuanJen, of the Order, from Sanctum. Yes, I know.”
The black hound paced around the cleric nervously, occasionally stealing a glance at Kevin’s inert body. Finally, it looked up at HuanJen.
“I have no idea what to say, usually I make peace or exorcise them … sorry!” The cleric suddenly faced the darkness, looking apologetic. “I didn’t intend to try anything. I respect your choices. He doesn’t need anyone else trying to help, believe me. He has done enough on his own.”
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The red-eyed dog growled throatily. HuanJen drew himself to his considerable, if thin, full height.
“No. Go with the others. Go to some peace, with my respect. I … no, I am not afraid.”
Something stirred in the darkness, a shadow deeper than a shadow.
“No, I’m not.”
Jade looked down over Metris.
The Balcony of the apartment she and HuanJen shared had become a special place to her over time. From here, she and her lover talked, and watched the city, supernatural senses alert and active.
OK, HuanJen’s supernatural senses. Jade hoped to have such senses in the future, but right now he was the entire mystic perceptions department of their little organization.
She felt quite close to HuanJen here, in touch with something. An answer, perhaps. After dealing with Dealer Zero, she felt there definitely was one.
Death. Change and transformation.
She was changing, definitely. She’d been changing since she came here. Her lifetime here had started about five months and yet it felt forever. She hadn’t liked herself when she came here, but the old her didn’t seem real. She’d found a new job, new life, a boyfriend, a new outlook. Life … meant something. There used to be her and life, and life had better watch out. Now she and her life were the same thing.
The ideas fell apart in her head. She desperately wanted to believe Dealer Zero had told her something meaningful. He seemed to think he had, and he was certainly not going to lie to the assistant of the man who had caught him “embellishing” his divinations. Besides, he seemed nice enough, and Verrigent certainly thought well of him.
Change and transformation …
“Hello Clairice,” Jade said before the patio door swung open. The nurse, still in her uniform, smiled wanly at the Vulpine.
“You OK?” Clairice asked. “I was worried.”
Jade shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. Did you talk to Lorne?”
“Yes. I think we’re OK. We really spent more time complaining about Randy’s ever-moving wedding date. I feel like some petty, jealous bitch, but things are better.”
“Good.” Jade favored her companion with a sad smile. “Lorne really wants to be a groomsman. I think he feels that if he’s in a marriage …”
“… he’ll get one of his own.” Clairice laughed lightly. “Poor guy, he just seems to be cursed romantically. Let’s face it, he’s got a big blank when it comes to love.”
“True. Um …”
“Sorry.” Clairice raised a warning hand. “Look, you’ve got a lot on your mind. Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s go rent …”
“No.” Jade cut off the friendly offer. “I’ve got a lot to think about. Thanks Clairice, but I think I need some time to myself. I hope you understand.”
“Maybe later?”
“I … yeah, maybe. Thanks.”
Clairice nodded, then surprisingly, reached out and hugged Jade. Jade returned the hug, ignoring the smell of chemicals-and-fear that had settled on the nurse. Clairice rarely talked about work, and Jade didn’t ask out of politeness, though she could rather imagine. Working at the major hospital in Metris had to be a difficult job.
“I’ll make dinner, OK?” Clairice asked brightly. Jade nodded, knowing that though her friend was doing so out of politeness, she’d probably have had to do so out of survival.
Clairice slid the patio door shut, leaving Jade alone again with her thoughts and the rest of Xai.
All alone with the world.
All alone with …
… her choices.
Cold realization threw her into a void of stark self-awareness. This, all of this, was her choice. She’d chosen to come to Xai. She’d chosen to work for and then with HuanJen. She’d chosen to become his apprentice, to seek something more, something, she supposed, higher. She’d stuck with it when they’d started getting closer.
She’d gotten everything she asked for. And she could loose it. She’d changed and then clung to it, wanting to sieze control of the dynamic life-engine that brought her here. She figured she could force life, grab Infinity as well as make HuanJen pay attention to her.
Now she was afraid of not having what she’d found. She wasn’t so much afraid for him being in the Valley she as afraid that now that she had him, she could loose him. Now that she had this life, she could loose it.
Because things changed. Change had brought her here, and change could take it away.
Whatever Dealer Zero meant, she had changed. Hell, life changed. But there was that thing she was, the thing that changed, but was always there. If she was some engine of change, what about the “her” that was that engine of change …
Metaphysics bounced around in her head. She definitely had a lot to learn about thinking spiritual thoughts - or at least holding onto them.
She wanted to see more, be more, get outside of things to the Big Outside, God, Tao, whatever. She loved HuanJen, because he was who he was, no more, no less. She could run around all she wanted and get lost, or she could be herself and move forward with life, and with a man that she loved. Change as she would, move as she would.
And it would end someday, all things died. But nothing truly ended. That was what she felt around HuanJen, in her new life, that feeling of what was behind the changes. That feeling of depth, that no matter what happened, things were fine.
She had to slow down. She didn’t have to control everything. HuanJen never quite seemed to control anything, and things worked out. What she wanted was things she wasn’t controlling. What she wanted would take time.
There was a story in one of the books HuanJen had gotten her to read. A god of a river wandered over his domain, but when he saw the ocean, he realized his insignificance. Then he was able to learn, knowing more about himself and where he was.
She loved HuanJen. She knew there was more to life. That was a start, her start.
Jade watched the setting sun, and smiled to herself.
She knew where she stood. At least she was standing instead of running all over the place.
And from there …
There she could see.
“On dragons wings, HuanJen.”
Hollow-eyed, Kevin walked deeper into the Divine City. He passed straight through Arodano and Ikkothar while the armored war-god and the serene scholar-deity talked quietly. The shaman had been less than a breath of wind to them.
There was only one place to go now, where he had gone when he had visited before. The Heart, from where the Outer Sea came. Before, the gods had guided there, he had drunk from it, and become connected to the flows of the Outer Sea and the tides of the godworld. Now, he went there alone.
As he passed on, he found himself becoming transparent. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. He was gone, perhaps already in Mortru’s hands. It was all falling apart.
It had been anyway. He’d been lying to himslef for months.
He had tried to be the best he could at his job. He had apprenticed young, studied rituals and potions, called spirits, climbed the World Tree. It had all gone when Green had, his world had fallen apart. Green wasn’t supposed to die, he was supposed to tell him when he was ready, and send him into the world.
He’d passed into words instead, and Kevin had died inside. He’d tried so hard and it was all wrong and he didn’t know why.
The center of the Divine City was the Heart, a sparkling stream pouring out of infinity, down through the center of the Island of the gods, and forming the Outer Sea. This was where it all came from. This was the power of the gods, the force of the winds, the place where love and hate emanated and to which all things returned.
To Kevin, it looked like a waterfall with more than three dimensions, a argentine oroborous that came from everywhere but was seen here.
He attempted to touch it, but his hand passed through the silver-twilight streams of potential.
“I see.”
It was gone. It was all gone. No where else to go.
Kevin leapt into the Heart,
and he was gone as well.
HuanJen stalked around Kevin’s body, eyes focused on the darkness around him. His canine companion followed him, moving like a flicker of darkness.
“I can still feel you. I can still sense you. The others left, let’s not make this any more unpleasant.”
The only response he received was the silence of the night. HuanJen shook his head, and sat by Kevin’s prostrate form.
“Let me show you …”
The mystic appeared to turn into something no more human than a doorway. Light seemed to bend around him, and the landscape near him seemed to distory, as if being pulled into his body.
“Come closer, if you wish.” The words were serious, but shorn of any malice.
Words were gone.
Kevin could sea he was beyond the Ocean. He wanted two no what was going on. There was a whole he fell into, lust in the darkness, I’s opened by light. All things fell away, fear and error, all was gone, slept into the void.
“Mortru, if I cannot find it, take me, and …”
“Pushed it pretty far, huh kid?” A voice materialized in his mind, then his ears heard it.
Kevin felt a tear run down his cheek. It was imaginary, but it felt real. Things resolved into a featureless nothingness.
“Green …”
The lost mystic whirled around to find a familiar, lanky figure standing in the non-scape. Old Man Green was always recognizable; a wiry figure in shaman’s motley, a smile in a face like leather, eyes like agates that sparkled no matter the lighting. Now he looked more himself than ever, quite an achievement for a man who was dead and made part of the Ossuary.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” The spectral shaman laughed.
“I … am. What are you doing here?”
“Kevin, you’re having a drug-and-stress-induced supernatural experience. This is kinda par for the course. Be glad something coherent is happening.” Kevin laughed. It was Green as he remembered him.
“Where the fuck have you been? I mean … or is this just me hallucinating? I don’t know anymore. Are you real?”
The old cleric shook his head. “If I’m a hallucination, am I gonna say so? What did I teach you?”
Kevin closed his eyes. Or imagined he did. Lessons, training, all buried under the weight of the last few months. Words finally creeped onto his tongue
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