… deep within gray walls and messy offices …
“A full screen television,” the voice was deep, clipped but soft. A typical native accent, a mix of politeness and clarity.
“Eh, a waste. What’s ever on? Me, I’d like a nice new bed for Christmas.” The second voice was female, a voice capable of subtlety but not used to using it.
Solomon Dell sat back in his chair, hands clasped thoughtfully behind his head. Those used to seeing the Head Rancelman in the field would have been surprised to see him dressed in jeans and t-shirt instead of his usual armor. The sign behind him (“You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps”) eliminated any chance of a visitor taking him seriously.
“I haven’t even replaced my old television,” Dell said thoughtfully, idly twisting some of the blond braids that framed his face, the beads clicking together. “Just haven’t had the time, Miriam.”
“You need to take some time, Sol,” Kommander Miriam Santiago said petulantly from her seat in a corner. Like her commander, the petite, dark-skinned woman had given up on Rancelman armor for the evening and worn something casual. It was, after all, Christmas Eve, and even the Travelers’ Guilds’ chosen guardians had to rest, even if it was in shifts.
“I’ll wait for Santa Claus or Father Winter to make a delivery of free time, thank you. Or maybe … you know, I really would like a new desk at home.”
Miriam thought, letting her imagination run wild “Oh, like oak? Imported, none of that ‘as good as’ crap? Pure ego food?”
“Maybe. Or … hmmm …”
“Hey, Sol, the party’s almost ready. Come on, we don’t want to be late.”
Dell shook his head. “I …”
“If Sally gets drunk we’ll make sure she keeps the mistletoe out of her cleavage.” The Kommander held back a smile, but parts of it snuck out anyway.
“I can always count on you to protect my virtue?” Dell asked with a friendly smirk.
“Nah, Sally just annoys me. Hmmm, hey, what about … a new coffee machine in the rec room? I mean not like we’ve got much coffee, but it’s the principle.”
The Head Rancelman’s tan face twisted into a bitter look. “Is that a hint, my dear Miriam? Well, if we drag work in, I’d like to see us get a better budget. Or …”
“Sol, don’t start, party, remember …” Miriam’s eyes flashed with unpleasant realizations.
“Sorry. I just …” Dell shifted uncomfortably. “I wish I could have gotten Techboss Harmon, or Historian Paldayne, or …”
“That HuanJen guy?” Miriam asked wearily. She was not an old woman, but she seemed to age suddenly at the mention of the names.
Dell nodded. “Yes. Yeah, he’d be nice to have on the team.”
“Here we go again. Look, Sol, you get this way over a handful of potential recruits and it leads nowhere, especially that …”
“Someone stronger than me is better to have as a friend,” Dell interrupted his underling. “Someone smarter than me is better as an advisor.”
“HuanJen. Smarter or stronger? I’ve seen this guy’s profile. Yeah, he’s good in the supernatural department, but lacks a lot of basic skills and politically, he’s a blank. Look …”
“Those are understandable quantities,” Dell’s words were like a door slamming shut.
“Beg pardon?” Miriam raised an eyebrow. The Head Rancelman was getting philosophical, which usually meant something profound or something self-deprecating was going on in his head. There were moments she wondered why he didn’t work at the University’s Philosophy department.
“I don’t understand him. I don’t understand any of them, really. He does stand out though.”
Miriam rolled her eyes. “Wow, that’s a great reason, Sol. I want to work with someone incomprehensible. Makes my day.”
“No, no.” The Dell shook his head eyes staring into his own thoughts. “There’s a lot there, a lot going on with him. He was allied with Green, he handles a large zone, he was raised in cracking Sanctum for the Heart’s sake. Yet there he is with his lady and his Zone, all quiet and calm, and he tells me he doesn’t want more. A potion-pusher and a listener to troubles.”
The Kommander shrugged. She found it hard to talk to Dell when he was in one of his moods, and he was in them quite often as of late. “Maybe he’s happy.”
“I don’t know what he is, Miriam. I’ve met people like him. I don’t know what they want, but I need them. I want those I don’t understand close by me, because they may understand something I don’t or can’t.”
“Like why you won’t get off your ass and go to the Christmas party and stuff your face with that roast Mikhail made?”
Solomon stuck his tongue out in a purposefully childish gesture, eliciting a laugh from his coworker. Miriam shook her head, and then her expression became serious, or at least largely so.
“Look, party. Now.”
“I thought I gave the orders?” Dell asked with false irritation. “I don’t know, I was thinking of going to the Temple of Thymis. I haven’t been to a proper service …
“The gods are always there, Mikhail’s roast is a limited-time offer. Go.”
Night closed in on Temple Street, enshrouding the Lane of the Holy with jet-black. Lights gleamed from temples, from shop-windows, and from the workcrew of the Constructionists desperately trying to conduct repairs on the ever-unfinished food court. Metris slowed down, but it never slept.
On the outskirts of Temple Street lay the entrance to the Temple of Thymis. The Xaian goddess of justice and law’s followers were celebrating winter ceremonies; at least those that were able to be freed from their jobs. Most of Thymis’ devout were Gendarmes by Guild if not profession, and their time was limited.
Lorne Thompson, Weaponeer-Gendarme of 6th precinct, listened to the Priest’s closing invocation, fiddling with the mirror-pendant he wore to worship. He wasn’t a religious man in the focused sense - indeed, next week he would likely attend services at Christ the Worker as one of his friends was the minister. However, some things you did because they meant something, and thus he was at the temple, long blond hair respectfully combed, dressed in his best suit, listening to the Priest.
” … brothers and sisters, our closing invocation to her. Together, let us call upon Thymis.”
Lorne took a deep breath. As one, the congregation spoke.
“May I know the way, the path, the balance.”
“Before I can kill I must be willing to die.”
“Before I can bring law I must follow.”
“Give me the wisdom to understand”
“Give me the courage to follow.”
“Blessings to our mother the goddess.”
“Blessings to those I protect.”
“Bless Lainkaser, who slew the three.”
“Bless my brother, next to me.”
Silence descended upon the congregation. The priests raised his white-robed hands, mirror-talismans sparkling in the candlelight. “Thymis keep us all, blessings to all of you on this day.”
Silently, the congregation filed out of the main temple into the foyer. The solemnity slowly drained away as the worshippers broke into small groups, found their coats in the coat closets, and stepped slowly out of the world of the gods and into the world said deities watched over.
“And what are you doing, Lorne?” A familiar female voice leapt into the Gendarme’s ears.
“Hello Constance, the usual,” Lorne replied as he turned around. His commander smiled up at him, transformed from her usual authoritative figure to a small, handsomely-aged woman in a simple dark dress. Constance had the uncanny ability to become someone else when she wasn’t at work. You never noticed her outside of work until it was too late, as he’d found out on one embarrassing occasion.
“Ah, your friends?” Constance patted Lorne’s muscular arm in a motherly manner. “Good, you really do need to get out more. By the way, got some of your cake in the bake sale, excellent as always. Have time for some tea?�
�
“No, I’m afraid not. It’s … well my golf partner is at the party, and a friend and his new girlfriend are having their first holiday season together. Usual pre-Christmas party so we can spent Christmas with family and such.”
“Really, where?”
“The Nax?”
Constance smiled sunnily. “Glad to see you relaxing, you’re always so tense. Though I’m not sure the Nax is quite a good idea …”
… near the Center of Metris.
The Nax Bar and Grill was doing what it had always done - serving its rather unusual clientele. The Nax was where you went to fit in because you fit in everywhere or nowhere, and wanted to be among people like yourself. The Nax, in short, was a bar for the truly strange and the strangely true, and in Metris those who qualified for such a definition were not rare.
As Lorne Thompson walked through the door, he did wonder how the other regular customers was reacting to the new decorations.
Once, long ago, when the owner Richard Nax had noticed his bar was populated by alchemists, intellectuals, adventurers, esotericists and more, he decided to decorated in the proper style. Sadly, this style had included a number of unusual objects, paintings, and architectural arrangements that would have given any decent Feng-Shui geomancer a seizure.
However, all things had a price. Several supernatural incidents and one very expensive exorcism later, Mr. Nax had redecorated. In an appropriate manner - at least form himself and his clientele.
Namely, he’d redecorated with an eye towards never, ever having poltergeists launch plates at his clientele ever again. Thus, he had gone from hanging up mystically-runed tapestries indiscriminately during strange convergences of stars, right out the other end into occult safe-keeping. The bar was now laid out with every mystical geometry in line, every color precise, and a few protective sigils and other gewgaws here and there, along with some oddly-placed mirrors and tanks of fish.
It was, Lorne reflected, safer, but lacked some of the what’s-going-to-haunt-the-beer now charm of the original. He wasn’t sure he missed it, considering the last poltergeist attack had resulted in painful contact with an extremely large and heavy beer stein.
“Lorne!” a mass of gray fur, muscle, and enthusiasm leapt out of nowhere and hugged him. Lorne, despite being nearly two meters tall, found himself picked up off of his feet.
“Slate! I thought you couldn’t make it!” The Gendarme’s senses put together enough information to identify his accoster as his Vulpine friend. A slight whiff of one of the Nax’s more exotic northern beers explained Slate’s loss of his usual reserve.
Slate grinned and set the startled Gendarme down. “I traded in some hours, and …”
” … worked about a day with no sleep,” a scolding voice said from a location slightly below the two. A short, casually-dressed, red-furred Vulpine woman looked up at Slate with mock-accusation.
“Ah … well, yes. Garnet’s right.” Despite his considerable height, Slate suddenly seemed smaller. “That’s why I canceled our last game.”
“No problem.” Lorne waved off the apology. “The weather was wrong for golf anyway … and Garnet, no comments about it being winter. This is about commitment.”
“I won’t. It’s almost Christmas, I’ll be nice.”
“Well,” Lorne put an arm around his companions, or at least as well as he could considering the height difference, “Clairice will probably be along after her shift, I see Brandon’s already talking to three lovely ladies, and where is the rest of our little gang?”
“Us, so far,” Garnet said, “and the HuanJen and Jade. Take a look over there.”
Garnet nodded towards the corner Lorne and his usual accomplices sat in. There sat two people; a tall unremarkable-looking oriental man with a streak of white in his dark hair, and a black-furred Vulpine woman, both dressed in dark, serviceable clothes. Few people would have paid attention to them, but then again, their attention seemed to be on each other.
“With Clairice out, they are cute, don’t you think?” Garnet smiled. “The holy man and his apprentice. And girlfriend. And sometimes boss.”
“My sister, all … like that.” Slate’s half-smile belied a kind of aura of hidden affection.
Lorne nodded, a distant look in his eyes. “Yes, they are different …”
Xai continued, and visitors rarely asked how …
HuanJen was a Zone Cleric, Xai’s equivalent of a psychologist and a social worker, with a healthy dose of occultism and alchemy in his case. They smoothed over the bumps in life and in general made sure small problems didn’t become larger. Most supplemented their income with other metaphysical jobs, and HuanJen had a hard time resisting new challenges.
This had led to his need for his assistant, encouraged by some concerned and nosy friends. This in turn had led to the rather curious Jade, newly arrived on Metris, to take the job. One thing had led to another, and soon his live-in helper was his apprentice, and then his live-in-lover.
To many, the relationship had seemed strange at first. HuanJen had been raised by the Taoist organization known as the Order on the distant Earth of Sanctum. Jade was a refugee from a secret society of genetically engineered humans. Of course in reflection, you couldn’t label anything about their relationship as strange when they were so unusual themselves; It diluted the impact the word ‘strange’ unacceptably.
HuanJen and Jade themselves didn’t think they were strange at all, which perhaps explained a great deal. They went out, they went to work, they kissed in public, and argued in private. And, like many, on Christmas Eve they opened presents with friends as a prelude to a more personal Christmas on the morrow - or in their case the inevitable knowledge they’d probably be called upon for some clerical or personal duty.
Of course, they did it their way.
“I won’t say it.” Brandon Thylar’s dusky face was twisted into a smirk. The Technologist looked fairly ready to explode.
“Beg pardon?” HuanJen looked down at the robe in his hand. It was a colorful thing, a mixture of yellows and white, with symbols embroidered over it. A matching flat-topped cap rested on the table, sitting on a carefully-opened box.
“Yeah.” Jade looked down at a similar robe she held. “I mean, hey, Huan’s formal robes got mangled in the washer, I got him a new set, he got me my own set. So, come on, spill it.”
“It’s … the gift of the Magi!” Brandon let out, then his face suddenly took on a concerned look. No one was laughing. In fact, he himself realized the joke’s humor somehow didn’t follow said joke when it emerged from his mouth.
“Actually, the term is ‘Magician-Priest’ or ‘Fang-Shih’”” HuanJen added helpfully. “Magi is …”
“No,” the Technologist said flatly, shaking his head, his braids swaying morosely. “It’s a joke on an old Christmas story by this guy… never mind … it wasn’t funny.”
HuanJen favored his friend with a quizzical but compassionate stare. “I guess not. But thanks. Are we done, dear?”
“No,” the Vulpine replied curtly. “Well before we see how we managed to embarrass Clairice this year …”
“Hopefully with guilders.” Clairice chimed in from her seat, which was mainly against Lorne’s bulk. The lanky nurse was draped across the Gendarme, a position many would have thought of as suggestive until they learned the two roommates had similar tastes in men.
” … We have one more from Kevin, who is probably fast asleep knowing his schedule.” Jade hefted a small box and proffered it to HuanJen. The cleric took it in a long-fingered hand, curiously.
“He’s not much on non-native holidays.” HuanJen shrugged, “Let’s see what’s in here.”
Moments later, the young sage uttered the very non-traditional holiday statement of “Damn.”
“What is it?” Jade asked. All HuanJen had found in the box was a folded piece of paper.
“A … part-time job offer.” HuanJen said flatly. “From the Guild.”
He couldn’t have s
ounded less happy.
December 27, 1999 Xaian Standard Calendar
The days after Christmas passed differently for different people. The less holiday-inclined returned to the usual pace of time, others caught in the usual post-holiday chaos felt them slipping away. There were things to do, work to catch up on, gifts to return …
The library of Guild Esoteric’s Guildhall wasn’t the most complete; it was, really a reflection of the larger one at the Lyceum, their old Guildhall from ages past. Still, its references were enough that most people preferred its modern shelves to the ancient, dark corridors of the supposedly official library.
HuanJen moved through the library like a ghost, sliding through the huge facility unnoticed, moving not just with an absence of sound, but an absence of any kind of disturbance. He passed by shelves and tables, drifting towards a small desk in back without anyone noticing him.
“Kevin?” The Magician-Priest’s voice worked through the cracks in the silence.
A young man looked up from a pile of books. He was dressed in the rainbow colors of a general Xaian shaman, a servant of many gods. Talismans were woven into his sandy hair, reflecting the ceiling lights eerily.
“HuanJen!” The shaman smiled. “Let me guess, you got your present! How’s that for a surprise!”
“Terrible. That was very … your methods leave something to be desired. A letter offering me a secondary position in the Guild from Harkness, delivered as a present from you. Very bad these days.”
Kevin’s face was a mosaic of surprise and concern. HuanJen nodded sadly and sat next to his fellow cleric.
“I thought it would be amusing. Crone Harkness …”
“It felt political. Like compensation.” HuanJen’s voice was even, emotionless.
“Ah.” Kevin nodded, eyes downcast. “Yes. Yes, you would take it that way, my friend, I …”
“It was taken that way by Jade and a few of my friends. Kevin, I … wish clarification,” HuanJen’s voice was cold but elegant, like words of marble.
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