Crossworld of Xai

by Steven Savage

  To be safe, she skipped a quick glass of the strong tea she used in place of coffee. HuanJen had given her a look suggesting he’d only be more startled if she’d told him she was leaving him for Clairice. Caffene, however, at this point, would only make things worse.

  It didn’t help when HuanJen, now in a hurry, transported himself to the street with her. He called it “The Knife With No Substance,” a mental discipline that let him cover distances quickly, usually at the price of making himself woozy if he overdid it. In her case, it felt more like being steamrollered flat and reinflated - she couldn’t see how he could do it even once.

  Fortunately, a reasonably uncrowded trolley ride gave her time to relax. HuanJen was unusually uncommunicative, which made relaxing less easy. He seemed to be watching everything - or actually, letting things pour into him. It was the same attitude he took when watching the city at night, or when he was just … not doing other things. He was getting a feel for things.

  She held his hand and joined him, as best she could. She tried not to let her fears or worries get in the way, she tried to leave herself open. He’d told her once you held to the center by not holding the edges, which made sense at times.

  Eventually the Trolley got to the appropriate stop, and they disembarked. It was in a classy area of Metris. Homes not apartments. Lawns tended by professionals. The kind of place that had a few local restaurants and no street vendors. Upper-middle class easily.

  One house, a strange-looking A-frame, was cordoned off by Gendarmes. It wasn’t immediately obvious, unless you knew what to look for - a small sign on the door, an extra Gendarme in plainclothes here or there. People in Metris liked peace and quiet - and a lack of peace and quiet usually made it hard to catch murderers.

  “This isn’t going to be easy to take a look at,” Jade said under her breath.

  HuanJen nodded, directing Jade to a spot behind the Trolley stop. “The last time the Gendarmes weren’t looking for a pattern. Now they perhaps see one.”

  “Great, where …”

  HuanJen’s cell phone rang, and he quickly took it from its clip on his belt. After a few quick words, hung up.

  “They’re gathered at Brownmiller’s home. It’s about a mile away.”

  “They didn’t get in?” Jade asked, knowing the answer. Sometimes you asked questions just because you had to. It moved life along.

  The cleric nodded at the home. “It was not worth trying. They figured on calling me if it seemed we could.”

  ” … and we won’t even try.” Jade looked at the house for a bit. Lights on in orders you wouldn’t expect. A Gendarme who wasn’t the local beat Gendarme, to judge by his body language, tried to look casual as he passed by.

  The Gendarmes didn’t like murder - no one did actually - but murders tended to make people upset. Murders were nasty things happened out of revenge, fear, and stupidity. One was something that happened, but two alike …

  … and with some Esotericists poking around …

  “Let’s get to Brownmillers,” Jade added.

  “Esotericists are looking around. It’s obvious by now.”

  Face them. It’s part of the new pattern.

  “I don’t want to face Guild Esoteric.”

  And I do? But that which we avoid is that which we must face.

  “How marvelously obscure.”

  You asked for this, you know, record-keeper. Play along, draw your strength from it. All the world is a stage indeed, but you can at least know the script.

  “Guild Esoteric …”

  Stand up to them! I know fear, Paldayne. It twists in your gut and ties you with razor-wire. They think they are in control. If you are to undo and expose, why not them as well, why not the holy men?

  “I …”

  Yes?

  “He gives me knowledge, but I do believe you have given me an answer …”

  Good. Very good.

  “And … I think we need a new name for our partnership …”

  Hmmmm. I am all ears - well, they are your ears, but you know what I mean …

  Shaman Rotan Brownmiller’s house was not what most people expected. Browmiller was a robust, earthy, large man with a good deal of muscle, no small about of extra fat, and no hair whatsoever. He dressed in shaman’s motley, which despite its rich symbolic meaning, was not a statement of fashion or taste, especially on him. He was the kind of person one visualized living in a small, old house with a refrigerator full of beer and strange mystic diagrams and books scattered about haphazardly.

  One did not expect a cozy, well-decorated home with a garden out front. One did not expect paintings by local artists in the hallways. One did not expect Rotan Junior playing in the front yard with a dog.

  One definitely did not expect Mrs. Elaine Brownmiller.

  She was tall, she was elegant, she was cultured, she was well-coifed and well dressed. She looked as if she’d stepped out of a modeling magazine. It wasn’t any surprise she wore a sash of the Guild of Beauticians and Related Trades.

  As soon as Mrs. Brownmiller met she and HuanJen at the door, Jade instantly decided not to analyze their relationship. It would only confuse her. She just let the stately woman lead she and HuanJen to a musty back office where Rake, Ahn, and Brownmiller, and Dealer Zero were sitting.

  There was a delicate china tea set out on a table, obviously in use. Jade’s carefully constructed image of Brownmiller disintegrated completely at that point.

  “We didn’t see anything useful,” HuanJen sat on one of the chairs scattered about the room, Jade sitting next to him. “Very low-level, very subtle.”

  Rake set down his teacup. “They, ah, suspect. They, ah, would suspect.”

  “They always suspect,” Zero said. As he often did, he appeared to be hiding beneath his long brown hair.

  “It was a Ziggurat Jack style death,” Brownmiller muttered, though in his case a mutter was almost as loud as a regular person’s speech. “I heard from the Zone Cleric of the area. Dismemberment as well. The other death wasn’t over-publicized, so I doubt we’ve got copycats. They do suspect indeed.”

  “Did anything feel strange …” HuanJen began.

  “Yes,” came the unanimous reply.

  Ahn fiddled with the dagger at his belt. “I had the distinct, er, impression of something manifest. More manifest, as it were.”

  “It’s becoming more real?” Jade asked.

  “That would fit,” Rake nodded. “I hope we are not … helping it.”

  “No, I don’t think so.” HuanJen poured Jade a cup of tea, then began pouring himself one. “We are all reasonably balanced, and a group like us will not power it. It’s probably a case of not-wanting-to-believe making belief more powerful. People very much wanted to believe Ziggurat Jack was gone.”

  “I think it is something else,” Dealer Zero leaned forward, tapping the left side of his trenchcoat. “I did a reading, and can’t get anything. It’s something we’d missed.

  “Maybe. Ah, maybe.” Rake’s eyes were focused somewhere to the left of mundane reality. “Could he, ah, have tapped into something else? Changed”

  “There are … many possibilities,” HuanJen acknowledged.

  There were a few moments where cleric looked to cleric, apprentice to diviner. Finally, Brownmiller spoke.

  “We’re going to have to wait for the Gendarme report, you know. We won’t be able to get in.”

  There were several unhappy noises of assent. Guild Esoteric got used to going where they wanted to go and doing what they wanted to do - people trusted them, and usually with good reason. However, as keepers of social order in their own ways, they found themselves inconveniently principled.

  “I disliked waiting,” Ahn mentioned.

  “Hey, you’re the one that runs like the wind,” Jade retorted playfully, “You’re just spoiled.”

  “No, I hate waiting too,” Brownmiller added, cracking his knuckles. “I wish I could take action.”

  “I’m trying to cheer thin
gs up here,” Jade spat with a smile.

  No one seemed to want to cheer up.

  Rake walked towards his church, through the night, past streetlamps and homes and stores. He could have taken a trolley, but he needed to think. He needed to feel the city. He needed to feel the world.

  And yet, all he felt was himself.

  He felt old. Yes, he was well past his mid-thirties, but he felt a different kind of old. Years pressed down on him like the weight of iron ingots. So much past, and now this.

  Something wasn’t right. Very not right. Only a few could really tell, really knew, and even he didn’t know enough. If people did know …

  … that was the problem with things like Ziggurat Jack. Thought-forms. Tulpas. Archetypes. Daimons. They came when called, and you could call them in unexpected ways. Fear or believe enough and they became real. Tap into something, some substrate running through the Otherworld and it came into the temporal.

  Run away and it came after you, look for it and it haunted you. Only if you understood would it leave you alone.

  Only this felt different. It was a bad kind of different.

  Several other clerics out there had said they had wondered about problems in the city. But the Communicants were afraid, the Guilds were arguing, and who needed a boogeyman to explain that? Only he and his company were looking, but they weren’t looking exactly …

  But …

  … he felt watched.

  Something felt distorted. He was walking through a small alley, and things didn’t seem right. He didn’t sense people around. Everything seemed shifted, like he was the last man on earth, five seconds to the side of reality.

  “Hmmm. Ah. Hmmm.”

  Rake stopped, and looked around. He sniffed, glanced at the sky, then turned around slowly. This was it. Things shifted around when the Otherworld came calling. Time didn’t work right, light was different. You learned the signs in his profession.

  You lived them.

  “I feel you, I can tell.”

  The shadows moved in ways normal shadows didn’t, obsidian quicksilver glints appearing in the corner of his eye.

  “Come, ah, come out.”

  “I am here.”

  Something flowed out of the night and into Rake’s vision; a man in brown and red robes, Historian’s robes, his face covered in black hood. He appeared to not fit in his surroundings, like a picture drawn over a photograph.

  “Ziggurat Jack,” Rake said confidently, without his trademark stutter. “New look?”

  “Ziggurat Jack is irrelevant. Gone. I need you to realize that.”

  Rake’s dark eyes narrowed. He seemed to grow in size, like a cat arching its back to appear larger.

  “Two deaths,” Rake stated.

  “Unavoidable. It is part of things.”

  The minister smirked. “You are telling the truth. Somewhat. I can feel it - the body is real, but there’s not all of it. Historian’s robes …”

  “I am The Historian.” The words were like solid things. “Yes. Think of me as The Historian.”

  There was a terrible silence. The Historian’s eyeless mask gave the strange impression he was seeing with his whole body.

  “A physical form. The … you’re ridden or were. Galcir, I’d, ah, bet. Good Lord, a man’s body, the spirit of Ziggurat Jack, and a god-contact.”

  No response.

  “I can tell.” Rake’s voice was unusually even, without a hint of a stutter.

  “Really?”

  “I have a thing for Trinities.”

  “Yes.” The figure seemed to waver. “I imagine you do. I’m not afraid of you. Of any of you. I have touched great Galcir.”

  “Yes. You know, if you think, ah, I am after you, it’s, ah, rather stupid to confront me. It, ah, gives everything away.”

  Rake could feel The Historian’s concealed eyes looking him over. “Giving things away? Oh, holy man, that’s what I intend to do. To everyone.”

  Rake took a deep breath. The world seemed to glow around him, his eyes flared with a thousand emotions, he opened his mouth …

  “See,” said the mysterious figure.

  Rake remembered with a lightning-blaze of recall searing away time.

  It was some two years ago. He was in the church. It was night. It was cloudy out.

  It was that night. He remembered ever detail, every sound, every smell, each sensation branded into his memory.

  “I’m sorry,” HuanJen said. Rake looked at him. HuanJen, when he wore that stupid ponytail Lorne had suggested. HuanJen had never proven to be susceptible to fashion makeovers.

  HuanJen, terribly sad.

  “She’s …” Rake began.

  “I’m … so sorry.” The Magician-Priest’s voice cracked. HuanJen was like an ocean stirred up by a storm - a mind and voice of crashing waves of pain over depths.

  Rake turned around, and looked at the ceiling of the church. He wanted to ask why. He really did, but he knew. All part of His plan. You didn’t question God anymore than you questioned breathing, than you questioned life.

  But it hurt, and he screamed at the top of his lungs. He screamed until he reached the Voice.

  The walls shook.

  The collection plate rattled.

  The windows shattered, spiderweb-cracks racing across them until they disintegrated.

  Rake kept screaming until all the pain was gone.

  … and it was now.

  He wasn’t remembering anymore. He was in the alley, he was older.

  He was with The Historian. The Historian had made him remember.

  “That I do in secret. I dig into their minds.” The Historian’s voice of smarmy quicksilver venom came from everywhere. “Unveil the secrets, store them, until it is time. I . . this is going to end, Holy Man. I am finding all the secrets out and hiding them away until it is time. No more lies, no more secrets. No one escapes me. I am history.”

  Rake trembled, meaty hands gripped in white-knuckled fists. The voice flowed into his ears and around the base of his mind. He wanted to punch the man until he was a red pulp.

  “This, is, ah, stereotypical, but you are, ah, insane.” Rake spat.

  The figure smirked. “I am not. I am merely honest.”

  “You’re insane, or, ah, stupid. Please, this is straight out of, ah, a bad comic book. But … ah, it makes sense to you?”

  Rake smiled. It was a knowing kind of smile, not the popularly titled “shit-eating-grin,” but more the grin of a person about to give someone else a similar meal.

  “A man’s body, a malicious entity, and, ah, a connection, to, ah a god. At any point did, ah, it cross your mind that, ah, this may be a bad idea?”

  No answer.

  “I … I think I know what you’re doing,” Rake snarled. “You’re trapped in your own Pattern.”

  The minister pointed a thick finger, touching the crucifix around his neck.

  “Back.”

  The Historian staggered at the single word. Rake slowly advanced forward.

  “You come here, walk into my mind, desecrate her memory. You don’t know me, you don’t know what you’ve done.”

  The specter fell to his knees. His breathing was labored, heavy.

  “I AM RAKE, MINISTER OF THE CHURCH OF THE WORKS OF CHRIST. IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD AND I WILL USE IT TO KICK YOUR ASS …”

  “Yes … and … vulnerable …remember your wife?”

  The minister faltered for a half second. It was sufficient.

  The Historian’s fist lashed out with surprising speed, taking Rake in the stomach. The minister staggered back as the attacker flowed to his feet, raining a series of blows down on him.

  “You think you understand, you all think you do? It’s not easy. It’s not easy! I’m trying damnall you! Blood on my hands, lives sacrificed, and I will show you, I will show you!”

  Rake tried to defend himself, only to be thrown into a dumpster. A small black box skittered out of his grip and onto the pavement.

  “
What?” The mysterious attacker reached down at picked it up. “Clericall?”

  Rake shuddered. “Surprise.”

  “I … it … I …”

  The man called The Historian was knocked aside as if by an invisible force. A few more unseen blows later, he spun around to find himself facing a young oriental man in an orange robe.

  Ahn looked at The Historian calmly.

  “Ah. I see. Long-gom-pa runner. Tibetian. Parapsychological discipline of speed.” The Historian’s voice had gone from confused to deep and emotionless. “I am The Historian.”

  “Ahn,” the young man drew an oddly-shaped dagger.

  “Purba. Demonkiller.” The Historian continued his analysis. “You have the wrong entity, Runner. Star running away.”

  Ahn stared at The Historian, as immovable as tomorrow. After long moments, the Historian smiled.

  “Waiting for someone …”

  There was a whine and the mysterious figure sound himself thrown to the ground by what felt like an invisible wave. Losing his composure, he tried to get to his feet.

  “Damn right,” barked a female voice. “Ahn, who is this dickweed?”

  “I’m not sure … I think he called himself The Historian.”

  The Historian scrambled to his feet. A dark-furred Vulpine was glaring at him, holding a strange staff in her hands. The end of the weapon was a green-glowing orb with a black blade set in it, pointed at him rather purposefully.

  “A gathering. A team. Fascinating … hehe, mythical as it were, people. Let’s see what we have?”

  “We have two people who are going to fucking kick your ass,” Jade yelled. “Now, drop back on the ground and spread ‘em buster. Ahn, check Rake.”

  In a whirl of motion, Ahn was by Rake’s side. The Historian regarded Jade with a malicious kind of bemusement.

  “Curious? Wondering? Want an explanation?”

  “Lesse, you attacked one of my friends … I’ll wait,” Jade barked. “Now, I said get down on the damn ground.”

  “That’s really undignified, how about we play a game? I’ve been playing it with a few special people in the city, so let’s make you special …”

  Ahn was looking down at Rake’s near-unconscious form when he heard Jade scream. He turned to see her grasping her head, wavering as if struck. The young mystic began to move …