June 23, 2000 AD, Xaian Standard Calendar
There are secrets to Guild Esoteric. This, of course, seems incredibly obvious - and people never seek the obvious. So, thus, Guild Estoeric’s secrets are safe merely by belonging to people that are expected to have them.
For instance, everyone assumes that anything worth happening at the Guild occurs at the Guildhall or the Lyceum. It was obvious that any particular clerical goings-on would be in the current Guildhall, or the old haunt of the Guild, the Valley of the Crypts.
They would not occur in a small warehouse on the edge of Metris. The warehouse district was the place for members of the Mercantile Alliance or Constructionists Guild. You just called Esotercisits for blessings or something.
Of course, the Guild had a small warehouse there, one that took the concept of “nondescript” and pushed in into the “invisible” realm. It was unclearly marked, it didn’t stand out, and it looked afraid that some one would pick it up and torment it. It was the kind of warehouse the larger warehouses picked on.
No one would give it a second thought.
“We kept him here?” Jade asked, walking down one of the dull gray corridors inside the building.
“Yes,” HuanJen replied, “The Guild uses it to store equipment and as a place when they need something out of the way. It’s not bad.”
“It’s a warehouse.”
“Not … quite.” HuanJen passed a small electronic card into a lock, a door swung open …
And there was an apartment. It wasn’t typical warehouse-style furnishings. It was a bloody apartment.
And it was occupied with two people. Jade recognized the Scribe; short, brownish hair, dressed in simple clothes. The other …
“Good day,” A voice made out of wind and suggestions said.
M stood next to Scribe, the black-robed figure seeming to be more a suggestion than a presence. Jade blinked.
She’d never met M. She’d only heard about the mysterious Guild Councilman, representative to the great Guild COuncil of all the Guilds. M was … well, M “was,” literally. He was just there, and always had been.
The fur on the back of her neck stood up. Over time, she’d found herself less disturbed by some of HuanJen’s strange supernatural abilities. Suddenly the old feelings she’d felt when he’d teleported returned.
“Hello,” HuanJen addressed the mysterious figure noncommittally, “Scribe, I …”
“He told me,” the young man’s voice was emotionless, “I think it is for the best.”
HuanJen nodded, “This …”
“Is Jade.” Scribe smiled. “Sorry, it’s … M told me what was going on.”
“I told him all things that were needed,” the strange figure intoned.
“I … am ready.” Scribe grabbed a small dufflebag from the floor and walked over to HuanJen and Jade with little emotion. The young man turned to face M. “Are you coming with us?”
“Only in the car,” M answered softly, “I will not be going to Sanctum.”
Scribe nodded. “Are we ready?”
Jade couldn’t stop herself from looking at the boy in horror. His entire life was being thrown away and he didn’t seem to care. It wasn’t the kind of relaxed attitude she saw from HuanJen, it was a kind of deadness.
THe product of one man’s ambition …
“Don’t worry,” Scribe smiled at her in a way that turned her blood into liquid night, “I know. I’ll be fine.”
Jade tried to reply. She really wasn’t sure what to say, though she definitely wanted to crawl out of her own skin.
Scribe nodded. “I have that effect on people,” he said to the world in general.
Portal Tzaddi was one of the special secrets of Guild Esoteric. It was the First Portal despite the prominence of Portal Aleph. It was how the Valley of the Crypts had come to be filled with people from different Earths. It was the one Portal not under control of the Travellers, by ancient agreements, by secrecy, and by occasional bribery.
It was also rarely seen by anyone.
Jade realized that even visiting Portal Tzaddi was rare. She was going to use it. She was going to walk through it and go to Sanctum, and she hadn’t even been in the Guild a year.
She just wished it was under different circumstances than … an exile.
Scribe and HuanJen had said little on the trip - a Guild car had picked them up and taken them to the Valley of the Crypts with only a few words between she, her lover, and their charge. There wasn’t much to say really.
Scenery had passed by farms and smaller towns, then the mysterious curves and backroads of the Valley. Soon, the car entered an underground garage, and Jade found herself and her companions in the company of white-garbed men armed rather well.
“Follow me,” was all HuanJen said. Having no choice, she and Scribe followed him, through several stairs, and out to …
… Portal Tzaddi
A huge dome had been erected over the Portal - nothing of the paved, open-air Portals of the Traveler’s. There was a gardenlike atmosphere - plants, small ponds, giving it more a feel of a park than anything else.
Except for the Portal.
Some people could tell where a Portal was, and Jade was quite sure she was one of them - not a Navigator, but someone sensitive. In the center of the dome was a large platform, guarded by more men in white. Four pillars extended almost to the roof, jet black rods stabbing into the air.
You could feel it, a twisting, a current, like a breeze in a room when you knew the windows should be closed. This was a place that went to elsewhere, away from and to the Where-We-All-Go.
“Portal Tzaddi,” Scribe said without emotion.
“Yes,” HuanJen answered.
“The Guardians are the Waykeepers. A specialized unit to deal with more unusual threats. Your own equivalent of the Rancelmen. Noted for white raiment and golden-colored weapons.” The words fell of of Scribe’s lips like pebbles rolling down a hill.
HuanJen just nodded, looking rather sad. Jade said nothing.
“I’m going to be glad to be in a place where what I know doesn’t matter,” Scribe stated flatly.
Jade blinked, and then felt something grip her heart, a kind of diffuse sadness.
“Who are the people waiting over by those trees?” Scribe queried in an enthused manner.
“Observers from the Guilds,” HuanJen answered, “They wish to see things are done.”
“And their asses saved,” Jade added.
Scribe shook his head. “I don’t blame them. I know what I let him do.”
Jade, HuanJen, and their charge walked up the platform, and were met by a man dressed in white and gray. Without a word he stood among them, and gestured to one of the Waykeepers.
Scribe smiled strangely. “A Navigator. Guide-between-world.”
A press of the button, a whine of a generator …
There was a momentary pull, a feeling of spinning, and then they were elsewhere.
No one knows who founded Sanctum. Like Xai, it seemed reachable from most, if not all Earths, though in some cases Travel was difficult. It seemed to call some people though; the mystic, the spiritual, the reaching-out. It was home to a few dozen religious orders scattered across its surface, and a host of interesting phenomena.
From it came some of the more unusual mystics and clerics of Xai and other worlds. It was where you went to leave things, whereas Xai was where you went to find them.
It was Sanctum, and no other name seemed appropriate.
Jade felt as if she’d been pulled through a rubber sheet - a momentary snap, and she was suddenly elsewhere.
Sanctum.
It really didn’t look that different.
The sky was blue. There were clouds. There were birds or things with wings at least. There was one sun. A pretty standard sky package.
Here, the Portal was more what Jade was used to - there were people milling about, guards, storehouses, checkpoints. Not as busy as any of the Portals on Xai, but stil
l, busy.
HuanJen presented some papers to a guard wearing an odd red outfit, talked in hushed tones-then returned to Jade, Scribe, and the Navigator.
“We have transport arranged back to Portal Tzaddi this time tomorrow. Please meet us there so we can return properly.”
The Navigator nodded, stepped back … and he wasn’t there. Jade blinked, having a momentary flash of headache.
“Time to go,” HuanJen extended a long-fingered hand to Scribe. For a moment, the young man just looked at it, and then took it. Jade took the other.
The trio walked into the World of the Where-We-Pray.
A half hour later, Jade saw the Order.
The vehicle that had picked them up, some ungainly, powerful contraption she thought of as a Jeep with a hormone problem, had been trundling down one of the dirt roads of Sanctum. Jade was vaguely used to the uncomfortable ride, and then … she felt something.
“There,” HuanJen had pointed. Scribe and the Vulpine strained to look into the rolling land ahead.
At first, it looked like a rather hilly region of the world, with a few buildings. Then you looked, and looked again. Each time you saw a little more, until you realized what you were looking at. Then, it was as clear as glass.
It was a city, one that blended into the landscape as if it was meant to be there. Rocks and hills, fields and forests, all seemed to flow uninterrupted into buldings and walls and towers. The design of the buildings were strangely organic, curves and waves and contours. There was no shining metal or flashy colors - the colors of every building or shrine were colors you’d find naturally.
“Welcome to the Home of the Order,” HuanJen stated simply, “where I was raised.”
Scribe, bouncing along next to the mystic, smiled a bit.
“Scribe?” HuanJen inquired.
“I … like it.” Scribe’s eyes flashed. There was a sense of inquisitiveness, of curiosity.
“I didn’t even see it,” Jade commented as the transport hit a rock.
“I know, that … is what I liked,” Scribe answered sadly.
In a few minutes, the bizarre vehicle had stopped by what Jade assumed was an entrance to the Order. The place didn’t seem to have city walls or a moat or some form of demarcation or defense. Just places here and there that told you “this is a good place to enter.”
The trio walked into the not-quite-city of the Order, passing by several stone statues. Their age was indeterminate, and Jade wasn’t sure what they were made from.
“Lao-tzu, Chuang-Tzu, Prince An, Lu Dong-bin,” HuanJen intoned, walking by the stone figures, “those to whom we credit the Order, even if we do so in pieces.”
Jade nodded, casting a look at Scribe. You could feel the place pouring into his head. He seemed to draw things into himself.
Ancient sages stared down at the trio. Jade remembered the stories of the various philosopers the Order credited Thinkers and radicals who stepped back from themselves and into infinity, alchemists of the soul speaking in metaphor, all revolving around a center unseen. One center, one place-of-emination, called Tao here, and by many names elsewhere.
“Time separation?” Scribe asked as they passed the final statue.
“Well over one thousand five hundred years,” HuanJen replied, “Things have evolved and reformed and altered over time. We integrate and move on, and stay with what is eternal. The order didn’t even become ‘Taoist’ until centures after the main integration.”
Jade felt herself distant, and took HuanJen’s hand in her own. Everything felt far away and as close as her breath. This was where her lover came from.
HuanJen gave Jade’s hand a reassuring squeeze, and smiled at her. It was the kind of smile that told her everything was bizarre, but perfectly fine. It was the kind of smile she had not seen for too long.
“This is where I come from,” HuanJen said to no one in particular and everyone.
It suddenly seemed to make everything more normal to Jade.
Inside the Order was a bit different than the outside - Jade found she could at least get a handle on how the place was laid out.
There were roads and streets and paths. There were buildings and fountains and parks. Everything blended into each other, into the trees, into the contours of the land. At first, it was disturbing, everything without boundaries.
Then she thought of HuanJen, and it made sense. It was … him.
The trio passed by people, many in simple clothes or yellow robes, not as diverse a crowd as Metris, but still a varied one nonetheless. A few non-standard humans were visible here and there.
And it was quiet. Noise and sound happened, but it didn’t seem to intrude, it just flowed into everything. It wasn’t the frightful silence of colony or the chaos-choir of Metris.
This is where I come from …
“I love you,” Jade felt herself saying. In response, HuanJen just smiled. Scribe, behind her, smiled as well - a strangely knowing expression for his age.
Then it hit her that he was a teenager, and he had a head full of hormones as well as information. He probably had quite a few ideas about their life.
Such an idea made him seem more human. Jade swallowed. He was a boy and a human and a bomb-made-flesh all in one. She had felt sorry for him, but now, truly, she felt more sorry for Scribe than she ever had.
She looked at HuanJen. Where else but Sanctum could you send him? Even if it wasn’t to the Order, somewhere on here, among the other religious colonies …
“This is the home of the Celestial Master. Or Mistress in this case.”
Jade stopped her ruminations. The were standing in a small park, and in the center was a nondescript house and a few herb gardens. The rest of the Order seemed to shrink back from it - not physically, but conceptually. Just a tiny house among some plants and other buildings.
“It’s not impressive,” Jade added, feeling she should say something.
“It’s not supposed to be. She’s leader of the Inner Order, such as that is.”
“Order politics?” Jade asked as the trio walked towards the house.
“Lack. There is the Outer Order of alchemy and mental disciplines and basic philosophy, and that rests on the Inner Order. And the Inner Order … is the Inner Order.”
“So when do I get introduced to this?”
HuanJen shook his head. “All things in time …”
And the door swung open as they approached it.
A woman of indeterminate age regarded the odd trio calmly. Her hair and skin were cut from the night sky. Her eyes were earth-brown. Her age was hard to estimate - she looked like the kind of person who became forty at age twenty and stayed that way until death.
“Magna,” HuanJen bowed slightly, “My assistant Jade, and Derek Jacobi, the Scribe.”
“Hello, Jade, I hope you are progressing well.” Magna bowed to Jade, who bowed back instinctively.
“I’m … doing my best.” Jade shrugged. “You people do good work, HuanJen turned out fine.”
There was some laughter from Magna. “Well thank you. We are as we are …”
“And I see where he gets the bullshit from..”
HuanJen gave Jade a curious look, then smiled. Magna merely nodded, eyes sparkling.
“Well, come in …”
Magna Alexia’s home was a … well, homey place, in Jade’s opinion. Nothing fancy, nothing exceptional, unless you looked close. Flowers were odd things with odd smells. Decorations, few that they were, had religious motifs, especially moons and dragons and yin-yangs. Magna had wrapped the Taoism of the Order around herself like a blanket.
Jade didn’t detect a Mr. Alexia. If there was one, she imagined some tall, bookish, quiet man, someone who seemed like he was never apart from Magna.
Magna brewed some tea, and had a short chat with Scribe. This and that, a few things here and there. Nothing that stood out, just a woman and some guests, and a possible immigration …
… and the world inverted on Jade.
A m
ystical order led by some middle-aged woman in a friendly home. Tea to discuss a young boys life being turned around. Nothing like you’d expect, because that was how you got to what was really going on. Just like outside, the Order just fit in.
” … so you don’t have any formal training, it’s no problem, few people here actually are lifetime clerics …”
On Xai, Scribe didn’t fit in.
Here, everything did, seamlessly, without boundary. Here, world away, when thousands of years ago someone had opened the Portals and founded a place away from the buzz and rubmle of their world. Everyone needed a place to be at peace, and for many, that was Sanctum.
” … you’d be surprised what technology we do have, we are not Luddites …”
And HuanJen did this because he was, of all things, a responsible bastard. Things fit together in the world, if you remembered, and he did. All the things together we’re the holy things in his life.
” … I understand. I’m glad to be here.”
Scribe suddenly seemed to take up the entire room.
“It’s over, isn’t it?” the young man asked.
“Yes,” HuanJen answered, a single world splitting past and future and reweaving them.
Scribe seemed to deflate, though he smiled wearily. “Another new world … “
“Your world if you want, Scribe, for as long as is needed,” Magna said. Her words fit into Scribes in a way that reminded Jade of HuanJen.
Scribe nodded. “And Derek. I want to be called Derek. I really don’t like the nickname anymore.”
“Of course,” Magna stood, and extended a hand. “Why don’t I show you around. HuanJen? Jade, can you …”
“Wait.” Scribe shook his head. “Can I have some time alone with them, please?”
Magna nodded. “Of course, I’ll be in the kitchen, through that door and around the corner.”
When the Celestial Mistress had left, Scribe faced his benefactors, looking concerned.
“Before I say anything . . thank you. Thank you for trying and this is proably the best I’ll get. Maybe … well I don’t know, but with my memory, I bet I’m going to make a lot of progress. At least here I won’t be a threat. So, thanks.”
Jade loked at HuanJen who was smiling sadly.
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