Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 14:37:38 -0500 Message-ID: <199611231937.OAA23726@asylum.apocalypse.org> From: "Kelly J. Cooper" Subject: [JWW] The Long Walk Home, part 3: "Lost" Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Mail-To-News-Contact: admin@nym.alias.net Organization: mail2news@nym.alias.net Lines: 331 Xref: orb alt.pub.dragons-inn:3800 [ADMIN: Parts 1 & 2 were posted in October and can be found at http://www.apocalypse.org/pub/u/kjc/dragon/TLWH.Chapter.1 http://www.apocalypse.org/pub/u/kjc/dragon/TLWH.Chapter.2 Now for the slightly over-explanatory bit. The first half of this post, I just finished writing. The second half (minus the last few lines) was written over two years ago with the ever gracious Colin Roald, colin@callisto.pas.rochester.edu, penning his character Carroll (who is wholly his, all rights reserved). This may seem odd to you. Probably because it IS odd. But, to briefly explicate, I & some of my cohorts (geezers or old-timers or what-have-you) wrote parts of a thread that was to be called "Home Again" and had the tag-line of [HA] about two years ago. It was going to be about the process of getting Kardia Xvaramene (a character belonging to Phyllis Rostykus, aka Liralen Li) back to the planet of her birth, a world referred to as Shadow. We started posting it and the first THREE posts of that thread can be found at http://www.apocalypse.org/pub/u/kjc/JWW.html (near the bottom). Then we ran out of time (and maybe some of the magic of enthusiasm) and the thread never went any farther. But I kept writing stories for Jameson W. Walker in my head that I never had time to put to paper (or screen). Those stories included and grew from background that was fleshed out in some of the things we prepared for [HA] but never posted (like the included piece written with Colin). And Jameson's life as it was is caught on hold, trapped far away from doing what she wanted to do in the [HA] thread. That in & of itself became a story, which I started posting a little over a month ago. (And there will be a couple MORE flashback sequences in the posts to come). This piece is part three. Thank you for your patience. ..END ADMIN] ** --- < <<< --*-- >>> > --- ** "Lost in the darkness of a land Where all the hope that's offered is Memories of being taken by the hand And we are led into the sun" - Sarah McLachlan, "Lost" ** --- < <<< --*-- >>> > --- ** The day was warm. A deep red sun shone above. Animals were chirping, birds were skittering about and there was a quiet harmony all around. Jameson W. Walker was doing the most natural thing in the world. She was walking. She walked smoothly, comfortably, and easily with the long, loose-jointed, distance-eating strides of someone who had (after nearly eight-hundred years of practice) perfected the art. Her mind, however, occupied itself in a bit more of a frenetic fashion. She was thinking about the last time she died. But her thoughts also drifted, ranging over a number of topics though mostly reviewing her last few years looking for some order or disorder, some pattern or distinctive lack of pattern - anything that might tell her why she had been pulled here. But, against her own will, her wondering mind kept slipping back to her last death, a torn flesh-doll dancing on the barbed tendrils of a god-eater. She couldn't stop probing at the memory as if it were an itchy scar or a loose tooth. In truth, the only pattern being repeated was that, in times of great stress, Jameson anchored large chunks of her life around her deaths. She considered her childhood to be truly over after her first betrayal, when she was actually cliche'd to death by a dagger in the back. Her adolescence ended a hundred or so years later, at the hands of a torture expert who found the secrets of her healing flesh too fascinating to ignore. Most recently, she had been a tiny pawn in a war for a whole world, for perhaps a part of that galaxy, a foothold in the fight for a universe. But her small part of the battle was for Nexus, Jameson's most recent home. She had been a tool, a weapon, a victim, and a survivor. She briefly considered whether her trip here was due to fallout from that struggle but decided against it. The enemy was not a subtle guest on any planet it visited. She would have found some evidence of its presence before now. But this death anchored her to a her own evolution. Her body/mind unit rarely changed except under great stress, but now she was different. Down, perhaps, to her highly adaptable DNA. Now, she had things in her mind, wrapped around like a mental cloak, that few flesh people could perceive and even fewer understand. And after that, she'd hidden away and nearly abandoned Nexus, denying herself the comfort of feeling at home because it had turned bitter with the violation of her life. But instead of leaving, she'd hung on long enough to slowly heal, and with much help from friends and some stability from the world around her, she won her life back. Again. In a deeper sense, she was tired of always fighting to take herself back. And more immediately in the world around her, she was tired of being lost while knowing exactly where she was. It came too soon on the heels of the last. While her mind wandered, her feet wended their way through a great forest and no one paid her much attention. She was en route to the tenth and final known door on this planet - one last-chance gateway, a link between this world and another. It could be the first step in a path that would lead her back to Nexus. Or it could be sealed off, like the previous nine, trapping her on this planet for a long as it took the natives to develop space-travel. But that set-back was still a possibility in her insistently flexible future. The possible-door was in a place called The City of Glass, and the city was to the west, and that was where she headed with the sun rising on her left and filtering reddish light down through the leaves of the trees around her. Something small and gray flew past her head, close enough to brush her hair across her eyes, and she was struck by a memory so vivid that it flashed before her... --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Listen three eyes, don't you try and outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal." - unknown <<--*-->> In a normal building, it would have been just basement storage space. It was storage space here, too, but this was the Mage Guild of Generica--and so it was filled with dusty gilt-framed mirrors, cracked crystal balls of all sizes, stuffed six-armed surprised-looking beavers, and ranks of giant chessmen. The one pool of light in the room illuminated a blond young man bent low over a cramped untidy desk, his goatee almost brushing the surface. A small brass plaque beside the door read, "Ex. Pl. Con. Aux. Storage". Below that was tacked a small card: "Jyn. Carroll Jarvek." The voice was quiet, but carried well across the room. "Which do you suppose is larger, your mind or the sky?" Carroll looked up from his paperwork and blinked a bit owlishly at the visitor. A woman, slightly taller than average and dressed in traveling clothes, leaned against the doorjamb with an elaborately casual air. He thought for a moment about the question, then replied, "Pardon me?" "Which," she paused and adjusted her lean slightly, "do you suppose is larger, your mind or the sky?" She smiled--a pleasantly bland sort of expression. After looking at her for a moment Carroll puzzledly repeated the novitiate formula. "Your mind, of course, since it can contain the sky and all the rest of the universe as well." The woman straightened up with a real smile and entered the room. Scooping up an armful of files, she gently placed them on the floor and took their place uninvited in the chair beside his desk. Scruffy and badly repaired, the desk seemed to be the sole normal thing in the room besides the calm journeyman himself. Settling her pack beside her, the woman looked up and blinked at him expectantly. Eventually, he said, "Yes?" "You obviously haven't been working here long. You're far too intact. I need some information, but the kindly old ArchMage of Extraplanar Contacts probably won't even grant me an interview much less let me peer at his files. I suspect he has consigned my existence to a category of 'feeble female' somewhere deep in the recesses of his well-folded brain. I was hoping for charming young file-clerk to rebel against the wretched constraints of his duties and help me out. Interested?" A stoic resolve not to be out-weirded settled over Carroll. He chose his reply carefully. "You know, before I risk the wrath of my boss, and I suppose potential expulsion from the Guild, I _will_ need to know who exactly you are. I'm sure you can see my position." The woman's eyes widened. "How terribly rude of me. I keep getting cut off whenever I attempt to do a formal greeting, so I'm afraid I've fallen out of the habit. I am Jameson W. Walker--do you want the full formality?" At Carroll's half-shrugging nod Jameson stood up and took a step back. Her voice took on a much more formal tone but remained quiet. "Jameson is who I am; Walker is what I am. I am a Walker for the Onari, The People of the Maps, We Who Search for the Shape of the Universe, They Who Seek the New. I am an Emissary. I am also known as <> among the Mi-Hay, the tribe of my Teacher. Our coordinates are distant and our databases vast. I formally greet you, er..." She looked at him, eyebrows raised. He helpfully interjected, "Journeyman Carroll Jarvek, third son of Baron Jannald of Soerk." Jameson smiled at him warmly, "I formally greet you, Journeyman Carroll, and extend the grasping-unit of cooperation and mutual benefit." She held out her hand and Carroll shook it solemnly. "Now, we dance. No, just kidding." She paused again. Guessing what she was waiting for, he replied, "If this were my home, I'd bid you welcome and good day, and extend to you the protection and bounty of my household as if you were my own kin, for so long as you should stay. Alas, this is merely the musty storage space where Mage Ryall has tucked me away while I'm working for her. I suppose I can still bid you welcome and good day, though." He bowed ironically over his papers. As his odd visitor sat back down, he continued, "Well then, Jameson. I am curious. If you're an emissary, why don't you just make a formal request for the information?" Jameson shrugged. "I tried. Fauteuil brushed me off. Of course I barged in on the man and have yet to try the proper channels," her eyes went distant for a moment, then focused on Carroll, "But I was quite distracted at the time and have only recently gathered my senses all in once place again. Mostly. I'm not much of a diplomat and I suspect that if it was known what I really am and whom I represent, I'd have a lot more political manure to wade through every day. Stealth mode does have its disadvantages, like for instance when one is trying to get information, but I think the benefits outweigh the problems, don't you?" Her green eyes were very clear and Carroll had the vague feeling that getting into an argument with her would result in his having a headache and her looking at him exactly as she was at this moment. "Ah. Yes. Stealth, indeed." Carroll frowned. "What I meant, though, is that I'm not sure what's to keep me from thinking you a crackpot and asking security to escort you out. Other than hospital- ity, of course." He shrugged and smiled companionably. Jameson pursed her lips and frowned slightly. "Excellent point. I could have made all of that up rather easily, couldn't I have? Hrm. Does your department have a database of known and rumored cross- cultures on other worlds? You know--the sort that list contacts in various places and certified mappers and the like? And, if so, can you access it?" "Hm. Yes. Quite." Carroll looked at her a moment before turning to a wire frame extended from the corner of his desk and touching a switch at its base. The frame became a screen which flashed text and allowed Carroll to delve into its files. "What am I looking for?" "The 'oh nar REE' -- in Common you spell it O-N-A-R-I." Carroll touched something, then stared hard at the screen. Jameson saw several screenfulls of text scroll by and watched, slightly fascin- ated, the rapid movement of the young man's eyes. He looked at her, surprise just barely touching his features. "Hmm. The Onari were considered mythological until recently. But you don't fit their physical descriptions at all." Jameson grimaced slightly. "I'm adopted. Look under Clan Designation Mi-Hay, Walker category, for Quebec, Echo, Sierra, Tango, Tango, Oscar." Carroll nodded. "Jameson. Here it is. Oh my." He looked up at her, eyes slightly unfocused, then back at the screen image. "Yes, I suppose this might be you. You know, you don't look 660 years old." Jameson cocked her head and smiled, "Of course not. I'm almost 800 now. Convinced yet?" Again Carroll nodded. "Unless you've tampered with our information system, and if you have, this date stamp is a damned fine forgery. I might have to help you just for appreciation of the artistry." A moment of thought and then, "Well. I think before I stick my neck out any further, I should ask you what you want to know." After first taking a long look left, then a long look right, and finally checking behind her (eyebrows waggling wildly all the time in a conspiratorial sort of way bordering on the ridiculous) Jameson pulled a fountain pen from her pocket and wrote a series of numbers on a bit of parchment. "These are the coordinates for the world I'd like to know about--any and all data the Guild has on it. Rather impera- tive. I like being prepared before I go someplace where people are going to want to kill me. And please don't transmit the information to me--hand delivery is preferred. You can find me at the Lighthouse on the edge of town,"--at that reference Carroll's eyebrows quirked up--"or leave notice for me at the Dragon's Inn. If either is a problem I can compensate you for your time." Carroll stared at her with clear blue eyes. Surprised again. He was silent a long moment, trying to judge his curious visitor, when the silence was interrupted by a sudden flapping. Jameson's hair was blown into her eyes, and an odour swept over her, a bit like damp dog. An impish bat-winged shape settled on her shoulder, talons gripping gently, the familiar's tiny wrinkled face creased with a broad grin. It leaned in and licked her cheek. Carroll laughed, rather pleased to see his enigmatic visitor caught off guard. "Well, it seems Fyrk likes you, so I suppose you must be okay. I'll see what I can do." She grinned first at Fyrk, then at Carroll, and stood, scooping up her bag in the process. Fyrk half hopped, half flapped off her shoulder onto the table near Carroll's right hand. Jameson turned on her heel and left with a cheery wave. Carroll watched her go with a bemused expression on his face. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Realizing she was standing still, the present day Jameson shook herself from her reverie with a smile, tenuous but genuine, at the memory. Two years ago, Carroll's information had allowed her to punch her first hole through to Shadow - a delicate operation due to the various weird karmic forces wrapped around the planet. She snuffled lightly into her sleeve and resumed walking toward The City of Glass. -- Copyright 1996 by Kelly J. Cooper and Colin Roald. All rights reserved. -- Kelly J. Cooper kjc@apocalypse.org Writer for Jameson W. Walker Keeper of the Mage Guild FAQ http://www.apocalypse.org/pub/u/kjc/dragon.html "Reflection, surprise, terror. For the future." - Kosh, Babylon5