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A bare month after Yue began her little stealth subversion of the Masters' collective intention to saddle Stephen with an apprentice by saddling the New York Sanctum instead with a collection of nearly-qualified sorcerers, she was not sure whether she'd won...or just bought herself a brand new problem. The senior-juniors (she really wasn't quite sure what to call them in English - Stephen had unhelpfully dubbed them "undergrads" and she told him that if he called them that to their faces then he was going to get called Professor, at which point he stopped) were quite a bit more help than a novice or apprentice like Chimini or Kamon, but they came up with more complex questions that were quite a bit harder to solve.
When Yue went to Wong for assistance, he laughed at her silently behind a deadpan face and told her that she'd made this mess, she could clean it up herself. It was only when she pointed out that the mess had spared Stephen getting saddled with his own personal problem child that Wong had unbent enough to open portions of the Kamar Taj library on this sort of historical precedent for her. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of use in there.
Dr. Inika was more open about laughing, but the delight in her eyes was something of a balm to Yue's soul. "My dear," her therapist told her, as she poured her a cup of oolong tea, "if you can make it through this experiment you've started without regressing unduly, I will make you a cake. You have set yourself a challenge that's more than worthy of any Sanctum Seneschal, and you're not even a Master yet."
"Yes, but I feel like I'm drowning," Yue complained. "They keep coming to me with questions that I might have answers to, but what if I'm wrong ?"
"Then you have learned something about yourself," Dr. Inika pointed out - somewhat heartlessly, Yue thought.
"I don't want to do that at the expense of other people!"
"Ah," Dr. Inika said, nodding slowly, and her laughter subsided. "That's fair. Have you asked the other Sanctum Seneschals for help?"
"They're drowning too," Yue grumbled. "Li Wei is training up his replacement and says that if I come bother him too much he'll send Eloni to me for training with the rest of them, and serves me right for going off to New York and robbing him of his second. Never mind that New York was his idea in the first place, and he told me we wouldn't have any apprentices for at least a year! And Calyx has her hands full, keeping Master Arjun from annoying everyone in Madagascar and Paris and Rome to the point of mutiny, even if Bombay is finally willing to talk to them because there's an Indian Master in charge of London."
Dr. Inika nodded.
"We're just all still frantic trying to recover from the damage Kaecilius did, and the Masters are just as frantic, trying to get us back to strength before the next crisis. But they don't bother to look beyond the end of their noses! And I can't ask Master Fei because officially she has to disapprove of what I'm doing, since it sank that stupid plot of the Masters to saddle Stephen with an apprentice."
She took a deep breath and went on, "You know how well I get along with Master Arjun, so he's out. And Stephen's an amazing sorcerer, but he has the wrong kind of experience to answer these sorts of questions - this is all stuff that he'd have learned if he'd gone through the normal channels, but instead he was the late Sorcerer Supreme's personal student and he got to bypass all of these stupid backwater tracks!"
"You do sound stuck," Dr. Inika said, her earlier jocularity completely gone. "I'm sorry, Yue. You're into territory where all I can do is listen and tell you that I think you're doing well. In the management of this problem, I'm afraid you'll have to make your own answers. For what it's worth, though, I think you'll find a solution somehow. Even a year ago, you'd have given up and gone back to Hong Kong by now."
Yue sighed, and let her face rest on her hands for a moment or two before straightening up. "You're right. I have to handle this. I made this mess, I have to fix it."
"When you had the mess in the Sanctum, did you have to fix it alone?" Dr. Inika asked.
"No, but I'm out of ideas for where to go for help!" Yue said.
Dr. Inika nodded. "Then how will you go about getting more ideas?"
"..." said Yue, and stopped talking. One of the most restful things about Dr. Inika was that she was perfectly willing to let Yue sit and think, and one of the most aggravating things (which she didn't have to do to Yue much anymore) was her uncanny insight into when someone had stopped thinking about the question they'd been posed, and had wandered off down into other paths of thought.
Finally, Yue said, "I don't know. But I think I should think about it back in New York. And I couldn't tell you why, even should my life depend upon it. It's just a feeling."
"Good," Dr. Inika said. "Then will shall table that issue. What else do you have to discuss with me?"
Yue took a deep breath and shoved the conundrum of what to do about her self-inflicted clever idea to the side, and instead discussed the more prosaic details of how she was managing to keep from having panic attacks whenever the Masters demanded a formal written summary of how her "graduation school" was progressing, and how Stephen was contributing to it. (Yue had given in after the first week and allowed Stephen to help her, which did give her more ammunition in her volleys against the Masters. And the fact that he was helping but not in charge meant he was free to go deal with the issues that arose from time to time that did require his attention.)
By the time she left Dr. Inika, she felt, if not centered at least much less frantic. She headed back to New York, wondering when it had become "home" in her mind.
After dinner in the dining room - now that they had a dozen undergrads in residence (oh, how annoying, that name was going to stick in her head, even if it didn't stick elsewhere) - Yue set them to cleaning the dishes, and headed downstairs to a small room she'd discovered in the basement, next to the boiler.
She was quite certain that the door to this room had not existed when she had first relit the boiler and burned an offering for Seneschal Gloria four months earlier. She was not even sure that it had existed a month ago, when she'd come to the basement in search of a bucket and a mop to clean up a broken mug and spilled tea in the kitchen. It did, however, exist now, and the room beyond was a small, bare hexagonal one with polished stone walls tiled in a a gneiss that she had realized must have been quarried - or extracted in some other way - from Manhatten's own bedrock.
There was nothing in the center of the room, though Yue felt very much like there ought to be. However, it was an excellent place to meditate, so she left a kneeling cushion and a floor pillow there. It had the added benefit that when she was in there, nobody bothered her. So after she was certain that nothing was going to explode for at least an hour, and she had warned Stephen she would be unavailable, she settled down to meditate.
At first, she had the usual problems: her mind refused to settle, it darted in all directions at once, it gnawed on insoluble problems or yelled at her in the voice that she had labeled as her mother's, it was generally uncooperative. This was to be expected, Yue knew, and she patiently waited it out. Finally, when she was calm and centered, and nothing kept popping up to demand her attention, she welcomed in the question: where do I get help?
A map bloomed in her mind. It was one she was intimately familiar with; nearly every initiate in Kamar Taj or the Sanctums had seen it at one time or another. It was the globe of Earth, with the weblines of the Sanctums and their associated Shrines, sharing power to defend the sphere of Earth against extraplanar attacks and magical threats, a network of ley lines, nodes, enclaves of sorcerers and knowledge keepers, all there to preserve that most important of treasures: life unimpinged by external forces.
She let the map turn in her mind, until the New York Sanctum presented itself, at the center of its own web of give and take, running all up and down the two continents of the western hemisphere. The lines shone in her mind, green for the outflow and gold for the inflow. Only, in her mind the gold was less bright than the green. It shone less brilliant, unbalanced.
For a moment, she flashed to her explanation of her balancing of Stephen in the library, the yin and yang of the two of them, and then the vision faded.
Yue opened her eyes to the dim light of her candle, guttering low in its holder, and her knees feeling like they'd been stabbed with a thousand ill-placed acupuncture needles. Leaning forward, she put her hands flat to the polished gneiss floor and murmured softly, "谢 谢 您 的 帮 助," before pressing her head to the floor for a moment. She gathered up her candle and left the room on silent stockinged feet, to go search Seneschal Gloria's email for some addresses, and then to find something in the Sanctum she could repair in gratitude.
--
To: [email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Training (next generation and Sanctum Seneschal alike)
Greetings and hope to you all.
My name is Zhao Yue, Seneschal of New York. We haven't met yet, presumably because you all have more sense than to set foot in New York right now, what with all the Avengers activity going on and the recent instability regarding Kaecilius and the mess he left behind.
I have (mostly) cleaned up the physical damage to the Sanctum, and I assume that the weblines from here to you are behaving themselves or I would have heard otherwise. However, the damage to the Sanctum's staff resulted in a complete turnover of those who are here, and as part of that change, the current Sanctum Master, Doctor Stephen Strange, is taking some time to settle.
As this was happening, I took it upon myself to offer the Sanctum as a location for those who have nearly completed their novice and apprentice work to congregate and discuss their upcoming trials to full-fledged sorcerers. This lets the students experience the Sanctum for themselves, builds collaboration between them (which is generally beneficial when suddenly thrown together in the defense of Earth) and also lets them panic at those who are intimately familiar with the emotions they are currently experiencing.
However, it has also resulted in the unforeseen-by-me consequence of many questions I am not positioned to answer, as I am not yet a master, nor do I have the breadth of study that can easily answer them.
I have no interest in derailing anyone's graduation for the sake of my own pride. However, it strikes me that talking to some of the keepers of the shrines may educate me, and allow me to pass that knowledge on to the students. Also, it means I get a chance to meet some of you.
If you would be up for accommodating a visit by me, or in visiting the New York sanctum, I would be interested in hearing from you.
Peace to you all,
Zhao Yue, Seneschal, New York
~
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Training
Greetings Seneschal Zhao,
While we are sorry to hear that Seneschal Gloria was lost in the recent fighting, we look forward to working with you in the future. But we advise that you do not come visit right now, it is about to be very wet here in Trinidad. Unless perhaps you know a spell to grow gills?
More seriously, we have a tropical storm bearing down on us, and are bracing up our defenses. We do not expect the Shrine to take substantial damage, but there is likely to be some infrastructure damage. We are unable to provide extensive support to you at this time, but I suggest you contact Master Antônia Cabral of the Ilhabela, Brazil Shrine, and have CCed her on this message.
Antônia, be nice to the poor Seneschal, she's got the Kamar Taj Masters chewing on her feathers, and your Shrine is currently not flooded, so you have no reason to be unkind. Unlike us. ;-)
Best of luck,
Dominic Charles, Keeper Port-of-Spain
~
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Training
Dominic, I'm always nice. Don't go giving the Seneschal nasty ideas about me before we get a chance to offend each other in person, yes? (Do not believe them, Seneschal Zhao, I had nothing to do with the salamanders in their fish pond.)
When would you like me to come up to visit? Or shall I open a portal for you? I have been to New York once, but I do not think you have been here, which makes Sling Rings somewhat useless. We are in our winter here, and it is foggy and cold, but if you are too hot in New York perhaps it would be a welcome change? (Though we are hosting one of the Yanomami, so we would ask that you not leave the room you arrive in, as viruses from New York would be an unwelcome addition to their biome.)
I look forward to meeting you.
Antônia Cabral, Keeper Ilhabela
~
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Training (next generation and Sanctum Seneschal alike)
Seneschal Zhao,
Our apologies, but a local augury has indicated that Seattle is probably facing a subduction quake sometime in the next 24 to 72 hours. I've got my hands full stabilizing the Shrine right now, and coordinating with a couple of other Keepers up and down the West Coast to try to make sure that nothing major gets tsunami'd. If you wrote to San Francisco, Mike probably told you the same thing?
I'll be in touch next week, but hopefully you'll have things sorted out by then? We don't need another blow up like whatever happened last February, please.
Good luck,
Christopher Albus, Keeper Bainbridge Island
~
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Training (next generation and Sanctum Seneschal alike)
Seneschal Zhao,
I'm available to help, there is absolutely nothing interesting going on up here right now. I know better than to say, "Save me from my boredom," but perhaps, "Save me from the light?" The sun gets below the horizon up here right now, but not by much and not for very long.
Just tell me when and send me a clear picture.
Denis Dupont, Keeper Anticosti Island
~
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: We will see you at the dark of the Moon
Attachments: image0.jpg
Seneschal Zhao Yue,
Your name is auspicious. We will see you at the dark of the Moon. Please find attached an image of the Isla de la Luna shrine. It should be of sufficient clarity that you will be able to attend.
You will be do fine,
Peqari
Yue looked in bemusement at the last email in her inbox, the one without any indication of receipt of the original email. But it had her name on it. Whoever Peqari was, they were one of the odder Keepers - assuming they were a Shrine Keeper at all. It wasn't a name Yue knew at all.
The others - getting two potential collaborants out of her rather plaintive email was quite a bit more than she'd expected, but at the same time, she'd allowed herself some hope that something good would come of it. And it had. She dropped an email to Keepers Dupont and Cabral with a photo of the Sanctum's portal room, and suggested midafternoon. They were all within an hour of the New York timezone, and at least for Dupont, she would offer him the use of one of the windowless rooms to sleep in, if he liked.
--
Promptly at 3:30pm, swirling orange sparks formed a portal in the Portal room, and a tan-skinned, tow-headed man in his late thirties stepped through. He had dark brown eyes that had squint lines all around them, and two earrings in his left ear, and rather than the formal robes and markers of mastery, he wore jeans and a t-shirt, with his sorcerer's robe tossed rather haphazardly on over it. The sash was not tied and, in fact, hanging loose in such a way that it made the robe look more like a dressing gown. He glanced down at Yue's quirked eyebrow, laughed, and gathered up the sash in a wad which he shoved in the back pocket of his jeans along with a chunk of the robe. He made a disgusted noise, muttered something in French - Yue knew enough to recognize the language but didn't speak it - pulled the robe out, and said, "Well, there goes my first impression," in exasperated tones. Yue liked him instantly for it.
"Welcome to New York," she said, smiling, and holding out her hands. "And have no fear of being out of place. The Sanctum Master is also fond of blue jeans."
"Well, that's a relief," he said, taking her hands in his and clasping them together. "Denis Dupont, Anticosti Island. You must be Zhao Yue." He let go and looked around. "Did no one else say yes? I seem to recall at least twenty sorcerers here the last time I came, though that was...what, six years ago?"
"Keeper Cabral of Ilhabela Island also said yes," Yue said, "but everyone else appears to be dealing with natural disasters of one flavor or another this week. I planned poorly when I arranged this gathering so near the Solstice."
"Eh," Dupont said, "time marches on her merry way and leaves us running after her, doing our best to keep up. How are you settling in then? Haven't heard much news from New York since the mess with the Sanctums getting blown up. I don't imagine you've had much time to catch your breath."
Yue sighed. "Not as such, no. There was the damage to repair, creatures to expel, and a bug hunt to run."
"Apprentices. I do not envy you," he said, smiling. "At least as a Shrine Keeper I am not saddled with those."
"But you're one of the major shrines, at least according to the list Seneschal Gloria left behind," Yue protested. "Is there only you?"
Dupont laughed. "Well, we are a large power distribution node, but not too many things exploding up around us, particularly not this time of year. Both as Lighthouse Keeper and Sanctum Keeper, summer is my slow time. We might get the occasional Tarriassuq, but even those just need a little help to get back to their shadows. It won't be until autumn until things get busy for me - you couldn't have asked for my help at a better point in time."
Yue gave him a rueful, relieved expression. "I'm glad of that. So, then, what I am trying to do here --"
She was interrupted by a second portal opening, and a short, black-haired, black-eyed woman with skin the color of chestnuts striding through. Her robe was impeccable, if rather worn, and while she was quite short - shorter than Yue even - she more than made up for it with a ram-rod straight spine and poise. Yue felt momentarily grubby and poorly-put-together, before the woman turned, dismissed the portal, turned back to Yue, and smiled. "Your pardon, please, seneschal. I had guests who I could not in good conscience abandon, and they delayed me. I am Antônia Cabral, please call me Antônia."
Dupont smacked his forehead with his hand. "Je suis un sot," he muttered to himself. "Please, call me Denis. I did not even introduce myself."
"Oh, so you are Denis Dupont?" Antônia said, tilting her head. "You did very good work last year with the 'Suq that came in November, I read so in the last newsletter."
Denis made a fending-off gesture with one hand. "Some, some, but some luck," he said, his French accent suddenly quite a bit more pronounced. "Do not jinx me if you please."
"Ah, perdão," Antônia said, nodding. "Though I am glad to meet one with such 'luck.' Now, you would be Seneschal Zhao?" she said, turning to Yue.
Yue nodded, bemused. "A pleasure then," the short woman said. "You have decided to peel the pineapple of the Masters in Kamar Taj? I will gladly help."
"...peel the pineapple?" Denis said, after both he and Yue had stood there for a long, awkward moment.
Antônia laughed. "Ah. To, to do the difficult thing that no one else wishes to do." She looked at Yue, and cocked her head. "To do the thing where you are telling them to go away, and let your Sanctum Master find himself."
Yue exhaled. "Yes," she agreed, and then, switching to Portuguese, she added, << I do speak Portuguese, but I don't think the idiom translates either way. >>
"Probably not," Antônia agreed. "I forget, sometimes. New York has ignored us for so long, it is not as if I have practice. I was surprised you had emailed Dominic, to be honest. Some days, I believe the Masters ignore everyone south of the equator."
Yue grimaced. "I have no doubts about that. So, yes. I cannot argue with them head on, but if the Sanctum is already full of sorcerers, it is unlikely they will send more. And these people are more interested in passing their first and second examinations than in causing trouble for St-- for Doctor Strange."
"Then why call on us? Unless you need us to send more people here."
"I somehow suspect that is not her intent," Antônia said.
"No," Yue said, with slightly more vehemence than she'd really intended. "I need more people who can answer complex questions."
"Ahhhh," Denis said, nodding. "Mentors?"
"Not so much mentors as...advisors? Or just other competent adult figures who they can ask questions of. I have very little experience outside of the Hong Kong sanctum," Yue added, feeling a bit sheepish. "And these, these undergraduates, for lack of a better term, are unlikely to spend their whole lives in one."
"Yes," Antônia agreed. "The request is understood. Let us get something to eat and discuss how Denis and myself may assist you. I am sure some of what we will need to do will not occur here, but perhaps a rotating schedule through the Sanctum? It will also give you someone more adult to talk to as well, no? I think you have been alone here too long."
And over Yue's feeble protests, Antônia and Denis dragged her out to dinner and spent several hours regaling her with various stories of various Shrine Keeper antics and issues. Denis even pulled out a cellphone and demanded that the three of them schedule the next dinner out, only with more of the Shrine Keepers. "Indian food," he said firmly, "as it is possible to get vegan meals in most Indian restaurants, and thus we will accommodate any and all restrictions."
"Did you do this to Gloria too?" Yue demanded, outraged and amused in her outrage at the same time.
"No," Antônia said, "but she had, I think, four other masters in residence? As well as some ten to twelve apprentices? You are alone."
"Were," Yue sighed. "Yes. And I am supposed to be mastering my own spells, but at this point, I have no idea when I will manage that."
"Yes, what are you working on?" Denis responded instantly. "I never knew a Seneschal who didn't have some project or another to keep them from losing their minds over the day to day frustrations."
Yue felt her forehead furrow, realizing that he was correct, and that she'd never really thought of it like that before. Li Wei's focus had been on the creation of pocket storage, with the joke that he always wanted to be able to have the correct tool at his disposal without needing to search through half the sanctum for it.
"Master Wong gave me a book," she said hesitantly. "But I'm not sure I'm ready for it yet."
The two Shrine Keepers exchanged a look. << Isn't that just like a Kamar Taj Master, >> Antônia muttered. "Something complex and impractical, I suspect?" she asked, switching back to English.
"What book?" Denis asked.
Yue told them about the Golden Stone Wards.
There was silence at the table for a few long minutes, during which the waiter came and cleared their plates away, asked if they wanted dessert, and was waved off by a distracted Yue who was busy watching the two Shrine Keepers think. Finally, Antônia said, "That...hm."
"Antônia is right, and you are right," Denis agreed. "Those are very difficult wards. But many of the Shrines' wards took a beating when the Sanctums went down. There are a number of them that could do with reinforcement. And if anything would work...well."
Yue frowned. "How many Shrines?" she asked.
"I'm not sure," Antônia answered. "I know of at least two that we send power to who have said they are dealing with faults in their defenses. But that does not mean they are the only ones. The ones who came before, their magic is not like the sort from Europe and Asia. Their wardings are different, but they draw from our web just the same."
Denis nodded. "The Inuit and other people like them don't use the same sorcery we do, but we send them power; we all live on this world together. But if you were able to cast those wards, there are several nodes that used to be Shrines, I think, that could be reactivated. It's just that no one has bothered in a long time."
"As if you needed more to do," Antônia observed. "Do not let this Wong's book put you in a state of confusion, Seneschal Zhao. You have enough of that already." But she was smiling when she said it.
"Well…" Yue trailed off, then handed the waiter the Sanctum's credit card when he came back. This was definitely a working meal. "Wong is a friend," she said, finally. "I don't think he means to make me work too hard. And he and my former Seneschal said I was getting stale. But for now, I think just getting the juniors some people to talk to who will encourage them, yes."
"Every two weeks?" Denis said. "If we gather on the quarter moons, when things are generally more stable."
"And avoid the Solstices and Equinoxes, yes," Yue said. "I'm sure some of what kept everyone else away is that. Though, do either of you know anything about Keeper Peqari? At the Isla de la Luna in Bolivia? I wrote to their Keeper to ask, and got a. A peculiar response."
Antônia had gone very still, while Denis was shaking his head. "Not a name I know," he said, "but it looks like Antônia does?"
"She is a Quechua priestess, one of those who came before," Antônia said. "What did she say?"
"She said she would see me at the dark of the moon, and that I had an auspicious name," Yue admitted.
Antônia frowned. "I suppose that it is all right," she said, finally. "But I think you had better be sure your Sanctum Master - Strange, you said? I think he had better have someone here to back him up while you are gone. It may take longer than you think."
"Oh?" Yue said.
"The ones from before have ways that are unknown to Europeans, and to Kamar Taj. I only have talked to those of the Amazonian basin. Treat her with respect, and I think you will be fine, but you will likely come from her with more questions than you went with."
Yue laughed at that. "So, just like every other Master I have spoken with in the past five months. Except, perhaps Stephen."