The Book of the Blue House

Once lunch was done, every one began to clean up, and Conn learned that three boys across the hall were Blues in their first year, newly initiated, and that across the hall there were six rooms much like Derek’s though only one had a bathroom, and they all had to leave their rooms to bath in the shower room at the end of the hall.

“Well, I don’t know where there would be room for it,” Connleth said. “Cal’s room is back there,” Conn pointed beyond the kitchen.

“And that is the funny thing,” Cal noted, “all things are not even in this house, which is one of the reasons that people move so freely throughout it, save that first years usally have the rooms with no amenities, and we live in this joined together apartment.”

“Cal’s room is larger than all of ours,” Derek said, “with huge windows and everything, except that to get to it you must either come through this room.”

“Or,” Lorne pointed out, “you must get to it through the bathroom.”

“Through the…” Connleth now remembered that the door to Cal’s room did have shower water on the other side of it. He had assumed this was Cal’s own personal bathroom, but Nialla said, “I will show my brother the Temple, and if he has a mind for it, I will show him some of the city.”

“Some and not all?”

“Conn,” Nialla said, “This isn’t like Ipwick.”

Conn shook his head and said, “It isn’t like anything I’ve seen, really.”

“I have someone to see downstairs,” Cal said as if it were just another day at work which, of course, it was, and and Lorne said, “I could use an after lunch nap,” while Jon said, “If it’s the same, I’ll come with Conn and Nialla. For a bit. Then old Brother Ambrose likes to be read to before his two o’clock nap.”

“And what about Derek?” Cal said. “Back to bed?”

“Back to bed?” Derek said distractedly. “Ah, I think I’ll find something to do. I’m not ready for bed just yet.”

Conn was sad and glad at once. He’d loved sleeping deside the tall, black haired boy, and if Derek had gone back to sleep in that bed, Connleth would have longed to lie beside him.

Derek departed to his room and lay on the bed a while until everyone had left and until he heard, down the corridor, Lorne, settling down on his bed alone. He never stayed in this room for very long. It smelled of Nialla’s perfume, and there were her notebooks and things folded, for this was the place she had found to stay when she came to live here. Now Derek got up and entered the hallway, which was quiet and empty at this time of day, and he padded down the hall the opposite the way of the bathroom to the door where Nialla had come through with Coon that led to the back stairwell. Here, the hall lengthened, or it made a right turn, and he made the right turn and went to a door which led to a wider stair and down to the lower level. Embossed upon this door was the snake haired head of the goddess Medusa with her tongue leering out, For short, most people called this floor, and these rooms the Gorgon.

Derek pushed the door open, and thse corridors did not appear different from the ones above, but now and again, from behind the closed doors he heard gasps and outcries, swearing and shouting. He heard the furious pounding of sex.

Only a Blue Priest, or a novice in training to the priesthood ever saw the Gorgon. You met these rooms in your training, when you werd learning to embrace every desire and know no fear, when you were facing all the shadows and longings normal people ran from and testing your limits. And here, in the Gorgon’s rooms, a Blue in need could find whatever he desired. This morning, Derek had been exhausted after his service, but waking up with Conn all he had wanted ot do was reach for him, and had Conn been Lorne or Cal, he would have done just that and there would have been and end of it. But now his body still pulsated with a desire that Blues were not allowed to expend on anyone but another Blue or a particular lover. Sex was pleasure and always should be, yes, but lust had no place in the services of a Blue, and so the Gorgon rooms existed. Here, he could do what he needed and emerge exhausted and fulfilled. Today he needed the Faceless rooms, the rooms of complete darkness, where he would allow other men in need to reach for him or he would reach for them and they would do whatever they needed to do. And then he would shower and perhaps take his bath of purification, and emerge renewed with his head cleared.

“Yes,” Derek thought, as he answered the throbbing in his loins, and pushed open the door with the black circle painted on it, he would do exactly that.

He has risen as a light in the darkness, for the upright of heart. Hallal.

Blessed is the man who fears Varayan,

and loves his commands above all things.

His seed will be powerful on earth:

the descendants of the just will be blessed.

Glory and riches will fill his house,

and his righteousness will stand firm for ever.

At the top of Varayan Hill, several blocks northwest of the stately Blue Temple, they entered the Purplekirk, crouching in the heart of the central neighborhood of the city like a white and violet lion. Under the great dome tall as as a seven story building with a hollow wide as an arena, the voices of the monks reverberated as they sang the early evening prayer.

He rises up in the darkness,

a light for the upright,

compassionate, generous, and just.

Happy the man who takes pity and lends,

who directs his affairs with wisdom –

he will never be shaken.

The just man will be remembered for ever,

no slander will he fear.

“And Jon lives here?” Conn whispered from the chair where he sat behind a pillar with his sister.

“You could too,” Nialla said, “if it suits you. It’s beautiful, but it wouldn’t suit me. And having you away from me wouldn’t suit me either.”

“Then let’s not talk of it. You can stay with me tonight in Derek’s room.”

“Oh good.”

“Or,” Nialla said, ‘if you want the decadent luxury of your own room, then you could stay across the hall. I think there are some empty ones. You can tell because the doors of the empty rooms arealways cracked.”

His heart is ready, hoping in the Varayan;

his heart is strong, it will not fear,

until he looks down on his defeated enemies.

He gives alms and helps the poor:

his righteousness will endure for ever,

his future will be glorious.

The transgressor will see, and be enraged:

he will grind his teeth and fade away.

The desires of the wicked will perish.

They waited till the night psalm was over, and then Conn said, “That was nice. It’s been so long since I went to an actual service. I used to feel so calm when we were at the little kirk back home.”

“True,” Nialla notd, “but this is nothing like the kirk back home.”

“No.” Conn looked about at the great ancient structure, its white marble walls, its very wide aisles.

“I think our whole village could fit inside of here. I think I got tired just walking down the arcade.

He stretched his head, looking high up to the rafters and said, “Good Lord, can you just… how high is that?”

Nialla craned her neck to look at the door that was a network of sculpted and webbed stone and she said, “I can’t begin to imagine, but I do know one thing. If we don’t get back, the night is going to beat us, and I don’t mind traveling at night, but I don’t love it either.”

They left the monks to their singing. The great doors of Purplekirk opened up directly to the pavement, and the great townhouses and shops of the Everdeen were before them. The street was getting less bsuy with the venders shutting down, and Nialla lifted her finger and hailed a bus that took them down from the Evereenthe and back up to Morion Hill where the houses and buildings were overseen by the ancient, rectangularbutte of the Blue Temple.

They came in through the same white door Conn had entered that morning, but this time they went through the lobby and up a wider stair, and Cal met them on the first floor saying, “Com on, you all it’s dinner time, a communal dinner! So you’re going to meet Hyrum. He knows oyu’re here, Conn,” Cal said. “He’d love to meet you.”

Conn blinked and nodded, and he and Nialla followed Cal who was now in a loose blue robe like a monk’s, his hands folded into it, the hood hanging.

Well, Conn reminded himself, he is a priest. They are all priests.

Derek.

Merry, beautiful black haired Derek, was a priest too.

He told himself he was treacherous, because suddenly he longed to lay in bed with Derek again, and not stay with Nialla at all.

They went up several floors. Conn knew they were traveling higher than the floor where Derek and Cal and Lorne lived, where he would be living, but he forgot to count and midway ip, when Nialla let herself take the breath Conn was holding in, Cal said, “Come on!” and she said, “Come on yourself, we should have taken the lift.”

They arrived, however, on a very different floor, spacious, with great windows, and there were few doors here, and one ahead of them opened to noise, and when they entered, Nialla seeming almost but quite as sheepish as Conn, they saw the great eating hall was full of Blues at table, all in robes, though some lighter than others. Some robes were hooded. Many were not, and Conn observed all sorts of Blues. Some were dark like the men of Ava and some white as Derek. Some were golden brown or olive like the old tribes andthe Armorians. There were tall and short, black haired, red haired and bald. In the buzzing room was every type of beauty one could imagine, slender boys lithe like swimmers or men thick like ball players and several waved or nodded amidst the jostle of food being passed, but Cal led them to the table where there were many, including the boys they’d lunched with, and Derek rose up merrily in his smoke blue robe and embraced Conn.

“Did you all enjoy the city?”

“Bits of it,” Conn said.

Derek laughed, and there was laughter around the table. Beautiful men he did not know looked at him with affection, and Conn colored.

Conn said as he and Nialla sat down between Cal and Lorne, “I mean, I enjoyed what I saw, but we only saw bits.”

Nialla whispered, “I think he knows.”

“Try the fish,” Lorne offered to Conn. “It is cooked in a butter and wine sauce and the the bone is lifted right out of it before your eyes. Well, before my eyes.”

Conn looked around and he observed that at the table was fat Obala and there were other people, some of them women, who did not appear to be Blues.

“This is our fellowship night,” a red headed Blue whose name he did not know said, “Everyone in the house comes together on such nights and we all eat in the Upper Hall.”

“It’s not usually like this?” Conn asked.

The redhead shook his head.

“Usually only Blues eat here, and usually it’s the Blues who were at the evening service.A lot of times we eat scattered, but at least once a day every Blue comes to the hall to eat. You just don’t know who will come when you do.”

“You would know,” Derek said, bitting into a crust of bread, “if you came around and called more often.”

The red head rolled his eyes, and Lorne said, “Every since Gabriel went through Second Orders he’s become pretty high and mighty.”

“I hate you all,” Gabriel said with a sober face, “and that’s why I don’t eat with you.”

He chucked a crust of bread at Derek and and Cal asked, “How was this afternoon for you?”

Conn thought he was talking to him, but luckily didn’t answer before Lorne spoke.

“It’s a good thing we have to love them but not be in love with them. He was kind enough and gentle enough, and one could feel for him, He told me all about his children and his former wife and how his son was at home asleep, and he reminded me of a squirrel. I actually had to tell him to slow down. He was really all over the place. A bit of a biter until I brought an end to that.”

“It isn’t supposed to be about your own pleasure,” Derek said rather superiorly.

“It’s isn’t about my suffering either,” Lorne said, “and I won’t suffer to be covered in some squrirlish man’s bite marks. But in the end things went well enough. He was very eager. He kept using my name, which is too familiar for me, and he said, I sure hope I can see you again. I sure would like to see you again.”