Born to Run

by Stephen Kenson

  "How?" Kellan asked, looking from the taper to the troll and back.

  "Well, first," Lothan said, "clear your mind. Don't think about how it's done. Take a deep breath. That's it. Now I want to you focus on the wick of the candle. Allow your attention to rest on it, but don't allow your focus to drift. It's critical when doing magic to be able to see the subject of your spell." he continued in a low, soothing tone of voice. "The image of your subject is a key part of the spell.

  "Now I want you to concentrate on the image of fire. Feel the heat rushing through your limbs. Hear the roar and crackle of it. Feel it burning inside of you, building up. Feel the idea, the essence of fire. Take hold of it. Direct it toward the wick of the candle. Take hold of the fire within you, make it yours, and direct it."

  The candle remained unlit. "It's not working." Kellan said.

  "Patience, patience." Lothan replied. "Concentrate. I want you to remember your encounter in the alley, when you saw G-Dogg fighting. Remember how you felt when the ork grabbed you. Remember when you were fighting for your life."

  Kellan recalled Horse's sneering face, his rough voice threatening violence, the smell of him looming over her. A reddish haze surrounded the edges of her vision and her skin felt hot.

  "Yes." Lothan said softly. "Take the fire, Kellan. It is yours. Direct it at the candle."

  There was a dull roaring in Kellan's ears. Then she raised one hand and pointed at the candle, thrusting her finger forward. The building energy seemed to pour out of her like water from a hose and the candle suddenly burst into flames. Not just a tiny flame, but a gout of fire that shot up toward the ceiling. The candle instantly melted and Lothan cursed, waving his hands in the air.

  Kellan slumped in the chair and the flames went out as suddenly as they'd appeared. A puddle of molten wax slowly spread across the table, but otherwise the study was no worse the wear for the unexpected fire. Kellan felt tired, but not as drained as she had felt in the alley.

  “I'm sorry." she told Lothan, but the troll mage shook his head.

  "It's all right, your spell was just a bit more . . . vigorous than I expected." he said. "I'll just have to take that into account next time. Still, it was an excellent first step."

  "It was?" Kellan replied.

  "Absolutely. Many fledgling magicians take weeks or months before they are able to cast their first spell. You seem to have picked up this one almost instinctively. This effect is an elemental manipulation commonly called a flamethrower."

  "So I cast a spell? That's all there is to it?" Kellan asked. "What about the magic words and stuff?" she gestured vaguely with one hand, making a mystical-looking pass through the air.

  Lothan chuckled. "I'll let you in on yet another of the secrets of wizardry." he said, leaning in toward Kellan. "The truth is that all the chants, the magic words, the grand gestures—they're just window dressing. Useful, to be sure, because they help you to focus your mind and your will on what it is you're doing—and that can be vital when you need to cast the right spell in a hurry—but it's not strictly necessary. The pointing, for example," he nodded at the melted candle on the table, "that was a nice touch, and it probably helped you direct the spell, but you could have accomplished the same thing without it."

  Just then, a glowing point of light passed through the door of the study. It was like the light that led Kellan and G-Dogg through the house the previous night—perhaps the same one. Kellan couldn't tell, though now she could guess that it was some kind of watcher spirit, similar to Nicodemus. It floated over to Lothan and hovered by the troll's horns for a moment. He cocked his head and seemed to be listening to something Kellan couldn't hear. Then he waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal, and the light sped out of the room as he turned back to Kellan.

  "Let's take a short break, shall we? Allow you some time to catch your breath and rest a bit after your exertion. Other business calls: we have a visitor."

  Chapter 8

  "Liada, do come in." Lothan said. The elven woman stepped into the study, adjusting the bulky bag she wore over her shoulder and glancing briefly at Kellan.

  "I astrally scouted out the route." she told Lothan with no preamble. "I don't think we'll have any problems with contamination from Glow City or any of the other hot spots in the Barrens, though it's not exactly the cleanest astral environment."

  "Good, good." Lothan said, getting to his feet. He picked up a datapad from his desk and tapped the keys a couple times before handing it across the table to Kellan.

  "Kellan, here are some introductory texts I'd like you to review. Please excuse us while we talk business, won't you?"

  Kellan looked at the proferred datapad before taking it from Lothan's hand and glancing over at Liada. The elf's face was as unreadable as Lothan's.

  "Yeah, sure." she said flatly, getting up from her chair and heading for the door. Liada closed it behind her and she could hear the two magicians talking in low voices. Kellan clutched the datapad and stalked down the hall to the kitchen. She almost slammed it onto the big, heavy table in the middle of the room.

  Fraggit! Just when she was starting to think that Lothan and the others were taking her seriously, he treats her like a child, giving her a toy to play with and sending her off into a corner while the grownups talk! She thought that she was supposed to be a member of the team. Why did Lothan want her out of the way?

  Was Lothan up to something, trying to keep her in the dark while he set her up? Was Liada's warning a game of misdirection, to get Kellan to mistrust Lothan? Were she and Lothan in on it together?

  Kellan took a deep breath. These were crazy thoughts. After all, Lothan and the others hardly knew her, right? They weren't going to trust her overnight. They were professional shadowrunners.

  They were going to hedge their bets, play things safe, until they knew that Kellan was okay. So she would just have to prove to them that she was, that she could handle anything they had to throw at her.

  Kellan dropped into a chair and picked up the datapad. It displayed a text entitled "The Essentials of Modern Thaumaturgical Theory" by Miles Swinburne, Th.D. She looked at the page display and saw that Lothan's idea of a "basic text" was nearly two hundred pages long.

  Geez, isn't there a vid-versimt of this?

  "I can handle it." she muttered to herself. "Whatever it takes." and she settled back to start reading.

  The document was just as dry and dull as Kellan had feared, but it still managed to be interesting. It elaborated on some of the concepts Lothan had been talking about, describing the existence of the astral plane, the magical energy called mana and how magicians used both to do magic. A few times Kellan had to ask the datapad's dictionary to define a term, but she was pretty confident that she understood most of it. There was certainly a lot of information to absorb. What little she'd seen of magic seemed so simple that it was hard to accept that it was really so complicated. Even the stuff Lothan did; he seemed to just wave his hands, say a few words and things happened. Apparently, a lot of explanations, diagrams and theories went into explaining that process.

  A faint creak of the floorboards in the hall caught Kellan's attention. She looked up from her reading as Liada strolled into the kitchen.

  "How's it going?" the elf asked her, nodding toward the datapad.

  Kellan sighed. "Okay. This book is really long."

  Liada laughed. "That isn't the half of it." she said. "There are entire libraries full of books on magic and magic theory. Just look at all the dead trees Lothan has lining the walls of his study."

  Kellan thought about having to read all of those books and shuddered. "How do you remember it all?" she asked.

  "You don't really need to." Liada said, going over to the counter and pouring herself a cup of soykaf from the dispenser. "Once you know the basics, it's mostly just variations on a theme. The really complex stuff is only used for rituals, and even old-timers like Lothan crack the books then to make sure they're getting it right." She brought the steaming cup
over to the table and sat down across from Kellan, taking a sip and making a face at the bitter taste.

  "Of course," she continued, "Lothan will make everything seem at least ten times more complicated and mystical than it needs to be, and he'll probably have you reading drek that you'll never really use. . . ." She reached over and picked up the datapad, turning it around to read the display.

  "Swinburne?" she said, with a raised eyebrow. "See, that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Swinburne's stuff is old news, written more than thirty years ago, but mages like Lothan still consider it a Classical Foundation of Modern Hermetics." She managed to vocally capitalize the last four words. "I'm surprised he didn't start you off reading Waite, Crowley and Carroll, while he was at it." Kellan didn't recognize the names, but it was clear Liada didn't hold them in especially high regard.

  "So what should I be reading?" Kellan asked.

  "If you ask me, you should be doing something other than just reading." Liada replied, taking another sip of her coffee substitute. "Reading is all well and good, and there are some perfectly good modern grimoires and texts available on the Matrix, but there's no substitute for practice."

  "We did some of that." Kellan said, a bit sheepishly. "I almost set the place on fire."

  Liada laughed again. "I wish I could have seen Lothan's face when that happened."

  "Where is Lothan?" Kellan asked, glancing toward the hall.

  "Meditating." Liada replied. "Checking up on me is more like it. He wants to make absolutely certain that everything is ready."

  "More of that 'astral scouting' you were talking about?"

  "Yeah, although I'm better at that sort of thing than Lothan, if you ask me." Liada said with a smile. "But if he wants to double-check, that's his business."

  "What's it like? The astral plane, I mean. Part of what I read today talked about that."

  Liada thought for a moment. "How do you explain what color is like to someone who's been blind all their life?" she said. "No offense." she added, seeing the expression on Kellan's face. "But you said you didn't have any experience with it. That's the hard part about the astral plane. It's a place that isn't really a place, because it's right next door to the physical world, in a way. You see it with a kind of psychic sixth sense, by doing what we call assensing. It lets you sense emotions, mana flows, magical impressions, things like that. Most people see them as colored auras of light, though some perceive them as sounds, or smells, or just strong feelings. It's tough to describe. That's what I mean about experiencing it for yourself. But once you do, there's no greater sense of freedom in the world."

  "Sounds wiz." Kellan said.

  "Yeah, it is. But don't fool yourself—the astral plane can be dangerous, too. Spirits live there, and some of them aren't too friendly. In fact, some of them are downright nasty."

  Liada studied Kellan for a moment like she was trying to assess something about her, and Kellan wondered if the elf was seeing or "assensing" her as she'd said, using that special kind of magical sight.

  "I'm kind of surprised you haven't had any experience with the astral." Liada continued. "Some kind of spontaneous assensing or astral projection is pretty common with newly Awakened magicians."

  Kellan shook her head. "The only real magical experience I've had was when I set this troll ganger on fire, and the stuff that Lothan has been trying to teach me."

  "Interesting. Is Lothan sure that you're a mage?"

  "Well, he said that I definitely have the Talent." Kellan said.

  "Yes, but is he sure that you're a mage and not a shaman?"

  Kellan was puzzled. "What's the difference?"

  "Typical." Liada said with a sad shake of her head. "I should have expected that kind of attitude from Lothan." When Kellan continued to give her a quizzical look, she went on. "Magicians are people with the Talent for tapping into and using mana to do magic, but there are different traditions of magic, magicians who do magic in different ways. Mages are magicians who follow the hermetic tradition, like Lothan and like me, but we're not the only kind of magicians. Far from it, in fact."

  "Right," Kellan said, "they have shamans in the Native American Nations, like the ones that led the Ghost Dance."

  Liada chuckled. "They don't have many shamans like that anymore." she said. "But, yeah, the NAN has a lot of shamans, although shamans aren't just a Native American thing. They're all over the place."

  "So what's the difference between shamans and mages?" Kellan asked.

  "Shamans have the guidance of spirits they call totems. They're these powerful spirits that come to the shamans in visions and dreams and tell them how to do magic. They usually show up as different kinds of animals. Through their totems, shamans tap into the power of the natural world. They can contact the spirits of nature and ask them to do things. Have you ever had any dreams where an animal was talking to you, maybe trying to tell you something or teach you a song or special name?"

  Kellan thought for a moment and then shook her head. "I don't think so." she replied. "At least, I don't remember anything like that. I don't usually remember my dreams."

  "You may now that you've Awakened." Liada said, taking another sip of her soykaf. "Doesn't sound to me like you've been called by a totem, but you never know. You should keep track of your dreams and see if they have anything to tell you. Try keeping a dream journal, writing down what you remember as soon as you wake up. There are a lot of symbols and messages in our dreams."

  "How will I know if I'm supposed to be a shaman?" she asked.

  "Oh, you'll know, believe me." she said. "The totems have their own way of revealing things, and when they want you to know something, they're not subtle."

  "If you're not a shaman," Kellan wondered, "then how come you know so much about them?"

  "Some of my best friends are shamans," Liada said, "and, unlike His Majesty," she nodded her head toward Lothan's study, "I think there's something to be gained from studying other traditions of magic and knowing how other people do things." Kellan thought that made sense.

  Just then, the glowing light-sprite zipped into the room to hover above the table, bobbing gently toward Liada, then toward the door.

  "Oops." she said. "Looks like he's done. Better go see what he has to say." She stood up from the table, leaving the mug where it sat. "Talk to you later, Kellan."

  "Yeah. And thanks." Kellan told the elf.

  "No problem." she replied. "We'll talk again sometime, okay?"

  "I'd like that." Kellan said. She went back to her reading with a new appreciation for the material. She would have to ask Lothan about shamanism and those different traditions of magic Liada mentioned. She wanted to know what her choices were before she committed to something for the rest of her life.

  * * *

  That night, the shadowrunners gathered at Lothan's place once more. Assembled in the troll mage's study, they went over the information they'd gathered and the plans for the run. Jackie Ozone was present again via the Matrix, her anime princess persona on the screen of the telecom sitting on Lothan's desk. The other runners attended in person. Kellan noticed that Orion still refused to mix with the rest of the team.

  G-Dogg greeted Kellan warmly when he arrived, and asked her how her lessons were going.

  "Learned how to turn people into frogs yet, kid?" he asked, and Kellan wondered briefly if mages could really do that. She'd have to look it up or ask Lothan later.

  "Not yet." she said.

  "First, I think I'll need to teach her some of the basics." Lothan interjected. "Like lighting candles with something smaller than a blowtorch." The troll chuckled and Kellan blushed.

  "Hey, there's times when a blowtorch can come in handy." G-Dogg replied with a wink at Kellan.

  Lothan started on one side of the room and asked each runner for their progress report.

  Jackie Ozone went first. The decker flashed information on the screen as she went over what she'd learned.

  "I confirmed the data that we got
from our Mr. Johnson." Jackie said. "The shipment route looks legit and takes our target along the East Road into the metroplex, right along the border of the Redmond Barrens." A map showed up on the screen, and a red line traced out the route along it.

  "The security complement for a shipment like this should be Ares standard, which means they'll be well-trained and armed, but we shouldn't face any heavy cyberware or magical support. We can expect at least four guards, plus a driver. Probably AK-97s or SMGs and sidearms, maybe tasers or stun batons for dealing with the riffraff, since they are passing by the Barrens."

  "We pinpointed a good spot for things to go down." Silver Max said, and the map on the telecom screen shifted to show a satellite photo image of the highway. It zoomed in on a section of roadway and enlarged to show more detail.

  "There's an underpass right before the target site," the dwarf rigger continued, "which provides us with some cover and high ground if we need it. There's enough junk along the edges of the road to provide some additional cover, though no place to hide vehicles unless we park 'em right along the side of the road, which might tip off our targets."

  "Liada and I have examined the ether of that area and the surrounding region," Lothan announced, "and, while it's by no means entirely clear of astral detritus, it should pose no difficulties against our own abilities."

  "Which means that we're in the clear magic-wise." Liada offered helpfully.

  "What about the locals?" Lothan asked.

  G-Dogg spoke up. "I did some checking around. Seems like the Red Hot Nukes and the Rusted Stilettos have had a couple of dustups recently, but not much as far south and east as we'll be. Most everyone is talking about the Spikes getting more aggressive along I-5, but their territory is far enough west that they shouldn't be any trouble. So long as word about the shipment doesn't leak to the Nukes, I don't think we have anything to worry about, and everything I've heard says they don't have a clue."

  "And we should keep it that way." Lothan said. He paused for a moment. "We could always make certain that the Nukes are out of the way. . . ." he mused aloud.