Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Lliferock

by Jak Koke

  “I . . . am . . . fine . . .” Pabl said. “Home.”

  “Don’t go all glassy-eyed on us, my friend,” the dwarf said.

  “Tepuis Garen needs you.”

  Ganwetrammus. Pabl felt the word like a tickle in his mind.

  Something was wrong here. Through the fog in his head, Pabl tried to concentrate. He struggled to force himself out of the merge with Reid Quo. One heartbeat, two, and he was out, releasing his brother’s hand. Immediately, pain hit him like a knife through his chest and gut. He winced, trying to force it from his conscious mind.

  Reid spoke a few words and dispelled the levitation, casting the two of them to the worn stone. Pabl hit the stone in a crouch, not quite sure where he was. Reid landed on his feet and continued his walk into the tunnel. He could not feel Ganwetrammus’s pain, Pabl knew. Sangolin had reduced it to a faint hint in his mind.

  Pabl focused on his breathing for a minute to gather strength, watching Reid’s retreating form. A desperate yearning crept over Pabl; he longed to follow his brother. How good it would feel.

  “Pabl?”

  He turned then and looked at the dwarf. Really looked, this time. Jan Farellon. The name popped into his mind. And This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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  the short fellow’s companion was . . . Celagri. I know these energy-wasters.

  “Pabl? Can you walk? We can’t stay here.”

  Then it all came back to him in a rush. The clouds cleared in his mind and he remembered everything. By Mynbruje, I have been lost. “Jan, my friend,” he said. “And Celagri, I thank you again.”

  “Did you . . .?”

  “No, I have been very lucky,” Pabl said, feeling his resistance to Sangolin gathering strength. His sanity returning. “I have not yet merged with Sangolin. I nearly succumbed the first time, but Reid Quo helped me. This last time, it called both of us at the same time, caught me off guard.”

  “What have you learned?”

  “Let’s go to the caves and talk about it,” Pabl said, moving back in the direction of Reid’s cave. “Besides, I’m hungry.”

  “Shouldn’t we just grab your lost Elder and get out of here?”

  Jan asked.

  Pabl shook his head. “He has merged with Sangolin by now. We will not be able to take him until he emerges.”

  “But the caves?” Celagri said. “Are they safe? Maybe we should climb the trail. We can return for Reid later.”

  “The caves are as safe as the mountains,” Pabl said. “If Sangolin decides to send a group after us, it won’t matter if we’re down here or up there. They came to get me up there once; they can do it again. The only truly safe places are too far away.”

  Celagri nodded, then motioned for Pabl to lead on. When they reached Reid’s cave, Pabl sat on the floor, chewing dried dates and stale bread as he told them about his encounter with Sangolin and his talk with Reid Quo. He told them about Reid’s refusal to leave Sangolin, and his suspicion that Sangolin was attacking Tepuis Garen in order to get more brothers so that it could become a liferock. Pabl finished by describing This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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  the pain he had felt from Ganwetrammus and the call from Sangolin.

  “Is it possible for a place to be conscious like this?” Celagri asked. “I mean, it seems like Vecrix could be mastermind-ing the whole thing, using Sangolin as a source of magical power.”

  Pabl shook his head. “Perhaps, but I think Sangolin is influencing him. The Council of Four told me that some Named-places have temperament and a profound influence on Name-givers. A liferock is like that. And in another, very different way, so is Sangolin.”

  “How can we stop it,” Jan asked, “if Reid won’t go with us?”

  “There’s only one way,” Pabl said, wishing he could come up with another alternative.

  The others waited in silence for him to continue.

  “I have to kill him.”

  Celagri nodded, grim-faced. But Jan burst out, “Can’t we kidnap him or something, carry him back?”

  Could we? Pabl wondered. It is naive to think so. Folly to believe we would get him back against his will. Certainly not in time.

  “No,” he said, breathing a heavy sigh. “As much as it is against my nature to be hasty, this is one instance where time is short. Even with Reid’s cooperation, our journey back to Tepuis Garen would take ten days or more, if we push. My liferock is under severe attack; perhaps it can last a couple weeks, I don’t know. But carrying Reid, or trying to force him to walk against his desires, would lengthen our traveling time to more than a month. That is simply too long.

  “There really are only two choices. Reid comes with us willingly, or . . .” Pabl took a slow breath, then straightened his back. “Or I take his life so that the next Elder in line can perform the Ritual of Protection with Gvint. Celagri, do you have This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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  a poison that will kill obsidimen?”

  Celagri nodded, reaching gracefully into a nearly-invisible pouch on her belt. “Do you want me to do it?” she asked.

  “No, I will,” Pabl said. “It is my task, and I will carry it out.

  He must sleep sometime; I’ll do it then.”

  “Very well,” Celagri said, handing him a cloth belt. Pabl examined it to find five bamboo throwing darts — slender barbs nestled into individual pockets along the black sash. “Be careful, each one is tipped with enough poison to kill a thundra beast in about a minute.”

  “Thank you,” Pabl said. He was not adept at using these darts, but he didn’t want to kill Reid with his hands. The poison would probably be quicker and less noisy. “Maybe you should go now. Where will you wait?”

  Celagri and Jan both shook their heads. “No, no, no,” Jan said. “We will let you do what you must, but we aren’t leaving you. If Sangolin tries to hypnotize you again, we need to be around to stop you.”

  Pabl gave them a grim smile. “As you wish,” he said. “I think I will try to get some rest before he comes back.” Pabl unrolled his traveling blanket, making a makeshift bed for himself. Then he lay on it and stared up at the flickering shadows which played out their abstract dramas against the rough stone arch of the cave’s ceiling.

  He dozed off with images of Ohin Yeenar flitting through his mind. The old one’s ancient quartz complexion crumbled like loose shale in the dream. Ohin knelt in front of Pabl, looking up with sightless eyes whitened by cataracts. He begged to be killed, claiming that his death would free him.

  Pabl had lacked the courage to do it. His fear and indecision had stayed his hand then. Would this time be any different? Could he kill one of his own? Could he commit this most unnatural murder?

  He didn’t know.

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  Eventually, he drifted into a restless sleep. He turned and woke many times, trying to get some rest, but the dull ache from Ganwetrammus prevented him from sliding into a deep slumber.

  When he awoke, he discovered that Jan slept near the back of the cave, while Celagri hid near the entrance in the flickering red light from the Scarlet Sea. Pabl couldn’t actually see the elf, but he knew she was there, using her magic to hide from view. Watching.

  Reid had returned; he slept fitfully on his pallet. His face was a stark relief of red and black shadows, the light coming through the cave’s entrance from the ocean of lava outside. Pabl remembered him from the liferock’s memory, a young brother learning magic from Garen Dne in the glorious crowded streets of Parlainth. Reid’s face twitched on the pallet in front of Pabl, troubled, feeling the pain from Ganwetram
mus. The deep lines of his face had become crevasses, rocky and jagged — lines of profound pain and long sorrow.

  His death will be a release. A liberation.

  Reid would not end up like Ohin Yeenar. He would die at the right time; he would die to save his liferock. No obsidiman could hope for better.

  Pabl sat upright as quietly as he could and unfolded the sash of darts on his lap, laying them out for easy access. He carefully pulled one of the slim bamboo shafts from the sash and held it carefully between his thumb and forefinger. The dart was not made for hands of his size and it felt awkwardly tiny to him.

  No hesitation, he thought. Pabl leaned over to see Reid’s body in the dark. One dart in the back or neck should do it. His movement would be quick; Reid’s death painless.

  “I thought it might come to this, brother,” Reid said.

  Pabl jerked back, startled.

  “I must die,” Reid said, his words were lucid, clear. “So This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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  that the brotherhood can live.” His black eyes shone like orbs of polished ebony reflecting firelight. He seemed sane, more anchored in reality than Pabl had ever seen him. He blinked, folding his hands across his chest, but he did not sit up. “I understand, and I agree,” he said. “It is my time to die. Just promise me one thing.”

  Pabl felt tears welling in his eyes. He had not expected this. “Anything.”

  “Return my body to Ganwetrammus.”

  “Of course, Reid. That is the least I can do.”

  “Then I am ready to die.”

  Pabl wiped away the tears to clear his vision. He blinked hard. Now! His hand moved, arcing with the dart held firmly between his thumb and forefinger. A deadly accurate attack without defense, straight toward the center of Reid’s chest.

  Suddenly, Reid’s hand shot out. He knocked Pabl’s arm, deflecting his aim. Then Reid rolled to the side, grabbing Pabl’s wrist with his other hand.

  “Reid, what are you —?” But Pabl knew what had happened; Reid’s eyes had defocused, glassed over. Sangolin had taken control; it couldn’t afford to lose Reid.

  Reid’s grip tightened on Pabl’s wrist, trying to turn the dart against him. “You cannot take me away from Sangolin so easily.”

  Pabl lost his grip on the dart, and it slipped out of his hands, falling to the floor. It made a hollow punk as it hit the stone, disappearing into the shadows next to Reid’s pallet of furs. Pabl moved quickly; wrenching his hand from Reid’s grip.

  He stepped back, crouching into a combat stance.

  Reid began a spell that Pabl didn’t know.

  Pabl’s fighting reflexes took over. I must attack before he completes the spell. The thought flashed through Pabl’s mind.

  A second later he struck, a rapid pummel to Reid’s throat. He magically hardened his fist as he struck, feeling the blood and This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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  bones in his knuckles solidify, condense into a brutal weapon.

  His fist connected with Reid’s neck and continued, punch-ing towards an imaginary point behind Reid’s head. The column of Reid’s windpipe yielded under his blow, crumpling like a weak scroll case.

  Reid stepped back, clutching his neck, trying to breathe.

  His spell never went off.

  Pabl spun, not wasting time. Can’t let him recover. He followed his punch with a swift kick aimed at Reid’s head. High and fast, his foot blurred towards its target.

  As he struggled to inhale, Reid’s attempt to dodge was too slow. Pabl’s kick landed hard. It connected with a loud crack, crashing into Reid’s skull, snapping his neck sideways with a jerk. Reid flew against the wall, bouncing like a doll, then he hit the floor with a thud.

  Pabl crouched for another attack, chest heaving, and watched for movement.

  Reid lay face down on the floor, the fluttering rise and fall of his chest barely noticeable. Still alive, still holding on.

  Pabl calmed himself with several deep breaths. I’m sorry it had to end this way, brother. He removed another of Celagri’s poison darts from the sash, then knelt beside Reid’s body.

  Reid made an effort to move one last time, trying to crawl out of the cave on his belly, mewling about his sweet Sangolin.

  The sight of it sickened Pabl.

  “Goodbye, brother,” he said. Then he plunged the dart into Reid’s back. “Your sacrifice will save us all.”

  Celagri appeared out of the shadows near the cave entrance. She gathered up the fallen dart and placed it back into her sash. Jan was also there, moving from where he had been resting to stand guard at the cave’s entrance.

  Pabl hardly noticed; he put the palm of his hands against Reid’s ribs. He felt his brother’s breath rasp to a halt, the beat of his old heart flutter and die. Then Pabl bowed his head and This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Thirty-Three 

  Gvint stretched his joints, listening to the crack of his old bones. He was sitting on the erosion steps next to the riflev pool, shivering against the lengthen-ing shadows. His feet dangled in the crystalline water as he bathed. His ceremonial robes lay in a neatly folded pile a few steps up from him, safely dry. He bent to the water’s mirror surface and scooped up the clear liquid. And as he splashed it over his body, the mirror distorted, warping the reflection of himself and rock above him. The cold chill of the icy liquid brought more shivers.

  The last few days played out in his mind as he tried to figure out what to do. How to stop Ganwetrammus from dying.

  Somehow, beyond all expectation, the miners had succeeded at connecting a powerful astral construct — a spell of some sort — to the pattern of Ganwetrammus.

  The spell brought smells of sulfur and rotting vegetation, steam and fire, tainting Ganwetrammus with its stench. And through it, they were draining the life force from the rock.

  The liferock weakened by the hour. Soon it would be too feeble to recover.

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  Ganwetrammus would die.

  Gvint remembered the suffocating sensation of trying to emerge in the magical chamber they had constructed, only to be smothered by the lattice of orichalcum. How had the miners known that kind of magic? They had systematically attacked the liferock under the pretense of searching for orichalcum.

  I should have done something to stop them, should have foreseen what they were doing. But how?

  Gvint splashed water over his face, trying to wash away the ache in his head. Then he looked up through the wide circular hole in the rock where the steps came down. Above the craggy rim of the rock, he could see a patch of washed out sky darkening to deep blue-black in the east. The sun had set up there, and the chill of the evening penetrated his old bones.

  Will this place look like Othellium after it is dead? Will the riflev stagnate and putrefy? Will thunderstorms and erosion grind the temple to dust?

  An obsidiman grew out from the surface of the rock next to Gvint. He noticed emerald tattooing on black-skinned arms — Jibn. The lattice of fine white lines on his skin had faded slightly with his prolonged merging. Jibn placed a hand on Gvint’s shoulder. “Despair not, my Elder,” Jibn said. “While Ganwetrammus clings t-t-to life, there is still hope.”

  Gvint looked up, seeing the look of concern on his face.

  “Your time in the Dreaming has altered your outlook, my brother.” Gvint tried a smile, but gave it up when his face wouldn’t cooperate. “Now you are trying to instill hope in me.”

  “It is because of you that I merged again,” Jibn said. “You woke me from my p-p-paranoid stupor.”

  “Perhaps, brother. But it may have been too late to save Ganwetrammus. Pabl has sent no word, my allies of elemental air hav
e nothing to report, and time is becoming short for our liferock. Even another attack on the mining company would This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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  be futile at this point, because they are not the enemy now.

  Our enemy is distant, unseen and unknown.”

  “Maybe we can dispel this magic.”

  “I have already tried,” Gvint said. “But when I try to dis-rupt its pattern, I get lost in sensations, smells of putrefaction, visions of steam, the echo of erratic drums. This magic is beyond my power and the parasites in the cave are sustaining it.”

  “Maybe I should —” Jibn stopped, straightening to his full height as his body went rigid.

  Gvint felt it too — a nagging tug of anguish in the bottom of his gut. It was subtle, barely noticeable over the constant pain he felt coming from Ganwetrammus. Yet he knew what it meant.

  “By Mynbruje,” Jibn said. “Pabl has succeeded after all.”

  The gentle stitch of sadness in his side meant that Reid Quo had died.

  The next in line will be called, Gvint thought. Jibn Sra. He looked over at Jibn and saw that the other was already feeling the call from Ganwetrammus. Jibn nodded to Gvint and backed up to the surface of the rock. No words were necessary.

  Gvint knew what the call felt like — an overwhelming, insistent urge to merge with the liferock.

  Jibn pressed himself into the rock, a spot of black against the red stone. Then he was gone, the black melting away as Ganwetrammus pulled him deeper.

  Gvint felt a rush of excitement. Pabl has succeeded! Because of him, we might defeat this unseen foe. The Ritual of Protection can still save us.

  Gvint stood and ran up the stairs to the temple. Shivers coursed through him again, but this time they had nothing to do with the chill. They were thrills of adrenaline. He had a mission now. A plan. A glimmer of hope where before there was none — a candle flickering in the deep black of the vast This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 