Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Longing Ring

by kubasik

  After many minutes Garlthik's body twisted harshly and he began to gasp for air. He put his hands together and wrenched the ring from his finger, throwing it to the ground. J'role grabbed it and held it tight in his hands as the ork doubled over, breathing heavily. “Oh, please, oh, please," Garlthik said over and over.

  As he held the ring in his hand, J'role was amazed to realize how small it was. It fit him perfectly, and yet it had also fit Garlthik's finger, easily twice as big ask any of J'role's.

  Could the ring change size? Starlight glinted off the silver as the ring rested in J'role's palm, and he saw clearly that the ring could not possibly have fit any of Garlthik's massive fingers at its current size.

  The ring wanted people to be able to wear it. It wanted everyone to be able to wear it.

  He turned back to where he'd seen the road earlier and slipped the ring on his finger.

  The road appeared, glowing like a river burning with white fire.

  Knowing he would never be able to make Garlthik understand what he saw, J'role leaped onto the rocks and then over them, funning down the long hillside toward me road.

  “Wait, boy!" Garlthik cried with a gasp. J'role could hear a strain in the ork's voice.

  "Wait!"

  J'role did not. Either the ork would follow him or he would not.

  Garlthik did follow. But J'role had enough of a head start that the ork never caught up.

  J'role ran and ran, continuing for fifteen minutes, and then another thirty. The cool night air washed over his skin, the shining road stretching out ahead like the- finish line of a race. His heart pounded with effort and exuberance. He spoke all the while, describing carpets that floated through the air and beautiful gowns and robes worn by all the citizens of the strange and miraculous city.

  Finally, with his lungs raw from the effort of running and talking, he reached the road. Its brilliance against the darkness of night blinded him at first, and it took several moments for him to look directly at it. Made of thick slabs of stone, it stretched off to the east and west. J'role walked up to the edge of the road and touched his fingertips to one of the stones.

  The stone felt only slightly cooler than the air, and then J'role realized that his fingers had actually passed through the surface of the stone, vanishing slightly into the white glow.

  He pulled his hand out quickly.

  Behind him came Garlthik, gasping for breath. "What are you ...?" he began. "Whats gotten into you, lad?" He staggered up to where J'role knelt and walked right through the stones of the road.

  J'role looked up at the ork, startled. Could the road still be invisible this close? He removed the ring from his-finger, and immediately pain cut through his mouth from the incessant talking he'd done while running.

  The road vanished.

  He rubbed his jaw with one hand, holding the ring out to Garlthik with the other. He didn't think Garlthik would see anything — the ork had already suggested that there was a special connection between J'role and city. Maybe he could see things Garlthik could not when he wore the ring.

  Garlthik took the ring. "What is it? What is it?'

  J 'role gestured up and down the road. The ork looked in either direction. "I don't see . . ."

  J'role jumped up and jabbed his finger at the ring in Garlthik's hand. "I don't know,"

  Garlthik said. "Not again, not now."

  J'role slammed his open hands against Garlthik's chest.

  The ork half-smiled, half-staggered back. "All right, all right." He slipped the ring on his finger, sighed as before, then gave a harsh gasp. Though J'role could not see the road any longer, he knew Garlthik was looking in the direction it lay "A road," Garlthik said, "a ruined road."

  The momentary Joy slid to confusion. Ruined road?

  "How did you see this from back there?" Garlthik asked. 'The stones are barely visible in the dirt." Then he saw J'role's confusion, struggled with his desires for a moment, then pulled the ring off. He looked at the empty ground. "You did see it, didn't you? A road?"

  J'role nodded, but his face betrayed frustration. The two of them began an awkward exchange of words and gestures, each one trying to explain to the other what he had seen.

  J'role quickly grasped that Garlthik had seen only the ruins of a great road. But he could not communicate to Garlthik that he had seen more than that. A road, yes. But whole and magical. They eventually gave up, not a little annoyed with each other.

  "Well, a road, at least," said Garlthik. "At least we agree on that."

  J’role nodded.

  They continued on their way for three more days, taking turns wearing the ring and following the road, both ruined and whole. They came near several small villages much like J'role's, but they stayed clear of them. Garlthik had lost all his money when Slinsk searched his pockets, and so they had no means to purchase food. "People won't trust us unless we show money," Garlthik said. "If we had some, we'd be as good as family."

  Their hunger increased daily, for the brown landscape yielded little sustenance. Although J'role had been hungry in the past, he'd always known that if things got too bad, someone—if only Brandson—would notice and give him some food. And if that failed, he could sneak into someone else's food stock to steal some rice and corn and berries.

  Still despite the lack of food, J 'role's spirits remained high. As he continued to walk, the hunger transformed from a sensation of lack to a sensation of cleansing, as if the emptiness let him carry only himself and nothing more.

  And he wrestled with the mystery of the road; why did each of them see something else?

  Were they seeing the road at different times—J'role's view from the past, Garlthik's from the present? But the present view was that there was no road at all. Could it be that each saw what he wanted to find? Garlthik would be pleased to find a ruined city, empty, with treasure waiting. J'role wanted a living city, filled with; wizards who could remove the thing from his thoughts.

  He did not know. It all made no sense.

  As he had promised, Garlthik began J'role's apprenticeship as a thief adept. At first the ork's words confused J'role, for he expected Garlthik to speak of weaving magic spells or the careful ways one could sneak about, and insted the lessons consisted only of the ork rattling on about what an adept's talents were not. J'role thought that Garlthik was simply stalling, not wanting to teach him true magic at all. But he had no means to protest, and did not know what he would say if he could, so he listened. And slowly, because he could not express his impatience, he began to learn.

  "A magician weaves spells. An adept does not," said Garlthik, his attention caught for a moment by a flock of birds, no more than dots, cutting across the blue sky. J'role thought he could hear their contented cries as they moved together in elegant flight. "Magicians write down their intricate, arcane works in grimoires. We do not. Magicians are trapped by their pasts as they create elaborate preparations for the future. We are not. We," he said as the flesh of his cheeks rolled back, revealing his astounding smile, “find the magic, right where it is, at that moment, and letting ourselves go in that moment, float upon the magic."

  J'role looked up at Garlthik, startled. He lifted his hand, palm down and fingers spread, and let it move up and down, like a bird floating on the wind.

  "Yes. Strange, isn't it? Or so it seemed to me too, when I was a lad your age." Garlthik paused, just a half-beat, looking down at J'role with a sudden, tiny flash of sadness. Then he smiled. "But it's true. The magic is all around us. But most folks don't think in terms of the moment. They don't know how to let themselves respond to what's happening to them—right then and right there. And that's the adept's secret. Not much of a secret, actually. Most of them will flap their lips about it to anyone who will listen—a bad idea, I think. But there it is."

  They walked on in silence for a few minutes as Garlthik searched for the right words.

  "Now don't get me wrong. Magic doesn't just happen. Paying attention to the world is work, and eve
ry so often it makes sense to study something in detail. Like the rope Slinsk and Phlaren tied me up with. That was a mistake on their part. I knew that rope well—I studied all the rope we had when we were working together, just in case something like that should come up. I knew my hands, I knew the rope, so in that moment, even though I couldn't see my hands, could feel barely anything but pain from the broken arm tied around my back, I was able to know exactly what to do to free myself. I knew how the rope met my hands, knew just how-to tug it, knew just how much pressure was needed at each moment, all because I knew that rope so well.

  "Anyway, that's why a metalsmith is so good. He gets to know the metal before he works it. Or the archer who floats on the magic. He knows his bow inside and out. Knows every nick and exactly how it's balanced. When he draws an arrow into it, he's got something a regular archer doesn't have: the feel of the world binding his hands to the wood of the bow, the bow against the air, and the air against his hands. It's all connected. There are good archers, but none are so good as those who know the magical side of whatever they're in contact with. That is, archer adepts. And we, lad, will be a pair of thief adepts."

  And so it went. At first Garlthik spoke little of thieving itself. He tossed out ideas about the world and magic over and over again, all strange at first, but easier to understand upon each hearing.

  One morning J'role woke before Garlthik. Rather than wake the ork, he stood and turned slowly around. A breeze touched him. He looked down and saw how many shapes and sizes of grains of dirt-made up the ground on which he stood. All rested against each other, an impossibly enormous number of them, on and on forming the land that stretched out forever and ever, wrapping itself around the world, all flowing beyond his vision, but all connected, oddly, to the very spot where he stood. "So," he thought to himself, "this is magic."

  Toward evening they saw a village ahead. Like J'role's village, it was surrounded by farmland—patches of green that radiated out in wider and wider arcs, forcing their way into the brown and dry lands beyond. A small river ran beside the village, and a large mill rested on it, its water wheel turning steadily and slowly.

  "We'll be staying there tonight."

  J'role held up a palm, empty.

  "Not to worry, lad. I've still got this." The ork leaned down and slid a wad of thick black clay off the edge of his boot sole, revealing a small compartment. J'role caught a glimpse of silver. Then Garlthik sent one of his fingers into the hole and fished out a small stone, no bigger than a fingertip. It was cut with several facets that caught the sunlight and turned the light silver and blue. The sight transfixed J'role; never had he seen anything so beautiful.

  "My first haul," said Garlthik wistfully. "A diamond ... You've never seen one before, have you? Beautiful stones. Stole it from a merchant in a citadel far south of here. The old man who taught me to steal, he told me to get it. It marked me. We'll use it to get lodging and food tonight."

  He started down the slope leading to the village, but J'role caught the ork's arm and stopped him. The boy shook his head. He didn't want Garlthik selling his beautiful stone for the comfort of lodging and food. He patted his stomach and shook his head again, then pointed further along the route they had been traveling.

  Garlthik laughed. "Don't worry about it, lad. It's something I want to do." He looked down at the stone. "It was ridiculous for me to keep it all these years. Not like me at all.

  An adept's got to be true to himself, J'role. If you don't behave as you truly are, the magic will know. It'll turn you out. This ... This has been a bit of vanity. I'd never hold on to something like this. It's as if I was waiting for something to go wrong, keeping a little extra hidden away just in case. Well, my boy, I’m not a 'just in case' ork. I either make it or I don't. So let's go spend it now and get it over with. We'll have a roof over our heads, some good food in our bellies and supplies for the rest of the trip. If they've any pack animals to spare, they'll be ours as well."

  They went down to the village, meeting a few stares from farmers along the way, and even more when they reached the village proper. It occurred to J'role that almost everyone they'd seen in the villages they passed had been human. Remembering how strange Garlthik's appearance had seemed to him at first, J'role wondered what it was like to be Garlthik, alone in a world of staring eyes. And then he realized with a start that outcast and alone was exactly the way he'd lived his own life. Until now.

  8

  In one of his nightmares, J'role wakes from his sleep.

  He is six or so. From the central room his mother has just let out a cry so loud it woke him. He is startled for a moment but then hears a soothing whisper. He thinks at first it is his father. But the voice is too deep. It is strange. Not the voice of anyone in the kaer.

  Then J'role realizes that it is the voice of the thing in the corner.

  In the center of the village they found the local tavern, a big inn very much like Brandson's, the tavern in J'role's village. When Garlthik first presented the diamond to the tavern keeper, a thick-bodied woman with red cheeks and clever eyes, she looked slightly left and right, knowing instinctively that the ork had gained the treasure in some underhanded manner.

  But when Garlthik began to speak with her, it was in a voice J'role had never heard from him before. The ork's tone was at once soothing and cunning. He never stated that the stone was stolen, yet with sly glances he clearly implied it was. J'role watched the woman, and realized that part of her wanted nothing to do with the stolen diamond, yet another part was drawn to the idea of buying such merchandise. Not only would she get it at a bargain price, but it would be stolen treasure. He saw the eagerness building in her eyes. A story to tell her select friends, J'role guessed: "Well, in walked this ork, hungry as could be, tattered cloak and such, and he comes straight up to the bar, making sure no one else could overhear, of courses and in his hand he's holding . . ."

  She didn't seem the sort to have trafficked much in stolen goods, but from the strange look in her eyes, J'role saw that she wanted to give it a try, if only once.

  J'role wondered if he was any different. He had left his village, a place where most people stayed forever, to take up traveling with a creature who had one green eye and thick yellow teeth so big they poked up over his lips. Watching Garlthik bargain, J'role realized how thankful he was to the ork for getting him away from his village.

  “I can't give you coins," the woman said, staring at the diamond, the negotiations finished, "but I'll give you the food and lodging you asked for, and I'll make arrangements with Hyruss the miller's son about that horse. She won't be fast, but she'll carry the food you've bought."

  "And the sword and the dagger?"

  "Yes, yes," the woman said with distaste. "The weapons as well." J'role did not think she minded the sword by itself; it was arming an ork with a sword that was giving her trouble.

  "You've been most kind," said Garlthik. "Now if you could let us have two legs of lamb, stew, and ale, we'll fill our bellies well and then we'll retire upstairs."

  “I can't give you anything until I've been paid," the woman said, hand outstretched.

  "Good tavernkeep, we have nothing to pay you with but this stone, and certainly its value exceeds the meal and one night's lodging—as we have already discussed. When you have arranged the food and the horse, I'll gladly give you the stone. I assure you, the investment will be well worth your time." The words sounded awkward coming from Garlthik's mouth, as if they were too large to fit comfortably. Too formal and friendly.

  Yet he got them out, and the woman agreed. She turned to shout at a boy—her son?—to bring some lamb and stew.

  J'role and Garlthik took a table near a window looking out in the direction they had just traveled. Garlthik stared from the window with the same haunted look he had worn when first they'd met and the ork had turned around to see if anyone—Mordom, J'role knew now—followed.

  The ring now hung under J'role's shirt, tied around his neck by a thong. Thinkin
g about the past brought thoughts of his father, which suddenly made him acutely aware of the ring. The cold metal against his chest tempted him to put it back on his finger. He suddenly felt incomplete again, and wanted the thing that would finally make him whole.

  Despite the desire, J'role did not put on the ring. He didn't want to begin babbling uncontrollably about a lost city while surrounded by strangers; he and Garlthik had already attracted enough attention. Instead he joined Garlthik in looking silently out the window.

  It seemed strange now to see the world outside enclosed in a frame. J'role longed to step outside the tavern and be lost once more in the boundless world, feeling his connection with everything continuing on forever—a sensation nearly impossible to experience while looking through the square edges of a window. Yet he also felt a strong desire to stay right where he was. Though the world lost its indefinable, lovely quality when framed, he found it easier to relax.

  The boy soon brought the food. The lamb was so tender it seemed to melt in J'role's mouth; and the stew, warm and full of carrots and corn and beef, made his cheeks tingle and filled his belly so deeply that he thought he might never want to eat again.