Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Longing Ring

by kubasik

  J'role and Garlthik swayed as they stood, their full meals mixing with their exhaustion.

  The boy who had served them led them upstairs to a room with two mats on the floor and a window covered with a coarse, ragged cloth. The sun still shone, and small circles of light formed by holes in the cloth dotted the floor. Without any thought of either future or past, J'role dropped to his knees and spread himself out on one of the mats.

  Just as he closed his eyes the creature in his thoughts said, "So, you'll find the city?"

  It had been so long since the creature had spoken that it took J'role by surprise. "Yes," he thought, his mind slipping into a pleasant darkness.

  The creature slid back into his thoughts, curling up as comfortably as a cat before a fire, and said no more.

  The slow, precise sound of hoof beats, the snort of horses, words whispered, a clatter of metal all floated into J'role's awareness. He awoke with a start.

  Darkness. Outside the window he heard the sounds continue. Through the holes in the cloth he saw the stars. Garlthik still slept.

  J'role rose quietly to his feet. In three steps he was across the bare floorboards and looking out the window through a tear in the cloth.

  Below he saw at man handing his horse's reins over to the tavernkeep's son. The man was round in the middle, and wore a thick scarlet jacket with matching pants, all trimmed with gold. A large man—no, not a man—one of the lizardfolk his father had talked about.

  Green-skinned, tall, with a long, thick tail. He held a-large sword and stood warily, obviously guarding the man, keeping an eye out for anyone who might approach out of the darkness. J'role wondered what if was like to be so big. Big as Garlthik, and then bigger. With a huge tail that could be used to trip enemies. The guard's long, snouted head turned right and then left, as if sniffing for possible danger.

  Suddenly J’role felt something beside him. He gave out a gasp, and felt a rough hand cover his mouth. "Shhh," said Garlthik, releasing J'role immediately. "If we travel together, you must always wake me when there's news. Understand?”

  J'role nodded and stepped aside to give Garlthik a clear view of the scene outside. "Ah.

  Good. He's the one." With that cryptic statement Garlthik turned from the window and returned to his mat. "Might as well turn in. Unless I miss my guess, there won't be anything more to do with them tonight. We'll let them get comfortable."

  J'role had no idea what Garlthik was talking about, but he had no wish to try and sort it out now. He was too tired.

  The fat man and his guard entered the tavern. J'role heard their voices, but could not make out the words. Unable to gain any more information—and with not the slightest idea what he might have been trying to find out anyway—he too returned to his mat and the sweetness of sleep.

  The next day J'role and Garlthik went down to the common area to enjoy a breakfast of warm bread, cheese, and milk. They had just sat down when the lizard-folk guard came down and took a seat across the room. Though armed with a sword and possessing a fine row of razor-sharp teeth, the lizard-folk seemed oddly shy and small. He curled his clawed hands around his broth and glanced about furtively as if afraid someone would see him looking.

  One time J'role's eyes met the guard's, and instead of turning away, as J'role would have expected, the lizard-folk smiled, the tip of his tail thumping up and down against the floor.

  "What are you doing?" Garlthik muttered his voice not much louder than a whisper, but strong and serious.

  J'role saw that the ork kept his head down, as if concerned only with swirling the mead in his mug. He didn't know what Garlthik was talking about.

  "What are you doing looking about like that, making eye contact? You only do that if you need a mark to take a liking to you. We don't need that. Now he's paid attention to you.

  Now he'll remember you. You are a thief. You don't befriend anybody, understand?

  There are the people you steal from, and that's it. The only people you don't steal from are the people who don't own anything worth stealing. And you don't befriend them because they're not worth befriending. If they ever end up owning something, then you can steal it. But they're not your friends. Understand?"

  J'role did—just barely—and he nodded his head.

  Soon the portly, finely dressed man also came down to the common area. J'role eyed him carefully, keeping Garlthik's warning in his thoughts. He noticed that the rich man wore a ring with a bright stone that shone blue with the light it caught from the windows. It was bigger, much bigger, than the one Garlthik had bartered to the tavernkeep. The rich man took a table separate from the one where the guard sat.

  "Tonight, when the reptile is on watch," said Garlthik, "you'll go in and steal that diamond—the one on the trader's finger. They're going to stay at least another night. He's well-fed and well-dressed. Once his kind stop moving, they stay put for a while."

  J'role looked up at Garlthik's face and then down at his food, afraid of showing undue attention to the conversation.

  "It's your test, boy. Your initiation. And your payment. I paid my mentor with coins I begged in the citadel. You haven't paid me yet. And you owe me for my diamond. That ring on his finger. You owe me. We'll do it tonight. Best be back on the road by then. I do believe Mordom has lost our trail, but better to be on the safe side."

  A tight tension crawled over J'role's chest. The lizard-folk looked very strong. To steal something from him would be a difficult task. Dangerous.-

  "You'll do just fine," said the creature, even as J'role's thoughts slipped into fear. He had the strange desire to be sitting alongside his drunken father back at the kaer. "You'll do just fine.'' "What?" thought J'role. It was the first time the thing in his thoughts had ever tried to offer comfort, and the words startled him. "I like you, boy. Didn't you know that?"

  "No." "Well, I do."

  "Will you let me talk now?"

  "Talk? I'll always let you talk." The creature laughed: something oily passed through J'role's thoughts.

  “I mean …like other people."

  "Why would you want to talk like other people? I've given you an amazing gift."

  “I don't want it."

  "Well, no matter. No. I told you years ago, we'll be together until you die. I don't suppose you want to kill yourself?"

  “No”

  "Well, then there's nothing to be done, is there?"

  "Why: don't you leave?"

  "Not until you're dead. Not until you're dead."

  The cold ring hanging against J'role's chest seemed to dig into his flesh. If he could only find the city. They would be able to help him.

  "I'm going to go speak with the weaponsmith," said Garlthik, standing up. "Do what you will, but be back here tonight. Get some rest, as a matter of fact. It's going to be a busy night."

  That night, long after the sky had turned black and the stars- blanketed the world and the people in the village and all throughout the land were asleep, Garlthik woke J'role. J'role's mind stirred itself from at deep dream: his mother, holding him in her arms when he was a child. Her flesh was a light gray, strong as stone, but soft and comfortable.

  "Wake up. It's time."

  The moon had passed toward her monthly death, and only dim light from the stars passed through the holes in the curtain. J'role made out Garlthik's big body, no more than a thick shadow, moving on all fours on the floor. The old, worn floorboards creaked under him.

  But softly. Softer than they should have.

  A scrape of stone against metal, once, twice, a spark, a sudden flame. An oil-soaked rag wrapped around a short stick set on a metal plate bursting with white illumination. It lit Garlthik's face now, the shadows carving up through the heavy fat and muscles, and fear came to J'role. A monster, he thought, just as his father had told him about monsters when he was at little boy.

  A little boy? When had he become a big boy? Why did he no longer feel like a boy at all?

  The light cast Garlthik's shadow huge against
the wall as he hunched over the flame.

  "Come here.”

  Garlthik did not look at J'role as he spoke, but continued staring at the flame, as if it were a memory of years gone by, burning away. His voice was gruff and serious, not at all the way J'role was used to hearing the ork talk. The voice commanded him, drew him to something he not understand. He moved closer, crawling on his hands and knees.

  "Here," Garlthik said, almost angry, but J 'role could not be sure. The ork extended his long arms and grabbed J'role by each wrist, tugging him closer to the flame until the two of them faced each other, The heat of the fire between them, the oily smoke rising up into their faces.

  The heat turned J'role's flesh warm, making him think of when he was five and had the fever, and how Xiasass, the priestess of Garlen, old then, dead now, came to his room in the kaer and prayed for his health. Her hands were Thin and wrinkled, but her touch was gentle, like smooth stone. Marble. The marble of Garlen's statue itself, which J'role had once touched out of curiosity when no one was looking.

  Xiasass soothed him as he looked into her face. She smiled at him as she prayed. People get so old, he had thought, looking up into her face. I might live after all.

  Garlthik's hands were thick and coarse, not comforting at all. He gripped J'-role's wrists tightly, his face set and staring at J'role's, as if daring J'role to look back at him. But J'role could not bring himself to stare into the ork's face. It overpowered him, forcing his courage back.

  He took a quick glance at Garlthik, saw the eye patch, thought of Mordom for some reason he did not understand, and then realized that Garlthik’s green eye matched the green eye on Mordom's palm!

  What enemies the ork had! Did he really want to be with Garlthik? What was he doing?

  He could die—or worse. Why did he want to be an adventurer, as Garlthik described?

  Because of his father's stories? His father was a liar who had fed off the tales of his ancestors but never done anything to actually live what he spoke of. To get away from his village? As J'role thought of his home, it suddenly seemed more pleasant than he realized Why not go back? He could get by; some stolen fruit here, an egg there, a crust, some scraps. Watching the villagers live their lives, raising their families. A comfortable observer. Why not just go back?

  But Garlthik‘s thick, strong grip against the muscles of J'role's wrists held him against the desire. The hands were not thin and old and caring like those of Xiasass. They were huge, hardy rough. They did not comfort. But they did hold. They possessed a different kind of strength. The hands of Xiasass had cared for him when he was weak. Garlthik's hands asked him to be stronger.

  Did J'role want to be stronger?

  He looked at Garlthik's broad face, toothy and maimed. The ork merely continued staring back at him, expressionless, waiting. J'role held his gaze. For a long time they gazed at each other. The heat of the flame made the air between them waver; the coiling, black smoke rose into J'role's nostrils, making him dizzy. But he held Garlthik’s stare until he thought he saw the tug of a smile at the edge of the ork's mouth.

  Garlthik did not smile, though. "J'role," he said finally, "do you want to be a thief?"

  Not just steal, J'role thought. Be a thief. Not to be me stealing, but be someone who steals. To be someone new.

  J'role wanted very much to be someone new.

  Yes, he nodded. Yes.

  9

  Jangle listened as carefully as he could to his mother talking to the thing in the corner of the other room, but he could not make out the words. He heard only tones. Soft and somewhat menacing from the thing in the corner, fearful from his mother.

  He climbed out of bed, carefully and quietly, making no sound, his feet light against the warm stone floor. A heavy curtain hung between his room and the central room and a bit of light from one of the floating, magical spheres in the other room made its way through it. The light was greenish, for that was the color his mother liked at the hour just before bedtime.

  Taking small steps with his small feet, J'role moved toward the curtained doorway. One step after another, drawing in long, silent breaths after each successfully accomplished step.

  After a long while he stood only two feet from the curtain. All he could hear now were whispers, but his mother still sounded frightened.

  J'role wanted to move forward, wanted to do something. He imagined rushing forward, pushing the curtains aside, saving his mother from the thing in the corner of the other room. Yet something held him back. He realized that she was talking to it. She had not shouted for help. She had not raised her voice and demanded that it leave the way she had done when J'role's friend Weshthrall broke one of her glowpots.

  Maybe she wanted to talk to the thing in the corner. He listened again.

  The conversation continued

  He would ask her in the morning.

  He turned Silently aid crept back to bed. It was many hours before he could sleep, for the whispers in the other room lasted a long time.

  When J'role answered Garlthik’s question with a nod, the ork smiled and squeezed the boy's wrists. It didn't hurt, and J'role realized the ork was simply happy that J'role wanted to be a thief. But the ork quickly became serious again, the fire between them illuminating his face.

  "A thief lives in the shadows, J'role," he said. "Most people want the light of the sun to warm their bodies. A thief may want it, but he may not have it. A thief is silent. While others can speak their ideas and thoughts and feelings, a thief must keep all that to himself; he seeks solitude and secrecy while others seek companionship.

  “Most important, a thief steals. You do not take from the world, you take from others.

  You do not exchange goods or coin to support your life, you simply take. Yours is a life without remorse. That is key. The magic will leave you if you feel shame for what you have done. Others can afford shame. We cannot. Do you understand?"

  J'role nodded. He didn't know if he could keep from feeling shame, but it seemed a lovely ambition. How nice never to feel bad again.

  "Close your eyes."

  J'role did. A wind seemed to crawl over him, cold and wet. Magic? Was this it?

  "The darkness that you see is your own darkness. Cherish it. It is yours, neither to share nor to give. Within your darkness you are safe." Garlthik tightened his grip on J'role's wrist. "Open your eyes." Again J'role obeyed. "Remain still. Move nothing, do nothing, but listen for the sound of your own heart." J'role concentrated on listening to his heartbeat. Instead he heard many, many other sounds—his breathing, the wind lightly touching the window curtains, the hiss of the fire before him. Insects outside. But as the moments wore on, the sounds gradually faded away, one after another, each vanishing into the dull roar that became a great silence. Soon only the beating of his heart remained.

  J'role nodded his head slightly.

  “This is your silence,” Garlthik continued. "Where you live now, there is no other sound that matters but your own heartbeat. The cry of an infant, the sigh of a young woman, the pleadings of an old man, they are all overwhelmed in the silence that is yours, the silence of your life."

  Garlthik paused, and in his face J'role saw a touch of concern—out of place with the serious tone the ork had been using. "Make no sound," he whispered. Then, without warning, he dragged J'role's left-hand forward, lowering the boy's forearm into the flame.

  Pain tore through J'role's arm. He tried to jerk his arm away, but Garlthik held it tight. He wanted to cry out, but was afraid to. Afraid of what he might say, might do.

  "This pain is yours and no one else may know of it. The pain you have felt all of your life; all of it now comes to this point. This moment is yours and in your heart it separates you from every other person in the world. In your isolation you may take what you want, do what you wish. Now you are adrift from all, and none may know you. You owe nothing to anyone, but everything is yours for the taking."

  Garlthik released J'role's hand and the boy fell back, r
olling to the floor. He clutched at the burned flesh with his right hand, but immediately pulled his hand back, for his touch only increased the pain. The smell of burned meat filled the room. Tears formed in J'role's eyes. It felt as if someone were removing the flesh of his forearm with a sharp blade, over and over again, taking only a little layer of flesh each time. The creature in his head turned this way and that, writhing with pleasure.

  Why did Garlthik do this? As J'role rocked back and forth, cradling his maimed arms he saw Garlthik stand? The flame casting his shadow onto the ceiling.

  "Get up," he said, bending down to brush his heavy hand against J'role's cheek.

  J'role remembered the potion Garlthik had used to heal his broken arm after the fight at the kaer. Was he going to cure him now? The boy looked up at the ork with pleading eyes, but Garlthik only said, "Get up now, or I'll leave you here and go after the city myself."