Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Lliferock (18 page)

Pabl didn’t know how much time passed while his memories sifted through his mind and into the memory of the Council, but it seemed like hours. Maybe days. And after he had remembered his whole life up to the failed attack on the mining company and the trip to Domorpen, Pabl felt the presence of the Four. They greeted him in thoughts and images. He saw their forms in his mind, though they no longer physically resembled obsidimen at all, and Pabl suddenly knew that they were the swirling columns at the corners of the valley.

Unnamed one, you are young for such responsibility. The thoughts seemed to come from all of them, rather than one.

You have a daunting task.

We know the whereabouts of your lost Elder, Reid Quo.

Pabl felt a wave of relief pass through him. If they knew where Reid was, then all Pabl had to do was go there and bring Reid back to Tepuis Garen.

But the risks are terribly high, unnamed one. So great in fact that we cannot warn you enough, except perhaps by showing you the story of Sangolin.

Pabl steeled his mind, readying himself for whatever came next. He had never heard of a place called Sangolin, but the word was familiar. Sangolin meant “bloodstone.”

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Our knowledge of Sangolin comes from the experiences of two obsidimen of different liferocks who managed to escape the place. Eventually, with the help of others, they made their way here.

Pabl saw an image of cliffs, of red rocks in drifting mist.

Fire glowed in a sea below the cliffs, its flames licking the rock at the base a thousand feet below. He felt the heat of the mist against his skin, and smelled the stench of rotting vegetation carried on the clouds of steam.

Some places in our magical world bear names — Named-places such as Death’s Sea and the Dragon Mountains. These places hold power and have distinct patterns of their own. Like people, and some objects that bear Names, Named-places have their own temperament and force of will. They can be benign or influential, work for Name-givers or against them.

The image in Pabl’s mind coalesced until he saw a great Gathering of obsidimen on a wide level shelf, set slightly back from the cliff. The brothers of many liferocks were meeting together to share water and consciousness, nearly fifty obsidimen Dreaming together. The mass of their merged body hummed with music, a deep harmonious chorus that sang of joy and togetherness. The Gathering enjoyed deep seclusion due to the surrounding mountains, and yet they had the benefit of open space and sunshine peeking through the drifts of mist.

Sangolin is an evil place for obsidimen. At the beginning of the Scourge, Horrors attacked a Gathering of obsidimen at a place set into the cliffs next to the Scarlet Sea.

Pabl watched in his mind as the obsidimen were startled out of their Dreaming by an army of dwarfs and men and orks who crested the mountain slope and poured down the narrow path onto the wide shelf. Pabl recognized Reid Quo among the obsidimen who emerged from the Gathering.

Reid was angry at being disturbed, and he went with This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ [email protected]) Liferock 

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some others to ask the army to leave. But the energy-wasters told them that an onslaught of Horrors had breached the barrier between planes and had been attacking their army for five days as they tried to retreat to a place of safety.

Then the newcomers looked past Reid, seeing the cliffs and the Scarlet Sea beyond. They lost hope completely when Reid told them that there was no way out except the way they had come. They were all trapped — dwarfs, men, orks— and obsidimen.

Soon the hollow was filled with the Name-givers, and the Horrors came screaming in. The rumors of the coming Scourge were true. The Horrors were all shapes and sizes; ugly parasites that attacked minds, formless blobs of smothering pink ooze, fat insect-like things with pincers and sharp bristles. They killed slowly, inflicting as much pain as possible before death. And although they weren’t hard to fight, they came in huge numbers, swarming like killer bees.

A powerful obsidiman mage — Vecrix — called to the members of his race. He asked them to recreate the Gathering while he called upon the earth to cover them and protect them from the Horrors. Reid and the others gathered in a space next to the mountainside and entered united self-Dreaming for a second time.

Vecrix stood tall, his white marble skin shining in the sunlight as he used his magic to shake the rock above them, trying to cause an avalanche to cover the Gathering and create a makeshift kaer. The rock responded, leaping to his command with a deafening crack. And as the boulders fell, Vecrix bound the disparate fragments of rock together with magic, tying their patterns together to create a shell of stone over the Gathering. He wove a series of wards into the loosely tied pattern of the falling stone in a desperate attempt to prevent the Horrors from digging them out. His power was vast, and his need drove him to attempt the impossible.

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Many dwarfs were pummeled and crushed to death under the falling rock, trapped and wounded, waiting in fear for the Horrors to come and infect their minds. And the Horrors came and feasted on the pain, eventually killing everyone who was not protected in the merge. Vecrix himself almost didn’t make it. A Horror dug its claws into him near the end, ripping away the left half of his face, and digging out his eye with its mandibles. He would’ve died then, except that a fragment of stone crashed down on them, killing the Horror and breaking Vecrix’s leg. He pushed the Horror off and crawled to join the Gathering before the last stones fell.

You see, unnamed one, the Horrors did not get to your lost Elder, but the obsidimen of the Gathering spent five hundred years in self-Dreaming.

Pabl felt a chill seize his mind. All obsidimen knew not to Dream without a liferock for more than a decade. These obsidimen had passed through the entire Scourge merged together.

The prolonged exposure to each other’s memories and thoughts caused them to lose themselves. Their memories became jumbled, their personalities merged until they didn’t know who they were.

They forgot their liferocks; they forgot themselves.

When they emerged at the end of the Scourge, the place they had created — their Gathering — had become a force of its own. An entity. They called it Sangolin and they did not leave it for they had forgotten what had happened there at the beginning of the Scourge. Most of them had forgotten the Horrors and the avalanche. Those who did remember didn’t care; their life energy had been used to create the pattern of a new place, one with a spirit of its own. They were beyond caring.

The force inside Sangolin did not want them to leave. So they stayed because they could not fathom living without it.

They were addicted to it.

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Visions of Sangolin after the Scourge flooded Pabl’s mind.

He saw the emergence of the first obsidimen, hesitantly leaving the sanctuary of their brothers. They pushed against the covering of rock, using magic to carve a corridor through the stone. Hunger and thirst nearly claimed the lives of the first ones, emerged into a ravaged world. All of the plant life near the hollow had been destroyed, and the spring water which had flowed from over the mountainside into a pool on the shelf of rock was now covered by the avalanche.

They violated their obsidiman nature, tunneling and hunting and eating meat. They dug out a cavern around Sangolin and discovered the water, though it was now hard with minerals and tinged with the taste of the Horror bones over which it flowed.

Reid Quo emerged to help the others. And like them, he no longer knew himself. He hunted and dug caves with the others, waiting, always waiting for Sangolin to call him back to join. The vision made Pabl sad, for he remembered the Reid Quo from the liferock’s memories. Adventurous, a powerful master of illusion, and one who did much to unite disparate brotherhoods, taking pride in the Gatherings he organized.

Then the visions of Sangolin stopped in Pabl’s mind. Two members of the Gathering had been injured by fire elementals during a trip to the lava river which flowed from the volcano.

They plummeted into the Scarlet Sea a few miles from Sangolin and left for dead — something no sane obsidiman would ever do to a brother.

Some time later, a dwarf mining team found them on the shore, scarred and mostly burned, but barely alive. The mining team took them back to Travar, and they eventually made their way into the company of other obsidimen, and finally to the Valley of the Elders.

That is all we know of Sangolin. You will most likely find Reid Quo there, but heed our warning, unnamed one. If you go, This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ [email protected]) Liferock 

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Sangolin will call to you. It will try to hypnotize you and entice you to join it, to merge with its soft mottled flesh. You must resist Sangolin’s call if you wish to return to Ganwetrammus with Reid Quo.

Concentrate on your liferock, unnamed one. Whenever you feel the dizzying uncertainty of Sangolin’s allure. Your connection to Ganwetrammus is the only thing which can keep you true.

Pabl concentrated on Tepuis Garen. He saw the Alqarat burning bright in his mind, felt the reassuring pattern of Ganwetrammus as he remembered merging with the rock.

Good, unnamed one, remember your liferock always, for your existence means nothing without it . . . nothing except emptiness and lifelong sorrow.

Pabl thought of Ohin Yeenar, alone in the world without a liferock, desperate for release from his pain. Ohin was not much different now than those of other Name-giver races who had lived past their natural time. Except that Ohin Yeenar knew what he had lost. He remembered what it was like to have a liferock, to have that bond with the earth spirit and his brotherhood.

No energy-wasters could know what they missed. Maybe that was how they managed to live without the connection.

Life in the outside world means making choices, unnamed one. Sometimes those choices seem impossibly hard, like Ohin Yeenar’s decision to stay with his dead liferock. Ohin Yeenar remained true to himself; he made the right choice. He would be at Sangolin now if he had gone with Reid Quo and the others.

Pabl remembered the pathetic pleas the ancient one had made, trying to end his pain. He saw his own fist, tempered by magic into a lethal weapon, arcing toward Ohin’s sightless head.

If you had chosen to kill Ohin Yeenar, unnamed one, you would have nothing to be ashamed of. He is wracked by great This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ [email protected]) Liferock 

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sorrow, and that has made him mad. Death would be a bless-ing for him.

Always remember who you are, unnamed one. Remember yourself and your heritage, and you will make the right choice every time.

Pabl imagined his fist connecting with the cracked flesh of the ancient obsidiman, pulverizing the skull next to his milky white eyes. In the vision, blood burst from Ohin’s head as his head snapped back. Then Ohin whiplashed forward onto the flagstones of the temple floor, spattering his lifeblood over the stones of his dead liferock.

Pabl shook the image from his mind. It sickened him. Perhaps Ohin should be dead, but Pabl didn’t think he could kill him. Maybe if Ohin were brought here, to the Council of Four, he could regain his sanity.

Perhaps, unnamed one. But the two obsidimen who escaped Sangolin by accident and eventually made it here, went insane from withdrawal. We were able to help them piece the fragments of their spirits together, but we could not repair the damage Sangolin had done to them. Their insanity drove them to their deaths a few years after they left here.

We have limitations; we may not be able to help Ohin Yeenar. And we may not have the power to save Reid Quo if he is in similar condition as the others who escaped Sangolin.

Pabl withdrew into himself, trying to block out the images and voices. Trying to break out of the merge. His mind was overloaded with thoughts and images; he needed time to put everything together.

But the Council of Four did not let him go. They reached into his pattern and examined it, looking for aberrations.

What are you doing to me?

They told him that struggling to break the merge was futile. While he was here, they would correct any defects in his pattern. There was nothing to worry about.

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Fear shot through Pabl as he felt them pry into his spirit, and he could do nothing to resist.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ [email protected])  Chapter Nineteen 

Gvint looked across the cluttered room at the broad curve of Jibn’s back, swathed in his blue tunic. The room had warmed in the hours since Gvint had opened the fire basket on the hearth. Rain pounded the roof overhead with a muted low hiss as Gvint turned away from Jibn and paced back towards the big table.

He had been pacing in silence for an hour, trying to come up with something which would convince Jibn to help him perform the Ritual of Protection. There was a way that might work, but it meant re-experiencing the near death of Ganwetrammus. Gvint clenched his jaw and turned back to face Jibn.

“Merge with me, brother.”

Jibn’s shoulder twitched involuntarily. “W-w-why?” he said. “You know that if I am m-m-marked, you could be possessed.”

“You aren’t marked.”

“You d-d-don’t know that.”

“I am willing to take the risk, Jibn. I have something to show you.”

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