Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Lliferock (29 page)

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 Ganwetrammus. 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 _ [email protected]) 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 _ [email protected]) 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 _ [email protected])  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 have 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 _ [email protected]) 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 _ [email protected]) Liferock 

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night.

He took the last steps two and three at a jump, running past the curtained verandah and into the temple. He made his way to the left wall, scanning the engravings of the brotherhood’s history, searching for the story of Jibn’s Horror and Garen’s sacrifice — the liferock’s memory of the last performance of the Ritual of Protection.

The engravings converged where Jibn’s life thread combined with Garen’s and Tylon Giv’s and all the others of the brotherhood who had returned to the liferock for the Long Dreaming. Garen and Tylon were the Elders then. The world was a verdant, beautiful place brimming with health and life.

The Horrors were just starting to arrive, to scavenge and destroy with abandon.

Gvint ran his fingers along the fine etchings, preparing to merge into the memory. The stone surface was smooth here, worn down by the many brothers who had relived these events. His breathing slowed as he calmed himself and began the merge. His fingers melted slowly into the wall. Although he had experienced this memory many times and he had imagined himself dancing the ritual as Garen and Tylon had danced it, he wanted to relive it once more. He needed to make sure that no mistakes were made. They would only have one chance to try the ritual.

He hoped it would be enough.

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

The lifeless body of Reid Quo lay on the floor of the cave. Pabl knelt beside it, wiping the water from his eyes. It was time to prepare a sling to carry the body.

Reid’s spirit had fled, and it would find its way back to the liferock, but his body was Pabl’s burden. It would have to be carried back to Tepuis Garen and placed on the Deathstone to rejoin the rock. Pabl accepted this task with determination even though it would lengthen his journey home; he would expect no less from any of his brothers.

Celagri stepped forward. “Pabl, can we get out of this creepy place soon? It gives me chills.”

“Yes, of course. Right after I make a sling for Reid’s body.”

“You’re actually going to carry him all the way back to Tepuis Garen?”

“Rejoining the liferock after death is a sacred rite among my people,” Pabl said.

Celagri sighed. “Of course it is, I should have known.”

“I gave him my promise, and I intend to keep it.” Pabl looked over at Jan, then back at Celagri. “We will leave as soon as I’ve finished.”

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“Today I hope,” Celagri said.

“Yes,” Pabl said. “It should only take me a few hours. I will carry Reid’s body, and you two will have to split the contents of my backpack between you.”