Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Mother Speaks (14 page)

11

I was not afraid. After the encounter in Vrograth's lair, I knew there was more to this troll than I had originally suspected. I knew now Krattack was an illusionist of some kind, and I would indeed speak with him.

He waited for me to approach, and then without another word, led me down a gently sloped path. When we were out of sight of the rest of the camp, I created a large flame in my hand so we might walk more easily through the night.

Finally we reached a collection of rocks resting against a sharp rise in the mountain.

Krattack placed his hand against the side of one rock, then slowly lowered himself onto another large one. How old was he? In the last hour, age seemed to accumulate on him like raindrops from a stormy sky. Illusionists, I knew, were crafty, and did not always depend on magic to carry out their deceptions. Did he usually carry himself with more youth than he actually possessed? In the violent society of the crystal raiders, where strength mattered so much, such a ruse might serve him well.

"Apologies for such a late meeting," he said.

I spread my arms. "Please. Thank you for what you did in Vrograth's cave. I appreciate it."

"Nothing, at all," he said, kindly, like a faint memory of my grandfather. Then serious.

"Something, actually. I wouldn't be honest if I didn't tell you I had my own reasons for trying to help you." I remained silent I didn't know what to say. "You listen. That's good.

I can't say I'm used to that around here. A noisy bunch. Deliberation is a rare commodity here."

The quality of his Throalic was very good, and I commented on it.

"I'm from the lowlands, originally. I was captured at the age of twenty. The Stoneclaws raided my village, killed some of my people, including my parents. You know of the custom of newots?"

I shook my head.

"Odd bit of business. Newots are prisoners taken by crystal raiders." He turned his bald head up, his old face searching the sky. "Not prisoners, really. They take you in as their own. Not just trolls. Anybody. But usually trolls. Trolls can survive the harsh life. Most other races might not make it out here. Exhaustion soon takes them." He paused, stared at me. "You look concerned. It happens. People die."

Once more his words confused me into silence.

"A harsh point of view, I know. But living with these people—the death of my parents—

coldness can be acquired. At least your husband—yes?—he is your husband—?" I nodded reluctantly. "At least your husband is helping to reduce the work load for the rest of you. I don't know where he finds the strength. Humans don't usually possess the endurance, but he's going to keep some of you alive. That much I'm sure of."

"I'm ... What are you talking about?"

He looked at me carefully. "Those rests your people take while the trolls of the clan continue to work—you don't think that's normal, do you?"

I shrugged, embarrassed.

He laughed. "They're not. You're doing it because it seems normal to you. Not normal to a member of a crystal raider clan. No. But it's all right because J'role makes so much noise with the children all day long and then telling stories half the night that he creates the illusion you're all so busy. By representing the rest of you with his antics, he gives you the chance to do whatever you want. A simple manipulation of attention, but it works."

The words stunned me. I hadn't thought of it that way, but it certainly seemed possible.

"I'm sure he isn't doing it on purpose," I said suddenly.

Once more he examined my face, as if looking for the solution to an intriguing puzzle.

"Whatever do you mean by that?"

"I ... I mean, he just plays with children. He just tells stories. He doesn't mean to be helping us."

"Us?"

"Well, not that he's not part of us ... It's just that...” My words trailed off into confusion.

"What makes you think anyone does anything that he 'just' doesn't do?"

Now I stared at him. "We all do that. We all choose the things we do. I didn't have to come here with you. I could have ignored you. But I didn't. I followed you. I didn't just follow you. I chose to do it."

He smiled and nodded. Then he barked a laugh and stood up and looked out over the edge of the mountain— out at the stars ahead and down into the dark jungle below. "I don't think so," he said, still laughing, his back to me. "Though it's touching you think so."

I stormed up to him, frustrated by his derisive good humor. "Well, I think so. I mean, it's true."

"Then why did you come?"

I moved around to stand in front of him. "Because I was curious."

"Yes," he said, looking down at me, smiling, "you are curious. Your curiosity is so clear on your face, it's comic. Your eyes eat at the fabric of the Universe. Now, I'm not saying that if circumstances had been different you wouldn't have come. Say, if your boys were in danger in the cave where you were standing when I caught your attention. But given the circumstances, your curiosity took control. You had little choice."

"I had much choice."

"Only if you denied who you were. We can do that. We can stop being ourselves, and sometimes that's important. But at the root of it, we are who we are; tightly wrapped bundles of passions securely held in our flesh. And whether we know it our not, our passions drive us forward."

"Like the Passions? Like Garlen and Chorrolis? But we choose to call on them or follow them."

"We call on them or follow them because of who we are. A woman who isn't greedy isn't going to draw Chorrolis' attention."

"What if she needs money for her family? What if she doesn't have money, but needs it, and goes out to get money?"

"Then her love of her family requires that she become greedy."

"But she isn't greedy, she's generous."

"Ah. Now you're trying to couch everything in nice terms. I don't care about the reasons.

What is she at that moment?"

"But she ..."

"She's desperate for money. She might even be willing to lie for it, given the circumstances. Even kill. Chorrolis, his passion for greed strong in her now, will influence her action, Perhaps even inspire her to terrible deeds."

"Yes, but not everyone in need is willing to kill."

"Exactly. And why not? What prevents her from killing?"

"She chooses not to."

"And where does this choice come from?"

"She's decided. She's deliberated ..."

"And where does this decision come from?"

"From her..."

"Thank you.'

"But she decided it."

"How?"

"She just does.” At this point my argument seemed weak, even to me.

"You said you're a curious person. I'd think on this matter if I were you. And I remind you that there are cases where the spirits manifest themselves without invitation. If a person is strong in a certain spirit, the spirit calls and invites him or her to be a questor."

"Who are you?" I asked, exasperated.

"I am Krattack, illusionist, accidental member of the Stoneclaw crystal raider clan, and advisor to Vrograth.”

"Advisor? You seem to taunt him more than anything else."

"I do that. Yes, I do. I even enjoy it sometimes. I honestly don't know why he lets me get away with it. But I've got an odd look in my eyes. Some people confuse it with wisdom, and he thinks I'm good to have around. Oh, I'm not being vain. I'm just perceptive. People think I know what is happening in the darker corners of fate. Really, I'm just as confused as the next person. I just don't tell many people. So I'd appreciate if you could keep it a secret between us."

I couldn't tell whether he was Joking or not, but when he spoke again, Krattack was very serious. "I want you to find your children. I truly do. I lost my parents when I was a child.

The two situations are different, of course—my dead parents, your children enslaved. But the pain is comparable. So, out of compassion, I wish this for you. But I have my own reasons for wanting to set Vrograth against the Therans. I think your interests and mine intersect, and so I am asking you to wait before you go running down the mountain to try to rescue them yourself. I guarantee you will not survive. It will all be in vain."

His knowledge of my immediate plans certainly lent weight to the idea that he knew the

"darker corners of fate." I asked, "Why should I wait?"

"First, and, I repeat, you won't make it down the mountain alive. You don't have a magician's robe, so casting to protect yourself would be quite dangerous. No one here is going to give you a robe so you can reattune it, and I don't think you'd stand a chance of stealing one from anyone in the clan. Nor do we have spare resources for you to make your own. The trip itself down the mountain is ridiculously dangerous. There are monsters. Vrograth will come after you when he discovers you have broken your contract. Other raiding clans live on the mountain who are not as kind as Vrograth—trust me. And the mountain itself ... Well, let me put it this way. There's a reason we travel in air ships. The second reason you should wait is because I think not only will you soon have the opportunity to free your children, but I think Vrograth will help you."

"Why? He seems to have no interest in the Therans."

"Except as potential targets for raids, yes. But I've been poking and prodding him for years now, and I think I finally understand how to get him to see beyond the limited confines of the clan."

Smugly, I said, "Why would he do anything he doesn't want to do?"

Krattack smiled. "You see. There's the difference. He doesn't have to fight the Therans to help you. If he doesn't want to, he won't. But if the right events take place, he will fight the Therans, exactly because of who he is. He'll have no choice."

"And what might those events be."

"Young woman, didn't you take any stock of the ship you arrived in? Compare its size against those of our drakkars. It outclasses our cargo and crew capacities immensely. And it's made of stone. The ship is sturdier than anything we've ever thought of building. My study of magical theory is haphazard, given the circumstances of my life, and I have no idea how they get a ship of stone into the air. The law of similarity mocks the idea."

I nodded. "As an elementalist, I should have some clue, but I'm flummoxed as well."

"Flummoxed?"

"Confused."

"Ah. My Throalic is, you see is good enough, though limited. Well. There it is. Vrograth didn't show his amazement when you met him—no crystal raider would—but the ship you arrived in stunned him. Word had reached us of the Therans from people we've attacked, but he had never seen one of their ships before. Vrograth has yet to encounter the Therans. His pride will demand he try to attack one of these vessels. And he will fail.

And if he lives, his fury will consume him and he will have to strike at the heart of the Therans."

"Why ... why don't you warn him?"

"And say what, you foolish woman? 'Mighty Vrograth, despite your pride and fury, you're no match for such opponents.' Anything I might do to argue the situation would only goad him further on into battle. No. He'll do what he'll do, and I'll try to steer him the right way. But if you would remain, I would be grateful. You will make things easier."

"I don't want to be a puppet in your plans."

"Puppet!" he barked. "I'm only offering to help you get exactly what you want."

"With your own desires pulling the strings."

"Working in agreement. What is wrong with that?"

I could see nothing wrong with it at all. "And what is it you want?"

"Me? I want the Therans out of Barsaive."

12

As Krattack and I walked back to the village, I turned the word "Barsaive" around in my thoughts. I knew, from J'role and others, that Barsaive was the name given to a huge swath of land at the edge of the Theran empire from the time before the Scourge. The region extended from the old Wyrm Wood—now Blood Wood—down to Death's Sea, and from Iopos to Travar. Though my travels had taken me across much of this land at one time or another, I rarely thought of it as "Barsaive." I only considered the local geography and the local names of the places I visited. That all these areas formed a whole had never truly entered my head. For many people, however, the boundary drawn by the Therans generations ago had taken deep root in their imagination, and they identified their interests with all of the province, not just the area where they happened to live.

We reached the village and said good night. Krattack lumbered away from me, his massive shoulders thrown forward. I turned toward my own tent. I would not try to travel down the mountain because Krattack's words had made sense. And now that he had given me something to share with him, I trusted him.

13

I awoke the next morning to find Stoneclaw village buzzing with preparation. The presentation J'role and I had given to Vrograth the night before had worked after all, though not in the way we'd intended. Vrograth would not free us of our obligations, but his pride had been wounded, for I, a human woman, was willing to attack the Therans, while he, up until now, would not.

The preparation kept us busy most of the day, and I had no contact with J'role, though I could hear his laughter and cries of victory and defeat as he entertained the children up and down the cliffs.

Several dozen trolls and I climbed up a steep slope to a series of long, narrow caves that wormed their way in from the slope. One of the trolls told me that the caves had been dug out decades ago, specifically to store the drakkars. By keeping the ships in caves carved out from the middle of the steep slope, the drakkars were relatively safe from thieves.

Several trolls nevertheless always remained on watch in the caves. Fifteen caves lined the slope, and I was assigned to work in one of the lower ones along with a group of four trolls.

Though I knew the ship was an airship, the sight of it levitating slightly off the cave floor still caught me off guard and made me smile. The morning light streamed into the long tunnel and illuminated the drakkar—an airship about a hundred feet long and fifteen or so feet wide.