Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Mother Speaks (21 page)

Bright red light flashed overhead, then warmth bathed me. I shrieked in agony as fire licked its way up my legs. J'role was on me a moment later, smothering the fire that burned the furs I wore. He turned me wildly one way and then the other. The motion only made a dim impact upon my perception. Nearly all my attention went to my legs, the flames had burned off my flesh, and the stench of my own burns overwhelmed my sense of smell. The muscles, exposed now to the open, cool air, seemed horribly cold and hot all at once.

I felt a tearing at my throat before I realized I was uttering a long, endless scream. J'role shouted for Crothat, the questor of Garlen on board. He was a young troll, and still new to the ways of his dedication, but a novice healer was better than none at all.

But Crothat did not come. When I stopped screaming long enough to breathe, I heard several more cries of pain from the other side of the ship's castle.

"I'll go get Crothat," J'role said, and stood.

I grabbed his hand and held rum back. I bit down on my lips as I tried to get the focus to speak coherently. "No. He's either in trouble ... dying ... Or helping the dying.”

He began pulling away. "He'll help you first ..." My hand had tightened around his, like a baby gripping its mother's hair. "don't leave me. Please." Only as I said the words did I know how terror had dug itself deep, deep into me.

Already my flesh had gone numb — not just where the fire had struck me, but along my entire body. J'role still tried to pull away from me, and it seemed so absurd to me, because all I wanted him to do was stop moving away and to plant himself and look at me. To be with me. I felt myself slipping away from life, into the void of a world without flesh and color and love. I didn't want to die without someone noting my passing.

"Releana, I've got to get help." Now he looked at me, and spreading over his face was a terrible fear. "Don't die. Do you hear me? You cannot die!" If possible, fear claimed a stronger hold on him than on me.

I let his hand go. "Get help."

The Stone Rainbow continued to rush toward the Theran ships. I heard many shouts and cries of the trolls on other ships. The boardings were about to begin. The voices of Theran sailors floated into my ears as well, as they barked orders and began to prepare for close combat. I heard the blast of their fire cannons several more times, and fireballs crashed into our castle, cracking it and sending shards of thick stone scattering across the deck.

J'role returned with Crothat. Terrible burns ran down the right side of the young troll's face, down his neck, and onto his right shoulder. The flames had peeled back his gray green flesh, revealing streaks of pink muscle charred black. The muscles had bubbles that sank slowly as he examined me. He looked terribly frightened, but determined.

"You need to help yourself," I began.

"Quiet, Captain," he said, his voice straining with a high pitch. "Please, let me just do something."

He placed his hands on my shoulders and I saw a shimmering in the air behind him.

More shouts. The firing of the cannons. Screams.

I felt myself in a nightmare, the kind where one is doomed to remain inactive while one's fate is determined by the chaotic actions of others.

And then three Theran sailors appeared overhead, magic carrying them across the gulf between ships. They tumbled through the air like acrobats, swords drawn. They plunged toward the deck, blue armor gleaming hot in the morning light.

Despite the fact that they had come to kill me, their appearance made me gasp with amazement. I remember thinking, how amazing and terrible are the ways of our people!

J'role and Crothat had their backs to the Therans, but saw my gasp of surprise. J'role started to turn just as the Therans landed.

3

J'role whirled around, unsheathing his sword as he moved, raising it high as two of the Theran sailors slashed down at his back with their blades. The three swords all clanged against one another. The blows of the Therans forced J'role down onto the deck.

Meanwhile, the third Theran sailor swung his sword at Crothat. The troll ducked, but not quickly enough, and the edge of the blade bit into the burn wounds along his right shoulder. The young troll howled in pain, but without pause he pushed himself up to his feet and stretched out one long arm at the Theran sailor. The Theran took a desperate swing at Crothat, but in his fear the blow cut wide. With shocking abruptness Crothat slammed his hand against the sailor's neck and sent the man reeling back into the rail of the ship, whereupon the Theran flipped over the edge. His scream faded quickly.

The sailor's companions took little notice of his fate, for J'role was on his feet again and the three had joined in intense battle. All three grunted as their swords clashed against one another. Crothat drew his crystal sword from his thick cloth belt. The blue stone caught the sun's light and, combined with my pain, blinded me for the moment.

When I could see again, a Theran lay dismembered on the deck, his blood a spray of droplets against the wall of the center castle. The other Theran turned and ran, with J'role chasing after him.

Crothat dropped to his knees beside me, wincing against the pain in his shoulder. He moved me so my head rested in his lap and said, "Close your eyes and let Garlen come to you."

"You're hurt ..."

"Please, human. You speak too much. Do it."

I closed my eyes. I heard him mumbling words in his troll tongue, and though the words retained their harsh consonants, his tone soothed me. Screams and shouts continued to fill the air, but I began to relax. The troll's big hands touched my arms, and a warmth spread through my flesh. Soon this warmth reached my burned legs, and even there a comfortable coolness took hold.

I sensed a bright light beyond my eyelids, and opened them.

The pregnant giantess with the silver armor had returned. In her silver armor was clearly reflected the morning sun and all the fighting on the ships around us. She was smaller now, no more than nine feet, and stood at my feet, looking down, stern faced.

"I thought you were Thystonius," I said to her, for I knew Crothat was calling upon Garlen. My voice sounded thick and far away, and though I knew what was happening was real, I also knew it was taking place far, far from the Stone Rainbow.

"That windbag of random violence? Not likely." She sounded like a mother with too many demands on her time — not angry or dismissive, but to the point. "And I've never seen you before. I've sensed you, I've been there when you've been hurt before. But we've never met."

"But I saw ..."

"You saw what you thought you should see. We're Passions. We don't look like anything.

You've decided at this time in your life that the essences of conflict and care are similar.

So we look similar. It's happened before." She leaned down, very serious now. "One of my questors here is trying to heal you."

"Yes."

"He doesn't do this lightly, you know. He is suffering himself. He could heal himself."

"Yes. I've told him ..."

"But he wouldn't listen. He's young and somewhat stupid. Because he's wasting his time on someone who doesn't necessarily want to live."

My mouth opened in surprise, for I had no idea what she was talking about.

"Don't do that. I hate that. When a Passion speaks the truth, you'd think people would listen. Recognize it as a truth. I'm a life force that winds its way through everybody. That should carry some authority."

She paused. I had no idea what to say, so I remained silent.

"Well?"

"I don't …”

"Feel it inside of you, woman! I'm that part of you that wants to protect and take care of you and others."

"Yes, I know, but ..."

"What kind of life are you living? What is this sex with blood? What is this pain for affection?"

I'd never, ever spoken of the matter with anybody. Never put it into words. Not even with J'role. Garlen coming out and naming those years of confused feelings about J'role's sexual desires — and my cooperation — threw me into complete confusion. This time, though, she waited. The screams had died away, though I could still see the reflections of the battle in her silver armor. If Crothat still held my head in his lap, I was no longer aware of it.

"I ... It is something J'role started."

A part of me had hoped that by throwing the blame, Garlen would let the matter be. She waited for me to go on.

"I didn't like it at first. But in time … He seemed to like it so much."

"Wait, what was that part before about him liking it? 'But in time' what? In time what?"

"In time I liked it."

"Out of curiosity, out of my own desire to find out if you'll ever listen to me unless I put in one of these dramatic appearances, have you ever admitted this to yourself? Or has it always been a matter of J'role victimizing you, forcing you into something you don't want to do ..."

"But I don't want to do it ...”

"But you like it! You just said ..."

"I like it while I'm doing it. But if I wasn't doing it, I wouldn't miss it."

She knelt down before me now, the pregnant belly close to my flesh, her large face only a foot from mine. I was a child against her. A child caught in a web of deceptions I'd created to justify why the sweet meats were missing, a deception I couldn't untangle to keep my story straight.

She said softly, "You can't even say the words, can you? You name givers have this wonderful language given to you by the Universe, and you hop all around your mouths with 'it' and 'thing' and other imprecisions. Obscurity is your last refuge in the face of the Passions in your soul rising up to confront you." I stammered something inconsequential.

She dismissed it. "What do you do to him? What is this 'it'?"

"I hurt him."

"Yes?"

"Bite. Cut him with fingernails, Draw blood." As I said the words, I felt my passions begin to rise.

"You taste it even now, don't you? You want to do it. Despite what you said."

"Yes."

"What do you want to do to him?"

"Hurt him."

"Yes?"

"Humiliate him."

"Yes?"

"I want him to know .”

"Yes?"

"What he does to me."

"He cuts you?"

"Yes."

"Yes," she echoed.

"He doesn't cut my flesh. He leaves me. He cuts me."

"Yes. What do you want to do?"

"Hurt him."

"That makes you feel better?"

“Yes."

"Yes?"

Tears began to well up at the corners of my eyes. "No. No, it doesn't make me feel better.

It makes me even with him. We're just clawing at each other. Not better. Even. Even in our pain."

"Yes.”

” Yes."

"What makes you feel better?"

"My boys."

"Yes."

"Myself, learning my magic.”

"Yes."

"Helping the people in my village. Building Horvak's furnace. Figuring out how the Universe is made, using that knowledge. Helping people."

"Yes."

"Making."

"Yes."

"Protecting."

"Yes." I reached out my hand to hers, touched it lightly. 'I don't, know how to heal. I want to heal myself. Something's gone terribly wrong."

"Yes." She paused, looking at me kindly. A bit of sadness. "There's a choice coming. Be ready."

She vanished.

4

My flesh was whole once more, though the skin was pink where I'd been burned. I had only a moment to enjoy the lack of pain when Crothat threw me from his lap with a scream. A spray of blood rained down on me, and the troll dropped to the deck with a heavy thud, his large eyes open and lifeless.

Reflexes took over and I rolled across the deck and put my back up against the ship's rail.

A quick glance at Crothat revealed two heavy crossbow bolts protruding from the back of his head.

I looked up and saw his killers. One of the Theran ships had risen slightly — just enough to get a clear shot over our rails. The ship had only just started its rise. I realized that my conversation with Garlen had taken little — if no — time at all from the battle around me.

I had little time for reflection. The two crossbowman — a female elf and female dwarf —

grinned at me as they cranked their weapons, readying them to slip in bolts and fire them at me. I thought for a moment about casting a spell, but decided against it. The encounter with Garlen had unnerved me, and the risk of calling a Horror into my head was too terrible to contemplate. I desired a new magician's robe so much! What good was magical knowledge if it only led to potential disaster?

I scrambled to my feet and rushed toward the stern of the ship, keeping the Stone Rainbow's central castle between me and the rising ship. The sound of clashing blades came from ahead, and I drew my dagger from its sheath.

As I turned the corner around the castle, I saw several badly charred trolls lying on the deck. Some dead. Some still dying. Others, trolls from my ship and elves and humans from the Theran vessel, lay bleeding. J'role and four trolls had positioned themselves at the ship's stern, keeping their backs to it. Seven Theran sailors, all armed with swords, had them pinned in place. The sun, level with the fleet battle now, cast the rising ship's shadow across the fury of swordplay.

I rushed forward, moving silently as J'role had taught me. "Screaming a war cry," he once said to me, "is for those big enough to frighten without needing to scream a war cry.

People like you and me should get up there as quietly and efficiently as possible, and kill them before they even know it.”

So I crept as quietly as I could. But quickly as well, for the Theran ship would soon pass the Stone Rainbows castle and spot me. J'role and the trolls from my crew saw me approach, but none revealed my presence by either word or facial expression.

I had just reached the backs of the Therans when the ship cleared the castle, and cries of alarm showered down from it. The Therans before me began to turn, but I plunged my dagger deep into the back of one of them, and he screamed out in agony and crumpled to the deck.

As he fell I tugged my blade out of his back. Strange, dizzying emotions overcame me.