Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Mother Speaks (6 page)

Redbeard and the other guards arranged us on the benches, shackled our wrists to the oars. J'role sat across the aisle from me, three benches up. He did not glance back at me once. Redbeard stood before us, the open doorway framing him. He cracked his whip twice. A bare-chested man at the back of the room, another slave as far as I could tell, began beating a drum slowly.

13

Redbeard cracked his whip and walked up and down along the aisle between the benches and shouted something at us in words few of us could understand. But the meaning was clear. We all gripped our oars and began to row, using the beat of the drum to set our rhythm. Redbeard backed up to the doorway and turned to us. He looked up and spread his arms wide, his eyelids fluttering wildly. When he looked back toward us his pupils had rolled ups

My muscles tightened, and though I continued to row, I had lost control of my body. It was as if my mind sat trapped in my flesh, my body now an alien thing. Detached, I watched my arms as they continued to row.

For a while I thought that somehow, through the use of a magic I knew nothing about, Redbeard could make us row without tiring. But after an hour, despite my sense of dislocation from my body my muscles began to fatigue. I remembered some questors of various Passions talking about such a power. Vestrial, they'd said, had gone insane during the Scourge, driven mad by the Horrors, and his powers had become those of slavery.

Redbeard I realized, was a questor of Vestrial, and could make us perform the same mindless task again and again until we simply died.

Out the oar's hole in the hull I saw the ground drop lower and lower until the jungles below seemed a huge green sea, the ripple of the leaves in the wind like water gently rolling on a calm day.

The pain in my arms grew, and, nightmarishly, I could not even slow my pace in response. Above us I heard the shouts and cries of the sailors at work. I could understand nothing of their native Theran. We, of course, were not allowed to speak while we rowed.

With my body no longer under my control and my ears filled with words that had no meaning to me, I truly felt as if I'd entered another world—someone else's life—by accident. It seemed that all I had to do was swim up from a deep dream, wake up in my own bed at home, perhaps on the very night J'role had come to visit. The castle we had seen flying overhead would have been part of the dream, and the Therans would not have come to Barsaive.

These useless wishes ended suddenly when a tremendous explosion erupted off the port side of the ship. I craned my neck to see out the hole, even as my-arms ceaselessly rowed.

Outside I saw another of the stone ships floating a hundred yards off port. During the journey a huge net had been strung out between the two ships. The net was made of thick rope, but bits of silver glinted in the rope. I knew enough about mining for magical elements to know the Therans had laced the rope with orichalcum.

More shouts bellowed from the sailors. I saw Therans on the other ship shouting toward our ship, and heard the loud responses from above me. The winds were fierce, and the sailors clung tightly to mast lines and railings. A sailor appeared on the other ship with two red flags. After a few moments another sailor appeared on the stairway behind Redbeard. He said something to Redbeard, who in turn shouted instructions to the drummer at our backs.

The drumming ceased, and suddenly we could stop rowing. Terrible pain cut through my arms, as if someone were dragging the tip of a knife over flesh and into my muscles. I and many others cried out in agony. Tears formed in my eyes. Gasping for breath, I doubled over, collapsing onto my chained hands.

I turned my head and saw the other ship bobbing in the air. The netting strung between the two ships loosened and tightened. The sailors on the other ship had dropped the ship's sails. As I watched, two sailors from the other ship heaved a black sphere over the edge of the ship. A Theran wizard in an emerald robe stood by the edge of the ship casting ritual gestures as the sphere dropped. They seemed elemental, but I did not recognize them.

The sphere fell through the air, then suddenly exploded in a fiery red blossom. The red glare of the explosion washed the edges of my small portal with light, and the image burned into my eyes. Jagged edges erupted in the air at the point of the blast, curling like flower petals opening to the sun. The momentary hole revealed a patch of absolute, pure violet light. I knew what they had done, but gaped at actually seeing it. The Therans had ripped a hole as big as a cart into the plane of elemental air.

The hole quickly closed back up on itself, but I saw a shimmer of elemental air rise up from the tear. It resembled the wavering air over a fire, but with a silver sparkle to it.

Rushing up, it slammed into the netting strung between the two ships. Immediately the vessels began to rock wildly, knocking me first right, then left. The netting rose up quickly, causing the ships to list sharply and rush toward each other.

Several of the lines snapped from our; ship, falling down and dangling between the two ships. A sailor trying to catch one of the ropes as it trailed overboard abruptly dropped into my view, clinging to the end of the rope, his face darkened with tension and fear.

As the two ships rushed toward each other, I thought for certain he would be crushed. But then our momentum slowed and the two ships stopped moving toward each other at about forty feet apart. The sailor on the loose rope came to rest at eye level with me. He saw me looking at him and smiled. He'd not only lived, but he'd helped keep one corner of the net down, preventing the elemental air from escaping the orichalcum laced net. He'd won.

Above, on the decks of the two ships, barked orders tumbled from excited mouths. Lines were thrown back and forth between the two ships, locking them in place at this distance from each other. I saw sailors swishing orichalcum jars through the air under the net, drawing the elemental air out and trapping it.

Gathering the elemental air from the net took several hours, for the Therans wanted to mine: every last bit they could. As they worked, the net slowly dropped, eventually reaching deck level, then fell below that.

By this time the sun had sunk behind distant mountains. Over the jungle rooftop a violet twilight had spread darkness across Barsaive. Clouds in the distance appeared like bloody castles.

Redbeard snapped his whip. I gripped the oar again without thinking, as if I'd been born for the task. The drum beat began, and I lifted the oar, fearing the snap of the whip against my flesh. The oar moved slightly, heavier than before. I thought exhaustion had finally taken its toll. I would collapse and be pitched overboard for my uselessness. Then I glanced to the right and saw that my partner, a thick-muscled man with brown skin, had still not lifted his head. A moment ago I'd thought he'd been resting from exhaustion, but his chest still lay on the oar and his head hung down.

I turned to call out to Redbeard, but he was already marching down the aisle, glaring at me as if I'd caused the man's death. He grabbed the man's head, jerked it back. The man's mouth hung open, slack and lifeless, the eyes half-open.

Redbeard called up the stairs and a sailor arrived shortly. He came down the aisle and held the dead man as Redbeard took his key ring and unshackled the corpse from the oar.

He smiled at me and said something with a sneering tones then laughed. The sailor dropped the corpse into the aisle, and Redbeard cracked his whip. The drum began again.

I couldn't believe that they expected me to row alone. But there seemed little doubt, for Redbeard glared at me and cracked his whip against my chest when I showed hesitation.

That was painful, but what hurt more was the helplessness. I wanted so much to wring his neck. The thought of casting a fireball on him rushed into my senses. But what would that get me? I might snap the chains with another spell. And then what? Trapped on a ship with dozens of opponents. And without my robe, I would surely draw a Horror to my thoughts with one too many spells. No. I decided to wait. I had to think, come up with a plan, not act simply on the angry desire for revenge.

14

By the time we returned to Sky Point I was ready to die. The greatest pain was in my shoulders, which felt like they were bleeding.

As we approached the platform I looked out my oar hole. In the starlit darkness I saw that beneath the platform stood troops and a military camp. Even if I got down from the platform, how would I escape an army? J'role's weariness made more sense to me now. I remembered my promise to myself that morning not to let the Therans get the better of me, and all I could think was: Had it only been this morning?

They led us to the lightless barracks. Above, the stars filled the sky, glistening like grains of sand at noon. I saw Redbeard pass his hand before the featureless door. It opened, and we entered. J'role and I made sure to be near each other by the time the door closed, and took up a space on the floor together. I was too tired for words, and he seemed to be as well. We curled up, holding each other carefully against the pain of the day, and fell asleep together for the first time in years.

It went on. And on. And on.

The fear of the whip grew. The labor that brought each one of us to near-death never ended. The mind-numbing realization that escape might be impossible took firm hold. A fight, yes, but no escape.

"We have to try," I said to J'role one night. Others around us slept, or spoke softly. "I'll kill Redbeard. You'll get through the shackles..."

"And then what?" he asked.

I was crying, and only realized it now. "We have to do something."

"There's nothing—"

"You told me we'd try!" I shouted. He put his hand toward my face. I pulled back in pain and anger. "Were you just saying that?" I asked, now speaking in a harsh whisper. "Just to placate me?"

"I really..." He was crying now, too. "I want to do something." He paused. I thought he might get up and stumble away. He didn't. "But I don't know what to do. We need something new. Something to throw the circumstances our way."

"We could be dead by then."

"Then what is your plan?" he snapped.

I remained silent. J'role had always made the plans. His daring had allowed him a certain good luck. I had been content to follow him on the adventures. "Are we going to die here?" I finally asked.

"Don't know. Don't know," he answered, his voice flat and level. He hadn't given up yet, but he didn't know what would happen. He stifled his tears and said, "People can't live like this."

Yet, as he said the words, I thought I heard something odd in his tone. A pleasure. In that moment I suddenly thought of smiles I'd seen J'role make over the last few weeks. It suddenly occurred to me that part of him liked the life we were living. As if it proved something he'd known all along. Yes. That was it. This life of misery was somehow confirmation of a dark secret he thought others were too weak to see clearly, but that he knew only too well.

15

We remained silent a long time, until, finally, we held each other against our fear of death. We kissed.

J'role's fingertips slid down my neck, along my breast. My body was so weary, but so longed for the gentle touch. The palm of his hand pressed lightly against my nipple.

"J'role. No. Not... not... here." In the darkness, in our private, whispered conversations, it was possible to think we were alone. But we weren't. Forty other people shared the room.

"Releana," he sighed, making his desire for me so clear.

"No. I..."

"Just some pain?"

"I "...

"Yes." He raised my hand to his neck, pressed my fingers against his flesh. "Just some scratches."

I'd never liked the hurting. Never had thought of lovemaking involving pain—not until my first time with J'role.

"Please," he sighed.

I pressed my fingernails into his shoulder and raked them away from his neck.

"Again. More."

"I...”

"Yes."

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I did it again, this time with one hand on each shoulder. He sighed with pain and pleasure.

"More."

Something about his enjoyment dragged me into it, as it always did. I dug down deeper, could feel the thin furrows of raked flesh producing blood against my fingertips. I was sighing with him, a matched rhythm forming in our breathing.

"Teeth."

Without thinking I leaned down toward his right shoulder and caught up some of his bleeding skin in my mouth, squeezing it between my teeth. He groaned loudly. The taste of blood pressed warm against my tongue.

And I did like it. I did. Now it seems all so... But then... I could not even tell you why. I can't even believe I'm telling you this, but it's... I think it's important you know... for what's to come. And I think you should know I was a part of it in my way.

He touched himself, rubbing harder and harder and as I continued to hurt him his breathing increased faster and faster until he finally climaxed. He sank softly against me, and mumbled something like this: "Scars are what make us who we are."

I held him while he fell asleep, the enjoyment quickly draining from me. I stayed awake, feeling wrong and lonely.

16

I sit at my desk, as I have for several days, writing this strangely long missive to you. It is morning. The air is warm, the day gray. When I search my thoughts for the next word, I look up and out the window into the lush green treetops of the jungle. My hut sits among the branches of a giant tree, as do the other homes of my village. Countless raindrops splash against dark green jungle growth. From leaf to leaf they fall, one short fall after another, until their final plummet to the ground.

Children, far below, run and laugh, splashing their small feet through mud rich puddles and chasing each other with half-understood threats of monsters I think of you two. Your childhood had moments in it I had not planned. I think of the young children below, and consider them so lucky, for they have not had to face the terrors you lived through. Then I remind myself you were seven when the Therans came.