Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Mother Speaks (8 page)

I rushed toward the stairs, desperate to escape the man's screams. The sword still in my hand, I led J'role and a few other slaves up from our prison.

21

We worked our way along the corridors of the next deck up. No one stood in our way, nor seemed to be in any of the cabins. The ship shifted left, then right, and I had to place my hands against the cool gray walls to remain upright. I wondered for a moment if the stone airship was horribly damaged somehow. Were we plummeting to the ground?

A rush of fierce wind and harsh rain met us as we approached the door to the main deck.

It slammed open and shut over and over. A crack of lightning illuminated the downpour: a thousand drops of silver rain whirled in the air. The deck seemed empty.

J'role came up beside me, placed one hand on my shoulder, the other hand on the hilt of the sword I carried. "My loved” he said, "unless you've practiced the use of this weapon since last we traveled, I'll take this, and you use magic." I felt annoyed, for I had the suspicion that whoever held the sword would lead, and it seemed that J'role was asking to lead out of habit. But it was true he would put the sword to better use. I gave him the weapon, then turned to the crowd of slaves behind us, signaling them with a raised hand to wait. Their eyes burned with intensity and a hunger for violence, but they kept their passions in check. J'role held the door open and the two of us stepped out onto the deck.

The rain drenched us immediately. The wind pushed us to starboard, and we had to crouch to keep our balance. Lightning cracked through the sky and thundered terribly in our ears.

The lightning illuminated eight Theran corpses fifteen feet ahead, their blood mixing with rainwater to stain the stone of the deck a light red. All had suffered improbable wounds to their limbs and chest. One woman's face had been crushed, leaving nothing but a smear of bone and torn flesh. Others had portions of their bodies scooped out. J'role signaled for a half-dozen of the slaves to follow us onto the deck. He pointed out the swords lying near the corpses, and the slaves hungrily picked among the dead.

I looked off starboard and saw the other airship floating far away. The entire sky churned gray, and we rocked uselessly back and forth. It occurred to me that even if all our enemies were dead—the elemental creatures and the Theran sailors might have killed each other—we still might die on board a magical vessel we did not know how to use.

But everyone was not dead. J'role tapped my shoulder, cocked his head to one side. I followed him around the ship's central castle. As we moved, working with great difficulty to keep from slipping on the rocking, rain soaked deck, I heard sounds. Cries of battle, cries of pain. And a horrible shrieking.

With the other slaves following, we rounded the center castle, and saw a battle waged between a dozen Theran sailors and two of the elemental creatures. The things stood more than a dozen feet tall, with long, thin bodies. Their limbs were elongated as well, giving the sharp claws a long reach while their bodies remained safe. Their arms had suffered nicks and cuts and even a few long gashes. Deep blue liquid dripped from the wounds, but the strange blood felt up, floating high into the sky. The huge, curved mouths of the things seemed to be smiling.

I noticed that they did not stand on the deck, but floated near it. Darting around the sailors, first they would attack from the rear, then from the top. The sailors twisted themselves around in confusion. One fell, his abdomen gouged by the creature's claws.

And then one of the creatures spied us.

22

It smiled. I am certain it smiled.

It rushed toward us, arms spread wide. J'role held up the sword, though I feared the weapon would be little help against the monstrosity.

Without thought I held my right hand up, letting rainwater collect on my fingers. I rubbed the water between my index finger and my thumb and created a pair of storm manacles. I cast them forward just as the creature reached me. The manacles wrapped themselves around the wrists of the creature. Confused, it stumbled into me, sending me slamming into the stone railing of the ship.

I flailed my arms desperately for a grip on the rail, the thought of an endless fall filling my mind. I grabbed the thick wall of stone with one hand. My body swung wildly with momentum, and my grip slid across the railing, which was slick with water. My fingers let go and I experienced the strange sensation of not being supported by anything.

J'role caught my wrist just as I let go of the vessel. The elemental creature came up behind him and slammed its manacled hands down into J'role's back as he struggled to get me on board.

The blow dropped J'role to the railing, and I slipped out of his grasp, falling a second time. J'role caught me, this time by the shoulders of my ragged black slave robe.

At the same instant my spell drew a lightning bolt down onto the creature, for as long as he remained manacled he could not strike an ally of mine without being hit by lightning.

The monster shouted in pain and cried up to the sky, its body arching in pain.

I grabbed J'role's wrists as my robe began to rip. He shifted his grasp and took hold of me by the arms. Again he began pulling me on board.

The creature struck once more, and again lightning crashed into it. It let out a high-pitched scream and stumbled back. J'role was prepared this time. He winced from the pain, but his grip on me never loosened. I looked down and saw a dizzying void that faded into rain swept gray. Looking up I saw the face of a man who, for a moment, looked like no one I had never seen before. J'role was simply frantic in his desire to save me. His eyes were wide, his mouth muscles pulled back in a grimace. It seemed likely he would begin to cry the moment I either fell to my death or finally reached safety.

With the monster momentarily stunned, J'role hauled me back over the railing. The catharsis I expected him to experience did not come, however. Instead he whirled toward the other slaves gathered in a semicircle several yards back from the elemental monster.

They held their swords up, but all quaked with fear.

"What are you doing?" he screamed at them. "We've got to fight it! Not hold it off! Kill the thing!"

The creature roared and struck at J'role's turned back, sending your father sprawling across the deck. I pulled back, preparing to shackle the creature's ankles, when the second creature floated over the ship's central castle, arms wide, claws and teeth gleaming with bright blood.

A scream went up from the slaves. "Back! Back!" I cried, waving my hands at them, directing them toward the doorway of the central castle. They scrambled without hesitation.

"J'role and Releana!" I shouted, protecting the two of us from the spell I would be casting. I had sent the other slaves away because I didn't know any of their names, and didn't want to harm them. I raised my hands even as the second creature raced toward me.

J'role jumped forward, swinging his sword at the monster. The blade shimmered silver as he swung and caught the monster in the belly. The edge struck home, and the monster cried out as it drifted up to the riggings.

My arms swept wide and I gathered magical energy and changed the world. The raindrops around us suddenly transformed into drops of sizzling heat. They pelted the creatures, and the things cried out as countless plumes of steam rose from their flesh.

The first creature, already shackled, flew into a rage and charged J'role and me. J'role blocked me with the sword, and I cast shackles on the thing's ankles. It twisted a bit, surprised once more, screaming with rage, steam rising from all over its body. Dozens of red welts lined its blue-white flesh. As J'role swung his sword I heard another scream from above. The second creature raced down toward us. I rubbed the rain water between my fingers once more, and cast the storm manacles on the wrists of the second thing.

The first creature attacked J'role, the second attacked me. We both jumped out of the way of their claws, but they tore flesh from us just the same. The pain from their claws was like hot metal against my skin.

Twin bolts of lightning slammed into the creatures. They screamed with rage and retreated from the ship. Thirty yards off port they floated in the air, bobbing and staring at us. We had moved out of the area where I had cast the death rain, and I wondered how much further I could push my luck with another spell. Losing so much blood from my wound had begun to make me dizzy.

The creatures charged at us, their horrible screams roaring over the wail of the storm winds. I called forth a death rain once more. The creatures entered the range of the spell and immediately the rain burned at their flesh.

They screamed in pain, but I had little time to feel relieved. I felt something slide through my thoughts, like fingers passing under my skull and massaging my brain. A Horror.

23

Whatever was happening around me no longer mattered. I had cast too many times, taken far too many chances without the safety of a magician's robe. I clutched at my head, thinking blindly I could somehow force the thing out. It slithered through my mind, breathing heavily, like a fat man with lechery on his mind, picking its way through my memories and fears.

And there the Horror found the two of you.

I really can't tell you what it did to me. Words would not do. It turned thought and memories into muscle spasms and physical pain. Everything I'd ever thought I'd done wrong by either of you came crashing up into my skull, like boiling water escaping a covered pot. Foremost in the nightmarish thinking was the possibility that I was somehow responsible for whatever was happening to you now. That somehow I didn't do enough to keep J'role at home. That I should not have left you two in Tellar's care. Then it bounced back to your births, and it seemed horrible that I had even given you life. How could I have done so if only to let such terrible things befall you now?

I thought my eyes were bleeding. Hating myself so much at that moment, I clasped my hands over my face and began dragging my nails down my cheeks, scraping into my flesh. I could think only of you two dying somewhere, wondering where I was, wondering why I had betrayed you. I should have died for you!

The thing in my head drove me to my knees and I began beating the stone deck with my hands, and then with my forehead. Anything to drive the pain away. I would keep doing it until I was dead.

Suddenly someone was holding me, embracing me. Rocking me back and forth. "Shhh, shhh," someone said.

The creature hissed, dragged me away from the comfort. Seared my thoughts with more pain. J'role's departures. Memories of our bloody lovemaking. My loneliness.

"Here," a distant voice said. "Here. Releana. Comeback here. The world, the real world, is not wrapped up in your thoughts. The love of others waits for you here." I floated toward the voice, recognizing it as J'role's. The Horror clawed at my thoughts, but J'role's pull was stronger.

The sky above was gray. Raindrops fell against my face, cleansing me. The wind howled.

"Shhh. It's all right." I looked up. My back rested against J'role's chest. He held my hands, and I let him comfort me. "It's all right," he said. "They're gone. Your rain and lightning— you frightened them away."

I spoke quickly; a child trying to get a word in edgewise. "Yes, but in my head. Too many spells..."

"Shhh," he said again. "I know. I know. Is it gone?"

I nodded. "I think so."

In his voice I heard clearly that he did know. But he had never told me of any encounter with a Horror. As he was not a magician, his encounter with one would not have been one of the brief strikes the creatures often make against spellcasters. It would have been a longer torture. But J'role had never mentioned it. Why?

24

Why has he never told me? Why did he keep so much to himself?

25

The storm carried us another hour toward southern Barsaive. The golden sunshine of daylight drifted ahead of us, and we eagerly anticipated getting out from under the thunderheads. An hour later, when we had finally cleared the storm, the absence of pelting rain and roaring wind created a delightful aural void. Too weary to attempt to figure out what to do next, we lay on the deck, wallowing in the lack of danger, tending to wounds, listening to the delightful silence, letting the sun dry and warm our wet skin.

Some of our group even slept.

After this we were up and about. Free from Theran supervision for the first time, we made awkward, and nearly useless, stabs at communicating among ourselves. Out of the original forty, twenty of us were still alive. We discovered later that one of the monsters had entered the lower decks and slain most of those waiting for instructions. Of the twenty, six were from Barsaive, and roughly five other languages were spoken by the rest of the group. We broke up into our local groups for a while, exchanged names, and found out who had sailing skills.

Of the representatives of Barsaive there was J'role, the small red-haired woman, who came to be called Aunt Wia by you boys, an ork, a dwarf, a human male, and me.

None of the twenty survivors had experience with airships, and only some of the bronze-skinned slaves who spoke a harsh language of nasal vowels had any sailing experience at all. They became our captains, and put the rest of us to work. We raised the sails, learned how to set them for maximum speed, and soon controlled the ship well enough.

It didn't take long, however, to realize that none of us knew how to get the ship down.

And the moment the realization hit, a silent, subtle panic gripped our motley crew. The thought of sailing endlessly through the skies until the ship's supply of elemental air ran out and we finally plummeted to whatever terrain lay below, far from any of our homes, sent us pacing, searching the skies and the land below, as if some sort of knowledge waited for us, scribbled in the earth or air. The Theran sailors had obviously used some sort of adept talents to control their ship. We could never learn these, for we had no teacher. To the south was the red glow of Death's Sea. What if prevalent winds carried us there? Could a stone ship withstand the heat of the molten sea?