Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Mother Speaks (9 page)

Ultimately the decision was never ours to make. We spent the day floating in the sky, deciding finally, after much pointing and hand-waving, to put as much distance as possible between Sky Point and us. This meant traveling southwest, for that seemed to be the direction in which the winds gave us the greatest speed.

We traveled without incident, and night fell. After we split into two watches, those of us from Barsaive took our turn sleeping during the first watch. Weary beyond belief, I went below deck with the others to find a bunk.

We had cleared out the bodies hours ago, though blood still stained the walls. I pushed open a door of a cabin, found that it held a bunk bed, and stepped inside. J'role was at my back, and said, "Let's find something bigger."

I paused, uncertain what to say, because I did not want to sleep with him. I could not say exactly why. But with freedom mine again, I don't know... The rules of being trapped allowed me to enter his arms. Without those rules in place, there was no need to pretend everything was all right, to stifle myself at the expense of risking being alone.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I just don't think we should... Right now..."

"Did you see how everyone was working so well up top?"

"Don't do that."

"What?"

"That changing... I'm too tired to fight."

"Who wants to fight? Let's find a bed."

Wia arrived then. "Any room in here?"

"Yes," J'role said. "All yours."

"Good," she said, and squeezed past J'role and me into the room. "Oh, good," she said to me. "You want the top or the bottom?"

A wave of relief washed through me. "Top."

"But," began J'role.

"Let's all just rest," said Wia. "We've got to go on watch soon."

She pushed him out gently and shut the door behind him. But I didn't see him go out. My back was turned and stayed that way.

We stretched out in our respective bunks, the ship rocking gently, the cabin's darkness comforting.

"Don't you hate that, the way they think they can just sleep with you any time, just cause you've done it before."

"Yes," I said quickly, happy to have a sympathetic ear. And then suddenly I was uncomfortable, embarrassed by the love-making—if that was the term—back in the Theran cell. I didn't know this woman.

"You two knew each other from before. Before being prisoners."

"Yes."

"Sorry. I'm prying."

"No."

"Yes, I am. I'm doing it, so I should know." A silence fell, and then she said, "I got to tell you. He's attractive. But there's something about his eyes. Kind of spooky."

"Yes."

"You like that, don't you?"

I laughed. "Somewhat."

Here's my question to you: if you saw those eyes on someone else, not this man you've known for so long, but a stranger, would you still find him attractive?"

Another long pause. I thought of J'role's eyes. They hung in the darkness before me, large and luminous, separated from J'role, from all the memories of joys and adventure and laughter. They frightened me.

"No. I don't think so."

"I know what you're feeling. My first love. He and I... I thought we were destined. But ever so slowly I figured out things were wrong. That they weren't going to work. But it's hard..."

"Yes. Hard. Giving up something you think is right and..."

"So you think something's wrong with you, because you keep thinking it should be fine."

"But it's not."

"That's hard."

"I want it to be right."

"It's good to want it to be right. We all want that." She paused. "But is it?"

"I don't know," I answered. But I saw J'role's eyes, and all I could think was, no, things are not all right.

We remained silent, each sunk in our own thoughts, the pause lengthening and lengthening until I dropped imperceptibly into the well of sleep.

26

Some time later—it seemed only minutes—a woman with long hair tied into elaborate loops shook me awake. I didn't recognize her at first, then realized she must have changed her hair while up on deck. A cultural custom of a different land.

I staggered out of the room with Wia, and we made our way to the deck. Surrounding us on all sides were stars, dipping down even below the ship's hull so that from the center of the ship it looked as if we had entered a world consisting only of star. The effect was at once chilling and exciting.

With words I was beginning to recognize—and many, many gestures—our resident sailors gave us quick reminders of how to keep the lines taut and the wind in the sails.

Speed was imperative, for the Therans would, of course, send ships to recover our vessel.

We all knew a flying stone airship was not something anyone would give up easily.

We settled in for our watch. J'role and I stood on the ship's rear castle. My rest and talk with Wia had relaxed me, and I did not feel uneasy in his presence. J'role stared up at the sky, drawn by the stars, as he had been since first we met.

"Still looking for your destiny?" I asked.

"It might be there," he answered without looking at me His theories had always bothered me. I always picked on him for them. "What makes you think there's any truth about you or the future in the stars?”

With his back to me, still looking over the edge of the ship, he spread his arms wide, like a wizard showing off his newest, most amazing creation. "I can't imagine all of this is just for show!"

"What if it is?"

He turned, smiled, did a cartwheel or two across the deck, and ended up beside me.

"Then I'm wrong. I've been wrong before." He took one of my hands from the wheel, brought it to his lips, kissed it lightly. Still holding my hand, he looked into my eyes.

"But not about many things."

I pulled my hand away. "But about enough."

He twirled away, oddly back to his blithe self despite our circumstances and the fate of you two. I tried to ignore him. But he leaned against the railing and I wondered if in his carefree attitude he would lean back too far and fall to his death. The thought frightened me at first, but then filled me with a smug pleasure. It would serve him right.

We remained silent for a long time. The stars were indeed beautiful.

"Why can't you just be happy with me?" he finally asked.

"I'm not in a happy mood."

"We'll find the boys."

"And what if we don't? What if they're already dead?" I spat the words out without thinking. The moment I did, I felt despair rise in me. Giving the fears voice seemed likely to make them truth.

I was not prepared for the horror of your father's reply. "If they are, they are. There's nothing to be done about that."

My hands dropped from the wheel, and I stood staring at him, my flesh feeling frozen.

"How can you say that?"

"Because it's true, Releana. If they're dead, then they are..."

"Please stop. You're chilling me with your casual words of death."

His voice became very serious. "They are not casual."

"They sound casual."

He shrugged. "I speak the way I speak."

"I don't think you love them, you know." He opened his mouth, but I raised my hand to stop him. "I know you think you do. You really think you do. But that's not the same thing."

"What is love but something I think I feel about another person?"

I didn't know if I'd ever say the things I wanted to say to-him again, so I went on.

"There's something... love—not the love of passion created by urges of the flesh—but the love between members of a family. The love a parent has for a child. That isn't found only in the love one feels for someone. It is buried in actions. It is the difference between someone who shows his loyalty to his village by waving a flag, and someone who builds a fortress of stone to protect the villagers if bandits come."

"I love them. I come to visit!"

I laughed, and the other members of our watch turned their gazes from the lovely stars to the rear castle. I stared them down and they looked away.

"Do you know what you do?" I asked finally. I did not wait for a reply. "You look at them."

"Yes..."

"That's all you do. You stare at them as they lie there unconscious, helpless

"I'm not threatening them..."

"Nor they you."

Now he laughed. A derisive sound. "What is that supposed to mean."

I had never thought the words before, but they came tumbling out of me now. "You don't have to be with them. Interact with them. Find out what they're really like. You don't have to be disappointed in them..."

"I'm not disappointed in them," he said defensively.

"How do you know?" I asked sharply. "They haven't had the chance to disappoint you."

"They're little boys!"

I wanted to shriek, but instead I spoke very calmly, carefully enunciating each word.

"They are Samael and Torran. Two very different little boys. They are not what you think they are."

"And what is that?"

"Just what you said. Two little boys. Two little thoughts in your head of what they're like.

You know, you don't love them. You're just sentimental. You have an idea of what little boys are supposed to be like. That's what you love. The idea. The idea of two children safe and asleep in their beds, neither speaking nor walking nor playing nor thinking, questioning, or demanding. What are you afraid of? That if you come and see them when they're awake they'll turn on you? Try to kill you?”

His face turned ashen white. His jaw and fingers shook.

"J'role?"

He turned from me, terrified. To this day I do not know what truth I had struck, but obviously I had struck home. He looked away, and then raised his head and said, "Sweet Chorallis."

I looked beyond him, to where he looked. Behind us, heavy storm clouds had gathered.

They rolled across the sky from east to west, then crashed into each other and continued on toward us. It was as if powerful forces from the air and water planes had conspired to invade our world and destroy our ship.

"Get the sails down!" T shouted. "And get those sailors up here!"

27

What little we could do with our inexperienced crew, we did. It was not near enough.

The storm swallowed us up, shredding our sails as we lowered them. The center mast cracked at the base, tumbling to the deck, and crushing two of our crew beneath its weight. Whether or not they were killed by the impact we never found out. The wind swept the sail and the mast back up into the air and took the slaves with them. All of us nearly went overboard, for the improbable tangle of rope and riggings whipped and clawed at us like a strange sea creature. I only barely escaped being snared and carried over the edge. The riggings, the crushed slaves, and two members of our crew flew off over the ship and vanished into the darkness.

The ship listed sharply to port. Most of us on deck slid quickly to the edge of the ship, slamming into the thick wall that served as the deck's rail. The wind roared in our ears.

The rain pelted our cheeks, stinging with painful clarity. I screamed for someone to do something. A useless command, I know, but it showed what state of mind I was in. I could not hear my own voice.

Someone grabbed me by the shoulders. Wia. She pulled my head close to her. "Below!"

she shouted.

It seemed a marvelous idea

Along with the others I made my way on hands and knees across the deck, each of us afraid that if we remained standing, the winds would grab us and toss us over the side.

The stone floors became slick with rain, and the ship rocked to one side, sending us all over the deck. Sometimes we rushed toward the door we wanted to reach, other times we lost yards of hard-earned progress. I saw two of our number blown into the railings, and then over the side of the ship as the ship shifted unexpectedly. I numbed my heart to such sights—if I imagined the terrifying, endless plunge through the dark rain as a possibility I would become paralyzed with fear and would certainly meet my own death.

I pressed on, and finally reached the door in the center castle. Each of us threw ourselves into the castle, and quickly made our way across the small chamber to the stairs leading below deck. The ship rocked back and forth, the motion sending most of us tumbling down the stairs.

We huddled together, wet and terrified. "What are we going to do?" I asked.

"What can we do?" Wia said. "The sails... We don't know..." Her words faltered, reflecting her failing hope

No one had a plan.

"We might just have to ride out the storms" said J'role.

Lightning cracked near the ship. A shaft of blue-white light shot down the stairs and illuminated our terrified faces. Suddenly pale and already gaunt, we looked like a group of corpses.

"We're going to die," said a dwarf.

The others from different lands also began to speak quickly in their tongues, but ultimately there was nothing to be done. The ship tossed and rocked in the wind.

Suddenly the ship lurched and a horrible scraping noise cut through the corridors of the ship. The vessel spun sharply to port, knocking us all against the wall. Then the ship floated on, still rocking wildly. We all looked at each other, startled and surprised, frozen for a moment in inaction.

J'role leapt up and began to run up the stairs. "Wait here!" he called over his shoulder. I paid no heed to his words, and shot up after him, followed by another woman, one who had experience with ships.

28

The wind attacked us when we reached the deck, gripping us by the shoulders and trying to throw us over the edge. We dropped to the deck. The ship traveled nearly sideways through the air as the winds buffeted us.

The woman, dark-skinned, with coarse, curly hair, shouted something I could not understand. But her pointing finger explained all. I turned and looked and saw, just barely through the haze of rain, the gray shapes of mountains all around us. They towered high above us, and spread out in either direction, finally disappearing into darkness. I slid myself over toward the edge of the ship and saw lower peaks around us. Suddenly a jagged wall of rock appeared, as if formed by the rain itself, and the ship slammed into it.