Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Prophecy, page 10
Cymric nodded enthusiastically. He wondered if there really was such a spell. Gelthrain turned toward the ogre nearest the shop, and Cymric faced the ogre leader. He picked up his staff with one hand, while curving the fingers of his other hand into a “come here” gesture. The ogre leader’s expression held for a moment, then broke in a spasm of fear. He backed away. Cymric followed.
“No, no, stop that. It’s too late to think about backing out now. You’ll have to be well clear of the tunnel before you’re safe.”
“Haggs! Ji deks lig tunnul theert! Asta! Asta!”
The ogre was backing up frantically now, throwing dirt at the wizard. Cymric made a few attempts to touch the head of the ogre, more interested in maintaining the show than risking getting too close to the ogre in his fear-crazed frenzy of thrashing and axe-swinging. Hearing bellows from the other direction down the tunnel, Cymric judged that Gelthrain’s efforts must be equally successful.
The ogre backed out with greater speed than he came in. A few more half-hearted feints at his forehead had the ogre back at the slope. Seeing that crawling backward up the slope was proving problematical for his oversized opponent, Cymric had to dawdle as well. He murmured a few dark-sounding phrases, licked his finger as if tasting the air, and sighted the ogre along the length of his staff while saying, “Yes, that is nearly perfect.”
Cymric checked on the footsteps behind him. It was Gelthrain, struggling along with her grimoire. She dropped the book, which hit the ground with a loud plop. Wiping dirt from her face, she stage-whispered, “The other side is ready. He is the last one.”
The ogre shouted, then poured on enough extra effort to push himself up the slope. Seeing the sliding door shut, he gave it two kicks that sent shattered stone flying into the alleyway. A heartbeat later, the ogre scrambled out. Cymric crawled up the slope. Gelthrain handed him the book, then followed. When she reached the top, she snatched the grimoire back, but Cymric only grinned at her.
A quick look outside showed the ogres running down the alley. Cymric pulled himself out of the entrance into the alley and stood up to his full height. It felt wonderful. He raised both hands to the sky, uttering a screech of wild triumph. The ogre leader turned, saw the wizard. The powerful creature whirled his axe at Cymric, then resumed running. Cymric’s brain screamed at him to move. As his body started to lunge across the alley, the whirling axe-handle smashed into his neck. He did a half-spin, then crashed into a nearby wall. As his staff rattled to the ground, Cymric slid down into the dirt of the alleyway.
11
Cymric felt a gentle slap on his face. He mumbled and rolled over, but didn’t open his eyes. The second slap was harder, drawing a more coherent objection. “I just sat down,” he said fuzzily. “It cannot be time to make the bread.”
“We are the ones in the oven, wizard.” Cymric recognized Gelthrain’s voice. His eyes stung from the smoke that filled the alley and made Gelthrain look more like an angry apparition Shan a real person. Cymric started to sit up, but was only able to accomplish it with the elf’s help. She pulled him to his feet, but he could barely stand, his wobbly knees not helped much by his wracking cough. As if by spell, Gelthrain also began to cough. In that sorry state, the two staggered out of the smoky alley following a path Gelthrain had cleared through several burning bales of garbage. I must have been out for quite awhile; she took her time coming back to get me. As the smoke thinned and rose around them, Cymric took in their situation.
Hundreds of citizens ringed the center of town, which was in flames. Some were Corthy militia, dressed proudly in studded leather armor and carrying shields and respectable swords or spears. Most were angry shopkeepers or apprentices armed with family heirlooms from the Empire War or makeshift and make-do weapons: smithy hammers, pump handles, torch-holders, ladles, garden shears. One strapping troll-lad was brandishing a captured ogre club.
The townspeople had reclaimed a wedge of the town center before the ogres could react. The ogres were moving slower now, most of them burdened by sacks and packs bulging with loot. The outnumbered ogres had grabbed carts to block the streets and alleys. Some of the carts were empty, overturned and with their axles broken to make them harder to move. Others were loaded with ogrish baggage and loot. The carts did not form a complete barricade, but they slowed the rush of the townspeople. Frantic ogre defenders smashed those daring enough to cross.
The mob surged at one barricade, pushing carts and debris onto the ogres. At first the ogres responded by pushing back, beating at anyone close, trying to preserve the barricade. But then the ogre leader shifted tactics by sending a few wounded ogres to build a new barricade further back along the street. Tables, sacks of rice, pots and water barrels, smoldering beams and shingles, all were piled into the street.
The defenders of the first barricade were overwhelmed, the mob howling as they poured over and through. Four ogres turned quickly enough to race back to the new barricade, but three did not. One fell to an attack by three townspeople, another was caught under a cart, then bludgeoned to death. The third disappeared under a crush of people as the air rang with their vindictive cries and his agonized howls.
“I know my neighbors. Their bloodlust will not let up until all the ogres are either dead or driven away.”
“And it seems that the ogres don’t want to leave without their goodies.”
Gelthrain nodded. She and Cymric stayed as close to the burning buildings as heat and smoke would permit, trying to avoid the desperate ogres. Cymric noticed that they were also making their way back to Gelthrain’s shop.
“If the leader falls, I’m sure the other ogres will flee.” “Go right ahead and take him on, your elfness. I’ll be right behind you.”
“I think that is more in Leandra’s line of work. I thought I saw her in the crowd, but she turned away. She probably can’t reach this area because of a ward I put in place a few months back.”
“What sort of ward do you put up against a friend?” Gelthrain didn’t answer. They had reached her shop, whose ground floor was burning bright. Smoke poured from the upstairs, but no flames showed through the roof or the upper windows. Gelthrain gestured for Cymric to enter, and he felt the sting of smoke as his eyes widened in surprise.
“Fro not going into that shop. I’m no stupid ogre.”
“I need your help in removing the ward. It’s centered in the room upstairs. I fireproofed the room.”
“How terribly unfortunate that the bottom of your shop is not fireproofed. What happens upstairs when the beams collapse?’”
“Well be out of here by then. We either take out the ward or we hope to avoid encircled ogres whose circle keeps shrinking. Or maybe you can try to sneak past them into a blood-crazed mob that has no idea who you are. I’m sure they’ll treat you most hospitably.”
Cymric’s head buzzed. Gelthrain was right: the ward was the best of three bad choices. She made a sweeping quarter-circle with one hand, ending in a palm-up “after you” gesture. Cymric made a mocking bow in return, but entered the shop. The stairway up was not burning— apparently it had been fireproofed along with the upstairs. But the floor and walls between the entrance and the stairway were writhing sheets of flame.
Cymric cast his leaping spell, crouched like a frog, then jumped. He sailed over the burning tables, past the glowing wall posts, and then landed on the stairs. He hit so hard it knocked the wind out of him. Trying to regain his breath in this heat was like trying to outdraw a bellows over a white-hot forge; the air was too hot, and all it wanted was to go somewhere else other than Cymric’s lungs. Cymric struggled up the stairway. Gelthrain followed, her normal leaps carrying her from floorboard to creaking floorboard.
Two light crystals went on when Cymric walked into the room, which was filled with smoke but cooler. The wizard could barely see the volumes in the floor-to-ceiling bookcases that lined the rear and left walls. The wall to his right was covered with movable brass hangings that resembled the constellations in the night sky. The wall of the doorway was covered with an oval mosaic assembled from broken bits of colored glass and mirrors.
Gelthrain stumbled on a warped stairboard, but caught herself on the doorframe. She levered herself around the doorway into the room, then drew her dagger and sliced a shallow cut across the palm of her hand. Pressing her bloody palm imprint against the mosaic, she whispered a brief incantation. That done, she pointed to one of the higher bookshelves. “You start memorizing the five books with the owls embossed on the covers. I’ll start removing the ward.”
Cymric slammed one of the shelves with his staff and glared angrily at Gelthrain, who looked unperturbed. “Wizards are trained in book memory, are they not?” she said. “I thought that was one of their specialties. I lack that ability.”
“Wizards,” said Cymric, before being interrupted by a coughing fit, “do not work favors for elves who trick them. You said you needed help with the ward.”
Gelthrain nodded absently, tracing a pattern on the mosaic. “The books are warded to this room. I believe I only have enough time to remove the ward from either the books or the one stopping Leandra. But with you, I could do a little of both.”
“You could have done a little of both. I choose not to reward your deception.” Cymric crouched once again, cast his spell. Gelthrain paid no attention. Cymric tensed his legs. “I will be interested in seeing which you choose, books or Leandra.”
With that, he leapt out the door, heading for the shop entrance. But his forward motion suddenly slowed, then stopped just long enough for a burning pillar to singe his robe. The next thing he knew, Cymric was being hurtled back up the stairs and slung with great force against the back wall of books. His staff rattled away. That none of the books fell on him was the only stroke of fortune Cymric could find.
“The power of my blood presents you from leaving this room without me. Memorize those books and we leave together.”
Cymric remained slumped against the books, trying to regain his breath and poise. His breath came back, but the anger and shame did not go. His mouth was too dry to swallow. “I’m sure Leandra will be pleased with your treatment of me,” he croaked out.
Gelthrain stopped working on the mosaic to face him. “She has to see you again to know.”
“If I die, you lose those books.”
“If you die, you can be sure I will craft a suitably heroic tale of your death. I will help Leandra grieve for you. We will both miss you.”
The floor groaned, followed by a loud crack as the room tilted toward one of the back comers. Cymric’s staff began to roli slowly toward that same comer, but he snagged it as it was going past. Rising carefully to his feet, he toyed briefly with the idea of attacking Gelthrain to force her permission to leave. She turned away, her hands fluttering along the mosaic, raising crackles of light with her touch.
“I’ll be interested in seeing which vou choose, pride or life.”
“Elf, you would make the bitch queen of Blood Wood proud.”
Gelthrain turned and took a step, hands clenched into fists at her side, but when the floor groaned again, she didn’t attempt to come any closer.
“You have no idea what it means to say that, spell boy.” No, but I’m certainly glad it hurt you. Had Gelthrain’s expression been magic, it could have frozen the room. Instead she was sliding back up the room to the mosaic. Cymric worked his way to the other book wall, panting from the heat and hurting fiercely from all his little cuts and bums. The bookshelves to which Gelthrain had pointed were completely wreathed in smoke. Cymric reached up one hand, his fingertips feeling the books along their spines. He found five with identical embossing, something that felt like a feathered head and beak. He pulled them from the shelves, letting them drop loudly to the floor. Then he sat down to examine the books, flipping open volume one of Omens of the Obedient Spirits.
He glanced up briefly to see Gelthrain wreathed in twisted bands of smoke, the bands rolling and moving in time with her hands. A blue aura sparkled off her skin, the sparks increasing and decreasing with the sound of her voice. The elf was completely lost in her spell. Cymric knew she must be seeing patterns of power and intricacy beyond any he could work. When the room suddenly pitched even more precariously, Cymric returned to the books.
Slowing his breathing, he looked deep into the inner world of the first volume, which appeared to be a series of globes, one inside the other. The globes looked to be made of gossamer wire, with larger metallic or crystalline portions at the junctures of dozens of the wires. Cymric selected a juncture that seemed the best connected on the outer sphere, letting his inner eye travel along the wire globe, his force of will moving him past uneven or thorny passages. Cymric guided his sight toward the innermost sphere, the core of the book’s ideas. Once there, he released a bit of his own magical life force, which struck and flared like candle flame on a dwarven fuse. The flame raced along the wire. Cymric eased back on his inner sight, then returned to the external world.
He began flipping pages of the book, dipping into his inner sight to see how the various pages related to the pattern of the book. If the page seemed important, Cymric directed the life flame over the pattem-wires more than once. He paced his page-study to the speed of the life flame over the pattern, reaching the last page just as the flame was finishing its circuit of the outer globe. Cymric plucked up the life flame, placing it back into his mind.
A pleasurable wave rolled up and down his body. A wholeness of understanding permeated his mind. Then the understanding faded and fragmented as the knowledge was parceled into familiar packages and symbols to be stored deep within his mind. It would wait there for the wizard to recall it, but only as a piece at a time, never again as the whole. Cymric sensed that he had enough to reconstruct the first volume word for word.
Gelthrain was still working at the ward, the mirror fragments now reflecting things or places not in the room.
Cymric opened the second volume and returned to his inner sight. He was also aware that the room was getting hotter, the tilt becoming more extreme, the groaning more ominous.
Having finished memorizing the second volume, he looked over at Gelthrain, who gave him a nod. Pure petulance made him open the third book. As he dove into his inner sight, Gelthrain’s objection was a distant noise, a counterpoint to the roar of the fire.
“That’s all, human,” she was saying as he surfaced from his inner sight. “Leave with me now or stay here and roast.”
And lose your precious books? I think not. Cymric threw open the fourth book, but a hard slap from Gelthrain made him wobble a bit into his inner sight. The pattern of the book appeared fuzzy, as if the globes were growing a layer of copper moss along each of the wires. Cymric concentrated. He felt a pain in his jaw, a jolt that went up his ear, then to the top of his head. He kept reading. Cymric finished the fourth volume to find Gelthrain standing over him.
“Ward is down, time to go.” Cymric reached for the fifth book. Gelthrain waved him off. “Leave that here— unless you want your bones to sprout thorns.” Cymric decided she meant it.
The two made their way to the doorway, which was not tilted upward. The stairs had finally collapsed, as had much of the roof and most of the front wall. Cymric saw a grimace of pain in the flames along a pillar. He blinked. He saw a face, that of a young man with a neatly trimmed moustache and long hair in the Landis style. The face burned along the floor of the shop, its screams the lively crackling of the burning wood. Then other faces also formed and dissolved in the wavering flames.
“What have you trapped in this place?”
“Spirits of the dead no one would miss. Cast your spell. Jump.”
“They are in pain.” Cymric added a pang of guilt to the list of his injuries. Spiting Gelthrain had hurt these poor bastards.
“Fire hurts. The dead are lucky to feel anything.” “Why... ?” Cymric grabbed the doorway. As Gelthrain did the same, he felt the spell constraining him to the room fade away.
“What do you think held this shop together through all this fire? Jump!” Cymric hesitated. Gelthrain shot him an exasperated look, then jumped herself. While she landed, then began to pick her way through the flames and out onto the street, Cymric saw moustache-face’s eyes widened, his jaws trembling uncontrollably. Cymric acted impulsively. Pain tore through his head as he wrenched himself to inner sight and grabbed a spell pattern. Marshaling his anger to power his will, he fired the pattern into a matrix like an arrow into a target.
Cymric leaped into the flames and landed by mou-stache-face. Immediately he cast a spell to dispel magic, but felt his teeth ache as the spell bounced off the enchantment binding the spirit. Cymric tried to ignore the pain, the smell of singed hair. He cast again; the spell bounced. Gelthrain’s enchantment was too strong. Moustache-face screamed once more. Cymric could no longer avoid his own pain. Dry, wracking sobs seized him. He staggered out through a gap in the shop wall, clutching his staff close to his body. He made it less than a dozen steps before dropping to the ground. The next moment the shop collapsed in a roaring groan of sparks.
“I would get that robe off. It’s smoldering.”
Cymric snorted, but unshouldered his backpack and inched out of his robe. He tried to beat out the flames with his staff, but the effort only tired him out. Weary, he reached into his pack and doused the robe with his remaining ale. He sat for a few breaths. Nearby, the street was filled with townspeople passing buckets of water to pour on the fires of the less-ravaged buildings. He counted four ogre bodies, two of them stripped clean. An elderly woman with a green kerchief held the belt of the third, and was eyeing the boots. The fourth corpse was badly burned. Cymric sighed, grabbing up the wadded, wet mass of his robe. He struggled to get it over his head, almost strangled by the odors of sweat, burnt cloth, and ale. His right arm probed for a sleeve.
“Gel!”
Cymric poked his head out of the robe to see Leandra run up to Gelthrain and then throw her arms around her. The two women squealed like children, then Leandra took a half-step back, wiping her hands on her leggings.
