Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Prophecy, page 14
“If so, I’ve found I greatly prefer being human.”
Gelthrain had all her attention focused on the page in front of her, carefully daubing it clean. At this pace, the elf had weeks of work ahead of her. She ignored Cymric as he moved among the pile of books.
“I must ask you some questions,” he said.
“You have one good eye; I assume it sees that I’m busy.”
Cymric sighed. “If you can answer questions while cleaning, then I can clean while asking.” Gelthrain stopped. She tilted her head, regarding him with curiosity.
“Such a short time, and Leandra is already beginning to rub off on you?”
Cymric sat down and grabbed a rag. He gestured at a pile of books. Gelthrain considered, then handed him one with a skeletal horse embossed on the cover. She followed that up with a bottle.
“Pour it on, spread it thin, then soak it up before it dries.”
Cymric nodded and followed her instructions. He cleaned the pages up to an illustration of an elf reading the omens of a horse suspended by its entrails, complete with Gelthrain’s notes in the margin. “Who is Maeumis?”
A page crackled stiffly as Gelthrain turned it. “A dwarven nethermancer. He’s lived longer than a dwarf ought to—is probably still alive. Very knowledgeable, with a mean streak.”
“He wrote that big grimoire I retrieved for you.” Gelthrain glanced up, her look suggesting that she was reevaluating Cymric. He was pleased and decided to push his luck.
“And the wards on the grimoire are your personal testimony to his mean streak?”
Gelthrain smiled, tossed him a clean rag. “Good guess, spell boy, not quite right. The grimoire has a ‘key’ spell, one you have to learn and cast before you can read any of the other spells. This one had a side effect; it ripped out every spell matrix I had. Tore them clean away, then sucked them into the grimoire. I’ve yet to figure out how to get them out.”
A chill prickled up and down Cymric’s spine. He hadn’t even imagined that such a thing could be possible. So that was why Gelthrain had been so desperate to get the grimoire and so helpless without it. Also a fine reason not to go face a Horror with Leandra.
“You couldn’t use raw magic against the ogres because ...?”
“Because if that book isn’t tainted with Horror magic, then you and I are siblings. Facing an ogre with a sword seemed preferable to taking the chance of casting raw within a mile of that book and having a Horror take interest.”
Cymric nodded in agreement. He wiped another page clean, and saw that the facing page had an illustration. From what he could see through the smudges, he decided to skip it. He flipped to the next page of text.
“Maeumis worked on the calendar,” he said.
Gelthrain’s guarded expression suggested that was news to her. Her face hid a number of emotions, but not well enough. She snapped her book shut. “Talk Leandra out of going. Please.”
“I’ve promised to unravel the prophecy.” Cymric carefully finished cleaning the page. “I’ve promised to go with her and face the Horror if necessary.”
Gelthrain laughed, a shrill, bitter sound. She covered her face with her hands. “You have no idea. Listen to me, Cymric.” Gelthrain waited for him to meet her gaze. There was pain in her eyes, elven emotion so visible it brought heat to his face. “We never saw Ristul,” she said, “but I knew he was close. His presence fouled and warped astral space. When we entered his conclave, it was so bad I could barely cast a spell. I couldn’t see any of my matrices to weave my threads. The spells I cast took erratic arcs, vanishing from sight long before hitting a target.” Gelthrain tapped Cymric on his chest. “Go in, and your spells will be completely useless.”
“I’ll find other ways to make myself useful.”
Gelthrain laughed again, then slapped him hard. She spat out her next words like a cobra spitting venom. “Ask Leandra how Ragnar died. Here’s the truth. Ragnar was picking a lock on the door we thought led to Ristul’s chamber.” Gelthrain’s breathing became shallow, more rapid as she talked. “I didn’t know anything was wrong until scrack Leandra suddenly cuts Ragnar’s hand off at the wrist. Then she took his arm off at the elbow on the back swing. Before I could move, she strikes three more blows—wham wham WHAM! Completely pulps his face. He convulses, lets out a kind of bubbling shriek while Leandra sheaths her sword and walks down the corridor. I look him over, but there’s nothing I can do for the poor bearded bastard.”
Cymric licked his lips, regarding Gelthrain warily as she began to weep. “I caught up with her at another door. She asks me, ‘Where’s Ragnar? We’ve got to get through.’ I knew then she was doomed. I grabbed her necklace, pumped every bit of blood magic I could through it. She screamed, went unconscious. I dragged her out, but I don’t know how we made it.”
Gelthrain pounded the nearest book with an open palm. Her tears had slowed but didn’t stop. “She had no idea Ristul had controlled her so easily, so completely. She still doesn’t know. The prophecy says Leandra can kill Ristul. I say the prophecy is so much horse shit. But she won’t listen to me.”
Gelthrain’s voice broke, then recovered. She had regained a measure of calm. “You lead Leandra to Ristul, and you lead her to her doom. What’s more, she’ll kill you for your trouble.”
16
There was an unreal quality about the next few days in Corthy. Leandra and Cymric kept busy, as much to avoid empty time as to get things done. Cymric plunged into work, with Leandra watching him the first few times he entered the calendar. With practice, he learned to dodge the ward, but still got hurt on occasion. The longer he stayed inside the pattern the greater were the odds of the thorns being able to track him. Cymric sensed that Leandra had unfinished business with Brius; he assured her he no longer needed her help. It was a lie he wished she could see through.
He spent hours hunched over the calendar, spinning it in his hands or holding it still for his inner sight. He discovered a puzzle, seventeen broken patterns, or clumps of patterns, buried around the Maeumis-root of the calendar flower. The pieces were blurred, indistinct. Because of the calendar’s thorny defenses, Cymric didn’t dare let his inner sight linger over the patterns. He had to be nimble in his movements, quick in his perceptions. He took pride in escaping these forays with no more than a few scratches on his hands and arms. He took refuge in this work, not permitting himself time to think about what Gelthrain had said.
One such night was surprisingly hot for this time of spring, with only the flimsiest breeze coming through Cymric’s unshuttered windows, just barely enough to occasionally flicker the flames of the candles he’d set on his bedposts. The etchings on the calendar had filled with shadow in the dim light of the room. Cymric concentrated, his breathing calm, measured, perhaps a tad shallow; he moved his inner sight carefully around one of the broken patterns. While gently prodding with his will in an attempt to gather and merge the pieces, Cymric felt a tickle brush across his lips.
He plunged his inner sight beneath the roots of the flower, forcing speed from his will. He snapped his course upward, looping and twisting as he raced along the stem. The mystic thorns forked, grew, and trailed his convoluted path. Cymric could see them at the periphery of his inner sight, purple-streaked brown with dark tips. He could almost feel them along his arms; it was like the times when the bakers used to hit him with their measuring rods. There was that moment just after a blow, an instant of a stunned non-sensation just before the pain began. As Cymric maneuvered to elude the thorns, that moment was drawn out. It would last until he either escaped or the thorns caught him.
He spiraled up, swerved his sight out left, then veered back in toward the heart of the flower. He threaded over, around, and through the petals. Experience had taught him that the thorn defense became confused around the central flower-pattem. There, he stopped dead. The thorns shot past him, growing as they went. Cymric watched them split, move, split, slow down, then fork again. They stopped. They had lost his trail. He relaxed.
He caught a scent, faint at first, then increasing to a pleasant presence. Confused, he breathed deeply, catching the sour sweat of his unclean robe and the cheap, heavy berry-smell of the candles. This other smell was different, something like a mixture of fresh orange rinds and old black tea, but the scent was nowhere in the room. It wasn’t even coming in through his nose. It was lodged directly in his mind, like a memory made real, no longer needing the senses to perceive it. The scent had to be coming from the pattern.
Cymric gave a short, joyous laugh. He remembered some of the aphorisms often muttered by his master. Sight and mind create recognition, touch and heart create knowledge. The proof of a pattern is in the tasting. Cymric slowly let any external odors fade. He reveled in the scent of the pattern. It came in two parts, the orange quick and sharp, the tea slow, full, and lingering. He swallowed as he imagined the taste, but the taste never came. Suddenly, he recognized the lip-tickle, but the awareness came a fraction of a second later than before. He immediately jerked his inner sight up and out of the pattern in a straight line, as quickly as he could. Pain stabbed his right hand as he emerged into the external world.
Cymric dropped the calendar, tearing his hand away from a vine of thorns. The vines quivered, then shriveled to become as small and flat as the etchings on the calendar. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Cymric sucked at the biggest hole in the back of his hand, trying to numb the pain. All he could smell now was his sweat and the perfumed smoke in the room. He watched the calendar for a few minutes; saw not even so much as a twitch. He leaned forward to pick it up, then lowered it to the floor. He loudly blew out all of the candles except one, then lay back in his bed to think.
Cymric had never come that close, or that connected, to a pattern. He had been taught that pattern knowledge was power, but confusion warred with satisfaction in his mind. How can the scent of orange rinds and black tea make me more powerful? The scent did not seem the kind the flower would produce, at least not in nature. Was the scent even important? Or just what Maeumis happened to be drinking while creating the pattern of the flower?
A throaty moan escaped from the adjacent room, followed by other sounds of sexual arousal, which began to arouse Cymric. Brius and Leandra must be done arguing for tonight. The walls had muffled most of their discussions, but Cymric had heard the shouted parts just fine. Brius wanted Leandra to stop her foolishness. Leandra wanted him to come with her. The pair would quiet down, regain their breath, then start all over again. From what he could hear, they never seemed to resolve the question, but he figured that the loud gasps of “I love you” meant a truce had been reached. He would inquire in the morning. Now he needed to block out the sounds, to think.
He rolled over onto his side, laying his head in the crook of his elbow. His other hand tapped an irregular rhythm into the mattress, the hand casting soft shadows on the walls. Cymric focused on the shadows while he concentrated on his thoughts. He had promised to accompany Leandra in her hunt for Ristul the Horror. He had made very few promises in his life, and even fewer were those he’d felt compelled to keep. Promises were good intentions contingent upon events. Gelthrain’s revelations certainly counted as a reason to reconsider his promise. If he could believe the elf.
Cymric knew he should get Leandra’s version of Ragnar’s death, but he was at a loss about how to bring up the delicate, perhaps dangerous, subject. He pictured the two of them seated by a campfire along the trail, spooning the last bit of dinner out of their dishes. Cymric wipes his mouth on his sleeve, puts his plate down and asks, “So how did Ragnar die?” Leandra looks pensive, then puts her plate down. She stares Cymric in the eyes, then calmly says, “His death was a lot like this.” A flash of fire reflected on steel, snick-slash, and one screaming wizard dies writhing in the blood-stained dirt.
Cymric rolled over to his other side, then stretched an arm to extinguish the candle. He took his robe off in the dark, tossed it where he thought the table was. The breeze had picked up some, felt good on his back.
From Leandra’s room came the sound of a bubbly laugh, then muffled conversation. It wasn’t the laughter of a woman who hacks her comrades to bits. On the other hand, the laugh came from the mouth of a woman who’d just enjoyed a romp with a lover who apparently refused to accompany her on the most important mission of her life. There were still a few pieces of the Leandra puzzle missing. Cymric snorted. Most of the pieces were missing; he just hadn’t considered many of them important until now.
There was no question the woman was steeped in magic. That she was driven. Cymric believed that she believed she was destined to kill this Horror. Cymric wanted to believe too. Perhaps some part of Leandra suspected that not everything was as the prophecy said it would be.
She hired me to tell her the truth. All I have to do is find it in time. Cymric decided to keep working on the calendar. To keep working on his promise.
A rattatat knock woke Cymric from a dream. Half-awake, he mused over whether or not his arms were strong enough to support Leandra in the position he’d been dreaming about. Probably not for the time necessary—not if she were moving half as wildly as in the dream. Four more sharp knocks sounded at the door. He shook his head like a wet dog, trying to awaken fully.
“It’s me,” said Leandra curtly.
Cymric glanced down ruefully, then looked for his robe. It lay a good two feet short of the table. He plopped his feet down, then padded barefoot across the floor. He wriggled into his robe, remembering its condition only after the smell reached him. He opened the door to see her in full regalia. Her morning readiness was not an endearing trait.
Leandra pushed the door open, bumping the wizard before he had time to step back. She came in and shut the door. “Brius caught one of the Ristular early this morning.”
The news managed to open Cymric’s eyes to full wakefulness. Leandra walked over to the window, nodded down toward the alley. “He was down there, probably watching us.”
“Probably?”
“Brius is still questioning him. We should know more in a bit.” Leandra picked up Cymric’s pack, nodded toward the calendar. “Time to go.”
Cymric nodded. He packed while Leandra watched, but he found her presence a bit unnerving. As a result the pack was somewhat bulky and not as well balanced. He shouldered the pack, then grabbed his staff. “Where to, sword lady?”
“Marrek, but the first order of business is finding that Ristular’s companions. They rarely travel alone.”
Cymric nodded, more slowly this time. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t these the same people we tried to get away from on the way to Corthy?”
“I doubt they’re the same ones, just others of the cult.” Cymric pursed his lips into an O. He said, “What I meant to ask is why are we attacking them now when we ran away from them before?”
“Well, first,” said Leandra, “this group knows for certain who we are and probably some of what we’ve been up to. If they haven’t reported back yet, I want to stop them. And this time I can prepare an attack rather than letting them take us by surprise.”
Cymric didn’t think Leandra’s reasons were compelling enough to go looking for a fight. But it did sound like the fight was already on its way to them. He conceded the point with a heavy sigh.
Brius sat at a table downstairs, the tavern’s sole customer this early in the morning. He grunted a greeting to Cymric, then rose and kissed Leandra. She kissed back-pretty well, in Cymric’s opinion. The three sat down at a rough table warmed by the full sun of morning. Warris spread bread and tea on their table, bringing knives and jam a few hasty steps later.
“The rest are down at the first traveler’s camp on the southeast trail,” Brius told them. He tore a hunk from the warm bread. “They’re waiting for the one I got to report back tonight.” Brius popped the bread into his mouth, chewed twice and swallowed.
“They were watching us?” Leandra asked.
“They had word to look for me, you, and Gel. Your wizard wasn’t on their list.”
Leandra clapped her hands, then squeezed Cymric warmly on the shoulder. “Maybe the stones are finally falling our way.”
Cymric wasn’t sure he represented a solid strategic advantage in a fight against a Horror and its cult. He tried to smother his doubts by spreading his bread with a thick layer of jam.
“There’s at least one more group, patrolling closer to the river. I figured I’d try to give them something to chase while you head toward Marrek.” Brius looked briefly up at Leandra, then back down at his bread. Leandra gave one of her tic-smiles, followed by a slower, sadder smile. She took Brius’ free hand in both of hers.
“I’m ready. Cymric is a good wizard. This time it’s going to work.” She looked imploringly at Brius, who finally met her gaze. His eyes were sad too. Cymric decided to become fascinated by the crumbs in his lap.
“You think so. Gel doesn’t. And I’m not sure. If your wizard can’t find a way ...”
“I won’t go in after Ristul. I promise.”
Cymric looked back up. The two were staring intently at one another. Brius broke contact first, clearing his throat.
“All right then. Time to pay this food the attention it deserves.”
Quiet dominated the rest of the meal. Cymric crunched on the crusty end of a loaf, self-conscious of the noise he made. Tea was sipped silently, bread chewed softly. The clink of a knife against the jar of jam carried through the room. Cymric’s thoughts drifted, snapped back by the long scrape of a chair. Brius stood up. He clapped his hands, officially ending the silence.
“We had best get started. In the fights to come, may Thystonius find amusement in supporting our side,” Brius said.
Leandra was four steps to the door before Cymric had cleared his seat. Brius started to follow quickly, then slowed suddenly. He turned to Cymric, blinked, then set his face. Brius’ black eyes were hard and certain, but the twitching in his right cheek revealed uncertainty. Leandra’s tic-smile was a similar expression. I wonder which one picked up the expression from the other.
