Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Prophecy, page 24
The root image fluttered and fuzzed as Cymric hung on indecision. His will wouldn’t last forever, nor would he be able to afford the fire sprite for future trips. Leandra was agitating to move on to Marrek. This might be his last chance to unravel the secret of the calendar.
The image of the root shrank into precise focus. After weaving a thread and attaching it, Cymric then forever surrendered a portion of his life force. This bit of blood magic traveled down the length of the thread, pulsing with each heartbeat, moving forward a fraction with each pulse. The wet sheen of red contrasted with the dull gray of the thread and the flat white of the root. As the gob of blood magic neared the thread, Cymric’s anxiety rose. So did his pulse, and the speed of the blood magic along the thread. As the blood magic hit the root, Cymric heard a crunch-crack as loud as a boulder falling into a frozen mountain lake.
Even as his inner sight was plunging into the root, dizziness blurred his vision. He felt something pull at his face, fuzzy points of light and then a loud, tired voice.
“You shall be called Heslar, son of Vonnek,” said the voice. “I claim your blood as my own.” Whoever was speaking remained out of sight. Or was he that haloed blur to Cymric’s right?
Before Cymric could try to focus his vision, the dizziness returned. This time he saw a huge dwarf face just in front of him. A spoon also popped into focus, a dollop of musty-smelling cereal in its bowl. “Come on, Heslar. Open the vault. Deposits make your wealth grow.” The huge face smiled.
/ am experiencing someone else’s memories. The roots must represent the lives—then Cymric’s thoughts broke as the spoon jabbed forward. Sticky paste filled his mouth, a bitter taste that made gorge rise in the back of his throat. He spit, splattering the face in front of him. Dizziness grabbed him again.
He spent time playing King of the Mountain with his friends, especially chubby Bellic. He mastered figures faster than boys two years his senior. Much later he and Bellic snuck out of his master’s storeroom to conceal themselves in the high grass by the river, where they watched a questor of Astendar teach some of the local youths how to dance. A sharp jab from Bellic drew his attention to a dwarf girl with red hair and moves that flowed as smoothly as the river’s.
A dizzy blur preceded his first kiss with Erin. He was aware of a feeling that spread from his lips and featherfingered its way throughout his body. The feeling lingered even after her lips had moved away. He heard her giggle, saw her hair, a red strand caught in her fingers. Her eyes gleamed, then her fingers opened to release the strand. “Well?” she asked.
The chisel made its final chink, pulling back to reveal the word Heslar below the other names on the bronze plaque. His pride fired his limbs, made him feel as if he could wrestle a brithan barehanded. A different pride, deeper and cooler, filled him as he exchanged vows with Erin. His voice shook with emotion as he spoke, embarrassment gripped him as he mispronounced the name Astendar. The witnesses laughed. Erin gripped his hand even more tightly.
A bead of sweat dropped onto the saddle in front of him. He quickly wiped it dry, then returned to the dragon design the cavalryman had requested. Erin entered the workshop, face lined with fatigue. She hesitated before speaking. ‘The questor of Garlen has anointed a hero for the village.” Hope surged through his heart, hope that the raids would end and the Ristular could be driven from their land. But Erin’s expression, and then her words, dashed the hope. “The signs are clear. Garlen has chosen the human babe. Garlen has chosen Leandra.”
Pain coiled around his legs as he fell to the ground. Men in the robes of the Ristular grabbed him. He screamed for Erin to keep running, saw the crossbow bolt drive deep into her left thigh. Nausea choked him just as his sight sparked out from the blow to his head.
The dwarf leaning over him had black eyes and silver lines decorating his face, as if a wire mask had melded with his face. Blood spattered that calculating face, and the hands probing his chest were covered in gore. The face looked over one shoulder and nodded to an unseen captor. “He’s ready.”
Rough hands lifted him to the altar while the dwarf rinsed out a dagger in a copper bowl. The hilt was the head of serpent, the blade the forked serpent’s tongue. He began to struggle; he did not want to be sacrificed.
Whoa, wait, time to leave. Cymric tried to exert his will, to force his inner sight out of the vision.
He turned to look at the dwarf, who was just raising the dagger. “I, Maeumis Weirkin, Thrall of Ristul, bind you to my master, so it may find sustenance and shall find its way.”
He managed to pull free from the captor holding his right hand. His blow was weak, but caught Maeumis squarely on the jaw. The dwarf rocked back out of sight. Hands quickly pinned him again, and Maeumis reappeared, hand on jaw.
Come on, come on, come on! Cymric poured more of his life energy into his will, struggling to break free of the vision. Maeumis raised the dagger, plunged it down. Cymric screamed as Heslar screamed. Maeumis placed his other hand on the dagger, steadying the blade as it made the incision. Pain jolted through him with each twitch of the blade.
Cymric screamed as the muscles in his back spasmed. He kept screaming. The pounding on his door became more insistent. The dagger slid another fraction. The pounding on my door—Cymric latched onto the sound, the frantic beat thumping through the wood and rattling the knob. Cymric screamed again as he realigned his senses to the external world.
He panicked at the darkness. Someone threw his weight against the door, but it held. Cymric crawled toward the sound, his knee crashing an extinguished candle. He found the door just as those on the other side were slamming into it once again. A quick hand-slide along rough-hewn wood found some splinters and the doorknob. Cymric opened the door.
Two dwarfs in heavy boots stood outside, the one in a green cap vigorously rubbing his shoulder. Their expressions held enough fear to rout a squad of militia, but they held their ground. “Wizard, you’re bleeding.”
Dazed, Cymric looked down. The light of the hall lamps showed the front of his robe stained with blood. The stain was spreading.
Green cap stepped forward. “Let’s us take you to the healers.” Cymric tried to wave them off, but they grabbed him under the armpits. A red flare illuminated the room. Shrieking a crackling oath of triumph, the fire sprite appeared in the conjuring triangle. The dwarfs dropped Cymric and fled down the hallway.
Cymric crawled back toward the triangle, picking up the spice wood along the way. While he tossed the wood into the triangle, one piece at a time, the sprite boomed out a laugh. “Best burning I’ve done in ages! Got two of the thorn wards. Last one is your problem. My thanks for the opportunity. And the payment.”
“Welcome,” mumbled Cymric.
The fire sprite regarded Cymric, eyes dimming to the color of dying embers. “Seems you went too close to the dark heart of the thing. I avoided it.”
“Wise choice.” Cymric collapsed on the floor to rest.
His hand probed underneath his robe. His skin had been sliced open, but the wounds didn’t seem deep.
“I would make the same choice if I were you. At least until I were a better magician than you are.” The sprite laughed again, then vanished in a puff of perfumed smoke.
Cymric lay still. Above the waist he was covered in darkness. The rest of his body was illuminated by light from the doorway. The sprite was right about him needing to get to a healer, but his need to think was even greater. He thought about the calendar, which held the pattern of the flower in the center. The flower had hundreds of roots, each root probably containing memories of the person whose blood magic Maeumis had stolen to build the pattern. Cymric examined the flower carefully. It looked bigger, more fully in bloom than the last time he’d seen it. In some small way Cymric’s blood magic had contributed to the pattern’s growth.
Cymric didn’t know the purpose of the pattern, but in the vision Maeumis had said .. so it may find sustenance and shall find its way.” The pattern either strengthened or summoned Ristul. Probably both. The problem was that Cymric couldn’t be sure.
No, the real problem was that the fire sprite was right about him not being a powerful enough magician to uncover the secrets of the pattern within the calendar. The truth Leandra needed from her wizard would continue to elude him. If she still wished to confront Ristul, she would have to do so without much real knowledge of the prophecy. That hurt worse than the pain in his chest.
Cymric sat up, a motion that set his head to throbbing. Then, when he tried to rise from his sitting position, he fell back down before he’d even managed more than a few inches. Changing his tack, he rolled up to his hands and knees, then pulled his left knee to his chest so he could put one foot on the ground. He wobbled to his feet, fixed his first target as the doorframe, and took cautious steps to his goal. At the doorway, he gripped the frame, pausing to let the dizziness pass. It seemed that standing up got easier every few breaths.
As his next goal he fixed the handrail of the stairway at the end of the hall. With the little bit of extra energy not devoted to each step, Cymric wondered what he would tell Leandra. He thought about what he’d heard, about how Leandra had been chosen as a hero by Garlen. A weak snort escaped his lips. Cymric grabbed the handrail, steadying his progress down the steps. He tried to think of the words he would use to tell her that it had been her destiny to save a village from Ristul.
At the foot of the stairs he paused as the inn patrons stared at him with a mixture of curiosity and horror. With his next step, Cymric staggered along the wall and the troll barkeep rushed from behind the counter to grab his elbow and steady his progress. Cymric thanked the man, but he couldn’t keep from letting loose a wild laugh as the two of them continued toward the door. The barkeep’s grip tightened and his eyes narrowed in concern, but Cymric paid him no mind. He was too busy wondering just how he would tell Leandra she had found her destiny nearly twenty-eight years too late.
28
Cymric winced as Pouika pulled the thread through the skin around the deep cuts he’d taken. While she worked, he sat on the examining table, robe across his lap, fist clenching its hem. Dark curtains separated the examining area from the rest of the hall, but the thin fabric did nothing to block the coughing and complaints of the makeshift hospital’s other patients. A yellow herbal stain smeared his chest, orange where the blood still oozed. Pouika, continued to stitch a design in the shape of a healing rune that she promised would heal the wounds before the threads fell apart. Leandra frowned as she watched, her eyes flashing anger. Though she was wearing full armor, Cymric noticed that she leaned against a pillar for support. Leandra was just better at concealing pain than he was. At least she’d stopped tapping her sword hilt.
“We leave for Marrek as soon as Pouika finishes,” she announced, catching Cymric and the healer totally by surprise. Cymric grunted harshly as the startled Pouika accidentally drove the needle deeper than she’d intended. Tears welled up in his eyes as she pulled the thread through; it felt more like she was sewing a hot wire into his flesh.
Leandra walked over to the table, leaning against it with one hand and covering Cymric’s right fist with the other. She looked him in the eye. “I know you ran into problems with the calendar. Thanks for trying.”
You don’t know the peasant’s part of it. Cymric raised his eyebrows as he blinked his eyes clear. “I discovered a thing or two. We should talk about it before you decide to take off for Marrek.”
“We can talk about it on the boat.”
“You’ve already hired a boat? So you were going to Marrek no matter what I learned from the calendar.”
“All I’d lose is the price of a deposit. Trade season will soon be in full bloom. I needed to guarantee passage.” Her explanation mollified Cymric, but doubt still nagged him. Leandra had probably made up her mind some time ago. Back at the Garlen clearing she’d released him from his promise to accompany her to Marrek. Pouika made another pass with the needle, making Cymric grimace.
“Last one,” said the healer.
As much as Leandra claimed to want the truth from him, it now seemed that what she’d really wanted was tactical advice, an edge in her fight against Ristul. She still believed that prophecy directed her to battle a Horror. Cymric doubted that he could say anything to dissuade her. Pouika was running a gentle hand over the stitching, then she nodded, apparently satisfied with her work. Cymric sat chin-to-chest, examining his wounds.
“I’d advise not going anywhere with legs as unsteady as yours,” Pouika said to Leandra.
“The journey to Marrek takes only a few days. My legs will be fine by the time I arrive.”
Pouika’s mouth smiled, but her eyes did not as they searched Leandra’s face. She gently touched the scabbard hanging from the taller woman’s belt. “I would not presume to tell you how to care for your blade. Perhaps you could extend me the same courtesy for my profession.” Leandra blinked, then knelt down to Pouika’s height with some popping of her joints. “I do not mean to offend. Garlen gave me a sign. It’s time I leave; we both know that.”
Cymric looked up. “What sign?”
Pouika hesitated, then hugged Leandra, who returned the gesture with a flicker of pain passing across her face. Then she stood to her full height and squeezed the dwarf’s hand before gesturing for Cymric to follow her. He slid off the examining table while grabbing for his pack and staff, then fumbled with his robe as he hurried around the curtain. Leandra walked rapidly but unevenly to her cot. Leaning against the cot was her backpack; next to it was a small bundle of neatly stacked clothes, rations, and cooking utensils.
Leandra dropped to one knee, picked up the pack and gingerly worked it over her shoulders. “Jam what you can from the stack into your own pack,” she said. “And leave what you cannot carry. I want the clothes more than the rest.”
Cymric watched her struggle with her pack for a heartbeat, then moved to help her. He lifted the pack from behind, easing its weight while Leandra worked against the straps. The pack weighed much less than when he and Leandra had first arrived. She’d lightened it considerably to carry only what she could manage with her injuries.
While she was adjusting the last strap, Cymric untied his own pack and threw open the flap, eyebrows rising as he looked at the available space and then at the pile of Leandra’s belongings. He lifted out the calendar and began to rearrange other items in his pack. Without turning from the task, he asked her, “What sign did Garlen give you?”
Leandra opened a side pouch on her pack, and pulled out a flask. She tossed it to Cymric, who dropped a shirt to make a two-handed catch. “Garlen filled that for me. It’s the flask from the spring.”
Cymric turned the flask over in his hands, then opened the top and took a taste. It had the same sweet, peppermint taste of the potion at the spring. He capped the flask before handing it back. “So Garlen wants you to get better. Why do you think she wants you to leave before you’re healthy?”
“I asked for a way to leave. I prayed for a way to meet the obligations of the prophecy. The next morning the flask was refilled.”
Cymric thought Leandra’s story was plausible. He also thought it plausible that Garlen refilled the flask on a regular basis or that the flask itself might be enchanted. Leandra’s determination was plain. When he finished packing, leaving only a ladle, Leandra made to leave. Shouldering his pack, Cymric struggled for a moment to find his voice, then blurted the truth. “The calendar suggests that Garlen did anoint you a hero.”
Leandra slowed but kept walking. “The calendar only suggests?”
Cymric took a few quick steps, careful to dodge the cot holding a dozing dwarf. By then he’d caught up with her. She looked over, wariness creeping over her face. Cymric took the time between here and the hall entrance to think over his next words a little more carefully. “I traveled the memory of a dwarf named Heslar. A questor of Garlen anointed you a hero when you were just bom. Heslar seemed to believe you were to protect his village from the Ristular. But—”
He knew he’d made a mistake the instant he hesitated. Leandra’s eyes showed her anger first, but her voice was steeped in it. “I failed. Heslar’s dead and his village is destroyed. Isn’t that how your story ends?”
Close enough to suit this wizard. His curiosity tickled his tongue to ask how she knew about the Ristular killing Heslar. Another look at her face made him think it was more prudent to tell his curiosity to take a reed boat out on Death’s Sea.
“I may be Garlen’s heroine, but there wasn’t much I could do about Ristul for the first twenty years of my life. Now I can at least try.” Leandra turned into an unfamiliar street, but her confident step suggested she knew the way. Perhaps she hadn’t been confined to a cot the whole time Cymric had been dabbling in magic.
The dockside was crowed. Cargo clogged the riverside streets, as most of the ships had been unloaded earlier in the afternoon. Now captains in threadbare velvet coats haggled with brokers with impeccably coifed hair smelling of lavender. Troll longshoremen inspected damaged lamps already passed over by dwarf merchants. A gust drove the smell of rotten fruit from one warehouse, while outraged poultry cackled and flapped inside wood and wire crates. Poor children darted from crate to barrel looking for something they could eat or sell, but they were driven away by bored militia whose efforts were in proportion to the value of the cargo threatened.
Leandra turned left at a barrel filled with unappetizing red pickled something onto a pier more warped than straight. The boats tied alongside were small, perhaps twenty feet or less. She stopped at one bearing the emblem of a windling trapped beneath a fishbowl.
“Hail Orsethi” she shouted.
The elf who emerged from the cabin surprised Cymric with his greasy black hair split into looped braids and his square-cut white shirt and shiny green pants. The style was human, as was the lack of cleanliness. But the silver and crystal rings on the fingers of Orseth’s left hand were unquestionably elven, as were his seemingly boneless gestures. He bent down, lifted the gangplank with a grunt, then dropped it with a clatter. His smile seemed genuine. “Welcome aboard, Leandra. Is this your wizard?”
