Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Prophecy, page 31
The red glow wreathed Leandra’s hands and arms. Her breathing was rapid, the muscles of her arms strained. She licked her lips. “Call the others before you go. Call them by name, Valiza.” Another tic-smile. “Yes, even Kaleb. Garlen grant you a safe home.”
The thread attached to the plug glowed star-white, then began to pull away from the flower. Other threads, those tangled with the first, also began to pull away. Leandra gasped. The red glow now washed over her in waves, from her hands to her waist, over and over again. As each wave slapped Cymric with a stinging heat, he could only imagine what Leandra must be feeling. “Remember them. Sing them. Call them. Say the names of those who touched your life.” Leandra repeated the phrase over and over again, turning it into a chant. Thread after thread tore free from the flower, passing through the necklace Leandra held. The red glow rolled over her from hands to feet, splashing against the marble like burning oil. Petals fell, the stem unraveled. With a rising shriek, the last of the flower dissipated into strands to flow through the necklace.
The refectory snapped back to normal like an overtaut bow string finely released. The walls and ceiling returned to their solid shapes. The Ristular hung motionless from the tendrils of the spiritcatcher. The only sound was Leandra’s ragged breathing. Brius went to her, cradled her as she slumped to the ground. Leandra opened her eyes, looked first to Brius and then Cymric. “Hands burned. Rest just hurts.” The necklace lay on the ground. The stones shone a gentle blue.
Brius glanced up at Cymric. “You were right. You work with some wicked magic, wizard.”
Leandra smiled. “Looks like you’ve earned your pay.” She gently scooped up the necklace, avoiding the blisters on her palms, passing it to Cymric. Cymric turned it over in his hands, watching it catch the light. The feel of deep magic still resonated within the stones, which he placed gently into his pouch.
With a series of soft thuds the Ristular slid to the marble floor. The tendrils of the spiritcatcher sank into the ground, disappearing from the external world to leave a wispy astral trail. Brius grinned. “Looks as though we’ve come to end of this battle. A better end than I’d have put money upon.” Cymric nodded idly as he tilted the healing potion to Leandra’s lips. She drank greedily, and Cymric emptied the vial. His hand froze, the empty vial hovering over his side pouch.
Then Cymric jumped to his feet, letting the vial drop. The sound of broken glass echoed through the empty refectory. Brius looked at him, and Leandra started to rise. Cymric grabbed his walking stick, took five steps, then turned to shout, “You’re hurt. Get yourselves out of here. I’ll meet you back at the tavern.” He sprinted after the trail of the spiritcatcher, a trail that would lead him to Maeumis.
34
Cymric’s sleeves caught on thorns as he raced deeper into the garden. Twisting free with a snapping of branches, he scanned ahead for the trail of the spiritcatcher. The creature slowed its pace; so did Cymric. A half-moon and a sky full of stars gave light enough for walking, but Cymric’s scrapes and cuts were proof that running was hazardous. He wound his way among rose bushes grown into a deep labyrinth. By day the maze was probably a pleasant diversion for those with time to kill during an afternoon. But now it was night, and Cymric reserved his murderous thoughts for the nethermancer.
The spiritcatcher stopped moving entirely, its trail fading as it ceased expending magic. Cymric noted the spiritcatcher’s position as best he could.
The nature of the roses had changed here, catching and reflecting light better than did the flowers forming the outer layers of the labyrinth. Leaning closer, Cymric saw that they were silver roses. The kind Brius had when possessed by Maeumis. He moved forward cautiously, then rounded a bend and gasped softly at the sight before him. Piled in a pyramid shape against a wall of bushes were several ork skulls. Dozens more had been tossed aside carelessly, left to lie wherever they happened to land. Cymric threaded his way warily along the path, careful not make any noise by stepping on a skull.
From around the next bend he heard the splash of water. He stopped to collect his thoughts. Impulse had brought him to the garden, but there was no need to die for it. He listened to the water, trying to come up with a plan.
“Hiding in the bushes of my garden is not really hiding, boy.” The voice was gruff, gravelly. Cymric froze. The voice laughed. “Have it your way.”
Cymric cursed himself, then walked around the bend into a small sitting garden. Surrounding the garden was a gravel walkway interspersed at regular intervals with a total of six stone benches. In the center of the garden was a fountain decorated with the statues of four dwarfs seated at a tavern table, tankards raised to different heights. A fifth statue stood pouring a cask for the others. The water poured from the cask, cleverly arranged to hit all four mugs. The splash came from the overflow of the mugs hitting the table.
Bones covered the grass surrounding the fountain in an elaborate design that began as two concentric circles, the first surrounding the base of the fountain, the second just inside the gravel path. Complex lines of bones joined the two circles, the larger bones near the outer circle, the finger and toe bones forming swirling patterns at the inner circle. Maeumis stood on the opposite side of the garden, just inside the bone circle. As he began to approach along the edge of the circle, Cymric saw that the right half of his face was badly burned. As the dwarf got closer, it became apparent that his right eye was bandaged in gauze and that the rings of metal implanted in his face had melted on the right side. His beard, too, had burned away from the side of his face, the first strands of blackened, singed hair appearing on his chin. The white hair of his head was unruly around a bald, blistered wedge. His burning flesh stinking, his cracked skin bleeding, Maeumis stopped in front of Cymric. “So you win. The old dog is whipped by the human pups.”
Cymric swallowed slowly. He had to breathe open-mouthed to tolerate the stench. Maeumis laughed. “Not very pleasant, is it? Damn sword bitch. You’d think she’d have told her lover about the runes, would you not? She kept that knowledge pretty deep within herself.”
Cymric snorted. “The third rune that disappeared—”
“A spellseeker. I suppose in case someone tried to levitate the sword away from her, or some such. After the Garlen enchantment forced me from Brius, I returned to find my face on fire.”
Cymric tested the edge of the bone circle with his astral sense. Magic hummed within the bones, agitated and angry. When he tentatively touched a bone with the tip of his walking stick, the brass head exploded with a shriek of shrapnel. Pieces struck Cymric in the left leg, dropping him to one knee. Maeumis tittered. “Thus our problem is illustrated. You hate me, but cannot penetrate the magic of the circle. I hate you, but am too injured to take on a human pup who has woven a thread so tightly through my calendar.”
“Another unforeseen outcome for you. Certainly a run of bad luck.”
Maeumis shrugged. “The calendar was a calculated ploy. It did bring Leandra here before the magic of the ritual expired. That you found a use for it only proves that you are not wholly incompetent.”
Cymric tried to stand, then thought better of it. “Nice to know that a not wholly incompetent human pup is the equal of the great Maeumis. Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot; I’m only your equal because you had your face burned off by another human pup.”
Maeumis bent down to regard Cymric with his remaining good eye, which glittered with evil emotion. “But I will heal. You will still be a pup.”
Cymric stood on his good leg. Blood ran down his left; he felt his pants sticking to his skin. “The Ristular have reason to hunt you.”
Maeumis laughed wildly. “A group so stupid as to believe I would help them summon a Horror such as Ristul. The summoning required the lifeblood of more than a thousand victims just to create a portal wide enough for Ristul to enter our world. What did they think would be required to sustain it?” The nethermancer laughed again, this time the sound diminishing to a chuckle. He bent to examine a bone, changing its alignment slightly. “Their cult was an ancient one. Their ancestors had more sense than they, or at least more interesting magic. Almost worth the pain of their company to learn.” Maeumis nodded to Cymric. “This is goodbye for now. Needa and I must be going.”
“You named the spiritcatcher Needa?”
Maeumis walked to the inner circle, then replied without turning back. “I named Needa after the first peasant we sacrificed to Ristul. I thought the event deserved commemoration.”
Cymric’s breath caught. Maeumis wove a thread, looping it around dozens of bones, creating knots more intricate than any Cymric had ever seen in a spellcasting. He tied the first and began a second. Anger flared through Cymric. He took the calendar from his pack, hurriedly weaving a thread to the pattern for dispel magic. He cast the spell on himself as he dove into the bone circle, holding the calendar in front of him like a shield.
Cymric screamed. Pain wracked his body. He felt a tremendous pressure in his left arm. The bones of his forearm exploded as the walking stick had, bursting his skin in dozens of places and hurling Cymric back from the bone circle. Shock rolled through his body. He sobbed, lying on his right side in a fetal position, rocking back and forth. Slivers of bone projected at odd angles, his wounds soaking his vest in blood. His body shivered in between convulsions. He tried to calm himself, focus on something, anything. He saw the calendar lying a few feet away. The refectory ritual had been one thread short, one wash of blood magic away from completion. The stone disk was the ritual in miniature—and Cymric had already added his thread to the calendar.
He tried to wriggle over to it, but his vision swam from the pain of the effort. The slightest movement brought a cry from his lips. He stopped to catch his breath, but his stomach trembled violently, forcing him to take the air in irregular gasping gulps.
Maeumis clapped enthusiastically. “The blood of Raggok flows through your veins, boy. Tell me, has your madness passed?”
Cymric clenched his teeth as he wormed his way to the calendar. He grabbed it with his right arm, then wriggled his way back to the bone circle. He screamed as he dropped the calendar within a few inches of the circle. His upper body convulsed again, slamming his head into the calendar. Cheek upon cold stone, he stared across the calendar at the dwarf nethermancer. Maeumis grinned in happy disbelief. “You’re going to try again? Perhaps I shall linger awhile, then. I would so enjoy watching you kill yourself.”
“We wizards are noted showmen. Enjoy,” spat Cymric. He rested his shattered arm on top of the calendar, willing his blood magic into the calendar. He panted as the calendar soaked in his life force, then barked a laugh at the puzzlement on Maeumis’ face. A glow brightened the center of the calendar, orange petals rising from the calendar as the flower grew. The flower strained against an unseen barrier while Maeumis cursed and began to weave a thread. Cymric urged more of his life force into the flower, and the stem shot upward, the petals opening to full flower. In the center die stamen changed, becoming crystalline and needle sharp. With a pop, the flower poked a pinprick into astral space.
A blast of cold escaped the hole. Cymric held onto the calendar, feeding his life to the flower that maintained the hole. A deep bass roar tore through the garden. Rolling waves of shimmering force expanded from the calendar, scattering bones in every direction. A wave slammed into Maeumis, who was shouting as he tried a spell, the ca~ denced shout becoming a shriek of fear and pain. Space folded and stretched within the dwarf, stretched and folded again. Maeumis wailed as he became longer and thinner, impossibly thin yet still alive. The waves of force reversed direction, rolling back to the calendar. They carried Maeumis with them, back to the calendar, back to the hole in astral space, back to Ristul. Then Maeumis was sucked into the hole with a sound like somebody tearing off a joint of lamb.
Cymric released the calendar. The noise stopped. The flower vanished. Struggling to stay conscious, he worked his good hand across his body into his pouch. He wiggled the Garlen vial free, fighting to open the top one-handed.
He drank the remaining bit of potion, which tasted clean, tasted wonderful, with only a hint of the peppermint. The pain in his arm subsided a little. The potion stopped the bleeding, forming scabs around the bone almost immediately. Breathing slowly, he lay on his side, a sharp, stinging pain bringing a new ache to his arm. It happened again; this time a scab tore as a bone fragment retracted. Cymric grunted or cried out as each bone fragment retracted into his arm, the power of Garlen mending his arm the best it could. He slid over to a bench, rotated onto his back and pulled himself up to sit leaning against the bench as he tried to catch his breath.
Seated amid a field of scattered bones, Cymric turned teary eyes to the field of scattered stars. Watching the sky, he waited until his arm had healed enough to return to the tavern and Leandra.
EPILOGUE
Leandra drove the pommel of her sword into the boy’s stomach. He wore leather to prevent serious harm, but the blow was powerful enough to imprint the hawk-beak and eyes into the armor. He would remember it. His sword fell from his hand as he doubled over and crouched, but he stayed on his feet. Leandra had expected the blow to drop him, but Greely’s toughness forced Leandra to reevaluate him. The boy would probably make the cut.
Greely huffed, squinting in the low morning sun that bleached color from the grass of the practice field. Among the thirty-nine others watching attentively, the ork Bjava’s face showed a smirk; Leandra would pay more attention to him in the afternoon. As he had been taught, Greely dropped into a hand-down crouch to retrieve his sword. Then he straightened quickly, sheathed his sword, and saluted smartly. Leandra felt her left cheek twitch, for which she inwardly rebuked herself; she made it a point to control her tic-smile during practice sessions. “Guardsman Greely, we do not train for attacks to the head. You are not ready for them. Your attack and my response are all the proof you require.”
“Yes, Commander.”
Greely stepped back to the others, and Leandra addressed the company. “After breakfast all of you will report to your instructors for extra drill on the defense.”
“Yes, Commander!”
The crisp unison pleased Leandra. She needed all the signs of progress she could find. “Dismissed. See you in the afternoon.” The company turned a quarter-circle, then jogged off the field in cadence. Leandra waited until they were off the field before she started walking to the drafty shack they called a headquarters. She kicked at the dew on the grass. She’d never enjoyed drilling troops, and these were proving particularly infuriating. Crossing the line of tall pines that bordered the practice field, she delayed a moment to inhale deeply, then turned onto the crushed brick path leading to headquarters. The rough-hewn boards, warped windows, and cracked shale roof looked ridiculous when compared to Mount Throal looming behind it. Leandra’s gloom lifted when she smelled the tea through the mesh in the door. For an old troll, Rhior had a surprising social streak in him.
Rhior had his feet up on the desk, head lolled forward, snoring lightly. The tea was brewing on the camp stove under the window sill. Two mugs sat on the nearby map table.
“Reviewing strategy again?” teased Leandra.
The old troll opened one yellow eye to make sure he had to open the other eye. Seeing that he did, he swung his legs off Leandra’s desk, rising stiffly to salute his commander. Leandra wasn’t sure why he went through the motions at all. She started pouring the tea.
“So which was it this morning, useless or trouble?”
Leandra handed the first mug to Rhior. The troll held it with his last two fingers held away from the handle. Elegance had nothing to do with it; the handle could only fit two of his fingers. Leandra took a sip of her own tea before answering. “The morning they become trouble, I’ll buy you whitewater until you think you’re falling from the top of Mount Throal.” She knocked a strand of hair back into place behind one ear. “I’m not sure why I even bother.”
Rhior grinned. “That’s what you get for saying ‘yes’ to a king.”
“So it’s all my fault. Tell me something new.”
“All right. Courier packet arrived for you a few minutes ago.”
Leandra’s heart skipped a beat. She hoped it was from Brius. He’d been sent to track down persistent rumors of Theran activity in the Caucauvics weeks ago. He’d promised to write, and had already done so twice. That was pretty good for Brius. A third letter would be a sign that he was truly serious in his feelings for her. Or at least a sign that the last few letters she’d written had made some kind of impression.
Rhior reached under the desk to pull out a package that looked much too large to be from Brius. Leandra broke the courier seal, unwrapping the waxed-cloth covering. She smelled something good even before peeling away the last layer. Inside was a pouch of tea, Landis Blend Sun Mixture, and a letter. Leandra opened the pouch and sniffed the tea; rose hips, orange, and some other wonderful unidentified scent wafted up to greet her. She unfolded the letter:
“Leandra,” it began in her friend’s unmistakable script.
“Corthy is quiet as always, at least as quiet as it can get with Gelthrain in town. When accused of conversing with the dead in the Kolbrenton family crypt, she entered a novel defense. She claimed these dead needed to talk, and would simply find someone else if she became unavailable. Charges were dropped.
“Warris practices his magic diligently and is a fine apprentice, although he tends to push me back up onto the high road when opportunity lures me onto a different path. I have decided it is time to take him traveling and show him a little of the world beyond these circle-streets. His eagerness to see Throal is fitting for a boy his age, and somewhat infectious. By the time you read this, we should be heading upstream on the Coil. We should be in Throal in a few days.
