Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Lliferock (28 page)

Chaiel was his name. If he gets through now, there’s not much chance I’ll get out alive.

The bulges struggled to break through the orichalcum webbing for a few minutes, their suffocating bodies lunging out of the rock only to be slung back by the alien metal. Finally they gave up and faded back into the rock.

Maybe they can’t get out of the rock here, he thought. But what about coming up the tunnel. I hope the guards can hold them off.

Blood flowed over the rock between the liferock and the joined obsidimen. Its body seemed to be mostly merged with the rock now, its black and gray flesh partially melted into the cracking lattice of the wall’s surface. The glow crystals dimmed suddenly, and Sarbeneck smelled sulfur and steam.

Voices and movement came from down the tunnel.

“What’s happening?”

“I can’t really tell,” Nancri said. “But I think they’re warping astral space.”

A deep red glow lit up the cavern now, and Sarbeneck This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ [email protected]) Liferock 

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could hear the drip, drip, drip of water. “What does that mean, warping?”

“It means something with immense power is folding astral space. I think they’re trying to connect the spell’s pattern to the liferock and something else.”

Suddenly, the rock yielded completely under the body of the two merged obsidimen. There was liquid popping sound, like the rush of fluid from a ruptured membrane as it gave way to building pressure. The red glow filled the cavern with heat and light for second, then dissipated and the white glow crystals brightened again. The sulfur smell vanished, and silence replaced the voices. The chamber had returned to normal.

“They did it,” Nancri said, astonishment in her voice. “I wouldn’t have believed it, but they did it.”

Sarbeneck was still at a loss. “Who did what?”

“The obsidimen, there.” Nancri pointed at the dark, amor-phous lump merged into the rock at the back end of the chamber. “They connected that huge rope-looking spell into the liferock and into whatever was on the other side of the warped astral space.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means the pattern of the liferock is directly linked with the pattern of that thing. They are intertwined.”

“It simply means,” Pontin said, interrupting. “That our work here is complete.”

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ [email protected])  Chapter Thirty-Two 

The pain hit Pabl and Reid at the same time. Pabl winced as a sharp edge of agony sliced into his gut like a knife.

Reid doubled over in front of him, clutching at his stomach. Reid sank to his knees and pitched forward onto the floor.

“What is it?” Pabl asked.

Reid writhed on the floor, curling his knees into his chest, gritting his teeth against the pain. He gasped and sputtered, but couldn’t form words.

Then pain wracked through Pabl again. He felt life energy spill out of him as though he were bleeding all over the rock.

Yet there was no wound.

“It’s Ganwetrammus,” Reid croaked.

“Ganwetrammus? How?”

“Sangolin is attacking it,” Reid said.

Pabl nodded. He knew that had to be true. “How is that possible?”

“Don’t know.” Reid struggled to his feet, agony evident in his grimace.

Pabl’s pain had dulled to a slow draining ache that spread 229

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from his gut into his bones. “We must stop it.”

Reid shook his head. “No, I can’t leave. I told you —”

“I will hear no more excuses,” Pabl said. “You must come with me, don’t you see now? If you don’t, Ganwetrammus will die, just like Othellium. Is that what you want?”

Reid tried to speak, but he was in too much agony to answer. He sank to his knees again.

“At least try.”

Reid shook his head again, violently, placing his hands down on the floor to help him back to his feet. “I —”

“No excuses!” Pabl said, feeling his anger building against the pain inside him. Ganwetrammus is dying while we debate.

I can brook this brother’s weakness no longer. “You will come with me,” Pabl said, “or I will be forced to kill you to save the liferock.” His breath rattled in his chest, partially from the pain. Mostly from his realization that what he said was true.

Reid looked into Pabl’s eyes, holding his stare for a moment. “All right,” he said. “I will come with you as far as I can.”

Pabl watched as a wave of pain shook through Reid, forcing him to the floor again. Pabl felt the pang of agony in his chest, but he fought to ignore it.

Reid’s fingers pressed tightly into the muscle of Pabl’s arms, grasping to be helped to his feet. When Reid was standing on his own, Pabl hoisted his backpack and led the way out of the cave. He ran, hauling Reid behind him as fast as he could go. He needed to get them far away from Sangolin before Reid was called. Before Reid changed his mind.

They passed along the cliff edge and through the hollow.

The sun had set, leaving a red orange glow in the west, silhouetting the clouds of steam and mist which blew slowly through the clearing. Pabl and Reid sped past the brothers who were preparing the late-evening feast of flesh. It looked like they had netted a gargoyle, and were struggling to subdue This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ [email protected]) Liferock 

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it enough to get it on the spit.

Pabl and Reid reached the base of the trail which led up and over the mountains before the pain vanished. Just as quickly as it had come, the agony was gone. The grimace on Reid’s face gave way to a far off stare of contentment. And Pabl’s jaw went slack as the ache dissipated, replaced by a gentle longing.

“Now you see why I cannot leave this place,” Reid said.

“You understand.” He extended an arm towards Pabl, palm open, beckoning.

The longing grew to an insistent urge. Delirious desire overcame Pabl. He nodded slowly and placed his hand into Reid’s.

Reid clasped tightly, the strength of his grip pressing bruises into the muscles of Pabl’s hand. Like a vice. Then Reid’s skin softened under Pabl’s palm — an invitation to join in self-Dreaming.

Pabl resisted out of instinct. It was a violation, an invasion of the flesh. But his resistance was fleeting. He wanted Sangolin and Reid would be his guide. He yielded to the merge and lost his mind.

In the flash of an instant, Reid’s memories possessed Pabl’s mind. His thousands of mergings with Sangolin crashed in upon Pabl. The gradual loss of Reid’s mind to the Gathering which became Sangolin had taken him hundred of years, but Pabl’s mind became its slave in less than a minute.

Pabl’s memory split as the events of Reid’s past jumbled together with his own plus bits and pieces of others he didn’t know. All disconnected, shattered like broken glass, fragmented into a million isolated moments. Meaning nothing.

Only Sangolin held meaning for them now.

As one, they turned and walked back down the slope toward their sweet. Sangolin called to them, and all else was forgotten.

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As it should be. As it always will be.

Pabl. A distant echo in the back of his mind. Stop!

“Pabl!” Something tapped his shoulder, but he ignored it.

Couldn’t be important. Sangolin called and they would join it.

Nothing else mattered.

Suddenly, his body lifted into the air. Not far, just a few feet. Then a hard shaft of wood slammed into his head.

What by Thystonius’s wrath was that? Pabl turned slowly to see a dwarf and an elf standing behind him. They seemed anomalously out of place here. It was the dwarf who spoke, “Pabl, are you all right. We’ve been looking for you.”

“I . . . am . . . fine . . .” Pabl said. “Home.”

“Don’t go all glassy-eyed on us, my friend,” the dwarf said.

“Tepuis Garen needs you.”

Ganwetrammus. Pabl felt the word like a tickle in his mind.

Something was wrong here. Through the fog in his head, Pabl tried to concentrate. He struggled to force himself out of the merge with Reid Quo. One heartbeat, two, and he was out, releasing his brother’s hand. Immediately, pain hit him like a knife through his chest and gut. He winced, trying to force it from his conscious mind.

Reid spoke a few words and dispelled the levitation, casting the two of them to the worn stone. Pabl hit the stone in a crouch, not quite sure where he was. Reid landed on his feet and continued his walk into the tunnel. He could not feel Ganwetrammus’s pain, Pabl knew. Sangolin had reduced it to a faint hint in his mind.

Pabl focused on his breathing for a minute to gather strength, watching Reid’s retreating form. A desperate yearning crept over Pabl; he longed to follow his brother. How good it would feel.

“Pabl?”

He turned then and looked at the dwarf. Really looked, this time. Jan Farellon. The name popped into his mind. And This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ [email protected]) Liferock 

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the short fellow’s companion was . . . Celagri. I know these energy-wasters.

“Pabl? Can you walk? We can’t stay here.”

Then it all came back to him in a rush. The clouds cleared in his mind and he remembered everything. By Mynbruje, I have been lost. “Jan, my friend,” he said. “And Celagri, I thank you again.”

“Did you . . .?”

“No, I have been very lucky,” Pabl said, feeling his resistance to Sangolin gathering strength. His sanity returning. “I have not yet merged with Sangolin. I nearly succumbed the first time, but Reid Quo helped me. This last time, it called both of us at the same time, caught me off guard.”

“What have you learned?”

“Let’s go to the caves and talk about it,” Pabl said, moving back in the direction of Reid’s cave. “Besides, I’m hungry.”

“Shouldn’t we just grab your lost Elder and get out of here?”

Jan asked.

Pabl shook his head. “He has merged with Sangolin by now. We will not be able to take him until he emerges.”

“But the caves?” Celagri said. “Are they safe? Maybe we should climb the trail. We can return for Reid later.”

“The caves are as safe as the mountains,” Pabl said. “If Sangolin decides to send a group after us, it won’t matter if we’re down here or up there. They came to get me up there once; they can do it again. The only truly safe places are too far away.”

Celagri nodded, then motioned for Pabl to lead on. When they reached Reid’s cave, Pabl sat on the floor, chewing dried dates and stale bread as he told them about his encounter with Sangolin and his talk with Reid Quo. He told them about Reid’s refusal to leave Sangolin, and his suspicion that Sangolin was attacking Tepuis Garen in order to get more brothers so that it could become a liferock. Pabl finished by describing This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ [email protected]) Liferock 

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the pain he had felt from Ganwetrammus and the call from Sangolin.

“Is it possible for a place to be conscious like this?” Celagri asked. “I mean, it seems like Vecrix could be mastermind-ing the whole thing, using Sangolin as a source of magical power.”

Pabl shook his head. “Perhaps, but I think Sangolin is influencing him. The Council of Four told me that some Named-places have temperament and a profound influence on Name-givers. A liferock is like that. And in another, very different way, so is Sangolin.”

“How can we stop it,” Jan asked, “if Reid won’t go with us?”

“There’s only one way,” Pabl said, wishing he could come up with another alternative.

The others waited in silence for him to continue.

“I have to kill him.”

Celagri nodded, grim-faced. But Jan burst out, “Can’t we kidnap him or something, carry him back?”

Could we? Pabl wondered. It is naive to think so. Folly to believe we would get him back against his will. Certainly not in time.

“No,” he said, breathing a heavy sigh. “As much as it is against my nature to be hasty, this is one instance where time is short. Even with Reid’s cooperation, our journey back to Tepuis Garen would take ten days or more, if we push. My liferock is under severe attack; perhaps it can last a couple weeks, I don’t know. But carrying Reid, or trying to force him to walk against his desires, would lengthen our traveling time to more than a month. That is simply too long.

“There really are only two choices. Reid comes with us willingly, or . . .” Pabl took a slow breath, then straightened his back. “Or I take his life so that the next Elder in line can perform the Ritual of Protection with Gvint. Celagri, do you have This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ [email protected]) Liferock 

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a poison that will kill obsidimen?”

Celagri nodded, reaching gracefully into a nearly-invisible pouch on her belt. “Do you want me to do it?” she asked.

“No, I will,” Pabl said. “It is my task, and I will carry it out.

He must sleep sometime; I’ll do it then.”

“Very well,” Celagri said, handing him a cloth belt. Pabl examined it to find five bamboo throwing darts — slender barbs nestled into individual pockets along the black sash. “Be careful, each one is tipped with enough poison to kill a thundra beast in about a minute.”

“Thank you,” Pabl said. He was not adept at using these darts, but he didn’t want to kill Reid with his hands. The poison would probably be quicker and less noisy. “Maybe you should go now. Where will you wait?”

Celagri and Jan both shook their heads. “No, no, no,” Jan said. “We will let you do what you must, but we aren’t leaving you. If Sangolin tries to hypnotize you again, we need to be around to stop you.”

Pabl gave them a grim smile. “As you wish,” he said. “I think I will try to get some rest before he comes back.” Pabl unrolled his traveling blanket, making a makeshift bed for himself. Then he lay on it and stared up at the flickering shadows which played out their abstract dramas against the rough stone arch of the cave’s ceiling.