Stranger souls s-26

by Jak Koke

  Lethe honed in on astral resonance of the Dragon Heart, and finally found it in a warded chamber two levels up from the training facility. The ward looked strong in astral space, an electric blue and green glass sphere around the item.

  Suddenly, alarms were sounding. He had been detected. Lethe turned to see a line of air and fire elementals coming toward him. "Do not approach me," he said. "I will leave soon, and I do not wish to hurt you."

  The elementals ignored him. They had been bound by mages and were forced to obey them. They rushed toward him, trying to surround him. Engulf him.

  Lethe extended his will toward them. And as he focused his thought, they disappeared, banished to their home planes. But they had caused him delay. Others would be coming. Mages and shamans, perhaps powerful enough to threaten Lethe. He didn't know the extent of their ability.

  He fled for the moment, leaving behind the Dragon Heart. And leaving too his hope to see Thayla soon, and bask in the beauty of her song.

  25

  The Washington night was like a sauna, hot and humid around Ryan. He took a deep breath and leaned forward against the concrete banister of the suite's balcony. Far below, to his distant left, the manastorm crackled and sprayed its rainbow light on a crowd of people. "Can't sleep?"

  Ryan turned to see Nadja coming through the sliding glass doors to join him. She wore a pearl-colored silk robe, almost transparent. The protruding tips of her nipples pressed against the sheer fabric. But it was her crooked half-smile and the deep, hollow line of her clavicle, showing in the open collar of her robe, that brought a smile of delight to his face. She was truly savory.

  "No," he said. "I've remembered everything."

  Her eyes widened. "Really? Are you you again?"

  "Mostly."

  They stood in silence for a few minutes, her arm around his waist. He enjoyed her presence, but his mind was elsewhere. He was watching the manastorm as though Dunkelzahn might spring back into existence if he wished hard enough.

  Ryan remembered now first meeting the dragon. He was a boy, just seven at the time, living in the El Infierno housing projects of California Free State. The memory was absolutely clear in his mind. The midnight sky was bright with reflected city light, the noise of traffic subsiding when he heard the chatter of automatic gunfire. A scream came a second later, sounded like his mother, but the pitch was too high. Like the screech of a bird.

  He ran; he needed to get into the tenement.

  He heard his mother again, yelling hysterically. She was

  still alive. He could reach her in time. His heart pounded in his chest, throbbing in his ears as he pushed bare feet against the pitted asphalt. Graffiti-stained concrete walls blurred by on his left.

  "Shut up, slitch!" came a voice he recognized. It was TB, the leader of 'Hood Watch, the most powerful gang in the projects. "Quite whining and tell me where he is." The man clipped his words, spitting them out like bad food. "Or you'll end up like your do-man here."

  Then Ryan was through the opening and inside. His mother knelt on the hard tile floor five meters away, facing away from Ryan. Next to her, on the left, stood a tall ork holding a submachine gun to his mother's head. On her right, face-down on the floor was his father, blood spreading in a dark stain beneath him. He wasn't moving.

  Ryan froze. He couldn't help his mother. He turned to run.

  Only to be caught by another member of the gang who came up behind him. "Looky, TB. Look what I got me."

  "Then I guess we don't need this slitch anymore," said the ork with the machine gun. He pulled the trigger.

  Mom's body jerked forward, falling to the floor, lifeless. Blood leaked onto the threadbare carpeting.

  "Let's go," TB said. "I want that reward."

  They covered Ryan's mouth with duct tape and bound his hands and feet before carrying him outside. Into the hot night. But despite the heat, Ryan felt chill inside. Shivers shook through him, and he couldn't stop shaking. Tears welled in his eyes, and he almost blacked out.

  Suddenly, the sky brightened above them. Ryan came crashing to the asphalt as the gang members dropped him. He looked up to see a huge dragon filling the sky. Fire erupted from its mouth, shimmered along its blue and silver scales as it descended.

  The gangers ran, scattering like leaves in wind. Ryan watched as the dragon burned or ate each one of them, and he braced himself when the creature approached him. But the dragon did not harm Ryan.

  Hello, Ryanthusar, came the dragon's voice in his head. My name is Dunkelzahn, and I have been looking for you. Will you come with me?

  Ryan's bonds broke, and the tape tore from his mouth, telekinetically. "Yes," he said, mostly out of fear.

  Dunkelzahn scooped the young Ryan up in his talons and flew off into the night sky. Taking Ryan to his lair in Lake Louise.

  A few years later, Ryan had asked Dunkelzahn the reason his parents had been killed.

  Dunkelzahn had turned to the boy, who stood defiantly next to the dragon's huge size. Both good and evil exist in the world, Ryanthusar. It is something you will have to learn. And it is part of the wonderful complexity of the universe that sentient creatures, for the most part, contain a mix of both. It is a rarity to find anyone totally good, or totally evil. Dunkelzahn paused, leaving the young Ryan puzzled.

  "But that doesn't tell me why my parents were murdered," he protested. "What I mean is-"

  It is not what we feel that defines us. It is how we act, Dunkelzahn continued. Those who killed your parents succumbed to the evil side of themselves. And they acted upon that. But they were not intrinsically bad people, no one is. They had families and protected many from violent acts by others.

  Young Ryan merely blinked. Dunkelzahn spoke like this often, and Ryan found it somewhat alien and very hard to follow.

  Remember what I am telling you, Ryanthusar. There is an evil voice inside us all. Listen to yours and come to understand it, for it is a crucial part of you. But always remember, who you are is defined by how much you act upon what the evil voice tells you.

  It wasn't until many years later that Ryan learned the specifics of his parents' murders. TB had been paid to capture Ryan and deliver him into the hands of Aztlan priests. He discovered that certain people were naturally adept at manipulating the arcane energies of this world. Those people could be detected and trained.

  Dunkelzahn told Ryan that he had the potential to be one of the most powerful living magical beings, and that is why Aztlan sought him out. That was also why Dunkelzahn had been looking for him. To offer to train him. Ryan had been with the dragon ever since.

  Now, on the balcony of the Watergate Hotel, overlooking the manastorm where Dunkelzahn died, Ryan was in shock. Could Dunkelzahn truly be gone? How could it be? The thought of it tested the limits of his mind. He could barely comprehend it. Such a powerful creature, such a noble personage. A true hero of this time, and in Ryan's eyes, one worthy of devotion and unquestioning commitment.

  Who could have done this? And why?

  That wasn't what Ryan was supposed to be wondering, he knew that. Dunkelzahn wouldn't want him to waste time thinking of revenge. Dunkelzahn would have wanted Ryan to complete his mission, nothing more.

  Something caught his eye just then, a flash of red light in the sky. He looked up, his jaw dropping as the scene came into being. A dragon streaked across the sky, racing down like an immense eagle toward its prey. Red flames blasted from its nostrils as it descended, the fire trailing behind it in twin tails. It wasn't Dunkelzahn, Ryan knew, but it looked like another Great Western. Lofwyr? Or another?

  A long, melodious bellow announced the arrival of a second dragon, off to the left. An Eastern Great, this one, green scales and shorter wings, sinuous as it flew. Like a snake in the air.

  The two met just over the manastorm, their speed dizzying, leaving streaks of fire, one red, one green. Another arrived, a feathered serpent this time. And another Western. They flew around the site of Dunkelzahn's death, spiraling past each oth
er as they rocketed into the sky.

  Ryan felt magic come from their dance, increasing as more and more dragons arrived to join in. The dance was held in absolute silence at first, made all the more poignant by the fact that the rioting and fighting had stopped across the city, at least as far as Ryan could hear. People were mesmerized by the sight.

  After a few minutes, twelve or thirteen dragons, by Ryan's count, were flying in the sky. All species were represented. Nadja stood next to him and watched in silence and awe. Their dance was raw and powerful, magical and intricate. Light and heat radiated from the tapestry of motion they created.

  Bellows and cries reached Ryan's ears then. The dancing

  dragons had broken their silence. The roars shook Ryan to the bones. There were screams of anguish and outrage. Howls lamenting their fallen kin, taken from his mortal coil against nature. Visceral outcry against such an affront.

  Anger and sadness coursed through Ryan at the sight. His knees quavered and gave out.

  "You all right?" Nadja helped him to his feet.

  Ryan didn't answer. No, he thought. Nothing is all right Nothing will ever be all right.

  Tears welled in his eyes as he watched the dragons continue their dance. Such power, even individually, now combined into a truly awesome force. Such wonder and beauty in their dancing flight.

  An homage to one of their own, fallen before his time.

  It struck Ryan again, and he nearly fell a second time. The significance of this display. Dunkelzahn was truly dead; his own kind knew it. All hope of the dragon's return drained out of Ryan, and it took his will with it.

  He found himself wishing he hadn't remembered himself. His past seemed so fragile now, shattered and in ruins with the death of his master. When I didn*t care, he thought, / was stronger. I was my own strength. Now…

  Now, who will sweep down and rescue me? Now, where will I find the strength?

  The Great Dragon Dance went on for several hours, and by the time it was over, Ryan's head was buried in Nadja's sweet-smelling hair, tears streaming from his eyes. She was his pillar now. With Dunkelzahn gone, she was his only support.

  He found his strength a few minutes later, part of his Roxborough past coming to his aid. Memories of his disease and the treatment for it, the submergence into the vat. If he could live through that treatment and the certain knowledge that he would never come out of his vat, then he could live through anything. He had never given up, never relied on anyone besides himself.

  Ryan wiped his eyes and escorted Nadja back inside. Back to bed. They held each other for a while, and soon she was sleeping soundly. Ryan lay awake next to her, thinking about his two pasts, about his mission, and about the new emotion that was welling up inside him.

  Anger.

  Anger toward Dunkelzahn. Rage toward the creature who had let him down in the end, leaving him alone. Isolated for the first time in his life.

  26

  Jane-in-the-box paced around her electronics, trying to pump some blood into her bony limbs before jacking back into the datastream. She took another bite of her ham and swiss croissant, a special gift from the cook, Enrico-a troll with a huge gut and a penchant for French cuisine.

  Her trid interface beeped, indicating that her smartframe had completed its scan-and-evaluate cycle. And found a match, she noted. "Fragging sweet," she said. There was no one else in the huge chamber, and her words echoed off the hewn stone walls of the cavern. Jane often spoke to herself when she wasn't jacked in. It kept her company and helped to organize her mind.

  After Ryan's call asking her to dig up any information on the location of the Dragon Heart, Jane had scanned the security video to try to get an ID on the perps who had lifted the Dragon Heart. One of her image-recognition routines that searched for distinctive markings picked out a tattoo on the partially exposed forearm of one of the runners. A woman, and probably a mage, based on what she was wearing.

  The tattoo was a crescent moon, under a flapping narrow banner and a sword. On the banner was a word, "Tal'shai." Jane had laughed aloud. This was almost too easy.

  She'd programmed another frame to search the datanets for several variables, including a match or partial match to the tattoo, and any known elven shadowrun teams with the rep or resources to pull off a run against the high security of the lair.

  Now, Jane jacked in, entering the oh-so-familiar virtual space of her riveted steel box. Six sides of brushed gray metal animating around her. The results of the smartframe

  flowed in the dataspace in front of her, and as she scanned it, she separated the data into two bins, hits and misses.

  The smartframe had found the tattooed word in Jane's online Sperethiel dictionary. It meant "black widow spider." That didn't narrow down the choices at all. Any elven runner could go by that name. But as Jane continued her scan, she reprogrammed on the fly to modify the smart frame to narrow its search parameters as she rejected the bogus and reinforced those her gut told her were on target.

  She found the trend at the same time as her frame. A dead elf with the same tattoo had been discovered by Seattle Lone Star. Except there were no words on the banner. This one had a small black symbol-three triangles with their points almost touching, slightly offset from center. This dead elf was male and didn't look like any of those who'd taken the Dragon Heart.

  The Lone Star report said that the tattoo identified the deceased as security for the Atlantean Foundation. The smart-frame had searched the personnel files of the Atlantean Foundation, but there were no security personnel listed. Jane knew they got their security from the Mystic Crusaders, an enigmatic organization whose purpose Jane did not know.

  "Very interesting," Jane said to herself. She knew that the Atlantean Foundation collected artifacts and powerful magic items. Even if the Mystic Crusaders were mysterious, it was likely that the AF was behind the theft. But where had they taken the Dragon Heart?

  Jane prepped to enter the Matrix. She would do some digging into a few of the Foundation's hosts, and see if there had been any deliveries of a special nature in the past twelve hours. She chuckled to herself. This was going to be fun.

  There was only one detail that nagged in the back of her mind. Conspiracy theorists claimed that the Atlantean Foundation was run not just by elves, but by immortal elves. Elves whose existence had never been proven, but who were said to have been born thousands of years ago. Jane believed that one or two immortal elves did exist; she'd done enough decking for Dunkelzahn that she knew certain things. But she didn't think they were behind the Atlantean Foundation. There was no direct evidence to show it.

  At least she hoped not. These immortals were extremely

  powerful and cunning. Even Dunkelzahn had respected their power. If they had the Dragon Heart, even Quicksilver himself, Dunkelzahn's greatest operative, would be severely outmatched.

  27

  In the cold of the Canadian Rockies near Lake Louise, Burnout stood as still as a statue, taking in the scene. He stood on an icy slope overlooking a small airstrip that had been chiseled out of the mountain. Forty-two minutes earlier, Burnout and Slaver had descended from the helicopter, coming down on hoist wires into a small clearing nearly a kilometer away. The rigger had remained inside the hovering machine, waiting for the completion of the mission-the death of Ryan Mercury.

  Now, the late-evening sky was moonless and dark, but not to Burnout. His eyes self-adjusted to the low light. The few sodium lamps outside the mirrored glass buildings next to the airstrip flared brightly on his cybernetic retinas, streaking his vision with cold blue-white.

  The perimeter was marked by a three-meter-high wall, topped with looping monowire, security cameras, and rail-mounted drones that tracked back and forth, no doubt wired into a closed-circuit simsense rigger who could activate their weapons with a thought. Periodically, one of six guards walked the perimeter inside the fence. The guard was always leashed together with some sort of animal. A dog or a parani-mal. Something with a good sense of smel
l, no doubt. The guards had light body armor under their uniforms, and carried pistols and Ares Cascades.

  "Burnout, capture one of the guards." Slaver's voice came as if from a great distance away, like out of a dream across a windy lake. But Burnout heard, and it was all the prompting he needed. He moved. Quickly and quietly, picking a spot where the sec cameras would have a harder time seeing.

  He knew he was normally an easy target for astral creatures, but Slaver had supposedly masked his aura as much as

  possible. No matter. There was nothing more he could do about it now. No hesitation, he told himself. No second thoughts. Just the quick fluidity of this mechanical body.

  He passed down through the pines, crossed the short clearing like a ghost of metal, and reached the wall. He jumped as he came close, using all the strength of the hydraulic jacks in his legs. He cleared the wall and the mono-wire and the track with ease, landing without a sound on the other side. Looking around for a microsecond, he honed in on a guard walking away from him. Target lock.

  Then Burnout was moving toward him, taser in hand. The dog saw him first, spinning toward Burnout just as he loomed up behind the guard. The taser made a tiny springing noise, and the beast fell with a small yelp.

  The guard didn't even get that far. He moved as if in slow motion, his hand not yet reaching his weapon.

  Burnout's palm came across the guard's mouth, clamping down tight before abruptly pulling back. Jerking the man off his feet. Burnout had to stop himself from snapping the man's neck. Slaver had said capture, not kill.