by Lisa Smedman
"The jewel is in Germany," Muirico said.
"Germany!" I gasped. "That's thousands of kilometers away. How am I supposed to—"
"Dunkelzahn gave it to Lofwyr. In his will." Muirico continued, oblivious to my outburst. He ran a hand lovingly over the trunk of a tree. "I was given this grove, and Lofwyr was given the Jewel of Memory. He took it to Germany."
Lofwyr. The great dragon was the CEO of Saeder-Krupp, one of the largest and most powerful corporations on the planet. And now he was also the major shareholder of the New Dawn Corporation. He was the frigger whose scheming had gotten Jane into this mess.
"You want me to find this thing inside a dragon's lair?" It was impossible to keep the skepticism out of my voice. "You might as well ask me to shove my neck in a leg-hold trap—one made of silver. Saeder-Krupp has its own private army and billions of nuyen to spend on magical security. Wherever the jewel is, it will be protected by magical wards and barriers—not to mention the magically active people on Saeder-Krupp's payroll. The corporation has got mages, paranormal guard animals, elemental spirits..."
"None of them can stop you from visiting your own memories," Muirico said. "You have been to the jewel many times already—you just didn't realize it."
"Huh?"
The forest spirit flashed his quartz-white teeth.
"Have you ever forgotten something, then suddenly re-remembered it? That was the jewel."
"So how come I can't do that all the time?" I asked. "Why do some memories disappear forever?"
"Recent memories are right at the surface of the jewel. They're the easy ones. The older memories take you deeper inside, and take more work. Sometimes you don't try hard enough or you use the wrong senses. And some memories are better left forgotten."
He had that one right.
"So let me get this straight," I said. "I follow my memories into the jewel, then track down Jane's ... track down Mareth'riel's memories and lead her to them."
"That's right," Muirico nodded eagerly.
"But there's one part I don't get. How do I find Mareth'riel? Or how does she find me?"
"She's already there," Muirico said. "You'll see her astral form. And she'll see yours."
I shook my head. Frig. For a moment there, the spirit had me going. But there was one major flaw in his little scenario.
"Muirico," I said, "there's something you should know. I can see into the astral plane, but I can't project astrally."
"Yes, you can," he said. "I can grant you that power for a brief time. But you have to learn to let go of your fears."
I blinked. Was it possible? Projecting an astral form was something only mages and shamans did. I'd never had the Dumas test, but I didn't think I was magically active, over and above the usual shifter abilities of regeneration and astral sight. But what if I was? What if I could astrally project? That would put me right up in the same league as Lone Star's combat mages. If I could track on the astral plane, I'd really be able to impress Sergeant Raymond. Maybe Lone Star would give me a shot at...
I stopped myself. Who was I kidding? I'd never be anything more than an animal to cops like Sergeant Raymond and the Lone Star brass. Unless the UCAS suddenly started handing out SIN numbers to paranormals overnight, I'd always be an irregular asset, little better than a shadowrunner. Lone Star might give me tougher assignments, but I'd still be on paranormal animal containment, stuck tracking animals instead of arresting criminals.
I stopped myself. Animals. I'd used the word as if I were describing some sort of inferior being. I realized then that when I thought of criminals, I thought of humans or metas. They were the big prizes, and not because of the crimes they committed—a para could just as easily kill, wound, or steal—but because of what they were. Human. Meta. More important then mere animals.
Frig. I was an animal. I might look human, but that was just a mask I wore. The real me was pure wolf. And that was what made me special. Whether or not Lone Star ever accepted me as a police officer, I was the only one, according to Muirico, who could find Jane's memories for her. Not even a human cop could do that.
"All right," I said. "Show me what to do."
Muirico patted the ground. "Lie down. Relax. Then close your eyes and listen to my voice."
"Do I have to stay in human form?"
"Whatever makes you most comfortable."
"Right." I placed my palms on the ground and shifted into wolf form. Just as I did, I heard the sound of distant thunder. I looked up at the sky, and saw thunderheads in the distance and the faint crackle of lightning. Strange—the thunderclouds were forming not just in the east, out over the Atlantic, but also toward the north, south, and west. Tall pillars of white cloud ringed the horizon in every direction, almost as if they were converging on the island.
Muirico followed my gaze and nodded. "Storm coming," he said. "We haven't much time."
I shivered. That was the same thing the dwarf had said. I hoped the thunder wouldn't jolt me out of whatever trance was necessary to astrally project.
I turned around in a circle, then lay down. I lowered my chin onto my paws and tucked my tail in tight to my body. When Muirico asked if I was ready, I har-ruffed my yes.
I don't recall exactly what Muirico said to me. I just remember that his voice was low and deep, strong as an oak and gentle as the caress of a newly budded leaf. Then suddenly I was outside my body.
I nearly jumped back into it. I was staring down at myself, looking at my wolf body lying on the ground among the trees from a height of two or three meters. It was terrifying. I thought maybe I'd died and become a ghost. I heard a whine come from my own mouth—from the wolf on the ground below me— and saw a shiver pass through the wolf's body. But I didn't feel it.
But that wasn't the worst of it. I could see and hear and feel, but something else was missing. Something I'd taken for granted all of my life.
My sense of smell was gone.
The earth beneath my nose, the sap in the trees, the scents of the animals and birds and insects that inhabited the grove, the smell of the salt water, the faint scent in the air that meant it was going to rain—all of it was gone. The air was empty. Dead. It conveyed no messages and had no texture. It was a canvas that had been scrubbed so clean it wasn't even white anymore. Just blank.
Somehow, Muirico managed to calm me down. I saw the little forest spirit squat beside my wolf body and stroke the back of my neck with his twig hand. "Don't worry," he said. "Your nose still works. Some things in the astral plane don't translate as objects, textures, or sounds. They'll come to you as smells. Just give it a try."
I took a tentative sniff. My physical body continued to lie still, but in the astral my head jerked to the side as I caught a familiar smell. Jane's astral form had passed this way. I could smell her scent. No ... I could smell her memory.
"Good." Muirico was looking up at my astral form. "Now follow that scent. Find Mareth'riel. Lead her to what she has lost."
My nose swung around to the scent like a compass needle. Without consciously thinking about it, I found myself loping along, nostrils quivering as I drank in Jane's scent. I was completely focused on it, hyper alert. I could feel the legs of my astral body running below me, but I couldn't feel the ground under my paws. And then I realized I'd run right over the edge of the bluffs, and was loping across the ocean.
My body tensed. But then I realized I wasn't falling, and suddenly it seemed as natural a breathing to be running through the air. With a mere thought I sped up, running faster and faster and faster until the ocean below me became a blur and the wind whipping across my fur became a steady roar. Prince Edward Island diminished until it was no more than a low hump on the horizon behind me, and soon I couldn't see land at all. I ran over large ocean swells, past an oil tanker that was plowing a foaming white wake through the sea, past a surfacing whale whose enormous body glowed with a deep blue light and a spray of hot yellow breath. I let my tongue loll, my mouth widen in a grin and my eyes open with wonder. I
was already approaching the other side of the Atlantic; it was night here, but I could see the dull brown glow of land looming on the horizon. I ran toward it, still following Jane's scent.
Somehow I had climbed to a height of a kilometer or more. I flashed over cities filled with tiny glowing specks—-the auras of the people who lived in them. Europe seemed to be one big city—a thick sprawl of people, with only scattered areas of wilderness. I passed over rivers so polluted they no longer glowed with life, over zones of heavy industry. I was glad then that I couldn't smell anything but Jane.
It may sound funny, but the smell of her memory exactly matched her physical scent. A touch of sweat, a hint of musk, and that warm smell that you drink in when you press your nose to the hair of someone you love.
It hadn't occurred to me until that moment to name the emotion I felt for Jane. It hadn't seemed right to call it that before. I knew I desired her physically— my human body had betrayed me every time I was close to her. But where had this emotion come from? I'd mated with human and meta women before, but I'd always managed to keep my emotions separate. I hadn't allowed myself to become vulnerable. But Jane had brought out something in me. Some strange sort of doglike loyalty that was causing me to lay myself at her feet as if I were her pet.
The thought frightened me.
Suddenly, the trail went cold. I'd lost Jane's scent.
I skidded to a halt in the air, and found myself over an enormous arcology. As tall as a mountain, it dominated the city that surrounded it, a gleaming monolith of black glass, massive ferrocrete pillars, and jutting terraces. On the uppermost level of the building— the peak of the mountain—stood a gigantic monitor screen. Three horizontal bars of color were projected on it: black, red, and orange. A symbol of some sort was superimposed on them in glowing blue. I couldn't make out the symbol in the astral plane, but I could read the emotions that it projected: pride, purpose, power.
I knew where I was. The Saeder-Krupp arcology in Essen. Lofwyr's corporate headquarters.
I whined in frustration. Jane's scent was gone. I'd lost her.
Somewhere behind me, in another world, I heard Muirico whisper in my ear.
"Memories." His voice was as faint as a breath of air. "Follow them in."
I paused to think. What memory should I choose? Something nostalgic from my childhood, like the smell of my mother's fur and the taste of her milk? Romping with my litter mates in the forest?
Or should I try to remember Jane? The smell of her was what I remembered most—and how lost she'd looked on the night we met. Her dark hair streaked with gray, the faint creases at the corners of her deep brown eyes, the fluid grace of her body. And the way she'd smiled at me in the darkened hotel room, when I curled up next to her on the bed.
I looked around. I was still in the same spot. None of these memories was taking me anywhere. I didn't see any jewel.
Then I thought about what Muirico had said. About how people accessed the Jewel of Memory each time they "re-remembered" something they'd forgotten. By remembering something, I could get inside it. The further back the memory, the deeper into the jewel I'd go.
I'd been on the wrong track. The memories of my mother and siblings went way back, but it was still inside my head. I needed something I had forgotten .. .
Something flashed through my mind. A partial image. The smell of fear. A buzzing noise. Hands. Laughter. The sharp pinch of something nipping my skin. A whining noise: me. The smell of blood. The smell of my bowels voiding.
No! I didn't want to go there!
My astral body was panting, its heart racing. My ears were back, my fur raised ...
My fur ...
The memory came back in one overwhelming rush.
They'd shaved me. Made me stand in front of the whole school, up on the gymnasium stage. I'd been so frightened I couldn't remember how to shift back into human form, how to do what they wanted. What they kept shouting at me to do. While the other children laughed, the teachers had held down my wolf body, scraped my skin bare with their electric razors. Scraped away my pride, my dignity, my luxurious wolf's pelt. Reduced me to a quivering, furless creature—a caricature of a hairless human. Then the headmaster held me up, my ungainly wolf body dangling from his large hands, and told the entire school what a bad boy I'd been, to shift into wolf form. He told them he'd continue to hold me there, in front of everyone, until I shifted back into my proper shape. Into a proper little human boy.
I threw back my head and howled my anguish. No!
I didn't want to remember that! I leaped to my feet and tried to run away.
I crashed into something smooth and hard. A glassy, reddish-yellow wall that curved up and over me, its faceted top forming a roof over my head.
I froze, realizing what I'd done. I was inside the Jewel of Memory.
I felt a familiar presence: Jane. Her scent washed over me. I turned and saw the elf girl who'd run past me on Dunkelzahn's estate. I nuzzled her hand with my nose, drinking in her scent and seeking comfort. But she didn't stroke me. Instead she looked at me with eyes filled with fear and confusion.
"Help me," she whispered. "I can't find ..."
Suddenly a host of moving shadows closed in on us. It was like being at the center of a huge crowd of people and animals, all pushing and shoving, forcing flashes of this memory, of that emotion, into your mind. I was buffeted by the confusion, by the swirls of thought. Images flashed through my mind. I was a human/fish/troll/cat/eagle. I was swimming/ being chased/shooting a gun/stretching my wings in flight/programming a cyberterminal. The confusion of images and experiences was almost overwhelming. In another second Jane and I would be swept away...
"Grab hold of my fur, Mareth'riel!" Somehow, even though I was in wolf form, I was able to make myself understood.
I felt the slim hand of a child knot into the fur at the back of my neck.
I closed my eyes.
I took a deep sniff.
There! A flash of something that smelled like Jane. I followed it, tugging the elf girl behind me. A memory streaked past my nose like a running cat. I jerked forward, snapped my jaws shut around it, then tossed it back over my shoulder at Jane.
I got just a taste of it—a faint glimmer of a thought that wasn't my own. The memory felt smooth and soft in my mind. It had the milky smell of human infant. It was the memory of holding a baby—a girl whose eyes were as brown as my own. Of suckling her at my breast, feeling her teeth worry my nipple, and marveling at the clutch of her tiny hands. Of tracing a finger over the soft round tip of her human ear, so like my own, now that I'd had it bobbed so I could pass as human...
Attached to it was a tangle of other memories— every thought Jane had ever had about her daughter Matilda, including the memory of her daughter's death. Matilda had been old, wrinkled, with gray hair and failing eyesight. She had walked with a cane until she collapsed from the stroke that finally killed her. Jane had buried her in the Halifax cemetery, a young woman standing over the grave of her elderly daughter.
Jane had been forced to pose as Matilda's granddaughter—just one of the personas she'd adopted to make her way in the world. In her long lifetime she'd posed as a man so she could attend medical school, had cultivated various accents, had changed her appearance and identity in a million different ways. As she stood over her daughter's grave, feeling the rain patter down on her bonnet, she'd sworn then that she'd never have another child—that she'd do whatever she could to prevent anyone else from experiencing the grief of watching someone they know grow old and die ...
I shook my head, clearing the memories that stuck to it like cobwebs. I pressed on through the whirlwind, following Jane's scent to the next cluster of memories.
And the next...
I let Jane pluck them out of the whirlwind herself. As she did, I felt the hand that gripped my fur changing, growing larger. When I sneaked a look behind me I saw that Jane's astral form had changed. She looked as she did in the physical world—a mature woman. Excep
t that there was one vital difference. Her eyes had lost the confusion they'd held when I first met her. With each memory she grabbed, the look in her eyes became stronger, more confident. More knowing.
Soon the only place I could smell Jane's scent was on her own body. She'd gathered all of her memories. They still existed within the Jewel of Memory, were still etched within its multi-faceted depths—but now they were also back where they belonged. Inside Jane's head.
Jane crouched beside me and wrapped her arms around my neck. As she hugged me close, I nearly drowned in her scent.
"Thank you," she whispered, her breath warm against my hear. "And goodbye."
Suddenly her arms were no longer around my neck. Just as she had at the estate, Jane had disappeared.
Instinct took over. I ran after her scent, barking at her to stay. I chased her back across Europe, back across the Atlantic, back to the island that hung low in the water, a canoe just waiting to be swamped by the huge waves that were crashing upon its shores.
I woke up in my body, weak and trembling. Lightning stabbed down out of a cloudy night sky, so close I could smell the hot ozone in its wake. The boom of thunder followed almost immediately. The skies opened up, and a heavy smash of rain suddenly poured down onto the earth. In seconds my fur was soaked through.
I lurched to my feet. Muirico was gone. And so was Jane. I threw back my head and howled, my emotions in perfect resonance with the turbulence of the storm.
20
The storm was unlike any I'd ever seen before. Magic must have been driving it. The clouds boiled and churned overhead, forming incredible patterns against the sky. I could see faces, eyes, thrashing limbs inside the clouds. I wondered if they were the physical manifestations of elementals or powerful nature spirits. Most of the clouds were white or gray, but others— the thunderheads that thrust up through the rest like mushroom clouds—had a reddish tinge. Multicolored lightning flashed below the thunderheads, arcing down to the ground in explosions of sparks. The bolts were vibrant neon blue, sizzling yellow, cherry red, and a luminous green. A number of them were striking the windmills near the estate, shattering the vanes and sending fragments spinning down onto the ground. The smell of ozone and burnt plastic and metal hung heavy in the air.
