Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Mother Speaks

by kubasik

  The strain built. It seemed like an eternity as I stared into his green pupils. They stared back at me—they were very beautiful, actually.

  Longer.

  I thought I might be willing to give in and risk the stab from Vrograth's dagger.

  Then, abruptly, Vrograth blinked.

  A cry went up from my companions. Vrograth raised his hands and shook them at the air, screaming uncontrollably. "Stupid!" he shouted at me.

  Krattack interrupted him. "Yet you agreed to the contest ..."

  "YES" he bellowed with such force everyone took a step back. He narrowed his eyes, and looked at me with a gaze full of death. "Still stupid."

  We stood, and Krattack handed me a knife. The troll blade rested heavily in my hand.

  The late morning sun caught the yellow crystal and the blade sparkled like a brook rushing over rocks.

  Vrograth placed his hands at his side and waited. He wore his armor, the fur boots encrusted with crystals, the blue tinted bracers on his lower arm, but his mid section was bare. I decided to swing the blade into his lower right side just above his waist.

  I pulled the blade back. Krattack stared at me with a strange intensity, as if deciding something about me. His gaze unnerved me for just a moment, then I slammed the blade forward, driving it up toward the troll's side with a straight thrust.

  Vrograth did not flinch. Perhaps because I thought he would pull back or somehow block the blow. In the last instant before striking, I panicked and that slowed the blade just a little. I had still used enough force to split the flesh of any man. But trolls are tough. And more, I learned then that their crystal armor protects more than just the portions of their body covered by the armor. The magical crystals form a magical armor over their entire bodies, covered or not.

  As I reached the last inch of my thrust toward him, a resistance worked against the blade.

  It pushed against the dagger and worked its way up my arm, like a powerful wind focused on only one portion of my body. Try as might, I could not overcome the resistance. Still, the crystal tip pierced his flesh, splitting a narrow, shallow wedge in his skin. He winced just a little, more from fear than pain, I suspect. The blade drove half an inch into his skin.

  Nothing happened. No cry of pain. No blood. Nothing.

  Vrograth stared down at me. Smiled. "We stare at each other again?"

  We did.

  Again the moments endlessly passed. Again the strain in my eyes sank into my thoughts and my mind tried to come up with schemes to blink without anyone noticing. Such a little thing—a blink of an eye—but in my case it meant a wound, possibly mortal, and a lack of help for J'role.

  We stared. His green eyes bore into me. Green as green marble. Green as ruined flesh. I lost track of time. The world seemed to spin around me as I lost the awareness of my surroundings. My eyes began to feel itchy.

  And then the remarkable happened. Vrograth blinked again.

  More laughter, more cheers. Vrograth let loose a terrible wail at the sky. His cry echoed across the mountains. He pounded his massive fists against the ground.

  We stood. Vrograth drew in a long breath of air, braced himself. He knew I would use as much force as I could possibly muster this time.

  I drew the blade back, drew in a sharp breath of air. I screamed as I exhaled, throwing everything into the attack. I did not think this time; no distractions haunted me. I noticed the efforts of Vrograth's magical armor only as I reached his skin. It tried to push me away as before, but I was prepared for it this time. With all my remaining strength I slid the blade through the strange force, and then drove it into Vrograth's thick skin. In went the blade, deep this time, and the translucent handle quivered in my hand as it sank into his flesh.

  When I could drive the blade in no more, I jerked it back out, twisting it as I did so. I, along with everyone else gathered for the contest, leaned down and peered at the wound.

  For a moment—nothing. Then from the lower tip of the vertical slit came a single drop of blood. Like a ruby turned to liquid, it rolled down Vrograth's gray green flesh, slowly spreading out into a stain.

  The delicacy of the blood's journey stunned everyone present into an appreciative silence.

  Then, the crowd went wild, applauding and screaming in appreciation and joy, as if they'd just witnessed a performance inspired by Astendar. A chill went through me—

  strange and exciting and warm.

  I had done it! For an astounding moment I forgot about J'role's needs, my desire too for the trolls' aid in getting us off the mountain, and my desperate quest to rescue you boys from the Therans. Though I had many more tasks before me, in that moment I achieved success.

  “We've got to acknowledge anything that seems like good news," J'role had often said.

  Exactly. Good news was getting what I wanted. Good news was not dying. Good news was accomplishing what I had set out to do. Not everything, not yet. But the first victory along a road that would require many.

  5

  We traveled to the Stoneclaw village. Vrograth himself carried J'role in his powerful arms. J'role winced from pain as the troll's steps jostled his broken bone. But most likely he enjoyed the pain. As you now know, he's like that.

  The village was set on a series of cliffs. One was as large as a field, the rest smaller. Set on these cliffs were dozens of large tents made from the tanned hides of animals and the thin trees that grew on the mountains. The more powerful members of the tribe lived in caves. Tanned hides covered the mouths of the caves, which were the most secure shelters against danger. When raiders attacked or elemental storms brewed, everyone gathered in the caves. It was the duty of the strongest to protect the weaker.

  About a thousand trolls, including children, made up the village. In the lowlands this would have been a town, but on Twilight Peaks the trolls subsisted purely by raiding. No farming, no trade. Their culture and economics was exceedingly simple. The wealth of the clan did not readily reveal itself.

  The day we arrived, the sun shone brightly. Steam rose from kettles in which the trolls were cooking their noon meal. The children scampered up and down the cliff faces, their bodies the size of small men. The warriors who had remained in camp practiced with weapons and wrestled each other to the ground. I could not tell if these fights were for blood, for sport, or some violent sense of play.

  Life with the Stoneclaw clan was one of the most draining experiences of my life. There is an impression that because trolls are so large they are slow. This is not the case. More, they are tireless. The trolls expected those of us from the shipwreck to match them, and they always looked at us suspiciously if we slowed, as if we were slacking off on purpose.

  Tasks included cooking food, repairing the sails of their airships—called drakkars—

  forging weapons, hunting the sparse game on the mountain, cutting down and carrying trees back to the village, and so on. As the days passed, we slowly, very slowly, regained our strength while serving our time with the trolls. The compensation for our toil was that questors of Garlen healed us. Our recovery was much quicker for this.

  Wia and I became quick friends. Every morning we worked on the ledges of Twilight Peaks, the sun catching her red hair and turning it bright as firelight. The Stoneclaws had settled on the eastern side of the mountain range, and each day the sun's arrival stunned me. We lived several thousand feet above the jungle floor, and nothing obscured the view of the sun as it pierced the horizon, a tip of orange flame that slowly revealed itself as a massive orb. Wia and I watched with open mouths as the clouds over the sun turned bright red, orange, and gold, When the sun rose high enough, the sky flashed harsh yellow for just a moment. The light washed the entire land, rushing over the mountain where we stood and covering our flesh with warmth and a wonderful glow that seemed to emanate from within us.

  "It's so perfect," Wia said.

  "I know."

  "Once, when I was little, I tried to hold the sun in my hands. When I couldn't get it to
stay, I cried and cried."

  “Yes. One of my boys tried to walk along the reflection of the moon in a deep puddle and became quite frustrated."

  "I didn't know you had children."

  The sun had risen, and the sky spread out a solid blue. I turned and found her fumbling with an odd looking rock. "Yes. Two. Boys. They're seven. Twins.”

  She smiled at first, but looked into my face, and the smile melted to sadness. I knew that her face mirrored mine. It occurred to me that J'role had not done that at all since the boys were taken. Whenever I became upset about them, he looked away, or changed the subject, or simply told me I was too worried about the boys. "Sorry. I didn't mean ..."

  I took the rock from her, turned it over in my hands. It was black, with rough edges. "The Therans have them. The Overgovernor. He's decided that they're good luck."

  "Those are your boys?"

  "Yes."

  "They're monsters, the Therans."

  "I hate them."

  "Useless ..."

  "Wasters of ..."

  "Of life."

  "Yes."

  "He's serious about that charm, you know." She took the stone back from me. "I spoke to a man from Thera. A slave. He knew a bit of Throalic and we spoke. They really think twins, with the proper magic, can protect their masters."

  "Maybe they can."

  "Maybe. Magic is tricky."

  I smiled, took the stone back. "Yes it is. So if I want to run a blade through that man's neck, I've got to get my boys back first."

  "Looks that way."

  "Well, I was going to get them back anyway. Killing him is just an afterthought."

  She leaned in, a conspirator. "Do you want to kill him?"

  "Kind of, Not really. But a part of me just wants to know he won't bother Torran and Samael and me again. I'd kill him to make things safe for my family."

  "But not to win against him."

  "What does that mean? Win?"

  A troll near us shouted, "Hey! What are you doing!"

  I dropped the stone. We got back to work.

  6

  The clan's healer, a stocky troll with green blue eyes, took care of J'role, and within the week he was up and about. Now healed, he seemed to possess not only the abandon of a five year old child, but the energy as well, and somehow kept up with the trolls. It was a trick of his, and though I never asked him how he pulled it off, I think now it had something to do with hiding pain. Though he drew pain to him like a baby suckling his mother's breast, he didn't tell people about it. He wanted people to be impressed by his boundless endurance, and pushed himself to appear amazing in the eyes of others.

  J'role quickly took charge of the clan's children. Not a difficult task, for while the trolls were not indifferent to their children, it was generally assumed their offspring would manage. Raising them was a communal affair, with any adult taking care of a child's needs as it arrived. Because the raiders were often gone from the village for weeks at a time, searching for plunder as they sailed through the Barsaivian sky in their drakkars, it proved a practical system. I could not empathize with it, I knew if the two of you had been present, I would only have wanted to look after you.

  Troll children grow quickly, and by the time they are four or five, are husky and heavy.

  Their games are rough, and J'role threw himself into their play with his usual delight. He drew up games that involved tackling and running around, with a few elements of strategy new to the children. One of the favorite games he invented was an elaborate version of tag that took place all over the mountain around the camp. He divided the children into two sides, with each side having three large rocks that must be moved to specific locations. The object was for each side to get their rocks to their "nests," while preventing the other team from doing the same. Custom decreed that a tag was not enough. An opponent had to be wrestled to the ground. So as the children slammed into each other, often nearly plunging to their deaths off the mountainside, the adult trolls continued their work without interruption, happy that they had found someone who actually liked being with children.

  At night, when the sun had set and the glow of Death's Sea turned the southern sky hazy red, J'role would gather to him those who wanted to hear stories. His father, he had told me, had been a storyteller. I assume that he borrowed many of his father's tricks when he performed— for he did not just tell stories, he acted them out. He became a troll. A mountain. An army. His face was terribly elastic, which always surprised people, for he usually wore it like a stiff mask. But when he told a tale, or when he was alone with me, the tension left and he became so full of—LIFE! There is no other way to put it.

  He fought duels with himself, swiftly shifting his right side to the audience, then his left, so that, in the shimmering red light of the camp fire, his sword strokes and witty repartee (spoken with two distinct voices) created the illusion of two men fighting an exhausting battle right before us.

  Monsters leaped out of concealed chambers; dragons flew down from the skies and consumed villages, magical swords shone bright in the moment of greatest despair.

  Conspiracies grew between whispering scoundrels shrouded in the shadows of the night.

  His characters concocted plots, planted poisons. Chance revealed treacheries. J'role became a swirl of people, each driven by maniacal emotions and a physical violence that would have staggered the more demure sensibilities in the court of King Varulus.

  The crystal raiders are by temperament a violent and emotional people, so of course they leaned in hungrily as J'role spun his countless tales. It seemed that J'role had finally found an audience that could handle the truest aspects of his talents. Their huge faces—dark red and terrible in the firelight—watched with eyes wide. When they laughed or gasped, their enormous, yellowed teeth moved like mountains shaken by an earthquake.

  I had never seen him do these stories, had never heard them before. His clown performances—those you yourselves had seen when he came to visit our village—

  contained nothing of the sweep of these tales, none of the anger and hope. These did not contain the black and white villains and heroes of his children's tales, with justice and triumph sharply defined. A woman noble and strong during one segment of the narrative would be revealed to be consumed by jealousy, her passion driving her to plot her lover's murder. A black hearted warrior would be shown making clumsy attempts at affection toward a boy he realized was his own son. The internal world of the characters twisted and turned with moral ambiguity, everyone could define their actions as good or bad, but they themselves seemed constantly confused as to the true nature of their own hearts.

  J'role did all this by himself, fashioning the tales from his imagination on the spot, propelled by creatures in his mind that would doubtless have torn my thoughts apart. He was the wind let loose over a volcano, carrying fiery ashes through the night sky, igniting the jungle with brilliant blasts. Fire and wind.

  I caught him in a mid air twirl, and he landed on one leg—a strong leg, well shaped, I realized. His arms flew wide, the entire universe his audience. He smiled at us, the firelight casting dark shadows under his face— perfectly dramatic; he knew exactly where to stand. "The heir to the throne," he said, "hung over the edge of the precipice, clinging to the thin root as the swordsman approached ... Ah! But it is late!"

  A groan escaped the lips of those around me. "NO!" the trolls all wailed.

  "It will keep. It will keep. Tomorrow night."

  "No, no!" some shouted, but others smiled. J'role had done it enough times now. The enjoyment of delay was not lost on the trolls, and they stood and went off to sleep.

  Wia stared with bright eyes at J'role, who in turn stood loose and happy, arms extended, firelight shifting against his skin and the furs the trolls had given him. With the strange sense people sometimes have when being watched, Wia turned to me, startled. She looked guilty for just a moment, then said, "He is wonderful, in his own way."

  I nodded, oddly uncomfo
rtable. Jealous. When I turned back, J'role caught my eye and smiled at me. He was very alert, very alive, very sexy. Yes, he could be attractive, but I knew all there was to know about him, so the attractiveness had worn thin over the years.

  Skin pulled horribly taut over the bones of his painful ways.

  He worked his way through the crowd of dispersing trolls and came up to me, grinning as he had a decade ago, when joy had flowed between us like the swirling water of a river.

  Things had been in balance then, the harmony of the elements.

  He took my hand. "Hello," he said, his eyes afire. I knew immediately he wanted to make love. I, however, had no desire to indulge, or rather, other matters outweighed the desire.

  Three weeks has passed since our arrival on the mountain—according to our agreement with Vrograth, we must spend another five more here. During that time J'role had mentioned you boys but once. I was furious at him, desperate to understand how someone filled with such passion could be so flippant about his own children.