Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Longing Ring

by kubasik

  "I don't ...," the magician began uncertainly. "Perhaps. But the boy himself is not." He spoke a few more words J'role had never heard before. A pale green light radiated from the eye, washing over J'role's flesh and forcing him to close his eyes. "No, there's …

  something inside him."

  "Inside him?" She hefted her blade, as if ready to split J'role open and kill the creature.

  "Not the body, Phlaren," the magician said wearily. "The creature's spirit. It's in his …

  thoughts, if you will. I don't know where the thing's body is."

  J'role felt nervous. He'd thought he'd found a way to use the Horror to his own advantage, but by revealing his voices he had revealed all. A sweat began to trickle down his forehead as he remembered his mother's fate.

  "He's good," said the creature. "Please . . .," thought J'role.

  "No. He really is. Most humans wouldn't be able to see as much as he's seen. Do you think they'll drop you into the pit? Pelt you with stones? Slice off your head?"

  "Kill him?" asked the warrior, taking a step forward.

  "Not just yet. Garlthik ran in here. He may have been coming to meet them. They may be of use."

  The magician walked up to Bevarden and kicked him in the side. "You!" he shouted.

  Bevarden came out of his tears, surprised, and looked up. He saw J'role on his knees with a glowing blue gauze wrapped around his face, then glanced at the magician, then the warrior His mouth opened and closed slightly, over and over again like a fish desperate for water.

  "Where is Garlthik?" the magician asked.

  "I . . . I don't know . . . I'm just . . . I'm nobody."

  "Have you seen a tall man? In leather armor?” asked the woman.

  J'role remained completely still. Bevarden looked to J'role, then mimicked his lack of response.

  "This is a waste of time," the warrior said, hefting her sword.

  "So impatient, Phlaren. Obviously they've seen him, or they would have answered. By not answering they show they're hiding something, which means they know something about Yarith that they'd rather not say. Most likely that they've killed him."

  The warrior's face changed, softened a bit, then became hard and cold. "Oh."

  "Am I right?" the magician asked J'role. He slammed his foot into J'role's stomach so quickly it caught J'role completely by surprise. J'role fell onto his back, aware he was now dangerously close to the edge of the pit. He stared up as the magician spoke to him.

  “listen, boy, if I didn't kill you before, I won't now. Phlaren might, but she'll listen to me.

  Now just tell me so we can move along, did you kill a man in leather armor."

  J'role glanced at the woman, whose face: muscles were held tightly. A thought occurred to him: As long as the other man's death remained a mystery, she would keep her hatred of him alive, ready to snap at any moment. But if he were to admit the deed, she might still hate him, but the event would no longer have a place at the front of her thoughts. It would slowly slip away.

  He nodded.

  "Where is the body?”

  He nodded toward the pit. The magician craned his neck and said, "Oh Well, so much for him."

  "We kill them now," said the woman.

  "Not yet. Get the boy. I'll get this misshapen lump moving along."

  The magician and the warrior escorted them to the Atrium, where they sat J'role and his father against the fountain. Torches ringed the area, casting huge shadows along the walls. The magician had removed the spell, and the warrior had bound J'role and his father with ropes. A strip of cloth gagged J'role.

  The magician had half a dozen allies who entered and left the Atrium in the search for Garlthik. It seemed from the shouts that echoed through the corridors and the constant regrouping that took place-in the Atrium that the magician's companions were constantly finding Garlthik's trail, only to lose it again. The magician, the woman warrior, and two other men armed with swords remained in the Atrium, determined to prevent Garlthik from leaving the kaer.

  While the other men and women hunted the tunnels, the woman warrior roughly searched J'role and his father. She found the coins from Garlthik—J'role thought she would certainly take them—but only tossed them aside, and they clattered against the stone floor. J'role glanced at the money. Had it been only a few hours ago that he'd met the ork, received the money from him?

  Whatever she was looking for, the warrior did not find it, and when she was done, she stood and turned away.

  The magician remained seated on the edge of the fountain. "Who is this?" he asked Bevarden, gesturing to the statue.

  The reply came dry and tired. "Garlen. Our protector.”

  "Ah. Interesting. I'd heard that people had made statues of the spirits during the Scourge."

  He looked at the statue for a few moments. "And how did your people fare? The village nearby—I assume the people came from here."

  "Yes."

  "And did Garlen keep your people safe?"

  Bevarden's voice cracked. "Some."

  "You lost someone?"

  "Yes."

  "Spirits are for the weak. Why depend on the force of another? I'd rather depend on my own wiles. If I fail, I cannot sit and blame another and be bitter."

  "Some of us," said Bevarden, his voice suddenly sober, "are very weak."

  "Yes," answered the magician. "I depend on that."

  The sound of shouting echoed through the corridor, then a scream, and cries for help.

  "Ushel! Chie! GO, go!" said the magician harshly. The two armed men rushed down the tunnel from where the cries sounded. J'role could just make out the sound of metal striking metal. Another scream. And then another. The woman warrior started for the corridor. "No," said the magician. "Not yet."

  Silence fell. The warrior's body tensed. The magician turned and faced the corridor his hand raised a blue crackle around it. The tension swept J'role up: What would emerge?

  Footsteps approached, slow and staggering. Then Garlthik stumbled out of a tunnel and collapsed to the floor. A short man with a stocky- build and curly black hair followed.

  Blood dripped down his temple.

  "Where are the others?" asked the magician

  "Dead."

  "All?"

  "All."

  "Garlthik," the magician said softly, his voice icy with anger, "you have cost me much time."

  Garlthik raised his head from the ground. "You should have let me be. Easier for all of us."

  "And leave the lovely ring with the likes of you? I think not."

  The ork tried to rise up to his hands and knees, but the small man rushed up and threw himself onto Garlthik's back. The ork collapsed to the stone floor with a great sigh. I'm not going anywhere, Slinsk," he gasped.

  "That's what you said outside of Harash."

  Garlthik smiled, his huge teeth arching up from his lower jaw. "Yes. I did. Very well."

  He paused, then said, "I don't have it, you know."

  The magician said, "Did you search him?"

  "Not yet," answered Slinsk.

  "I lost it during the chase. Don't really know where it went. Somewhere in the tunnels."

  He coughed and blood came up over his lips.

  The magician turned to Phlaren. "Help Slinsk search him." She wakled over to Garlthik and hoisted him by the neck. As soon as his body was erect she slammed her fist into his stomach, doubling him over. Then she jerked him back up.

  Garlthik remained still while Phlaren held his neck and Slinsk approached to begin his search. Suddenly Garlthik moved quickly, his right arm seeming to vanish as it moved behind him, grabbing something from his cloak. A dagger appeared in his hand. Just as Garlthik was swinging the dagger toward Phlaren, the woman brought her hand down on his arm. His arm's bone snapped sharply as she broke it.

  J'role saw a glint of silver—small as a firefly—rush toward him. Distracted by the appearance of the weapon and the pursuant struggle, no one else saw the silver ring fly across the room from Gar
lthik's free hand toward the fountain.

  It fell to the ground with a light tink and rolled to a stop a few inches from J'role's outstretched legs. J'role glanced toward the ork. Though Garlthik grimaced in terrible pain as Phlaren and Slinsk drove him back down to the ground, his one eye met J'role's gaze and he nodded slightly.

  4

  Some memories did come clearly to him while he slept, but these memories were the pleasant dreams. He remembered how his father would make him laugh when he was a little boy. His father had the improbable ability to juggle colored stones, up to six at a time. He could also do cartwheels and handstands and backward flips and could fall on purpose but make it look like an accident.

  J'role was the envy of all the children his age, for his father was a clown—and who would not envy having a clown for a father?

  J'role's father was the kaer's clown. When he worked he wore a costume of black and white, with bells on the tips of his boots. They jingled softly through the rooms of their home when he was getting ready for work.

  Everyone in the kaer knew Bevarden. At that time only a few hundred people lived in the kaer, families who had lived together for generations, so this was not strange. But of all the people in the kaer, J'role's father was the most beloved. "Jolly Bevarden,” the adults called him, as did the children who were old enough. The youngest children of the kaer simply called him the Clown.

  In later years J'role dreamed of following his father out to the Atrium, where his father would tell stories and juggle and fall. Against the bleak non-memories of so much of his youth, such thoughts gave him comfort.

  But they confused him as well. How was it possible to remember the past so fondly, yet feel so bad when thinking about childhood?

  Garlthik met J'role's gaze for just a moment, then Slinsk, the nimble man, and Phlaren, the strong warrior, slammed the ork's head into the smooth stone floor of the Atrium.

  Phlaren and Slinsk beat Garlthik's head repeatedly—Slinsk with a particular joy, J'role thought.

  The attack riveted his attention—it seemed more real than real—an intensity of violence J’role had not seen since his mother's stoning nine years earlier.

  But the sounds of flesh punching flesh and Garlthik's cries finally forced his eyes away.

  He could not tolerate watching the pain. Turning his head, J'role saw the ring Garlthik had thrown to him. Silver and smooth, it rested only inches away from his feet. He knew immediately that when Garlthik had stopped on the stairs and stared secretively at the object in his hand, it was the ring he'd been looking at.

  And undoubtedly it was the thing Mordom and his companions sought.

  He looked to his father, uncertain how to proceed, desperate for counsel. Should he hide the ring, and thus help the generous ork? Or perhaps try to escape with it and sell it? He knew it must be valuable. Or perhaps he could claim it, cover it with his foot, and then use it to barter for his and his father's life?

  Or maybe he should simply ignore it.

  Looking at his father J'role realized that the tired man would, as usual, be no help.

  Bevarden sat with his gaze turned away from Garlthik's beating, eyes closed tight. In that moment J'role hated his father. The man could do nothing—not even look! His father mumbled something through tightly clenched teeth. Listening carefully, J'role heard him saying "preparations" over and over again. Bevarden winced each time Garlthik cried out in pain, but his brief prayer continued.

  In that moment J'role loathed his father with a clarity that rivaled the ring's pure silver gleam. The man would never do anything! The thought of being like his father in any way repulsed him, and in his father's inaction came J'role's decision for action.

  The beating had stopped. Garlthik lay completely still. Slinsk turned Garlthik's body over as if it were a corpse. While Phlaren stood guard over the ork, sword drawn, Slinsk rifled through Garlthik's clothes, searching for secret pockets and ripping the lining out of the wonderful blue cape.

  J'role moved his foot slowly, carefully extending it toward the ring on the floor. The movement was awkward, but he could do nothing about that. If someone spotted him, he would deal with it then. His bare toes just reached the ring, but he could not actually snare it and bring it closer. He lowered himself even more, sliding down along the wall of the fountain, gaining the precious inches he needed, when his father suddenly spoke.

  "J'role," Bevarden said softly, eyes still closed. J'role drew in a sharp breath and froze. He glanced at Mordom, who stood facing Garlthik's body, and Phlaren and Slinsk, now searching through Garlthik's pockets. No one glanced back; the ork had their complete attention.

  "Did you mean what you said?" his father continued. His mouth hung open slightly, the bones stretching the flesh thin. Bevarden's eyes were wide and wet.

  J'role had no idea what his father was talking about, unless it was something from some other time. If so he certainly did not remember. Then J’role thought for a moment that his father might be referring to the sounds that had come out of his mouth earlier. But that was gibberish, and he dismissed the thought.

  "I'm sorry," his father said again.

  J'role nodded, hoping to keep his father quiet. The nod worked, and his father turned his head and closed his eyes once more.

  J 'role continued to slide his body down against the fountain, finally managing to get the ring under his toes, and began slowly to drag it back

  "What are you doing?" asked Mordom. J'role looked up, surprised to see the wizard's head still facing away. Only the palm of his hand with the eye was facing him.

  J'role froze, uncertain what to do. His foot hid the ring, so he wasn't worried about that.

  But his body was stretched out as if he was doing something—maybe trying to escape.

  The wizard turned his body toward J’role and walked toward him. The scarlet robe fluttered, and the bare tree branches painted on the robe seemed to sway back and forth as if in a mild wind. He walked up to J'role and with his eyeless hand slapped him across the face.

  J'role's sight went red, then black, then came back.

  The wizard grabbed J'role by the neck and started to drag him up against the fountain's wall. Struggling to keep his face from revealing the effort of his work, J'role tried to curl his toes around the ring. Let me get it, he thought over and over. Let me get it.

  As J'role caught the ring under his foot, an extraordinary sensation rushed over him as he touched it. The metal was as cold as the ice a wizard could make with his magic. Yet a heat emanated from it, a warmth of memories—

  —of something—

  —something J'role could not remember, but thought he should.

  "Now stay," said-the wizard, his voice low. J'role realized he had closed his eyes when the strange sensation filled him. Mordom had apparently read his expression as one of fear. "I am in no mood for childish attempts at escape," he said. J'role nodded, and the wizard turned with his strange hand toward Garlthik.

  The sensation turned into a low buzzing in his mind as he kept his foot pressed tightly against the ring. All that remained after the initial shock was an emptiness in his chest; a tunnel to his heart filled with a cool wind.

  "Does he have it or not?" Mordom asked his companions.

  "It isn't on him," said Slinsk.

  "He could have put it anywhere," said Phlaren throwing her arms wide. “ Anywhere in the kaer."

  "He ran everywhere," said Slinsk.

  "But I don't think he would have simply tossed it away in the tunnels," said Mordom. "He would have hidden it carefully … or maybe left it back at the tavern where we found him.

  Perhaps he hid it in his room. Is he conscious?"

  Slinsk smiled an odd smile. "Not at all."

  "Very well. Phlaren, bind him. We'll torture him if we have to when he wakes up. Slinsk, go back to the tavern and search his room."

  Phlaren said, “They'll be wary now. We killed at least five of their people in the attack."

  "Exactly," said
Slinsk with a laugh. "They won't be expecting anybody to come back."

  "Whatever you think best," said Mordom. "Just search his room carefully."

  Phlaren tied Garlthik tightly. It seemed to J'role she went to absurd lengths to secure him.

  Yards of rope were used to bind the ork's ankles and wrists, his arms and legs bent behind his back. Phlaren used complicated and strange knots.

  When it was all done, very little of Garlthik remained visible; he was a bundle of hemp.

  She dropped him down onto the floor near J'role and Bevarden, and went off to confer quietly with the wizard. Mordom kept the eye of his palm toward them.