Free Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Lliferock by Jak Koke Page B

the silver flagon back to Pabl.
    Pabl drank, enjoying the taste of home, then offered the rest to Ohin.
    “Thank you,” Ohin said, taking the water. “You don’t know how lucky you are. You have everything — youth, clean water, a liferock.” He tilted his head back to drain the flagon.
    “It is because of my liferock that I come,” Pabl said. “One of our Elders is missing. No births or Namings can happen without him.”
    A frown crossed Ohin’s face. “What is his name?”
    “Reid Quo.”
    “I don’t know that name.”
    “You haven’t seen him?”
    Ohin handed the flagon back to Pabl. “Maybe I have and maybe I haven’t, but I do not recognize that name. Do you have an internal picture of him?”
    “Of course, from my liferock’s memory.” Pabl brought an image of Reid Quo to his mind’s eye. A high sloping forehead of russet brown rose to a regal peak above deep, knowing black eyes. He was tall, like Gvint, but broader, and his expression was gentle, not hard.
    “If we merge together,” Ohin said, “we will know if I have seen him, and when. It is the only way.”
    Pabl knew he was right. “How do I know you’re not tainted This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ [email protected]) Liferock 
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    by a Horror?”
    Ohin broke into laughter. “If I were, which is impossible, do you think I would have shared water with you? What do you know of Horrors anyway?”
    “I know a little.” Pabl sounded defensive and knew it. “I just thought I should ask,” he said, “because of the rumors.”
    “Don’t heed rumors,” Ohin said, his laughing face turning to a grimace of pain. “Horrors stay clear of me since Othellium died.”
    Before he could stop himself, Pabl asked, “How did that happen? How can a liferock die?”
    Ohin forced himself to stand upright, then stepped over to the window and looked out onto the river. Vines from the trees looped low across the water, and Pabl watched a trail of giant ants carry leaf-cuttings across. Bright blue and red macaws nested in the riverbank off to the right, flying in and out of the mud holes.
    When Ohin spoke again, there was a deep chagrin in his voice. “The saddest part of all is that I don’t know, even now, what happened. Othellium’s life force simply dwindled away.
    It started slowly; we hardly noticed at first.” He sank to the floor, his bent back pressed against the quartz wall.
    “Then later, even when we felt the energy draining from our liferock, we couldn’t stop it. The rock grew weaker and weaker as we tried to figure out what to do. We suspected a Horror, but found nothing except a new clot of astral threads near the base of the rock. No Horror.” Ohin’s head fell forward into his hands, and he spoke at the ground. “Only after a time did we realize that the threads were the cause of the liferock’s energy drain. We severed the threads eventually, but it wasn’t easy, and by the time we had finished, the pattern of the rock had lost much of its form.”
    “What happened to the brotherhood?”
    “Others of our race heard about our trouble, and came to This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ [email protected]) Liferock 
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    offer companionship. Most of my brothers eventually left with them in search of a mythical liferock which takes in strays.”
    “You did not want to join them?”
    “I don’t believe such a liferock truly exists,” he said. “But even if I did, I am the eldest. I stayed with my liferock. I must die here.”
    Pabl knelt down, holding his hands out. He placed his palms into Ohin’s hands, feeling the roughness of the ancient’s palms like broken shale. “I will enter the Dreaming with you,” Pabl said.
    Ohin nodded.
    Pabl helped him to his feet, and they stood facing each other, palms touching. Ohin began to hum in a bass voice, and Pabl joined him. Soon the hum evolved into a chant until their voices were one, singing of the Great Liferock from