Worlds Without End s-18 Read online

  Worlds Without End

  ( Shadowrun - 18 )

  Caroline Spector

  Caroline Spector

  Worlds Without End

  Foreword

  There has always been magic. And magic has a life of its own. It comes and goes without our control. It flows through the world as it will.

  This is how the world was Awakened.

  Magical energy ran through the veins of the world like blood through humans. It changed her. And it changed her people.

  And it came to pass that events shaped by magic began to alter history.

  Earthquakes tore the earth apart. The Four Horse- men of the Apocalypse seemed to be riding across the world. Conquest, War, Famine, and Death raged unabated. The VITAS plague alone took almost a quarter of the world's population in the year 2010.

  Then came 2011: the Year of Chaos.

  Governments fell. Famine gripped the poor and stalked the wealthy. Nuclear power failed, causing massive radiation fallout. War peppered the world, toppling heads of state, creating new countries.

  And then there were the children.

  At first, they were called deformities. Then muta- tions. The superstitious called them changelings, and saw the Hand of God at play. Finally, science of- fered a label: UGE. Unexplained Genetic Expres- sion. Everywhere you looked the media ran stories about these babies, calling them elves and dwarfs. The age-old specter of prejudice had found new vic- tims.

  At the end of 2011, the most dramatic event of the newly Awakened world occurred. The great worm, Ryumyo, rose from his long sleep inside Mt. Fuji. Thousands watched as the first dragon the techno- logical world had seen took to the sky. In dragon fashion he ignored humans. Humanity got its first close-up look at a dragon when Dunkelzahn con- sented to a series of trideo interviews. The ratings were fantastic and launched Dunkelzahn as an inter- national celebrity.

  In 2014, The Native American Nations claimed responsibility for the eruption of Redondo Peak, This cataclysmic event buried nearby Los Alamos in volcanic ash. In a desperate measure to assert con- trol, the United States government sent federal agents in. to stop the NAN uprising. They were swept into oblivion by tornadoes resulting from the powerful shamanistic magic of the Great Ghost Dance.

  After this, the changes in the world began to happen at a faster and faster pace. There was the so- called goblinization of 2021. Overnight, people be- gan to change into fantastic creatures once thought to exist only in fairy tales. The stuff of legend.

  And buried deep within the Awakening was a mystery from the past.

  A time so far away from present events that only a handful of people knew the truth.

  About how the world once was. And how it might become again.

  When magic was as much a part of life as breath- ing, or eating, or seeing, or feeling. And how the world was made full of heroes and troubadours, and mages, and wild things the modern world could not fathom. And how the very magic that flowed through this world also drew the greatest evil to it.

  And when that evil came for the people, one great race understood the futility of fighting this new plague upon the land. The Theran Empire promised a way to survive the hundreds of years this Scourge would last. They sent the people of the world into deep underground kaers where they would live magically sealed against the invaders until the time when they could come back to the surface again.

  But such generosity of vision always has its price.

  However, that is another story.

  And now we have come back again to the magic. And to those who would guard the world from the horrors of the past.

  Those who have lived through it all before.

  Prologue

  Let me tell you a story…

  Once upon a time there was a woman.

  Sometimes, in the story, her name is Pandora. Sometimes it's Eve. And sometimes it's Lilith.

  There are more names for her.

  It all depends on who's telling the story.

  At any rate, at one time everything in the world was wonderful. Or so you're supposed to believe. There was enough food for everyone to eat. Enough water to drink. No one had to work.

  In short: Paradise.

  Except for one thing.

  The woman.

  You see, in this story she's at the root of all the trouble.

  Either she can't help opening the box. Or talking to the snake. Or she's just too uppity for her own good.

  And she starts poking around in things. Things We Were Not Meant to Know. And as a result, ev- erything goes to hell in a handbasket.

  Prologue

  Or so the person telling the tale would have you believe.

  Of course, since everything in the world isn't total drek, there has to be some sort of mitigating factor.

  Like we're banished from the garden. But, if we work and pray hard enough, we might be let back in. Or we're told that the woman was banished to the edge of time and there she mated with demons. And her offspring come to us in our dreams and torment us.

  Seduce us.

  Lead us astray.

  And then, in some versions of the tale, at the bot- tom of the box is Hope. Which, we're told, is the only way to survive all the other horrors which have already escaped from the box. It is the only thing we have to hold on to.

  Or so we're told.

  But that's the way it is with stories.

  You just don't know who you can trust.

  PART I

  "Oh fuck, not another elf!"

  – Hugo Dyson, during the reading of a manuscript by J.R.R. Tolkien

  Across the frozen planes of time I've come. Through fires brighter than a thousand suns. Through darkness. Through the Void. Over the range of the universe I've come.

  I've come for you, Aina.

  To take you again into my sweet embrace and show you wonders from the darkness of your soul. Then I'll make you yearn for death while I rip open your mind and lay waste to everything you hold dear.

  But all that will come later. For we have centu- ries, no, millennia to play our games. Come to me now and let me show you… let me show everything I have to offer.

  Last night I dreamt again of Ysrthgrathe.

  And when I awoke, the stench of death and cor- ruption still lingered in the air.

  Through my bedroom window moonlight poured cold and blue. I rubbed my eyes, trying to convince myself that it had only been a dream. That the de- mons lurking in the shadowed comers were in my imagination. A conjuring of my mind only.

  I shoved the covers away, letting the night air send gooseflesh across my arms and down my legs. Here by the sea on the northern coast of Scotland the weather stays chill and damp all year long. It had never bothered me before. But tonight, I felt the cold straight to my bones. All the better to keep me awake, I thought.

  My feet shrank as they touched the cold bare floor. Grabbing my thick robe, I wrapped it tightly about me. It was made of real, heavy, woven cash- mere fabric, not that horrid synth stuff they sell nowadays.

  I went downstairs and made myself some tea. It warmed my body, but I still felt chilled. I wanted to read, but I hated using the foul contraption Caimbeui had given me. The vidscreen gave me a headache and I could never bring myself to have cyberware implanted. Bodmod, cyberjunk, tickle- wires-whatever they're calling them this week.

  Hadn't I done enough of that sort of thing to my- self in the past?

  I shuddered as I thought about Ysrthgrathe.

  Too soon, I thought. It's too soon.

  But I knew it wasn't. The very thing I'd sought to prevent seemed to be happening. That is, if dreams could be trusted.

  I dumped the tea into the sink and went and pulled a bottle of scotch from th
e pantry and splashed a hefty portion into a tumbler. It burned going down and brought tears to my eyes. I suppose the elves in Tir na n6g would be offended at my traitorous choice of beverage, but frag them. I hadn't been on speaking terms with either Tir for quite some time.

  But what to do about the dreams?

  Perhaps the shamans in NAN would be willing to listen. But then I remembered the dustup we'd had before the Great Ghost Dance. They hadn't been too happy to hear my predictions about the magical fall- out from all the blood they'd planned to spill.

  Idiots. If only they'd listened. I suspected then that this would be the result. Like bees to honey, it would draw the creatures again. And we'd had no time to plan. To prepare. This time the monsters from the past would lay waste to the whole world.

  Are you waiting/or me? Have you been waiting for me? Does your flesh crave my caress? Do you remember? Remember the centuries of pain and humiliation?

  Do you know how I have missed you?

  The sound of his voice echoed inside me.

  I went to the thermostat and pushed it up. To hell with the regs about fuel waste, I thought. A century ago, Caimbeui had given me a Renoir. I liked to look at it when I felt like this. Afraid and lonely in the dark hours before dawn when the past spreads before me like a black spill of ink.

  I flicked my hand and the illusionary wall I'd cre- ated long ago vanished. It was a simple enough spell, though in the past few centuries there'd been little enough magic to go around.

  That was changing.

  The last few years-a human life span-just a drop to me-had seen such a burst of magical en- ergy and growth. The Awakening, they called it on their ugly little trids. Oh, I know Dunkelzahn found this brave new world far too fascinating, but he'd 16

  been dreaming for more than five thousand years. What would he know of it? He hadn't seen what the world had become.

  I stepped into my room. The walls were win- dowless and covered in heavy oak paneling. Art- work and bookcases covered every available space, crammed full of everything I found precious. Centered on the north wall was the Renoir.

  It was of a young woman and a little girl sitting on a balcony. The woman was wearing a brilliant red hat and she had a face of such sweetness that just looking at her almost hurt. I remembered when he'd painted it. A beautiful copy used to hang in the Chi- cago Art Institute, but I think it might have been de- stroyed during the riots in 2011.

  So much beauty was lost then.

  Here in my secret room I kept the relics of so many dead worlds. Of course dead worlds are all around us. They're just so much a part of our lives that we stop thinking about it. In London, five- hundred-year-old buildings snuggle next to glass columns built yesterday. Asphalt poured in nineteen- fifty is worn down by the wheels of a thousand rigs never dreamed of until five years ago. And the sweetmeats dance in nightclubs with rags on their backs sewn in sweatshops during the eighties. But that was just a momentary madness. A fad. A pass- ing whimsy of fashion.

  The things I'd distract myself with at times like that.

  And here too were memories from a place and time out of mind. A place as unreal to this world as any trideo fantasy. What possessed me to recreate what I could remember? That time was done. Over. Dust.

  Right.

  Then why were there pictures painted by artists far greater than I, depicting places described by me? Why had I done it? Why had I asked Francisco Lucientes to recreate those nightmare visions? What madness had I unlocked from his mind? For surely he saw them-saw the demons.

  His painting leaned against the wall, face down. I reached out and turned it around. Curators from ev- ery museum of the world would kill to have this lost treasure. Could they have understood it came not from Goya's demented vision, but from mine?

  It showed a forest of such expanse that it fled from the viewer's sight back into a ghostly oblivion. Standing in the foreground were two people: a male and a female. She was human, slight of build with a curious face. He was an elf, tall and lithe with dark hair and a small goatee. Growing from his body were thorns.

  The skin was puckered where the thorns protruded from his flesh. They ran across his face and showed as stark points across the back of his hands. A thou- sand slashes rent his tunic, letting the thorns escape.

  I reached out and almost touched their faces with my fingertips.

  Tears were streaming down my cheeks as hot and warm on my face as the blood that once fed that great forest. Blood poured from the wounds of my people.

  But that wasn't the worst of what had been in that time.

  My own complicity. Could such acts of evil ever be forgiven? Or forgotten?

  I tried to push these dark thoughts away. But the dream wouldn't let me go. Wouldn't let me forget. I'd let myself become distracted by worldly matters. I'd forgotten why I was here.

  I swallowed the last of the scotch. A pleasant heat had settled into my limbs. Perhaps now I would be able to sleep. With a simple gesture the illusionary wall was once more in place. I went upstairs. After closing the drapes, I settled under the quilts and comforters. But I couldn't bring myself to turn off the light. A childish notion, but it gave me some comfort.

  And small comfort was all I would have for a long time to come.

  A vast forest stretches out before her. Green and lush. Beautiful and deadly. And there are secrets. Terrible secrets. She steps forward and feels that she is sinking into something. Looking down, she sees her foot being swallowed by a pool of blood.

  Dreams, I thought, can't hurt you.

  The day was dreary and overcast. They usually were here. It was well past noon before I managed to pull myself from bed. Despite the scotch and leaving the light on, I didn't manage to sleep until after the sun rose.

  Normally, I would have downloaded the morning Times and printed it out while I made tea. But I felt restless and penned-in by the house. I threw on jeans, boots, and heavy sweater, then grabbed my leather jacket as I went outside. It was late October and already the wind was blowing colder from the north.

  It took me a few minutes to climb down to the beach. During the night it had rained and the path was muddy. I slipped a little as I ran down it. The sharp tang of the air cleared my mind.

  Dreams, only dreams.

  But I suspected they weren't. I'd had premoni- tions like this before. Before the Great Ghost Dance in 1888. And again before the one in 2014. Before the first VITAS plague. Before the start of goblinization in 2021. Each time I'd seen what was to come and I couldn't stop it.

  Oh I'd tried, but the others weren't willing to lis- ten. But they rarely thought about the consequences of anything that was happening. It has been that way for far too long. They've forgotten. Or didn't believe the danger was so close at hand.

  I was so engrossed with my morbid thoughts that by the time I looked up, I'd gone onto my neigh- bor's property. He was a surly bastard and hated the fact that he had an elf for a neighbor. What was it he called me? Ah yes, a pointy-eared, pencil-necked, daisy-eating nigger. The last I assumed had to do with my skin color. It took every ounce of self- restraint I had not to slowly pull his tongue out his hoop the hard way.

  But the Brits had an annoying habit of frowning upon murder. Especially when it involved a human and any sort of "meta" being. However, there were plenty of elves among the nobility in the UK, and I actually had good relationships with them. I hated to bum karma with them on someone who would be more annoyed by my continuing presence.

  I turned and made my way back to the house. The fog had burned off finally and it was looking to be a rare sunny day. My security system let me back in with a cheery, "Good morning. It's October 20, 2056. The temperature is 9 Celsius outside…" It 21

  rambled on and on, and once again I reminded my- self to have the thing removed. But I always forgot. So tomorrow it would be the same, "Good morning. It's October 21, 2056. The temperature is… blah blah blah."

  As I pulled off my boots in the mud room, I found myself whistling
an old tune. Well, maybe not whis- tling, more a tuneless wheeze.

  Look on the bright side of life… dee, dah, dee dee deedilty dah.

  I couldn't remember any more of the words. That used to drive Caimbeui crazy when we were to- gether. My inability to remember more than a few snatches of lyrics from any song. Sometimes I even got the words wrong. What was that called? Oh, yes, mondegreens.

  The kitchen was warm and I set the kettle on to boil on the flat heating element. I went upstairs and started the water for a bath. Stripping out of my clothes, I grabbed my robe and wrapped it around me. The kettle had begun to whistle and I went downstairs to fix tea.

  In a few moments I had a tray all set to take up- stairs. Sheer decadence to dispel the night fears. Tea and scones while taking a hot bath. Maybe later I'd read-from a real book with pages.

  I'd just settled into the tub when the telecom beeped. Happens every time. As the machine picked up, I heard Caimbeul's voice.

  "Aina, I know you're there," he said.

  I gave a universal gesture for contempt and went back to drinking my tea. I hadn't heard word one from him in eight months. Frag him if he thought I was going to get out of a nice warm bath.

  "Look," he said. "I'm en route to the UK. I should be landing in about an hour. Things have been happening. Things you need to know about. I have it all under control now, but we need to talk. I'll be up to Arran in about four hours."

  I closed my eyes. The uneasiness that I'd almost dispelled was back. For Caimbeui to come here out of the blue meant something was up. Something big. The dreams came back to me. I shivered. The water had gone cold and I suddenly didn't like lying there naked and vulnerable.

  Quickly, I finished washing my hair and got out of the tub. As I dressed, I tried not to dwell on Caimbeul's unexpected visit. Whatever the reason for it, I would know soon enough.

  And I doubted the news would be good.