From: kjc@aramis.rutgers.edu (Kelly J. Cooper) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [MG] Slow Walking Keywords: I can't run but I can walk much faster than this Message-ID: Date: 14 Oct 93 00:53:35 GMT [Admin: this is before the 'kan party, [LH], and directly after Liralen Li's "Lunch Break"] Travel. Arrival Years of an inch and a step Toward a source I'm coming to you I'll be there in time I'm coming to you I'll be there in time -Suzanne Vega, "Pilgrimage" * * * Jameson and Kardia left the Ale House and walked quietly, side by side, back to the Mage Guild. They ambled along, Kardia limiting her stride to match Jameson's slow progress, followed by a silent shadow in the shape of a large dog. Or a small pony. Kardia looked about alertly, smiling into the sunshine, and keeping the corners of her eyes mindful of shadows and alleys. Jameson concentrated a bit more on her walking, and wore a sort of serene expression occasionally interrupted by a blank look when she accidently jarred herself. She noticed little of her surroundings. It was slow going. A large city on a crisp fall day in the middle of the afternoon -- there were crowds and horse carts, gangs of children and thieves, all serving to frustrate the impatient traveller. But they were in no hurry. As they made their way through the dappled sunlight, Kardia resisted the urge to hum "Feelin' Groovy." But, they were coming from the dock and skirting Low Town, walking along a fringe of mingled respectability and trouble. And they were presenting quite the temptation amidst mid-afternoon shadows. With a brief discussion, they chose to turn down a quiet side street that wasn't quite an alley, to get back to Dragon's Lane a little easier. Having gone halfway down their chosen route, they were stopped when two figures stepped from the shadows on either side of the road and stood before the women, obviously blocking passage. A quick look over her right shoulder told Kardia that they were cut off from behind as well. She dropped smoothly into a defensive posture, adrenaline already singing through her body. Scaedu's near-invisibility in the shadows ended when he began a low rumbling growl that seemed to vibrate the stones beneath their feet. His eyes flashed and his lips pulled back in a canine grimace-smile, preparing for battle. Jameson watched the body language of the two silhouettes before them -- at the dog's growl they shifted from a slightly cocky, hips forward posture to battle stance. One was extremely nervous, and kept tapping the flat of his dagger against his thigh. The other stood like stone, drawn short sword in his right hand. In a flash that blinded Kardia completely for a moment, a figure appeared and began gesturing. Kardia switched sights, then abruptly swapped back again, as the anti-flare mechanism in her eyes could not compensate her magical vision for the glaring brilliance of Dasham performing magic. There was a strangled noise and thump from behind them and a muffled scream ahead. As Jameson listened to the sound of a body falling, six meters in front of her, she felt the faint lurching shift of teleportation. She blinked at the blue spots on her eyes and they faded immediately. Looking around, she saw Kardia to her immediate right, Sceadu on her other side and Dasham standing in front of them, turning, even as Jaime looked at her, to glare angrily at Kardia, who tensed with an unconscious wince. "THIS is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS! How DARE you put yourself in danger?! Don't you REALIZE the IMPLICATIONS of YOUR ACTIONS?! And where have you been? Did I give you PERMISSION to be gone so long? Do you KNOW how difficult it is for me to REARRANGE my schedule to fetch you?! I had to WALK OUT of a MEETING to save YOUR hide!! I do NOT wish to have to DEAL with this..." Dasham stopped abruptly, as if someone had pushed a button. Jameson had stepped between her and Kardia. Eyes gone dark and stormy, mouth set in a determined line, Jameson stared back at the ArchMage. Dasham's face pinched, anger frothing up through her general annoyance, and she reached out to *push*... And fell ...into sunshine... the sky was bright... she could feel a warm breeze and hear birds in the trees nearby... abruptly, with no warning, there was a dagger blade in her back... she felt it pierce her heart... her sight faded and her hearing faded and she... and she... died. It hurt. She slipped... away Eyes. Why did she always remember eyes. She died again... this time, a small child with a bomb. So innocent... innocence... angry... falling... down Again. And again. Daggers, swords, poison. Arrows, laser-fire, stun-guns. A garrote. Plastic over her face. The rack. Gasping for air as her lungs filled with gases. A sickening crunch... screaming, sounding so distant, coming from her throat, tearing at her vocal cords... pulling... every muscle... she could feel every... in ...darkness... water... filled her lungs, but she could breath it, though it hurt... And it seemed to pass... to peace... hell Like a fireworks display. Suns exploded. Stars winked off and on and off, gone. Massive bodies of matter collided. Rock moved. Plants breathed. Everything, in twitchy fast forward, was crashing, breaking, crushing, re-making, molding, tearing, pulling, forcing, ripping, destroying, raising, opening, gentling, storming... The air screamed... She lay on a boiling sea, its anger palpable as it roiled beneath her and the air above pressed down, heavy and barely breathable, and she held perfectly still, trying to float, and a voice whispered across the edges of her mind... "Dasham..." She blinked the water from her eyes, and tried to listen more closely, but she was so afraid to move... "Dasham!" Louder now, more insistent. But she couldn't answer. She musn't... shallow breaths. The sea pushed, pulled and twisted beneath her. She felt like when she was seven, and her brother had dared her to spend the night in Granfa's coffin where it waited in the livingroom. Waited for Granfa to die of old age. She'd been terrified, barely able to breathe, unwilling to move at all lest she make a noise and call down the wrath of the dead. She didn't sleep at all, and got a beating in the morning... "Dasham! Let. Go." The sea was shoving at her, pushing her off balance, plucking at her, swelling and falling. Storm clouds. The sky was black and angry. "Now! LET GO!" Convulsively, she took a huge breath and her body moved and she seemed to slip sideways and fall... and fall... Standing. She was standing in front of the Walker, a woman who looked young, but was old and it seemed... She felt her knees begin to crumple and Jameson caught her gently, having dropped her staff with a clatter that sounded to Dasham like distant thunder, and eased her to the floor. * * * Dasham's face etched itself upon Jameson's mind. She looked older. Wrinkles waited in the corners of her eyes and on the pinched bridge of her nose. They were stitched around her mouth and they stretched, then shrank as her lips went from an angry line, pressed tightly together, to a small O first of surprise, then shock, then fear, then something that was like wonder and like horror, both and neither. These impressions Jameson's eyes recorded while her brain went somewhere else entirely... Jameson felt Dasham's "touch" on her mind, but this time, no pain, no pins and needles. Instead, there was a strange melting feeling, like sinking into the tar baby, into a bowl of oobleck, into a river of ichor, only instead of her hands, it was her mind that was slipping into the ooze-that-was-not-ooze. It was numbness and frost, a drug kept cold suddenly running through her blood. It was deadened tissue, sensing touch by pressure only, not realizing the heat was burning it. And, like a window, a mirror reflecting somewhere else, a flickering and flashing movie of erratically jerking puppets, it ripped across her awareness. She was the puppet, the actor and the audience. She saw a girl in a meadow, long red hair bound loosely, felt the sunlight on her own skin. Faces loomed and vanished. Many aged, sagging with wrinkles and pain, eyes clouding, faces cast down and never looking up, hands curling into rigid arthritic claws. Gaping holes in memory, filled in hurriedly with pieces that didn't fit. Like two puzzles, forced to become one picture. Here and there, tiles coming up, revealing darkness. Pain. Blackness. Things that hurt. Hurt so bad they couldn't be remembered in detail because all the pain came back again. Scar tissue. Layers and layers of it, gone from her body, engraved in her mind. Whose mind? Jameson-mind... no, Dasham. Dasham's mind. Leaking thoughts, losing memories like a seive and catching them in a drippings pan. Mixing them up, sorting through them like trading cards, like prizes -- dried ears of enemies cut off before death, like keepsakes --- a necklace of bones, blood and sinew still clinging to the stark whiteness. Falling. Sinking. A quicksand of sorrow and pain and memory. Jameson watched a very young Dasham cradling something in her arms. Something golden, but tarnished, and worn with rubbing. The girl rocked slowly back and forth, holding it against her, crooning quietly to herself. But the vision was fading. The glass in the window was dirty, scratched, streaked and covered with soot. Jameson could barely see through it, and darkness was falling. But not falling. Creeping, consuming the tiny hut like fire, like ink-colored fog. There was almost no light left to catch what was in the girl's arms, to let it flicker with quiet fire and in its reflection, light up her face. And Jameson realized, with the slow, warm gathering dawn of understanding, that this was the last piece of the girl... the only thing left and she was trapped. Stuck in a small hell of her own, too frightened or too far gone to let go and come out. Jameson beat her fist against the lead glass -- it was solid. Now she almost couldn't make out the girl's face. The hearth fire was going out, the embers cooling, and Jameson began to yell... "Dasham..." The girl shrank in on herself, and clutched the golden thing tighter. "Dasham! Let. Go." Jameson's hands were bruised and bleeding but she continued to beat against the glass, blood smearing with the ash. Abruptly the sun was gone, having finally slipped behind something. Jameson was nearly screaming, "Now! LET GO!" And suddenly Dasham was standing before her, the wonder/horror fading from her face as she slowly collapsed, murmuring something about wings. Jameson dropped her staff and caught the woman, gently easing her down. * * * Urcohea 'ported in immediately and was striding forward before he'd even completely materialised in the Lobby. Somewhere behind him someone muttered "not again" and groaned quietly in frustration. The girl on the floor was leaning over Dasham's prone body. The weaver Kardia was standing to one side, looking shocked. Urco was within ten meters of the trio, reflecting that the logs showed it had barely been a thirty seconds since Dasham had suddenly teleported in two women and a hell hound of some sort, when the kneeling woman looked up suddenly. Her face was pale and drawn, and it took a moment or two for her eyes to focus on Urco and his response teams. With surprising volume she suddenly yelled "DIETER!" Before Urcohea could blink, the young mage had appeared almost directly in front of him -- unable to stop in time, he bowled the boy over and they both went down in a tangle of legs and robes. Alpha and Omega response teams stood in a helpless half circle around the pair, trying very hard not to laugh while keeping a wary eye on the kneeling woman. She was now doing something to Dasham -- carefully probing the Supreme ArchMage's body with her hands. Dieter dragged himself far enough away from Urcohea that he could stand up and quickly skittered over to the women. Stopping a meter and a half away, he shifted down to lean on one knee and asked softly, "Jameson?" The woman looked up from her work at the sound of her name and said in a hushed, breathless voice, "Tell them I didn't hurt her, Dieter, ok? Please... tell them?" She finished checking Dasham's body for damage, and leaned forward to brush the hair from the woman's face. She touched Dasham's cheeks with the palms of her hands and whispered something urgently in an oddly familiar sing-song tone. Scaedu took a hesitant half-step forward, making a soft growling whine in the back of his throat. Jameson looked up and spoke in a harsh voice that was painful to hear. Scaedu promptly sat down, in a posture of obedience. Jameson returned her attention to Dasham, only to find the woman blinking very slowly and looking up at her. Meanwhile, Urcohea had brushed himself off, dismissed one of his response teams and was speaking in quiet undertones with Dieter. Dasham tried to say something twice before words actually started coming out. She said, almost too softly to be heard, "That hurt." Jameson nodded in agreement and said in very quiet tones, "Now we're even." Dasham's eyes widened a touch before the ghost of a smile curved her lips and was gone. She reached out a hand to be helped up. Once standing, she took a moment to steady herself, then straightened her shoulders and firmly gripped Jameson's hand. She let go and turned to Kardia. "My temper has been short and you did not deserve the full blast of my impatience. You have my apologies." Oblivious to Kardia's shock, she turned and walked slowly toward Urcohea. She said something in his ear that made him look in surprise first at Jameson, then at Dasham herself. Again, she was oblivious, already walking slowly toward the golem-run elevators. With Urcohea's back turned, watching in disbelief as Dasham walked away, Kardia looked at Jameson and inscribed a question mark in the air. Jameson shrugged and finger-spelled LATER, then picked up her staff and turned to go, only to pause and write quickly in the air MEET FOR DINNER OUT FRONT AT DARK? Kardia nodded, looked around and shrugged, then followed Dasham. Jameson limped slowly out of the Guild, back into the sunshine, just as Urcohea turned back. He took a few quick steps after her but she was gone, and he was still somewhat speechless. Behind Urcohea, Dieter slipped away before Urco could remember him. The members of the remaining response team shifted from one foot to the other, watching their boss as he stood in utter bafflement, looking about himself almost as if he didn't believe anything had just happened. Abruptly, he turned and swept down the hall, back to his offices. Alpha team looked at each other, shrugged in unison and all vanished silently. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1993 by Kelly J. Cooper. Kardia is the copyrighted creation of Liralen Li, aka Phyllis Rostykus, present with permission. The members of the Mage Guild appear courtesy of the Mage Guild Committee For Greater Confusion. Feedback, as usual, is appreciated. -- Liralen Li | "Remember, science is talking about the universe in a li@inigo.Data-IO.com | way you can understand it, magic is talking to the aka Phyllis Rostykus | universe in a way it can't resist hearing." Carl Rigney -- Kelly J. Cooper Writer for Jameson W. Walker Contact for the Generican Mage Guild kjc@cs.rutgers.edu