Rifts:"Freedom Run"
Chapter Two "Bad Dreams."
The Splygorthian wards holding back magics from countless worlds hum ever so slightly as the faintest mist rolls across the floor. The jailor who gave his dreams to his masters 27 years earlier never noticed.
The eldest of them dreamed the saddest.
Uther Shatter-shield hung from the wall by his arms. The faded ember of the power that was once within him kept the pain to a dull throb. He dreamed of oaths betrayed, and a fall from grace.
In his mind's eye Uther flew naked between the stars. The armor granted to him by the Cosmic Forge a second skin after so many decades. His great Axe cleaving the antimatter cannon on the pirate raider in two. In the distance his eyes scanned the length and birth of the electromagnetic spectrum spotting a star system the likeliest destination of the raider. Deep inside a nickel iron asteroid orbiting a nameless blue star on the border of the Trans-galactic Empire. A star fell to the surface of that silent little world. Uther Shatter-Shield, Cosmic Knight, looked out on the pockmarked surface of the asteroid and he grimaced under his gleaming armor.
" Slavers, scum. "
He raised his strong right hand and in a flash of light his axe appeared in a flash of light. He brought the axe down on the surface with the force of a crashing spacecraft! The asteroid cracked under blow after blow from the Knight and his axe. Until finally a chunk of the space rock the size of a building ripped free and floated off into the void. With it a torrent of escaping air water and flash frozen bodies.
The Knight floated down slowly down through the gap into a hallway of smooth featureless silver metal. A collection of armored corps drifted by. The mark of a Splygorthian Lord on its breastplates. Uther's eyes filled with cosmic fire as he muttered to himself in the airless void.
" Squid lap dogs. "
Floating into a landing bay his eyes fell on a ignored cargo container with a small viewport. Inside a hand full of forlorn souls languis in chains.
Emergency force fields comeone line and the room fills with the hiss of a thin remaining atmosphere. A psionic voice called out across the void.
" Here we are again Uther! Me fulfilling the will of my god, and you standing in my way. "
The giant Briareus Aegaeon, greatest of the hundred handed, loomed over him even from the far side of the landing bay. Uther's dream turned into a red haze. The sound barrier shattered as the knight propelled himself forward on a wave of cosmic power! He brought his axe down on the monster's chest.
Briareus laughed.
" Forty xanthite crystals Uther, that is the offering the Spugorthian lords made to gods of Olympus to end you. I wanted you to know the value of your life before it ends! "
The beasts fists came down on him with a furry that had waylaid titans, and raised up young defiant gods. Uther slammed into the floor like a beercan under the drunk's boot. In his mind's eye the knight saw half a hundred battles with this monster, this legend, the left hand of thunder. It was a fight for all his strength he knew he would lose.
He reached deep inside himself for the fire granted to him by a power older than any empire he could name. The cosmic forge grants the worthy power to rival anything in creation. Rival, but in this case, against this legend it had never been enough. For hate's sake, Uther struck out with all the power inside him and for a half a heartbeat there was another star in the sky. The wave of cosmic energy ripped out of him and tore the asteroid apart from the inside.
The giant Briareus Aegaeon floated beside him in the void, untouched. Uther roared in frustration.
" How? Not even you could withstand that?! "
Or he should have, if the cold emptiness of the void handed began choking the life from him. His armor was gone, and he really was naked umog the stars. A voice that wasn't Briareus Aegaeon whispered in his mind.
" You killed them, Uther, those poor sad sentients, praying to the forge for salvation. A century of slipping closer to the edge of what the Forge will permit of you, and it ends here and now. Four centuries of meddling in the affairs of my masters have led you to this. A cold death, alone in the void. As your life fades, never question one thing. I showed you an image of a man you hate, I never made you forget about the innocents you just killed. "
The voice was gone, and he never learned the name of the entity the Splygothian lords sent to see to his fall. All that was left to him was a faint ember of the power he one held, and the axe in his hand. A fragment of his own soul reformed in the fire of the Cosmic Forge, not even his former master could take it from him. He clutched it for a heartbeat considering simply allowing himself to fade away.
" Fook that. "
He thought.
In his mind's eye he drifted back in time centuries to a lifetime spent on the mining ships of his clan. He knew how to make the most of time in little or no air, even if it had been centuries since he needed breath in his lungs. Even a fallen cosmic knight, was a thing of power. Between the two he had time enough perhaps. Time for what? Revenge? On who? The forge? The splugoth? No, whoever it was that pushed him over the edge. He would learn their name, and then he would bring them his vengeance.
His faded vision spotted more armored minions dead in the void, but there armor was all of the same type, and if they could be gathered perhaps a functioning suit of armor could be gathered to give him breath in the void for a time at least.
He tossed his axe carefully to hit the closest one with the blunt end, and then called the axe back to him via their faded but very much intact bond.
Before his breath ran out he would have armor again. A poor replacement, but it would do till a ship arrives to investigate the blast, and scavenge to the wreckage.
He woke to the cold of his cell, and the sound of distant words in the ancient language of dragons and elves. Some fool is speaking without knowing or caring if the jailor had to be listening. This could only end one way, but it might be enough of a distraction. He knew however this was a risk he could take exactly once.
He then thought silent thoughts.
The fairest of them fought the need for sleep bitterly. She'd spent considerably to minimize the need for it. Her perfectly healthy heart had been removed and replaced with a superior model. The enchanted symbiotic organism that now pumped blood through her body was larger, more robust and thumped in her chest like something meant for a great ape. When she had at last reluctantly slipped into an uneasy sleep. Her dreams were bitter things full of nightmares and "heros"
It had been beautiful when it started, or ended rather. The cheering in the streets, smiled on the faces of free slaves.
The world of New Rynncrth was the final fallback position of Lord Rynncrth, a splugorth intelligence pushed out of the Anvil galaxy after the empire's throne world "Old Rynncrth" was lost to the hated Mechanoids. As one group of monsters consumed another he and a small core of loyalists fled to a new world in secret. From the shadows Lord Rynncrth plotted to reclaim a new empire. Until one day.
The city burned, the ONE nameless city in this remote world. Ellowyn was carried through the streets by her mother as the booming telepathic message echoed through the minds of all.
"HEAR ME GOOD PEOPLE AND KNOW THAT YOU ARE FREE! YOUR OPPRESSOR IS DEAD! CAST OFF YOUR CHAINS AND BE FREE! KNOW THAT MY ALLIES AND I WISH NOT TO RULE TO TRADE ONE DESPOT FOR ANOTHER ONLY THAT YOU CHOOSE YOUR OWN DESTINY!"
She opened one eye despite her fear and saw a great hulking brodkil ripping a man in half. She hid her eyes again tightly.
Her mother's voice filled her ears, she would never forget the sound of her begging.
"Tam open the door Tam PLEASE! Tam, my husband and I belonged to the Lord! We carried his messages and kept his secrets. As far as anyone else is concerned we were on his side! My husband is already dead, so please if you bear kindness for us hide our daughter!"
Then her mother was gone, and she was left with a guardian. Her young mind just barely remembered him from when they were both small together until he began to grow, and she didn't.
"Human's" her father had told her. "Are not like us Ellowyn. Their lives are short, best not to get attached."
As she grew her guardian grew older and older still until she was finally old enough to understand. Then she was alone in a world without heroes or villains, only monsters, and desperate men.
Sitting up on the cold metal flooring she shivered. Taking a moment to stroke the smooth carapace of the scarab-like creature bonded to the back of her left hand. It hated the cold as much as she did, or at least she told herself that at least.
At times when she would have otherwise been sleeping she wondered what had become of her original heart. Resold? Discarded? Eaten? Ellowyn opened her eyes unable to do nothing any longer.
Standing she dressed in the rags she had left after her capture. Then the elf closed the eyes she was born with and opened the one she'd acquired for herself.
In the center of her forehead rested an eye of elylore. Another mythic symbiote and one of the keys to the power her captors had over the large areas of space they controlled.
The implant flooded her brain with images sharper than her own ever could. She could feel the iris get wider or narrower with a faint humm as she focused. It's vision extended beyond the mortal plane and even let her look at the other worldly.
Glancing across the hall revealed just enough of Uther to reveal his aura. The dwarf was covered in a remnant of something wondrous. He was a faded ember of something that once blazed like a star. To see that aura now faded, and dying was a sad thing. Not that Elle cared much for those things. There was more about him but she didn't care to ponder it.
Turning from the dwarf across the hall she looked up at the grate that separated her cell from the newcomer. A minor leap let her grasp the bars and look down at the frail human. Her otherworldly vison plunged into the depths of the newcomer.
Young for a human and battered. Red hair matted with mud and her own blood. One handed was a mass of bruises and one of her knees was swollen. Power clung to the girl like a cloak. It was bright shining and ready to grow. Her mind and soul potent with power while still having the eager flickering one only saw in the truly young. This girl was many things, a gifted magi, one whose mind was potent with power all its own. Yet this was not uncommon in creation, and better than here had been undone by the splugorthian legions.
She whispered in the dark thoughtlessly forgetting for a moment the jailer was always listening.
" What are you child? One of the squids experiments that bore fruit? Something new or someone's lost sion? "
Her great eye focused in and she saw the girl as if she was standing over her. The newcomers wounds were healing even with all the ward magic in place to prevent active use of power for such things. Her knee was shrinking to normal size bit by bit and Ellowyn wondered if she would even keep sight in her badly swollen eye. As the girl began waking from a fitful sleep Ellowyn was reminded of the countless times she herself had woken battered and afraid in the darkness.
"Why do they want you girl? Time will tell." She told herself. If nothing else Ellowyn understood the value of time.
She landed soundlessly on her bare feet and she lay down on the ground, and waited in meditation.
The last coming of the sleepers, dreamed of the setting sun over Hadrian's Hold were the children of the Tuatha de Dananna made peace with men of the 9th Hibernian Legion. There Gwendolyn McDonagh saw a dark haired woman, pale and beautiful, kneeling in the water of the new danube, washing her father's battered armor. Beside her a severed left hand clutched Retaliator, the sword of legend. Forged by gods in a time before time, and found by her cousin on a summer of adventure that felt so long ago now. The woman was the Morrigan, the phantom queen, goddess of war, fate and death. The queen of the other world turned from her task and looked up at Gwen. No word was spoken, but the message was clear. No one was coming, to save her.
For a heartbeat she was there again, on her final battlefield with people she was closest with. Her cousin Kirby with his magic sword, beside her lover, the half fomorian giant Eitan. Both broken under the traitors boot heel. Then the ravens cried as her vision turned blurry. Birds that were not there that day her world ended, but they were in her dream. Their screams kept her awake just a heartbeat longer. The traitor Altara, love of Kirby's young life spoke in the ancient tongue of the elves.
" Infiltrator six to command ship. The druid is dead, and his acolytes with him. The weapon is a holy sword, unfit for retrieval. The secondary asset is a potentially viable first generation scion. Dropping a locator before moving on to the next target. "
She awoke with a shutter, to the cold and the dark of the cell. For three beats of her thundering heart she almost sees me. Then she remembered her dream, and the nightmare she'd woken into. Her one good eye welled up with tears.
" Goodbye Father, goodbye Kirby, goodbye Eitan my love. May we meet again in the next life, or that queir heaven my love used to speak of. For this world, for this life, it's at an end. "
Gwen then pulled herself to her feet, her knee throbbed with pain, but it was possible to stand if she favored her other leg. She then moved to the door with a limp, and picked up what remained of the bronze bowel the jailor had left. It had been full of a cold watery gruel she'd drank most of through silent sobs in the darkness. Carrying it to the far corner of the cell she placed down the bowel, and through great pain knelt before it. From her belt pouch no one had cared to take from her, she removed a small knife. More a tool than a thing meant for battle it was however sharp. Running the blade along the underside of her swollen eye the way she'd been shown by a good man long ago, she felt a parting of her flesh, and flow of warm dark blood running down her cheek. The swelling went down with the release of the pressure her eye at long last opened.
Maybe it was just in her mind, but with both eyes now open the darkness of the room seemed less deep. The blood dribbled down into the bowel making for a meager offering to the phantom queen, but it was an offering nonetheless. Gwen prayed in the darkness.
" I call to you,
Daughter of Ernmas,
Sister of battle and sovereignty,
I call to you
Goddess of war-craft,
victory, and death
I call to you Great Queen
Morrigan, Lady of Phantoms
Be with me now. "
Gwen turned her mind inward her energy reserves replenished, and went to work on her battered form. Whatever magic held her power incheck didn't work on anything she used within her own body. Her knee popped a few times and the wound under her eye closed into a thin scar. Lastly flexing her right hand there was only a tiny amount of pain.
" Best we are going to get then. "
Next: Chapter 3 " The Run Begins. "