LIFEROCK

A Lost Novel of Earthdawn



JAK KOKE

Seattle, Washington

Also by Jak Koke:

Dead Air

The Dragon Heart Saga

Stranger Souls

Clockwork Asylum

Beyond the Pale

The Terminus Experiment (with Jonathan Bond) 

Copyright © 2003 by Jak Koke Design by Karawynn Long

Cover painting by Crystal Larson Earthdawn and Barsaive are registered trademarks of FASA Corporation. Used with permission.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from both the copyright holder and the publisher.

Per Aspera Press

a division of

Viridian City Media

2137 North 61st Street

Seattle, WA 98103

http://www.perasperapress.com/

For Seana,

with gratitude and love.



And for Greg Gorden,

whose generosity made this book possible.

 Foreword 

Since its inception way back in 1993, Liferock has been on a long quest for publication. It was the first novel I finished entirely on my own without help from collabora-tors, and although my writing has improved over the years, I remain quite fond (and proud) of this novel.

After I completed “Coiled in Dark Amber” — the Earthdawn novella that was published in Talisman — I set out to sell a novel to FASA. I loved the Earthdawn universe and its high-magic milieu. I especially thought obsidimen were fascinating. I wanted to help develop their culture.

Thus, the concept behind Liferock was conceived. I sent it to FASA with six other novel proposals, and was eventually contacted by their novel editor, Donna Ippolito. She said they were interested in seeing what I could do with Liferock. There was to be no actual contract, however. She wanted me to write most of the book on spec, so that she could see if I could actually pull it off.

I didn’t know either. I’d never written a novel before.

Could I actually do it? I hoped so.

So I wrote a good sixty thousand words and sent them off vi

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in chapters for evaluation by Donna and Lou Prosperi, FASA’s Earthdawn Line Developer. They had several valuable comments and suggestions along the way, but ultimately they concluded that I was actually pretty good at this novel writing thing.

I was given a contract. With Lou’s guidance I finished the book and it was put into the publication queue as number eleven in the series. I was ecstatic. I had sold a novel, and it was going to be read by a lot of people. This is why I had become a writer!

While I waited for Liferock to be published, I wrote a proposal for a Shadowrun novel; FASA liked the idea, so I went on to complete what would become my first published book —Dead Air. When that novel was well received, I proposed writing something more epic and world-changing, perhaps spanning two or three books. I launched into the heretofore most ambitious writing project of my career, the trilogy of books in The Dragon Heart Saga.

Unfortunately, while the books in my trilogy sold very well, Earthdawn novel sales never reached expected goals.

The novel line was dropped by the publisher (Penguin ROC), and although FASA promised that they had plans to print and distribute the Earthdawn novels anyway, they only managed to get one more published before the whole novel line was can-celled.

And that might have been the end of Liferock’s journey if I had been content to let it lie. I wasn’t. I spoke with my good friend and long-time agent, Don Gerrard. He advised me to get the print rights back from FASA, and he helped me draft a letter to them requesting such. I did so, and FASA not only released the rights, but also generously granted permission for me to use their Earthdawn trademarks.

However, I eventually learned that — permission notwith-standing — other publishers were skittish about taking on a This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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book set in a universe copyrighted by another company. It seemed like Liferock would be consigned to the trunk forever.

But as the years passed, the field of publishing changed.

Print-on-demand technology increased possibilities for individuals and small presses, while the Internet created new options for distribution and marketing. I never intended to self-publish any of my books, but I also felt strongly that Liferock deserved to be in print . . . and so I took the plunge.

I began the publication process on my own, but it quickly expanded. Karawynn Long and I have decided to use the publication of Liferock as a proof-of-concept for launching a new small publishing company, Per Aspera Press. After Liferock, we will begin bringing out other books, including Caroline Spector’s two Earthdawn novels, Scars and Little Treasures, which were published in German translation but have never been printed in English. (Visit www.lostearthdawn.com for the latest information.) So my first novel is now at last in print. I’ve made a number of improvements to the original, based on excellent edito-rial feedback from Karawynn. It is a better book than it was ten years ago, and I have been told by people who know nothing of Earthdawn that the book has appeal for a wide range of fantasy fiction readers.

I hope you will agree.

— Jak Koke

September 2003

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) A note for Earthdawn fans: Liferock was written just after the first Earthdawn rule book came out, and because the game world has been developed and changed since then, this novel might contain some contradictions to published game material and is likely to have some non-canonical information. If you are interested in the Earthdawn roleplaying game, please visit Living Room Games at http://www.lrgames.com/.

 Prologue 

Thousands of years ago . . .

Before science, before history, before the fall of magic destroyed all evidence of the wonders that had been, there was an age of magic and legend — an age of hero-ism, of terror and of fantastical races and creatures. The age of Earthdawn.

In this mythical time, magic flowed freely. Mages, sword-masters, troubadours, and smiths bent the patterns of life with their mystical powers. Magic pervaded everything, from the crafting and use of simple tools to the construction and piloting of huge and complex air ships. Magic technology was the status quo. Magic was power; knowledge and understanding of its uses meant the difference between life and death.

But the rise of magic also weakened the fabric of the metaplanes. Horrific creatures from the astral plane began to spring forth in the world, ravaging the land, the waters, and mankind. At first the Horrors were few and weak, but over time their numbers grew and their power increased. They became a pestilent tide, a Scourge that could not be turned back.

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The great mages of the Theran Empire understood the futility of fighting this Scourge; instead they prepared their peoples for a life sealed inside hidden and magically warded kaers. Most lived out the five-hundred-year holocaust in great underground cities, but some concealed themselves behind powerful veils of magic. Elves fortified their forest kingdom and the stone-like obsidimen hibernated deep inside their liferocks.

The tragic butchery of the Scourge lasted for half a mil-lennium. Horrors wreaked atrocities across the country, seek-ing out the kaers, sustained only on the pain and sorrow of intelligent beings. They breached many of the defenses and it seemed only a matter of time before the races of the world would be destroyed or go insane from confinement.

Until one day the Scourge ended. The power of the Horrors dwindled and they retreated to the hells from whence they came . . . mostly. Slowly, the curious races of Barsaive emerged from their hiding places, tentatively stepping back into the light. Humanity in all its forms — Dwarfs, Elves, Obsidimen, Humans, Orks, Trolls, T’skrang, Windlings — all spilled forth to explore the new dawn of their world.

In one part of Barsaive, deep in the recesses of the Servos Jungle, towered mammoth mesas of reddish sandstone.

These giant monolithic structures were called tepuis¸ and their cliffs rose up through the clouds and above. Rainforest clawed at their bases in a vain attempt to erode them to the ground. Exotic plants and animals thrived in the hollows and isolated crevices.

In the lower tiers, families of monkeys played in the fertile forest, and brightly colored macaws built nests of mud in the riverbanks sheltered by the overarching canopy of trees. Atop, This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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daily thunder and lightning storms ravaged the rock, the torrents stripping it free of soil. It was said that the Passion Thystonius caused the storms when he scratched his back on the ruddy stone.

The highest and most spectacular waterfalls in Barsaive plummeted from the heights of these mesas, the silver mist blown by the wind often never reaching the jungle floor, thousands of feet below. The tepuis were called elentriamal, the lost islands, by the elves who lived in the Jungle. They were as beautiful as they were dangerous, and many Name-givers have called the elentriamal of Servos Jungle their home.

One of the giant mesas, called Tepuis Garen in the dwarf tongue, was liferock to a brotherhood of obsidimen. The rock folk lived on or inside the stone near the top of the tepuis, where the spiritual force was strongest.

Obsidimen were a unique race, sexless and androgynous, born fully-grown from their liferock. They found much hu-mor in the sexual politics of other Name-givers. Obsidimen called themselves Topristanock in their language — a word which was neither singular nor plural and meant ‘Souls of the Earth.’ Despite the pun on their rock-like nature inherent in the dwarven appellation ‘obsidimen,’ they were not offended by it. They found it amusing, like many things the energy-wasters did.

Tepuis Garen was also home to other races; elves and windlings lived in the jungle around the rock, and there was a village of human and dwarf folk that had grown up by the waterfall-fed pool at the north end of the rock and along the stream which ran from the pool. The villagers called their town Rabneth.

The obsidimen of the Garen Brotherhood tolerated the energy-wasters so near to their home as long as their law with regard to the liferock was not breached. The other Name-givers hardly noticed the obsidimen at all. Many of the younger vil-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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lagers had never seen one; they believed the rock folk were the stuff of old tales, fuel for troubadours’ stories and legends.

They could not have been more mistaken.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Tepuis Garen



 Chapter One 

About a hundred years after the end of the Scourge, Gvint Od became the sole Elder of the Garen Brotherhood. Gvint stood at the edge of the Deathstone and watched seventeen of his brotherhood gather. They formed a silent circle around the Deathstone — a broad, flat boulder which served as a conduit into the liferock.

Gvint stood taller than the other obsidimen; his skin was the color of sandstone and the texture of granite. Gvint had a regally sloped forehead capped with his horkla of auburn braided with black. The horkla was a colorful skulldress worn by each adult brother at special ceremonies. Gvint’s body had been hardening over the years like a chitinous outer coating, yet he could still surprise the young ones with quick movements to keep them on guard. He wore ceremonial robes of magenta and indigo, interspersed with black and auburn in elaborate patterns. These were the colors of the Garen Brotherhood, and Gvint had been wearing the robes at every ceremony since he had become an Elder.

A wave of sadness came over him as he watched Yonik Bne pronounce his intention to add his body and spirit to the 6

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liferock. Yonik’s passing would leave Gvint as sole Elder because Reid Quo — the next Elder — had not yet returned from his wanderings. Yonik had been Gvint’s friend and brother for countless years; they had passed through the Scourge together, nourished in the deep rock by Ganwetrammus — the spirit force of the liferock.

“As clay, Ganwetrammus bore my body into the outside world, gave life and legend to my physical form. As clay, I return.” Yonik removed his robes a garment at a time, folding them one by one and handing them to Gvint who set them neatly to one side.

When Yonik was completely naked save for his horkla, he stepped up onto the Deathstone and lay on his back at the center. The flat rock was roughly circular, rising knee-high above the surface of the tepuis, and measured three obsidimen-lengths across. Ruddy gray-black in color, like cooled lava, the stone bore scars. Grooves and water channels, etched into the rock’s surface, traced meandering paths from the center of the rock to the edge, where they became deeper — miniature chasms and crevasses.

“The time for wandering has come to an end,” Yonik said, leaning his head back. “I can no longer hold off the will of Ganwetrammus and wait for Reid Quo’s return. It is thus that I welcome the Eternal Dreaming.”

No one spoke. The faces of each obsidiman stared som-berly at their Elder. The Final Merge was a time of completion, they all knew that. The last arc in the circle of life. But it was also a sad moment, when a great spirit would be re-absorbed.

Not lost, but diluted.

Yonik started to chant softly as he lay, his words barely au-dible over the whisper of wind through the Dance of Stones — columns of jumbled boulders which surrounded the Deathstone. “Ganwetrammus, accept the clay of my soul. The mud of my flesh. I return to you.”

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The brotherhood picked up the chant, their musical voices weaving a shell of harmony against the wind. They sang of Yonik’s life, of their desire to see him reunited with Ganwetrammus. They rejoiced in his death, for he would rejoin the pattern of the liferock. And his passing would mean the birth of new brothers.

Their melody held magic in it, the unity of their deep voices becoming a force of its own. And over time, under the influence of that force, Yonik’s body began to turn gray. Days passed as the brothers sang for their Elder, the rise and fall of the sun barely noticeable to them.

As the ceremony’s magic took hold, Yonik’s features blurred; his arms and legs lost clarity until his form seemed to sag under its own weight. His words slurred in his throat as the flesh of his face grew pasty, and his lips sunk into his mouth.

On the fourth day of the ceremony, Gvint hefted a huge ceramic urn which he had filled with water from the spring-fed pool beside the temple. He set it atop the scarred surface of the Deathstone and climbed to stand beside it.

When Yonik’s throat could no longer sing the words, Gvint spoke for him. “Accept the clay of his soul. The mud of his flesh.” As Gvint chanted, the liferock reached out to him, and the soles of his feet merged through the surface of the Deathstone.

A slight sensation of falling, the stone opening up beneath him. Then the hardening of his flesh, just his feet this time, becoming an extension of the Deathstone, rooted pillars of scarred rock.

This was not a normal merging; Gvint felt no union with Ganwetrammus and no communion with the other brothers.

He did not lose himself in the merge, as he usually did, to become a part of a larger and more substantial creation. Instead he felt a disconcerting duality. He was the rock. And simulta-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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neously, he was Yonik.

He felt Yonik’s body resting over him, the weight and the smell of it like a sack of wet sand. But at the same time, he sensed the pattern of Yonik’s mind, the fluidity of his muscles under the influence of the ceremony’s magic. He experienced the heaviness of his brother’s body as it turned to brown earth, the preparation of his spirit for fusion with the pattern of Ganwetrammus.

Gvint remained merged with the Deathstone as the ceremony progressed, several days, until the liferock told him the time had finally come. He bent down and lifted the huge urn.

From it, he poured cold, clear water over Yonik’s body. The transparent liquid splashed over the Elder’s skin at first, running down through the lattice of canals on the rock’s surface.

But soon, the water mixed with the claying flesh and diluted it, carrying the mud with it back to the rock. Washing away the bulk of Yonik’s body, his skin and insides in streams of gray-brown. Finally, only his horkla remained, rinsed clean and empty.

Through his fusion with the rock, Gvint felt the disintegration of Yonik from inside. The singularity of one mind diluted into a million drops of consciousness, until Yonik Bne no longer existed; each broken filament of his fractured pattern had joined with the whole of the liferock. His flesh had returned to its origin to be recycled into a future member of the brotherhood. Even as the last of the water fell from the temple urn, Gvint saw the muddy remnants of Yonik solidify at the edge of the Deathstone, becoming part of it. Adding depth to its scars.

Intense pain shot through each of them as the last bits of Yonik rejoined Tepuis Garen. Gvint felt it most deeply, being the eldest now. But each of the brotherhood sensed the passing of Yonik Bne. Those present nearly collapsed from the force of the rock’s signal.

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Gvint froze for several minutes; watched the urn slip from his hands shatter on the Deathstone. The rock released him from the ceremonial merging, and he dropped to his knees on the stone.

Those of the brotherhood who were away in distant regions of Barsaive and the world beyond also felt the passing of Yonik Bne. They felt it like an ache in their gut — the dull pain of emptiness. But it passed quickly, and they knew what it was.

Each took a moment to remember their brotherhood, remind-ing themselves of their true nature. Of their individual connection to Tepuis Garen.

And all of them knew that Reid Quo — the next Elder —also felt the passing. Reid Quo heard and would return to join Gvint at the temple atop Tepuis Garen.

When the signal had passed, Gvint stood, gathered up Yonik’s horkla and cleaned away the shards of the broken urn.

The horkla would be mended, if necessary, and passed along to the next brother to enter adulthood. Gvint put the horkla with the other garments and began the meandering walk to the temple through the maze of natural columns and huge boulders which made up the Dance of Stones.

He waited at the temple for Reid Quo to join him as the second Elder of the Garen Brotherhood. Every brotherhood must have two Elders. Yet, as the years went by and Reid did not return to Tepuis Garen, Gvint began to worry. Without Reid, there could be no namings and no births. Reid’s absence hurt the brotherhood.

He tried to remember the last time he had seen Reid.

About five hundred years before the Long Dreaming of the Scourge, when the thought of Horrors was distant and the land flourished, Reid and Gvint had returned to Ganwetrammus with most of the brotherhood to participate in the Fire Bath ceremony for Jibn Sra.

Reid had been full of awe and energy, newly Awakened This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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and just Named at his own Fire Bath forty or fifty years before. After the celebration, Reid had gone back out into the world. He had talked of Thera, the Netlundion brotherhood, and wondrous magic he would learn from the ancients there.

Reid had visited brotherhoods in southwest Barsaive and beyond, devoting his life to sharing knowledge with brotherhoods across the world. He had spoken of his life as a journey that must never stop.

Gvint had also traveled to Thera, briefly. And he had visited Netlundion — the only brotherhood on the island nation.

From the magicians there, he had learned to master the intricacies of commanding the elements, but his path did not cross with Reid’s. The island was a crowded place, and Reid had already taken his leave of the island’s liferock. Later, as the Scourge approached, most of the Brotherhood returned to Tepuis Garen, but Reid never made it back. Gvint had assumed him lost or overseas, unable to return.

There was a rumor that Ohin Yeenar, the last Elder of the Othellium Brotherhood, had seen Reid since the end of the Scourge. But no one from the Garen Brotherhood could con-firm the rumor, and Gvint didn’t put much faith in it. Ohin Yeenar was ancient even by obsidiman standards and his mind traveled a dangerous and meandering path, often fabricating events which may never have happened.

Still, Reid couldn’t be dead. If he had died without returning — a horrible thought, but still a possibility — Ganwetrammus would know and call Jibn Sra, the next in line. Since that had not happened, Reid was alive, somewhere in the world, trying to get back.

The only thing to do was wait.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Two 

Pabl Evr arrived at his liferock on a day as clear as spring water; the mist ring which usually clung to the rock had dissipated in the afternoon heat. Pale blue sky peeked through the tiny spaces in the interlocking tree limbs. Underneath, the jungle slept; the air hung still and humid, keeping the buzzing insects in their nests and making the monkeys lazy for the afternoon. Under a fruiting banana tree a few miles from Tepuis Garen, Pabl and his two companions stopped on the edge of the trail to rest.

The huge mesa loomed before them like a jagged wall of stone; they had been walking in its shadow for most of the morning, but the sun had finally cleared the rock. Now it shone through the high jungle canopy in sporadic patches.

The cliff facing them was sheer; a waterfall plummeted over this side, erupting from the rock near the top and falling almost three thousand feet. The Garen Brotherhood called it the riflev — the water that flies.

Pabl focused on the top of the tepuis just above the riflev.

The temple of his brotherhood was perched there, on the cliff edge, but he could not see it from this distance. Built from 12

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slabs of the same rock, it blended too well to be seen. The temple was Pabl’s destination; there he would end his twenty-year journey of exploration and learning. The end of his Awakening would be marked by the Fire Bath ritual when he would finally learn his Name in the language of his people, becoming at last an adult member of his brotherhood. And he was anxious for that.

Of course it might not happen if Reid Quo had failed to return. The last Pabl heard, Reid had not been seen since well before Yonik Bne’s death ten years ago. Pabl had felt Yonik’s passing like a keen blow to his chest, a cold ache which chilled him like a winter storm.

Still, there was hope that Reid had returned in the years since. And perhaps, even if Reid remained lost, the Fire Bath ritual could be performed by Gvint Od alone. Pabl didn’t know.

That was why he had returned home.

Pabl glanced down at his two companions. They looked haggard from the long journey, resting under the broad leaves of the banana tree. Road dust coated Jan’s red beard, dull-ing his normally animated face, and a fine lattice of thin salt lines had crystallized on his forehead below his fiery hair. Jan Farellon was a dwarf, and wore a stylish wizard’s cloak made from a collage of overlapping patches, each a different color and pattern. The blues and the reds were dingy with dirt and faded from long exposure to the sun.

Now, Jan was hunched over, focusing on a thread-weaving puzzle which he held in both hands. His eyes were glazed over in that far-off stare which meant he was using thread sight.

“This level is too tricky,” he said, looking up from the puzzle.

“I can’t manage to weave to it.” He breathed a heavy sigh and tossed the puzzle to Pabl.

“You’ve only been trying for an hour,” Pabl said, letting out a deep laugh.

Jan looked up at him, a scowl on his face. “An hour today, This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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an hour yesterday, and three hours the day before. I just can’t get past the fourth loop. My empty stomach must be affecting my concentration.”

The elf, Celagri, mimicked Jan’s voice, adding a degree of whine. “My empty stomach must be affecting my otherwise flawless concentration.” She laughed.

Celagri lay on the soft ground, her head resting on her pack, lounging in her scarred black leather pants and jerkin.

She was slight of build, with the telltale pointed ears and fine bone lines. Her skin was the color of brown clay; she wore her black hair pulled into a tight knot behind her head, and shadows seemed to gather around her. Celagri was an excellent liar and a good thief. Jan and Pabl had met her in Kratas some ten years back and now trusted her completely, for she had saved their lives on several occasions.

“Shut up, elf,” Jan said. “What do you know about thread-weaving, anyhow.”

Celagri widened her eyes in mock shock. “Well, pardon me, your most noble master thread-weaver, sir. I didn’t mean to —”

“Just shut up.”

Pabl smiled, wondering if the two would break into a full bickering session. Now, that would be funny. Standing in a small patch of sunshine that penetrated the jungle’s bower, Pabl’s body was as wide as the other two combined, and easily twice the height of the dwarf. His ruddy skin was the color of red sandstone, like the cliff face, and his head sloped to a bare and hairless peak. He wore a loose shirt and trousers of plaited indigo and deep magenta, but no armor save the heavy bracers of dull silver which adorned his forearms.

Pabl mainly used the bracers for fighting, but ever since he had started learning wizarding spells, they doubled as his grimoire. Each spell was cut as runes on the facets of small dia-monds which were set into the metal in a hexagonal pattern.

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“Jan,” he said, “you must develop patience or you’ll never master the intricate items.”

“When you learn quick combat spells, I’ll learn patience.”

“I already know the spells.”

“Yes, but you don’t use them fast enough.”

“It doesn’t interest me to develop magic for combat. I have my hands and feet for that.” Pabl punched the air with clenched fists.

“I know, I know,” Jan said, combing fingers through his beard. “You study spell casting only for knowledge of the universe.” Pabl heard the sarcasm in the dwarf’s voice, but it had no effect.

“The more I know about the world, the more effectively I can heal it.”

“Right, that other discipline you profess to follow.”

“All obsidimen are purifiers at heart,” Pabl said. “Some of them just don’t listen to their hearts.”

When Jan didn’t respond, Pabl looked down at the puzzle in his hands. It was shaped from silver wire, bent to form a hollow polyhedron with ten sides. The wire traced an intricate, but not identical pattern on each side, and in certain places the wire dropped into the center or across to another face of the puzzle. He had picked it up at Bocco’s Magic Emporium in Bartertown. The puzzles were novelties for thread-weavers, challenging and good practice for spellcasters. He liked this one because each successive anchor point was progressively more difficult to weave a thread to. He had managed to nego-tiate its loops and twists through seven tiers.

He turned the polyhedron, nudging his mind to look at the object’s astral pattern. Each line of the wire was visible as thin glimmer of silver gossamer. Simple really, but growing more complex and difficult toward the center. As Pabl spun out the red gray filament of his thread, he concentrated on weaving it through the intricate interlacing of the puzzle’s This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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pattern.

The goal was to attach the thread to the key points, eventually reaching the center. As a simple precaution, Pabl never left his threads attached to it. You never know whose hands it might fall into.

“Pabl?”

Pabl let his thread astral dissipate, then squeezed his eyes closed and took a few steady breaths to clear his mind. When he opened them, he saw Celagri standing in front of him, brushing the dirt from her pants.

“Ready?” said the elf.

Pabl nodded, stowing the puzzle with his things and lifting the heavy backpack to his shoulders.

“Good, then,” she said. “Let’s move.”

Jan was slower. He cleaned himself off, retrieved a chunk of taro root to chew, and finally, with much grunting and carrying-on, hoisted his pack to his shoulders. He retrieved his wizard’s staff and nodded that he was ready. Jan had never liked the boring parts of the adventure, the hiking bits. But he lived for the thrilling discoveries, the chance confrontations.

Pabl remembered when the two of them had first met Celagri. The elf, young and naive, had tried to steal the jeweled wart which protruded from the third finger of Pabl’s right hand, thinking it was a ring.

Pabl had felt a small tugging, then nothing as the elf slipped off into the shadows. But Jan, always the quick one, caught the thief in a rapidly growing mass of magical vines which erupted suddenly from a small hedge to entangle and immobilize the unsuspecting elf.

Celagri screamed to be let go. Jan yelled warnings and threats at the elf. Pabl merely laughed at the two of them, bickering furiously over nothing of importance. He laughed without restraint for minutes until the elf and the dwarf had This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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stopped their yelling and stared at him.

The three of them had been together ever since. Now, they walked the final miles to the village of Rabneth. The road in this part of the jungle was much wider and more heavily traveled than it had been when Pabl had been through here twenty years earlier. It hurts to see it.

The road opened into a broad clearing, crowded at the edge by houses and low buildings made of wood and mud brick. Another new road led out of the clearing southwest around the base of the tepuis, and Pabl saw farmers driving carts along it. More development. But what really made his heart ache was the shantytown along the stream. About fifty or sixty ramshackle houses, built from bamboo and palm leaves, lined the stream on both sides.

“What is that?” he asked.

Jan looked up at him. “Looks like a miniature Bartertown,”

he said. “Gambling, whoring, even a slave market.”

Pabl felt a prickle wave travel along his skin. He hated places like this; they reminded him of the slums of Kratas.

This was his home. A shantytown like this here was more than depressing. It was unacceptable. “This place is an insult to Tepuis Garen,” he said. “It must be destroyed.”

“Now don’t get mad before we know everything,” Jan said.

“I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Let me do the talking; I’ll find out what’s going on.” Jan smiled, then he cast a spell on himself to clean away the road dust from his robe.

As they approached, much of the community stopped its daily labors and came out to greet the travelers. The towns-folk eyed Pabl with a mixture of suspicion and awe. When the three were completely surrounded and it was obvious that they weren’t going to be allowed to continue without intro-duction, the dwarf stepped forward.

“My name is Jan Farellon,” he said, making a grand flourish in his patched robe. “Some of you know me, or did know This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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me, as a youth. Untested and naive.

“I have had many adventures since leaving twenty years ago, with my good friend, Pabl Evr, and our companion, Celagri.” Jan gestured to the elf and the obsidiman.

Pabl had known Jan since waking from the rock, and the dwarf was his closest friend, but sometimes Jan could talk away even Pabl’s patience. Jan had grown up in Rabneth, bored and itching to get out by his fifteenth birthday. He always talked about how Pabl had rescued him from a life of cooking boiled potatoes and roasted wildebeest, of getting fat on Samson’s flat and stale brew. How he would’ve run off with a merchant caravan eventually.

“I now return to Rabneth,” Jan continued, “an adult, tempered and weathered by my travels. Worn and jaded and cyni-cal, as you can see.”

Abruptly, Pabl felt the pull of his liferock. Like a sublimi-nal, yearning wail, calling him. Everything around him faded.

Jan and Celagri and the whole village fell forgotten from his mind. He merely looked past the clearing to the cliff face, towering and sheer, straining up to the sky. Beautiful, he thought.

Home.

It had been years since he had experienced the Dreaming — communion with his brothers and the rock. He had been feeling the call of the rock for more than a year now, the compulsion to return. He had tried to resist at first because he wanted to stay in Bartertown to finish his training with Es-callio, the human wizard who had been mentor to both him and Jan.

But now, as Jan spoke to the villagers, his voice fading into the background of Pabl’s consciousness, the vision of the tepuis ingrained itself into Pabl’s mind. As the smell of riflev water vapor, blowing in a fine mist, triggered his instincts, the drive to merge became insistent, growing in urgency until all This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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thoughts of other things left Pabl’s mind. He strayed slightly from the others, moving involuntarily toward the cliff face.

“Pabl?”

He stopped. “My excuses, Jan. But I cannot tarry in the village with you. I must go to the rock now. I will return in a day or so to let you know when the Fire Bath ceremony will take place.”

A puzzled look crossed the dwarf’s face, but it soon passed.

He knew not to question Pabl’s actions. They’d been through much together, and even though Jan did not understand an obsidiman’s relationship with his liferock, he needed no explanation. “We will be at Samson’s Inn,” he said.

“I will find you there in a few days,” Pabl said. “Goodbye.”

Celagri nodded.

Pabl turned away and moved at a blistering run out of the village toward the cliff. The fragrance of impending satisfaction filled the air around him. Very soon he would rejoin the source of his life, and the brothers who shared that source.

Right now it was all he wanted. The rock was warm in the fading light, and his urgency increased as he picked his way up the steep path. Soon the path disappeared entirely and Pabl was clawing from ledge to ledge, from crevasse to column, climbing up the face of the cliff, nearly frantic in his desire to get home. He used magic to help him — a little levitation here and there to pass the more difficult spots.

The last time he had climbed up the tepuis was just after his birth. He had been guided up the Path of the First Merge by Gvint and Yonik, then he’d entered the First Dreaming —a hundred years’ communion with Ganwetrammus. He had learned the entire history of the liferock and the Garen Brotherhood during his First Dreaming. Ganwetrammus had forged the pattern of his spirit during that century, nursing him, shaping him until his spirit and body had fused and Pabl was ready to go into the world for a brief time, before returning to This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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join the Garen Brotherhood as an adult.

Wind whipped at him as clouds blew in from the west. He looked up. A crevice about three hundred feet above and to his right led to the top, but he knew that it would be full of cascading water in less than a half-hour. It was time to merge for the night.

He stood on a narrow ledge and prepared himself. He removed his backpack and took off his clothes, folding them into the pack. He breathed deeply and started the merge, squatting with his back against the stone to form a pocket behind his knees which would protect his belongings once he and the rock were one.

The stone warmed him, hardening his skin and solidifying his muscles as he melted into it. He hadn’t done this in a long, long time, but the merging was effortless. He opened his spirit to the elemental force inside the tepuis, and the rock drew him in. Pabl felt himself sliding down into the stone, falling . . . falling . . . As the features of his body crusted over, he heard the whispers of the others, and he felt the echoes of their inner voices in his mind.

He kept his eyes open for a minute so that he could watch the sun setting behind a misty jungle mat below. Red gleams painted the bellies of the high, black clouds until the sun was gone. Then the wind gusted and the rain started.

Thunder crashed above as lightning struck the rock.

Pabl felt the lightning touch the rock like a slight itch in the back of his mind. He closed his eyes and let Ganwetrammus take him. He entered the Dreaming and lost himself.

But as he melded with the liferock, he knew something was wrong. The minds of his brothers touched him, telling him that Reid Quo had not returned. They were glad Pabl had come home, but the ritual of the Fire Bath could not happen without Reid.

Pabl would not be Named.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Three 

Sangolin called to him. Always called to him.

He awoke in a daze to a hot night, lit by the perpetual fire glow. He straightened up, feeling the cracking of his skin. He was among the oldest here and felt it in his bones and the hardening of his flesh. The glow brightened as he left the cave and stepped out onto the wide ledge.

Far below was a great sea of molten rock which stretched into the blackness of night in the distance. Rising winds brought the great searing hiss and stifling heat up from the scarlet ocean and baked him. He felt a remote gladness in the fact that the wind was blowing the wrong way to bring the steam over from the swamps. The sulfur steam was always suffocating. And as much as he could feel anything, he hated the steam.

But now, he had to go. Sangolin called.

He walked the well-worn path along the wide ledge, and he wore no clothing, no covering save the red body paints which striped haphazardly across his skin. All at Sangolin wore the same paint, similar patterns, no clothing. As it should be.

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He made his way past the caves where others of his race slept. The path meandered around old boulders and rock into a clearing, broad and flat, set slightly away from the edge of the cliff. At one side of the clearing, an ancient rock slide sloped upward into the darkness of the mountainside.

A heavy stillness pervaded the clearing, the aftermath of the feast earlier. They had netted a gargoyle, charred its flesh in the sea below, then hoisted the beast up. The feast had been grand, accompanied by body painting and dances, though he knew not why. He could still hear the drums in his head as though their echoes continued to reverberate off the valley walls.

In the center of the clearing, he saw a mess of the gargoyle’s bones in monochrome red. No one had cleaned up.

Drums and uneaten food lay scattered. The dark silhouettes of satisfied obsidimen lounged like fat orks, sleeping propped up against boulders. This was the way of things; how it went every night. How it always was, and always will be.

The heat lessened a bit as he left the cliff edge and moved toward the old avalanche. A path had been cleared of fallen rock, straight and wide, into the heart of the jumbled mountain. He walked slowly, methodically down the path, like he had always done. He could not remember doing anything else right now.

Occasionally there were glimpses of times before, memories of his life prior to Sangolin, but he could never make any sense of them. They were as random and jumbled as the fallen rock he was walking past. And he blocked them out whenever he could, for the only feelings brought by those broken memories were pain and longing.

The walls of broken stone rose on his left and right as he went farther towards the core of Sangolin until he was walking through a tunnel, lit now by the harsh white of glow crystals. The white light reflected off the blood-colored stone, This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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veined with crystals of blue-black. His own skin was a deep russet brown, chipped from age-old scars in some places and worn smooth in others.

The sound of the drums in his head dulled somewhat as he entered the cavern. It was cool in here, with a damp, unnatural chill. The cavern’s black canopy arched over him as he walked toward the rocky mass that was the core. Intense white crystals were cold, bright stars in the darkness, blinding him. They cast sharp shadows across Sangolin’s mottled skin. In the space above him, water dripped from stalactites, and collected in a deep, blind pool hidden in the dim recesses of the cave.

Sangolin beckoned to him, irresistible now, drawing him.

Anticipation rose inside him, his ancient pulse quickening as he prepared to enter the Dreaming with Sangolin. He stepped close, his breath catching in his chest. Soon he would feel the sweet rush of merging with the core, his abandonment to the joining.

Sangolin’s core was a flowing lump of rocky forms, and a warm hum emanated from it. In places, the shapes of obsidimen bodies were recognizable in its surface; arms, legs and torsos of others already in communion. Some faces showed in the surface, eyes distant, jaws slack in ecstasy.

Reid, he heard in his mind, come to me now.

The name meant nothing, though he knew Sangolin was speaking to him. He could hold out no longer. Stepping forward, he pressed himself against the flesh of the core. It yielded under his caress, pulling him into a locked embrace.

Pleasure rushed into him, filling the gaping hole inside.

Then he felt the chaotic minds of the others, hungry for escape, but unwilling to give up the embrace. And as satisfaction overwhelmed him, he became one with the others, and lost what little was left of himself to Sangolin. To them all.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Four 

Disappointment and longing overwhelmed Pabl as he sank into the Dreaming with Ganwetrammus. His desire to be Named — to join the adult members of the brotherhood — pulsed deep within him, leaving him cold and unsatisfied.

I will not be Named, Pabl thought. Without Reid, the Fire Bath ceremony cannot be performed.

But slowly, as the spirit of Ganwetrammus touched him, Pabl’s dissatisfaction gave way to the merge, bringing him into the collective. Even as he lost himself to the rock, he found another identity — a communal self. Soon he felt complete again, more fully himself than he had ever remembered.

There were others with him in the liferock: Gvint and Ywerk; Tidre, Gavi, Wennith, and Linu. Pabl knew them all.

They were his brothers, merged in other parts of the rock.

Hagnit was here too, and Bintr, with Grimchak, Olda, Penthr, and Vilcraq. They sensed his presence and welcomed him as one, conveying their regrets that his Naming would have to be postponed.

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would be merely a child, despite the fact that his body had lived over a hundred years. As a child, he listened and felt while Dreaming, but he did not “talk.” He did not touch others with his spirit, but they touched him. He did not shape the rock. It shaped him.

He shared the experience of his last twenty-one years with the others. His Awakening. Through his memories, they saw Bartertown and Kratas, they followed his search for the lost library of Yon Fuiras and his freeing of the lost windling kaer — Choamistra. They experienced his memories as their own, and shared some of what had happened to them during the time Pabl had been away.

Time passed in the Dreaming. In the blink of a windling’s eye it was morning, and Pabl could feel the sun’s warmth on the top of the mesa. Pabl experienced images and sensations in the Dreaming — impressions, but not words. He woke from the Dreaming slowly, and his memory of what he had experienced began to fade. It always did; from what his brothers said, only the very old could remember their Dreaming.

His skin softened as he emerged, as he opened his eyes to a blue sky above, a mat of white cloud below. He relished the emergence. No need to rush. His years outside had altered his perception of time. He had become used to a life among creatures of haste.

It was mid-morning by the time he started climbing again, and he reached the top by noon. And by then his anger had grown again. I will need to speak with Gvint, he thought. How long will I have to wait before the Fire Bath? It is so easy for them to be patient; they already know their Names.

Names were sacred, and though Pabl already had an appellation in the common languages, he had no true Name.

And until he did, he would be undefined, indistinct, his pattern not fully realized. An obsidiman name would shape his spirit, would help define him and make him less vulnerable.

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It would tie him more closely with Ganwetrammus and his brotherhood. Without it, he would never be complete.

At the top of the mesa, Pabl stood on the edge of the cliff and stared out at the thick, cottony layer of cloud suspended a thousand feet below — so thick that it blocked out the jungle.

Many miles to the east rose another tepuis, jutting like a jagged ork’s tooth out of the cloud layer. There were more of the mesas to the south, Pabl knew, but he couldn’t see them from where he stood.

The elves are right to call them elentriamal, he thought.

For they are islands lost in the clouds. He savored the view for a few short minutes while he ate some bread, along with two bananas he had collected from the trail the day before. Then he turned away from the cliff, hefted his pack and picked his way toward the temple. It was time to find out about the lost Elder.

From below, the tepuis looked flat on top, but up close the surface was neither smooth nor level. It was a jumble of pitted and creviced boulders. Nothing grew on the top of the boulders because there was no soil and no protection from the storms, but in the hollows and the meandering crevices thirty or forty feet below, mosses and carnivorous flowers grew. And in the rain shadow of the stones, a variety of lichens and fungi flourished, some of which were deadly poisons.

Pabl wove his way through the spaces between the boulders, moving toward the sound of the waterfall. He had been traveling a few minutes when Chaiel Ro found him.

“Pabl, may I walk with you?” Chaiel said, running up. He wore nothing but loose brown pants. His broad chest was covered with chalk paste: indigo and forest green in swirling patterns. He was heavily muscled, strong, and skilled in the arts of a warrior. “I want to discuss something.”

“Yes, of course. It is good to see you, Chaiel,” Pabl said.

Chaiel was the next youngest brother, only thirty-two years This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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older than Pabl. He had helped guide Pabl during the first year of his Awakening. And after Chaiel had left him, replaced by Bintr Aar, Pabl had missed the younger brother’s emphasis on action and quick results. Bintr was almost as old as Gvint; he liked to ponder.

“I am concerned about Gvint,” Chaiel said as they made their way through the Dance of Stones. “I think he is feeling the strain of being sole Elder.”

Chaiel went on when Pabl didn’t respond. “The liferock was never meant to have only one Elder. We are weakening because no births can occur without both Elders. No Namings . . .”

“What is Gvint doing about it?” Pabl asked, almost too quickly.

Chaiel smiled. “Mostly just waiting. He seems to think that Reid will come wandering back to us if we just wait long enough. He is also using his magic to look for him. I don’t understand exactly how, but it involves summoning air elementals.”

“Is anyone actually searching for Reid?”

“Some of us have tried, but it was against Gvint’s advice.”

Pabl felt a surge of excitement. He turned and stared into Chaiel’s black eyes. “Really? Where did you look? Did you find out anything?”

“Patience, brother,” Chaiel said. “Have you heard the rumor of Ohin Yeenar?”

Pabl released Chaiel’s gaze and they continued walking.

“No,” he said.

“Ohin Yeenar is an ancient of the Othellium Brotherhood whose liferock was destroyed in the Scourge. He is the last of his brotherhood, and the rumor says that he has seen Reid Quo recently. As few as eighty years ago, perhaps just after the Scourge.” Chaiel frowned. “I’ve heard a number of conflict-ing stories,” he said. “One says that Ohin Yeenar entered self-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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dreaming with Reid. Another that Reid is Horror-marked. If that’s true, perhaps Reid’s Horror is preventing him from getting back. Maybe Reid is staying away on purpose to protect the liferock.”

“Did you go to see this ancient one?”

“No, but I want to,” Chaiel paused to take a breath. “And I want you to come with me.”

“Has anyone gone to talk with him?”

Chaiel hesitated for a minute. “Yes, two of our brothers have gone. The first, Lyrthus Rewt, never came back. He disappeared seven years ago. Bintr Aar was the other, about a year ago. He returned without any concrete information because Ohin Yeenar drove him away.”

“And you think we can succeed where Bintr failed?”

“We must try.” Chaiel released a loud sigh. “I am so tired of waiting around here.”

Pabl smiled at him. “I will think on it, brother,” he said. “I must first speak with Gvint.”

“I understand,” Chaiel said. “I will come to you later for an answer.” He extended his hands, palm facing outward, fingers spread.

Pabl returned the gesture, touching Chaiel’s palms with his own. “Goodbye, brother,” he said. “We shall speak of this again later.”

“Goodbye,” said Chaiel, then he turned and passed between two giant rocks and disappeared.

About an hour later, Pabl came upon the curving stone stairs that connected the temple to the riflev pool. On his left the broad, flat stairs spiraled down into a giant hole in the rock. The stairs had been made by Hodda Zin — an elementalist of the First Brotherhood who had sculpted with erosion. Instead of cutting the stone, he had used his magic to selectively strengthen parts of it. Hundreds of years later, erosion had revealed much of his art. His statues, in various stages of com-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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pletion, were scattered among the boulders.

The stairs spiraled along the inside wall of the hole down to the riflev pool where water gathered which fed the waterfall. The water seeped from the pool through pores in the rock until it jetted from the cliff face a hundred feet or so farther down.

On his right, Pabl caught sight of Gvint Od, standing amid the bright magenta and indigo curtains of the temple’s entryway. The temple was a large building made of solid stone slabs leaning against each other, situated on the very edge of the cliff directly above the falls.

Pabl climbed the steps toward Gvint, passing an erosion sculpture of Mynbruje in the form of a gigantic obsidiman, standing nearly twice as large as Pabl, his hands theatri-cally merged into the rock. Mynbruje was the Passion of truth and justice — ideals Ganwetrammus held true. Mynbruje frequently appeared in the lore of the Garen Brotherhood.

Gvint turned as Pabl approached. The Elder’s expression was solemn, impossible to read as he extended his hands in greeting.

Pabl touched Gvint’s palms. The Elder’s skin felt craggy like crumbling rock.

“Welcome, young one,” Gvint said. He was taller than Pabl, thin and old with cracking wrinkles. He looked worse than he had twenty years ago. A thickly braided horkla of auburn and black covered the crown of his head, but it couldn’t hide the deep crevices etched into his brow.

One Elder is one too few, Pabl thought. He has carried the burdens and responsibilities of the brotherhood on his shoulders alone. How much strain can he take?

Gvint’s ceremonial robes billowed around him as he motioned Pabl into the temple. “We will talk inside,” he said.

Pabl removed his backpack and brushed dirt from his cloak. Then he placed his feet on the entrance stone and This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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stepped into the covered verandah. The stone slabs which made up the temple walls and roof were an extension of the liferock. Delicate carvings of each brother adorned the huge entryway, and next to the carvings, petroglyphs were engraved on the walls — fine lines which told the stories of each obsidiman in the brotherhood.

The petroglyphs began in the verandah, picturing each brother’s First Merge and Awakening. Then, inside, through the curtains, the engravings continued the tales from their adulthood, as full members of the brotherhood. Pabl’s own story stopped short of the curtained entryway.

Pabl stepped through the opening. Colors bombarded him, and he caught a whiff of the sweet copper smell of home.

The floor tiles shone burgundy and deep violet, forming concentric circles, centered on the spur of natural rock that came up through the floor in the middle of the room: the Alqarat, glowing like red lava at the tip. The roar of the waterfall dulled as Pabl walked into the temple, feeling the cool tiles against the bare soles of his feet, and he could hear the high-pitched hiss of the Alqarat as it burned the air.

“I am sorry your Fire Bath will have to be delayed,” Gvint said. “But you must be patient. In time, Reid Quo will make his way back to Tepuis Garen. Many of our greatest brothers have had prolonged Awakenings for some reason or other.

Garen himself was delayed returning from beyond Death’s Sea.”

“I understand, Elder,” Pabl said, breathing in the sweet scent of the temple. “But what am I to do while I wait? There is an emptiness in my heart that cannot be filled without Reid.”

Gvint’s expression became solemn. “Remember, young brother, your Name will not define you; it will only describe you and strengthen who you are.”

“But —”

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Gvint placed his hand on Pabl’s shoulder. “You can continue your studies here. Reid can hear the call. We know this.

Otherwise, Ganwetrammus would summon Jibn Sra. Reid will return.” But Pabl heard the exhaustion in Gvint’s words. The Elder’s faith was not yet shaken, but after more than ten years even he was tired of waiting.

“I would gladly stay,” Pabl said, “if I was certain of his impending return, but he is lost, is he not? No one has seen him since before the Long Dreaming. Shouldn’t we search for him?”

Gvint sighed. “It is true that we have no news of his whereabouts, and he was last seen well before the Scourge. But that does not mean that we should begin a search for him. Would you wander all the world for him? Where do you propose to start the search?”

“The rumor of Ohin Yeenar —”

“Is merely a rumor, and a dangerous one. I do not put much faith in it. No, I prefer to let Ganwetrammus guide our actions.”

“But what if Ohin Yeenar knows something of Reid’s whereabouts?”

Gvint turned away and took a few steps along the tile. His head bowed as he gauged his words. “Ohin is beyond old and his mind is gone. He lies because he can’t remember the truth.

Mynbruje avoids him. He is also extremely powerful with magic. How else could he have survived the destruction of his liferock, unless he made a deal with a Horror . . .”

Pabl stared at Gvint. The Elder’s eyes were solid ebony, no whites. “Are you saying that I can’t go ask this Ohin Yeenar about Reid?”

Gvint threw his head back and laughed. “Ah, young one, you are yet fresh from the outside world. No, I will not stop you from going if you decide to do so. I am merely imparting my opinion, my years of experience . . . my wisdom if you will.”

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The Elder held his palms out to Pabl. “I advise patience. You young ones never seem to have enough of it.”

Pabl put his palms in Gvint’s, but his gaze settled on the wall behind the Elder. The engravings which had started in the verandah grew more elaborate inside, with gems and thin veins of gold and platinum highlighting the stories. The legends of the Garen Brotherhood covered all walls, telling the entire history of the liferock since its emergence from dormancy. The stories told of the rise of mana and the first obsidimen to emerge. They told of the preparations for the Scourge, the Ritual of Protection, and the naming of Tepuis Garen.

And lastly, they chronicled the disappearance of Reid Quo and the final merging of Yonik Bne. There the engravings stopped.

It hit Pabl then. The brotherhood was isolated in time until Reid returned. And beyond Gvint’s wisdom, Pabl saw that the old obsidiman worried about the heath of the liferock, asked himself the question that they all asked: What if Reid never comes back?

Pabl stood, breathing the rich coppery aroma in deep satisfaction. What if Reid never comes back? He has to die before Ganwetrammus can call another Elder. It could be decades before I am Named. Centuries even.

Pabl looked at Gvint. “I am glad to be home for a time,” he said. “But I must think about whether I am content to wait for Reid Quo to return.”

“We must have faith in Ganwetrammus, young one.”

“Yes, I know.” He paused. “I do have faith, but I see things eroding because Reid is not here. You are overworked, and worried about us. You are but one, Elder. And while you are strong, you cannot take care of the demands of an entire brotherhood.

“While you struggle and worry up here, the village grows at the foot of the tepuis. The people who live there have forgotten us for the most part, or no longer care. The roads have This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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been widened, much jungle has been cut and burned to clear land for farms and buildings. And there’s a shantytown growing like a pestilence along the stream, polluting the same water which falls crystal clean in the riflev. It must be stopped.”

Gvint focused his ebony eyes on Pabl. “I know about the village,” he said. “True, the shantytown is an eyesore, but it’s not an immediate threat. I’ve been very busy with my duties here at the temple, and I have been garnering help from air elementals. Ten are searching for Reid Quo right now.”

“I hope they find him soon, because we are vulnerable without Reid. I can’t be Named and you cannot perform all of your duties to the rock. We all know that no new ones can be brought into the world without Reid. We need him, and I see no harm in searching for him.”

Gvint continued his stare unabated. “I don’t want the brotherhood scattered across Barsaive and the world looking for him. We need unity now. I need as many of you here as possible until Reid returns.”

Pabl looked down in the face of Gvint’s stare. “I need some time to think, Elder,” he said, then walked across the hard tile to the verandah. He pushed through the curtains and walked out onto the broad steps.

The erosion sculpture of Mynbruje stood huge and stately on his left. Pabl climbed up the rock to the Passion’s arms and sat on the level place formed where his forearms merged into the liferock. The roar of the waterfall filled his ears as he focused on the surface of the rock and prepared for his karma ritual.

Images of pain and suffering flooded his mind. That was always how the ritual began, the pain starting slowly, then growing. With each image he struck the rock with his fists. He remembered the rape victim he and Jan had discovered in the ditch just outside Bartertown.

He struck faster and faster as the images came more rap-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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idly. Pain shot through him as he watched the burning of an old dwarf’s farm. Bandits had started it to destroy his crop because the old man couldn’t afford to pay protection. Black smoke billowed into the air as small animals fled the flames.

The fire had spread to the forestland next to the farm, burning for two weeks, down to the river before it had died out completely.

The rock grew hot under Pabl’s rapid strikes until it glowed a deep red. He thought of the shantytown in Rabneth, and a single tear rolled down his cheek. Transgressions against nature were by far the worst.

Images came to him of his search for the lost castle of Yon Fuiras. Pabl had studied the various scrolls in the Great Library, trying to piece together a coherent picture.

Jan had told him to give it up. That obsessions like this were not always a good thing. But Pabl couldn’t stop; he knew the answer was just beyond his reach. If he just had one more detail, he would understand. Then he found the diary of an old air sailor who had visited Yon Fuiras before the Scourge.

They set out two days later, catching a T’skrang riverboat to the river port Wynar, then from there, they traveled on foot up into the Scol mountains. Celagri and Jan gave up after two weeks of searching the barren mountains and tried to convince Pabl to return with them. But two weeks was nothing, and he told them so.

They argued and tempers grew until Jan and Celagri decided to leave. Never before had Pabl’s friendship with Jan been so strained. Jan was right, obsessions are not always good.

But he had come this far and he couldn’t give up now.

Three days after Jan and Celagri had walked away, Pabl found Yon Fuiras, empty and destroyed by fire. The ashes of bones and buildings formed a gray dust over the still heart of structure. The castle had been a stronghold of natural beauty, built into the existing rock. It had been a testament to the This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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possibility of living in harmony with nature. Its library had once contained many rare books of magic lore and history, and it saddened him greatly to find it obliterated.

Jan and Celagri found him there hours later, underground, nearly catatonic in a self-induced hibernative state. They had not left him at all, but had followed from a distance. Jan had been too worried to leave. When he woke, Pabl was overjoyed to see them.

Now, the visions continued as he pounded his fists against the rock. They plagued him for over an hour before he had purged them from his mind. The stone in front of him radiated heat, and Pabl used the heat to dry the tears which flowed now from his eyes. He took a deep breath, feeling refreshed and strong.

He climbed down from Mynbruje’s arms as the first drops of rain splashed him. A thunderstorm approached; he could smell it. A chill passed through him as he walked toward the temple. The air crackled with the charge of tingling static which meant the imminent onslaught of lightning.

Through the course of his ritual he had made his decision.

All of his experiences indicated that truth and justice required an active defense.

Pabl could not remain idle. He would seek out Ohin Yeenar. The ancient one was his only chance to find Reid Quo.

Even if Ohin was dangerous, Pabl needed to see him. Even if Lyrthus Rewt had disappeared; even if the ancient one had made a deal with a Horror; even if all the rumors were true, Pabl had to find out what Ohin Yeenar knew about Reid. The survival of the liferock was at stake.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Five 

Sarbeneck Haspain III stood atop a small rocky knoll and gazed out at the jungle in the distance. He took a deep breath of the clean, humid air and tried to ignore the ache in his bones. I’m getting too old for all this traveling, he thought. All this time sleeping in a tent instead of underground is taking its toll. His caravan had stopped for the night, a little earlier than Sarbeneck had wanted, but the threat of another thunderstorm had forced him to call a halt.

From his vantage, the dwarf saw the jungle ahead of them darkening. Clouds, like blackened cotton, approached rapidly. Threads of blue and purple flickered in the clouds, lighting their bellies. The storm rolled over the giant mesas in the distance, still a day’s journey away, and Sarbeneck watched as the lightning struck the top of the stone monoliths over and over like insatiable snakes. He watched for a few minutes until the mesas were lost behind the blurry haze of torrential rain and black clouds.

Sarbeneck stretched his back and ran callused and stubby fingers through his beard. He was a dwarf of Throal, as his father and grandfather had been before him. Ever since the 36

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long burial of the Scourge had begun, his family had helped to carve out new cities in the kingdom. But Sarbeneck had always been more fascinated with minerals and mining than stonework. Since the opening of the old kaer, Sarbeneck had gradually shifted the family business from construction to mining.

As a youth, all awkward and carefree, Sarbeneck had developed a taste for traveling. It was during his first journeys that he discovered he had an eye for seeing gold-and orichalcum-laden rock. His tent became his home. His job became his family. And that had fulfilled him for years. But now . . .

Now he was tired. He was balding and what black hair remained had become streaked with gray. Wrinkles creased the corners of his once-sharp blue eyes, and his nose and cheeks glowed a steady rose color from drinking too much wine. Sarbeneck loved good cooking and was nicely fat; his feet hurt from the long journey. And while he was wealthy in the riches of the world, he was beginning to suspect that money could not replace lost opportunities, nor could it make people like him. Perhaps this expedition would be his last.

Sarbeneck heard footsteps coming up the trail behind him, and he turned. An ork approached, huge compared to the dwarf, but he stood at a discreet distance to show respect.

The ork was tall with dark skin and long, curly brown hair which blew loose in the wind. His ears came to a dull point, a dangling earring hanging from one. The jewelry was fashioned from silver and enameled with an idealized image of an Espagra — brilliant scales of iridescent blue, fancy blue-green wings, menacingly sharp tail and claws, plus eyes and a mouth of deep red. The real beasts were far more frightening.

“You bring news, Gingreth?”

“Yes, sir. The tunnelers are secure in their tents. And Sarahem says that the evening meal is nearly ready.”

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“Good, I’m hungry. She is preparing roast boar. Quite excellent.” Sarbeneck eyed the ork, considering the other’s company. Sarbeneck had eaten alone most of the trip, and he was getting tired of it. “How about you, Gingreth? Would you like to share my table this evening?”

The ork’s tongue passed slowly over his jutting incisors, a thin line of drool escaping through his parted black lips.

Sarbeneck immediately regretted his offer; he hated eating with orks. Gingreth had never been taught the social graces of fine dining. Or crude dining for that matter. All that time spent with his animals. “Or if you’d rather not —”

“I would like nothing better, sir,” the ork replied. “My espagra will miss my company, but I can hunt with them afterwards.”

“Um . . . good, we can discuss the days ahead. Come, the rain is nearly upon us.” Sarbeneck turned and made his way back toward the encampment.

Gingreth followed. The two of them had been on thirty-four mining expeditions together. The ork had been with Sarbeneck’s company since the beginning, but they had never been to this part of Barsaive. Sarbeneck had never been offered so much money for a relatively simple job.

His employer had warned him that security might be a problem, and that he should bring plenty of armed mercenaries to ensure that his operation could not be impeded. Some of the locals didn’t want their rock to be violated, despite the fact that there was a rich vein of orichalcum to be mined.

Sarbeneck guessed that they just didn’t appreciate the fine points of free market economics. Orichalcum in the rock had no value to anyone. But mined and purified, the precious metal was beautiful, golden and potent with magic. It was valuable and a great asset to any community. Name-givers from all over would come to this part of the jungle in search of fortune, and the locals could only benefit from the influx.

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All those new people would have to eat and sleep and live in houses.

Yet, some didn’t see any of that. Perhaps in time they would come to appreciate what Sarbeneck and his mining caravan were about to do. In addition to his company of smiths and miners which numbered forty-three dwarfs and humans, he had rented an ork cavalry consisting of a hundred warriors and their families. Plus Gingreth and his five trained espagra.

Security would not be a problem.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Six 

Rain pelted the roof of the temple and lightning struck the slick rocks outside. Pabl heard the booms of thunder and the muffled roar of the rain from inside the temple as he waited for Chaiel Ro.

The massive slab which formed the ceiling of the large chamber slanted slightly from above the entrance downward to the opposite end, and was held several feet above the walls by evenly spaced pillars of black granite. A weather cloak spell kept the rain from blowing into the temple. There were no windows, but flashes of lightning flickered through the two-foot gap between the walls and the roof. Many bright glow crystals, set into the floor at regular intervals, bathed the chamber in pure white light.

Pabl examined the petroglyphs on the wall, running his broad palm across the engravings of Reid Quo’s legend. These particular pictures told the story of a time before the Scourge when Reid was in Parlainth with Garen Dne — the Elder from whom Tepuis Garen took its name.

As Pabl’s fingers brushed along the stone, tracing the gold and silver lines of the engravings, Ganwetrammus reached 40

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out to him. His fingers merged with the legend of Reid Quo, sinking into the finely cut lines in the rock wall.

Pabl found the liferock’s memory of Reid’s life filling his consciousness. Parlainth rose around him, its trio of huge pyramids reaching into an azure sky. Beautiful music of horns and harps came to him, the like of which he had never heard.

Strange smells, sweet breads and incense floated on the air.

People were everywhere, speaking in a foreign tongue as they passed him by. They held themselves with arrogance, tall and stately, oddly symmetrical.

Pabl stood in Reid’s body, dressed in gaudy robes of bright pink and yellow. A small jade carving of Mynbruje hung from a bronze chain around his neck.

Garen stood beside him, guiding them to a semi-secluded space in an alleyway. The older obsidiman’s craggy form slouched somewhat from spending long hours in the libraries of Parlainth. “Hold out the item,” Garen said, as they pressed up close to the pillar of a monolithic citadel. “Focus on it.”

Reid unclipped a metal scarab from his robes. It was shaped like a beetle, flat and oval with iridescent wings of green-black and a body of golden hue. It fit comfortably in Reid’s palm; he had been working with the enchantment for many, many years. And now, he would use it for its intended purpose.

Reid focused on it, peering into astral space to see the scarab’s pattern and the two filaments of brilliant pink thread which connected its pattern to his.

“Put your vision into its eyes, and let it fly.”

As Reid moved his sight into the scarab, his vision fractured into a hundred separate images of the world around him, then adjusted slowly to integrate into a composite view.

He took flight, the metallic buzzing of his scarab wings vibrat-ing through him.

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underneath him as he flew up over the crowds toward the wide boulevard of Thom Edro Way. Vertigo gripped him and he nearly pulled his sight back into his body. The disconnection from the ground frightened him, but Garen’s words in the background kept him focused. “Concentrate on your destination. Hagnit’s merchant shop.”

The scarab banked around a corner and passed a crowded square with a massive fountain in the center. The fountain’s glorious music was distant through the scarab’s senses. Buildings and statues towered around him, impossibly huge, as the item fluttered past the square. It flew down another street and through a wide door into a shop.

Hagnit sat in a stone chair behind the huge expanse of a desk. He was small for an obsidiman of the brotherhood, com-pact and young with skin as smooth as if it had been polished like rocks in a stream. Hagnit’s coloring was not russet like Reid and Garen, but light gray marbled with veins of emerald green. Hagnit did not look up from his work as the scarab alit on a crate stacked near the entry.

Garen’s voice was distant. “Now, cast your illusion through the item.”

Reid cast the spell, and watched through the scarab to see Hagnit react.

The merchant looked up from the scrolls. “Reid,” he said.

“When did you come in?” He stood and walked around the desk to meet him, palms out in greeting.

Reid touched palms with him, surprised that he could feel their smoothness through the illusion. “I come to invite you to a Gathering,” he said.

“When? With whom?”

“Much of the Rewinthin Brotherhood, plus any others I can persuade. We will congregate at the Gathering Tree to share water, then decide on a month.”

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keep his focus. “I will try to schedule some time away from my business,” he said. “But you know what energy-wasters are like; they don’t understand closing down for an entire month.”

“Pabl?”

There was a touch on his shoulder. The engravings on the temple wall faded into Pabl’s awareness, replacing the memory. He pulled his hand out of the merge with the petroglyphs.

“Pabl?”

He shook the image of Reid’s memory from his mind and turned to see Chaiel. Rivulets of water beaded on his green cloak and dripped on the tile. “Hello, brother.”

“What have you decided to do?” Chaiel asked.

“I am going to see Ohin Yeenar,” Pabl said. “He must know something about Reid.”

“I am glad,” Chaiel said. “But first we should talk to Bintr.

He was last to make the journey.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Now is good,” Pabl said, then he ran his fingers over the petroglyphs as if trying to brush the vision out of his head.

Reid, so alive and well. What could have happened to make you deaf to your own liferock?

Pabl followed Chaiel out of the temple and into the rain.

The main storm had passed and the air was chill with drizzle.

They filled their water skins at the pool before heading across the Dance of Stones to see their brother.

Bintr Aar lived on the south end of the tepuis in a small house which stood under an overhang of stone. The smell of mushroom and leek soup pervaded his abode as Pabl and Chaiel entered. Bintr looked up from the stew, his chocolate brown complexion dripping with condensed steam. “Greetings, brothers. You are just in time to help me eat.”

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them with his own. “We would love to share your meal, brother. We bring water from the riflev pool.”

A broad smile stretched across Bintr’s face. “Thank you.”

Pabl and Chaiel sat on the tile floor and accepted generous helpings of sweet wheat bread and soup. Pabl was excited; it had been years since he had tasted true obsidiman food, and Bintr was quite a chef.

After the first course, Bintr produced a wedge of elven-made cheese, considered a delicacy among the members of the Garen Brotherhood. And when that was gone, a bowl of sweet rice and papaya. As the final touch to their meal, they shared water as was their custom. Pabl poured the crystalline liquid into a large pitcher, and each of them drank from it until the water had been completely drained.

There was a long silence after the water sharing. Finally, Pabl spoke, “Your hospitality is beyond compare, Bintr. But that is not why we have come.”

Bintr nodded.

“We want you to join us on a journey to see Ohin Yeenar.”

Bintr rubbed a ridge of his deep brown forehead. “Ohin is a frightening obsidiman. Unpredictable. I’m not sure it is wise to try and speak with him.”

“Do you think he is Horror-touched?”

Bintr pondered for minute before answering. “He made it impossible for me to approach him. But, no, I don’t think he is tainted; he carries too much pain of his own to be of use to any Horror.” Bintr bowed his head. “Still, it is possible,” he said. “Anything is possible when it comes to the cruelty of our world.”

No one spoke for a minute.

Then Pabl stood slowly. “When can you be ready to go?”

he asked.

Bintr looked up at him. “Is three days too long?”

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join us. Can you meet us in the village?”

Chaiel, who had been quiet most of the meal, stood abruptly. “You what? This is a matter concerning our liferock.

How can the energy-wasters help? And why would you accept help from them? They will merely steal our secrets.”

Pabl gave Chaiel a concerned look. He had seen such displays of mistrust from several brothers in the past, and he understood caution. Few energy-wasters tried to understand the nature of obsidiman life, and fewer still achieved understanding. Still, these were not typical people. “Chaiel,” he said, “they are my friends. We have traveled together for many years.

They care nothing about our ‘secrets,’ but they could be very helpful if we run into a pack of Crojen. I would feel much better if they came.”

“Well, I don’t like it.”

“And I think you’re paranoid.”

“And you are naive.”

“Please give it up, both of you,” Bintr said. “I, personally, would appreciate the help. We will also have to hire a human guide from the Cathan tribe which lives south of here. The jungle changes so much, I don’t think I can find my way to Othellium without a guide.”

Pabl looked at Chaiel. “Please, brother, come meet my friends. They are good people.”

“I will reluctantly allow them to join us,” Chaiel said, “But I decline your offer. I, too, must prepare for travel. Bintr and I will join you in Rabneth in three days.”

“Very well.” Pabl looked at Bintr, whose expression was solemn. “Your food has enlightened me,” he said. “Thank you.”

“May your water always be pure, brother.”

“And yours,” Pabl said, hoisting his pack up to his shoulders. He stepped out into the night. He planned to see Jan and Celagri about coming along, but first he wanted to return to the temple.

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Pabl found Gvint sitting cross-legged next to the smoking tip of the Alqarat. The Elder’s head was bowed in meditation, so Pabl moved as quietly as he could to the wall which told the remainder of Reid Quo’s legend.

The last engravings described Reid’s return from Parlainth to Tepuis Garen. He and Garen Dne had journeyed home to attend the Fire Bath ceremony of Jibn Sra. Many other brothers had also come back to the liferock for Jibn’s naming, including Gvint.

The histories of many brothers intertwined at Jibn’s Fire Bath. The threads of Jibn’s legend tangled with the others at that point, then separated. Pabl put his hand against the wall and traced Jibn’s legend almost by instinct. Each of the brotherhood had stared at this spot of Jibn’s sordid past, studying it at length in order to try to determine what had gone wrong.

The engraved petroglyphs at that spot told how Ganwetrammus had almost died.

Four hundred years after his naming, Jibn Sra had returned, along with many others, to join the rock for the Long Dreaming of the Scourge. When Jibn merged, however, he infected the rock with a Horror. The creature had marked Jibn, and it used his merging to permeate the liferock and creep into the spirits of the whole brotherhood, one by one. Even the giant pattern of Ganwetrammus had not been able to rid the brotherhood of the intelligent and conniving evil, and eventually the liferock grew sickly.

Pabl pulled his hand back and turned away from the petroglyphs, taking slow breaths. The vulnerability of the liferock shocked him every time. It was hard to conceive of anything powerful enough to destroy Ganwetrammus. And yet, it had nearly happened. Without Garen Dne, Ganwetrammus would have perished from Jibn’s Horror.

“So you have decided to visit Ohin Yeenar, eh, young one?”

Gvint stepped up next to him.

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“Chaiel and Bintr are coming with me,” Pabl said. “We leave in three days.”

“Very well. May Floranuus guide your steps in this and all ventures,” he said, his expression stern and solemn. “But ex-ercise caution, my brother, for Ohin Yeenar is the last of his brotherhood. He knows what we all might have known if it hadn’t been for the sacrifice of Garen Dne. Ohin Yeenar knows what it is like to outlive his liferock.”

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Seven 

Brilliant flash of lightning. Thunderous loud crack, splitting the air in the camp. The first raindrops came heavy and large like cold reptilian tears, streaming down from gray clouds whose bellies were dipped in the deep crimson of a Servos Jungle sunset.

“Get that canvas over the Nuinouri! Now, you Horror-meat!

Those tunnelers don’t like to get wet.” Gingreth’s voice rang from across the encampment, yelling at the mercenaries.

Sarbeneck sat in his wicker chair, sheltered by the awning of his tent, and watched Gingreth drive the other orks to get the tunnelers out of the rain. Gingreth’s mass of brown hair shook wildly as he cracked his whip, snapping the air near the workers. He’s treating his own kin like animals, Sarbeneck thought. Which is just fine if it gets the job done.

The rain increased to a steady pour, then a torrent until it became hard to see through the gray haze of water. The deafening sound of the rain prevented Sarbeneck from catching anymore of what the ork was yelling, but he could still make out the periodic crack of the whip. He leaned back, relishing the smell of clean, humid jungle air, and peered through the 48

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haze. Luckily, Gingreth and his workers were nearly finished erecting the magician’s tent — a huge pine-green structure designed to hold the Nuinouri.

Riann and Jehrad, the elementalists, were out in the rain, helping to keep the earth elementals calm. The huge beasts were made of rock and soil, towering eight or ten dwarf-lengths high. They didn’t like being forced to mine, especially with tunnelers, and could destroy the entire camp if they became agitated. And that was exactly what would happen if Riann and Jehrad lost control. Even though Sarbeneck had only seen one accident involving elementals, that one time had been devastating; three people had been killed, and valuable equipment destroyed.

Next to the drenched elementals a temporary tarp had been erected to cover the tunnelers — the Nuinouri. These Horror constructs were very useful for mining, but quite dangerous when angered. Underneath the tarp, Nancri, the nethermancer, chanted a spell to keep them dormant. Sarbeneck didn’t want the tunnelers to eat anyone, especially Nancri.

He liked her — the intensity of her blue eyes, the shine of her braided black hair, and the way her pale skin flushed when she was happy. She was the only magician he knew who could keep the tunnelers under control, and Sarbeneck had grown to respect her more and more over the years.

Finally, the green tent was completely constructed. Riann and Jehrad directed the elementals to lift the dormant tunnelers and carry them inside. Sarbeneck took a long draw on his pipe and breathed out slowly, trying to bring relaxation to his muscles. He was looking forward to a nice dinner and a glass of wine.

The last two days had been hard. The roads had narrowed to almost nothing before reaching the tiny village of Rabneth, nestled up against the cliff face of the mesa, called Tepuis Garen by the locals. After Rabneth, the caravan had been This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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forced to widen paths into roads, cutting and clearing away the jungle.

The locals will thank us later for building the road for free.

This Raggok-cursed jungle is by far the worst site I’ve mined.

Sarbeneck was sick of the bad weather, the biting insects and the constant chattering of monkeys. Even some of the plants were carnivorous. During their stop in Rabneth, one of the orks of his hired cavalry had wandered off and gotten stuck to a large red flower whose petals glistened with dew.

The shining dew was like clear glue, holding the ork’s body against the flower. The plant had nearly digested through his armor by the time his screaming had brought enough others to kill the flower and release him.

Their time in Rabneth had been all too brief. Sarbeneck had wanted to give his own men a longer break from Sarahem’s cooking, but he hadn’t wanted to frighten the villagers. A caravan of that size, especially with the cavalry along, was enough to put the townspeople on edge. As it was, he felt that the cavalry had acted about as civil as anyone could expect, considering they were orks. They had left a phenomenal mess behind. Their horses and thundra beasts had fouled the air with the stench of waste. The warriors drank their brewed Butriol, making a ruckus late into the night, teasing unsuspecting villagers. Yet, thankfully, no one had been killed.

Sarbeneck had lied to the townspeople, subtly as was his gift. He had told them that the caravan was headed farther on than Tepuis Garen, especially since some of them had expressed concern that the obsidimen of the tepuis considered it sacred ground.

I hope the rock folk around here won’t cause trouble, because in less than two days I will unleash the elementals and tunnelers. They will rip into the hard, red flesh of the rock in search of the most precious metal in all the world. Orichalcum!

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That word shone brightly in Sarbeneck’s mind.

Orichalcum was the reason he’d accepted this expedition, despite obvious danger and secrecy. It was everywhere in this stone; he could smell it. He just hoped the precious metal ran in veins as he had been told. If so, he would insert his version of a needle into the rock’s vein and drain it of the ore.

Sarbeneck combed his fingers through his beard and watched as Gingreth released his workers to the mess tent for dinner. Through the sheets of rain, he looked over his camp.

Three large tents crowded the small clearing next to the cliff, the sheer face of which rose up and up — a massive wall of stone extending into the layer of cloud and above. He had chosen the location with care; it was hard to see from the trail nearby and it was close to the mining site. The clearing was a bit too small to accommodate the whole camp, but that was a minor difficulty. Tomorrow more trees would have to be cut.

Yellow light peeked under the walls of the two large brown tents which housed the miners and equipment. The green tent which held the Nuinouri in slumber shimmered slightly with a crackling aura of magic. Without the tunnelers, Sarbeneck’s job would take ten times longer. They were dangerous and hard to move around, but worth it once the digging started.

The space around and between the large tents teemed with the small hut-like structures of the orks and their families, in addition to many wagons and carts. Smoke poured from a center hole in one of the large tents, and the smell of cooking meat came from it: Sarahem’s domain. In the trees adjacent to the kitchen and mess tent was a huge pen, roped-off to contain the oxen and pigs. The corral for the horses and thundra beasts was out of Sarbeneck’s view in the trees on the other side of the camp. The cavalry was supposed to have set up a perimeter guard against any threats, but Sarbeneck didn’t think that had been done yet.

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He pulled his leather coat tightly around him. It was almost dark and getting cold. Tomorrow he would go with a small team to peruse the rock face and look for a good place to begin the dig. He remembered the conversation with Pontin Nemish back in Throal. Pontin was a thin dwarf with a pleated red beard, and he had spoken with a high voice, telling Sarbeneck about the orichalcum in this rock. Where to find the tepuis. Where to find the vein of ore.

Pontin had told Sarbeneck that it was foolish to refuse his offer; there were other mining companies eager to accept.

Pontin had chosen Sarbeneck because of his excellent repu-tation for discretion and for following instructions precisely.

Pontin had shown him a pouch of jewels — a fortune which he claimed was merely a down payment.

Back in the comfort of Throal, Sarbeneck had cast aside his curiosity and suspicions even though he hated Pontin’s whining voice and arrogance. Sarbeneck had accepted the job.

With that kind of profit, he could afford to retire after this. He wanted so much to just live out the rest of his days in peace.

Now, he caught sight of Gingreth hurrying through the rain toward him, mud splashing up around his boots. The ork coiled his whip and hooked it into his belt.

“Nice day,” Sarbeneck said, wincing as a concussion of thunder shook the air around him.

“Just lovely.” Gingreth stepped under the flap of tent and shook water from his long, curly hair.

Sarbeneck stood to meet him. “What brings you?” he asked.

“The dwarf from the town is here to see you. He said it’s important.”

Sarbeneck looked past Gingreth, catching sight of three dwarfs on miniature horses being detained by a huge ork mounted on the horned back of a thundra beast. “Let them through, I suppose.”

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Gingreth waved his arm at the guard, then followed Sarbeneck into the tent.

“Wine, my friend?” Sarbeneck asked.

Gingreth nodded.

Sarbeneck pulled a wine skin from its hook on the tent’s center pole and poured two cups. He handed one to Gingreth just as the three dwarfs stepped under the flap of the awning, shaking themselves free of rain.

“Come and share wine with me and my friend,” Sarbeneck said.

Pontin pulled his hood back, revealing neatly coifed red hair. “Thank you, I shall.” The other two drew heavy battle axes and stood at the entrance to the tent.

Sarbeneck suppressed a sudden burst of laughter. As if these two dwarfs could do anything to prevent a hundred angry orks from killing their master if the orks were so inclined.

What he said was, “Horrid weather, eh?” He handed a glass of wine to Pontin.

“Yes, well, this is pretty normal.” He sipped the wine tentatively. “I have brought your first instructions,” he said, pulling a scroll case from inside his blue cloak. Sarbeneck noticed a beautiful brooch in the form of a scarab beetle pinned to Pontin’s cloak.

Very valuable, he thought. Probably magical even. Sarbeneck had an eye for these things.

Pontin handed the scroll to Sarbeneck, never looking at Gingreth.

Sarbeneck opened the scroll case, sliding out the parchment.

“You will notice the clearing on the west side of the rock,”

Pontin said. “There is a mark on the map, a little ways up the rock from the clearing. That is where you should dig.”

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Sarbeneck had searched the Great Library of Throal for detailed maps of this part of the Servos Jungle, but he had been unable to find anything.

“Do you see the spot?” Pontin said, giving a smug smile.

The encampment clearing was easy to find because it had been painted in brown in a space next to the rock. Sarbeneck caught sight of a small black dot on the surface of the rock. Impossibly thin filaments of gold ink traced meandering patterns throughout the rock, but they all came together in a twisting bundle connecting the black dot to the center of the rock. “Yes,” he said, “I see it.”

“Good.” Pontin sipped his wine. “When can you start digging?”

“Tomorrow.”

“And your security is going to be ready for possible retalia-tion by the rock people?”

Sarbeneck glanced up at Gingreth.

The ork answered. “The cavalry is itching for a fight,” he said. “I feel sorry for anyone who attacks us.”

“Good, that’s what I wanted to hear,” Pontin said. “You’ve done an excellent job so far. Now, I must go. No one in this area can know of my involvement.”

“Understood,” said Sarbeneck, but he didn’t like it. Still, for this kind of money, he would put up with almost anything.

Pontin raised his glass. “To success,” he said.

“To a quick and profitable venture,” Sarbeneck said, swallowing his wine. But the taste was bitter and harsh against his throat.

Thunder crashed again, rattling the lantern against the tent pole as Pontin and his guards stepped into the rain. Sarbeneck’s stomach grumbled as he sank into his chair and closed his eyes. Raggok take this damned jungle, he thought, wishing he were somewhere else. Anywhere else.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Eight 

Pabl found Jan and Celagri at Samson’s Inn, and when he told them about his plans to see Ohin Yeenar, Jan eagerly accepted the chance to come along. Pabl laughed at his friend’s fickle nature. The dwarf had only been in his hometown of Rabneth for four days, and he was already bored and itching to get away again.

By contrast, Celagri wanted some time to relax, so she decided to stay near Tepuis Garen and await their return. It had become her tradition to visit the local elven community wher-ever she traveled, and she’d discovered that there was a large grove of homes not too far from Rabneth.

Bintr and Chaiel joined them on the eastern-most path, and they all four headed deeper into the jungle. Bintr assured them that the trip to Othellium should take no more than two or three days, but they would have to acquire the help of a Cathan guide. The Cathan people had been described to Pabl as skittish and paranoid — short humans whose olive skin was camouflaged with elaborate patterns of white and green pigmented tattooing.

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had been used mostly by the slighter-built elves and humans, Pabl and the others approached the Cathan camp. Abruptly, a group of the strange humans surrounded them, swinging out from the vines and trees of the jungle around them. The painted humans were hard to see against the shifting background of green and brown vegetation. It was a good thing that they knew Bintr and trusted him; at least as much as they trusted anyone, which was not a lot.

Still, one of them — a female who had guided Bintr in the past — offered to help again. For payment she wanted the newly forged arrowheads which Bintr had brought. She came along immediately, Bintr doling out one arrow head at a time along the way.

As they traveled, hacking through vines and thick undergrowth, Jan told Pabl about Pontintown — the shantytown along the stream in Rabneth, named after Pontin Nemish, the dwarf who owned and operated it. Jan had spoken with his friend, Abrin Thist, who was on the town council. And together they had confronted Pontin, trying to convince him to do something about cleaning up the shantytown. Pontin had listened to them, saying he would consider their words.

“The humans and dwarfs who live in those bamboo shacks are nearly destitute,” Jan told Pabl. “They are unsanitary and many of them have animals which pollute the water down-stream. The townspeople are afraid to do anything because Pontin Nemish is the leader of the village assembly and no one dares to oppose him.”

“We will persuade him,” Pabl had said. “When we get back.”

He said this last which such finality that Jan quieted, and neither of the spoke further of the matter. Pabl’s mind was on Reid Quo and Ohin Yeenar, and he did not feel much like conversation. Jan knew Pabl’s moods and had remained unusually quiet for the rest of the journey.

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Two days later, their guide informed them that they had arrived. She led them carefully down into a river valley. Peeking through the thick undergrowth, Pabl caught sight of a rundown temple made of quartz and brown glass, sitting high on the rocky bank of a slow moving river.

Here in the heart of the jungle, the temple had succumbed to the encroaching vegetation. Cloudy white pillars of pitted quartz held a domed roof in their precarious grasp. Cracked and dirty flagstones, engraved with pictures of the Othellium brotherhood, made up the floor of the place. Everything was covered with jungle; thick vines crawled over the temple, burying it in foliage.

The bank dropped off to the left of the temple, a good fifty-foot slide down into the slow moving brown water. Pabl caught sight of a large crocodile slipping into the water on the far bank, and he smelled a whiff of rotting vegetation coming from the river.

“Are you sure he lives here?” It was Jan’s voice, from behind him.

Pabl glanced at the Cathan guide, her camouflage-painted body barely visible against the undergrowth. “This is where we will find Ohin Yeenar?”

She nodded. “The one you look for is here,” she said. “Rock man like you, but all white.”

Bintr handed the human another arrowhead which she tucked into a pouch on her waist. “Pabl,” he said, “we should be quiet; I am sure he knows we’re here. Last time, he stopped me just as I stepped on the flagstones. When I asked him about Reid Quo, he said he would not speak with me because I held conversations with the dead. Then he disappeared.

Maybe he will talk to you.”

“Maybe,” Pabl said, “But look there.” He pointed across the flagstones to a small brackish pool with a windling-sized statue of Dis next to it. The statuette had been placed there This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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purposely, its emaciated body staring at them with hollow eyes as shackles looped around and through its flesh. Grime smeared the tiles around the pool, and the water had been left stagnant to grow algae and fester. The arrangement was a clear signal, part of a language that the non-obsidiman of the group would not understand.

It was doubtful that Ohin Yeenar followed the teachings of Dis or in any way respected the Passion of confusion and slavery, but he did not want visitors, and the pool arrangement was a clear warning to any obsidiman that he wanted to be left alone.

Bintr shuddered.

Chaiel was watching also. “We can’t just leave.”

“We will not leave without trying to talk to him,” Pabl said.

“I will go.”

“I come with you,” Chaiel said.

“Maybe we should think this through first,” said Bintr.

“All right,” Pabl said. “Besides, I want to look at the temple’s astral image.”

“I have already seen it,” Bintr said. “It’s sad.”

Pabl focused, feeling a slight strain as he nudged his sight into the astral plane. The shimmering radiance of the astral grew in front of his eyes as the magic took hold. Pabl could see the astral imprint of the Othellium temple, glowing bright white, still very majestic and strong despite its physical appearance. Then he saw part of the temple’s pattern, following the structure of the rock itself — an arch of white atop stri-ated pillars. But the temple’s connection to the liferock looked tenuous.

The great quartz deposit beneath the flagstones held a pattern reminiscent of Pabl’s own liferock, though much smaller. Pabl could almost fathom the entire pattern — something that would never have been possible with Ganwetrammus, which was massive beyond his comprehension. In places This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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the white pattern of the temple dimmed to gray wisps, fragile and withering.

Dead. This liferock is dead.

A profound sadness took Pabl’s breath away. He let the magic falter, focusing on the physical world. “I didn’t see a lot, except that the liferock is dead. Gvint said as much, but I don’t see how that could happen?”

Bintr answered him. “It’s not supposed to.”

Chaiel said nothing.

“Bintr, you stay here,” Pabl said. “We already know he won’t speak with you. Jan and the Cathan can also stay.”

Jan nodded at that.

“Chaiel,” Pabl said. “You ready?”

Chaiel nodded, his jaw clenched tight. He pulled his troll-sized sword from its sheath and held it ready.

“Let’s go then.” Pabl stepped out into the clearing and Chaiel came close behind. They made their way onto the flagstones, giving the Dis statuette and the stagnant pool a wide berth as they headed for the temple’s entrance.

The flagstones felt cold through the soft cloth of Pabl’s boots. After three steps the cold grew, becoming a seeping chill which crept into his feet and legs. He could see that Chaiel was affected the same way. A few more steps and the cold had penetrated into the bones of Pabl’s legs, making his joints lock up.

Chaiel fell behind him, his sword clanging on the rock.

“It’s a trap,” he said.

Pabl stopped moving, kneeling against the icy stone. He pushed the shivers from his mind and wove the thread for a spell. The thread completed the pattern and the spell went off, trying to annul the cold magic.

Nothing. Just the ever increasing chill.

“Stop!” The voice ground the air like pebbles in a bird’s craw.

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Does it look like we’re moving? Pabl thought. Then he felt a tightening grip of magic, unrelated to the cold, try to hold him motionless. He resisted it, despite his frozen bones and the magical grip slipped off.

Chaiel had not fared so well, Pabl saw when he glanced around. His brother was frozen in mid rise, one knee and hand on the ground, his head looking up, startled.

“Wait!” Pabl cried. “We come only to talk with you. And share —”

“Leave my rock.”

How do you propose we do that? Pabl thought. The chill coming from the flagstones seemed to be slowing, but he still found it hard to move. Behind him, Chaiel was as still as a statue.

The gravel voice spoke again. “What did you say? Speak again!”

“We come in search of knowledge. To share our water with you and ask questions. You may be the only one who can help.”

There was a long silence.

“You would share water with me? Who are you?”

“I am Pabl Evr of Tepuis Garen. Our next Elder has not returned to the rock, and you may be the only one to have seen him since the Long Dreaming.”

“If you are sincere, Pabl Evr, and your water is pure, I will answer your questions. Your brother must go.”

Chaiel suddenly lurched forward, falling face first on the ground. He picked himself up and looked at Pabl. “I heard him.

What do you want me to do?”

“Join the others,” Pabl said. “I will find out what he knows about Reid.” Chaiel started to protest, but Pabl jerked his head back toward Jan and Bintr. “Despite the rumors, we need to know what he knows,” Pabl said. “And this is the only way.”

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the chill in Pabl’s bones began to sink slowly back down into the stones. He raised himself to his full height, stretching his back and cracking his neck.

“Now come, Pabl Evr, before my mind changes itself.”

Pabl took a slow breath, suddenly feeling stifled by the close humidity of the jungle. He remembered the story of how Jibn’s Horror had nearly destroyed Tepuis Garen. What if the same thing had happened here? What if Ohin Yeenar made a pact with a Horror to stay alive?

But he had come too far to allow such doubts to stop him.

“I come,” he said, then stepped through the arched entryway into the temple.

The last vestiges of the chill left Pabl as he passed through the high archway, bracketed by giant quartz columns. Ohin Yeenar stood at the far side of the temple, next to a window which gave a view of the muddy river beyond. The room was crowded with stone chairs and relics, chipped statues and huge, broken frescos of a time gone by. Pabl was sure it had been an impressive sight long ago.

Ohin’s skin was frosty white, and he stooped, his back bent at an odd angle. He looked feeble to Pabl, as though he could die at any moment. “Come here,” he said. “I can’t see you.”

Pabl stared at Ohin as he approached, walking carefully around the chairs and old ceramics which littered the temple floor. Ohin reminded Pabl of an old human or dwarf which had lived passed his usefulness, but who was still alive, burdening others because the horror of dying was worse than the idea of wasting away. Ohin was unnaturally old for an obsidiman. Elders and liferocks always joined in the Final Merging before the Elder grew senile or decrepit. That was how it should be; Ohin Yeenar was an aberration.

“Let me see you,” Ohin said, reaching in Pabl’s direction.

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light in here. Then, looking more closely, Pabl became aware of an anomaly. Wrinkled and severely cracked skin shadowed thick eyes the color of milk. Ohin’s eyes had clouded over with time.

“You are blind,” Pabl said, suppressing a frisson. “How can you see me?”

“I can see your astral pattern,” he said. “And from that I can tell much. You have some skill with magic. You are eager and brave.”

“How —”

“I have been blind longer than you have lived. I have learned to hone my other senses. I see that you are not yet Named. It is primarily because of this that I have allowed you to approach.”

“Because I’m not Named?”

Ohin nodded. “It is unlikely I can destroy your identity, because yours is not fully developed.”

Pabl felt a chill. “What do you mean?”

“Perhaps it is a curse, but I tend to have a profound effect on those who meet me.”

Pabl didn’t doubt that. “Will you answer a few questions for me?”

Ohin grimaced. “Let me taste your water, then we shall share the Dreaming together.”

Pabl drew back suddenly. “Self-Dreaming with you?”

Ohin lurched away from the window, coming toward him in a swaying stagger. “I am close to dying,” he said. “The pain of my loss, Othellium . . .” He stumbled to his knees then, cry-ing out in pain and putting his head in his hands.

Pabl stood a few feet away, unsure what to do.

Ohin looked up at him, his hideously unnatural cataracts swimming in a paste of loose skin. “I am sorry. Forgive me.

Will you share your water with me? I would offer mine in exchange, but it has gone foul, I’m afraid.”

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Pabl unclasped his backpack and set it on the floor. He opened it and removed a large silver flagon of riflev water. “I hope this container is suitable for I have no other.”

Ohin took the water from him. “Please sit, Pabl Evr of Tepuis Garen. I do not bite.” He drank from the flagon.

Pabl sat hesitantly next to his backpack and waited for Ohin to finish.

The ancient one savored the water, taking a long, slow draught. He drew it out and gave a great gasp of satisfaction when he was finished. “Ahh, that was magnificent,” he said and handed 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.”

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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?”

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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 which they all came. Of the Spirit-That-Pervades-All which was part of every Name-giver, connecting their souls.

Merging with another obsidiman was not effortless like merging with a liferock; it required force of will and concentration. Pabl focused on the touch of Ohin’s hands against his, and felt them yield as the magic of the chant drew the threads of their spirits together.

They became a single being as their bodies melted together. Arms first, then chests, legs and head. Pabl stared into the sightless cataracts of the ancient, coming closer and closer until they connected with his.

Pain. So much pain inside.

Pabl felt himself slip away as Ohin’s vast experiences flooded his mind. The sheer power of his magic and the ages of time gone past hit Pabl like an avalanche. Long ago, impossibly long ago, Ohin emerged from the rock. He was one of the First Order, Pabl realized. He emerged near to the same time as the Council of Four — the very first obsidimen.

Visions of the Valley of the Elders popped into his mind.

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The valley itself was roughly circular and many miles across, surrounded by mountain peaks and cliffs. He saw the four gigantic columns, one for each element, stretch from the valley floor up into the clouds.

In Ohin’s memory, the columns were alive with motion.

One was a swirling sandstorm — air and rock. Another was a cylinder of lava — fire and rock. Across the valley were the other two, one of churning mud and the last made from living earth, wood and flesh. Hundreds of the First Brotherhood had returned from across the world. They all merged with the Council of Four, happy to be united again.

Pain. Loss. Everything gone now.

A wracking sob shook their merged body. Another image flashed into Pabl’s head, but this one wasn’t a memory. Ohin had been having visions of a strange place. A sea of fire below cliffs of red rock. Hot mist clung like smoke, stinking of sulfur and boiled putrefaction. Caves and the hint of drums pounding in the darkness.

What is this place?

Ohin did not know. The ancient’s pain grew until Pabl could hardly sense anything else. He felt his mind warp under the strain. He had to try to get out of the merge, but Ohin didn’t seem to think anything was wrong. Then the memory of Othellium’s death hit them. The brotherhood working against time and an unseen foe to resuscitate the dying spirit of the rock. Liferocks are not supposed to die! They give us life, nurture us, and guide our lives. We and they are forever connected.

Yet Ohin lived on. All of the brotherhood survived the loss, in body anyhow. But our spirits were forever ruined. Twisted.

The others went in search of . . . a substitute. A surrogate. I stayed. I had to stay, did I not? Stay here to die.

A memory flashed into Pabl’s mind. After Othellium’s spirit had gone, a group of five obsidimen arrived, appearing This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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out of the jungle like apparitions to the grief-stricken minds of the orphaned brotherhood.

They had heard of our tragedy and shared their water with us. We were grateful for their companionship.

In his mind’s eye, Pabl saw the five travelers. One of them had skin of russet brown, painted over in haphazard stripes of fire red, black eyes and a regally peaked forehead. It was Reid Quo.

He was thinner than Ganwetrammus remembered him to be, his face gaunt and expressionless. He wore drab robes of dusty red cloth, unadorned and plain. There was no sign of his sacred scarab brooch or his Mynbruje necklace, and when he spoke, he did so distractedly, as if he divorced himself of feeling anything.

Ohin and the others didn’t think much of it then, because it was a natural defense against the shock of seeing an entire brotherhood without a liferock. In the memory, Reid and the others left a few months later, accompanied by the entire Othellium brotherhood except Ohin. And he did not know where they went; he never heard from any of them again.

Pain wracked through their merged body again, sending shivers of sadness through Pabl. Pure anguish. Loneliness clawed at his mind, scraping at his sanity.

I must get out soon, Pabl thought.

Please don’t go. Just a while longer. Since the other one left, the isolation has been maddening.

The other one? But Pabl saw him then in Ohin’s mind.

A young obsidiman with russet skin, auburn eyes. Lyrthus Rewt, his brother who had never returned to the liferock.

What happened to him?

Images came into their merged mind, memories of ten years ago. Ohin had wandered off to gather food from his over-grown garden; he was not at the temple when Lyrthus arrived.

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visitors then. Ohin returned to the temple to find Lyrthus in a catatonic state, partially merged into the dead remnant of the Othellium liferock.

A shudder passed through Pabl.

He merged with Othellium. And it drained his life force before he could disengage. I tried to revive him; we coexisted in self-Dreaming for many years. But he never recovered. And when he died I vowed never to let any others near Othellium.

And his body?

An image materialized of Lyrthus’ dead body sprawled across a large quartz stone, Ohin chanting a funeral hymn over it as it disintegrated. I did not know where his liferock was, but he got proper service at death.

The pain hit Pabl again now, harder than before. An intense, soul-bending sadness which clutched desperately at Pabl’s mind, trying to catch hold. By Mynbruje, don’t you know you’re killing me? He calmed himself and tried to bring focus, gathering the threads of his identity together in an attempt to break out of the Dreaming.

Don’t go!

Pabl began to break the union through force of will, but Ohin held on somehow and prevented him from disentangling. I cannot share your pain. I am truly sorry.

Kill me then. Take away my anguish.

A pulse of fear shot through Pabl. Kill you? I can’t do that. The fear jerked along his spine, snapping him out of the merge. He stepped back and looked at the form in front of him.

Ohin sank into a ball of white flesh at Pabl’s feet, his arms wrapped around himself. A feeble image in the magical light given off by the glowing quartz columns. Many hours had passed, and it was dark outside.

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out of the Dreaming.

Ohin reached out for Pabl, groping. “Please take my life,”

he said. “I want to die.”

“No!” Pabl shied away from the ancient’s grasp.

“You have the strength to take away my pain. You know it will free me. Please, I beg you.”

Pabl lurched to his feet and turned away from the form crawling across the floor. The pathetic image repulsed him. It is unnatural and should be killed.

Instinctively, Pabl moved to strike the pitiful creature. He concentrated, magically hardening the flesh of his fists, focusing them into lethal weapons. Then he moved, his fist arcing toward the thing’s head.

Ohin stopped crawling and knelt high, bringing his hands together and facing Pabl. His milk-white eyes rolled up into his head as his vision went astral.

Pabl stopped his attack mid-motion. “I can’t,” he said, his whisper a loud, grating echo in the chamber. He couldn’t take the life of a brother. He knew Ohin should have died long ago, naturally. But Pabl could not be the instrument of this most unnatural suicide.

His stomach roiling, Pabl spun away from Ohin and fled the temple as fast as he could, not looking back for fear of seeing what he left behind.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Nine 

After Jan and Pabl had left for Othellium, Celagri met up with some jungle elves who lived amongst the trees and came into Rabneth once in a while to gamble or trade enchanted blankets and clothing for forged metal. Her dark complexion appealed to the young male elves who had taken her back to their settlement in trees on the west side of the Tepuis, and she enjoyed the attention. It had been a long time since she had been among her kin.

The elves called their home Tri’um. The settlement had been formed from the jungle; magically grown vines and trees made up walls, stairs and floors. It was deftly woven into the fabric of the flora and blended in so well that even Celagri, who had been to many such homes, did not notice it until they were climbing up the entry.

She stayed at Tri’um for several days before she grew restless for adventure. Celagri traveled constantly and called no place home. Her entire household consisted of nothing more than what she could carry on her back, and she liked it that way. No family or possessions. She was a vagrant and proud of it. Student of the world.

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She had been on her own since she was ten years old. She had never known her mother, and her father had raised her on his own until he was killed by Terrica, the windling who served as Garlthik One-Eye’s enforcer in Kratas. Celagri had hated the windling ever since.

The corrupted blood elf Vistrosh, Garlthik’s rival, had given Celagri a home for awhile. But his thorns repulsed her, and she had escaped Kratas at her first opportunity. Trying to steal the gem from Pabl’s finger was one of the stupidest and luckiest things she had ever done. No one besides Pabl had ever given her so much trust.

Now she bade farewell to her hosts at Tri’um, thank-ing them for their hospitality and walking out into the jungle, headed in the general direction of Rabneth. Jan and Pabl should be returning soon and she wanted to know how they had fared.

The jungle air hung heavy and still, but cool in the early afternoon. She stepped lightly along the narrow path that wound its way along the west side of the tepuis. To amuse herself, she dared herself to move as quickly as possible without making a sound. It took concentration, willpower — and though she could use her thief magic to help her, she did not, saving that for situations of real danger.

Rough voices drifted to her from in the jungle off to the left.

Villagers? Elves? No, the language was vulgar. Not elven certainly, not even dwarven.

As the voices grew closer, Celagri used magic to gather the jungle shadows around her. Then she recognized the language, though she hadn’t heard it since she’d left the streets of Kratas. Orkish.

“We need as many of these white capped ones as you can gather. And don’t you be puttin in any o’ the brown ruffly ones.

Those’re poison and you’ll be sorry for it later.”

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Celagri gathered the dark cloak of her magic close and quickly approached the voices. The magic softened her steps, thickened the tree shadows to hide her. The evening sky through the jungle canopy was a uniform gray with low clouds so shadows were scarce, but hiding was not difficult for Celagri, and soon she found herself watching four orks gathering mushrooms.

The one shouting instructions was a woman, huge and ugly. She wore a meat-stained apron over her expanse of a gut, and she could barely move three or four steps before panting from the exertion. The other three were youths from the look of it, one girl and two boys, though it was hard for Celagri to be sure. They all wore jerkins of ox leather and carried axes.

This isn’t a local family, must be part of a scorcher tribe.

What would these sorts be doing out in the middle of the jungle?

Celagri decided to stick around and find out. She sank further into the undergrowth and waited.

“I never seen such lazy workers,” the big one said. “Dig, if you want a good meal at dinner.”

“Haven’t had a good one in days,” said one of the boys.

“What was that? I know your mother. Watch your mouth, if’n you want to eat anything ’sides your own tongue.”

“Ooh, I’m so scared.”

From the girl: “Shut up, Tulg.”

Tulg gave an angry glance in the girl’s direction, but he didn’t say anything. The other boy chuckled slightly under his breath.

The girl faced the fat one. “Sarahem, how much more of this do we have to do?”

“’Till we’s done, Grabina. Just another basket full o’the shrooms, then we find some banana and maybe some constance fruit.”

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arms. “Get them off me! Get them off!” He pulled back the sleeves of his shirt to reveal skin covered with giant black ants. He waved his arms wildly, trying to shake off the ants.

“Raggok take all of you. They sting!” He brushed at himself frantically.

Grabina tried to calm him. “We’ve got ointment for that, Tulg. Bought in the village. Here.” She reached into her pouch and pulled out a balm bag to give him.

Tulg rubbed it on his arms and legs, head and neck. All over.

“Don’t have to bathe in the stuff.”

“You’re not the one who got stung.”

The other boy’s chuckle grew to an outright belly laugh.

“Shut up, Vergon.”

Celagri watched this go on for nearly an hour before they had found enough mushrooms and decided to go off in search of bananas. In that time, she discovered that they were part of a larger encampment nearby. Much larger.

But what are they doing here?

After a short stop to gather bananas and constance fruit, the orks led her back to their encampment, hidden in a depression up against the west cliff wall of the tepuis. The sky had grown dark by the time Celagri had climbed partway up the side of the mesa to get a look at the camp. She leaned her back against the rock and dangled her legs over the rim of the ledge while eating some of the bread and cheese that the Tri’um elves had given her.

The camp below was huge. Three big tents, one of them green, filled most of the space, but there were several dozen smaller ones here and there. The natural clearing had been recently widened and deepened by clear-cutting the trees. A pen had been built near one edge, holding pigs and oxen — presumably to feed the masses of orks and the few dwarfs she could see. About halfway around the perimeter was a corral This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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of sorts, but this one held huge riding animals with reptilian gray skin and horns protruding along the curve of their spines.

Thundra beasts.

Jaspree help me! What is going on here?

Just then, a big ork appeared at the far end of the camp, running rapidly. His hair flew out behind him as he headed straight for one of the smaller tents. He called out shrilly, releasing a piercing whistle.

From above came a screeching reply as three miniature dragons, all shimmering blue, dove out of the sky toward him. No, they weren’t dragons. Espagra. They looked like giant, winged versions of their iguana cousins, with vermilion mouths and rows of sharp teeth. Their brilliant blue scales glimmered hypnotically as they flew down to join the ork beastmaster, screeching some sort of greeting.

Celagri drew back into the concealment of the rock. It wouldn’t do for one of those beasts to spy her. She knew about espagra, though she had never seen them so close. They were everywhere across Barsaive, at least everywhere Celagri had been, which covered a lot of territory. Indiscriminate preda-tors. Celagri had often seen them in packs of three or four. Everything was potential prey. She’d even heard stories of them ganging up on a Troll drakkar and flying off with two of the sailors. When she was sure the beasts hadn’t seen her, she peered down at the camp again.

The darkness was coming too quickly. She could only make out a few details. Next to the ork beastmaster stood a dwarf shouting instructions to some people inside the green tent. And as he did so, Celagri caught flashes of red and blue light glimmering through the seams and gaps in the canvas fabric.

What in Raggok’s name are they doing?

Then something emerged. It looked to Celagri like a huge obsidiman — a rock creature of immense size. An earth ele-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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mental, has to be. The elemental held something in its arms — a large black slug-like being whose skin glowed a deep red through cracks. As the elemental turned, Celagri saw the slug’s mouth — a gaping maw of scoop-shaped teeth in front of a gut that roared red with fire.

A chill dripped down Celagri’s back. What is that?

Another elemental emerged from the tent, and a third, both carrying the huge slug creatures. The ork and the dwarf led the way out of the camp, while the magicians ordered the elementals to follow.

They did, slowly, methodically. Behind them followed a number of workers, mostly dwarfs, carrying tools — picks and shovels and baskets.

Celagri followed too. She had to see what was going to happen, though she knew it was bad. Very bad.

The dwarf and the ork led the party up a small trail which ended at the sheer cliff. The dwarf lifted a glowing crystal lantern and examined the rock, running his hands over the stone gently and carefully. He removed a scroll case from his cloak and examined the parchment within for a minute. Then he removed a piece of chalk from his pouch and marked on the stone.

In order to see, Celagri had to get closer than she liked, but the thief magic was strong around her, and the sky had grown dark except for the thin crescent of the moon, partially haloed by high, cottony clouds. She sneaked onto the narrow trail just behind the last worker, and watched.

The fat dwarf with the chalk pointed to the markings he had drawn, speaking to the ork and the magicians in charge of the elementals. He spoke at length with one of the magicians — a dwarf woman who wore the dark robes of a nethermancer — before stepping back out of the way.

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moved up to the rock and pressed the thing against the stone.

The giant slug came alive, squirming and writhing in the elemental’s grasp, unable to escape. It spat some kind of acid onto the stone, then bit away a chunk.

Amid the billowing acrid stench and burning smoke, Celagri winced. She thought of Pabl and his brothers. If everything her obsidiman friend had told her of the liferock was true, this must hurt. This must be stopped.

Soon all three elementals stood, side by side, wielding their beasts as they bucked and writhed and tried to escape.

Within an hour, a shallow, wide hole gaped from the rock. The beginnings of a tunnel.

The elementals and the slugs continued to eat away the rock like worms through fruit, working through the night.

And there was nothing Celagri could do to stop them. She slipped into the shadows, hoping Pabl’s kin would arrive soon and put a stop to the digging. And as she ran toward the village, she remembered how Pabl had rescued her from the streets of Kratas.

After she’d tried to steal from him, Pabl had responded with leniency and eventually kindness. And later, when he had learned the details of her indenture, he had been sympa-thetic and had bought out her servitude, then set her free.

Pabl was the only family she had ever known. She had walked away from his friendship once during the search for the castle of Yon Fuiras, but she knew now that she had made a mistake. She would never leave him again; she was prepared to die for him.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Ten 

The trip back to Tepuis Garen passed quickly. Pabl and the others arrived after sunset on the second day of traveling. Pabl had been withdrawn and quiet for most of the trip back, trying to concentrate on Jan’s rambling comments about the weather or the politics of Throal, anything to get his mind off of his merge with Ohin Yeenar.

Should I have killed the old brother? Would death have been merciful?

Pabl had no idea; he only knew that he hadn’t had the strength of will to do it. “We will leave you at Rabneth,” he told Jan as they approached the tepuis. “But I’ll return in a few days to let you know what I’m going to do next.”

Jan gave a solemn nod. “I understand, my friend. I will await your return.”

“You will give my excuses to Celagri?”

“You can bet on it,” Jan said. “I’m going to wait for our way-ward companion at Samson’s Inn. I don’t think I’ve imbibed enough of that foul brew yet.”

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glance at Chaiel and Bintr told Pabl that they felt it too. “It is time to say goodbye,” said Pabl, “for now anyway.”

Jan bowed. “If I am drunk when next we meet, it will be for lack of your positive influence.”

Pabl gave his friend a smile, then turned abruptly and headed off through the undergrowth, climbing up toward the cliff face. Bintr and Chaiel followed close behind him, all of them anxious to merge with Ganwetrammus.

The air cooled as the obsidimen climbed the rock, and Pabl welcomed the clean feeling of each breath, refreshing after the dank humidity of the jungle. Visions of his experience with Ohin Yeenar had been haunting Pabl; he had been seeing the ancient in his mind and the periphery of his sight ever since running out of the temple two days before. He was no closer to finding Reid Quo, and he was starting to question his own sanity.

Ganwetrammus will anchor me, Pabl thought. Bring me back to myself.

They were about halfway up the rock when Chaiel stopped on a ledge above Pabl and started to merge. Bintr reached the ledge with Pabl close behind. The evening sky was deep blue, a half circle of high clouds forming an arc around the moon’s thin crescent. The jungle was a black-green mat below as Pabl removed his traveling clothes and let himself fall into the embrace of the liferock.

The spirit of Ganwetrammus welcomed him, and he forgot about the troubling images of Ohin and Reid. He felt the presence of Gvint and Ywerk, Hagnit, Grimchak and Wennith, plus others. All were glad they had returned safely from Othellium. They experienced the memory of his merging with Ohin Yeenar, and they reassured him that he had done the right thing by not killing the ancient one. Death would come to him at her own pace.

Hours passed as Pabl’s knowledge of Reid Quo and Ohin This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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Yeenar formed in the collective memory of the rock. The brotherhood was jubilant, for it was their only news of the lost Elder. Perhaps it could aid the air elementals in their search.

Soon, however, their jubilance turned to puzzlement, and then panic as they felt pain at the base of the rock.

It began as gentle tingling in the rock below, an annoying tickle at first that worked its way into the consciousness of the merged communion of the Garen Brotherhood. Soon, however, the tingling became a burning, then a sharp jabbing through the rock. Something was attacking the liferock.

The pain grew slowly in Pabl’s mind until he could hardly feel anything else. His sensation of his merged brothers faded until they were lost behind a haze of agony. He emerged from the rock, opening his eyes to the cloudless night sky, thin crescent moon in a field of stars. The pain dissipated immediately, fading to a distant sharpness in the back of his mind as his body detached from the liferock.

The cold night air smelled of smoldering fire. Wind gusted up the side of the cliff, howling as it blasted through the hollows and crevices near the top. The liferock breathed still, though it was injured somewhere down below. Chaiel and Bintr emerged beside him, dressing quickly and scrambling up the rock to the temple.

Others of his brotherhood had emerged and were gathering outside the temple. Gvint spoke to them. “Ganwetrammus is in danger. I sensed a breach in the rock on the west side, near the cove of the golden vein. We must not delay. I go to in-vestigate.” Gvint looked at Ywerk. “I ask that one of us remain here, the rest may choose to come along or stay.” Then without hesitation he made his way out of the temple and through the tall stones.

Ywerk sighed, but accepted his role and sat in the entryway.

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rocks as Pabl moved quickly to the west cliff of the tepuis. In the end, all but three brothers had decided to come along.

Pabl arrived at the cliff edge just behind Tidre Ghi and Gavi Arndt, two older brothers who had chosen to spend the remainder of their lives near Ganwetrammus.

Tidre and Gavi gave each other and Pabl grave looks as they lowered themselves over the side of the cliff and began the descent. They showed Pabl how to climb down, partially merged with the rock to prevent themselves from falling. Pabl knew that such climbing was possible, but he had never mastered it.

Now, he plunged his hands and feet into the rock, struggling to avoid giving into the merge completely. After a few tries, he could do it reasonably well. The cold air grew moist from windblown waterfall spray as Pabl descended. The stone of the cliff face was warm and welcoming, inviting him to release his concentration and enter the Dreaming. But every time he connected with Ganwetrammus, the pain of the wound below shot into him like a spike, forcing him to maintain focus.

A thousand feet they descended, and a thousand more.

Quietly, rapidly, driven by a need to stop the rock’s agony. The jungle floor approached, a mottled gray and black rug in the faint light of the stars. The air thickened around Pabl, and he grew warm from the exertion of the climb. Finally he saw the filament of dull white lights near the bottom, and closer to the rock, yellow and red glowed inside the wound.

A noise came from the hole — the sound of rocks grinding against bone. Outside, a line of dwarfs pushed squeaky-wheeled carts full of rock debris down a path which had been cut into the side of the mesa. Lines of ork sentinels flanked the narrow path from the tunnel entrance down into the jungle. The orks wore scarred animal hides, many with black or brown fur still attached, and helms of bones thatched to-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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gether with strips of leather. They carried poleaxes or long swords, standing at attention.

Pabl stopped behind his brethren, his limbs rooted in the rock, and waited. The cave entrance was huge — at least three obsidimen lengths high — roughly circular with a flat floor. The smell of burning rock billowed from the opening, a cloud of acid fumes which choked Pabl, searing the back of his throat. He felt churning vibrations through his skin as more of the rock was excavated.

The flagrancy of the transgression stunned him. Who would do such a thing? And why? Only once before had Ganwetrammus been threatened. By Jibn Sra’s Horror long ago, before the Scourge. And even then, the rock hadn’t been harmed physically.

Suddenly, through the rock, Pabl felt a signal from Gvint.

We attack! Now!

The brotherhood moved as one, silently dropping from the rock onto the trail. Pabl went with them, letting himself fall from the arched opening to land in the entrance of the hole.

Gvint directed them to form a solid line — eighteen obsidimen — across the tunnel opening.

The dwarfs outside the cave stopped pushing their carts and backed away. Inside, a few dwarfs and humans were shoveling rock into empty carts, but they too stopped to look at the obsidimen.

The orks noticed and started to close in.

“Stay back!” Gvint yelled, and he made a swirling motion with his hands. Fire seemed to rise up out of the ground between the orks and the tunnel until a crackling wall of flame spanned the trail, blocking them off.

A loud screech brought Pabl’s attention back to the tunnel.

Beyond the miners, at the very back, were several large creatures. Earth elementals, Pabl recognized. Nothing very much wrong with them. But what they carried was evil. Each ele-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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mental held a large black slug-shaped creature, pulsating red light gleamed through the cracks in their rhinoceros skin. The slugs squirmed and hissed in an effort to escape.

Nuinouri.

A shiver of fear crept through Pabl. He had never seen a Nuinouri, but these were unmistakable. Creatures of hate, leftover from the Scourge. All obsidimen knew about them; they were responsible for breaching numerous liferocks during the Long Dreaming, laying them open for more powerful Horrors to destroy. Legend said that crafty Horrors had created the Nuinouri to burrow through the solid rock which surrounded sealed kaers.

Gvint turned to speak to the miners, his voice booming.

“You will stop what you are doing, immediately.”

The miners inside numbered about ten or fifteen, but there were three magicians among them. The miners glanced from the wall of fire to the tunnelers and back in an attempt to determine which was more dangerous. One of the magicians stepped forward — a dwarf woman wearing black and brown robes. The clasp at her shoulder was fashioned from the claw of a large bird or perhaps a small dragon. “I am Nancri. What is your business here?”

Gvint stepped forward, towering above Nancri. “I am Gvint Od, Elder of Tepuis Garen. This mesa belongs to us; it is our liferock and you are desecrating it.”

Nancri backed up a step to allow an elemental with a Nuinouri to move up next to her. “We are here under the author-ity of Sarbeneck Haspain III, master miner of Throal,” she said.

The other two earth elementals moved slowly to the back of the tunnel. But the mages who controlled them moved up alongside Nancri. Both were dwarf men, one displaying a silver beard, neatly trimmed, the other a long, brown one. Both wore drab robes of russet and green.

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Gvint stared up into the maw of the Nuinouri, then looked at Nancri. “Nevertheless, you cannot dig here. This is our liferock. Our spirit. Wounding it hurts us, and we will protect it if necessary.”

Pabl saw no change on Nancri’s face. She either didn’t understand what Gvint meant by liferock or didn’t care.

“Your threats don’t scare me, obsidiman. I have a job to do and I intend to do it.”

One of the other mages broke in. “Nancri, don’t you think we should let Sarbeneck —”

“Shut up, Riann. I’m in charge here.” Her gaze did not stray from Gvint as a Nuinouri at the back of the cave belched out a cloud of black fumes and fire erupted from its hind end. The elemental holding it moved toward the end of the tunnel and pressed the monster against the stone.

Pabl winced as the creature spat acid onto the rock.

Smoke filled the small space, coating everything in a thin film of hot soot, burning his lungs with each shallow breath. Pabl waited for a sign from Gvint. The time for violence neared; he could sense it like a palpable surge of anger from his brothers.

The heat from the wall of fire seared his back as Pabl focused himself, preparing for action. The orks clamored behind the fire, but so far none of them had penetrated it.

Gavi Arndt stepped out of the line, speaking in a language Pabl didn’t know. The earth elemental holding the active Nuinouri, shifted and stuttered its steps, turning towards Gavi.

The creature backed away from the wall so that Nuinouri could no longer damage the rock.

Gvint spoke, “You see, we will not let you continue. We cannot allow it anymore than you can stop eating.”

“Damn you!” yelled Nancri. “Riann, you’re pathetic.”

Riann didn’t respond to Nancri, but instead raised his voice, speaking in the same language which Gavi spoke, a gut-tural almost gravelly sound which sent a vibration through This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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the pit of Pabl’s stomach to hear it.

The elemental jerked to one side in front of Gavi, swinging the Nuinouri in its arms as Riann struggled to regain mastery.

The Horror spawn twisted and wriggled, popping loose and landing on the dirt in front of Wennith Nar.

Wennith jumped back as the slug lurched toward him. He drew upon his half-magic to create water.

A deafening roar came from the Nuinouri as magical water materialized inside it. Green and black steam billowed from the slug, shrouding the crystal lights. The creature was faster than it looked, squirming along the ground towards Wennith.

It’s going to get him, Pabl thought. He let out a battle cry and leaped forward for a strike with his magically hardened fists. He caught sight of Chaiel and Tidre on his right, surging out of the line, trying to get between the Nuinouri and Wennith. And Pabl saw Bintr move his hands to form a circle in the air.

Pabl hit the creature just as Bintr threw his magic circle.

Pabl’s fists came down hard against the slug’s side, cracked several plates in its thick outer hide. Chaiel’s blade sank deep into the worm’s side, and Tidre buried his troll axe into its flesh.

The Nuinouri didn’t even slow down. It lurched toward Wennith, spitting thick ichor from its maw. The spray spattered Pabl’s vulnerable brother; Wennith’s piercing scream cut through the haze and smoke.

Pabl watched as Wennith tried to leap out of the way, but the Nuinouri flared once more, belching fire and acid. The horror-spawn writhed forward, chomping down on the obsidiman’s upper torso, trying to swallow Wennith whole.

Too late, Bintr’s spell hit, forming a brilliant circle of red light around the creature. Runes of gold glowed around the edges.

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The Nuinouri froze, immobilized by the spell.

Pabl looked down at Wennith. He thrashed and jerked, freeing himself from the maw. Then he fell, hitting the hard rock with a dead thud. He bounced over onto his smoldering back, what was left of his neck twisted at an impossible angle. His skin was blackened all over, and a huge cavity of sinew and gore gaped where his chest used to be.

Pabl went to him and checked for breath. Nothing. He checked his astral image for life. Nothing.

Dead.

The smell hit Pabl as he bent over the body — a stench of burning flesh, dissolving away with acid. He turned away, feeling his stomach rise into his throat, fighting to keep it down.

“What is going on here?” The voice came from an ork, standing behind Pabl and the line of obsidimen. He was nearly as tall as Pabl, his worn black leather armor covered with rusty studs. The ork’s canines jutted from his lower jaw and distorted his lips as he spoke. “Whoever moves next will die.

And that includes you, Nancri.”

Pabl looked up to see that the ork had broken through a section of the fire wall, and was accompanied by a group of ork cavalrymen. He guessed them to number twenty or thirty, but there were more coming up the trail. An espagra flew down to land next to the leader, baring its teeth towards Pabl and the others.

Many of the orks carried crossbows, all cocked and aimed at the obsidimen. Pabl’s mind went from anger at Wennith’s death to thoughts of escape. Almost the entire brotherhood was here, surrounded. Outnumbered and trapped.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Eleven 

Sarbeneck floated in an ocean of spun silk and feather pillows. Deep, shadowy blues and pinks washed over him as he rolled gently. Comfortably. The swells of his silken sea nudged and buoyed him without disturbing his slumber. His secure sleep, deep inside the safe tunnels of Throal, under miles of mountain and masonry.

He turned in dream-like slow motion, his arm draping over the naked body of the woman next to him. Her warmth bathed him; the softness of her skin caressed him. Her curves fit snugly against his.

“Wake up, sir, there’s been an accident.” The words floated into his undulating ocean, accompanied by a slight shake of his shoulder. The woman?

He rolled over on his cot, feeling the rough scrap of burlap against his cheek.

“Sir?” More shaking.

A chill breeze crawled down his back and he jerked awake.

The memory of silk and Throal retreated against the harsh ache in his neck and the coldness in his toes. He rolled over on his hard straw mattress and sat up. The scent of the na-86

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ked dream woman dissipated, replaced by the smell of pigs and mud.

The messenger was a dwarf-sized silhouette holding a crystal lantern.

“What by Death is going on? Why have you woken me?”

“There’s been some sort of . . . of . . . accident, sir. At the mine.

The beastmaster ordered me to wake you.”

Sarbeneck swung his legs over the edge of his cot and rubbed his eyes. “What sort of accident are you talking about?”

“Well, um —”

“Come on, out with it!” Sarbeneck stood, wrapping his robe around him. “Now that you’ve gone to the trouble of getting me out of bed, you might as well tell me what happened.”

“Well, sir. Some of the rock people tried to stop the mining; they got into a sort of a fight with Nancri. The orks are coming with a few of the rock folk. It’s best if they tell you.”

“What is your name?”

“Theo, sir.”

“Theo what?”

“Ranghorn, sir. Theo Ranghorn, sir. I’m just an ore purifier.

I don’t know nothing about rock people and fighting and such.

Just an ore purifier.”

“Right, Theo. Well you can leave now. But tell Gingreth to report to me immediately.”

“Me, sir? But I’m not —”

“I don’t care about excuses, Theo. Just do it!” And get a spine while you’re at it, he thought.

Theo hunched over, defeated. “Of course, sir.” He turned and walked out of the tent, taking the lantern with him.

Sarbeneck touched the light crystal that was set into the tent’s center pole until it cast adequate illumination. Then he retrieved his boots and jacket. He tried to ignore the ache in his muscles and the fleeting images of Throal, silk sheets and This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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the woman, as he dressed. When he was finished, he stepped outside.

The night air blew cool, and the sky glimmered bright with silver starlight. The camp was bustling with activity and would stay that way day and night until the operation was finished. Until every last ounce of orichalcum had been mined from the vein of rock and purified.

He looked up toward the trail which led to the mining site, following the trail of lights. About halfway to the site, the lights bunched and clustered around a group of people coming down the path. Sarbeneck breathed a great sigh.

Pontin warned me about the rock folk. But I hadn’t really expected something so soon.

He took another cool breath of air and prepared himself for what he had to do. He had been in less than desirable situations before, where the locals didn’t fully appreciate the benefits of his presence. He didn’t really enjoy telling them that they didn’t have any choice but to cooperate. Well, he had to admit, occasionally he did look forward to the confrontations, but only when the locals were particularly annoying.

The rock folk are not the same as other Name-givers, he reminded himself. They don’t even have genders. He’d spent a bit of time in the Great Library of Throal reading about them before the expedition. They may react unexpectedly. Dangerously.

Gingreth and the cavalrymen had reached the encampment and were approaching the tent. The orks numbered about twenty, walking just behind Gingreth, surrounding three large obsidimen, easily visible to Sarbeneck above the heads of the mercenaries. One was obviously older than the other two; his rocky skin seemed harder, crustier. There were thin cracks and crevices in the lines of his face. He wore a flowing tunic of indigo and magenta patterns, and loose trousers, striped red and black.

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One of the other two was dressed similarly, with a loose shirt and trousers of green and brown, except that he wore silver bracers over his massive forearms, and the third had mean looking black eyes, no whites. He wore only pants made of rough brown fabric like those of his older comrade. His chest was bare of clothing, but had been painted in swirling patterns of purple and blue.

“Stay here,” said Gingreth to the others. He approached Sarbeneck.

“Sir, I’m sorry to interrupt your sleep, but mining has been halted temporarily. Several obsidimen attacked our miners.

Several of the cavalry were seriously burned, and one of the Nuinouri is injured.”

The old obsidiman stepped forward, and two large orks in chain mail came with him, sword tips in his gut. “My name is Gvint Od, Elder of Tepuis Garen.” He motioned toward the mesa with his massive right arm. “This ork speaks half-truths at best.”

Gingreth bristled, the muscles in his neck tensing visibly, but he held his temper in check.

“We did not attack your people.” His dwarven was slightly stilted as though he rarely spoke in that tongue, and his voice carried a strange chanting quality to it. “We merely came to protect our liferock. Your mages challenged us, and one of those Horror spawn — Nuinouri — killed Wennith Nar.”

“Whoa. Slow down.” Sarbeneck took a step back, casting a hard glance at Gingreth. “Someone has been killed?”

“When they attacked the tunnelers, one of them erupted.

One of the obsidimen got caught in the crossfire. We stopped the bloodshed as soon as we could, but they had mounted a wall of flame across the path.”

“Three obsidimen were able to penetrate our security and stop the mining? You must be slipping, Gingreth.”

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told. They came down inside the rock or something. Surprised us this time, but it won’t happen again, I assure you.” He gave Gvint a defensive stare.

“The others melted into the stone and disappeared, leaving only these three behind. They took the wounded one with them. I didn’t know he was dead.”

“He is, thanks to your nethermancer.”

Gingreth nodded. “It’s Nancri’s fault. She should never have staged a confrontation.”

Sarbeneck was silent for a minute. He would have to talk to Nancri later. He stepped forward and gave Gvint a grave look. “I am sorry about your comrade,” he said. “Nancri acted on her own in this regard and she will be punished.”

Gvint spoke. “We care not about punishment. We wish only that you stop cutting into Tepuis Garen. You are causing us a great deal of harm. Far more than you know.”

“How is this?” Sarbeneck asked the question more to bide time than from any real curiosity.

“Tepuis Garen is our liferock — our spiritual force. It is as much a part of us as your soul is a part of you. Your hole is causing it great pain right now.”

Sarbeneck frowned. He hated this part. He took a deep breath and spoke slowly and clearly. “I’m very sorry, rock friend, but I cannot stop the mining. I am a miner, that’s what I do. That is who I am; it defines my existence. And right now, my livelihood rests in the fate of this expedition. It has cost me a huge sum to get here and set up, a cost that will bank-rupt me if I don’t return with sufficient orichalcum.

“My employer and I researched this location when we were in Throal, and we found no mention of any communities or ‘liferocks’ that might be adversely affected by our mining. You should consider keeping Throal informed of such matters.

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thetic, I just can’t let myself be swayed. The cost would be too high.”

Gvint folded his arms across his massive chest, and shook his head slowly. “No, you do not understand —”

“Please let me finish.” Sarbeneck took a breath and exhaled sharply. He hated this part of his job and wanted to get it over as soon as possible. “I can, however, offer you some moderate compensation if it will allow you to find another liferock —”

Gvint broke into laughter. Deep and full, rolling like thunder from his chest. The other obsidimen also started to laugh, and Sarbeneck stared at them. Gingreth looked puzzled.

The mean-looking obsidiman spoke up. “Perhaps we haven’t been clear enough,” he said. “We are the liferock, and the liferock is us. No distinction. Wounding it hurts us.” His eyes seemed to glow with black fire as he spoke. “Killing it destroys us. And you are killing it.”

The others had stopped laughing, but offered nothing further. The mean one continued. “We will defend it with our lives. There are many of us, and we are strong. We will attack you again if you continue, and again, and again until we destroy you or die in the attempt.” He moved forward, darting out of the clot of orks around him, more quickly than anyone expected. He glided on a thin cushion of magical air, reaching Sarbeneck before the dwarf could react. The obsidiman pulled Sarbeneck into a tight embrace, his large hand closing around the dwarf’s neck.

Sarbeneck’s back jerked in pain as he was lifted to face the rock man, eye to eye. “You talk of costs, dwarf. What of the cost of a life? How much value do you put on yours?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Sarbeneck saw Gingreth move.

“Don’t try anything, ork, or I will crush his neck.”

Gingreth hesitated.

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complish anything to kill him. The mining will most likely continue.”

Sarbeneck tried to nod in agreement, but Chaiel set him roughly back to the ground. His feet had gone numb and he found it hard to maintain his balance. He took several deep breaths, fighting to keep the shakes from taking control. He hated showing fear.

“I am sorry for the hasty actions of my brother,” Gvint said.

“Normally, we are not a rash people.”

“These are not normal circumstances, Elder,” Chaiel said.

The third obsidiman interrupted. “May I suggest a compromise?” He spoke perfect dwarven without accent.

From Gvint, “Pabl, this may not be the right time.” Then to Sarbeneck, “Perhaps we should return in the daylight.”

Sarbeneck did not respond, still trying to compose himself. His fear was fading now, replaced by a growing anger.

Threats put him in a foul mood. Dis take these obsidimen and their cursed rock. He looked at Pabl. “What sort of compromise?”

“We will send a messenger to Throal to bring an arbiter. In the meantime, you must halt your operation.”

“Impossible —”

“Please listen,” Pabl said. “If the arbiter determines that you deserve to be compensated for time, effort and lost minerals, we will pay you a reasonable settlement price.”

Sarbeneck thought about it. These obsidimen were so varied. One deadly, the next reasonable. “I doubt you have enough silver to pay me.”

“We can get it.”

“No, I don’t think you can. In fact I’m sure of it. You’re ask-ing for a concession from me, not a compromise at all.”

“How about ten thousand silver?”

Sarbeneck laughed, though the action hurt his throat.

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it.” He turned away, trying to bring calm to his temper before speaking again. These people ask too much, he thought. His back ached from being lifted, and he could feel the ghost sensations of Chaiel’s thick fingers on his throat.

To Gingreth he said, “Escort our friends to the perimeter of the camp and make sure they don’t return.” Then to the obsidimen, “I apologize again for the death of your comrade; Nancri will be appropriately reprimanded. I refuse your compromise; the mining will continue. If you have vast riches, bring them and I will reconsider my decision. Until then, goodbye.”

Pabl moved suddenly, bursting free for a second. His fist connected with the neck of the ork behind him, and the ork fell. He spun to place a hard kick into the groin of another ork, and Sarbeneck watched as the second ork crumpled to the ground. But the third cavalryman clobbered him with a mace to the gut.

“Pabl, stop this!” coming from the Elder.

Pabl fell to his knees. “You are a disgrace to your race,” he said, looking up at Sarbeneck. “All you care about is silver.

You’re destroying as much of the world as the Horrors. I pity you.”

“Pabl!”

The mace came down again, this time hitting him in the back, and knocked Pabl to ground.

“Take them away,” Sarbeneck said. He turned away from them and walked as casually as he could into his tent and breathed a heavy sigh. His left hand moved involuntarily to his throat. Next time, I’ll just have Gingreth kill them on sight.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Twelve 

Pabl’s back ached, and images of Wennith’s death flickered in his mind: the crisped black bones and muscle; the burned stench rising in a fetid cloud from the gaping hole in Wennith’s chest; the brittle charcoal of his acid-spattered skin. Pabl couldn’t shake the vision.

“I am calling a council,” Gvint said. “We will find a way to stop this mining.”

He and Chaiel stood with Pabl at the foot of the cliff about a half mile from the encampment. The ork and his mercenaries had left them there, mostly unharmed. Chaiel had checked Pabl’s wounds and determined that they would hurt for a while, but nothing was broken or permanently damaged.

Next to the cliff, the jungle gave way to boulders and jumbled hunks of fallen rock. Here, the night air blew cool and fresh, carrying the alien scent of fire and food animals from the camp. The rock before them radiated warmth, felt reassuring to Pabl’s touch.

Chaiel looked at Gvint. “You should have let me kill the dwarf,” he said.

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discuss options at the council. Pabl, do you think your friends in the village would be willing to help us?”

The question surprised Pabl. “Yes, Elder.”

“Please ask them to join us at the council. Their aid might be of value.”

Chaiel interrupted, “Are you certain that’s wise, Elder? I mean, they aren’t —”

“If Pabl trusts them, then I will,” Gvint said. “They are not of the rock, and therefore their perspective differs. It is that al-ternate view which I seek.”

Pabl turned to look along the cliff in the direction of the village. The rock rose like a dark monolith on his right, giving way to an overarching canopy of sky high above. Stars shone in the canopy like pinpoints of white-hot stone. “I will go now,” he said. “Then join you at the temple.”

“Very well. Pabl, the council will await your arrival.” Gvint approached the rock and merged with it, melting into the stone. Then he moved up the cliff face, a bulge under a skin of rock, climbing into the sky. Amazing, Pabl thought. To be able to move inside the rock like that. Perhaps someday. .

Chaiel followed Gvint, climbing the traditional way, his hands and feet anchored in the rock. Soon they were too far up to see, leaving Pabl alone with the sound of the wind and the sight of the moon’s silver sliver, just cresting the mesa wall.

Pabl took a heavy breath of the clean air and moved along the rock toward the village. He avoided the main trail, walking and climbing next to the mesa wall to avoid any unwanted encounters. It took him about an hour to reach the village. He found Jan and Celagri in Samson’s Inn.

The room was nearly empty due to the late hour; only three diehard teeth throwers remained. Jan and Celagri sat alone at a table against the wall well clear of the drunk gam-blers.

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Pabl went directly to their table. “My Elder has called a council,” he said. “Miners have desecrated the tepuis. They killed one of my brothers and have refused to stop the digging.

They have an entire ork cavalry, well-armed and strong. They did not listen to our pleas.”

Celagri looked up, and for the first time Pabl noticed that she was dressed in full traveling gear, hair pulled into a tight black knot. “I saw the mining camp,” she said. “And I saw most of the battle. I’ve told Jan everything.”

“My Elder wants you to come to our council,” Pabl said.

“We might need help.”

Jan looked up, giving an exaggerated yawn. “I will come, and I’ll tell Abrin — my friend on the village assembly. He’s the one who tried to convince Pontin Nemish to clean up his shantytown. Abrin might be able to get the assembly to help you. I know they are still cursing the ork cavalry for the mess it made.”

“Do you trust him?”

“Yes,” Jan said. “I’ve known him since I was a child.”

“Good. Hurry and get ready; I will explain the situation as we climb.”

Celagri spoke, “I’m ready.”

“I’ll go get Abrin.” Jan stood and walked out of the tavern.

Pabl and Celagri waited in the center square. Abrin and Jan returned a short time later, with three other dwarfs following. Abrin approached Pabl. “I am sorry to hear your news,”

he said. “We will do what we can to help.” He turned towards the three other dwarfs. “This is Pontin Nemish, illusionist and leader of the village assembly. Pontin, this is Pabl Evr of Tepuis Garen.”

A red bearded dwarf stepped forward and bowed low. “I wish our meeting were under better circumstances,” he said.

“On behalf of the township of Rabneth, I would like to offer our aid to the Garen Brotherhood. May we join your council?”

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So you are the slum monger who runs Pontintown, eh?

“You may climb with us,” Pabl said, “though I cannot guaran-tee my Elder will allow you to participate in the council. Have you climbed the tepuis before? The trip up is quite rugged.”

“No, but we are ready.”

Pabl nodded, then turned and led the way out of the village, heading along the west road, toward the trail of the First Merge. Pontin walked next to Pabl and spoke of his plans to refurbish his tenements by the stream. Pontin apologized for offending Pabl, assuring him that no disrespect toward the Garen Brotherhood was intended. The shantytown’s dilapi-dated condition was merely an oversight which he planned to remedy shortly.

Pabl listened to this diplomacy with growing indifference.

He did not like this Pontin Nemish. Too much talk. Words did not matter; only deeds would convince him. His lack of response eventually shut Pontin up.

The trail of the First Merge rose up the rock on their left, cut and bolstered into the side of the cliff. The tepuis sloped more gently on this side, but even so the path proved a difficult climb in the dim light of the stars.

They climbed for many hours, drinking from a narrow rivulet which ran along the path for a short distance before plummeting over the edge. The trail was haphazard and difficult. In some places, the path simply disappeared into the un-yielding face of the rock, only to start up again forty or fifty feet straight above.

The sky lightened in the east as they neared the point where the path left the cliff face. The trail angled up through a deep, rocky crevice that cut toward the top of the mesa, cold and dark and wet in the pre-dawn hours.

They spoke rarely, Pabl preferring to listen to the wind and the waking of the rock. Mountain tigers and Crojen often made their lairs in the pockets and caves; it was best to be This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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alert. As the sun rose, hot in the clear sky, the sounds of the tepuis came to life — high screeches of birds and the throaty rhythms of iguanas and skinks.

Two and half hours later, the group had made its way through the Dance of Stones to the temple above the riflev waterfall. They were the last to arrive, though Gvint gave them time to clean off and change clothes before calling the council to assemble.

The whole brotherhood was there, faces grave and solemn.

Wennith Nar’s body lay next to the Alqarat, his chest and legs draped with a funeral covering — a heavy blanket of gray and brown. Pictures embroidered on the blanket told the legends of The Valley of the Elders, of the Council of Four and how each element — Air, Fire, Earth and Water — would reclaim part of the dead body. How the spirit would rejoin the liferock.

Gvint stood over Wennith’s corpse and placed a horkla on the head of the dead obsidiman. “The circumstances of our gathering are familiar to all of us,” he said. “Ganwetrammus is threatened by the mining camp. One of the brotherhood has been killed. We must decide what to do.”

“Why do we allow these dwarfs and this elf at our council?”

It was Chaiel’s voice.

Pabl stood and addressed his brothers. “The dwarfs represent the village of Rabneth; they support us against the miners. And the elf is my friend. True, they are not of our brotherhood, but they want to help us.”

“They are energy-wasters. They share heritage and race with our enemies. When has friendship ever come before kin-ship?” There were murmurs of assent from the others. Even Pabl didn’t put his friendship with Jan, which was closer than any he had, above the concerns of his brothers and Ganwetrammus.

“Chaiel,” Pabl said, “Do you condemn all members of a race This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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for the actions of a few of its members?”

Chaiel was not going to be so easily calmed. “No, of course not. But this matter is for the Brothers of Tepuis Garen. Out-siders, regardless of their loyalties, are not invited.”

Gvint interrupted. “We don’t have time for this,” he said.

“We are in a dire situation and can use all the help and input we can get. I see no reason to exclude them from this council.

They can stay.”

“But Elder —”

Gvint silenced Chaiel with a look.

Pabl sat down, as did Chaiel.

“We have a choice to make. Peace or war. Diplomacy has failed and I do not think it has a chance for success. Their leader, Sarbeneck Haspain is a salesman, not a negotiator. He cannot be trusted. His anger at Chaiel’s attack will fade in time, but his unwillingness to stop mining will not. Unless we can pay him enough.”

“How much does he ask?” Ywerk Fri said from where he stood in a full-length black robe.

“Too much,” Gvint said. “When Pabl offered him gems worth ten thousand silver, he scoffed at us. Money means a great deal to him. Besides, I would be hesitant to pay it anyway. He has no right to be here.” The Elder sighed. “Which brings us to war.”

Gvint paused for heartbeat and a slow breath. Then, “Unless there are serious objections, I propose that we attack the mining camp.”

A rumbling murmur passed through the temple, but no one spoke.

Gvint continued, “The attack should try to cripple their mining operation. We will ambush them at night, and will target the elementals and the Horror spawn. We do not want to kill the miners or cavalrymen if we can help it, but we will if it is necessary to accomplish our goals. We need to disable This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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their ability to mine. Do you all agree?”

The temple chamber was mostly silent, but Pabl felt the consensus was with Gvint. He was their Elder and he knew what was best. Even the dwarfs from Rabneth did not speak out against him.

Tidre Ghi stood. “I agree that we should try to disable them. But their mercenary force is strong, and they will be expecting an attack. What happens if we fail to stop them?”

Chaiel got to his feet. “We cannot fail. If this attack doesn’t discourage them, we will try again, and again until they get the message. But I think we’ll succeed.”

“Ywerk and Tidre will plan the attack,” said Gvint, raising his arms. “Chaiel, Pabl and I will provide you with any information we can about the layout of the camp. The ambassa-dors from Rabneth should discuss their role in this with Ywerk and Tidre. Perhaps some of the villagers can provide a diversion. Now, we prepare for battle.”

Chaiel spoke. “We need to teach them to respect liferocks.

They didn’t understand us when we spoke of the spirit force inside Tepuis Garen.” He walked up next to Wennith’s dead body. “I want payback for Wennith’s death.”

Shouts of approval rose from the brotherhood. And the shouts grew into a cheer, getting louder and louder until the entire brotherhood stood. Soon the cheer became a chant in the long syllables of the obsidiman language. They sang, “Victory. Respect. Death to the miners.” The brothers followed Ywerk and Tidre outside into the clear afternoon.

Pabl asked Jan and Celagri to take Abrin and Pontin outside with the rest of the brotherhood while he remained behind inside the temple for a minute. After they had left, Pabl approached Gvint. “Elder, there is still another, more drastic option that we might be forced to embrace.”

“Yes, young one?”

“The Ritual of Protection.”

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“Ah, that.”

“I know it has been a long time since it was last performed, and —”

“More than five hundred years ago, yes,” Gvint said. “When I was not much older than you are now. It is risky and dangerous, and its performance requires both Elders.”

“That’s why I want to continue my search for Reid Quo.”

“Still anxious to be Named, young one?”

“The liferock needs two Elders.”

“Yes, but not right away. I can’t let you go now. We need everyone for the attack.”

“Yes, but —”

“The solution you propose is drastic,” said Gvint, walking towards the verandah. “I have considered it, and you are right; it has merit. But the risks of searching for Reid are far greater than attacking the miners. Concentrate on the battle ahead, young one. We may discuss this again after.” They had reached the entrance to the temple and looked out at the clearing next to the Mynbruje statue.

Celagri and the dwarfs looked on, slack-jawed, as the troubadour, Hagnit Ye, led the brotherhood in a undulating dance. Drums rolled deep as obsidimen chanted, “Victory.

Respect. Death to the miners.” Many of the brothers had removed their clothing and painted their skin with colored chalk paste. Red and greens across the chest, blue and black swirls along the arms and legs. Their heads were individual-ized in orange and yellow patterns.

“Try to enjoy yourselves while there is time,” Pabl told Jan and Celagri. “We will discuss specifics of the attack in a few hours, after the dance.”

The chalk patterns gyrated and roiled with the movement of the brothers, giving them the appearance of a living mural as they danced. Their movements were heavy and slow, but graceful. Then, as Hagnit increased the tempo, the motion This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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grew light and agile.

Pabl felt the magic of the music stir something deep down inside him. And he gave into the feeling — an instinctive violence toward anyone and anything that threatened the rock.

He wanted to lash out and destroy them. Now. Kill them.

Watch their puny bodies bend and crumble under the onslaught.

He savored the sensation. Relished it, for the moment, because he knew they would need all their cunning, all their instinct, to defeat the ork and his cavalry. He pulled off his clothing to join his brotherhood, launching himself into the dance with abandon, his concerns about Reid Quo forgotten.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Thirteen 

The cold shadow of evening hung over the caravan encampment like a damp shawl as Sarbeneck looked at the wounded Nuinouri. The tunneler lay on the floor of the green tent, brown dust rising around it. The fabric of the tent shimmered in the crystal light. The cloth was multi-layered, the outside woven from thick pine-colored thread.

The inside layer was a faint blue, almost clear. Sarbeneck could see the runes which were embroidered into the fabric of the intervening levels. The tent’s interior had been partitioned at one end to provide quarters for Nancri and the other magicians. The main area was vacant except for the wounded Nuinouri.

The elementals and the other tunnelers were at the mining site, carving away. And making good progress, if the reports were to be trusted.

“I think it will heal on its own,” Nancri said. She reached up the touch the claw-shaped clasp at her shoulder. The bird claw released, and Nancri let her brown cloak slide into her arms. “But it will take a while; the elemental water hurt it worse than I originally thought.”

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“How long?”

“At least a week in hibernation.”

Sarbeneck looked at the thing, a sleeping black worm, segmented skin dull in the artificial light of the tent’s interior. A week meant delays in the digging. Delays that he really couldn’t afford. “You have three days to get it back in the cave,” he said.

“That might kill it.”

“I don’t have a choice,” he said. “We can’t make enough progress without all three tunnelers.”

Nancri shrugged. “You’re in charge,” she said. Then, “Will we see any more of our obsidiman neighbors?”

“Undoubtedly,” he said. “I expect them to do something, probably at the tunnel. I’ve tightened security, and you should keep aware. They might target this tent when the Nuinouri are resting.”

Nancri smiled, the smoothness of her pale skin flushing with color. “They are powerful, but few in number,” she said.

“And they likely underestimate the defenses built into this tent.

They’d be better off attacking the tunnel.”

“That’s just what they plan to do.” The voice was high-pitched, whiny. Pontin’s voice, coming from behind Sarbeneck. He turned to see the plaited red beard, the coifed hair and the robe of blue velvet. Pontin was alone, no sign of his guards.

“How did you get in here?”

“Never mind that. The rock brothers will attack in the next few minutes. They plan to hit the elementals and the Nuinouri at the cave. I suggest you withdraw them now.”

“How do you know?”

Pontin moved a little closer. “I don’t have time to answer any questions, and you don’t have time to ask them. You must withdraw the tunnelers from the cave or they will be destroyed. After the battle you can continue to dig.”

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Sarbeneck noticed that the scarab brooch which Pontin had been wearing the last time was no longer on his cloak.

“Okay, I’ll go now. Is there anything else?”

“Yes, order your orks not kill any of the obsidimen. Just stop them, okay? We don’t want their deaths on our head.

Also, some of the townspeople have sided with the rock folk. A group of them will be creating havoc on the north side. Ignore them; they’re a diversion. Put a few big orks on thundra beasts in their path and they’ll turn back.”

“When are they —?”

“Now! You must move fast.” Pontin grimaced as though he was straining against some invisible force. Then he squinted at Sarbeneck. “Now, I need to go.” Then he vanished, leaving the faint shimmer of his outline in the air for a fraction of a second.

“What in the name of Vestrial —?” Sarbeneck saw a tiny golden glimmer in the torch light fluttering were Pontin had stood. The scarab brooch. Then it flew off up to the sky and into darkness.

“I don’t like him,” Nancri said.

“Neither do I,” Sarbeneck said, turning toward Nancri.

“Prepare the tent. I must get to the tunnel and find Gingreth.”

He ran then, moving as fast as his short legs would take him. But he wasn’t used to physical exertion; after only a few yards his breathing grew labored and his chest burned. Still, he pressed on, passing the perimeter of the camp. Sarbeneck gave a curt nod to the heavy ork sentinel on her mount. The beast snorted at him as he lumbered past, struggling up the sloped trail to the mine. The muscles of his legs protested, forcing him to slow to a jog.

He scanned the area for Gingreth, but the beastmaster was nowhere in sight. Sarbeneck made his way into the mine-shaft. He located Riann and Jehrad near the back of the tunnel, black cloth covering their faces to filter the acidic dust This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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which hung in the air. Thick burlap robes draped the two dwarfs, acid burns scarring the brown cloth black in places.

“Stop everything,” Sarbeneck yelled. “We’re pulling everything back to camp. Now!”

The two elementalists turned to face him, a look of bewil-derment in their eyes.

Sarbeneck heard motion behind him, and he spun around quickly, expecting to see a group of crazed obsidimen ambushing them in the cave. But it was only Gingreth, rushing up the trail towards him. His black leather jerkin was covered in red clay, and the mud had spattered into the ork’s hair.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I have news of an imminent attack. We have to get our elementals and tunnelers away from the rock. And it has to happen now!”

Gingreth’s voice boomed out. “You heard him. Let’s move out. Everyone back to camp, and get ready to defend yourselves.”

Jehrad said a few words to the elementals, and they stepped back from the rock. Two of them held squirming Nuinouri, their red glow cooling slightly as they moved farther from the rock.

Sarbeneck and the other miners stepped against the tunnel wall to let the elementals pass by with their burdens. “Gingreth, I want guards in here, as many as we can spare,” he said.

“But they are not to kill the obsidimen. Just keep them away from the camp.” He went on to tell him about the diversionary attack from the north side.

The miners followed Jehrad and Riann down the path back to the encampment, and Sarbeneck was about to join them when he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. Movement?

No. It was only the golden luster of the rock near the back of the cave. He moved up close, drawn by the vision. The red This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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sandstone grew darker until it was almost black about fifteen feet in, but through the black ran a vein of shiny obsidian glass tinted with gold. Orichalcum.

Yes!

Sarbeneck found himself climbing over uncleared rubble to reach the rock. He wanted to touch the unpurified metal.

Smell it up close.

“Sir, I think we should get you back to the camp where it’s safer.”

Sarbeneck stopped, took a breath and shook his head to clear it. What am I doing? “Yes, Gingreth, you’re right of course.”

Just then, in the periphery of his vision, Sarbeneck noticed the wall of the cave move. A bulge formed from the curve of the tunnel, rapidly taking shape — head, chest, arms. What by Dis is that?

Sarbeneck jumped back, ice scissoring along his nape despite the heat inside the tunnel. He watched, mesmerized, as the form of an obsidiman emerged.

Sarbeneck ran.

Another obsidiman took shape, its skin painted with blues and greens like some primitive hunter. Then another appeared, looming large as Sarbeneck cleared the exit of the tunnel.

Gingreth closed in behind the dwarf, and a knot of orks surrounded him. Then the cave was full of the rock men, bellowing as they attacked. The sounds of clashing metal and crunching bone came to Sarbeneck’s ears as the orks pushed him down the path.

“Get him back to the camp!” Gingreth roared to the mercenaries. Then the ork screeched, calling like a raptor to his espagra.

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rocky path. Screams and grunts came from behind him, and he knew that the fighting had started. All he could see was the armored bulk of the muscular, stinking orks surrounding him.

One of them pulled Sarbeneck off his feet — strong, hairy hands lifting the dwarf up onto the hard ridged back of his mount. The rank stench of thundra beast filled Sarbeneck’s nostrils as the huge ork rider held him in place with an iron-tight arm across his chest, and spurred the lumbering creature.

“I’m Tusq,” grunted the ork. “Keep your head down and hang on.”

Up ahead, Sarbeneck saw the elementals moving down the path, almost to the camp. And as he watched, his breath coming in gasps, a magical sphere of ice and snow blew past him, traveling toward the tunnelers. The sphere was like a miniature blizzard, floating in the air, targeting the tunnelers.

It grew and grew until it hit the elementals with a force that surprised Sarbeneck.

The thundra beast jostled and shook him as it hurtled down the slope. He watched as orks froze around the elementals, frost collecting on their hair and their skin turning white. Several orks fell, but the magicians weathered the attack and earth elementals continued.

“Duck!” Tusq bellowed, shoving Sarbeneck’s head down just in time to avoid an arrow. “If you want to live.”

Sarbeneck clutched tightly to the hard hide of the beast.

He just caught sight of a diving espagra, a glimmering blue streak in the bright light of the crystal lanterns. The blizzard sphere in front of them dissipated as the espagra attacked the obsidiman spellcaster on the cliff face.

The flying creature shrieked suddenly; one of the obsidimen had materialized a stone cage around the espagra, trapping it. Sarbeneck heard a loud crash as the cage and its This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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inmate plummeted to the rocks below.

Then the elementals were into the camp perimeter and entered the green tent. Safe, Sarbeneck thought. For now at least.

The espagra didn’t fare so well. Entrapped in the stone cage, it was crushed to death beneath rock.

Sarbeneck tucked his head down, chin against his chest, and hung onto the saddle with a white-knuckled grip. They galloped past a group of mounted orks and into the camp.

Tusq brought Sarbeneck up to the green tent before slowing the beast.

“You be safer here,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“Now I want to fight.” He gave a snaggle-toothed grin, visible under the visor of his helm.

“Of course,” Sarbeneck said. “Thank you.”

The ork rode off.

Sarbeneck stood next to the tent’s entrance flap, his legs weak and wobbly. A flash of red in the corner of his sight drew his attention and when he looked up towards the mining tunnel, he saw a line of fireballs speeding towards him. He dove left, hitting the ground as the fireballs crashed into the fabric of the green tent and exploded. Flames burst around him for a second, lighting up the night, then dissipated.

Heat singed his hair, burning the flesh on his exposed arms and face as he rolled across the ground away from the explosion.

“Sarbeneck! Get in here!”

He looked up to see Nancri above him, staring down at him with expression of urgency. He blinked, trying to get rid of the explosion’s bright purple afterimage.

“Hurry!”

Jerked out of his daze, Sarbeneck lunged for the opening. He cleared the fabric just as another barrage of fireballs This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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hit, the explosions shaking the air like a dragon’s roar. Bright red light shone through the wall of the tent, but there was no heat.

“They’re wasting their magic on this tent,” Nancri said.

“If this is the best they can do, we don’t have much to worry about.”

Sarbeneck heard her as if through cotton. He knew he had been badly burned and should be feeling some pain, but his awareness was somewhere far away, outside his body.

The ground cracked and buckled just then, the floor of the tent lurching underneath them. Earthquake magic. The surging rock threw them all to the ground and caused the tent’s support poles to list sideways and groan under the strain.

“Check the Nuinouri!” Nancri yelled, pushing to her feet just as lightning struck the tent, its flash showing brilliant blue and white around the edges of the fabric, where the tent walls met the ground.

The thunder concussion ripped the air around them. Sarbeneck’s crouched body toppled over as the thunder blow hit him like a hammer. But still he could not feel it.

Then the rain came, like a downpour of hailstones. The rain pelted the tent with a ferocity greater than any normal storm.

Nancri brushed herself off, then tilted her head as she listened. “Death Rain,” she said, nearly yelling to be heard above the roar of the rain. “As long as the tent holds, we’ll be protected. I can’t say the same for the orks outside.”

From far away, Sarbeneck felt the lightening strike again.

He watched as Nancri covered her ears against the thunder.

“Perhaps we underestimated the rock men,” she said.

When Sarbeneck didn’t answer, Nancri gave him a questioning glance. “Garlen’s Grace!” she said, an expression of alarm on her face. “You look terrible.”

Suddenly, the pain hit. Agony cut through adrenaline.

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The skin across Sarbeneck’s face and down his neck had been scorched by the fireball, and for a protracted moment he thrashed and rolled along the cracked ground, trying to get away from the burning agony.

“By the Passions!” Nancri said. “Riann, get the healer!

Quickly.”

And that was the last he heard.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Fourteen 

Hours after the battle with the mining caravan, Pabl couldn’t get the images out of his head. Taking a deep breath, he hobbled down the erosion stairs toward the riflev pool. He passed into the wide hole in the mesa’s surface, the rock’s cold shadow wet and dark. Water gathered in the hollow at the bottom of the stairs, icy clear and deep.

Scenes from the battle swirled around in his head. Over and over. He saw the line of orks on their horned thundra beasts close in between them and the retreating elementals.

How had they known?

In the pool, the stairs continued below the surface of the water, but beyond the last step the bottom dropped away into darkness. There was no bank to speak of, only the sheer sides of the hole which stretched up fifty or sixty feet to the plateau above.

Pabl walked into the icy water, its chill tightening his skin.

His body ached from the cold as he sat and washed himself clean of battle grime and blood. The visions of the battle in-tensified. He recalled the blizzard spheres sent by Gvint and 112

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Gavi as they blew past. In his memory, Pabl crouched next to Chaiel, using his purifier magic to pummel and kick the two orks which closed around him.

Chaiel pulled his sword and blurred into motion, down-ing one of the orks’ mounts in a single stroke. The beast reared its huge horned head, bellowing in pain as its lifeblood gushed from the wound in its neck.

The cavalry was momentarily startled. No doubt these orks weren’t used to adversaries who did not fear their mounts. As Chaiel pulled his bloodied sword from the collapsing thundra beast, its rider abandoned the creature, leaving its dead bulk and retreating.

Fireballs rocketed from Gvint’s position on the side of the cliff, and Pabl thought the brotherhood had the momentum.

Until the orks regrouped and counterattacked in unstoppable numbers. Pabl spun and kicked, crushing bones beneath his magically hardened fists and feet. But the orks came on, their shields deflecting many of his blows.

He tried to magically mind dagger those he could not physically harm, but he was outnumbered, and the orks were tough. They kept coming. Chaiel had killed six, but now he fought Gingreth, the beastmaster in command of several espagra. The winged beasts were very quick, baring razor sharp teeth and claws like honed needles.

Every time Chaiel swung at Gingreth, one of the espagra attacked him from behind. Pabl moved to help, but one of the creatures bit him in the shoulder. He spun, sending a magically accelerated fist to its head. The creature fell, its skull dented in and oozing blood.

Suddenly, a group of thundra beasts, ridden by orks, charged into them. Pabl watched as one of the beasts gored Tinu with its horns. And on Pabl’s left, Tidre tried to dodge another of the creatures, but he was too slow. The thing’s tail lashed out and struck Tidre in the side, launching him into This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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the air. Tidre landed hard against the rock.

One of the riders speared a distracted Bintr through the leg and. Pabl tried to move to help, but all he could do was watch as Bintr collapsed, his foot rolling up under the crushing weight of one of the thundra beasts.

Pabl heard Gvint yelling to pull back, just as the ground buckled under them. Earthquake! Many of the orks lost foot-ing, and a few of the thundra beasts fell. But not enough; too many stood between the brotherhood and the retreating Nuinouri.

Lightning flashed close, and thunder boomed, shaking the air as Pabl turned back toward the rock. And abruptly, he realized that the enemy had managed to surround him. They grunted harsh orkish words at him, saying that they were going to wound him bad. Let the vultures pick his bones clean.

Pabl did not hesitate. He struck hard and fast and without remorse. Two of the orks fell instantly and a third took a hard blow to the chest. But there were too many. The fourth struck Pabl with his sword, its sharp metal piercing his gut just below his ribs. Pabl nearly stumbled and fell, but his magic kept him on his feet. He faked a kick to the ork’s head, watching him flinch, then used the split-second to levitate himself up to a ledge of the cliff.

Gvint’s Death Rain began to fall, hard and pelting against the rock. Pabl watched as the orks cursed as the rain wounded them. They did not disperse, however, instead they gathered under the protection provided by the cave.

Pabl knew now that all the brothers had made it out. Most of them had taken serious injuries and were in need of attention, but none had been killed. Thank the Passions.

Now, in the riflev pool, Pabl shivered from the numbing cold. He stood and dried himself off with a towel. He spread healing salve over the wounds in his chest, wincing in pain as he touched the deep cut where the ork’s sword had penetrated This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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his skin and hit the rib bone beneath.

He wrapped a fresh bandage across his chest, then dressed in his ceremonial robes — heavy embroidered cloth of indigo and magenta. He walked up the stairs out of the rock’s shadow and into the heat of the afternoon sun. He made his way slowly past the temple and into the Dance of Stones. The boulders towered around him as he picked his way through.

Because of the pain in his side, he moved carefully so as not to pull too hard on his injuries.

Pabl joined Gvint and others of his brotherhood at the Deathstone, approaching the circle they formed around the boulder. Each brother wore the regalia of ceremony, the brightly colored robes and their horklas, woven from magic, finely braided silk and impossibly supple metal wire. Pabl was the sole exception because he had not been Named and therefore had no horkla.

Wennith Nar’s body lay on the Deathstone, his back against the slag chasms and scars which radiated out from the rock’s center. The heavy gray and brown funeral covering hid Wennith’s features with stories of The Valley of the Elders and the reclamation of the dead.

The obsidimen chanted solemnly in an ancient dialect.

Besides Pabl, only five had been able to come. The rest were Dreaming with Ganwetrammus, healing; their injuries did not allow them to make it.

Gvint was present, and Ywerk, Grimchak, Chaiel and . . .

Who is that?

Standing slightly apart from the others was an obsidiman Pabl had never seen. He wore the same ceremonial robes as the others, though his were of an older style, similar to Gvint’s.

Pabl wondered for a second whether he was from another brotherhood, then noticed that his horkla was woven with the Garen brotherhood’s auburn and black, interlaced here with hints of magenta.

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Must be Jibn Sra, Pabl thought.

Rumor told that Jibn Sra lived on the far side of the tepuis and hadn’t merged with Ganwetrammus since the end of the Long Dreaming. The brotherhood considered him lost, for it was his Horror which had infected the liferock at the beginning of the Scourge. Jibn Sra was responsible for the near-death of Ganwetrammus and the sacrifice of Garen Dne.

He avoided ceremonies and had committed himself to self-imposed exile.

Yet here he stood in the circle around the Deathstone, next to Gvint, his aged voice joined with the others, lamenting the passage of Wennith Nar.

Pabl hesitated at the edge of the boulder; the Deathstone scared him. Death was supposed to come at a chosen time. I could be in Wennith’s place right now, he thought. I was standing right next to him when the Nuinouri attacked. Old ones decide the time of their death, as it should be. Wennith was taken too early.

For Ohin Yeenar, it was too late to die. He was already passed his time for a natural death. The thought made Pabl shudder.

An image came to Pabl then. A place of fire and mist that he had seen in self-Dreaming with the ancient one. A volcano and a river of fire falling over a cliff into a sea of molten rock below. Caves on a ledge above the sea. Where is this place, he thought. And why do I want to go there? He concentrated and the images faded; then he stepped into the circle of his brothers.

The chant grew in volume as Gvint stepped on the Deathstone and spoke. “Today, Wennith Nar returns in body to the soul of Ganwetrammus.” His voice sang above the chant.

“Take our brother apart, into the elements to which he belongs.

His early passing saddens us, but he shall return in the future of our brotherhood, just as each of us was once a part of our This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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ancestors.”

Gvint bent down to touch Wennith through the blanket. And as he moved his fingers across the lifeless form, the liferock reached up and merged with the dead body. All the brothers felt it.

It was a short ceremony; the chanting continued for only eight hours. Then Gvint guided the brotherhood back to the temple. Jibn Sra did not join them.

Wennith’s corpse remained on the Deathstone, slowly turning into sand, to erode away in the wind and rain. Gvint would return in a few weeks to retrieve the funeral blanket and Wennith’s horkla.

Pabl sat on the tile floor of the temple and stared at the Alqarat. Sadness crept over him as he sat, melancholy seeping into him like water through porous rock. The Garen Brotherhood was defeated. Wounded and demoralized. Ganwetrammus was deeply hurting from the mining and they could do nothing to protect it.

Chaiel and Gvint spoke in hushed tones near the exit, but Chaiel’s voice kept rising in anger. “They were forewarned of our attack strategy, I’m sure of it,” Chaiel said. “How else could they have known to move the Nuinouri out of the tunnel? And what happened to the diversion that was supposed to have come from the villagers?”

“From where I was on the rock, I could see the townspeople approaching,” Gvint said. “But they never got into the camp; I think the miners knew about the diversion as well.”

The cracks around his mouth angled into a frown. “I suppose I was wrong to trust the villagers. Though, I still can’t figure out how they warned the camp. My elemental spies made sure that none of them went near the miners.”

Pabl stood and joined them. “Someone in the village is working with the miners?”

Gvint nodded. “Chaiel thinks the orks knew of our attack This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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plans. And I am forced to agree.”

“Who do you think it is?”

“It could be Pontin or one of his men,” Gvint said.

“Or Jan,” Chaiel added. “Even Celagri.”

“No,” Pabl said, casting an angry glare at Chaiel. “It wouldn’t be either of those two.”

Gvint sighed. “It doesn’t matter now, anyhow,” he said.

“We are too weak and injured to attack them again. I suppose we are lucky to have lost only Wennith.” He closed his eyes tight, rubbing them with the fingers of his right hand.

When he opened his eyes he was looking straight at Pabl.

“I must ask you to do something, young one,” he said. “Something for the liferock, not for yourself.”

“Of course, Elder.”

“I want you to lead a search for Reid Quo,” he said. “We are almost out of options. We can attack them again, perhaps, after our wounds have healed. But we must also consider the Ritual of Protection.”

The irony tasted sour in the back of Pabl’s throat. Am I ready for such a task? Before the mining had started, his desire to search for Reid had been personal. An alternative to waiting. But now, the fate of the entire liferock rode on its success or failure. I suppose I did ask for it, he thought.

“No longer so anxious to be Named, young one?”

“I just . . .” Pabl began. “I’m not sure I have the experience to lead such a search.”

Gvint smiled. “You have courage, Pabl Evr. You fought well in the battle, and you merged with Ohin Yeenar. You know more about Reid’s recent history than any other brother, and that makes you our best hope for survival.”

Pabl sighed, trying to ignore the pain in his ribs. “Where should I begin?” he asked.

“You must go to the Valley of the Elders. You are young, not yet fully Awakened, but Ohin Yeenar has given you the images This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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of Reid Quo. If anything can help us find Reid, the Council of Four will know about it. Perhaps Chaiel will accompany you.”

“Me?”

“You don’t want to go?” Gvint asked.

“It’s not that,” Chaiel said, “it’s just that I . . .”

“Not everyone is prepared to merge with the Council,”

Gvint said. “You will not have to merge if you are not ready. I wish only for you to help keep Pabl alive and well.”

“Of course I will go,” Chaiel said. “But who else will come?”

“Bintr is injured,” Pabl said. “And Penthr too. Grimchak perhaps?”

“I would like Grimchak to remain here,” Gvint said. “He’s our only weaponsmith and we may need his talents. Also, Ywerk should stay.”

“That’s it then; Chaiel and I will go; everyone else is too hurt. Maybe my friends will agree to come along,” Pabl said.

“Jan and Celagri.”

“You still trust them,” Chaiel said. “After they betrayed us.”

“Yes, of course I trust them,” Pabl said. “They could not have betrayed us any more than you could. They have saved my life more than once in the past. I don’t expect you to understand.”

“I don’t.”

Gvint interrupted. “I think you put too much blind trust in your friends, Pabl. I respect your decision to invite them along, but they are not of our race. They are not of our liferock, and they cannot comprehend our plight. Do not ever forget that.”

Pabl bowed his head. “I will not, Elder.” He stepped out onto the verandah, pushing aside the curtains and moving into a ray of sunshine that penetrated a high layer of gathering clouds.

Gvint’s hand touched his shoulder. “Ganwetrammus will This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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show you the way to the Valley of the Elders, young one.” Then he bowed his head and removed a necklace which had been hidden under his robes. Black chain links had been fashioned from fine metal, and held a jade carving of Mynbruje.

I’ve seen this before, Pabl thought.

“I want you to take this with you,” Gvint said. “Garen Dne wore it for many years, as did Reid Quo before him. Garen gave it to Tylon Giv before he banished himself from the liferock, and it has passed down from Elder to Elder.”

Pabl bent his head as Gvint placed the chain on him. He looked closely at the carving. Dull green rock, marbled white in several places. The Passion was represented in obsidiman form and resembled the erosion sculpture standing huge and tall next to the temple stairs. The features on his androgynous face were worn and blurred with time.

“If you ever lose sight of your goal,” Gvint said. “The necklace can serve as a reminder. Its pattern is tied to Garen, for which our liferock is named, and also to Reid. It may be connected to mine as well. I don’t know. It might help you find our lost Elder.”

“Thank you,” Pabl said. Then he turned to Chaiel. “I will merge with Ganwetrammus now. Are you fit enough to leave soon?”

Chaiel looked at the rock around them. “I will miss this place,” he said. “Yes, I will get Grimchak to sharpen my weapons. We can leave tomorrow morning.”

“Good,” Pabl said. Then he took his leave of Gvint and the others in the temple. He walked into the haphazard maze of the Dance of Stones and entered the Dreaming with Ganwetrammus. Tomorrow they would begin the journey to the Valley of the Elders where the first obsidimen still lived.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Fifteen 

When will Sangolin call?

White, hot mist was a bright cloud around him. Somewhere above the steam, the sun shone, he knew, but he couldn’t see it through the searing fog which blew in from the swamps to drain the energy out of him.

He sat in a lonely cloud, his feet dangling over the edge of the cliff. He heard the sounds of the others in the distance, even though he could not see them. He heard their labored preparations for the evening roast. Tonight, a mountain sheep would be spitted and barbecued.

Pain shot through his head suddenly, acutely. He winced against it, gritting his teeth as it traveled down his spine, wracking through his chest and back. With it came the visions. He had been getting them of late, though he could not remember how long ago the last one had come.

An obsidiman stood in a building made from slabs of red sandstone. Next to him was a spur of rock which rose up out of a floor tiled in burgundy and violet. He knew the obsidiman.

His name was . . .

He couldn’t remember.

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More obsidimen surrounded him — a whole brotherhood — and he realized that he knew them all.

He breathed now, hot mist penetrating his lungs, and the pain in his head dissipated, the vision fading with it.

When will Sangolin call?

More pain, stronger this time, like an arrow into his spine.

He grabbed his head as if to push away the agony. He smelled clean rain; he heard thunder. Thick jungle surrounded a red sandstone mesa.

A tepuis. Ganwetrammus.

What did that mean? That name rang in his head like the after-tone of a bell. And then he felt the longing to return. The yearning to leave this place. He had to go back to the tepuis.

To Ganwetrammus. He was needed there.

His liferock. Ganwetrammus must be his liferock. Yes, that was it.

He remembered the scene in the temple again, but this time he knew the names of the obsidimen. And he knew his name as well. He was Reid Quo, and they were his brothers.

Jibn Sra stood next to the Alqarat, its tip glowing deep red.

Jibn was about to end his Awakening and be Named. The Eldest, Garen Dne, plunged his hands into the molten tip of the Alqarat and pulled out a palm full of the liferock. Tylon Giv helped Garen stretch the red-hot rock into a thick thread.

The brotherhood chanted, their voices deep and resonant like an avalanche echoing through a canyon. Reid was among them, lending his tenor to the pulse. The moment flashed clearly in his head like the crisp concussion of thunder after lightning.

He breathed again, sitting in the steam on the edge of the cliff. And with that breath, the memory faded. The vision reverberated inside his skull, losing focus and cohesion as it waned. His lungs burned, but the sharp edge of pain dissipated, replaced by an ache of loneliness. Steam dripped off his This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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skin, and he pulled his legs up into his chest. He curled into a tight ball, and cried.

My liferock is calling me. It must be in great pain. It is too bad I can’t leave this place. I can never leave Sangolin.

The heavy weight of sadness knocked the wind from him.

He sobbed, curled like that until the wind changed and the mist began to disperse. Sangolin called to him just as he decided to help with making the fire for cooking.

His pain vanished when he felt the call. He forgot about his liferock. He forgot his brotherhood. Sangolin filled his thoughts. And he went into the black and white tunnel, relishing the cool of the cavern. The drip of water was the only sound he heard as he approached the mass that was Sangolin’s core.

“Troubled?”

Out of the darkness came an obsidiman, skin the color of white marble. He was younger than Reid, but his body was bent and misshapen. One of his legs had been broken long ago, and it had healed at a bad angle. His back bent over unnaturally, and his face had been scarred on one side such that his left eye socket stared vacantly into space.

“Vecrix?”

“Are you all right, brother?”

“What do you mean?”

“You seem pained of late.”

Reid smelled the sweet odor of Sangolin from this close, making sweat prickle on his forehead from the anticipation.

“I’m just fine,” he said. Then he pressed himself against the lumpy flesh of Sangolin and joined the others.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Sixteen 

There were a few places in the world where elemental air, fire, water and earth came together. Ganwetrammus had directed Pabl to one such place — deep in the heart of the Tylon mountains, at the headwaters of the Tylon river. A place known to obsidimen as Domorpen, which meant “portal to legend.”

The travel had been easy and uneventful for the six days since they had left Tepuis Garen. The terrain had become steep and the roads less passable as they made their way farther and farther up into the Tylon mountains. The jungle spread out behind them like an ocean of vegetation, verdant and alive. The rocky spires of the mountains ahead were beautiful in their own fashion, shining golden in the sunshine, but the sides were steep and the forest clung mostly to the river bank.

On the seventh night out, they camped by the river, now merely a brook, running cold and clean over the rocks. Celagri caught a couple of rabbits for dinner while Pabl gathered wood which Chaiel chopped with his axe. The weather was clear and cold, the ground soft with a dry covering of pine 124

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needles. Jan cleared an area for the fire and stacked the wood as Chaiel flung it his direction.

When the fire was roaring, Celagri gutted and cooked the rabbits. The smell of burning meat permeated the camp, making Pabl and Chaiel nauseated. Still, the two obsidimen ate the rabbit reluctantly. The food they carried would have to last another week at least.

“You see, Pabl,” Chaiel said, staring at his meat in disgust.

“The energy-wasters would just as soon eat animal flesh every day.”

Celagri gave him a cool stare, but said nothing.

Jan couldn’t let it go, however. He’d been waging a verbal war with Chaiel ever since they had left Rabneth. “Are you willing to give up your helping then, Chaiel?”

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Actually, yes. I hate traveling for many reasons: aching feet, uncomfortable weather, but mainly because the food tastes so bad. When I get the chance for something really tasty, I eat as much of it as possible.” He winked at Celagri.

She smiled back at him.

Pabl was amazed. If Chaiel hadn’t been along, Celagri and Jan would be bickering constantly. The switch made Pabl chuckle.

“What do you find so funny?” Chaiel asked.

“Yeah, what is so damn amusing?” from Jan.

“You. All of you.”

“I’m not joking about these energy-wasters. Didn’t Gvint get through to you? They don’t understand what’s important to us. And we’re taking them to the Valley of the Elders, the foundation of our race and culture.”

Pabl said nothing, but Jan started to laugh, and after a minute Celagri joined him.

“What?”

Jan calmed himself. “We have no wish to see the Valley of This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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the Elders,” he said. “Or anything else that might get us killed later.”

Chaiel’s tone was deadly serious, “If you were to reveal any secrets that would injure our liferock or brotherhood, we would have to kill you.”

“Don’t you think we know that?” Jan said. “You’ve mentioned it once or twice before.”

“I only want to make sure that you know it.”

“We know. Now can I expect that you’ll never mention it again?”

“I only remind you for your own safety. I don’t want to have to kill you.”

Celagri gave a snort, “Just try it, boulder-head.”

Pabl interrupted, “Jan, do you have any of that taro root left?” The conversation had ceased to be amusing.

The dwarf looked over. “What?” Then a knowing smile spread across his face. “I know what you’re trying to do,” he said.

“No one is fooled by your obvious attempt to distract us from the conversation,” said Chaiel. “Of course, if the dwarf does have some taro root, I could probably force myself to be civil for a little while.”

“Too bad I chewed the last of it this afternoon.”

“You what?”

“Just joking.” Jan produced a leather pouch from his backpack. “Here,” he said and handed it to Pabl.

“Thank you, generous sir.” Pabl fumbled with the pouch, trying to get his large fingers into an opening that had been made for dwarfs. But he managed to retrieve a pinch of the dried black fibers. He placed the pinch into his mouth and bit down, enjoying the bittersweet taste.

Pabl handed the pouch to Chaiel and leaned back against a tree trunk, glad he had diffused the tension for the moment.

The next day they hiked away from the main path. Up This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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above the tree line where the air grew thin and cold, remind-ing Pabl of home. They camped in the chill shelter provided by two huge rocks that leaned against each other. Pabl was quiet during most of the dinner preparations as he thought about the days ahead.

What is it like to merge with the Council of Four? Will they change me as they have done to some of the others?

Ganwetrammus had shown him images of Domorpen, but nothing of his brothers’ experiences at the Valley of the Elders.

Those experiences were personal and shared only between each brother and the liferock.

“Are you ready?”

Pabl looked up into the black eyes of his brother. “I don’t know, Chaiel,” he said. “I don’t know if I could ever be truly ready.”

Chaiel pulled his heavy brown robe tightly around his shoulders, its hood making him look like a giant-sized monk questor of Astendar. “I know that I’m not,” he said. “The Council of Four scares me. What if they don’t think you’re in line with our heritage? What if they disagree with how you ex-ercise your discipline?”

Jan looked at them across the fire. “Just a minute, Pabl,” he said. “You are coming back, right?”

Pabl looked up at the dwarf, bundled tightly in his patched robe. “I assume so,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“My body will return after I have merged with the Council of Four,” Pabl said. “But the merging could change me. The Council of Four is the bastion of obsidiman ways, and they will show me how my way has deviated from the culture of our race. I could return a completely different person.”

“But you will be better for it, right?”

“Hopefully, but I won’t know until I merge with them.”

Celagri warmed her hands by the fire. A black leather This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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skull cap covered her head, tucked into the neck of her matching tunic. She looked up at Pabl. “Why isn’t Chaiel going with you?”

Chaiel answered her. “I am not ready.”

Celagri seemed to accept that answer, but Pabl heard fear in Chaiel’s voice. And that fear was contagious. Pabl remembered the images of the Valley of the Elders in Ohin Yeenar’s mind. Four giant swirling columns. Air, water, fire, and earth — each mixed with stone, stretching up into the clouds. Pabl was glad when sleep came and swept away his visions in a wash of black.

They climbed higher the next day, until they were almost to the base of the sheer cliffs. Above and ahead of them, four huge rock spires stretched precariously up from the cliff edge, the rock a golden, almost yellow color. The first spire was unnatural, built by obsidimen long ago. It looked like the others, but the tiers of boulders which formed its center column stood too perfectly aligned to have happened by chance.

The spire was a marker for Domorpen.

Pabl led the others along the steep slope of fallen rock, searching for the entrance to the cave. They didn’t find it that day, and Pabl could tell that Jan and Celagri were beginning to tire of the search.

The next day, he found it — a crack in the mountain, hidden among a jumble of large rocks. He squeezed through the opening, relishing the steamy warmth inside. Water dripped from the rocks inside the cave. Pabl crawled back out and yelled for the others to join him.

They shared a meal at the entrance to the cave, a small re-past of old bread and dried fruit. They ate in silence, and Pabl felt his anxiety growing as he tried not to think about the Valley of the Elders. When he had finished his food, Pabl stood. “I am going now,” he said. “Before I lose my courage.”

Chaiel stood and extended his palms to Pabl. “May Myn-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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bruje guide you. And may our ancestors give you wisdom.”

“Thank you, brother.”

Jan looked up. “Hurry back, my friend.”

Celagri simply nodded.

“Goodbye,” Pabl said. Then before they could respond, he entered the concealed fissure. His lungs burned with each breath as he moved into the tunnel, crawling up and down over boulders. Water dripped from the rocks around him, steam condensing on his skin and soaking his clothes. Pabl pressed on, using a crystal lantern to light the way.

He spelunked for an hour before he came upon the lava.

The tunnel widened slightly, its floor leveling off. Petroglyphs carved into the broad stone floor told the story of the First Brotherhood. The far wall was formed from one solid boulder of black glass, bowing out towards the center of the room in a broad arc.

The lava dripped in tiny rivulets over its glossy black surface. When the molten stone reached the floor, it touched the elemental water which sprang up from a slender stone column in the center of the chamber. The water sputtered into steam and rose up to the ceiling, venting up through the fissures in the rock.

In fact it was almost windy up close to black boulder, and when Pabl approached, he saw that the glassy surface was pocked and mottled, a catalog of all the obsidimen who had pressed their hands into the stone on their way through Domorpen.

The lava burned in red rivulets in front of his face as he put his feet into the flow of water. The draft was strong here, elemental air blowing down through channels in the rock from the peaks of the mountains.

Pabl’s breath quickened, and his skin prickled with heat. I must cast aside my doubts and just move. But what if —He squeezed his eyes closed.

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Move, he told himself.

He grit his teeth and placed his hands on the black rock.

He pressed hard, feeling the stone give under his strength.

The lava touched his fingers and burned as he added marks to the boulder’s surface.

He spoke in loud voice, articulating in the language of his race. “Great Liferock, which houses the Spirit-That-Pervades-All, take me to my Elders. I am as yet unnamed.”

Pabl felt a tug in his mind, then a whoosh behind him as air rushed into the space where his body had been. The room gave way to a deep flow of stone in bright rainbow colors around him; he floated in it, his body swept away by the gush-ing current of liquid rock.

He did not know how long the river of stone carried him in its flow. But suddenly it was gone, and he lay on his back, staring straight up into a blue-black sky studded with stars he did not know. He was far from the Tylon mountains, far from his friends. Far from home.

A giant cylinder blacked out the sky on his left, and from it came a grinding noise, like a sandstorm only a thousand times louder. He pressed his hands to his head to dampen the sound.

Pabl stood then, knowing he had made it to the Valley of the Elders.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Seventeen 

Gvint Od was running out of options. Every time he merged, he discovered that Ganwetrammus suffered more and more. The air elementals had failed to find Reid Quo, and his attempts to deter the mining team had had only a temporary effect.

With most of brotherhood still healing in the aftermath of the attack on the mining site, Gvint had worked magic with the help of Ganwetrammus and Gavi Arndt. They had created a spell to fill the mining tunnel with earth in an attempt to stop the Nuinouri.

The dwarfs in the tunnel had withdrawn in shock as earth and rock had magically appeared around them. The tunnel walls closed in, the wound healing itself. But when the spell’s power faded, leaving Gvint and Gavi exhausted, the dwarfs returned to continue their excavation.

It slowed them down for a day or two, but that was all.

Soon the hideous Nuinouri continued their relentless diges-tion of the rock. Gvint had few options left; it was time to discuss the Ritual of Protection with Jibn Sra.

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of the tepuis, in a small house made of crudely cut stone and mortar. Jibn Sra was the next oldest, in line to become Elder after Reid Quo. He had also followed the discipline of illusory magic in the past, and he had gained much power and an art-istry with magic that few in Barsaive could equal.

Jibn Sra understood magic, and because of that, Gvint held a faint hope that the exiled brother could learn the Ritual of Protection from Ganwetrammus. The Ritual required two Elders, two participants. Perhaps Jibn could substitute for Reid.

Gvint went to see him on a cold, wet morning, ten days after the failed attack. Gray clouds spewed icy drizzle onto the rock, making the trails through the Dance of Stones slick under Gvint’s booted feet. He huddled into his heavy cloak and walked towards Jibn’s front entrance.

I must convince him to merge with Ganwetrammus, thought Gvint. He stepped up to the door and knocked.

Jibn answered wearing a loose tunic of bright blue cotton.

He stood several inches shorter than Gvint, with a rounded forehead and reddish sandstone eyes. His skin was dark, nearly black in color with a web of fine white lines tracing the peaks and valleys of the many craggy wrinkles in his old skin.

A tattoo of inlaid emeralds traveled up his forearms and disappeared under his sleeves. The tattooing had been popular among the brotherhood who had spent time with the trolls of the Twilight Peaks before the Scourge.

“I bring riflev water,” Gvint said. “And a fire basket.”

Jibn smiled at him. “Welc-c-come, Gvint Od. I am pleased to s-s-see you.” His shoulder twitched. “C-c-come in.”

“Are you well?”

“I am the s-s-same.”

Gvint walked past him into the room beyond. A cluttered stone table dominated the space, and the walls were covered with bookshelves and detailed maps and drawings; the lines This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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were too fine to have been drawn by the huge hands of an obsidiman, unless by magic. Hardly a clear area remained.

Gvint set his pack down on the only chair. He removed a sealed clay urn which he had filled from the riflev pool, and a small stone box, carved to look like a wicker basket on the outside. “You can keep these,” he said, carrying the stone basket over to the hearth. He pushed some books out of the way and opened the box.

Fire crackled and burst as the cover was pulled back. Inside, a fine mesh of orichalcum-laced netting billowed up as its quarry — a tiny fire elemental — burned and flickered in a struggle to break free. Heat radiated into the room, and Gvint rubbed his warming hands. “Ah, that’s much better,” he said.

“Your old bones must be impervious to the cold, Jibn.”

Jibn chuckled, but said nothing.

As Gvint shared the water with Jibn, he explained the situation with the miners. Jibn knew some, and he had been worried. But when Gvint asked him to merge with Ganwetrammus and help, he refused.

“I c-c-can’t,” he said, his phobia causing his voice to waver.

“What if the Horror returns and I . . .” Jibn bowed his head.

“The Horror is dead, Jibn. Garen killed it when he sacrificed himself.”

“B-b-but what if I infec-c-c—” he paused, trying to gain control of himself. “What if I infect the rock again?”

“How? The Horror is dead, gone. There is no way you can infect the rock.” Gvint paced across the small space, then back again. How do I convince him? he thought.

“B-but there is s-s-s-still a chance,” Jibn said, fear evident in his eyes. “You m-m-must know that.”

“Look, Jibn, I came because the situation is desperate. I think the rock may die unless we perform the Ritual of Protection.”

“I c-c-can’t help you with that.”

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“Maybe you can,” Gvint said. “You are the next in line, Jibn.

Maybe you are old enough to understand the magic involved.”

“You d-d-don’t really th-think that, do you?”

Gvint sighed, breathing out slowly. “No, I confess I do not.

According to legend, the ritual magic is meant for Elders only, but you may be our only chance. You have magical knowledge and power equal to mine. Even though the chance that you will comprehend the ritual is remote, I must ask you to try.

Please, merge with Ganwetrammus.”

“I will n-n-not be responsible for k-k-killing our rock. If I merge again . . .” His voice trailed off, leaving a heavy, expect-ant silence in its wake. He did not want to breath life into his phobia by speaking the words.

“You do not realize the danger here, Jibn.” Gvint’s voice rose involuntarily. “If we can’t stop the miners, and Pabl Evr fails to find Reid Quo in time, the Ritual of Protection cannot be performed and our liferock will die. You have to try. Please, for the sake of our brotherhood.”

“But my H-h-horror c-c-could re-infect . . .”

Gvint put his hands on Jibn’s shoulders, holding the other obsidiman so that he could not look away. “If you don’t try, you will be just as responsible for our rock’s death.”

Jibn stared at Gvint, his sandstone eyes ablaze with anger.

“The answer is no.” Then he twisted out of Gvint’s grasp and turned away.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Eighteen 

Pabl clamped his hands over his ears against the grinding roar of the sand column next to him. In the darkness he couldn’t determine the size of the column, but it was big, at least thirty yards across at the base. Wind buffeted him as it was sucked into the vortex, pulling dirt and sand from the ground up with it. There were no trees or vegetation of any kind this close to the column, and Pabl wondered just how he was able to resist the pull of the elemental air that rushed in.

He turned away and ran, quickly finding a path which led down into the valley. Soon the path entered a forested area, and Pabl slowed. The trees dampened the noise of the swirling sand behind him, and after a time he made his way to the center of the valley.

Broad, flat flagstones of granite gray formed a floor between four massive pillars of rough stone. The pillars were black and brown in color, and Pabl could see that they cor-responded to the four twisting elemental columns at the corners of the valley. Each bore carvings representing one of the elements.

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At the center of everything was an obelisk, glowing faintly white. The obelisk’s shaft was made of pure white stone, its surface perfectly smooth and clean, jutting from the floor in the exact center of the valley. As Pabl stepped onto the flagstones and looked up at the sky above him, he found that he could see the eerie shadows of all four of the huge swirling columns. An illusion served to distort the image so that the shadow cylinders seemed to come together high above the point of the obelisk.

Petroglyphs carved into the flagstones told the story of the First Order. How the eldest four gave up their liferocks to live forever in the Valley of the Elders. How they decided to make this personal sacrifice in order to ensure the continu-ity of obsidiman culture, magic and life through the ages. As Pabl read the petroglyphs, he felt an irresistible pull from the obelisk. The Council of Four beckoned him to merge. And he stepped forward to embrace the spear of pure white rock which towered above him.

It was like walking through a plane of water at first. Then he felt his body come apart into its constituent elements. No pain; merely disintegration. And with it came an expansion of his consciousness into unfathomable dimensions.

He saw the entire history of his race in a split second. He experienced the life memories of every obsidiman, but the knowledge came too fast for him to assimilate. The world was much larger than he had known; so far beyond his comprehension that he felt his mind exploding. Even his merging with Ohin Yeenar hadn’t prepared him for this.

All this happened in a fraction of a moment, and Pabl forgot it all instantly, left only with the sense that his existence was tiny and insignificant in the face of a vast universe. Then the memories of his own life filled his mind. He remembered everything clearly. His Emergence and First Merge. The history of Ganwetrammus he had learned while merging, back This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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to the First Order. His Awakening and the twenty-one years spent in the company of the others.

Pabl remembered his first years outside, just after emerg-ing from the liferock, famished and thirsty. He had eaten for several hours before his hunger abated. He remembered seeing his brothers, how odd they looked in the flesh, like sculpted boulders of muscle and skin, bones and blood. So fragile.

After he had eaten, they’d taken him down to the riflev pool to bathe away grime from his new skin. He had seen himself in the black glass of the pool’s surface. He looked like the others except his skin was new, smooth like polished marble, his eyes dark and wide. No cracks, no blemishes. The icy chill of the water shocked him as he washed.

His first months passed in a barrage of new sensations, sights and sounds, smells and the wondrous texture of the outside world. After a few months he was ready to see more of the world, so Chaiel accompanied him down the rock and into the jungle. The two of them made excursions into the jungle for days or weeks at a time, learning the tricks of camouflage and negotiating treacherous terrain. They were never gone too long, always returning to the liferock. The first year was a weaning process.

Bintr and Tinu replaced Chaiel after the first year, escort-ing Pabl into the village and his first experiences with civilization. Pabl was fascinated by the other Name-givers, especially one young dwarf who could make colors dance in the air around him. They became friends, despite initial objections by the dwarf’s grandparents, and when it was time for Pabl to move farther away from the liferock, Jan took the opportunity to get out of Rabneth.

Tinu and Bintr traveled with Pabl and Jan for the first few years as they wandered Barsaive. Tinu taught Pabl to respect nature; he trained Pabl in the magic of the purifier discipline.

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And for a while that was enough. But the more Pabl learned about the world, the more he realized that power came from magic. It was his frustration at his own inability to understand Jan’s magic which finally drove him to take up his own studies of wizardry several years later.

Now, in the merge with the Council of Four, Pabl’s motives and personality were being evaluated — his devotion to purge nature of destructive forces, and his commitment to understanding the manifestation of magic in the universe and how it can help him purify. His problem, that of finding Reid Quo, was being considered.

Pabl didn’t know how much time passed while his memories sifted through his mind and into the memory of the Council, but it seemed like hours. Maybe days. And after he had remembered his whole life up to the failed attack on the mining company and the trip to Domorpen, Pabl felt the presence of the Four. They greeted him in thoughts and images. He saw their forms in his mind, though they no longer physically resembled obsidimen at all, and Pabl suddenly knew that they were the swirling columns at the corners of the valley.

Unnamed one, you are young for such responsibility. The thoughts seemed to come from all of them, rather than one.

You have a daunting task.

We know the whereabouts of your lost Elder, Reid Quo.

Pabl felt a wave of relief pass through him. If they knew where Reid was, then all Pabl had to do was go there and bring Reid back to Tepuis Garen.

But the risks are terribly high, unnamed one. So great in fact that we cannot warn you enough, except perhaps by showing you the story of Sangolin.

Pabl steeled his mind, readying himself for whatever came next. He had never heard of a place called Sangolin, but the word was familiar. Sangolin meant “bloodstone.”

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Our knowledge of Sangolin comes from the experiences of two obsidimen of different liferocks who managed to escape the place. Eventually, with the help of others, they made their way here.

Pabl saw an image of cliffs, of red rocks in drifting mist.

Fire glowed in a sea below the cliffs, its flames licking the rock at the base a thousand feet below. He felt the heat of the mist against his skin, and smelled the stench of rotting vegetation carried on the clouds of steam.

Some places in our magical world bear names — Named-places such as Death’s Sea and the Dragon Mountains. These places hold power and have distinct patterns of their own. Like people, and some objects that bear Names, Named-places have their own temperament and force of will. They can be benign or influential, work for Name-givers or against them.

The image in Pabl’s mind coalesced until he saw a great Gathering of obsidimen on a wide level shelf, set slightly back from the cliff. The brothers of many liferocks were meeting together to share water and consciousness, nearly fifty obsidimen Dreaming together. The mass of their merged body hummed with music, a deep harmonious chorus that sang of joy and togetherness. The Gathering enjoyed deep seclusion due to the surrounding mountains, and yet they had the benefit of open space and sunshine peeking through the drifts of mist.

Sangolin is an evil place for obsidimen. At the beginning of the Scourge, Horrors attacked a Gathering of obsidimen at a place set into the cliffs next to the Scarlet Sea.

Pabl watched in his mind as the obsidimen were startled out of their Dreaming by an army of dwarfs and men and orks who crested the mountain slope and poured down the narrow path onto the wide shelf. Pabl recognized Reid Quo among the obsidimen who emerged from the Gathering.

Reid was angry at being disturbed, and he went with This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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some others to ask the army to leave. But the energy-wasters told them that an onslaught of Horrors had breached the barrier between planes and had been attacking their army for five days as they tried to retreat to a place of safety.

Then the newcomers looked past Reid, seeing the cliffs and the Scarlet Sea beyond. They lost hope completely when Reid told them that there was no way out except the way they had come. They were all trapped — dwarfs, men, orks— and obsidimen.

Soon the hollow was filled with the Name-givers, and the Horrors came screaming in. The rumors of the coming Scourge were true. The Horrors were all shapes and sizes; ugly parasites that attacked minds, formless blobs of smothering pink ooze, fat insect-like things with pincers and sharp bristles. They killed slowly, inflicting as much pain as possible before death. And although they weren’t hard to fight, they came in huge numbers, swarming like killer bees.

A powerful obsidiman mage — Vecrix — called to the members of his race. He asked them to recreate the Gathering while he called upon the earth to cover them and protect them from the Horrors. Reid and the others gathered in a space next to the mountainside and entered united self-Dreaming for a second time.

Vecrix stood tall, his white marble skin shining in the sunlight as he used his magic to shake the rock above them, trying to cause an avalanche to cover the Gathering and create a makeshift kaer. The rock responded, leaping to his command with a deafening crack. And as the boulders fell, Vecrix bound the disparate fragments of rock together with magic, tying their patterns together to create a shell of stone over the Gathering. He wove a series of wards into the loosely tied pattern of the falling stone in a desperate attempt to prevent the Horrors from digging them out. His power was vast, and his need drove him to attempt the impossible.

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Many dwarfs were pummeled and crushed to death under the falling rock, trapped and wounded, waiting in fear for the Horrors to come and infect their minds. And the Horrors came and feasted on the pain, eventually killing everyone who was not protected in the merge. Vecrix himself almost didn’t make it. A Horror dug its claws into him near the end, ripping away the left half of his face, and digging out his eye with its mandibles. He would’ve died then, except that a fragment of stone crashed down on them, killing the Horror and breaking Vecrix’s leg. He pushed the Horror off and crawled to join the Gathering before the last stones fell.

You see, unnamed one, the Horrors did not get to your lost Elder, but the obsidimen of the Gathering spent five hundred years in self-Dreaming.

Pabl felt a chill seize his mind. All obsidimen knew not to Dream without a liferock for more than a decade. These obsidimen had passed through the entire Scourge merged together.

The prolonged exposure to each other’s memories and thoughts caused them to lose themselves. Their memories became jumbled, their personalities merged until they didn’t know who they were.

They forgot their liferocks; they forgot themselves.

When they emerged at the end of the Scourge, the place they had created — their Gathering — had become a force of its own. An entity. They called it Sangolin and they did not leave it for they had forgotten what had happened there at the beginning of the Scourge. Most of them had forgotten the Horrors and the avalanche. Those who did remember didn’t care; their life energy had been used to create the pattern of a new place, one with a spirit of its own. They were beyond caring.

The force inside Sangolin did not want them to leave. So they stayed because they could not fathom living without it.

They were addicted to it.

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Visions of Sangolin after the Scourge flooded Pabl’s mind.

He saw the emergence of the first obsidimen, hesitantly leaving the sanctuary of their brothers. They pushed against the covering of rock, using magic to carve a corridor through the stone. Hunger and thirst nearly claimed the lives of the first ones, emerged into a ravaged world. All of the plant life near the hollow had been destroyed, and the spring water which had flowed from over the mountainside into a pool on the shelf of rock was now covered by the avalanche.

They violated their obsidiman nature, tunneling and hunting and eating meat. They dug out a cavern around Sangolin and discovered the water, though it was now hard with minerals and tinged with the taste of the Horror bones over which it flowed.

Reid Quo emerged to help the others. And like them, he no longer knew himself. He hunted and dug caves with the others, waiting, always waiting for Sangolin to call him back to join. The vision made Pabl sad, for he remembered the Reid Quo from the liferock’s memories. Adventurous, a powerful master of illusion, and one who did much to unite disparate brotherhoods, taking pride in the Gatherings he organized.

Then the visions of Sangolin stopped in Pabl’s mind. Two members of the Gathering had been injured by fire elementals during a trip to the lava river which flowed from the volcano.

They plummeted into the Scarlet Sea a few miles from Sangolin and left for dead — something no sane obsidiman would ever do to a brother.

Some time later, a dwarf mining team found them on the shore, scarred and mostly burned, but barely alive. The mining team took them back to Travar, and they eventually made their way into the company of other obsidimen, and finally to the Valley of the Elders.

That is all we know of Sangolin. You will most likely find Reid Quo there, but heed our warning, unnamed one. If you go, This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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Sangolin will call to you. It will try to hypnotize you and entice you to join it, to merge with its soft mottled flesh. You must resist Sangolin’s call if you wish to return to Ganwetrammus with Reid Quo.

Concentrate on your liferock, unnamed one. Whenever you feel the dizzying uncertainty of Sangolin’s allure. Your connection to Ganwetrammus is the only thing which can keep you true.

Pabl concentrated on Tepuis Garen. He saw the Alqarat burning bright in his mind, felt the reassuring pattern of Ganwetrammus as he remembered merging with the rock.

Good, unnamed one, remember your liferock always, for your existence means nothing without it . . . nothing except emptiness and lifelong sorrow.

Pabl thought of Ohin Yeenar, alone in the world without a liferock, desperate for release from his pain. Ohin was not much different now than those of other Name-giver races who had lived past their natural time. Except that Ohin Yeenar knew what he had lost. He remembered what it was like to have a liferock, to have that bond with the earth spirit and his brotherhood.

No energy-wasters could know what they missed. Maybe that was how they managed to live without the connection.

Life in the outside world means making choices, unnamed one. Sometimes those choices seem impossibly hard, like Ohin Yeenar’s decision to stay with his dead liferock. Ohin Yeenar remained true to himself; he made the right choice. He would be at Sangolin now if he had gone with Reid Quo and the others.

Pabl remembered the pathetic pleas the ancient one had made, trying to end his pain. He saw his own fist, tempered by magic into a lethal weapon, arcing toward Ohin’s sightless head.

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sorrow, and that has made him mad. Death would be a bless-ing for him.

Always remember who you are, unnamed one. Remember yourself and your heritage, and you will make the right choice every time.

Pabl imagined his fist connecting with the cracked flesh of the ancient obsidiman, pulverizing the skull next to his milky white eyes. In the vision, blood burst from Ohin’s head as his head snapped back. Then Ohin whiplashed forward onto the flagstones of the temple floor, spattering his lifeblood over the stones of his dead liferock.

Pabl shook the image from his mind. It sickened him. Perhaps Ohin should be dead, but Pabl didn’t think he could kill him. Maybe if Ohin were brought here, to the Council of Four, he could regain his sanity.

Perhaps, unnamed one. But the two obsidimen who escaped Sangolin by accident and eventually made it here, went insane from withdrawal. We were able to help them piece the fragments of their spirits together, but we could not repair the damage Sangolin had done to them. Their insanity drove them to their deaths a few years after they left here.

We have limitations; we may not be able to help Ohin Yeenar. And we may not have the power to save Reid Quo if he is in similar condition as the others who escaped Sangolin.

Pabl withdrew into himself, trying to block out the images and voices. Trying to break out of the merge. His mind was overloaded with thoughts and images; he needed time to put everything together.

But the Council of Four did not let him go. They reached into his pattern and examined it, looking for aberrations.

What are you doing to me?

They told him that struggling to break the merge was futile. While he was here, they would correct any defects in his pattern. There was nothing to worry about.

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Fear shot through Pabl as he felt them pry into his spirit, and he could do nothing to resist.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Nineteen 

Gvint looked across the cluttered room at the broad curve of Jibn’s back, swathed in his blue tunic. The room had warmed in the hours since Gvint had opened the fire basket on the hearth. Rain pounded the roof overhead with a muted low hiss as Gvint turned away from Jibn and paced back towards the big table.

He had been pacing in silence for an hour, trying to come up with something which would convince Jibn to help him perform the Ritual of Protection. There was a way that might work, but it meant re-experiencing the near death of Ganwetrammus. Gvint clenched his jaw and turned back to face Jibn.

“Merge with me, brother.”

Jibn’s shoulder twitched involuntarily. “W-w-why?” he said. “You know that if I am m-m-marked, you could be possessed.”

“You aren’t marked.”

“You d-d-don’t know that.”

“I am willing to take the risk, Jibn. I have something to show you.”

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“No.”

Gvint felt a surge of anger. “I am your Elder, Jibn Sra. In the name of Ganwetrammus I command you to enter the Dreaming with me.” His hand lashed out at Jibn, open palm becoming fluid as he grabbed Jibn’s forearm, feeling the bumpy studs of his inlaid emerald tattoo. Gvint’s other hand did the same, touching Jibn’s chest.

Jibn’s skin melted under Gvint’s touch.

“Do not resist, brother. I must do this to show you that you need exile yourself no longer.”

“I . . . I will not resist, Elder.”

They merged. Jibn gave into the union, melding with Gvint, sharing body and mind. It had been a long time since Gvint had merged with another obsidiman without a liferock, and he found the effort draining.

Jibn’s mind filled Gvint with smells and sounds. Jibn’s years had gone by in loneliness, his time occupied with reading and long periods of self-induced hibernation. He had learned much about the nature of Horrors from his research into his own condition.

Jibn suspected that he was marked by one or more Horrors, and he lived out his life in perpetual paranoia because of it. Even though no Horror had ever manifested itself to him.

No Horror except the first one.

Gvint forced their merged minds to remember that time, just two decades before they had planned to seal off the liferock for the Long Dreaming which other Name-givers called the Scourge. The tepuis had looked much the same as it did now; the jungle had offered some protection from the scath-ing destructive forces unleashed by Horrors during the Scourge.

Many of the Garen Brotherhood had known of the coming apocalypse and had returned to the liferock to spend the last years with Ganwetrammus. Gvint remembered how he This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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had made the journey from Travar with Ywerk Fri. The Elders, Garen Dne and Tylon Giv, had welcomed them at the temple above the riflev pool, and they had passed the last years near the liferock. It had been a twilight time, sad to see everyone around them preparing for the coming of the Horrors. Some of the brotherhood arrived close to the end, having stayed with other Name-givers until the very last moment so as to help them build their underground kaers.

Jibn Sra was one such brother.

Gvint saw now through the distorted lens of Jibn’s memory into a time when Jibn had served as a rune-carver. He had learned the symbols of warding and protection from the Therans. Traveling from village to village in those last days, Jibn had carved and enchanted those runes into the gates of kaers in exchange for food, lodging, and any magical knowledge they might have that he did not.

Jibn encountered a Horror on his way home to the tepuis.

In his memory, the event held great significance, built up from years of analysis, trying to figure out where he had made a mistake. Searching for the fault, the blame in what he had done.

But Gvint knew the event from the memory of the liferock who knew the event from Jibn’s point of view as well, but a younger Jibn, one who had just encountered the Horror days earlier. One who remembered the encounter as nothing special at all.

Jibn had been hiking the roads from the Twilight Peaks to the edge of the Servos jungle, a vast blanket of thick vegetation, much larger than it was now. Suddenly, music filled the space around him, a crystal clean cacophony of sounds. The sun disappeared behind a fissure in the fabric of the sky, and through the rift came light. Wisps of brilliant blue and ten-drils of perfect red swirled out into the jungle air.

Then a creature appeared, half in and half out of the rift.

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In the physical, it looked like a giant black mole with huge, sightless milk-white eyes. But in the astral it had no real form, only a pattern of colored threads stretching off into the distance.

Jibn knew it was a Horror and turned to escape. And yet, for a fraction of a second its eyes stared into his. Then he was running down the path, and it had been sucked back into the realm of the astral.

Days later, when Jibn had finally reached Tepuis Garen, he merged with Ganwetrammus. He had no idea that the Horror had marked him — attached a hidden magical tether to Jibn’s astral pattern which let the creature track the obsidiman.

Thus, when Jibn fused with the liferock, the Horror materialized, entering his mind and body. The creature merged with Ganwetrammus along with Jibn. Infecting the liferock and the entire brotherhood.

Ganwetrammus fought the creature in astral space where both were much more powerful. The battle went on for years, and it seemed that Ganwetrammus was winning. But the Horror was patient and cunning. It would lie dormant for months or years, only to return with sudden vengeance, tormenting members of the brotherhood who were merged at the time.

Slowly, it insinuated itself into the pattern of the liferock to such a degree that it would have killed parts of Ganwetrammus. The time of the Long Dreaming approached rapidly and the members of the brotherhood became afraid that they would have no liferock with which to merge. Without the protection of Ganwetrammus, the entire brotherhood would perish.

Garen came up with the answer. The Ritual of Protection would help strengthen the pattern of the liferock. It could force the Horror out. But there was a problem; the Horror was so well integrated that one of the brotherhood would have to act as a receptacle for the Horror. The magic of the Ritual of This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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Protection could help Ganwetrammus cleanse itself of the creature, but the Horror had to be killed. It knew too much of Ganwetrammus’s pattern; if it were merely banished from the rock, it could easily return during the Long Dreaming and re-infect the rock.

Garen volunteered himself.

He was the eldest and no one could dissuade him. The entire brotherhood merged as Tylon and Garen performed the Ritual of Protection. Beginning as a dance among the rocks atop the tepuis, the two of them weaved threads of magical power from the astral plane to Ganwetrammus. Then the dance continued inside the rock as they traced the massive and complex pattern of the liferock with their spirits, filtering clean mana into Ganwetrammus through their matrix of astral threads. The Elders’ ultimate objective was to reestablish the original, unblemished pattern of the liferock.

The Horror shrank away from the two Elders as they danced Ganwetrammus’s pattern. They corralled it with their magic until it had no choice but to enter Garen’s mind. It tried to torment him, but he was confident and strong from the residual magic of the ritual. Then Garen emerged into the world as the ritual was completed, locking his spirit with that of the Horror. Neither Garen nor the Horror could escape the union.

Garen wandered off into the apocalypse and was never heard from again. The liferock and the brotherhood had borne his name ever since.

Yonik Bne became the next Elder, after which he and Tylon sealed the brotherhood deep inside Ganwetrammus where they weathered the Scourge in a state of hibernation for 500

years. When the brotherhood emerged to the new and sad world of post-Scourge Barsaive, Jibn was in a state of panic.

He blamed himself for Garen’s death and for the near destruction of the liferock and all of his brothers. He separated himself from the rock, and though he decided not to wander away This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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from the tepuis, he had refused to ever enter the Dreaming with Ganwetrammus again.

Do you see now, Jibn? Do you see that none of it could have been your fault.

Gvint, that was not how it happened. I let the Horror mark me by not getting away fast enough. Deep down, I knew that I was marked, and I merged anyway.

Not true. A fabrication of your paranoia, Jibn. Gvint forced the memory of Jibn’s merging to resurface. It was clear in the liferock’s recollection of the event that Jibn knew nothing about having been Horror-marked. You were naive about Horrors then, my brother. You should not condemn yourself and your brotherhood now because of past ignorance.

Gvint let Jibn emerge from the self-Dreaming, the warm sensation of relief filling him as Jibn’s confused mind left him alone. Jibn sank to the floor, curling into a sitting position with his arms clasped around his knees.

Gvint put his hands on Jibn’s shoulders. “Everyone has forgiven you,” he said. “Except you.”

Jibn said nothing.

They sat there together for a while, Gvint worrying about Jibn’s state of mind. He knew he had done the right thing to force Jibn to remember. It had shocked Jibn, but maybe, just maybe it would be enough to provoke him into action.

“We need your help, brother. Ganwetrammus is in pain.”

Jibn didn’t answer. He merely sat on the floor and stared into at the flicker of the fire basket.

Gvint slumped into the chair.

Nearly a half hour passed before Jibn spoke. “I am s-s-sorry brother, but . . .”

Gvint tried to contain his anger and let Jibn finish.

“I can’t,” Jibn said. “I just can’t.”

“You have been wallowing in self-pity for too long. Jibn, your liferock needs you now. Your brotherhood needs you.”

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“You don’t understand, Gvint. What if my Horror is still out there? It is possible, even likely. In fact, I’m convinced of it.”

“Spare me the pathetic excuses,” Gvint said, pushing to his feet and crossing the room. His anger was rising again. He felt more helpless than he had ever felt. “I merged with you and saw no evidence of any Horrors. I am not possessed or marked or hurt in any way by the experience.”

Jibn watched as Gvint donned his cloak and opened the door. “You are the one who doesn’t understand,” Gvint said.

“Our existence is under siege and we are losing the war. If you change your mind and decide to join us in our fight, come to the temple and see me.” Then he was out the door and running through the cold mist of rain.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Sangolin



 Chapter Twenty 

Pabl emerged from his communion with the Council of Four refreshed and invigorated. He had never felt healthier. The clean air of the valley cleansed his lungs as he took deep breath after deep breath. The sun shone bright just over the edge of the valley, sending rays of rainbow colors across the flagstones. The white stone obelisk gleamed sharp in the center.

The last words of the council echoed in his mind as he began the walk back toward the column of elemental air, swirling with rocks and sand at the edge of the valley. We have left your pattern unchanged, unnamed one. You are still discovering yourself.

Remember one thing; your eagerness to be Named is base-less; your name is who you are, not a gift from Ganwetrammus.

You will know your name when you have realized who you are.

Don’t let your desire to be Named cause you to put your self-interests above those of your liferock.

The sound of the huge tornado of sand became deafening as Pabl climbed out of the forest and onto the plateau.

Wind whipped around him as he approached the column.

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Pabl turned then and looked back down into the valley one final time.

The view in the daylight was magnificent. He could see the entire valley; the jagged rim was covered sporadically with snow and formed the near-circle which marked the edge of the valley. Lush forest filled the basin, bringing a pine-scented breeze up the sides of mountains. Pabl looked across to the other columns, stretching huge and menacing up into the sky.

He felt a sudden urge to stay, and regretted having to rush away. When would he ever get the chance to return? He wanted to get a closer look at the other swirling columns, explore the rest of the valley, avail himself of the vast history and knowledge held by the Council of Four. But all that would have to wait; he could not delay his journey to Sangolin.

Pabl turned to face the column of elemental air. Stepping toward it, he pressed his hands over his ears to dampen the grinding roar. Stones and debris whipped up into the air around him as he approached, feeling the loose ends of his tunic and pants flap and flutter in the wind. One more step and he was airborne, swept up into the column.

“Domorpen,” he said, following the instructions that the council had given him. In his head he pictured the return journey — the flowing torrent of rock and the constellation of colors.

A rush of wind surrounded him as tiny, sharp stones cut into his flesh. He squeezed his eyes shut against the sting-ing slivers. Then, a concussion of sound echoed in the space around him, and the roar of the elemental column was gone, leaving his ears ringing with dull white noise.

Pabl took a breath, his lungs burning with sulfurous steam. He pitched forward and landed face down on the wet stone surface of the Domorpen cave. He took another careful breath and opened his eyes to near blackness.

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Pabl searched on his hands and knees, locating a trickle of spring water by feel. He splashed his face before standing.

When his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he could see the fine red lines of lava flowing over the boulder of black glass behind him. I made it, he thought, reaching into his backpack for his lantern. I know where Reid Quo can be found. Now, I just need to rejoin my companions.

Outside, a cold, moonless night greeted Pabl. A light snow was falling, prompting Pabl to don his heavy cloak as he made his way down the rocky slope toward the boulder shelter where the group had camped while searching for the cave.

He approached the camp from above, careful to avoid slipping on the treacherous rocks. Jan and Chaiel slept under the shelter of the boulders, bundled up in the hot blankets that Celagri had bargained from the elves of Tri’um. Celagri, herself, was nowhere to be seen as Pabl climbed down toward the camp, his eye on the warm red glow of the dying fire.

“Pabl?” It was Celagri’s voice coming from the shadows next to the camp.

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Thank the Passions, you’re back safely.” Celagri stepped into the dim red light given off by the dying fire. She extended an arm toward Pabl, touching him gently on the chest. “It’s good to see you,” she said.

“Likewise, my friend.”

“Are you all right?” Celagri asked. “Did they change you?”

“No, they did not. I am healthy. How long have I been away?”

“Two days.”

“Good, we still have time. Has anything gone wrong here?”

Pabl asked.

“No, just Chaiel’s instinctive mistrust for Jan and myself.”

Pabl looked at his brother’s solid bulk sleeping peacefully next to the tiny mass of the dwarf. “Those two seem to be get-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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ting along pretty well right now.”

Celagri let out a soft laugh.

Such a delicate sound, Pabl thought. The elf ’s laugh brought a smile to his face. “Let’s get the fire going again,” he said. “I have some things to say.” He picked up three hefty logs that had been cut for the morning’s fire and set them on the embers. Then he cast a spell to ignite them. “Jan! Chaiel!

Wake up.”

Soon the embers became a roaring blaze. Jan and Chaiel woke slowly and huddled in their hot blankets, listening to Pabl as he told about Sangolin and his experience in the Valley of the Elders. “You and I need to be careful, Chaiel, for Sangolin will try to trick us. If there were time to spare, I’d suggest that you visit the Valley of the Elders before we leave, but we cannot afford to tarry any longer. Our liferock is in danger.”

Chaiel nodded, his black eyes reflecting the fire. “I am heartened by your news and what you have learned from the Council of Four,” he said. “The Scarlet Sea is not much more than a fortnight’s walk from here. We might just find Reid Quo in time to save Ganwetrammus.”

“We leave in the morning,” Pabl said. “I am only sorry that we won’t have time to visit Tepuis Garen on our way. We will stick to the river as far as the jungle, then head south along the edge of the Servos until we see the volcanoes above the Scarlet Sea. Sangolin is near them.”

Several hours of darkness remained so they decided to get some more sleep before packing up to leave. Pabl slipped into a deep slumber just as he lay his head against the soft contents of his backpack. But sometime later, towards the early morning hours, a vision came to him in his sleep.

He dreamt of a beautiful place, a place more exquisite even than the Valley of the Elders. A river of lava cascaded over a thousand-foot cliff into a sea of molten rock below. He stood in a wide hollow, formed from a huge plateau in the This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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mountains next to the cliffs. Drifts of steam blew across the plateau — hot clouds smelling of waste and decay.

It was a wonderful place with many obsidimen, living and playing together. And in Pabl’s dream it seemed perfectly natural that these obsidimen hunted animals for food and lived in caves under stone.

In his dream, Pabl walked towards a slope of jagged rock, fallen long ago in an avalanche. A tunnel had been carved into the rock, and Pabl was drawn into it. A dark cave. White crystals of light. Dripping water.

A chill passed through Pabl as he jerked awake. He shivered in his hot blanket. What in Death’s name just happened?

He sat up, looking at the clear blue sky through the crack between the boulders. The sun just peeked over the mountain tops, barely warming the camp.

Pabl breathed deeply, relishing the icy air as he dressed in his heavy cloak. He stepped out of the shelter, careful to not wake the others, and climbed a few yards down to the edge of a tiny stream, formed from melting snow pack. He scooped clear water in his palms and washed his entire body, trying to purge himself of his dream.

What plagued him most is how a vision could come to him in that twilight moment between sleep and wakefulness.

Obsidimen don’t dream in their sleep. They dream only when merged.

When he was clean and dressed again, Pabl drank deeply.

Then he sat cross-legged on a rock and performed his wizard’s karma ritual. He removed a small stick of chalk from his pouch and drew a perfect circle on the rock. Pabl channeled magical energy from astral space through himself as he inscribed an equilateral triangle inside the circle. The magic propelled his fingers, letting him draw smaller circles and triangles until he had to use astral sight to see them.

His ritual forced him concentrate on the geometry of per-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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fect shapes, the art of magic theory and its practice in pure form. And for the moment, while he focused on his ritual, his dream faded into the recesses of his mind.

For the moment, his vision did not haunt him.

For the moment.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Twenty-One 

Reid could not sleep. Every time he tried to rest, he felt the pain of his liferock far away. Ganwetrammus.

Sangolin did not want him to think about it. Did not want him to remember. But the memories were always hovering just below the surface of his consciousness, disorganized and jumbled, swimming in the recesses of his mind.

Waiting to emerge.

Reid entered his cave and lay down to sleep on his pallet of animal skins, desperate for some reprieve from his exhaustion. But the pain of his liferock wracked through him and kept him awake. He stared up at the rough arch of the cave’s stone ceiling, and remembered . . .

A younger Reid stood in a crowded city, the peaks of three huge pyramids dominating its skyline. Mounted griffins and flying chariots traveled across the sky, carrying the elite of a strange people. And down below, in the streets, Name-givers of all races intermingled in business exchange and social meetings.

An old obsidiman sat on a stone bench next to Reid, his back hunched. Reid knew him, watched him straighten up 160

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and put his hand out toward Reid, palm open.

Reid removed a small necklace from his under his cloak, black metal chain with a opaque green statue of . . . of . . . some-one. He placed the necklace into the palm of the old obsidiman.

Wrinkles cracked in the old one’s face as he squinted at Reid. He admonished Reid for relinquishing the item. “It may not look expensive,” said the old obsidiman, “but it has value.

More value than is required for payment.”

But Reid made him take the necklace because Reid did not have anything else to pay him with, and Reid knew that the old one — Garen was his name — would take good care of it.

Garen clenched the jade carving in his fist. Then he put the chain around his neck and proceeded to teach Reid about the fine line between illusory magic and other kinds. “Trick-ing the senses involves using magic to lie,” Garen said. “We are similar to troubadours in that way. Except that our me-dium is not words and stories. Our palette is colors and sounds, our canvases are the minds of the unwary.”

Garen’s voice dissipated in a shock of sharp, present-day pain that shot through Reid. Then the memory gave way to another . . .

Reid floated in the collective consciousnesses of many obsidimen from all over Barsaive — a momentous Gathering to share knowledge about the coming apocalypse. Reid, himself, had organized the Gathering in an effort to bring communion to an obsidiman world which would soon be forced to fragment for hundreds of years.

Inside this Gathering he felt a nudge, a tickle against the side of merged mass of obsidiman bodies. He felt pressure from outside like gentle prodding in his mind, and he knew something was wrong. Somebody was intruding on their pri-vacy.

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He emerged from the Gathering, joined by a few other obsidimen. The plateau had been empty when they had entered the Dreaming months ago, but now the broad space was filled with dwarfs and men and orks, scurrying and frantic, dressed in chain armor. They waved swords and axes.

Several dwarfs told him that their army was pursued by an onslaught of Horrors. They said that everyone must run, try to escape the certain death which approached just beyond the mountain ridge to the north. The dwarfs wanted to know if there was an escape route or a stronghold nearby. Their questions gave way to pleas as they grew desperate for Reid to tell them that they had a chance, however meager.

He could not.

The path the dwarfs had taken from the north was narrow and bundled between great sheets of rock, leading down from the high plains above. They explored the plateau, but found only what Reid knew they would. The hollow was surrounded on three sides by a tight arc of steep mountain slopes, and it was bounded on the fourth by the cliff edge — a thousand-foot drop into molten stone below.

The army lost hope when they saw the fiery sea below and no escape. But yet they decided to make a stand in the hollow.

They’d try to fight. What else could they do?

As the dwarfs and men and orks prepared for the onslaught, Reid removed the scarab brooch from his cloak and sent his vision flying. Over the mountains and to the plains of rolling grass beyond. Through the beetle’s eyes, Reid saw the fires which swept across the plains, and smoke billowing black and heavy into the sky. The Horrors crawled and skit-tered along near the line of the fire, moving inexorably towards the retreating army like jungle ants. There were millions of the ugly creatures — large and small, quick and slow, but all deadly.

Reid called the scarab back to him, telling the dwarfs of This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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what he had seen. Then he had merged with the Gathering to show his fellow obsidimen the images of the approaching Horrors.

Whatever happened to my scarab? To my magic?

Vecrix had taken charge after that. Vecrix had saved them all from death.

In his mind, Reid saw the side of the mountain lean over and cover them, pummeling the unfortunate dwarfs in the process. The memory dissipated as a sliver of pain jabbed him in the back of the head, making him wince and squeeze his eyes closed.

What is happening with Ganwetrammus to cause me such pain? I must try to find out.

He stood up then, pushed aside the burlap curtains and wandered out of his cave. He knew now that caves were unlikely places for obsidimen. Sunshine and clear sky were more appropriate. Forests and clean water were what his race loved the most.

How do all these memories fit together?

Another vision filtered into his head as he walked along the ledge toward the central hollow. In the memory, Reid sat cross-legged on a tile floor, staring at a spur of rock which rose up out of the floor and glowed a deep red at the tip. Other obsidimen sat around him. His brothers, he knew, though he could not remember all their names.

Three of them stood near the spur of rock, the Alqarat.

Yes, that was its name. Two of the three wore braided cloth skulldresses of auburn and black. Horklas.

Now, as he walked, turning away from the glowing sea of fire, Reid touched the bare crown of his head involuntarily.

What ever happened to my horkla?

In the vision, his horkla was made of thick indigo thread, interwoven with black, magenta and tiny strands of orichalcum. He’d been proud to wear it. When had he lost it? When This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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had he lost everything? Why had he forgotten so much?

Ganwetrammus must have these answers. I will leave this place and go to Ganwetrammus.

Reid passed into the main clearing, noticing a group of painted obsidimen dancing around the ashes of last night’s fire, drums beating in a jovial rhythm. Reid focused on the dance as he crossed the long space of the hollow. Anything to avoid thinking about what lay the other way. Reid watched the haphazard dance of his companions, but continued his steady walk toward the far wall, toward the path which led up the mountainside and away from Sangolin.

Step by step he plodded. On his left, Reid caught sight of the remnants of the avalanche out of the corner of his eye. He passed the tunnel which led to Sangolin, trying not to look down into the black barrel of his obsession. Trying not to think about sweet Sangolin. If it called him now, he would go.

He knew that and hated himself for it. He lost himself every time he merged with Sangolin. He didn’t even know who he was anymore, and he was sick of not caring.

Now, he wanted to know himself. Something out there needs me, and I will go to it.

Reid inched his way past the entrance to Sangolin’s cavern, pushing himself, concentrating on the rock curve of the cliff beyond. Maintaining focus so that he wouldn’t think about . . .

Then he was past the tunnel and across the clearing, the sound of drums dampening behind him. He moved slowly and deliberately, trying to avoid the impulse to run. He must not attract attention to himself.

Reid reached the path, and began walking up it. He did not look behind him as he put one foot up the slope, then the other. He didn’t know how far he would have to go to get away from Sangolin’s call. He didn’t think anywhere could be far enough.

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stopped him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Reid turned to see Vecrix behind him, standing at the base of the trail. Vecrix’s hideous, misshapen form made him look more like a twisted lump of stone than an obsidiman.

Narrow red stripes snaked across the white marble expanse of his naked flesh. His skin caught the dim red light from the sea of fire and reflected the glow like the dull luster of blood.

Reid turned and began to walk back down. “Nowhere,” he said. “I’m going nowhere.”

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Twenty-Two 

Pabl and his companions traveled south for several days, first following the Tylon river, then skirting the western edge of the Servos Jungle. Pabl instinctively felt more at ease under the canopy of trees than out under the clear, cold sky of the grassy hills and valleys. But he was unfamiliar with this part of the Servos, and he knew the hills were less dangerous. So they stayed clear of the jungle.

The weather grew warmer as they made their way past Kratas and around the western arm of the jungle. The terrain flattened out as they left the river and the mountains behind them; roads became sparse the farther from Kratas they went. They avoided Kratas itself, but frequented many merchant caravans that traveled to and from the city of thieves.

But soon the merchants became scarce so Pabl and the others were forced to stock up on supplies and carry food for many days.

The swaying golden grass which covered the hills gave way in patches to a crawling, thorny vine that was left over from the Scourge. The locals called it Icicle Creeper because its thorns caused a cold sting when they penetrated the skin, 166

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numbing the area around the wound. The plant was rarely deadly to Name-givers, but usually caught small animals by paralyzing them to their deaths.

By the fifth or sixth day of traveling, Celagri became extremely good at picking trails between and around the patches of Icicle Creeper, mostly from the smell of rotting carcasses. Jan had settled into the routine of the trek across country. The dwarf hated walking, and the only way he could manage was to turn each traveling day into a series of miniature adventures.

Jan would get up and tackle the task of making breakfast, then packing up camp. Either he would pick a verbal fight with Chaiel or less often with Celagri, or he would talk about the scenery and the savage life of the local inhabitants.

Lunch was a welcome break from Jan’s restless babble. But the afternoon hike brought more of the same.

Chaiel seemed to enjoy the warmer weather, having given up his cloak for his indigo and green body paint. But the endless meandering through the hills and valleys seemed to take its toll on him as well. He was content to walk in silence, his hand resting on the huge hilt of his troll sword. He even hesitated to argue with Jan much anymore.

Pabl found his mind wandering as they walked. He had dreamt of Sangolin again on the third night out from Domorpen. And once more on the fifth. It was unsettling. His dreams of Sangolin were coming more and more frequently as the days wore on and on until he could see the sea of lava and the cliffs of mist and fire even during his waking hours, and he had to concentrate on his Mynbruje pendant to force the hallucinations from his mind. The necklace brought memories of Ganwetrammus and Garen and Reid. The memories helped him forget about his dreams.

Only Celagri seemed immune to the poisonous monotony of the landscape. Pabl noticed that she tried to keep Jan dis-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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tracted as much as she could bear, and her mood stayed high.

She had never been through these rolling plains, and she faced the strange challenges that they offered with vigor.

She tried on occasion to engage Chaiel in conversation, but Chaiel merely trudged ahead, ignoring her. Pabl found himself walking with them in muted silence, following Celagri’s lead and redirecting her towards their destination if her path strayed too far.

Pabl felt a pull from Sangolin now, like a homing beacon of sorts. A sense of longing passed through him whenever he walked in exactly the right direction. Then he knew that Sangolin lay on his path ahead, waiting for him.

As he walked, he saw the hollow in his mind as though he had been there many times — a level plateau of rock surrounded on three sides by a mountains rising above it. The fourth side opened onto a wide ledge set into the side of a cliff which dropped away into the molten sea below.

Sangolin itself sat beneath the fallen rock — an avalanche in stasis, frozen in time. Pabl approached it, his breath quickening, his heart accelerating as he took step after careful step into the corridor. The broken rock rose on either side of him as he moved into the darkness. Then the path became a tunnel as the roof blocked out the sky. Bright white crystals glit-tered inside like huge stars in the blackness of the tunnel.

The cavern filled Pabl’s mind. A cool breeze seemed to pass through his body, chilling his bones as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark. The drip, drip of water echoed in the enclosed space, ticking away the seconds as Pabl stared at the gray mass that was Sangolin. The force both drew him and repelled him.

“Everything will be all right,” said a voice like churning gravel. “You cannot resist for long. And your resistance merely prolongs the pain for you.”

Pabl looked in the direction of the voice to see a deformed This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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obsidiman. His skin was white — not quartz white like Ohin Yeenar’s, but marble white. His back was bent in a permanent hunch. As the obsidiman stepped forward, his face coming out of shadow, Pabl saw that the left half of his face was sunken in, his eye socket staring vacant.

The obsidiman placed a chunk of amber into his empty eye socket. And as Pabl watched, the amber began to glow a rich yellow-gold, highlighting the varicose veins around his nose and eye. “I can see you coming, Pabl Evr,” he said. “Sangolin sees you too. Look.” He pointed.

The skin of the rock seemed to ripple as Pabl watched it.

Arms and legs moving across it as though many obsidimen were trapped under a heavy blanket of gray stone. Faces and backs formed and disappeared in front of him.

And then, he saw it. The visage of an obsidiman took shape in the rock just where he stood. He knew this obsidiman.

His hands went up, fingers touching his own face as he looked. The same face he saw in the rock. His face.

Sudden, intense pain exploded in his shoulder and he snapped out of the vision. Bright sky of washed-out blue made him squint to see who had hit him. He smelled the rancid tang of a rotting carcass nearby.

“I’ve been yelling at you for the past five minutes,” Jan said.

“Celagri too.”

“What?” Pabl felt a warm breeze caress him, blowing away the retching odor of dead animal. He looked around to see rolling, grass-covered hills as far as he could see.

Jan stood about a yard away, at the edge of an Icicle Creeper patch into which Pabl had wandered. Then he felt the numbing sting in his skin where the thorns had touched up and down his shins and thighs. Jan extended the end of his staff toward Pabl.

“Come on,” he said. “Get out of there. What are you doing This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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anyway?”

Pabl pushed the staff aside and waded through the vines.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think I’m going crazy.”

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Twenty-Three 

Sarbeneck stared up at the roof of his tent and contemplated getting out of bed. He had been staring at the dull beige canvas for nearly a half hour, drifting in and out of consciousness.

“Hello, Sarbeneck, sir?”

The entry flap on Sarbeneck’s right opened a crack, sending spears of sunshine into the tent. Sarbeneck squeezed his eyes closed against the light. “By the Passions, close the flap!”

“Sir, I came to —”

“Tell the healer I’ll get up in a few minutes. I wish he wouldn’t keep bothering me about it.”

The dwarf who had just entered didn’t move. He just stood there, a silhouette in the dark.

“Well, go ahead, tell him.”

“It’s not the healer, sir. Pontin Nemish is here to see you.”

“What does he want?”

“He won’t say, sir. He demands to talk to you. He said he doesn’t care how hurt you are.”

Sarbeneck sighed. “Very well, tell him I will see him here in twenty minutes. Also, please bring me some breakfast, or 171

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whatever Sarahem has ready.”

“As you wish.” Then the messenger was gone and Sarbeneck continued to stare at the canvas fabric of the tent’s roof. He propped himself up on an elbow and swung his legs over the side of the bed, wincing against the pain in his skin.

Under the healer’s diligent care, Sarbeneck’s burns had mostly healed, but much residual pain still plagued him.

It took him longer than usual to get around; even mundane tasks were painful and slow. The constant burn was more annoying than anything else. Inconvenient. Still, it hadn’t slowed the mining down very much. Sarbeneck could give orders, and his wounds had put him in a perpetually foul mood. As a result the work on the orichalcum mine was right on schedule despite efforts by the obsidimen to delay things.

The obsidimen attack was more than two weeks past.

Since then, the rock men had tried a few more things — filling the chamber with earth, taking pot shots at his Nuinouri with blizzard spheres launched from high up on the cliff face. None of them had succeeded in convincing him to halt his operation, and the mining site had been quiet for the past few days.

There is nothing they can do now to stop the mining.

Now, the smell of smelting metal permeated the camp day and night. It was a crisp, eye-tearing odor that Sarbeneck had come to relish. It was the smell of wealth and power.

Sarbeneck was nearly dressed when the messenger returned with food. Sarahem had sent poached eggs and spicy sausage with rolls that were warm and soft. The food made Sarbeneck’s stomach grumble. Commend that fat ork’s soul to Garlen, he thought. The dwarf messenger set the tray on the main table, then excused himself.

Sarbeneck straightened his pants and jacket, then sat down to satisfy his hunger. He ate slowly, savoring the delicious meal. When he was done, he cleared his palate with a glass of clean water before calling for the messenger to let This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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Pontin and company in.

What does the pretentious bastard want this time? Sarbeneck wondered, sitting back into his wicker chair.

The tent flap drew back as Pontin swooped in, followed by his two bodyguards. Pontin’s red beard had been plaited flat and he wore a brilliant green cloak embroidered with bright blue thread. “Sarbeneck, my friend, it is good to see you. I hope you are well.”

“I pass the days in relative peace,” Sarbeneck said. “And you?”

“I am in excellent spirits, thank you.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

There was a short, almost awkward silence before Pontin spoke again. Then, “I have new instructions for you. There has been a slight change of plan.”

Sarbeneck nodded for Pontin to continue.

“How deep is the tunnel?”

Sarbeneck thought about it for a minute. “Perhaps 140 or 150 yards into the rock now, following the orichalcum vein up at an angle. We’ve purified almost a hundred pounds of the magic metal now.”

Pontin waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “The total amount of metal is unimportant really.”

“What do you mean, unimportant? ”

“My employers have decided to construct a temple chamber of sorts.” Pontin removed a scroll and walked over to show Sarbeneck. As he unrolled the parchment, Sarbeneck smelled fresh ink. This diagram was very recently drawn.

“As you can see,” Pontin said, pointing to the diagram.

“The chamber should be 150 to 200 yards into the rock, widened out so that the floor is a circle with a twenty foot diameter and hemispherical ceiling.” Pontin paused dramatically, smiling as if to himself. Then he gave a quiet chuckle. “Here’s the hard part. The walls of the chamber need to be covered This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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with a lattice of purified orichalcum.”

“What?” Sarbeneck pushed to his feet, shoving the parchment out of the way. “You want me to decorate the walls of a cave with orichalcum?”

“Well, not all of the rock has to be covered. According to the diagram, hairline threads of orichalcum should spiral from the entrance, along the walls back to the temple chamber. Only the chamber itself need be completely latticed.” Pontin smiled, rolling up the scroll and tucking it back into its leather case. “I know it seems strange —”

“Strange? Strange?” Sarbeneck spun to face Pontin. “It’s not only strange, Pontin, it’s downright stupid. Or insane perhaps.”

“Please calm yourself, Sarbeneck,” Pontin said. “You will be fully compensated of course. I will pay you the current exchange rate for any purified orichalcum you have to use, plus a huge bonus when the chamber is complete.”

Sarbeneck stepped back. “What sort of bonus?”

“How about a half-million in silver?”

Sarbeneck took a deep breath, then let out a long sigh. He was stunned. A half-million? At that rate, I could retire in lux-ury. He walked over to his wicker chair and gently sat down, trying to minimize the pain. He took a hard look at Pontin.

“Let me see those plans again,” he said. “How long do I have to get this done?”

Pontin pulled up a chair and removed the scroll from its case. “I knew you’d see the logic of my proposition.”

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Twenty-Four 

When will Sangolin call?

He stood, staring out over the deep red sea of fire and rock. Huge stone-bergs floated in the lava, dark lumpy shapes against the scarlet glow. Tiny fire creatures took shape just at the surface, flickered in and out of the shadow of the rocks, then faded into the flames. The sight mesmerized him as he waited, with growing anticipation, for Sangolin to call.

He sensed it then — the longing, the irresistible draw to join the others. He turned away from the heat which radiated from the sea of fire. Tendrils of cool air wisped around him as he moved toward the hollow, passing through the deserted al-cove of rock and into the tunnel. Darkness closed on him as he made his way slowly, carefully towards the beautiful rocky flesh that was Sangolin.

His anticipation rose as he approached. His breath came quicker; his blood pounded in his chest. A burning fever possessed his head, a crisp desire to plunge himself into the merge with Sangolin.

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his hands over the lumpy skin, the undulating mass of merged obsidimen caught in a slow motion dance through the ages.

He reached forward to touch it, feeling a tingling at the tips of his fingers as they approached the tantalizing rock flesh.

A sharp pain shocked through his shoulder just as he was about to brush Sangolin’s skin. Someone had hit him. He turned to see a large shape behind him, wielding a staff.

The light in the cavern brightened as the staff came down again, aiming for his head this time. He reached up and blocked it easily with a quick jerk of his hands, then he went on the offensive, wrenching the staff away from his assailant in a smooth counter attack.

The light grew brighter and brighter until the walls and ceiling of the cavern dissipated. The sound of dripping water gave way to the whisper of a strong breeze rushing past his ears. Sangolin disappeared behind him, as the light grew.

Everything around him changed. Pale blue sky above, rolling grasslands below.

“Pabl, snap out it!”

He tossed the useless staff aside and struck at his attacker — a lightning quick pummel to the chest.

The blow landed, sending the obsidiman flying through the air and onto his back. But the man shrank in front his eyes, changing from obsidiman to dwarf. It was Jan.

“By Mynbruje! Pabl, look at this.”

Jan struggled to his feet, clutching at his chest with one hand, holding something up towards Pabl in the other. “You left this back at the camp,” Jan said. The statuette looked large in the dwarf’s small hands — dull green marbled with white in places. Mynbruje?

Garen. Reid. The names jumped into Pabl’s mind. Ganwetrammus. His liferock. Wracking pain jarred his bones just then. Ganwetrammus was in agony.

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was mixed with the rich odor of the jungle nearby. The vision of Sangolin disintegrated completely, giving way to a sunrise over the jungle, rolling hills of grass to the east, turning to desert rock ahead where the hills became mountains. One of the mountains belched forth black smoke. Sangolin was near there.

I have not yet arrived.

And as he looked in that direction his feet moved an invol-untary step. He felt the longing again.

No. I must concentrate. “Give me the necklace,” he said.

Jan handed the pendant to Pabl, who put it over his neck.

Then he held the jade carving up in front of his face to examine it. Dull green stone in the shape of a stately-looking obsidiman on the surface. But as Palb concentrated, using his thread sight to scrutinizing the pattern of the statue, the shape gave way to impressions of Garen and Reid and Gvint.

Flickers of his brotherhood.

The little Mynbruje carving had a dense pattern with several interlocking motifs as though its primary purpose had changed drastically more than once. Pabl located a fragment which reminded him of the pattern of Ganwetrammus, then attached a thread from himself to the pattern. I should have done this weeks ago, he thought.

When the thread looped neatly into the pendant’s pattern, Pabl felt a rush of understanding. And a connection with his liferock. Smells of home came to him — the crisp searing of the Alqarat, the humid air that signaled an approaching thunderstorm. In his head he heard the hiss of wind through the Dance of Stones, the roar of the riflev falls below the temple.

This new connection to Ganwetrammus pulled him completely out of his trance. He forgot Sangolin, and brought his sight back to the physical world, focusing on the face of his dwarf friend who stared at him with a look of puzzlement.

Pabl smiled. “Thank you,” he said.

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“Could I please have my staff back?” Jan said. “If you’re sane once again, that is?”

Pabl handed the staff to Jan. “Did I hurt you?”

“A little,” he said, placing his hand against his chest. “I’ll have a bruise.”

“I’m sorry.” Pabl looked around. He was startled to find Celagri behind him, dagger drawn.

She gave him a smile, but did not sheath her dagger. “You attacked Jan —”

“I understand,” Pabl said. “But I think I’m free of Sangolin’s influence for the moment.” His memory was coming back to him. They had camped at the south edge of the jungle and had been preparing to cross the narrow strip of desert to the volcano where they would begin the search for Sangolin. He must have wandered out of camp. “How far have I come?”

“Our camp is over a mile north of here, up near those trees.”

Jan pointed toward the edge of the jungle. “Luckily, you aren’t very hard to track.”

“We should get back,” Pabl said.

“Yes.”

They walked back in the early light of dawn, traveling along the trail of trampled grass that Pabl had made on his way out. Jan walked next to Pabl, but Celagri walked behind.

It would take some time to regain her trust, Pabl knew. And he didn’t blame her; he didn’t know if he could trust himself.

But with the thread tied to the statuette, he felt stronger, more able to resist Sangolin, as though he had Ganwetrammus and Garen and the brotherhood on his side, anchoring him.

They arrived at camp — backpacks and blankets lay at haphazard angles around the remnants of last night’s fire.

“Where’s Chaiel?” Pabl asked.

“Don’t know,” Jan said. “He was here when we left. Said he’d watch the camp ‘til we came back.”

Celagri circled the fire. “His pack and weapons are gone,”

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she said.

Pabl looked around for sign of him, but he was nowhere. A second trail of trampled grass led out of the path in the same direction that Pabl had gone. “He went south,” Pabl said. “He must have passed around us when we were fighting.”

“What does that mean?” Jan asked.

“It means,” Pabl said, dread pooling in his gut like animal grease. “Chaiel has succumbed to Sangolin.”

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Twenty-Five 

Reid tried to leave Sangolin again a few days later.

He got half way up the path out of the hollow when he felt the call. His thoughts of Ganwetrammus vanished instantly, and he went to his sweet Sangolin. He went gladly. And the anticipation of the merge was as precious as ever; the yielding to the collective mind as pleasurable as always.

Yet, when Sangolin released him from the union, he made his way back to his cave, feeling empty and alone. He wanted more. He wanted to remember himself. He wanted to know his liferock and his brotherhood.

Ganwetrammus held the answers.

Reid made more plans to leave. He tried again, but again Sangolin called to him, and no matter how strong was his desire for answers, he could not resist the call. And when he merged with the mottled flesh in the dark cavern, he wondered why he had ever considered leaving. How could he have contemplated an existence without Sangolin? It was incon-ceivable.

Later, as he sat and stared out at the sea of fire, doubts and 180

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questions crept back into head. The pain from Ganwetrammus arced through his body like lightning, and he thought about leaving again. This cycle continued for longer than Reid could remember.

Until the stranger arrived.

He was tall with loose burlap trousers, and a broad chest painted with swirls of indigo and green. He bore a huge sword on a finely crafted metal belt and carried a brown cloth backpack. His strides were long and purposeful as he made his way down the narrow, steep trail into the hollow.

Reid moved up to get a closer look at the stranger, waiting at the floor of the hollow as the new one took the final steps down the trail. Reid knew that the stranger had been drawn by Sangolin as many strays had been drawn in the past. Sangolin was still hungry for fresh obsidimen spirits to feast upon.

The stranger seemed eerily familiar, with russet skin like Reid’s, and black eyes. He stared around him, looking not at, but through Reid and the other obsidimen who gathered to watch him merge with Sangolin. Reid thought he recognized him. But how can I know him? I’ve never seen him before, have I? Reid couldn’t remember. More questions to be answered.

Vecrix came to greet the stranger. The old, deformed obsidiman escorted the newcomer through the crowd and into the Sangolin cave. Pangs of sadness penetrated into Reid’s bones as he watched the two of them disappear into the maw of the cavern below the rock fall.

Why do I care so much, Reid thought. Why can’t I just feel nothing?

And a few minutes later, Vecrix returned to the clearing.

He walked up to Reid in his awkward, limping fashion. “The new one is from your brotherhood. Now you shouldn’t feel so alone here anymore.”

“Does he have a name?”

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his true obsidiman name.” Vecrix gave a lopsided shrug. “It doesn’t matter; he will soon lose that to Sangolin anyway.”

“I don’t remember knowing him,” Reid said, but he felt a heavy weight drag on his shoulders. What is my true obsidiman name? he wondered.

“It’s for the best,” Vecrix said. The muscles of his face tried to smile, but managed only a crooked grin. “Once Sangolin has been transformed completely into a liferock, we will all get new obsidiman names.”

Reid looked at the disfigured obsidiman in front of him.

“Do you really believe Sangolin can be made into a true liferock?”

“Don’t you?”

Reid turned away and walked toward the end of the hollow. Toward the cliffs. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve always believed that if we had enough obsidimen, we could fashion a brotherhood, we could create a bond through Sangolin and blood magic. You convinced me. But now . . . now I’m not sure.

I’m not sure of anything anymore.”

Vecrix hobbled alongside Reid, struggling to keep pace.

“Well, cast aside your doubts, my brother. For I have nearly completed the spell which will transform Sangolin, our sweet Sangolin, into a liferock forever. When enough obsidimen merge with Sangolin, I will be able to weave parts of their souls into the pattern of Sangolin and imbue the whole with the life-forces of each brother. It will be a glorious day; the in-extricable union of each of our souls, our blood and our flesh sacrificed to create the new spirit of Sangolin.”

Reid did not look at Vecrix. He stared at the cliff edge approaching. He is insane, Reid realized suddenly. Completely insane. Why did I not see this earlier?

Reid turned on Vecrix, grabbing him by the shoulders.

“How can you believe that Sangolin can become a liferock?

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rocks are living entities, spirits of elemental earth and astral energy. You might create something with your insane magic, but it will not be a liferock, and it will condemn us all to mil-lennia of slavery to that . . . that thing.”

Vecrix shook himself free of Reid’s grip. “Obviously, you don’t understand the power of blood magic. With Sangolin’s help, I have accomplished feats of magical prowess you can’t conceive of. I thought you might help, since you used to be quite adept at illusory powers. But I see I was wrong.”

Vecrix turned awkwardly away from Reid and walked a few steps before turning back. “Sangolin and I will succeed, you know. With or without your help. Sangolin will become a true liferock. And we don’t need your magic. All we need from you is your body and spirit. In fact we only need five or ten more obsidimen before we have enough to proceed.”

Vecrix winked with his bad eye, the dead flap of his eye lid coming down over the polished chunk of amber he sometimes kept in the empty socket. “Don’t try to leave again,” he said.

“Face it; you’re as dependent upon Sangolin as the rest of us. As addicted as the new one, from your brotherhood. Attempting to escape is a futile gesture; Sangolin won’t allow any of us to leave.” Vecrix turned and walked back into the cavern, leaving Reid alone with a bone-numbing chill coursing through his body despite the heat radiating from the lava ocean behind him.

He is right, Reid thought. I can never leave. I have tried countless times, and I always fail.

A wave of sadness passed over him, forcing him to his knees on the hard smooth stone. He wished for the days before he had felt the pain from Ganwetrammus, before he awoke to realize that he was a zombie, walking through time like an automaton.

He wished for a reprieve from the pain.

It came to him a minute later. The sadness washed away This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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like grime from his body; the pain vanished as he heard Sangolin’s beckoning. He rose to his feet and took the familiar steps towards his love; his sweet release. Nothing could be better; no moment more perfect than right now.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Twenty-Six 

Pabl crouched behind an outcropping of rock and looked down into the clearing below. The image of the hollow resonated in his mind as he looked. The smoking cone of the volcano rose into the sky on his right, belching out soot and gurgling up a firefall of lava which flowed over the cliffs into the molten sea far below. It was similar to what he remembered from his dreams and visions of it, but different as well.

The flat space of the clearing below was surrounded on three sides by mountains. Mist drifted from away to the left, wafting up over the edge of the cliff ahead in tattered clouds.

High above, the noon sun shone hot and bright, only partially obscured by the drifts of steam. And as the mist crossed the blood-colored stone, passing through the rays of sunshine, fractured rainbows danced and fluttered in the tiny droplets which hung in the air.

“It’s hot here,” Jan said from where he hid on Pabl’s left. “Is this the place?”

“Yes,” Pabl replied, but he did not elaborate, for he was cap-tured by what he saw: obsidimen of various sizes and skin 185

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tones danced around a giant fire in the center of the wide hollow. All were naked except for red body paint, applied in irreg-ular stripes over their skin. There must be thirty or more, he thought. And they’re cooking meat!

A large, horned animal had been skinned and spitted, and one of the obsidiman turned it slowly over the huge fire. Even from so far away, the stench of burning flesh turned Pabl’s stomach. The meat looked to be burned to a black carbon, though Pabl had a hard time seeing all the details from this distance.

Drums beat deep and resonant, the sound throbbing through the stone and into Pabl’s bones. The drums called to him with their bass voices. Beckoning him to join the dance.

The undulating, rolling motion of the dance was unlike any obsidiman ritual or celebration Pabl had ever seen. It was a disjointed collage of expression, each obsidiman isolated from the others, held together only by the steady beat of the drums. The sight made Pabl uneasy.

So many lost brothers. All gathered together, yet still separate. Still alone.

Pabl took a deep breath and turned away from the hollow.

He sat with his back against the warm rock, and looked at Jan and Celagri. Jan stood on Pabl’s left, peering around the outcropping of stone to get a good look at Sangolin. Celagri hid in the shadows of boulders; she had been aloof and distant since Pabl had nearly succumbed to Sangolin’s call and attacked Jan.

It was ironic because ever since he had tied a thread to the pattern of his Mynbruje pendant, Pabl’s hallucinations had been weak and insubstantial. Much easier to ignore than before.

On the same day he had attacked Jan, Pabl and the others had run into a tribe of nomadic humans called Dinganni. The tribe had approached them warily, but offered fresh food and This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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water after determining that Pabl and the others posed no threat. The Dinganni were sturdy and large for humans, with dark hair and keen brown eyes. They wore loose garments of tan cloth and finely worked leather.

Pabl had enjoyed the company of these humans; they lived by a strict code which Pabl understood instinctively. Mynbruje was strong in these people; they respected nature and each other. They were just, and honor flowed through their veins. Pabl had nearly forgotten about Sangolin for the two days that they had spent in the company of the Dinganni tribe.

He had been sad to leave them.

Jan had also enjoyed the time spent with the humans. At the campfire, Jan had told tales of their travels. He spun exaggerations of how Pabl had discovered the lost castle of Yon Fuiras, and told tales about how Celagri had saved them both from a company of bandits in the forests outside of Kratas. Jan relayed in embellished detail how Celagri had single-hand-edly seduced twelve of the dummies, persuading them that she would perform certain lewd acts in exchange for releasing Pabl and Jan.

Pabl had tried to contain his laughter during these stories, because although they were based on truth, they strayed too far to be believed. Celagri had merely sneaked into the bandits’ camp and cut the two of them loose. Still, the Dinganni seemed to relish Jan’s fictions, and it was largely to hear more that the human tribe had accompanied the three travelers across the narrow strip of desert to the edge of the mountains.

Only Celagri had seemed not to enjoy their time with the humans. She remained quiet, withdrawn except to provide reminders of their goal, of Pabl’s mission to find Reid Quo. She was worried that their encounter with the humans would delay them.

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made good time across the desert, and had left the three of them at the edge of the barren mountains, wishing them good fortune. It had only taken them one more day to reach Sangolin.

Now, Jan moved away from the outcropping of rock.

“There seems to be only one path down,” he said. “But I don’t see any one on it.”

“I will have to go down there and look for Reid Quo,” Pabl said.

“Do you expect us to stay here?”

Celagri stepped out of the shadows. “No,” she said. “We all go. Or none.”

Jan turned to look at her. “What if they’re unfriendly, my dear elf? Maybe you haven’t been paying attention; they’re big and outnumber us ten to one.”

“At least,” she said. “But why have we come this far if we intended to let Pabl face this place alone?”

Jan didn’t have a response.

Pabl spoke up. “I cannot ask you to come,” he said. “No matter the consequences, I must confront Sangolin alone.”

Jan brushed his beard nervously. “You’re not here to confront Sangolin. Nothing in my contract says anything about Sangolin.”

“Contract?” Pabl was puzzled.

“Look, all I’m saying is this: Reid Quo is why you’re here.

Just bring him out and we’re done. There’s no need to be doing any extra confronting, if you know what I mean.”

Pabl sighed. “I hope it will be that easy,” he said. “But if Reid is tied to this place like the Council said he was, he won’t leave easily. He may not remember Tepuis Garen at all.”

“What will we do then?” Celagri asked.

“I’ll try to help him remember,” Pabl said. “He must remember because I don’t think I can take him back by force.”

Jan sighed, but said nothing.

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Celagri frowned.

“Of course,” Pabl continued, “there is a slight chance that Chaiel has already found Reid and is just waiting for us to show up so we can begin the journey back to Tepuis Garen.”

“And it might snow over Death’s Sea tomorrow,” Jan said.

Pabl frowned. “I was just trying to be optimistic,” he said.

“I’d like to try and take Chaiel back with us. Reid Quo is the first priority, but I don’t want to leave without Chaiel.”

Celagri stared at Pabl. “I have no love for Chaiel,” she said, “but I don’t want to see him enslaved to this Sangolin. If we can get him out, we will.”

“Fine,” Jan said, rocking from foot to foot. “I’m getting a bit anxious. Let’s do something, anyway.”

“Before we go down there, I’m going to take a look with astral sight,” Pabl said. “I want to see what I’m up against.”

“Take your time.”

Pabl slowed his breathing to bring calm. Then he focused on shifting his senses to perceive the astral. Brilliant reds and shiny blacks bombarded him. A rank odor of festering sores stung his nose, and he heard a deep hum, low and resonant, coming from down in the hollow.

He looked down the slope of the mountain, which appeared like red-brown glass in astral space. The level plateau below was corded with thick filaments, like a huge spider web, radiating out from the core. From Sangolin.

Very weird. Pabl had never seen anything like it. The filaments were opaque and knotted, completely unlike normal astral threads.

The rockfall itself was a dense pattern, looped and tangled elements which blocked Pabl’s apprehension of Sangolin’s astral imprint. The patterns of ancient wards against Horrors had been ingeniously formed within the knots and tangles. There were no Horrors here, that was clear. The power of Sangolin forced them away.

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Pabl saw something moving below him, an undulating mass of independent patterns all connected to the center of the web by the filaments. The dancing obsidimen. They looked like marionettes suspended by the knotted red fibers which tied them to Sangolin.

The sight shocked Pabl; this was not how a natural liferock connected to its brotherhood.

Other threads became visible to him now. Almost imper-ceptible to his astral sight. Tiny silk-like strands everywhere, moving, searching. Several were attached to him already. And more followed, thicker, guided by the silky ones to stick to him. They tugged at his consciousness, enticing him to stand and move down the path towards the hollow. Toward Sangolin at the twisted center of the web.

Pabl panicked. Must get these things off. He reached into his memory and cast a simple spell.

A translucent shield appeared in astral space around Pabl, and some of Sangolin’s filaments bounced off of it. But many remained attached and struggled to hold onto Pabl. He cast the spell again.

Another astral shield appeared around Pabl. The filaments buckled and popped, releasing their hold on his pattern. Instinctively he jerked away, his body lurching back. He lost his balance and fell to the ground, crushing something soft underneath him.

“Ahh!” Jan screamed. “By Raggok!”

Pabl tried to focus on the physical plane, pushing up to a sitting position and shading his eyes against the sun. High mist and a black cloud of smoke from volcano on his left hung in a bright blue sky, as Pabl sucked in hot air that smell of decay and sulfur.

“Get off my leg!”

Pabl rolled to the side. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Are you all right?”

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“No,” Jan said.

Pabl turned toward his friend. “Let me see.”

But Jan would not hold still. He stood and hopped around on his good leg, his jaw set in a grimace against the pain. He screamed curses for a few minutes, but Pabl could tell that his wounds weren’t severe. Jan just didn’t like pain.

When Jan finally allowed Pabl and Celagri to examine his leg, they discovered that his knee had been slightly injured, and he had sustained a bruise to the thigh. Nothing was broken, though he would be in pain for a few days.

Celagri laughed at him. “With such severe injuries,” she said, “I don’t know how you’ll go on living. We’ll just have to put you out of your misery right now.”

Jan glared at her. “Thank you for the compassionate words.”

Celagri smiled at him. “My pleasure.”

Jan ignored her this time. “Pabl,” he said, “what did you see.”

Pabl described the astral image of Sangolin, telling them of the multitude of threads, and how each obsidiman was bound to it. “It’s a perversion,” he said. “Nothing like a liferock.”

They sat in silence for a minute. Pabl could feel the delicate tug of Sangolin in his gut. So close now. So alluring. All he had to do was stand and walk down the path. In ten minutes he could merge with Sangolin. Then he would feel the rush and the satisfaction.

No. Mynbruje will help me. His hand clasped around his jade pendant and visions of Ganwetrammus flooded him.

“Are you all right, Pabl?” It was Jan’s voice.

Pabl looked up into Jan’s face. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m fine now, but I would like to prepare myself before confronting Sangolin. Maybe we should wait a while before going down.”

Just then an obsidiman appeared over the edge of the This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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rock which surrounded their hiding place. His skin was glossy black, looking almost wet against the red stone as he approached. The paint which made the red strips over his lus-trous black skin was unlike any body paint Pabl had ever seen.

Not like the chalk paste used by the Garen Brotherhood, this paint was enamel, glossy and permanent.

Another obsidiman appeared behind him — emerald eyes and the same red enamel stripes, but underneath it was translucent skin of greenish hue. And another — high cresting forehead studded with warty gemstones. More and more approached; they kept coming until there were eight in all.

The obsidimen came closer, their eyes focused only on Pabl. They ignored Celagri and Jan. The glossy black obsidiman began a circle around Pabl which the others completed.

They did not speak to him, only gestured in the direction of Sangolin as if they knew why he had come, but could not understand his hesitation.

Pabl looked up at their massive bulk and their dead eyes, staring down at him. “Or maybe we’ll go down now,” he said.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Twenty-Seven 

“Sarbeneck, sir?”

“Yes?”

“The dwarf from the village is here to see you again.”

Sarbeneck sighed, pulling his attention away from the smelting to look at the messenger. “Pontin Nemish?” It had only been a week since his last visit.

“Yes, I think so, sir.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

The messenger nodded and turned away.

Sarbeneck stood up from the wooden stool, feeling only the slightest residual pain from the burns on his skin. He had healed well and was almost moving around normally now. The smelting tent was hot from the elemental fire crucibles, and Sarbeneck had been sweating as he watched the orichalcum ore melted by the magic fire.

The crucibles were large, about the size of a windling, each with two chambers. The bottom chamber held elemental fire in a tight package. The orichalcum-laden ore went in the top and was sealed inside the chamber with an enchanted net which allowed the impurities to burn off. The process was 193

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slow and extremely dangerous, but orichalcum was the most valuable material in existence.

A perfect blend of true elements, the metal could be used to amplify and focus the manipulation of mana in countless ways. Even trace amounts of orichalcum was valuable, if not necessary, for the efficient production of so many things, from giant air ships to grimoires. Sarbeneck had never seen such richly infused ore, especially in these quantities. So he had set his team to keep five crucibles fired up, trying to purify as much of the precious metal as they could for this stupid decorated cavern Pontin had him building.

If that ostentatious sniveler is here to change plans once more, Sarbeneck thought, I will string him from high branches.

He grabbed his scarlet rain cloak from its peg near the tent’s entrance and stepped out into the humid afternoon before wrapping the cloak around him. An oppressive blanket of gray clouds threatened rain, but so far no drops had fallen.

Sarbeneck saw Pontin standing next to the green tent with his two bodyguards. “Ah, Pontin,” Sarbeneck said, walking across the narrow space between the tents. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

Pontin smiled under his thick growth of perfectly coifed beard. His whining voice grated on Sarbeneck as he spoke.

“Greetings, good sir,” he said. “We come to look at the progress you’ve made on the temple chamber.” Pontin wore a white rabbit skin cloak, gaudy and extremely expensive. Thick, gold bracelets rattled on his wrists, matching his new loop earrings.

“It’s not finished yet,” Sarbeneck said.

“Oh,” Pontin said, waving his hand. “That’s okay; we just want to see how it’s going so far.”

“You’re the boss,” he said.

Sarbeneck led the three dwarfs out of the camp toward the tunnel entrance. The path to the tunnel had been wid-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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ened and paved with flat stones so that the rock-hauling carts rolled smoothly on their wooden wheels. At the camp perimeter, three ork guards joined Sarbeneck and the others to accompany them along the trail.

Gingreth had set up a rigorous defensive plan to protect Sarbeneck and the encampment from further attacks. But there had been no combat since the first attack, and the orks were antsy for battle. The orks all wanted to guard Sarbeneck, because they figured if any fighting happened, he would be a prime target. The chance for combat was greater if they were near him.

More orks guarded the entrance to the tunnel, giving Sarbeneck and Pontin fang-filled grins as they passed into the cave. The rough rock of the entrance had been cut smooth so that the opening was now almost perfectly circular, except for the floor which flattened into a walkable corridor about six feet across.

White light crystals had been set into the walls at regular intervals so that torches were not needed, and hairline threads of orichalcum graced the walls and ceiling. The threads were spaced about three feet apart, traveling from the entrance along the length of the tunnel in a slow spiral.

It pained Sarbeneck to see the orichalcum wasted like this.

What inane purpose could any of this serve?

Pontin and the other two dwarfs glanced about themselves with awe in their eyes. “This is great, is it not?” Pontin said.

“Very nice,” said one of the bodyguards — a tall, muscular boy in intricate chain mail, bearing a heavy sword.

“Adequate,” said the other. He was older, with graying hair, yet just as tall and muscular with the same silver chain mail.

The air grew stifling and heavy as they made their way further into the rock. The clang of hammering echoed This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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through the tunnel, increasing in volume as Sarbeneck and the others walked. After a few minutes, they approached a group of dwarfs laying the orichalcum spirals. “Wintell,” Sarbeneck said, addressing his foreman — a black-bearded youth with dusty green eyes. “Take a break for a few minutes.”

Wintell nodded in the dim light. “All right, you slugs, relax for a few.”

The hammering stopped and the workers moved aside to let Sarbeneck and Pontin pass by.

The tunnel floor grew rough and pitted with holes as they approached the end. And the air became thick with the acid stench of the Nuinouri. But Pontin insisted upon seeing the whole thing. The tunnel widened at the end into a roughed-out version of the chamber which had been diagrammed on the plans Pontin had given to Sarbeneck.

Nancri stood in the halo of a crystal lantern set on the floor, her black and brown robes clasped at her shoulder by the bird claw brooch. An elemental hunched next to her, firm grasp on a squirming Nuinouri, pressing it against the rock.

Sarbeneck had put Nancri in charge of cutting this last bit because she held the most control over the elementals and the Horror spawn rock eaters. Sarbeneck didn’t like mistakes, and Nancri rarely made them.

Through the settling dust, he saw that the chamber was nearly done. “Take a break, Nancri,” he said, removing a scarf from his waistcoat pocket and putting it over his nose to filter the dust.

She spoke some words in a foreign language, causing the Nuinouri to go limp. More words made the elemental relax into a sitting position.

I do so love this woman’s power, Sarbeneck thought. He’d become more attracted to her ever since she’d saved him from burning to death during the attack. They had dined together on several occasions which Sarbeneck had found much more This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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enjoyable than his meals with Gingreth. Besides being more attractive, Nancri knew proper table etiquette; unlike the ork beastmaster she never drooled and hardly ever ate with her hands.

Nancri came over to Sarbeneck’s side as Pontin and the other dwarfs examined the cavern. The two bodyguards stretched a length of twine across the diameter of the chamber, measuring it. They spoke in hushed tones to each other while Pontin pulled out a scroll which appeared to be a copy of the plans he had given to Sarbeneck.

“What is going on?” Nancri asked.

“Pre-inspection I guess,” Sarbeneck said. “Or something like that.” He put his arm around Nancri. “Dinner tonight?”

She laughed. “And what if I refuse?”

“I’ll fire you.”

“You can’t fire me,” she said. “I’m too valuable.”

“I know.” He smiled at her. “You’re the best I’ve got. Please see me tonight?”

“Oh, I guess.” She laughed.

Pontin approached with bodyguards in tow. “This is looking good,” he said. “Do you actually think you can finish in the next couple of days?”

“It’ll be pushing it,” Sarbeneck said. “I’d rather have a week.”

“Hmm, maybe a week will be okay.”

The elder bodyguard broke in. “Excuse me, sir. I don’t mean to interrupt, but didn’t your employer insist it be completed by the predetermined time?”

A look of dismay flickered across Pontin’s face. Then it was gone, replaced by a smile. “That is true. I’m sorry, Sarbeneck, I must ask you to get it done in two days. Otherwise I will have to withdraw my offer of the bonus.”

Sarbeneck scowled. Raggok spawn, may boils infest your private areas. “I’ll get it done,” he said.

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A condescending smile formed on Pontin’s face. “Of course you will, Sarbeneck. I have full confidence in you.” Then he turned to the his bodyguards. “We’ve seen enough, haven’t we?”

“Yes,” they said in unison.

“Good, then we can go.” They started back down the tunnel towards the entrance. “Sarbeneck, are you coming?”

“Yes.”

“Sarbeneck,” Nancri said. “If you have a minute right now, we could discuss the final rock cuts you wanted. I’d like to double check the dimensions of the chamber.”

“Of course,” Sarbeneck said, then he called ahead to Pontin. “I’m sorry, but I need to give Nancri some last minute instructions. Can you find your way out?”

There was a short silence. Then, “Certainly. Thank you for the gracious tour, my friend. We will return in two days.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Sarbeneck said. You miserable rat. He turned to Nancri, seeing a look of contemplation and concern on her face. “What is it?”

She waited until Pontin and his bodyguards were well out of earshot. Then she inclined her head toward their retreated figures. “How much do you know about our good benefac-tors?”

“Not much. Why?”

“Because I sensed some powerful illusion magic around them. Pontin is an adept, I think, but the other two . . .”

Sarbeneck looked sidelong at her. “What?”

“I don’t trust them,” she said. “They’re more than they seem.”

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Twenty-Eight 

The Sangolin obsidimen surrounded Pabl, moving between him and his companions. They grabbed him with strong hands, rough fingers pressing into his muscles, and lifted him to his feet. They escorted him down the trail that was cut into the side of the mountain, and into the hollow where more obsidimen watched. They were taking him to Sangolin.

“We’re right behind you,” Jan called.

The group of obsidimen paid no attention to Jan and Celagri, treating them as if they were less than an annoyance — as if they weren’t there at all.

Jan tried several times to get past the tight circle around Pabl until one of the obsidimen threw Jan back with a casual swing of his arm. The back of his hand caught the dwarf in the chest and sent him flying. Jan landed hard on the rocky trail, nearly slipping off to side and down the steep slope.

“Are you all right, Jan?” Pabl asked.

“Yes,” Jan called. “Just more bruises to add to the ones you gave me.”

“Don’t try anything stupid. Just follow and watch for my 199

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cue.” Pabl had no idea what he would do or when, but he didn’t want Jan to get killed. “If we get completely separated, I will meet you at the base of the trail.”

“Whatever you say.”

The obsidimen escorted Pabl down to the level floor of the hollow. A drift of hot steam had engulfed the hollow, and it brought the stench of the swamps with it. Pabl smelled rotting plant matter and stewing animal waste, enough to bring bile up into his throat. Pabl swallowed as the steam shrouded them, coating him with condensation.

Pabl had the eerie feeling of a recurring dream as he approached Sangolin. It’s real this time, he thought. Or is it?

Out of the white steam came the shadowy outlines of the fallen boulders which made up the avalanche he had seen from above. Pabl considered trying to break free in the mist, but his escorts held him securely, tight grip on his arms, the constant pressure of hands against his back. Then suddenly, the group of obsidimen released him. They stopped, leaving him at the entrance to the tunnel which led to Sangolin’s cavern.

As they let go of him, Pabl lost his balance and staggered, nearly falling to his knees. The air inside the cave was cooler and a little easier to breathe. Sangolin called to him; he heard it like a whisper. A low rasping sound that urged him to walk down the tunnel.

He took a step. Then another, moving out of the bright steam into the darkness of the cavern. Pinpoints of white glit-tered in the dark, where light crystals shone like stars. The tunnel gave way to an open space — a black cavern filled with the echo of dripping water and the bass hum that came from the rocky surface ahead.

Pabl felt a slight breeze against his face as he took step after inching step. His eyes began to adjust and he saw Sangolin before him, its skin a lumpy gray mass. Pabl’s heart thumped, This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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blood pounding. His breath quickened, and a hot, tingling burn traveled like fire across the surface of his skin. He was almost past the point of resistance, and he knew he should turn and run. Now, before it’s too late, he thought.

But even as the thought flickered through his mind, his feet kept moving forward. He couldn’t stop. He wanted to merge with Sangolin; it would feel so good. He knew that immersion inside Sangolin would give him a depth of satisfaction which he’d never before experienced — a sense of connection which even his liferock couldn’t match.

My liferock?

Pabl stopped walking. How could anything match my liferock? It is my spirit guide and memory. It is my link to my brotherhood. My anchor to myself.

He stood in front of Sangolin, its lumpy gray flesh stretching back into the darkness like a poorly formed ball of clay. He held his back rigid; he shouldn’t touch it.

“Yes, Pabl,” he heard in his mind. “Touch me and know the ecstasy you have been dreaming about.”

His hands reached out, almost involuntarily. He wanted to know the sweetness of the rush. His skin burned with a million pinpricks as his fingers hesitated over the stone.

No, he thought. If I merge, even once, I may lose Ganwetrammus forever. The Council of Four warned me of this.

Pabl withdrew his hands, clenching his fingers in a tight fist, slowly and deliberately moving them to his sides. Disappointment flooded through him, forcing him to his knees in front of the rock. He cried out, gasping for breath as the wind was knocked out of him.

Pabl doubled over and focused on the movements of his lungs, concentrated on the cold rough stone against his knees.

I will not give in! Sangolin’s magic will not take my spirit. He forced his hands to reach up and grasp his Mynbruje pendant.

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“You don’t need that anymore,” the voice said in his mind.

“All you need is me. I will take care of everything.”

The pendant grew warm under his palms, but the images and memories of Ganwetrammus, which normally came from it, were weak and distorted. The liferock seemed a universe away, insignificant and paltry in comparison to Sangolin.

Yet, some memories filtered through. Through a haze in his mind, Pabl remembered Reid and Garen at Parlainth: the magic training, the scarab brooch, the Gatherings in the secluded spaces of surrounding forests. Pabl also remembered Garen performing the Ritual of Protection to cleanse Ganwetrammus of Jibn’s Horror. Garen had worn the Mynbruje necklace that Reid Quo had given to him many years before as payment for training. As he danced the ritual with Tylon Giv, Garen’s Mynbruje necklace served him as a reminder of truth — a reminder of the true nature of himself and his enemies.

And yet, all of that was so long ago. So far away that it seemed not to matter. All that mattered was right here in front of Pabl. Just to touch and merge. Only to feel the power and the ecstasy of Sangolin.

Pabl held himself perfectly still, unable to move away. Resisting the merge as long as he could. Time passed as he knelt, though he had no idea how much. Hours possibly, maybe days.

Yet he remained motionless, barely daring to breathe. And after a time, Pabl realized that he could never leave. And he knew his resistance was failing. Slowly, inexorably Sangolin was taking control of his will.

It would be so good to give in. To relax and let go. To merge. The struggle would be over.

Then something strange happened. A form took shape in the surface of the rock. First hands appeared, Sangolin’s skin changing from gray to a deep russet as arms poked out from the surface. The rock flowed around and over the body like a thick film of lumpy mud as it emerged. The head came next, This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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then the torso and legs, pushing cleanly through the membrane of rock.

Pabl scrambled to his feet and backed away as the obsidimen stepped free in front of him. The sudden motion caused jolts of pain to shoot up his legs; he hadn’t moved in so long.

Then he stepped back again, this time in astonishment as he recognized the obsidiman.

His skin was older than Pabl remembered, cracked and crenulated with crusty wrinkles. But his eyes were as black and as shiny as they had been in the liferock’s memory.

Reid Quo.

Pabl had found the lost Elder. But Reid’s black eyes were fixed into a far-off, dead stare, just like the other obsidimen of Sangolin. And as he emerged, Reid put his hands out to grab Pabl. His intention was clear; Reid Quo was going to force Pabl to merge with Sangolin.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Twenty-Nine 

Gvint sat on the hard tile of the temple floor, his gaze tracking along the red sandstone slab of the wall and up to the ceiling where a huge mosaic of colored tiles told the Myth of Creation. The pictures showed how The-Spirit-That-Pervades-All had merged with the Great Liferock at the beginning of time. How the Great Liferock split into a myriad of molten drops which became the heavens, the Sun, Moon and Earth. How obsidimen had emerged from the Earth as guardians of nature and students of the universe.

Have we come so far, only to be helpless in the face of a mundane enemy?

He crossed his legs and faced the glowing tip of the Alqarat. The spur of natural rock rose up through the tile in front of him as he crossed his legs and reached for it. The Alqarat was an extension of the liferock — a conduit to the spirit force of Ganwetrammus.

There must be a way to stop the miners. Something I have yet to think of.

Gvint clenched his jaw against the pain and plunged his hands into the molten rock at the Alqarat’s tip. He entered the 204

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merge with Ganwetrammus in this sacred point as was his prerogative as Elder.

The pain of the liferock overwhelmed him as he began the Dreaming. At first it was an overpowering dull ache. A wound.

A tear in the fabric of the rock. Then, as Gvint’s spirit became part of Ganwetrammus, the pain narrowed. He was the liferock, and the liferock was he.

He felt violation. Prolonged rape. The cavern was a knife, stabbing into his flesh. And when he reached with his mind, searching the tender place near the wound, he saw that the miners had stopped digging. The cavern had not grown since the last time; in fact it had become something else. It had been lined with a thin lattice of orichalcum.

Why would they do such a thing? Why stop mining the orichalcum? What sabotage are they up to now?

In astral space, the cavern now had a pattern of its own, and that pattern touched the liferock’s pattern, which was why it brought so much pain to the rock. But even so, Ganwetrammus was mostly undamaged. The newly replaced orichalcum even helped, acting like a patch of sorts, healing the wound.

Most strange indeed.

“Elder?”

He heard the voice in the distance, as if through water. He brought himself out of the merge with Ganwetrammus, pulling his hands from the burning lava. The red-hot rock had burned the skin of his hands to an ash gray, but he was an Elder and it would heal in a matter of minutes. Gvint looked around the temple.

“Elder?” The voice came from the verandah.

He turned to see a silhouette of an obsidiman. As the brother entered, Gvint drew breath in surprise as he recognized, from the tattoo of tiny emeralds tracking up the brother’s forearms, who it was.

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“Jibn, my brother,” Gvint said, his breath catching in his throat. I had never expected to see him in the temple again.

“Please come, you are most welcome here.”

“I have decided to m-m-merge again,” Jibn said. “I w-w-want your help.”

“Of course.”

“Maybe I c-c-can learn the m-magic of the Ritual of Protection.”

Gvint felt a rare smile come upon him. “You’re willing to try?”

Jibn stepped hesitantly into the temple. “That is w-w-why I came,” he said.

Gvint approached his brother, extending his palms in greeting.

Jibn put his trembling hands against the rough skin of Gvint’s palms, trying to stop their shaking. Jibn was scared nearly out of his mind, and must be keeping himself here by sheer force of will.

“When you left,” Jibn said. “I thought ab-b-bout what you said.”

“You don’t have to explain.”

“Yes, I do; p-please let me fin-fin-finish.”

Gvint stepped back. “I’m sorry.”

Jibn walked around the room, tracing his finger tips along the engravings on the wall. He took several deep breaths before continuing. “You w-w-were right. I’ve b-b-been away too l-l-long.” He looked up at the ceiling — the mosaic of tiny enameled stones which told the story of the Great Liferock. “Much t-t-too long.”

Jibn brought his hard gaze on Gvint. “I started t-t-to listen,” he said. “Af-f-fter you left. I heard the c-c-cry of Ganwetrammus.” He looked at the floor. “I heard, and I c-c-could not ignore.”

Gvint extended his palms. “When you are ready, brother, This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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we will merge with Ganwetrammus together.”

Jibn placed his hands in Gvint’s. “I am as ready as I can be.”

They sat next to each other on the tile floor, both facing the Alqarat. Gvint instructed Jibn to put his hands against the rough base of the spur and let himself fall into the merge. Ganwetrammus will pull him in.

Gvint watched as Jibn placed his shaking palms against the stone, then Gvint put his hands over his brother’s, and they merged together.

Falling, falling. He felt Jibn struggle against it at first.

Gvint tried to soothe him, but Jibn hesitated on the verge of completely merging. Doubt crept in, and uncertainty. Jibn had believed all along that he would infect the liferock again.

Gvint pulled memories and images from the liferock and pulsed them through his merge with Jibn. Ganwetrammus wanted Jibn to merge; it needed him to enter the Dreaming so that it could be complete again. And finally, Jibn felt it. He relaxed then, and let himself be drawn into the liferock.

Jibn savored the Dreaming, relished it — the glorious sensation of merging with his liferock for the first time since the end of the Scourge, nearly a hundred years ago. Realization washed over him, filling the hollows of his yearning spirit — the sudden recognition that he had not been whole without the liferock, had been barely more than a shell.

Jibn experienced the memories of the entire brotherhood that he had missed in the last hundred years. And Ganwetrammus forced Jibn to remember his life in exile, which made Jibn appreciate the Dreaming all the more. He was part of the brotherhood again, no longer an exile. He learned finally that his brothers had forgiven him long ago for his inadvertent mistake with the Horror.

Gvint shared Jibn’s joy in the merging. But Jibn was also distraught at the constant, mind-numbing pain which This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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throbbed through the liferock. Gvint had been living with Ganwetrammus’s pain for so long that he had nearly become jaded to the significance of it.

Jibn’s shock at the wound, his fright at the peril to the liferock, made Gvint curse himself for his failure to protect Ganwetrammus. He was ashamed of his inability to mount a successful defense.

I have been waiting too long for news of Pabl, Gvint thought, to no avail. I must act soon, organize the brotherhood to attack the miners again.

Jibn sent images of the Ritual of Protection through the merge to Gvint and the liferock. He wanted to learn the magic now, driven by his outrage against the miners. Gvint felt his seething anger like an acute sting.

Gvint tried to warn him that it was too soon. He should not attempt to learn the intricacies of the ritual until he had been Dreaming for some time and was better prepared by Ganwetrammus. But Jibn did not heed Gvint’s warnings. He wanted to perform the ritual before it was too late. Before the miners had destroyed more of the rock. Gvint tried to show him that the miners had stopped digging. Maybe they were going away. Maybe there was time.

Jibn ignored him.

The astral image of Ganwetrammus materialized in Gvint’s mind’s eye. To dance the Ritual of Protection, Jibn would have to learn the entire pattern — all its knots and tangles, its loops and twists. Jibn must be able to dance along it from memory without making a mistake.

For an Elder like Gvint, the dance would be second nature; he knew the liferock’s pattern like he knew himself. But in Gvint’s knowledge, none besides Elders had ever mastered Ganwetrammus’s pattern.

Still, Jibn wanted to try now, insistent. Angry. He knew what he had to do, and he started examining one curve of the This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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pattern. But as Jibn’s spirit moved along the liferock’s pattern, trying to comprehend the full scope and measure of Ganwetrammus, his mind wavered at the sheer complexity of the undertaking. He failed.

Jibn tried again, gaining a little more knowledge, but again he wavered. Then again. And again. Same result; he wasn’t ready to know so much of Ganwetrammus.

The task was not a simple one, even for an Elder. Gvint remembered that it had taken him nearly three weeks to grasp the entire pattern. And he had been called; he had been an ap-prentice Elder, ready to understand.

Jibn was not. He could not comprehend because he didn’t have access to Reid Quo’s part of the pattern. Anytime Jibn came across part of the pattern which tied into Reid’s life or experiences, Jibn’s astral threads slipped and lost hold. Gvint could grasp it because he was older than Reid, and he knew how Ganwetrammus’s pattern had changed over the years because of Reid’s absence.

Jibn tried again and again. But each time, he failed. And after a while, Ganwetrammus drew him deeper into the Dreaming to make him stop. Ganwetrammus wanted Jibn to dream for a long, long time. He had a lot of healing to do.

Gvint left his brother in the Dreaming. He emerged to a temple ringing with the aftershock of a thunderclap. A storm approached. The emptiness of hunger gnawed at Gvint’s insides as he stood and stretched his muscles. He walked outside, around the wall of the temple and into his small home.

There was a loaf of bread and a bowl of dried fruit on the large table, and Gvint began to eat. He knew Jibn could not understand the magic of the ritual, because he could not understand all of Ganwetrammus, because he was not an Elder.

There was a gap in the brotherhood, and Reid Quo was the only one who could fill it.

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stroying us. Mine alone.

Gvint knew then what he would do. He would call another council. Most of the brotherhood had healed. It was time to attack again.

We must drive these vermin away, he thought. Even if it means our lives.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Thirty 

The body of Reid Quo grew out from Sangolin, his hands reaching for Pabl. The muddy gray skin of the rock peeled away from around Reid’s shoulders and chest, slipping slowly back into the mass of stone as it regurgitated him. Reid came loose with a wet pop, and the strong mildew odor of unwashed obsidiman drifted from his newly emerged body.

Pabl stepped back to stay out of reach.

Reid stood exactly the same height as Pabl, his glimmering black eyes at the same level. But Reid’s eyes didn’t stare into Pabl’s; they were focused at some imaginary point down the tunnel. His body had completely emerged now; his russet skin enameled with red stripes dripped cold and wet, detached from Sangolin. His mouth struggled to form words, but no sound came out.

“I know you,” Pabl said, stepping back again.

Reid put his hands out for Pabl. “Will you merge?” he asked. His eyes focused on Pabl.

“You are Reid Quo.”

Reid gave Pabl a puzzled look. “You do seem familiar. Do I 211

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know you?”

“No, but I know you. You are Reid Quo. You and I are of the same brotherhood — the Garen Brotherhood.”

“Garen? That name is familiar.”

“Garen Dne was our Elder many years ago. You and he were brothers, and friends as well. You gave him this necklace.”

Pabl held the Mynbruje pendant up to show Reid.

The jade statuette glimmered deep green in the dim light as Reid took it gently in the wet palm of his right hand. He bent his head to examine it, a look of recognition spreading across his blank face. “I remember this,” he said. “I will speak with you further.” He dropped the pendant, letting it swing up against Pabl’s chest and moved toward the tunnel. “But this is not the right place. Come.”

Pabl tasted the bitter disappointment of not merging with Sangolin as he forced himself to turn away from the gray mass. He followed Reid out of the cavern, trying to ignore the ever-waning pull from Sangolin.

“What is your name?” Reid asked.

“I am Pabl Evr. I have been searching for you. Our liferock is in danger and we need your help.”

“I know,” he said.

“How —?”

Reid shook his head to silence him. They had reached the end of the tunnel, and Pabl was momentarily afraid that the eight obsidimen who had taken him down from the mountainside would prevent him from leaving. But when Reid led him out into the hollow — darkening sky and blowing clouds of steam aglow with the deep red of the setting sun — no one stood guard at the tunnel entrance. None of the obsidimen paid them any attention.

Perhaps they assume I merged with Sangolin.

Pabl looked around for Jan and Celagri, but he didn’t see them in the hollow. They must’ve hidden, he thought. I’ll meet This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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them later at the trail. Now, I must convince Reid to come back to Ganwetrammus.

The afternoon feasting had stopped. The fire burned low, and obsidimen lounged like fat rats amongst the discarded remnants of the spitted beast’s bones and flesh. The sight disgusted Pabl. How can they live like this? They’re all filthy, smelly and unwashed, eating only the flesh of animals. They are barely obsidimen. Hardly Name-givers anymore.

Reid led Pabl out of the hollow, toward the cliffs of fire which he had seen many times in his visions. There was a terrible, barren beauty to this place which frightened Pabl. It was an unnatural place; no plants grew here and the rock was tainted by Sangolin. And yet, the crisp red glow of the Scarlet Sea touched something primal inside him. Its heat filled him with a sense of ancient grace, as though molten rock in such a vast quantity were closer to the state of the world at the time of creation. As though the Scarlet Sea was a tiny vestige of the Great Liferock before it split into the myriad of drops which became nature and the universe.

Pabl looked up from the spectacular view of the molten sea a thousand feet below the rock cliffs. Thick clouds of steam rose from the mist swamps off to his left. And on his right was the great firefall — a river of lava which flowed out of the volcano to plummet over the cliffs into the sea. The firefall was easily a day’s journey away, but it looked huge to Pabl even from this distance.

Reid led Pabl along the wide cliff ledge away from the other obsidimen. Caves in the side of the mountain served as sleeping quarters for the obsidimen of Sangolin, which again surprised Pabl. Obsidimen preferred open sky and generally avoided living underground nearly as much as they shunned deep water or flying in airships.

Pabl followed Reid down a narrower ledge and into one of the caves. “We can talk more freely here,” Reid said.

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Pabl looked around the small cave. A pallet of animal skins served as a bed of sorts, but there was little else in the cave. A glow lantern on the floor and crude burlap curtains which could be closed across the front of the cave, but that was it. Otherwise it was barren rock. No decorations, no personal items. Nothing.

“This is where you live?”

“I suppose it is,” Reid said.

“How long have you been here?”

Reid looked quizzically at Pabl. “I don’t really know,” he said. “I only remember things in bits and snatches.” Then he lurched forward and grabbed Pabl’s shoulders with surpris-ingly strength. “You say you are from my liferock?”

Pabl nodded.

“Then you must know my true name. My obsidiman name.”

His intensity made his grip tighten on Pabl’s shoulders.

“I’m afraid I don’t,” Pabl said. “Your obsidiman name is known only to you and Ganwetrammus — our liferock.”

Reid let him go. “Then I will never know it.”

“You can and you will. I have come to take you from this place. Together we will travel to the jungle and merge with Ganwetrammus. You are called as one of our Elders, and we need your help. The liferock is in danger. You must feel it. Can you not sense it?”

Reid nodded, but the deeply etched wrinkles of his face bore an expression of sadness. “I do feel the pain. I feel it every day. Yet, I cannot leave.”

“Several weeks ago, a mining caravan began digging into the liferock. They chose a particularly vulnerable spot. We tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t listen to reason, and their mercenary force was stronger than us.”

“I cannot leave.”

“There is a way, however. A way to mend the wound in the rock. Powerful magic called the Ritual of Protection will help This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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Ganwetrammus to destroy the miners and repair the damage.

But both Elders must dance the ritual. Both Elders.”

“I can never leave,” Reid said, bowing his head. “Never.”

Pabl took a step back. “Of course you can,” he said. “You must. Haven’t you heard what I’ve been saying? Don’t you understand that Ganwetrammus could be destroyed if you don’t help?”

Reid sat on the animal fur pallet and leaned his back against the wall, saying nothing in response.

“I will help you escape.”

Reid’s voice was distant when he spoke again, weak and tired as though speaking were a monumental task. “When Sangolin calls, I cannot resist.”

“I resisted.”

Reid looked up at Pabl, anger in his voice. “It let you go,” he said. “But it will call you again. And again, and again until you succumb. One time is all it takes, brother. Sangolin is as patient as mountains.

“It wants to be a liferock,” Reid continued. “Vecrix is preparing a spell to change Sangolin into something . . . something else. What, I don’t know. Vecrix believes he can make Sangolin into a true liferock.”

“What?” Pabl took a step back. “That’s not possible.” Liferocks were alive, more than a Gathering. Far more. They were spirit and stone, fragments of the Great Liferock. “It’s not like making a nice urn or carving a statue,” Pabl said.

“But Vecrix doesn’t know that, or he has forgotten. He wants to use blood magic to tie us all into a massive pattern while we’re merged with Sangolin.”

Pabl sank to a sitting position on the floor opposite Reid.

Shocked. An image came to him of fifty or a hundred obsidimen bonded into a single pattern with such a place as Sangolin. Bonded by blood, not spirit. It was perverse. Evil.

“Whatever is created,” Reid said. “It will be worse than a This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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Horror.”

Pabl shivered, feeling a sudden chill pass through him. I must get away from this place before I become like the others.

He looked across the closed space of the cave, trying to ignore the claustrophobia which crept into the back of his mind. “I need to go soon,” he said. “I want you to try to come with me.”

“I —”

“No excuses, brother,” Pabl said. “How can you stay here when you know what is happening?”

“I don’t want to stay,” Reid said. “But I have no choice.”

Pabl looked at him, his red-striped russet skin dry now from the heat of the Scarlet Sea. “Why can’t you walk away?”

he asked. “How can Sangolin mean so much?”

“You can’t understand, brother. You haven’t merged.”

“Tell me then,” Pabl said. “Tell me what it feels like to merge with Sangolin?”

“I shouldn’t.”

“I just want to know . . .”

“Some things are best left unknown.”

“But —”

“You really want to know, I’ll tell you.” Reid leaned forward, staring down at Pabl with an intensity which was frightening.

He’s insane, Pabl thought. One moment, he seems fine. The next he nearly attacks me.

“It’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced. The anticipation before merging is a sheer rush, but you’ve already felt that.

When you actually touch it, Sangolin sends wave upon wave of ecstasy through your body. It feels like you become pure spirit energy; it feels like the Passions have aligned and are cooperating to bring you all the pleasure in the universe at that one moment.”

Reid paused for a breath. “But then you emerge to discover that days have passed, maybe weeks or months. And outside, you’re alone. You feel hollowed out, like a cave. Empty like an This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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urn without water. You don’t remember who you are because your identity is gone. Stolen by Sangolin.

“This place craves obsidimen,” Reid said. “It uses them up, drains them of their spirit, and effectively kills them in the long run. You’ve seen the others here; they are walking dead, alive only for the merge with Sangolin. Waiting for the call. Always waiting.

“I was like them until I felt the pain from Ganwetrammus. After that I began to remember things, to piece things together. Sometimes I wish I’d never realized how much of a zombie I used to be.”

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you why,” Reid said, his anger turning to melancholy. “It’s because I can’t leave Sangolin. I know what it does to me, and I still can’t leave.” He gave a sad sigh and spoke again, his voice low, his gaze on the floor. “I’m addicted, and the realization of that hurts me. Knowing is more painful than not knowing.”

Pabl stood up, his anger driving him. How much more of these pathetic excuses do I have to hear? He spoke, trying not to shout. “You talk about pain and addiction, of not being able to leave, but I still don’t believe you. If you really wanted to leave, you would come with me. You would take the risk of losing Sangolin to help your true liferock and your brotherhood.”

Reid shook his head slowly. “Your idealism is touching, brother, but unrealistic.”

“Enter the self-Dreaming with me, Reid, and you will remember much of yourself. You will know who you are, and you will understand. Afterwards, you won’t hesitate to come back to Ganwetrammus with me.”

Reid shook his head. “Calm down, Pabl. You are young and know not what you say. Merging with me could be hazardous for you. You would know my experiences, my longing for Sangolin. My addiction. Almost like merging with Sang-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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olin itself. No, it’s too much of a risk.”

“I am willing to take that risk to save my liferock. Nothing is more important.”

“I will resist you,” Reid said. “I refuse to condemn you to Sangolin. If you contract my addiction, you’ll never escape.

Sangolin has altered me so much that even Ganwetrammus couldn’t help me.”

Pabl knew he could not merge with an unwilling Reid, but he would not be defeated. “Maybe not,” he said, “But the Council of Four could. I visited them to find you.”

“They knew how to find me?”

“Yes,” Pabl said. “They knew of Sangolin from two obsidimen who did manage to leave. So it is possible, you see.”

“What became of these two?”

Pabl frowned. “The Council was able to give them back some of their memories, but . . .”

Reid said nothing.

Pabl turned away from Reid. “The two obsidimen went insane a few years after leaving the Valley of the Elders,” he said.

“But that doesn’t mean they won’t be able to cure you.”

Reid leaned back against the red stone wall of the cave and breathed a heavy sigh. “How did you know I was here? Or was that a guess?”

“The Council of Four had seen you in the memories of the two who escaped, plus Ohin Yeenar had been having visions of this place ever since his liferock died and you came with some others to take away the remnants of their brotherhood –”

Pabl stopped. A feeling of dread grew inside him. All those obsidimen without a liferock . . .

Reid swallowed hard, staring at Pabl. “I remember that now,” he said, “though I wish I didn’t. Ohin Yeenar . . . Othellium . . . How long ago?”

“Eighty years maybe,” Pabl said, choking out the words.

He looked at Reid, hoping that he was wrong in his suspicion.

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“The Othellium Brotherhood is here now?”

Reid gave a sad nod. “Everyone except Ohin Yeenar.”

“Dis take this place,” Pabl said.

Reid stood and began pacing back and forth across the small space. “Tell me again,” he said. “Tell me about what is happening with your — with our liferock.”

“What do you mean?”

Reid stopped pacing and bent down to stare into Pabl’s eyes. “The rock is threatened by a mining camp, is that what you said?”

Pabl leaned back, nodded.

“In a particularly vulnerable place, right?”

“Yes, why?”

Reid began pacing again. “Anything else? Anything strange or peculiar?”

“No, I don’t think so. They came for the orichalcum; Tepuis Garen is rich with it.” Pabl remembered the failed attack on the miners. “Only that they seemed to have a spy in the village — a dwarf who tipped them off to our attack.”

“Did you see any obsidimen around who weren’t from our brotherhood?”

“No,” Pabl said. “What are you implying?”

Reid stopped pacing again, closed his eyes and looked down at Pabl. “I think Sangolin may be trying to destroy Ganwetrammus.”

Pabl stood up. “What? That’s ludicrous. Impossible.”

“No, I’m afraid it’s neither. Sangolin has killed liferocks in the past; it destroyed Othellium in fact.”

Pabl’s muscles tensed up; he felt his whole body become rigid. “But how could . . .?”

“With Vecrix’s help, and mine, I’m ashamed to admit.

About five of our original Gathering were from Othellium, and Sangolin wove astral threads through them and their connection to their liferock. It drained Othellium of life energy, ever This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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so slowly. It started before the end of the Scourge, I think, and continued until Othellium was too weak to survive on its own.

Then Sangolin sent me and some others to gather the desperate, orphaned brotherhood. Sangolin only wanted the obsidimen. It needed more spirits to feast upon.”

“That can’t be happening to Ganwetrammus,” Pabl said. “I don’t believe it.”

“Why not? It makes sense; Sangolin only needs a few more obsidimen before Vecrix performs his spell to make it into a liferock.”

“We haven’t felt any sort of energy drain or connection to Sangolin. We would know, wouldn’t we?”

“Ohin Yeenar didn’t know; he still doesn’t.”

Pabl felt a chill creep along his skin. His spirit sank. Ganwetrammus may be in grave danger, he thought. Much worse than I’d imagined. He tried to speak, but found no words.

“If Sangolin is using my connection to Ganwetrammus against our liferock,” Reid said. “I don’t know what can stop it.”

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Thirty-One 

When Pontin returned to the mining camp with his two companions to inspect the progress on the tunnel, Sarbeneck was ready for them. He had made Nancri and the rest work long hours in order to finish the chamber on time. He wanted this business concluded as quickly as possible.

Pontin and his bodyguards, or whatever they were, met Sarbeneck and Nancri at the entrance to the tunnel. They appeared to Sarbeneck just as they had last time. And even though Nancri was suspicious of them, they looked and acted appropriate to their function.

Pontin asked Sarbeneck to increase the ork sentry just outside the cave, claiming that he had heard rumors of another obsidimen attack. Then Pontin spun around in his bright blue cape and marched into the tunnel, not waiting for Sarbeneck. His bodyguards followed behind.

Sarbeneck told Gingreth to double the number of orks standing guard, then entered the cave with Nancri at his side.

The entire length of the tunnel had been cut smooth on the inside, circular except for the floor. Thin threads of orichalcum 221

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spiraled back along the slight slant of the corridor.

The orichalcum filaments would be either ridiculously ex-travagant or a very expensive joke in Throal, but here their presence seemed just plain anomalous . . . unless the chamber was going to be used for magic of some sort.

Perhaps the bodyguards are questors of some Passion, and this chamber will be used for ritual ceremony. If so, Sarbeneck did not want to know about it. He didn’t really care as long as he was paid.

“Come along,” Pontin said, “you’ll want to be close to us when the spell begins.”

“What spell is that?”

“Just trust me, you’ll want to be in the chamber and not the tunnel.”

Sarbeneck gave a questioning look to Nancri. “Should we?”

She shrugged. “I suppose so. This will prove interesting at the very least.”

“I’m not sure ‘interesting’ is worth the risk,” Sarbeneck said.

“Don’t worry, Sarbeneck,” Pontin said. “We will not hurt or delay you. As soon as the ritual is complete, we’ll be able to walk through the tunnel safely. If everything goes as planned, we can even remove the orichalcum.”

I’ll kill him if he breaks his word again, Sarbeneck thought.

He fixed Pontin with a hard stare, said, “We will come.”

“I’m so glad.” Pontin’s whine was exceptionally patroniz-ing. “But we should hurry; these two are anxious to begin the spell.”

Sarbeneck gave Nancri a grim smile, then motioned for her to lead the way down the tunnel. He followed the rest of the way up to the newly finished chamber at the end of the corridor.

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the tunnel until they became the lattice which coated the walls, ceiling and floor. The hemispherical chamber glimmered reddish gold in the artificial light. While he admitted that the whole thing was awe-inspiring, it made Sarbeneck ill to see orichalcum wasted like this.

Pontin took up a position on the left side of the chamber, behind an arc of rock which mimicked the curve of the wall.

An indentation had been carved into the rock’s surface behind the fake wall, presumably for three or four smallish people to stand or sit.

Sarbeneck whispered to Nancri. “Watch what happens in astral space, and describe it to me.”

She nodded.

“Over here,” Pontin said, waving. “Stand in here with me.”

Sarbeneck and Nancri climbed around the false wall into the indentation. “What is going on?” Sarbeneck said. “Hon-estly, I’m annoyed by all the surprises. I thought I was being hired to mine and smelt, then you give me two days to build a chamber that would be the envy of a questor of Upandal. Now, I’m watching some sort of spell. I just —”

“Your role in all of this is nearly over,” Pontin said. “Then I will pay the remainder of your contract, and you can march back to Throal. Now, be quiet and observe.”

Sarbeneck watched the two guards finish making the final measurements. And as he looked, the illusion faltered. In place of Pontin’s guards stood two obsidimen and Sarbeneck nearly bolted out of the tunnel.

Pontin caught his shoulder. “They’re with us,” he said.

The two rock men were huge — immensely broad and quite tall. Their skin was the color of dark rock, one black onyx and the other gray like slate. Gone were the weapons the dwarfs had carried, as well as the armor and other gear. These obsidimen bore no clothing, their bodies naked except for fiery red paint which traced fragmented patterns across their This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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skin.

They paced around the chamber, searching the walls and ceiling for blemishes, flaws in the orichalcum lattice, divots in the perfect curve of the rock. They found nothing; Sarbeneck had done his job well.

When they were satisfied with the construction of the chamber, they started weaving the spell. They faced each other and began to hum. Deep and resonant, the two rock men formed long, multi-syllable words in a language unfamiliar to Sarbeneck. The two touched palms, momentarily, then turned around — back to back.

They pressed against each other, black skin against gray, the red paint patterns on their skin melting together as they became one body. One body with two heads, one facing each direction. And four arms, four legs.

By Raggok, Sarbeneck thought. He had never seen anything like it, though he had heard stories of rock men merging with each other. Never had he imaged them to be true. Sarbeneck looked to Nancri and Pontin for a reaction, but got nothing. They were captivated.

The low droning chant continued from each mouth as the body walked awkwardly on four legs, moving slowly toward the wall opposite the tunnel. Two of its arms traced cryptic patterns in the air, and Sarbeneck thought he could see wisps of light at its finger tips.

Nancri’s breath came into his ear. “They’re creating some sort of spell, drawing power through the spiral of orichalcum.

The spell pattern looks like hundreds of tiny filaments, maybe thousands, twisting together.”

Sarbeneck couldn’t see any of that; he could only hear the low rumbling voices of the merged thing; feel the crackle of magical energy in the air make his hair stand on end. The combined obsidimen reached the far wall, and it brushed the rock surface with its other two hands, not engaged in casting This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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the spell.

“Now, they’re trying to merge with the liferock,” Nancri said.

Sarbeneck watch with awe as the fingers of the two hands which traced along the surface of the rock melted into the stone momentarily, only to jerk back as though stung. The hands continued their motion, only to merge a little farther the next time.

“The rock is resisting,” Nancri said. “But the obsidimen get deeper with each try.” Sarbeneck heard wonder and respect in her tone. “This spell is very complex,” she said.

“What do you see?”

“It appears that they’re weaving some sort of thread, but it’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s huge, so large it defies description. It is pulsing with red and black filaments, interwoven with wisps of white. They’re spooling it out along the spiral hairs of orichalcum in the tunnel which is twisting it for them, making it strong enough to hold together.”

Nancri paused a second, glancing questioningly at Pontin. “I know they’re trying to attach one end of the spell’s pattern to the liferock inside the tepuis, but what about the other end?”

“Just watch,” Pontin said.

Sarbeneck watched the two merged obsidimen creep closer and closer to merging through the orichalcum-lattice wall into the liferock. There was no real danger here, just weird magic. And while Nancri’s descriptions were interesting, he eventually grew bored. Over an hour had passed and it didn’t seem like they were any closer to finishing the spell.

“When can I get out of here?” he said.

“Try and relax,” Pontin said. “Obsidiman magic is mighty impressive, but it tends to be a little on the slow side. I’m afraid you’re stuck here for the duration.” He pulled some bread and cheese from a pouch under his cloak. “But I brought a few goodies to pass the time.”

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“How thoughtful.”

“Do you want some or not?”

“Did you bring wine?” Sarbeneck asked.

“But of course.”

“Then sure, I’d love some.”

“Shh,” said Nancri. “Something is happening.”

“What?” Sarbeneck said.

“Look, they’re having a lot of trouble merging with the rock.”

Just as Nancri finished speaking, the merged obsidiman body was thrown clear of the wall. It flopped back and landed in the center of the chamber. The rock where they had tried to merge was no longer glimmering red-gold along the threads of orichalcum; instead the lattice looked mottled with tiny holes and pockmarks.

“Something just reached out and shoved them back.”

The obsidiman body stood as one, still merged with each other, and approached the wall again. One of the hands produced a sharp metal blade from somewhere, glinting cold in the crystal light. The hand pressed the edge of the blade against the forehead facing the wall. Then it drew the sharp metal across its skin in a slow motion slice, cutting a gash into its own flesh.

The iron tang of blood filled the stifling air, and the tone of the humming shifted slightly, increasing in urgency as blood flowed from its wounded forehead. The melded obsidimen pressed the gash against the stone, the dark red liquid flowing freely over the rock. The blood was black in the dim light, and the rock yielded under it, melting beneath the pressure of their joined head.

A deep sound of drums and cracking rock rebounded around the cavern, deafening Sarbeneck. He brought his hands to his ears to block out the noise, but his action did no good.

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Several bulges formed in the side of the cavern across from Sarbeneck, body shapes glimmering like life-size gold statues. Then another grew from the rock wall just on Sarbeneck’s left, near to the merged obsidimen. And another bulge appeared next to Sarbeneck — an obsidiman shape protruding out from the rock, its facial features blurred by the webbing of orichalcum.

He startled and jumped into Nancri.

“They shouldn’t be able to penetrate the orichalcum lattice,” Pontin said. “It’s their own liferock and they can’t even get out.” He gave a little laugh which sent chills along Sarbeneck’s spine.

He said they shouldn’t be able to get out, Sarbeneck thought. Which means, maybe they can. Sarbeneck remembered the iron grip of an obsidiman hand against his throat.

Chaiel was his name. If he gets through now, there’s not much chance I’ll get out alive.

The bulges struggled to break through the orichalcum webbing for a few minutes, their suffocating bodies lunging out of the rock only to be slung back by the alien metal. Finally they gave up and faded back into the rock.

Maybe they can’t get out of the rock here, he thought. But what about coming up the tunnel. I hope the guards can hold them off.

Blood flowed over the rock between the liferock and the joined obsidimen. Its body seemed to be mostly merged with the rock now, its black and gray flesh partially melted into the cracking lattice of the wall’s surface. The glow crystals dimmed suddenly, and Sarbeneck smelled sulfur and steam.

Voices and movement came from down the tunnel.

“What’s happening?”

“I can’t really tell,” Nancri said. “But I think they’re warping astral space.”

A deep red glow lit up the cavern now, and Sarbeneck This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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could hear the drip, drip, drip of water. “What does that mean, warping?”

“It means something with immense power is folding astral space. I think they’re trying to connect the spell’s pattern to the liferock and something else.”

Suddenly, the rock yielded completely under the body of the two merged obsidimen. There was liquid popping sound, like the rush of fluid from a ruptured membrane as it gave way to building pressure. The red glow filled the cavern with heat and light for second, then dissipated and the white glow crystals brightened again. The sulfur smell vanished, and silence replaced the voices. The chamber had returned to normal.

“They did it,” Nancri said, astonishment in her voice. “I wouldn’t have believed it, but they did it.”

Sarbeneck was still at a loss. “Who did what?”

“The obsidimen, there.” Nancri pointed at the dark, amor-phous lump merged into the rock at the back end of the chamber. “They connected that huge rope-looking spell into the liferock and into whatever was on the other side of the warped astral space.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means the pattern of the liferock is directly linked with the pattern of that thing. They are intertwined.”

“It simply means,” Pontin said, interrupting. “That our work here is complete.”

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Thirty-Two 

The pain hit Pabl and Reid at the same time. Pabl winced as a sharp edge of agony sliced into his gut like a knife.

Reid doubled over in front of him, clutching at his stomach. Reid sank to his knees and pitched forward onto the floor.

“What is it?” Pabl asked.

Reid writhed on the floor, curling his knees into his chest, gritting his teeth against the pain. He gasped and sputtered, but couldn’t form words.

Then pain wracked through Pabl again. He felt life energy spill out of him as though he were bleeding all over the rock.

Yet there was no wound.

“It’s Ganwetrammus,” Reid croaked.

“Ganwetrammus? How?”

“Sangolin is attacking it,” Reid said.

Pabl nodded. He knew that had to be true. “How is that possible?”

“Don’t know.” Reid struggled to his feet, agony evident in his grimace.

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from his gut into his bones. “We must stop it.”

Reid shook his head. “No, I can’t leave. I told you —”

“I will hear no more excuses,” Pabl said. “You must come with me, don’t you see now? If you don’t, Ganwetrammus will die, just like Othellium. Is that what you want?”

Reid tried to speak, but he was in too much agony to answer. He sank to his knees again.

“At least try.”

Reid shook his head again, violently, placing his hands down on the floor to help him back to his feet. “I —”

“No excuses!” Pabl said, feeling his anger building against the pain inside him. Ganwetrammus is dying while we debate.

I can brook this brother’s weakness no longer. “You will come with me,” Pabl said, “or I will be forced to kill you to save the liferock.” His breath rattled in his chest, partially from the pain. Mostly from his realization that what he said was true.

Reid looked into Pabl’s eyes, holding his stare for a moment. “All right,” he said. “I will come with you as far as I can.”

Pabl watched as a wave of pain shook through Reid, forcing him to the floor again. Pabl felt the pang of agony in his chest, but he fought to ignore it.

Reid’s fingers pressed tightly into the muscle of Pabl’s arms, grasping to be helped to his feet. When Reid was standing on his own, Pabl hoisted his backpack and led the way out of the cave. He ran, hauling Reid behind him as fast as he could go. He needed to get them far away from Sangolin before Reid was called. Before Reid changed his mind.

They passed along the cliff edge and through the hollow.

The sun had set, leaving a red orange glow in the west, silhouetting the clouds of steam and mist which blew slowly through the clearing. Pabl and Reid sped past the brothers who were preparing the late-evening feast of flesh. It looked like they had netted a gargoyle, and were struggling to subdue This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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it enough to get it on the spit.

Pabl and Reid reached the base of the trail which led up and over the mountains before the pain vanished. Just as quickly as it had come, the agony was gone. The grimace on Reid’s face gave way to a far off stare of contentment. And Pabl’s jaw went slack as the ache dissipated, replaced by a gentle longing.

“Now you see why I cannot leave this place,” Reid said.

“You understand.” He extended an arm towards Pabl, palm open, beckoning.

The longing grew to an insistent urge. Delirious desire overcame Pabl. He nodded slowly and placed his hand into Reid’s.

Reid clasped tightly, the strength of his grip pressing bruises into the muscles of Pabl’s hand. Like a vice. Then Reid’s skin softened under Pabl’s palm — an invitation to join in self-Dreaming.

Pabl resisted out of instinct. It was a violation, an invasion of the flesh. But his resistance was fleeting. He wanted Sangolin and Reid would be his guide. He yielded to the merge and lost his mind.

In the flash of an instant, Reid’s memories possessed Pabl’s mind. His thousands of mergings with Sangolin crashed in upon Pabl. The gradual loss of Reid’s mind to the Gathering which became Sangolin had taken him hundred of years, but Pabl’s mind became its slave in less than a minute.

Pabl’s memory split as the events of Reid’s past jumbled together with his own plus bits and pieces of others he didn’t know. All disconnected, shattered like broken glass, fragmented into a million isolated moments. Meaning nothing.

Only Sangolin held meaning for them now.

As one, they turned and walked back down the slope toward their sweet. Sangolin called to them, and all else was forgotten.

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As it should be. As it always will be.

Pabl. A distant echo in the back of his mind. Stop!

“Pabl!” Something tapped his shoulder, but he ignored it.

Couldn’t be important. Sangolin called and they would join it.

Nothing else mattered.

Suddenly, his body lifted into the air. Not far, just a few feet. Then a hard shaft of wood slammed into his head.

What by Thystonius’s wrath was that? Pabl turned slowly to see a dwarf and an elf standing behind him. They seemed anomalously out of place here. It was the dwarf who spoke, “Pabl, are you all right. We’ve been looking for you.”

“I . . . am . . . fine . . .” Pabl said. “Home.”

“Don’t go all glassy-eyed on us, my friend,” the dwarf said.

“Tepuis Garen needs you.”

Ganwetrammus. Pabl felt the word like a tickle in his mind.

Something was wrong here. Through the fog in his head, Pabl tried to concentrate. He struggled to force himself out of the merge with Reid Quo. One heartbeat, two, and he was out, releasing his brother’s hand. Immediately, pain hit him like a knife through his chest and gut. He winced, trying to force it from his conscious mind.

Reid spoke a few words and dispelled the levitation, casting the two of them to the worn stone. Pabl hit the stone in a crouch, not quite sure where he was. Reid landed on his feet and continued his walk into the tunnel. He could not feel Ganwetrammus’s pain, Pabl knew. Sangolin had reduced it to a faint hint in his mind.

Pabl focused on his breathing for a minute to gather strength, watching Reid’s retreating form. A desperate yearning crept over Pabl; he longed to follow his brother. How good it would feel.

“Pabl?”

He turned then and looked at the dwarf. Really looked, this time. Jan Farellon. The name popped into his mind. And This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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the short fellow’s companion was . . . Celagri. I know these energy-wasters.

“Pabl? Can you walk? We can’t stay here.”

Then it all came back to him in a rush. The clouds cleared in his mind and he remembered everything. By Mynbruje, I have been lost. “Jan, my friend,” he said. “And Celagri, I thank you again.”

“Did you . . .?”

“No, I have been very lucky,” Pabl said, feeling his resistance to Sangolin gathering strength. His sanity returning. “I have not yet merged with Sangolin. I nearly succumbed the first time, but Reid Quo helped me. This last time, it called both of us at the same time, caught me off guard.”

“What have you learned?”

“Let’s go to the caves and talk about it,” Pabl said, moving back in the direction of Reid’s cave. “Besides, I’m hungry.”

“Shouldn’t we just grab your lost Elder and get out of here?”

Jan asked.

Pabl shook his head. “He has merged with Sangolin by now. We will not be able to take him until he emerges.”

“But the caves?” Celagri said. “Are they safe? Maybe we should climb the trail. We can return for Reid later.”

“The caves are as safe as the mountains,” Pabl said. “If Sangolin decides to send a group after us, it won’t matter if we’re down here or up there. They came to get me up there once; they can do it again. The only truly safe places are too far away.”

Celagri nodded, then motioned for Pabl to lead on. When they reached Reid’s cave, Pabl sat on the floor, chewing dried dates and stale bread as he told them about his encounter with Sangolin and his talk with Reid Quo. He told them about Reid’s refusal to leave Sangolin, and his suspicion that Sangolin was attacking Tepuis Garen in order to get more brothers so that it could become a liferock. Pabl finished by describing This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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the pain he had felt from Ganwetrammus and the call from Sangolin.

“Is it possible for a place to be conscious like this?” Celagri asked. “I mean, it seems like Vecrix could be mastermind-ing the whole thing, using Sangolin as a source of magical power.”

Pabl shook his head. “Perhaps, but I think Sangolin is influencing him. The Council of Four told me that some Named-places have temperament and a profound influence on Name-givers. A liferock is like that. And in another, very different way, so is Sangolin.”

“How can we stop it,” Jan asked, “if Reid won’t go with us?”

“There’s only one way,” Pabl said, wishing he could come up with another alternative.

The others waited in silence for him to continue.

“I have to kill him.”

Celagri nodded, grim-faced. But Jan burst out, “Can’t we kidnap him or something, carry him back?”

Could we? Pabl wondered. It is naive to think so. Folly to believe we would get him back against his will. Certainly not in time.

“No,” he said, breathing a heavy sigh. “As much as it is against my nature to be hasty, this is one instance where time is short. Even with Reid’s cooperation, our journey back to Tepuis Garen would take ten days or more, if we push. My liferock is under severe attack; perhaps it can last a couple weeks, I don’t know. But carrying Reid, or trying to force him to walk against his desires, would lengthen our traveling time to more than a month. That is simply too long.

“There really are only two choices. Reid comes with us willingly, or . . .” Pabl took a slow breath, then straightened his back. “Or I take his life so that the next Elder in line can perform the Ritual of Protection with Gvint. Celagri, do you have This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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a poison that will kill obsidimen?”

Celagri nodded, reaching gracefully into a nearly-invisible pouch on her belt. “Do you want me to do it?” she asked.

“No, I will,” Pabl said. “It is my task, and I will carry it out.

He must sleep sometime; I’ll do it then.”

“Very well,” Celagri said, handing him a cloth belt. Pabl examined it to find five bamboo throwing darts — slender barbs nestled into individual pockets along the black sash. “Be careful, each one is tipped with enough poison to kill a thundra beast in about a minute.”

“Thank you,” Pabl said. He was not adept at using these darts, but he didn’t want to kill Reid with his hands. The poison would probably be quicker and less noisy. “Maybe you should go now. Where will you wait?”

Celagri and Jan both shook their heads. “No, no, no,” Jan said. “We will let you do what you must, but we aren’t leaving you. If Sangolin tries to hypnotize you again, we need to be around to stop you.”

Pabl gave them a grim smile. “As you wish,” he said. “I think I will try to get some rest before he comes back.” Pabl unrolled his traveling blanket, making a makeshift bed for himself. Then he lay on it and stared up at the flickering shadows which played out their abstract dramas against the rough stone arch of the cave’s ceiling.

He dozed off with images of Ohin Yeenar flitting through his mind. The old one’s ancient quartz complexion crumbled like loose shale in the dream. Ohin knelt in front of Pabl, looking up with sightless eyes whitened by cataracts. He begged to be killed, claiming that his death would free him.

Pabl had lacked the courage to do it. His fear and indecision had stayed his hand then. Would this time be any different? Could he kill one of his own? Could he commit this most unnatural murder?

He didn’t know.

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Eventually, he drifted into a restless sleep. He turned and woke many times, trying to get some rest, but the dull ache from Ganwetrammus prevented him from sliding into a deep slumber.

When he awoke, he discovered that Jan slept near the back of the cave, while Celagri hid near the entrance in the flickering red light from the Scarlet Sea. Pabl couldn’t actually see the elf, but he knew she was there, using her magic to hide from view. Watching.

Reid had returned; he slept fitfully on his pallet. His face was a stark relief of red and black shadows, the light coming through the cave’s entrance from the ocean of lava outside. Pabl remembered him from the liferock’s memory, a young brother learning magic from Garen Dne in the glorious crowded streets of Parlainth. Reid’s face twitched on the pallet in front of Pabl, troubled, feeling the pain from Ganwetrammus. The deep lines of his face had become crevasses, rocky and jagged — lines of profound pain and long sorrow.

His death will be a release. A liberation.

Reid would not end up like Ohin Yeenar. He would die at the right time; he would die to save his liferock. No obsidiman could hope for better.

Pabl sat upright as quietly as he could and unfolded the sash of darts on his lap, laying them out for easy access. He carefully pulled one of the slim bamboo shafts from the sash and held it carefully between his thumb and forefinger. The dart was not made for hands of his size and it felt awkwardly tiny to him.

No hesitation, he thought. Pabl leaned over to see Reid’s body in the dark. One dart in the back or neck should do it. His movement would be quick; Reid’s death painless.

“I thought it might come to this, brother,” Reid said.

Pabl jerked back, startled.

“I must die,” Reid said, his words were lucid, clear. “So This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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that the brotherhood can live.” His black eyes shone like orbs of polished ebony reflecting firelight. He seemed sane, more anchored in reality than Pabl had ever seen him. He blinked, folding his hands across his chest, but he did not sit up. “I understand, and I agree,” he said. “It is my time to die. Just promise me one thing.”

Pabl felt tears welling in his eyes. He had not expected this. “Anything.”

“Return my body to Ganwetrammus.”

“Of course, Reid. That is the least I can do.”

“Then I am ready to die.”

Pabl wiped away the tears to clear his vision. He blinked hard. Now! His hand moved, arcing with the dart held firmly between his thumb and forefinger. A deadly accurate attack without defense, straight toward the center of Reid’s chest.

Suddenly, Reid’s hand shot out. He knocked Pabl’s arm, deflecting his aim. Then Reid rolled to the side, grabbing Pabl’s wrist with his other hand.

“Reid, what are you —?” But Pabl knew what had happened; Reid’s eyes had defocused, glassed over. Sangolin had taken control; it couldn’t afford to lose Reid.

Reid’s grip tightened on Pabl’s wrist, trying to turn the dart against him. “You cannot take me away from Sangolin so easily.”

Pabl lost his grip on the dart, and it slipped out of his hands, falling to the floor. It made a hollow punk as it hit the stone, disappearing into the shadows next to Reid’s pallet of furs. Pabl moved quickly; wrenching his hand from Reid’s grip.

He stepped back, crouching into a combat stance.

Reid began a spell that Pabl didn’t know.

Pabl’s fighting reflexes took over. I must attack before he completes the spell. The thought flashed through Pabl’s mind.

A second later he struck, a rapid pummel to Reid’s throat. He magically hardened his fist as he struck, feeling the blood and This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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bones in his knuckles solidify, condense into a brutal weapon.

His fist connected with Reid’s neck and continued, punch-ing towards an imaginary point behind Reid’s head. The column of Reid’s windpipe yielded under his blow, crumpling like a weak scroll case.

Reid stepped back, clutching his neck, trying to breathe.

His spell never went off.

Pabl spun, not wasting time. Can’t let him recover. He followed his punch with a swift kick aimed at Reid’s head. High and fast, his foot blurred towards its target.

As he struggled to inhale, Reid’s attempt to dodge was too slow. Pabl’s kick landed hard. It connected with a loud crack, crashing into Reid’s skull, snapping his neck sideways with a jerk. Reid flew against the wall, bouncing like a doll, then he hit the floor with a thud.

Pabl crouched for another attack, chest heaving, and watched for movement.

Reid lay face down on the floor, the fluttering rise and fall of his chest barely noticeable. Still alive, still holding on.

Pabl calmed himself with several deep breaths. I’m sorry it had to end this way, brother. He removed another of Celagri’s poison darts from the sash, then knelt beside Reid’s body.

Reid made an effort to move one last time, trying to crawl out of the cave on his belly, mewling about his sweet Sangolin.

The sight of it sickened Pabl.

“Goodbye, brother,” he said. Then he plunged the dart into Reid’s back. “Your sacrifice will save us all.”

Celagri appeared out of the shadows near the cave entrance. She gathered up the fallen dart and placed it back into her sash. Jan was also there, moving from where he had been resting to stand guard at the cave’s entrance.

Pabl hardly noticed; he put the palm of his hands against Reid’s ribs. He felt his brother’s breath rasp to a halt, the beat of his old heart flutter and die. Then Pabl bowed his head and This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Thirty-Three 

Gvint stretched his joints, listening to the crack of his old bones. He was sitting on the erosion steps next to the riflev pool, shivering against the lengthen-ing shadows. His feet dangled in the crystalline water as he bathed. His ceremonial robes lay in a neatly folded pile a few steps up from him, safely dry. He bent to the water’s mirror surface and scooped up the clear liquid. And as he splashed it over his body, the mirror distorted, warping the reflection of himself and rock above him. The cold chill of the icy liquid brought more shivers.

The last few days played out in his mind as he tried to figure out what to do. How to stop Ganwetrammus from dying.

Somehow, beyond all expectation, the miners had succeeded at connecting a powerful astral construct — a spell of some sort — to the pattern of Ganwetrammus.

The spell brought smells of sulfur and rotting vegetation, steam and fire, tainting Ganwetrammus with its stench. And through it, they were draining the life force from the rock.

The liferock weakened by the hour. Soon it would be too feeble to recover.

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Ganwetrammus would die.

Gvint remembered the suffocating sensation of trying to emerge in the magical chamber they had constructed, only to be smothered by the lattice of orichalcum. How had the miners known that kind of magic? They had systematically attacked the liferock under the pretense of searching for orichalcum.

I should have done something to stop them, should have foreseen what they were doing. But how?

Gvint splashed water over his face, trying to wash away the ache in his head. Then he looked up through the wide circular hole in the rock where the steps came down. Above the craggy rim of the rock, he could see a patch of washed out sky darkening to deep blue-black in the east. The sun had set up there, and the chill of the evening penetrated his old bones.

Will this place look like Othellium after it is dead? Will the riflev stagnate and putrefy? Will thunderstorms and erosion grind the temple to dust?

An obsidiman grew out from the surface of the rock next to Gvint. He noticed emerald tattooing on black-skinned arms — Jibn. The lattice of fine white lines on his skin had faded slightly with his prolonged merging. Jibn placed a hand on Gvint’s shoulder. “Despair not, my Elder,” Jibn said. “While Ganwetrammus clings t-t-to life, there is still hope.”

Gvint looked up, seeing the look of concern on his face.

“Your time in the Dreaming has altered your outlook, my brother.” Gvint tried a smile, but gave it up when his face wouldn’t cooperate. “Now you are trying to instill hope in me.”

“It is because of you that I merged again,” Jibn said. “You woke me from my p-p-paranoid stupor.”

“Perhaps, brother. But it may have been too late to save Ganwetrammus. Pabl has sent no word, my allies of elemental air have nothing to report, and time is becoming short for our liferock. Even another attack on the mining company would This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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be futile at this point, because they are not the enemy now.

Our enemy is distant, unseen and unknown.”

“Maybe we can dispel this magic.”

“I have already tried,” Gvint said. “But when I try to dis-rupt its pattern, I get lost in sensations, smells of putrefaction, visions of steam, the echo of erratic drums. This magic is beyond my power and the parasites in the cave are sustaining it.”

“Maybe I should —” Jibn stopped, straightening to his full height as his body went rigid.

Gvint felt it too — a nagging tug of anguish in the bottom of his gut. It was subtle, barely noticeable over the constant pain he felt coming from Ganwetrammus. Yet he knew what it meant.

“By Mynbruje,” Jibn said. “Pabl has succeeded after all.”

The gentle stitch of sadness in his side meant that Reid Quo had died.

The next in line will be called, Gvint thought. Jibn Sra. He looked over at Jibn and saw that the other was already feeling the call from Ganwetrammus. Jibn nodded to Gvint and backed up to the surface of the rock. No words were necessary.

Gvint knew what the call felt like — an overwhelming, insistent urge to merge with the liferock.

Jibn pressed himself into the rock, a spot of black against the red stone. Then he was gone, the black melting away as Ganwetrammus pulled him deeper.

Gvint felt a rush of excitement. Pabl has succeeded! Because of him, we might defeat this unseen foe. The Ritual of Protection can still save us.

Gvint stood and ran up the stairs to the temple. Shivers coursed through him again, but this time they had nothing to do with the chill. They were thrills of adrenaline. He had a mission now. A plan. A glimmer of hope where before there was none — a candle flickering in the deep black of the vast This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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night.

He took the last steps two and three at a jump, running past the curtained verandah and into the temple. He made his way to the left wall, scanning the engravings of the brotherhood’s history, searching for the story of Jibn’s Horror and Garen’s sacrifice — the liferock’s memory of the last performance of the Ritual of Protection.

The engravings converged where Jibn’s life thread combined with Garen’s and Tylon Giv’s and all the others of the brotherhood who had returned to the liferock for the Long Dreaming. Garen and Tylon were the Elders then. The world was a verdant, beautiful place brimming with health and life.

The Horrors were just starting to arrive, to scavenge and destroy with abandon.

Gvint ran his fingers along the fine etchings, preparing to merge into the memory. The stone surface was smooth here, worn down by the many brothers who had relived these events. His breathing slowed as he calmed himself and began the merge. His fingers melted slowly into the wall. Although he had experienced this memory many times and he had imagined himself dancing the ritual as Garen and Tylon had danced it, he wanted to relive it once more. He needed to make sure that no mistakes were made. They would only have one chance to try the ritual.

He hoped it would be enough.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Thirty-Four 

The lifeless body of Reid Quo lay on the floor of the cave. Pabl knelt beside it, wiping the water from his eyes. It was time to prepare a sling to carry the body.

Reid’s spirit had fled, and it would find its way back to the liferock, but his body was Pabl’s burden. It would have to be carried back to Tepuis Garen and placed on the Deathstone to rejoin the rock. Pabl accepted this task with determination even though it would lengthen his journey home; he would expect no less from any of his brothers.

Celagri stepped forward. “Pabl, can we get out of this creepy place soon? It gives me chills.”

“Yes, of course. Right after I make a sling for Reid’s body.”

“You’re actually going to carry him all the way back to Tepuis Garen?”

“Rejoining the liferock after death is a sacred rite among my people,” Pabl said.

Celagri sighed. “Of course it is, I should have known.”

“I gave him my promise, and I intend to keep it.” Pabl looked over at Jan, then back at Celagri. “We will leave as soon as I’ve finished.”

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“Today I hope,” Celagri said.

“Yes,” Pabl said. “It should only take me a few hours. I will carry Reid’s body, and you two will have to split the contents of my backpack between you.”

Jan groaned.

“For once I agree with the dwarf,” Celagri said.

Jan helped Pabl fashion a carrier of sorts for Reid’s body.

They planned to use parts of the pallet and pieces of the curtains, crudely sewing it together with bits of hemp that Jan carried with him to patch his robes. Pabl doubted that it would be strong enough to last the entire trip, but it didn’t have to. When they reached the plains, they would search for the Dinganni or a merchant caravan where Pabl could trade some gems for a wagon.

As Pabl cut the black curtains into wide strips, fragments of Reid’s memory came into his head. Jumbled images and disjointed scenes flashed around him.

Pabl blinked, his awareness snapping back into the cave.

Red glow from the Scarlet Sea lighting the dark rock around him. What, by Mynbruje, is happening?

He smelled burning gargoyle flesh and the cool elemental breeze which flowed over Sangolin’s core. Then he flashed into the body of a young Reid Quo, wearing the ceremonial robes of Tepuis Garen, standing amid a huge crowd of obsidimen.

They had come from across Barsaive to form a Gathering. It was the unification of five, maybe six brotherhoods on the eve of the Scourge. It was a sublime event, Reid’s most successful.

Pabl blinked again, pressing his eyelids closed. He staggered.

Jan handed him a length of hemp. “Pabl, are you okay?”

“I am experiencing Reid’s memories,” he said. “Maybe its a result of merging with him.”

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Horrors and of the rewarding work afterwards to reestablish nature. The memories flashed at random, overtaking Pabl’s mind as they came faster and faster, accelerating to a blur.

The army of dwarfs interrupted their Gathering, the Horrors attacked and Vecrix sealed them inside, creating the kernel of what would become Sangolin. Over the years, the decades, the centuries, Reid felt his mind diffuse into their combined being. And the others invaded him, slowly and inexorably, until he had no concept of an existence separate from Sangolin.

Pabl experienced Reid’s endless days wandering through hot mist, enthralled by the ever-calling Sangolin. He watched, through the haze of distance and detachment, events prior to Sangolin’s creation. He flirted with the discipline of troubadour, taught in Parlainth by Hagnit Ye. He smelled the stagnation of Othellium, the once magnificent quartz temple over-grown with jungle, threatened by the roots of thick vines. He saw the extreme sadness in Ohin Yeenar’s expression as his brotherhood marched away from him. All these events came rapid-fire from the recesses of Pabl’s mind, flashing into his consciousness.

Then he felt the mergings with Sangolin. A thousand mergings pulsed through him, compressed into one. His heart pumped faster each time as he approached the mottled rock.

His skin burned with expectation as he plunged his hands into the forgiving flesh of Sangolin. Pleasure, pure and exquisite. Perfect ecstasy taking over his mind, his soul, in a flash.

I must have it, Pabl thought.

“Pabl, are you okay?”

I know now why he couldn’t leave this place.

Then came the memories of emergence . . . the hollowed-out feeling, empty and alone as Sangolin spat up his flesh and rejected his pleas for merging again. Wandering back to his cave with the longing — the ever-present longing — digging a This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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hole in his gut. He ate meat, the sickly sweet taste nearly gag-ging him at first. But he was desperate to fill the hole inside him, even though the food did nothing to help. Then finally, when the longing had almost gone, Sangolin called for him again.

And again, until the cycles blended into the weeks, into months. Years and decades. He had no concept of the passage of time.

“Pabl, come on, I’m doing all the work here. Pabl?”

The final weeks of Reid’s life held a semblance of chrono-logical sequence. The pain from Ganwetrammus and his call to join and become Elder had awakened something in him.

The slow realization that something was wrong with his existence, the memories coming in jumbles, the escape attempts, remembering Vecrix’s plan to make Sangolin into a liferock, Chaiel’s arrival, and Pabl’s explanation about the emergency with Ganwetrammus.

Reid’s refusal to return to his liferock had been extremely painful for him. But he couldn’t leave his Sangolin, his life would mean nothing without his sweet Sangolin. When he had tried to escape with Pabl the one last time, he had expected Sangolin to call. And he knew that if that happened, Pabl would have to kill him to save Ganwetrammus. He had accepted it because there was no alternative; he did not want to participate in the destruction of another liferock, his liferock.

Pabl blinked hard once more, and looked up into Jan’s rugged face. His friend was on guard now.

The dwarf smiled behind his red beard, shaggy from long travel. “You okay?”

“How long have I been . . .?” Pabl asked.

“Not long, my friend. Shall we finish this?” He held the sling up to show Pabl.

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eat?”

“I’m afraid we don’t have much left,” Jan said. “Except ork-made horse jerky and hard dry biscuits.”

“You must be joking.”

“Actually, yes.” Jan smiled. “Here.” The dwarf handed Pabl a chunk of goat cheese and loaf of bread. “This is all that’s left of what the Dinganni gave us.”

Pabl ate ravenously, trying to push all thoughts of Reid’s fragmented life out of his mind. But one thing kept returning to the forefront — Sangolin. When we merged, Pabl thought, his addiction could have been passed to me along with his memories.

It was late night before the sling was sturdy enough to hold Reid’s bulk. Celagri returned from where she had hidden among the flickering shadows, watching the other obsidimen in the hollow. The deep echoes of the drums had long since died away, and only the faint hissing crackle of the Scarlet Sea could be heard.

“Their revelry’s over.” Celagri said. “Everyone is sleeping.

We can leave when you’re ready.”

Pabl nodded, then hoisted Reid’s body onto his back. The rough cloth scratched against his bare back, cutting into his shoulders as he lifted. He put his hands under Reid’s legs to help support the bulk, but even so, the fabric groaned under the dead brother’s weight.

“Ready,” Jan said, lifting his gear over his shoulder.

They walked in silence, following Celagri’s lead, making their way along the cliff, then back into the hollow. The fire had died to embers, and sated obsidimen lay sleeping, scattered like discarded puppets.

Pabl, Jan and Celagri moved as quietly as they could across the clearing toward the trail that led up the mountainside and out. Pabl watched the trail get closer and closer with each step, and he listened for telltale sounds which betrayed This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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movement of any of the obsidimen.

They passed in front of the opening into the rockfall which led to Sangolin. Pabl felt a twinge of regret as they passed. I will never know what it is like to merge with Sangolin.

“Leaving us so soon?” A familiar voice came from a shadow inside the tunnel: Chaiel Ro.

Pabl was glad to hear it. They had been caught. Now he might get to merge with Sangolin after all. Focus! Pabl forced that thought from his mind.

Chaiel stepped out of the shadow of the tunnel and into the red glow. His body painting had changed; gone were his swirls of purple and orange, replaced by haphazard stripes of deep red.

“Chaiel,” Pabl said. “Come with us. Come back to your true liferock.”

“It’s too late for all of that,” Chaiel said. “I am here now. I am here.” Apparently, no more explanation was necessary.

“I will come back for you,” Pabl said.

“We can’t let you leave,” said another voice from farther down the tunnel. It was a voice like churning gravel. “The energy-wasters are free to go, but you must stay.”

The obsidiman stepped past Chaiel into the dim red light of the night, “It was pointless to have killed our lovely Reid.

Still, no matter; you will take his place.”

Pabl retreated a step, preparing to run. He took one more step before his muscles seized up. He was frozen in place, unable to make his feet move.

Even in the half-light, the obsidiman was hideous. Bent over in an impossible hunch, his skin was the color of dirty white marble, cracked and damaged beyond repair. His left eye was missing, and in its place was an ill-formed chunk of amber, glowing palely.

Pabl strained against the spell which gripped him. But it was futile; he could move nothing.

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“Please, put down the body of our brother and come with me.”

Pabl’s arms went limp and Reid’s full weight came down on the makeshift sling, ripping it out at the seams. Reid’s body tore through the fabric and landed on the ground behind Pabl with a dead thud.

“Pabl, what are you doing?” Jan said.

Chaiel stepped up to meet Jan and Celagri, leaping over Reid’s fallen body. Pabl heard the swish of Chaiel’s huge sword as it was pulled from its sheath, but he could not turn to look.

“Stop!” came Celagri’s warning. “Let Pabl go, or I will kill you.”

For a brief instant, Pabl was free. He turned to see the elf brandishing one of her poison darts at Chaiel.

Vecrix waved his hand and the darts turned to dust. Celagri stared at her hands in disbelief as the obliterated weapons blew away in a gust of hot wind.

“Leave now,” Vecrix said, turning his hunched and deformed gaze upon Pabl.

Pabl jerked around like a marionette. His head stared forward. Pulled against his will, he walked towards the tunnel.

Part of him wanted to go. Part of him relished the possibility of merging with Sangolin. But this was nothing like the overwhelming desire of Sangolin’s sweet call. Now, all he felt was helplessness. Vecrix had taken control of his body.

He tried using magic as he jerked and lurched his way past Vecrix and into white studded darkness of Sangolin’s tunnel. His crushing will spell had no effect, his mind daggers bounced off like fists against a slab of iron, and he could not annul the magic which held him. Pabl was out of options; all his other spells required movement.

He felt his feet leave the ground as Jan’s levitate took hold, stopping Pabl’s forward motion even though his legs kept moving. As he floated helplessly in the air, two more obsidi-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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men brushed past to join Chaiel and Vecrix. Then the levitate failed and Pabl hit the hard stone floor with a bone-jarring crack. He didn’t stop moving. Alone in the dark, his bones propelled him further into the cave.

“Pabl!” Jan yelled. “We won’t be able to hold them off long.”

“Get rid of those two,” Vecrix said.

Pabl heard Vecrix’s hobbling gait approach from behind.

And there was nothing he could do but watch himself move towards Sangolin. Will the merge be as sweet as Reid remembers it?

Vecrix came up next to Pabl and put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, this will be painless.” He laughed, high and cackling. “After merging with Sangolin, you will never be the same again.”

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Thirty-Five 

Gvint stood in the temple, his fingertips merged with the wall, the memory of the Ritual of Protection pulsing through his hands. He was Tylon Giv. He was Garen Dne, dancing the pattern of Ganwetrammus, corralling the Horror towards the Alqarat.

When the ritual was nearly complete, Garen dove into the rock while Tylon entered the temple and began the final stage, stepping concentric circles around the Alqarat.

The brotherhood had long since ceased its melodious song and moved deep inside Ganwetrammus, but Tylon heard the strong voices of his brothers in his head as he fought his exhaustion and pressed on. The tiles of the temple floor cracked open behind Tylon’s steps, a widening fissure which breathed smoke and fire.

Garen emerged from the Alqarat, aglow with seething lava as he stepped free of the rock. He stood on the cool tiles, reached into the molten tip and scooped out a double palmful of the liferock as Tylon continued the final steps of the dance, honing in on the spur of rock.

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from the cleansed, empowered part of the liferock’s pattern.

The Horror pressed into the only spot left for it to go, trying to fit its whole entity into the Alqarat.

Garen slathered molten rock on his chest and arms and gave Tylon a final look, the sadness in his eyes unfathomable. Then the Elder leaned over the Alqarat, pressing his lava-smeared chest onto the tip of rock. The stone hissed and sputtered as it enveloped him.

Garen accepted the Horror into his body. The thing had no choice but to possess him; it had nowhere else to go. Tylon’s dance forced it farther and farther into the Alqarat, forced its astral pattern to interlock with Garen’s. Tylon narrowed his circles until the cracks in the floor touched the center, the heat burning his heels. He finished his chant and merged through the floor of the temple just shy of the Alqarat.

Garen disengaged then, cleansing the Alqarat as he took the Horror with him. Tylon emerged slightly to see Garen staggering off, lava dripping from his body. Garen moved in jerks and starts as though he did not fully control his movements. He did not turn around; he did not look back. He simply walked through the rings of fire in the temple and outside, into the oncoming Scourge.

Tylon melted back into Ganwetrammus, retracting the Alqarat as he went. He pulled a thick sheath of lava over him, sealing himself and the brotherhood deep inside the liferock.

There they would hibernate in the Dreaming until the mana level dropped enough to force the Horrors back into the neth-erworlds.

Gvint sighed and pulled his hand from the temple wall.

Soon we will have to repeat the ritual, he thought. He brushed his hand lightly across the engravings which told of Garen Dne. We will begin the moment Jibn Sra has been inaugurated into the magics of being an Elder. I just hope Ganwetrammus has the strength to give him the powers and abilities he will This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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need.

Gvint knew generally what Jibn was going through, although his own initiation had been highly personal. Jibn was experiencing an intimate communion with the spirit force of Ganwetrammus that was matched in intensity only by merging with the Council of Four.

“Are you ready?” It was Jibn’s voice, coming from the Alqarat.

Gvint looked over to see his brother’s form taking shape from the spur of stone. I will dance Garen’s part, he thought, and my life will end as his did. But that was a small price to pay for the survival of the brotherhood. Gvint had accepted his possible role in this for a long while. “Yes, I am ready.”

Jibn approached, raising his palms in greeting. “Ganwetrammus is weakening,” he said. “It used up much of its remaining strength to empower me, to teach me its pattern so that we can renew it with the Ritual of Protection. It will die if we fail.”

The thought sent ribbons of ice down Gvint’s back. “Then we will not fail.” He touched palms with his companion Elder.

“Shall we begin?”

Jibn nodded.

They moved to the Alqarat and joined with the liferock there. But they did not merge completely. With each step of the dance, the soles of their feet entered and moved within the rock so they could maintain synchronous choreography and not lose contact with Ganwetrammus. In his mind’s eye Gvint saw the liferock’s pattern; in many places it had dimmed to a dull gray where its life-force had been drained.

They danced independently, radially out from the Alqarat, across the surface of the liferock. They spun astral threads as they moved — a web of filaments which would be the foundation of the ritual. The web would act like a gigantic spell matrix, filtering all the astral energy which flowed into the ritual, This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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preventing anything from tainting the magic.

At first Gvint’s movements were slow and unsteady; he concentrated on his memory of the last ritual. He was dancing Garen’s part since he was the Eldest. But soon, he forgot about Garen and Tylon, he focused on the here and now. This ritual was different from the last one. Ganwetrammus had changed in the intervening years. The brotherhood was different.

The threat was different also; it came from something al-together alien. Not a Horror. Nothing like anything Gvint had ever experienced.

Ganwetrammus soothed Gvint’s doubts until the two obsidimen moved through the motions of the dance without conscious thought, without hesitation or fear. The energy of the ritual kept them moving. They spun astral thread like silk worms, moving down the vertical sides of the tepuis and back up, always returning to the focal point of their connection to Ganwetrammus — the Alqarat.

After the foundation of astral filaments had been laid like a mesh over the surface of the tepuis, Gvint and Jibn moved on to the next stage of the spell. They began to chant as they danced, joined by the rest of the brotherhood who emerged from the rock one by one and gathered in the temple to add their voices to the chant. Bass, baritone, and tenor melodies resonated through the stone, lending their strength to the liferock.

The ritual burned in Gvint’s mind as he and Jibn sang the long notes of the chant. They danced all across the surface of the rock in the state of partial merge. The second stage pulled astral energy through the mesh matrix and channeled it, re-orienting all the elemental earth inside the rock.

Gvint felt the true earth shifting as they sang, moving to help protect and heal the pattern of Ganwetrammus. A slight change came over the liferock — perhaps a glimmer of hope, but nothing more. As the ritual progressed, the huge ugly This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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spell that brought smells of rot and images of fire and steam continued to suck energy from the liferock.

According to legend, the ritual would infuse Ganwetrammus with power from astral space — power it could use to destroy the parasitic spell and defend itself against the miners.

But Gvint did not know when that power would come. And as time passed and his exhaustion grew, Gvint looked for any improvement in the Ganwetrammus’s condition.

After the elemental earth had realigned and the orichalcum in the rock had been charged with magic, the nature of the ritual changed. The flow of astral energy increased dramatically as they began the final stage, the cleansing of the last arcs and swirls of the liferock’s pattern. Power pulsed through Gvint, immense power beyond anything he had ever experienced. His skin glowed with blue fire, charged as the energy passed through him and into the rock.

The stone behind him split open, cracking along the path of his dance. Red and orange flames shot up from the fissures, until the whole mesa glowed in the night like huge mountain of lava. And still, he felt no improvement to the core health of the liferock.

This effort would take his life. Gvint had accepted that, but he had always been certain that the ritual would succeed.

Now he wasn’t so sure. It should be working by now.

Perhaps the enemy’s magic was stronger. Perhaps the Ritual of Protection, for all its flash and power, was going to fail after all.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Thirty-Six 

“Y ou killed Reid for nothing,” Vecrix said to Pabl. “Too late to do you or your liferock any good.”

Pabl could not answer; his muscles were still under the magician’s control. He could only watch, detached, as his feet carried him closer and closer to Sangolin’s expanse of lumpy gray flesh. The fabric of his loose pants brushed roughly against his legs as he walked, and the security of his crystal-studded bracers felt insubstantial in the face of such power. The white light from the glow crystals wavered in here, strobing the chamber in a ghastly flicker. Pabl saw forms moving underneath the sheath of Sangolin’s skin as Vecrix drew him closer. And closer.

Vecrix smiled, a hideous lopsided grin. “You see, I have already created a spell which connects Sangolin to your liferock.

Sangolin is even now cutting the heart out of it.” He said this last with venom in his words.

Vecrix continued, “You think you’re so much better than we are, don’t you? You think we are pathetic empty hulls of what you are. You think your liferock is so important, but you’ve never experienced the wonders of Sangolin. The rush 256

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of the merge into joy and pleasure so deep that you won’t ever want to leave. But you must; Sangolin forces you to go on.”

Vecrix’s voice went distant as if he no longer spoke to Pabl, but to himself.

Pabl stopped next to Sangolin as Vecrix leaned in close and whispered, “The plan was mine from the beginning, though your dead brother helped more than he wants to remember. Sangolin knows of all our liferocks, for their patterns are a part of us, and Sangolin is us. It is an amalgam of each and every obsidiman here. Except you, and that will change shortly.

“Sangolin hungers for more strays. Always hungers. Othellium was easy; I linked Sangolin to its pattern through the brothers who were here. Five of the Othellium Brotherhood had come for the Gathering. All of them had very strong connections with their liferock. Sangolin drained Othellium slowly through those bonds.

“The remnants of the Othellium Brotherhood tasted sweet to Sangolin, vital blood energy which moved the transformation ever more near. I am going to make Sangolin a true liferock, you know. And to do that, we needed more.”

Pabl could not move. There must be a way I can escape this hold. But he didn’t have any spells that would work against it. He struggled to make his arms move, or his legs, but nothing would budge.

“Ganwetrammus,” Vecrix went on. “Now that was a great plan. All my doing. Mine. I thought of the miners. I drew the map. The orichalcum-lattice chamber was my idea. The spell . . . my idea. You probably don’t understand the intricacy of the ritual magic involved. Much of the power comes from Sangolin, but the spell’s complex design and thread weaving . . . that’s me.”

Pabl felt the call then. Sangolin.

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escape. Reid’s memories surfaced in Pabl’s mind with the call, overwhelming him. He wanted it now, he needed it now. To feel the rush like Reid felt so many times before. The tingling before the burning before the electric pulse of raw pleasure blazing over his skin like a tsunami to engulf his whole being.

I must have it.

Pabl forgot about Vecrix and his irrelevant schemes. He forgot Reid and Ganwetrammus. He didn’t care about any of that. He just wanted to merge with the undulating sea of flesh before him. So close . . .

He jerked towards Sangolin, trying to throw himself into the rock.

He moved slightly against Vecrix’s spell.

“What are you doing?”

I can move against his magic! The realization made him try again, lurching another inch toward Sangolin. And again.

Vecrix laughed. “Don’t be so hasty,” he said. Then with a jerk of his hand, he forced Pabl to stake a full step backwards, away from the rock and its sweet release.

Pabl jerked against the spell and moved several inches this time. Vecrix laughed and laughed while Pabl fought his control.

Until finally, the magician gave in. “All right, my friend,”

Vecrix said. “I will let you merge.”

And he did.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Thirty-Seven 

Sarbeneck had made arrangements to meet Pontin at the entrance to the tunnel. Payment was late, and that annoyed him greatly. The hour of their meeting had come and gone without any sign of the pretentious dwarf. The scum had better have a good explanation, he thought. When he could wait no longer, Sarbeneck sent Gingreth off to find Pontin and bring him to camp.

The sky had darkened to night, studded with stars, and Sarbeneck was in a foul mood by the time Gingreth and his company of twelve ork cavalry had returned with their quarry.

Pontin appeared with new bodyguards, five this time, including a troll. The dwarfs wore chain mail and carried swords, but the troll wielded a huge axe and had the kind of living crystal armor in his skin that was favored by many of his race.

Gingreth’s orks, mounted on their thundra beasts, were not impressed.

Pontin was dressed with his usual flamboyance. An emerald green cap matched his feather-adorned boots, and his waistcoat was checkered white and green. His shimmering white cape was clasped at his shoulder with the beetle scarab, 259

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golden oval body with iridescent wings of green-black.

“You wanted to see me, Sarbeneck?” Pontin said. “Here I am.”

Sarbeneck stepped forward; he wanted this business of payment to be finished quickly and without incident. “There’s just this one small matter to discuss,” he said. “Payment. You owe me the remainder of my contract, plus my bonus of a half-million in silver.”

“I’m afraid I cannot pay you yet,” Pontin said. “It pains me greatly to be forced to break my word, but my employers will not be able to pay me until their work is completed. They expected to be done by now, but . . .”

“Well, that is unfortunate for you, now, isn’t it? A pity, really.” Sarbeneck paused, looking at his entourage of orks and sizing up Pontin’s bodyguards. “I’ll tell you what we can do, though. We can talk to your employers, explain the situation. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

Pontin tried a little laugh, but it came out like a squeak.

“We could, but they are merged into the rock at the end of the tunnel. I don’t think they are in the mood to talk.”

“That’s why you are going to do it.”

“What?”

“You,” Sarbeneck said, pointing his forefinger into Pontin’s checkered chest. “Are going to talk to them, right now.”

“But they would kill me.”

“And we will kill you if you don’t.”

“I think not,” Pontin said, trying to sound brave.

Gingreth broke into laughter. “You think you’re a match for us?”

“Yes,” Pontin said. “I do.”

“Gingreth, please,” Sarbeneck said. “Refrain from violence until I give the word. I’ll let you know when to remove his head.” Then he smiled at Pontin. “Why don’t we both go talk to them. Surely they’ll listen to us.”

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“I don’t like the idea,” he said. “I’m certain that they’ll be done with whatever they’re doing in a few days. Can’t you wait until then?”

Sarbeneck lost his temper then, yelling into Pontin’s smug face, “I’ve waited long enough!”

Pontin stepped back, trying to look regal while discreetly wiping Sarbeneck’s spittle from his face and hair.

“I’ll give you a choice,” Sarbeneck said, his voice low. “We go together now, to talk to the obsidimen in the cave chamber. Or I ransack the village with my cavalry of orks. I will take ownership of your possessions up to what you owe me.”

Sarbeneck paused, sighing loudly. “Of course, people would most likely get killed that way, and these orks might get rowdy and destroy some property or take out their frustrations upon the innocent villagers, if you understand my meaning.”

Pontin stepped back. “You do argue convincingly,” he said.

“I accept. But I don’t think these obsidimen are going to like being bothered.”

“We will deal with the obsidimen together,” Sarbeneck said. “Now, please, after you.” He gestured at the trail towards the tunnel.

Pontin signaled his entourage of guards to accompany him, then headed up the trail, leading the way to the cave.

Nancri joined them, as she had been instructed. Sarbeneck wanted her expertise; he felt more secure with her by his side. Gingreth brought along several large orks as well; it never hurt to have a show of force.

The tunnel seemed brighter than before, and a strange low hum resonated through the walls, increasing in volume as they approached the orichalcum-lattice chamber. The hum was melodious like muffled voices deep in the rock.

“The spell is intact,” Nancri said. “But something is happening to the astral imprint of the liferock.”

The chamber glowed a brassy gold in the distance, and This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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there was a mottled nub at the very end where the two obsidimen had merged during the ritual. “What is that sound?” Sarbeneck asked.

“I can’t tell,” said Nancri. “It could be the obsidimen and it could be something else.”

The hum grew louder and louder as they approached, and the floor began to vibrate. Then it died away again; sounding to Sarbeneck like the magical droning that questors of Upandal sometimes did to test the integrity of their constructs.

“Nancri, Pontin, how do we get the attention of these merged obsidimen?”

“They know we are here,” Pontin said, “but they may refuse to emerge.”

“Strip the threads of orichalcum off the walls,” Nancri said.

“That will get their attention.”

Sarbeneck removed a tiny miner’s pick from his belt and bent to the floor, preparing to gouge out a strip of the metal.

“No, do not mar the chamber,” came a voice from the direction of the nub.

Sarbeneck looked up to see a face in the rock, and the hints of arms and legs just beneath the surface.

“What do you want?” the face asked. “Why are you disturbing us? Our work is not complete.”

“We wish to be paid so that we may leave.”

“Your payment will come after we have finished.”

“How long will that be?” Sarbeneck asked.

“We intended to be finished by now,” said the obsidiman face. “But even with their resistance, I don’t think it will be too long before the rock is dead. Less than a month certainly.”

“A month! Ridiculous.”

“Sarbeneck,” Pontin interrupted. “I advise patience.”

“Will the agreed-upon payment not be worth it?” said the obsidimen.

The hum returned, more loudly this time. The floor vi-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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brated under Sarbeneck’s feet as the hum volume increased rapidly. He watched as a crack formed in the wall on his left.

With a deafening roar, something pulsed out of the crack. It glowed a brilliant cold blue and flashed at lightning speed across the chamber.

For a split instant Sarbeneck thought he saw the shape of an obsidiman in the cold blue halo — one of the rock people dancing at breakneck speed with his feet attached to the rock.

Then the halo blasted past, barely missing Sarbeneck’s face.

Sarbeneck flinched, lurching away from the near miss, whatever it was. The wake of its passing gusted around the cavern like a tornado of fire-hot wind, and the concussion of thunder knocked everyone in the chamber to the ground.

The floor opened up like the wall, and fire burst from the cracks. Lava followed the fire, spilling out of the wall, the heat hitting Sarbeneck like a hail of stones, palpable, singeing his hair and skin.

“No!” cried the merged obsidimen. “Not yet!” Then it was swallowed in a gush of molten rock.

“Let’s get out of here,” Sarbeneck croaked, lurching to his feet. But Pontin and his bodyguards were already scrambling out. Sarbeneck felt strong hands help him to his feet — Gingreth’s hands.

The humming approached again as they plunged down the slope of the tunnel. The cracks formed and the lava exploded from the roof of the tunnel behind them. What in all this Raggok-cursed wilderness is going on?

His legs pumped as fast as they could, hurtling him toward the exit. More cracks and more explosions sent chunks of rock and drops of lava flying past Sarbeneck’s head just as he passed through the exit and into the dark jungle.

He did not look back until he was a safe distance away.

And when he did, he saw fissures in the surface of the cliff face, glowing deep red. Fire red. The fissures were not natural for This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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they followed perfectly straight lines across the surface of the rock. The entirety of the tunnel was filled with lava now, gush-ing forth like a river of flame, igniting trees and undergrowth in its path.

Looking around, Sarbeneck spied Nancri, Pontin and Gingreth with the guards a few yards away, dripping with sweat and trying to catch their breath. They had all made it out alive and relatively unscathed.

Except those obsidimen. They are gone . . . gone with my payment!

“The strange thing is,” Nancri said, her eyes focused else-where. “Even though the cavern is gone, the astral rope spell, or whatever, is still connected to the pattern of the liferock.

But its color has changed from red and black to indigo and magenta. Perhaps the liferock is gaining control of it.”

“Who cares,” Sarbeneck said. “I’m sick of this place.” He watched Pontin and his entourage mount up and head quickly back toward Rabneth without so much as a backward glance.

Sarbeneck glared after Pontin, reluctantly letting the whiny dwarf ride away; there would be time to deal with him soon enough. Sarbeneck raised his eyes to see the dirty tents of his encampment and the crowd of exhausted workers staring up with frightened eyes at the radiant sight of the tepuis. He had brought all these good Name-givers a long way from their homes. They had fought harsh weather and the encroaching jungle. They all deserved to go home.

This is over, he realized. It is time to leave this place.

Luckily, Sarbeneck still had his little insurance fund —the extra orichalcum he had secretly stashed away from Pontin. He had learned over the years that such precautions were necessary for a healthy business. With the down payment gems and the stashed orichalcum, Sarbeneck figured he could pay off the orks and his workers, plus have enough for a good long vacation. Maybe he’d invite Nancri along.

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“Gingreth,” Sarbeneck said, “I want everybody mobilized as soon as possible. We’re moving camp now. If that lava continues unabated, it will reach our camp before morning.”

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Thirty-Eight 

In the Sangolin cave, Vecrix had just made a move to release Pabl when a tremor shook the ground. Light crystals rattled in their sockets. Someone cried out in Pabl’s mind, like the distant specter of an obsidiman brother. But the words meant nothing to him, and he did not recognize the voice.

“What by Dis was that?” Vecrix said.

The large silhouette of an obsidiman came running down the tunnel. “Pabl!” It was Chaiel’s voice. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

The ground shook again, this time knocking light crystals to ground. One after another, the glowing gemstones dislodged and fell. Soon there was a rain of them, hard and bright, shattering into bursts of tiny shards. They exploded on impact, each one popping into constellation of sparks.

Loose rocks fell from the ceiling. The entire roof shifted and soon vast sections of it came crashing to floor around them. The cave was collapsing.

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planned it out. There was no flaw.” Then he stepped up to the surface of Sangolin and merged with the gray stone.

Pabl found he could move freely again. Vecrix had released him.

Chaiel’s rapid steps approached, and when he stepped into the dimming light, Pabl saw his face. His red-striped skin paint smeared around his mouth and eyes. He stepped up next to Pabl, breathing heavily from the run. “We must leave here now,” he said. “Ganwetrammus has been strengthened; it has released me from Sangolin and the two of them are battling. Don’t you feel it? Killing Reid must have worked.”

Pabl didn’t care about any of that. He was free. And he wanted — no, he needed — his sweet rapture. He had been waiting for so very long, and now it was finally time. His heart pounded a staccato rhythm in his chest. His skin was ice, his mouth dry. Nothing would stop him now.

Pabl barely saw the expression of surprise on Chaiel’s face when he stepped up to Sangolin and surrendered to the exquisite pleasure of the merge.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Thirty-Nine 

The shimmering blue glow brightened along Gvint’s skin as he and Jibn dived into the rock and continued their dance inside Ganwetrammus. The blue fire itched slightly like a static charge before a lightning strike. It was the signal for the final stage.

Jibn and Gvint converged in the last steps of the dance, and passed underneath the skin of stone. As they traversed the rocky interior of the mesa, magically coursing through it at breakneck speed, they maintained the graceful rhythm of their dance. The chanting grew in volume and intensity, magically amplified as the two Elders passed along the remaining filaments in the liferock’s pattern.

Strength infused Ganwetrammus. Gvint felt it now, astral power channeling through the web matrix into himself and through him to charge the pattern of the rock. With astral sight, he saw Ganwetrammus in its entirety. The drained areas, once gray, now glowed gold and red. The rest shone a blinding white.

There was no Horror to ensnare this time, so Jibn and Gvint finished the Ritual of Protection by narrowing in on 268

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the cavern and the invaders. Gvint was eldest, and he had accepted that he would be the one to sacrifice himself. The ritual required it.

But as the two of them wove a tighter and tighter knot on the intruders in the cavern, Jibn advanced to the fore. This time, I will go. Jibn’s thoughts came into Gvint’s mind. Garen sacrificed himself to save Ganwetrammus . . . because of me. It is my turn.

No! You are the younger. It is not your role.

My brother, you told me yourself: “Jibn, your liferock needs you now. Your brotherhood needs you.” Well, here I am. I can’t let you die for this. It is my place.

Not so. Gvint wasn’t ready to let Jibn give up his life. You’re not prepared —You have been guiding the brotherhood for years, and you should continue to do so; you are far better at it than I would be. You awakened me, showed me that I am guiltless. You saved me from my self-imposed exile for this very purpose — to right my wrong. I am ready; it is my time.

Without waiting for a response, Jibn edged past Gvint into the lead. Gvint had no choice but to switch with him or let the ritual fail. He adjusted his pattern of dancing, not missing a single step. They switched positions in that final moment, and Jibn slammed into the two intruders with the force of a volcanic avalanche.

Gvint slowed at the end, acutely aware that Jibn had saved his life. He watched as Jibn assimilated the intruders’ patterns into his own, and attached the massive astral thread to himself.

Jibn’s body exited the mining tunnel like a ballista missile, and with it went the astral thread. Stretched, the magical um-bilical snapped like a broken lute string.

Gvint stopped at the edge of the rock, watching as Jibn’s body — a blaze with blue fire — launched from the tunnel and This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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arched over the canopy of trees, disappearing into the distant Jungle.

Tepuis Garen is safe, and beyond all expectation I am still alive. The heat of the molten rock around him dried the tears streaming down his face.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Forty 

His skin burned with ecstasy, penetrating into his chest and head in a wave of pure pleasure. He was complete, whole beyond anything he had ever experienced. The moment stretched on and on. He had no concept of the passage of time, just thrill. Just rush.

Nothing mattered anymore. Sangolin was all he needed.

His quest to purify the universe meant nothing. His search for understanding . . . meaningless. Pabl ceased to exist as he had before; his mind and body became an extension of Sangolin —a part of the amalgam of pure obsidiman forms.

Then it was all gone. Sangolin began to fracture. Pain flushed through the armored shell of pleasure which protected Pabl. He heard a distant chanting cry. The call was in the obsidiman language, a melodious low hum, ringing across vast distances. The hum penetrated Sangolin and pulled at Pabl.

Ganwetrammus.

Pabl emerged feeling empty and alone. The chamber was dark except for a few remaining light crystals in the arc of the cavern’s ceiling high above. The shadows of many, many ob-271

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sidimen filled the chamber, some pressing on Pabl, trying to merge. Others, like Pabl, were now free from Sangolin, lost and confused.

Rock fragments crashed to the ground around him as he tried to remember where he was. All he wanted to do was get back to Sangolin. Then he remembered Reid Quo and Garen Dne. The memories of Ganwetrammus came flooding back on him and made him shiver.

He touched the Mynbruje pendant hanging from his chest. How could I have succumbed? But even as he asked himself the question, part of him longed for another rush.

“Pabl, we’ve got to get out of here.” It was Chaiel’s voice.

“Before the whole place comes down.” The shadow of his brother edged through the crowd of strangers around him and grabbed his arm. Chaiel didn’t wait for a response; he tugged at Pabl’s elbow, pulling him into a run. They moved down the tunnel as fast as they could, plowing against the tide of obsidiman bodies coming and going.

Pabl heard the grinding crack of boulders loosening in the arch of the ceiling. The crash of falling rock echoed in the chamber behind them as they pushed their way clear of the tunnel and entered the hollow beyond.

The night glowed red from the Scarlet Sea. The rocks in the hollow, moist from condensed steam, gleamed with the sea’s reflection as though they had been dipped in blood. Obsidimen ran chaotically, some toward the cavern to get to Sangolin, and some away, bolting up the trail in an effort to escape. Many weren’t sure what to do now that they were free to make their own decisions.

A massive explosion shook the ground around them as Pabl searched for Jan and Celagri. The volcano shot fire and sparks high into the sky, lighting up the clearing. The ground shook again, cracks ripping across the clearing.

“Pabl! Over here!” It was Jan.

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Pabl looked in the direction of the voice to see the dwarf standing by the trail which led up and out of the clearing. Celagri stood next to him.

“Chaiel,” Pabl said. “Where’s Reid’s body?”

“Why?”

“We have to get it. I promised that I’d return it to Ganwetrammus.”

“It’s there,” Chaiel said, pointing, “next to the fire.” Chaiel swallowed.

“Will you help me carry him?”

Chaiel nodded. “Yes.”

Pabl dashed across to the center of the clearing, dodg-ing obsidimen and the hail of volcanic debris. Chaiel hesitated for a second, then followed behind him. The fissures in the ground widened with a sharp crack that echoed loudly off the mountains. Pabl took Reid’s ankles and Chaiel grabbed his wrists.

Blazing volcanic ash showered down onto the hollow, chunks of burning rock bouncing next to Pabl and Chaiel as they hefted Reid and marched in the direction of Jan and Celagri.

Reid’s body was heavy, bulky and awkward to carry. A widening crevasse in the ground prevented them from heading straight for the trail, but Pabl found a narrow enough spot to jump across. They threw Reid’s body over first, and it landed with a heavy thud on the far edge of the rift.

The ground shuddered again, and the floor of the hollow started to tilt. Pabl looked up to see the chasm widening.

Soon it would be too far for them to jump. He glanced frantically along the rim of the widening gap, desperate to find another way across.

Nothing.

Chaiel took charge, tugging on Pabl’s hand and pulling him back a few steps. “Now run,” he yelled.

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“I can’t clear that gap.”

“I will help you,” Chaiel said. “Trust me.”

They ran.

“Jump now!”

Pabl leaped into the air, blindly. He knew he wouldn’t make it and neither would Chaiel. The fissure was too wide.

He started to fall.

Chaiel didn’t sink however. He magically glided on air, sailing out over the maw of the crevice. And he tightened his grip on Pabl, holding him up.

Pabl clutched tightly to Chaiel’s hand and tried not to look down. And as his magic ran out Chaiel threw Pabl, tossing him bodily through the air. Off-balance and awkward, Pabl hurtled over the narrowing gap.

Moments later he slammed into ground on the other side.

He’d made it!

Chaiel hadn’t fared so well.

“Dis take this place!” Chaiel’s yell echoed in the chasm behind.

Pabl rolled to a stop, and started to get to his feet, frantically searching for his brother. Chaiel was nowhere to be seen.

Wait, there he was, scrabbling up over the cliff edge. Jan and Celagri were already there, trying to pull Chaiel onto level ground. Pabl ran to help them.

“Thank you,” Chaiel panted as he stood. His gaze lingered on Jan and Celagri. “I am in your debt.”

Celagri’s response was lost in another deafening eruption of the volcano. The mountain spewed noxious ash and fire into the clouds. Flaming boulders the size of thundra beasts rained down from the sky.

“Our time is up,” Pabl said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Pabl and Chaiel hefted Reid and moved to the trail as fast as they could. Jan and Celagri led the way, running up the slope. Pabl and Chaiel brought up the rear, toting Reid’s body.

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Sparks and fire rained from sky, burning holes in their clothes, singeing their skin in many places before they reached the top. The rockfall in the hollow below had been fused by Sangolin’s magic into a solid mass of stone, and it now shattered and collapsed, burying the core and the obsidimen who brawled to merge with it.

Then suddenly, the ground quaked again, nearly throwing Pabl off the trail. He stopped, pressing himself up against the mountainside for fear that the trail would break away and fall.

A deafening crack split open the night as the entire shelf lost hold on the mountains.

The ledge lurched askew, leaning precariously toward the fiery bath of the Scarlet Sea far below. Pabl could see the tiny shadows of obsidimen sliding down the once horizontal slope and off the cliff edge into the fire.

“Pabl!” Jan’s voice seemed far away. “Chaiel!”

Then the whole shelf of rock gave way, the crevasse breaking into a cliff as Sangolin tumbled with agonizing slowness.

It slid and lurched, rocks and obsidimen flying behind and over it, until finally it rolled completely upside down on its journey down the slope to the ocean of lava below. And when it hit the Scarlet Sea, molten rock splashed hundreds of feet into the air.

It was a sight of both beauty and anguish from up so high.

Exquisite catastrophe. Droplets of magma glowed red against the deep black of night. Magnificent sadness. The chunk of cliff that had been Sangolin slowly melted into the sea of lava.

“Come on, Pabl!” Jan yelled, closer now. He and Celagri had come back down the trail to where Pabl and Chaiel stood, unable to take their eyes from the Sangolin’s destruction.

Grief flooded Pabl as he watched. His muscles gave in to the exhaustion and fatigue he’d been ignoring. He sank to the ground, setting Reid’s body on the hard stone trail. He felt intense sadness at the huge loss of life — all the innocent obsidi-This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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men who hadn’t made it, who had died for their addiction.

Pabl sat and breathed, staring in awe at the ravaged landscape below. And after a while the grief passed, giving way to relief. Ganwetrammus is safe. Finally, I can go home again.

“We need to go now,” said Celagri, her arm on his shoulder. The tone of sadness in her voice brought Pabl out of his trance.

He turned and looked at his friends. “All right,” he said.

“Let’s go.” Pabl ignored the pain in his muscles and lifted Reid’s body with Chaiel’s assistance. They carried it up over the mountains and began their journey to Tepuis Garen — their journey home.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Forty-One 

Sarbeneck’s camp was packed up and ready to leave in six hours. Even in the early light of dawn, the tepuis glowed with lines of fire which traced an intricate web across the cliff face. The lava flow from the tunnel had slowed once the cavern was completely filled.

All that purified orichalcum . . . wasted. It was almost enough to make him cry.

Still, Sarbeneck had his secret reserves, and he wasn’t about to stick around and see if the obsidimen wanted any of it back.

“Gingreth, is the cavalry ready to depart?” he asked.

The ork nodded. “Yes, sir. They are all eager to leave this jungle.”

“As am I, my friend. As am I.” Sarbeneck smiled at the ork.

“Let’s move out then.”

“As you wish,” Gingreth said. Then he stuck his tongue between his two jutting fangs and blew out a loud whistle. The caravan moved forward, heading toward the village of Rabneth. It was Sarbeneck’s intention to pass through Rabneth as quickly as possible and make good headway before nightfall.

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Rabneth was too close to this accursed rock.

They had made half the distance to the village when Pontin and his guards rode up beside him. “I see that you have mobilized quickly,” Pontin said.

“Such keen powers of observation,” Sarbeneck said. I am going to enjoy this conversation immensely.

“I hope you don’t plan to carry out your threat against my village. You must know that I had no way of knowing that the chamber would be destroyed like that. You can still stay and re-mine it after the rock cools. That is what you were contracted to do, was it not? It’s not my fault if you ignore our agreement.”

“I take it, Pontin, friend, that you expected me to strip the orichalcum off the walls after the obsidimen were finished.”

“Um –”

“Well?”

“I assumed your bonus would be enough to cover the cost —”

“About that half-million silver, Pontin; I’d like that now, please.”

“You know I don’t have it.”

“Then my threat remains —”

“Please try and see it from my side, Sarbeneck. Those obsidimen deceived me, too. They promised me more. Plus, I know that you have a stash of the magic metal. I know you’re trying to get away without giving me my share.”

They caravan had passed into the outlying fields of Rabneth by this time and were rapidly approaching the village.

Sarbeneck looked around, wondering how much of all this land belonged to Pontin. Sarbeneck knew that Pontin owned all of the shantytown in the village including the slave-trad-ing rackets and the gambling houses. He also had his own private magician’s laboratory somewhere in that vast expanse of polluted and rundown huts.

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“Oh, you will get your share all right,” Sarbeneck said.

“Don’t worry about that, friend.”

“Are you serious? You intend to give me part of that orichalcum?”

“Oh no, not at all.”

“What then?” Pontin sounded worried now.

The caravan arrived at the village, the outlying houses nestled neatly into the eaves of the jungle. The crystal waterfall fell a few hundred yards behind them, roaring in the early morning light. The fiery filaments on the tepuis caused the water to sizzle and steam away into the sky. The stream flowed out from the pool below the waterfall and made its way through the shantytown.

They came upon the central clearing before Sarbeneck called Gingreth to him. “I want you to hold Pontin,” he said.

“Then burn the shantytown. Make sure everyone is outside first, of course.”

Gingreth smiled. “The cavalry will love you for this, sir,”

he said. Then he turned and bellowed some orders in orkish.

Pontin spurred his miniature horse and tried to make a run for it. He started to cast a spell, but an arrow hit him in the side before he could finish it. Pontin doubled over, grabbing at the arrow as blood welled a deep crimson against his white-and-green-checkered waistcoat. The red really did clash, Sarbeneck thought. Pontin must be terribly embar-rassed.

Gingreth said something to the horse and it stopped running.

“Make sure he watches the fire before you string him up,” Sarbeneck said. “It has not been a pleasure doing business with you, Pontin.” Then Sarbeneck moved up to him and ripped the beetle scarab from his cloak. “This I will take as partial payment,” he said. “Because I know it has value.”

“Yes, that is a powerful item. I can cast illusions through it.

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It belonged to one of the Tepuis Garen obsidimen a long time ago and was given to me by my employers. Please take it in exchange for —”

The rest of Pontin’s reply was lost as Gingreth clamped a hand on his mouth and began tying a gag over it.

Sarbeneck moved away to let Gingreth do his job. He hated watching the gruesome details. Pontin would be forced to observe a lot of very obliging, happy orks burn his precious buildings to the ground. And afterwards, Gingreth would hang him upside down from the branch of a tall tree.

Perhaps he will die, perhaps not. I don’t care. If he lives, which he most likely will, he’ll think twice about trying to cheat me again.

Sarbeneck decided he wanted to see Nancri. He had been spending many nights with her, and had come to miss her company when they weren’t together. A shiver of excitement passed through him as he rode up towards her. In his many years, he had never felt this way about a woman. Perhaps he would ask her to marry him.

Not here of course. Not in this accursed jungle. He would wait until they reached civilization — the glorious kingdom under the mountains. Throal.

I will take no more jobs outside the kingdom, he decided.

That is where I belong. Then he tossed the beetle scarab into the air and caught it again. Maybe I’ ll take some time off.

Maybe this magic bug will make a nice gift to Nancri.

Maybe I will get married.

The future abounded with possibilities, and when the caravan made it out of the forest and into the civilized world once again, Sarbeneck would explore those opportunities.

When this job was finally over and he was back home in Throal, he would be very happy. Ecstatic. And that was something he had not felt in a very long time.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Chapter Forty-Two 

Pabl’s journey back to Tepuis Garen passed slowly. The group made little headway during the first few days because Pabl and Chaiel had to carry Reid’s body. The corpse hardened, growing denser as its flesh slowly turned to stone. The skin hardened and cracked, the muscles and bones solidifying into rock, smelling like a hot, dry wind.

Several days later, Celagri spotted a caravan of Dinganni nomads. As before, the tribe welcomed them, and the humans were more than willing to exchange a cart for a few gems and a promise from Jan to tell the story of their encounter at Sangolin. The itinerant people traveled north with them for five days and nights before heading east. Again, Pabl was sad to see them go.

Even with the cart, it took the four of them almost a month to make it back around the jungle and through to the tepuis from the north side. A few days after they had left the Dinganni, Jan and Celagri grew bored with the unchanging terrain and the mild weather. Soon they tried to draw Chaiel into verbal combat, goading him with comments which used to throw him into a tirade. But Chaiel ignored their taunts for 281

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the most part, staying out of the bickering; something had happened to him at Sangolin.

Pabl had tasted that something. And a tiny part of him yearned for it. Sangolin is no more. The temptation, forever gone. But he pushed those feelings out of his head. He wanted to believe that those desires had died with Sangolin. He wanted to ignore the tiny emptiness in his soul.

By the time they had reached the village of Rabneth, nestled up against the imposing cliff wall of the tepuis, Jan and Celagri had started bickering with each other again. It was almost comforting to Pabl; everything was back to normal.

At Rabneth, Chaiel and Pabl said temporary goodbyes to Jan and Celagri. The two obsidimen passed through the small village without so much as a rest; they wanted to get Reid’s body to the Deathstone, his hardened bones and flesh returned to the liferock. Pabl noticed that the shantytown which used to pollute the riflev stream had been removed.

Only a few burned shacks remained; the rest of the buildings had been cleared away.

Pabl and Chaiel carried Reid’s body directly to the cliff face and merged with the spirit of Ganwetrammus. Pabl fell into the embrace of his liferock, buoyed by the rock’s new strength. The brotherhood welcomed him — Gvint and Hagnit and Ywerk and the others. Since Jibn Sra had died during the Ritual of Protection, Bintr Aar had become the new Elder.

And despite the tragic loss of Jibn and Reid, the brotherhood pulsed jubilant through the merge. Everyone glowed; the collective roared with energy.

Pabl soaked it in, letting their enthusiasm fill his tired spirit. Gvint and Bintr sent him images and sensations of what had happened at the liferock during his absence. They showed him the construction of the orichalcum-lattice chamber and the creation of Vecrix’s spell. Pabl experienced their memories of the Ritual of Protection.

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Likewise, Pabl and Chaiel shared their journey with the others and Ganwetrammus. And after some time had passed in the Dreaming, when they were ready to emerge several days later, Hagnit and Tidre came down the cliff face to help take Reid’s body to the top.

Gvint and Bintr greeted them in the temple with instructions to lay Reid’s body next to that of Jibn Sra where they both would be prepared for final rejoining. Gvint had led the search for Jibn’s body himself, and now it lay next to the Alqarat in peaceful repose.

When the two bodies rested side by side on the tile, Bintr covered them each with a heavy black funeral cowl embroidered with gold thread, showing the rites of reclamation — a scene where the body split into its four constituent elements, each flowing towards an elemental whirlwind stitched near the corner of the fabric.

The funeral cowl suits Reid, Pabl thought. This is where his body belongs.

Pabl approached Gvint. “I return your Mynbruje pendant, Elder. It has been my salvation on more than one occasion.”

He held the small jade statuette out.

Gvint smiled, reaching his hands toward Pabl. “I am glad,”

he said, “that it kept thoughts of us in you.” He touched Pabl’s hand, then closed Pabl’s fingers over the pendant. “But it no longer belongs to me, young one. It is yours now.”

Pabl felt a rush of love for his Elder, and a deep resounding sadness for the memory of the other owner of the pendant, Reid Quo. “You honor me,” he said.

“It is the least you deserve, brother.” Then, turning to Chaiel, Gvint said, “Welcome home, my brothers.” He touched palms with Chaiel. “We have missed you.”

Chaiel nodded. “You don’t know how good it feels, Elder.”

Bintr, the new Elder, lifted the funeral blanket to look at Reid’s head. “You found no horkla?” he asked.

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“None of the Sangolin obsidimen wore them, Elder,” Pabl said. “Nor any items of a personal nature.”

Chaiel gave a sad sigh. “The horklas were burned,” he said.

“Vecrix revealed it to me in a fit of hubris. About fifty years ago, they made a huge bonfire and destroyed them.”

Gvint lowered his eyes. “A dire loss,” he said.

Bintr shuddered. “Indeed,” he said, releasing the funeral cowl to fall back over Reid’s head.

Later, after they had moved the two bodies to the Deathstone, they held a short ceremony. The entire brotherhood in the long ceremonial robes of indigo and magenta formed a wide circle around the Deathstone. It was a fitting showing for the saviors of their liferock.

Jibn and Reid were placed in the center of the scarred rock, and their bodies slowly disintegrated over the days and days of chanting. The brotherhood sang rejoice at their return to Ganwetrammus. Celebrating each moment of their lives in the universe.

The rains came and went as they sang, washing away the remains of Jibn Sra and Reid Quo. The mud of their flesh channeled down the deeply etched chasms in the surface of the Deathstone until nothing remained, and the two elders existed only in memory.

Pabl spent the days after the funeral merged with Ganwetrammus. Sangolin was all but a distant memory, incon-sequential now. His life was here for a while. He only wished he could see Jan and Celagri more. Soon he would go down to Rabneth to visit.

About a week later, Gvint approached Pabl in the temple. “Bathe now, young one,” he said. “For tonight you shall be Named.”

Pabl looked up at Gvint’s sharply peaked head, his black eyes. “I’m in no hurry,” he said.

“That is good. Nevertheless, your Fire Bath will be tonight.

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Bintr and I have agreed.”

Pabl smiled. “May my friends join us?”

“The elf and the dwarf?”

“Yes, I —”

“Chaiel has taken it upon himself to make sure they come.

He professes that he was wrong about them, that they have proven themselves loyal to us.”

“More than a few times,” Pabl said.

“They will be quite welcome. Now go, prepare yourself.”

Pabl turned and walked outside into the gentle rain. He made his way down the erosion steps to the riflev pool. He stripped off his cloak, folding it into his pack, and walked into the water. Cold and clean, it tightened his skin as he sat on the last step and washed the dirt and the grime from his body.

It was evening by the time he was finished. The rain had stopped, and the high clouds had dissipated. The sky was a pale, pale blue, darkening to a deep violet in the east. Cold air dried the water from him as he climbed the steps to the temple, refreshed and new.

The entire brotherhood had gathered inside by the time he entered, each dressed vividly in the fancy robes and horklas of the sacred ceremonies. He stood at the entrance to the temple, naked and shivering with excitement.

It wasn’t until his brothers sat cross-legged on the tile floor that he noticed the presence of Jan and Celagri, standing near the Alqarat next to Gvint and Bintr. The dwarf had cleaned his patched magician’s robe for the occasion, and his beard was combed. And Celagri wore her usual black leather, but over the top was a brilliant red cape which Pabl had never seen before. They smiled at Pabl briefly before sitting.

Bintr and Gvint did not sit. They stood on either side of the Alqarat. “Come, young one,” Gvint said. “Ganwetrammus awaits you.”

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from the Alqarat seared the air with a steady crackle, and the obsidimen began a low droning harmony. Pabl walked towards the Elders, noticing the changes which had come over the Alqarat. The spur-shaped stone seemed to be moving; its sharp tip glowed a deeper red. Ripples passed along it as Pabl approached.

Bintr raised his rich, brown eyes to look into Pabl’s. He spoke, “The time of your Awakening has come to an end.

Now you join the collective. Your experiences during your wanderings outside will determine the name Ganwetrammus chooses for you.” He touched Pabl in the sternum.

Pabl felt a slight pain, then noticed a spot of blood there.

The droning grew in volume and a chanting melody emerged. The chant filled the space of the temple around Pabl until he lost focus of everything except the Elders and the Alqarat. Gvint plunged his hands into the molten tip, scooping out a palm-full of the liferock, whispering under his breath. Pabl felt a palpable rush of magical energy flow around him.

Gvint shaped and stretched the lava, lengthened and rolled it into a conduit. Bintr attached at one end to Pabl’s bloody chest, and Gvint put the other into the tip of the Alqarat. His blood mixed with the core of the rock, and Pabl felt his grasp on the here and now dissipate in a wash of fire and pain. A mosaic of red flares filled his vision as the lava seeped into his veins, burning his insides, searing his flesh.

He tried to cry out from the agony, but time slowed down, the single moment stretching longer and longer. His scream never came.

Memories flashed into his mind, vivid and tangible. Real.

He emerged from the rock, famished and thirsty, guzzling water from the riflev while his brothers gathered around him.

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his flesh outside the merge. This didn’t feel like Dreaming at all.

The smell of ozone and singeing fabric hit him as he flashed into another memory . . . After months of searching, he found the hidden library of Yon Fuiras destroyed. All that history and magic lore, carelessly burned. The memory hit him now as though he was discovering it for the first time.

The chanting continued in the temple. Pabl’s flesh burned with lava now, the pain had become unbearable. The connection between him and the Alqarat shortened, drawing him closer to the spur of rock. His heart pumped blood through the connection to bubble and burn over the glowing tip. The liferock forced molten stone through his arteries. And all the while, Gvint’s harsh whisper maintained the power of the Fire Bath.

The flow of memories increased. He re-experienced his journey to Kratas and the first meeting of Celagri. He relived his merging with Ohin Yeenar, his journey to the Valley of the Elders.

All these memories pulsed through him in a brief moment.

He relived everything up to the present until he and the Alqarat merged into one. He thought he would lose himself to the rock as happened each time during the Dreaming. But he did not.

Finally, the searing pain dissipated, replaced by a keen warmth. Floating in a wash of heat and red, Pabl saw a part of the incomprehensibly huge pattern of Ganwetrammus stretching down into the rock. He saw himself in that pattern, part of it, shaping it.

From that pattern, his name took shape. He felt the name rather than heard it. In the language of his people, his name was Erthastrion Therr Hom — restorer of nature, student of the universal pattern and friend to other races.

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him as they merged through the floor of the temple. He sensed Gvint first, then Bintr, soon followed by Ywerk, then down the line from eldest to youngest until Chaiel had merged. Pabl could feel the chanting through the merge. When the new pattern of Ganwetrammus was stable, they withdrew from the liferock.

Pabl was held in the rock until the last of his brethren emerged. Then his body grew from the Alqarat. His skin had become dark from exposure to the fire, but it was smooth and supple. His muscles ached, but his flesh felt stronger, harder.

Gvint had placed a horkla atop the Alqarat, and it now covered Pabl’s head.

“This horkla belonged to Yonik Bne, our last Elder, and to Garen Dne before him, and to Hodda Zin of the first order. It is woven of metal and fiber, magic and hemp. Wear it with rever-ence and pride, and it will last your entire life.

“Ganwetrammus has experienced your Awakening and has Named you accordingly. This name is between you and Ganwetrammus. It is both a description of what you are and a prediction of what you will become.”

Gvint paused for a moment before continuing. “The ceremony has ended,” he said. “Now the celebration begins.”

As the brotherhood filed outside, Pabl joined Jan and Celagri. “I am glad you two were here for this,” he said. “It means a great deal to me.”

Jan stood slowly, trying to remain steady on his legs. “I’m amazed,” he said. “Honored and amazed.” He reached out to touch Pabl’s skin. “Aren’t you hurt?”

“No.”

“The magic protected you?”

“I felt pain if that’s what you mean, but the ritual did prevent my flesh from burning to ash.”

Celagri merely shook her head. “And I thought some of our rites were vicious.”

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“What do we call you now?” Jan asked.

“To you, I am still Pabl Evr. Almost never does the liferock change who we are by the Naming. I have gained an obsidiman name which makes me a complete part of the brotherhood, an equal adult. Outside the Dreaming, not much will change. Even my brothers will continue to call me Pabl.”

Pabl escorted them through the curtains and into the night. Clear sky, studded with stars. The moon shone a quarter crescent in the southwest. Pabl stopped in the entryway, noticing that the engravings had changed. His entire Awakening had been etched into the rock. Fine lines of script and petroglyphs told of his travels and discoveries.

Bintr and Gvint, helped by two others, brought out the food while Hagnit lit the bonfire in the flat space next to the temple. A cauldron of leek soup was set next to the fire, and loaves and loaves of sweet wheat bread were stacked adjacent, along with several huge caskets of beer.

There was Fael — a sweet dessert made from mangos, bananas and dates. Plus one of Pabl’s favorites, a nut loaf sea-soned with mushrooms and garlic. The food kept coming as he grabbed some bread and filled it with soup. Jan and Celagri followed his example.

Music started, drums and chanting, and soon many brothers joined together in dance. The obsidimen removed their ceremonial robes and painted their skin with colored chalk paste — just like they had before the attack on the miners. This time, however, the paints they used were the colors of nature: green and brown, the clear blue of water and the yellow of lichens.

The body chalk caught the light of the bonfire, making them look like an undulating mosaic as they danced — a single entity of swirling color and changing patterns. Their movements started out graceful and slow, but grew faster and more agile as the drums increased the tempo. It was not a This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com) Liferock 

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magical dance, but a dance of thanks and celebration.

Later, as the night wore on and hungers abated, Hagnit performed the Legend of the First Naming. And afterwards, Pabl said goodnight to Jan and Celagri, who would sleep in the temple.

When the newest member of the Garen Brotherhood merged for the evening, outside under a scintillating midnight blue sky, he felt stronger than he ever had, more complete and happier than he could remember.

The gentle, cradling weightlessness of the liferock enveloped him. Come Erthastrion Therr Hom. Join us.

He began the fall and lost sight of the world.

This Book Belongs to: Andrew Tobin (black _ scarab@mindspring.com)  Acknowledgements 

Greg Gorden and Christopher Kubasik must be praised for creating an inventive and complex fantasy world. Lou Prosperi did a superb job of developing Earthdawn, and he helped shape the plot of Liferock from the very early stages.

Credit should also go to my first reader, Seana Davidson, and to my final readers, Marsh Cassady, Jonathan Bond, Tom Lindell, and Karawynn Long. I also need to thank Don Gerrard for guiding me through the process of getting the publishing rights back from FASA Corporation so that the book could finally see print. Thanks to the editor and publisher at FASA, Donna Ippolito and Mort Weisman, for agreeing to let me publish the book with the Earthdawn elements intact.

And finally my enthusiastic appreciation goes to Crystal Larson for donating her time and artistic talents and (again) to Karawynn at Per Aspera Press for her donation of publishing and design expertise in making the physical book a reality.

Thanks one and all. I couldn’t have done it without you.

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Jak Koke is the author of five fantasy novels, including the Locus number one bestsellers Stranger Souls and Beyond the Pale.

He works both as a research scientist at the University of Washington and as a freelance editor and writing coach.

Jak lives in Seattle with his partner and two daughters, and keeps a web site at www.jakkoke.com.