Shadowrun - Novel - 18 - Worlds Without End.pdf

Shadowrun Caroline Spector - Worlds Without End
cat's away (or the monstrous serpents), the mice will
play. And so we did.
Myself, I have always preferred a low profile.
None of the flash that has marked the passage of my
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fellows. The tales that have floated about me were
easily written off as fables. That wasn't by accident,
for I have believed for a long time that our presence
is more a danger than a boon.
Perhaps had I been more vigilant, certain events
of the past wouldn't have come to pass.
I had been traveling to England. Why, I can't remember
now. Although I believe it had something to
do with that collection of stones in Wiltshire. There
were rumors of power there. Tremendous magical
power. It was whispered in the harems and in council
rooms. In market places and among the nomads.
There were always places of power and this was one
of them.
Stupidity.
That's how I came to be there. Had I bit of sense
in my head I would have left them all to die. Hacking
their lungs out, puking up what they'd barely
managed to down a moment before.
Ignorant, superstitious peasants.
I knew there was a reason I'd stayed in the east
for so long. In the east I wasn't looked upon as a
black devil. The color of my skin was hardly commented
upon.
But here among these backwards Englishmen with
their pasty skin and bad teeth I was something to be
feared, hated, and possibly killed. And the place
they'd put me in might well do that.
It was called the Tower, but, of course, it wasn't.
More like several castles and towers collected together.
Not that I'd had much of a chance to see any
of it. I'd been brought here in the middle of the
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night and hadn't seen much of the light of day since.
Sometimes I wondered if anyone even remembered
I was there.
Once a day a jailer slid a plate of bread and porridge
through the grate. I could hear him muttering
catechisms under his breath. It would do him little
good and likely lose him his head, given the political
mood. But don't we all fall back upon the icons
from our youth? The stories we recite to keep the
monsters at bay.
And that was how I knew I must appear. Oh, I'd
lost the pointed ears, thank goodness. The more obvious
signs of my elven condition were muted now.
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