Reuben Cabot: 11/23-30/97
Loved Ones Lost
A note from the author: Normally, I prefer to write my diaries in sequential order, keeping events straight in my mind. With this diary I make an exception, because I wanted to be sure to get the emotions of the character of Reuben Cabot right. Of all of the diaries I've written, this one was the most difficult. -Tom
After we had chatted with Maufa, we returned to the main chamber. It was an odd place - clearly man-made, with nine different tunnels radiating out from the room. One of them returned to Maufa; one of the others seemed like it was doing everything in its power to remain unobtrusive. According to Eric, even the air molecules didn't go down that tunnel. I looked closer with Prime, and saw that there was a very large Prime pattern going down that tunnel - but it was overlaid with another Prime pattern that canceled it out at every point. Very strange. While Kevin and Kasee inspected the tunnel, I heard a small gasp from Cab.
"Guys, back away from the tunnel, slowly."
I turned to see what had startled Cab, and saw that some sort of dancing lights had popped up in the middle of the chamber. Kasee, out of bravery or idiocy (you choose), walked over to the lights and batted at the playfully. I expected her to go up in flames or something, but nothing happened. After looking at the lights carefully, we deduced that they were indicative of some sort of effect taking place. Cab and Walks All Paths decided to check the cave entrance to see if anything nasty was waiting for us. While they did this, I fell to thinking: The lights appeared when Kasee stuck her head into the tunnel, so maybe...
Before I could pursue that line of thought, Kevin, Kasee, Renee, and Eric stepped into the tunnel. Kevin stuck his head back out.
"Outside of the air being a bit stale, it's fine"
He disappeared back into the tunnel. And I mean disappeared - Even though they had a flashlight, I couldn't see it from the main chamber.
*You know, Dog, sometimes I think we're consorting with idiots.*
*Well, could be. Human curiosity is a powerful force, it would appear.*
Dog and I waited nervously for Cab and the garou to return, with me cursing under my breath the whole time. I ran and re-ran all of the possible defensive effects I could think of while watching all of the corners of the room for some unknown beast to jump us. Dog wasn't much help, either - I could feel his apprehension as well.
I heard the crunch of footsteps from the direction of the cave entrance and spun to face Cab and Walks All Paths.
Cab smiled. "Jumpy, are we? Wait a minute - where'd everybody go?"
I sighed. "Down the tunnel. I don't know why they didn't wait."
The garou growled something that I didn't hear, then said, "I guess we'll have to follow them."
The four of us slowly entered the cave. The garou suddenly stopped, throwing his arm out to stop the rest of us, and listened. With a muttered curse, he started running forward. Cab and I looked at each other, shrugged, and followed.
We came upon a nightmarish scene. Two enormous dogs were in the tunnel, one of them on top of Kasee. Oddly, behind the other mages and the dogs, I saw another group of people, which was odd when I realized that the other people were...us. There was some sort of correspondence loop set up in the cave.
The garou stopped to look at the tableau, and growled low in his throat. I heard one snarled word, "Hellhounds." Then he shifted to half-man, half-wolf and growled to Cab, "Seal the gauntlet." Then he jumped the hound that was on Kasee. I checked to see if the hellhounds were living creatures, but they were beings of ephemera.
Cab turned to me and said, "You want my sword?"
I looked at her sword and shuddered. I'd had enough death. "No. No thanks."
She shrugged and set the sword aside, along the wall of the tunnel. "Your choice. Give me a beat, then."
I nodded and pulled my drum from my belt. I had just started a rhythm when I was struck and spun around by something hitting my left shoulder. Through a haze of pain, I realized I had been shot. Renee looked horrified, as she realized her shot had gone astray. I looked beyond her and saw the garou rip the leg off the hound that had had Kasee pinned. The other hound looked at Walks All Paths with smoldering eyes and jumped, vanishing in mid-air.
I heard a shout from Kevin and spun around to see that two more hounds had jumped from nowhere. One had landed on him, the other...the other was on Dog! Dog reared up and locked jaws with the hellhound, and they fell to the ground, locked together. I grabbed for Cab's sword, but the blood on my right hand from trying to staunch my gunshot wound made the grip slippery and I dropped the weapon.
Dog and the hellhound rolled toward me, locked in a vicious embrace. I looked up and saw the prime pattern that ran down the length of the cave and a wild idea hit me. If I envisioned the patterns as if they were electrical currents, and the currents could be disrupted and re-channeled. On the spot, I realized how I would have to rechannel the energy. Had it been anyone other than my familiar, I wouldn't have taken the chance that I did, but this was Dog, the one love I had. I reached out, the pain from my shoulder wound making my eyes water, and grasped the prime pattern. I broke it, as if it were a wire that could be broken in half, and touched each end to the hellhound.
There was a bright blue flash, and the hound was jolted, but didn't lose it's grip on Dog, its claws embedded in his chest. The hound reared back, and I saw in a vague blue glow each claw on its paw, each one glittering evilly. With a snarl it brought its paw down swiftly and tore a hole in Dog's throat. I felt something was torn from me and cried out. "Nooooooooo!"
Dog's body suddenly melted into a pool of silvery liquid, like mercury. The hellhound look very surprised as it was quickly absorbed by the pool, kicking and clawing and snarling. As the pool faded, a whisper brushed across my mind. *This is nineteen, then. Goodbye, Reuben...*
*Dog, no wait. You can't go...*
I'm told that while Dog and the hellhound were fighting, the air above them had sparked and flashed as the prime patterns I'd disrupted began to arc back and forth. I had missed those warning flashes, but couldn't ignore the incredible blast that followed. From the point where the pattern had been broken, blue flame rushed out in a plane, striking everyone and roaring up and down the length of the cave. I saw the flame coming and instinctively channeled it groundwards. If anything, I felt more powerful as I converted the raw prime energy to quintessence.
When the blast cleared, I looked around. Renee, Kasee, Kevin, and Walks All Paths were down. That left Eric, Cab, and me - and the last hellhound. I grabbed for Cab's sword, and as I did, Eric pinned the hellhound against the ceiling. With an insane fury, I swung clumsily at the hound, swinging the sword like a club. "You son of a bitch! Die, you bastard..."
I got in one good shot, but Cab finished it off with a shot to the head with her billy club that crushed its skull. The hound dropped to the ceiling (?!) and burst into flames. I heard another growl and saw another hellhound appear from nowhere. It dodged past me, Cab, and Eric and ran down the tunnel, disappearing from sight. I looked at the bodies around us, and instantly went into triage mode. I knelt beside Renee, knowing she could heal whoever I didn't, and looked at her pattern. She had been badly burned by the prime explosion. I reached in and used some of the quintessence I had picked up in the explosion to bridge some of the gaps in her pattern. I did the same for Kevin and Walks All Paths, and realized that I was sorely hurt myself, although I was out of quintessence. I looked at the flames of the hellhound still burning on the ceiling and realized that that was energy, and where there was energy, there was prime. Looking closer, I saw that, sure enough, there was a prime pattern to the flames, and grabbed it. I used the quintessence to stop the pain of my gunshot wound and heal some of the burns on my hands I'd gained when grasping the patterns.
Over the course of the last hour, I had been wrapped up in the healing of my friends. Now that there was another healer could do that job, the reality of what had just happened suddenly struck me. Dog was dead. He wasn't just gone, he wasn't coming back. I reached out to where he had been in my mind, and as before in the old man's library, there was nothing. This time, though, I didn't even have Dog's physical presence to comfort me. He was gone from this plane.
How can I begin to say how I felt? I leaned against the tunnel wall and slowly sank to the floor. I could feel tears on my face, but I didn't care. Dog was gone, and he wasn't coming back. As if on a looped tape, this is all that ran through my mind, over and over, like a mantra. People talked to me, but I didn't respond. Someone grabbed my hand and pulled me up, and I walked forward, but I didn't see anything in front of me. Instead, I saw Dog lying on my bed in my house in Chapel Hill, a happy grin on his face. Running beside me as I rode my bike to Mr. Forteau's. Watching TV in the chantry in Raleigh. Sitting silently beside me as we watched the night that fateful Halloween. Hiding on the floor of the balloon basket as we left Balthazar's. Smiling up at me from the leaves as we rolled around in the Garden where we had met The First. Snuggling next to me in the peace of the Summer Country. And always, over and over, the look of fear in his eyes as the hellhound made his final slash...
Sleep came and went, but the visions never stopped. I'm told sometime during the night I released some of my accumulated paradox and took on the form of a dog-man, with the head of a golden retriever on a human body. I never noticed. I'm also told I looked up and said, "She is awake," but I don't remember that, either. Someone came and led us back to the garou camp, and when we arrived there, I went off on my own and just sat quietly. I didn't want to talk to anyone.
I sat alone behind one of the tents for a couple of hours, in something of a mental fugue state. When my mind finally cleared, I knew precisely what I had to do. I got up and walked over to the tent that had my few possessions in. It appeared all of the other mages had gone to sleep, and Walks All Paths was nowhere about. Next to my pallet was a notebook and pencil that I had used to sketch ideas for future projects - I had gotten bored in the days spent around the garou camp, and had pressed Raymond to pick these up for me during one of his trips into town.
I tore off one of the sheets and wrote: Gone to find Dog. Back when I can. R.
I put the note on top of my sleeping bag and gathered my drum and my pouch with crystals and such. Taking one last look around, I centered myself, and stepped sideways.
I was in a clearing not unlike the one I had just left behind, but it was eerily quiet. I walked a couple hundred feet away and found a smooth rock to sit on. Closing my eyes, I mentally pictured a beat. The beat transferred itself to my hands, and in turn to the head of the drum in my lap. I was using a basic effect, spirit call, because I couldn't really think of where else to start. It was what I had used when I first met Dog, and seemed to work well enough then.
It didn't work as well now. I drummed for many hours, focusing my will, calling. I looked up, and the moon was high overhead. This was achieving nothing. I let my drumming taper off, and the silence returned.
This was wrong, I thought. This is not how a mage addresses his familiar - this isn't how I address Dog. I set the drum aside and once again cleared my mind. I built a picture of Dog in my mind, and sent out a call. *Dog, in the name of all that I hold dear, in the memory of what we were once, I seek you. Come near, dear one. I beg but a moment.*
I repeated the call several times, and had almost given up when something caught my eye. To my right, a path led from the clearing that hadn't been there before. The path had a faint silver gleam to it that seemed to get stronger in the distance. I got to my feet and stretched, the kinks of hours of sitting in one position catching up with me. I walked over to the path and knelt next to it. Reaching out my hand, I touched the silver glow, and it…it felt right. That was enough to tell me that this was how I would find Dog. I stepped onto the path and started walking.
I walked for a long time. Every time I crested a hill, I could see the path winding before me in the Umbra. Still, I wasn't discouraged, because I knew this was probably the only way I would ever find Dog. I walked for one day, then another, taking a break every so often to survey the landscape around me. As I walked deeper into the Umbra, things got a little stranger as reality became a little less fixed. The sky tended to change colors at random, for example, and occasionally I could see some point before the horizon where reality just…stopped, and a grayish haze picked up. Fortunately, the path stayed away from those boundaries.
After two days of walking, the path finally came to an end at a cave. Seeing no other route, I shrugged and entered. The cave was lit by some sort of inner glow that extended up from within. As I walked deeper into the sloping tunnel, I noticed that there were crude drawings on the walls. As I studies them closer, I smiled. First, there was a stick figure of a man and large dog. Next, the dog and man were sitting in front of a box, evidently watching it. Other scenes followed: the dog and man next to a huge tree inside of a ring of fire, two dogs sitting on a bed (I smiled at this memory), and the dog and man sitting closely while a large wormlike monster is attacked in the background.
I continued sown the tunnel, and came to an empty chamber. Well, almost empty. It was roughly circular, with rough-hewn walls. The only thing in the room was a fur rug in the center of the room. I looked closer, and realized with a grin that it was a hellhound skin.
"Dog? Are you here?"
Silence.
I looked closely at the walls, but there was no evidence of any way out other than the one I had entered through. I poked at the rug, and heard an odd thumping noise. Lifting the rug, I saw that there was a wooden trapdoor set in the floor beneath it. I lifted the door to look into nothingness. Sheer blackness was all that was there; even the amiable glow from the room didn't penetrate the darkness.
I started to shut the door when I heard an unmistakable sound: Dog sighing. I paused, then opened the door all the way. I looked at the blackness for a moment, then braced myself and stuck my hand in, feeling for a ladder or something. I felt nothing but a penetrating chill. I remembered the ghostly sigh that I heard, and wondered if this might be the only chance to see Dog again. I thought about all that we had been through together and muttered, "For you, Dog" and plunged through the hole headfirst.
And suddenly I wasn't going anywhere headfirst. I was in a small room that was uniformly white and devoid of furniture. There was no air. I panicked briefly, then remembered that this wasn't a problem to a life adept and calmed down. Before me on the floor sat Dog, in human form, wearing a red smoking jacket and silk pants.
He looked up at me tiredly and said, "Sorry about the air." He snapped his fingers and air returned. I'm sorry there's no furniture…"
"That's OK, Dog. Seeing you is enough." I sat down on the floor next to him.
He sighed heavily. "I mortgaged so much to survive the last time - my power is low."
I leaned forward. "I'm just glad to know you're all right." I paused, and looked at him. He appeared pale and drawn, but smiled at me wanly. "Dog, will I ever see you again?"
"Yes. In about four of five thousand years."
I rocked back, stunned. I felt a tear run down my cheek. "Oh…" Five thousand years? I took a shuddering breath and looked him in the eye. "I'll be there, Dog. Count on it."
"I know, I remember it." He smiled that sad smile again.
"Dog, I have to ask you…were you happy?"
He smiled, more surely this time. "Yes, I was happy. Even after all we went through, it was worth it. Thank you for coming here, and thank you for trusting me."
I was sobbing now. "I'll always trust you, Dog, and I'll always love you. And in four or five thousand years or whatever - I'll be there. Nothing could keep me away."
He stood. "You have to go now. I've traded so much power to bring my realm closer to you, but I can only do so much…"
I got to my feet. "Dog…" I couldn't think of anything else to say. I hugged him fiercely, never wanting to let go. He hugged me back and kissed me. Stroking my hair, he whispered in my ear, "Goodbye, Reuben."
The walls around us started to fade, and I found myself back in the woods at the cave entrance. The light from the cave was gone, but the silver glow from the path led back to more familiar lands.
I started to turn away, but stopped and took one last look at the cave. "Goodbye, Dog. I'll miss you."
I took a deep breath and set off for home.