Song Of The Aura: Grym Prophet Part 3

Gribly took a chunk of bread, then lay in his roll munching it. Elia began fiddling with some of the tinder from the tinderbox they had been too cautious to use until now.

"Careful, mmfh," he told her through a mouthful of bread, "We don't wanth to use it all up, (gulp)a in one sitting."

"I'm trying something," she whispered without looking at him, entirely concentrated on the pile of wood-shavings. The tone in her voice made Gribly perk up.

"Trying something? You mean striding fire, don't you?" It was a wonder the matter hadn't come up sooner, he realized. Elia had mysteriously been able to manipulate fire during their trio's first encounter with the draik they had called Steamclaw, a monster who had demonstrated the ability of speech, given Gribly vital help in defeating the Sea Demon, and finally disappeared without a trace after the battle.

"Yes," she kept her eyes on the tinder, closing and opening them time and again without any effect.

"Don't squeeze those fists too hard," Gribly cautioned, "Or you're going to puncture your palms." It was only half a joke- she really was clenching her hands, and her whole body was tensed with frustration. He sat up, sleep forgotten, and watched her. "Wait, Elia, stop. You won't be able to do any good that way."

She did. "Ugh. What do you think's wrong? It was easy enough beforea"

"Well, you had fire to work with already, then. Why don't we see if you can Stride it when it's already there?"

"I thought you didn't want to waste anything?"

The thief just shrugged, crawled out of his bedroll, and struck flint to metal, causing a few sparks to leap into the mess of tinder, igniting a small, steady flame that grew until it had devoured the entire pile. "Now's the time to try, before it all burns up."

Elia held her hands close to the flames, as if to warn them. As she closed her eyes and relaxed her facial expression, Gribly could almost feel her reaching out into the void for that place that allowed her to Stride Watera and Fire, too, if the one time had not been a fluke. If she could do thisa he s.h.i.+vered, thinking how unheard of it was, not just to Stride Fire, but to have the power over two such opposite elements.

For the first few seconds, nothing happened, and his thoughts drifted. Elia had told him of her conversation with Karmidigan during the battle with the Sea Demon, when she had joined forces with his Frost Striders to conjure an impressive thunderstorm to strike at the menacing foe. The master Frost Strider had explained a little of the history of Striders to her then, and more afterwards. In the distant past, there had been individuals who boasted power over multiple aspects of the world, though nothing quite like this.

Fire? It was unheard of. The only person Gribly had ever witnessed Striding Fire in some way wasa was the Pit Strider.

His eyes snapped open before he realized they had even closed. For half a second he had seen the Pit Strider's face again, the face that mirrored his own.

The sorcerer had been burning people alivea and he had been laughing as he did it.

Elia's eyes slid slowly open, and immediately her gaze was drawn to her hands, now cupped together above the dying embers of the tinder-fire.

A tiny, writhing ball of flame, less than an inch across, was cradled in her hands.

Gribly stared slack-jawed at her, then seemed to come to his senses. "That'sa incredible," he whispered. The night was now quite dark around them. "It's unheard-ofa You could be the most powerful Strider in the world!"

"Shhh," she whispered, bringing her hands up closer to her face. The fireball was like a tiny burning lantern in her mind, a focused brightness in the farthest, blackest corner of her consciousness. Its feel was entirely different from that of Waves, or of the Storm she had controlled with Karmidigan's help. Her mental focus was taken up entirely with that little ball of flame; with its heat, its light, its proportions and consistencya With a curious, hungry gaze, she examined it in that place within herself that always felt connected to the sea, no matter where she was or what she was doing; the window looking out from her soul into the vastness of the Eternal Waves that const.i.tuted the source of her powera aThe tiny ball of flame, viewed through the transparency of the water, became a blazing sun that ripped through her soul's window and shattered ita "aELIA!" shrieked Gribly, leaping backwards with all the agility of a street thief and Striding adept. It was lucky for him that he did: the blaze Elia had unconsciously conjured from her little ball of flame engulfed the s.p.a.ce where he'd been crouching only a moment before, blazing hotly for a millisecond before winking out of existence as if it had never been.

"Sea and Sky!" Elia gasped, stunned at what she had done. Her immediate reaction had been to cut off the flow of power, which had probably saved her life. The heat from the blast lingered for only a second or two before dissipating. In a second stroke of luck, none of the supplies or bedrolls had been burned, and Gribly looked only a little singed.

"Whata in Vasta was that?" he stammered, approaching cautiously in the shadows as if he expected her to let loose with another blast at any moment.

"I justa looked at it, Grib," she responded numbly, stumbling over his name in her shock. Grib. It sounded like a child's nick-name. Perhaps she would call him that now.

Focus, Elia, she told herself. Focus.

"Well, don't look at it again while I'm around. I don't want to see it." That was so like him, she thought. Always joking. She didn't feel much like joking herself, right now. She felt like sleeping, and never waking up.

She had just Strode Fire. She was different. She was powerful.

She wanted to cry.

"I think I'll just go to bed now," she said blandly, flopping back on her bedroll and instantly regretting it. The pebbles stuck in her back. Stupid quest.

"Aha good idea," Gribly said, equally as blandly. She heard the m.u.f.fled sounds of her friend as he crawled back into his own roll. Her fire-blinded eyes closed against the enclosing shadow, and soon she was asleep.

Gribly's dreams were convoluted and filled with the twisted face of his mysterious look-alike.

Gramling. The draik had called him Gramling.

"Like what you see?" the Pit Strider grinned, and his teeth were b.l.o.o.d.y. His hands tapered into black, bloodstained claws as he slashed and clutched at a villager's body until it fell limply away. A small, friendly-looking hamlet burned like Blazes behind him, and smoke billowed from every window.

Gribly tried to open his mouth- to curse, to weep, to do or say anything to stop the horrific ma.s.sacre, but no words would come out. His arms felt like lead and his legs seemed to crumble to dust beneath him.

"So astute, prophet," sneered the Pit Strider, and struck Gribly in the face. He reeled back under the insult and the blow, and his back felt like it was snapping in two. Blood ran in his eyes, and a horrendous black shape loomed through the murderous haze. "Finish him, Bonedale," ordered the sorcerer, "We can't have him eavesdropping on us while he's asleep, can we?" The demon-horse that appeared by Gribly's head reared up, neighing in triumph.

Then its hooves crashed down on his head.

Chapter Five: Grim Laughter.

Mythigrad in ruins. The Suthway Cath wrecked on the city's sh.o.r.es, two of her enemy vessels in pieces beneath her. A second s.h.i.+p sunk, a second crew dead, a second battle lost.

But Captain Bernarl was a Zain, and Zain were hard to kill. His coat was in tatters, his body bruised and bloodied, his hair burnt and one of his eyes put out by an explosion that had torn a hole in the Suthway's side. Stumbling away from the half-submerged wreckage of his s.h.i.+p, the nymph captain and part-time pirate still clutched his precious anchor-blade by its chain, letting its heaviest part drag in the snowy slush behind him. There was blood on the blade.

Hard to kill indeed.

Gazing listlessly around him, Berne took in the situation with a practiced eye. The mysterious enemies were inside Mythigrad now. He could see the fires of destruction raging throughout the city, and knew that his duty lay in making a last stand with the Reethe.

Another explosion threw him to his knees, and he sprung up again, cursing. The s.h.i.+ps!

The s.h.i.+ps. He turned and looked at them with a predator's eye. Was he a good enough pirate to take an entire s.h.i.+p captive on his own? It would give the Reethe a fighting chance, if they had one of those s.h.i.+ps...

"Captain... what in the Blazes is happening? Where did these s.h.i.+ps come from??" It was Yan, the wheel-mate, struggling up from the surf, spewing water and blood as he tried to expel the sea from his body.

"Hard to kill..." muttered Berne under his breath, in the nymphtongue. "We haven't lost yet, Yan," he said aloud.

"But we've lost the Suthway!" Yan lamented, stumbling over. He looked to be in shock, but there was not much else wrong with him.

"Indeed..." Berne mused, as more explosions and screams perforated the blood-hazed air. "But we're not lost yet, Yan. How would you like to be a pirate?"

"Captain? I don't understand..."

"We're going to take those s.h.i.+ps, Yan. We're going to save Mythigrad."

Gribly stared out over the inner world of the Grymclaw, trying his hardest to figure out a way down the cliffs. He had Sand Striding, and, it seemed, Stone Striding on his side; the problem was knowing how to use them. He had thought of warping part of the cliff face into a flight of stairs, lengthening it as he and Elia traveled further down, but he just didn't have the finesse needed.

Then, quite suddenly, the answer came to him.

"Stand back," he told the girl, and she did, looking at him worriedly.

"What's your plan?" she asked hesitantly.

"Just watch... and stand back a little farther."

"I don't like the sounds of that..."

But he was already standing near the cliff's ledge, eyes closed and hands outstretched as if he wanted to grab the huge standalone rock formation that stood a hundred feet out from the edge and stretched up several spans above them.

Of coursea that was exactly what he wanted.

In his mind, Gribly saw the t.i.tanic pinnacle of packed clay and stone as a mere child's toy; a sand-castle he had built with his own hands, that he could manipulate as he pleased. He pictured it as a miniature version of itself, a tower of sand no more than three feet high, such as the one he had built to test his sand-striding powers in the desert. Reaching out in reality and in his mind, he grasped the imaginary tower and held it as firmly as he could.

Then he pulled.

Nothing happened.

He pulled again, and the finest cracks began to show around where his hands gripped the sand. His ears picked up a loud creaking noise, and behind him he heard Elia gasp.

"What're you doing?" she cried, but he ignored her. The small sand-tower was all that existed; it was all that mattered.

He pulled again, and cracks began to split the base.

He pulled for the last time, as hard as he could, and felt the tower begin to tip slowly towards him.

"So... close..." he grunted to himself, eyes still closed. The toll of the enormous strain he was putting on his Striding skills began to weigh him down, and sweat broke out all over his body in protest as his bones groaned from the effort.

With his last vestige of strength, the thief poured his power into the bottom of the tower, willing it to soften into sand for the first time in the eons since it had formed. Then his mental grip on the formation disintegrated and he stumbled backwards, eyes popping open in fright.

A tremendous BOOM shook the air and echoed around the enclosed gra.s.sland within the cliffs, as the towering rock formation came apart at its base and tipped over, falling towards the cliff in slow motion.

Gribly found himself scrambling backwards and out of the way, Elia's fingers wrapped tightly in his vest-shoulder as she forcibly helped him along. The tower was taller than the cliff, and its head looked just high enough to smash the ledge as it toppled. A frantic few seconds were barely enough to escape. The formation hit the cliff with a resounding CRASH that sent both young people sprawling. Dust swirled in an impenetrable cloud and bits of sharp rock pelted their backs and limbs painfully. Two fits of coughing and two crus.h.i.+ng headaches later, they helped each other up.

"That... cough... was the stupidest idea... cough cough... you've ever had! cough" Elia snapped, punching Gribly in the arm, but she couldn't hide the relief in her voice.

The ambitious Sand Strider shook some of the sandy dust out of his s.h.i.+rt and shrugged. "Let's see if it worked." Wordlessly, she followed him to the cliff's edge, where he whistled in wonder. "Will you look at that? Just how I'd hoped it would work..."

It was truly an awesome sight. The rock tower had fallen against the cliff at a slant, taking out two smaller formations with it as it fell, forming a crude ramp hundreds of feet long from the rocky plateau to the gra.s.sy hills below. The dust cloud thrown up by the collision was just beginning to set.

"Now who's powerful?" Elia countered, her voice a little shaky. "I couldn't have done that with water... or fire." Gribly winced- he'd almost forgotten about the disturbing events of the night before.

"Yes, well... it's a good thing we left our packs back at the camp."

"I'll say."

"Let's bring them over here, and I'll test out my handiwork."

"Sounds like a good plan," she agreed, but he could tell she didn't believe her own words.

When they had retrieved the packs and bedrolls, they piled them a few yards from the cliff's edge. Though it was chilly and Elia was still wearing her coat, Gribly kept his off. The Sand Striding- or rather, Stone Striding- had warmed him up more than if he'd run a league wrapped in his blanket.

"Since I'm the one who can change rock, I'd better test it out," he told her, coming cautiously closer to the edge.

"And because it was your idea in the first place," she added.

"That too." As he peered over the edge, she made a frightened sound. "What?"

"I... I just don't think you should try this. There has to be another way down, if we can just find it. Let's search for a day before we do something foolish."

"Look, Elia," he said, straightening up to face her, "We don't have time for that. You don't have time for it, not when you need to bathe your skin every few days to keep your Swimmer Form. And besides, the road we found drops right off the cliff. Something must have caused the land to change and become like this years ago, sinking most of it into the ground..."

"...or causing the edges to rise up into cliffs..."

"...So there's no point, and you know it. I've got to try this." She didn't answer him, just turned away and sulked, just like a girl. Gribly snorted, then turned back to the tumbled rock, muttering under his breath. "I can Stride Stone, for heaven's sake. What's going to happen?"

Cautiously, he sat on the edge of the cliff, swinging his legs back and forth in the open air, trying to convince himself that he was carefree. The top of the rocky pillar was just a few yards down... He looked back over his shoulder, and saw Elia watching him with wide eyes and a frightened expression. She turned away again as soon as she noticed his glance.

Sighing, he blinked twice and let himself slide off the cliff.

Elia shrieked when he did that. He's killed himself! she thought frantically, and her heart almost stopped in her chest as she streaked forward to the edge of the cliff.

"I'm fine, Elia, completely fine..." She peered over and saw the thief standing on the topmost part of the rock formation, totally unhurt. He was laughing, strike him. Laughing! At her!

"Well, you, you... Ah!" she stamped her foot, suddenly angry. He could have died! "You could have died!"

"Yes, but... I didn't, did I? Look, it's perfectly sound, jammed so hard into the cliff! C'mon, pa.s.s the packs down here and I'll see about carrying them down to the bottom."

Clenching and unclenching her fists, Elia considered hurling something at him. But no... that might kill him after all. So she bit down her annoyance and let herself feel relieved at his safety.

"Fine," she said, and turned away to attend to the packs. The next minute found her biting down a new set of fears, as she set about handing the supplies down to her companion. She could only hope that his wild experiment could be traveled upward as well as downward... otherwise this would be a terribly one-way trip.

When he had caught both packs and set them on safe spots in the b.u.mpy, rough stone, Gribly helped her down as best he could. Despite nearly dropping her once, he managed to get her to where he stood without much trouble.

"Thanks," she told him quietly, acutely aware of the small s.p.a.ce they shared among the jutting bits of rock. Nodding politely, he stepped away and began hefting one of the packs.