Winter Warrior (Song of the Aura, Book Two)

by Gregory J. Downs

  The prophet looked up through his streaming tears. Nothing had fallen to his knees, and was covering his face. Flames licked between his fingers where his eyes were covered. Over him stood a thin man in a tattered gray coat, holding a knotted wooden staff. His free hand was reaching down in kindness, ready to grasp the prophet’s and pull him up. He was a traveler. The traveler.

  -Traveller? Is it you?

  “It is I. Get up, Gribly. Your suffering has been heard. Speak now with your true voice.”

  Gribly. That was his name, the prophet realized. He was Gribly. He was a boy. He was a prophet.

  Gribly took Traveller’s hand, and the Aura pulled him to his feet. Behind him, Nothing gave a hideous wail.

  “Traveller. It’s you! I mean… you came! You’re here! In the… the…”

  “The Nothing. The graveyard of the spirit. The only place where Nothing is stronger than Something. Not anymore. See?” Traveller gently moved Gribly to the side, and stepped forward to face the groveling Nothing. The Demon who had seemed so strong.

  CURSE YOU, SPOKEN-NAME! CURSE YOU AND ALL YOUR KIND! I KNOW WHO YOU ARE! I KNOW THE ONE YOU SERVE! I KNOW YOUR NAME! I KNOW YOU- But Traveller cut off the Demon’s ranting with a quick rapping of his staff on the ground.

  “Enough,” he said, and the wraith-like enemy spasmed once, then lay still. “Begone,” he ordered, and the Demon threw itself into the air, screaming horrible curses and blasphemies and breaking into a thousand sparks of bloody flame that winked out one by one until the screams could no longer be heard…

  …Smoke billowed, curled, and disappeared. When it had gone, the body remained, spread on the ground in a swathe of dark cloth. The light had gone out of the youth’s eyes, which stared blankly up at the sky, sightless and clouded.

  “It is a hard fate that one so young should fall so easily into Pride, and thereby Evil,” Traveller mused. “Yet he is in your power now, Gribly. Will you leave him alive, and give him the chance for redemption he does not deserve? Or will you put an end to him? He is indeed the one who has been stalking your steps since you left your city.”

  Gribly stared hard at the body lying in the dust of the stony ruins. In another time, in another life he might have done away with the Pit Strider- for that was certainly who it was. But now he was not so sure. For one thing, killing the youth now would not help his quest for his past at all. For another, he had called upon the Aura and they had answered. This merciless killing would defile that honor, and he would be heartless to carry it out.

  “No,” he whispered, with a curious effort. The words were harder to say than he’d expected. “No. I will not end him. I am not such a prophet as to tell his destiny. Who am I to say whether he should live or die? Are there any worthy enough to condemn their enemies? I do not know.” The words sounded sad and weary to him, even as he spoke them.

  Traveller took him by the shoulders and stared deep into his eyes. The Aura’s eyes were indescribably beautiful, but frightening, too. It was like looking through a window out into the dreadful Beyond, and seeing empty space filled with the light and knowledge of uncountable years. Yet beyond even that, there was a glow that seemed to come from Nowhere and Everywhere at once, giving hints of a Power even greater than the Aura themselves. Greater than Traveller. Greater than anyone.

  “No, Gribly, there are none worthy enough, save the One who sits Enthroned Above. You have chosen wisely.” Finally the terrible, wonderful eyes looked away, and the hands left Gribly’s shoulders.

  Traveller turned away, moving forward and kneeling at the head of the Pit Strider’s prone form. Touching the tip of his staff to the youth’s forehead, he whispered words too soft for Gribly to hear, and small white wings fluttered out at the head of wood.

  The Pit Strider looked younger than he had at any of their previous encounters. So young, Gribly imagined that placed together by a mirror, they would never know the difference in their own faces. It moved him, but it disturbed him as well. He looked away, and when he found the strength to look again, the body was gone and Traveller was coming towards him.

  “Nothing is banished, and so will cease to exist. Take care that it finds no hold in your own mind, Gribly. It will seize you and grow until it is stronger than your own will. Stay strong yourself, so that it will never have that chance. Seek the truth, Gribly, and you will never stray. Peace be with you always,” he ended, and turned to walk away.

  “Wait!” Gribly called out. “How do I get out of here? And where are you going? And why am I the prophet? I don’t even know what that means!”

  Traveller had somehow gotten to the edge of the ruins in less than four strides. His name, apparently, was not given idly. He smiled as if contemplating some hidden joke.

  “As for leaving, did I not already tell you? Nothing no longer exists! As for where I am going… well, you will follow me, shortly enough. The path your feet are on will take you many places, Gribly Gramson. If you take care, you will learn all you wish to know… perhaps even more. Goodbye!”

  And with that, he was gone.

  “But… but…” Gribly stammered, his head whirling with more questions than he had had in the beginning.

  No, it was no illusion, his head really was spinning. Or was it that he was standing still, while the whole wasteland of Nothing whirled around him?

  He sat down, hard. It hurt. His head was throbbing.

  Wind blew in his face, and Nothing really, truly vanished.

  ~

  In his mind, he was wading through dead, wet ash as deep as his waist. His feet stumbled, and he almost tumbled in, but the great beast at his side kept him upright with a nudge of its foreleg. Noises throbbed in the back of his head, and sights bombarded his blinking eyes like too much sunlight after a rainy morning.

  No, no, it wasn’t just in his mind it was real. It was all real. There was sunlight, but not too much. It had come through the clouds at last, thank the One! Yes, he knew that now. He knew Whose side he fought on. He knew his name was Gribly, and that the beast at his side was Steamclaw, enigmatic and dangerous, but ultimately his ally. Not a friend, but close enough.

  “Gribly! Gribly!” a girl was calling him in a high, sweet voice. She skated across the top of the mess as if it didn’t exist, coming towards him with her arms outstretched, a heartwarming smile on her face. It warmed him, all right. Elia. That was her name. The nymph with power over the waves, who had saved his life. Now he had returned the favor, in a way.

  “Elia…” he mumbled, but his mouth wouldn’t work right and his words felt weak and lisping. He stumbled forward, but this time Steamclaw didn’t catch him. Elia did. She hugged him and pulled him up straight, speaking to him in a soft voice and acting for all the world as if she never wanted to let him go.

  “You did it, Gribly. You’re a hero, after all! I knew it was you… I knew you could. I knew it, I knew it, I…” her voice trailed off. Too bad. He had enjoyed it. She stepped back, embarrassed, and glanced over her shoulder. A frown replaced her smile, and his heart almost broke wishing it would come back. Why was he feeling this? What was wrong with him?

  More than anything, that frown brought him back to reality. His mind was still fuzzy, but he knew it now and stood straighter to hide his confusion. A boy, older than him, was flying towards the two of them with a sharp, hafted weapon in his hands. He landed with an unpleasant squelch in the sopping ash, and glared a bit at Elia. Then he turned, and flashed a confidant half-grin at Gribly.

  “Welcome back to the living, Grib. If Elia’s right, we have a lot to thank you for. I must say I didn’t expect it. A job well done, indeed. You’re quite the warrior now, aren’t you?”

  Lauro- yes, that was his name, Gribly remembered now- extended his hand towards the dazed boy. His smile did not fade, but it seemed colder than Gribly remembered it being before. Less sincere. He did not take the hand.

  “Not a warrior,” Elia shot back, “A hero. They’re not the same.”

  Lauro shrugged as if he
didn’t care about either of them, and turned to greet two nymphs who had waded up to meet them. Karmidigan was the name of the one, Gribly recalled, but he did not know the name of the other. His gaze involuntarily drifted back to Elia, and floated on her features.

  Hero, she mouthed to him, and looked even unhappier than before.

  When Traveller banished the Nothing, I thought my troubles would end, Gribly thought. I suppose I was wrong. They’re really only beginning.

  Chapter Nineteen: We Are Not Easily Destroyed

  For better or worse, the young trio of Striders had saved the Reethe. Gribly was still in a daze as Karmidigan and the old nymph led them out from the ash-pool of the ruined Shrine and down the muck-strewn front stairs. The mess was all that was left of the Sea Demon, apparently. He couldn’t agree or contradict- he still had no memory of his passage out of the Nothing and into the real world. For one thing, no one seemed to have seen Steamclaw, and the draik was nowhere to be found. Eventually he allowed himself to forget about the beast, hoping against hope that it had found a home for its tormented spirit.

  Now, though, he was conflicted. This world felt no more or less real than the Nothing, where he had fought a demon and expelled him. What made it more substantial? Was it, really, at all? More had happened to him in the last few minutes than in all his life, and he felt so drained he thought he’d collapse at any moment. The fight in the spirit-world had felt like an eternity. The path he now walked was only an afterthought.

  In the part of his mind that still clung to consciousness, he vaguely heard Karmidigan recounting the battle. The tale unfolded as the group passed around the side of the Shrine and trod deeper into the clustered huddle of ruined towers and halls that formed the Reethe fortress. The other survivors of the fight straggled behind, organizing themselves and tending to the wounded.

  “It was a sight the like of which has never been seen in our Archdom before,” Karmidigan said solemnly. He repeated the impression often, accompanying it with much head shaking and beard-stroking.

  When the Sea Demon had stopped moving, the Frost Striders had increased their attacks tenfold, but no lasting damage could be caused. The desperately brave nymph warriors had Changed themselves and thrown their frost-armored bodies against it again and again, but there seemed to be nothing they could do. At last Cleric Lithric (the old nymph, Gribly was told at last) had prevailed upon them all to simply stop attacking and wait. The will of the Aura was bent on the Demon, he said, and the battle was out of their hands.

  It had taken, in all, about an hour before anything happened. This confused Gribly, but he was too tired or disturbed to mention it. For all he knew, time in the Nothing meant nothing to time in this world. It was one of the downsides, one of the many downsides to having the power he did. It wasn’t a gift anymore, so much as a burden.

  In any case, there had been no sign of anything changing, and messages had been sent to the Raitharch on his sickbed, explaining in the quickest way possible what was happening. Then, suddenly, the Sea Demon had burst into brilliant blue flames, and melted into ash, dispersing in the air as thick as a blizzard and settling on anything and everything on sight. The clouds had broken at last and rain had come, drenching the field and melting the ash into a kind of foul stew. But it had been worth the price: the city had been saved.

  “I don’t understand,” Lauro was saying when next Gribly roused himself enough to listen. “We saw almost no one on our way through the city, and it looked as if the Demon had wrecked, well, almost all of it. It had even stepped out onto the ground, if those footprints were anything to go by. That must have been terrifying. How many people died in the first attack?”

  “Not as many as you may guess,” was Karmidigan’s response. “But then, the Reethe are not entirely unused to such things. I must confess I have hidden a good deal from you about us, in the interest of secrecy. It was needed, for I did not know if I was able to trust you or not. But of course Cleric Lithric’s words, not to mention your own actions, have since convinced me of your valiance and worthiness.”

  “Wait a moment,” Elia interrupted, “What do you mean by that? What haven’t you told us?”

  “Not told,” said the old nymph, speaking for the first time Gribly had heard. His voice was weak and unsteady, but it held a hidden weight that drew the listener to its words. “Not told,” he repeated, “Shown.”

  As the conversation had progressed, the party had passed into a shadowy ruin. Now they entered a dark tunnel, high and wide enough for a herd of cattle three stories high. The cleric’s voice rumbled curiously in the dark, open space.

  Gribly uttered a startled exclamation.

  “The light will reveal all. Patience,” Cleric Lithric announced.

  ~

  Without warning, the night of the tunnel changed into bright, beautiful day. Gribly started and blinked furiously, rubbing his eyes. He heard gasps from his friends beside him, and when his vision returned, his own were added to the chorus.

  There was another fortress, carved from the iceberg itself in high halls of white and blue, with marble cores and whitewood doors that peeped out here and there like gems in a nobleman’s coat. It was simpler than the city outside, but it held a rugged beauty of its own. Sunlight glinted off the rounded rooftops and sleek sides of the awe-inspiring structures, pouring over the fortress like a golden cascade tinged with scarlet, setting in the west beyond the crown of the world.

  “Mythigrad, nost hreme, nadt nost sanquegrad,” breathed Cleric Lithric, closing his eyes and breathing deep. His arms raised to the sky and his mouth parted in a contented smile. “Always has this been our place of healing, strength, and refuge. Always it has remained hidden from sight and thought of any who wish to harm it. Never has it failed us before, and never will it… ever.”

  “As I said,” Karmidigan agreed, “The Reethe have not been attacked by such a powerful enemy in many years. But we have kept ourselves wary, watching for just such a tribulation. Even had the Sea Demon broken the frost Striders and all of our Outer City, it may not have found the Sanquegrad. At the first sign of trouble, nearly all of our people removed into the Holy City. Only the large part of our warriors, with the frost Striders, and a select few others too stubborn to flee remained.” The burly warrior turned to Gribly, a glowing look of respect painting his solid features. “You, prophet, have indeed saved our people, and our city as well. We are forever in your debt.”

  The young Strider saw Lauro roll his eyes at the title, but he only nodded and stayed unruffled. It was not for him to say whether or not he was, after all. Until he knew for sure what was going on… it would be better to befriend these people, and not to contradict them. There was an odd tone to the frost Strider’s words, though, and it brought him to a quick assumption which he voiced aloud, trying hard to imitate the aloof kind of speech that came so easily to the wind Strider prince.

  “I thank you, Karmidigan. But… aside from gaining our trust, there is another reason you’ve brought us here, isn’t there? Is there some other thing we can do for you? Something else you would like to show us?”

  The frost Strider’s eyes widened just enough to show his surprise. Ahead, the old nymph cleric chuckled.

  ~

  Varstis, King of the Reethe and Raitharch of the city, lay dying on his bed, side by side with the victims of the first demon attack. It’s a good lord who takes no better treatment than what his people get, Gribly thought. It gave him a favorable impression of Varstis before even meeting the nymph. The only thing that gave away his rank at all was the grizzled nymph guard sleeping at his post by the Raitharch’s bed.

  “My prayers have been answered only in part,” Cleric Lithric told him as they moved along the row of rough beds on which the Reethe casualties lay. The sunlight streamed down in crimson rays through the high, arched windows of the Hall of Healing, where Lithric had taken Gribly alone. His companions had gone to speak with Karmidigan. This, it seemed, was the last request the Reethe had:
they wanted the young prophet to help their king. “Varstis is still among the living,” Lithric explained, “But he grows worse with each passing hour. Ever since the Pit Strider attacked him, he has been losing blood from a wound which we cannot stop or heal.”

  Gribly nodded grimly as they approached the king’s bed. He noticed abstractly that the cleric seemed to refer to Varstis as a friend, rather than a liege-lord. It meant that Lithric had a personal reason for wanting the Raitharch to survive, as well. All the more pressure, then, to do something he had no idea how to do. That, and the stench of death and suffering that assaulted Gribly’s nostrils as he tramped through the Hall of Healing, woke him up better than any food or drink might have. What he wouldn’t give for a full week’s rest, though…

  They arrived at the bed. He felt his throat constrict and his palms sweat at the pitiful condition of the nymph under the coverlet.

  Varstis was a nymph of medium build and height, with a broad chest and wide, capable-looking hands. He must have been a healthy individual before, but now his skin was pasty and pale, his cheeks hollow, and his eyes sunken deep into his skull, shadowed by the pain he had obviously endured, and was still enduring. A lump in his sheets indicated where his side had been wrapped in bandages. Scarlet tainted the white from the wound underneath.