Grym Prophet (Song of the Aura, Book Three)

by Downs, Gregory J.

  Squinting through the shadows, Lauro called on the wind to aid him. Immediately he became aware of sensations and currents no normal human or nymph could feel; shifts in the wind that told him everything he needed to know about his surroundings. He could tell distances and dimensions in a second simply by how they felt in the air. His hearing sharpened immensely as the wind carried its whispered tidings to his ears from distances near and far.

  The prince was smug. His powers were progressing at a prodigious rate, pushing the limits of Wind Striding to their maximum capability. He still had a ways to go before he would be able to challenge his father, King Larion, but it was only a matter of time… and not much of it, at this rate.

  At the edge of the pier, which he found to be constructed of the same strange stone-and-ice materials the Reethe used in all their strongest structures, Lauro felt a shift in the wind currents he knew to originate from the vessel he needed: a Wave Chariot. He had seen many of the Reethe use them on short trips between Bergs, and even taken a day to learn the art of piloting one. Though they were usually propelled by wave-striding, he felt confident he could do the same and more in one of the slender, shark-like craft using his own wind-striding techniques. The wooden fins could be moved with air just as well as water, and he could skim across the surface of the Inkwell and be away before anyone realized he was gone.

  Suddenly, an uncomfortable thought occurred to him. They would know he was gone, and it would be his own idiotic fault. As soon as Gribly woke enough to figure out that the sleeping “body” in the opposite bed was a decoy, the hunt would be on!

  “Blast, blast, blast!” the prince muttered under his breath. There was no time to fix his mistake now. He’d have to improvise, and hope these were the only short range vessels the Reethe had.

  Moving stealthily in and out of the boats moored to the long dock, Lauro went to work with his newly acquired cutlass, putting slashes and holes in the pale, luminous blue-white wood of the Wave Chariots. Not too large, of course, but just the right size that would start to sink a boat once it was out on the open sea. Brilliant. Lauro almost chuckled to himself. A bit of piracy worth every jibe he’d ever endured from Gribly, the self-styled “master thief.” At last there was but one Wave Chariot left. Grinning inwardly, Lauro climbed aboard.

  The swell of the water gently rocked the platform beneath his feet. Closing his eyes to the world, the prince opened himself to the flow of energy buried in his mind, and began to wind-stride. In his mind’s eye he saw the currents of air as twisting, writhing, insubstantial shapes in the black mist of reality. Reaching out, he plucked one, grasped it tightly, and willed it to grow stronger. As it obeyed, its light grew brighter and brighter, a throbbing, pulsing blue that lit up his mind’s vision. When it was ready, he cast it at the part of the blackness where he knew the Wave Chariot’s rearmost fins would be.

  The shard of wind caught, then whisked the serpentine fins in a never-ending circle, propelling the vessel forward. Lauro opened his eyes abruptly, and the colors still swam before them. Power. He had it, and loved it. Stretching his hands out to summon more of the wind, he lifted the bolt from the chain-lock that held the Wave Chariot to the dock, then let it fall into the water before it could jerk tight and stop his momentum.

  In a few seconds he had passed out of the dark cave into a slightly lighter one, closed at the end with a solid metal portcullis that was just beginning to rust at the bottom where it dipped into the water.

  With a barely restrained battle-cry, Lauro thrust out both hands towards the crisscrossing bars, wove strands of wind in and out between them, then punched the air above him with all his strength. The wind responded to his Stride, and the portcullis flew upward into the ceiling with a clang!, locking in place once it was there. The clear night sky was just visible at the end of the tunnel beyond.

  No more stops, Lauro thought, satisfied. Nothing can any longer hold me here.

  I am free.

  Chapter Two: Pirates?

  Gribly awoke to someone shaking him by the shoulder as he lay still in bed. It was Elia, and she looked worried. He sat up groggily, rubbing his bleary eyes. It’d been a bad night for sleeping.

  “Ye-ahh!” he exclaimed, trying to greet her and being interrupted by a yawn. When he had it under control, he shook his head to clear it and looked at her again. “What’s wrong? You don’t look very happy this morning. Course’, neither would I if I woke up as early as you do…”

  “Stop chattering on like that,” she snapped. He stopped immediately- this wasn’t like Elia at all- or if it was, it was the part of her he didn’t like. “Look around,” she told him.

  He did.

  “Oh no…” He almost leaped out of bed in his hurried dismay.

  “Oh yes,” Elia countered unhappily, “Lauro’s run off while we were sleeping last night.”

  “How did you know?” Gribly inquired, throwing on a heavy, fur-lined coat that Karmidigan had given him, and fervently wishing that he was wearing more than knickers in front of Elia. As he pulled on sturdy Reethe boots, she answered him.

  “He drugged one of the guards last night and made off with a weapon or two from the armory. Patnel- that’s the guard- woke with a splitting headache this morning and immediately raised the alarm.” The nymph girl was practically pulling him along, out of his room and down the hallway towards the inner sanctum of the Raitharch’s dwellings, where they were both quartered.

  “We’ll need to go after him. How did he escape?” Gribly was trying to piece the shards of his original plan together as quickly as he could while only half-awake.

  “By boat. He took a Reethe Wave Chariot.”

  “Then we’ll take another one and hunt him down!” They passed under an arch and out across a circular courtyard made of polished frostrock. The sun was red over the rooftops of the Sanquegrad, still in the act of rising.

  Elia shook her head in disgust. “Can’t. He’s knocked holes in all the small boats. After his deception with the armory guard, Karmidigan and the Raitharch were on the lookout for a trick like that. Good thing Karmidigan caught it, too, or we’d be stranded out in the ocean in a few hours.

  “Blast!” swore Gribly, punching the air. “He’ll have a lot to answer for when we find him, that over-blown, proud-headed fool!” Elia rolled her eyes at his reaction.

  “Just like a man, ranting on and on without doing anything about it. Besides, I can see why he did it. He seems to think that it’s best for him to do it alone- another piece of male blockheadedness, but understandable.”

  Gribly shut up and quieted down. Deeper and deeper into the Raitharch’s fortress they went, and finally he spoke up again.

  “We could go after him in a larger ship, couldn’t we? I know the Reethe have some- I’ve seen them.”

  Elia tossed her hair over one shoulder in a shimmering, blue-brown mass, sighing regretfully. Gribly swallowed as it brushed him.

  “No, though I’d wondered the same thing,” she said, shaking her head. “The Raitharch isn’t being very cooperative. He says he won’t spare even a single ship from the restoration efforts, not for a miscreant like Lauro.”

  “A princely miscreant,” Gribly added, and Elia laughed in spite of herself, sending odd little shivers up his neck. He tried to clear his head and concentrate on the problem at hand. “That seems unreasonable, don’t you think? I mean, even though Mythigrad was attacked by a Sea Demon…”

  “…which almost tore straight into the Sanquegrad…”

  “… we did save them from it. Shouldn’t we have more, uh… bargaining power?” He bumped into a hurrying Reethe guard, who cursed at him in the nymphtongue before hurrying away. “Sorry,” he mumbled irritably. His mind was distracted in a dozen directions.

  “Well, yes,” Elia responded, “except that we caused the demon to wake in the first place, from the Raitharch’s point of view. It doesn’t matter that we were being chased by your look-alike pit-striding assassin, or that it was really him that w
oke the demon. It’s still our fault, in a way.”

  Gribly snorted. “Why isn’t Karmidigan or Cleric Lithric convincing King Varstis to change his mind?”

  “Oh, you’ve been walking around with your eyes closed and your ears plugged, haven’t you?” Elia answered irritably. “They have been. It’s just not enough- and who can blame the Raitharch, anyway? Varstis just lost most of his city… most of his people’s livelihood, even if most of them escaped the attack unharmed.”

  They were at the great double doors leading to the Raitharch’s throne room, at the farthest end of the Sanquegrad. Two masked Reethe guards stood motionless on either side, with round shields and curved spear-like weapons of a strange crystal substance in their very capable grip. The sight shocked Gribly back into reality a little. His rest was over now, just as Traveller had said in his dream. He was in the middle of an impending war, even if there were no clear sides yet. And the Pit Strider that had the same face as he did was still out there somewhere, alive and probably ready to take revenge.

  “Elia, wait,” he called after her as she strode towards the doors. She stopped and turned on him impatiently.

  “What is it? We need to talk to Raitharch Varstis ourselves, before we lose all our favor. We need to make amends.”

  “Not yet,” Gribly said quickly, stepping close to her and taking her shoulders. “First I need to make amends with you.” She stared at him, incredulous, and he continued. “For being so blind, and for acting as if I was the only one who mattered. I know I’ve been slipping back into my old attitudes these past days, and I’m sorry. I’ve let you carry the burden of this quest, when it should be me taking charge instead. I’ve… I’ve forgotten what you must be feeling still, even now… about your family… and…” his words slowed down, and Elia interrupted him before he could finish. Her family had died at the claws of bloodthirsty draiks, mere weeks ago.

  “I understand.” Her voice was quieter than it had been, and her words were softer. She shrugged his hands off, but she wasn’t frowning any more. “It’s been hard on all of us, Gribly, and this was the only time we’ve had to rest. It’s been pleasant, I’ll admit…” her eyes sparkled, and Gribly remembered their dance on the cliffs above the city, the day after he’d stopped the Sea Demon from destroying it. “But when your family cries out to you every night from beyond this life, cries out for someone to remember them… I’ll never forget, and I won’t rest until they rest in peace.”

  Gribly just nodded, dumbfounded. “How will you do that? How will you help them?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered, and suddenly her eyes were full of tears, “I don’t know… maybe you should show me how, prophet.”

  The Sand Strider and thief cringed at his newest title, the one everyone seemed to know him by, even though he had little idea of its meaning. “I’ll try, Elia… anything I can do… I’ll do it…”

  “I know you will,” she smiled, and embraced him timidly before turning back to go to the doors. Gribly followed her, his heart in a knot of emotion, but they were both caught off guard when a muffled boom sounded, and the doors to the throne room swung open on their own.

  Elia jumped back almost into his arms, and Gribly made a face at the four door-guards. They seemed just as surprised as him, however, hurrying to get out of the way before the doors struck them.

  Varstis, Snow King of the Reethe, Raitharch of Mythigrad and Keeper of the Sanquegrad, strode out from his chamber, thrusting the doors out of his way. His face was a mix of expectancy and apprehension, his garb of the finest white fur and silver studding. Every ounce of him screamed RULER to the realms of Nymph and Man… a far cry from the pale, sickly wraith he had been only a week before, when Gribly and Elia had healed him of an ensorcelled blade-wound given by the Pit Strider who stalked their every move.

  The broad-shouldered, capable nymph lord stopped abruptly when he saw the two young people. His white-frosted hair was slicked back from his head and hung to his shoulders in dark brown locks, mirroring the color of the sideburns that seemed common among the bulkier Reethe.

  “Prophet Gribly… and Lady Elia, what a pleasure it is to see you!” he exclaimed, stomping over in his thick white boots and cloak, taking them both by the shoulders in his inescapable grip. “You’re just the ones I wanted to see. I had already sent servants for you, in fact…” Gribly raised a questioning eyebrow, not in the least intimidated enough to hide his displeasure with their recent treatment. “No, no, you misunderstand me,” the Raitharch chuckled. “Any soreness in our friendship should be fully abated, shortly… my lookouts may have missed your escaping… er, friend last night, but they’ve just spotted what may be the answer to both out troubles.”

  “What?” said Gribly and Elia at the same time.

  “Come this way,” the nymph king motioned, setting off at a remarkable pace for one still recovering from a near-fatal dagger wound. His aides and guards were rushing to keep up with him as they raced out from the throne room in pairs and threesomes. “I want you to be with me, young Striders, when I greet our nymph cousins from the South!”

  “Impossible,” breathed Gribly, gaping as he tried to keep pace with the Raitharch.

  “The Zain!” Elia cried, surprised and ecstatic. “The Zain must be coming!”

  ~

  The Reethe city of Mythigrad sat on the edge of a miniature bay carved by nature into the massive iceberg that the ancient Frost Striders had rooted to the Inkwell’s seafloor in eons past. The Zain warship the lookouts had spotted from afar was soon anchored just beyond the bay’s mouth, and a large rowboat was inbound, heading for the wide, flat area of shoreline at the city’s edge, where the Raitharch and his retinue of soldiers and Frost Striders waited.

  It was an impressive display of power, even though a good portion of the Reethe warriors had perished in the battle with the Sea Demon. As the Zain rowboat neared the shore, Gribly realized it was probably more than that. The Reethe were the largest tribe of water-nymphs in the Inkwell, and the need for a dominant stance even after such a cataclysm was politically essential. Soon, though, all such complicated thoughts were driven from the young prophet’s mind as the faces of the nymphs in the rowboat grew clearer and more distinguishable.

  “Elia,” he whispered, leaning closer to her to get her attention, “Do you suppose that sailor in the bow of the boat looks familiar?” his pulse was beating faster as he spoke, from the unexpected shock that he felt building in his veins. The girl beside him squinted, carefully scrutinizing the nymphs in the vessel. Suddenly she gasped and lurched backwards.

  “It’s… it’s Captain Berne, from the Mirrorwave! It is him! He’s alive!”

  Her last sentence was a near-shout, loud enough for the nymph sailor to hear. As his boat bumped ashore and a line was thrown to the Reethe to secure, Captain Bernarl of the Zain leaped ashore in a flapping tangle of his blue coat, bowing low and sweeping his indigo-feathered cap off his head with a flourish.

  “By th’Aura!” Captain Berne swore happily, straightening and starting forward across the open space, hand offered outward, “I’d thought you two were the dead ‘uns, I did. Never ‘ad any ’ope, not after that Ice Demon jumped us amidst th‘Bergs. Phew! Look at y’both, keepin’ the company o’ royalty an’ all… I’d a’ never thought it!”

  Gribly took the nymph’s hand and shook it heartily. “I never thought I’d be so happy to hear that salty accent again, Cap’n Berne! Never thought it, indeed!”

  “M’lady,” Berne said, bowing before Elia when it was her turn to greet him. The Wave Strider curtsied, smiling, and then- only then- did the Captain turn to address the Raitharch.

  “Arch fre Scorr, holdmarzi perlei Suthway!” Berne saluted Varstis, kneeling in the snow and bowing his head. “Plandreo per al’wance… Prassad lei Mythigrad.”

  Silence fell. Captain Berne’s men were kneeling behind him. He did not look up. The Raitharch stared at his bowed form for a full minute before replying.

  “
Isse.”

  Gribly felt Elia relax at his side. If she understood what they were saying, then things were probably going to be alright. He exhaled deeply, realizing he’d been holding his breath, and stretched his cramped shoulders. How did soldiers stand in line so long without complaining? He knew he’d never be able to do the same.

  Abruptly, Captain Berne rose, stepped towards the Raitharch, and embraced him like a brother. “Varstis, you scoundrel,” he roared triumphantly in the common tongue, “I didn’t recognize you under all those frills! Look at you, King o’ the Reethe! I never would’ve guessed! How goes yer life, Mate?”

  Everyone, Reethe and Zain all, were taken aback. Cleric Lithric hiccupped in surprise from his spot behind the Raitharch as the two nymph men almost collided with him in a friendly wrestling match. Gribly gaped in wonder, and noticed Elia’s shocked expression as he did. She didn’t hear that coming, did she?