Grym Prophet (Song of the Aura, Book Three)

by Downs, Gregory J.

  The lively noises and sights all around Gribly seemed to freeze in place, or melt away on a river of lesser thoughts that soon disappeared.

  Two strangers. Lauro and the Pit Strider. It had to be.

  Leafly waited eagerly near him, obviously wanting to know how his narrative was being received, a quizzical smile on his face.

  “What kind of outsiders?” Gribly asked nervously. Despite the flow of food and drink he had inhaled, his mouth was dry with anticipation.

  “Well,” thought Leafly, rocking on his stool and thinking hard. “I didn't see the one. Ol' Beth- er, Master Bwether, I mean, he was the one who saw the dark-cloaked fellow with the bone coins... Gave him the shivers, but we can't be the judges in this inn... no...”

  “Out with it!” Gribly burst suddenly, unable to contain his excitement any more.

  “Oh!” exclaimed Leafly, looking apologetic. “I'm sorry, sir... Got carried away there, didn't I? What I meant to say, about the other one, the one I served only yesterday, see... He's a rough one. A warrior, or a pirate, probably... likely. He's here- they both are- if you want to be seeing them after you speak with the innkeeper.”

  A mug dropped to the ground and shattered. It was Elia's.

  “Oh deaaar!” bleated Leafly, more than a little bewildered at the strange turn the interrogation was taking. “Let me clean that up and get you a new one, Mistress!” leaping up on his hooves, he scooped up the shards in a tough canvas apron he wore around his waist, then clop-clopped away into the throng to dispose of them and gather what he needed to clean up the mess.

  Gribly raised an eyebrow, trying to ignore the pounding in his chest. This strange, probably magical place... Lauro and the Pit Strider were both here! Anything could happen...

  “You know what this means, don't you,” Elia said nervously, pushing her plate aside and looking stunned. “They could fight at any moment... we could all be in danger, along with everyone here!”

  “We've got to convince Lauro to let us help him,” Gribly agreed. “Now's our chance to defeat this sorcerer-relative of mine- if he is a relative- and find out where that dratted Aura can be found.”

  Elia rubbed her temples tiredly. “I feel as if I'm about to fall asleep on my feet,” she said, standing a bit shakily. “This isn't good. We shouldn't have let our guard down.”

  “I know,” Gribly said, following her example. “The promise of food and rest... ugh, it was too much. Now we're going into battle with full stomachs.” He laughed then, so harshly and loudly that a pair of passing nymphs in strange, ragged black robes gave him an odd look. “Well,” he told Elia, “We'd best get looking for Lauro before that... that Haedus gets back. At least we had one last, good meal, eh? Mine's all finished, what about you?”

  “Stop, stop!” Elia said, but on contrary the noise of the common room seemed to grow all the more loud and menacing as she did. “We need to focus,” she groaned. “Maybe if we find this innkeeper first, he'll know what to do.”

  Like a bolt of lightning across a quiet field, Gribly's mind suddenly came alive with a memory... A dream of Traveller he'd nearly forgotten over the harrowing course of his journeys.

  “A poem!” he blurted suddenly. “The Aura in my dreams... he told me a poem to tell the innkeeper, and he'll help us!”

  “What?” Elia questioned him, confused. “Why didn't you say something before?”

  “I-” Gribly began, vainly attempting to find some explanation for his lapse in memory, but an interrupting voice caught him off-guard.

  “So...” it said, coming from behind him in a slow, confident manner. “We meet face to face, Prophet. That's what they're calling you now, isn't it? What a pleasure to find you here, where I least expected it.”

  Gribly turned to face the speaker, for a moment wondering how someone had managed to exactly imitate his own voice.

  Then he saw the thin, chiseled face and off-color hair, and he knew.

  It was the Pit Strider.

  Chapter Nine: Barfight

  The room seemed to darken.

  Gribly's lip curled in a sneer, but the Pit Strider just raised an eyebrow.

  Dressed in a tattered black robe, with the hood thrown back to expose a curious black-and-blonde mane of hair, the sorcerer-youth who may or may not be named Gramling certainly looked less frightening than he had at their previous meetings.

  “Nice to meet you. My name is Gramling,” the Pit Strider said, extending his hand.

  So that was his name after all. Gribly bit back a hundred violent memories and shook the hand, ready to attack at the slightest provocation. There was no way he would let Gramling walk away… not this time.

  “My name is Gribly.”

  The two lads, identical in face but opposite in expression, regarded each other silently for a moment.

  “You have much to answer for, Sorcerer,” said Gribly in a low voice. Dimly behind him he could hear Elia speaking in a hushed, urgent voice to a confused Leafly, who seemed to have just arrived.

  It didn't matter. Nothing did. It was just Gramling and in all the world.

  “Do I?” smiled the Pit Strider, but the smile didn't reach his eyes.

  “You have killed the only mother I ever had,” Gribly hissed through clenched teeth. Thank the Creator his hand was no longer in his enemy's, or he might have twisted it until it broke. His head had lost all thoughts except one: the sight of Old Murie bleeding on the floor of her shop, leagues distant in Ymeer. That first kill... it had shaped his life.

  “That old ranger? The one you fools thought was a gypsy?” the Pit Strider laughed, cold and cruelly, throwing his head back. “She wasn't the first of her kind I've killed,” he added when he was finished, “but she certainly was the easiest to finish. It was my pleasure.”

  A crowd had gathered, to hear what the strange, black-robed boy had been laughing about. Silence seemed to have fallen over the entire common room.

  Somewhere in the background of his mind, Gribly thought he heard Elia scream... but if so, she was drowned out by the blood that pounded in his ears and in his chest.

  With an animal roar, he launched himself bodily at the Pit Strider, hands clenched into fists. His foe met him with a painful fist-strike to the gut, and the next second they were falling to the ground in a flurry of blows and curses.

  All was heat and blood and sweat. Gribly pummeled his enemy in the face and body, and the Pit Strider responded in kind, harder but not as fast. Every second the thief expected the sorcerer's white blade to rip through his body and end his life, but it never came. Perhaps Gramling couldn't reach his weapon, or perhaps he hadn't been allowed to bring it in. It didn't matter, and he didn't waste thought on it.

  His body realized if his mind didn't, that he was perfectly matched to his enemy. What the Pit Strider made up for with power, he lost in ferocity. Gribly found himself able to respond to blows quicker and livelier than his enemy, pushing the grasping hands aside and swinging for Gramling's face and neck. The journey out of the Nothing and all the way here must have cost him more than Gribly would ever know.

  Good.

  Gramling landed a punch on the thief's nose, and blood spurted. Gribly grabbed at his enemy's throat and pushed his dirty nails in as hard as he could. They toppled a table in their rolling brawl, and everything atop it spilled onto them amid the crashing of crockery and the splintering of the table's weak legs.

  In an instant, everything changed. There was a loud THUMP, and Gribly felt himself torn away from the fight at an impossible speed. The world spun and his sight blurred, a myriad of alien sounds assaulting his ears.

  Suddenly he was hanging from the iron grip of someone on his collar, feet dangling several inches off the floor. Gramling hung in similar fashion not far from him... but just far enough to be out of reach.

  Swearing angrily, Gribly thrashed about and wrenched his head from side to side, frantically searching for the face of his captor. Unexpectedly he found himself lifted higher, gazing into a pair of w
ide, intelligent yellow eyes, set in a wrinkly, gray-brown face lined with a curious mess of gray hair, which seemed to be cut in several different lengths, all in different places.

  “Put me DOWN, Innkeeper!” yelled Gramling from the giant's other side, “Don't you know who I AM? I'll burn your inn to the ground! I'll-” but his voice was suddenly muffled and cut off.

  Gribly didn't see any of it. His eyes were locked with the eyes of the tall, wiry being who had hold of him. The Innkeeper. Swaying Willow. Was he an ogre? A giant?

  The Sand Strider gulped, and in the tense, quiet moment that followed, with all the patrons of the inn looking on, he could think of only one thing to do.

  “When the world bleeds gold...” he began, trying desperately to recall the poem Traveller had given him to acquire the innkeeper's help.

  “Fool...” muttered the tall man, “Violence is not permitted here.” Without warning he let go of Gribly's collar, flicking his wrist lazily. The thief tumbled to the floor as nimbly as he could, but the fall still bruised him.

  “No,” he started, scrambling up. “Wait! I know what to-” but he was awed into silence by the innkeeper's stare.

  The man, if man he was, wore fashionable clothes which would have been much more fashionable if they could be cured of their dull color and wrinkled disposition. With his strange, wrinkled skin and wild hair, he almost resembled...

  ...a willow. When he walked, he looked like a swaying willow. Gribly gulped.

  Bending down, Swaying Willow put his hands on his knees, bending down stiffly to hold the thief's gaze with his own.

  “No matter their errand, no matter their past, beings of any kind are allowed to partake of the food and rest of my establishment,” the innkeeper began, “save that they should follow this one rule: No violence is to be done in this place... nor is any tool or weapon for which violence is the primary use allowed to be brought within these walls.”

  “I'm sorry, Sir,” Gribly managed to interrupt. “It's just that-”

  “And,” continued the innkeeper, keeping his voice quiet and yet commanding enough to silence the Strider, “if this rule be broken, the man or woman, child or elder who does so will be expelled forthwith from this place, without explanation or the chance of one. You may continue this... this conflict outside, if you wish... but you will never again be allowed within these walls. NEVER.” His last word was not really louder than his others, but it carried a vehemence and power to it that shook Gribly to his core.

  And he realized at last what an idiotic thing he had done. Biting his lip, he threw all his willpower into stopping the venomous reply that sprang to his mind. Any reply would only make things worse.

  Suppressing his rage as well as he could, he hung his head. Blast it all! Now Elia would be left alone in the inn with Lauro and who-knows-who else!

  Beside him, he heard a groaning choke from Gramling, who was crouched on the floor with an ugly purple blotch over one eye, feeling his torn and tender neck with both hands. His eyes spit fire at Gribly from across the floor, but he made no move to attack.

  Not so stupid after all, Gribly thought.

  Long, strong fingers gripped his collar again and he was lifted into the air, swinging like a pendulum as Swaying Willow strode across the common room, making for the door. A shuddering Leafly opened it, and the innkeeper threw the two fighters out with ease.

  ~

  Gramling crashed to the ground, rolled, and was up in another second, ready to fight. The door slammed shut as quickly as it had opened, and everything was silent again.

  “You…” the Sand Strider hissed at him, glaring. Gashes, the urchin was fast! It was dark out, the only light to see by coming from the windows and lanterns shining from different parts of the haphazard inn, but his leering snarl was clearer than the day.

  For half a second the two lads held each other in a locked gaze, both tensed for combat, completely unmoving. Then…

  “Clamasta Karn!” Gramling shrieked, calling on the powers of the Pit to aid him, lunging forward as he drew the might of the nightly shadows around him.

  “Blast you!” Gribly cursed, leaping up in a flying kick, swinging his arms as if he was about to Sand Stride.

  The two enemies met, clashed, and pulled away again, utterly shocked. Gramling stumbled back, slipped, and fell, horrified that the urchin had gained some terrific advantage over him and was about to kill him. But it was not so- Gribly was on the ground and scrambling away, exactly as he himself was. What in Vast?

  Then Gramling realized what had happened, and his terror increased. They had both tried to Stride… and nothing had happened. Nothing. Their powers were gone, both of them!

  “What’ve you done?!?” roared the urchin, springing up- too fast, again. Gramling kicked up his legs and leaped to his feet in one fluid motion, but his foe was already there, swinging an arm out and grabbing a fistful of his hair.

  “Let go!” Gramling grunted, sending a claw-fist into the urchin’s stomach. The hold on his hair broke and the Sand Strider stumbled back, coughing and cursing fouler than Gramling would have expected of even him.

  With lightning speed, the Pit Strider sized up his situation. There was a power of some sort within the Swaying Willow, and now he knew that it somehow prevented the use of Striding. That left him without a weapon, as he had never been able to recover his sword.

  Flight, then, instead of combat. A hand-to-hand battle with the urchin could go either way, and if the urchin had brought any friends… It was too great a chance to take.

  All of this was thought through in a second; Gramling dodged a weak punch from the quickly recovering thief, responding with a spinning foot strike that took the urchin’s feet out from under him.

  “This isn’t over!” Gramling snarled, pointing at his fallen foe. Then he turned and sprinted off into the shadows, never looking back.

  ~

  Elia wanted to follow the innkeeper, to help Gribly somehow- she even tried, but a small arm snaked through hers and held her back tightly.

  “No, no, no Missy,” Leafly whispered, “There’s nothin’ you can do yet, not when the ‘keeper has ‘is mind on throwin’ your manfriend out…”

  “Manfriend?” Elia answered incredulously, shaking her arm free of Leafly’s grip. “Oh, fine… but what’ll I do now?” The innkeeper, Swaying Willow- What an odd name, she thought- stalked past angrily, having thrown both Gribly and the Pit Strider out the door. “Leafly, you don’t understand- that boy in the black robes is a Pit Strider! He could be burning Gribly to death right now!”

  Leafly just shook his head. “Not likely. Near the ‘Willow, all abilities used for violence are, well… inoperable… meaning they don’t ‘xactly work how they is supposed to. The aura of this place makes it so no one can ever hurt another with Striding… or magic… or anything but their fists.”

  “Aura?” Elia asked, shocked, too used to hearing the term used for the Spirits of the World.

  “Little ‘a’,” Leafly explained with a shake of his head. “Meaning, of course, that this place has a will of its own… sumthin’ that drives it, gives it power…”

  “You’re just confusing me like you did before,” Elia said, rubbing her forehead with a palm. Leafly gave an apologetic shrug.

  “Hard to say it right, Miss. I’m sorry, I am.”

  “That’s alright. I…” but a tap on Elia’s shoulder shocked her into silence. With a startled jump she spun around, ready to defend herself from attack. There stood a person in nymph-made gear she recognized all too well.

  “Easy there,” the young man chuckled deeply, holding his open palms out in a gesture of surrender, “I’m not going to hurt you, Elia… In fact, I’m glad you’re here. I didn’t think you’d catch up to me this fast.”

  He tried to put a hand on her shoulder, but she pushed it away, glaring at him.

  “Lauro,” she spat.

  ~

  “I’ll be fetchin’ the innkeeper, now, if it pleases you, Miss,�
�� Leafly stammered, clopping off conspicuously on his over-large hooves.

  “Well… Lauro what?” the Wind Strider asked, still smiling benignly, but with a cold glint in his eye. It suddenly occurred to Elia just how volatile her situation was. Making the prince angry could well get her thrown out, jeopardizing all the progress she and Gribly had made so far. Gribly- Seas, I hope he’s all right…

  “Well, what are you doing here?” she took a deep breath and did something she had rarely done before: lie. “I had no idea you were here.”