Table of Contents

- Chapter One: Broken Boundaries

- Chapter Two: Pirates?

- Chapter Three: Pirates. Pirates Indeed.

- Chapter Four: Smoke Rises

- Chapter Five: Grim Laughter

- Chapter Six: Almost

- Chapter Seven: Calloway

- Chapter Eight: The Swaying Willow

- Chapter Nine: Barfight

- Chapter Ten: Comings and Meetings

- Chapter Eleven: And So It Began

- Chapter Twelve: Forest of Foretelling

- Chapter Thirteen: Blood Ties

- Chapter Fifteen: Together

- Chapter Sixteen: World Grows Dark

- Chapter Seventeen: The Wrong Hero

- Chapter Eighteen: World Bleeds Gold

- Chapter Nineteen: When Stone Met Sky

- Chapter Twenty: The Prophet, the Prince, and the Pirate

- Epilogue: The Path of Destiny

Grym Prophet

The Song of the Aura

Book Three

A Novel by Gregory J. Downs

Copyright 2011.

This book is dedicated to my family,

Who give me strength;

To my friends,

Who give me support;

And to the Lord,

Who gives me inspiration.

Chapter One: Broken Boundaries

Lauro’s eyes eased open as his last, violent dream ended and his mind came into wakefulness. He lay in the bed the Reethe had given him, staring at the ceiling and listening to the snores coming from Gribly, where the reformed thief lay at the other end of the room.

The time had come. He would make his move tonight, and with any luck would never hear those snores again.

Lauro closed his eyes, but did not fall asleep. His consciousness was bright and alive, fueled by adrenaline and kept sharp by the rigorous exercises he had kept up during his stay with the Reethe. Gribly kept snoring beside him, unexpectedly bringing back memories of the time when they had still been allies, fighting to stay alive in the sand arenas of Blast Desert. Though he still knew what he was about to do was necessary, some part of him still regretted the friendship he was about to sever.

And, of course, there was Elia.

Lauro opened his eyes again, listening. Gribly’s breaths remained even, so he slipped out of bed, fully clothed and prepared for a long, wet journey. Elia. Lauro sneered, more at himself than her. He would not go down that path, not now.

From the smooth white floorboards beneath his bed, Lauro produced a tough gray satchel and slung it over his shoulder, then bent down and brought out an extra pillow and heavy blanket. With these he soon created a passable imitation of a prone body, which he stuffed under his sheets and covered with the lip of another blanket. As good a decoy as could be made.

Straightening, Lauro headed for the door with a grin on his face, taking care not to make sounds that could wake Gribly. Time for another quest- and this time, he would not fail.

Two more stops, and he’d be free.

Sliding down dark, frosty hallways and quietly descending drafty staircases, the prince was soon at his first destination: the Reethe armory.

“Wind Strider?” the guard’s voice was curious but unafraid as Lauro approached from down the wide, frostrock hallway.

“Hail, Patnel,” the prince answered, bowing slightly. “Sleep escapes me tonight. How goes your watch?” He had spent a large amount of his time befriending this and other members of the fortress guard who dwelt in the Sanquegrad, all in preparation for this one night. Now his efforts would pay off, if he kept his head.

He was soon deep in casual conversation with Patnel, who seemed as willing as any man to have jovial company in the lonely night’s watch. Soon, seated at a low whitewood table in one corner of the armory, they shared a bottle of the strange blue wine perfected by the Reethe. As they talked animatedly of the events that had so recently rocked the Reethe city of Mythigrad to its core, Lauro stealthily scanned the tall racks of weapons and armor that lined each wall of the armory, twenty feet high, twice as wide, and almost four times as long. There was no doubt at all in his mind that he could find a suitable weapon here to replace the shortsword he had lost in the wreck of the Mirrorwave almost two weeks ago.

“…As I was saying,” Patnel continued in the high-pitched, slow accent most nymphs who could speak the common tongue acquired, “there isn’t much we can know- or hope to know, really- about the Aura who dwells in the Grymclaw. We Reethe have had few enough dealings with the outside world in the past, and even fewer now that we’ve split with our M’tant brethren in the Blackwood. Not to mention the fact that no one’s actually ever met one of the Aura before… it’s only rumors that say one lives in the Grymclaw at all…” And on and on.

Lauro had heard most of it already, and from more reliable sources than Patnel. There were few towns and no cities in the bleak peninsula of the Grymclaw, but if he was to survive he would need to find at least one of them. He thought he could, without much trouble; then it would just be a matter of time before he could figure out from rumors where the legendary being was said to abide. With his ever-increasing powers over the wind, he could easily move on from there.

“…do you suppose?” finished Patnel, sitting back and propping his feet up on the table, obviously waiting for an answer to his question. Lauro’s mind raced- what had the guard been saying? Suddenly, the answer came to him, and he almost laughed.

“I don’t know about the others,” Lauro answered, a little too quickly, “But my wind-striding will help me find the Aura the quickest, for sure.”

“How so?” Patnel asked, raising an eyebrow and swigging more wine from a whitewood tumbler. Lauro sipped at his own, eyeing Patnel’s for a second before meeting the nymph’s eyes.

“You’re draining the drink rather quickly, aren’t you?” Lauro chuckled, and Patnel grinned, his teeth stained blue. “More?”

“Indeed- hic!” smiled the guard, passing his cup. Lauro swayed as he took it, acting more inebriated than he actually was. When he grasped for the wine bottle, it fell on its side, spilling out over Patnel’s side of the table. The nymph cursed good-naturedly, hiccupping as he righted it. Two seconds for his gaze to be distracted, but it was enough. Lauro took the bottle from him and poured the rest of its contents into Patnel’s tumbler before passing it back. “Thankee,” the nymph grinned, sounding for all the world like any common human drunk that Lauro had ever encountered. The prince nodded shakily, acknowledging the thanks, and mopped up the spill with a rag lying nearby, usually used to polish blades.

“Well, now,” the guard finally said, “about that power of yours.” He leaned forward, an eager glint in his eye.

“What of it?” Lauro asked as innocently as he could. Patnel’s face was turning a bit red. Good.

“Do you really think you can find the Aura on your own?” The abrupt nature of the question caught Lauro off guard.

“Well, yes, I do,” he admitted.

“You really mean to run off, then?” questioned the guard.

The prince leapt back from the table, aided by a gust of wind he summoned in his surprise. His chair clattered to the floor. “Wha- what do you mean?” he stuttered, his chest constricting with the realization that he’d been caught.

“Augh, come now,” Patnel smiled coldly, pushing himself up from his seat and leaning forward conspiratorially, “Think you that you had gone so unnoticed? Pulled the wool over our eyes, as humans say? Your own friends are too clever for that. The Raitharch’s been listening to them, and they’ve been telling him to keep an eye on you… which he has, through me… and others. Your willingness to ply me with drink and your obvious travelling clothes are just two more condemnations, my friend.”

With an ease that belied his slim looks, Patnel slid the table aside with his right hand. His left was raised slightly, and when he snapped it a cold breeze chilled Lauro’s bones. A Frost Strider. Patnel the armory guard was a Frost Strider.

“Well, well,” Lauro sighed, “You’ve figured me out, then, haven’t you? Will you stop me, then?”

“By Sea and Sky I will, if you give me trouble,” Patnel said, raising his chin, “But now-” Suddenly, his head lolled back and he collapsed in a dead faint on the cold floor of the armory.

“Whoops,” said Lauro, rolling his eyes, and walked past the body. What luck it had been to befriend the nymph woman who ran the Raitharch’s kitchens. She might have been spying on him too, but not closely enough to stop him stealing a pinch of her most potent herbs. Patnel would wake in no less than five hours, and his head would throb like a thunderstorm, but he would be otherwise perfectly healthy. A slight-of-hand trick worthy of a street performer, the prince thought proudly to himself. Gribly would be awed. This gullible fool never even suspected me.

Letting the nymph guard lie, Lauro headed down the armory’s rightmost aisle, searching the impressive display of bladed weapons for a sword that would suit his fancy. A spear would be nice, too, but he needed a quick, silent escape from Mythigrad, and such a weapon would be too cumbersome. He must have a sword, and it must be light and quick. The sleek Reethe claymores were nonetheless too heavy and unwieldy, so he passed them by. Scimitars were out of the question, as he had little experience with them, as were the stubby cleaver-like swords held by infantrymen here. He took a short, white-bladed dagger and clipped its sheath to his belt, but he needed something more.

At a rack of thick cutlasses in black sheathes, Lauro finally stopped. Here was as close to his old sword as he was likely to find, and they were not so different from some swords of which some scouts in Vastion’s army were fond. He unhooked one and found that it was meant to be strung across one’s back instead of from the waist. He smiled mischievously. Interesting. The Reethe have pirates among them, do they? He took the straps that came with the scabbard and buckled them correctly, feeling the assuring weight of the sword at his back. Well then, I’ll be a little bit of a pirate myself.

Ready at last, Lauro began to look for an exit other than the one, by which he had come in. If someone by chance had seen him enter with Patnel, it wouldn’t do to have him seen exiting without the guard. In a second or two, he located what he needed.

One stop down, one more to go. Freedom was almost within his grasp.

~

In his bed in the lonely tower deep in the hidden Sanquegrad fortress, Gribly tossed and turned violently, tearing at his pillow and striking the post with his bare hand. In alarm, he rolled over and sat bolt upright, suddenly awake. Had he heard footsteps outside his door? Horrific dreams of the Nothing, where he had battled a Sea Demon in the form of his Pit Strider enemy, tormented his mind.

Sleepily he let his head roll to one side, watching Lauro’s bed with blurry, squinting eyes. The last few days- or weeks, he couldn’t think which at the moment- had been nerve-wracking, as he tried to keep an eye on the Wind Strider prince every waking second, and miserably failed more than half the time. Had his dreams been about Lauro? Was the prince trying to escape? Try as he might, Gribly could only vaguely remember the nightmare that had seemed so vivid to him only a second ago.

Through the haze of his vision he saw the lumpy shape of Lauro’s sleeping form stretched out beneath his sheets. No, it hadn’t been the prince. That was lucky, at least. Another day of watching and waiting was ahead of him, then.

Gribly let himself fall back on the soft pillow beneath him with a heavy whump. Instantly he was deep in dreamful sleep again.

~

He was lying on his face in a green, grassy space, on the edge of a gray cliff, near the top of a mountain, amid a sea of white clouds. He knew this place, of course. Traveller’s mountain. The place where an Aura brought him, whenever there was something important- and usually painful- for him to know.

Gribly let his face sink into the grass, closing his eyes. He wanted to make the best of his time in this restful place, before he was called upon to learn some vital element of his quest, or to argue yet again about his supposed destiny as a prophet… whatever that entailed.

“Get up, Sleepy.” He recognized the voice, of course. Traveller. Not the most impressive-looking god-spirit he’d ever met, but still powerful enough to merit obedience… “Now.”

“Coming,” he mumbled, forcing his eyes open, his arms straight, and his body upwards. Finally he stood face to face with the weather-beaten, gray-cloaked Aura who had guided him wisely- if erratically- through his last adventure.

“What a pleasure to talk to you again, Gribly,” Traveller smiled. Light gleamed from his mouth whenever he opened it.

“Likewise,” Gribly said, rubbing his eyelids, “But could you turn down the sunbeams a little?”

Traveller frowned, but the next time he spoke there were no more flashes. “Ungrateful mortal.” He poked Gribly with the end of his knobby staff. “You should show more respect.” Nevertheless, the Aura seemed on the point of smiling, as always. It seemed too much to hope that Traveller’s immortal brethren would all be the same, but still… one could always hope.

“It’s only been a week or two, Traveller,” Gribly pointed out. The Aura shrugged.

“I only thought I would give you some advice before you set out on the next stage of your quest.”

“Oh no. No. Not yet. It’s only been a week!” Gribly felt a familiar sensation of rushing wind pass his ears; the feeling he always had before he was about to leap between buildings or run up a wall, back in his home territory of Ymeer in the desert.

“Don’t blame me,” Traveller shrugged again, “It’s the princeling’s fault, not mine.”

“Lauro.” Gribly almost spat. “What’s he done now?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. Gribly, listen closely.” The Aura smoothed his battered cloth cap back and stepped a foot closer, lowering his voice and almost glaring at the uncomfortable thief. “You’re going to be tested, my boy. You’ve defeated a demon of the Ancient World, and come a long way towards accepting your inheritance as a prophet of the Most High, it is true… but your trials are only just beginning.”

“That’s exactly what I needed to hear to brighten my day,” the reluctant Sand Strider grumbled. “I don’t even know who this ‘Most High’ is, or what it means to be a prophet, or… or… or anything. You gods are so confusing, I could scream!”

Traveller rolled his eyes. “We’ve been over this: I am not a god, the Most High is just another name for the Creator, and to be a prophet is to… well, I don’t suppose I’ll answer that quite yet. You’ll find out for yourself, soon enough. It’s the journey that counts, not the destination, as I’m fond of saying. Though come to think of it, that’s not entirely true…”

Gribly shouted in sheer exasperation.

“…But back to my topic. You’ll find the answers you seek with Wanderwillow, another aspect of the Aura whom you shall meet if you survive long enough to make it to his abode on the Grymclaw.”

“Another spirit who speaks in riddles… if I survive… Grymclaw… You’re just full of good news today, aren’t you?”

Traveller shrugged. “I’m almost done, now.”

“What else is there?”

The Aura thought for a moment, tapping his staff against the ground animatedly. “Ah, yes,” he said, remembering. “A word of guidance to you: Wanderwillow, one of me, or us, or however mortals would say it, can only be reached one way. You must travel the length of the Grymclaw until you come to the Swaying Willow inn. Once there, you must trust that he will find you himself, or contact you through one of his. They are mortals who make journeys for him in the wide world, since he does move through dreams as often as I.”

Gribly’s head spun as he processed the information, but when he looked up from his concentrated frown, Traveller was already gone.

“You will be tested…” whispered a voice on the wind, and Gribly’s world tilted back on itself. He felt himself falling…

And falling…

~

Lauro’s final destination was the great ice caves where the Reethe kept their fleet of sleek, white-wooded boats moored. It was the work of a few moments to sneak into the side-chamber where he had learned they kept their smaller vessels. No guards were about, as the Reethe kept a vigilant watch on the outside of their harbor, never suspecting that an enemy would be entering from the inside.

Poking his head through the door, Lauro slid inside and quickly made his way down the flight of wide, shallow stairs carved directly into the cave’s ice. The chamber was too dark for him to see the corners, but judging from the echoes of his small movements it was probably larger than he’d expected. A faint light came from a large culvert at one end, which he knew led past several more chambers before coming out of a sort of postern gate in the rear of the Reethe iceberg.

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 woke 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?

“Life’s… going… well… enough!” grunted Varstis, straining against his jocular adversary and finally pushing him back, oblivious to the protestations of Lithric as the older nymph tried to remind him of his infirmity. “And how are you, ‘yerself,’ y’ old pirate?”

“Well ‘nough, well ‘nough,” Berne chuckled, brushing himself off. “Never too old fer a scrape or two, just as yerself, I see…”

“Wait!” Gribly called loudly, and the two nymphs seemed to notice him again for the first time since they’d met. “Pirate?” he asked, confused. “What’s going on? First you’re rivals, now you’re friends. Have I missed something?”

“Something, indeed,” chuckled Captain Berne, “but not near as much as I’ve missed, seemingly. What say we make our peace over wave-wine and salmonsteak, aye? Then we’ll have all the time in the world fer stories…”

Chapter Three: Pirates. Pirates Indeed.

Several hours later, the two young Striders were once more sailing under the command of Captain Bernarl of the Zain… only this time they knew him for the pirate he was.

“I would have found it hard to believe, if we hadn’t had our talk… right before the Ice Demon attacked, all those nights ago,” Gribly told the nymph as they strode the decks of Berne’s new ship, the Suthway Cath, or, as Berne had been quick to explain, the Fire of the South. “You said some things there that reminded me of the thieves I knew back home in Ymeer.”

“About the Alliance?” Berne said, starting to ascend the steps that led to a higher section of the ship. He had mentioned that both he and multiple high personages in the Reethe hierarchy were a part of the mysterious group.

“Among other things, yes.”

“Well, the ‘Alliance’ be just one o’ the names we use fer… well, fer us. Thieves. Brigands. Burglars an’ pirates… all the nobler sort o’ recreant. We’ve got a bit o’ a brotherhood- an’ sisterhood, if y’can believe it- going on, all ‘round Vast and th’ Giant’s Isle. It be loose, fer sure, and not h’exactly the most loyal brotherhood… but it be workin’ well so far.”

“And you thought I was part of this… brotherhood?”

“No… I knew. You knew the thieves’ mantra as well as I know the pirates’ pledge, an’ that makes you more a Brother than blood, even if you don’t be knowin’ it.”

“Ah… I’m beginning to understand why the Old Pickpocket thought it was so important for me to know his mottos and sayings… they all mean something to this alliance.”

“Indeed, aye… but who’s the Ole’ Pickpocket?”

“The man who taught me thievery. We fought and tricked each other to no end, but he’s the closest thing to a father I’ve ever had.”

“All o’ us in t’Alliance be like that… all o’ us in families be like that, but it don’t make us no less a family, do it?” The lively captain’s voice was getting softer, as if he was in the midst of sharing some vital secret- which Gribly supposed he was, in a way.

They were near the steering wheel now, where it was attended by one of Captain Berne’s mates, a tall, silent Zain with darker than normal skin, a blue-streaked ponytail hanging down his bare back and a large silver hoop in one ear. As they passed him, the Captain suddenly let out a whoop and snapped his fingers, startling the mate. As the nymph’s grip on the wheel was lost, the ship lurched heavily to one side, almost throwing Gribly and Berne to the deck.

“Aplogiaz, Marinore,” the mate said when he had regained control.

“Don’t mention it,” Berne said dismissively, then turned slowly to face Gribly. “Family…” he said importantly, as if the word should mean something essential to the Sand Strider.

“Family?” Gribly shrugged, “What about them? I’ve never known mine- though the Pit Strider seems to look like me quite a bit…”

“Exactly!” said Captain Berne, snapping again, “You’ve never met them… but I have!”

Gribly didn’t know whether to laugh or feel sick. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve met… well, I won’t say as to whether or not it’s all th’way true… but I’ve been a’ lookin’ at you many a time, thinkin’ ‘ow similar y’are in face to… to one of us. One of the brotherhood. An’ I’ve just now realized who!”

“Who?” Gribly asked, wetting his lips and shivering a little. Could it be…

“There’s a rogue in th’ deep South as goes by th’ name o’ Gram. I’ve only met ‘im once ‘er twice, but he’s got such a face as t’ stick in one’s mind, y’see? He’s got no less’n ten ‘er more ships at ‘is command, an’ a land force t’be reckoned with, to boot. Yer th’ spit’ n’ image o’ him, fer sure!”

Gribly chewed on his bottom lip, strangely calm. It didn’t surprise him that the man who could be related to him, maybe even be his father, was a pirate and brigand. That wasn’t what was bothering him… He’d always dreamed, as a child, of being the secret son of a king or lord, someone noble and strong instead of sly and untrustworthy like most of the adults in Ymeer. It was a fantasy that died hard. He really had no hope of being a decent person of decent lineage… if what Berne said was true. He didn’t think the nymph was lying, of course, but hadn’t Byorne said the Zain were mostly isolated from the rest of Vast? He therefore chose to be skeptical of it, if only to keep his lingering hopes alive.

“Well… I suppose it’s possible,” he finally answered, letting his doubt show.

“Aye, who knows,” said Berne, looking a bit abashed and shrugging. “Could be yea or nay, an’ we’d never know th’ difference. In any case, you’ll be safe… or relatively so… whenever y’ find yerself in pirate terr’tory, just as long as y’remember t’mention th’ league, an’ ole’ Captain Berne, aye?”

“Ye- Aye, I mean.”

“Aye, then.” There was silence for a while, as they made it to the rearmost railing of the ship and peered over the stern, watching the spray leap and dive itself into a froth below them. Finally the nymph Captain broke the silence once more. “I wouldn’t’ve thought it o’ the prince, indeed I wouldn’t’ve… runnin’ off like that…”

“Acting like a true pirate, aye?” Gribly said, grinning at the unfamiliar word in his mouth. Aye. It sounded friendly, like a pat on the back. Aye.

“H’exactly… an’ he’d been so upright an’ all, before…”

“No, not exactly… I think he was always willing to do whatever he needed to, upright or not,” Gribly mused. “He’s definitely in some kind of argument with King Larion, and he seems like he’d die if he wasn’t allowed to finish this quest on his own, in whatever way he pleases. It’s almost as if he’s trying to prove something…”

“…to his father, the king?” Berne asked shrewdly. Gribly, suddenly self-conscious- he was talking to a pirate, after all- just shrugged.

“Who knows. I just know for sure he’s got to be stopped. I can’t let him do this on his own, or he’ll end up getting himself killed, and others, too. It’s-”

“Why? Why d’you need to help him?” Captain Berne asked suddenly. Before Gribly could form the words Traveller, or prophet, or even realize that it was probably safer to keep his mouth shut, Elia’s voice bought him unexpected relief.

“Captain? I need to speak to you. Hello Gribly, enjoying being a sailor?” She looked more alive than ever, so close to the water, and she almost never seemed to get tired as the Suthway Cath raced along in a wake of foam, hour after hour after hour. She’d been ecstatic to hear Captain Berne’s acceptance to help them in their mission, at least as far as the shores of the Grymclaw. “Sailing is the most wonderful thing I think I’ve ever done!” she exclaimed as she came towards them from across the raised deck.

What about dancing? Gribly wanted to say, but he didn’t. It was almost, almost reward enough to see her so happy all the time. Their moments had been few and far between, but even then it hadn’t compared to the wholesome joy the nymph girl seemed to feel on this voyage. His own memories of sailing were much more macabre: death, a wreck, Ice Demons… and meeting Elia, he realized. Perhaps he should rethink his dislike for voyaging.

“I’m glad to see you like it,” he smiled, only half convinced. Captain Berne saluted sharply.

“What can I do fer you, m’lady?”

Elia joined them at the rear railing, leaning back against it and letting the wind whip her hair back from her face. She smiled, a little uneasily this time. “I need questions answered… about the mainland,” she said hesitantly.

“Ah…” Berne nodded. “I see. Never been there, ‘ave you? Why, couldn’t y’ask maister Gribly here about it, then?”

“No, not this time,” she responded, shuffling her feet a little. “This is a question about the Grymclaw…”

“Ah,” said the Captain.

“A bit out of my experience, true,” said Gribly.

“I’ve never been to the Grymclaw m’self,” admitted Berne, “But I’ve run a few good ‘uns back and forth from the Blackwood above it, where there’s some small bis’ness to be had. I’d be glad t’answer any questions y’might have, if they’re in my knowledge to answer, so t’speak.”

“Thank you,” Elia said. “It’s about water in the mainland, you see… I haven’t had a problem here, in the Inkwell, where it’s all around… but in the hot, dry places and places with no rivers, I need to have a source of water always at hand, or I’ll lose the ability to Change.”

“Oh blazes,” Gribly swore, “That’s going to be hard to do, if the Grymclaw’s anything like Blast, in the desert. I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of that.”

It was a pitiful and potentially fatal mistake to make on such a quest. Elia was a Treele water-nymph, which meant that she had the ability to switch between two physical shapes at will: the human-like form she and all in her species could used for daily interaction, and the enchanting, naiad-like Swimmer Form unique to her tribe. The Reethe, but not the Zain, could all do similar Changes, though their Other Form was different. It had never occurred to Gribly that they needed water to keep their ability. Would it kill them to lose it? Elia usually slept in her Swimmer Form, so she’d told him. What would she do when there was only enough water to drink?

“Hmmm,” Captain Berne said, obviously surprised and reasonably put-out. It was a serious problem, for sure. “Well…” he began, then lapsed into silence again.

“I wonder if the Aura thought of that, when they put all this into motion,” Gribly thought aloud.

“’Course they did,” grunted the nymph Captain gruffly, “T’ Aura thinks of everything… if they rightly even need to think at all, the way we mean when we say the word… Hmmm… This is a puzzle an’ no mistake.”

“Is it really that dry in the Grymclaw?” Elia asked, “I don’t need very much water to keep my Second Form, just enough to bathe most of my skin, and even then I can last a week at most between wettings.”

“Ah,” said Berne, nodding, “That makes it a mite easier, for sure. Let me put m’thinkin’ cap on fer a few more hours an’ I’ll have this ‘un out in no time.”

“You think you can?”

“Oh, most assuredly. This’s a captain’s job, y’know, mistress Wave Strider… to figure out the hard-to-chew things before they’re even in ‘is crew’s mouth…”

“That’s bizarre,” Gribly commented, but neither nymph seemed to hear him.

“Well then,” Berne continued, “I’d best be into m’cabin t’puzzle this’n out. You two can ‘ave all the time y’need to put yer own heads t’wards it, but don’t be too knotted up if’n y’can’t decide. I’ll do the heavy thinkin’ this time around.”

“Many thanks,” Elia told him before he headed below. Sighing, she turned to Gribly, some of the luster in her eyes gone. “I never thought I’d be a burden like this… No matter what the captain decides, I’ll slow you down in your hunt. Maybe… maybe I’ll stay behind.”

“No!” Gribly interjected, then, quieter, “No… I don’t think that’ll be necessary. We’ll find a way, and this is as much your quest as mine, now. With any luck we’ll all find the answers we need, once we reach the Aura.”

“Yes, I hope so…” she stepped a little closer to him, and he touched her hand reassuringly. “What was his name? I don’t remember anymore. Byorne might have told us, back before…” Before their ranger-guide had been murdered by the same beasts that had massacred her tribe. Yes. He had, now that Gribly thought about it.

“Wanderwillow. Sounds… oh, tree-ish, don’t you think?”

She smiled. “Yes, it does.”

They stood there silently for a minute, hands touching but not exactly intertwined. Gribly could barely have been happier, until he noticed the stare of the ponytailed wheelman being drawn in his direction. Elia’s hand was gone suddenly, as she twisted around to face the open water behind them. He followed her example and began to watch the undulating waves, one hand over his brow to shade his eyes from the sun.

Elia had stretched her hand out now, and was moving it in leisurely S-shapes, like a swimming fish. For a moment nothing out of the ordinary happened, and Gribly’s gaze dropped to the foamy water below. Then, like an apparition, the water directly under the Treele girl’s hand, yards below, began to imitate her movement, defying gravity and the swell of the sea. It looked like a little blue-green river amid the white foam, sloshing and swimming almost directly perpendicular to the current left in the ship’s wake. Gribly smiled.

“Nice trick,” he told her. She smiled back, and lifted her hand.

“I’ve only started,” she said, and the water obeyed her command, rising up straight out of the waves, a wormy, jiggling mass of liquid that seemed to be pouring over and over itself in a never-ending cascade. No matter how quickly the water flowed, it never let a single drop fall back into the foam. As Elia brought her hand higher, the water followed, until she was almost pointing at the sky, and the seawater worm was wriggling and sloshing not more than two feet from her face.

“I’m impressed,” Gribly said, wriggling his own way just a little closer to Elia and stealthily slipping an arm in hers.

She threw the water-worm right at him.

~

As the Suthway Cath plowed through the Inkwell faster than an eagle in flight, the dark bulk of the Grymclaw grew closer and closer. Soon it was a high wall of looming gray cliffs not far in the distance. Down in Captain Berne’s cabin, Elia talked to him earnestly about the possibilities that could help her survive in the dry expanse of the Grymclaw. Once Gribly had dried himself off, he joined them.

“Why couldn’t you dry me with that trick of yours, that you used on Lauro and me back on the iceberg?” he asked, shaking his wet hair at Elia like a dog.

“Oh… I didn’t think of it,” she answered, leaning away with a too-innocent smile.

“All right, calm yerselves,” Berne interceded, tapping the edge of his map table with a heavy metal device used for navigation. “I’ve consulted what few charts o’ the Grymclaw are avail’ble with th’ Zain, an’ I think I may’ve come up with an answer to yer problem, mis’tress Elia.”

“Oh?” she said, turning her attention to the yellowed papyrus sheets laid out in front of the captain. Soon the two nymphs were deep in a discussion about water and carrying capacity, distances and available water sources. Gribly tried as hard as he genuinely could to stay interested, but his attention soon wandered and he found himself looking around at the interior of Berne’s cabin.

A large but mostly unadorned mattress-bed stood in one corner, a curious suit of armor in another. There was a carved hearth in the wall nearest to the navigation table, with several chairs pushed up against the wall on either side. Odd… He hadn’t thought to find anything like that on a ship. On each wall were various trophies and maps of past voyages, along with one strangely realistic painting above the hearth. When it seemed as if his absence wouldn’t be noticed, Gribly slipped away from the table to examine it. Elia and Berne soon drifted into the nymphtongue behind him.

In the background of the painting was a ship much like the Suthway, beached on a sandy shore with green trees in the background. The foreground was a jagged cliff and series of small pools, where a ragged group of nymphs he assumed to be the ship’s crew were gathered, staring and pointing. The object of their attention was a strange, womanlike creature made of green-blue scales, rising from depths of the largest pool. What in Vast it was, Gribly couldn’t tell, but the malicious expression written across the fish-woman’s face made him cringe. He looked away, and something above the picture caught his eye.

“Like the looks o’ that, do you?” Berne’s voice came from behind him, where he had apparently finished his conversation with Elia.

“What is it?” Gribly inquired, frowning. “A weapon?”

“‘Tis indeed,” the nymph captain confirmed, taking the device down from its hooks. It appeared to be a silver anchor, smaller than usual, with sharpened edges that glinted in the sunlight that streamed through a portal in the cabin wall. It was attached to a leather-bound handle, which ended in a polished chain several feet long. “It’s my own blade, scavenged from the first ship I e’er wrecked; a li’l punt I stole from th’ old Zainarch’s own dock.”

“Impressive. I don’t think I could wield it.” Gribly declined to comment on the theft.

“Aye, it’s been many a time since I wielded it meself. Been sittin’ in a chest aways back at ‘ome, it ‘as. But, seein’ as trouble’s brewin’ on the horizon fer me an’ all me mates, I’ve brought it out again.”

Loud shouting in the nymphtongue broke the silence that followed, addressed again and again to Captain Bernarl.

“We’re comin’ into range,” Berne told the two young Striders, hurriedly replacing the anchor-blade and straightening his longcoat. “I must be off t’manage th’ crew. Get yerselves outta the way ‘til we’re ready t’ lower th’ boats. I’ll be seein’ ye both off safely, that I’ll be.”

In a trice he was gone.

“Interesting fellow,” Gribly observed.

“Good. You’ll fit right in with him,” Elia remarked as she brushed past.

“Very funny. Oh, wait a moment.” She did. “What did you find out about… about the Grymclaw?” He wasn’t sure how to phrase the question about her Second Form.

“Oh.” She paused, cocking her head to one side thoughtfully. “It ought to work. There’s a river running parallel to our planned path that I should be able to return to whenever I feel the need to replenish my Inner Water… Also, he’ll give us waterskins Cleric Lithric has made to hold much more water than usually possible.”

“Oh. That sounds… like it’ll work. Alright.”

She just shrugged. “Let’s hope so. No matter what, I’m still in this hunt.” She turned and left in a whirl of blue.

“I wouldn’t dream of stopping you,” Gribly smirked. Then he followed her up on deck.

Chapter Four: Smoke Rises

It didn’t take long: just a short boat-ride to the cliffs of the forbidding land, then a shorter march up one of the steep paths that led to the top.

Berne saw them off, but he didn’t like it. There was trouble ahead for those two, he just knew it… and worse than the madmen and sorcerers riding demon-horses they’d already encountered, if he was right. War was coming. He was sure of it. He’d told them what they needed to know to stay alive, of course… but that hadn’t been everything, by a long shot; especially about Gram, the self-styled Thief Lord of the South. His old, piratical traits were hard to snuff out, and trust didn’t come easy to a pirate. Ah, well, it was too late now. He might as well let them go their own way. Aura protect them, especially if the Aura was truly alive and interested in them.

Berne finally turned his back on the shore and let his mates row him back to the Suthway. By the time he arrived, his mind was made up.

He would return to Mythigrad and confer with Varstis. Raitharch, indeed! That wily Reethe had always been a patient one, and now it’d paid off more than anyone could have foretold. His failure to report his success to the Alliance was troubling. But then, who didn’t like to get ahead once in a while? Wasn’t that what being a brigand was all about?

But Varstis had power now. If he was no longer part of the brotherhood, then fine. Berne had united the Zain- perhaps Varstis would help him control them. In any case, they would have to unite the tribes in order to withstand the conflicts that were likely to come. Vastion coming to pieces in the south, rangers appearing and being slain by hellish creatures from bedside fairy-tales… Aye, trouble was brewing. It could only be a matter of time.

Berne spent most of the return journey pouring over old maps and mementoes in his cabin, fingering the chain of his long-disused anchor-blade. If he planned his way right, perhaps he could profit from a war… and cheat the Alliance out of their share, too, if Varstis was willing to cooperate, and no bloody rangers showed their face. Rangers. They had always been a thorn in the Alliance’s side, and especially Lord Gram’s.

Hours later, shouts sounded outside his cabin, but Berne ignored them. His back hunched as he sat at the navigation table, the captain clenched and unclenched his fists in frustration. Then a thought hit him. Could rangers be the answer to his troubles? Could he use them to break free from the grip of Gram and the Alliance? Of course, he’d have to find them first… and they were said to have lairs in the Grymclaw…

“Captain! Smoke!” an urgent call in the nymphtongue sounded outside his door. It was Yan, the wheel-nymph.

The Grymclaw… Hadn’t Gribly and Elia met a strider on their way there? Weren’t they there now? This could be quite-

“Captain! Mythigrad is burning!” Blast. No rest for a weary soul.

Berne leaped to his feet, upsetting his chair and causing the cutlass at his side to rattle in its sheath. Slinging the anchor-blade carefully across his back, he made for the door. A twist of the rusted latch and it was open, Yan’s worry-creased face staring back at him. Hardening his features, he nodded curtly to the nymph and stomped up onto the deck.

In the distance, smoke was rising from the titanic iceberg which housed the Reethe capital of Mythigrad. Pulling a spyglass from his coat pocket, he put it to his eye and scanned the opening of the inlet.

Ships. Ships of metal like he had never seen, glinting golden-red in the dying sun. Flashes of fire as they assaulted Mythigrad.

Replacing the spyglass, he roared orders to his crew, gesturing animatedly and calling for more than the possible speed. Honor out of the question, they had to save the city!

“Full speed ahead! Show your courage, Fire of the South! To Mythigrad!”

Berne was a pirate only secondly. Today he was Captain Bernarl of the Zain, first and foremost, danger be forgotten, loyal to the end!

The anchor-blade would swing again, before this day was done.

~

Oblivious to the eventual fate of the Suthway Cath, Gribly and Elia watched the ship fade into the distance.

“It scares me to see him go,” Elia said, meaning Captain Berne. As she spoke, she donned the hood on the white robe and fur-lined cloak the Reethe had given her.

“And the Grymclaw doesn’t faze you?” Gribly joked half-heartedly. “Because I’m a little more worried for us than him.”

The girl just shrugged. “I’m used to it, after traveling with you for so long.”

“Thanks.”

“Any time.”

After a silence of several minutes, Gribly took Elia’s hand. She didn’t stop him, and he squeezed it comfortingly. “Let’s go. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and we’re not even sure what to look for.”

Without answering, she let him lead her away.

By the time the sun was beginning to set, they had walked until their feet were raw and sore through their boots. The Grymclaw was not so much frightening as dreary; a land of flat gray plateaus and mounds of rock that jutted up from the earth like domes of long-buried cathedrals. The sky was full of wispy clouds, and the sun’s light seemed to weaken as they neared the center of the enchanted land that was said to cause the wintery curse that held the Inkwell in its grip.

It’s not so different from Blast, Gribly thought, just darker… and not as sandy. Whatever else it was, the Grymclaw was certainly dusty.

As they walked, the sky grew darker and darker as the clouds thickened. After an inestimable time, the sun began to peek through in the West, sending scattered beams of bright red that smote the land and sent up little gusts of flame in the distance.

“Well that’s disturbing,” Gribly muttered. Elia just kept a little closer to his side. “What’s that?” he wondered, seeing something of interest not far from them. To their left there seemed to be a band of lighter gray in the dusty lead-color of the land.

It turned out to be a road, wide and flat, that seemed to have been abandoned long ago. There were little or no footprints, and a fine layer of dust lay upon it. The travelers started down it, and the day turned to night long after they had ceased to feel anything but the dryness of the air and the aching in their bodies.

~

The night was passed in uneasy rest. The Reethe had provided as well as they could for the two, but it was hardly enough to keep the stones out of one’s back while one slept. A quick, cheerless meal and the ensuing colder-than-death night were more than enough to make Gribly wonder at the madcap quest and ill-fated adventure that seemed likely to be the death of him.

The next day passed much as the first had. The light gray of morning was accompanied by a painful, forced march as the cramped muscles of both travelers re-acclimated to the ordeal. Later in the day, as the heatless sun found breaks in the clouds to light up patches of the land in yellow flames that died out almost as soon as they had begun, another cold meal was had, and the two Striders continued on their journey.

Just as the sun began to set in the cloudy sky above on their second day in the Grymclaw, the road they had been traveling on ended quite abruptly. It was an event of only seconds: Gribly climbed a hill only to discover that it ended in a cliff, dropping off into a chasm that opened up in front of them without warning. As he neared the edge, Gribly’s foot dislodged a pile of pebbles that went streaking down into the blackness below.

“What in the-!” he exclaimed, swaying backward. Elia pulled him away from the edge with a little yelp.

“That was too close,” she hissed in his ear, gasping for breath from the shock.

“Yes… far too close…” He sat down for a minute to think, and she sat beside him. “The land must have gone through some horrible upheaval years ago. Look around.”

In the light of the dying sun, the two Striders took in the surrounding country. It seemed to have changed in an instant.

The cliff where they sat dropped off hundreds of feet to the ground, but it was not part of a canyon, as Gribly had first supposed. There were lumpy formations of rock a hundred feet or more out from the cliff, but that was all. They were looking out over a whole new world concealed by the cliffs that ringed the real realm of the Grymclaw: miles and miles of gray grass and rocky hills poking up at random in the plains. Fires lit up the darkening evening, glimmering like fireflies in the farthest points of the Sand Strider’s vision.

People.

“Lights… a town… look, Gribly, there’s a whole country hidden down there…” Elia’s voice was soft with wonderment. “They’re fighting to survive, you can bet. How does anyone live here?”

“Well,” he answered, “I guess there’s only one way to find out. We need to get down this cliff somehow.”

“Yes… but there isn’t much chance of finding a path, like we did back on the sea’s edge. I think that’s why so few reports of this place come back with the people who’ve come here… there’s no way down.”

“Ah, but they didn’t have a Sand Strider with them then, did they?”

“There’s no sand here, Gribly.”

“But I can Stride rock, too, remember?”

“Oh.” It seemed she had forgotten, which annoyed the thief, though he couldn’t think why. They stood together, and he looked high and low for some idea as to how his powers with the earthy elements could help them get down. The sunbeams shining through the heavy clouds winked out, one by one, and in minutes it was almost completely dark.

“I think we should sleep on the problem,” he announced. Elia agreed.

“Just not here, so close to the cliff. Let’s move back… a long way… and see if there’s a more sheltered place to sleep.”

“Sounds good enough. Let’s go.” As he turned, a new thought struck him. “I wonder if Lauro had any trouble finding this place and getting down. We never did find his stolen Wave Chariot on the coast.”

“If he lived to make it this far, I doubt it gave him a problem,” Elia said softly, her musical voice muffled by the oppressive darkness that was descending all around the pair. “He can fly, remember?”

~

In a sort of natural overhang tucked away at the base of a rocky hill, the two young travelers made their meager camp. After setting out their bedrolls in opposite corners of the hollow, Elia set about preparing some of the rations of dried fish and pilgrim’s bread the Reethe had given them for the journey. Not tasty in the least, but enough to fill them and keep them on their feet, along with some water blessed by Cleric Lithric.

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)… 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 before…”

“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 Water… and Fire, too, if the one time had not been a fluke. If she could do this… he shivered, 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 was… 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 alive… 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’s… incredible,” he whispered. The night was now quite dark around them. “It’s unheard-of… 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 consistency…

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 constituted the source of her power…

…The tiny ball of flame, viewed through the transparency of the water, became a blazing sun that ripped through her soul’s window and shattered it…

“…ELIA!” 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 space 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.

“What… in Vast… was that?” he stammered, approaching cautiously in the shadows as if he expected her to let loose with another blast at any moment.

“I just… 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.

“Ah… good idea,” Gribly said, equally as blandly. She heard the muffled 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 bloody. 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 massacre, 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 shores, two of her enemy vessels in pieces beneath her. A second ship 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 ship, 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 ships!

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

“Captain... what in the Blazes is happening? Where did these ships come from??” It was Yan, the wheel-mate, struggling up from the surf, spewing water and blood as he tried to expel the water 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 ships, 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 course… that was exactly what he wanted.

In his mind, Gribly saw the titanic 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 grassland 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 crushing 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 shirt 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 grassy 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, pass 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 bumpy, 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 space they shared among the jutting bits of rock. Nodding politely, he stepped away and began hefting one of the packs.

“I'll carry both of these down,” he said to her, lashing both sets of supplies together. “If I start to fall, I can always stick to the stone and stop myself... but you've got no such talent, so it'll be better if you have just your own weight to balance.”

Elia didn't argue. Other than occasional gusts of wind, and the odd grass fire started by the sunbeams that lanced out of the clouds as, the trip down the strange rock-ramp was uneventful... though harrowing enough, by her standards. Gribly seemed to actually enjoy it. She couldn't imagine why.

“How can you act so... so flippant?” she called to him once, when they were about halfway down, and he was smoothing the path for her with jaunty sweeps of his foot and a bit of precise Stone Striding. Several times she'd been forced to accept his help. As he took her arm and helped her past a particularly dangerous section of the pillar, a look of pure enjoyment was stretched across his face.

“It's like... like leaping from rooftop to rooftop back home,” he replied without looking back. She gripped his shoulder with white knuckles as he helped her towards the end. “I haven't had a good chase across the sky like this in months... not since I got tangled up in this whole mess with Lauro. This's a bit different than stealing from the bedsides of the aristocrats, naturally, but it's close enough...”

“Ugh.”

At last they were at the bottom. Gribly hopped off the cracked end of the tower before Elia could utter a word of caution, falling to the ground at an odd angle and toppling over in a heap of packages, wrapping, and cloaks.

“Gribly!” she called, but he made no answer. Oh Lord of the Sea, she thought to herself, a lump in her throat, don't let him lose it this close to the end...

With a small cry, she jumped off after him. It was a good ten feet to the bottom, but the excellent quality of the footwear the Reethe had provided for her absorbed much of the shock, and she let herself roll to blunt the rest. When she came up at Gribly's side, however, she found him shaking with fits of uncontrollable laughter.

“Hello, Beautiful,” he chuckled, brushing an escaped lock of hair back from her face.

Blast him, he'd tricked her!

Elia leaned close to the thief's face, and his smile grew wider.

Then she slapped him.

“Now what don't we have time for?” she huffed, annoyed, and got up to walk away. His laughing was silenced abruptly. “And you can carry both packs for the rest of this trip, as far as I'm concerned!” His muffled protest came from behind her as he tried to struggle to his feet, holding his throbbing mouth at the same time.

“But... but it was just a joke!”

She kept walking, and didn't look back.

Eventually he caught up with her, just as tears started to form in her eyes and she buckled over, holding her stomach. Something... something tearing at her insides... begging to be fed... an emptiness that wouldn't go away...

Something was very, very wrong.

Chapter Six: Almost

Calloway was a boy of the South Village, so he wasn't stupid. When he saw the two strangers walking in the outskirts during eventide, he ran straightaway back to the Elders to tell them what he'd seen.

“I ain't stupid, and I saw 'em for sure!” he told the doubtful old man who received his report. “They's just like the first one, that Demon Man with the black horse! One of 'em even has the same face, wid' the same eyes and everything!”

“Show me, boy,” said the elder, and so Calloway did. Elder Donovan, the old man, followed him to the edge of the outer village, where they met Elder Margry and several young men brandishing pitchforks and rude weapons.

“You seen the strangers, too?” Calloway called. “I ain't stupid, and I seen 'em!”

“Yes, yes,” Margry said, nodding her old head so that her fat chin wobbled and her gray curls bobbed up and down like leaves in the breeze. “Cramner here saw them, and now we've seen them, too.”

Cramner, twelve years old and a little taller than Calloway, nodded solemnly.

“Where?” Elder Donovan asked immediately. “Where are these strangers? We'll drive them out like the first ones!”

“Right over there, blot-headed old man,” Elder Margry stated, pointing to the right. There, around the bend, stumbled two dust-covered young people, a boy and a girl, not but a few years older than Calloway or Cramner or any of the other village children. The little boy stayed silent, peering at the strangers suspiciously as the two Elders and their militia surrounded them, pointing a dizzying array of sharpened farm implements at them.

“What's your business here, and why're you troublin' our peaceful South Village without need?” Elder Donovan was known for his harsh, commanding voice, and it certainly was needed here. Calloway watched as the uglier of the two, the lad with the same face as the Demon Man, tried to support his female partner while answering.

“We're looking for someone... a friend of ours. But you must help me- this girl is a water-nymph, and she needs to bath to stay healthy.” When neither Elder answered him, the lad went on pleadingly. “Please. Our water ran out soon this morning, and we haven't been able to find the river that should be here. She's only exhausted now, but soon she'll have spasms from lack of water. We need your help... please.” It looked to Calloway as if the stranger had to unbend his pride quite a bit to plead like that. His jaw was set tight in a way Calloway recognized, and he wasn't stupid enough to not know what it meant. This stranger would fight if he had to.

Elder Margry evidently noticed it, too. “We want no parts of you, Stranger. Cannot you see that our village is in ruins? Cannot you see what your own kind has done? You have the face of the Demon Man, Boy... you are tainted with evil! I can smell it on you...”

“What?” asked the surprised lad. He seemed ready to drop dead in front of them all, but somehow he kept on his feet. “I don't know what you're talking about. I've never been here before, and I'm just trying to help my friend!”

“You are a friend to the Demon Man, then?!”

“Demon Ma- oh...” and the stranger's voice grew smaller, “This is where the Pit Strider struck, isn't it? What did he do here? If you help me,” and his voice grew stronger again, “if you help me, I can find the Pit- the Demon Man, and bring him to justice.”

“Bring him back to kill us all, now that he's ruined our lives, you mean!” shouted Elder Donovan, and the gathered villagers sent up a roar of agreement. The young stranger looked miserable, but not as surprised as Calloway would have expected. Perhaps he knew the Demon Man, after all, though Calloway's very un-stupid heart was beginning to pity him.

“No, no! That's not what I'd do. I wish to help you all, if you'll just help me! Wait, wait,” he almost sobbed, as the girl on his arm slumped unconsciously at his side and the angry mob closed in around him. “Is there anyone among you named Lauro? Help, I need to speak to Lauro!” He was desperate now, Calloway saw. A pitchfork poked him above the ear, sending a little trickle of blood down the side of his head. Calloway felt a stirring of pity once again, and he bit his lip to keep it down. This was a stranger... a Demon... someone not worthy to be trusted!

“The warrior-boy? You want the warrior-boy?” shouted Elder Donovan from amid the press of people. “He was almost as bad as the Demon Man! Took what he wanted, then left! Hurt my young grandson, he did, stealing food and threatening anyone who tried to stop him with that ugly blade of his!”

“You'll get what we couldn't give him, mark my words!” screamed Elder Margry, waving a misshapen block of wood in the unconscious face of the girl as she glared at the strangers. “You'll pay for your friends burning our village, killing our young, and stealing our things! You'll pay! You'll pay! You'll both pay!”

Calloway wanted to cry, though he knew how stupid and un-boy-like it would be. These strangers didn't deserve that, he knew now. Look at them! he wanted to shout, they can barely stand on their feet! Have they done anything to hurt you? No! Then let them go! But he didn't say anything; he just slunk farther back into the crowd until he could barely see the shapes of the tormented stranger and his sick companion through the tangle of bodies pressing closer for revenge.

Just as he was about to run away, to try to push the terrible images from his mind, Calloway saw Elder Donovan lurch forward on his rickety legs and seize the unconscious girl by the neck, trying to pull her off her friend and beat her with his walking-stick.

It was a stupid mistake that was just like a grown-up to make. Calloway saw the stranger lad, tired as he was, kick out at the skinny old man with his foot, throwing up a whirling mess of sand that formed a crude fist-shape, striking the Elder in the chest and throwing him back into the mob, barely missing being impaled by their weapons.

Gore! thought Calloway, his eyes widening as the crowd uttered a collective gasp and jumped back. The stranger's a magician! Maybe a Sand Demon! He'll kill them all, and me, too!

But the strange lad didn't kill anyone. He lifted the still-sleeping water-girl into his arms, shakily but sure, and spun around to face the way out of the village. Men stepped in front of him and Elder Margry came at his back, but he just bellowed in rage and the dusty ground reacted to his voice as if it had been waiting its whole life to obey. Sand and dirt and bits of rock leaped up yards in the air, all along the path of his yell, throwing villagers topsy-turvy out of the way. Before Elder Margry could gather her wits up again to strike him with the club in her hand, the sand magician was off at a run past the bodies of his enemies.

In seconds he was away, and none of the villagers were man enough to follow him. The crowd scattered at a few angry words from the Elders, and those who had been thrown to the ground by the magician's scream picked themselves up with curses and complaints, bellowing to everyone else that they should have helped stop the New Demon Man.

He's not a Demon Man, Calloway thought, watching the poor lad stumble off into the distance. He's just like us. Why couldn't they see that?

Calloway wasn't stupid, no, not when he'd lived his whole life in the South Village. But he was about to do something brave, and probably stupid too.

He was going to help the stranger, without anyone else knowing about it.

Chapter Seven: Calloway

By the time Gribly thought it safe to stop fleeing, the sun had sunk behind the crown of the world and plunged the land into darkness. But of course, he was barely thinking at all: his mind was a whirlwind of hate and fear, but not much else. Hate for the idiots who'd turned him away, and for the Pit Strider who'd caused it all... and for Lauro, who'd made it worse. Fear for Elia, for the water-loss sickness that was wracking her body far too early... for the time he might never have with her, selfish as it sounded even to him.

That was why, when he finally collapsed on the side of a gray hill, letting Elia slip limply to the grass beside him, he wasn't surprised to hear phantom voices in his head convincing him that he wasn't dead yet.

“I ain't stupid, and you ain't dead yet, Stranger. Get up, and I'll show you the river.” Voice, actually, not voices. He was hearing a voice out of the darkness, and a light soon followed it. It blinded him for a second, and he groaned, rolling on his side and putting a hand out to reassure himself that Elia was still there beside him, and he hadn't actually died. “Come on, capital Stranger. Pick her up. I'll show you the river.”

Small hands grabbed at him, but he was too weak to bat them away. Someone small was turning him on his back again, shining that infernal light in his face, babbling on about a river. A river... wouldn't that be the luckiest thing in the world right now? Gribly ignored it.

“You ain't dead yet, Magician. Get up, I say! I didn't follow you all the way out here just t' let you die! I ain't stupid, y'know.”

Blast. He was really awake, and there was really a boy in front of him, coaxing him back from death's door. Gribly sat up.

“Whu...” his lips were dry, cracked, and swollen from lack of water. He'd given his whole share to Elia to buy her a few more precious hours as a full nymph. His mouth could barely form words.

“Pick her up, Stranger. I'll show you the river you were lookin' for.”

The river... It had been important, hadn't it? Why was his mind seeping away through cracks in his skull? What had been important about the dratted river??

“Oh, by the Creator!” he blurted, suddenly remembering. “The blasted RIVER!”

His throat rasped and hurt him horribly from the strain of his shout.

“Don't! Not so loud, Stupid!” hissed the village boy, shaking the yellow light of his lantern at Gribly. “I can take you, sure, but not if you'll bring the 'hole village down on I!”

He talks funny, Gribly thought numbly, but his arms and legs were already moving independently of his will. Without willing it, he already had Elia in his arms and was standing up... stumbling forward... following the boy...

“Calloway,” the boy was saying. “M'name's Calloway... But you can call me Cal. I'm from the South Village. I'm not stupid- I know you're not a Demon Man. I'm going to help you. Follow me... no, not that way. This way. Come on, Stranger.”

On...

And on...

~

Damnation. He's still alive.

Silence, Bonedale. If he is, he could be dreaming of us at this very moment.

~

Gribly woke surprisingly refreshed, a cold trickle slipping down his throat. Cal, the village boy who'd saved him, was pouring water into his mouth, as he lay prone on the rocky bank of the river, his hand trailing in the water. Gesturing the lad off, he sat up and looked around. They were alone on the bank in a rare glow of morning sunlight. His tattered double pack was in a heap beside him, but Elia was nowhere to be seen.

The young prophet's mind was a muddle of confused memories. He had been carrying Elia... following Cal to where the boy said they would find a river... it had been dark, he had been bleeding... But there was no blood on his head now, was there? He felt the spot where his wound from the pitchfork should be, and there was nothing.

“Where's Elia?” he asked Cal, confused and unfocused.

“The water-girl?” Cal's eyes were wide, and his face had a lingering half-smile on its edges. “I didn't quite believe you about her... not at first... but look for yourself, and you'll see. Look, there she be!” he pointed his stubby finger at a spot in the wide, flowing river, just out of Gribly's field of vision. The bewildered Sand Strider turned to look, and his fears eased away instantly at the sight.

About the middle of the river, the water's surface broke in a splash of clear green as Elia shot clear of it, twisting twice before plunging below again like a frolicking water-animal. She was in her sleek Swimmer Form... gorgeous, Gribly would have said, had he felt safe enough. He grinned as the sea nymph broke the surface again, right by the bottom of the bank. Her hand, watery and translucent, took his out of the water and laid it by his side. She was not quite halfway out of the water, the light causing her haunting blue body to glow as she bobbed up and down in the current.

“We made it, thanks to your new friend,” she said, her voice high and pure and musical as it always was, transformed into something magical by the Change in her form. Flashing Cal a sparkling smile that made the village boy blush, she dipped beneath the water again and went swimming away in the deeper parts of the river.

“She's...” Cal began, then fell silent.

“...Enchanting?” Gribly tried. “I can only imagine what her whole tribe must have looked like, swimming and playing and living together, able to look like that whenever they wanted.”

“You mean there's more of her kind?” gaped the boy, his eyes growing so wide Gribly thought they might pop out of his head.

“Of course,” he laughed, “There's a whole different race beyond the cliffs that keep this land secret... or there was.” the memory of the Treele massacre kept him from saying more.

“What's wrong?” questioned the boy, but Gribly refused to explain, standing up and moving away to watch Elia as she swam, drinking life and health and beauty from the simple grasslands river.

“Tell me, Calloway,” Gribly said finally, using the child's full name to hold his attention. The tone of his own voice surprised him- he almost seemed like the wise, sage prophet he was supposed to be. “Tell me, have your people ever been past the cliffs that ring your land?”

“I ain't stupid, stranger. 'Course not... why? No one goes past the Hammerlands... no one can!”

“Well,” said Gribly, sighing deeply, “They can now. Your people should have figured it out, after the Demon Man and the warrior-thief came.” his voice tightened as he realized he had just tagged Lauro with the title he himself had borne his whole life. Thief. Would the word ever stop following him around? Probably not, with his kind of luck.

“Did you really come looking for the thief?” Cal asked, sounding confused.

“Yes. He's my friend... or used to be. He has, well, problems, and he needs to be stopped before they carry him too far. Before they carry him somewhere he doesn't want to go.”

“Like stealing? Like hurting Ran, the Elder's grandson?”

“Like that. And I'm sorry about that, Cal. If there was anything I could do for your village, to make up for this misunderstanding, I would. Well, to you, at least. I'm not feeling very loving towards that Elder of yours right now.”

Cal chuckled at the joke. “No, stranger. That's all right. Seeing the water-girl safe and... and free... it's good enough for me. I ain't stupid.”

Gribly laughed at the repetitive phrase. “No, indeed you aren't. And I suppose we owe you an explanation of the Demon Man, too. You can tell your village later, if you want to help them understand.”

“The Demon Man?” Cal's face grew pale. “You ain't his friend too, are you?”

“No, not at all. We're hunting him. He's killed a lot of people outside of your village, Cal... people close to Elia and I, that we're going to avenge when we find him.”

“Oh.” The boy was silent for a minute. “Why do he look like you?”

“I... I don't know. That's something I'm trying to find out. It could me more important than anything else on this quest. I'm not sure.”

“Quest?” Cal said, his eyes popping for the hundredth time. Then he looked solemn. “You're goin' to the Swaying Willow, ain't you?”

Gribly started violently. “How did you know that?”

“Everyone on quests goes there, that's why. You strangers ain't the only ones who do that. Villagers do, too, and the Willow's always where they go...”

“Well, you're right there. That's just where I'm headed. I'm looking for... well, someone important, who's supposed to be there, or near there.”

Cal nodded sagely, as if he had suspected this all along. The old expression looked humorous on his young face, and Gribly stifled a grin. Suddenly the boy stopped, looking up with an adventurous light in his eyes that the Sand Strider recognized all too well from his own, in times past.

“Take me with you, stranger. I ain't wanting to stay in the South Village anymore, where they're all so stupid. I want to go with you on your quest!”

Splashes from Elia were muted in the background of Gribly's mind as he tried to suppress a sigh.

“I'm sorry, Calloway. I can't do that, much as I'm grateful to you for all you've done. You've saved us, I know... but where we're going, you could get hurt or killed in days. We've almost died so many times on this journey, I sometimes wonder whether I'm really alive after all. And besides, you have a life here. We're just strangers without a family, Elia and I... you don't even know my name.”

“Gribly.”

“Oh, I didn't realize-”

“The water-girl told me. She says it like she loves you, too.”

“I...” Gribly could have hit himself for getting caught off-guard so quickly. The boy had flipped the tables on him in just a few words, and now he was floundering for something intelligent to say. The boy really wasn't stupid, after all.

“I think I understand you, though,” Cal said sadly, hanging his head. “I know what it's like, now. My father, see... he died in the burning, when the Demon Man came. The black horse smashed his head in... right while I was watchin'. I never met my mother.”

The words came rushing out of Gribly's mouth in response before he could stop them. Dropping on one knee, he grasped Cal's shoulders as if he were addressing a fellow man.

“I didn't know, Cal. I'm sorry. But I think I have a better reason for you to stay behind, now.”

“What's that?” The child looked ready to cry.

“You're the only one, or one of the only ones, now, who knows what that pain feels like,” Gribly told him grimly. “But that means you're one of the strongest, now. You've got to stay behind and help the other learn. Lead them, and help them grow stronger. I know you're not stupid, Cal, and I think it's up to you to help the other get as smart as you are now.”

“Cram, my friend... he know it, too. His brother died, and his sister, too. He ain't stupid, neither.”

“Right. Start with Cram. You'll need to become leaders, Cal. Both of you.”

“Why?” asked the boy, his voice quivering with suppressed excitement. Gribly opened his mouth to answer, but Elia's melodious nymph voice interrupted.

“Because more of the Demon Men are coming, Cal. There's trouble in the lands beyond your villages; big trouble that's going to burn the whole world if there aren't strong men and nymphs to resist it. The big kingdoms outside are falling to pieces, letting monsters and sorcerers and all kinds of enemies break free to hurt and kill whoever they wish. Now that the Demon Man has come... and the thief warrior, and both of us... any of those enemies can make it to the Grymclaw. To your South Village, and any other village they choose. They're coming, Cal, and Grib and I can't stop them because we've got to stop the Demon Man and our friend first.”

Cal was awed. The sea nymph girl had come up on the two boys without their hearing, and now stood behind the Sand Strider in her First Form, water still dripping from her hair even though her eternal blue dress seemed perfectly dry.

“You'll have to be the one, Cal,” Gribly said, patting him on the shoulder. “You'll have to prepare everyone for what's coming. It could be in a month, or a year, or ten years... or today. Do you think you're ready? Can you lead them?”

“Yes,” Cal said, a determined, scrunched look on his childish face. “I can do it. Don't worry, I can do it. I ain't stupid, and I never will be.”

“Indeed,” Gribly said, standing.

“But first I'll have to tell you how to get to the Swaying Willow Inn, won't I? You'll need to know so you can catch up to the thief and the Demon Man before they cause more trouble.”

“Well, yes, there's that,” Gribly conceded. Elia stepped forward to bend down and hug Cal.

“Thank you, Calloway,” she said, straightening. “We can't ever hope to repay you for all of this. It'll be hard for you if the villagers ever find out that you've aided us.”

“Oh, oh,” Cal stuttered, looking moonstruck. “It's all payment enough,” he mumbled, dropping his gaze and blushing. “Payment enough...”

~

“What a pleasant boy,” Elia said, once they had procured directions from Cal and headed off, following the river, which Cal called the Grymslip, in a northerly direction for where he said the mysterious inn could be found.

“That might be more to do with fancying you than listening to me,” Gribly joked, and she gave him a glare.

“See if I ever heal the scratches you get from fighting with old men again,” she said defiantly.

“Oh, that was you? I hadn't noticed there was a wound at all, really... I'm just that tough.”

Elia rolled her eyes and kept on walking. After a minute, Gribly broke the silence again, and this time he was serious.

“This is a harsh land. I hope that lad's up to the task. He really could grow up to be their leader someday... if he survives.”

Elia dropped back beside him to talk. “I think you gave him what he needed to hear. You can be a leader yourself, when you're forced, Grib.” Her tone was joking but her eyes were serious. The young prophet sighed.

“I just wish I didn't have to be.”

“You don't really have a choice. No one does, when they're called on to lead... or just to survive.”

“We have that in common, then,” he said, and hugged her close for just a second.

On they walked, until the morning turned to day that turned to evening, and they were swallowed up by the red rays of the failing sun.

Chapter Eight: The Swaying Willow

Two days later, supplies depleted and clothes filthy and tattered, the two Striders finally reached their destination. It had been a grueling but uneventful trip save for the one time a red sunbeam escaping from a cloud overhead nearly set Gribly on fire as he returned from a stealthy trip to the fields of the East Village. He had taken only what was necessary, of course, but it irked him to behave like Lauro had, even if the other scattered hamlets of the Grymclaw reacted in much the same way to travelers as the South Village had.

Then, all in an hour or two on the third day of their trek, the situation improved vastly. Elia spotted the long-lost remnants of the gray road, winding and twisting until it came to run parallel with the Grymslip. A short time more of walking, and the road climbed through a series of bumpy rock-mounds and sudden gulleys that opened up in the land. Towards the end of the day, they came out of the third or fourth of these small canyons onto the edge of an enormous, shallow bowl-shaped depression in the land, and found just where the road had been leading to the entire time.

About a hundred yards away, nestled in the center of the bowl, or perhaps a little farther back, stood an inn unlike any Gribly had ever seen in Ymeer.

It was a conglomeration of different buildings, most made of rough gray stones piled haphazardly together and sealed with a thick, dark mortar. There was a low, round-roofed building that might have been the stable, lumped up next to a series of clumped towers that probably housed guests, which in turn was attached to the main part of the building: a large, thick, square shape with dozens of little windows that glowed with warm yellow light.

There were huge sections of the inn that looked to have fallen apart and been replaced by dark-hued wood. Thatch coated some of the roofs, while tiles formed the makeup of others. There were at least a dozen structures all together, counting the main building and the stables, and some of them looked entirely out of place: a carved stone gargoyle here, a silver-coated archway there, an iron-fenced yard with a vicious-looking gate somewhere else.

Yet somehow the haphazard structure contrived to look inviting... despite itself. And the road led to it as if there were no other logical destination for anyone who might be walking in that direction. As the travelers neared the inn, they could hear the sounds of merriment and laughter inside, with snatches of song and even a few hearty yo-hos in the mixture.

Over the door was a large wooden plaque, once colorful but now worn to almost the same color as the wall. On it was a faded green painting of a willow, tilted to one side.

“Well, here we are,” Gribly observed, stopping a bit before the door. It looked more than a bit intimidating, and yet he was undeniably drawn to it.

“Yes, here,” Elia echoed, but she looked no more ready to enter than he.

Then the smells came. It had been so long since Gribly had smelled something other than sea-salt and dust that he almost didn't recognize the sensation. Then the hundreds of tantalizing odors from inside struck his nostrils at once, and his mind was made up.

“Do you smell that, Elia?!?” he cried, “They're having a feast in there, or I've never pinched a meal in my life!”

“Pinched?” she asked with a raised eyebrow, but before he had even heard her Gribly was skipping up the steps to the wide front door, pulling on the handle and heaving it open, his exhaustion forgotten.

Elia followed, and neither of them saw the willow-tree painting begin to glow softly with an inner green light, as soon as they had entered.

~

The interior of the Swaying Willow was twice as chaotic as the sounds coming from within had suggested. Here, there, and everywhere bustled men, women, and even some children, all of different sizes, shapes, color, and dress. It seemed like any normal inn's common room, with a high place in the center for men to drink at, tables and chairs scattered all around the wide, smoky space, and plenty of brown-clad servants bustling in and out of the ever-milling crowd of patrons with trays and mugs of every imaginable foodstuff.

The light was dim and muted, but substantial enough after the darkness outside that Gribly had to rub his eyes for a minute before he could see clearly. When he did, he almost gasped: a tall, pointy-eared nymph man had just walked past him, a green cloak wrapped around his shoulders.

“There're nymphs in the Grymclaw?” he yelled to Elia above the noise and bustle of the room. She just shrugged, looking small but not so frightened anymore.

There were men and nymphs in abundance, the thief soon realized, in addition to one or two curious persons that seemed to be of an entirely different species.

“It's a melting pot of the whole world,” Elia murmured, and Gribly could barely hear her over the rough melody of a small group of musicians plucking a lively tune on stringed instruments over in one corner. The buzz of scents, sights, and sounds was too inviting; Gribly stepped forward into the crowd, pulling Elia with him.

“Let's find the innkeeper. Perhaps he'll have some idea of what we're to do next.”

“We... we don't have money,” Elia told him, straining to speak over the noise. “How're we to pay for food and drink?”

“We'll find a way!” he assured her, and then they were at the bar near the center of the room. The bartender, a portly man with an open, flapping shirt that revealed an unnaturally hairy chest, leaned forward to address them, and Gribly was shocked to discover the man had ears like a donkey's, along with two little horns at the top of his head.

“Yeeeess? Whaaat caan I doo for youu?” the man bleated, and Elia gave a little hiccup of surprise, which he didn't seem to notice. Just like a goat! Gribly thought, trying to keep a straight face.

“We... ah... we need to speak to the innkeeper,” he managed, and the goat-man squinted at him with a new attitude.

“Aaand whyy woulld youu beee waanting thaat?” he wondered loudly.

“We...” Gribly faltered, glancing at Elia. Her eyes were glazed, and she was leaning to one side, away from him. It's too much for her, he realized. She's never even been outside the Inkwell before. “We're friends,” he said finally, reverting to the wheedling tone he'd perfected as a thief. “We... we have a message for him. It's very, very important.”

Maybe I overdid that. The bartender frowned.

“Oooh? Aaa messaaage? Frahm whoo?”

Gribly was at a loss, but salvation came from an unexpected interruption.

“It's from Byornleo, the Longstrider,” Elia broke in, seeming to shake herself out of the daze that had her. “You know him, do you not?” she added, leaning in conspiratorially to the bartender. “The ranger?”

The curly-headed goat-man reacted visibly to both the name and the title. Wringing his fleshy hands, he nodded his head up and down as if he'd expected as much the whole time. “Oooh, riight theen, riight. Ah'll seend someoone wiith yoou, thenn... aand would yoou bee haaving aanything to eeat oor driink fiirst? Frieends oof the Loongstrider neeed noot paay forr theiir sustenaance heere.”

As Gribly ordered food and hot drinks for both himself and Elia, he shot the nymph girl an appreciative glance, but she seemed to have sunk back into her daze again, barely aware of her surroundings in an ill-fated attempt to see and hear everything at once.

Soon they were both deposited in a relatively quiet corner of the common room, their packs set aside, with a candle or two to light their table and a jovial, curly-headed, bright-eyed servant boy to wait upon them. Though he spoke more like a man than a goat, his ears and horns- not to mention a conspicuous pair of hairy goat-like legs stuffed into too-small trousers- identified him as one of the same strange, half-animal race to which the bartender belonged.

“Here we are,” he said, smiling from ear to ear as he laid a steaming tray of food and hot drink down between the two tired young travelers. “Fresh from the places they was growed in.”

Come to think of it, his speech reminded Gribly more of Cal the village boy than anyone else. “Thank you,” he answered for them both. “And will you be the one taking us to see the innkeeper?”

“That I'll be,” the goat-boy nodded, shuffling his hooves in a rush to be off.

“Wait a moment, then,” Gribly said, “And if your other matters aren't too pressing, maybe you can explain a few things to my friend and me.”

“Well...” answered the servant, “I suppose I could. Master Bwether did tell me to 'elp you, in whatever you was needing...” darting into the smoky haze of the room's center with the speed of long practice, the boy soon returned with a medium-sized stool, which he plunked down on the side of the table between both Striders. Sitting himself heavily upon it, he wiped his curly brow and leaned his elbows forward on the table.

“Good,” Gribly told him. “Now while we're eating, tell us all you care to about yourself and this place. We've never met the... the innkeeper... here at his inn before.”

“What would you like me to be startin' with? There's a lot to say, if you've never been 'ere afore.”

“I'd like you to tell us what kind of... well, if it's not rude to ask... what kind of person you are.”

Able to resist the tantalizing smells rising from his plate, the Sand Strider leaned in to begin business, but as the goaty servant began to reply, Elia cut them both off.

“Gribly... aren't you going to give thanks for the food?”

“What?” Gribly asked in surprise. Elia was staring at him curiously.

“With the Treele, and the Reethe too, we always gave the Aura thanks for our feasts, and the Creator for His goodness in giving us the time to enjoy them. You remember that, don't you?”

“Oh.” Gribly thought about it, and he did. “I suppose you want to do something like that now?”

Elia nodded, and bowed her head. Surprised but not annoyed, the servant boy followed her example, as did Gribly, a little miffed.

“Lord of Seas and Skies, we thank You for this bounty of food. Send Your Aura to bring us life and health through this meal... We believe and pray.” she lifted her head, and a small chill passed up Gribly's spine. That she had remembered to give thanks for the unexpected victory of their first good meal of their journey... even as overwhelmed as she had to be feeling from it all... it scratched the armor of lethargy he had built around his own heart, and he wasn't sure whether he liked the feeling or not.

“We all done?” the goat boy asked timidly, a hesitant smile tugging the edges of his mouth. Gribly shrugged.

“Well, yes,” Elia said, looking a bit embarrassed. Gribly couldn't help but feel that he was somehow contributing to her confusion in this new world. She was, after all, no older than he, and with much less experience- despite her iron will in the face of her parents' death.

“Righty, then,” bleated the boy. “I'm what's called a Haedus. Goaty, manny, half on half... that's me and all me kind.” he winked as Gribly and Elia dove wholeheartedly into their respective meals. “I call meself Leafly, if that explains anything much more to you. The old bartender, what you may be calling the leader of us Haedi, his name's Bwether, or just 'Ol' Beth,' if you want to make him mad sometimes... We all- but espec'lly Bwether- work for Ol' Swaying Willow, doing whichever he wants, when and how and where.”

“The inn?” Elia asked, her face very improperly smeared with a warm yellow butter.

“No, the innkeeper,” corrected Leafly, frowning. “Don't you even know his name?”

This time, it was Gribly who came to the rescue. “He always went by a different name, when we met him. We've come from a long, long way off- farther than the entire Grymclaw, in fact.”

Leafly raised an eyebrow. “That all? I've been goin' farther than that, for sure... Ever been to the Sandlands? Westren? Rune?”

“No... where are they in Vast?”

Leafly grinned mischievously. “I can see you're from the outside, right enough. No one from here knows the outsiders' names for things. Vast. They're not in Vast, Stranger. They be across the water and in a dozen other places.”

“Impossible,” Gribly answered, as soon as he had finished chewing a particularly succulent hunk of roasted meat.

“Not at all. Many o' these inn-goers be from those places.”

Elia finished downing some of the hot cider-like drink from the mug at her elbow, wiped her mouth, and said “But how do they get to this inn, then? I thought we were the first to come to the Grymclaw from the outside in... well, years and years.”

Leafly frowned again, which only made his friendly, curl-framed face look all the more comical. “D'you know nothing about the innkeeper after all? He.. he can do that sort of thing. It's this inn, too, you know. It's sort of... well, I'm not sure I can say, or should say, but it's... different. It's in more than one place, you might say...”

“I'm not following you,” Gribly shook his head.

“Well there now... I tried!” gasped Leafly, throwing his arms up and addressing the ceiling. Returning his gaze to the two Striders as they plowed through their vittles, he sighed. “It's harder to say than to know, I guess. But besides... you're not the only ones at this inn who've come in from this place. There're more than a few hardy village men, and even a few women, all come in from the Grymclaw. Then there's the two outsiders like yourselves.”

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 wide, 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.”

“No? Well, the answer’s easy enough. I came here searching for the Aura, just as you did.”

“And have you found him?” She couldn’t quite keep the excitement out of her voice.

Lauro looked at her sharply, obviously wondering how much she could be trusted. Finally he shrugged.

“No. The innkeeper here knows something, I’m sure of it, but he won’t tell me anything or even get near to me if he can help it. A strange fellow, and I don’t trust him.”

“Oh.” Only now Elia fully realized two things: that the common room had finally got back to normal around her, and that the commotion no longer bothered her as much as it had, now that she had something serious to focus on. With that encouragement, she went on. “When did you get here? I have to admit, we- I- was worried when there was no sign of your… ship… near any of the cliffs.”

“The Chariot sunk,” Lauro began, continuing to give her an appraising stare. He opened his mouth to continue before realizing something and snapping it shut again. His eyes narrowed. “You just said we. Who else is here with you? Gribly? That Frost Strider? Another Reethe?”

Blast.

“I… I came with Gribly. We wanted to find you,” she told the prince, and her voice took on as pleading a tone as she could give it without seeming false. “We didn’t want you to die trying to do this quest alone.”

All throughout their conversation the two had been drifting closer to the edge of the room. Now, suddenly and uncomfortably, Elia found her back up against the wall, Lauro in front and to the side of her. To her right was a table, preventing her from walking away. She was forced to look him straight in the face as he frowned slowly and deeply.

“I told you…” he said, the hint of a growl in his voice.

“But didn’t you just say you were glad to see me?”

He blinked, and for a second Elia thought he was going to step away. Instead, his cold smile returned. “I am glad to see you. You haven’t left my thoughts this whole time we’ve been separated. I have no memories of you other than joyous ones… It’s Gribly who makes me angry. It’s him I don’t want around.”

Oh no, Elia thought, he’s talking like he loves me… this is worse than I thought. He’s getting stranger… angrier. Aloud, she stammered, “Wh-why? I haven’t been any better to you than he has… and he hasn’t done anything to anger you. Why did you run away?” Lauro edged a little closer, and she tried to keep the distance between them.

“I’d tell you, if I was sure you wouldn’t go right back and blurt it all to him.” Lauro sounded genuinely hurt, genuinely concerned for her, but Elia ignored the tone. He was manipulating her, that was all. “I could help you,” the Wind Strider continued. “I’ve got a room here, and supplies… if you joined me, we could continue the quest and let Gribly fend for himself.”

“What?!” she exclaimed, anger replacing her fear, “What’s come over you? Don’t you remember all he’s done for you? All we’ve done for each other? It’s supposed to be the three of us doing this, Lauro! How could you forget so fast?”

The prince became quietly menacing in an instant, leaning on the wall so that he was less than an inch from her face, his smile replaced with a sneer.

“You have no idea what my life has been like,” he whispered, but his voice was painfully loud so close to her ear, and she winced. “I’ll tell you the story,” he continued, “So that you’re satisfied, and we can get on to the real problem.”

“No…” she said in a shaky voice, but he kept going and there was no way to stop him. Her body seemed frozen in place with fear, her tongue thick and speechless in her mouth. She shivered from the prince’s breath on her neck.

“I have to do this alone,” Lauro hissed, “Because unless I do, my father… the blasted King of all Vastion… will never, ever take me back. You and everyone else call me Prince… it isn’t true. I am no prince… not anymore. Larion Vale stripped that title from me when he exiled me in the desert north of his realm. Yes, Blast Desert, where I met Gribly. I know you’ve heard him talk of the royal order I carried. What even he doesn’t know, though- what no one knows, is that I forged that letter.”

“Why…?” she tried to say, but it came out almost inaudibly. “Why?” she tried again, stronger, and “Why did you- why were you…”

“You don’t need to know,” he cut her off, breathing heavily with emotion. “Except this: I will learn what I need from the Aura. I will find out how to save the kingdom… I will save it by myself… and then my father will respect me. He’ll have to! He’ll…”

The prince’s voice died off abruptly as a wrinkled hand the size of a dinner platter took his shoulder and spun him around. Elia breathed a sigh of relief. It was Swaying Willow, the innkeeper.

“This is a night for idiocy like I have not encountered in many a year,” drawled the huge man, frowning his dried, crinkly face until it resembled the knotted bark of a tree. His stringy gray hair flailed about as he shook his head and spoke. “It is a rule here, as I must constantly repeat tonight, young Wind Strider, that no violence of any kind is permitted in this place of rest. That includes, as any and every honorable man should know, violence that is threatened. Threatening expressions… motions… words…”

The tree-like face and deep yellow eyes turned deliberately to take in Elia where she stood stone-still against the wall. She couldn’t meet that gaze, not even if she had wanted to, so she looked away into the rest of the room. She thought someone should have noticed the enormous innkeeper preparing to expel another patron, but it seemed no one did. The attendees of the inn went on with their drinking, eating and merrymaking, never pausing even for a moment to glance at the scene in the corner. Soon the innkeeper was speaking to Lauro again.

“You have threatened this young woman’s safety and honor, in however subtle a way,” Swaying Willow pronounced solemnly, “And for that you must forfeit the time of peace you should have gained here.” Elia couldn’t see Lauro’s face, but his back was rigid and his ears were red. With a shock she realized that he was deathly afraid. His right hand clenched and unclenched nervously, white at the knuckles. She gulped, wondering what would happen next.

What happened was simple: the innkeeper threw Lauro out, just as he had done to Gribly and the Pit Strider, Gramling. She vaguely saw the willowy man standing in the door, waiting for the disgraced young Strider to scamper off before returning to her.

“Now,” the innkeeper began, but before he could say any more darkness rushed up on Elia and she felt herself falling forward in a faint, the exertions of the past few days finally catching up to her in spite of the short rest and food.

Arms caught her: steady, soft arms that could belong to none other than the innkeeper. A deep voice, like Swaying Willow’s but richer, more soothing, seemed to come from all around her in the void, urging her to drift away and regain her strength; to rest, and grow healthy; to sleep without dreaming.

And she did.

Chapter Ten: Comings and Meetings

Elia found herself in a forest of emerald and brown, bathed in the lingering twilight that belonged to neither night nor day.

Putting out her hand, she touched the trunk of the tree nearest to her. The bark felt smooth, twisting in wrinkled patterns under her hand, swaying and shifting in the breeze. She closed her eyes and inhaled the delicious, enlivening air of the forest around her, imagining for a moment that the noises of the tree were its breathing, in and out, in and out, as it took nourishment from the sun. A tree that breathed sunbeams.

With a start the Wave Strider opened her eyes and drew her hand away. It hadn't been all her imagination- the tree really was breathing! She had felt what she could have sworn was a pulse! With puzzled eyes she scrutinized its trunk and branches for any sign to explain the phenomenon, but there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary about the tree.

“What a strange place,” she whispered, looking all around her before heading deeper into the forest. Every tree was a different shape, some short and some tall, some warped and some straight, but all seemed to have the same brown bark and silvery-green leaves, and all held the magical pulsating life she had felt in the first one.

Perhaps life was not the right word. Awareness, maybe. The trees all had an uncommon sort of intelligence... a vibrance... an aura...

Come. She shivered at the unexpected word which broke upon the outer edges of mind, trickling down her spine like the excited, uncomfortable symptoms of love... Love like the kind she was trying to hide. Like her love for Gribly, thin and untested as it still was. Love like she had never felt since her family and all those she cared about had been ripped from her life with bloody claws.

Come. There was a distinctness to this voice that she could not ignore. It was calling her, and she must obey: it was that simple.

Come. The haunting melody of string instruments she couldn't see pulled at the edge of Elia's hearing, bringing back memories both sad and endearing.

Her feet were moving beneath her. She looked up and found to her utter astonishment that she had been walking for some time, and that the grass and foliage beneath her had begun to slope downwards significantly. It was all so strange, she wasn't sure whether to be excited or afraid. The melody continued, her heart pumped, and the voice in her head spoke one last time. Come.

Just as the last echoes of the word died away, Elia found herself at the bottom of the wooded slope, standing at the edge of an open, grassy dell which swam in a misty light. The cool radiance seemed not to come from the sky, but from the human-like being who sat in the center of the clearing.

It was a man, or what looked like one, clothed in white, with light-colored skin and golden eyes. He was sitting in the nook of a mighty tree, the only one in the clearing, on what looked to be a living throne made of the tree itself. In an almost-disconcerting way, Elia could see his features clearly despite the light that emanated from him. It made her think of a glass vessel, such as a king or prince might use to drink from. The man was the vessel, and the light was shining through him into the world beyond.

She shivered. The man on the throne lifted one hand serenely, and beckoned.

She took a step closer, putting her bare foot in the long grass of the dell. Then she took another.

And another.

She walked towards the white-clad man, who rose to greet her, taking her hand in his.

Then she knew. He was Swaying Willow, the innkeeper, but he was Wanderwillow, too.

He was an Aura.

“Welcome, Child,” he said, calmly gazing at her in the way only her father had done before.

The feeling she had felt at the first touch of his mind, back in the forest, returned to wash her mind clean of all thoughts but one.

“My will is yours, Nympharch,” she said, her voice trembling as she spoke in her native tongue. Kneeling, she bent her head in reverence. This was the Lord of Nymphs. She knew it, though she had never been told. She knew it as she felt any nymph to meet him would know... Wanderwillow was the part of the Aura that most resembled nymphkind; the spirit of the World most in love with the race that had given her birth. Perhaps he himself had created them?

“No, dearest. I did not create. Only One has, and it is He Who creates All. I am only the Protector... the Guardian and Patron of your race.”

One hand touched her chin, raising it up. She looked into Wanderwillow's eyes and saw all the vast wisdom of the Aura reflected in his glance; reflected from above, as was the light that shone through him. It came from a higher place than himself- higher, even, than all the Aura or any beings like them.

She saw, or knew, or felt all at once...

His power was from the Creator Himself.

“Rise, Halanyad,” the Aura said, taking her hands and helping her to stand. “I am not worthy of your worship. We are both no more than a single thread in the tapestry which the Creator wields over all of Time and Distance. And your own part in that pattern is no small one. Feel no shame, Halanyad. Be free, be loved.”

She shivered, feeling the power of the unfamiliar name by which he called her... but she held his gaze. “Thank you,” she whispered, tears welling in her eyes. “Thank you...”

She wasn't sure exactly what for, but she knew that she needed to say it, just as she had known without being told who this Aura was.

“Now you are healed,” intoned Wanderwillow. The light that shone through him grew brighter, and Elia felt beyond a doubt that his words were true. She bowed her head, smiling through tears of peace and joy. “Elia.” Now he was speaking the name she knew was her own. “Child. I have waited long for you to come and find me, and we will have much to speak of; but I sense much fear and anxiety on your heart. Tell me what troubles you…”   And she did.

~

In the night-shrouded honeycomb of stone spires behind the Swaying Willow Inn, Gramling stalked from shadow to shadow in what could only be called the most contemplative- and dangerous- mood he had ever been in.

There has to be a way to break whatever spell is nullifying my powers, he told himself now, focusing on the problem ahead while simultaneously scanning the surrounding terrain for enemies. On a whim, he snapped his wrist twice in a Pit Striding technique for generating fire.

The gust of flame that spurted from his hand surprised him so much that he let go of the flow that sustained his power. His powers were back, but why so soon?

The answer came to him at once. Because that fool of an innkeeper meant just what he said. He's no sorcerer or cleric! Striding is only deadened by the power of that blasted inn... so now that I'm far enough away, my powers are back. Simple as that.

It really was simple, and he cursed himself profusely for not figuring it out sooner. He'd let his guard down and his ambition fade, fleeing battle with his tail between his legs like some muddy cur, thrashed by a bigger dog than itself.

He needed to test this new revelation, determining to what extent his powers had returned. Reaching out into the nightly shadows with the dark strength of his mind, he called out in the language of the Pit Beasts.

Bonedale.

Not very much to his surprise, the deep, raspy voice of his falconhorse companion responded. What shocked him was that it came from directly above him.

“Master.”

The only sign that Gramling's composure was shaken was the twitching of his eyebrows as he jerked his neck to stare up at the silently flying mount above him.

“Impressive. You are a worthy servant indeed.”

“I am no longer your servant.”

“What?!” Gramling’s danger sense buzzed furiously in the back of his skull, and sparks of flame were dancing between his fingers the next second.

“You were a worthy master, but another has come. One vastly more powerful than you. I have no choice but to serve him. He has commanded it, and the Powers of the Pit stand behind him.”

“No…” Gramling hissed, icy understanding churning his stomach. “It can’t be… He can’t have come yet! I haven’t failed, blast it all!”

“Oh… but you have, my child.”

Gramling froze in utter horror as a familiar presence gripped his body in a vice of power and turned him forcibly around. A tall, hideous form melted out of the night, deeper and blacker than any shadow.

Straight back, hooded face. Clawed fingers, glinting eyes, and dark robes Gramling knew to be splattered with blood.

“Look into my eyes.” It was the Golden One. The Death of Worlds. The Breaker of Minds. His voice echoed of shattered stone; of broken ice and burning wave; of death and decay and violence.

When his Master spoke, the command had to be obeyed. He had no choice but to meet the fiery gaze of the Golden One.

“Spare me, Master...” he pleaded, voice sinking to a pitiful whine. “I can do this... I won't fail again, I promise you!” His words died into a scream as his body suddenly moved with a mind of its own. His limbs splayed out as he was lifted into the air by an unseen force, the blood boiling in his veins as his back bent farther and farther, threatening to snap at any moment.

Gramling's vision was a sea of blood and fire as pain wracked his body. Slashing through the white noise of suffering was the insistent whisper of the Golden One.

“I do not reward failure with death, my child. Only fools in power do so. Your punishment will be great, but it will be because I wish you to be a better servant for me. I have taught you to conquer pain- have you forgotten that? No... you will not die. You will only become stronger, the more you are chastised.”

Suddenly the grip on his body vanished, and Gramling went tumbling to the ground. His Master's words filling his mind, he managed to ignore the pain in his body enough to land in a battle-ready crouch, a sneer on his face.

“Command me,” he grunted, his concentrated effort to not break into tears lending a hard edge to his voice.

The Golden One chuckled, low and unmelodious. “Your punishment will not come immediately. I am a merciful god, my child. Should you prove yourself in the coming struggle, I may go so far as to rescind it entirely.”

“S... s... struggle?” Gramling managed, standing warily.

“The time has come.” The young Pit Strider felt himself tense, from excitement this time. “You have failed in your original mission... it is true. But in doing so you have led me straight to the root of the last thorn in my side.”

The shadows fled as the Golden One let his hood fall away, revealing the glowing golden skin and yellow eyes beneath.

“The inn, Master?”

“The innkeeper.”

“Swaying Willow? I knew there was-”

“Silence.”

The single word froze Gramling's blood again. Blood. One of Pit Striding's most complicated- and powerful- elements. His Master could control the blood of his minions with a single thought. Best to stay silent. His chance of redemption would be ruined if he spoke again.

“A wise decision.” Blast! I apologize, Master. I forgot that you can see my thoughts. “The innkeeper is one of the Aura.” No! “Yes. He is none other than the Aura of Nymphs, Lord of the Rangers and one of my greatest enemies. You know we fight the Aura, Gramling, but do you know why?”

No. Gramling merely thought it- he knew his master wouldn't need to hear.

“Come,” The Golden One said, and shadows wrapped them in an unshakeable grip.

Chapter Eleven: And So It Began

Lauro was so angry- at Elia, at himself, at the mysterious innkeeper- that he could only think of one thing: flying. He had discovered the inn's strange effect on his powers when he had first come here. The wind currents that he could always see were no longer visible, and it had not taken him long to find out why.

A mile or so of desperate fleeing, and the colorful currents returned. Lauro felt a coolness settle on his mind, as it always did when he was in touch with his gifts; but he quashed it in the furnace of his anger, Wind Striding with powerful kicks of his feet to lift himself into the air. In the nighttime sky, he navigated more by feeling than sight. The wind caressed his face, and he returned its touch. The currents around him were his muscles and bones, his flesh and blood.

On and on he flew, almost swimming through the air, his whole body in cooperation with the movements of the sky. Suddenly, a great inky darkness exploded on his vision, confusing the wind currents and dispersing his power. Before he could react, the prince flew right through it.

“Gah!” he choked, coughing and sputtering as his powers flickered and he dropped lower, out of the black mess of something. “Smoke!”

Smoke. He'd flown through smoke. What in Vast?

More of it was coming. Cloud upon cloud of coal-stained smoke wafted up towards him. He dodged some of it, but most of it hit him full on. There was no resistance when his body met it, but where it floated the wind seemed to die, even as it carried the smoke higher and higher...

With a muffled yell, Lauro realized he was falling faster than he could stop amidst all the smoke. A great blot of it curled up all around him, and he shut his watering eyes to stop them from burning. A frantic second of silent falling, then he was out of the cloud, Wind Striding frantically to stop his fall.

A dark metal shape like a tall pillar loomed up in front of him, leaning slightly to one side and belching volumes of coal-smoke from its open top. Cursing, Lauro struck out in front of him with his palms, then raked his hands to either side in a breaststroke. Wind rushed under his arms and lifted him out of harm's way, allowing him to pass just over the strange object.

Another, smaller pipe passed below him, and he flew nimbly to one side to avoid the billowing smoke. His eyes still stinging from the fumes, he dipped down and to the side, zigzagging to avoid whatever mysterious enemy was assailing him. Random, confusing sounds assaulted his ears: rushing water, creaking hinges, crackling flames, and turning gears. By the time his eyes were entirely clear again, he was mere feet away from slamming into the ground.

Lauro flung out his hands, cushioning what could have been a fatal crash with a well-placed gust of air.

It still hurt. Rocks and dirt bit at his body as he slammed into the ground and rolled for several yards. When he had finally stopped tumbling, the prince scrambled to his feet, fists clenched and ready to blast his enemy with a wall of wind.

But there was no enemy- at least not immediately. Lauro stumbled back in awe, his guard dropping entirely as his mouth opened and closed soundlessly. He had landed on the bank of  the deep, wide river that had run parallel to the old Grymclaw road. The night sky above the running water was entirely blocked by six gargantuan shapes.

They were warships of a kind he had never seen before. They were huge, squat, and built of metal, like enormous armored toads with elongated bodies, straddling the snaky river. There were no masts, sails, or oars to be seen; just long, tilted smokestacks that looked as if they belonged in a Vastic forge, and giant turning gears that grunted and sent sparks flying at varying intervals as they ground together in an endless song of chaos.

Lord of the Four Winds, Lauro prayed inside, deliver us all! What hellish forge had given birth to these monstrous things? And why were they here? Were they coming for him? Were they from his father?

Inside, of course, he knew the answer to at least the last question. No... King Larion wouldn't waste such weapons on me. These are far more powerful ships than he has. If they were Vastion's, they wouldn't be here looking for me- they'd be fighting the pirate lords in the south.

That was a thought. Could these things be under a pirate flag? He had heard some of the names of the southern pirate lords, for they had always been a thorn in his father's side. But this looked too deserted, too sober for a pirate's vessel... and besides, it flew no flag.

Lauro crouched down low and crept closer to the edge of the riverbank, hoping for a clearer view. Curse this overcast night, and doubly curse this blasted smoke! Suddenly, movement on the deck of the strange ship caught his eye. The next moment, he was infinitely glad for the darkness he had just cursed.

A tall, black-clad form moved to the very back of the ship as it passed Lauro's hiding spot, chugging upstream with a muffled cacophony of mechanical noises. He could almost make out the face... but not quite. If only a little wind would come along...

A dangerous idea began to root itself in the prince's brain. Leaning down and lying flat on the bank of the river, he tried to make himself as invisible as possible. Then, stretching out one hand, he made a swift flicking motion with one hand.

The breeze began at his elbow, twisting and curling around his forearm until it reached his hand, where it grew until it burst from his palm with an almost-inaudible whoosh.

Several tense seconds passed. The metal ship was almost out of sight in the shadows.

Suddenly the breeze reached the dark figure in the stern, catching his hood and pushing it back as naturally as a normal gust of wind. Then the night closed in around the smoke-spewing vessel, and it was lost to sight.

Lauro stayed where he was for another minute, his heart pounding and his pulse racing.

He had seen the face of the Pit Strider.

Something in his heart snapped. Not apart, though, rather... it seemed that something had snapped back into place.

The Pit Strider was heading towards the Swaying Willow with six ships of unprecedented might, with Creator-knows-what kind of enemies aboard, the Pit Strider himself excluded. Whatever he felt about Gribly, and however the idiots he'd once called his friends had mistreated him, he still owed them a warning.

Blast. Duty was hard.

As soon as he was sure that the mysterious fleet had gone far enough upriver that he would not be spotted, Lauro leaped to his feet with the intention of flying back to warn his friends at the inn.

Backing up a few steps, the prince took a running leap forward, out into the air over the steep bank of the river. Wind Striding kept him afloat, and he began to cross the open distance in a succession of rapid leaps from wind current to wind current.

About halfway across, the impossible happened.

He leaped higher than ever before, ready to ascend into the night sky, but a curious wetness soaked his ankle one moment, and the next he was ripped from the air and pulled towards the surface of the river with astonishing force. With a frantic glance down at himself, Lauro found that a dripping tentacle of ever-flowing water had reached out of the river and seized him by the leg.

“Off of me!” he yelled, but the water kept pulling on him, enchanted or controlled by something far more powerful than he. His grip on the element of the wind loosened, then fell apart, sending him crashing into the river with a loud splash!

The liquid closed over his head like the door of a prison cell, as the tentacle of water drew him deeper and deeper into the depths of the river. The flow battered him from side to side, but he was held in place too tightly to be swept away. Frantically clawing and kicking, the prince attempted to swim away, but to no avail.

Sleep, a voice in his head told him. It is almost over. Let yourself sink into me...

“No!!!!” he screamed, and the river rushed in to fill his lungs and choke him.

Sleep, the voice repeated.

And finally, he did.

~

Even without his Sand Striding abilities, it was easy as anything for Gribly to sneak past the bumbling Haedi who worked in the inn stables. Within an hour of his encounter with the Pit Strider, he was hidden in the hayloft above the horse stalls. They weren't just for horses, though; they were for every conceivable mount on the face of the world- and quite a few that he had never conceived of before at all.

Something had driven him to go there. A tiredness he had never felt before assaulted his limbs and body, weighing him down to the point where his thoughts were entirely occupied with finding a comfortable place to drop on his face and fall into the deepest slumber of his life.

And he did.

Chapter Twelve: Forest of Foretelling

Gribly stumbled out of the trees into a grassy, twilit dell with a single mighty tree in its center. His journey through the forest had been surreal and invigorating, and his desire for sleep was gone. He cared not that he was probably in a dream anyway, nor that in the waking world he was probably on the edge of yet another failure. None of it mattered anymore; just the quiet sweetness of the dell and the hidden majesty of the elusive being who had called him here.

There, seated on a throne made of the tree itself, was the one who had called him. It was a being of light and spirit like he had never seen before, and beside him sat...

Elia? Lauro? He couldn't decide which, and his mind felt incapable of focusing enough to figure it out.

No... it wasn't either of them- it was both. They were both here, in the dreamworld he couldn't understand.

Elia was up, running for him, wrapping her arms around him... suddenly his mind was crystal clear.

“Gribly,” she whispered, “we've done it! We've found the Aura! We've found Wanderwillow!”

~

Whether or not this place was part of the physical world, Gribly soon realized it could be nothing less than completely, utterly real. In the ensuing period of time- he could never be sure afterwards whether it was a minute, an hour, or a lifetime- he was greeted warmly by Wanderwillow, and somewhat less warmly by Lauro. Then, when the introductions had passed, all three were seated at the foot of the throne, listening to Wanderwillow speak. It seemed the Aura had known all along who they were and what their mission was. But, as he explained:

“It was not yet the proper time to act. The agent of Blood and Shadow was still at that time nearby. It was necessary to allow him to leave first, and to let him believe himself to have escaped, before I brought you three hither.”

That didn't sound very explanatory to Gribly.

“We have a lot of things to ask you about,” he said.

“Indeed,” agreed Wanderwillow, placing his rough, large hands carefully in his sleeves like some kind of cleric or monk. “And what is it that you would like to know?”

“What it means to be a prophet! What am I supposed to do with my life?” cried Gribly, but the other two answered just as quickly and just as loud.

“Why did my family have to die?” Elia suddenly sobbed.

“How do I prove to my father that I'm not a coward?” Lauro burst at the same time.

Utter silence fell. The three young Striders looked at each other in shock, as if speaking their deepest desires and thoughts aloud had suddenly allowed them to see each other clearly for the first time.

“Well,” Wanderwillow said, nodding wisely, “I thought as much.”

Gribly held his breath, heart pounding, waiting for an answer. Elia and Lauro followed his example, but the Aura's only response was to stretch his hands out towards them.

Suddenly the luminous being was holding a book, bound with soft gray leather and very, very old. “This,” he said solemnly, “is for the one of you Destined to Lead.”

No one moved. Gribly froze stiff, enamored with the object, so intent on what it could possibly mean that he failed to notice Lauro reach for it.

“If anyone is going to lead one day,” the prince said importantly, “it will be me.”

Sitting straighter, he put his hand out for the book, but Wanderwillow shook his head and moved it out of his reach. A look of rage crossed the prince's face, but it quickly melted into a sort of pained remorse.

“I see... the world seems entirely intent on causing me to learn humility in the most painful ways. Well, then, Elia... go on. Take it. He obviously means you, since you're the last of the Treele.”

Wanderwillow raised an eyebrow. Elia sighed.

“I don't think he means me, Lauro. You don't, do you, O Nympharch? You mean Gribly, don't you?”

The thief snapped his back straight, a thrill of fear shooting up his body and out into his arms and neck. Him? A leader? What was this all about?

“You are wise before your time, Halanyad,” said the Aura. Why did he call her that? Gribly wondered, but he was distracted by Wanderwillow offering him the gray book.

Offering him the book!

“Th-thank you, O Wise Aura,” Gribly stammered, standing and bowing before relieving Wanderwillow of the ancient tome. His attempt to imitate Elia's refined way of speech felt like an insulting failure, but the Aura smiled nevertheless.

“You may regret thanking me when you are done with it. Now... there is little time for explaining, for your next and greatest test is almost at hand. I need you to learn what you can from this book before the sun rises in the world of men and nymphs once more.”

“He can't read,” snorted Lauro from the background, but Gribly was too caught up in the golden-yellow eyes of the Aura to notice.

“Y-yes, Master Aura,” he answered, bowing low again.

“Now go. Enter the forest once more, just the way you came. Walk on until you come to a brook that runs in the open sky. There you may open this book and gain whatever knowledge it possesses for you to glean. I make no guarantees that it is what you wish for, nor that it will make you happy. It is only what you are meant to know.”

Shaking nervously and excitedly, Gribly bowed for a third and final time, then turned and almost ran out of the clearing.

~

A quarter mile or so into the depths of the mystical forest, he came upon the stream the Wanderwillow had indicated. Seating himself at the base of a weeping willow that stretched out to dip its fronds in the happily bubbling water, he opened the aged volume on his crossed legs.

He'd expected parchment such as was used in Ymeer; yellowed and dusty, like the scrolls of lore that he had once pilfered to sell on the black market... He chuckled at that memory, but soon became serious. This book was not made of parchment, but vellum: stronger, more pliable, and softer to the touch.

The pages were covered from top to bottom, on either side, in dark black ink. Gribly sighed. He'd hoped the Aura had known what he was doing when he gave the book to him... filling it with pictures, perhaps, or something else he would understand. Lauro had been right, he could barely read at all, and these runes were completely alien to him.

Suddenly tired again, Gribly let his head sink forward until it touched the ink of the first letter of the first page.

In an instant, EVERYTHING CHANGED.

~

There was a babe born on a cold night in a forgotten chapel on the edge of the land. He was a healthy boy, with wisps of flaxen hair on his little round head that formed a halo of youth over his plump features. His mother was a maiden most beautiful, in the prime of her womanhood, with hair as white as snow and lips as red as blood. Her eyes were blue and her skin as pale as moonlight.

Over her, giving courage to her as she gave birth to her son, was that son's father and her husband: a man of proud, handsome features some years older than she, with hair as golden as the sun itself, long and straight. He wore no beard, but his strength and ferocity were unquestioned by all who knew him.

It was he who helped his wife give birth to her child; it was he who delivered the boy and gave him to his mother to cradle in her arms.

“Gramling,” she whispered sweetly, rocking the babe and cooing to it softly. Then the pains wracked her again, and more violent than before. Her husband quickly took the child and handed it to a man in a gray cloak who stood behind him.

It was Traveller. He glanced up, aware of the one who witnessed his story so far in the future, and his eyes spoke words his mouth had never said.

Watch, Prophet, they said, And learn from whence you came.

The prophet watched.

The woman cried out in pain, clutching at the rough sheets around her as if she would tear them with her bare hands. Her husband put his hand in hers and squeezed it tight, whispering words of comfort and strength to her as best he knew how.

Then, after an agony unimaginable, she gave birth for a second time.

“Gramlen,” she said. A chill wind seemed to blow at the prophet's face...

...As he realized that he was witnessing his own birth.

Gramlen, he thought to himself. My name is not Gribly. It is Gramlen. And the other child is Gram... the Pit Strider... my brother.

“Gram,” whispered the woman, stronger now, “Let the Aura bless our children.” Her husband smiled, nodded, and beckoned Traveller over.

By the Creator, the prophet realized... Gram. Captain Berne's pirate lord is my father!

The woman's husband managed to help her sit up in the worn but clean bed, and in a few minutes she held both babies swaddled in her arms. Traveller stood by the bedside, his staff in one hand while the other touched one child, then the other on the forehead. Both twins stopped their crying when he came near, and dropped into a dreamless, innocent sleep.

His palm was laid on Gramlen first.

“When the king grows old and the world bleeds gold,

When all our hopes have come to grief,

Doubt not that we a savior need,

A prophet and a thief.”

“What do your verses mean?” asked the woman, but her husband, the man called Gram, urged her to stay quiet. Traveller's hand had moved on. His fingers brushed the brow of the elder twin, the one the woman had named Gramling. The babe shuddered involuntarily at the touch, and the gray-clad Aura shut his eyes, lips moving soundlessly. “Why do you hesitate? Will you not bless him, too?”

“Silence,” hushed her husband, but Traveller's words were audible now.

“Though kingdoms clash and lightning flash,

Though demons break the deep,

A spark is laid against the day,

When shadows souls shall reap.”

The babe's mother gasped at the grim proclamation. Even the father seemed taken aback.

“Traveller?” he questioned hesitantly.

Then all Blazes broke loose on the little stone chapel. The mother screamed.

The vision changed.

The chapel was in flames, far away so that it remained nothing more than a small glow on the edge of the night. Death had visited where no death was meant to walk.

Over a rocky hill came two figures: a thin man in gray, holding a child, and a weeping man with flaxen hair and a long, bloody sword.

“Come, Gram!” called Traveller. “My mount is close by! We can still save your son!”

“No, no, no! Blast you, damn you, give him back to me! I want nothing more to do with you!” screamed the man, stumbling along, reaching for the baby he had delivered not an hour ago, crying its heart out in the Aura's arms. “Because of you, Alwene is dead, and so is my firstborn!”

Alwene, the prophet thought. My mother. The firstborn... my brother.

“If only it were so,” said Traveller, sadly. “I fear that your son will be kept alive. The Emperor of Darkness requires him for his terrible purposes, just as badly as he requires this second child. Will you take him yourself, and have him given up to the same fate as his brother?”

“No! I will hide him where no blasted half-god can reach him! Give him back! You've torn my life apart already, and I'll have no more to do with ANY of your kind! Give... him... back!”

At the last word, Gram leaped forward to smite the Aura with his sword, heedless of the helpless babe clutched under Traveller's arm.

There was a flash of light as the gray-cloaked guardian swept out his staff. Gramling flew backwards, landing hard on his back, head lolling unconsciously to one side.

“I am truly sorry,” murmured the Aura, shaking his head. Bending down at his fallen friend's side, he breathed on him, and a mist woven of watery light descended from his lips to pour into the man.”Be healed, be concealed, be delivered,” whispered Traveller.

Then he was up again, his staff was nowhere to be seen, and he was clutching Gramlen- Me, the prophet remembered- in both arms.

Howls of fury and shrieks of pursuit sounded from the burning chapel, miles away.

Then the vision changed for a second time.

A lone horseman raced in and out of the sandy hills, a billowing gray cloak flapping out behind him, a small mewling bundle clutched to his chest. His long felt cap whipped left and right as he galloped on. In seconds he was gone, and the desert was quiet once more.

A minute passed. Then two.

A darkness, blacker than the night, seeped out from between the dunes. A shriek broke out over the silence, long and high and horrible. The chase was on. Far ahead, the mysterious horseman kept riding, even with the dark presence behind him. His destination was close, and if he could only reach it in time… Ymeer was so close...

The shrieks behind him grew louder. His enemies were gaining on him.

This book...the prophet realized... It's the story of my life.

Chapter Thirteen: Blood Ties

Wanderwillow did not keep the other young Striders idle while Gribly was gone. After a brief telling of their tale- most of which he seemed to know or guess already- the Aura began to teach them. “There is much knowledge you each must have, and which has been kept from you by unhappy circumstance until now. I will try to explain a little more of your gifts to both of you, and to the young prophet when he returns.”

And indeed he did. It came as no surprise to Elia that one of the Aura would know all there was to know about Striding, and though some of his words shocked her, others confirmed what she had suspected all along, from experience and coincidence.

“There are three parts to the world of mortals- the world you call the Natural,” he asserted, his deep melodious voice somehow carrying his exact meaning to Elia's ears. She had a feeling that he could be talking in gibberish and she would still understand him perfectly- perhaps he even was...

“I've heard that the ancients said so,” Lauro interrupted. Elia wished he wouldn't, but he did, many times. “But does anyone still believe it anymore?”

“Whether or not they do,” chided the Aura, “It is most certainly true. Do you know what the parts are?”

“It was said...” Lauro squinted, trying to remember. Elia smiled; it all reminded her of learning her runes as a child. Class. They were taking a class. “Sea,” Lauro started.

“Good. And what else?”

“Sky.”

“Then...?”

“Stone. Sea, Sky, Stone. The three elements of the Natural World.”

“Indeed,” Wanderwillow confirmed. “Now, since you know so much, do you know what these parts have to do with the process that men and nymphs refer to as Striding?”

“N... no,” the prince admitted, frowning. Elia sympathized with him, no matter how he usually made her feel. The kindness in the Aura's voice made one want to please him at all costs, and failure seemed the most painful thing in the world.

“Elia? Know you the answer, my child?”

She gulped, blinked slowly, and nodded. “I... I think so. It has to do with what Karmidigan showed me in Mythigrad... about storms being part frost, part wave... doesn't it?”

The Aura smiled, and Elia's heart glowed inside her. “In a way,” he said.

She bit her lip, considering. “I think,” she finally began, “That Striding of any kind, Wave, Frost, Sand, Wood, is a gift the Creator has given us, men and nymphs both. The gift is the ability to change a small part of those bigger parts.”

“That makes no sense,” Lauro interrupted again.

“Think about it,” she responded. “What does a Wave Strider like me, a Frost Strider like Karmidigan, or one of the Mist Striders from the old legends have in common?”

Finally it dawned on the prince, and his eyes grew wide. “Water!” he exclaimed.

“No,” she countered, “The Sea.”

“Sea, Sky, Stone,” chanted Wanderwillow under his breath. Louder, he said, “You've almost figured it out, Halanyad. There is more.”

“Oh.” Elia's smile drooped a little, but not for long. Her hunger for knowledge outweighed any other emotion.

“The answer lies with what you have already experienced. When you combined your gifts with the gifts of the Frost Striders, to summon a storm of water and ice that would strike your Sea Demon enemy, did you not feel your mind slip free of its usual boundaries? Were you not able to touch elements of the Sea that were not available to you before?”

“I... Yes, I was... almost. I felt as if could control the storm itself. As if all the water was part of me, and not just the liquid kind. Ice... cloud...”

“Indeed. For however brief a time, you touched all of the Sea Element.”

“I did?”

“You did.”

“That's incredible!” Lauro laughed, seeming genuinely happy. Suddenly his voice died and he frowned in thought. Elia wondered what it was about, but she soon had a question of her own.

“Then... how am I able to control fire sometimes? That isn't part of Sea, Sky, or Stone, as far as I can see.”

An ominously silent pause came over the clearing. Lauro snapped out of his reverie to gape at her. “That's right! That night with the draik... How could I forget?”

“You can Stride Fire?” The silence fell again, even heavier. Wanderwillow had spoken... and impossible as it seemed, he had sounded confused.

“Well, I think so,” Elia replied hesitantly, glancing down, afraid she'd offended him. “At least, I've done it once by accident, and once on purpose. The first time, I just stopped the fire from reaching me, and held it in my grip for a second... The second time, I used a small flame to make a blaze- and it almost killed Gribly. I haven't tried again since.”

“Hmmm,” breathed Wanderwillow slowly. He didn't frown- not exactly- but his eyes grew slightly dimmer, as if he were retreating within himself to consider this troubling new development. At last, he shook his head. “I do not know the answer to what you seek, but I have no doubt the Creator will reveal all in time. His ways are mysterious, but His paths are always straight.”

Just like that? Elia wondered. He really doesn't know? Well... at least he doesn't seem to think it makes me a sorcerer... or a Pit Strider.

“It makes little difference,” the Aura said, though Elia wondered if he was telling the truth. “What you experienced while Striding the storm is a small taste of what all the ancient Striders could do, when the gift was first bestowed upon them in ages long past. If a nymph, or later, a man, could mold part of Sea, Sky, or Stone to his will, he could do it to all of that part. There were no Wave Striders or Wind Striders then...”

“There were only Sea Striders,” realized Lauro, speaking his thoughts aloud. “And Stone Striders... and Sky Striders! Aha!” he said, almost jumping right up onto his feet again.

“What?” Elia blurted, taken aback.

“Lightning!” Lauro cried, “We always see it in the sky, don't we? That's why I could use it!”

“You've used lightning? What does that mean?” Elia asked, directing her question more to Wanderwillow than the prince.

“The path of Sky gifts one with control of all its elements,” the Aura allowed, “and yes... lightning is one of them.”

“That means I'm a Sky Strider,” Lauro surmised. “It does, doesn't it?” Wanderwillow nodded. A hard glint came into the prince's eye, and he blew out a heavy breath. “That means...” he murmured, slowly and deliberately, “That I'm more powerful than any normal Wind Strider... even the king of Vastion himself!”

“Your father?” Elia gasped.

“Yes,” Lauro said, and the hardness left his eye so quickly she wondered if she'd just imagined it. His shoulders sagged. “Why am I different?” he asked suddenly, sounding sad... almost.

“Because you are part of a greater plan,” explained Wanderwillow, his voice full of pity for what the young prince was undergoing. “That plan requires power that has not been seen in this land for many centuries... both for good, and for evil. It is not of my own design, nor of any other Aura, but the Creator's. You are similarly gifted, Elia.”

“I know,” she said, closing her eyes against the magnitude of it all. Suddenly they shot open again in realization. “So is Gribly!” she exclaimed. “He used to be able to Stride Sand, but now he can do it to rocks and dirt, too!”

“Yes,” the Aura said simply. “You are as yet the only three in all Vast and the lands beyond who have begun to regain the fullness of the old gifts... save one other.”

“Who?” Elia asked, confused. “Is it someone we know? Someone we've encountered? Someone in our families?” She barely noticed that it was she who was interrupting now.

“Oh, we know him,” said a voice behind her, and she twisted her sitting body to see who had spoken. Out from the trees stumbled Gribly, the Aura's book in his hand, white-faced and trembling. How much did he hear? she wondered. “We know him all right...” the boy said again. “He's the Pit Strider. Gramling. My twin brother.”

Chapter Fourteen: Wisdom. Sorrow. Love.

It all sounded so incredible... but Elia knew Gribly's story was true. She had rarely been to the sea-ports of the Zain in the south, but even she had heard rumors of the pirates who plagued the coasts of every kingdom, burning and looting, never attacking each other, sometimes seeming to be part of a larger alliance... which, Gribly announced, most of them were.

An alliance led by none other than his own long-lost father.

“I don't know how he got there, or how long he's been an outlaw,” Gribly told them all solemnly, “But I've been seeing the signs before now... it's just that I tried to ignore them. A pirate father... a sorcerer brother... not the family I always dreamed about.”

“Tell me about it,” Lauro grumbled from the side. They had widened their sitting circle to include the young prophet, who had lost his sickly look, though not his brooding attitude, at a touch from the Aura. “My father hates me as much as you say your father hates the Aura... and whoever it was that beat Traveller into running away. Imagine that! An Aura, fleeing!” Suddenly he winced, looking towards Wanderwillow as if he expected a lightning bolt to strike him at any second for his blasphemy.

“Your father hates you,” Wanderwillow was restating what the prince clearly thought of as fact, not asking a question. He ignored Lauro's comment and held out the book he had formerly given Gribly. “Or so you think. It is now your turn to see what these pages hold for you.”

Lauro's eyes widened and his hands trembled as they took the book from the Aura's hands. His grip slipped as he reached out, and the tome went tumbling to the grass. Elia leaned over and carefully retrieved it, dusting it off and handing it back to him. As she did so, she caught a glimpse of three words inscribed in gold on the front of the book that she had not seen there before.

“Thank you,” he said, biting his lip in anxiety and holding it close as if he expected it to leap right out of his grasp at any moment. Clearly he was afraid of what the book held for him, now that he had been deprived of the status of leader he had automatically assumed was his before. But his emotions were quickly controlled, and as he got up to enter the trees of the Forest of Foretelling once more, his back was straight and his face a mask of determination.

With a shock, Elia realized she was frightened... not of him, but for him. She turned away and did not watch him go. Would she be the next one to read it? She held no secrets that she could recall... and she had no unknown parentage...

Theolone. Thoorne. Thelmere. The golden words on the tome had been in the Nymphtongue, and now she remembered their meanings.

Wisdom. Sorrow. Love.

The meanings were simple enough... but what did it all mean?

She was so deep in her thoughts that she hardly noticed Wanderwillow's next words.

“Come, Young Gramlen. You have learned your past, but I sense you have much turmoil in your soul as regards your future. Walk with me a while, and I will speak to you about it.

Guess he doesn't plan on explaining anything to me yet, Elia thought. When she looked up from her musings, she found herself alone in the clearing, seated in front of an empty throne. How convenient. I'm all alone again.

Sighing, she folded her hands in her lap. She had neglected her prayers for so long... perhaps the Aura's message to her was that she needed to strengthen her faith again. Very well... she would do that, if the others did not mind the sound of her singing amid all their deep revelations. She would start as she always had, before life became such a battle merely to survive:

“Master of Wind and Rain,

Master of Cloud and Wave,

Master of Sea and Sky;

You whom none can name,

Send your Aura down below,

Guide my people through the rain,

Into the land of crystal snow…”

~

When she had exhausted all the usual prayers (along with several she'd made up on the spot), Elia admitted her defeat to boredom. If this was a test, it was a test to see how long she could remain sane while her friends learned life-changing things all around her. Stop being so dramatic, she told herself, the truth is that you're just feeling left out. Overcome it- there are worse things!

So she went from sitting to kneeling, hands drifting in the grass on either side of her, eyes closed and mind open.

She was looking for a flame. Last time she had Strode Flame, there had already been a spark. Now that she was alone, with no one to hurt, she wanted to know just how far her power could go. Could she make fire without a preexisting flame?

Nothing. Her mind's eye saw nothing, just blackness, as if she were asleep. For ten minutes at least she waited, but nothing was forthcoming. In exasperation, she slapped her hands together angrily, letting out a wordless exclamation of frustration.

Ow, she thought, that hurt. I clapped too hard.

Then, all in a rush, it hit her. Her hands felt warm. The friction when she'd clapped had caused them to get warmer for only a fraction of a second, but the heat had been there. Even her breath as she exhaled in anger had been warmer than the air around her...

Her eyes shot open. Perhaps to create a flame, she just needed enough heat!

Bending low over a tall tuft of grass, she clapped her hands together over it, then rubbed them together as fast as she could, as if trying to warm them over an imaginary fire. At the same time she blew a succession of rapid, steady breaths out over them.

As the seconds, then minutes passed, her hands grew so warm that they hurt; but nothing happened... yet.

~

Elia's hands felt as if they were about to burst into flame. They ached and burned to a degree she had never imagined, but she kept her eyes closed and her palms in constant motion.

Through her mind's eye she imagined what her hands looked like: red, swollen, heated... Then she imagined that they were so hot, steam was rising from them.

Aura! That's hot! The temperature was increasing between her palms, and the pain grew so intense she felt hot tears spilling down her cheek. One grew so heavy it dropped right into her rubbing hands.

In her mind, she imagined the tear as a sort of watery spark, that would ignite the fire. Its motion seemed to slow to a crawl in her head, giving her time to examine it from every angle in a way her real eyes never could.

Then, through its liquid lucidity, she glimpsed the spark that had blossomed into flame those few nights ago in the Grymclaw.

The tear splashed on her reddened thumb.

The flame in her mind blossomed again, incinerating the imaginary tear and flowing into reality like a cascade of liquid fire.

Elia's eyes opened again, just as a spark danced between her palms, forcing them apart to make way for the flames that leaped out from nothing.

Fire blasted from her open hands, an inferno that lasted for less than a second, searing the tree-throne of the Aura before she could cup her palms and contain it. But contain it she did, as a ball of constantly scintillating light and heat, grasped between her palms and fingers. Miraculously, she found that it only burned her if she kept her hands still; so, to counter the effect, she kept her hands and forearms constantly in motion, pushing down the flames when they tried to escape her grasp, forming them anew every second as the old sparks died away.

The whole thing was so incredible she had no thoughts to waste on wonderment. The world consisted of nothing but her hands and the flame... Striding and Fire... flesh and flame.

“I have witnessed the founding and breaking of the worlds; I have seen kingdoms come and go, and empires rise and fall in the blink of an eye... but in all my existence, Elia Treele, I have never seen a nymph or man with powers like those you possess. Truly you are the Halanyad.”

The words jolted Elia back into awareness. She looked up to see Wanderwillow staring at her with the hint of a smile on his face, along with both of the boys- who looked as awestruck as she felt.

Her control on the flames weakened, and they scorched her palms.

“Ow!” she yelped, and reflexively flung her hands apart to escape the burning.

Fire lashed out in a thick, whip-like arc that flew straight in the Aura's face. She shrieked in fear, but Wanderwillow simply stretched out his wrinkled hand and caught the brunt of the flame on his own palm. The rest of the fire followed, leaving Elia's grip like a beast let out of its cage, but it was all caught in the Aura's hand.

The entire incident took less than a second, but at its conclusion Wanderwillow held a ball of fire in front of him. He closed his fist slowly, and the fire flickered, dimmed, then died out entirely.

“You must learn to control your abilities better than that, Halanyad,” he said gravely, but there was a hint of humor in his voice. Elia apologized profusely, standing and bowing so many times that he finally made her stop.

“I'm so sorry,” she repeated, “But... I just wanted to see what would happen. I didn't think it would actually work. And I don't even know what being a 'Halanyad' is supposed to mean.”

Wanderwillow nodded, seeming to agree with her. “It is indeed difficult to control what you do not understand. But never fear: your turn has come. These two,” he said, gesturing to Gribly and Lauro, “Have much to say to each other, and I now have much to say to you.”

Elia shivered with anticipation... and, granted, fearfulness. Gribly looked solemn, and Lauro had already turned away, refusing to look at her for some reason she could not fathom. Still dazed from her second mishap- but almost a success!- and from the blinding display of power the Aura had just demonstrated, she allowed him to place the book with the Nymphic words in her hands, then lead her out of the dell and into the trees.

Chapter Fifteen: Together

“What does it mean, sir?” she finally asked when they were some distance away from the others.

“What does what mean?” Wanderwillow asked, though she had a feeling he knew perfectly well.

“Halanyad.”

“Ah.” as they walked between two particularly large trees, the shade hid his expression for a moment, though she could have sworn he had started to smile. “It means you are destined to unite all of nymphkind... not as a nation, but as a race. You will lead them all- every scattered tribe, every remnant of former glory.”

“Oh.” Elia hardly knew what to think. Had he answered Gribly and Lauro's questions this way? The straightforwardness of his pronouncement both shocked her and kept her from tearing her hair out at the absurdity of it all. How in Vast was she supposed to do what he said?!? “I don't know if I'm ready for that... if I'm ready for any of this.”

“No one becomes a hero in a day, child,” Wanderwillow said gravely, stopping and putting a hand on one shoulder so that she had to look him in the eye. “But you won't have to. Being the Halanyad means being a bridge between the Old and the New... a river, flowing from Halla to the World, carrying the will of the Aura and their Creator to all nymphkind. You need do nothing except allow yourself to be open.”

“Open to what?” Her heart was pumping. Blood was pounding in her ears. She had a feeling that what he would say next would shape her life for years to come.

“Open to the Creator's will. Open to destiny.”

“How will I know what that is?”

Wanderwillow smiled and handed her the book. She took it, wide-eyed, and read the words on its cover once again.

Wisdom. Sorrow. Love.

“Thank you,” she said, “I-”

“Wait,” the Aura said quietly. His voice carried an unexpected note of urgency, and his golden eyes had dimmed almost to a dead brown.

“What?” she inquired, feeling a cold finger of dread press against her heart.

“Something is in the forest...” Wanderwillow said, more to himself than to her. “Something that has no right to be here...” His voice was definitely different, now, and he was growing taller by the second. Soon he was almost as high as the trees around them.

“Oh no, what is it?” Elia took a step back to look up at the Aura as he towered over her.

Without warning, the sky grew dark with storm clouds. Thunderheads rolled in, red lightning flashed in the sky, and shadows engulfed the entire Forest of Foretelling. Elia shrieked and stumbled back as the cataclysmic scene unfolded overhead... but Wanderwillow caught her with ease, setting her upright and taking the book back from her.

“I am sorry,” he said, and his eyes were sad. The world grew loud with noise for less than a second... and then everything was deathly silent. The darkness remained, and Wanderwillow shrunk until he was once more his normal size. “I am sorry,” he repeated, “But events are moving much faster than I had expected.”

“I... I...” Elia felt herself freezing in shock at this unexpected turn of fortune. She noticed that the Aura's eyes were growing brighter with every second, and she shut her mouth and nodded. “It's all right,” she said. “What do we do?”

Wanderwillow's face grew sad. “We must fight. A deadly enemy has found this place, which I thought safe above all others. He is even now entering, and he will soon be upon us.”

He shook his head, lapsing into silence. Why haven't we gone to help the others??? Elia wanted to scream. Why haven't we gone to fight this enemy?? What is happening????

“Child,” said Wanderwillow slowly. “There is no time now for you to learn from this book what I had intended for you. The young prophet read it, and found Wisdom within. The young prince read it, and he found Sorrow instead. Are you willing to make a sacrifice, to protect those you love?”

Time seemed to stop. Love, Elia thought. It always goes back to Love.

Slowly, hesitantly... but willingly, she nodded.

~

Gribly watched Lauro intently as the older youth paced furiously back and forth across the clearing. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something had changed in the prince. The old anger was still in his movements... in the hunched, tense back... in the way he shook his strange topknot whenever he was silently disagreeing with himself. But there was something else, too... a fear or consideration that hadn't been there before he'd read the Aura's book.

Gribly decided to try to help Lauro figure out the problem. Among many things, Wanderwillow had told him that a prophet needed to be understanding of other people, Lauro especially.

“What did the book tell you?” he asked Lauro, next time the prince passed close by. “I don't mean to pry, but I thought if you shared... maybe we could solve whatever's troubling you together... as friends again.”

Lauro spun on him, eyes aflame, but then he seemed to think better of it... much better. The older lad was gnawing his fingernails, but he dropped his hand and sighed. The anger seemed to go out of him so that his shoulders drooped and his eyes grew dim as lead.

“You can't help me,” he said, but he looked a little calmer, and Gribly persisted.

“But I want to try, Lauro. I want to know what's troubling you. I can't do what I'm supposed to, or, at least... what the Aura wants me to, unless you help me do it. And I want to help you.”

Suddenly Lauro dropped down beside him in the grass, a peculiar expression on his face. “You want to understand me? Well then, I've a story to tell you, one without any sort of happy ending. Think you can bear it?”

Gribly thought. “After seeing so many deaths? After fighting my possessed twin brother in mortal combat? Yeah, I think I can bear it.”

The Wind Strider- no, Sky Strider, Gribly corrected himself- chuckled dryly. “It's about me and my father.”

“Oh... I see.”

“Not yet you don't.” Lauro paused for a moment, then began his tale.

“When I was born, I was considered a miracle. My father was- is- one of the most powerful Wind Striders in the land, but he's not as young as he used to be. A hundred and twelve years is a long time to govern the entire civilized world, and he began when he was no older than me. So, when I was born to my parents in their old age, the White Clerics of Vastion declared it to be a sign of a new and prosperous age. They predicted I would grow to be a champion warrior... a prodigious Strider... and a mighty king. My father... King Larion... never held much with the old ways... the Statutes, and other things... he'd had a wild youth, and he didn't reign himself in until late in his life.

“But this time... he believed the clerics. He believed in me. As I grew up, he gave me the best of everything- toys, rooms, training, teachers... anything he thought would make me the best ruler and best man I could be. You never visited Vastion, so I won't expect you to know all our customs. We're a hard people, and even with all the attention my father gave me, he never let me grow soft.

“My mother, the queen, died when I was nine. It brought my father and me closer than we'd ever been. He personally taught me almost everything he knew about fighting, ruling, and even Wind Striding. But somehow... somehow I always sensed that I was inadequate. Oh, I wasn't bad at anything I did, or anything I even tried! But being the best wasn't quite good enough, after Mother died. I was great... but my father wanted me to be spectacular. A prodigy.”

“And you weren't,” Gribly surmised.

“No. Close, but never... good... enough.” Lauro spat the last few words, and his eyes began to water with tears. Gribly kept silent, hoping his quiet presence would be enough to comfort the prince. He was at a total loss for words.

“I'm sorry,” he finally said.

“That's not the half of it,” Lauro confessed, shaking his head and ignoring his tears. “What came later was worse.” Another short pause followed as the prince breathed deeply, gathering his thoughts. “All Vastic royalty... whether they be man or woman... must always undergo a sort of test, to prove their coming of age. Before that test, a prince or princess is nothing more than a highly talented, highly indulged child. Afterward- if they pass- then they are a respected adult, and none but the king himself is their superior.

“Two years ago, I took that test. It's different each time. For me, my father would stand for nothing less than that I lead an invasion against the growing force of pirates that plagued us from the south.”

“Blast,” Gribly swore, “at sixteen? That's insane!”

Lauro shrugged. “I did it, though. I wanted so bad to prove to my father that I was worth something...” His eyes closed as he reminisced. “I sailed at the head of our twenty best ships. Our best sailors and some of the most experienced soldiers in our kingdom were under my command, not to mention a Wind Strider warrior in each vessel. It was a battle I thought I couldn't lose.

“But I did, at first, and badly. I don't know what my father, or myself, for that matter, was thinking. The self-styled lord of the southern seas was a far better general than I, and he thrashed us in the first great battle. My father was so disgusted when he heard that he nearly called me back for punishment. But I would not settle for that! Without his knowledge, I followed the rogues back to their port, a secret fortress bay in the very southernmost tip of Vast itself.”

Gribly found that he was holding his breath. With an effort, he forced himself to exhale.

“When the pirates weren't expecting it, I sneaked into their fortress from the sea. I captured their leader and took to the skies before he could make use of his own Stone Striding, which was significant, I can tell you. With another Wind Strider's help, we brought him to our last surviving ship, the one I had arrived in; then we fled back to Vastion.

“King Larion was ecstatic. He thought I had finally proven myself to be worthy of the destiny placed upon me. Without their leader, the pirates fell apart in weeks, and Vastion's grip on the South was firm once again.”

Something throbbed in the back of Gribly's mind, some part of the story that didn't seem right. What was he missing? Lauro's eyes opened again, and they were filled with hatred.

“On my seventeenth birthday, my father declared that, despite my original failure, I would soon pass the Test of Age and gain my royal honor. All I need do...” his voice broke, and suddenly Lauro struggled to his feet, glaring at the twilight sky of the Aura's otherworld. “All I need do,” he repeated, not even bothering to look at Gribly, “was execute the pirate leader... in front of every Wind Strider in the land.”

The tickle in Gribly's mind clicked, and he shot up beside his friend. “It was my father! You had to execute my father, Gram! He'd become a pirate after he lost me and my brother, hadn't he?”

“I didn't know it at the time... but yes,” Lauro nodded sadly.

Gribly paled, then controlled himself and spoke in a low voice. “You didn't, did you? That's the trouble between you and your father, isn't it?”

Lauro looked at him this time, a sickly grin on his face. “Almost. When I heard what was required- by my own father none the less- I snapped. I wanted nothing more to do with the test, or my honor, or being prince. So I... so I helped the pirate Gram escape. With my Wind Striding and his Stone Striding, it wasn't hard. My father never suspected me until the escape was already known over the entire realm.”

“He cast you out...” Gribly whispered in horror.

“No. He punished me, first. Then he cast me out. He told me never, ever to come back, unless I came back carrying the head of Gram.”

Gribly's mouth dropped open; he couldn't help it. “All this time... you've been searching for my father, to kill him?”

“NO!” roared Lauro. To Gribly's sight, it seemed as if the world grew darker around the two of them. He stumbled back, rubbed his eyes, and found that it hadn't been imaginary, the darkness was real. “No,” the prince repeated, calmer. “I've been searching for another way... any other way. I thought... if my father had believed the Aura had blessed me with greatness... I thought maybe they could make me great. They could show me how to be the man my father wanted. The son he always wished for.”

Lauro broke down in tears. Gribly stared for a moment, unhinged by the display of the last emotion he would have expected from the prince... then he grabbed his friend's shoulder and squeezed, hard.

“Listen,” he said. “I don't know the answer to anything you're seeking, and I don't know what Wanderwillow has told you so far, or shown you in that book... but just know that, no matter what differences and disagreements we've had in the past... I will always stand by your side. My own brother was taken from me before I knew he existed, and now he's my worst enemy. You know what, Lauro? That makes you my brother, now. It doesn't matter what demons or worse enemies come for us, we'll face them together.”

Suddenly thunder rumbled and boomed overhead, flashing and echoing for several seconds before dying away completely. Gribly ignored it, so intent was he on making amends with his former friend. Shadows crept in on either side, but still the two young men stood in the center of the dell, oblivious to the world around them.

No one spoke. Then, almost too quiet to hear, Gribly caught the sound of a muffled thud behind him. A footstep.

Lauro lifted his head, a steely gleam in his eye. “Together?”

“Together.”

Without warning, Lauro grabbed him by the shirt and thrust him to the side, leaping forward into the air with a strangled war-cry on his lips.

“TOGETHER!” screamed the prince. Gribly lost his balance from the shove and toppled to one side with a gasp of surprise.

At the edge of the clearing stood a hideous old man like none he had ever seen... and Lauro was charging right for him!

Chapter Sixteen: World Grows Dark

The old man was dressed all in black, his face was made of gold, and there was blood on every part of him. That was all Gribly saw before the battle began and all Blazes broke loose. How Lauro had seen or sensed the mysterious foe coming, he didn't know, and it didn't seem to help the prince very much.

Halfway through his jump, Lauro froze in midair and screamed as his back twisted in on itself. For a moment he was held suspended between heaven and earth, then he was thrown over Gribly's head and straight into the Aura's tree by an invisible hand.

The thief reacted without thinking, kicking his legs out and leaping to his feet in a single, fluid bound. Where he had been not a second earlier, the ground exploded upward in a gout of fire and blasted earth. At the same time, lightning and fire erupted from the skies overhead, streaming down on the Forest of Foretelling like the wrath of a thousand dragons. In instants the surreal landscape was decimated, turned to a volcanic slag-heap by a power greater than any that had intruded on Wanderwillow's domain for a hundred years.

All this Gribly vaguely sensed, but he had no time to dwell on it. The ground heaved under him as more and more spots erupted in crimson explosions. Trees splintered and were tossed in the air like matchwood as apocalypse rained from the sky again and again. Over the thunderous noise came one horrific sound: grim laughter, like the sound of a corpse's merriment.

“No!” screamed Gribly, “Not now! Not when we've blasted won!!”

Instantly his mind grew sharper and his thoughts crystallized as the battle instincts he had acquired over his journey now took control of his body in full force. Both hands punched towards the ground on either side of him, and the heaving turf beneath his feet stilled. His fists swept skyward, and the grass around him exploded into clouds of green as dirt rocketed to the sky around him, forming a temporary shield against the debris that assaulted him from every side.

Let's see how far this Stone Striding can go, he thought grimly. It's win or die, and I don't even know who my enemy is.

A stream of fire blasted the right side of his makeshift shield into smithereens, but Gribly was already leaping through the opposite side, willing the earth to move aside as he crashed through it.

For the next few seconds, existence was a bloody, fiery chaos of burning earth and falling sky. Gribly leaped and twisted, flipped and dodged and wielded the element of Stone as both weapon and shield, until he finally reached Lauro's side amid the broken, smoking remnants of Wanderwillow's tree.

“Lauro, Lauro! Get up!” The prince's body was bent at a horrible angle, and his eyes were closed. His hair had come free of its topknot, and a good portion of it seemed to be burned off. “Blast it, Lauro! Get up NOW!” Gribly screamed, shaking his friend deliriously. “We'll beat this demon together!”

“No,” hissed a wicked voice above him, “You won't!” It was the old, gold-faced man, with eyes of red and yellow flame that blinded Gribly with their unholy light. A clawed hand reached for his throat, seized him in an unbreakable grip, and hoisted him high.

“Gh...” he choked, squirming and thrashing as hard as he could. The mysterious villain's eyes burned so hot it scorched Gribly's face. He called on the powers of the earth, striking out at his enemy with his gifts, but all the stones and bark and earth he could summon from around him simply burned into nothingness inches from the golden man's body.

His vision began to fade, and the proportions of his foe's features became distorted and shadowy in his vision. It was then that recognition dawned on him. I know this face! It's the one who chased Traveller in the vision from the book!

“You killed my mother...” Gribly forced out the words, then his vision went black. He felt rushing air and a painful pressure on every part of his body... then nothing.

~

White light seared his eyeballs, and suddenly he was jolted into waking again.

~

Thunder rolled and boomed so loudly his ears were almost overcome. Two voices could dimly be heard roaring back and forth in an ancient and powerful tongue, somewhere in the background. All Gribly could immediately see was a white blur and a gray blur against a dark blur of scarlet and shadow.

As he struggled to lift himself off the ground the blurs began to slowly resolve into shapes he recognized. By the time he had crawled onto his hands and knees, he could make them out.

The whiteness became Elia, crouching over the grayness that became Lauro, as she laid her hands on his head and shook with the sheer effort of the healing she was trying to accomplish. The world around them was muddy, dark and pitted with flame...

A second Nothing, Gribly realized. And any enemy strong enough to make another Nothing out of a land that belonged to one of the Aura... He didn't care to finish the thought. There had to be something he could do.

His senses returned all at once; all in a rush. The noise of thunder had died away, and other than a dry, sulfurous wind that was flapping his clothing and blowing his hair in all directions... there was no more sound. In the deathly silence, the newly tainted land truly resembled the dark place where he had defeated the Sea Demon.

An instant later, the false calm was shattered by a deep voice that rumbled across the new Nothing like the thunder that had been there a moment before.

“BEGONE, ARCHDEMON! RETURN TO THE BLIGHTED PRISON PREPARED FOR YOU BY THE AURA OF THE CREATOR! BEGONE!”

Elia stopped her efforts abruptly, looking up in shock and awe. Gribly spun on his heels to see who had spoken, his confusion swept away by the urgency of the mighty voice. Not more than a hundred feet away, two beings strove against each other atop a great heap of charred trees and burning, quake-stricken earth.

The one who had spoken was Wanderwillow, his robes a brilliant, glowing white, eyes glowing with the same gold-tinged brilliance. He stood stock-still and straight as an arrow, palms out towards his foe in a casual gesture of dismissal, but the veins in his muscled arms and taut jaw bulged with a ferocity that showed the strain of his effort.

The Aura's enemy was the ancient sorcerer from Gribly's past, revealed in all his horrible power. Fire leaped from his eyes and his shining skull burned with the brightness of liquid gold. His black-and-scarlet cloak was in tatters from the attack Gribly hadn't seen... the one, he realized now, that had saved his life. Wanderwillow is risking himself for me! This world he's built is getting destroyed... all because of ME. I have to help him!

For the moment, though, it seemed as if the Aura would need no help. “BEGONE!” he roared again, and the golden man dropped back a step towards the edge of the debris-mound, the fire in his eyes flickering, then dying. So odd was the struggle that Gribly found himself watching with a captivated expression instead of moving to help his new mentor, as he had planned. Besides, some part of himself knew that this was a duel beyond his meager capability to influence in any fashion.

Just as soon as the sorcerer, the archdemon, was beaten back, he seemed to gain new strength from some hidden source. Black smoke poured from his chasm-like eyes, snuffing the dying flames, but growing and growing in volume until they wrapped the old man in a shroud of darkness. He seemed to grow in height, until his bent, ugly form was every inch as tall as his adversary.

“I AM LEGION!” he shrieked, and his words seemed to be cried in a thousand ghastly voices... all at once. Gribly spasmed involuntarily at the revolting sound, slapping his hands over his ears so hard it hurt.

“THE LEGION HAS NO POWER HERE!” replied the Aura, but now his voice seemed lonely and hollow against the appalling force of the archdemon. What is an archdemon? Gribly wondered, cowering as he watched the battle unfold with a morbid curiosity. And what is this Legion? Could there be demons more powerful than the Aura themselves? O Creator, please don't let it be!

Suddenly the archdemon gestured with one hand, and fire leaped up from the ground, engulfing Wanderwillow. The Aura simply stamped once and it died away. If he was surprised, the fiend didn't show it. His right hand shot out from his smoky mantle in a clawed striking motion, and a gust of liquid flame a hundred times as powerful as any Elia had accidentally conjured struck Wanderwillow with all its malicious strength.

But just as he had with Elia, Wanderwillow caught the fire in his hand, willing it smaller and crushing it with his supernatural grip. The flames roared and grew white-hot, but the Aura never let down his guard. It was an eternal river of blazing heat, gushing forth from one hand and being sucked away into oblivion by another.

The deadly contest went on for three seconds... then five. Fire out, fire in. Out. In.

If this is Striding, it's Striding like the world hasn't seen since its founding, Gribly thought, wondering immediately after why that was. I'd almost expected something... more? Better? Deeper? These are the powers of the ancient realms- can't they do more than Stride Fire?

The archdemon's attack ended just as abruptly as it had begun. The last shreds of flame whirled and danced into the palm of Wanderwillow's hand, fading away as he closed his fist over them. Smoke rose in wisps from his clenched fingers, and his shaking hand was glowing with all the heat it had absorbed... but the Aura was the victor.

“You see,” Wanderwillow said, clearly but not nearly as loudly as before. “You cannot win. Your gold... your light is tarnished. No more are you Aurum Therestore, the Golden One. Sheolus I name you... and I tell you for the last time: BEGONE! YOU CANNOT WIN!” Confident but exhausted-looking, Wanderwillow took a triumphant step towards his enemy, raising his clenched, glowing fist above his head, ready to unleash all the pent-up energy he had caught and held, Gribly now realized.

Drained of his fiery power, Sheolus, the archdemon, the no-longer-golden one, really had lost his luster. The color of his face was pale and pasty-gray, pitted and spongy as if diseased. The shadows around him had grown deeper and darker, and the sky above was black with storm-clouds that hovered above him... but he was defeated.

“Win...” he laughed in an eerie, shrill tone. Gribly shuddered, the sound of multiple voices from one throat made him want to shove dirt in his ears just to escape the disturbing noise. “Win?” the evil old man repeated, stumbling back as if drunk, “I did not come to win, bloody angel...”

Suddenly he stopped stumbling, braced both feet and clapped both hands together with a SMACK that resounded throughout the entire wasteland his coming had created.

Wanderwillow stepped back, unsure of what Sheolus was doing.

A single spark leaped from the old sorcerer's hands towards the Aura, who swung his smoking fist to block it.

The entire slag hill where the two enemies stood ignited in a massive explosion that sent a sheet of fire thirty feet into the sky. A concussive quake rippled outwards in all directions as the energy gathered in Wanderwillow's hand was released prematurely.

Gribly swayed, but did not fall, his Stone Striding saw to that, but behind him Elia screamed as the initial swell of the heaving land took her by surprise. “Gribly, help!” she called. Without thinking, he spun around and slammed both palms into the tortured earth, willing it to flatten and become immobile. Shield, he thought frantically, I have to make a shield!

They were an island of calm in the midst of chaos. With less than a second to act, Gribly threw his arms back, Striding swathes of dirt and rock in the same direction. Then he bounded back into a handspring, Striding with his feet as he did. The combined effect was to throw up a roughly spherical shield of solid earth to guard from debris. By the time it had formed over them, Gribly was already crouched on the ground again, fingers dug as deep into the dirt as he could force them. He could only hope his Striding was strong enough to hold the ground steady when the quake hit.

Just like battling the Sea Demon, he thought absently. It seems so long ago…

Then the shock-wave smashed into his defenses like a hammer onto a nail. The impact that should have cracked the earth beneath his feet and thrown the three frail heroes skyward was absorbed by his earth-sensitive powers and channeled into his body instead.

“Ga-a-a-a-ah!” He gasped involuntarily as the force of the quake struck his hands and shot up his arms, vibrating his entire body with unthinkable magnitude. His back and neck rippled in a whiplash motion that almost tore his hands from the ground as he tried to stay still. Through the jolt of pain he managed to harden the ground around his fingers, and he stayed on.

One second, and then it was over. The makeshift dome of earth was silent.

Gribly slipped forward awkwardly onto the solid earth, shaking and twitching uncontrollably. Energy bounded about in sweet but sickening waves all through his bones and flesh, tugging at his brain like a restless animal wanting to play, only this animal would tear him apart on the inside if he did not let it out.

With sudden alarm the young prophet understood that he had just gathered the force of an attack into himself, much as Wanderwillow had done to the archdemon's fire!

I've got to let it out, he realized, struggling to stand before the energy ripped itself from him. Elia was still nearby, lying on her side with her head in her hands, moaning and possibly very hurt. He couldn't unleash the restrained energy with Stone Striding here, or she'd be obliterated, along with the still-unconscious Lauro. How did Wanderwillow hold it in??? It's going to kill me if I don't do something NOW!

Bursting through the wall of his earth-shell blindly, Gribly stumbled again and fell to his knees.

“Idiot boy,” hissed a too-familiar voice of thousands behind him. A plume of smoke like the one the Pit Strider had used to disappear all those weeks ago burst from the ground, and the sorcerer Sheolus stepped from it, eyes aflame again. “Playing right into my hand!”

“BACK!” Gribly shouted, whirling around on his hands and lashing out at the archdemon with both feet. The absorbed energy surged out of him in a single, violent current as his feet made contact with the sorcerer's face.

Sheolus's jaw cracked as it was displaced, but his head moved not an inch. Rusty-gold colored blood seeped from a small wound at his wrinkled chin, but that was all.

Gribly landed nimbly and sprung backwards in a somersault, despite the sudden exhaustion he felt as the unnatural energy left his body. “Back!” he called again, now hoarse and frightened. All that power, and barely a blasted dent! How could he ever hope to fight this hellspawn?

“You cannot...” chuckled Sheolus, apparently reading his thoughts. One arm lifted slowly until it was perpendicular from his body, then halted. “Give up your soul, prophet!”

My soul?

“Never!” he yelled.

Sheolus closed his outstretched hand, and the ground around Gribly erupted in tentacles of earth that clutched him and threw him savagely to the ground. Struggle as he might, there was no escaping their grip, and he could not move enough to Stone Stride back at the sorcerer.

Blackness rushed in on his vision as the earthy tentacles hardened to stone and squeezed the life out of him. The thief's last thought before consciousness fled him was hoping against hope that Elia would somehow escape before the demon-man was finished with him.

Chapter Seventeen: The Wrong Hero

“Elia?” Lauro's voice was feeble, but he was alive! The Sea Strider took his face in her hands.

“I'm here, Lauro. You're going to be fine, now that I've-”

“BACK!” shouted an adolescent voice through the crack in the dirt sphere.

“Gribly!” Lauro's eyes snapped open and he tried to rise, but a violent wheeze sent him sprawling on his back again. “You- you have to help him,” he grunted, obviously still suffering immensely.

“But you-” Elia began.

“Now.” The prince was whispering, but his whisper was an order. She leaped up without another word, twisting around and stepping quickly towards the open crack in the dome's wall. A slithery, malicious voice was speaking words she couldn't hear.

“Never!” yelled Gribly in response. For a single moment she saw him, crouched and ready to fight against the dark-cloaked fiend who stood not three feet in front of Elia with his back turned.

Then the sphere exploded and hard earth rained down upon Elia in heavy chunks. The ground softened like sand, and she felt her feet sinking in- but there was nothing she could do. Stumbling back, she threw up her arms across her body and face, vainly attempting to shield herself from the avalanche; rocks and turf pummeled her again and again until she dropped to the ground in a bloodied heap.

A second later it was over. She raised her head, coughing on dust and filth, hoping against hope that Gribly had somehow won.

No such luck. Her friend was trapped by a multitude of rocky loops and mounds that had leaped out of the ground like living things. His head lolled to one side against a large arm of stone, and blood dripped down his face. His eyes were closed and there was no breathing that she could see. The dark demon-man stalked towards him... and there was something in his hand.

“No!!!!” Elia screamed at the top of her lungs, striving to get up and attack him with her bare hands if necessary. But searing pain filled her arms and legs, and she realized that they were stuck fast in the hardened ground. “No...” she moaned, tears streaming down her eyes as the hopelessness of her situation dawned on her.

“What are you...” rasped the demon-man, almost to himself, and his red-gold eyes narrowed. His hand reached for her, and across the open space Elia felt a mental agony so acute she felt sure she would go insane.

Something streaked across her blood-blurred vision: a golden-green that burned her eyes, yet felt more soothing than a healing draft. The pain in her head vanished, and she shook her head to clear it. The sight in front of her was mind-shattering.

Wanderwillow, burnt and blackened, oozing golden blood from every part of his willowy body, had tackled the demon-man, Sheolus, she suddenly recalled, to the ground, and now both were locked in a deadly wrestling match. Lightning discharged from their bodies in a ceaseless concert of blinding flashes, so bright that the rest of the otherworldly wasteland looked dark as night.

CRASH! CRACKLE! CRASH! The bedlam was loud enough to shatter glass, but her hands were unable to move to cover her ears and stifle the noise. Gasping in pain, she tried to wrench them free from the hardened ground, but they were immovable. Next she tried her legs, with the same result, and found besides that part of her side was stuck as well.

Again she tried to break free. Again she failed. The pain in her trapped limbs intensified with each failure, but she refused to give up. I can't stop... I can't leave Gribly... I have to get him out of here!

So she forced herself to keep trying, as the two mortal enemies clashed over and over again nearby, wreaking havoc on the surrounding terrain in their fury.

BOOM! went the clouds overhead, as lightning was pulled from the sky and into the battling phantoms below. At the same time, Elia managed to rip one hand free of the earth. Her shrieks were drowned out by the battle, as she pressed her bloody, injured hand to her side, trying vainly to dull the pain.

The darkness became laced with freezing rain and hailstones. She dropped her head to the wet stone beneath her and began to weep.

“Elia!” a voice howled, and the next moment Lauro hit the ground beside her. “Use... the water,” he murmured tiredly; it seemed he had used his last reserves of energy to make it through the mayhem to her. “Water...” he repeated again, barely audible over the sounds of combat and storm.

Water?

Water!

It couldn't help her get free, but water could heal her!

Elia turned her face to the sky, ignoring the pounding hail and stinging rain, and lifted her injured hand.

Be whole, she thought, and gasped as the rainwater flowed together as one with the water in her body, pulling and stretching her flesh until it had knitted her hand back together.

“Save them,” Lauro mumbled, then rolled over limply, unconscious again.

FLASH! The lightning streaking in all directions arced higher than ever, and Elia watched in horror as Sheolus flung a weakened, beaten Wanderwillow into the air, then summoned a second blast to slam him into ground mercilessly.

“Nympharch!” she screamed, but her voice was drowned out. Her vision was blurred with tears and blood, but she saw no signs of the Aura rising. The demon-man turned and began stalking towards Gribly again, limping this time.

He's forgotten about me... she realized. He's going to kill Gribly, or worse!

“NO!” she screamed, tearing at the earth that restrained her as hard as she could.

With a sickening squelch, the ground cracked and her body came free. Blood ran down her legs, hand and side; her garment ripped away where it had been submerged in the ground, but she staggered to her feet and tottered forward under the torrential deluge that perpetually issued from the sky.

With every step her wounds healed a little as water seeped into them, but in seconds she saw it would not be enough. Finally she ignored her pain and focused every ounce of energy towards running.

Blood. Water. Light. Shadow.

Ahead, Sheolus raised his hand. In it was a bone dagger with a flaming blade.

“GRIBLY!” Elia screamed, bare feet splashing in the mud as she halted, slid, and flung out her arms in a desperate Sea Striding maneuver. Mud and water streamed around her in a maelstrom that lifted her bodily off the ground and propelled her across the remaining distance in a whirling pillar of power.

Sound died, feeling became irrelevant, and time itself seemed to slow. Elia saw the demon-man turn in surprise as she rocketed towards him...

She saw individual beads of water splash on his gray, dead skin as the water she'd Stridden began to crash over him...

She saw herself stretch out her hands towards his neck...

She felt him lash out defensively with his flaming dagger...

She felt him plunge its blade past her ribs and into her stomach, poking out of her back as her body slammed into his, knocking him over...

She saw Gribly, imprisoned in the tangle of rock, open his eyes...

She saw him scream...

~

“Eliaaaa!!!!” Gribly screamed. The world rushed in on him, all blood and rain and stone, and he thrashed against his bonds. The nymph girl he was sure now he loved had just saved his life, again.

Elia and Sheolus fell in a heap, the sorcerer's blade in her body and her hands gripping his neck. The water that had carried her splashed to the ground, no longer supported by her Striding, and the thoroughly soaked sorcerer began to pry her fingers from his throat with a strange slowness.

A ball of hail struck Gribly in the jaw, bruising it and drawing another trickle of blood on his face, but he felt no pain. Rage built in his chest and seared the inside of his throat; rage so powerful and all-consuming that it drowned out all other feeling or hope. One thing occupied his entire mind: vengeance.

Sheolus succeeded in getting Elia off, stood up, and pulled the dagger slowly out of her. She convulsed, and Gribly realized she was still alive.

“Elia!” he howled, and the rage in him grew so hot that he could not hold it in. An animal bellow tore from his lips, and the stone holding his arms shattered into hundreds of pieces as he hammered it with his mind.

The Sea Strider's body shimmered, then melted into a swirling golden mist that lifted from the ground, traveled quickly through the air, and dissipated as it hit the blade of Sheolus's bone knife.

“Dog! What have you done?!” Gribly's roar of hate was so loud that the demon-man halted for half a second. Then he curled his bloody lip in a sneer and stepped forward, raising the knife to do to Gribly as he had done to Elia.

But the Stone Strider had freed his arms. In two sweeping motions, Gribly swept away the stone that held his lower body, turning it to dust with the power of his Striding. Power from an unknown source even stronger than his rage, power like he had never known, lanced through his body like a draft of cold air.

Sheolus leaped forward, eyes aflame, and struck with his knife.

The remaining stone on and around Gribly exploded in all directions, catching the archdemon in the chest and hurling him backwards in a monstrous collision.

His enemy landed amid the debris, but stood up a moment later, apparently unhurt. Fear hit Gribly like a cold block of ice in the stomach, despite his new and mysterious surge of power.

Sparks danced up the blade of Sheolus's knife again, and it burst into flame.

“Aura of the Creator!” the prophet screamed at the top of his lungs, “Come to me! If I am your prophet, SHOW ME! I can't do this alone!”

Sheolus cringed- he actually cringed! But nothing happened.

Then the rain and hail simply stopped. Gribly felt the power begin to drain out of him, and his head throbbed with new pain.

“Your pleas are fruitless, Boy!” laughed Sheolus, walking forward with deliberate slowness. “I am more powerful than either of your exiled 'friends'!”

But as he moved in for the kill, a single sunbeam broke through the clouds and fell on the space between the boy and the archdemon.

The air shimmered. Gribly gasped as the surge of power returned to him, stronger than ever. The light was coalescing... forming the shape of a…

Sheolus stopped dead, tensed, and stuffed the dagger back beneath his robes. Then he raised both fists and cursed loudly in a hideous voice. Fire spewed from his hands towards the still-wavering shape, engulfing it in a hellish torrent. With a cry Gribly leaped forward towards the sunbeam and fire, hoping against hope to stop the archdemon from killing whatever came out of the air.

It was unneeded. There was a soundless flash of light, and the fire died away as quickly as Sheolus had summoned it. The sunbeam vanished, and the land was dark again...

...but in its place stood a young man in a long cap, dressed in weather-beaten gray robes and leaning on a gnarled wooden staff.

“Traveller?” Gribly blurted, stunned. The Aura paid him no attention, his full attention locked on the archdemon who had tried to kill him.

“YOU!” spat Sheolus, lifting his hands again. Traveller grinned mischievously and raised his staff.

“You've fallen as far as an Aura can fall, Aurum Therestore,” the gray-clad guide of Gribly's dreams said. “It will be my pleasure to send you back to the Blaze.” Then he opened his mouth and let loose with a cock's crow louder and fiercer than any mortal's war cry.

AURA? Gribly shuddered, gaping at the revelation. This archdemon was an Aura?

Sheolus lifted a clawed hand to the sky, and lightning struck his palm. He caught the bolt and held it as it crackled and spat fire, hefting it back as if to throw.

Before either combatant could attack, however, a deep rumbling quake shook the earth behind them all, from the direction of the blasted hill where Wanderwillow and Sheolus had fought. Gribly stamped his foot and Stone Strode to keep himself from falling, sending a hurried glance over his shoulder to find the source of the disturbance. Could there be another archdemon coming?

The hill itself heaved, shuddered, and split open, transforming into a massive ball of churning earth that rolled forward over the land with extraordinary momentum. In three seconds it careened past Gribly, plowing around Traveller and straight into Sheolus, who cast his lightning bolt at it just moments too late.

Half of the deadly orb was blasted away, but the rest continued on for another span before falling apart, leaving a battered, smoking Sheolus behind, victim to his own lightning as well as the concussive force of the quake-ball.

The ground next to Gribly convulsed and ruptured in a spray of dirt, as Wanderwillow himself stepped up out of the earth. He was almost unrecognizable, so battered and gnarled... his skin had taken on the appearance of bark; his hands and feet were knotted messes of root and branch.

With a surprising grace and speed, Wanderwillow ran to stand beside Traveller. No, that wasn't the right word; he didn't run... he flowed. His legs remained still, and his feet were a churning mass of tree roots, seeming to swim through the earth as a human might swim through water. If a tree could walk, Gribly thought, it would walk like that.

Soon the two Aura faced their fallen enemy as Sheolus struggled to his feet, tottered, and fell to his knees in front of them. Traveller raised his staff, and wings sprouted from the end.

“There are two of us and one of you,” the gray Aura said. “Surrender your weapon, and you will be sent to fester with the rest of your Legion.”

Sheolus shrunk lower, shaking and cowering. Then he looked up, eyes glowing once more... but he was not looking at either Aura. He was glaring right at Gribly.

“You will be mine!” he spat, and before anyone could blink he had drawn the bone dagger and slashed his hand open with it. Rusty-golden blood poured from the wound, and he squeezed his fist shut on it, weaving strange words in an evil tongue as the ichor, the godblood, flowed onto the ground at his knees.

Quick as a flash, Traveller flung his winged staff like a javelin straight at Sheolus's heart... but it was too late. The weapon impaled the ground where the archdemon should have been, but had vanished into thin air. The only sign that he had been there was a lingering, cackling laugh that echoed across the Nothing like the ghost, then died away on the wind.

“Blast, that was close!” Traveller grimaced, stretching out his hand and calling his staff back to him. It shot out of the ground and into his grip; he spun it in a quick circle before slamming it into the ground with a loud, frustrated crack!

“How did you…” Gribly started to call, running towards them. Thunder rumbled overhead.

“No time!” shouted the Aura, “Help your friend and we'll bring you both out of the otherworld. We can still catch this demon if we move fast enough!”

Gribly nodded, trying to suppress the aching exhaustion that seeped into his bones, now that the immediate threat was gone. With heavy steps he stumbled across the pitted, debris-strewn land until he came to where his friend lay.

“Lauro!” he wheezed, dropping painfully to his knees beside his friend. “Creator Above, don't be dead! I can't lose two friends in one bloody day!”

The prince's face was covered in soot and dust and blood, but he managed to crack one eye open. Coughing violently, he grabbed Gribly by the shoulder. “If they've killed Elia... I'll tear their damned hearts out... I'll kill them all! I'll-” but his head flopped to one side and his eyes rolled up into the whites. Out cold again.

“That's the Lauro I know,” Gribly whispered, trying to cry and failing miserably. “Always brave, always stupid...”

A rough hand clapped his shoulder. Wanderwillow. The Aura did not speak, but his expression was sad. Traveller flew through the air and landed beside the three, briefly touching the dying prince's forehead before looking Gribly in the eyes and grinning.

“Never fear, Boy... this one's far too tough to die today.”

Reaching out, he touched Gribly in the forehead. White light blossomed in the prophet's mind, and the darkness of the otherworld fled away from the brilliance.

Chapter Eighteen: World Bleeds Gold

The first thing Lauro felt was cold. He opened his eyes slowly, saw a rounded, gray ceiling over him, and felt more stone at his back. He lay still for a few more seconds, trying to decide if he were dead or alive, decided that death would look different, then sat up to figure out where he was.

He was placed on the top of a polished stone block just as wide and long as he was when lying down. Several other blocks occupied the round-walled, dome-ceiling room, and two of them were occupied.

“Lauro...?” a hesitant voice inquired. Gribly raised his head on a stone nearly opposite from him, looking as confused and fatigued as Lauro felt.

“It's me,” the prince replied, “and I think we're alive, somehow.”

“We are,” Gribly nodded. “This chamber is just like the one I used to enter the otherworld inside the Sea Demon.”

“Then was none of that real?” Lauro wondered. “Was it all a dream? I...” He trailed off, following Gribly's suddenly horrified gaze. His eyes rested on the third occupied stone bed, and his jaw dropped. “No... no...”

At first he had thought it was Elia, asleep in her Reethe-made clothes, but now he saw that it was the clothes only... the nymph girl was gone, and only a small, damp spot of blood on the front of her jacket told what had happened.

“It did happen,” Gribly murmured, “And the archdemon... the evil Aura... he took her!” His voice cracked at the end, and a single tear ran down one cheek.

“She gave her life... to save you,” Lauro said, surprised. “She saved both of us, and we couldn't protect her...” hot tears began to spill down his own cheeks, and he leaped off the stone bed angrily. “We couldn't stop her from dying!”

“No mortal can save another from death,” came a tired voice from the shadows in the corner. Traveller stepped out from the darkness, followed by Wanderwillow. “All will die in time, my young friends... But death is only the beginning... and though Elia has left us, she is not dead.”

“Not dead?” Gribly slipped off the stone, and Lauro saw a look of hope in his eyes that had not been there before. “How could that be?”

“Sheolus is one of our oldest foes,” Traveller explained, cocking his head as if listening to a voice no one else could hear. “His arrival was deeply troubling, all the more because it was not immediately apparent why he was here... or so Wanderwillow tells me. He has retreated within himself and will not speak much. But we know now.”

“What are you talking about? None of this makes sense,” Lauro interrupted blandly.

“Sheolus's dagger!” Gribly interjected, suddenly, then covered his mouth. “I don't know why I said that... it just... came to me.”

Traveller nodded grimly. “He wanted to stab you with it, Prophet. It is a weapon of the ancient world, and would have imprisoned your spirit within itself, making it so that your body disappeared and you seemed to have ceased existing. Elia took the blow upon herself, and so saved you. Now she is imprisoned... wounded gravely, but kept alive inside the blade along with any other victims.”

“How do we free her?” Gribly asked fiercely, eyes shining.

“Shatter the blade,” Traveller stated.

“Brilliant,” Lauro interjected, “But where has the bloody demon gone? And where in Vast are we?”

“Below the Swaying Willow,” Traveller indicated. “This chamber is the source of the inn's power... every such chamber is the physical root a being from the otherworld uses to anchor themselves to the physical realm.”

“This is Wanderwillow's, isn't it?” Gribly asked. The brown Aura nodded without a word. Lauro grimaced wondering why Wanderwillow suddenly refused to speak.

“It is his,” Traveller confirmed. “I have one as well, though elsewhere... as does Sheolus.”

“The Sea Demon I killed had one... only smaller,” Gribly said.

“The more powerful a spirit,” Traveller explained, “The larger their chamber. The Aura are of the same essence as any spirit, though vastly different than a demon or fairy, such as you will find elsewhere, just as different species in mor-”

Wanderwillow raised a hand. That was all.

“We're running out of time,” Lauro muttered.

“I...” Traveller shuddered. “I have not been in the physical world for some time now. I apologize,” he finished, but his eyes were apologizing to Wanderwillow, not the boys.

The brown Aura looked even more tree-like by now. Stretching root-like fingers into the stone, he pulled open a passage through the wall behind him. Traveller beckoned Lauro and Gribly through, then the two Aura followed.

A flight of stairs and they were emerging into one of the inn's innermost rooms... or where the rooms had been.

Both lads and Traveller uttered a collective gasp. Wanderwillow simply shook his head.

The Swaying Willow had been blasted apart. The main building, where they were standing, was a charred heap of burnt wood and crumbled, fire-blackened ruins. Bodies lay everywhere in various positions of death and burning. Fire licked the air and smoke billowed so thickly it was almost impossible to see past into the sky beyond.

He distracted us, Lauro realized with a shock. There must have been another attack while the Aura battled in the otherworld!

Traveller put his head in his hands. “This is the beginning of the end...”

“Lauro,” Gribly said urgently, “clear this smoke. I have a very, very bad feeling about this.”

The prince felt too dazed to answer, and the thief's words made no sense. Clear the  smoke? How could I... oh. With wind.

Stepping back, Lauro bent his knees slightly, raising his arms and swaying with the wind. His hands lifted above his head, interweaving with each other as he gathered the power of the wind.

Three, he counted in his head, Two... One...

With a shout, Lauro flung his arms down, forward, and around in an arc that ended with a double punch forwards at the thickest point in the smoke. Wind rushed around him so fiercely that it pulled his hair out of its topknot and flung it in his face.

His Wind Striding- no, Sky Striding- worked perfectly. A powerful gust of wind blew into the smoke, pushing it away easier than a child blowing out a candle. Every fire in the ruins of the inn blew out, and the smoke was gone in seconds. Lauro kept the flow of air constant for a few moments, more, but let it die when he beheld the sight that lay beyond what the smoke had formerly obscured.

From the Willow's ruins to the Grymslip river, a streak of fiery destruction had been drawn, and chugging quickly upstream were the culprits: the impossible metal ships he had originally come to warn Wanderwillow about. One was far ahead of the others: probably Sheolus's, or the blasted Pit Strider's.

“What in the Blazes are those?” Gribly swore, but Lauro didn't bother explaining- he was too furious.

“I saw those!” the prince cried out. “I was coming to warn you all! I could have stopped this!” He let out a wordless scream of rage, but Traveller shot him a look that made him cringe and fall silent.

“They haven't escaped yet, princeling,” the Aura said grimly, the hint of a smile tugging at his mouth. “We'll make them pay dearly for their freedom, but I'll need your help. Both of you.”

To Lauro's surprise, he felt the thrill of battle building in his veins again, energizing him despite his body's pain and exhaustion. Next to him, Gribly began to laugh eerily.

“Let's finish this,” the prophet grinned.

“It ends now,” Lauro vowed, but he didn't grin back.

~

Gramling stood on the metal gargoyle at the very rear of the ship, scanning the Grymclaw as the first light of dawn began to peek over the horizon behind him. The rasping, gurgling sounds of the ship's Pit Children crewmen disturbed him not a bit, and his entire focus was free to center on the upcoming chase. Only this time it would be him fleeing, not them. He bit down the anger that realization stirred in him and kept scanning the landscape.

“They're coming,” he whispered, watching the dark blotches of smoke miles off as they swept forward towards the river; a sure sign that someone was trying to hide their approach.

“No...” hissed a voice beside him. “It is only a distraction. The Aura will be on the first ships before their crews realize it.” The Golden One was hooded and robed in shadow, but the disappointment in his voice belied his intimidating presence. Gramling knew himself too well to deny that he was shaken by what had happened; what was happening. His master had been defeated.

“As long as we can make it up the river and away,” he said, subtly attempting to assuage his master's frustration, “we can be assured that my brother the prophet will play into our hands.”

The Golden One turned his no-longer-golden face towards Gramling, with just the hint of a question in his fiery glance. Lie to me, boy, and I will crush your soul like a wolf on a fowl, his eyes seemed to say. The Pit Strider took a long gulp, then continued on confidently as if he had not noticed the look.

“I spent much time hunting these Striders, my Master. Both the Sea Strider and the Stone Strider have strong feelings for the... the girl you unin... you succeeded in capturing. The prophet's feelings are the stronger, and I have absolutely no doubt he will do anything and travel anywhere to rescue her... even if it means sacrificing his own life.”

“Weakling,” the Golden One spat, fondling the sharp edge of his bone dagger. Indeed, Gramling wondered, but who is weak now? Not they. Quickly he suppressed such rebellious thoughts, but the Golden One didn't seem to notice. “Let us depart,” his master growled, and stomped past the black-skinned crew into the bowels of the ship.

Gramling said nothing. He just stared, and stayed where he was. Carnage was coming, and he wanted to see every second of it; he wanted to brand it into his mind, fuel for the fire of his hate.

We need you, brother of mine... but when we are done with you, I will tear out your heart. This I swear.

Chapter Nineteen: When Stone Met Sky

Gribly and Lauro ran towards the river, their speed augmented by the earth at Gribly's feet and the wind at Lauro's back. Traveller rode the skies somewhere above them, and Wanderwillow had taken to the earth as soon as he could.

“We have to catch that sixth ship!” Gribly yelled above the roaring wind and blowing dust cloud that surrounded them both. “I don't care what Traveller says- I'm not letting Elia go so easily!” The prince nodded, and they shifted their course to head farther upriver, towards the rapidly fleeing ship Gribly was sure carried Elia and Sheolus, and possibly the Pit Strider, too, if Lauro had seen right the night before. As they slowed to turn, the dust cloud fell away, and they were given a clearer view of their enemies.

The five ships that formed the rearguard for the escape would not be bypassed so easily. The two friends had already come within an eighth of a mile of the river, and- without knowing it- into the firing range of the metal vessels.

Suddenly, gaping portals opened all along the sides of each ship that faced them. Gribly watched in horror as balls of fire wider than a man was tall rushed out of each aperture and flew towards him and Lauro with astonishing speed. That must have been how they destroyed the inn!

“Move, idiot!” Lauro shouted at him. A burst of wind threw Gribly up into the air, and Lauro grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, kicking his legs to propel them high out of reach of the flames.

A rush of heat passed under them, pushing Lauro even higher on its superheated air. By the time they were forty feet high, the fireballs had burned their way past, carving a new patch of blackness in the Grymclaw.

“I can't hold you much longer,” Lauro gasped, straining against the effort of lifting two whole people on the wind.

“I'll be fine!” Gribly assured him. The prince nodded, then let go.

As he plummeted, Gribly curled into a ball and spun in tight series of flips. The air was still hot enough to scorch him from the passing of the fireballs, but he ignored it and uncurled himself when he judged the angle to be just right.

WHAM!

He hit the stony ground with enough force to break every bone in his body... but his Stone Striding was powerful enough that he felt no injury. Dirt and dusty soil sprayed up all around him as he landed in a one-knee crouch, hands pressed to the ground on either side of him.

I am the master of the strongest element, he told himself, energy racing through his veins with every second he touched the earth. The feeble flames of my enemies' hate cannot break me! I am invincible!

Lauro landed on the ground next to him, stumbling with fatigue. “That was too hard. I can't do it again...”

At the river, four of the five ships began to glow from inside, readying more fire. The fifth spewed smoke and listed to one side for no apparent reason- courtesy of the Aura, most likely.

“It's up to me, then,” Gribly snarled. “Guess we'll have to deal with these fools first, after all.” As one, the four remaining ships emitted a wall of scarlet flame that careened towards them, too fast to dodge. “Get behind me, Lauro!” the prophet shouted. The prince stepped sideways, reluctantly placing Gribly between him and the danger.

Gribly knelt to the ground in a flash, thrusting his hands into the earth up to their wrists. The packed ground softened beneath his touch, and he felt his mind extend to encompass all the stone and earth from his hands to the bank of the river. If the Creator is my master, I can do anything in Him...

The wall of flame rolled closer. In seconds it would hit him.

In one fluid motion Gribly stood and flung his earth-grimed hands in the air. The ground in front of him erupted upwards, mimicking his motion by forming a hasty wall of earth as wide as the approaching firestorm. Once more he repeated the Stone Stride, doubling the thickness of his makeshift shield.

Then the fireballs hit. The impact jarred the landscape, but Gribly managed to throw up another wall of soil despite the rumblings beneath his feet. The effort made his head throb with excruciating pain, and his arms felt like they had physically lifted every pound of the earth, but he kept at it until he was sure the inferno on the other side had died away. Lauro leaped, spun, and vaulted to the top of his earthen wall, propelled by Wind Striding.

“The Aura are tearing a second ship apart!” he called down from his perch. “One's already sunk... two more are jammed close together, trying to fire at Wanderwillow- Blast! He's summoning huge roots out of the river to pull down the boats!”

“That leaves one for us,” Gribly shot back. “Let's finish it on our own.”

Lauro looked back at him and nodded, leaping off the wall to land in a swirling whirlwind next to Gribly, crouching with arms flung wide. “How'll we do this, Prophet?”

Am I really becoming the leader, like the Aura said? Gribly wondered, but he grinned. “I've got an idea... If two Sea Striders can summon a storm, what could a Stone Strider and a Sky Strider do?”

For the first time since they'd emerged into the physical world, Lauro actually smiled. His eyes glinted viciously. “Let's send these Children of the Pit back where they belong.”

Gribly nodded in agreement, walked over to his wall of earth, and thrust his hands towards it. With a grunt of surprise, he realized he had fused it together so hard that it had become stone, hence being able to withstand the heat of the golden ships' fireballs. I'm becoming more powerful every day... we all are!

“Very well,” he huffed, “I can work with this.” With another grunt he shoved his hands into the bare face of the rock, sinking his fingers into the surface, then broke it apart. All along the wall, rock shivered, shook, and diffused into sand. As the entire structure collapsed, a strong wind blew the grit and grains into a spiraling mass that scattered into an enormous dust cloud, blowing outward in a veil that would obscure the vision of anyone on the boats. “Good work,” he called back to Lauro.

“Right,” the prince agreed, “Now let's give them something they won't forget!” The land was clear again, but the golden ships would be blinded for a few moments more. The river was almost invisible behind a gray-brown dust cloud that flashed from moment to moment, illuminated by the titanic struggle within.

“I'll form the stones into something usable,” Gribly decided, “And you can help me throw them. We'll make a storm of our own!”

Lauro nodded, and Gribly set to work.

He stomped his feet, first the left, then the right, and the earth buckled beneath him. He swept his foot across the dusty ground, pulling his clawed hands towards him forcefully, and the heaving ground burst upward in a thick vortex of churning earth.

Suddenly, whatever he did was magnified a hundredfold. With a quick spinning motion, Gribly turned a full circle with his arms outstretched, intending to cause the vortex to grow taller and spin faster. It did all that and far, far, more, shooting up for a hundred feet,  flinging soil and shards of rock in all directions, spreading wide as three men laying end on end and almost engulfing Gribly, who leaped backwards in a handspring to avoid it.

The earth-vortex followed his example, slamming into the ground to form a huge U-shape over him. Standing stock still, he lifted his arms toward its peak, feeling the earth with his mind. What had happened? There was so much... wind.

Lauro laughed out loud behind him. Gribly looked at his friend and saw his wild eyes... it had been him. Lauro was Striding Wind to augment his Stone Striding.

“Together we can do anything!” the prince yelled, raising his arms. Wind whipped Gribly's vortex faster and faster.

The smokescreen cast when Lauro blew the dust cloud forward was thinning into nothing. Without warning another fireball roared out of the nearest ship towards them.

“AGH!!” Gribly cried, stepping to one side and moving both arms in a high-flying arc towards the flames.

The vortex whipped one end up from the ground, soaring through the air faster than should have been possible thanks to Lauro's efforts. Its end slammed into the fireball a hundred feet away, engulfing it in swirling stone and earth, crushing it easier than a flat stone snuffing out a candle.

“END THIS!” Lauro shouted, and he punched the air with a wordless screaming battle cry. Lightning shot from the sky and smote the whirling pillar of earth, flickering up and down its outside. Gribly saw small dark forms scurrying about on the ship's deck, running and leaping overboard. One figure in a dark cape raised his fist and shook it at them, then vanished in a plume of smoke. “NOW!” Lauro yelled.

Gribly flung his arms to the sky, and the vortex became a tornado of awesome proportions, flashing with lightning and frothing with tormented earth.

I’ll never be helpless again, he realized.

Then he slammed both fists into the ground with a shout that shook the earth.

Doom fell on the golden ship. The torrent of earth and wind ripped the war vessel apart as if it were made of tin, shredding its metal bulk and hurling huge pieces of shrapnel for hundreds of feet all around. Fire blossomed in a series of mushroom-like explosions as the mysterious glowing innards of the ship were mauled by the vortex of alien elements.

Suddenly Gribly felt the power added by Lauro's Wind Striding flicker, then die. “We've got trouble!” the prince shouted.

Gribly cursed, channeling the rest of his earth vortex into the ruined shell that was left of the ship. They had taken down one themselves, and three seemed out of commission thanks to the Aura. That left one warship still mobile- it would have to be dealt with later. Arms loose and ready for Striding, Gribly turned to face the problem that assaulted Lauro.

Smoke billowed up from the ground, spinning in a sort of weak imitation of the larger vortex they had summoned before. Lauro threw a mild, testing blast of wind at it, but the smoke appeared undisturbed. Orange sparks shot up in a fountain of fire from the inside, and the next second the flames spewed forth a creature like Gribly had never seen before... or so he thought, at first.

It wore black robes, with black plate armor scattered at vital points on the thing's body. It had the general shape of a man, but its hands and feet were clawed, and its skin was jet-black and wrinkled. Milky, bulbous eyes glared at him without pupils, and fangs bared in the creature's mouth. It raised a hand, and branded runes in its palm began to glow with fire.

“What in the Blaze are you?” Lauro spat. The thing turned its head towards him with a jerk, hissing through teeth that seemed better suited to ravaging small animal corpses than talking.

“I am a Child of the Pit.”

Gribly began to slink to one side. He's one of the ones who chased Traveller, all that time ago!

“What makes you think you can touch me?” Lauro sneered at the creature, which howled, flicking its wrists and generating a ball of swirling flame in each hand.

“I have been taught by the Golden One himself the arts of Pit Striding, foolish man-child! I will burn you blacker than death!”

“Hah!!” Lauro laughed, and thrust his arms forward, hurling a small bolt of lightning he had been gathering straight into the Pit Child's chest. With a gurgling yell, the black beast-man was launched into the air towards Gribly, who had sneaked around behind him. “Now!” yelled the prince.

Gribly punched out with his left arm, and a sharp, tooth-shaped spear of rock burst from the ground, impaling the Pit Child as he tumbled back to the ground. The hideous face contorted in a snarl of defiance... then froze in a mask of death. Ebony blood trickled from the corners of its mouth and dripped from the fist-sized wound that penetrated its back and emerged from its chest.

BOOM! Thunder rumbled overhead, and both friends looked to the river simultaneously. There was nothing to see except sky-high pillars of smoke, and a few half-submerged smokestacks. The Aura had completed their task.

“You know,” Gribly remarked, swaying a little from the shock of the battle's aftermath, “I think this is getting a little easier!”

Then he passed out.

Chapter Twenty: The Prophet, the Prince, and the Pirate

“But we have to go after her!” Gribly shouted, almost in Traveller's face. The gray Aura was the only one who would even speak- Wanderwillow seemed to have suffered some sort of depression or injury ever since the Forest of Foretelling had burned.

The sky had mostly cleared, and dawn had finally broken over the Grymclaw once more. The land was in a momentary lull from its usual ferocity. With the escape of the warship bearing Sheolus, Gramling, and Elia, and the destruction of the five rearguard ships, the storm that had been brooding for so long seemed to have moved off inland, wreaking havoc on the rest of the continent of Vast.

Traveller had revived Gribly, and Wanderwillow had silently healed both Gribly and Lauro of their most grievous hurts. Now the prince, the prophet, and the gray Aura stood on the bank of the Grymslip, hotly debating what course of action it would be best to take. Wanderwillow was summoning some sort of forest dwelling at the old site of the Swaying Willow Inn, for a purpose he would not divulge.

“For the first time in a long time,” Lauro said, “I agree entirely with Gribly. I don't care if I lose my chance at regaining my honor in Vastion- we can't let those bloody fiends have Elia!”

Traveller sighed, taking off his long soft cap and mopping his forehead with it. “I suppose I'm to blame for all of this... gallivanting about in people's dreams, setting things in motion... But you just don't see, do you?”

“See what?” Gribly wanted to know. Traveller sighed again, and replaced his cap.

“Aurum Therestore- I mean Sheolus, as we've named him now... He knows of your destiny, Gribly. He knows you're meant to be the Creator's prophet, whether now or in the future. If there was any doubt in his mind before, since he did have your brother in his thrall, it's gone now. You were able to call me all the way from... well, somewhere, and that tells him who you really are.”

“So he wants to kill me? That's nothing new!”

“No, no, no!” Traveller exclaimed, looking more annoyed with every minute that passed. “He wants to capture you! He can't kill you yet... he still needs you.”

“Needs me? For what?”

Traveller sighed his deepest sigh yet. “For... for the Day of Norne.”

“What in Vast is that?” Lauro asked. “Every time we talk with you Aura or the Clerics who serve you, all we get is riddles and half-truths... I think it's time we deserved a straight answer, don't you?”

Finally the gray Aura smiled. “If you put it that way... But only because it is imperative that the prophet know why we wish him not to give chase to the Legion Sheolus.”

“Legion? What is a Legion?” Gribly asked, though he began to feel he knew.

“An Aura who has fallen away from the Light,” Traveller said solemnly. “At the beginning of time, we were many, we Aura... some of us more powerful than others, but all on the same side. But when the world you mortals know as the physical one was created... some of the Aura began to have thoughts of rebellion. They wished to make the world as they saw fit, not the Creator! So we, the Aura of the Light, were tasked with imprisoning our shadow-tainted brethren in the Underworld.”

“The Blazes...” Lauro breathed, and Gribly realized they had both begun to hold their breath, “They're real...”

“Oh, they are indeed,” Traveller continued. “Kerbus, the Underworld... all the places mortals have forgotten, or turned into legend. We managed to contain most of the Legion, as the tainted Aura began to call themselves, in the prison we built for them beneath the earth, where they cannot escape even to the Otherworld. Only Sheolus, formerly the Golden Aura, escaped our grasp. We have been hunting him ever since, from sea to sea and land to land. Only now has he dared show his face, and...”

“But what do I have to do with any of this?” Gribly wondered.

“All you have encountered on your journey has been for a purpose, Gramlen, Gram's son. Have you and your friends not felt your power increase as time goes on... far beyond the usual abilities of a Strider?”

“Well, yes...” Gribly answered, “But we were told that in the past, all Striders could do what we do.”

“In the past, yes,” Traveller agreed, looking somewhere over the horizon and not liking what he saw. “Before the Legion was tamed and imprisoned, yes... in the distant past.”

“Wait,” Lauro broke in, “Do you mean-”

“It has been thousands of years since we locked our enemies away, Prince of Vastion. Now their prison is weakening.”

“Will-” Gribly bit his tongue with a sudden rush of fear. “Will it break open? Will more archdemons like Sheolus escape?”

“No.” Gribly and Lauro heaved a collective sigh of relief. “Not unless he sheds the blood of the Creator's chosen one, on the coming millionth year since the imprisonment of the rest of the Legion.”

Gribly felt his skin grow cold and clammy as fear gripped him like a vice. “You mean all the war... all that's been going wrong in the rest of the world, is because this dark Aura... this Legion is hunting me? He needs my blood to release the other demons?”

“Oh...” Lauro said. “That makes things a little more difficult, doesn't it?”

“You see now, young prophet,” Traveller added, “that greater powers are at work than you could ever have imagined. Besides myself and Wanderwillow, there is but one Aura in this part of the world able to help us in this fight, and even he cannot reach us in time to pursue Sheolus. The archdemon has your brother under his sway, and your... and bait to convince you to follow him. You are the only card he does not hold in this game, and we need to keep it that way.”

Gribly hung his head, but Lauro cursed loudly. “I don't see what choice we have, Grib.”

“Don't call me that,” Gribly snapped, fighting back memories of Elia and the tears that came with them.

“I am truly sorry, Lad,” Traveller said sympathetically, crossing over and putting a hand on Gribly's shaking shoulder. “The loss of the Halanyad is bitter, for she played her own part in the pattern of destiny well, and will be sorely needed in the future. But we simply cannot risk-”

“Shut up!” Gribly shouted suddenly, pushing the gray Aura away fiercely and glaring at him with tear-drenched eyes. “All you and your stinking spirit brothers care about is destiny! You don't care that mortals are people, too! We're not pawns... stop treating us like them! This isn't a game!”

“I know, Child,” Traveller tried to sooth him, “but-”

“No buts! I don't care what happens to me, and I don't care if the whole world burns! I just want Elia back!” His voice had risen with every word, and only now he realized he was screaming in Traveller's face, red-eyed and angrier than he had ever been in his life. With a surprised gasp he stepped back, rubbing his eyes and cursing under his breath for losing control.

“By the Aura, Gribly,” Lauro exclaimed quietly, “do you realize what you're saying?”

“I... I...” Gribly clenched and unclenched his fists. “I'm sorry,” he finally managed, sinking down to sit on the riverbank, facing away from them all. “I just... I can't seem to let her go. I guess it's all useless, anyway... How would I even start chasing them? They're probably making their way down another river and out of the Grymclaw this very second.”

He punched the wet soil in his frustration and despair, ripping up a clod of dirt and hurling it with Stone-Striding-imbued force, not bothering to look where it landed.

Clunk. The clod hit something hard and metallic, then plopped into the river-water with a splash!

“Actually,” Lauro said behind him in a shaky voice, “That may not be such a problem after all...”

Gribly looked up. Out of the water like the ghost of a long-dead leviathan had come the most curious warship he had encountered yet. Part Reethe-whitewood, part golden metal and smoke-stacks, part Zain hardwood and sails, it was rising inch by inch right out of the river like a hunting beast coming for the kill...

Lauro stared in disbelief at the runes burned or carved into a huge metal panel on the side of the ship. “The Invincible? That's its name...”

“Indeed 'tis!” hailed a voice above them, and the last person anyone expected to see appeared climbing out of a hatch in the closed deck, slipping down its curved side to land nimbly on a gang rail that overhung the riverbank.

“Captain Berne,” Gribly grinned, sorrow forgotten in surprise and wonderment. “What in all the world are you doing here?”

~

“They sacked the place, the blood-thirsty rogues,” Berne snarled, and Lauro saw murder reflected in the normally jolly pirate's eyes. “Blew Mythigrad apart with their Pit Stridin', and their fire-throwin'... they used unholy powers, I tell yuh all! Combining their sorcery with huge metal siege weapons that could throw a house a mile!”

“So that's how they do it,” Lauro muttered under his breath.

“How many were there?” Traveller asked intently. Berne studied his questioner warily for a second before telling- he was suspicious of the gray Aura, and downright afraid of the brown. “I'd say nearly... thirty? Forty? They came an' went, came an' went, slaughtering us wherever we look'd. Me 'n' Yan an' the crew managed to sink a few o' the blighters, but it just warn't enough.”

“Damnation!” Lauro swore, angrily pacing the length of the sparsely furnished captain's cabin and barely restraining himself from punching the wall with all his might. Captain Bernarl, openly a pirate now, had taken them aboard the Invincible for a short tour, as a favor, and he didn't want to upset the nymph any more than he had to. Wanderwillow, of course, had not accompanied them.

“If you'll pardon my asking,” Traveller put in, “how did you escape, much less with a full crew? And what of this ship?”

“Ah,” said Berne, leaning back in his captain's chair, “Now there be somethin' for the tale-fire, there be.” The seat was comfortably cushioned and fashioned from metal and gears that allowed it to assume any position he wished, one of the many unexplained mechanisms on the ship.

“Pray tell,” Gribly asked, a little sarcastically. He was becoming more jittery and impatient with each minute Berne dragged on... and Lauro thought he knew why.

“Me an' Yan, see... when the fools finally managed to sink us, we were th' only ones to escape! We crashed on the shores o' Mythigrad, and says to ourselves- 'Whoe'er these blaggards be, they've already invaded the city, an' won't be watchin' out fer an attack on their ships, will they?' So we crept along quiet-like... snuck aboard one of those golden ships, killed the guards, an' took it for ourselves!”

“Just two of you?” Lauro asked incredulously.

“Well,” Berne admitted, “we happened upon some Frost Striders in the fight- they'd had something of the same idea, methinks... they 'elped us win th' ship, an' let me tell yuh, was they something!”

Yan, the first mate, had been standing quietly in the corner for some time. Now he spoke up, curiously solemn. “They could do more with Striding than anyone's ever seen, but they were barely able to control their powers.”

“The time is coming,” Traveller lamented, “When all Striders will feel this power. It is only beginning... the closer we come to the Day of Norne, the more powerful every Strider shall be... and the less predictable... the less in control. The world is preparing to tear itself apart.”

Yan looked graver than ever and fell silent. Berne cursed. “Well, whate'er it be, those Striders 'ave 'elped me more than any spirit e'er did. We captured this metal ship, see, and rammed a few more before any o' the enemy could sense what 'appened. When they did, o' course, we was dead... or so I thought. Suddenly they fled away up north, every one o' 'em, ignorin' us completely and leaving Mythigrad behind in flames!”

“Wait,” Gribly interjected, “I'm not sure I understand...”

“I do,” Lauro said. “They must have been summoned to help their master. This rogue Aura has an army at his command... and they're probably heading this way, now.”

“No indeed,” Berne argued. “They're gone as summertime... I'd the same thoughts meself not long ago, when we began roundin' up the survivors o' the attack. This ship had had so much damage, I 'ad the Frost Striders and some other Reethe fix 'er up with pieces from any sunk ship they could find. When we did, th' Cleric o' Mythigrad showed us 'ow to make our boat into what 'ee called an 'Under-Mariner'... ship that can go under th' water for a short time, to hide or surprise th' enemy. It's done with Wave Stridin' and Frost Stridin' together, but one o' the Reethe seems t' be able to do both, now... he's joint captain with me, so tuh speak...”

“Who? Who can do both? Is he here now?” Lauro asked in a stream of excitement.

“Course 'ee is, young prince,” the Captain said, chuckling. “Could we run this 'ere ship underwater right up to yer noses without 'im?” Just then, a heavy knock came at the door, and a somehow-familiar voice Lauro couldn't quite recognize called through.

“Berne? Are you in there?”

“Come in, come in!” Berne laughed, leaning even farther back in his chair. “There's some old friends I'd like yeh to meet!”

With an oily grinding, the cabin door swung open and a tall, shaven-headed nymph walked through. Lauro's mouth opened, then closed, and Gribly laughed aloud.

“I suppose we should have expected you,” Lauro said, finally managing a grin.

Karmidigan bowed low in a flourish of white robes, smiling. “Welcome aboard the Invincible, my young friends. Surprised to see me?”

“Not really,” Gribly snorted, “I wouldn't be surprised if my Pit Striding brother turned up at this point.”

“Brother?!” both nymphs gasped at once. Lauro couldn't help himself- he laughed at them.

“Looks like we've all got stories to tell,” the prince said.

~

When their various and sundry tales had all been shared, Captain Bernarl made the most startling proposition possible. “You want to get the girl back, do you? Well, I'll take you to her, then!” His voice was curiously absent of his usual accent.

“NO!” said Traveller forcefully. “He must stay here.”

“But-” Gribly began, but Berne waved him silent.

“With all due respect, My Lord Aura... I'm a pirate, as is this young hero's father. Crazy stunts like this, here... they're in our blood. You say you've lost the one young woman who can unite all our tribes, do yuh? Well then, I says, we need to get her back! If Gribly wants to come, it's his affair and not yours. Besides, I've been a'thinkin'... and I see a war comin'. Those ships that attacked Mythigrad, now... where be they? Not with this Sheolus fellow. They're getting' ready to attack! War's coming, and I don't think thirty golden ships is the limit of this blackguard's strength, do you?”

Traveller frowned, but he shook his head and said nothing.

“Well,” Berne said. “This's what we'll do. We'll give chase up these Grymclaw rivers, up n' down n' up again. There's a lot of 'em, we've found- that's how we got in. Maybe we'll catch the demon and his ship, and maybe we won't. But if we reach the open sea, there'll be the Alliance to call on for help. Every port in Vastion and the lands beyond has rogues an' brigands from the Alliance: we'll raise the alarm! Pirates and thieves'll unite for the first time in a hundred years! And here's the last thing we'll do, if Gribly comes with us...”

His voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. For better or worse, Lauro realized, he had them under his spell.

“If'n he comes, we'll send word to Gram, Rogue Lord o' the South. Once he hears his long-lost son is still alive, he'll be likely to do anything for us!”

“I don't think he will,” Traveller sighed. “Perhaps you do not know him as I do... or once did.” The Captain gave the Aura a questioning look- almost sympathetic, Lauro thought- but no explanation was forthcoming. “I think,” Traveller continued, “that it is up to the prophet to choose. I have given what advice I may, but until the appointed time it is not my place to interfere with the mortal world... unless called upon by the Creator or his chosen one.”

“Gribly?” Lauro asked in the silence that followed. “Will you go?”

Nothing. No response. The prince frowned- Gribly was standing against the wall, his eyes closed and an unhappy look on his face. Had he fallen asleep so quickly? They were all still exhausted, but...

The prophet's eyes blinked open, and his face became deathly calm.

“I will go,” he said. Leaning forward off the wall, he stepped to the center of the room. “Whether for better or worse... for victory or defeat... I will go.”

“May the blessing of the Creator and the protection of His Aura go with you, then,” said Traveller wearily.

Everyone was silent as the gray Aura walked towards Gribly and placed a hand on his shoulder. His other hand gripped his gnarled staff, the tip of which touched Gribly on the heart. Traveller leaned forward until his forehead almost touched the young prophet's, then breathed out a long, slow breath on the boy.

As one, the eyes of Traveller and Gribly glowed with a golden light that flashed once and promptly disappeared.

Gribly looked up, and Lauro saw a wisdom and resolve in his eyes that had not been there before. “Thank you,” he said. “I will do my best to uphold my destiny.”

“I do not doubt it,” smiled the Aura, and, with a rueful but pleased expression picked up his staff in both hands, handing it carefully to Gribly. “I have given you all the blessing I may,” he said. “Now take this gift as well, and may it serve you as it has me: unerringly, and unfailingly. May you never stumble.”

“I... I can't thank you enough,” Gribly said, tears welling in his eyes. Lauro kept watching with a stunned silence, as did Karmidigan, Berne, and Yan.

“Go with the Creator at your side,” Traveller told him, then turned to the prince and nodded. “Come. It is time.”

Epilogue: The Path of Destiny

As the Invincible headed off upriver, sails billowing and smoke chugging in unlikely tandem, Lauro and Traveller watched it go. Dawn had passed, and the sun was out in its full, golden glory.

“You could have gone with them, you know,” Traveller said. “They offered. Why didn't you?”

Lauro smiled sadly. “You know why already, don't you?”

“No,” Traveller said simply. Lauro shrugged.

“Fine, then. I looked into Wanderwillow's book, before the battle started... and I saw my future.”

“Ah,” Traveller breathed.

“You knew, didn't you? You all know- all the Aura, I mean. You know I'm going to fail.” Lauro's voice took on a bitter tone.

“Did the book say you were going to fail?”

“No. But it showed me what would happen... what I can't stop.” Lauro turned to look the gray Aura straight in his eyes. “It showed me who I would become, Traveller, and it said I could do nothing to stop it.”

Traveller bowed his head. “It was... foreseen. Some things were not meant to be, Lauro.”

“No, they weren't,” the prince agreed. “But you know what else it predicted? It predicted that I would be the one to save Elia, and Gribly would be the one to unite Vast.”

Traveller met his gaze again, and his eyes were shining. “What?”

“But now our roles are reversed. He's going to save her- oh yes, I know he'll do it. And he won't end like the book said I would, because he's not me.” Lauro could feel the excitement at finally being able to put into words what he had hidden since the Forest of Foretelling. “I broke the prediction, Traveller! I can seal my own fate... or I can make myself something new.”

“Prince,” warned the Aura, but Lauro didn't let him speak.

“I will prove myself to Father, Traveller. I will save Vastion- and what's more, you know how I can do it... don't you?”

Traveller sighed. “It will cost you your life, Lauro.”

“I don't care. My life means nothing against my kingdom.”

Traveller turned away, clasping his hands behind his back and gazing out over the wasteland of the Grymclaw and the golden sun beyond. Lauro said nothing to urge him... he knew an answer was forthcoming.

“The Red Aura,” Traveller said at last. “He is a maker of artifacts and weapons such as have not been used since the Eleven Aura united and cast the Legion out of the heavens. It was he who made the sacred bone dagger Sheolus now carries.”

“What about him?” Lauro asked, pulse pounding with anticipation.

“If you truly wish to take this destiny upon your shoulders, Prince... You must find him. He will forge you a weapon greater than any mortal or immortal has yet seen. With it you may banish the threat of the Legion once and for all.”

Lauro's eyes gleamed with desire and purpose. Lightning flickered across his brow from the intensity of his thoughts, forming an ethereal crown.

“Tell me what I must do.”

To Be Continued...

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Well, this book has been a journey. It began as a short book, which became a long book, which became another short book, which became a very long book, which was split into three parts. My trilogy has become a series of nine parts. Grym Prophet is the third of those parts, and also the end of the First Act. I have several special people to thank for helping it get to the point it's at.

Firstly, I thank God. He's given me my talent, and He's swept me off my feet with what He can do.

Secondly, through God, I've had the grace to work with some amazing people, who I'd like to thank individually.

My mom: for doing an incredible job refining and pruning my story to a readable point.

My brother: for being the first reader and the first fan.

Thirdly, I thank the teen writing workshop members from the spring program at my library: they don't know it, but without them the character of Gribly would never have been invented... and there would have been no story to tell.

Lastly, I thank all the people and groups who gave me support and fellowship on the path of writing: my friends, my family, my heroes, my helpers. We're Striders together, all of us...

The real journey, I think, just as in this book, has only just begun.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gregory J. Downs is the author of several novels, including the standalone Arthurian novel Mordred, as well as the Song of the Aura series, of which this book is the third part. Having grown up reading the likes of Tolkien, Jacques, Lewis, and Jordan, it was only a matter of time before his imagination grew too explosive to contain, and one day it spilled out onto paper as the first lines of his first story. Hundreds of thousands of words and several years later, he is glad to present you with this, his fourth self-published novel.

Gregory is homeschooled (yes, he's still in school) and professes himself to be radically Christian and unshakably Catholic. If you can stomach that, he also believes in writing only the best, most epic fiction he possibly can.

Gregory hopes you've enjoyed this book- but whether you liked it or hated it, he values your opinion. To review Grym Prophet, go to the Amazon page where you bought or downloaded it. Thank you, and may the great Creator of the world send his Aura to protect you!

To visit the author's blog, go to www.epicbloggjd.blogspot.com.

To become a fan of the Song of the Aura series, go to www.facebook.com/songoftheaura.

To become a fan of Mordred on Facebook, go to www.facebook.com/Excather.

PREVIEW OF

-THE SONG OF THE AURA-

BOOK FOUR

-GOLDEN TIDE-

Prologue Sample

Vail Kammerdan, Sky Strider of Vastion, had always dreamed of giving his life for his kingdom... he had just never supposed the chance would come like it did.

A storm was brewing on the horizon, darker and fiercer than any Vail had ever seen. It seemed as if the thunderheads were slowly eating away at the sky, consuming it mile by mile, ready to devour the heavens. Below him, the world crawled by at the mesmerizing rate he had come to know so well when flying.

For days the land of Vastion had been a carpet of rolling, forested foothills beneath him. As Vail kept watch, though, the foothills grew taller, higher, and stronger, until they were bastions of sharp-edged, flat-faced, blue-tinted stone: Stormness, the Rain Mountains. It was a sight to see, dark and forbidding under the gathering storm, but majestic enough to steal one's breath away.

Skreeeeeeeeeeee! The call of Windwing, the far-eagle that bore Vail and his companion, rent the air with its harsh beauty. The gigantic bird swooped almost low enough to brush the tops of the mountains, which had began to be dappled by snow. The crisp, cold air at the roof of the world nearly ripped Vail's breath from his lungs, but he had long since grown used to the high altitudes.

“Silence, Windwing,” urged Vail's companion, “We know not what awaits us.” The far-eagle twitched its head as it felt the command with both hearing and mind, as well as through a gentle but firm tug on the steering lines. It ended the call and flew on in silence.

By now the far-eagle's flight was taking them between cliffs and peaks as both Vail and his companion scanned the landscape below them with practiced eyes. After several minutes had gone by, however, there seemed to be no sign of their destination.

“I see nothing, Windmaster,” Vail murmured without stopping his search to glance at his companion. Windmaster Karanel Winter had been his friend for years, and his master for even more, but she would spare him nothing if he let his attention stray, even now... especially now.

“How many times must I tell you, Vail?” his master sighed, shifting her position at his side, “You need more than your eyes to see...” Windmaster Karanel was scarce fifteen years older than he, and the youngest Windmaster in Vastion, but she never ceased to have something undeniably wise to say. As familiar as he was with her, Vail never lost the sense of awe she gave him.

“I'm not sure I understand, Ka- Windmaster,” Vail shivered in the chilly, rushing air, and tried to mumble his way past the slip in her title.

“Nor did you the last three times I told you,” Karanel said with mock ferocity. Then, to Vail's surprise, she turned from keeping watch and nudged him to look at her. With an awkward twist Vail brought himself into a rough kneeling position facing her, unsure of what would come next.

The Windmaster's pale braid whipped back and forth behind her as she pursed her lips, staring hard at her student while still keeping a ready hand on Windwing's steering lines.

“Wind Striding is more than just jumping higher and leaping farther than anyone else, Vail. It's more than just controlling the wind... it's listening to it as well. The sky has a voice... it has currents just like the sea- we can all feel them. It has colors, too, only most people can't see them. Listen to the wind, and then maybe you will finally see the sky for what it is.”

“I... I'll try,” Vail stammered, knowing he'd missed an important point and now had to have it explained to him.

“No, you'll do it,” Karanel told him, patting his shoulder with a free hand. “I know you can, Vail. Just keep trying- you have a fine future ahead of you.”

“But what if we've missed it talking just now?”

“We haven't,” was all she said before turning to scan the mountains again. Vail wondered how she could have sensed that- could she really be that powerful? He didn't doubt it.

Bowing his head, he moved back into his former position and let his eyes graze the swiftly moving landscape beneath them. The wind and floating snow seemed to rush at him from all angles, every solitary flake visible and vital in his heightened state of awareness.

The first snowflake brushed his cheek, carried by a winter breeze. Vail started violently, almost upsetting his place on Windwing, and causing the far-eagle to emit a high-pitched moan of distress.

“Vail! What's wrong?” Windmaster Karanel was instantly responsive, but he could not answer her.

The frost... the wind... it felt like fear. It smelled of blood and iron, and it... it was menacing him. It was darkening... the sky was darkening... On the edge of his hearing, he thought he could hear screaming... What was happening?

“The wind...” he whispered hoarsely, “It's... it's...”

“Blast!” Karanel swore, and Vail winced at the Northland curse. “I can feel it! By Halla...”

“Wait, wait... I... I can see the wind! I can see it!” Vail could barely contain himself at the surge of mixed pride and fear. Whatever horrible thing had happened, the wind was bringing him news of it! He could see the currents like living things, flows of color and sound with individual meanings, instead of formless, howling bursts of air.

“Wind of the gods!” Karanel shouted, sending Windwing into a steep, right-turning dive. “There must be a battle raging in Amestone!”