Dire Sparks (Song of the Aura, Book Five)

by Gregory J. Downs

  “There is something you must see,” was Traveller’s only reply, and his tone brooked no argument. “Have you the staff?”

  “I do.”

  “Raise it.” Gribly did. “Now, follow my example.” The Gray Aura lifted his right hand, and Gribly lifted the staff in unison. The Aura moved his arm, pointing ahead and to the right, as if he could pierce the layer of clouds ‘round the mountain with his finger. Gribly mimicked the motion. “Now look where the staff points,” the Aura finished.

  “ But I’m already…”

  “Look. With more than your eyes, Gribly. Honestly, Boy…”

  Gribly looked. And what he saw took his breath away, in more than one way.

  The clouds seemed to open up before him, and for a moment it was as if his eyes had taken flight and sped down through the air, blindingly fast. The world was a whirling cauldron of color, which would halt at odd times, revealing a glimpse of this or that terrain, this or that building, this or that realm…

  A series of rapid visions followed, so fast Gribly could not tell up from down, real from unreal, dream from reality:

  …He saw two dark figures, crouched in the hold of a ship. Though he could not see their faces, he knew in an instant that they were hiding from someone… someone powerful, who was searching for them to kill them, or worse…

  “Ah… your mind sees first what your heart holds closest,” Traveller said.

  …He saw a man wearing a bloody crown, fighting draiks on a snowy hill stained red. The man’s face was too blurry to see, but his tarnished breastplate bore the emblem of a soaring white hawk…

  “So begins the end,” Traveller whispered.

  …He saw a fleet of golden warships, sailing on a bloodstained sea, with an enormous red-gold serpent swimming in the lead…

  “The tide sweeps on, but this time its bite will draw blood.” Traveller’s voice was angry, this time.

  …He saw another mountain, dark and jagged-peaked, surrounded by black clouds and crimson flashes of light. Near the top stood a man with a melted golden face, laughing in the wind…

  “No! Not there!” interrupted Traveller… but it was too late.

  “COME,” said the golden-faced man, in a voice like sundered skies.

  Gribly felt himself tugged forward through the warped space of dreams, unable to lift a finger to stop himself. Traveller was yelling something in a language he did not understand, but the stormy wind tore away the words. Gribly felt panic rise in him… it was the Golden One! Then everything became deathly silent. His vision was normal once more. He was standing on the dark mountain, on a flat cliff-top, with the clouds all about. And Sheolus, the Golden One, the Golden Legion… was there with him.

  For a moment they stared at each other, Prophet to Tyrant, boy to demon. Then Sheolus threw back his mutilated face and laughed again, long and loud and chilling.

  “So proud!” He shrieked in glee. “So arrogant! A worthy pawn, you child of Man! The family of heroes, you are… too strong for your own good, too clever not to fall!”

  “Back, Fiend,” Gribly hissed, raising Traveller’s staff in defense. Sheolus paid him no mind. If anything, his cackles grew louder.

  “Dare you visit the Giant’s Bridge again, little Prophet? I send you gifts! Great gifts! Gifts the like of which you will need dearly in the coming days…” The laughter reached a fever pitch. “So come, little One! Or send those you claim to trust… HA! You will see what my generosity can do, Worm. It can work wonders, Boy…” Sheolus’s eyes narrowed; quite a feat when his eye sockets were hanging at the wrong angles. “But not for you.”

  Gribly tried to ignore the mesmerizing thunder of the Golden One’s voice… but it was hard. Shaking the stupor off, he swung the staff with all his might, Stone Striding as he did. A huge fist of rock erupted from the ground, mimicking his movement and slamming Sheolus to the ground. Unharmed, his foe leaped up, fire literally bursting from his eyes.

  “Fool! I will teach you a lesson, first!”

  Sheolus stepped forward.

  “The staff, Gribly!” Traveller’s voice burst from nowhere and everywhere. “The staff is the key, for you!”

  Gribly’s eyes widened. Instead of attacking again, he skipped back, avoiding the grasping clutches of Sheolus. The dream-world was behaving like some twisted nightmare, as his vision flickered and twisted things into odd, contorted shapes. Colors flashed before his eyes as he tried to raise the staff…

  …and his foot slipped from the edge of the cliff. He was slipping, falling…

  “Mount of the Aura!” Gribly screamed, twirling the staff above his head as he fell. It glowed, flashing the color of burning steel, and suddenly two white wings unfolded from the tip, flapping thrice to stop his fall. They were far too small to carry him… but they did, and powerfully. Within moments he was higher than Sheolus’s mountain, and hundreds of feet away, soaring over the clouds.

  “The Giant’s Bridge, Prophet!” came the Golden One’s voice, growing fainter by the second. “You gave your word!”

  I did no such thing, Gribly thought to himself… but something nagged him about the Legion’s words. As he held onto the winged staff for dear life, suspended above infinite clouds in a skewed world of dreams, one thing pounded at the back of his mind. He is telling the truth. He is telling the truth. Go to the bridge. He has given you a gift.

  “It makes no sense!” Gribly yelled to the unending sky. This blasted dream! How was he to know what to trust, if not his own thoughts? “Show me how it makes sense!” he bellowed to no one in particular.

  NO! Traveller’s mental sending was almost strong enough to make him lose his grip on the staff… but it came too late.

  The world twisted upside-down and inside-out… and the dream changed. Inexplicably, he was back on the ship. The ship he had seen with Traveller, with the two people he felt he should recognize inside. He was in some sort of hold, yet… he wasn’t there at the same time. The feeling would have driven him crazy, had he not encountered it before.

  I’m seeing reality now, he realized. I’m casting my dream across the sea, and whatever the rules of this place are, they’ve sent me here at my own request.

  With a start, he realized he recognized this hold… in a way. It was remarkably similar to the one on the Invincible, which had been largely transplanted from a Golden Nation warship… what one of the pirates had told him was called a Deathfin.

  So I’m in a Deathfin. How did that-

  Then two people walked into view around a wall of crates. They moved stealthily, as if afraid someone would see them in the completely empty hold. Gribly’s jaw opened in surprise, and he was about to shout… when they both walked right through him, as if he wasn’t even there. Which he wasn’t, he needed to remind himself. But… but…

  That had been him! He had been dressed in black, and was leading Elia along. Or, it had looked like Elia. The hair had been all wrong on her, and her eyes had been closed. Strange…

  …Gribly turned around. Yes, there he was, leading Elia to a place amid the cargo, where two makeshift hammocks had been erected. There were two packs beneath, and a white sword that he was sure he had never used in his… Oh.

  No. That hadn’t been him, after all… it had been Gramling. But how… what… why…?

  In his hand, the staff began to glow again. He felt Traveller’s mind, with a strength he had never felt before… and his emotions were an overwhelming surge of fear… not for himself, but for Gribly. For what he might do.

  “What in the…” Gribly said, but then the staff flashed three times, and the world shifted in circles and spheres, solids and liquids, a plane and a line…

  It hurt, blast it! What was happening?

  “Hold, Gribly! Hold! Don’t try to think… just stay where you are! You’re not ready!” Traveller’s voice grew louder with every second, but Gribly’s head began to throb with uncontrollable aches as the staff continued to flash in his hand.

  “Trav… wha… who…
wh…” he stammered, feeling his knees begin to knock and give way.

  His hands slipped on the staff, made slick my his sweating palms. With a muted grunt, he toppled over, slamming into the all-too-solid deck floor with a sickening thud.

  “Not the portal!” As his vision faded, he could hear Traveller… he was almost here, wherever here was. Would he come too late? “You’re not ready! Hold, Gribly! HOLD!”

  Darkness fell, and Gribly’s thoughts fled with one final cry.

  What have I done?!?

  Chapter Sixteen: Overcoming

  “I cannot bear to say this,” Marvol Winter concluded, “But… we cannot hold out any longer. Our superior Striders, as well as the desperation of a lost cause, have given us an advantage, until now. We are just too tired. Too beaten. The next wave will crush us.”

  All around the battered wooden table, silence fell. Lauro glanced about, uncertain of the reaction Winter’s news would bring.

  Marvol himself seemed resigned to the facts, as did his sister, Karanel one-hand. Her pale hair was cut short, now, and she had a worrying habit of always being where the fighting was thickest. Two ugly scars ran down her cheek and neck, where a Pit beast had nearly taken her life. She wishes her own death, he had realized. He wondered if he would have become the same, if his Striding had been lost, as hers had. She barely seemed affected by the news.

  Of course, she had known this was coming. The others, too, had probably guessed. What could they have ever hoped to do against an endless army such as the Golden Nation’s seemed to be?

  Arlin, captain of the rangers, slouched in his chair, hood overshadowing his face. He was a reclusive one, especially since losing his legs, but there was no better general for this kind of warfare. As Lauro watched, he stroked his grizzled chin silently then nodded twice. So he had guessed. His wife, Daslite, stood behind him, accompanying him as she always did. She did not seem to be handling it so well; her face was deathly pale and she looked as if she might be sick.

  Besides those four, there were King Gram, leader of the rogue allies, and Sotheland Vath, the only High Cleric to have survived the siege that had razed Vastion’s capital. Gram stood to one side, standing in his enormous black coat and hefting his war hammer. No chair was big enough for his bulk, even now that dwindling war-rations had thinned him considerably. He had a fearful grimace on his face, but otherwise seemed to be taking it well. The High Cleric simply sat, leaning forward on his candlestaff, eyes closed as if in meditation.

  First to break the silence was Gram.

  “Well,” he said resignedly, gesturing to the scene around them. “Here’s as good a place as any to die.”

  No one voiced agreement, though. They were all still deep in thought. Lauro had to admit, the Gray Cathedral held a morbid significance for him. Here, amid the darkened ruins of what had once been Ancient Vastion’s greatest triumph, the last prince of Vastion would shed his blood in defense of a realm that no longer existed, except in the hearts of its people. Most had been enslaved by the Golden Nation; some few were here with him. It had all happened so fast… but Gram was right. This was a good place to die.

  Suddenly, he realized that all eyes were fixed on him. He hated that, how everyone seemed to consider him the leader. He was, of course, in a way. He commanded the largest of the three forces that had come together to defend the Fellmere. Rangers, rogues, and the remnant of Vastion. He was bound to them all, because in his father’s army had rested the only hope of driving the Golden Nation back.

  That hope had almost faded away, now. He could not afford to let it die completely. Standing slowly, Lauro put his hands on the table, pointing to different spots on the large vellum map Marvol had provided.

  “Do not be totally disheartened,” he said, hoping to sound confident. “Our position is the most defensible we are ever likely to find North of the Lost Walls. With the Vastic army in the center, we’ve been able to hold every charge they’ve thrown at us. Even golems can’t make it up that rocky hill, not when we control the rock itself. Our Striders give us an advantage, as General Winter has said. We still have that advantage.”

  He took a deep breath, and continued. Thunder rumbled overhead, but he ignored it.

  “To the East, the rogue forces under King Gram had worked wonders.” To the side, Marvol twitched. He hated anyone besides his own monarch bearing the title ‘King,’ but Lauro could not afford to cause a stir over it. “With not only Stone Striders, but Sea Striders, too… they still haven’t figured out how you summon those earthquakes, have they?”

  Gram grinned wolfishly, patting his hammer. “Nor will they e’er, Prince Vale.”

  “Good.” Lauro licked his lips. The others still looked incredulous. He was re-stating false hopes, and they knew it. “Now, with the rogues on one side, and the rangers and Marvol’s White Wind on the other, we should be able to handle any attack the size of which we’ve previously met with.”

  “That isn’t the point, though,” Karanel interrupted. “Our spies on the wind have reported that they’re mustering a far larger force to attack us on all sides. They’re invincible, my lord. With one horde they pin us here in the North, with another they cut off possible help from the Grymclaw. In between, they ravage the nymphs of the Blackwood. You say they would be our allies, if they could. I don’t believe it… but in any case, they have their own war to fight. This is the end.”

  Lauro visibly winced. Karanel was much more outspoken than her brother. Information on the Golden Nation that she had provided them with had handed them many a victory. The horrors she’d seen gathering it, and the importance she knew she possessed, all lent to her strong-willed nature. Time to play his last card.

  “But we have the Gray Aura,” he said, quietly but forcefully.

  She actually snorted. “Much help that’s been. Other than the first battle at the Walls, he’s done nothing but train that th… that friend of yours in whatever clerical arts a Prophet needs. We don’t even know what they’re doing, and at best Gribly will only be able to send the enemy bad dreams at night.” She looked around as if she expected them to laugh at that, but no one did. “At worst,” she continued, “We’ve lost one of our most talented Stone Striders to a spirit who does us no good. And what of the fabled Midnight Sword? You haven’t used it once since you realized it doesn’t work on mortals the same way it’s supposed to work on the Legion.”

  King Gram stepped forward menacingly. Something like a warning growl emanated from his throat. Gribly was his son, after all. High Cleric Sotheland objected in a loud voice, the candle on his staff flaring magenta with the strength of his anger. Daslite snapped something in retort, and soon the Winter siblings had joined in with vigor. Tensions had run too high, and now they were snapping like the threads of Fate.

  Lauro sat back down, head in his hands. This was no way to win a war. They would tear each other apart, soon, and he could do nothing about it. His head hurt. Why couldn’t the battle just come already, and end it all?

  Suddenly, something made everyone at the table stop, looking over at the Cathedral’s entrance. It was like a tug on the mind, that silenced wit and suppressed emotion, and at the same time, it was like a feeling of hope that warmed the soul to no end. Lauro looked up then back over his shoulder at the entrance, and his heart suddenly lightened.

  The Gray Aura strode through, coming down the hall with steps that echoed loudly of the walls of the silent Cathedral. At his side was Gribly, still holding the staff of the Prophet. The former thief looked drawn and haggard, as if he had not slept all night, and he leaned heavily on the staff. His forehead, where the shaggy flaxen locks fell aside, was freshly bruised. He looked ready to drop… but he was smiling, too. Broadly. As was the Aura. What in…

  “My Lord Aura,” Lauro said, rising from his chair and dropping to one knee. Around him, everyone but Arlin hurried to do the same. The ranger bowed his head, clasping his hands respectfully across his chest. No matter what they might speak in private, non
e of the gathered generals would dare mock the Aura to his face.

  “Peace, Lauro Vale,” came the melodic voice, as Traveller halted a few feet away. Addressing the group as a whole, he raised his arms in proclamation. “Peace, you who lead the free folk of Vast. I come to you with tidings of comfort on this dark day.”

  “I would thank you for that, greatly,” Lauro said, “As we have been somewhat pressed for good news this morning.” Strange, how the high tongue came so difficultly to him now. He would have to practice with Karanel more often, if they survived this mayhem.

  In response, Traveller stepped aside, actually bowing to Gribly as the lad stepped forward. Just what was the Prophet’s position, that he deserved deference from even the Gray Aura? It confused Lauro to no end. Gribly wasn’t that powerful. Was he?