Golden Tide (Song of the Aura, Book Four)

by Gregory J. Downs

  No, a voice seemed to whisper in his head, but the taint of the evil thing once here lives on, corrupting this place and everyone in it who has not the strength of will to resist.

  Traveller! That had been the Gray Aura’s voice, he was sure! What in Vast was going to happen?

  The Segrethe to his right began to speak in a hoarse, rasping voice. “You who have trespassed, fear the vengeance of the Understone!”

  The one on his left answered in like: “For it is the Understone that protects us, and the Understone that brings down our oppressors.”

  Then the right: “The gods have died, and walk the Sceptre no more.”

  And the left: “Death to the Aura, and Death to the Legion. The M’tant follow none but themselves.”

  “Death follows us, as we cast out shadow across the world.”

  “The M’tant shall rule them all!”

  “No,” said Lauro, closing his eyes, “You will not.”

  The Segrethe turned towards him. One gripped him by the neck and forced him to his knees in front of the broken orb- the Understone. The other backed up, raising his scythe. Leaning close, the first whispered in his ear with the harsh syllables of one not accustomed to the tongue of men.

  “As you fall, so shall all our foes.”

  “No,” said Lauro again, but it was barely a whisper this time. His head felt soggy and his knees felt glued to the stone.

  He knelt, and waited.

  And waited.

  Finally he looked up, wondering why his death had not been dealt, and saw the first nymph still with his weapon raised. Yet the stroke never fell, and as Lauro watched, the Segrethe swayed backwards, then forwards, then toppled over sideways, scythe clattering down the steps of the dais.

  A slim dart like a shard of glass had punctured the nymph’s tunic at the neck.

  Only partially understanding, only half-awake, Lauro smiled slowly. It felt as if a humungous weight had been lifted off his lungs, allowing him to breathe again. There was a stuffiness inside him- not the whole obstacle was gone, then- but he was growing stronger with every second.

  An animal hiss escaped the remaining Segrethe’s mouth, and he leaped forward to cut Lauro down-

  -but the prince was rolling away, still unable to Stride as he wished, but no longer unable to move freely. Lauro snatched at the scythe left by his fallen captor, hefting it threateningly and preparing to do battle with the other.

  “Drop, you fool!” hissed a voice somewhere behind him. Lauro’s head was still foggy, but he remembered one thing: he had to trust that voice.

  Lauro threw himself to the ground, just as the second Segrethe swung his blade through the space where he had been, and the whistling fweet of another dart struck the nymph right in the dark recess of his hood. With a strangled gasp, the black-robed executioner fell to his knees, clutching at his face for a moment before submitting and keeling over.

  Immediately, the rest of the weight in Lauro’s mind was lifted, and he felt the last of his tiredness fall from him. The very air enlivened him and gave him strength now.

  He was free! And his mind was back to normal.

  “Took you long enough,” he muttered to the empty air.

  “I had to wait,” sniffed Avarine’s voice. Lauro almost jumped out of his skin- she was right behind him, so close he could have… well, he stepped away quick enough.

  “Stop… doing that,” he grunted, a little unsteadily. She looked even more dangerous in the eerie play of shadows and emerald light… and even more beautiful. His anger rose at the mere weakness of the thought. There she stood, just looking at him, an enigmatic twist on her lips. “Why did you wait so long, Avarine?!?” he demanded.

  The nymph girl smiled a tiny bit wider. “Here, they thought they were safe. Here, they would not be able to sense me as well as elsewhere, because of the Understone’s power. Here, I had the most chance of besting them… and saving you. Do you need more of an answer, Lauro Vale?”

  “No,” he admitted grudgingly, “But I wish…” he trailed off, realizing he had no room to argue. “Well. We’ve knocked out two of them… what next?”

  “We?”

  “All right… You. You’ve done what you said, so far. What is the rest of your plan? Or can’t you tell me?”

  Avarine smiled again, wickedly. “First…”

  She walked straight up to the Understone, and had stuck an arm inside before Lauro could stop her. “What… what are you doing?” he snapped worriedly. The air seemed to crackle and spark all around in his Sky Strider vision, foreshadowing a tension unlike any he’d experienced in his life, even amidst one of his many battles.

  Suddenly the room went black. Totally black. The green glow was gone, and Lauro felt inexplicably cold, as if… as if the caves and tunnels were a body, and the heart had just stopped.

  “Now we flee,” said Avarine, once again too close for comfort. Before Lauro could protest, she had a hand twined in his and was pulling him along at a breakneck pace through the dark. He uttered a few choice curses, realizing his life depended on her once again.

  “You’d better know what you’re doing,” he whispered hoarsely, and Avarine chuckled up ahead.

  “Oh, I do.”

  “Ow! You just steered me into a pillar, Girl!”

  “Quiet, Lauro Vale. They’ll hear you.”

  ~

  But they did not hear him, and they did not see him either. After leaving the dark chamber of the Understone, Avarine hid him, cloaking him with Spirit, and leaving herself vulnerable. Several tense minutes passed, as she meandered through the tunnels of Mortenhine, trying as hard as they could to avoid the frantic beehive of activity the underground fortress-city had become, now that the Understone was no longer working properly. Lauro wondered often what she had done to it, but he had no chance to ask. Even a whisper might give him away and tip one of the M’tant off to the fact that the Tannarch’s daughter was not alone.

  Then they were through a door and out into the open air of the forest, Avarine leading an invisible Lauro along one of the tangled pathways down the small mountain housing Mortenhine. Stars twinkled here and there through breaks in the heavy dome of clouds that blocked out the night sky. Lauro found that the chill he had sensed immediately after the Understone’s demise had been no illusion: a light snow lay on the ground, and his breath blew mist in the air as he walked. Frost.

  “Winter has come in the night,” Avarine whispered, seemingly to herself. “It will be a hard season for travelers.”

  Indeed. Lauro tried to hold in his breath as much as possible, breathing only in small spurts. Perhaps Avarine’s talent worked for breaths… and perhaps not. He couldn’t risk asking her, and on and on they tramped, meeting many rushing soldiers on the road, all of whom kept a wide berth from the red-haired girl.

  Her curse is my blessing, Lauro thought, trying and failing to feel guilty about it. The other nymphs’ dislike for Avarine was helping them escape, after all! Hours of cold and careful walking numbed his body, but escape seemed closer to his grasp every minute. He longed to simply Stride the Sky and make his getaway immediately… but something told him Avarine would eventually be suspected, and he could not leave her here to deal with the consequences. Not now. Not after all she had done.

  Then came trouble.

  The pair, seen and unseen, had walked a good portion of the night away, and not seen any other M’tant for some time. They had just made it to the bottom of the Mortenhine slope, where one of the tower paths met the main Blackwood road, when Avarine stiffened and motioned frantically for Lauro to stop.

  “Someone is coming,” she said in a low voice. Lauro blinked, surprised that she had broken her own rule of silence.

  “And…” he whispered back. “Do the same as always, and ignore them.”

  “No,” she grimaced, “This is different. I… We must wait and see. That is all. Do not speak.”

  “Fine.”

  So they waited in the cold night air, unprepare
d and without a plan. Lauro almost ground his teeth before he realized the kind of sound it would make, and slunk off to the opposite side of the road. Something in his gut agreed: this was different. Worse.

  At last Lauro could hear what resembled the clop-clop of a horse’s hooves- but broken in a way he couldn’t pinpoint, and far too silent for the large shape that loomed up suddenly in the shadows. He bit his lip to keep from snarling.

  It was another of the Segrethe, riding what looked like a horse, except for the too-narrow face and cloven hooves.

  The black-robed menace hissed at Avarine in the guttural dialect of the nymphtongue Lauro had heard most of the M’tant use. Avarine answered back stubbornly in slightly more cultured tones, shaking her head. Her words were firm but her face looked paler than the wan moonlight could account for. The Segrethe was not pleased. It began talking- if the sounds it made could be called that- faster and faster, gesturing threateningly with its scythe.

  Lauro was just coming to the realization that Avarine had probably used up most of her strength shielding him from unfriendly eyes, and was probably too weak to defend herself, when the Segrethe suddenly spat in the snow, snarling a curse. Lauro thought he caught the words Lekor Veele just before the black nymph struck Avarine across the face with the back of his hand. She reeled, blood staining the side of her face, and Lauro let out an involuntary sound of rage.

  The Segrethe wheeled his strange mount around, scythe swinging, only to be met by a bolt of pure Sky Energy that blasted his mount’s flesh in an explosion of smoking flesh and black blood that steamed as it hit the snow.

  The nymph was quick; Lauro gave him that. Tumbling away from the demise of his steed, he landed in a crouch and stabbed the blade of his scythe into the hard-packed earth. The trees on either side of the path suddenly sprouted unnaturally long spear-like branches that stabbed at random angles into the open: a last-ditch attack meant to skewer the Segrethe’s unseen enemy.

  “ENOUGH!” Lauro roared, drowning himself in the screaming power of the cold sky. Avarine’s cloak of Spirit burned away like ashes as he struck out with his hands, obliterating the branches in a surge of lightning. The terrified Segrethe stumbled back, but he wasn’t finished. There was no time to think. Power electrified his veins. He reached for the sky and a bolt of energy crackled down to meet his hand. With a wordless snarl he hurled the bolt into the nymph’s chest, burning a hole through his enemy’s body and throwing the body back into the waiting arms of a tree.

  A sickening squelch broke the dead silence that followed the brutal fight. The Segrethe hung impaled on the sharpened branches of the pine. Avarine looked at the corpse for a moment, then stared hollowly at Lauro, mouth closed and face unreadable as blood dripped into her eye. He felt suddenly empty, acutely aware of the cold seeping into his bones, and the horrible thing that he had done.

  Avarine’s nymph attacker had lost his hood in the fight. Lauro peered closer… and sucked in his breath violently.

  It was a woman.

  All at once Avarine was in his arms, shaking uncontrollably, face pressed into his shoulder. He blinked, and then she had stepped back to look at him, her face a mask of swirling emotions.

  “I…” Lauro’s voice caught. He was too hoarse to continue. Instead he put out a tentative hand, moving stiffly and uncertainly, as if some other force moved for him.

  His fingers brushed the dark wound where the woman-Segrethe had struck her. Wind like cold fire rushed through his body and into hers, chilling and burning at the same time. Sparks danced from his hand to her face, and she drew back with a strangled cry.

  “No! I didn’t mean to-” he gasped, and stopped. Avarine shuddered, lifting a hand to touch the place by her eye.

  The wound was gone.

  “Th… thank you,” she said. “I did not know you could…”

  “Neither did I,” he said. His throat hurt too much to say more, except… “What do we do now?”

  “They’ll come for us, now,” she said, smiling coldly. “What do we do now, Lauro Vale? We run.”

  Chapter Ten: Lord of Rogues

  Within the hour, Gribly Gramson met his father for the first time- alone. Captain Berne objected, of course… but he objected to most things, nowadays. Karmidigan, surprisingly, was silent. It seemed the Reethe had different ideas of what was proper and honorable than most. Not that Gribly cared much.

  He tried to look the part of “The Prophet.” He truly did. But it wasn’t easy to look dignified while walking those cold northern hallways, bent staff in hand and tattered clothes swinging like an old beggar man. It had been a rough trip so far…

  Oh well, he thought, It’ll be over soon, for good or ill. Good or ill? Blast, he sounded like Lauro too often nowadays. Stealing a glance to the side, Gribly noticed a distinct look of unease on Lord Danner’s face. Good… he felt slightly better, knowing he wasn’t the only one ill-at-ease.

  The pirate Wave Strider had left his swarthy pirate guards behind at the door to this forsakenly long hallway. It appeared no different to Gribly than had the first hundred or so they’d entered, but Danner insisted that this was the entrance to the Lord of Rogues’ chambers. “He will not suffer disturbance, save from myself,” the ratty man had explained, “…and from you, of course, now that he knows.”

  Perhaps it was all the time he’d spent among warriors and important folk, but Gribly saw something disorganized about the whole thing. How much power did his father have? And how much did Danner? It was enough to make his head hurt.

  At the end of the hall they stopped. Two huge stone doors, intricately carved, stood closed ahead of them, in utter contrast to the rough-hewn tunnels they’d traversed so far on the Sunken Isle. “What…?” Gribly began to question, but a sharp movement from Lord Danner cut him off.

  The wiry man lurched forward in a half-kneeling motion, hands outstretched, fingers clawing the air. Gribly had seen someone else do that, once… Elia, when she was summoning…

  Water. From two holes at door’s top, where the archway met the ceiling, water came gushing out in matching rivulets. Danner sinuously directed both with his arm-and-hand movements, conducting an elemental concert as the water swirled through the grooves in the doors, lacing them with glittering blue. In moments it was done, and the water, amazingly, held in place. Lord Danner glanced at Gribly, a self-sufficient smirk barely contained on his face.

  “A gate into the unknown, able to be opened only by the Power of Sea,” he explained. “There are others like it here, built by Creator-knows-who. Only those with the most skill in their element can use them. Sea, Stone, Sky… and ones we cannot decipher.”

  “Then… why isn’t it opening?” Gribly asked, raising an eyebrow. Danner looked annoyed.

  “It takes two, Son of Gram. The Lord of Rogues himself must move the inside piece… hence, none can enter without his acceptance.”

  As if his very words had triggered the Pirate King’s response, Gribly heard a rustling, crunching sound from beyond the doorway. He had seen Wanderwillow use the Power of Stone to move trees and growing things- was that how the Stone portion of the door worked?

  Slowly, as if they were tired of their task, the doors inched open. Danner warned Gribly with a glance- how was it the man conveyed so much in a look?- and they both waited until the doors had swung open all the way before they entered. Hello father, Gribly thought nervously, remember me? Powers of the Aura… this was going to be hard.

  The chamber of the Lord of Rogues was so impressive, so vast, that it was some time before Gribly’s eye even made out the Pirate King himself. Danner and he had entered by one of three huge doorways spaced at even intervals along the chamber’s circular wall. The chamber itself was an open dome carved from rock, at least as big as the entire Highfast Shrine had been.

  But this was no shrine. The entire floor, except for a wide swath of stone around the edge, was submerged in a pool of water so deep Gribly could see no end to it. Danner quickly led him forward to stand
at the edge of the pool, where the young prophet saw three stone somethings jutting up above the waterline. One was directly in front of him, one was across the pool to his left, and one across to his right. They formed a perfect triangle, and at the middle rose two slanted stone ramps that led up to two identical stone thrones.

  The thrones were suspended on those arching tongues of rock with no support that Gribly could see. Immediately his pulse began to pound with the sense of some power here, even greater and older than Striding. His eyes were drawn to the right throne, which was empty; then, with a reluctance he could barely overcome, his vision moved to the left throne. Someone sat there, but it was so far away his eyes could barely make out who. He had to strain his eyes to catch a glimpse of the person- he could barely think of him as his father, not until he could see a face- raising an arm, and beckoning slowly.