Brother Thief (Song of the Aura, Book One) (7 page)

  
Bowing his head and cracking his knuckles, the Pit Strider strode purposefully under the sandstone arch. These peasants didn’t even have doors. As he passed blood rose to his ears and his head throbbed, but other than that the ward over the door gave him no trouble.

  
The interior of the building was dimly lit, but that offered no barrier to Gramling’s eyes, used as they were to the tunnels and dungeons of his home. He was in a small, bare room, devoid of any furnishings save a rack where two old, weather-beaten coats hung. There was a wooden door sealing an entrance into the rest of the house, and that looked more promising. There were no signs or runes on it- apparently the gypsy had not expected him to get even this far- but behind it he could feel a hot wrath and uneasy power growing: a will that wished him dead. The gypsy- it had to be.

  
Gramling knew it would be idiotic to try opening the door. It was probably already locked and held fast by some of the gypsy’s illusions or charms. Instead, he resorted to Pit Striding to gain him entrance.

  
Raising his right hand, he snapped twice. Smoke poured from his closed left fist. Smacking his fist with his right hand, he summoned fire. Sparks flew where his hands struck, leaping from air to ground and multiplying as they went, until he had a cascade of fire pouring from his fist. The action drained him, but he steeled himself for the battle ahead and ignored any exertion he might feel.

  
The falls of flame stopped falling. Instead they twisted, writhed, and shaped themselves into the rough form of a large bird or flying beast. To be specific, a firebat. One of the first Forms of Fire taught to him, and one of the most useful.

  
Gramling clapped his hands, and the smoke vanished. The firebat squealed in unearthly delight. He clapped again, and the infernal creature took to the air on flaming wings, zooming ahead straight for the wooden door.

  
Gramling closed his eyes momentarily, to keep them from being blinded by the resulting explosion. When he opened them a second later, he blinked to keep out the tears that sprung up to irritate him. Acrid black smoke billowed out from the glowing cinders that were all that remained of the door. Time to make his move.

  
He skipped forward and dove through the open entrance, his robes billowing out behind him. A flash of fire and smoke, then he was through, bringing his hands up in a defensive posture, eyes scanning the room for sign of hostility.

  
He was in the gypsy’s shop- the jumbled assortment of things and trappings both ancient and new, arcane and mundane, convinced him of that. The old crone herself stood defiantly in the corner, hands raised in front of her.

  
“You!” she said, her ancient voice quavering. “Who are you, to trespass here when I have done you no harm? I have not challenged you, if you wish to make this city your domain.” He only partially knew what she was talking about. Mages and their ilk, all amateurs, usually competed for territory whenever there were other beings of power nearby. A barbaric practice, and one he would eliminate if half the rewards he had been promised by the Golden One came true.

  
“I am not here for that,” he spit. “I am here for answers.”

  
The gypsy’s face hardened. “Does that require breaking down my door with a fire-demon, young one?”

  
In answer, Gramling swept a white-bladed sword out of its sheath where it hung at his side, concealed beneath his robes. The woman jumped at the unexpected noise and fairly trembled at the unveiled weapon. Runes of darkness and unmaking were graven on the thin white blade from crossbar to tip, glowing faintly in the dim light.

  
“Where is the Sand Strider, gypsy? You have sheltered him here, or I am gravely mistaken. Where can I find him? Speak quickly, or your death will be painful and prolonged.”

  
The old woman shook violently, as if a fit of sickness were coming upon her, but she stood her ground. Her eyes gleamed as if he had confirmed a hidden belief or suspicion of hers, and she took a shaky step forward. “There is nothing to say. I know nothing of any Strider. There is only one in this city, and he rules it. Go to the Dunelord for answers!” She spit in his direction and glared at him as if she would skin and roast him where he stood.

  
Gramling stayed silent. To kill her or not was the question. She wouldn’t answer him if she were dead, but she might slow him down or warn the urchin if she was left alive.

  
“What do you know of the Aura, gypsy?” he questioned her suddenly.

  
She said nothing.

  
“Would you like to know something, gypsy?” he continued. “I serve one who is more powerful than any Aura that walks in the heavens. One who will bring them all and every fool who serves them to their knees. They will die in pain, begging for mercy that they do not deserve and shall never be granted. Are you such a fool? Then ANSWER ME!” He roared the last two words, shaking his weapon in her direction.

  
“I do not pretend to be wise, young one, but even I can see you are misled.” Not the answer he’d expected. Gramling decided words had gone far enough.

  
“Wrong choice,” he snarled, and threw back his hood. The gypsy gasped.

  
“It
is
you… I… no, no, it isn’t! You’re not Gribly! You’re… you’re…”

  
Gramling leaped towards her, his sword kindling into flame. He impaled her, but as he did her body transformed into indigo smoke and disappeared. His blade clanged off the corner of the wall, jarring his grip.

  
He spun around to find her behind him, staff swinging, as athletic as if she were twenty and not a hundred-and-twenty. The wood caught him in the side of the head, and the medallion on the end swung tightly around his neck, choking him. The metal slapped into his cheek and burned like a hot iron. He dropped to his knees, coughing. The smoke from where she’d stood a moment ago clung to his robes and began to eat them away like acid.

  
Enough! He swung his sword and slashed the medallion from its cord. The metal dropped to the floor, spinning like a top, and the gypsy gasped as her power fled away.
Aha!
Gramling thought triumphantly,
She is nothing without her weapon!

  
“Mercy!” the old woman cried stumbling and falling onto her back. Gramling stood quickly, pulling the wrapped cord from his neck with a jerk, and lowered his sword to her neck.

  
“Tell me everything,” he growled.

  
The gypsy closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “I have nothing to tell.”

  
Gramling sneered and bent lower until he was a foot from her face. “You will when I am finished with you, crone.”

~

  
But she didn’t, and by the time he was done with her he was almost convinced she really hadn’t had anything to tell him.

  
“You’ve… made… mistake…” she gasped through swollen, parched lips. Her eyes were sealed shut with burns and she did not open them, but somehow she was managing to find the strength to speak.

  
“I doubt it,” he shot back, twirling his sword deftly from hand to hand. It was ridiculous, the amount of pain this old woman could handle. Nothing seemed to make her feel it, and she was still alive where hardier men had died under such torture. Gramling knew. He had done many such interrogations in order to find this city, anyway.

  
“There… will be… penalty…” the gypsy moaned, managing to raise her arm despite its multiple breaks and fractures. For the first time since he began, Gramling noticed that her fist was closed, a bit of black string dangling out from it.

  
What was she talking about? He kicked her hand and took up the small object that had been clasped in it. Turning away from her, he eyed it suspiciously, eager for any clues.

  
Behind him, the gypsy breathed her last. He felt her life end and her existence wink out like a candle with nothing left to burn.

  
Only then did he really comprehend what he was looking at. Clutched in his hand was the gypsy’s medallion, but now a skull had replaced the hawk it had originally bore. What the-

  
His hand burst into flame. Screaming, he tried to drop the trinket. It stuck to his palm.

  
Steam hissed up from cracks that began to appear in the floor. Wind whistled in his ears, cursing him with an angry voice. Plants that hung from the ceiling in the shop grew out of their pots and reached for him with thorny, clinging arms.

  
“No! No! NO!” he shouted, howling in pain and fear. What had his killing the old woman unleashed? Without pausing to fight back, he bolted for the door. It was whole again, and bore no signs of his violent entry only minutes before. Cursing, he kicked it. Nothing happened. “Crath nadt Calimá!” Gramling screamed, resorting to the Nymphtongue that made all Pit Striding easier to do.

  
A burst of flame and lightning hit the door as he kicked it a second time. This time it fell into cinders.

  
As he rushed out of the house, the medallion finally dropped from his hand, leaving an angry scarlet mark shaped like a skull. It oozed blood.

  
Shrieking, he ran out of the house. Smoke billowed from the doorway and fire licked the arch. Gramling flew down the street, furious and afraid of being spotted by the wrong people. This had not gone as planned, no, not at all.

  
“It shouldn’t be this hard, blast it!” he cursed under his breath. The Golden One would have to be consulted, and a new plan formed. Until then…

~

  
After crossing and re-crossing his own path, taking several short-cuts and long-cuts, and dodging in and out of different houses to confuse any lingering gremlin pursuers, the proud youth climbed through an empty back window in the second story of the house where he and Murie lived. Here Murie kept shop when her services were needed by the destitute.

  
It was dark outside; even more so in the house. Shadows crisscrossed everything, temporarily blinding Gribly and forcing him to sit on the window’s edge until his eyes adjusted.

  
“I’m back, Murie! You won’t believe what I’ve copped for yuh!” he sang out happily.

  
No response. That was odd, perhaps she was asleep. Then again, she usually left an oil lamp burning for him in his room… this room, the one he always came through when he was late after a day of pick-pocketing and “borrowing”.

  
There was no lamp, and no sign of Old Murie. As Gribly’s vision adapted to the unnatural dark, his survival instincts immediately kicked in and he dropped to the floor, hunched over and completely alert.

  
His room had always been sparse, but now it was desolate. Someone or something had blown it apart, ripped it to pieces… shattered it. There were cracks in the walls, and everything in the room was utterly destroyed: chairs were shredded and his small straw palate was torn to pieces and strewn about the room. His few personal possessions were broken, some pounded into powder, and stacked up in the middle of the room. What was left of them suddenly burst into blood-red flames, then vanished with a sound of crazed laughter and one, long scream.