Grym Prophet (Song of the Aura, Book Three) (8 page)

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.