Dire Sparks (Song of the Aura, Book Five) (11 page)

“
No?” Gramling said, with mock surprise. “Oh. Well, lucky for you, then, that I’m as good a thief as my brother. Better, even.”

Then he drew out something from his black coat, careful not to let it touch his bare skin. Zonder gasped, stepping back as if he had taken a blow to the lungs. “Will… will it be enough? Even that?”

Gramling shrugged, turning the object over so that it caught the light. “It had better be. Not so useful as the Sword, perhaps… but powerful enough.”

“
Darkness help us,” Zonder breathed. “The Midnight Dagger.”

Gramling smiled. The bone-white dagger glittered in his hands, and its orange veins of crystal shone with an inner fire.

With this, the Red Aura had sold his allegiance and his soul to the Golden One. With this, the rebels in the Golden Nation’s heart would sell their souls to
him
.

He would betray them, of course. And in doing so… he would finally gain the freedom he deserved.

The Golden Sepulcher’s north gate turned out to be its smallest, barely twenty feet high, and shaped like nothing more than large, metal double-doors. The guards, Elia found, were curiously absent… probably Gramling’s doing. With some trouble she had been able to find the gate, and now with some trouble she was going to have to open it.

Time was short, and she was dead tired.
Maybe I’ll just melt a hole in it.

Tressa had avoided her questions.
“I served the Nation. They tried to kill me, tried to kill the white woman. Now I serve you. You are strong… stronger than they.”

She burned a hole it. The metal melted under her Fellspark, and she stepped through into the outside world for the first time in more than a month.

A cool breeze caressed her face, blowing the black-dyed hair that still seemed foreign to her. Her blood-stained acolyte’s garment was too thin to block out the chill, but she bore it with something akin to joy. It had been so long since she had been free… or almost free.

She stepped forward, bit by bit, until she was walking down the slight incline that led from the north gate to the gray sands beyond. A wasteland. That was what the Golden Nation was… at least as far as she could see. Clouds obscured the sky, and the absence of stars and moon made it twice as hard for even her nymph eyes to see.

The Golden Sepulcher sprung up behind her as she walked, a mountain of jutting, metal spires, a pyramid of interlocking edges, like the blades of a thousand giants’ swords piercing the earth. It was lit by tiny pinpoints of light, open windows and torch-flame. Elia squinted back into the dark Beyond. Could it really be this easy? She could escape, if she tried… running off into the sand, alone but free.

“
Don’t,” said a voice, and she jumped nearly a foot in the air. Gramling was
right behind her!
She turned on him, fuming, then paused. There was something… different. The darkness made it hard to tell, but he seemed… calmer. Cleaner. Earnest, even. Like Gribly.

“
Stop that,” she said, sounding far less confident than she had intended. “Stop it… whatever you’re doing. You’re not him. Don’t try to convince me you are!” She almost shrieked the last word.

Gramling sighed, tried to take her hands, and shrugged when she pulled them away. “I’m not doing anything of the sort… but I know you won’t believe that.”

“
Why are we here?” Elia interjected, but he pretended not to hear her. His glance went back to the hole in the gate, and his mouth quirked into a smile. She tried to slow her heart, but it would not obey. Something was
different,
it screamed… but she ignored it.

“
A bit obvious, don’t you think? Burning a hole?” He looked at her, and his eyebrow rose. “There are better ways to use flame, you know.”

“
I don’t care.” What was he up to?

Gramling tried to take her hand, and she moved away. He looked slightly hurt, but then shrugged and turned away. “Follow me. We’re going somewhere I discovered when… well, a long time ago. Don’t want someone coming along to find us, do we?”

Elia snorted. “I melted the gate, Gramling. Any fool coming along can see that something’s wrong.”

The Pit Strider shrugged, smiling again. He put out a hand, and the melted metal almost
jumped
back into place, flowing in a backwards motion that reversed everything she’d done to it.

“
H… how?” she asked. It was one thing she had never been able to comprehend: his impeccable control of something that was of no element at all.

Or was it?

“
Not Pit Striding,” he said. “Stone Striding. Earth-elements. Metal has them, same as rock. Or sand. It’s just hard… blasted hard.”

Then he walked off into the dark cold, leaving her gaping after him.

“
I hate you,” she said under her breath. It was probably the hundredth time she’d said it… but she followed him anyway.

~

Gramling led her to the one place he knew that was safe from the eyes of both the Golden One and the Lordytes. He led her through the cold gusts, across the dark sands, to where a crack opened up in the earth, and a small cavern walled with precious gems was hidden in the recesses of the rock. He led her to the place he had found and taken refuge in as a child, in times when he had been too terrified or too angry to go on with life. He had discovered it, and when it was apparent that the Golden One could not find him there… it had become his secret. His one secret. His one comfort. His one fallback.

And now he had led
her
there.

~

Elia held back the urge to squirm. There was barely enough room for two people to sit in this hole, no matter how beautiful it looked.

“
Why here?” she murmured aloud. Gramling leaned back on a gem-encrusted rock, seeming perfectly at ease.

“
It’s undetectable. I realized in the past that the Golden One could not see me here, though he seems to be able to see everywhere else in his mind.”

“
Oh.” She was not sure why, but she believed him. The gems gave off their own light, and an aura of peace that made it hard for her to condone the violence she had done little more than an hour before. It still bothered her, still ate at her mind.

“
Did you know,” Gramling began casually, “that it is possible to shape the elements with your mind? Without using the usual Striding gestures?”

Elia nodded slowly… it was one of the few advantages she’d thought to have against him. Blast.

“
Good,” he said. “You’re not a dim one, by any means… heh. But think about it. If we can shape stone, or water, or wood, or even fire with our minds… why stop at making shapes like this?” Flames blossomed in his hands, writhing and dancing in an almost-perfect sphere.

Elia just looked at him. He shrugged. “Oh, you’re not going to make this easy, are you? Look… suppose I want to form something more complex. With my mind… I can imagine
anything
.”

The sphere warped, twisted, and resolved in the shape of a tiny pillar, shooting up almost a foot from the middle of Gramling’s palm. He looked at her, smiled, and flicked his wrist. The pillar of flame collapsed, morphing into…

…
A bat. A small bat made out of fire. She’d heard of this from Gribly, but to actually see it made her cringe.

“
Don’t be afraid,” Gramling interrupted her thoughts with what he probably thought was a soothing tone. “It’s just fire, re-shaped. No sorcery. Just Striding, as it was meant to be. Soon,
everyone
will be able to do it. You see… it’s not just us that have grown more powerful. Me, you, Gribly… The whole world is getting brighter.
Stronger.
You’ve probably noticed the old boundaries falling apart… Sand Striders becoming Stone Striders, Wave Striders like you becoming Sea Striders.”

“
So what if I have?”

“
Don’t you see?” He seemed exasperated now. “The elements are blending together! It wasn’t long ago Pit Striding and… Spirit Striding… were almost impossible to learn. Now almost anyone can become a Doomcleric, if they try hard enough. And you…
you’ve
learned to combine your natural element with the supernatural elements.”

Elia paled suddenly. When put that way, it sounded almost impossible. She hadn’t had time to think about how her powers were changing… but now…

“
Elia.” Gramling’s voice was soft. “Only three people can do what you can. Yourself… Gribly… and me. He probably doesn’t know what he’s doing. He still thinks of himself as ‘the Prophet,’ doesn’t he? Oh yes, I can see it in your eyes. But the thing about Pit Striding… is that it’s just the same as Spirit Striding. Only… swearing to the Aura, or the Golden One. That’s the difference.”

“
But… why are you telling me this?” She narrowed her eyes, edging away from him. They seemed to have drawn closer during his talk.

He leaned closer… or tried to. “Because… you’ve walked both paths now. You.
You’re
the most powerful Strider, Elia. YOU will tip the scales. The game is on. The Golden Nation has Sh… has
Sheolus
, the Golden One. And Automo, the Red Aura.” Elia gasped, actually pressing her hand to her heart in disbelief. It
could not be!
“But those in Vast… they have Traveller, the Gray Aura. And Wanderwillow, the Brown.”

“
No…” she moaned, but he wasn’t finished.

“
The Golden Nation has me. The remnants of Vast have Gribly. Still equal, see?” She was beginning to… and she didn’t like what she was seeing. “But no one has
you
, Elia. Not yet.”

There was a pause as he let the words sink in. Elia’s mind whirled. Two Aura, against two who had betrayed the Aura… according to the Old Beliefs, that made them Legion. Archdemons. One twin, a prophet of the Light. One twin, a servant of the Dark. And stuck in between… her. Could
she
really be the one to tip the scales? Was that why the Golden One was so intent on converting her?

The glowing of the jewels in every surface of the cave seemed to pulse, like an enormous heart of colored glass. And they, sitting inside it, were the ones who made it live.

“
Why?” she whispered. Gramling was moving close to her again, but she didn’t care. “Why? You still haven’t told me why.”

“
Why what?” he asked, placing a hand on her shoulder. It hurt. She
wanted
to believe in him,
wanted
to trust…

“
Why tell me this? Why break me, then give me hope?”

He sighed, a sound that seemed so full of suffering that she almost embraced him, as she would have done if it had been Gribly.

“
I will answer that, Elia… but only if you first answer me this:
Why do you hope?”

She looked at him in shock as he grabbed her by both shoulders, his eyes suddenly blazing with… something. Fear? Anger? Desperation? She was so rattled it took several moments of meeting his gaze before she finally looked down, biting her lip in concentration.

Why
do
I hope?

The answer came, finally, and with it a calmness that no amount of abuse and hate could wound.

“
What do we have, if not hope?” she whispered, looking back into his eyes. “What do we have, if not belief?” His eyes searched hers, trying to solve the riddle of her questions. She took his hands from her shoulders, gently, and continued. “Your world, Gramling, is a world without love. My world… the world of the Aura… the world where families can grow in peace, whole and loving…
that
is what gives me my hope. If there can be a world like that, it’s worth anything I can give…
everything
I can give, to keep it.”

His eyes were glistening, and his face held a yearning that she thought was more than just for her… it was for what she’d said.
Impossible.
But it had to be.

“
And… your belief?” his voice croaked with emotion, and she felt herself affected similarly, simply by watching him react.