Dire Sparks (Song of the Aura, Book Five) (5 page)

Then she began to steam. She screamed, trying to push herself up, trying to crawl away and hide from the sun as it burned her. Hot mist rose from every part of her, and with rising panic she finally realized what was happening in this demented dream-world.

She was losing her Second Form. It had almost happened before, but she had had Gribly to protect her. Now…

…
the most important, most glorious part of her being was leaking away, and she knew that once lost, she could never get it back.

So she tried to crawl away, crying, unable to stop the loss of water through her pores or her eyes. Steam rose, and dissolved in the hot air, and she crawled on, eyes too blurry to see anymore… until she hit something large and hard, and touched it to make sure, and tried to see through the film over her eyes; tried to crawl beneath the shelter she had found…

…
but a spiked boot pressed her down hard into the sand, burning her with heat gathered from long miles walked in the desert. It felt like hot pokers in her back, and she gasped in pain.

“
Not so easy,” said a voice. Gramling. “I can reach you even here, Girl. Even in your dreams.” Elia shivered despite the heat, as a cold rage gripped her heart in its talons. “The things you could learn, if only you would
try
…”

She was losing her Second Form… she was
losing it!
The rage melted away under sheer, naked fear.

“
The Aura…” she whimpered, pressed under his foot. “Wanderwillow… told me… if I wanted Lauro to be redeemed… to find the sword that could kill the Legion… I had to sacrifice myself. If I wanted Gribly to love… I…”

She stopped talking.
How could I betray him? How could I let this monster know?
The boot pressed down harder on her back, and she felt the last drops of herself seep away into the hot sands. “Tell me more!” Gramling nearly shrieked, sensing something change in her, driving his foot down harder.

But she was numb, and did not feel it. There was nothing left for her to lose. Her Swimmer Form… was gone. Totally. Irrevocably.

“
NO!” she shrieked, twisting so violently she dislodged Gramling’s foot and kicked his other leg out from under him. The Pit Strider fell as she leaped up, hands swinging in Stride-claws toward him as he scrambled back, shocked at her sudden move.

No water came… but fire
did.
She brought her hands together in a cup, and pure-white flame shot out at Gramling in a flowing torrent of soul-searing power, obliterating everything it touched in a storm of pale ash-dust.

“
Die…” she whispered. “Just die… forever…”

She felt so
dry
. Like a fish forced to breathe air; like a vine with the water sucked out. Hate, and fear, and pain all racked her, until she felt sure she would fall apart… but she did not, and the fire kept flowing until her exhaustion returned in such force that she dropped to her knees, head bowed, unable to cry, as the flames died out.

Gramling stood, singed but unharmed, where he should have been burned to a crisp. His hands were crossed in fists in front of him, and he wore a strangely awed look.

“
So… powerful,” he breathed, and she looked up. He walked slowly towards her, black cloak billowing, but Elia made no move to fight or flee. She was so tired…

Gramling came and knelt in front of her. She stiffened, expecting torture, or a painful awakening from this deathly dream, but he did nothing of the kind.

“
Look at me,” he said. She looked away. “Look at me,” he said again, and again she ignored him.
“Look at me!”
he said urgently, and for a moment he sounded so exactly like Gribly she had to look. It was a mistake.

He didn’t just sound like Gribly… he
looked
like him. In this dream world, he could probably look like anything… but to look like the one person she loved, the one person she wanted to embrace in her pain, and kiss… and…
No…
she pleaded silently.
Don’t hurt me like this. I can’t take it.

But again she misjudged the Pit Strider. He did not hurt her, only met her eyes. No matter what she tried to make herself think, she saw none of the evil in those eyes that would have driven him to torture her in the metal chamber… She could only see Gribly, and not Gramling.

Only Gribly… not Gramling.

He stood up slowly, and drew her up with him. She felt too weak to stand, and evidently he sensed it, keeping hold of her to stop her from falling.

“
Why won’t you
bend
…?” he whispered.

Then he pulled her close, holding her as she’d always hoped he would.
No!
Not him… Gribly! What was… why… He held her, and stroked her hair. He encircled her with his arms, protecting her, making her strong… but it wasn’t
him!
She had no strength left to struggle, especially against this… but she tried. She struggled in her mind, trying to wrench her heart away, trying to believe the truth…

He. Was. Not. Gribly.

“
I
love
you,” he whispered, and she heard only Gribly’s voice.

And Elia broke.

She told him everything. She whispered, she wept… but she told him. He had hit a wound she could not heal. When she was finished, she stayed silent, resting against him, hating herself and hating him, hating Gribly for opening this hole into her heart in the first place… but she could do nothing. Nothing.

Gramling stayed silent until she was done, and then he stepped back, holding her by the arms and gazing into her eyes with an expression between desire and laughter, love and contempt, humility and arrogance.

“
I knew it,” he said quietly. “I knew you could be moved.” Then he smiled, that same cold smile that would make him different from Gribly, no matter
what
he looked like.

“
I hate you,” Elia spat, but she did not and could not move away.

Gramling shrugged. His eyes grew misty and distant…

…
and the dream faded.

As a small child, Gramling had often thought the Golden Sepulcher the worst place on earth. It had been early on in his life, and he had still been in fear of the terrifying new world which had opened up for him… one in which the strong survived, the weak died, and there simply were no heroes.

Or were there? Walking the lower halls now, feeling the ache of his face wounds, Gramling was no longer sure.

He had overcome his fear of the Sepulcher the day in his tenth year he had strangled the High Doomcleric, right in the middle of a ritual. That was when the Golden One had accepted him, and stopped sending the assassins. He had always lived with that: the constant fear of poison in his drinks or a shadow with teeth… the kinds of things that scarred his small mind… until he found that his gifts made him strong enough to kill.

It had all been a test, the Golden One had assured him. And from then on, he had been the favored Pit Strider, the first invader of Vast… anything and everything he wanted. But now… now he felt something else.

No, he no longer feared the Golden Sepulcher. But he was uneasy, all the same. And it was all the nymph girl’s fault.

She had not broken under torture. He had hurt her more than he had hurt anyone, even the Doomcleric. She should have snapped, should have told him it all… but she hadn’t. His experience told him that no one could stand that strain: all the fallacies of “humility” and “loyalty” would break, because they were all lies. Everyone had a motive for being “good,” just as they did for being “evil.” So the Golden One had taught him, and so he had believed.

But Elia seemed to defy that.
Elia.
Her name made him shiver, though he couldn’t decide why.

He had broken her at last… but it had been through a mask of love. He had pretended to be his fool of a brother, and that had made her fall apart.

Why?

Love had beaten her, when pain had not. Did that make love stronger than pain? He did not believe it… he
would
not.

He entered a dark, vaulted chamber with pillars lining the sides and a great stone throne at the far end. Immediately he shut all such dangerous thoughts away. It was hard to hide your mind from the Golden One, but he had learned it
was
possible to obscure the vision and keep a small sliver of privacy.

He’d need his whole mind intact if he was to solve this intriguing,
frightening
puzzle. But for now…

“
You take your time, Son of Shadows.”

Sheolus’s movement was barely visible at the far end of the darkened hall. Gramling willed himself part of the shadows, feeding the strain on his power off the Golden One’s immense dark aura. A display of obvious strength would convince his master of both his subservience and his undaunted strength… he hoped.

The world
shifted
in twenty shades of black and gray, and the next second he was at the foot of the throne, kneeling with a flourish of his black cloak.

“
You have my apologies, Master of Shadows. I have learned much from the Treele called Elia, and it is that which delayed my coming.” He still stumbled over the high form of speech the Golden One preferred… hopefully his stiffness would not be sensed in the Golden One’s eagerness for information.

He hoped.

“
There is nothing she could tell you that I do not already know,”
rumbled the Golden One. His red eyes glinted from behind the golden skin-mask he had fashioned for himself to replace the one Gribly- curse him!- had ruined.

Gramling licked his lips. “Then why-?”

“
Do not question your god,”
said the Golden One, low and threatening. Gramling gulped; was there nothing he could do right anymore?
“Nevertheless,”
the Golden One continued,
“Tell me all you have reaped from the nymph’s mind. Earn your title, Son of Shadows.”

Ah,
Gramling thought, careful to mask his satisfaction under a layer of not-so-faked uncertainty.
So you are not so omniscient… not so godlike, after all.

Gramling told the Golden One the entirety of what he had learned, leaving out only the description of just
how
he had learned it. He, unlike Elia, knew the value of submission to the right authority. And what greater authority was there than self-preservation?

He would always have said none… before. Now, though…

…
He would to talk to Elia again. He had to know… what, he wasn’t sure. But he would find out.

He
would
.

~

Elia no longer cared that she was chained. She no longer cared that the manacles hurt her, or that her body still ached from the constant tortures and equally painful healings Gramling had given her. She no longer cared… about anything.

But it would be nice to see Gribly’s face again… even if it was fake. Not really him.

That red shaft of light had not shone for a while now. She wondered if it was punishment, taking that small half-joy from her; in revenge at how long she’d held out. It frightened her how little it mattered to her anymore… or would have, if she had had enough feeling for fear. Everything just seemed… dead. It didn’t matter. She had lost. Betrayed Gribly. It didn’t matter. The Enemy knew it all, now. It didn’t-

The wall rippled, shook, and tore. The door was opening again. Metal flowed like wax, and soon she was sitting above a floor again.

What more can you take from me?
She wondered listlessly. Did she even have anything to give? She longed for death, to ease the pain of apathy.

It was Gramling, and he had not come to torture her. Instead he stood staring at her, for a minute on end, saying nothing, just looking on. She surprised herself; it was she who broke the silence first.

“
Gloating?” The word came out as barely more than a sigh.

“
Yes,” the Pit Strider answered, and fell silent again. After a while, though, his expression seemed to change. Elia had nothing more to do than watch him, after all, and she noticed without caring much when his expression shifted from smug to calculating. Finally he nodded to himself, and waved a hand much as he had when controlling the metal walls.