Grym Prophet (Song of the Aura, Book Three) (5 page)

“I’ve never been to the Grymclaw m’self,” admitted Berne, “But I’ve run a few good ‘uns back and forth from the Blackwood above it, where there’s some small bis’ness to be had. I’d be glad t’answer any questions y’might have, if they’re in my knowledge to answer, so t’speak.”

“Thank you,” Elia said. “It’s about water in the mainland, you see… I haven’t had a problem here, in the Inkwell, where it’s all around… but in the hot, dry places and places with no rivers, I need to have a source of water always at hand, or I’ll lose the ability to Change.”

“Oh blazes,” Gribly swore, “That’s going to be hard to do, if the Grymclaw’s anything like Blast, in the desert. I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of that.”

It was a pitiful and potentially fatal mistake to make on such a quest. Elia was a Treele water-nymph, which meant that she had the ability to switch between two physical shapes at will: the human-like form she and all in her species could used for daily interaction, and the enchanting, naiad-like Swimmer Form unique to her tribe. The Reethe, but not the Zain, could all do similar Changes, though their Other Form was different. It had never occurred to Gribly that they needed water to keep their ability. Would it kill them to lose it? Elia usually slept in her Swimmer Form, so she’d told him. What would she do when there was only enough water to
drink?

“Hmmm,” Captain Berne said, obviously surprised and reasonably put-out. It was a serious problem, for sure. “Well…” he began, then lapsed into silence again.

“I wonder if the Aura thought of that, when they put all this into motion,” Gribly thought aloud.

“’Course they did,” grunted the nymph Captain gruffly, “T’ Aura thinks of everything… if they rightly even need to
think
at all, the way we mean when
we
say the word… Hmmm… This is a puzzle an’ no mistake.”

“Is it really that dry in the Grymclaw?” Elia asked, “I don’t need very much water to keep my Second Form, just enough to bathe most of my skin, and even then I can last a week at most between wettings.”

“Ah,” said Berne, nodding, “That makes it a mite easier, for sure. Let me put m’thinkin’ cap on fer a few more hours an’ I’ll have this ‘un out in no time.”

“You think you can?”

“Oh, most assuredly. This’s a captain’s job, y’know, mistress Wave Strider… to figure out the hard-to-chew things before they’re even in ‘is crew’s mouth…”

“That’s bizarre,” Gribly commented, but neither nymph seemed to hear him.

“Well then,” Berne continued, “I’d best be into m’cabin t’puzzle this’n out. You two can ‘ave all the time y’need to put yer own heads t’wards it, but don’t be too knotted up if’n y’can’t decide. I’ll do the heavy thinkin’ this time around.”

“Many thanks,” Elia told him before he headed below. Sighing, she turned to Gribly, some of the luster in her eyes gone. “I never thought I’d be a burden like this… No matter what the captain decides, I’ll slow you down in your hunt. Maybe… maybe I’ll stay behind.”

“No!” Gribly interjected, then, quieter, “No… I don’t think that’ll be necessary. We’ll find a way, and this is as much your quest as mine, now. With any luck we’ll
all
find the answers we need, once we reach the Aura.”

“Yes, I hope so…” she stepped a little closer to him, and he touched her hand reassuringly. “What was his name? I don’t remember anymore. Byorne might have told us, back before…” Before their ranger-guide had been murdered by the same beasts that had massacred her tribe. Yes. He had, now that Gribly thought about it.

“Wanderwillow. Sounds… oh,
tree
-ish, don’t you think?”

She smiled. “Yes, it does.”

They stood there silently for a minute, hands touching but not exactly intertwined. Gribly could barely have been happier, until he noticed the stare of the ponytailed wheelman being drawn in his direction. Elia’s hand was gone suddenly, as she twisted around to face the open water behind them. He followed her example and began to watch the undulating waves, one hand over his brow to shade his eyes from the sun.

Elia had stretched her hand out now, and was moving it in leisurely
S-
shapes, like a swimming fish. For a moment nothing out of the ordinary happened, and Gribly’s gaze dropped to the foamy water below. Then, like an apparition, the water directly under the Treele girl’s hand, yards below, began to imitate her movement, defying gravity and the swell of the sea. It looked like a little blue-green river amid the white foam, sloshing and swimming almost directly perpendicular to the current left in the ship’s wake. Gribly smiled.

“Nice trick,” he told her. She smiled back, and lifted her hand.

“I’ve only started,” she said, and the water obeyed her command, rising up straight out of the waves, a wormy, jiggling mass of liquid that seemed to be pouring over and over itself in a never-ending cascade. No matter how quickly the water flowed, it never let a single drop fall back into the foam. As Elia brought her hand higher, the water followed, until she was almost pointing at the sky, and the seawater worm was wriggling and sloshing not more than two feet from her face.

“I’m impressed,” Gribly said, wriggling his own way just a little closer to Elia and stealthily slipping an arm in hers.

She threw the water-worm right at him.

~

As the
Suthway Cath
plowed through the Inkwell faster than an eagle in flight, the dark bulk of the Grymclaw grew closer and closer. Soon it was a high wall of looming gray cliffs not far in the distance. Down in Captain Berne’s cabin, Elia talked to him earnestly about the possibilities that could help her survive in the dry expanse of the Grymclaw. Once Gribly had dried himself off, he joined them.

“Why couldn’t you dry me with that trick of yours, that you used on Lauro and me back on the iceberg?” he asked, shaking his wet hair at Elia like a dog.

“Oh… I didn’t think of it,” she answered, leaning away with a too-innocent smile.

“All right, calm yerselves,” Berne interceded, tapping the edge of his map table with a heavy metal device used for navigation. “I’ve consulted what few charts o’ the Grymclaw are avail’ble with th’ Zain, an’ I think I may’ve come up with an answer to yer problem, mis’tress Elia.”

“Oh?” she said, turning her attention to the yellowed papyrus sheets laid out in front of the captain. Soon the two nymphs were deep in a discussion about water and carrying capacity, distances and available water sources. Gribly tried as hard as he genuinely could to stay interested, but his attention soon wandered and he found himself looking around at the interior of Berne’s cabin.

A large but mostly unadorned mattress-bed stood in one corner, a curious suit of armor in another. There was a carved hearth in the wall nearest to the navigation table, with several chairs pushed up against the wall on either side. Odd… He hadn’t thought to find anything like that on a ship. On each wall were various trophies and maps of past voyages, along with one strangely realistic painting above the hearth. When it seemed as if his absence wouldn’t be noticed, Gribly slipped away from the table to examine it. Elia and Berne soon drifted into the nymphtongue behind him.

In the background of the painting was a ship much like the
Suthway
, beached on a sandy shore with green trees in the background. The foreground was a jagged cliff and series of small pools, where a ragged group of nymphs he assumed to be the ship’s crew were gathered, staring and pointing. The object of their attention was a strange, womanlike creature made of green-blue scales, rising from depths of the largest pool. What in Vast it was, Gribly couldn’t tell, but the malicious expression written across the fish-woman’s face made him cringe. He looked away, and something above the picture caught his eye.

“Like the looks o’ that, do you?” Berne’s voice came from behind him, where he had apparently finished his conversation with Elia.

“What
is
it?” Gribly inquired, frowning. “A weapon?”

“‘Tis indeed,” the nymph captain confirmed, taking the device down from its hooks. It appeared to be a silver anchor, smaller than usual, with sharpened edges that glinted in the sunlight that streamed through a portal in the cabin wall. It was attached to a leather-bound handle, which ended in a polished chain several feet long. “It’s my own blade, scavenged from the first ship I e’er wrecked; a li’l punt I stole from th’ old Zainarch’s own dock.”

“Impressive. I don’t think I could wield it.” Gribly declined to comment on the theft.

“Aye, it’s been many a time since I wielded it meself. Been sittin’ in a chest aways back at ‘ome, it ‘as. But, seein’ as trouble’s brewin’ on the horizon fer me an’ all me mates, I’ve brought it out again.”

Loud shouting in the nymphtongue broke the silence that followed, addressed again and again to Captain Bernarl.

“We’re comin’ into range,” Berne told the two young Striders, hurriedly replacing the anchor-blade and straightening his longcoat. “I must be off t’manage th’ crew. Get yerselves outta the way ‘til we’re ready t’ lower th’ boats. I’ll be seein’ ye both off safely, that I’ll be.”

In a trice he was gone.

“Interesting fellow,” Gribly observed.

“Good. You’ll fit right in with him,” Elia remarked as she brushed past.

“Very funny. Oh, wait a moment.” She did. “What did you find out about… about the Grymclaw?” He wasn’t sure how to phrase the question about her Second Form.

“Oh.” She paused, cocking her head to one side thoughtfully. “It ought to work. There’s a river running parallel to our planned path that I should be able to return to whenever I feel the need to replenish my Inner Water… Also, he’ll give us waterskins Cleric Lithric has made to hold much more water than usually possible.”

“Oh. That sounds… like it’ll work. Alright.”

She just shrugged. “Let’s hope so. No matter what, I’m still in this hunt.” She turned and left in a whirl of blue.

“I wouldn’t dream of stopping you,” Gribly smirked. Then he followed her up on deck.

Chapter Four: Smoke Rises

It didn’t take long: just a short boat-ride to the cliffs of the forbidding land, then a shorter march up one of the steep paths that led to the top.

Berne saw them off, but he didn’t like it. There was trouble ahead for those two, he just knew it… and worse than the madmen and sorcerers riding demon-horses they’d already encountered, if he was right. War was coming. He was sure of it. He’d told them what they needed to know to stay alive, of course… but that hadn’t been everything, by a long shot; especially about Gram, the self-styled Thief Lord of the South. His old, piratical traits were hard to snuff out, and trust didn’t come easy to a pirate. Ah, well, it was too late now. He might as well let them go their own way. Aura protect them, especially if the Aura was truly alive and interested in them.

Berne finally turned his back on the shore and let his mates row him back to the
Suthway
. By the time he arrived, his mind was made up.

He would return to Mythigrad and confer with Varstis. Raitharch, indeed! That wily Reethe had always been a patient one, and now it’d paid off more than anyone could have foretold. His failure to report his success to the Alliance was troubling. But then, who didn’t like to get ahead once in a while? Wasn’t that what being a brigand was all about?

But Varstis had power now. If he was no longer part of the brotherhood, then fine. Berne had united the Zain- perhaps Varstis would help him control them. In any case, they would have to unite the tribes in order to withstand the conflicts that were likely to come. Vastion coming to pieces in the south, rangers appearing and being slain by hellish creatures from bedside fairy-tales… Aye, trouble was brewing. It could only be a matter of time.