Golden Tide (Song of the Aura, Book Four) (6 page)

Just like it had during a raid, as a thief.

“
Do it,” he said, nodding.

~

Karmidigan was not at all pleased, just as Gribly had suspected. The Frost Strider accepted Berne for what he had been, a pirate, but in general, he did not like those who were outcasts or lawbreakers, and he absolutely refused to believe Berne’s insistence that he had once sailed on a brigand’s rig together with Varstis, the Raitharch of Mythigrad. Nevertheless, he agreed to the plan, more for obedience to “the Prophet” than to Berne, Gribly was sure. Oh well… at least the title came in handy
sometimes
. He was still a thief himself, in some ways.

Stealthily positioned behind the diagonally tilted hatch, ready to pass on any problems to a non-Striding crewnymph down the hall, Gribly listened to Berne address the ship that first came closest to the
Invincible
. He had hoisted a large, floppy gray flag somehow- Aura knew where he’d got it from- but it seemed to have slightly mollified the pirates before they even came near.

“
Hallo!” Berne called. Gribly cracked the hatch an inch, and tried to watch what was happening from the odd angle. “I am captain of this vessel, and I mean you no harm!”

The nearest pirate craft, which Gribly took to be a flagship of sorts, seemed mostly devoid of activity. He guessed its men were preparing for battle. A tall, black-haired man in high, black boots and a billowy, flagrant, white shirt had come to his ship’s railing, swaggering along with his hand on the pommel of an ornately-wrought silver cutlass. Two very sun-tanned men without shirts flanked him, hefting large, hooked axes. Their shaven heads were in sharp contrast to their leader’s wild, black locks.

“
Do you, now?” the white-shirt said, leaning forward with an exaggerated expression. “An’ I s’pose that all our ships your Golden Nation sunk in th’ South, an’ all our taverns yuh burned… that wasn’t ‘arm, was it? No… yuh mean no ‘arm to th’ Alliance at
all
.”

Berne seemed taken aback. “The Alliance? I’m part of the Alliance,
Man
. I’d never betray ‘em! This ship I’ve cobbled together from me own poor vessel, and one o’ those golden killer craft I sunk.” Gribly grimaced- this was obviously not going as planned. He made ready to signal the crewnymph.

“
Part o’ the Alliance?” White-shirt seemed to consider it for a moment. “Why!” he exclaimed at last, drawing the word out, “That must make you… a…
traitor!”
He screamed the last word, beating the air with a clawed fist, and suddenly there was a wall of water, a too-tall-and-thin wave, hovering over the
Invincible
, ready to pound Berne into oblivion.

The pirate’s a Wave Strider!
Gribly realized, shocked. He had not really considered the truth that other men besides he and Lauro could Stride, and he had certainly never suspected there were men who Strode the Sea. All the Sea Striders he had known, Wave or Frost, had been nymphs.

“
For the love of the Aura!” Berne shouted, “Get control of yourself, Man! We’re not foes!”

The signal!
Gribly realized, but something held his tongue. Something…

“
You are trespassers on the domain of King Gram, Lord of Rogues!” screamed White-shirt, flexing both arms. A second wave bludgeoned the
Invincible
from the opposite side. “You are fools, to think you can so easily trample the Alliance, Traitor! Now you will-”

“
Wait!” Before Gribly knew what he was doing, he had burst out of the hatch and was running to Berne’s side, staff swinging as he sprinted across the deck.

“
Wha- did you-?” Berne sputtered, as White-shirt fumed up on the pirate ship. Gribly ignored him, raising his staff and bellowing as loud as he could.

“
I am Gramlen the Prophet, Stone Strider of Blast Desert and son of King Gram!”

The silence following his proclamation was oppressive. With a full view of the scene, Gribly now realized that crewmen from White-shirt’s ship filled the deck. They had all paused in their work to watch the confrontation, and now everyone looked at him with varying expressions: incredulity, awe, anger… and, he was shocked to notice,
fear
. White-shirt himself looked particularly taken aback.

Then Gribly felt heat on his hand- the hand holding Traveller’s staff. Glancing up, he quickly tried to stop his face from showing his shock.

The staff was glowing, hotter than a white-hot coal, brighter than the noonday sun.

“
Impossible…” White-shirt began, moving his hands and preparing to attack with Wave Striding.

Gribly was barely aware of cutting the man off with an enraged shout. His arm moved of its own accord; he was pointing the staff at White-shirt’s ship like a sword, and yelling. The Power of Stone surged through him in quantities he had never thought possible, reaching and grinding and molding the world to his will- No. Not
his
will. The Aura’s. The Creator’s.

With a terrific
BOOM
the pirates’ flagship was lifted into the air and held fast by a crude fist of rock that jutted up from the water, gripping the wooden hull in stubby stone fingers. White-shirt and his cronies fell to the deck along with the whole pirate crew. In one second flat he was up again, and in and two, one of his bodyguards had joined him; the other had been pitched into the sea with a scream, and had not come up.

Gribly stood on the deck of the
Invincible
, shuddering with the magnitude of what he had just done. The staff still glowed in his upraised hand, but it was rapidly fading back to normal. Trying to keep the uncertainty out of his voice, he shouted across to the pirates.

“
Do you believe me now? I come to meet my father,
Pirate
, and I will not suffer any of your kind to stand in my way!” High-sounding words, for sure. Lauro would approve. The thought made Gribly grin, despite his predicament. Lauro was probably on his merry way across the White Marshes by now… saving the world in a blast of fire and glory.

“
It… it cannot be!” gaped White-shirt, cowering at the rail. Gribly raised the staff threateningly. “But… but… I see the resemblance, I do… I believe… arrangements can be made. Yes. Indeed they can. Would you-?” The pirate gestured to his ship, lifted above the waterline at an awkwardly tilted angle.

Berne had been thrown off his feet by the force of the whatever-had-happened, too. He scrambled up sullenly, muttering. “Best to leave ‘em there. Teach ‘em a lesson, that would.”

Gribly threw his head back and laughed. He sounded like a madman, but he didn’t care. “Very well, Pirate. I will release your ship.” A bit tricky, that would be, as he wasn’t sure how he had caught it in the first place. “But first, what is your name?”

“
Danner,” spoke White-shirt. “Lord Danner the Waterpike. Second-in-command to King Gram, Lord of Rogues.”

“
Southern sea rogue lord, last I heard,” said Berne in a low voice. Gribly raised an eyebrow. “Seems he’s sworn allegiance to yer father.” Berne grimaced, caught Gribly’s eye, and shrugged. “Gram might be head of the whole Alliance, now… if he’s got Danner Waterpike as his man. Never heard o’ the ‘King of Rogues’ ‘til now, either.”

“
Well, Lord Danner,” Gribly said, “Take me to my… to King Gram safely, and no harm will come to you or your men.” He cringed. The second bodyguard had still not surfaced, and probably never would. This staff was trouble.

Lord Danner nodded, and scurried away from the brink of his vessel as quickly as he could without losing all dignity.

Gribly tried to ease the ship back into the water. It wasn’t easy, now that the staff seemed to have lost the urge to help him. Disgusted, he handed it to Berne and tried molding the rock holding the ship. It was nearly impossible from a distance, but in two minutes he had done it. The vessel eased into the water. Flags of different gaudy colors ran up and down two tall poles set at one end of the ship, and the process was repeated on every craft that surrounded them. In minutes all but the pirate flagship had disappeared into the distance again, awaiting their next victim.

Berne summoned the nymph crewman to tell Karmidigan of what had occurred. He and Gribly stayed on deck, in case Lord Danner gave any more trouble. He did not, but it was his bodyguard who appeared on deck again to talk.

“
You are to follow us to port at the Sunken Isle,” the man boomed in a deep quartermaster’s voice. “From there, the one who calls himself Son of Gram will come with us to meet the Lord of Rogues. None others may come.”

Berne protested, but Gribly silenced him. Odd, how they seemed to bend to his will sometimes, and other times not at all. “No, Captain. This is my father… and my fight alone, if it comes to that. You must stay with your ship. There is no knowing what could happen.” To the pirate, he shouted, “Agreed!”

“
I hope you know what you’re doing, Boy,” Berne said ruefully. “Pirates and rogues are no easy folk to deal with.”

“
Like you?”

“
Like me.”

“
Don’t worry,
Captain
,” Gribly chuckled, hiding his doubt, “I’m a rogue, too. Remember?”

Berne winked. “Aye. That I do. Just be sure it doesn’t get yuh killed.”

The thief smirked. “I don’t plan on dying today, Berne.”

No. Not today. But what of tomorrow?

Escape was not an option; at least, not at the moment. Calming himself as best he could, Lauro allowed the M’tant nymphs to unlock his collar and drag him upright. Thick, black manacles soon adorned his wrists, and his captors had him between them as they marched down dimply lit halls with the strange greenish light that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.

“
What is-?” Lauro began, but the bulky jailor lifted his blade threateningly under the prince’s chin.
Fine.

The foursome trooped up a twisting, narrow flight of stairs, down a corridor, through a wide entranceway on the right, and up and down numerous flights of stairs, all carved from earth and rock, unnaturally smooth. Lauro had seen enough Stone Strider work in Vastic castles to know that the M’tant must have their own Striders, an unpleasant thought. At least they still gave no sign that they knew what or who he was.

Then came the time when the guards pushed him down a side passage, and stopped as still as if they’d been struck. Lauro blinked: torches like the ones in his dream lit the way for the first time, illuminating a slim figure at the end of the hallway. It was a girl, Lauro’s age or younger, dressed in soft clothes that hung in loops and flaps and tatters, mimicking a hundred shades of bark, leaf, and bush. Her ears were nymph-ish, but smaller than Lauro had ever seen in a nymph, besides Elia. Shadows cast dark lines on her ravishing features, framed by straight, hanging locks of bright red.

“
Tule,”
she said in a low voice. Lauro flinched- it was the voice from his dream, the nymph who had captured him.

“
Lekor veele!”
spat the jailor, turning back, glaring at Lauro. The prince felt his head snap back, blood and pain filling his mouth, and realized he’d been struck. The daze from the blow kept him from retaliating as the guards hurriedly hustled him back down the passage and up a separate flight of stairs.

Lauro’s head reeled. What had he done to deserve this? Was simple staring at the girl an offense? The jailor had not seemed to enjoy her being there- in fact, all three nymphs seemed almost
afraid
. What had they to fear?

Well, they’ll soon fear ME,
he thought angrily as his head swam. Just as he had begun to shake off his daze, another door was opened and sunlight- real golden sunlight!- shone on his face. It blinded him for a few moments as he shuffled stiffly forward with a jab from one of the guards. Then he could see, and his mouth hung open in astonishment.

The nymphs had led him out of the entrance of a tall stone tower shaped like a giant tree, leafless and barren. The sunlight spilled down on the wide, steep path that ran from the tower door up a huge, steep, tree-laden hill, the size of a small mountain. Lauro saw at least twenty more such tree-towers sticking up past the tree line as the guards pushed him hurriedly up the path. Other roads met them, from other towers, and soon the prince realized that they must be walking atop the entire underground nymph city.