Winter Warrior (Song of the Aura, Book Two) (23 page)

   
-I will not fail, Demon. I will send you back to the underworld. I will banish you to the depths of Kerbus where you are utterly powerless to harm another innocent being… ever again. This is my prophesy.

   
The Demon did not immediately respond. Instead, the suffocating hostility of its presence receded, and Gribly found himself suddenly
aware
.

   
Aware of air around him, and earth under him.

   
Aware of sight returning, and hearing, and smell. The air smelled dead. The earth felt hard and polished. Like stone. He heard the heaviness in the air and smelled the cloying odor of decay.

   
The nothingness in his eyes turned to deep Black, then faded to a dark Gray. It grew lighter and thinner every second, until at last a new and terrifying world rushed in on him in a single moment.

   
The sky was dark and cloudy overhead. Lightning flashed higher up and unseen, but the sky remained unbroken in its shroud. There was no wind.

   
All around, farther than the eye could see, the land was completely gray, dark and pitted with slag and craters full of waste. Smoke billowed up in fuming, milky-white spires here and there, but there was no other break in the darkness.

   
The prophet shuffled his foot, and sand moved beneath it. He looked up, saw where he was, and turned in a circle to see it all.

   
He stood in the middle of a paved stone circle, ringed with broken pillars and ruined walls, shattered arches and cracked, headless stone statues. It reminded the prophet of somewhere he had been, someplace he had seen and walked in the midst of… He couldn’t remember where.

   
-I will slay you for this reason only, Demon. You’ve taken away my Inside. You’ve washed my mind clean of its memory.

   
The Demon spoke, and this time its voice had a source. It came from behind him.
YOU ARE A FOOL, PROPHET. THIS
IS
YOUR INSIDE. IT IS MINE. IT IS
THE
INSIDE. THERE IS NO OTHER. THIS IS MIND. THIS IS SOUL. THIS IS SPIRIT.

   
-No. I will not believe it. There is more, and I will find it when I kill you.

   
The prophet turned, and faced the Demon. It had materialized near him as if it had always been there, proud and tall, with a face both proud and cruel. It had the face of a young man, but it its features were twisted into a shape they did not belong in, as if the Dark Power within was using them for its purpose, and then would discard them… and they knew it.

   
The prophet felt he should know that face. It was familiar, even more so than the ruins around him. Its dulled, light-colored hair, its sunken eyes…

   
Then the prophet knew. It was
him
. It was
his
face.

   
-What more can you steal from me, Demon? I will destroy you!

   
YOU WILL NOT. I WILL SUCK YOUR SPIRIT DRY AND CHAIN IT TO MY WILL AS I HAVE DONE TO THIS ONE BEFORE YOU.

   
The Demon and the prophet stood face to face, inches from each other, fists clenched at their sides. The prophet held back his surprise. The one before him? Was this some other prophet the Demon had taken control of? Some poor soul whose face was the same as his own? The notion nagged at some forgotten corner of his mind and would not go away. This was important, even vital- he just knew it! But there was no way to know how, or why.

   
Unless he defeated the Demon. Unless he chained it, and made it tell him all it knew.

   
-Go to the doom prepared for you, Demon. I will break you. This I prophesy!

   
I WILL NOT!

   
The Powers clashed, one Light, one Dark. The prophet struck at his foe, and the Demon struck back. They caught each other’s blows and renewed their attacks faster than the prophet had thought could be done, calling out as they fought.

   
-It is my lot to say what the future brings, Demon! It brings your death!

   
YOU ARE AS USELESS AS YOUR GODS, FOOL! NO MORTAL CAN CHALLENGE ME AND LIVE! YOU WILL BE DAMNED AS DARKLY AS I HAVE BEEN!

   
-You are nothing, Demon. I will make it your name: you are Nothing, and the power in me is Everything! There
are
no gods! I serve… I serve…

   
YOU SERVE A FALSE HOPE. YOU SERVE WEAK, HELPLESS ANGELS ON BROKEN WINGS.
  

   
-No! I know Whom I serve! I serve the Aura! I serve the One who sent them! I serve the One Who made Mortal and Immortal alike!

   
The prophet kicked out at the Demon he had named Nothing. The blow sent his enemy reeling, and he was on him in less than time, striking again and again, with vengeance burning in his heart. Nothing was quick to retaliate. Fire blazed on his palms and in his eyes; he thrust his fists into the prophet’s stomach, throwing him back roughly and crushing his breath from his lungs.

   
He landed on his back at the edge of the circle. Stone and sand bit into his shoulders, and a biting pain ate at his body. For a reason he could not fathom, the ground under him felt cool and comforting against that burning pain.

   
THE UNNAMEABLE ONES WILL NOT HELP YOU HERE. YOU ARE LOST, PROPHET. LOST FOREVER. I WILL KILL YOUR BODY AND YOUR SPIRIT. GIVE UP. YOU ARE LOST.

   
Nothing rushed across the space, wringing his arms and chanting in a dark, violent tongue beyond comprehension. A fire blazed up on the prophet’s chest, spreading to his limbs and engulfing him in deadly agony. He screamed as Nothing poured his power and malice into the fight.

   
He screamed again and again as Nothing reached him and began to kick him; in the side, in the head, in the arms, and all over. Everywhere Nothing’s boot hit, new pain and new fire blossomed like a ghastly flower that strangled all it touched.

   
WHERE ARE THEY NOW, PROPHET? WHERE ARE THE ONES YOU THOUGHT WERE AT YOUR SIDE? WHERE HAVE THEY GONE? THEY HAVE ABANDONED YOU, FOOL, AND NOW YOU WILL DIE!

   
There was no way to fight back. Nothing was right, and he was going to die.

   
-Aura!
Aura!
the prophet called, writhing and shuddering on the hard ground.

   
Without knowing why he thought of it, or why it came to his mind at his time of greatest need, the prophet remembered a name- a name that, perhaps, was worth more than Nothing. And without knowing why he said it, the prophet screamed the named into the windless air.

   
-Traveller! Traveller!
Viator!
Succurye fen isdristye!

   
They were strange words, and meant no more to him than the curses of Nothing. And yet…

   
“My child.” It was the first real voice in this nothingness. These were first two words that fell on his ears instead of his mind. The burning in him melted away like ice in the warm summer sun.

   
The prophet looked up through his streaming tears. Nothing had fallen to his knees, and was covering his face. Flames licked between his fingers where his eyes were covered. Over him stood a thin man in a tattered gray coat, holding a knotted wooden staff. His free hand was reaching down in kindness, ready to grasp the prophet’s and pull him up. He was a traveler.
The
traveler.

   
-Traveller? Is it you?

   
“It is I. Get up, Gribly. Your suffering has been heard. Speak now with your true voice.”

   
Gribly. That was his name, the prophet realized. He was Gribly. He was a boy. He was a prophet.

   
Gribly took Traveller’s hand, and the Aura pulled him to his feet. Behind him, Nothing gave a hideous wail.

   
“Traveller. It’s you! I mean… you came! You’re here! In the… the…”

   
“The Nothing. The graveyard of the spirit. The only place where Nothing is stronger than Something. Not anymore. See?” Traveller gently moved Gribly to the side, and stepped forward to face the groveling Nothing. The Demon who had seemed so strong.

   
CURSE YOU, SPOKEN-NAME! CURSE YOU AND ALL YOUR KIND! I KNOW WHO YOU ARE! I KNOW THE ONE YOU SERVE! I KNOW YOUR NAME! I KNOW YOU-
But Traveller cut off the Demon’s ranting with a quick rapping of his staff on the ground.

   
“Enough,” he said, and the wraith-like enemy spasmed once, then lay still. “Begone,” he ordered, and the Demon threw itself into the air, screaming horrible curses and blasphemies and breaking into a thousand sparks of bloody flame that winked out one by one until the screams could no longer be heard…

   
…Smoke billowed, curled, and disappeared. When it had gone, the body remained, spread on the ground in a swathe of dark cloth. The light had gone out of the youth’s eyes, which stared blankly up at the sky, sightless and clouded.

   
“It is a hard fate that one so young should fall so easily into Pride, and thereby Evil,” Traveller mused. “Yet he is in your power now, Gribly. Will you leave him alive, and give him the chance for redemption he does not deserve? Or will you put an end to him? He is indeed the one who has been stalking your steps since you left your city.”

   
Gribly stared hard at the body lying in the dust of the stony ruins. In another time, in another life he might have done away with the Pit Strider- for that was certainly who it was. But now he was not so sure. For one thing, killing the youth now would not help his quest for his past at all. For another, he had called upon the Aura and they had answered. This merciless killing would defile that honor, and he would be heartless to carry it out.

   
“No,” he whispered, with a curious effort. The words were harder to say than he’d expected. “No. I will not end him. I am not such a prophet as to tell his destiny. Who am I to say whether he should live or die? Are there any worthy enough to condemn their enemies? I do not know.” The words sounded sad and weary to him, even as he spoke them.

   
Traveller took him by the shoulders and stared deep into his eyes. The Aura’s eyes were indescribably beautiful, but frightening, too. It was like looking through a window out into the dreadful Beyond, and seeing empty space filled with the light and knowledge of uncountable years. Yet beyond even that, there was a glow that seemed to come from Nowhere and Everywhere at once, giving hints of a Power even greater than the Aura themselves. Greater than Traveller. Greater than anyone.

   
“No, Gribly, there are none worthy enough, save the One who sits Enthroned Above. You have chosen wisely.” Finally the terrible, wonderful eyes looked away, and the hands left Gribly’s shoulders.

   
Traveller turned away, moving forward and kneeling at the head of the Pit Strider’s prone form. Touching the tip of his staff to the youth’s forehead, he whispered words too soft for Gribly to hear, and small white wings fluttered out at the head of wood.