Angst Box Set 2

by David Pedersen

“Oh no,” Dallow said.

  “Angst crossed a line with that one,” Hector said to Rose, shaking his head. “I never understood it. Why her out of everyone? But there was something between them.”

  “Because she was a mermaid,” Dallow explained. “It was someone he couldn’t actually be with, something he couldn’t have. So sad, and very Angst.”

  Rose didn’t understand, and it appeared Alloria didn’t either.

  “He kissed her back,” Alloria said. “I kissed him, and he didn’t kiss me back.”

  “There’s a difference?” Rose asked.

  “Yes!” Alloria said. “I was so mad, I did what Vivek told me. He loved that stupid mermaid, and he loves his princess. The mermaid was dead, so I went to her chambers and killed her.”

  They all stood. Hector and Rose looked at each other, and her heart raced.

  “Who did you kill?” she asked.

  “I stabbed Victoria through the chest with Jormbrinder,” Alloria said, tears welling in her eyes.

  Before Rose could blink, Hector’s sword was at the princess’s neck. Alloria lifted her chin even as she sobbed.

  “You killed our queen?” Hector growled.

  “She’s alive,” Alloria said, sniffing deeply. “Vivek said that Angst saved her, that she’s stuck in time.”

  “Anderfeld’s spell!” Dallow said proudly. “Angst cast it. Wow!”

  “He’s on his way here now,” Alloria said.

  “Finally,” Rose said. It was the first good thing to come of this conversation. “Once Angst gets here, he can free us.”

  “I still wonder if the dagger could help” Hector said. "At least we should try..."

  “No!” Alloria said frantically. “Don’t you see? I’ve finally escaped. Vivek can’t come here. He can’t come into the mage city. He told me none of the elements can enter mage cities either.”

  “Wielders found a way to protect themselves from elements,” Dallow said, scratching his chin. “That’s amazing.”

  “That’s why I’ll never leave,” Alloria said. “I’m finally safe, and I’ll do anything to stay.”

  34

  Gressmore Ruins

  “Angst, you need to concentrate,” Aerella said, her husky voice stern. “I’m not old enough to do this myself.”

  “I am concentrating,” he said in frustration.

  “On the spell,” she replied. “Not on me.”

  To Kala’s disappointment, Aerella had aged and was now somewhere between her older teens and younger twenties. She’d bloomed overnight, and was every bit as lovely as when they first met at Gressmore. She was petite, very busty, and with a mane of brown hair you wanted to run your fingers through...

  “Angst!” she shouted.

  Faeoris and Maarja laughed. Jintorich sighed deeply, shaking his head in dismay. Kala marched over to Angst, crossed her arms, and took a deep breath. She looked like his wife just before a verbal beating.

  “Yes, I know,” Angst interrupted before she even had a chance to speak. He bent over, crossing his arms and staring at her. “You’re going to tell Heather.”

  “Everything!” she said defensively.

  “Well, go ahead!” he said.

  “I will,” she replied, stomping off to the other side of the camp. Scar scrambled to keep up, lying down at her feet with sad, droopy ears as if he’d just been yelled at too.

  “Angst,” Jintorich squeaked, gently admonishing him.

  He was right. Kala hadn’t deserved that. Angst should’ve let her vent. She was more upset about losing her playmate than his lack of focus. There was so much pressure that anything became distracting, especially Aerella suddenly looking drool-worthy. The last time Angst had used the memndus stones to create a map of Unsel, he’d been surrounded by friends, which made it easier, somehow. Angst had experienced so much with his missing friends—everything from boozing to battle. They’d seen him make mistakes, stood beside him when he failed, and knew him to be emotional...and distractible. Angst looked around, and it struck him: these companions were becoming his friends, too. They weren’t pressuring him to get it done; they were here to support him. There was no judgment, except a little from Kala. Maybe, rather than giving her something to judge, he should’ve been helping the prodigy learn.

  “One sec,” he said to Aerella, who rolled her eyes. Angst approached the sniffling girl and knelt beside her. “Kala,” he said softly.

  “What?” she snapped, staring at Scar as if willing the dog to bite Angst. The dog’s head became skinny with guilt.

  “I’m not doing this right. I need help casting this spell,” he said. “Would you help me, please?”

  “Really?” she asked, facing him with wide, excited eyes.

  He nodded, and she hugged him around the neck. It was probably one of the best hugs he’d ever gotten. They walked hand-in-hand to the others. Angst let go and placed one hand on the flat of Chryslaenor, which rested upright on its tip. He nodded encouragingly. Kala studied him for a moment as if through new eyes. She sucked in her lips and reached out hesitantly. Her eyes widened as she touched the foci, and a broad smile crept across her face.

  “He sings really pretty, Mr. Angst,” she said.

  “Yes, he does,” Angst said. His heart skipped a beat, and he met eyes with Aerella, who smiled knowingly. He hadn’t expected that. What did it even mean? Could she actually pick up his foci? He could sense Kala’s connection, both to Chryslaenor and to him. The girl had an incredible amount of raw power that seemed to mirror his own. It wasn’t identical, or nearly as strong, but it was there. She also emulated his magic, creating a tiny thread of connection to the sword.

  The foci warmed to this, more determined than ever to share knowledge. Angst could see her nodding from the corner of his eye before she let out a giggle.

  “What?” Angst asked.

  “Chryslaenor is funny,” she said with a smile.

  “Huh,” he said, wondering why the sword had never shared anything funny with him. He’d need time to fully understand what Kala could do, and her new relationship with his foci. Throughout this mission, he had only thought of her as a stowaway, and a potential snitch. If she was going to imitate Angst, his heroics weren’t really just for him. Instead of trying not to be noticed by this unwanted conscience, maybe he should start acting like a mentor, and lead by example.

  Angst had invited Kala to cast this spell as a ploy to cheer her up, but they actually were going to do this together. “Now, do just as I do.”

  Aerella looked at them dubiously, but still held out a palm full of small, clear stones. Angst nodded at the twelve-year-old, and she scrunched up her face and nodded back, her dark, pretty eyes sincere.

  The stones rose from Aerella’s palm. They spun in a vertical oval, faster and faster. Angst and Kala drew from the foci to create a picture of Ehrde, like viewing a map from high above in the face of an oblong mirror. Blue and white lights appeared on the map like distant stars. The others closed in for a better look.

  “It’s so shiny,” Faeoris said, her voice filled with wonder.

  “A-mazing!” Jintorich squeaked, his ears and eyebrows at full attention. He pointed a stubby finger at the lights on the map.

  “The white lights are mage cities,” Aerella said excitedly. “The blue ones are other memndus stones.”

  Angst recognized a couple of the mage cities, Gressmore and Azakthra, but only two locations shone bright blue. Where they stood at Gressmore ruins, and far, far north in the middle of another white marker.

  “Enurthen!” Aerella said in amazement. “How on Ehrde did they end up there?”

  “I can find this place if I had a better look,” Maarja said, leaning forward.

  “Closer,” Angst said to Kala, and her fists shook with the effort. “Just follow my lead.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Aerella warned.

  “Hold steady,” Angst said. He remembered the struggle of focusing on one place with the memndus, but it
was so much easier with Kala’s help.

  The image came closer, and closer still. What had once looked like a distant map soon became the view from a mountaintop. Angst willed the map to slide up and to the side, seeking the source of blue and white dots. It blurred until they finally held it still. Dark spots spread across a white background, the opposite of bright stars in a clear night. There was a glimmer of light from an enormous city that stood over a cliff. Blue lights shone brightly inside that city. Enurthen.

  “Hurry,” Aerella urged, her hand trembling as the stones spun faster.

  “What’s that, below the city?” Faeoris asked.

  “It’s too much,” Aerella said, her voice strained.

  “Almost done,” Angst said. He could feel Kala’s focus waning from exhaustion and drew in power from Chryslaenor to compensate.

  The shaky image closed in to show a snowy battlefield littered with Nordruaut bodies. Hundreds of dead scattered about the frozen wasteland, covered in blood and ice.

  Kala screamed in fear.

  “No,” Maarja said. “I’m too late!”

  “Watch out!” Aerella cried as something snapped, sounding like a whip cracking.

  Tiny memndus stones shot from her hands in all directions. There were several thwaps that sounded like hail on hard ground.

  “Faeoris!” Jintorich said.

  The Berfemmian’s hand was inches in front of Kala’s face, a stream of blood flowing freely to the ground. She’d been fast enough to catch it. Without a word, she handed the memndus stone to Aerella.

  “I’m sorry,” Aerella said, her hand already glowing yellow. “It was too much.”

  The injury didn’t seem to faze Faeoris, she merely looked at Maarja with concern. The Nordruaut’s face was torn between pain and hurry.

  “We go north as fast as we can, Maarja,” Angst said, not sure of the best way to console her. “We get on our swifen and race straight through Rohjek all the way to Nordruaut.”

  Maarja nodded but said nothing, her great fists clenching. Jintorich hopped up to her shoulder and spoke into her ear, patting her long platinum hair. The tenseness in her face slowly abated.

  “Angst, I...” Aerella began, pressing against her temples. “There’s something, something I can’t remember.”

  “What is it?” he asked, placing Chryslaenor on his back with a solid click.

  “We should avoid Rohjek,” Aerella said. “At all costs.”

  “Why?” he asked. “Can you tell me why?”

  “No,” she said after a long pause, her young face contorted with an aged worry.

  “Then we don’t have a choice,” he replied. “Summon your swifen.”

  It was as if someone had drawn a line in the sand, with fire. The border of black and gray soot was disturbingly straight, as if that same someone had determined, everything beyond this point should be burned to ash. On one side was spongy spring grass. On the other side was death that stretched into a shadowy expanse of more death. They’d stopped just before the edge, and Angst could only guess that this was the border between Unsel and Rohjek.

  Angst and Faeoris dismounted his steel ram swifen. Kala and Aerella remained on her white, flowery tiger, Jintorich and Maarja on his oversized six-legged...dog thing. They all stared in awe, and Kala coughed as a dry breeze blew wisps of ash at them. Angst was wary of actually stepping across, instead leaning forward to look up and down the border, with Faeoris’s firm grip on his shoulder keeping him from leaning too close. It went far beyond his vision.

  “Wyrms,” Aerella whispered, her voice heavy with sadness.

  Faeoris and Maarja looked at her quizzically.

  “We first called the minions of Fire wyrms because they were slow and crawled on the ground,” she explained. “They were still deadly, belching fire and almost impossible to kill. To save Gressmore, we raised the city high on stilts so they couldn’t reach us. The wyrms grew wings, and we called them dragons.”

  “I’ve always wanted to kill a dragon,” Faeoris said hungrily, a dangerous glare in her eyes.

  “Yes,” Maarja said nodding vigorously. “But later, after Nordruaut. We will hunt them together.”

  “It’s not as fun as you’d think,” Angst said. “Scales like volcanic rock, blood like liquid fire, and they’re hungry.”

  “You killed a dragon?” Maarja asked, scoffing in disbelief.

  “I thought I killed the dragon,” Angst said. “It was as large as a city. Victoria flew me up on her swifen—”

  “The pink unicorn,” Faeoris interjected, dryly.

  “Oooh,” Kala said, her eyes wide before glaring over her shoulder as Aerella began braiding her long black hair.

  “Hold still,” Aerella said.

  “Yeah, so, the dragon,” Angst said. “I leaped off the pink unicorn and onto the dragon’s back, carved a big hole into it with Dulgirgraut, and then jumped off. Fortunately, Victoria caught me in time.”

  “That sounds like fun!” Faeoris said.

  “Without wings, it was...exciting,” Angst said, licking sweat and ash from his dry lips. It tasted awful.

  “You’re making this up,” Maarja said. “The good stories come from truth.”

  “Does this look like I’m making anything up?” Angst held out his hand as if presenting the scorched horizon for the first time.

  “Were there other dragons?” Jintorich asked, his thick eyebrows raised high.

  “Of course,” Angst said, looking over at him with a smile. “The gamlin are impervious to dragonfire, and they killed many. Unfortunately, Fire wasn’t happy with that and attacked. Earth came to our defense. My friends and I tried to help, but Fire threw a sun on us.”

  “Is that...is that what happened to Melkier?” Jintorich asked in shock. “There were many rumors, but nobody really knew.”

  “Ouch!” Kala cried.

  “I said hold still,” Aerella said. “You don’t want stray hairs burning off.”

  Kala frowned but said nothing further, holding Scar close.

  “I’ve seen the ruins,” Aerella said. “I even remember reading about it once, I think.”

  “He’s telling the truth?” Maarja asked, wide-eyed.

  “Yes, Fire destroyed half the capital city in Melkier, and there was nothing I could do,” Angst said, staring off at the wasteland. It felt like the guilt and frustration and panic had all been combined to create a protective barrier of numbness between his heart and grief. “I only had time to try and save my friends, but half the city, and all those people, were lost.”

  “I’m sorry, Angst,” Jintorich squeaked. “That sounds like a terrible burden. You must know it isn’t your fault.”

  “And Fire must hate you for killing his dragons,” Maarja interjected.

  “He must hate you a lot!” Kala agreed, nodding vigorously, now playing with the end of a long braid.

  “It seems to be going around,” Angst said. A familiar knot of tension stabbed between his shoulders.

  “That’s why you didn’t want us coming with,” Jintorich said, his voice even higher, the excitement of understanding lighting his eyes. “Because of Fire.”

  “Fire, and Magic,” Angst said. “I wasn’t able to defeat Fire, and Magic escaped my trap.” Chryslaenor pulsed a bright blue light, and he glanced over his shoulder. “I know you tried, but Magic isn’t predictable. Really though, I’m glad to have you back.” The foci’s song hummed nicely in his head as if grateful for his understanding. “I’m not sure how I can destroy both elements, find my friends, and keep all of you safe.”

  He saw the panic in Kala’s eyes.

  “Except you,” Angst said with a wide grin. “I know I can keep you safe.”

  “Oh, good,” she said with the instant relief only a child could enjoy.

  “That makes sense, Angst,” Faeoris said dryly, crossing her arms and peering at him. “Trying to save Ehrde by yourself since it took you, your friends, and an element just to survive last time.”

  “Well
, uh...” Angst stumbled over words, his cheeks warming.

  “She means it’s a good thing we’re here,” Jintorich said, his long eyebrows dangling over his cheeks. He held his toothpick staff up defensively.

  “Mostly what I meant,” Faeoris said irritably.

  Angst looked them over. Aerella was the most knowledgeable mage he’d ever met. Kala, a child prodigy with a dog that turned into a giant monster. A Nordruaut—one of the strongest beings in Ehrde, and a Berfemmian, who was stronger yet and could fly. They gave him hope. Maybe together they could make it through Rohjek alive. They had to!

  “You’re right,” Angst said. “We have a chance.”

  “I’m scared,” Kala said.

  “Being a hero doesn’t mean you aren’t scared,” Jintorich said. “Being a hero means you face your fears and do what must be done.”

  “My friend speaks truth,” Maarja said. “As always. Now let’s move.”

  But she didn’t step forward. None of them did. With a deep breath, Angst placed his foot on the ash as if dipping a toe in water. It felt like he was stepping on a pile of feathers. He took a step forward, and another. It was as if he’d entered the wrong house by accident, and the owners liked to burn things. Only ten feet into the mess, smoky air dried his throat, and his armor was becoming a steam room.

  “We should stay mounted, and ride through this,” Maarja said, coughing several times.

  “You’re right,” he said. “Faeoris, would you fly ahead?”

  “Of course,” she said, her wings already out, the colorful feathers of light blurring through the smoke.

  “Not too high,” he said, gripping her hand, “or too far. Please be careful.”

  “I’ll try not to kill too many dragons on the way,” she said with a wink.

  “Please stay here,” Kala asked, her eyes flashing red. Scar yipped several times.

  Faeoris looked at the child with barely an ounce of patience. Before she could say anything, Scar hopped off Kala’s lap and began sniffing at the ground.

  “It’s okay,” Angst said. “Maybe I can send some gamlin ahead, and... Wait.”

  As if he’d already called for them, gamlin of all sizes popped up out of the ash, directly in their path.