“Yup.” Vanx smiled at the table, as warm and genuine of a smile as his troubled countenance would allow. “If I were you, Chelda, I’d have the healer look at your arm, and get a few potions stockpiled for the pain. We may not be leaving at first light, but as soon as we can.”
Vanx pulled his seal fur cloak from the back of the chair and donned it. About halfway to the door, he stopped and turned back to them. “Chelda, can you discreetly see that Galra doesn’t forget anything that she may need?”
“Like what?” Chelda snorted loudly. “A cage?”
Darbon laughed, but the others just looked at each other blankly.
Vanx couldn’t help but crack a smile.
Chapter Fifteen
The king saw the wizard
and the wizard did laugh.
Then the wizard killed him
with the power of his staff.
-- The Weary Wizard
The sledsman was a burly, heavy-bearded man with a barrel-keg chest covered in naught but a steaming flannel shirt, as he stood out in the cold negotiating. His helpers, two bundles of dirty gray wool, seemed to work well with the haulkats in the stable, but the man only had two sleds and four cats.
Vanx explained he needed more and they soon came to an arrangement. The man would borrow three cats from one of his brothers so that they’d have seven. They would hook two to one sled, which would mainly be used to haul fishmeal, leaving five to be saddled and ridden. The two handlers would take their turns in the saddles, but the sledsman decided he was riding in the sled the whole way.
The sledsman didn’t like the idea of leaving the protected route toward the end of the journey, but Vanx showed him on a well-made trade map where he wanted to go. After seeing that the diversion wasn’t going to take him and his animals across any open tundra, the coin won out. The man said he’d make a camp at the edge of the protected northwest caravan passage and make his hands ride up into the foothills with Vanx and the crew. The two handlers could bring the cats back to him, while he sat protected by a fire.
Once that was taken care of, Vanx and Xavian started down toward the docks. It was still early in the day, and Vanx was hoping to find Skully. The old sea dog might have a tale in him about the Hoar Witch or the strange hidden forest called Saint Elm’s deep. It was still a bit early for drinking and Skully wasn’t about, but Vanx also wanted to visit the old Temple of Nepton and it was never too early to do that.
“You’re supposed to enlighten me on Galra’s situation,” Xavian said, as they walked along through the bustling snow-packed streets.
This close to the docks, the smell of brine was stronger in the air. The scent mingled with Vanx’s blood and filled him with a great sense of unease.
Above them, the sky was clear and blue. Only a single cottony cloud was high overhead. It was still bitter cold, though. Breathy steam roiled out of the mouths of hawkers selling everything from healing salve; to matching elk-skin caps and gloves; to stupefying dopor and even Wildermont steel blades shipped all the way from the other side of the world.
These latter items Vanx paused to inspect. He eventually planned to explore Wildermont, Westland and Highwander, the fabled kingdoms that lay beyond Harthgar. He would explore Harthgar, too, but only if he survived Rimehold.
“This here’s a man who knows his steel. For you, only four silvers for the hip daggers,” the hawker offered. “Three for the boot blades. Tell you what, I’ll give you every blade you see for a single golden galleon.”
“If you want a new blade, Vanx,” Xavian said in perfect earshot of the hawker, “I’ll show you a better place. These are not true Wildermont steel.” Xavian gave the man a glare that stilled his tongue.
Around them, men and women called out the quality of their wares with exuberant indifference. Silver charms, ice twisters, kegs full of varying types of nuts, seeds and kaffee beans all could be had; fresh white fish, lavender soap, spiced bread or Parydonian peaches fresh off the boat. It was a seemingly unorganized cacophony of mercantile delight.
“A boot dagger made from Wildermont steel would cost about as much as all this shoddy dinnerware put together,” Xavian growled.
“Ha.” Vanx grinned at the frustrated-looking hawker and shrugged. Once they were away from the cart, he spoke. “I was just searching for the words to explain about Gallarael. Let me try a bag of the kaffee beans.”
“Galra, you mean?”
“Gal will do for now.” Vanx stopped at the bean and nut merchant and indicated what he wanted. “Do you believe in changelings?”
“What, like werewolves and the frog prince?”
“Sort of.” Vanx chuckled. “In this case, it’s more like a poison-induced, wild, feline sort of princess, instead of a frog prince.”
“She’s the one who scarred Darbon’s face?”
Vanx took a roughspun sack the size of a loaf of bread from the merchant and gave him two coppers. “How’d you guess?”
Xavian blushed and started them back down the lane. “After we first met, and you were trying to convince me about your Parydonian connections, well, I didn’t believe you. I cast a spell of knowing on Darbon.” Xavian paused and was clearly relieved that Vanx was showing no hint of anger over the matter.
“I tried spelling you, but your Zythian blood fractured my magic. Of course, I didn’t know that was why my spell didn’t work on you at the time, but I understand now.” He shrugged guiltily. “Anyway, after you went off with the tailor, Darbon and I continued talking in more detail about the wizards of the Royal Order and other things. He’d already told me that Princess Gallarael had put the scars on his face, and I knew he wasn’t lying.” He let out a sigh and seemed relieved to have gotten so much off his chest at once.
“In all this time, you haven’t told anyone else about what you know, or speculated?” Vanx’s tone was serious now.
“No one. Why?”
Vanx stopped again and held Xavian’s gaze. He was searching for any hint of deceit. He didn’t see any, so he resumed their gait.
“She is who she is,” Vanx said simply. “People, powerful people, have no doubt sent men looking for her. The thing is, none of them—save for maybe a few members of the Royal Order of Wizards—know what she can turn into. And beyond that, she doesn’t want be found.”
“Well, I am so intrigued by the lot of you that I’ve changed my mind. I’d rather hang around and see what happens next than sail off to Parydon and learn out of books from a bunch of stodgy old men.”
“Life itself is the greatest teacher of all,” Vanx spouted off the saying that one of his many Zythian masters had hammered into his brain. “But some lessons are always better learned from a distance.”
“Interesting,” Xavian mused, before he burst out laughing.
“What’s funny?” Vanx asked.
“Chelda screaming last night, and her remark about a cage, all just made sense now. I still can’t figure how you got the black eye, though.”
“All I’ll say about it is this: don’t laugh at Chelda when she’s angry.” As he said it, Vanx couldn’t help but smile again.
Skully was still passed out in his small room above the Mighty Mackerel, so Vanx gave the barman a message and a silver to keep the old sea dog at the bar after he woke. Vanx then excused himself from Xavian, saying that he wanted to say a prayer for his father and would meet him back there in a while. Xavian understood, saying that he wanted to visit a gypsy herbalist who wasn’t too far down dock-row, and they parted ways.
Vanx did want to say a prayer to his father’s god, but what he really wanted was to call upon his patron goddess. He felt that he could find the silence and solitude needed to do just that in the sanctuary of his father’s sea-god. He didn’t need such a place, but it helped. With Poops, Darbon, and a hundred other distractions back at the Iceberg, he could never seem to vacate his mind well enough to reach her. At least he liked to think that was the reason she didn’t respond to his prayers as of late.
He knew that he wasn’t in any urgent situation of need, and that she was most likely occupied with matters far more important than the strange feelings that were calling him, but still he wanted to call her before he left on this quest. The goddess had more than once referred to him as her champion, and he knew he owed the spark that quickened his mixed blood to her alone. He felt he had a duty to tell her that he was about to go off in search of some dark force that may or may not be a direct blood relation to him.
He was glad that the temple was empty. He took a taper from a holder and lit it in one of the torches ensconced on the plain stone wall.
None of the other candles waiting on the royal coral altar block were lit as of yet, which meant that he was the first one to visit Nepton’s shrine this day. It wasn’t surprising. Most sailors were either working off their hangovers or still sound asleep at this fairly early hour of the day.
Vanx knelt and let his eyes focus on the candle flame. “Mighty Nepton, lord of the deep, master of storm and swell,” he started his prayer in a barely audible mumble that faded as his subconscious voice took over. “Watch over my father’s bones. He went down with his ship when he could’ve fled. He did this to honor the men whose lives you took that night. He did this to honor his ship Foamfollower. He did this to honor you, and so that I might be born with your favor. These things I’ve told you are the truth, and all I ask of you is this: Keep my father safe. Let him rest forever in the peace and tranquility of your depths.”
Vanx’s mind was silent for a long while after that, then he began to clear the visionary field of his mind’s eye. He turned it into a blank white slate, which wasn’t hard. It was sort of like envisioning the open tundra on any given day, a sight he’d seen plenty of lately.
Once he had cleansed his mind of everything, he began to picture the goddess before him. Flowing silvery hair, milky skin, and lips as red as strawberries. In his mind’s eye, she slowly shimmered into being, her slight yet well-proportioned body reverently erotic as the translucent color-shifting gown clung to her otherwise naked form. To him, she was beauty incarnate, and he found his heart hammering in his chest as a brilliant smile spread across her face.
“Ahhh.” Her voice was a melodic, breathy sigh of wind. “My emerald-eyed young champion,” the goddess said. Her form had taken on a life of its own now, and her arms opened wide in an inviting embrace. An invisible wind gently touched her hair, and the few parts of her garb that weren’t stretched tight over her body fluttered with it. “You represented yourself well with the fire given, Vanx.”
Chiming tingles ran down Vanx’s spine as she spoke.
“You should be proud of yourself, but I see that you are troubled instead. What is it that dampens the sparkle in those orbs I gave you?”
“My lady, my goddess, thank you for the life you’ve given me. You’re—”
“Stop,” she interrupted. “All of that is for another time. What is it that troubles you so?”
“Aserica Rime,” Vanx told her. “The Hoar Witch.”
The look that passed across her face was so sudden it startled him. “Go on.” Her voice had grown colder, and its melodious chime took on a more irritated sound.
“It’s been said that she is the mother of my father. If that is true, that makes her my blood kin. There is an insistent nagging feeling rooted inside me, pulling me toward the Bitterpeaks that she once called her home. I’m going to follow the feeling, and I seek your advice.”
There was a long silence. Vanx watched her ever-flowing hair and gown, and the hard look of concentration that came across her beautiful visage. It was hard for him to keep his mind from wandering to her body, though.
“Follow your heart, Vanx,” she said, interrupting his reverie. “Though this feeling that seeks to guide you is not a call from Aserica Rime at all, it will lead you to her. It is your heart’s desire you must follow. In all things, that is what you must do.” She reached out her hand, as if to caress his cheek.
Vanx felt the grace of angel’s breath across his face, where her touch would have been.
“She is evil, love,” the goddess went on. The icy tone of her voice had shifted and warmed back into a loving, if a bit warning, tone. “She will try to kill you or enslave you. She will use the blood-bond you share to achieve this end. It is her way. When you are in her domain, it will be beyond my ability to help you. She is a powerful entity, this Hoar Witch, and she has the favor of the dark one himself. It is plain that your heart will seek answers about your father, answers that can only be gotten from her. Remember, though, that you have the same power of the blood-bond that she does. If you are to survive her, then you will have to use that part of you that is inherited from her. But be wary. By tapping that darker part of your nature, you can open yourself to the dark one’s influence. I’d hate to lose you, love. The sparkle of your eyes is one of my most favorite wonders to look upon.”
She started to fade before Vanx could ask her anything. He had about a hundred questions swirling around in his mind. He could still hear her whispering, so he stilled his curiosity.
“Take this,” she said. “It will help protect you when the time comes. Take this, Vanx. Take this from me.”
Vanx was startled out of his entranced state by a rude priest of Nepton.
“Here, take this,” the man said insistently and pressed a velvet drawstring bag into Vanx’s hand. “Take this, and be on your way.”
He was then roughly escorted out of Nepton’s temple and shoved into the street.
Chapter Sixteen
Out upon the open slide,
there ain’t no hills or trees.
It’s so cold and empty,
that if you stop, you’ll freeze.
-- a song from Orendyn
Vanx could feel the tiny white-gold leaf she had given him. He was wearing it around his neck. Even under all the heavy clothes and the thick shrew-fur coat he was wearing, the metal felt icy cold against his chest. His thoughts drifted back to the warnings of his goddess again, and just as every other time he dwelled on the subject for very long, the silvery charm found a way to reassure and remind him that she wasn’t so far away.
Squinting through his heavy head wrap, he tried to make out the shadowy forms of Gallarael and Brody striding before him. It was hard, even with his keen eyes. The pillowy flakes of snow were blowing crazily across his field of vision. The air was dense with them, making the snow-caked forms ahead seem more like wraiths than people.
Sir Poopsalot looked somewhat like a fat young bear cub in his own shrew-fur bundles. He trudged and leapt and worked mightily to keep up with them. As much worry as it caused Vanx, he let the dog run free. After what happened out on the tundra, he’d sworn never to leash him again.
Vanx knew Chelda was up there somewhere ahead of them. She had two of her shrew fangs jutting proudly up over her shoulders from where they were strapped to either side of her backpack. Xavian would be directly behind her, but Vanx hadn’t seen either of them in a while. He only hoped that Brody was still following them and not some unreal shadowy specter of his imagination. If it got any worse, Vanx was going to stop them and make them all rope up, so no one got lost.
They’d left the two young haulkat handlers in the foothills that morning. It was late afternoon now, Vanx guessed, but with nothing other than an oppressive ceiling of gray overhead, it was hard to say for sure.
He could tell they were walking uphill again. It wasn’t a steep grade—they were still in the lower foothills—but it was enough to put a burn in his thighs. In a day or two, he knew, the way would become far less forgiving. From out in the lower foothills, when they were still riding, the jagged mountains had loomed up over them like some great forbidding beast. The sight of the imposing peaks, with their icy ledges and jagged outcroppings, had disheartened all of them, save for Chelda. She was brimming with anticipation, as if crossing over the arduous mountains were no harder than building a fire. Vanx supposed that was exactly how hard it was,
for without his or Xavian’s magic, and the few small bundles of wood they carried in their packs, a sustainable fire would have been next to impossible.
Poops let out a sudden peal of protective barks, and a thread of fiery warning shot up Vanx’s spine.
“Still the dog,” Chelda’s voice hissed from somewhere up ahead. “Be still, all of you.”
The rare sound of fear in the big woman’s voice gave the warning merit.
“Shhh,” Vanx whispered. “Come here, Poops, and hush. What is it?”
Poops didn’t change the snarling expression on his face, but he did quit barking. He shivered and shook with anticipation as Vanx knelt and tried to soothe him. Out of the corner of his eye, Vanx saw a dusky fur-clad form moving not too far away from their line. When it turned, he saw two angry eyes that looked like droplets of fresh blood against their stark surroundings. Poops lurched in Vanx’s restraining grasp and let out a low, rumbling growl, but not in the direction Vanx was looking.
“Hush Poops,” Chelda hissed. She was closer now, and her sharp, insistent tone gave the dog enough pause.
Vanx felt a surge of warning work its way up his spine and he sensed something huge and very close.
A massive form seemed to be undulating past them, but it was impossible to see it. The earth under everybody’s feet vibrated slightly, and Poops suddenly quit his posturing and skulked behind Vanx. The strange sensation of something working its way past them continued for a long while, but whatever it was, it was so big as to be indifferent to their presence.
Finally, the vibration ceased, and Chelda let out a long, whooshing breath. All of them came into a huddle so that they could see each other better. Vanx noted that Gallarael wasn’t among them but knew he’d seen her breaking away from the group.
“What in the seven hells was that?” Xavian said with a shudder.
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