Aserica Rime heard the voices clearly and skittered around the pool again, searching for a better viewing angle.
“Another day to the ridge,” another man responded. She didn’t think either voice was that of the warlock.
“Are you going to wait for us there, Darl?” a woman asked. “Or are you coming into the forest with us to find Vanx?” This voice was female. The Hoar Witch found her then, huddled in dark blankets under the skirt of a great snow-laden tree.
She touched the crystal at her neck and urged Gat to find a perch that offered a better view for them. The thumping sound of his owl wings caused a nearby beast to bleat and stomp about. Gat landed on a long-dead branch and Aserica saw the face of the girl who had spoken.
“It can’t be,” the Hoar Witch growled. “How can it be?”
It was the shapeshifting girl who Slither had slung from the cliff and she just said they were intending to go into the Lurr to look for the warlock.
“It’s one of her spies,” the first male voice said, but Aserica barely heard him. The reflecting pool flared white and the hot, crackling flash of pain that marked Gat’s death tore through the Hoar Witch and the rest of the brood. Above the howling chorus of pain and sorrow her bond-linked children sent up, the Hoar Witch’s scream carried a note of rage that made clear to all who heard—she was tired of being tricked at every turn.
Sometime later, with the moon still canting in the sky, Gallarael, Xavian and Darl sat in the dancing shadows beneath a fur tree and watched the old oak in which the sneak had landed crackle and burn. Xavian’s magic had caught the dry wood on fire when he’d blasted the creature and all they could do was huddle and wait for the ramma mounts to return.
“It’s leek a beacon,” Darl grumbled. “We’ve a great bonfire to shew the wetch’s mensters where to start their hent.”
“I’m sorry, Darl,” Xavian said for the tenth or eleventh time. “But the creature already knew where we were, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“It scared the ramma well away. They won’t come ‘til feeding time.”
“Well we need to rest anyway,” said Gallarael. “Get some rest.”
“I want to be well away from here when the wetch’s wolf pack arrives,” Darl grumbled. “Not sitting here waiting on them.”
Gallarael massaged her aching feet. The old rim rider boots Darl found in the locker were easily two sizes too large for her feet, but she relished them. No longer would she have to manage with claw slots torn through the toes of her footwear. In these larger boots, when she changed forms, her claws wouldn’t extend through the leather. It cramped her feet, but it was better this way, except that in her normal form the boots were wearing blisters on the backs of her heels.
“Don’t fret, Darl,” she told him as she took off the other boot. “That thing has probably been watching us a while. Its dead now, and I am about to go round up the ramma so we can be away before sunrise.”
“You can’t catch...” Darl stopped himself when he realized that she probably could catch the animals.
“Just be ready to get them harnessed up as I drive them in.” She said.
“And you, mister wizard, can’t you find a spell that will put out that blaze?” she punched Xavian in the arm. “Make rain or something.”
A few hours later the blazing tree was behind them. Xavian’s attempt to blow out the flames with a magical breeze had only fanned them to new heights. If it wasn’t for all of the snow, caked on the living trees around it, the whole forest might have caught fire.
Dawn found them not long after that. They moved with haste, constantly searching the sky and forest around them for more of the Hoar Witch’s creatures, but nothing revealed itself.
As the afternoon wore on, a false sense of security came over them. Then the sky bulked up and turned a deep shade of grey. Soon, thick, pillowy snowflakes were falling all around.
Chapter
Nine
Old Master Wiggins
was dancing at the fair.
He did a flip, but then he slipped,
upon his homemade hair.
– A Parydon street ditty
Vanx and Chelda could walk, even jog, in a fully upright position now, so Thorn crawled back onto Poops’ back and rode. It was much easier for the elf to maintain himself since Poops wasn’t wearing his thick-furred vest. The regular strap harness Vanx had left on Poops provided a far better handhold than the tufts of fur from before, and after putting Edric-Outs behind them, they began moving much faster.
The exhilarating energy still surging from the battle berries allowed both Vanx and Chelda to maintain a steady trot. They stopped to walk for short stretches, usually in the villages and inhabited caves they came across. Their pauses were as much to keep from smashing anyone underfoot as to catch their breath. They stopped and sat by a pond for a little while and they ate the moss bread cookies that Thorn produced from the basket the brownie girl had given him to carry.
Vanx’s normally insistent curiosity was dampened by the berries’ effects, so he only made cursory observations of what he saw. If he and the Underland somehow survived this madness he would come back and take in all the splendor of the place. If they didn’t survive, it didn’t really matter.
Some things they came upon on as they moved down the Tinker’s Way passage were impossible for the curious young Zythian to ignore, though. Citadel Lake as it was called, was one such sight. More than a dozen acres of glassine water spread out under a high-domed roof that dripped wicked-looking stalactites. The area smelled of spring flowers and cool liquid. The smooth surface of the water was broken only by the occasional plop of mineral-rich seep water dripping from the sharp spikes above, as well as the rippling “V”-shaped wakes spreading out behind the blue and orange swans that were swimming along. Skinny, long-limbed gnome children were riding the aggravated water fowl to and from the half-dozen flower-covered islands Vanx could see spread across the lake.
The whole cavern was illuminated by chandelier-like beards of the same glowing green moss they had seen in the terrace, back before Edric-Outs. Up among the stalactites, in the gently wavering reflection the lake sent back up, Vanx saw several bright yellow hummingbirds, a few sprites, and their larger fae cousins, all darting about purposefully in the shadows.
Vanx found it hard to imagine that above the cavern roof somewhere, were granite-formed mountains and snowy forests. He pondered that idea and concluded that there possibly wasn’t any of that up there after all. They were in a different plane of existence, a reality inside another reality, held stable by the magic of the Heart Tree. Normally he would have asked a dozen questions and still been curious after they were answered, but the effect of the battle berries had him feeling the urgency to get on with the business at hand. Not only that, but he also felt the absence of the pixie queens’ beckoning and knowing that they were too late to save her only lent to his desire to end this.
Another sight he couldn’t completely ignore was the garden of crystals. The series of chambers where fairies—which appeared to Vanx to be only larger sprites called by a different name—and gnomes nurtured and helped grow the multi-colored shards. It was like passing through the heart of a gemstone, or roaming a forest of colorful crystalline trees. Here glittered ruby red; over there sapphire and even diamond ice. There were jutting towers of emerald, as long as a man is tall.
A cavern full of light-stealing black crystals was equally impressive, but Vanx could sense the potential for evil lurking under their multifaceted surfaces, just like he could sense the myriad of powers emanating from the others.
At one point, in that almost lifeless chamber, Vanx began to feel the heart leaf at his chest struggling to keep his way illuminated. It was as if the gleaming onyx shards were sapping the power from the medallion. Needless to say, they didn’t linger, and as soon as they were clear Vanx was overcome with a feeling of relief.
Citadel was the next place they came upon. Its very existence was a wonder
to behold: an entire miniature city spread out across a massive cavern. At its farthest reaches Vanx could see part of the lake they’d passed earlier. It wound back around to touch the metropolis at an abandoned looking quay. Some parts of the city were tiny; others were sized for gnomes, and still others for brownies. There were even a few larger buildings, where elves or pixies might dwell or do business. Set back in wide, flat niches along the cavern walls, at various levels, and connected by zigzagging lanes, was what appeared to be entire neighborhoods and farmsteads.
The place smelled like a city, too—wood smoke, forge fires, cooking, and the ever-present stench of offal that no metropolis could avoid.
There were several caveways, both large and small, leading away from the city, but apparently the road they were on was the only one they needed to take, for Thorn didn’t lead Poops down any other.
Vanx didn’t have to ask why the place looked deserted, and that particular observation only urged the group on, toward the nexus. A few of Citadel’s inhabitants paused to give Vanx and Chelda a look. Mostly children and matronly creatures who were too saddened by the murder of their queen, and worried for their loved ones, to garner much hope from the two huge beings. Vanx tried to ease their concerns with reassuring nods and grim smiles, but doubted that it did much good. The fathers and mothers, the sisters and husbands, of all these remaining people had gone on to battle evil. They were most likely under-equipped and unskilled against a rotten, vicious witch who had already killed their queen and Gallarael.
That thought made him wince.
Not long after leaving Citadel behind, they came upon a troop of all sorts of fae folk. The group was being led by an elf wearing silver chainmail and a battle helmet. On either side of him, two pixies hovered. They were similarly sized, carried wicked recurved bows and wore brightly painted, plated vests. Vanx noticed that the fiercest-looking of them was the female. The troupe was headed back to the Citadel, they learned, to take another passage to some other fairy mound entrance. The group seemed encouraged by the gargan-sized help that had arrived, but other than the three leading them, they had little in the way of armor or weapons and didn’t have the look of skilled fighters.
The elf leading them deferred to Thorn’s rank, and openly gawked in reverence at his dog-riding superior. This didn’t surprise Vanx, but Chelda seemed a little mystified by the idea of Thorn holding some sort of high position among his people.
The two elves conferred briefly, then Thorn dismissed the other with a salute. Vanx caught the eyes of a battle-ready pixie girl as she started to blush and look away, but stopped herself. She puffed up her chest and held out her chin in a show of courage. Vanx wondered how many battle berries the two-foot-tall warrioress had eaten, and if it was enough for her to keep her courage when she faced off with one of those wolfen monsters. Vanx gave her a firm, reassuring nod, even though he had a strong feeling that this ill-fortified group was marching off to its demise.
A short while later, the murmuring of many voices and the general clamor of a crowd could be heard ahead of them. Thorn caught the attention of two little sprite men who had been buzzing about and gave them some orders in their high-pitched language. They zipped off ahead and disappeared just as the clog of fairy folk threatened to block their way.
Beyond the jam of people trying to get into the nexus Vanx could see an enormous cavern open up. It was illuminated in a bright purple glow. Apparently though, after a few dozen paces, the floor fell away, for all Vanx could see beyond that were a few sets of shimmering wings here and there as they reflected the source of the radiant lavender light.
“Silence!” an eerie feminine voice, that was as much in Vanx’s head as it was outside of it, said in crisp, perfectly spoken Zythian. “Silence all! Open a path to me from the Tinker’s Way.”
“Did you hear that?” Chelda asked.
Poops twisted to look at Vanx and nearly tossed Thorn from his back. A warm, uncertain sense of puzzlement passed from the dog to him. This caused the fae folk ahead of them to turn and gasp.
“That was the Interpratarion,” Thorn said, while leaning forward to give Poops a reassuring scratch behind the ears. “The speaker’s words find their way to all, and in the language to which they are most receptive. Gnomish, Elven, Spritish, even common trade tongue, Zythian, and all canine variations. It’s a handy device at times like this.”
“Make way!” the voice called again. “He has returned! General Foxwise Posy-Thorn has returned with the queen’s champion.”
A cheer rose up then, and the people parted for Thorn and his two giant companions. Many calls of excitement rose through the din of the sad and angry fairy people, and more than a few encouraging battle cries rang out.
The air in the chamber had a strong, wholesome smell to it, like freshly tilled earth. Vanx glanced behind him and saw that the avenue of people was closing up as quickly as it was clearing ahead of them. When he turned back, he saw the most wondrous marvel of the Underland before him.
The cavern’s floor was shaped like a deep bowl and was packed with colorfully clad fairy folk of all sorts. Dangling from the roof were what Vanx thought first to be stalactites, but on closer inspection he saw that they were dangling roots. Some of them were thin and spidery and hung almost all the way to the floor, like climbing ropes; others were thicker and twisted around each other. These came all the way down, forming barrel-sized columns that rooted down through the rocky floor. There were seven of these root-formed columns, Vanx counted, and they were spaced in a roughly even circle around a raised dais in the center of the chamber they formed.
Other roots hung down and branched out, forming inverted candelabra shapes with clusters of glowing, fist-sized purple fruits, or maybe they were nuts. These radiated the bright lavender light that illuminated all but the center area inside of the perimeter of the seven root-formed columns. In some places the clusters of glowing vegetation were held together like giant bunches of grapes. The light under these was brighter and slightly whiter than the rest of the great nexus.
Centered inside the pillars, atop the dais, was a starkly empty ivory throne.
A few feet away from the empty seat, an orb the size of a human head was hovering and pulsing a deep shade of blue. Clustered around the orb were seven ancient-looking fae, all of whom were the human-child-size of the elves and pixies. Their expressions were dire, but they didn’t seem to have lost all hope. Vanx couldn’t tell which of them had wings, and the vibrant colors of distinction had been leached from the hair and beards of all but two of them.
“Welcome home, General Posy-Thorn,” the oldest of the group said with her right hand palming the pulsing Interpratarion.
Her words found Vanx’s ears in his native Zythian tongue, just as it had earlier. “And welcome, mighty Emerald Eyes. Your arrival has been eagerly hoped for, and we beg of you to hear our need.”
“Tell them to take me to the Shadowmane, Thorn,” Chelda said.
“There is no time for this.”
The group was almost down to the circle of root columns when Chelda drew out her sword and brandished the bright blue glowing blade. A wave of gasps rippled around the nexus.
“There is your real champion,” Vanx said, as they stepped into the slightly radiant purple field. The voices of the crowd faded slightly and a warm tingling sensation enveloped him. He was in the nexus.
Chapter
Ten
There is a place so gloomy,
so dark and oh so cold.
Down in those depths a monster dwells,
the dungeons of Rimehold.
– Frosted Soul
“We are being peaced,” Darl said in hushed tones as he, Gallarael, and Xavian worked their way up a relatively steep grade toward the last ridge that separated them from Saint Elm’s Deep. The midafternoon sky was a whirl of steel and ash. They had lost a day already to the heavy snowfall and low visibility, and it was still snowing light, dusty flakes. The wind had picked up, too. Darl sto
pped his ramma and was squinting under a stiff-armed salute at something not far away from him.
“What?” Xavian asked rather loudly. “We’re being what?”
“Peaced. Paced.” Darl strained the accent out of his words. “Followed, tracked, stalked.” He urged his ramma back into its slow, steady pace before Xavian could ask another question.
“By what?” Gallarael eased her ramma up. The natural switchback ledge they were ascending was wide enough for them to ride two abreast, but Gallarael had no intention of taking another tumble. She worked her reins to keep her ramma’s head right to the tail of Xavian’s mount. The fall from here wasn’t even close to sheer, but it was fairly steep, and where the hearty pines and furs weren’t grasping the mountainside, there were all sorts of upthrusts and outcroppings of icy, snow-covered rock. She would have had more confidence if she were on foot and in her more dexterous form. As she waited to hear Darl’s answer to her question, she contemplated the consequences of having to suddenly shapeshift if they were attacked. It occurred to her then that there was no real need to wait on whatever was out there to come to them.
“A peer of welves, I think,” Darl told them. “They’re not coming closer. They’re just keeping peace.”
“Watching us?” Xavian asked, trying to mask his fear with contempt.
“Leading us, more like,” Darl replied under his breath.
“Here!” a raspy voice hissed right into Darl’s ear, startling both him and his ramma mount. “Take them.”
Gallarael, in her dark-skinned, ember-eyed beast form, hissed. She was offering the reins of her terrified ramma to him. “I’ll meet you at the ridge.”
“Be careful, Gal,” Xavian urged.
“Be ready, mage,” she returned.
She then tore off her fur coat, threw it to Xavian and scrabbled on all fours off into the blustery wind.
That Frigid Fargin Witch (The Legend of Vanx Malic) Page 6
