A Gossamer Lens (The Legend of Vanx Malic Book 10)

by M. R. Mathias

  Just to test the draw, as fast as a flash, he drew and nocked an arrow in one smooth motion. He loosed on a fist-sized knothole in a not-so-distant tree, and hit it at the edge. He was just about to gloat, but another arrow hit the same knothole dead center.

  “Yah, Moonsy.” Chelda chuckled her approval and restarted them into the forest along the riverbed, toward the distant mountains. Eventually, she found the edge of dense foliage along the banks. Here, they could follow the river’s course but not have to fight everything it gave life to, or be exposed in its open wash out.

  The trees allowed splotches and golden rays of sunlight through. The occasional squirrel stirred a branch or knocked a leaf loose. The sound of dripping water, as if it were raining, filled the silence. It wasn’t rain, but some effect of the fog caused by the frigid water and the warmer air around them.

  There were birds, but their calls were distant. There were insects, too, and Vanx noticed that a few of the trees, further from the river, had leaves that had started to turn yellow already.

  He decided, when they camped that night, he would check and see if the Goss had woven him another lens.

  Chelda hushed them just as they neared the road.

  Through Poops’s keen hearing, Vanx detected the whinny of horses and the jingle of tack. He listened even closer and could pick out the sound of wagon wheels rolling over the shell-packed road. Two wagons, he figured, and maybe six mounted guards with them.

  The wagons were pulled by haulkatten. He knew their scent well. One of them had once helped him escape Duke Martin’s assassins, in this very forest. He wondered what had happened to that brave animal but decided there was no way to know.

  The wagons and guards came toward the group and, by the slow speed of their procession, they were in no hurry. Waiting them out was annoying, but Poops and Master Ruuk used the time to take a nap, which is what Vanx would have done if he wasn’t so on edge.

  He found the day had grown warm enough that his skin was glazed with sweat, but he knew he would need a blanket at night, or Gallarael’s warm body. He glanced at her, just to make sure she was in human form, and grinned when he found her staring back at him.

  Once the men, who were moving wagons overloaded with ore from Highlake, were past, Vanx ushered his companions across the road. From there, they took the river’s washout, figuring that no one from the kingdom would be stupid enough to go deeper into the wild.

  They made good time then, stopping when they could see a safe place to teleport to. They gained so much ground this way, they were deep in the foothills by nightfall and would be able to teleport to a ridge, which would save them another day or more, as soon as the sun came up.

  For the first time since they started toward the sapphire gem-seed’s destination, Vanx had hope they might get there in time to keep the world from coming apart. He doubted they would even need all the climbing gear they’d brought, but he wasn’t going to ditch it just yet.

  “There are no fires along the road,” Gallarael commented when she and Vanx were on watch. It was late. Vanx knew Gallarael hadn’t seen the campfires from all the koble packs when they’d come through the forest the first time, for she’d been teetering on the brink of death and full of fang flower venom. What Vanx remembered was climbing a tree, looking back, and seeing the hundreds of fires in the woods all around them, nearly shitting his britches over it.

  From this elevated vantage, they could see the Wildwood stretching out all the way to the edge of the sea. Hundreds of orange specks, scattered haphazardly across the forest, wavered and fluttered like stationary fireflies. Each represented the camp of a band of wolf-riding kobles. There was a clear area, a fairly straight line, with an elegant “S” curve near the river, where there were no fires at all.

  The protected road that led from Dyntalla, north, all the way to Waterdon.

  Vanx peeked in the box, but only fast enough to see there was no web in the looking glass. He wasn’t surprised to find there wasn’t. During their watch, he opened the Tomb of Arbor. He thumbed through its pages, looking at the different trees he recognized. He decided that, by reading the names of them written under the sketches in the strange script, he might start to understand the language.

  Just a short while after Vanx fell asleep, the whole world shook violently. The strength of his newfound hope of quickening the sapphire gem-seed in time to save the world was stretched as thin as twine once he realized what was happening.

  “The Lanch has come,” Chelda screamed in a panic.

  “Nah, nah, nah!” Master Ruuk grumbled. “It is just a quake.”

  “Just a quake?” Moonsy asked.

  “The world is out of sync, remember, just like the waves. The mountains will be off balance, too,” Master Practon said reassuringly. It was his watch, and he stood a few steps from the camp, facing the others.

  A small after-tremor rippled beneath them, and Poops let out a long howl.

  “Are we safe here?” The camp was at the edge of a cliff face, and Vanx looked into the dark, trying to see if anything might fall on them. He could only see enough to know it was too late.

  “I’d think if anything was going to smash us it wou—”

  Master Practon was cut off when a wagon-sized chunk of mountainside impacted the ground just fifteen strides out from the cliff. The Zythian dove fleetly at the camp to avoid the impact. He landed bad, and then took the brunt, as all of them were showered with chips and shattered debris.

  A rain of pebbles and rocks followed and, though they were sheltered from it by hugging the cliff face, none of them felt safe until dawn gave light to the fact that everything was once again still.

  Chapter

  Seven

  Across the land he flew

  on a brilliant flaming steed.

  Brandishing old Ornspike

  in the kingdom’s time of need.

  –The Ballad of Ornspike

  Vanx used the healing power of the Glaive of Gladiolus on Master Practon’s wounds, which were minor. When dawn came, they teleported to a ridge in the distance. Vanx knew they were getting close. He also knew they were now in giant territory, for he could smell fire smoke, roasting meat, and a feral, not-quite-human, scent that had to be the giants.

  He’d seen a real mountain giant once. Not the hill giants, like the Paragon had dazed with his evil. They were more or less just large stupid humans. The mountain giants around here were savage, cannibalistic brutes. Just before Duke Martin’s assassins, and the mountain trolls, attacked the caravan that night so long ago, Vanx saw one. It had been hunkered in the crags, right near where they’d set up camp. Vanx remembered just how big it was. It was easily half again as tall as the biggest ogre; more than twice Chelda’s height, with legs as thick as a tree, broken teeth, and claws so filthy that even a scratch might cause one to lose a limb.

  “We are now in giant territory,” Vanx announced. He led the group a short way down the slope, on the seaward side, to a relatively flat area that was too hard to have any grass growing on it. There he took a knee, carefully took out the Tome of Arbor and found the page with the map on it.

  “When we go back over, we will be in the land of the giants,” Vanx told them but didn’t look up from the page he was studying.

  “If we encounter a band of them, and can make nice,” he paused and looked up at Chelda, “we may not get smashed and eaten.”

  “If we make quiet, we might not be noticed at all,” Moonsy said.

  “Yah,” Chelda agreed with her lover.

  “Giantkind is said to be in tune with the nature around it,” Master Practon said. Master Ruuk was nodding his agreement, and Vanx remembered the lessons he’d been taught. “They will know we are here.” The Zythian spell caster shrugged. “We just have to avoid looking like a threat.”

  “Or a meal,” Gallarael said with a grin.

  Vanx took a chance and peeked in the wooden box. Once again, he wasn’t surprised to see there still wasn’t a new web,
but when he felt the Goss’s bite, as it burrowed into his hand, he was angered.

  Poops felt the unease, and through him, Moonsy felt it, too.

  “What is this Vanx?” she asked. “What did that spider do?”

  “It gets inside me,” he told them the truth. “It just makes me feel its intention. It doesn’t control me or anything.”

  “Why would you say that, love?” Gallarael asked. “No one thinks you are being controlled.”

  Vanx saw the “he has gone mad” look she gave Moonsy and Chel but didn’t feel like defending himself. The Goss urged him where they needed to go, and he could tell it wanted out of him just as badly as he wanted to be rid of it. They both wanted to see this through, though, so Vanx decided to suffer the ill feeling and try and find a way to exploit the connection.

  Looking back at the map, he remembered exactly where they needed to go. As soon as he put away the tome, and the looking glass case, he pointed to a rise a few valleys over. “Just beyond that point, where the two valleys converge, is our location.”

  “Gather in,” Master Ruuk said.

  “Wait, wait.” Vanx shook his head, but it was the Goss feeding the words, and images to his mind. No, they were memories of what he’d seen through the gossamer lens. The valley, its shape, and the inhabitants dwelling there.

  “There is a small band of giants living in the valley.” Vanx sighed. “The Goss cares not for them, but I would rather run them off than kill them.”

  “Agreed,” Moonsy and Master Ruuk said at the same time.

  “Can’t we sneak in and smash the gem?” Gallarael asked. “I mean, one of the good masters could teleport you and Chelda to the location and you could smash the seed, then teleport back while the giants are lost in confusion.”

  “It is a good plan,” Chelda said.

  “It is a good plan,” Master Ruuk said, “but we have to teleport there to enact it.” He pointed at the ridge Vanx indicated earlier. “This cold mountain air is making my bones ache, and I want to be done with this business.”

  “I thought you said it was never this easy,” Gallarael smirked.

  “It is your plan.” Vanx laughed at her.

  “I know, but you and Chelda always say it is never that easy.” She grinned. “What makes this time any different?”

  “Nothing does, love,” Vanx answered grimly. “Your plan is a good one, but that doesn’t mean it won’t go wrong.”

  “Yah.” Chelda laughed. “We should bring Master Practon with us.” Chelda gave Vanx a look. “Just to make sure we get away after I crush the gem.”

  “Master Practon?” Vanx waited on his response.

  “I’ll go,” he nodded. “I will.”

  “Good,” Vanx said. “Then take us all to this side of yon ridge, Master Ruuk. The rest of you can wait on us there.”

  Chapter

  Eight

  All ends will have beginnings,

  and each one will be new.

  Where you go, when you reach the end,

  is only up to you.

  – A tavern song

  When the group appeared, they made such a clatter that, going undetected became an impossibility. They couldn’t have known there were giants living in the crags around the upper reaches of the valley, near where Master Ruuk’s spell took them. But here was a pair of tree-trunk, club-wielding giants looking down at them as if they’d found something for dinner.

  “Go,” Master Ruuk said as he cast a spell that flash-blinded the two giants by exploding a flare so bright it nearly eclipsed the sun.

  “We will find you in the foothills,” Gallarael said.

  “There, by that lone copse of white flowering trees, the ones that look like frozen pine cones, by the open stream bed.” Vanx pointed for Master Practon.

  “I see them.” He nodded and started casting.

  Vanx made the decision to continue without the others. Master Ruuk could get them out into the hills, away from the hornets’ nest they’d just stirred up. But Moonsy and Poops made a decision of their own.

  When the group appeared in the bottom of the valley, near the strange looking trees, Poops, with Moonsy on his back, was there with them.

  Vanx decided it didn’t matter. Master Ruuk and Gallarael had a better chance of getting away by themselves.

  “Here, Chel.” Vanx ran a few paces, to a larger river stone that had a semi-flat top.

  He fumbled out a rolled oil cloth and unraveled it. The fist-sized gem-seed sparkled under the sun in shades from periwinkle, to cobalt, and every facet of blue in between. Then Vanx backed away, urging the others to run up the river bank.

  There was a deep, earth rumbling sound, and the world shook.

  It was another quake, Vanx knew. He heard Chelda yell out and looked back just as soon as he could.

  He was relieved when he saw the huge hammer come down on the gem, but the flash of blue energy that erupted then caused him to see splotches and smears in his eyes, for a time.

  The river bed was so much lower than the outlying terrain that only a portion of jewel dust was able to expand from the seed. He stabbed Chelda with the Glaive of Gladiolus just as soon as she joined them. Her ankles were shredded by the explosion of dust and stone chips the Heart Tree seed emitted, but the tree grew, and once its roots sank deep enough, they would keep the world from coming apart for the time being.

  If they could get out of there, they could rest a little easier.

  “Let’s go,” Vanx said. Through Poops’s keen nose, he could smell the anger coming from the approaching giants.

  Though he indicated that master Practon should teleport them away, he didn’t take his bright-burned eyes off the Heart Tree.

  To his surprise it was some sort of fir tree. It grew fast and tall and, through the Goss, he could feel its roots reaching deep into the earth. A few needles fell, each the size of knitting pins, and he found he had to crane his head way back to see the tree’s sharp top.

  “They are coming,” Chelda reminded.

  Poops added a peel of warning barks as well. Vanx shook his head. Up until the dog let loose, they might have gotten away undetected, leaving the giants to wonder at the new Heart Tree.

  Master Practon urged them together, and then teleported them back to where they’d left from.

  Why he chose that place, Vanx couldn’t have guessed, but he had.

  What they saw when they appeared broke his heart into so many pieces that he could do little else but collapse. Poops sensed it, too. He let out a long, low sorrow-filled whine.

  Master Ruuk, or his upper half, lay half atop Gallarael’s impossibly twisted, half-shifted form.

  She was dead. Her lower half had been forced around more than once, as if the giants had tried to tear her in half, but couldn’t break her hardened skin.

  Vanx darted toward her, even though the two giants sat on each side of her corpse, each eating one of Master Ruuk’s legs. He dove at her form, and as he went, he drew the Glaive of Gladiolus. He landed and tumbled in a somersault right up to the bodies. When he came to his feet, he stabbed her with the elven sword of healing, just in case there was a chance.

  Then he let loose a spell that sent one of the giants flailing into the trees, as if he were a rag in the wind.

  Vanx went to unleash on the other giant, too, but a net came down over him. Something about the rope the net was made of cut him off from everything he was feeling, save for the Goss, who insisted he open the box so it could flee to safety.

  What had happened here?

  Vanx managed to say the words that opened the looking glass case. He felt a wave of relief wash over him when the spider emerged from his skin and leapt into his satchel. Once the Goss clicked itself inside the handle, Vanx fought back his tears and made sure the satchel was buckled closed.

  “It is dampening my ability,” Master Practon said, and Vanx saw that Moonsy, Poops, and the Zythian spellcaster were under a different net, and at least a half dozen giants stooped to see
what had just killed their kin.

  Vanx couldn’t even find the will to be concerned about the situation. Gallarael was dead. King Russet would never forgive him, nor would he ever forgive himself. Oddly he was as thankful, as he was shattered, for as big as the hole inside him was, he wouldn’t have been able to bare losing Poops, too.

  Moonsy, too, sobbed, and through Poops, Vanx found he felt her guilt over coming with he and Chelda instead of staying with Master Ruuk and Gal.

  He was glad she’d come. She and Poops would have died with them had she not. But now he wasn’t sure a similar fate didn’t await them all, anyway.

  Chapter

  Nine

  Off beside the water

  far away from everyone,

  the fishes keep my company

  while I soak in all the sun.

  – Parydon Cobbles

  They were hauled to an area of the valley turf, opposite the Heart Tree, and tied with magic-sapping rope, to a series of thick, well-driven, wooden stakes. The ropes were made from the same material as the nets they’d been captured in, and Vanx could feel them leeching any arcanery he tried to manufacture. His satchel was in a pile with their weapons and packs, and he had no idea where Poops had been taken. He hadn’t been able to feel his familiar for some time and it drove him mad. He knew some cultures ate dogs, and these barbaric bastards might just be that sort. His ire was pushed to the point of explosion but there was naught he could do about it.

  He tried to keep his mind off Poops, hoping the pup had the sense to run into the thicket and hide the first chance he got, but it was hard. Gallarael was dead, and without Poops, Vanx didn’t think he could go on.

  Out, maybe thirty paces from the line of stakes, Vanx watched several younger giants—young, but still larger than Chelda—stacking river stones in piles. They stared at the group and whispered in their strange dialect. Vanx thought they looked hopeful, until he realized he was about to be stoned to death.