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

by M. R. Mathias

  He looked over and saw Moonsy sobbing and Chelda trying mightily to wriggle free of her binding. Master Practon sat still, deep in concentration. He was so still he looked as if he were in some sort of trance.

  “They mean to stone us,” Vanx whispered. Vanx was tied to the far left stake, with Master Practon to his right, Moonsy between the stony faced Zythian and Chelda.

  “I can almost get free.” Chelda glared at him.

  “They are watching you. Don’t be so obvious.”

  “I can’t believe Gallarael and Master Ruuk, are dead.” Moonsy sobbed.

  “Get over it, Moon.” Chelda’s voice was hard. “It’s done.”

  Moonsy sniffled and sucked in a deep breath. “Can either of you cast a spell?” she asked Vanx and Master Practon.

  The Zythian shook his head only slightly in the negative.

  “I can’t,” Vanx answered. “Neither can he.”

  “Sollense!” one of the older giants yelled. A well-aimed rock flew in and hit Vanx right in the chest. His breath fled him and, for several long moments, he found he had to gulp for precious air. It took three desperate tries, but his body finally relaxed and allowed him to draw a breath.

  Vanx didn’t say anything, he concentrated on breathing, and hoped beyond hope that Poops was still alive. He was glad the giants had little concern for their things. He didn’t want them tearing up the Tome of Arbor or smashing the looking glass and the Goss.

  A thought crossed his mind, and he called out.

  “Kalzafranta Murr,” he said loudly. Those were the words that unlocked the wooden looking glass case. He thought he heard it click within the satchel and was satisfied he’d accomplished what he intended, even though the giant that had just broken his ribs stalked over to him, even now.

  A face the size of a barrel keg met his. The giant stooped so his eyes were at the same level as Vanx’s, but his chin and beard were in Vanx’s lap. The giant had one great brow across its wide forehead. Its eyes were the size of cantaloupes, and they were a bright amber-brown, as deep as the sea itself. Its beard was filthy, a tangled mess of hair.

  Vanx wanted to spit in the giant’s big eye. He couldn’t believe he’d chosen to spare these crude creatures, for they were creatures, he decided. Mannish beings didn’t eat other mannish beings, it was that simple.

  Oddly, he remembered what Zeezle said about Chelda eating human flesh to survive, in that cage over the Pargon’s Citadel on Harthgar. She was a gargan not a human, though. The giant’s snarl revealed broken brown teeth and, when it spoke, its fetid breath nearly made Vanx vomit.

  “Au sau sollense.” The giant snarled. He looked at the younger of its kind and spoke jovially with an elaborate gesture of his arms. Whatever he said, the giant said it mockingly, and when it turned back, its look was no longer full of mirth. The giant used a finger almost as big as Vanx’s wrist to flip him in the forehead, and everything went black.

  Vanx woke to the sound of Moonsy screaming, and the deep laughing of the giants.

  Chelda yelled, too.

  A rock as big as Vanx’s fist bounced off his shoulder and pain shot through his every fiber. He saw that it was night. There were several torches on the tops of poles twice as tall as a man. Several giants stood by the rock piles, and they took turns trying to hit the group with rocks, one throw at a time.

  Vanx saw that Moonsy had been hit in the face. She was bleeding lavender-blue elven blood all over herself. Chelda yanked at the binding, and it appeared as if she might break free. The two giants a few paces from her, with long, crudely made pikes, looked as if they couldn’t wait for her to do so. Vanx didn’t think they’d survive long enough to know what killed them if she got loose.

  He turned back just in time to avoid the brunt of a skull-busting impact. The giants all jeered and booed at his move or the thrower’s luck. Even though he kept from taking the full force of the rock, his head rang like a bell. He thought he heard Master Practon laugh out manically, and scream, “Here we go!”

  At that point, Vanx decided he must have been knocked stupid or stuck in a nightmare, but he did his best to avoid the next rock.

  Chapter

  Ten

  They’ve eyes like cats and skin that sheds

  and golden hair upon their heads.

  They live forever, that’s a fact

  and they’ll eat your flesh just like that.

  – a sailor’s song

  Vanx could tell the giant throwing at him was angry, for the rocks were humming by him a little faster each time the giant missed. Vanx made a face at the bastard, then regretted it when he heard a stone hit Master Practon beside him. Then, for half a heartbeat, everything went still, even the giants.

  Vanx almost shit his britches as the night was consumed in a roar so powerful it could only come from one sort of creature.

  “Dragon!” he heard Moonsy yell. He saw Chelda break free, and then kick the knee joint of one of the giants. The two giants stared slack-jawed up at the roaring lightning filling the night, and as Vanx predicted, they died before they realized they were doing so.

  Vanx looked up, too. He was never as surprised as he was in that moment.

  Zeezle Croyle was mounted on a blue scaled wyrm, and it was blasting its liquid lightning breath across the score of giants gathered to watch their demise.

  Zeezle cast explosive spells right behind the fleeing bastards.

  Vanx was dumbfounded, but only until Chelda untied him.

  The moment his ropes were undone, he felt a wave of relief, like none other, flood over him.

  Poops was nearby, in a cage.

  Vanx wondered how Zeezle found them, and how he knew they needed finding. It had to be the Mirror of Portent, Vanx decided as he dove for the pile of their things and hooked his arm in the satchel before pulling the Glaive of Gladiolus out of its sheath. He stabbed himself first, then ran to Moonsy. He jabbed her, and then jabbed Master Practon. The Zythian didn’t stir, though, and it was probably a good thing. Half of his gourd was caved in, and getting revived in such a state would surely have been traumatic beyond imagining. Vanx tried again, but it was too late.

  “Get them away from Poops!” he yelled up at the hovering dragon rider.

  He envied Zeezle, but he was so relieved to know his familiar was alive and well that nothing else mattered.

  He ran, following the sound of Poops’s barking until he saw his pup. Once the cage door was opened, the dog bowled him over and licked his face. Vanx could feel the dog’s elation at seeing him again though their bond. He could also feel his sorrow, knowing Gallarael was never going to be with them again.

  Vanx forced those thoughts out of his mind and watched in awe as the elevated torches reflected in the bright blue colored wyrm’s shiny scales. It looked like a massive swarm of fireflies was all flying in concert to create its magnificent form.

  Zeezle seemed unsure about dismounting the unsettled wyrm. In fact, he started to, but seemed to change his mind.

  “I’ve not got that much control over him, Vanxy,” he called down. Zeezle looked around, confused. “I saw this happening in the piece of mirror you lent me. I almost didn’t make it in time. Where is Gal and the elves?”

  “She’s dead,” Chelda answered flatly. “Anitha, Papri, Ruuk, and Master Practon, too. Only Ronzon is alive, and he is sailing the other Zythians home about now.”

  “Oh, Vanx.” Zeezle did dismount this time. He gracefully slid from the wyrm’s back and started toward his friend. The dragon leapt into the sky, as if it were escaping.

  “Gahhh!” Zeezle yelled. “He does this. He will return.”

  “Before the giants do, I hope,” Moonsy said.

  “Yah.” Chelda laughed, and everyone, even Moonsy looked at her as if she’d lost her mind for the laugh had been full of sincere mirth.

  Vanx knew Chel was just jaded. As jaded as he was becoming.

  He met his lifelong friend with a quick brotherly hug and more than a few tears. He could
n’t believe Gallarael was dead. These giants would feel the wrath of King Russet Oakarm’s men now; men who’d been battle-tested against the Paragon Dracus and its dazed warriors. The human kingdom was about to grow because of this.

  Vanx was distracted from his newfound anger when he felt the looking glass rattling inside its open case. Remembering he’d called out the words needed to open the magic box, he took it out, hoping that a web had been spun. Not only so that they might carry on with their quest, but so he could show his old friend what he’d found, and keep his mind from dwelling on Gal’s demise.

  He was glad to see the sparkling blue lens of gossamer spider silk. Zeezle watched on curiously, keeping an eye on the sky and blowing some strange whistle no one but Poops could detect. Vanx didn’t hear the sound either, but he felt Poops’s unlike of the irritating noise. Chelda and Moonsy had seen the lens and tome before, so they reattached all their weapons and gear while looking away, watching the forest for any giants who might be bold enough to return. Both were crying, but Chelda didn’t seem aware that she was.

  Chapter

  Eleven

  Ogres are full of menace,

  ogres are full of spite.

  Once a man was fool enough

  to face one in a fight.

  – a song from Dyntalla

  When Vanx looked through the gossamer lens, he saw the great blue spruce behind him. He found he could also read several paragraphs of text beneath the sketch of the Heart Tree.

  They were standing in its Shadowmane, and Vanx could sense its budding power tingling on his skin.

  With every birth, there is a death. Your loss has already contributed to the life of another. She has given strength to this Heart Tree, the script read as if it were written directly to Vanx. The giants will guard it well. Leave them. Return to Gossolan and remember what you lost when the scent of the spruce fills your nose.

  He would remember Gallarael and Pyra, forever, even if all he could smell was shit.

  He understood, by looking at the map, and looking into the magic of the gossamer webbing, that one of the last two gem-seeds was back on Spider Island, or Gossolan, as the Tome of Arbor had called the deadly place.

  For the first time, Vanx felt that the magic of the book was greater than the Goss, or the magic webs it spun, or even the powerful looking glass. The tome used these other things to make sure that the knowledge contained inside it only found those it intended. Why it had chosen him was a question he couldn’t fathom. He was turning into one angry, bitter son of a witch, and he wasn’t sure he didn’t like it that way.

  Vanx watched the web burn away yet, after it did, certain quotes, and paragraphs were still legible to him. This excited him, but there was far more than he could read at the moment. Dozens of pages had script he could now understand.

  “We have to go back,” Vanx said, shaking his head and looking at the stars. He wondered what his goddess was doing this moment. Was she laughing at him? Was she hoping he failed, or succeeded?

  He felt guilty for having those thoughts, but his guilt was wiped away when Zeezle’s new friend flapped gracefully down among them. The forced air from the mid-sized dragon’s wings knocked over torch poles and stirred up debris.

  Poops sneezed, and Vanx couldn’t help but do the same.

  The scent of the piny spruce was strong here, easily as strong as his heart was heavy.

  “Go back where?” Moonsy and Chelda asked after the dust began to settle.

  “The island.” Vanx knew they’d not like it.

  “Figures.” Chelda grunted. “I told you we should have finished exploring it.”

  “The world would have spun apart had you not come here,” Zeezle said with enough assuredness in his voice that Chelda said no more.

  “If Ronzon, and the Adventurer, are between the Isle of Zyth and the mainland, how are we going to get there?” Moonsy asked, a little of General Gloryvine Moonseed showed through in her tone. “We can’t all ride with Zeezle.”

  “The Adventurer is turning even now.” Vanx shrugged and finished putting the looking glass and the Tome of Arbor away.

  “Yah.” Chelda grinned.

  “Zeezle will convince the Zythians to go with us. If not, his dragon will.” Vanx forced a thin smile when he saw Zeezle at the far edge of the firelight, stroking the wyrm’s scaly neck and talking soothingly to it. “Or they can stay on the ship with Ronzon. Either way, if they want to get home anytime soon, they will have to teleport there or hope we come across a ship in the trade lanes.”

  “We should bury Gallarael, Ruuk, and Master Practon, before we go,” Moonsy suggested.

  “Only Master Practon needs to be buried. Gallarael and the good master were consumed by the growing tree.” Vanx took in a slow gulp of air and watched his roiling cloud of breath when he exhaled. “It will consume him, too, before the night is done.” Vanx remembred what the book told him. “They will live on, in the tree’s very fiber, forever. And as angry as I am at the bastards, the giants are best suited to guard it, out here in the deep mountains.”

  “I cannot argue that.” Moonsy nodded. “This is one Heart Tree, good King Longroot, may not want to claim, but I may be wrong.”

  “If you make me big again, like you did on Harthgar, I can kill a few of them.” Chelda grunted her disapproval of the revelation. “There will still be enough left to keep it safe.”

  “I was only able to do that because I had the power of Pyra’s teardrop, Chel. I left it in Harthgar. You saw what they did to that big blue bastard. And we won’t be killing any of the giants unless they try and stop us on our way out.” Deep down, Vanx felt the same as Chelda. “Since we’ve no Zythian’s left to teleport us, we have a hike to get to.”

  “I’m a Zythian, you half-heathen, dirf.” Zeezle’s offense was clearly feigned. “I teleported so many groups of refugees in the war with the Trigon that I can do it in my sleep.”

  Vanx had teleported quite a few groups, too, but the power of the towers was active then, and it allowed all users of location based arcanery to sense where they were in the world. Now that they were destroyed, Vanx could only teleport to a place he could see, and even then, only he and Poops and maybe one other. Only the fae, the Zythians, and the more practiced human mages, could teleport great distances, or large numbers of people, these days.

  “Take us to the coast then,” Vanx finally said. When he smiled this time, it wasn’t faked. Something was actually going right for a change.

  “Take us somewhere between that ogre-infested river mouth and Dyntalla, please, Zeezle.” Moonsy gave Chelda’s thigh a squeeze. “As much as Chelda wants to vent her anger and frustration, I think it would be of better use against all those spiders waiting for us on that island.”

  “Bah,” Chelda scoffed and eased over to have a closer look at Zeezle’s wyrm. “I’m not too keen on those farkin’ spiders, Moon.”

  Vanx looked at the sinuous dragon, too. It was only half the size Kelse had been. She’d held Zeezle’s heart as Pyra held Vanx’s. This wyrm was a male, and clearly Zeezle was no longer consumed by the loss of the mighty green dam he’d once ridden.

  Vanx couldn’t boast as much. For now, all he was capable of doing was mourning.

  Chapter

  Twelve

  A dragon hoards its treasure.

  A dragon guards its haunts.

  Where does a dragon lay its head?

  Why anywhere it wants.

  – Dragon’s song

  When dawn came, Master Practon was laid to rest properly, though Vanx figured the giants might remove all the stones from his cairn as soon as they found another victim to throw them at. It didn’t matter, in a day or two, the tree would have fully claimed his physical body.

  Zeezle teleported them, first to a distant ridge, then to a coastal glade about half a day’s walk from the sea. They were in Gallarael’s brother’s kingdom here, but so far away from any populace that Vanx wasn’t worried about being bothered. This was the d
readed Wildwood, after all. Humans didn’t venture here.

  The glade was small, but open. The trees lining it were older and provided both shade and cover from the gusting coastal wind. Vanx found a trunk, sat down, and leaned back against it.

  Poops eased over to his side, the dog’s tongue lolling as he came.

  He knew his pup was glad to be rid of Moonsy’s saddle for a while. After a few minutes of ear scratching and back rubbing, the dog turned two complete circles, in place, then plopped down in the middle and closed his eyes.

  It would take another day and a half for the ship to make its way to them so Vanx buried himself in the Tome of Arbor and tried to keep his mind occupied.

  As he read, he gathered many of the passages were written by different people, in different eras. Most of the earlier passages were impossible to read, but the older one’s he could make out were simplistic. The newer ones were detailed and concise, if lacking any great, immediate revelations.

  He did learn that the trees filtered the air for those who took it into their bodies to live and that, for every tree, three lives could be sustained. His Zythian lesson masters had preached a different, but similar belief of the relationship between man and nature, more of a religion, but one not so thoroughly thought out and defined.

  This confirmation meant that the long felt Zythian fear of human overpopulation was anything but a foolish concern.

  He also learned a single mature oak could simultaneously host seven hundred seventy-seven forms of life, as one of the tome’s authors claimed to have catalogued.

  Vanx read through all of them and decided that the man was likely correct. High predators, like owls, and hawks, had been listed. Grifting crows and lesser carrion, songbirds, squirrels, snakes, and cougars. Not to mention the plethora of insects and fae. Even the different types of moss and lichen were notated.