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

by M. R. Mathias

The other savants followed the woman’s lead and blasted groups of the enemy and huge craters into the ground.

  “Do you still want me to ask them to bend a knee, to King Longroot?” Moonsy asked.

  Vanx knew the question was rhetorical, but the female savant who had started the powerful blasting answered her anyway.

  “If you get them to sit still for the question, I’ll kill them all before you can finish asking,” the savant responded with vehemence in her tone.

  For a member of a sect that didn’t lend themselves to violent causes very often, the remaining savants were doing a large amount of damage. Of course, they’d just watched one of their fellows get squeezed in half and another fall dead in his tracks from poison.

  Zeezle, who had been keeping the huge centipede occupied during all of this, looked like he might need some help.

  Vanx formed a powerful fist of energy. He took in the strange brown, multi segmented thing. Its scores of legs were bright yellow. They stood out against the colorless ash, and they all had little thorny spurs along the joints. It used these as it snaked around and slid past the Zythian savant separated from the rest.

  Like an impossibly fast-moving lumber saw, those thorny spurs tore through the Zythians magic and deep into the savant’s body. And now it was about to get Zeezle from behind with its other end.

  Vanx’s blast pulsed forth just in the nick of time, for Zeezle’s sweat-stained blouse was ripped wide open, and he would have been, too. Instead, the centipede was flung away, in two separate pieces, one midway up, into the dead Heart Tree, the other out among the insects and fae who quickly cannibalized it as they continued toward the group.

  Vanx heard the cracking of wood and turned his eyes away from the strange looking, now completely hollowed out exoskeleton of the creature that had just chopped a savant in half.

  The Heart Tree was falling.

  Vanx let the remaining savants sizzle and scorch the fae who ventured too close to Moonsy’s shielding, but he urged Moonsy toward the tree since it was slowly tilting away from them.

  The dead trunk crashed into the ground and fractured into little more than firewood-sized chunks of porous debris, and then the world around them seemed to stop.

  A strange shrieking howl, coming from within the alcove, cut through the morning. Then a lavender glow radiated out and down the stairs, illuminating the depths of the cavern they all found themselves staring at.

  Even the creatures had stopped when the tree hit. And now, everything around Vanx and his group looked at the tainted glow. Vanx couldn’t describe the wrongness he felt, but he knew it was evil.

  Something roared from within the cavern, and the purple light coming from inside the alcove was eclipsed.

  Not only was there some great monster coming from some part of the cavern they couldn’t see, another centipede, this one easily three times the size of the last, squeezed its way out of the opening.

  Chapter

  Twenty-One

  They hunt and kill wild ogres

  and they live right from the land.

  You’d be better to screw the Lord’s fat wife

  than to cross a Highlake man.

  A Highlake Mountain Man.

  – Mountain Man

  “Destroy it before it gets all the way out!” Vanx heard one of the savants say.

  “Don’t do that,” Chelda yelled at the bald female casting the more potent spells. “If you kill it in the alcove, we won’t be able to get inside.”

  “We’re going inside?” the savant asked, losing her concentration.

  “Vanx,” Moonsy said. “Look up Vanx.”

  Above them, a dark feathery thing shot by. From what Vanx saw, it looked like some kind of big buzzard. He was drawn back to the cavern, though, for ducking out behind the skittery centipede was an over-muscled giant carrying a tree trunk club.

  It had pale gray skin and Vanx saw that it wasn’t a giant at all, but a cyclops. Its one eye socket, and the bridge of its hooked nose, were blackened with soot. It didn’t squint its deep sky blue eye in the sunlight as it raised its club up high in challenge.

  Movement between the undead-looking cyclops’s legs caught Vanx’s attention. He got his first glimpse of the yellow-eyed, white-haired queen of all these ill-fated fae then, but she didn’t look to be coming to join the fight.

  She did cast a spell, however, and a wavering ripple of deep translucent, purple energy pulsed out of the strange skull she was holding. As the rippling effect passed over her horde, the critters grew in size.

  Spiders that had been as big as a fist were now the size of water barrels. Cockroaches as long as horse drawn wagons, and buzzing hornets the size of well-fed dogs suddenly converged on Vanx and his group.

  At least the fae didn’t get bigger, Vanx thought as the massive buzzard flapped down where one half of the bisected savant had ended up. The only thing more disturbing than the way this battle started was when the buzzard raised its head up to chug down its morsel of Zythian flesh, and Vanx saw that it had a saddle strapped to its long neck.

  “Give us the Tome of Arbor, boy!” A not-so-intimidating female voice carried across the valley, amplified by some minor spell or another.

  So, the queen of these wretched fae is coming out after all, Vanx thought into the ethereal. Only Chelda couldn’t hear his thought voice. The Zythians, and Moonsy were all able to converse this way.

  She didn’t bother hiding her thoughts when she responded.

  “I am Queen Spidera and, for your insolence, I will show you wretched.” Her tone grew louder, and angrier, and might have caused a shiver to run down Vanx’s spine.

  Vanx heard a roar, far too close beside him, and turned just in time to see Zeezle hold up his hand and sword in a defensive gesture. The cyclops’s club pounded down on his best friend just as something else crashed into Moonsy’s shielding, breaking her spell. They were all knocked to the ground, and Vanx’s heart was in his throat for he’d just seen Zeezle pummeled flat by the cyclops. When he looked up, he saw that same tree trunk club was coming down at him.

  He rolled away. The robed Zythian nearest him rolled with him, but the female savant who had blasted all the divots around the tree wasn’t as fortunate. The club sank into the earth, smashing her deep down into it. One of her arms from the elbow out, and one leg, that hadn’t been impacted, lifted up away from the dirt slightly quivering.

  “Chelda,” Vanx yelled.

  “Yah,” she replied. He could tell by the tone of her voice that Moonsy was alive, and that she didn’t know Zeezle had just been smashed.

  “The Tome of Arbor, boy!” The fae queen’s voice was menacing now. “And the gossamer lens or my Assembly of Forgotten will eat the living flesh right off your bones.”

  Vanx decided her voice was fully intimidating now, for the sky immediately around the group filled with dark-eyed, black-winged fae creatures. The ground beyond them was a carpet of crawling things with stingers, pinchers, and spinnerets and, grunting to pull his club out of the ground right beside them, was the bastard cyclops.

  Vanx turned and had to hold the last word of his spell on the tip of his tongue for Chelda took a sideways, tree cutter chop with her war hammer. She was right beside the cyclops. Her head was right at the level of its knee.

  The hammer had come from Pyra’s lair, and Vanx had no idea how powerful it was, so it didn’t surprise him when it shattered the cyclops’s shin bone, causing its leg to fold backwards between knee and ankle.

  Chelda must have sensed Vanx’s attack, for she jump-stepped out of the way without even glancing at him.

  Vanx loosed his spell then, and with it came all the rage and sorrow over losing General Foxwise Posey-Thorn, Brody, Trevin, Maddy, Master Rukk, Pyra, Gallarael, and now Zeezle. There were more, he knew, so many more that had died in his wake. But that trend of leaving a trail of destroyed confusion behind him was about to change.

  The cyclops’s chest deflated in a deep, ripple-causing crater when
Vanx’s tempus fist spell hit it full on. Then the cyclops stumbled backward, its thick arms windmilling in vain, some of its ribs sticking out of its back.

  Quite a few of the insects moved to the cyclops and consumed it while it plead out loud, in a raspy pleading voice, a prayer to a god called Polyxemus, in a language Vanx could vaguely understand.

  This seemed to enrage Queen Spidera, and she stepped off the stairs. Her eyes glowed bright yellow, and the elven skull in her left her hand floated out of her grasp. In her right hand, she hefted her trident into throwing position and charged out of the cavern.

  From an impossible distance, she launched the thing. It gained speed as it went, until it streaked so fast that Vanx barely even saw it.

  It came down on the other side of the cyclops’s club, and Vanx’s heart fell from his throat to his bowels.

  He heard a wet, ripping thud and Chelda’s huffed grunt. Moonsy gasped out a sob. Vanx jumped onto the tree trunk club separating them and saw that Chelda had been impaled. All three blades had gone completely through her and stuck into the ground. There was a wide slash right across her middle where the whole head of the weapon had passed through, and only the shaft of the fae queen’s trident was keeping her upright.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Two

  That spike has always been there

  sticking right out of the sea.

  Through tempest storms, and crashing waves

  that spike will always be.

  – A sailor’s song

  Vanx cast the spell he’d used to energize Poops on himself, and then shouldered Chelda over.

  “Pull it out of her, Moon,” he ordered. Moonsy, until that moment had been frozen in shock or terror. Vanx had the Glaive of Gladiolus out and stabbed Chelda thrice before the butt end pulled through and, after it was out, he stabbed her twice more.

  “Stay with her!” Vanx yelled at Moonsy, tossing her the glaive. He grabbed the savant just now coming over the cyclops’s club and teleported them to a place ten strides before Queen Spidera. Vanx started to blast her, but a handful of child-sized, bow-wielding elves appeared in a hover, surrounding he and the savant.

  “Give me the Tome and the—” Her eyelids fluttered up and a wide grin spread across her face. Up close, Vanx saw that she was ancient, most of her covered in what might have been an illusion of finely-made battle gear. What parts of her skin that were exposed looked flaky and wrinkled like crumpled parchment. The idea that she had been alive for the joyous, fruitful part of the maple’s existence, and had been missing that joy for however many eons the tree had been dead, made him shake his head. He’d already cast a potent protection around he and the brave Zythian beside him and, now, after casting another detection spell, he knew the last gem-seed was inside the skull she was holding. It was emitting all sorts of errant power.

  “Kalzafranta Murr,” Vanx heard himself say. It was the Goss speaking through him, though, since he hadn’t intended to speak the words. He heard the looking glass case in his satchel unlatch.

  The Goss crawled out of the leather bag and up Vanx’s arm. Its blue markings, even as tiny as they were, stood out in this scorched, colorless place. The Goss’s presence caused the circle of fairies hovering above to back away, if only a little bit.

  They were just outside the mouth of the cavern. Vanx could see the carvings on the columns far better now, and he noticed that the spider carved on either side of the main alcove wasn’t just a spider like the Goss. Vanx looked at his shoulder just to make sure, but the little spider leapt away from him, and landed on Queen Spidera. She laughed, and Vanx heard the Goss’s squeaky exalt of satisfaction. Vanx understood, then. The spider on these columns was the Goss.

  Vanx saw it scrabble down the queen’s mail-covered arm. It stopped on the back of her hand and emoted a sarcastic goodbye to Vanx.

  Just as Vanx realized what was happening, that the Goss had brought he and the Tome of Arbor here for Spidera and her Assembly of Forgotten to use, the little blue spider sank into her skin and she began to change.

  “Pick these off while my shield holds,” Vanx told the savant with him.

  The winged fairies loosed a few arrows, which bounced off of Vanx’s protection, and then the savant sizzled one, then another of them, until they fell from the air and landed in smoldering heaps. The others backed away, to the disapproving groan of their changing queen. Vanx saw that long spider legs had protruded from her still mannish body. Her torso, arms, and head remained nearly the same as the rest of her grew and stretched. She still had the skull containing the last gem-seed in her hands, and that was all Vanx was focused on when the centipede came from behind him and snapped its pincers closed across his middle, pinning both of his arms at his side.

  Chelda didn’t think she was going to die, not even for a moment, but it was clear Moonsy thought she’d lost her mate. The savant that remained, protected them while the glaive worked its magic on Chelda’s wounds and, even before she was healed, Chelda was ready to go help Vanx.

  Moonsy made her stay still until the healing was more complete, but then they saw the centipede sneaking up behind Vanx, who paid no attention to it.

  “I hate farkin’ spiders, Moon,” Chelda said, indicating the thing the beautiful part elven queen was turning into.

  “You go distract the centipede then,” Moonsy said. Chelda heard that the fierceness had returned to Moonsy’s voice, and she knew right then she loved the elven woman with all her heart. “I’m duty bound to end that—that—usurper.” The little elf huffed.

  The last part served to remind Chelda that she was bound to Vanx, if only by choice, for she loved him, too, more than she would ever let Moonsy know.

  With that thought in mind, they and the last savant huddled close while Moonsy teleported them out of the swarm feeding on the cyclops and into the vicinity of Vanx, the centipede that had him, and the spider-ish thing the queen had become.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Three

  It’d be wiser to jump ship,

  than to pull him from the helm.

  A witch’s get, he knows the deep,

  don’t cross Captain Saint Elm.

  – Saint Elm’s Deep

  Vanx saw Chelda, Moonsy, and one of the savants appear. The savant with Vanx, tried to help him get out of the centipede’s cutting grasp, but nothing worked. The only positives were that the long skittery thing couldn’t grab him while it had hold of Vanx, and it wasn’t trying to leave the area with its prize. Either way, Vanx’s shielding was gone, and he could feel his ribs about to snap. He’d left the Glaive of Gladiolus with Moonsy, but it wouldn’t do he or the savant any good, anyway.

  “Put the crystal at my neck in my mouth and go! Go to them,” Vanx commanded. “Tell Moonsy that the gem-seed is in that skull.” He didn’t know if the baldheaded Zyth was his elder or not, but they met gazes and he seemed willing to do as he was instructed. “Dive and roll and keep from getting stuck by one of those poisoned sticks.”

  “I will.” The man’s face looked determined. He put the finger-sized chunk of crystal in Vanx’s mouth and took Vanx’s family blade out of his hand.

  He hacked down on the pincher but the appendage was as hard as the blade was sharp. He then spun and chopped one of the centipede's antenna off, and then stuck Vanx’s sword into the ground so that Vanx might easily grab it, should he get free.

  It wasn’t likely because the multi-legged insect reared up in pain and slung Vanx to and fro. He hadn’t been bisected yet, but the pincers cut deep into his sides. At least the savant managed to tumble his way over to the others. Vanx also managed to draw on the crystal’s power. Having no one to call out to for help, he emoted the unwholesomeness of this place and called upon nature itself. He doubted it would do any good. Most of the valley was scorched, not just around the tree.

  “Shhh, my little entozoon,” the spider-limbed, elf-eared queen said aloud. “I’m about to kill them all.” She’d raised her torso near to where the inj
ured centipede held Vanx.

  Vanx thought she might have been talking to the Goss, for he knew an entozoon was a creature that lived inside a host.

  The spider queen’s clothes had torn and her perfectly shaped breasts were exposed. Somehow she still radiated beauty but, as she eased nearer to Vanx, hovering her body on those impossibly long, multi-jointed legs, he saw her skin looked like peeling whitewash, or maybe wet chalk.

  She eased up to him, some fifteen feet above the rocky ground, and licked her lips. The centipede was as still as it could be, and the spidery bitch pressed those crusty tits into him. Her one hand was bound to the levitating skull, holding it to the side, away from Vanx. It was still a normal hand, on a normal arm though, and her other hand found the satchel. She grabbed the shoulder strap and yanked it hard against the pincer that pinned the lower part of the bag to Vanx’s side. It came apart easily.

  She looked into his eyes as her face slid down his belly in an almost seductive fashion. Vanx swallowed back his own bile for he was repulsed by her deeply cragged face and jaundiced yellow eyes. He understood she used some sort of magic to make herself seem beautiful, and had he been a full-blooded human, it would have probably worked.

  Her nose slid across his crotch, and he thought his manhood might have sucked up inside him. At least he hoped it had.

  She didn’t try and tease him long. She only bothered until the satchel, now half-covered in Vanx’s thick dark blood, was worked loose. At the same time the strap slid free, Vanx used the slipperiness of his own blood to pull one of his arms out of the centipede’s grasp.

  Spidera eased back up and met Vanx’s eyes. Their noses nearly touched when she spoke. “Watch them die.” She pointed at Moonsy, Chelda, and the two savants.

  Vanx couldn’t help but turn his head, even though he kept his peripheral focus on the skull.