“I found an easily defendable place to shelter for the night,” Buzz said as he fluttered back among them.
Vanx noticed for the first time that the day was almost over. He barely remembered their midday break, much less what, from their current elevated view, must have been an arduous climb.
He didn’t dream this night. This night his dog curled up beside him, and they slept like huddled puppies, drawing warmth from each other the whole night through.
Chapter Seventeen
The wizard saw the king and the king spoke grim.
“It’s me, mighty wizard I need your help again.”
“I’ll aid you,” said the wizard. “But fir this there’ll be a price.
I will take your newborn daughter, while the reaper takes your wife.”
- The Weary Wizard
Vanx woke to the sound of Chelda and Moonsy softly talking about Poops and him.
“It is unconditional love between Vanx and Sir Poopsalot, I agree. But with them it’s more than that,” Moonsey said. Vanx knew she understood magic and the familial link. Chelda had known Poops since before he’d gotten his tail whacked off by Fanny’s door at the Iceberg Inn and Tavern, though, so she also understood. They’d met down in Orendyn, where Darbon and Selma, and a few thousand others, were trying to rebuild.
“It’s more than either of you could understand,” Vanx said quietly. “All the magic and wizardry means little. None of that matters. The power of the bond between a boy and his pup is as mighty a bond as there is.”
“Ya, I’ve seen.” Chelda’s grin and her optimistic attitude were refreshing, as always. Vanx was glad he’d been able to save her.
It was clear, and the sky cloudless. There was a peach hue to the world, but the sun hadn’t risen. Vanx felt as refreshed as he had in a very long time. It was more than just the sleep, too. He wished he had his xuitar with him, for he’d probably have written a song.
“Gallarael told us to give you last watch.” Chelda nudged him with her boot, as if he’d gone back to sleep.
“I’m awake, Chel,” Vanx hissed. “Is she still here?”
“Nope. She thinks she’s Patty Princess.”
“You mean, Patty the deadly changeling princess,” Moonsy corrected.
For the span of a few heartbeats, it was completely silent, save for the light crackling of the fire. Then Buzz, the goat, or maybe Pongo the elf, farted quite loudly.
Chelda and Vanx giggled like children, but Moonsy scoffed them.
“I’m lying down, Chel,” said Moonsy. “You should, too.”
Vanx sat up and looked around. He couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous when Poops went and lay down next to Moonsy, but he understood the dog wanted to stay close to those he loved, so nothing could sneak up on them while they slept. Poops was just being protective.
Apparently, so was Chelda. She sat close to Vanx and spoke in a whisper that no other could have heard. “That magic stone you healed me with, can you kill that blue bastard with it?”
“It is a dragon’s tear, and using it could drive me mad. I doubt it.” Vanx took an offered sip of watered battleberry juice to help wake himself. “The stone we seek now will give me more power over the thing. Knowing its true name is key to many a spell.”
“Maybe you can use them both.” She stood, but leaned her mouth near enough to his ear that he felt the heat of her breath. “I don’t think Gallarael wants to have the child.” Chelda said this quickly, and wisely moved away to her bedroll.
Vanx had a feeling Gal was watching, waiting to see how he reacted. In truth, he wasn’t interested in having a child, either, much less some possibly dangerous thing that might kill Gallarael by just being born.
“Do what you feel you need to do,” Vanx whispered at the darkness. “But I miss your company, Gal.”
Vanx thought he heard a growl, but wasn’t sure.
Then, just as the sun pinkened the sky, a frostwing came flapping down among them, trying to get the goat.
Vanx called out the alarm. “To your feet. Stick a blade in the air. To your feet. Blades up! To your feet!”
Another handful of frostwings was coming in now, drawn by the commotion, as if they thought the first one had cornered a whole herd of prey.
Then a whomping blast sent the one still trying to get a claw in Pongo’s goat flinging outward into the others. They had blue undersides that seemed to be the same shade of blue as the sky, while their upper sides were white, probably so they’d blend with the tundra, if seen from above, as they flew. Two of the huge birds were nearly knocked from the sky, and the others instinctively fled.
Vanx searched for the spellcaster and wasn’t surprised to see that it was Zeezle, or that Chelda had thrown a spear that was still dangling out of the side of one of the other dangerous flesh-eating beasts.
This wasn’t Vanx’s first run-in with frostwings, but he hoped it was his last. “What were they doing here, where it is warm?” he asked, angry with himself for not using the simple magic detection spell that Xavian had taught him a few years ago, before he was eaten by one of the Hoar Witch’s treebeasts.
“If you’re warm at the top of this ridge, I will shit you a four-leafed clover,” said Chelda, still pointing at the creature with her spear stuck in it. “My father always used to say that.”
“We are at the edge of the Deep’s protection,” Moonsy explained. She looked first at Chelda, then at Pongo, who was diligently checking over his mount. Buzz was right there with him. One of the three farted again. Moonsy just shook her head. “We only have to leave the warmth for a while. Once we are over the ridge, we can descend back into the protected area. At the head of that valley,” she pointed, “it’s higher up than we are now, but just enough that the ice melts from the magic’s warmth. That is where your trickle begins, but the namestone garden is in the valley bottom.”
The climb up into the cold was eased by the fact that Chelda had bothered to bring Vanx’s saber shrew coat and the fitted wool garment that went under Poops’s tundra gear. That is what she’d been carrying in her pack.
Vanx and Poops were both appreciative.
The dog had the hardest time of them all keeping traction, but with Vanx and Moonsy helping Poops with the climb, he managed it. Just after midday, they descended from the frigid rocks, back down into a lush green valley about a quarter of the size of Saint Elm’s Deep.
“Welcome to the Forgotten Deep,” said Buzz, after they were all out of their cold weather gear and it was stowed.
They didn’t make the namestone garden that day, but it would be a leisurely walk to retrieve that for which they had come. Vanx decided he would go in the pre-dawn, while the others slept, for he’d requested the last watch again, and closed his eyes knowing that is what he would do when he woke.
Chapter Eighteen
A dragon hoards its treasure.
A dragon guards its haunts.
Where does a dragon lay its head?
Why anywhere it wants.
- Dragon’s song
Chelda’s boot nudged Vanx awake again. She was tired from the previous day’s climbing and not in a chatty mood this morn, which was good. Vanx sat up so she could go lie down. The magic detection spell he’d cast before going to bed kept him from sleeping well, but no frostwings, or any unrecognized magic had triggered the warning. Chelda lay down next to Moonsy, but today Poops didn’t join them. The dog knew what Vanx was up to, and Vanx was glad, for he knew Poops’s senses would help him negotiate the darkness of the namestone garden. He wanted to have the Paragon’s namestone in his possession before the others even woke.
No, Poops, you have to stay and hold my watch, Vanx explained. Just come with me from the inside.
The dog let out a huff, but sniffed and twice circled the area where Moonsy and Chelda had been sitting. He sat down there. His ears pricked, showing he was alert.
Good boy, Vanx soothed. He knelt and scratched his familiar’s ears for a moment. Then he was off, usin
g Poops’s keener sense of smell as much as his own heightened Zythian senses to find his way.
The sun had breached the horizon somewhere beyond the mountains, filling the sky with light that only seemed to darken the shadow-filled valley. By the time he found the base of the trickle falls, it was light enough to see plainly, especially in the treeless, rock-filled area around the pool formed at the base.
There were thousands, maybe thousands of thousands, stones spread across the valley floor, but Pwca had given him clear directions, and Vanx already saw the marker he was told to seek out first.
Vanx debated swimming across the small section of water between him and the double fracture the witch had cleverly marked. He quickly changed his mind when he saw something fairly large swirl the water.
He was suddenly excited on a whole other level, for he loved catching huge fish, and here was one that looked like it needed catching. It was at least as long as his arm. He couldn’t bother with it now, but there would be a time, he hoped, when he could return and wet his lines.
Skirting the shoreline took a while, and Vanx felt sure he’d soon see one or more of his companions approaching the other side of the pool. He had to climb some larger boulders, more of a collapse of the cliff-like hillside really, but he did so with ease.
Once he was standing before the parallel fracture line that had been crossed by what Vanx was certain was blood, he realized his mistake.
Pwca hadn’t lied to him. Vanx could see the very stone the Paragon’s name was supposedly on, but he felt something behind him. By the size of the shadow growing up the sun-bathed falls, he knew the little turd had known about the gargantuan guardian, too. The rat bastard was probably watching.
That thought reminded him that Gallarael was probably watching, too. He didn’t waste time. He followed the markers and took the white oval stone nearest the wholly out of place onyx sphere. He gave it a quick glance.
Richard Blanchard, it read. Vanx stopped and looked back to make sure he hadn’t missed the right stone, for such a normal, even common, name didn’t seem right. There were no other white oval stones, so he dropped it in his pouch and drew the string tight, just before something wet and slimy slapped him hard enough that his body went tumbling heels over head to land in the middle of the deceptively deep pool.
Vanx got a good look at the thing before it dove. What he’d thought was a fish was probably one of the two dozen whiskerfish-like strands that protruded from this humanoid’s fish-skin-covered head.
Its huge eyes focused on Vanx just before it went under, and he found himself truly afraid, for there was no way he could outswim the thing.
“Levitate,” Zeezle’s voice rang across the clearing. “Better yet, teleport to me.”
Vanx was already levitating up into the air when he figured out why teleportation would have been the better choice.
The creature came leaping up, nearly all the way out of the water, revealing that its lower extremities were also humanoid, but adapted to water. There was no toothy maw snapping at him, but a grasping, five-fingered hand. It had claws that looked like shark teeth, and webbing stretched between its digits. It suddenly grasped hold of Vanx’s legs and started pulling him down as they fell back into the pool.
Chapter Nineteen
Across his sea we sail,
to Nepton we hold true.
For if you cross old Nepton,
his sea will swallow you.
- A sailor’s song
Chelda and Moonsy, as well as the rest of the encampment, woke to Poops’s insistent barking, but Zeezle was the only one who immediately understood.
“Vanx has gone after the namestone by himself. He’s awakened something.”
“You've woken me!” Chelda snapped as she fumbled around for her sword.
“Open your eyes, woman,” Zeezle laughed nervously at her. “The sun is up.”
He donned his sparkling blue dragonskin jacket and started off, running faster than any of them could, save for Poops, who was right there with him. Just outside the camp, Gallarael joined his other side, in feline form, from seemingly nowhere.
Behind him, he heard the others coming. He almost had to stop and stare when he saw Chelda’s huge breasts bouncing underneath her thin undershirt as she came charging after him. He’d seen a few hundred tits in his lifetime, so he got control of himself quickly enough, but these were large breasts on a gargan woman, which meant they were twice as big as any human woman could hope to have, and they were pretty firm for their size. Zeezle shook the image from his head as he ran. Vanx was his oldest friend, so he stayed focused, and mentally added sex with a gargan woman to his list of things to do before he died.
When he saw the huge creature, and how it dwarfed even Chelda, he swallowed hard. Zeezle started to blast it, but Vanx was between him and it.
Its too bad I didn’t suggest teleporting first, he thought to himself. The he saw an opening and managed to get his spell off. A crackling green jag of power arced from Zeezle to the fishy monster’s abdomen. The point where the powerful magic hit the thing was well below Vanx.
The creature let go of him to make an instinctual grab for its guts, so Zeezle was forced to let the connection break.
Vanx hit the water belly-first, causing Zeezle to wince, but he knew Vanx was alive, and well enough, when he came stumbling to the shore.
***
When Vanx hit the water, the air was smacked out of him. His eyes saw that it was shallow there, and his face missed the rocks by less than a finger’s width, so even though it hurt, he was glad he hadn’t the time to try to dive, or land feet first. If he had, he would surely be dead or crippled.
Even though he was now choking on the water his body had drawn in to refill his empty lungs, he was stumbling neck-deep, then waist-deep, until he collapsed in a fit of coughing and gagging.
It turned out that Zeezle’s magic hadn’t hurt the creature all that much. Vanx saw the Zythian cast the same spell again, apparently in hopes of avoiding being picked up like Vanx just had, but the gill-shouldered fish-man wasn’t stopping. It was reaching for him.
Suddenly, Chelda was there, and her huge breasts were heaving as she fought for breath. Her sweat had made the thin undergarment wet and sheer, leaving nothing to the imagination. Her areolae were dark, and the size of saucers, her nipples the size of a man’s pinky-tip. It was amazing. It wasn’t a sexual thing for Vanx, but it sure was curious to see.
Vanx didn’t let himself get distracted, for here came Pongo on his goat, and Moonsy, who was glaring at Vanx as her short legs churned to get her there. Had she seen him staring at her lover? Did he care if she saw? Not at the moment.
When Chelda launched her spear at the beast, in perfect stride, no one was ogling anything but the spear. It flew hard and true, but with the hand that didn’t have hold of Zeezle, the thirty-foot-tall creature caught the spear.
Vanx decided it could be even bigger. He hadn’t seen its feet. For all he knew, it could have fishtails at the ends of its legs instead.
In comparison, the gargan-sized spear looked like one of Buzz’s small arrows might have looked in Vanx’s hand. Vanx saw Pongo, Buzz and Moonsy all drop to a knee and aim arrows at the thing, but he suddenly had an idea.
“Hold!” he yelled as loud as he could through his coughing. He was glad that they heard, for even as he stumbled and fell, vomiting water from his lungs in a near debilitating heave, his hand clasped around the crystal hanging at his neck. Vanx looked up at the creature. In a commanding tone, he yelled: “Stop! Let go of my friend!”
Everyone looked surprised when it stopped, but they winced when it let go of the Zythian, for he wasn’t over water, like Vanx had been, and he was more than a dozen feet above the rocks.
Zeezle’s landing was graceful enough, though, for he was a full-blooded Zythian. Before Vanx could get to his friend to see if he was hurt, he was tackled by Gallarael’s feline form, who pushed him over while turning into herself, ending the semi-p
ainful roll across the rocks in an ardent, thankful kiss.
Then Poops was there licking the both of them.
The creature angrily splashed at Zeezle and the elves, who were still aiming their arrows at it. All of them were drenched.
After a long look at Vanx, it dove back under the surface, and they didn’t see it again.
Chapter Twenty
Off beside the water
far away from everything
the fishes keep my company
while I close my eyes and dream.
- Parydon Cobbles
“Tell me you got it.” This came from Zeezle, who was clearly angry at Vanx for not telling even him that he was going for the namestone alone. Vanx saw as much respect as he did disappointment in Zeezle’s yellow-tinted eyes.
“Yup,” Vanx grinned. “Don’t pout. I only came alone because of the warning Pwca gave me.”
“Had you informed us of the beast, we could have prepared.” Moonsy came walking up with Chelda by her side. Chelda’s breasts were no less distracting than they had been before, but when Zeezle offered her his dragonskin jacket, she refused and crossed her arms over them.
“You don’t have to stare,” Moonsy said.
“It is distracting,” Vanx explained. “Even though Chel is one of my dearest friends, a sister to me, those are-- well-- they are--”
“Gargantuan, is the word you’re after,” Zeezle chimed in. “Chelda is a gargan, and those are gargantuan.” Zeezle’s grin faded when Chelda narrowed her brows and stared him down.
Only after his expression broke, did Chelda laugh out. “These are not the biggest.” She elbowed Vanx conspiratorially when Zeezle realized she had stared him down for fun. “There are girls in my village with far more impressive tits.”
“Really, Chel.” Moonsy looked even madder now. “You’re just going to join them?”
Paragon Dracus: The Legend of Vanx Malic Book Six Page 6
