But then Vanx twisted around and kicked Russet’s leg so hard that it nearly snapped. The half-heathen’s blade was moving at his throat.
It was all Russet could do to get his blade between his face and the steel that was coming fast to relieve him of his head.
Zeezle, it turned out, had been wrong.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Underneath the old wild willow
my Molly sparked my heart aflame
The next day when I brought her gifts
she called me someone else’s name.
- Parydon Cobbles
The seawolves didn’t leave Chelda alone for long. Soon they returned, one by one, each giving her space and staying wary. The males, with their ivory horns, were wary of people by nature. Those spikes were worth a fortune to the traders and carvers in Orendyn. They looked like wolves, especially the males, for the horns resembled alert canine ears. But they didn’t seem to have ears, only ear holes, and sleek, oily fur.
They were deadly, but afraid. Chelda was, too, but her fear lessened when the males relaxed their posture and acted content to let the bursts of rain and sea spray lull them back into slumber.
Her back and side were torn open in two sets of three gashes on each side. She knew she was losing blood, and she willed a plea for her survival to the gods of her people in prayer, and to her elven lover, Moonsy, while squeezing her toes as hard as she could. She felt the Heart Tree wrappings she’d put on the second digit of each foot. And even though she had blisters from them, she loved that pain.
Maybe it was because the stone she was on was now red from her blood all the way down to where the water was sloshing, or maybe it was the Heart Tree’s magic coursing through her nearly empty veins, but she felt a cool, dizzying feeling come over her, and finally she faded.
***
With Vanx pulling his blade at Russet from behind, so that the young king’s steel was about to split his own nose lengthways, Russet lost all faith in what Zeezle had hoped would be the case.
“There ar—are-- eyes upon uh-- us,” Vanx said into Russet’s ear in a hoarse, seemingly hard-forced, whisper. Russet’s mind changed yet again about Vanx’s state.
“I’ll never let you daze me,” Russet yelled as he threw a hard elbow into Vanx’s gut and dropped out from under his grasp.
Russet went rolling away then, seeing that Vanx was still coming at him, but even through the blue tint of his eyes, Russet could see the light of his friend in there. Vanx wasn’t turned; he was—
Just then, Vanx stabbed him in the shoulder, right through the slight gap in Russet’s armor. It wasn’t a terrible blow, but it reminded him that Vanx might only have some sense about him. There might not be much of him left, and the Zyth wasn’t in control of his body. Was he? He hadn’t taken the offered openings, just as Zeezle had suggested.
Vanx was spinning in for another go, and his visage was one of rage, not docile, as it had been before.
“He can’t be defeated.” Vanx’s mouth moved, but the voice Russet heard was not his friend’s this time. “He has mastered the secrets of the universe, and he will destroy you all, if you don’t run to the Deep and stay there.”
Vanx flickered into the form of the Paragon Dracus, and it loomed down at Zeezle. The spikes of its mane looked to be as sharp as blades, but the condition of the twin rows of spikes running down its length spoke of its ancientness. Russet wondered then, if this was its true form, for if it could change itself, it wouldn’t likely leave the broken parts broken, especially when appearing through Vanx’s body.
“Orendyn is mine. The world is mine.” The Paragon’s voice boomed at them. “You can keep that festering tree and all it protects, but the rest of this orb is mine, and mine alone!”
Gallarael, in changeling form, ran right through the Paragon’s image and tackled Vanx. Vanx’s sword went tumbling, and the Paragon disappeared.
“He’s lost it,” Russet told her after he had his feet under him. “Still, I want him subdued, not killed. So tackle him again now, and rope him up, or otherwise confine him.” Russet spoke the last at Master Kruuga, who was just now sprinting up to the moonlit scene.
Gallarael shifted into human form, and once they had Vanx tied up like a hog, with an enchanted rope, she finished with an order of her own for Master Kruuga. “Teleport him directly to Moonsy, Master Kruuga. Maybe the Glaive can save him. If not, have him taken down into the nexus, where his familiar awaits. Brother, go with them; take more men to Andwyn. The wizard is still harassing them. I have to find Chelda and then go to Dragon Isle.”
With that, Gallarael changed back into her feline form and loped across the tiles and down the hillside to wherever Pyra had landed.
Russet fell to the ground beside Vanx and grabbed his friend’s collar. “Why?” he yelled as loud as he could, but then he put his face close, as if threatening Vanx.
“Are you dazed or not?” he asked in a clench-jawed whisper.
In Vanx’s eyes, he saw a glimpse of Sir Poopsalot, and he remembered that they were linked by some unfathomable magic he didn’t understand. Vanx even tried to respond, but couldn’t. The dull blue glow was there, but for an instant, it looked as if Vanx was trying to articulate something. But this time, when Russet came close to listen, Vanx head-butted him and tried to bite him.
When Master Kruuga cast the teleportal spell, Russet saw something explode into flight from atop one of the columns. Then they were in the sward.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
They brag and kill and waste.
They call the earth their own.
Never here, Oh never will they
call our island home.
- Balladamned (A Zythian song)
Kelse swooped low, not far above the sloshing waves. Zeezle had the big, green wyrm making passes near where Chelda had been batted. The dragon could sense heat, as could all pure-blooded dragons, but it was the slight amount of heat, in a huddled form among a lot of warmer bodies, that drew her keen attention.
Zeezle slid from Kelse’s scaly neck as the dragon trumpeted her presence to the seawolves. The creatures surrounding Chelda started barking at each other and went leaping from the island with all the speed their flippers and tails could muster.
The human wizard didn’t have as easy a time of dismounting as Zeezle had, but he saved himself from a rocky thump with a spell that allowed him to fall to the uneven ground softly.
Buzz came to a hover over them, and kept watch on the sky with an arrow drawn and ready. Zeezle was glad, because whatever mauled Chelda could still be close. The seawolves hadn’t been molesting her at all.
The wizard had a grave look about him, and he showed no fear or reluctance as he crawled through moss, and seawolf shit, up the rock to Chelda’s side.
“Is she dead?” Zeezle asked, for he was too afraid to touch the ash-complected gargan to find out himself.
Her wounds were from claws, and they’d been dug in deep, when her flesh slipped, or maybe ripped, through them. Zeezle figured she’d lost all her blood. It was sad and infuriating. She was Vanx’s friend, and he would hurt from her loss, but Chelda had just been an acquaintance to Zeezle, a fellow warrior he had respected. In the last few weeks, he’d lost so many of those, he’d become numb to the distracting emotions these deaths caused. He still had Vanx to worry about, and the Paragon, if Vanx’s mind didn’t make it back to help him.
“She is alive.” The human wizard looked up, but there was no hope in his expression. The sprite medika that had been fussing about were crying and shaking their heads, as if there were nothing they could do for the big woman.
Zeezle’s lack of emotion allowed him the clarity the others couldn’t find through the tears.
“Keep her alive while you teleport them and yourself back to the sward, wizard,” Zeezle ordered. “Can you do that?”
“The sward?” The wizard eyed him questioningly, but was nodding.
“The big silver tree with all the fairies and sp
rites fluttering about,” Zeezle looked at him as if he’d gone mad. “Go with him, Buzz, and make sure Moonsy gets the Glaive of Gladiolus to Chelda before she dies.”
The sprites and the child-sized flying archer grew hopeful then, and joined the wizard. “Go now,” one of the medikas chirped.
“Yezzzz,” Buzz agreed.
“Oh yes, that sward,” the wizard babbled as he went about casting the requested spell. “See,” he explained to the fae, as if in apology, “I did not know that was what it is called.” He gave Zeezle a nod of respect, and they disappeared, leaving Zeezle to remount Kelse. He did so by running up the rock and somersaulting as high as he could, allowing the dragon just enough room to fly underneath. He managed to land in a perfect straddle around her neck, and commended himself for not allowing his emotions to cloud his judgment or his concentration.
He was disappointed to find that the top of the island was empty, save for the few bodies that had fallen there earlier. He did as Vanx and Chelda would have wanted him to, and retrieved Vanx’s old Zythian sword and Fark’s family blade. Through communication between Pyra and Kelse, he learned that Vanx was exactly where he needed to be, and Gallarael was exactly where she shouldn’t be. So he reluctantly headed the green-scaled wyrm back to Saint Elm’s Deep, for there was no way he could fight the Paragon Dracus alone.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The dragon belched his fire
and the knight he did a dance.
It was for naught, the fire was hot
he didn’t have a chance.
- Dragon’s Song
When Zeezle arrived at the Heart Tree asking about Vanx and Chelda, he learned that Chelda had been stitched back together and jabbed repeatedly with the Glaive. Her body had mended from the magic, but she hadn’t shown any sign that she’d be waking soon. The amount of magic it had taken to heal her could kill a person, or leave her mind scorched like the daze did. Hopefully, that wasn’t the situation, but it very well could be. Either way, no one expected her to wake for a few days at the very best, not with deep internal wounds, like she’d had.
Zeezle had never been down to the nexus, and under normal circumstances probably wouldn’t have been allowed there, but no one stopped him from coming through the open portal near the tree.
Being a full-blooded Zythian allowed him to pass between the Underland boundaries without being caught in it as Chelda had. Humans, gargans and skmoes couldn’t just come and go, though. That thought reminded him of something Vanx had told him a few days before he was zapped.
The Underland was amazing to behold, but the nexus itself was encircled by several pillars that were formed by the Heart Tree’s roots. It reminded Zeezle of the strange people Vanx had found living under Dragon Isle, and their wispwight tree.
The nexus was hidden behind a humming opaque field that spanned, from floor to ceiling, between the root pillars. Zeezle wasn’t allowed inside at first, but Moonsy brought him out a small crystal, and when he clenched it in his hand, he could hear and see what was happening behind the magical field.
Vanx was under the Trigon Daze, or his body was. Elva Toyon, leader of the Troika Sven, used her elven ability to speak with animals. She communicated through Poops with the part of Vanx’s mind that was still his own, and learned that the Paragon might be looking right back at them through his eyes.
Now Vanx was blindfolded, and had been walked around the nexus in random patterns for some time. Moonsy started to speak to Elva and the other members of the Troika Sven for Zeezle. The council of seven elves, who argued and dictated the fate of the fae until Prince Chervil Longroot matured, all looked out at him. They allowed him into the nexus at once, for they were as interested in taking in a full-blooded Zythian of Zeezle’s reputation as he was in getting in there to see Vanx.
Poops greeted him as the dog always did, which irritated the slightly bitchy-seeming leader, Elva Toyon.
“We can reach Vanx Malic’s mind through his familial link, but the Paragon’s grip on him is strengthening with time. Before long, he will be lost.” She then snapped her fingers. “Come here, Vanx,” she said to Poops. “Come now, this may be our only chance.”
“You’ve stuck him with the Glaive?” Zeezle asked Moonsy.
“Yes,” she shrugged. “It did very little. He’s been stuck with it a few dozen times by--”
“A few score,” Elva Toyon corrected. “Its potency lessens with each usage, as I was just explaining to General Gloryvine Moonseed. The sword is what saved him on Zyth, when he was seeking you.” The older-looking elf’s finger pointed at Zeezle. “It can do little more for--”
“Ask him what he wants me to do.” Zeezle spoke over her, just as she’d spoken over Moonsy. When she glared at him, he glared right back. “You said yourself, the grip is tightening. There is no time for a long-winded explanation about Witchbane and Thorn.”
“Very well,” she nodded, and moved over to Poops. She knelt before him and pressed her head against his. “What would you have us do?”
There was a long silence.
While they waited, Moonsy came over and stood by Zeezle’s side, in a show of support. Buzz, who it turned out was the Troika Sven’s eyes and ears out in the field, or at least one set of them, came to a hover at his opposite shoulder.
“He says,”—the sound of Elva Toyon’s voice silenced the impatient murmuring that was going on—“remember tricking Master Butt Licker, and have true faith, brother. I must go before he starts thinking I’m not all his.”
Elva Toyon fell over backward then. A slight bit of smoke was rising from her hair, and her eyes were rolled up into her head. Poops barked at Vanx’s bound body, and ran to him, going at the ropes with his teeth.
“That won’t work, pup,” said Zeezle, and only when he touched the magical binding and snapped his fingers, did they untie themselves and fall to the ground.
Poops gave Vanx a lick, and Vanx sat up. He was as blue-eyed as ever. He didn’t acknowledge Zeezle or his dog. He stood as if he were debilitated, then suddenly burst out of the nexus and teleported himself away.
Chapter Thirty
In the willow’s shadow
she took my coins away.
But oh what Molly gave me
left a smile upon my face.
- Parydon Cobbles
“We don’t have time for me to explain what happened with Master Bottikkor.” Zeezle seemed a little embarrassed, for Master Kruuga was eyeing him now. “Dragon Isle is where Gallarael had Pyra take her,” Zeezle said. “Since the Paragon left the broken castle, I would have to assume he is there, too, gathering power to either take Zyth or Orendyn, but we all believe it is Zyth he wants, and that the Orendyn threat was just to distract us.”
“Now wait a minute,” King Russet cut in. “Once he has Orendyn, and Dyntalla, he will be able to gather real might, and maybe have a true chance to take Zyth. You Zythians are underestimating how badly it stung when you thwarted him. He will let you wait and wonder. But if you do, he will gather all the other dazed he has on Harthgar, and the gods only know where else.
“That he would go after Zyth so soon is not in his best interest. Not if he is in need of, desirous of, what is the word?”
“Addicted,” Master Kruuga said, and stepped in front of Zeezle. “I think the young king is wiser than he looks.”
“Yes. Thank you, sir. Addicted to dragon teardrops,” Russet blurted. “That is what I am saying. He wants it all, but he can’t stop feeding.”
“Maybe Dragon Isle is the only place left with dragons,” a fae suggested, but was hushed by Moonsy’s glare.
“No, no,” Zeezle said. “There are dragons in Highwander, and they are bred on Harthgar. Probably by one of the Trigon’s companies. The Outlands, and Vah Mystica, at the farthest reaches, are even still guarded over by dragon riders. The wilds beyond there are untamed, and full of the oldest wyrms of them all.”
“Who is giving long-winded lectures now?” Elva Toyon said from the floor. �
��If it is not on Dragon Isle feeding, it will be soon enough. Our eyes tell us that it spends more time there than anywhere else, and not just in dragon form. It hides between feedings by becoming something small and unnoticeable.”
“Great,” Zeezle grumbled.
“I feel it through the Glaive, when it is near,” said Moonsy.
“I can maintain a simple detection spell,” Zeezle shrugged. “I am afraid for my friend and was just being melodramatic. The question is, who is going with me, and what will we need to trick the Paragon, like we tricked Master Butt Licker?” This time, Zeezle grinned at Master Kruuga. “You’ll have to take Dorlan’s place in the scheme.”
“I am going, too!” Moonsy said rather loudly, her eyes pleading with Elva Toyon and the ancient elves behind her.
“You’ll have to.” Zeezle dismissed the denial that was already forming on the elven bitch’s mouth. “Having the Glaive will give us the edge we must have to make it work.” Zeezle raised his eyebrows twice at his pun, and gave Elva Toyon a hard look as he helped her from the floor.
He then put his forehead against Poops’s head.
I’m coming, Vanx, and I’m bringing it with me. I hope you are right.
Poops licked his face then, and yipped out a bark while dancing a circle.
***
“Where did you last see that sticker?” Zeezle strode up to Prince Russet.
“It’s atop the island, near my father’s-- near my throne,” Russet finished with a harsh bit of resolve showing in his face. “If you are going after it, I am going with you.”
“No, no, no, I must insist against it,” one of the king’s wizards started protesting. “You’ve no heir. There are laws.”
“I’ve a sister with a bloodline recognized in the book of names by my father before his death,” Russet smirked. “The laws do not fully apply, and since there is no true knight here to claim liege law, then you’ll watch me go, or better yet, grab your knapsack and come along to Dragon Isle with us.”
Paragon Dracus: The Legend of Vanx Malic Book Six Page 9
