Baru’s desire to be done with it all was quickly replaced with his own bloodlust, for this would mean he would get a few dragon tears for his own. He desperately wanted one now, after feeling the power again. He wanted a dragon, too, and they had plenty of those in Harthgar; they bred pure-bloods there, just to keep the master fed, and only the blacks were spared, for their tears didn’t sit well with the Paragon.
He’d loved his dragon, Corro. They’d been flying together for four centuries. Now he was feeling the Paragon’s rage. He would avenge Corro, even if he died doing so.
It didn’t surprise him when the Paragon read his mind, and squashed each of the smaller dragons he held in his claws, allowing the teardrop of one to rattle to the checkerboard floor before him.
“You’ve let them get the Tridastem, but it is useless to them.” The Paragon held the other wyrm he was crushing over his open maw, like a thirsty man wringing the last few drops of water from a damp cloth. Once the teardrop fell and the Paragon had consumed it, it teleported Baru to its back and started flying toward the Melaridian Octron.
True war was coming now. Baru smiled. The kind of war that could envelop and digest even the Zythian wizards and their puny island.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The wizard saw the king and the both of them knew
“You need me now king, to keep them loving you.”
“Tis true,” said the king, “but you need me as well.
Who else would protect you while you perfect all your spells.”
- The Weary Wizard
Vanx knew the Paragon wouldn’t just use its wings to get itself wherever it was going, but he was glad to see it teleport away from the distant vertical black line on the horizon that was before them.
Vanx understood that the power of the Sea Spire, or Octron, was what the Paragon used to open holes in the fabric of the world big enough to bring ships and armies through. Not even the most powerful wizards in all the recorded history of Zyth had been able to teleport more than a few score of men, and even then, a small percentage of the group was killed by the intensity of the magic, or by the forces appearing partly in some unforeseen obstacle. To bring the ships and army this Richard Blanchard had used to take Parydon Isle, and then attack Zyth, he’d had to use a device, like the Octron. Vanx didn’t think any single entity could survive that kind of power without something inanimate to help absorb it.
As he neared the spire, he noticed that the sky was filling with clouds tinted green by the reflection of the stirring sea. It was like nature itself was expecting what was to come. The sea no longer quelled its rage and stayed still at the base of the spire, for waves the size of castles were crashing into it, and swells that lifted the force of those waves a full two-thirds of the way up the spike threatened to grow even larger and swallow it.
Vanx wondered if his father could see him from down in Nepton’s depths. He wondered if his mother could see him from above, but more than anything, he wondered why Gallarael was dead—the impossible child inside her dead, too.
Vanx let Pyra fly him closer to the dark needle jutting mysteriously from the open sea.
He wanted to be with Sir Poopsalot, to feel his dog’s warmth as he slept beside him, to feel that unconditional love they shared, but it was not to be. In fact, he started debating not sacrificing himself, so that Poops didn’t have to feel his loss.
That was how much he loved his pup. He would let the world burn and die away underneath the Paragon Dracus, instead of bring pain upon one single pooch.
But Poops had Moonsy and the elves to keep him safe.
In his head, Poops was sending similar thoughts back at him, for the dog knew what he was about to do. It was Poops who gave him the strength to commit himself. It was his own voice he heard speaking words that a dog could never articulate, but that a wizard’s familiar could.
No matter what happens, I will be inside you, just like you are inside me, the dog expressed, and Vanx found his eyes filling with tears.
Pyra got caught up in Vanx’s emotion. She let a teardrop fall, for she was committed to this end, too. Wisely, she caught her own hardened tear in her claw and threw it up in a way that Vanx could catch it.
The power it sent through Vanx was almost overwhelming. He was slipping into the flow of the dragon magic as if he were a clod of dirt dropped in a fast-flowing stream. When he clutched the other teardrop in his hand and teleported to the ledge on the top of the spire, his physical self was eroding away, drifting into the ether, leaving him unable to concentrate.
Trace the symbol, his own voice spoke inside his head, but he knew it was Poops urging him from the nexus. Trace the symbol, use the namestone, and banish that foul thing.
Vanx clung to memories of his mother’s golden eyes, and the warmth of his familiar at his side, and managed to regain his feet.
It was clear why this area had never been seen from a ship. Looking up, the area where he now stood seemed like another angled surface of whatever material composed the spire. The flat back-side of the other top portions of the structure made the shadows camoflauge the landing completely from below, but the truth was, one whole side of the spire’s top was naught but ledge.
Remembering what he’d seen in the Paragon’s mind, he traced the symbol, and the black wall before him slid up, just as it had for that blue bastard.
“Hurrrysss,” Pyra hissed as she circled back around. “It comes.”
Instead of going in, Vanx peeked out and saw the Paragon, with a blue-cloaked wizard riding its back. The powerful thing was regaining its lift after teleporting to a place in the sky just a few wingbeats away.
Pyra dove then and skimmed the violent wave tops, trying to get underneath it. She was able to come up, pumping her wings hard, and meet the thing at the exact moment it recovered its aerial stability.
Her blast of fire seemed like a candle flame under a man’s finger to the now massive thing. The dragon fire did little to the great, shapeshifting man-monster, but the wizard on its back screamed.
Vanx saw blue claws rake the red-scaled wyrm, tearing great furrows across Pyra’s chest. It was then that Poops finally got his attention again.
Banish, Sir Poopsalot’s mind spoke with Vanx’s voice in his head. Vanx found himself then, or as much of himself as he could with all the power of the dragon tears flowing through him.
As hard as it was to turn away from Pyra’s next, far more powerful attack, he did so, but not before seeing some spell or another leap from Pyra’s bleeding body to envelope the Paragon. The smoldering wizard fell toward the crashing waves, and Vanx spat at him. Then he entered the room atop the spire and saw the chest-high, miniature version of the Octron centered in the floor. It was exactly as he’d seen it in the Paragon’s mind, down to the colors of the six stones mounted around its top.
The roar he heard from Pyra next must have been her death roar. He felt it in his heart, and he let the infernal nature of the dragon fill him to his very core. He felt her sadness, too, for she had never taken a mate. Her line might die with her this day, as would his, if he didn’t do something fast.
Vanx tried to remember the words to the binding spells he’d learned, but the power of the two dragon tears in his grasp was just too intense for him to think through.
Kelse’s roar brought him back this time, and the words started flowing from his mouth, as if it wasn’t even him speaking them.
It was only then he realized that the Paragon still had a grip on his human side. The spell he was casting wasn’t even one he knew. It was coming from the Paragon’s mind, not his own.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Dragons hunt the sky and earth.
They even hunt the seas.
What do dragons hunt my friend?
Why anything they please.
- Dragon’s song
Vanx fought the compulsion to speak the words the Paragon was willing him to say, but he couldn’t. Then his dog’s savage barking reached through their familia
r link and startled the Paragon out of his head again.
Quickly, before it could recover, Vanx bit his finger nearly off, trying to spill his blood. Then he dropped the two dragon teardrops into the bowl atop the miniature spire. He let his blood drip over them, and added the namestone from his pocket to the mix. Pyra’s teardrop he snatched back into his bloody hand, for its power was all that seemed to be supporting his legs at that moment.
“Richard Blanchard, I bind you to my will, with the blood of a witch, and the power of your own hate. I banish you from this place until the sands of time stop flowing, and a thousand years more!”
Vanx let Pyra’s tear join the other then, and collapsed.
He heard the Paragon laughing outside, as if he’d failed to cast the spell properly and the blue bastard knew it. Then he heard Kelse roaring out in pain, and reached up with his bloody hand and touched one of the gemstones, not even aware of which one his fingers found.
A sphere of light formed over the bowl. Inside it, Vanx felt the static power of a thousand lightning storms. It flared brightly for an instant and then imploded into itself, forming a hole in the fabric of the world, similar to those the Paragon had used to bring his armies here.
The world whirled around him then, and he felt, then saw, the Paragon’s tail worm into the spire with him. His hand, the one he’d touched the gemstone with, started stretching, as was the Paragon’s tail, into a black emptiness that was hovering over the bowl.
“Noooo!” he heard the Paragon roar out.
By then, Vanx’s whole arm was in the hole, and his form was no longer one of substance, but one of particles and liquid, all flowing toward the pull of his creation. The Paragon seemed to be shifting shapes, for its dragon tail changed from thick and scaly to thin and segmented. Then it snapped off of the rest of its body, like a tree lizard’s does when it’s escaping a predator’s grasp. The separated appendage disappeared down into the blackness.
So did Vanx’s shoulder.
The last thing Vanx heard before his head was squeezed down into the vacuum he’d created was a roar of anguish from Kelse, and Zeezle’s scream. Then he was pulled into the darkest place he could have ever imagined.
***
Master Kruuga appeared with Moonsy and Gallarael in the nexus itself, startling the Troika Sven. Moonsy was hugging her friend’s body, but Master Kruuga was pulling her up, trying to get her to stick the unmoving, panther-like form again with the Glaive of Gladiolus.
“Stop it!” the little golden-haired elven general yelled. “She isn’t dead. I am weeping for the children-- uh-- the litter she just lost.”
Poops was there, licking Moonsy and Gallarael in turn.
When Gallarael rolled over and shifted back into her mostly human form, it was clear she had a considerable amount of blood between her legs that had come from deep inside.
She grabbed the dog’s head and pulled him close. She seemed pleased for a moment, relieved even, then something passed between her and the dog, and she curled into a sobbing, fetal ball.
Elva Toyon came to the side of the two females and put her forehead against the dog’s, leaving Master Kruuga to wonder what was transpiring before him.
He was four hundred years old, middle-aged for Zythian, but the nexus, and the shapeshifting princess of the human realm, was more extraordinary than he had ever imagined things could be.
Poops whined out pitifully, which caused Moonsy to gasp and Gallarael to sob even more loudly.
“He isn’t there,” the ancient elven leader said somberly. “Vanx Malic is no longer bonded with his familiar.”
It didn’t surprise Master Kruuga when the dog joined Gallarael’s side and plopped into a disheartened heap beside her. But it startled them all when Sir Poopsalot whined and began transforming into a misty, cloud-like form. Then a stream of the dog’s still semi-organized particles went flowing out of the nexus, down through the Underland, and finally up and out of the world of the fae through one of its many rabbit holes.
Chapter Thirty-Six
A silver ring I bought her
and a poem I did pen
Then I slipped Molly a potion
now she can't run off again.
- Parydon Cobbles
Zeezle was as amazed as he was sad to see his childhood friend sacrificing himself to try to banish the evil, blue-glowing creature. Kelse blew out a huge cloud of her noxious breath, in hopes of quelling the thing’s ability to resist. The gaseous stuff surrounded the Paragon’s head as it fought hard to defy the force drawing it into the tip of the Sea Spire, or Octron, as Vanx said it was called.
Whatever Vanx was doing looked to be working, because the once mighty Paragon appeared to be in a terrified panic. It ended up getting its claws wrapped around the black needle midway up, while below it, the sea raged. For the first time, Zeezle noticed that the water was rising—probably with Captain Saint Elm’s rage, or even the wrath of Nepton himself.
Kelse circled around for another attack, but she and Zeezle saw the Paragon’s tail detach. The spiked appendage was sucked into the tower’s top as the Paragon shifted forms. Its wings came around, contorting into crab-like pincers, while its newly stumped tail curled up over its head.
Zeezle saw a new tip form, right before the scorpion-like spike shot forth and stabbed his wyrm in the neck.
Zeezle fell, but only a few dozen feet. One of the Paragon’s pincers grabbed him across the thighs and squeezed until he screamed.
Kelse was floundering to stay aloft, but she somehow managed to make two mighty wing strokes, which was just enough to get her up to the blue-glowing scorpion’s other claw.
Kelse chomped hard, and the sound of cracking exoskeleton caused the Paragon to roar out again. It used the claw holding Zeezle to bash the dragon in the head, and lost its grip on the Zythian. Zeezle saw Kelse’s jaw loosen, and watched helplessly as she fell straight down, awkwardly bouncing off the wider base of the tower, just before splashing into the sea.
When Zeezle hit the water, he found he was cut to the bone across the middle of his thighs, for the salty sea burned his open wounds. It was as if the liquid was scalding hot. Before the raw pain overcame him, he saw what might have been a swarm of bees, or just a cloud of particles, go streaming into the tower top above the Paragon. An odd, almost familiar feeling came over him for a second, as if sharing a glance of recognition with someone from across a room.
The blue-glowing scorpion extended its claws wide then, and they shifted into the long, leathery wings of something akin to a dactyl. Its body changed, too, into something long and thin and ready to fly with haste. It glared at him in victory and leapt away from the Sea Spire.
Zeezle’s heart fell then. Not only had Vanx gotten Pyra and himself killed, they’d done so for naught, for the terrible dragon hunter was now absconding.
A wave crashed over Zeezle’s head, and he had to shake his hair from his face, but he caught a glimpse of something extending out from the tower after the Paragon.
It was a hand; a huge, fur-covered, human-like hand. It extended, stretching as it went, and grabbed the fleeing Paragon by its drooping hind legs.
The Paragon let loose a sound that was as much scream as it was anything, and then its wings pumped with resistance against the pull of the tower’s strange arm.
Another wave washed over Zeezle, and he saw that the water around him was clouded with his own crimson gore. He was bleeding out, and he knew it, but he wasn’t saddened now. His life, Vanx’s, Kelse’s, Pyra’s, and all the other lives that had been ended fighting this terrible evil, hadn’t been given in vain.
He watched, feeling the swell of the sea raise him up, as if to give him a better view. The Paragon wasn’t getting away at all. In fact, the hand that held its lower half was retracting into the tower top, pulling the struggling blue thing with it.
There was a moment when he thought the powerful beast might break the hold, as it went through shape after shape, trying to get away.
But it wasn’t to be.
The fur-covered hand suddenly shook the Paragon back and forth, reminding Zeezle of Poops shaking a hare he’d caught on the trail once. Then the arm yanked back, and the Paragon’s whole form was narrowed down to the size of a small tree trunk, then even smaller as it was retracted into the top of the Octron.
The Paragon finally disappeared with a harsh, explosive pop, and Zeezle was left to fade, knowing that he was dying a hero, just like Vanx. When the wave he was in crested next, he saw that there was no sign of life in the tower-top room at all, but there was a good amount of blood.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“There are many ways to skin a cat,
the fun is choosing which.
But it’s no cat I want to skin.
I came to kill a witch.”
- The Weary Wizard
In the nexus, the Underland, and all across Saint Elm’s Deep, tears were flowing, for Elva Toyon explained to them all that when a true wizard or warlock who has taken on a familiar dies, his bonded companion usually joins him, and if it doesn’t, the separated life after was horrible to live. This provided little comfort for Gallarael, Chelda, Moonsy, and the others, for every one of them had loved both Sir Poopsalot and Vanx Malic dearly.
Master Kruuga and several Zythian spellcasters used every means they could to try to detect them, but all they found was Zeezle floating by the Sea Spire, so near to death that it would be days at best before he could tell them what had happened.
The tale of the two horribly wounded dragons, and the Paragon’s long, pale-blue tail floating in the sea near the Zythian only made it worse. Then word of the retaking of Andwyn came, bringing a little hope that whatever Vanx, Zeezle, and the dragons had done might have worked.
Gallarael was sickened inside and out. Part of her had died with her unborn, and the rest had been killed by the gods-be-damned Paragon Dracus.
Paragon Dracus: The Legend of Vanx Malic Book Six Page 11
