Ptella, the elmwood nymph, arrived in the Deep. She spent some time with Gallarael, trying to remove her sadness and sorrow. Not even the intense orgasmic release the strange ghostly creature caused with her touch was enough. Not for more than the moment, and after that passed, it only seemed worse. It was Vanx who Gallarael wanted inside her, not some strange magical sensation.
Chelda was up and about, but she was debilitated beyond the repair of magic. Her leg bones were crooked, and she seemed to be in pain most of the time, and the rest of the time drunk on the slight relief battleberry juice brought her. Even the Glaive of Gladiolus couldn’t fix her, for she was already healed. While she’d lain on the rock with the seawolves, her bones had knitted out of position.
Gallarael could tell that she wanted to be mad at Vanx for botching the mending of her bones, but Chelda couldn’t seem to muster a real complaint, for his actions were the only reason she was alive and able to be with her precious Moonsy.
Vanx Malic had saved Gallarael more than once, and her brother’s kingdom, too, and no one could even thank him. Her heart was torn, and she did well to hide the true depth of her sadness.
It wasn’t long before word of Vanx Malic’s deed reached the Isle of Zyth. Within the span of a few days, Gal was overhearing the few Zythians still lingering in Saint Elm’s Deep speaking of him as if he were some sort of legend. The men from Parydon revered him as some sort of god.
Gal couldn’t imagine how Darbon and Selma were taking it down in Orendyn, but she thought she might go see them, if only for her comfort.
Elva Toyon and the Troika Sven confirmed, with a dozen different spells, that the Paragon Dracus was no longer in their midst. The old Zythian masters agreed, for using the same sort of spells cast from Zyth, Dyntalla, and even Parydon Isle and the Sea Spire, revealed no trace of the thing that had nearly conquered their side of the world.
The Zythians who had been to Harthgar and knew of the Trigon’s power were sent to that faraway land to try to subvert the hungry force, and confirm the Paragon’s end. It wouldn’t be hard. If the dazed there still had a purpose, then there was someone controlling them. If they didn’t, the Trigon was gone.
Then King Russet and a retinue of Royal Wizards and guardsmen arrived at Vanx’s nearly ruined palace. They bore news of their retaking of Parydon Isle and the end of almost all of the remaining folk who had been put under the Trigon Daze.
“That three-pronged sticker is just lying in a valley on Dragon Isle,” General Gloryvine Moonseed told them.
Gallarael was glad that her brother sent some men and wizards to retrieve it, and stayed with her instead of going with them.
“Sister,” he consoled, “there will always be a place for you in the kingdom. A place of comfort, with nothing for you to worry over, save for what you wish to worry over.”
“Maybe someday, Russ.” She forced a smile. “King Russet, I mean.”
“No, not you.” His smile was clearly just as forced as hers. “You can call me anything you like.” He hugged her, and she could tell that the adoration and affection in the embrace wasn’t faked at all, for he held on for a very long time and spent a good portion of the emotional embrace crying heavy tears into her shoulder.
She, too, cried, but her tear ducts had been drained days ago. After he left her to go make treaties and trade agreements with the elves, skmoes, and gargans, she left Saint Elm’s Deep in her changeling form and found Forgotten Deep over the ridge.
There, she returned to human form and used her own blood to write Vanx Malic’s name on a stone and wish him home. After a while, she decided to make another namestone. This one read Vanx Saint Elm, for that was his father’s name. Malic was just the name of the village where Vanx was born. Then it dawned on her that Saint Elm was his grandfather’s nickname, taken by his father Marin Saint Elm, or maybe given to him by the Hoar Witch, but not his true family name.
It hurt her that she didn’t even know what to call him, and she wondered if Vanx died not knowing his own name, or if the Hoar Witch had told him.
She remembered the Mirror of Portent then, and after changing back into her feline self, she made her way back over the ridge to his palace to find it, and see what her future might or might not hold.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Don’t pass through the frigid gate,
there is nothing North to see.
Stick to the docks and mind your cocks,
or frozen you will be.
- a sailors song
Before Gallarael could reach the palace, she heard men and Zythians talking about Zeezle and the story he’d told Master Kruuga when he woke. She hurried to find Moonsy and Chelda to see if it was all true.
“I believe it is,” Chelda answered, for Moonsy was still General Gloryvine Moonseed, and not available at the moment.
The big gargan woman’s whole mouth was stained blue from the berry juice she’d been drinking, but she wasn’t in a battle lust or even slightly inebriated, as far as Gallarael could tell. There had been a man, one of her father’s. . . one of Duke Martin’s, she corrected her thought. The duke had raised her like his own, and had been her father in her heart and mind, until he tried to kill them all.
The duke’s man she was thinking of had lost a leg to an ogre while doing repairs outside the Highlake wall. The man had sat on the same wooden pew every day, outside one of the temples, calling for coins, using his loss to stay drunk, or blasted on devil dust. Gallarael was glad Chelda only slightly reminded her of that one.
Chelda didn’t need money. In fact, she didn’t want for anything, and she hadn’t yet started to wallow in self pity. She worked when she could, and fought through her pain. This day she was guzzling the blue stuff as if she were trying to lose herself, though.
“I can’t believe he was just sucked into the Sea Spire like that,” she said. She looked at the bottle from which she was sipping and downed it before throwing it into the rocks near where they were sitting. “The stuff doesn’t work anymore,” she huffed. “But at least I am alive, and Moonsy still loves me.”
“You are far luckier than I.” Gallarael knew Chelda hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings, but Gal broke into a fit of crying and fell into Chelda’s bosom, sobbing anyway. “I loved him.” The words forced their way through her sniffling. “I think he loved me, too.”
“Ya, ya think?” Chelda ran her hand through Gallarael’s hair in a motherly fashion. “He went to Dragon Isle to save you, then sheltered you for more than a year from the kingdom. I’d say he did.
“It’s that silly pooch I miss most.” Chelda’s tears were flowing now. “Moonsy’s heart is broken so badly, I am not sure I can hold it together.” The huge woman snorted out a sob.
Gallarael hadn’t ever seen Chelda cry, and the sound of it was terrible to hear. It took only a few moments before it was Gallarael who was cradling Chelda’s head and soothing her with soft words.
“Moonsy only knew Poops for the short time we’ve been here,” Gallarael said. “Her pain is sharp now, but it will fade, just as the loss of Thorn has passed from our minds.
“I think, if we had duties,” Gallarael suggested, “like she does, maybe our pain would pass more easily, too.”
“We do have a duty.” Chelda sat up and wiped her nose with the palm of her hand like a child might. “We have to go tell Darby and Salma ourselves, so they don’t hear some overblown tale of shit.”
“Yes,” Gallarael agreed. “They should hear the truth of it from us. Can you make the journey?”
“I was trying to juice up to go talk to you.” Chelda’s tears started flowing again. “But not even the berries will relieve me anymore.”
“That isn’t battleberry juice, love,” Moonsy said, as she joined them. “Well, it is, but I diluted it for your own good.”
She sat on the other side of her lover, and let Chelda lay her head in her lap and cry. Gallarael still couldn’t figure out what their private romantic encounters were like. Chelda’s
head covered the elven general’s entire lap.
“Elva Toyon said they’ve found a spell that can ease your suffering, Chel,” Moonsy said. “I only wish they could fill the empty hole that damned dog left in my soul.”
“I miss Poops, too.” Gallarael leaned into Chelda, and the three women cried while the sun set and the moon rose to its zenith.
Then Streak came searching for his commander, calling for her through the trees, as if he didn’t know exactly where she was. It wasn’t until he said Zeezle wanted to speak to them, that she responded.
They wasted no time following the excited little sprite.
To Gallarael’s surprise, Zeezle had the piece of the Mirror of Portent in his hands where he lay. He was looking into it with something akin to hope showing in his expression, but when she gained his side and tried to see what he was seeing, Zeezle dropped the mirror to his chest, reflective side down, and looked at her with eyes full of confusion.
“I need the powder from the bull scrotum pouch hanging near the well in the witch’s lookout,” he said hoarsely. He, too, looked to have been crying, for his normally bright amber eyes were dull and jaundiced, and his cheeks were chapped, probably from him wiping away tears.
Gallarael knew then that Zeezle had seen something important, for it was she who’d tortured the witch into revealing how to tell how far into the future the mirror was seeing. The stuff in the pouch was the key to that, and she was off to get it, shifting into her faster feline form as she went. She fought the urge to feel anything as she loped through the Deep. Getting her hopes up would only make it worse if it was merely some trivial Zythian thing that Vanx’s friend was seeing.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
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
Zeezle didn’t smile when he handed Gallarael the mirror, but he did force himself to sit up. They were in a small, square room designated for recovery, or maybe prayer. The walls were earthy, and the ceiling looked like what the underside of a vegetable garden might, but the floor was smooth stone, covered in intricately carved designs.
He was excited beyond measure, but he knew he couldn’t give away anything. He couldn’t even show emotion, for fear of causing these good people, who’d loved his friend so dearly, false hope. He was only riding a wave of hope himself, for what he’d seen didn’t tell him if Vanx or the Paragon had survived, but he’d seen how the tower worked, and had watched his own finger touch a certain stone. Where it would take him, or why, he had no idea, but he decided that pursuing Vanx was his duty as a friend, so he would try to defy his vision of the future. He knew what he’d seen was happening fairly soon, too, and that he had more work than he could do alone, but couldn’t tell a soul, save for one.
“What did you see?” Moonsy asked the question Gallarael would have asked, were she not touching a fingertip of the powdered stuff from the pouch to her tongue, so she could look into the glass herself.
Zeezle wanted to stop her, but answered Moonsy instead.
“I won’t tell you,” Zeezle said honestly. “It has naught to do with the fae or the Deep, and I fear it might be my end.”
He looked at Gallarael then, and wondered what was causing her eyes to light up as she saw her portent. Then she burst into what might have been tears of anguish, dropping the mirror as she turned and dashed away into her feline form.
It was Chelda’s quick reflexes, or maybe her long reach, that saved the fragment from shattering on the floor of Zeezle’s healing chamber, but she didn’t bother to look into it as she handed it back to him.
“I’m going with you,” the gargan said flatly.
“Chel,” Moonsy huffed.
“I have a duty to go,” Chelda replied to her lover’s sudden look of saddened understanding.
Chelda hadn’t been the one he’d thought to share his immediate future with, but Gallarael had seen something terrible, and now Zeezle felt having Chelda along might give him comfort. No other had followed Vanx as blindly as she, and she had proven herself over and over again.
“Go to the nexus, then,” Zeezle finally said. “Moonsy just said the Troika can help ease your pain.” Then Zeezle turned to the elf.
“General Moonseed, can the Glaive of Gladiolus heal dragons?”
“I suppose it was created to heal every sort of thing.” Moonsy’s eyes lit up then, for she seemed to sense the undertone of hope Zeezle had just exposed.
“Take Chelda to the nexus, and if you don’t mind, ask permission to visit Dragon Isle again, if only for a moment or two.”
“I will,” she answered, her smile fading a bit.
Zeezle understood the reaction. She’d hoped to go with him and Chelda into wherever they were headed, but realized her part would end when the Glaive finished healing the dragons.
***
Gallarael saw Vanx in the mirror, striding through the palace door, alive and well, with a fish as big as he was draped over his shoulder. Sir Poopsalot was at his side, just starting to waggle with the excitement of seeing her.
It was a glorious vision, until she realized that it was happening so far into the future that she would be old and gray. She had seen him from a human’s height, too, not from the lower line of vision her feline form afforded her.
All of this overwhelmed her, and she fled to the solitude of the Forgotten Deep.
Had she waited for him? Why was she still in the Hoar Witch’s palace? And why hadn’t Poops looked old? He’d looked older, but as far as she knew, most dogs didn’t live that long.
Then again, Poops was no ordinary dog.
All she knew, as she curled into a ball and sobbed, was that she didn’t want to wait decades to see the love of her life again. But that was what the mirror had shown her.
She sobbed even harder, realizing she was sad because he was still alive, which should have made her happy. For a full day and most of another, she stayed there lost in her sorrow.
Then she remembered that Thorn had defied Moonsy’s death, and she had no idea what might happened between the time of the portent and that moment. For all she knew, she and Vanx could spent all that time together, and he was just returning from some trek to catch a fish.
By the time she returned to Saint Elm’s Deep, though, Chelda, Moonsy, and Zeezle had left on a healing quest to Dragon Isle, leaving her with nothing to do, save go tell Darbon and Selma the truth, or whatever it was they thought they knew.
Chapter Forty
The wizard saw the king and the king gave a sigh,
“I’m sorry, Master Wizard but it’s time for you to die.”
“No,” said the wizard. “You’ve figured it all wrong.”
“You’re already dead, and I’m already gone.”
- The Weary Wizard
“Hold on,” Zeezle called. He pulled the rope he’d tied to Kelse’s leg, which was also connected to Pyra’s, where Chelda was mounted.
Zeezle used a vial to drip a drop of his, Chelda’s, and the two dragons’ blood in the bowl atop the Octron. Outside, Kelse was hovering at the end of his line. Pyra and Chelda were not far away, and tethered to them.
He cast the spell he’d been practicing for days, and then dropped the dragon tear he’d collected long ago, when he’d eased a blue dragon’s natural battle death and then skinned it for a coat.
When he dropped the hardened tear into the bloody bowl, he took in a deep breath, for what was before him, he had no idea, but the portent he’d seen was happening right then and there.
A sphere of crackling light appeared over the miniature spire and grew to the size of an ogre’s head. Inside it, lightning flashed, and storm clouds formed. Liquid clouded with blood flowed in the depths of the energy, and then it all exploded in a flash.
A hole as small as a plum opened up, and inside it, Zeezle saw nothing.
Oddl
y, as he and those tethered to him were drawn into the emptiness, he found he was only hoping that Chelda might be able to keep the promise she’d made to Moonsy when they’d parted.
After that, they were in another world, or another part of their world, all of them, and they were still tethered together and whole.
Vanx or Poops, however, were nowhere to be seen.
THE END
If you would like to read about King Richard Blanchard, before he was the Paragon Dracus, or even a king, enjoy this free extended preview of:
The Royal Dragoneers
Copyright 2010 Michael R. Mathias jr.
All rights reserved
Part I
The Frontier
Chapter One
Jenka De Swasso peeked through the thick leathery undergrowth he was hiding in. The forested hills were lush and alive with late spring growth. The birds and other small creatures were busy making their symphony of life. It was a welcome cacophony, for Jenka was on the hunt, and it masked the noisy sound of his breathing.
Jenka was trying to see which way his prey was going to move. The ancient stag, once a beautiful and majestic creature, was now past its prime. One of its long, multi-forked antlers was broken into a sharp nub near the base. The other antler was heavy and looked to be weighing the weary creature’s head over to one side. All around its grayish-brown furred neck were scars from the numerous battles it had fought over the years defending its harem from the younger bucks. A fresh gash, a dark trail of blood-matted fur leaking away from it, decorated the stag’s shoulder area. Since there were no does moving about, Jenka figured this old king of the forest had lost his most recent battle, and his harem as well.
Jenka was sixteen years old, and he moved through the shadowy glades - between the towering pine trees and the ancient tangle limbed oaks - with the speed and dexterity of well-fit youth. He was dressed in rough spun and leather, brown and green, and when he stopped still he blended into the forest like a bark-skinned lizard on a tree trunk. His face was well-sooted and the shoulder-length mop of dirty-blond hair on his head looked more like a tumbleweed than anything else.
Paragon Dracus: The Legend of Vanx Malic Book Six Page 12
