The Long Journey Home (The Legend of Vanx Malic Book 8)

by M. R. Mathias

  “What do you mean?” Moonsy asked the elven magi. Her tone was that of General Moonseed, not Moonsy the woman.

  Anitha snapped to attention and immediately began reporting to her superior what she’d sensed with her spell.

  “Falriggin must have made the protective spell,” she said, “for it is a complex ward that no regular human wizard could have constructed. Once the gem is possessed, the one having it…” She put up a hand to say no to the suggestion that was on Vanx’s lips.

  “Gloves?” he asked anyway.

  She just shook her head in the negative and went on. “The one who possesses it will be pulled into the construct. Falriggin was wise. I have studied his books. He most likely left a way out that only one with honor and good intention could find, but I can’t say what the construct might entail. It could just burn you to a cinder or teleport you into the core.”

  Vanx took that in for a moment and smirked at Anitha. “Well, thanks for that at the end. I was eager until that bit.”

  “I wasn’t reporting to you, sir.” She bowed to him and refaced Moonsy at attention.

  “Ah, well, okay, then.” Vanx gave Moonsy a look that conveyed perplexity. “So, talk to me now.” Vanx’s angry tone made even Moonsy stand stiff. Vanx had fought with their greatest. Both of them, as far as he was concerned, were under his command.

  “If you are here to do this with me, mighty Anitha, then you and Moonsy both report to me.” He wasn’t happy about having to go off into some magical creation again, and he tried not to take his frustration out on these elves who were helping him.

  “This is my quest. Moonsy is my general now.” He looked at Moonsy, who gave him a nod of assurance. “I fought beside the elf who came here and managed to escape Pwca with the shard that Queen Corydalis used to summon my aid. Now, can you sit down, take a few deep breaths, and tell me slowly everything you can that may help me, for I have no choice but to possess the stone. My goddess commands it of me.”

  The idea of going into another magical ward was scary, for one could never know what to expect. The dwarven cavern, all carved and ancient, that he and Poops had gone into after the Emerald Earth Stone had been an illusionary construct. That cave was just an old stony cavern but had looked and felt like ancient dwarf-carved stone.

  Terribly real, giant lyna cats had guarded the emerald. They would have killed him had they gotten their claws in, he was certain. There was no telling what this Falriggin had devised. Vanx brought up something from Foxwise Posey-Thorn’s tale then.

  “I thought Foxwise, and then Pwca behind him, emptied Falriggin’s hidey hole.” He looked down at them. For a moment it seemed like he was standing there with two eight-year-old girls. Moonsy’s voice broke that spell, for she sounded like a woman, not a child.

  “There is probably a hidey hole for each tower.” She looked at Anitha, who agreed.

  Vanx couldn’t help but wonder if she was agreeing because her superior was or if she had an opinion of her own.

  “I am going to go possess the gem and see what happens,” Vanx told them. “While I am busy melting, maybe one of you could go see if there is another hidey hole. I think we may be able to avoid a third quest to this damp, dank, creepy old place while we are here.”

  “Anitha, see to it,” Moonsy told her, and Anitha left them, clearly wondering if she had disrespected Vanx or Moonsy.

  “Follow me, Vanx,” Moonsy said. She started leading them up through the dust Anitha’s passage had just stirred.

  “She didn’t mean anything,” Moonsy explained. “I think she thought no one would be foolish enough to get the gem after her warning.”

  “Well, then I’m that fool. I’ve no choice, do I?”

  “That’s my point. She didn’t know that.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Moonsy.” Vanx knew they were closing in on the room where the hidey hole was.

  Once inside the chamber, Vanx decided it might have been a librarium. There were empty shelves built into one wall and a crumbled desk. The only thing that looked to have survived the ravages of time in here was an iron stool. Moonsy didn’t even move it. She walked over and ran her hand across the wall behind it.

  She spoke a word, but Vanx didn’t hear what it was.

  When Moonsy stepped away, there was a section of outer wall missing, revealing three shelves. The bottom one had some pouches and vials lined up neatly on it.

  The second shelf had two stoppered bottles and a small, bright yellow pebble; on the third shelf sat a fist-sized ruby-like gem. Vanx didn’t think about it. He just reached out and took the glimmering red jewel.

  When his hand touched it, the world flashed so bright that he went spinning into a great white nothingness.

  Chapter Thirty

  One moment, he was just there,

  the next a god he was.

  If you ask him how it came to pass,

  he will only grin and say, “Because.”

  Moonsy gasped in surprise.

  When Vanx grabbed the gem, he disappeared. The abruptness and the ripping sound that accompanied his departure was unsettling and just plain awful to behold. She was left full of concern, for maybe Vanx had instantly died as Anitha suggested might happen. He could have been teleported to some nether plane and forced to fight horrible battles alone. Or worse, he could just be trapped, hoping that someone would be brave enough to come save him.

  Three days later, when Vanx hadn’t returned, Moonsy was growing frantic, for the gem was still sitting there on the top shelf, and she didn’t quite know what she should do.

  To make things worse, according to Master Ruuk, Gallarael was now on Dragon Isle, and as angry as a hornet that the great hawk had left her to go retrieve Papri instead of bringing her to Vanx at Three Tower Island, which was a day’s flight closer.

  Anitha had long since returned from the third tower with word that its hidey hole had been rummaged through a few decades ago and was empty of anything important. She was as upset as Moonsy. She cried each night, thinking her divining and suggestions had brought Vanx ill fortune.

  The one thing Moonsy was holding on to was the fact that Poops hadn’t shown any irregular concern about him. At least, Zeezle and Master Ruuk told her through the ethereal that the dog was acting normal. They said the Adventurer was acting normal, too, and that Chelda was passing the time chiseling in the features on the unfinished bow spirit of Vanx’s ship.

  She wasn’t sure how a ship acted, and she had no idea that Chelda could carve, but it made sense. She’d grown up in a boring mountain forest. Moonsy was sure Vanx could command his ship, though, for his father was the most infamous captain to have ever lived. It pained her when day turned to night yet again. “Anitha, go to Dragon Isle, return with Gallarael, or let her return on your bird, please. Use magic to travel as fast as you safely can.”

  “Yes, General.” The elf left.

  Moonsy cried after she was gone. She debated entering the magical construct by grabbing the ruby herself but never did. She cried and cried and cried. Then she called on Elva Toyon and the Troika Sven for advice, knowing that this might be the end of her great escape into adventure with Chelda and Vanx.

  She would ask them if they wanted her to try and possess the gem, too, for that was what she was inclined to do. Someone had to go help Vanx or at least see what had happened to him.

  Vanx ended up in a sitting position. His eyes fluttered open to see that he was in a high-ceilinged great hall. The columns that ran down the sides of the space were as big around as five men and had tapestries and heavy curtains strung between them, creating the illusion of walls. The dominating feature of the massive room was a perfectly round fountain pool that separated the rectangular space into two halves. In the center of the fountain pool was a marble hand, just like the one he’d encountered in the lyna room holding the Emerald Earth Stone, except this one held a glimmering ruby in its stony grasp.

  Vanx took a breath and got to his feet. He knew this wasn’t going to b
e as simple as wading in and grabbing the gem, but he figured it could be, so why not try?

  As soon as he stepped over the knee-high pool and his boot hit water, something within the upward spraying display roared to life.

  To his disappointment, it didn’t cease to be when he stepped back out of the pool.

  A dragon’s head on a long sinuous neck came snapping down at him from out of nowhere. The only thing more amazing than the speed and accuracy of the creature’s strike was that it was formed from nothing more than fountain water.

  Vanx cast a massive ball of wizard fire for it to chomp on in his stead, and the terrible sound that came when its form steamed away only made the next roar seem that much louder.

  The water reformed into another wyrm and came sliding right back at him. Before he could cast another spell, he was blasted with jetted liquid so hard it ripped through his skin in places.

  He did the first thing that came to mind and dropped sprawling to the floor just to try and get under its flesh-ripping power.

  The next time it came in at him, Vanx had to make some moves he’d only seen Zeezle perform. He spun and then cartwheeled out of the liquid maw’s snap, just in time to avoid the watery fangs.

  This was getting serious, and he decided he needed to back up and think about the situation for a moment.

  He knew a spell, but it was from the Hoar Witch’s books.

  His goddess wouldn’t want him to cast it, would she?

  He contemplated this as he hurried back toward the steps where he’d opened his eyes. When he got there and turned, he saw that not just the front claws but the front half of a dragon formed of fluid was pulling itself even farther out of the fountain pool to get at him.

  “Forgive me,” he said, just before he cast Aserica Rime’s spell, and just as soon as it was cast, a pummeling blast of water jetted down from the liquid dragon’s throat and pulverized him into unconsciousness.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  More tomorrows keep coming,

  and yesterdays, they go.

  How many tomorrows are there?

  Only the goddess knows.

  Poops came to Gallarael the same day Papri returned to the island with her things. Gallarael knew another elf was coming to get her, but since Poops had shown his agitation and nudged at her repeatedly, she commandeered Papri’s tired great hawk. Through Papri, the bird agreed to fly her to Three Tower Island, but only if it could rest and feed in the woods nearby for a few days before going anywhere else.

  Papri let the bird make up its own mind, and Gallarael was mounted and flying toward Three Tower Island a day faster than she would have been had she waited for Anitha.

  The great hawk circled on the warm air reflecting up from the island. Once they were as high as some of the clouds, they started gliding. It was hard to say how fast they were flying, but at times Gallarael had to let her claws extend to keep her grip and stay on the streaking bird.

  Gallarael also had to control her instinct to change, to kill this meaty fowl and eat it. She had heard the story of the turtle and the scorpion and wasn’t foolish enough to let her nature contribute to her demise.

  Master Ruuk had conveyed everything Moonsy said and told Moonsy everything he was asked to tell her.

  She was extremely concerned about Vanx. It had been six days now since he’d gone into some wizard’s spell thing. No one was brave enough to go in after him. No one who could get there fast anyway. Chelda would have and Zeezle, too. Moonsy was probably willing, but the Troika Sven, no doubt, wouldn’t allow her to go.

  Gallarael wasn’t sure what she was going to do when she got there. The elves said there was a good chance that if someone else touched the stone, it would do nothing. Master Ruuk said that most wards of this sort exhausted themselves the first time through—that Vanx would either make his way out or he wouldn’t. But there was a real possibility that someone touching the stone might follow Vanx into the ward.

  It was that hope that Gallarael was living on.

  Anitha and her great hawk saw Gallarael and the great hawk and turned to fly lead for the inexperienced rider and exhausted bird.

  They landed once on a tiny atoll and took turns urinating and stretching. Anitha’s bird caught a fish and shared it with the other. Then they finished the journey. They flew, skirting a small squall that night, and Gallarael managed to get a little sleep, for she woke in the predawn light when her mount came flapping down, nearly exhausted to depletion, on an island she’d passed a half dozen times going back and forth between Orendyn and Saint Elm’s Deep.

  She slid to the ground and ran, stumbling on weakened legs, to the leaning tower as she’d been told. When she got there, Moonsy greeted her with a teary-eyed hug.

  “Seven and a half days now, and nothing.” Moonsy could barely get the words out.

  “Bah.” Gallarael returned her hug then stepped past. “Which one is it? The big ruby or the little yellow rock?”

  “He touched the ruby,” Moonsy said through chattering teeth. “Oh, Gallarael, please. I, we, none of us want to lose you, too.”

  “Vanx might not be lost,” Gallarael said sharply. She picked up the little yellow rock and gave Moonsy a look. “Do you know what this is?”

  “No.” The elven general looked as if she might burst into tears. Gallarael knew the look, for they’d cried together many times while Chelda and Vanx were on the far side of creation, fighting the Paragon Dracus.

  “Neither do I.” She shrugged and then palmed the big gem.

  Instantly, Gallarael was pulled into a flash of brightness. When she opened her eyes, she was in a great hall that had been iced over. Part of a long-necked beast formed of frozen water was reaching down at something.

  She didn’t hesitate. She knew it was Vanx, and he was pinned under the heavy head of the creature, which had broken from the neck and fallen on him. It had clearly been attacking him. He’d probably frozen it with a spell. He was bloody and mangled, and as she slid down beside him, she put her head against his chest and prayed to his goddess for him.

  To her surprise, she heard his heart, and he jerked, startling her.

  “Food, warm water,” he said as he slid out from under the frozen dragon head.

  “You’re not pinned?” she asked, astonished.

  “Nah, the hollow there holds heat while I sleep.” He grinned. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Waiting for me?”

  “My goddess has tasked me.” He grinned again. “As long as I am in here, though, no one can rush me off to crack this or find another.” He held up the real ruby, the one he’d taken from the stone hand. It glimmered, casting a pink light across the ice. “I was just waiting. After I froze this bastard, I was out of it for a day or so. I still had to defy that crazy arm to get the stone, but I did it. After that is when Poops found you and told me you were there.”

  “So, you have been deceiving everyone, including your goddess, just for me?”

  “Yup.” He slid over next to her. “But I was about to give up on you.”

  She kissed him then. “That would have been a mistake.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  If I had a dime

  for every once upon a time,

  I’d be doing well,

  for I’ve some tales to tell.

  It turned out that the goddess didn’t care what spells Vanx used. She expressed her love for Vanx. The love he felt for Gallarael, she said, only made him stronger.

  Follow your heart, not your anger, the goddess told him, revealing to Vanx his great mistake. He had three other seed gems to find and crack, and without a dragon to help him, it wouldn’t be easy. He had a magic ship and the best crew around to go do it with, though.

  After the birds rested, two carried carried Vanx and Gallarael each back to Dragon Isle, while the third bird carried the two elven women. Vanx took the Glaive of Gladiolus into his possession, just so Moonsy would have to come and protect it. But Elva Toyon agreed that having Gen
eral Moonseed along gave King Longroot a claim to all of these new Heart Trees as part of his fairy kingdom.

  Vanx laughed, for the poor kid was only three years old and had no idea what was happening outside his opulent nursery.

  The ruby Vanx already had needed to be cracked, and the goddess had told him where to do it. So that was his next task.

  Master Ruuk was going back to Zyth to help rebuild, but Zeezle decided to stay on Dragon Isle and keep an eye on the new Heart Tree and Chelda’s horses, which had been mating all week and needed protection from the young dragon the Zythian had been spying on over the ridge.

  Vanx was doing his goddess’s bidding, not the elves’. The business of the seed gems just happened to be of both their concern, which worked out well for Chelda and Moonsy, who kept them all guessing how their late night groanings and moanings were played out.

  The Adventurer was a small ship after all.

  Vanx had a hard time imagining Chelda in a bunk, much less making love to Moonsy in one of the cramped cabins; but they made love, and so did Vanx and Gallarael.

  Vanx wasn’t allowed out of his cabin, save to fish, until they were in the proximity of the invisible island. The goddess had told him he would learn about the other three gems there, but only after he cracked the ruby.

  They had the great hawks this time, and the birds could see the island just fine even though the humans couldn’t.

  As he climbed into the longboat with his friends and familiar, Vanx sighed. Another adventure was about to begin, and he hadn’t even fully recovered from the last one.

  Maybe it was Gallarael’s sexual appetite he needed to recover from, he told himself. The truth was he didn’t need to recover, for he was whole because he had Sir Poopsalot and Gallarael with him now. And even though the loss of Pyra and Thorn weighed heavily on him, he knew they had died fighting, which was all anyone could hope to do.