The Tome of Arbor (The Legend of Vanx Malic Book 9)

by M. R. Mathias

  Vanx blasted the spider into an up-spray of disintegrated mush with a kinetic pulse that cleared the webs for as far up as he could see. It also coated the walls of the vertical boreworm tunnel with the red glowing stuff that particular strain of arachnoids produced.

  “Turn round,” Vanx said, snatching the canteen Chelda was holding. He washed the webbing from her.

  “What in all the hells was that, Vanx?” she asked.

  “A bat,” he lied. “It’s gone now.”

  Chelda looked up and saw all the glowing crimson splatter. Then she turned back to Vanx. “Thank you.”

  “I wasn’t just saving your hide, Chel.” Vanx let her pull him to his feet. “I was saving my own arse, too.”

  “I meant for the lie,” she shook her head. “I fought those spiders with you, Zeezle, and the sea mage by the old wizard’s hole, remember? There is no mistaking that glow, or that smell.”

  “We were just talking about it. That’s why I lied.” He patted her on the shoulder. “Are you all right? No bones need mending with the glaive?”

  “Nah.” She smirked at him, and he saw the girlishness in the look.

  The eerie red glow gave everything a sinister tint, but Vanx used the illumination to take it all in.

  There was man sized arch leading away from the smooth floored, but otherwise unnatural looking cavern. If this was a boreworm hole, the thing dug down to here and just stopped. The only irregularities in the otherwise flat bottom were formed from rock falls. If it was a borehole, it was old enough that the effects of the creature’s secretion had worn off.

  The rock eaters left a substance that stopped stalags from forming in horizontal tunnels and strengthened the almost smooth sides they left as they chewed through the world, he guessed so that they could use the tunnels again unhindered. Vanx walked toward the archway, and Chelda followed. He took a moment to reach out to Poops through their familiar link, but he couldn’t sense anything.

  He wasn’t alarmed, for they’d tumbled down that circular ramp for a long time. It was a long way back to the top, and he figured there was magic involved. He’d seen Poops and Moonsy as safe as could be on the second level of the structure, and Gallarael, was near the third level, if she hadn’t found a way to climb back up to the others.

  Vanx cast a simple detection spell, and was surprised to feel the radiant power of something not too far into the opening he’d just spotted.

  “Come,” he said.

  When Gallarael, in one of her partially shifted forms, came scratching her way up the ramp, Poops barked at her. Moonsy had to hug the agitated dog to keep him from getting on the tilted treads, but he let her restrain him.

  Gallarael finally made it to the floor and changed into her most human form. She dropped to soothe Poops immediately but gave Moonsy a dire look.

  “What?” Moonsy asked.

  “I went down before I came back up,” Gallarael spoke as she rubbed the dog’s gruff.

  “They went tumbling into a dark cavern and I didn’t see them after that.” Gallarael stood. “They have the glaive so if they survived the landing they should be all right.”

  “What do we do?” Moonsy asked, trying to maintain herself. She’d just lost one of her oldest friends, now her lover had tumbled down a stairway into a tunnel with Queen Corydalis’s legendary hero and the sword she was sworn to protect.

  “First we find a way up.” Gallarael gave her a smile. “Then we find a different way down.” She paused. “You should ride Poops, like Thorn used to.” Gallarael turned and started shifting.

  “It’s the only way you’ll be able to keep up with me,” she added before leaning forward and bounding away on all fours.

  Chapter

  Twenty-One

  In that land across the sea,

  a fierce dragon queen, she rose.

  But in the end the great High King,

  Removed her from his throne.

  – The Ballad of Ornspike

  Vanx decided the borehole could have continued down, and the floor been built later, and he knew the old wizard that had sent him here in the first place was powerful enough to do such a thing. By the hells, Vanx could probably do it himself, without magic, if he had the laborers.

  Vanx laughed at himself, for he knew detection spells, all sorts of spells really, it was just never his first instinct to use them. He cast a detection on the floor and found that it wasn’t magicked, and then he realized that, even had it been built by arcane means, the magic might not have left a trace? What he did feel, the thing that was certainly full of magic, wasn’t far down the man sized arch Chelda had just ducked into.

  “Wait.” Vanx cast a light spell. It sputtered and crackled and gave off an uneven, wavering illumination.

  “Bah.” Chelda barked out a laugh. “That is the best you can do? It flickers like a candle in the wind.”

  “Bah, yourself,” Vanx grinned. It was a pathetic light spell, he knew, but unlike the one’s the elves cast, it didn’t announce their presence like a beacon. “What we are after is just at the end of this passage so watch for triggers.”

  “What is that?” Chelda asked as she came upon something.

  The sound of her voice wasn’t hopeful so Vanx squeezed past her to see for himself. What is that?

  Sitting atop a crude stone pedestal was— was— was not what he expected. It was a dust covered, intricately carved wooden box.

  “What the farkin’ hells is in it?” Chelda asked.

  “I’ve no idea.” Vanx couldn’t believe this was what was down here. A box covered in runes that he didn’t understand? It was large enough to hold three gem seeds, but barely. He couldn’t see a seam, or a way to open it.

  Cautiously, he picked it up.

  After a moment, Vanx sucked in a breath. He started shaking and fell toward Chelda, who caught him with terror in her eyes.

  Vanx burst out laughing, and she dropped him. She nearly booted him in the chest on his way to the floor. Through his mirth he said, “Well it didn’t just fill me with knowledge or anything, but it has markings.”

  “What do they say?” She glared dawn at him but, underneath, he could tell that all of her ill-tempered tension was dissipating.

  “I have no idea.” Vanx shrugged. Before he put the book sized item in his pouch he felt something rattling inside. Something heavy and with little room to wiggle. He could only hope it was one or more of the gem-seeds.

  “Rukk will be able to read the box if Moonsy doesn’t recognize the script? I’m worried though, the Goddess doesn’t, has never, sent me on a fool’s errand. Or maybe they are all fool’s errands, I don’t know, but she said that I would learn what I needed to learn here. Even if the box is a case, and the gem-seeds are in it, I still don’t know where to take them.”

  “What do we do now? This is the end of this cavern, and I’m tired of stooping.”

  “Of course.” Vanx indicated that she could lead the way out if she liked. He cast the detection again, just to be sure, and it was the same result. The thing here radiating all the magic was the thing now in his belt pack. He’d hoped to find a map, or a sentient being that would explain what he needed to know.

  He sent out another feeling for Poops, which didn’t raise a response from his dog. It was terrible not being able to feel his familiar. The idea that something might have happened to the pup began to creep into his thoughts.

  As they exited the tunnel, into the bottom of the borehole, Chelda screamed. Vanx knew by the texture of her terror that there were spiders, and he cast a spell as he emerged.

  It was more than one spider. There were a half-dozen of them, and they all had glowing crimson markings and angry red venom sacks ready to pump something full of deadly web silk with a sharp, dagger-long, spinneret.

  At least they weren’t as big as the first one he’d killed. Nevertheless, they were closing in, and all Chelda had to fight with was a close range basher. Vanx moved to put her between him and the annex they’d just e
merged from. And then he unleashed his spell.

  The closer of the things were decimated, but Vanx was suddenly exhausted. He had to fight to keep his wits while drawing his sword.

  Two of the remaining spiders leapt on him. He saw the other had Chelda blocked. Chelda was fighting more than just the spider, he knew, and he was about to be stung because he didn’t have the physical strength left to save himself. Casting all the spells had left him sapped. He should have been practicing to build up his strength, but he’d failed himself.

  “I love you, Chel,” he said weakly. “Moonsy and Gallarael, too.”

  Then he turned away from her demise and watched a spinneret ease down at his abdomen, taking aim. When it raised in a flash and came down to impale him, he clenched his eyes shut, and said a sharp prayer to the Goddess.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Two

  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

  Vanx expected to feel the stinger but, instead, he felt Poops licking his face. He opened his eyes to see that they were at the foot of the circular stair well, a few dozen feet above the open hole leading down to where the spiders were.

  “What the—?” he blurted.

  “Shhh,” Gallarael shushed. Her smile was a relief, but he thought he might be dead.

  “I teleported you two out of harm’s way,” Moonsy said. “I sensed it, when you found the artifact. Once you did, the ramp reverted to stairs again.”

  Vanx hugged his dog and gave him a good belly rub when Poops laid down right beside him.

  “He found a wooden box,” Chelda dropped to a knee and hugged Moonsy.

  After Poops’s need for affection was sated, Gallarael helped Vanx to his feet. “So you found them?” She asked. “Where are the gem-seeds?”

  “I found something, but it tells me nothing.” Vanx was still trying to wrap his mind around the idea that a venomous spinneret had been a heartbeat away from ending him. “I think they may be inside the box. It is just the right size to hold three gems and it is heavy, but I can’t read the markings or open it.”

  “We found something, too.” She shrugged and grinned at Chelda. “While most of the rooms on the top floor were sleeping quarters, storage rooms, and a kitchen, one room was a study, and on the desk was this.

  She unshouldered a pack and carefully pulled out an ancient book that had a spine as thick as his hand was wide. Its cover was tooled leather and the binding looked to be masterfully crafted. “I marked the page it was on with a bit of Moonsy’s hair.”

  “Hey,” the elven general snapped, patting at her head as if she would miss a single strand.

  “It was opened on a picture of your jacaranda tree,” she said as if she’d just solved the whole riddle. “It’s a book about trees, but I can’t read the language it’s written in. Neither can she.”

  Vanx recognized the script immediately, but that was a disappointment. It was the same undecipherable language that was used to mark the box. The fact that Moonsy couldn’t read the language solidified what they needed to do.

  “The language is the key,” said Vanx after flipping through a few pages. The book had carefully sketched renditions of different types of trees, some Vanx had seen, some he hadn’t. Following each drawing, there were paragraphs of information and, in some instances, crude maps. “We need Master Ruuk, or an older Zythian linguist.”

  “See there,” Moonsy said to Chelda and Gallarael, “you were both right.”

  “You were,” Vanx agreed. “Something above and something below. And now we need to set sail, for I believe the book will tell us how to open the box, and everything else we need to know. Once we can read it, that is.”

  Vanx was hopeful now. With the seeds and a book full of directions, they could finish what they started.

  “I thought you weren’t leaving this island until you explored it all,” Chelda said. “There is a whole section we’ve yet to even set eyes on.”

  “But we have what we need, Chel,” Vanx shrugged. “Why bother?”

  “Yah,” she agreed but still sounded disappointed.

  “Ruuk might tell us we have to go fight goblins wherever we smash the next seed, or something,” he offered.

  “You think so?” her tone brightened, and Moonsy laughed at them both. Vanx couldn’t tell if Moonsy was just hiding her emotion, or if she’d really put Anitha’s death behind her. It was hard to read an elf, but looking at her gave him an idea.

  “Maybe so, Chel.” He couldn’t help but grin. “General Moonseed, can you ride one of the great hawks to Zyth from here?”

  “Take the book to Master Ruuk, you mean?”

  “Yup.” Vanx nodded.

  “I don’t see why not.” She shrugged. “I’d want the other hawk to go along.”

  “Of course.” Vanx started to suggest that one of the others could go, too, but Chelda was just too big, and Gallarael, well, he figured she’d be better suited to helping here if they stayed and waited on Moonsy.

  They started up the stairs, Chelda and Moonsy in the lead, with Vanx and Poops beside them. Gallarael was behind him so he turned and asked her the question that had just popped into his head.

  “You guys didn’t happen to check the floors between here and the top did you?”

  “There were five of them, counting the level we came in on,” Gallarael said. “We looked around the second floor and saw nothing but a ceremonial altar and a few more sleeping areas. Then Moonsy rode Poops up the ramp. The other levels had no torches so we left them alone.”

  “Moonsy rode Poops?” Vanx was amazed. “Like Thorn?”

  “Yes, and Poops loved it.”

  “We’ll not be waiting to smash goblins, Vanxy,” Chelda yelled from about a half turn ahead of them. There was a loud cracking thump and a mannish looking thing, made from some sort of magicked stone, fell past them, crashing and breaking on the stairs as it continued down. “Hurry, I can only hold them a moment more.”

  It was all Vanx could do to get himself up and onto the landing. He saw there were a handful of gargoyles, not goblins, blocking their way. They’d come from one of the darkened levels above them. Chelda had them crouching back, afraid to get walloped by her war hammer. Vanx saw at least three crumbled stone legs when he slid behind her. He also saw Moonsy, just inside the archway, ready to blast anything that followed her lover in after them.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Three

  Deep in a stormy meadow,

  as the lightning crashes down.

  I fight through all my sorrow,

  for deep in mourning I’ll be found.

  – A Zythian bard’s song

  Chelda was visibly disappointed when Moonsy blasted the three, stone formed gargoyles into rubble and lit the whole floor up with her bright illumination spell.

  Everyone else was just happy no more of the things remained. The room they were in, for that is all it was, had a bunk with a skeleton in it. The man was still wearing his night clothes, though he’d have to had been there a hundred years or more to be so decayed.

  Vanx saw a handwritten note on the bedside table. There was a quill and an ink bottle there, too. Vanx picked up the inkwell first, and wasn’t surprised to find its contents were long evaporated.

  “He must have written it on his deathbed,” Gallarael said, stealing the thought from Vanx’s mind.

  The clay ink jar shattered on the floor and Vanx swore. Something must have been living in it. He was certain something had crawled out and bit him, but he saw nothing of the sort.

  He grabbed the piece of parchment and grunted when he saw it was also written in a language he had never seen before. He unshouldered the bag he’d taken from Gallarael, opened the ancient tome, and replaced Moonsy’s hair with the dead man’s note. It was time get out of there.

  “Can you just blast our way up out of here Moonsy?�
�� Vanx asked. “Chelda can follow and smash anything left moving. Then, as soon we get outside, keep your light right over us until we get to Gallarael’s tunnel. I will take care of that wyrm if it comes.”

  “You’ll end up a wyrm turd yet.” Chelda grinned. She liked the plan.

  A few more gargoyles tried to block their passage, but Moonsy dispatched them with ease. It was a strange tentacle-like vine, reaching from inside the middle level’s archway that caused all the chaos.

  Vanx cast a powerful blasting spell at the thing as it wrapped around Moonsy. It seemed aware she was the cause of the light, but Vanx didn’t know how he knew that. When his spell impacted the sparsely leafed trailer, it only made it get bigger.

  He jumped over another grasping tendril, but it missed him. He saw Poops get wrapped around by it, though.

  “Pound it, Chel,” he yelled. “Find its base and pound the shit out of it!”

  Vanx used his sword to cut Poops free, but Moonsy was another matter. She must have been losing consciousness for the strength of her light spell was fading.

  Gallarael, her skin now hard and glossy black, flashed dagger long claws as she followed Chelda into the arch. Vanx wasn’t repulsed enough to let it distract him from his intention, this time. He did a cartwheel, being careful to keep his blade under control, and then pushed off the banister in an attempt to get a clean cut, but the banister gave way.

  Vanx’s sword cut something, but as he crashed into the stairs, he could only hope it wasn’t Moonsy. He looked to see, but the light from her spell was gone.

  Vanx cast a light into being then, a fairly bright one for his ability. He heard Chelda’s pounding and Gallarael’s growling snarl coming from the darkness and wondered how Chelda could see. Gallarael, he knew, could see like a creature, just as he could when he submerged into Poops senses, and Poops was emitting deep concern over Moonsy.