“That is true, Poops,” Vanx responded aloud and then laughed through his concern for doing so. He could have answered with a thought.
He’d sworn to the Goddess to avoid questioning the Hoar Witch personally, and he wouldn’t break his word. Instead he called for Gallarael through the crystal hanging at his neck. The device allowed him to order the Hoar Witch’s minions about Saint Elm’s Deep, and even communicate with any of the fae and his companions as long as they were in the valley.
Gal arrived a few long moments later and shifted from her changeling form into the smiling princess Vanx remembered. Her hair was dark now, and though it framed her delicate face perfectly, he still thought he would like it better long and golden, as it had been when he’d first started seeing her mother.
Thinking of the Duchess of Highlake made him shiver.
“Chelda and Moonsy are as in love as any two have ever been,” said Gallarael. “I’m not sure how it works though, since Chel is almost seven feet tall and Moonsy is only two.” She chuckled and then grew serious when she looked at Vanx’s expression. “What is it?”
“I need you to find out from Aserica Rime how to tell how far into the future her mirror of portent is seeing?”
“I thought it was destroyed.”
“Look.” Vanx showed her the piece of mirror he’d found. She watched it for a few moments then looked at him. “Oh my. That’s Parydon Isle. I’ll go down then.”
That night Vanx listened with mixed feelings as the old hag hollered and pleaded for death while Gallarael tortured information out of her. One of the Hoar Witch’s own creations, a large, venomous spider thing called Sissy, had cocooned her and was using her as a feeding pod. Aserica Rime wouldn’t die in this state, but oh how she wanted to.
The next day, Vanx finished concocting the brew the old witch told Gallarael of. After sipping it, and then looking into the mirror, Vanx suddenly understood that the vision was of a very near future. He also saw a tangent vision of things that would transpire in only days.
Prince Russet and the crew of the Seahawk would be landing at Orendyn, where they would trick Darbon out of information and then hire the twin Skmoes to guide them to the Deep in search of Gallarael.
Vanx shook his head. The reflections started blurring in his mind and he retched. He needed more of the potion, but had seen enough for the moment. Gallarael was an absconded princess after all, but if Prince Russet was coming to Oryndyn then he had a good idea where she was. The letter they’d sent back with Brody’s remains might have given them away. Or more likely the dock workers had been questioned by kingdom spies. Vanx and his group were revered as celebrities after their shrew kill, and even before that, the sign in front of the Iceberg Inn and Tavern had read “Vanx the bard most nights after supper” for most of a year. Had anyone been asking about him they would have learned he had gone questing to the north and had taken his dead friend’s sister Galra with him.
It also meant that the kingdom was not expecting an attack. Had they been, Prince Russet would have been forced into a stronghold and kept there. He was King Oakarm’s only son and there was no way they’d let him sail north. For a moment the little rat riding devil Pwca crossed Vanx’s mind, but then the fresh memory of Prince Russet’s angry expression, as he roughed up Darbon, wiped the concern away. Salma had looked battered in the vision too and that made Vanx angry.
“Why would he harm Salma or Darbon?” Vanx asked Gallarael sometime later. They were in a crystal formed hall that Vanx had cleaned of filth and debris. Gallarael hung some old tapestries and replaced the torches with moss lamps she got from the Underland brownies. There were two divans sitting opposite each other with a long wooden table between them. It was a knee high sitting table for Vanx and Gallarael, but Thorn had brought over a chair and looked to be sitting at the head of a fancy table board as the conversation kept going.
“They were probably trying to keep their mouths shut,” Thorn answered. Before the Pixie Queen had died the strawberry haired elf was the head of her Honor Guard. General Foxwise Posy-Thorn, was his name, and though he looked like a child, he was as sharp and ornery as an elf could be. “Finding a runaway princess is serious buisiness I’m sure.”
“I’m not a runaway princess!” Gallarael snapped and a little bit of her changeling-self resonated in her snarl. “I don’t know why he would hurt them either. I’m sick about it. I didn’t know I was the Princess of Parydon and that he was my brother until recently Vanx. Don’t ask me why he would do anything.”
“You are the Princess of Highlake either way. Your mother won’t let the realm sit still until you are found.”
“You’ll have to go to Oryndyn and head him off Gal,” Thorn said simply. “We can’t have the Crown Prince of Parydon bringing his whole cohort into the Lurr to find us.”
“What of the attack on the Island?” Vanx asked the general.
“She can warn the prince when she sees him.” The elf shrugged.
Chapter Two
“I wish I could go with you Gal,” Chelda said gathering Gallarael’s full attention. The two of them were sitting on a large rock at the edge of the Heart Tree’s Shadowmane. Outside of the Underland, Chelda could go no farther from the tree until newly born Prince Chervil Longroot matured and learned a way to release her.
That could be half a century or more.
Gallarael wasn’t sure how Chelda was keeping from going mad, but at least she wouldn’t age while she waited. Chelda and Moonsy seemed to be in love and happy, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Either way she could travel five times as fast as Chelda if she made the journey in her changeling form.
She wasn’t going alone though. The little sprite named Streak, who had led her before, was assigned by Vanx and General Posy-Thorn to accompany her. Streak could fly even faster than she could run, and the finger sized guy could ride in her hair, or easily hide, if the need arose.
“I wish you could go too, Chel.” Gal forced a smile. “I mean so you could get away from here. “None of you could hold my pace.”
“I’d bet Moonsy–” Chelda caught herself and blushed.
“Not even Moonsy could keep my pace.” Gallarael stood and patted her big gargan friend on the back. “That little Streak will even have a time of it on this trek.”
“You’d best use caution.” Chelda stood and looked down at her. “I saw a slip of a girl fall through ice that a whole caravan had just slid over. Just like that she was dissapeared down a hole.”
“That’s terrible.” She was usually eaten up with curiosity about the Underland when she was hanging around the Shadowmane. She loved the stories Chelda told her, but this day concern over Darbon, Salma, and an angry brother she barely knew kept her from asking questions.
“It is true and you’d better not just go running across any open tundra. There is more than snowfalls and shrew tunnels you have to worry about out there.”
“I’ll be fine Chelda,” Gallarael gave her a quick hug. “I have to go gather my things.”
“So you are going in the morning?”
“Vanx and Thorn are escorting me to the Ice Falls in a while. I’ll slide around them at first light and be off.”
Chelda grabbed Gallarael into another more heartfelt embrace and sniffled loudly. “I’ll miss you. You are one of the first true friends I have ever known.”
“I’ll miss you too Chelda.” Gallarael hugged her back, but didn’t feel as emotional. She was too full of concern and growing eager to be back in her changeling form.
Vanx was busy ordering Vrooch and the remaining members of his pack of misbread wolfen to scare away any living thing that might slow or harm Gallarael as she traversed her way south out of the Lurr. After that he needed to add the final ingredients to the potion he was rendering for Streak. The stuff would supposedly allow the sprite to call out to them if there was a dire situation. The trick, after the concoction was done brewing, was diluting it so that the tiny guy didn’t die when he took a sip. Vanx hoped to t
est it, but before he could do that he had to pen a message for King Oakarm and another for Quazar. Both he knew, would take a while to articulate.
It made him cringe when he pinched a bit of powdered pixie dust from a small cup and sprinkled it into the kettle. He had no taste for this sort of witchery, but it was what he had to work with at the moment and he was trying to make the best of it.
He was concerned about Gallarael’s lack of concern over her journey too, but the memory of a night in an alley, when she could have killed him a dozen times over, kept that worry from getting out of hand. He decided he would go review the scene in the mirror again. He wouldn’t let Gal leave the Deep until he did.
The end of the preview...
Look for Trigon Daze in the Kindle store sometime in 2014
Other titles by M. R. Mathias
Short Stories:
Crimzon & Clover I - Orphaned Dragon, Lucky Girl
Crimzon & Clover II - The Tricky Wizard
Crimzon & Clover III - The Grog
Crimzon & Clover IV - The Wrath of Crimzon
Crimzon & Clover V - Killer of Giants
Crimzon & Clover Collection One (stories 1-5)
The Saga of the Dragoneers
The First Dragoneer - Free
The Royal Dragoneers - Now Available
Cold Hearted Son of a Witch - Now Available
The Confliction - Now Available
The Emerald Rider - Now Available
The Legend of Vanx Malic
Book One – Through the Wildwood
Book Two – Dragon Isle
Book Three – Saint Elm’s Deep
Book Four – That Frigid Fargin Witch
And don’t miss the huge International Bestselling epic:
The Wardstone Trilogy
Book One - The Sword and the Dragon
Book Two - Kings, Queens, Heroes, & Fools
Book Three - The Wizard & the Warlord
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That Frigid Fargin Witch (The Legend of Vanx Malic) Page 15