The Legend of Vanx Malic Books I-IV Bundle: To Kill a Witch

by M. R. Mathias

  “Come on, Poops,” Vanx nearly shouted then. “Let’s go hunt something to eat. It’s a long hike back down to Great Vale.”

  Later that night, just after the sun slipped from the sky, Aserica Rime was roused from her bed by Clytun. The minotaur was excited and persistent. The Hoar Witch had been watching the warlock off and on, without sleep, since long before his group passed the frozen falls. She had just lain down, after spending most of the afternoon torturing information out of the pixie queen. Clytun’s orders had been to disturb her only if something was happening with the warlock. She knew Clytun wouldn’t bother her otherwise, so the moment her ancient brain registered the minotaur’s insistence, she was up and moving.

  “Tell me what you saw,” she asked Clytun as they spiraled down a dank, torchlit stairway past landings closed off with heavy doors. Some of them were banded wood, some barred, like cages, with horrible moans or aggressive snarls coming from deep within. Then a thin plea for death echoed up the stairwell from farther below.

  “It was like a fountain of bright blue sparks. It nearly blinded Flitch.” The minotaur spoke quickly, ignoring the harrowing sounds around him. “The whole group, save for the big gargan ranger and his helper, came outside. They huddled around their wizard, and he cast a spell, but I think something went wrong.”

  The minotaur opened a huge iron door for the Hoar Witch. The stairs continued farther down, and from somewhere far below, that thin plea for death trailed up again.

  Entering the room she snatched a drawstring bag full of some foul-smelling, bright yellow dust, and after sprinkling a generous amount across the still water of the raised pool in the center of the room, she dabbed a bit of the stuff on her tongue and swallowed it. She passed the bag to Clytun. The minotaur had already been dosed with the horrid concoction so he could hear what Flitch was hearing and saying.

  Leaning over the pool, the Hoar Witch was just in time to hear the leading edge of a spirited argument outside of the cabin in the harsh, wavering light of a pitch torch one of them was holding.

  “It worked the last time I tried it!” the mage growled. “I must have wasted too much of my power trying to save that stupid gargan.”

  “Hey.” The barbarian shoved him. The flaming brand she was holding flared and sputtered with her movements. “Gargans aren’t stupid.”

  At her feet, the dog barked and danced around crazily, adding to the din.

  “It doesn’t matter!” the thin voice of the elf yelled out. “You’re all a bunch of shameful yellow-bloods. Curse y’all to the bottom of hell for slinking away.”

  “Now wait a minute, you.” The warlock growled. “If you’re so fargin brave, why do you need us to save your wretched little queen?”

  “ARP! Woof, woof,” sounded the dog.

  “I don’t. We don’t,” The elf spat. “It’s all beyond saving now, anyway. The witch took the queen so we fae will just rot away. You’ll all come to regret it, if that blasted witch finally gains the full power of the Heart Tree.”

  “Woof, woof, woof.”

  “You’ll wish you’d stayed and fought her evil.”

  “I’ll be in Harthgar,” the warlock shot back. “Or in Parydon, sipping mulled wine and playing my songs for heavy-breasted, jewel-laden merchants’ wives.”

  “Wait. Stop all this.” The wizard’s voice rose over the others. “Let me rest. I’ll try to take us back to Great Vale on the morrow.”

  “What if the witch’s pack of beasts comes back?” the barbarian argued. “They’ve already killed our guide and our ramma mounts.”

  “She only sent them to warn us off.” The warlock squatted down and tried to calm the dog. “We are not going into her forest now. We are going to leave this foul place. Her warning worked. Why would she send them back?”

  “She doesn’t need a reason. She’s a witch, you stupid, dog-loving heathen.” The big blond girl threw up her empty hand and passed the torch to Xavian. She then stomped her way back to the cabin.

  “In the morning, I’m off to warn the fae,” the elf spat.

  His voice was shrill and raw with anger and his arms flailed about wildly, trying to express his feelings.

  “If you’ll not come help us, then I’ll go tell them the news. Though it will break their spirit, some of them might be able to escape the witch.”

  “There’s nothing I can do about it.” The warlock stood and stared down at the elf. “My friend is dead. Two of my friends are dead. I didn’t ask to be called away from my music and the hearth fires and all the willing women.” Without waiting for an answer, he spun and walked back to the cabin. The dog was right on his heels.

  “Like I said, I’ll try to teleport us back to Great Vale after I’ve rested,” the wizard repeated reassuringly. He followed the warlock back to the cabin, carrying the torch.

  A moment later, when the elf went in and slammed the door, the forested area outside was left dark.

  When Chelda left the argument, she hadn’t gone into the cabin. She had only opened the door and snatched her bow.

  A few heartbeats later, her silent arrow, a shaft with its razor-sharp tip removed so that it wouldn’t kill the target, thumped into Flitch’s unsuspecting body, sending him tumbling tail over wide-eyed head, from his perch in the tree. His bat wings flailed uselessly, doing nothing to slow his possum body when it cracked into several branches and then thumped into a snowdrift at the base of the tree trunk.

  Before the dazed sneak could recover, Chelda darted back behind the cabin and joined two other shadowy forms as they raced into the woods unseen.

  “What happened there?” the Hoar Witch yelled. She had been lost in thought, already scheming on taking over the Heart Tree and contemplating all she had heard, but when the scene in her viewing pool went blank, it drew all of her attention.

  By then Flitch had found a different place to hide, one closer to the cabin and away from whatever had just blasted him.

  Aserica’s pool flickered back into a view; only now the cabin was far closer, and the Hoar Witch could more plainly hear the fools inside arguing and stomping about.

  She wasn’t sure how she felt about thwarting the will of the dark one by letting the young warlock get away. He wouldn’t be pleased, but if she could do as the elf suggested and gain full control of the Heart Tree, then it would hardly matter what the dark one thought. The power of a fairy tree was a far greater boon than the dark one’s favor.

  The Hoar Witch only had to kill off the tree’s defenders and feed her witch blood to its roots. She would be bonded with the tree, then, and could access its power. She could use the Heart Tree’s own strength to purge the good from its sap. She could make it a heartless, cruel thing and she could command its might, with her will.

  For a moment, the idea came to the Hoar Witch’s mind that the pixie queen had let herself be taken just so the tree would be vulnerable.

  An elaborate trap?

  No, the bane of the foolish is that they always put too much faith in others. No, the stupid pixie queen had called for a hero and a half-craven bard had come instead.

  She sat there for a long time, perfectly still, with that thought hanging in her mind. Then she slapped the surface of her pool and growled out. “It’s a trick.” She snarled as she reached for the crystal talisman hanging from her neck.

  “Flitch, you watch them like a hawk,” she commanded through the shard’s power. She had to cackle at the absurdity of that comparison, but the bout of manic glee didn’t lessen her rage. “That warlock has my blood in him. He won’t give up so easily. I should have known better. Do not let them leave without your beady little eyes fixed firmly on them, Flitch, or Clytun and I will mix you into a stew.”

  A moment later she was focused on Vrooch, the monstrous leader of her hybrid wolfen pack.

  “Vrooch, take your pack to the Heart Tree. Kill every elf, fairy, sylph and pixie you come across. Show no mercy.” She cackled again. “I want you to feed on the fae until you’re shittin’
magic mushrooms and pissin’ rainbows.”

  “You, Clytun,” she turned to face the anxious minotaur. “You go wake the witch woods. If a squirrel so much as farts in my forest, I want to know about it. And you, my young warlock—” She looked at the ceiling, as if she could see Vanx standing there. “You will soon find out that Aserica Rime isn’t so easily fooled.”

  Chapter Four

  Old Master Wiggins

  danced a fancy jig.

  He tossed his hat out to the crowd,

  but found he’d tossed his wig.

  – A Parydon street ditty

  “We’ve passed this forked tree four times now, Thorn,” Chelda growled as quietly as she could manage. “Are you lost?”

  They’d put a great distance between them and the cabin, but the moon this night was high above the trees and nearly full. The forest was full of tricky silver light and shadows that could have hidden even the poorest of predators. The wary elf didn’t want to fall prey to one of them, or chance another of the Hoar Witch’s sneaks catching sight of them, he explained. Furthermore, he had no desire to ride on Poops’ back any longer. Already his arse was sore and his face and chest striped with lashes from all the bushes and branches the dog couldn’t seem to avoid.

  “I’m about to break one of the most ancient rules of my people,” Thorn finally told them. “The violation is for their own good, though.”

  “What in the name of Bone does that have to do with passing this tree again?”

  “It happens on the fifth time round, Chelda Flar. We’ve one more before we’re through.” Thorn slapped Vanx on the knee. “Make sure this dog stays right here at your side. If he doesn’t make the revolutions with us he won’t be able to pass.”

  “Pass what?” Chelda asked, this time a bit louder. “This is foolishness.”

  “I agree it is,” replied Thorn. “But yet I’m proceeding anyway. If I thought I could explain it to you, I would.” He climbed off of Poops then and limped ahead of them. “It’s bad enough that I am doing what I am doing. Just stay behind me and keep following.” He looked over to Poops then and said, “And you, you miserable mount, quit sniffin’ off the path or you’ll get left behind.”

  Vanx thought he knew what was happening, and he wasn’t about to ruin it by balking or arguing about it with Thorn. To their left was a strange and pronounced mound. It sat on a relatively flat and downward-sloping expanse of thick, moonlit forest. They were circling the hill for the fourth time now. If Vanx’s suspicions were correct, then after the next revolution they would find an entrance into the Underland.

  He half remembered a poem from one of the many volumes he’d read in his youth. He couldn’t remember all the words, but he could remember part of it:

  Look far and near, look all around,

  and you might find a fairy mound.

  But if you do, then have a care,

  for there’s many things you must beware.

  Vanx couldn’t remember the next two verses that told of the first two things one should be aware of, but the third thing was something about a filled fist around, an entrance found. He supposed a fist around meant five times. Casually he glanced at Thorn’s hand to see if the elf indeed had five fingers. He did.

  Thorn looked like some thin, fragile child, only he was strong and graceful, even when he favored his wounded leg. There was more to the song though, and Vanx wished he could recall the warnings, for now something was nagging at him.

  After thinking about it a while the words didn’t come, but some of the information they conveyed did. If you went five revolutions around the fairy mound the wrong way, the door you would find would take you to the Nethers, which Vanx understood to be the first of the nine planes of the abyss, each plane being worse than the last, according to most of the theologies he’d read.

  The other warning for the old rhyme, he half remembered, was that any mortal soul who went into the Underland would be trapped there, and unable to return to the natural plane. Vanx wasn’t too concerned about this because a lot of old poems and sayings were just superstitious nonsense. Besides that, he doubted Thorn would take them to a place from which they couldn’t return. The elf wanted them to fight the Hoar Witch.

  As they passed the forked tree for the fifth time, he considered that his father was supposedly born from a fairy’s womb, and that his mother was a full-blooded Zythian. He probably didn’t fall under that sort of human mortality thing anyway.

  Chelda however, who was babbling excitedly, and had just stopped to follow Thorn into a dark, cave-like hole that appeared in the side of the mound, was completely mortal. So was Poops, and both of them were already moving into the darkness of the shaft.

  “STOP!” Vanx yelled. “Thorn! Stop them right now!”

  “What? What is it?” Thorn stopped. “Stay put,” he told Chelda. “I’ll see what’s wrong.” He barely ducked his head as he stepped back between Chelda’s legs.

  To Vanx’s great relief, both the elf and the dog came peeking out from the passage. “Come on, lad. It’s safe enough,” Thorn offered invitingly.

  “No. Listen. Can mortals pass back out from the Underland?” Vanx peered into the gloom past the elf, looking for Chelda.

  “Nay, but you’re of fae blood, and your dog is bonded to you by the laws of wizardry. See,” the elf pointed at Poops as the dog came up and settled at his leg.

  “Chelda is gargan,” Vanx said worriedly. “She is mortal.”

  “She’s a giant if I’ve ever seen one,” Thorn argued. “Why she is…” then he was cut off.

  “Why are you talking about me?” Chelda came stalking up, only to slam to an abrupt halt as some invisible field impeded her march. “What is this? Why am I stopped?” Her voice grew angry as her panic rose. “What is this about?”

  “Oh, my beautiful girl,” Thorn wailed out sorrowfully. He fell to his knees and clasped his hands together at his heart. “I’ve just wronged you something terrible.”

  “Vanx,” Chelda hissed through clinched teeth. “What is he talking about? What’s keeping me here?”

  Vanx let out a long, slow breath, then ushered Poops and Thorn into the tunnel with Chelda. Tears threatened to overwhelm him. His Zythian orbs stung from the salt in them. Already he had gotten Gallarael killed. Now Chelda was trapped in the Underland for all of her days.

  “I’m sorry beyond words, lass,” Thorn sobbed. “I didn’t know. I thought you was kindred to the fae, a giantess who would be able to pass freely from the Underland when we are through.” He stepped up and hugged her leg, sobbing even more pitifully. “Please forgive me, Lady Chelda, please.”

  As they all passed into the depths of the passage, a tearing sound followed by a sharp “POP” resounded. There was finality to the noise that caused Vanx to flinch. When he looked back, he saw that the open cavern mouth had disappeared and was now replaced by a stone-formed archway built around nothing but dark brown earth.

  The floor on which they were standing was tiled and radiated a faint yellow light. The air was warm and had a metallic taste to it. There was also a crisp, static quality to the place, the feeling one might have immediately following a lightning storm, or some great arcane act. The cavern ceiling—for even though the floor was tiled, it was still a cavern—was formed in the same crude, arched shape of the resealed entry, and both Vanx and Chelda had to stoop, for the peak of the arch was only five feet from the floor and the two of them were over six feet tall.

  Vanx squatted down and put his head in his hands.

  “What is he trying to say, Vanx?” Chelda asked in a rage. More than a little fear showed in the whites of her wide-open eyes. “What just happened?”

  He held up his hand, palm out, to try to stay her for a moment. Then he jerked Thorn from Chelda’s leg and spun him so that he could look into his yellow eyes. Thorn’s elven features were so sublime, so delicate and in perfect symmetry, that the beauty of them somehow softened Vanx’s anger. “Is there no way to reverse this?” Vanx
shook him, but not as hard as he wanted to. “No spell? No potion?”

  Thorn gently removed Vanx’s hands from his silver-furred coat while looking away. After a moment he shuddered and wiped his face. When his gaze came back to meet Vanx, there was some bit of hope shining in those wild, yellow orbs.

  “The queen,” he looked at Chelda, and then back at Vanx, then nodded his head. “Queen Corydalis can undo it.” His heart sank then and it showed. “But she’s a prisoner of the Hoar Witch.”

  “Undo what?” Chelda roared, causing Poops to bark at her and send Vanx a hot warning signal. Already the faint glow of the floor had been swallowed up by the bright, blue blade she was drawing forth. “Talk to me, damn you both. What’s going on?”

  “Stay your blade!” Vanx yelled in a tone that brooked no argument.

  “You’re in a fix that will take more than steel and might to get out of.” Vanx put a hand on her belt and gently pulled her down from her crouch. Once she was squatted beside him, he continued. “Thorn thought you had giant blood in your veins. It’s not his fault, but you’re trapped in the Underland until we can save the pixie queen. Only she can undo what’s been done to you. You are a mortal and mortals cannot leave this place.”

  “What is this Underland?”

  “It’s part of the Realm of Fae,” Thorn answered. “I’m so sorry, lass.” He stepped over and hopped onto her knee then clutched her around the neck fiercely. “I’d never have brought you here had I known you were merely a human.”

  Chelda snatched him up by his strawberry hair and lifted him until he dangled. “Merely human,” she spat at the floor. “I liked you. I trusted you. I’m here to help you, and you say I am merely a human? Ugh. I’m a fargin gargan.” She tossed him away with a growl of disgust. Thorn landed in a graceful roll and came back up to his feet, and Vanx was suddenly laughing at Chelda’s words. Chelda laughed too.

  Chelda’s eyes fell on Vanx then. Her look was pleading. “You’re going to save her, right?”