Vanx thought he heard the Goss laugh, but a slab slid between them and the room they’d entered, and the laugh turned into a squeak. Then the room began to fill with water.
“Do you know a spell that will keep us dry?” Vanx asked as he stalked over to the white arm and made to kick it.
The thing was solid and he nearly broke his foot.
When Vanx pummeled the thing with an angry magical pulse, it shattered apart.
The water was already shin deep.
“We have to keep the tome dry at all costs,” Vanx told his friend.
Looking up to see what Zeezle was looking at, Vanx saw that this circular room was a boreworm hole, and that there were stars visible, high above them.
Zeezle eased close to Vanx and cast a spell. Vanx was shocked when he found he was no longer on his feet, or he was, but his feet were no longer in the knee-deep water anymore.
Zeezle had created a floating sphere around them. Its skin looked flimsy and glassine, like a soap bubble, but when it rose with the incoming flow and banged on the sides of the mostly smooth walls, it held.
Soon, the two rose through the boreworm tunnel until the moonlit sky greeted them and they went tumbling down a hillside, bouncing, and banging violently into each other as they went. They ended up rolling into the river, bobbing and floating in a wide slow moving span. There, Vanx tried to gather his wits, but was kept from it when he saw that they were about to go over the very waterfall that hid the entrance to the Goss’s temple.
The Goss indicated its desire to be back in the looking glass case, and Vanx used the time before they would go over the falls to help it get there.
I need to know where to take this seed, he said to the spider with his mind.
Home, the spider responded after Vanx whispered, “Kalzafranta Murr,” thus opening the wooden case for the Goss.
Vanx knew the strange arachnoid meant the Isle of Zyth.
“But where on Zyth?” Vanx asked, causing Zeezle to look at him, instead of their impending tumble for a moment.
Vanx decided, the center of Zyth was the smartest place and, as the lid to the looking glass box clicked shut, he felt the Goss assuring him the place he envisioned was close enough.
“This one needs to be cracked in the middle of the Isle of Zyth,” Vanx said.
“We have a problem here, Vanxy,” Zeezle said, indicating the waterfall.
“If we hold onto each other at least we won’t bang into each other anymore,” Vanx offered as their bubble suddenly started moving faster. “Maybe I ca—” and they were going over.
They fell for an impossibly long time. Vanx squeezed his eyes shut as he grabbed Zeezle’s waist so as not to be thrown against his friend but, before the expected, teeth-jarring impact into the rocks below, he felt tingling Zythian magic crawling over his skin.
They landed, not so softly, in the section of field, where Zeezle’s blue wyrm had dropped them. The bubble exploded into a splatter of wetness as they hit.
The dragon waiting for them, had hunger flashing through the moonlight, reflected in its eyes. It was not Zeezle’s wyrm. It was the coral colored one, and it loomed over the tangle Vanx and Zeezle were in and flickered a long forked tongue at them.
Vanx couldn’t even manage to yell, or get his legs free to flee, as the magnificent tooth filled maw came down to snatch him.
Chapter
Sixteen
We’re off to go a questing,
a questing we will go.
Will we find treasure, or wind up dead,
we’ll find out when we know.
– A Tavern Song
The roar of another dragon filled the night and liquid lightning flashed across the sky behind the coral wyrm. Its head whipped around in surprise. Then it leapt into the sky to avoid Avz’s next blast of breath. It came right over them, and Vanx saw that it was a female.
Avz banked and waited for it to get airborne before chasing it away from where Zeezle and Vanx stood.
“He is a protective one,” Vanx observed. He was disappointed that Avz hadn’t talked the coral wyrm into letting him ride it.
“That one is a bit wild,” Zeezle said, as if Avz might have told him so. “Avz will tame her down for you, though.” Zeezle got himself untangled and to his feet. “But it may take a while.”
“We don’t have a while.” Vanx huffed away his disappointment and fought away the tendrils of sorrow that threatened to reach in and smother the excitement and promise his hammering heart pounded through him. “We can’t even just ride Avz to Zyth. We need the hammer Pyra gave us to smash the gem-seed.”
“And Chelda has the head cracker?” Zeezle asked rhetorically.
“Worse. Where the hammer goes, she goes,” Vanx found a sarcastic laugh somewhere inside himself. “You will have to take her to the center of Zyth and let her root it. At least there are no terrible beasts or dangerous traps waiting there.”
“Vanx, the Lake of the Savants is at the center of Zyth.”
“The Goss agreed. The middle of the island, but I was envisioning a foothill valley, devoid of even a farmhouse, when it affirmed my thoughts.”
“But out on that peninsula, where the savants built their observatory, seems like the most protected place.” Zeezle made sense. “The Zythians there are the most powerful and would not only protect it, but they could study it and make sure it stayed healthy.”
“Fine,” Vanx said. It made sense. “I wonder if Chelda will just give me the hammer?”
“Chelda would do anything you asked her to do.”
“Yah,” he mocked Chelda’s gargan accent. “But she will want to smash the gem, Zeezle.” Vanx shuddered when one of the dragons roared above them.
The crackling gaseous stuff that jetted from the coral wyrm’s maw, was as full of lightning as the darker blue wyrm’s breath was, but the forks were smaller, and arced off each other to form a finer weaving of static. Some foul, probably toxic, gas steamed from the charge as it extinguished. The attack left Zeezle’s dragon falling sideways into the trees.
Avz was fierce, though. As he fell past the coral wyrm, he flapped his wing, and extended a claw. He found dragon flesh and ripped a wide set of slashes across the coral wyrm’s side.
Vanx and Zeezle saw this in the moonlight. Vanx ran toward where the two dragons had gone down, with the Glaive of Gladiolus already drawn and in his hand.
Zeezle cast a smooth light spell and told Vanx to extinguish his. Vanx hadn’t been concentrating on it since he’d blasted the marble arm. He would have to have Zeezle explain his version of the spell, for it was far better than the elves’ version. Or maybe it was just suited to Zythian and half-Zythian eyes?
They came upon Avz first. Vanx saw the dragon’s eyes grow large when he went to stab it but, after the blade discharged its healing magic, the wyrm’s lids fluttered and it let out a long sigh of relief that filled the air with static.
“The other one?” Vanx asked, and Zeezle nodded and led the way.
The coral wyrm was not wing wounded, but its side was open wide enough that, if it tried to fly, it might spill its innards.
It must have known some instinctual healing magic for it was trying to mend itself when they eased out of the trees and into its proximity. It wasn’t doing a very good job of it, though, and Vanx felt bold, or maybe suicidal; he couldn’t tell. Either way, he started toward the coral dragon with the Glaive of Gladiolus held high, in a non-threatening manner.
“I want to help you,” he said across the span of overgrown turf that separated them.
“Avz,” Zeezle called back over his shoulder. “Tell this fargin’ wyrm we are trying to help it.”
Avz made a sound that was part growl, part tongue flickering, and the coral wyrm looked past them as if it was now having a conversation with Avz in the ethereal.
Vanx didn’t stop, even when the coral wyrm’s eyes shifted to him and the sword-like, bright green pupil slits narrowed into fine lines that focused on him. He op
ened his eyes wide to show the dragon his emerald orbs, and the dragon saw their depth and gave pause.
Whatever Avz conveyed to the dragon seemed to have worked. And when it gave a snort of disdain, and turned its head so that Vanx could poke it with the blade, without its intimidating gaze baring down on him, both of them were rewarded.
Vanx picked a place on the dragon’s rump and slid the ancient elven weapon between two scales in a sharp thrust and pull. The dragon twitched, but he saw the glaive’s magic start to close the open gashes, and he could tell the wyrm’s pain eased. Her posture relaxed and her lower eyelids twitched, and then slid closed.
He turned to give the healing creature some space, but the dragon eased its head back around and cut him off. Instead of eating him, she nuzzled Vanx and let out a hissing flicker of thanks.
Vanx felt her relief. The wyrm, only moments before, had been fearing its own death. The wounds Adz had given it had most likely been mortal.
He was pleased, for his luck had finally turned. Placing the gem-seeds would be that much easier now, but only if—
“Have Avz ask her if I can ride,” Vanx grinned at Zeezle, who grinned right back.
Chapter
Seventeen
There are many ways to skin a cat,
the fun is choosing which.
But it’s no cat I want to kill.
I’m off to skin a witch.”
– The Weary Wizard
The afternoon sun was bright, but the air was balmy and white puffy clouds were scattered over the sea in random clumps and clusters. Vanx was lost in some sort of feeling that shifted from guilt over not mourning the loss of Gallarael, to a blood tingling high that overrode everything save for his love of Sir Poopsalot, and maybe Chelda. After all the chaos and uncertainty of losing Thorn, Pyra, and now Gallarael, he was determined to leave the sorrow behind. He was on dragon back again, and he would relish every second of it, for he knew exactly how precious the feeling was.
Vanx laughed at Zeezle sitting in front of Chelda on Avz’s deep blue scales. His perfect skin and long, windblown hair made it look like he was a woman, and Chelda’s size, and stern look, from the distance, made it appear as if she were Zeezle’s man.
Vanx started to point this out to Moonsy, who was riding on the coral dragon directly in front of him. But he decided that calling the elf’s lover, who was also his dearest friend, a man might not be wise, even if the jest was meant to effeminate Zeezle. So, he kept his musing to himself.
They were on their way to Zyth, now a half day ahead of the Adventurer, which was in route to Little Haven. The Zythians on board were as elated to be heading home as Vanx was over having connected with this magnificent dragon.
Even though Poops was left with Ronzon and all the Zythians, the dog was excited, for he’d ridden Pyra with Vanx, and knew that as soon as he could, Vanx would build him a riding harness. But there was no one on board the Adventurer, save for Ronzon, that the dog cared for, and no one at all he loved.
Vanx knew Ronzon would overfeed his familiar, and make sure he was well cared for. But even through all his elation, he could feel Poops waiting. Wherever the dog was, on Vanx’s bunk, or under the table in the galley, he watched and listened through his senses, just as he often did through the pup’s.
Cora, he was calling the dragon, seemed unsure if she liked the idea of carrying him, much less, he and an elf. Her name was something he could barely form on his tongue, but she’d been responding to Cora without complaint.
So far, their communication hadn’t been personal at all, but Vanx knew it was coming. She was curious, and Zeezle knew how to tease a dragon’s interest as if he’d been doing it his whole life.
Vanx grinned across the sky at his friend. Since the day Dorlan Croyle, Zeezle’s brother, was killed by a cattle dragon, Zeezle had been studying the great wyrms. He had been doing it his whole life
Zeezle asked questions about some of their battles past, against the Hoar Witch, the Trigon, and the Paragon Dracus himself.
He told of Chelda being turned into a giant and crushing the blue shapeshifting bastard’s skull, and of Pwca, the devil bargaining for Gallarael’s life.
Cora had yet to ask for elaboration, but she would. Especially since Zeezle continually conversed in the ethereal. He was currently telling Avz about the battle over Dyntalla, against the demon Coll and all the ogres.
Vanx listened until Zeezle’s voice faded. For a long time, he let the wind flow over his skin and took in the world. He must have fallen asleep for, when he opened his eyes, they were over land and the sun was just coming up. Moonsy leaned back against him and slept deeply. He looked over to see Chelda wide awake scanning the sky, vigilantly. Zeezle snuggled into her.
She gave Vanx a nod and a wave when she saw his eyes were open, and then she kneed Zeezle. His Zythian friend nearly fell off Avz’s back when he startled awake, and Vanx’s laughing ended up waking Moonsy.
“So funny?” The elf yawned and stretched her lithe, little body.
“Chel woke Zeezle up and he nearly fell off.”
“That’s not funny,” she said, but with a grin.
We’re getting close, Zeezle said into the ethereal.
Zeeeeezle, wha—
I’m not sure I like the Lake of the Savants, Vanx responded just as Cora started to ask Zeezle something.
Vanx regretted interrupting, but his thought was important, for he was unsure. No offense Zeez, but Zythians, especially curious ones, could do more harm than good with the power of a Heart Tree. I think it should remain a fae thing.
You said you saw us in some foothills. Zeezle seemed unconcerned with the dilemma, and maybe a little miffed that he was about to make great progress before Vanx interrupted Cora.
Vanx felt the Goss reach out to him then. He understood it was about to weave him a lens. Hopefully, like with the sapphire spruce, it would show him exactly where the yellow gem needed to be crushed.
I’m sorry for interrupting. When we get close to the center of the island, land us someplace safe. Vanx voiced with his mind. The Goss, I think, will show me where.
To his great surprise, Cora barely let him finish before asking Zeezle what she wanted to know.
Chapter
Eighteen
I told her that her eyes,
sparkled like the moon.
Then she took two coppers,
and said she’d see me soon.
– Parydon Cobbles
What Vanx saw through the gossamer lens was disturbing, but his attention kept getting averted over concerns of Cora and Avz not returning. It disturbed him how much he loved flying with the great wyrms. His subconscious fear of losing such a gift again just wouldn’t stop haunting him. He finally felt the weight of what was transpiring deep within the blue glowing web he was looking into, and his attention was grabbed fully.
The place they needed to crack the citrine gem-seed was a good quarter day’s flight from where they’d just landed, but Vanx got the sense that, once this was done, it would be a race against the clock to get the last gem-seed and place it. When this Heart Tree was quickened, something would happen with the last one. Whoever had it would want to crack it, too, only somewhere that wasn’t wholesome. Those who had the last gem-seed didn’t seek to leave the world in a safe balanced state.
Vanx saw another location, a temple similar to the Gossolan, only this one wasn’t just inhabited by spiders. There were fae there, nasty little buggers, all pale with dark eyes, jagged teeth, and stingers. They had a white-haired queen who was beautiful and dark and dressed for battle. She had the pointed ears of the elven race, but with jaundiced yellow, possibly half-Zythian, eyes.
Vanx saw her plainly, a head taller than Moonsy, and with a far darker complexion. She was standing with a trident that boasted three glinting blades instead of sharpened iron points. The center one was longer than the other two. She was in an entryway carved almost the same as the Gossolan, with skulls and spiders, but with othe
r insects and skeletons all interwoven into the design. In fact, the Goss was represented on the columns on each side of her. She had a carved elf-skull levitated before her, and Vanx felt the vehemence radiating from both her and it.
In the gossamer lens, he saw all of this, and understood he would have to face the dark half-elven queen to get the last gem-seed, but the scene soon shifted, and he was shown how these wretched fae had come to be as they were now.
Their Heart Tree had died, and Vanx saw it in different, flashing visions throughout its glorious history. Once a wonderful maple, hosting generations of joy and life. It was now a brittle, dead claw of broken limbs. Generations of fae had grown up ill, and stunted, without the Heart Tree’s magic to give them health. Their hearts had clearly lost any sort of joy. The carefree lives of their ancestors were nothing more than lore, to this grotesque flesh eating host of fae. The looks of disdain and malevolence on their faces as they fought to kill Vanx and his companions were anything but pleasant. Their dead Heart Tree’s gem-seed was the last one, and the queen wouldn’t give it up so easily. The power it radiated was what sustained her and her subjects, and they wished to root it themselves now that its power had ignited.
Would be ignited, Vanx felt the magic in his mind correcting his thought. The last seed wouldn’t ignite until the sixth seed, the citron, was smashed.
Vanx saw a terrible battle, but he also saw who fought it, and he found he had a good idea what to do after they quickened the yellow gem.
“Call the dragons back, Zeezle.”
“Do your business if you need to, Moon,” Chelda said in a reminding way. “It’s no fun holding it.”
“You can do like Vanx does and piss all over yourself,” Zeezle joked. He clasped Vanx’s shoulder and blew into his strange whistle. When Vanx couldn’t hear it, he found he missed Poops.
While they waited for the dragons, he told the others what he saw.
A Gossamer Lens (The Legend of Vanx Malic Book 10) Page 6