Chapter
Four
Old Master Wggins
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?”
Vanx met her gaze. “I’m not gonna lie to you, Chel. She might already be beyond saving, but by the Goddess, and all she graced me with, if she can, I will die trying. How could I do anything less.? You’re a fargin gargan.”
Chelda chuckled, and the smile stayed while she sat brooding for a few moments. Her eyes shifted between Vanx and Thorn while she absently scratched Poops behind the ears. She gave Vanx a nod, as if accepting that his pledge was the best she could hope for. Then a smile forced itself across her face. “So, Thorn in my side,” she started moving down the passage on her hands and knees. “Tell me about my underground prison, while you lead us to the Hoar Witch’s little hell.”
Darl had tried to respond to Vanx’s calls when he was on the ledge, but hadn’t been fast enough. He’d been sipping stout from the flask he had stashed in his boot all morning, but he wasn’t quite drunk yet. He cursed himself for not leaving an indication by the ropes. A dagger scratch is all it would have taken. He didn’t hold himself over the fire long for it though, for hauling the changeling’s slick, black-skinned form up into the small cavern he’d found had been no easy chore. After all of that labor, leaving an arrow or a mark at the ledge had been the last thing on his mind.
Darl sipped from his flask again. Amazingly Galra the she-beast was still alive, and not nearly as damaged as one should have been after such a fall. He didn’t dare probe what wounds she had, though. Just the idea of touching her sandy feeling, black skin made him shiver. By the tiny moss fire he’d ignited, he could tell that her clawed feet had been wounded badly when she’d changed forms inside the restraining metal cleats they’d all been wearing.
A cold shiver ran through him as he took her in. He absolutely did not want to be alone with this thing if it woke up angry and confused. But his honorable upbringing wouldn’t allow him to leave her for long. He’d already ventured deeper into the cavern they occupied; only to be sure it wasn’t some creature’s lair, or a nest, or anything like that.
He decided that he could leave her and climb back up to the cabin to get help, but he feared that the sweet girl part of this thing might wake up and be terrified and alone. He knew he would be if he woke like that. He had enough dried venison and wine to keep them for at least two days where they were, and he needed rest before he hauled her up.
He took another sip from his flask, and hunkered deeper into his heavy cloak. He would stay and hope that when she came to, she wouldn’t slash him to ribbons with those terrible claws.
Chapter
Five
They came on clever ships of wood,
those that called themselves men.
They spread like mice through fertile fields
and overtook the land.
– Balladamned (A Zythian song)
A dash of fizzing green liquid splashed across pale white flesh and puckered red, scabbed-over wounds.
Queen Corydalis gasped, and then sputtered and flopped, atop the frozen crimson altar block to which she was lashed. Like a fish out of water, her battered, naked body jerked and twitched in spine-clinching pain.
The Hoar Witch cackled mercilessly and clapped her hands together with giddy excitement.
“Order the guardians of the tree to stand down, my putrid little pixie queen, or I’ll pluck off your other wing and show you the real meaning of pain.”
Even if Queen Corydalis could have managed to respond, she wouldn’t. She knew she was as good as dead. She had willingly made a sacrifice of herself in order to buy their emerald-eyed champion more time, but with half his party dead and the Hoar Witch laying pitfalls in his every path, there was little hope left. She didn’t care about her own life; her only concern was the Heart Tree. If it was corrupted, then all of the Lurr fae were doomed. They would die out without its wholesome, protective magic. The last order she had given was to defend the tree to the end. Her honor guard, including Foxwise Posy-Thorn, had all sworn the pact. Thorn, she knew, had gone to help their champion find his way, but that was before she had told him to abandon her call and leave them to their fate. She’d never intended for Aserica Rime to find out about him, at least not until he was driving her from the forest, or spilling her black blood. Now any hope for that outcome was long lost.
The Hoar Witch had gleefully assured her that her champion was fleeing, and who could blame him after she had called him blindly into a trap?
Worse than all of that, all of the Hoar Witch’s vile creatures were already bearing down on the Heart Tree. The guard would fight and die honorably, which would be better than withering away after the Heart Tree was infected. If she called them off and let the Hoar Witch have what she wanted, her people would die anyway, just more slowly and painfully.
Something one of her mentors had taught her came to her: it is always better to die fighting evil, than to submit to it. As long as you are fighting for good, there is always the possibility that other chances will present themselves. Once you submit you have given up all of those other possibilities.
“No?”
The wrinkle-faced Hoar Witch poked a dirty, yellowed fingernail sharply into one of the pixie queen’s eye sockets and withdrew it. In one of the many mirrors set about the frigid room, Corydalis saw her once brilliant lavender orb cloud scarlet and a bloody tear streak down the side of her face. Her convulsions had lessened into a steady tremble, accompanied by the occasional twitch of limb. The pain had long since fled.
“They are dying horribly, you know,” taunted the Hoar Witch. “Vrooch and his pack mates toss their little bodies about for hours, to soften them up, before they devour them. They play tug-of-war with the gnomes and the sprites. Well let’s just say they are rather entertaining, once you pull off those spindly little legs.”
“You are horrible!” Queen Corydalis managed. Bloody spittle sprayed from her mouth and ran down her face and she forced the words out of her broken jaw. “Rotten to the root.”
SMACK! A sharp slap resounded. “Look, wretch,” the Hoar Witch hissed. “I’ll show you your pathetic defenders.” She snatched up a hand mirror from a folding table laden with the potions, powders and devices she used most frequently on the altar of pain.
The Hoar Witch held the mirror out for the pixie queen and put her other hand to the crystal shard hanging at her neck.
In the mirror Queen Corydalis saw
a haggard elven woman wearing a battered suit of lacquered yellow plate armor. She was fending off a skunk-striped wolfish beast, easily three times her size, with naught but a broken spear. No sound accompanied the image, but the scene was portrayed clearly and vividly.
Through the blood, dirt and fear, the pixie queen recognized the elf. It was Gloryvine Moonseed. They all called her Moonsy. She’d earned her place among the honor guard over a century ago. Her father had served the honor guard as well. He’d fallen when Moonsy was still an adolescent, in a hard-fought battle against an ogre who thought to build a shack on one of the older fairy mounds. Like her father, fierce Moonsy stood her ground against the impossible odds and fought on relentlessly.
A toothy muzzle came into the picture flashing razor-sharp fangs and slobber. Moonsy dodged and deftly darted out of its way, while jabbing and sticking the angry beast with her broken spear. Over and over the wolfen beasts lunged at her. Her tiny weapon was doing little damage, if any, but at least none of them could get hold of her.
Then one of the wolfish things rushed her and tumbled her over onto her back. Queen Corydalis squeezed her eyes shut, but not to shield them from what she was seeing. She had to concentrate to muster what little power she had left and direct it all to the fierce warrior who desperately needed it.
A surge of exhilarating energy flowed from Queen Corydalis, through the ether, and into Moonsy. It came with a simple command: “Don’t ever give up. None of you ever give up.”
Spent to the very brink of death, the pixie queen barely cracked the lid of her good eye in time to see Moonsy roll out from under the closing jaws of the ferocious skunk-wolf.
That Frigid Fargin Witch (The Legend of Vanx Malic Book 4) Page 3