Master Kruuga stepped to Russet’s side opposite General Moonsy and the dog. “The question is, what does it want?” the old Zythian wizard’s voice was a whisper.
“Exactly what I was wondering.” Moonsy looked up at King Russet. “Pwca has killed more fae than the Hoar Witch herself. In fact, she sometimes sold us. . .”
Her voice wavered only slightly when she turned from King Russet to look at the devil. “You’ll not bargain for our lives.”
A general murmur of agreement passed through the ranks of men and fae gathering to see what the commotion was about.
Russet wouldn’t bargain for the Paragon’s name with the lives of the fae, but he wasn’t sure Vanx wouldn’t do such a thing. Either way, Master Kruuga whispered something else, and Russet knew he needed to get some of the wizards of his kingdom’s Royal Order here from Dyntalla, or Flotsam. The Zythian wizards were powerful and had sworn to protect him, but their magic was a different sort than that used by those of his Royal Order.
“What is it you want in exchange for this namestone?” Russet finally asked.
“Nothing from you.” The little turd made what might have been a laugh, but after a few of his larger rats hissed at him, he added. “Save for a yearly tribute of good grain for my horde. When I want one of the fae, I will just take it, as I always have. Why would I bargain for what I can take at will?” Some of the rats hissed at this. It sounded like laughter. “The witch sold me mixtures and concoctions, not glorified insects. What I want will have to be given by the Troika Sven and Vanx of Malic. And you, King Oakarm, and the fool-headed warlock, will have to retrieve the namestone yourselves. I will not deliver it.”
The rat Pwca was riding turned and started off, but the little devil twisted his visage back at them as the rats began bounding away in all directions. “If Vanx Malic returns from his hunt, have him find me in the witch’s well.” Pwca laughed again. “If he returns.”
“I can’t ask the Troika Sven, if you don’t tell us what you want.”
“He already told us where the stone is,” Master Kruuga said quietly. “Our magic doesn’t work the same as the magic of others, though. We wouldn’t know where to begin to use such a thing for banishment.”
“Do you know where the place is, the trickle?” Russet asked Moonsy.
“Yes, we do.” She nodded.
“Master Kruuga, I need at least one, but preferably a few of my kingdom’s wizards.” Russet scratched at his chin. Every moment they wasted here, the Paragon’s grip on the kingdom grew stronger. “They will be at Dyntalla Stronghold, or at Flotsam, or on a ship in between.”
“I’ll send Rizzgin to find them and bring them here. Kolda and I will go with you to find the stone.” The Zythian wizard turned and told the two others what they were about to do.
“I’ll need a few elves to guide us, and maybe a streak to call for help, like Vanx had.”
Moonsy laughed, but her uneasy expression didn’t show true mirth.
“Streak is an individual sprite.” She shook her head. “Maybe Streak is unassigned. I want to go so badly, it aches. I want to do anything but stay around here and guard the Tree.” Then, to one of the three sprites hovering a few paces behind her, the sprites Vanx had ordered to watch over Poops, she gave a quick order, and he darted off. The other two sprites took on stern and alert expressions, as if guarding the dog without their chum would be that much harder.
Russet shook his head. He just couldn’t get used to the idea that all of these crazy, fable-born things were in fact the cause of the tales to be told.
“You must, though. Duty is duty.” Russet understood her. “Is there a way to communicate with Vanx? He may be the only one who can see such a thing.”
“Maybe through Poops, here.” She scratched the dog standing shoulder to shoulder with her.
Russet, as exhausted as he still was, decided that they should try that before they did anything. Everyone agreed, for they still didn’t know what else Pwca wanted, or if they could oblige him once they did. The rat had spoken of potions and concoctions? He knew nothing of either.
Chapter Eleven
The wizard saw the king and the wizard shook his head.
“You need me now king, for your men are nearly dead.”
“Tis true,” said the king, “They were stronger than I thought.
If you use your powers now, what will be the cost?”
- The Weary Wizard
“The King of Parydon thought highly of you, Vanx of Malic, though he still wouldn’t have let you near his queen.”
The Paragon said this in a hover, as it wrenched one wing completely off of the green dragon he was handling. The Paragon held the wyrm up high and let its teardrop fall, like some sparkling raindrop full of dour magic, into his maw. “She tasted lovely, by the way. The queen, I mean, all covered in those lavender and honeysuckle scent enhancements you feeble humans use to mask your natural stench.”
“You were human once!” Vanx saw Gallarael stand, in her human form, a bow aimed up at the massive, blue-glowing creature hovering above her.
Vanx started to dismount, to go to her, but Pyra held him in place with restraining magic. That made his blood boil.
“Let me go,” he argued through gritted teeth.
“When it isss time, I willsss.”
“You were once human, too,” the Paragon said, looking down at her and turning his head curiously. “What are you now?”
She loosed the arrow then, but the Paragon didn’t even try to avoid it. It seemed a little surprised by the sharp pain of the silver Heart Tree leaf tip, but even that was only a minor irritation.
Gallarael had only been distracting the thing, though. The Paragon wasn’t expecting the blue drake to come streaking down at him from above.
When the blue collided with the Paragon, and the two started to fall from the sky in a tangle, Pyra commanded her kindred to attack. She then released Vanx from her restraining spell, and started drawing the deepest of breaths.
She leapt into flight and went straight for the Paragon’s spike-maned head. Vanx had prepared an explosive spell, and when he cast it, it worked perfectly. The problem was, he did as much damage to the attacking wyrms as he did to the Paragon.
Pyra’s gout of fiery breath engulfed the Paragon’s whole head, though, and ended up scorching to ash most of the blue drake that was clinging to the enemy’s neck.
From the back of the valley, Vanx saw several arrows streak up at the thing. He knew by the speed of their release that it was Zeezle. Only a Zythian could have loosed so swiftly and with uncanny accuracy.
Kelse, still hidden in the trees below, sent a powerful blast of kinetic energy that hit the Paragon so hard it was emptied of breath and pushed across the sky, but it shifted shapes as it went. A porcupine-like being took its place and landed roughly on the ground with almost all of the dragons that had been close enough to attack it impaled by the newly sprouted quills.
The Paragon, as it was rolling across the valley floor, changed again, into something cat-like and charged right at Gallarael. She looked dumbfounded, and was still in human form, holding an unloaded bow at her side. Vanx cast the same explosive spell he’d used earlier. It impacted far enough in front of Gal to keep from splattering her with the rock and dirt thrown from the divot the concussion created, and as he’d hoped, it forced the Paragon to alter its course.
It looked like the explosion had rousted Gal, for she was now in her feline form, racing up the ridge toward where Chelda should have landed.
The Paragon topped the lip of Vanx’s crater and leapt into the air, changing shapes again as it went. First a wide-winged bird flapping madly for the clouds, then a dragonfly, being blown by the sea breeze. In only a few heartbeats, it was gone, or it was something so small they couldn’t see it anymore.
“Enjoy the time between now and when we meet again, Vanx Malic,” the Paragon’s loud voice was still coming from somewhere close. “Your wyrm and your whelped-up change
ling, too. For when we meet again, I will drain the hope from your heart and show you my full might. I know the secrets of Parydon. You men are fools. You dragons, too, mighty fire whore. I’ll enjoy extracting your tears the most.”
It was silent for a long time after that, but Vanx wasn’t thinking about the threat. If he died fighting the Paragon, he would die with honor. But had the Paragon called Gallarael a whelped-up changeling? Was she with child? Could she have a child? And what would it be? Quarter Zythian, quarter changeling, and half human?
The confusion and anger were wiped away when he felt his familiar and best friend, Sir Poopsalot, tickling the back of his mind. When he reached for that connection, he found his pup, and after a few seconds of ritualistic canine greeting, he found he could see Moonsy and King Russet through the dog’s eyes.
“Pwca’s told us how to banish that fargin’ thing,” said Moonsy, distaste for the swearing clearly in her tone. “That is what King Russet told me to tell you. Pwca said only you could retrieve what is needed, for only you have witch blood in you.”
Vanx suddenly remembered Chelda’s crash, and didn’t want to break Moonsy’s heart. His only response was, “We’re coming.”
He mentally added witch blood to the list of concerns for whatever it would be that Gallarael birthed if she was, indeed, whelped up.
Chapter Twelve
Ogres are full of menace,
ogres are full of rage.
Once a man was fool enough
to put one in a cage.
- a song from Dyntalla
Vanx urged Pyra to take him to Chelda, but the big fire queen couldn’t land without catching the forest afire, so Vanx slid from her back and used a form of a levitation spell he’d been practicing to slow his fall. He was scratched across his back, and his shirt ripped to a ruin as he fought to control where he was falling. He decided that descending in that fashion through a forest canopy had been foolish, but there was Chelda.
Gallarael was draped over her broken form, sobbing. Gal was somewhere in between her feline and human forms, and more or less staying that way. It was unnerving, for she was anything but attractive when she was even partially changed. His concern wasn’t for her or what was inside her, though. It was for Chelda Flar, and he was glad to see Zeezle darting and cutting his way through the forest toward them.
Vanx had concocted potions using the Hoar Witch’s recipes, and one was for healing, but Chelda looked dead. Still, he fumbled through his belt pouch and all the kerchief-wrapped vials he had stashed there for the right one.
Without hesitating, he poured the thick red contents into her slightly open mouth, cradled her head in his lap, and began to stroke her throat, hoping to cause her to swallow.
“Straighten her limbs.” Zeezle’s voice was urgent, and Gal finished shifting back into human form to help. “You don’t want her bones to knit crooked.”
“By the gods!” Gallarael cried as she squeezed firmly to make sure the leg bone she’d just snapped back into place beneath Chelda’s skin was truly in place. “Please, mighty Faulkra, let this one keep her soul awhile longer. She is strong of will, and good of heart. She doesn’t deserve to die like this.”
Vanx was rocking back and forth, holding Chelda’s head. He could feel her body cooling. She was dead. A flood of sorrow was threatening to come bursting through him. Losing Thorn had been hard, but he’d known Chelda longer, loved her like bloodkin. He started to look to the sky and scream at his goddess, but the glint of something caught his eye. A pebble-sized amber jewel was sitting atop the forest’s natural carpet of pine needles, cones, and debris. Instinctively, he knew what it was, and he grabbed it, knowing that he might regret it in the future, but for Chelda’s sake, he would risk his soul.
The rush of dragon magic that filled him when his fist closed over the gem was so immense that, a few hundred miles away, Sir Poopsalot howled out and started rolling and wiggling with delight. Vanx felt it, and saw the confusion in Moonsy’s face through the dog’s glee.
He was feeling the rush, too. It was intense, and very pleasant, and when he willed the power swirling through him into Chelda, it crackled over her skin and then slowly absorbed into her core. For a very long time she stayed still, but then she twitched. She shrugged and swallowed, and then started blinking.
Vanx dropped the dragon teardrop then, but quickly used the kerchief that had been wrapped around the vial of healing potion to pick it up. He carefully rolled and wrapped the powerful thing, so that there was no way it could accidentally come undone in his pouch. That much power scared him.
Maybe Zeezle could handle such a feeling and let it go, but no human could. Vanx had felt highs far more powerful than the teardrop, though. He’d felt higher while sober as a barkeep once. He got lost in a moment in a shithole tavern playing his xuitar for three drunken whores. Even now, he could remember the tangerine ray that reached through the window and warmed his skin as he played to the steady rhythm of their snoring.
The melody and counter runs he was fingering were magical. It was no learned song he’d been playing, either, just random strumming and phrasings off the top of his head.
Then it happened.
Dawn broke, and he began adding runs and alternate fingerings to his now repeating cycle of chords, and then magic took over.
Real magic.
Pure beauty created from naught but his heart, crafted wood, and strands of catgut. The ray of sunlight that warmed him through the window let him know that even the goddess had been listening.
Looking at Gallarael, who was looking wide-eyed right back at him, brought him back to the moment. The power of the dragon tear sent his mind drifting farther than he’d thought.
He shook his head to try to clear it. As glorious a feeling as it was, Vanx decided he would only use the dragon tear if the situation was dire.
Zeezle picked up Chelda, even though she was nearly twice his size. He managed to get her near Kelse, but Vanx told him no.
“Gather close.” He urged them all to huddle around Chelda. “Pyra and Kelse will be there when we need them.”
He started into the teleportation spell by raising his right arm to sling around them an “intended” sprinkle of the sands of time. He’d gotten so good at using his will to assert his intention that he now, like Master Kruuga, could teleport without the component altogether.
“Was that a dragon tear?” Zeezle asked, breaking Vanx’s concentration.
“Yes. Now hold your questions for a count of ten.” His words came out a growl, but when he cast the teleportal spell, they were instantly there among Moonsy, King Russet and Sir Poopsalot.
Vanx fell to his knees and greeted his pup. Zeezle lay Chelda on the turf and was shooed away by the elven general and the dozen medika who suddenly swarmed the gargan.
Chapter Thirteen
Across the land he flew
on a brilliant flaming steed.
Brandishing old Ornspike
in the kingdom’s time of need.
- The Ballad of Ornspike
Vanx agreed to summon Pwca after Chelda’s rapidly healing body was laid out in a comfortable position, and they had all had some rest. He didn’t wait, though. As soon as the bulk of the Deep was asleep, he touched the required foul powder to his tongue, and sprinkled a tiny amount on the surface of the Hoar Witch’s old seeing pool. As much as he hated it, this was his seeing pool now, and he wasted no time calling out to Pwca. Vanx would decide if what the devil wanted was worth what he was offering, for there was a name on the inside cover of Aserica Rime’s oldest spell book scrawled as close to the spine as someone could write it and it still be seen. ‘Yelxol Niram’, it read in some strange awkwardly scrawled script. The odds that it was the name of the Paragon Dracus were so slim, he decided, he couldn’t take the chance. It was probably the name of one of the poor bastards she fed to Sissy.
Still, since understanding that knowing the true name of something would give him some power over it, he memo
rized the name in her spell book, just to be prudent.
What Pwca wanted was another matter. Vanx couldn’t figure out what it was, unless there was some artifact or spell here. But he’d told them the Troika Sven would want to agree, too.
Vanx didn’t have any idea what to expect, but he was about to find out, for the little turd-like thing was easing upward toward the surface of the well water. Then Pwca was there, the evil he radiated sliding over Vanx’s skin like ice on a summer day. The strange, hellborn creature sat on the edge of the well, like a small elf in a wet bed sack that was tied all the way over its head, but then that maw that wrapped more than halfway around Pwca’s rounded head opened. To Vanx’s surprise, the devil started speaking conversationally, its ominous voice toned down to a near whisper.
“So, you are the warlock, get of the witch’s get,” it said, more than asked.
Vanx knew it was a rhetorical question. He could feel the evil around him dissipating, but he wouldn’t be so easily tricked.
“And you are Pwca, the rotten devil, lord of rats.”
“No, I am Pwca, also called Puck, or Phouka. I have been alive for eons. My temperment, as you are now finding, is not always full of aggressive hatred. I was different before her. That foul witch tricked me. The witch disfigured me in a battle. I will tell you exactly where the namestone you so desperately need is, if you will talk the elves into cutting me with their Glaive of Gladiolus. After witnessing its healing power in the battles against our common enemy, I think it may be the only chance I have to leave this disgusting form in which I’m trapped.”
So, the witch had turned Pwca into a piece of shit on purpose? It gave Vanx a sense of her power. Maybe Yelxol Niram was Pwca’s true name. Vanx wasn’t sure what to think, and he made a decision even before the little turd gave what might have been a shrug, and finished his plea of a demand.
Paragon Dracus: The Legend of Vanx Malic Book Six Page 4