The Long Journey Home (The Legend of Vanx Malic Book 8) (13 page)

“You can’t,” she said sharply.

“Then you see why I’m all a mess.” Papri grinned when he saw she was smiling. “The general, or Anitha, could probably spell you to go, but I am just an archer.”

Deep inside, Gallarael’s heart soared. Of course she wanted to get away from the fake smiles and snickering whispers over the rumors of her strange deeds in the war.

She would miss Salma and Darbon. Salma was with child and due in three turns of the moon, as best as anyone could tell. Even still, she wanted away from these bootlicking gossip mongers as fast as she could.

The very same people who called her a friend wondered in secret if she was human at all. She had killed quite a few of the Trigon. Some local soldiers had seen her in changeling form, and from there the rumors had grown. It was fun at first, but it had gotten old quickly. She longed to be trekking with her friends, as she had been since she’d been changed, but they’d left her behind…or she got left behind. This was a chance. She knew she had to take it.

In truth, she couldn’t get far enough away. The snobbish debauchery, the charade that was a princess’s world, in a sea of novice socialites had become sickening. And the idea that Vanx had gotten himself ship, like his father, had its own appeal.

“Where is the great hawk?” she asked. “And how much of my stuff can you carry when it returns for you?”

She laughed at herself. Sometimes, she was as shallow as those she despised. Such was the life of a shapeshifting princess. With Vanx and her friends, she was Gallarael. And she was tired of having to be anything else.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Two pinches of clover

and a single pinch of coal
.

That’s how you keep hidden

whatever’s in your hidey hole
.

V
anx let Moonsy lead them into the depths of Falriggin’s crumbling tower. She seemed to know where they were going, or maybe she just kept going down deeper into the complex at every opportunity. Either way, they eventually ended up on a smooth carved floor that had no more passages going down.

Anitha was behind Moonsy and was using some sort of shield that made even the spiders and rats flee them. This left Vanx in the rear. He drew his sword out of habit but doubted he’d have to use it.

This wasn’t dungeoneering with clumsy men. This was searching and clearing a building with two purposeful, and powerful, little female elves.

From the lowest floor they could find, Anitha cast a spell that would detect any arcane activity or artifacts that radiated magic. Vanx began to worry as her look went from excited to fearful and frustrated in the span of a few heartbeats.

“What is it?” He couldn’t help but ask.

“Your gem is about two floors up, in that direction, in a hidey hole in the wall.” She pointed up at an odd angle. “But,” the word was said with emphasis, “there is a ward, and only one of us will be able to enter the magical construct.”

“What do you mean?” Moonsy asked the elven magi. Her tone was that of General Moonseed, not Moonsy the woman.

Anitha snapped to attention and immediately began reporting to her superior what she’d sensed with her spell.

“Falriggin must have made the protective spell,” she said, “for it is a complex ward that no regular human wizard could have constructed. Once the gem is possessed, the one having it…” She put up a hand to say no to the suggestion that was on Vanx’s lips.

“Gloves?” he asked anyway.

She just shook her head in the negative and went on. “The one who
possesses
it will be pulled into the construct. Falriggin was wise. I have studied his books. He most likely left a way out that only one with honor and good intention could find, but I can’t say what the construct might entail. It could just burn you to a cinder or teleport you into the core.”

Vanx took that in for a moment and smirked at Anitha. “Well, thanks for that at the end. I was eager until that bit.”

“I wasn’t reporting to you, sir.” She bowed to him and refaced Moonsy at attention.

“Ah, well, okay, then.” Vanx gave Moonsy a look that conveyed perplexity. “So, talk to me now.” Vanx’s angry tone made even Moonsy stand stiff. Vanx had fought with their greatest. Both of them, as far as he was concerned, were under his command.

“If you are here to do this with me, mighty Anitha, then you and Moonsy both report to me.” He wasn’t happy about having to go off into some magical creation again, and he tried not to take his frustration out on these elves who were helping him.

“This is my quest. Moonsy is my general now.” He looked at Moonsy, who gave him a nod of assurance. “I fought beside the elf who came here and managed to escape Pwca with the shard that Queen Corydalis used to summon my aid. Now, can you sit down, take a few deep breaths, and tell me slowly everything you can that may help me, for I have no choice but to possess the stone. My goddess commands it of me.”

The idea of going into another magical ward was scary, for one could never know what to expect. The dwarven cavern, all carved and ancient, that he and Poops had gone into after the Emerald Earth Stone had been
an illusionary construct. That cave was just an old stony cavern but had looked and felt like ancient dwarf-carved stone.

Terribly real, giant lyna cats had guarded the emerald. They would have killed him had they gotten their claws in, he was certain. There was no telling what this Falriggin had devised. Vanx brought up something from Foxwise Posey-Thorn’s tale then.

“I thought Foxwise, and then Pwca behind him, emptied Falriggin’s hidey hole.” He looked down at them. For a moment it seemed like he was standing there with two eight-year-old girls. Moonsy’s voice broke that spell, for she sounded like a woman, not a child.

“There is probably a hidey hole for each tower.” She looked at Anitha, who agreed.

Vanx couldn’t help but wonder if she was agreeing because her superior was or if she had an opinion of her own.

“I am going to go possess the gem and see what happens,” Vanx told them. “While I am busy melting, maybe one of you could go see if there is another hidey hole. I think we may be able to avoid a third quest to this damp, dank, creepy old place while we are here.”

“Anitha, see to it,” Moonsy told her, and Anitha left them, clearly wondering if she had disrespected Vanx or Moonsy.

“Follow me, Vanx,” Moonsy said. She started leading them up through the dust Anitha’s passage had just stirred.

“She didn’t mean anything,” Moonsy explained. “I think she thought no one would be foolish enough to get the gem after her warning.”

“Well, then I’m that fool. I’ve no choice, do I?”

“That’s my point. She didn’t know that.”

“It doesn’t matter, Moonsy.” Vanx knew they were closing in on the room where the hidey hole was.

Once inside the chamber, Vanx decided it might have been a librarium. There were empty shelves built into one wall and a crumbled desk. The only thing that looked to have survived the ravages of time in here was an iron stool. Moonsy didn’t even move it. She walked over and ran her hand across the wall behind it.

She spoke a word, but Vanx didn’t hear what it was.

When Moonsy stepped away, there was a section of outer wall missing, revealing three shelves. The bottom one had some pouches and vials lined up neatly on it.

The second shelf had two stoppered bottles and a small, bright yellow pebble; on the third shelf sat a fist-sized ruby-like gem. Vanx didn’t think about it. He just reached out and took the glimmering red jewel.

When his hand touched it, the world flashed so bright that he went spinning into a great white nothingness.

Chapter Thirty

One moment, he was just there
,

the next a god he was
.

If you ask him how it came to pass
,

he will only grin and say, “Because.”

M
oonsy gasped in surprise.

When Vanx grabbed the gem, he disappeared. The abruptness and the ripping sound that accompanied his departure was unsettling and just plain awful to behold. She was left full of concern, for maybe Vanx had instantly died as Anitha suggested might happen. He could have been teleported to some nether plane and forced to fight horrible battles alone. Or worse, he could just be trapped, hoping that someone would be brave enough to come save him.

Three days later, when Vanx hadn’t returned, Moonsy was growing frantic, for the gem was still sitting there on the top shelf, and she didn’t quite know what she should do.

To make things worse, according to Master Ruuk, Gallarael was now on Dragon Isle, and as angry as a hornet that the great hawk had left her to go retrieve Papri instead of bringing her to Vanx at Three Tower Island, which was a day’s flight closer.

Anitha had long since returned from the third tower with word that its hidey hole had been rummaged through a few decades ago and was empty of anything important. She was as upset as Moonsy. She cried each night, thinking her divining and suggestions had brought Vanx ill fortune.

The one thing Moonsy was holding on to was the fact that Poops hadn’t shown any irregular concern about him. At least, Zeezle and Master Ruuk told her through the ethereal that the dog was acting normal. They said the
Adventurer
was acting normal, too, and that Chelda was passing the time chiseling in the features on the unfinished bow spirit of Vanx’s ship.

She wasn’t sure how a ship acted, and she had no idea that Chelda could carve, but it made sense. She’d grown up in a boring mountain forest. Moonsy was sure Vanx could command his ship, though, for his father was the most infamous captain to have ever lived. It pained her when day turned to night yet again. “Anitha, go to Dragon Isle, return with Gallarael, or let her return on your bird, please. Use magic to travel as fast as you safely can.”

“Yes, General.” The elf left.

Moonsy cried after she was gone. She debated entering the magical construct by grabbing the ruby herself but never did. She cried and cried and cried. Then she called on Elva Toyon and the Troika Sven for advice, knowing that this might be the end of her great escape into adventure with Chelda and Vanx.

She would ask them if they wanted her to try and possess the gem, too, for that was what she was inclined to do. Someone had to go help Vanx or at least see what had happened to him.

Vanx ended up in a sitting position. His eyes fluttered open to see that he was in a high-ceilinged great hall. The columns that ran down the sides of the space were as big around as five men and had tapestries and heavy curtains strung between them, creating the illusion of walls. The dominating feature of the massive room was a perfectly round fountain pool that separated the rectangular space into two halves. In the center of the fountain pool was a marble hand, just like the one he’d encountered in the lyna room holding the Emerald Earth Stone, except this one held a glimmering ruby in its stony grasp.

Vanx took a breath and got to his feet. He knew this wasn’t going to be as simple as wading in and grabbing the gem, but he figured it could be, so why not try?

As soon as he stepped over the knee-high pool and his boot hit water, something within the upward spraying display roared to life.

To his disappointment, it didn’t cease to be when he stepped back out of the pool.

A dragon’s head on a long sinuous neck came snapping down at him from out of nowhere. The only thing more amazing than the speed and accuracy of the creature’s strike was that it was formed from nothing more than fountain water.

Vanx cast a massive ball of wizard fire for it to chomp on in his stead, and the terrible sound that came when its form steamed away only made the next roar seem that much louder.

The water reformed into another wyrm and came sliding right back at him. Before he could cast another spell, he was blasted with jetted liquid so hard it ripped through his skin in places.

He did the first thing that came to mind and dropped sprawling to the floor just to try and get under its flesh-ripping power.

The next time it came in at him, Vanx had to make some moves he’d only seen Zeezle perform. He spun and then cartwheeled out of the liquid maw’s snap, just in time to avoid the watery fangs.

This was getting serious, and he decided he needed to back up and think about the situation for a moment.

He knew a spell, but it was from the Hoar Witch’s books.

His goddess wouldn’t want him to cast it, would she?

He contemplated this as he hurried back toward the steps where he’d opened his eyes. When he got there and turned, he saw that not just the front claws but the front half of a dragon formed of fluid was pulling itself even farther out of the fountain pool to get at him.

“Forgive me,” he said, just before he cast Aserica Rime’s spell, and just as soon as it was cast, a pummeling blast of water jetted down from the liquid dragon’s throat and pulverized him into unconsciousness.