Vegenrage: The Magic User (33 page)

Vegenrage spending all his magical energy imbuing and instilling the magical ability of absorption into Farrah was like a professional athlete giving his or her talent to another. Vegenrage did not lose any of his ability, but the magical ability to grow very fast and learn magic that he granted to Farrah was unheard of. Farrah is not aware of how significant and special what Vegenrage did for her was, but Logantrance was very aware of this, and this is what he was very concerned about previously in Vegenrage’s home. Farrah will now start to pick up on magic like never before. She will feel magical presence, and if desired, she will start to craft and create magic. Her magical prowess will begin to show in her mind, and she will become very powerful, and this had Logantrance downright worried because he has seen so many heartbreaking stories similar to this in his lifetime.

“So you are the bearer of Vergraughtu. No need to worry, little girl, I am not going to harm a hair on your pretty little head with my breath attack.” The dragon sticks his nose toward them as they move back bending at the knees because of the low ceiling. He sniffs the air deeply, raising his head in the air. “Ahhh. The smell of young human flesh, so good.” He darts his head toward Farrah, extending his unrealistically large tongue to grab her with it, and just before his tongue gets to her, it stops, as if slamming into a solid wall.

Farrah does not know why but is compelled to swing Vergraughtu like a sword at the tongue of Gannream, and it slices his tongue nearly off. “Take that, Gannream.” He takes to flight in a lot of pain and unable to speak. “Logantrance, did you see that? Did you see the way his attack was halted before his tongue reached me? Vergraughtu spoke to me and directed me to strike the dragon, and I did. I know the name of that dragon. I know where that dragon lives and a lot more. How do I know this, Logantrance?”

“Farrah, we can talk about this later. We have to find the dwarves.”

“What about Vegenrage? We have to find Vegenrage first, and I think I know where he is.”

“Vegenrage can take care of himself. He may very well find his way back to us.”

“He may be in great danger and unable to fend for himself right now. I can see where Gannream lives, and I know this is where they have taken him. Vergraughtu is telling me to go find Vegenrage now because he is in great danger but still alive.”

“Farrah, you are by no means ready to take on a dragon, let alone a whole family of them. This is a trap. They are setting to draw us to their home, where we will be at a great disadvantage. Vegenrage is going to have to get out of this on his own, and there is no one more capable than him.”

“We must go to him. He needs our help. I can feel it.”

“Let us get the help of the dwarven Dagi, and we will be much better equipped to handle the Mountain Creek Dragons.”

“Flying, flying, I can take to the air and fly with the eagles.” Farrah starts to levitate and floats out into the air, hovering at the entrance to the passageway. “Logantrance, I am going after Vegenrage. I owe him that. Are you coming with me?”

“Farrah, no, please, you will be a sitting duck in the air. The dragons will pick you off with ease in the open. You have to be fearful of all the dragons in the air. You have no chance in the skies.”

“I am going after Vegenrage. You find the dwarves, and we will meet up. Believe in me, Logantrance, I know I can do this. Vegenrage saved me from a lifelong curse, and I am going to save him from the Mountain Creek Dragons. It is the dragons who should be fearful of me.” Farrah takes to the air and is gone before Logantrance can get in another word.

Logantrance watches as Farrah heads southeast, away from Glabor. He heads down the passageway, ducking and bending forward to fit through the five-foot-tall tunnel.
Damn kids, they learn a little magic and they think they can take on the world.
He bumps his head on the ceiling.
Oh, damn dwarves.
He moves on through the tunnel, extracting his Staff of Light from his Bag of Holding to light the way. As he moves, his can see a lot of footprints in the soft dirt covering the rock floor, knowing a mass of dwarves have traveled this way not too long ago. He rubs his hands along the walls and can see dwarves moving hurriedly through the tunnel. His hunch was right; the dwarves have retreated to Symbollia to take refuge from the dragons. This is a long walk through the mountain passageways, made more difficult for Logantrance since he is so much taller than the dwarves, but he has some pretty impressive magic of his own and now is a good time to use some of it. He chants a magical spell as he walks, transforming into a Niegeganther. This is a very large catlike creature with long brown hair it looks a lot like a tiger, only its coat is very long and solid brown. In this form, Logantrance can move very quickly through the tunnel and makes very good time.

The Glaborian dwarves have a remarkable labyrinth of tunnels and rooms and entrances and exits all throughout the Glaborian Mountains. They can move for miles and miles, never even coming close to the surface. They have a network of tunnels that span dozens of mountains. They know where all the great mineral deposits are. They know where all the weak points and strong points of the mountains are. They have spent nearly thirty generations tunneling, mining, and excavating the mountains. This love of earth and rock and spending so much time underground surely have been a big part of the natural evolution of the dwarves, leading to their short stature.

The dwarves were much taller in ancient writings and stories, and once they took to the mountains and started spending all their time underground, they became shorter, evolving to the most efficient size suitable to their needs. They now are the Glaborian dwarves, sole rulers of the Glaborian Mountains named after them and even after a four-dragon onslaught to their most elegant outer home, the destruction of almost half a mountain.

Logantrance is about to see just how resilient the dwarves truly are. He is traveling very fast through the tunnel in this form, and he is beautiful, his long brown hair flowing as he runs, his tail swiveling back and forth as his body tilts, moving through the turns of the tunnel. There are lit torches lighting the way as he runs nearly twenty miles an hour. Logantrance decides this is not fast enough for him and chants in the language of Niegeganther, transforming into a bat that zips through the tunnels even faster.

This tunnel is amazingly long, so long that it is hard to believe anyone would ever have the patience to dig such a long tunnel, but the dwarves are tenacious, spending their whole lives working inside the mountains to create the vast underground world known only to them. After hours of running and flight, he finally comes to an underground opening. There is a large room with tables, chairs, and a burning fire cooking food, and there are dwarves here, eating and drinking. These are not the dwarves that he is looking for. He flies around the room, deciphering which tunnel to take. One leads out to the mountain face, and one leads deeper toward Symbollia. He can tell by the rush of fresh air which tunnel leads out, and he flies down the other tunnel. The dwarves swat at him, trying to knock him out of the air, shouting, “Damn bat!”

Logantrance flies on unharmed, and very quickly he comes to another opening. This time he flies into a hole dug right out of the mountain by the dwarves. This is thirty yards across and a half mile down. There are stairs carved right into the wall, winding down with many passageways leading from the stairway into darkness. There are lit torches here and there, so it is not completely dark, but he cannot remember which passageway to take. He has to land on the top of the stairway leading down and transform back into himself. He walks down the stairs, feeling the wall with his hand and concentrating, seeing and watching the dwarves as they moved on. He can watch the empty descent and see the line of dwarves as they traveled down and into a passageway a day ago.
That’s what I am looking for.

He transforms back into the bat and heads for the passageway. He soars down and into the tunnel. Another long tunnel and it is an hour before he reaches another large opening in the mountain. This is more like a cave, a natural part of the mountain that has been dug out, but not by dwarves, and Logantrance quickly realizes this is the home of a family of Stone Giants. They are humanoid, but they look very pudgy, almost fat. In reality, they are very lazy, but they stand ten feet tall. Their skin is very thick and durable. Only the strongest and sharpest of blades have any chance of penetrating their skin. They are lazy, but if angered, they attack with great power. Dragons would find a party of Stone Giants very challenging adversaries and, for the most part, avoid them. Stone Giants can throw very large, very heavy boulders large enough to crush the bones of dragons, and this makes dragons not afraid of Stone Giants but very cautious of them.

Logantrance knows he is close to Symbollia now. The dwarves have used their magic to communicate with the giants and provide them with fine metals and good food that the Giants greatly appreciate, and in times like this, the giants provide the much-needed protection. The mountains are home to both the giants and the dwarves, and they live mostly apart from each other, but times like this, both races benefit from the protection and provisions from each race. Logantrance remembers the last time he was in Symbollia. There were at least four different families of Stone Giants around the sanctuary of Symbollia.

He knows he is close and flies on. It is taking him much longer to get to his destination than he had hoped, and he starts to worry.
Is this the wrong way? Did I go the wrong way?
he contemplates in his head, but no need to turn back now, and eventually he reaches Symbollia to see a sight he never imagined. Symbollia has become a city within the mountain. It is a mile across with many exits and entrances like the one he just flew in from. There must be two thousand dwarves sitting at tables eating and drinking. They are playing musical instruments and socializing. They are basically having a good time. Logantrance is astonished to see the sight of happiness and joy, when he was expecting to see sadness, doom, and gloom. He searches for Glimtron, and surprisingly, there he is at a table with his best friends and many of the Dagi. Logantrance darts down and transforms at the head of the table.

“Logantrance. Everyone, my dear old friend Logantrance is here.” Glimtron gets up to greet him. “Come, sit by me, tell me what is happening outside of Glaboria.” Glimtron ushers Logantrance to a seat at the table by him, and not many of the dwarves seem to pay much attention to Logantrance outside of the dwarves sitting at the table with Glimtron. “Logantrance, sit here.” Glimtron waves a waitress, pointing to Logantrance, and she knows to bring some food and drink for him. Glimtron sits by Logantrance, patting him on the shoulder. “It is so good to see you, Logantrance.”

“Glimtron, I must say I am very surprised to see you and all your people in such good spirits. I was at Glabor and saw it had been destroyed.”

“Yes, the Mountain Creek Dragons attacked Glabor three days ago. By the second day, they had realized we were much too much for them like always, but this time, there was a father dragon. And are you ready for this, Logantrance? There is a female dragon as well. The most surprising thing of all is that they worked together like a family unit. They did not just come to Glabor to feed. They came to destroy. They found out the hard way by losing their youngest offspring that they were not strong enough to penetrate Glabor, so they destroyed our home by dropping boulders from the sky over and over until Glabor had been demolished. We suffered casualties, but not as many as you might think. We retreated here to Symbollia, and we wait for the Dragon Feast to end, and then we hunt those serpent beasts. We will destroy them in their sleep like our ancestors did a thousand years ago. We will have our revenge.”

Logantrance looks to Blythgrin, Trybill, and Grenlew sitting across from him. “Glimtron, the dragons are not going back to sleep. They mean to hunt down and kill all humanoid life, and they are starting with the magic users. They found a way to my realm and almost destroyed me there. The ally I had told you about in Erkensharie, he saved me from certain death, and then the dragons hunted him down on his realm, and no one knows the location of his realm. The dragons have attacked in numbers, almost destroying the Erkensharie homeland. I have come to ask for your help and unite the humanoid races like our ancestors did a millennium ago. We need to fight against the dragons because they mean to kill us all. If you want to hunt them down and destroy them, then your allies in Erkensharie need your help, and Ulegwahn wanted me to let you know the battle ax he promised you is waiting for you there. Blythgrin, what of your elementals and the Sapphirewell? Were they of no use against the dragons?”

“The Mountain Creek Dragons proved to be more magically powerful than we had anticipated. They were on us with no warning and we did use our elementals, but their magic is surprisingly strong and they devoured our elementals. The Sapphirewell, we used with great effect, but the dragons took to the sky far out of our reach, dropping boulders from very far and high up. They were well organized and hit us from many vantage points. They were relentless, and we used our magic to protect our people and get them out of harm’s way. I would say it was a victory for us. We lost our home, but very little life was lost, and we take great pride in that. Our day will come, and this way they do not know our strength.”

“I commend you, Blythgrin, very well thought out by the Dagi. Your day will come and sooner than you think. Your allies need your help now. What do you say?”

The members of the table look at one another and smile. The female server brings Logantrance a plate with meat and cheese and a cup of ale, and he thanks her. They all follow Glimtron’s lead, raising their ale and tapping them together over the center of the table. Glimtron steps on his chair and then on to the table. He holds his hands high. “Everybody, everybody listen up.” Slowly the room quiets, and all the dwarves look on to their king. “Everybody listen to me. The dragons destroyed our home. We ran not to hide, not to cower, but to think, to survive, to rebuild better and stronger. But before we rebuild, we have a little unfinished business. Those slime-drinking, muck-eating dogs of the air thought they beat the Glaborian dwarves. They thought they could walk right through us, and then Drimdree fired an arrow, cutting the head off one of those Mountain Creek Dragons.” All the dwarves cheer loudly and raise Drimdree into the air, and he enjoys the acknowledgment. “But wait, the dragons, realizing they could not get close to us, flew miles in the air, far out of range of us, because those cowardly dragons know that even the smallest of us can take on the beasts fifty times our size.” The dwarves cheer loudly and raise their ale high in the air. “But listen, listen, my brethren. The dragons destroyed our home from far away. Far out of our reach. It is time to unite the races of man like our ancestors did many lifetimes ago and hunt the beasts, or they will hunt us. Tomorrow I hunt dragon. Who is with me?”