Trigon Daze: (The Legend of Vanx Malic Book Five)

  Copyright © 2015 by Michael Robb Mathias Jr.

  All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN: 151153334X

  ISBN-13: 9781511533348

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I would like to thank Kristi for the edit, Derek Prior for the proofing, and my mother and Allyson for not driving me crazy while I wrote this. Also the good people at the Royal-Kona Resort, on Kona Island, where I studied the fiery home of Pele, the fire Goddess, and her fire breathing volcanoes.

  The sea is always my greatest inspiration, and maybe my best friend Mr. Stubbs, but this one is for baby Braxton.

  I would also like to thank www.t-rexstudios.com for the fantastic cover art.

  Chapter

  One

  There once was a man named Mitty, who liked to dance a ditty.

  His suspenders broke, and it twern’t no joke, ‘cause the man didn’t own any skivvies.

  – A festival song

  Vanx picked up a piece of broken glass from the floor of the Hoar Witch’s dirty old lookout room. A tiny flash of movement had drawn him to it, and now he was trembling. It turned out that the Mirror of Portent wasn’t a complete loss, after all. In the palm-sized fragment, he saw ships crashing into docks and unloading their cargo of black-armored soldiers. Blades glowing blue, much like Chelda’s, flared forth. Winged creatures, with eyes the same dull shade, swarmed the air. Some were carrying men, some not. The surprised people trying to defend themselves, were decimated. The city under attack was in flames.

  His first concern was that it was the Isle of Zyth being ravaged, but he soon saw that it wasn’t. It wasn’t Orendyn, either. From the structural style of the buildings and the lack of ice and snow, he guessed it was either Parydon Isle, or right across the channel at the mainland city of Andwyn.

  Vanx remembered how the Hoar Witch had once made him question a deed into the mirror with his will. It would display the myriad possibilities that opened up from the intended action. In this case, though, Vanx found that every time he tried, he was led back to the same blurry future. Then it occurred to him that he didn’t know how far into the future this was happening.

  Just then, Sir Poopsalot came sauntering into the room. The dog came over and nuzzled Vanx. As he did, Vanx felt one of the many strange sensations that his dog familiar often sent him.

  “That is true, Poops,” Vanx responded aloud, and then laughed through his concern for doing so. He could have answered with a thought.

  He’d sworn to the Goddess to avoid questioning the Hoar Witch personally, and he wouldn’t break his word. Instead, he called for Gallarael through the crystal hanging at his neck. The device allowed him to order the Hoar Witch’s minions about Saint Elm’s Deep. He could also communicate with any of the fae and his companions, just as long as they were near the Heart Tree.

  Gal arrived a few long moments later, and shifted from her panther-like changeling form into the smiling princess Vanx remembered. Her hair was dark now, and though it framed her delicate face perfectly, he still thought he would like it better long and golden, as it had been when he’d first started seeing her mother.

  Thinking of the Duchess of Highlake made him shiver.

  “Chelda and Moonsy are as in love as any two have ever been,” said Gallarael. “I’m not sure how it works, though, since Chel is seven feet tall and Moonsy is only two-and-a-half.” She chuckled, and then grew serious when she looked at Vanx’s expression. “What is it?”

  “I need you to find out from Aserica Rime how to tell how far into the future her mirror of portent is seeing?”

  “I thought it was destroyed.”

  “Look.” Vanx showed her the piece of mirror he’d found.

  She watched it for a few moments, then looked at him. “Oh my. That’s Parydon Isle. I can tell by the seawall. I’ll go down, then.” She gave him an understanding nod.

  That night, Vanx listened with mixed feelings as the old hag hollered and pleaded for death, while Gallarael tortured information out of her with threats, offers to end her, and a good, sharp stick. One of the Hoar Witch’s own creations, a large, venomous spider-like thing called Sissy, had cocooned her and was using her as a feeding pod. Aserica Rime wouldn’t die in this state, but oh, how she wanted to.

  The next day, Vanx concocted the brew the old witch told Gallarael how to make. After sipping it, and then touching a certain powder to his tongue, when he looked into the mirror, Vanx suddenly understood that the vision was of a very near future. He also saw a tangent vision of things that would transpire in only days.

  Prince Russet and the crew of the Sea Hawk would be landing at Orendyn, where they would trick Darbon out of information and then hire the twin skmoes, Inda and Anda, to guide them to the Deep in search of Gallarael.

  Vanx shook his head. The reflections started blurring in his mind, and he retched. He needed more of the potion, but had seen enough for the moment. Gallarael was an absconded princess, after all, but if Prince Russet was coming to Orendyn, then he had a good idea where she was. The letter they’d sent back with Brody’s remains might have given them away. Or more likely, the dock workers had been questioned by kingdom spies. Vanx and his group were revered as celebrities after their saber shrew kill, and even before that, the sign in front of the Iceberg Inn and Tavern had read, “Vanx the bard, most nights after supper” for much of a year. Had anyone been asking about him, they would have learned he had gone questing to the north, and that he had taken his dead friend’s sister, a girl named Galra, with him.

  It also meant that the kingdom was not expecting an attack. Had they been, Prince Russet would have been forced into a stronghold and kept there. He was King Oakarm’s only son, and there was no way they’d let him sail north. For a moment, the little rat-riding devil, Pwca, crossed Vanx’s mind, but then the fresh memory of Prince Russet’s angry expression, as he roughed up Darbon, wiped the concern away. Salma looked battered in the vision, too, and that made Vanx angry.

  “Why would he harm Salma or Darbon?” Vanx asked Gallarael sometime later.

  They were in a crystal-formed hall that Vanx had cleaned of filth and debris. Gallarael hung some old tapestries and replaced the torches with moss lamps she got from the Underland brownies. There were two divans sitting opposite each other, with a long, wooden table between them. The table was knee-high for Vanx and Gallarael, but Thorn had brought over a little chair and looked to be sitting at the head of a fancy table board as the conversation continued.

  “They were probably trying to keep their mouths shut,” Thorn answered. Before the pixie queen had died, the strawberry-haired elf was the head of her honor guard. General Foxwise Posey-Thorn was his name and title, and though he looked like a child, he was as sharp and ornery as an elf could be. “Finding a runaway princess is serious business, I’m sure.”

  “I’m not a runaway princess!” Gallarael snapped, and a little of her feline changeling self resonated in her snarl. “I don’t know why he would hurt them, either. I’m sick about it. I didn’t know I was the Princess of Parydon, and that he was my brother, until recently, Vanx. Don’t ask me why he would do anything.”

  “You are the Princess of Highlake, either way. Your mother won’t let the realm sit still until you are found.”

  “You’ll have to go to Orendyn and head him off, Gal,” Thorn said simply. “We can’t have the Crown Prince of Parydon bringing his whole cohort into the Deep to find us.”

  “What of the attack on the island?” Vanx asked the general.

  “She can warn the prince when she sees him.” The elf shrugged.

  Chapter

  Two

  A boy made of stone, upon a great red wyrm, cast a shadow ‘cross them all, as they tore apart the walls.

  The tyrant, god Ra’Gren, tried his best to get away,

  but his own slaves turned him in, after cutting off his balls.

  – Battle of Ornspike

  “I wish I could go with you, Gal,” Chelda said, gathering Gallarael’s full attention.

&n
bsp; The two of them were sitting on a large rock at the edge of the Heart Tree’s Shadowmane. Outside of the Underland, Chelda could go no farther from the tree until the newly born prince, Chervil Longroot, matured and learned a way to release her.

  That could be half a century or more.

  Gallarael wasn’t sure how Chelda kept from going mad, but at least she wouldn’t age while she waited. Chelda and Moonsy seemed to be in love, and happy about it, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Either way, she could travel five times as fast as Chelda if she made the journey in her changeling form. She wasn’t going alone, though. A little sprite named Streak had been assigned by Vanx and General Posey-Thorn to accompany her. Streak could fly even faster than she could run, and the finger-sized little guy could ride in her hair, or easily hide, if the need arose.

  “I wish you could go, too, Chel.” Gal forced a smile. “I mean, so you could get away from here, but none of you could hold my pace.”

  “I’d bet Moonsy…” Chelda caught herself and blushed.

  “Not even your beloved, First Captain Gloryvine Moonseed, could keep my pace.” Gallarael stood and patted her big gargan friend on the back. “Even that little turd Streak will have a time of it on this trek.”

  “You’d best use caution.” Chelda stood and looked down at her. “I saw a slip of a girl fall through ice that a whole caravan had just crossed over. Just like that, she disappeared down a hole.”

  “That’s terrible.” She was usually eaten up with curiosity about the Underland. She loved the stories Chelda and the fairies told her, but this day’s concern over Darbon, Salma, and an angry brother she barely knew, kept her from asking questions.

  “It is true, and you’d better not just go running across any open tundra. There’s more than snowfalls and shrew tunnels you have to worry about out there.”

  “I’ll be fine, Chelda.” Gallarael gave her a quick hug. “I have to go gather my things.”

  “So, you are going in the morning?”

  “Vanx and Thorn are escorting me to the Ice falls in a while. I’ll slide around them at first light and be off.”

  Chelda grabbed Gallarael into another, more heartfelt, embrace and sniffled loudly. “I’ll miss you. The way you and Moonsy extended the Shadowmane for me was the nicest thing ever done. You are one of the truest friends I’ve known.”

  “I’ll miss you, too, Chelda.” Gallarael hugged her back, but didn’t feel as emotional. Chelda could only survive inside the area of land the Heart Tree’s shadow had touched, and in the Underland. Gallarael and Captain Moonseed had used a giant mirror Gallarael had found in the crystal palace. With it, and the help of an extra tall, living tree, they’d made rounds around the Heart Tree at different elevations and distances. They used the sun’s reflection to create a far greater area of shadow around the tree that Chelda could safely roam.

  Right now, though, Gallarael was too full of concern to worry about any of it, and growing eager to be back in her changeling form. She gave her gargan friend a final hug, and then went about finishing her preparations.

  Vanx was busy. He ordered Vrooch and the remaining members of his pack of wolves to scare away any living thing that might slow or harm Gallarael as she traversed her way south out of the Lurr Forest. After that, he needed to add the final ingredients to the potion he was rendering for Streak. The mixture would supposedly allow the sprite to call out to him from afar, if there was a dire situation. The trick, after the concoction was done brewing, was diluting it so that the tiny little guy didn’t die when he took a sip. Vanx hoped to test it, but before he could do that, he had to pen a message for King Ravier Oakarm, and another for Quazar. Both, he knew, would take a while to articulate.

  It made him cringe when he pinched a bit of powdered pixie dust from a small cup and sprinkled it into the kettle. He had no taste for this sort of witchery, but it was what he had to work with at the moment, and he was trying to make the best of it.

  He was troubled by Gallarael’s lack of concern over her journey, too, but the memory of a night in an alley, when she could have killed him a dozen times over, kept that worry from getting out of hand. He decided he would go review the scene in the mirror again. He wouldn’t let Gal leave the Deep until he did.

  Chapter

  Three

  On that old barrel keg,

  underneath the granted shade,

  I sit with that old cat,

  and watch time slip away.

  – Parydon Cobbles

  “What if he doesn’t listen?” Gallarael asked.

  “Then tell him in a way he can’t help but understand.” This came from Thorn.

  Vanx had half a mind to harness Poops and go with her, but knew it would be foolish. He was starting to think he might need to use a spell to get there, or to Parydon Isle, more directly. He’d read about them in the volumes he’d found in the old crone’s potion rooms. If he could warn King Oakarm before the attack, maybe they could change the outcome the mirror kept showing him. He was debating a question he needed the Hoar Witch to answer, but Gallarael was suddenly hugging him.

  “I will be in Orendyn in two days, three at the most, Vanx.” She held him back by his shoulders and squeezed her grip, using her true strength. This reminded Vanx what she was truly capable of.

  “If he won’t go directly to Parydon, you must,” said Vanx. “There isn’t time to spare.”

  “He will go warn our father and the kingdom, but I will return here.”

  “If you run into any trouble, you have Streak get us,” Thorn said, and gave her leg a hug. Vanx wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard the elf sniffle.

  “I’ve got this, sir,” said a tiny voice that sounded far larger than the dragonfly-sized sprite from which it came. Streak looked like a mop-haired young man, in miniature. He had glassine wings, and a cocksure attitude. He came to a hover a few feet in front of Vanx.

  “Did you test the potion?” Streak asked.

  Vanx shook his head in the negative. “But it has been diluted to its minimal consistency. If I thin it anymore, it definitely won’t work.”

  “Give me a drop, then, and I will fly ahead and see,” requested the diminutive creature.

  Vanx gave Gallarael a small vial. She poured a dollop of the liquid into Streak’s tiny canteen. The sprite then took the stoppered nutshell back and zipped away through the trees, going south.

  “How far do you think he will go?” Thorn asked.

  “Why? Do you have a rendezvous or something to attend?” Gallarael joked.

  “I have to practice with Sir Poopsalot Maximus. We are getting very good.” Thorn’s tone was indignant.

  Vanx chuckled. It was the first time he could remember having a happy thought in some time, but he was immediately put back in his sour mood when he observed Gallarael shoulder her satchel. Watching Poops do fancy riding maneuvers with Thorn saddled on his back was sometimes pretty funny, but knowing that he may not ever see Gallarael again suppressed those thoughts like a heavy boot squashing a bug.

  “I guess it didn’t work,” Thorn said. “You didn’t hear him call out, did you?”

  “I have to go, either way.” Gallarael gave Vanx another quick hug and made to run, but Streak’s voice thundering through the whole of Saint Elm’s Deep kept her from her start. “I guess it works, then,” she said, rubbing at her ears. “That hurt.”

  “You’ve a young grey bear approaching from the mountain pass,” Streak continued in a booming voice that was causing everyone and everything to stir.

  “We will handle that, Gal.” Vanx gave her another hug. “Be safe, and tell that little turd to only use that potion if the situation is worthy of alarming the entire world.”

  “I will, on both counts.” Gallarael hugged him back, then stooped down and gave Thorn a final hug. “Where is Poops?” Gallarael looked sad that he wasn’t there.

  “Sleeping.” Vanx shrugged. “Make sure your brother delivers those scrolls to your father and Quazar.”