A Gossamer Lens (The Legend of Vanx Malic Book 10) Read online

  “Rig it to fit Poops, not a horse.” He grinned at their fortune. “She’ll need to ride Poops to keep up with us once we get going.” As he turned, he bumped his head on a beam and heard whoever was above him shuffle their feet, startled.

  “Yah. I can do that.” Chelda laughed at his folly. “That, and make some good lanyards. If you see Moonsy, send her down. There is no sense in holding the surprise back now, and she can get around down here way better than I can.”

  “I will.” Vanx excused himself, not sure why he felt embarrassed over finding Chelda’s private place. His private place was atop the mast pole, not in the crow’s nest, but actually atop the pole, with his legs wrapped in the rigging to hold him in place when the ship swayed back and forth.

  There, he could sink into Poops sensory perception and take in the world as no one else could. It was the closest thing to riding a dragon’s back he could manage, and he relished it, even though it didn’t quite compare.

  After sending Moonsy down to help Chelda, and telling Gallarael what supplies to put in he and Chelda’s backpacks, he climbed the thick, tar-saturated mast and got situated.

  He thought about how it would be, hacking a way through the Wildwood opposite the protected trade route that had been established. They could cause a war if they were thought to be Parydonians.

  Vanx wasn’t worried about that too much, though. Gallarael was the only human among them, and she would probably be in one of her shifted forms most of the time. Mistaking them for poachers or lost travelers was not going to happen. They had a seven and a half foot tall gargan woman with them, and an elf that would be riding his dog familiar. Anything with any sense would flee.

  Two days passed, and the dragon they’d left behind kept stealing Vanx’s thoughts. The light sea-colored wyrm was just the right size to carry him. He’d climbed up high to get away from everyone for a while. It was late evening and the cool autumn sky was filled with stars. He felt the mast pole shiver when one of the Zythians directed a wind spell at the sails. They had been doing this in rotation since they’d learned the route they were taking.

  The Zythians, who were not going were pleased to learn they would have passage back to Zyth. Their enthusiasm showed in their spell casting, for the Adventurer glided across the waves at a sharp, rushing clip.

  In fact, with Poops’s keen nostrils, Vanx could already smell fire smoke coming from the land. They would see the shore before the sun came up, he was sure.

  Vanx made his way down to the deck. He lit and hung a lantern and used a shovel to scoop Poops shit out of the rectangular turf box he’d built for the dog. Then he used a sprinkler can to water the grass.

  Master Practon had shown him a spell that would help keep the grass nutrified, but he had to find the time to dig up some ground worms to make it all self-sustaining with the arcanery.

  He heard Ronzon swear and went up to the open wheel house to see what was amiss. He saw the orange flicker before he even had the long tube Ronzon handed him in his grasp. When he found it in the glass, he was stupefied.

  “No way.” He shook his head in wonder.

  “Are them ogres?” Ronzon asked, the fear in his voice as clear as his words.

  “Yes they are, my friend.” Vanx laughed and gave the man a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. “They are compelled to follow the blood stone, but it is in Pyra’s hoa—” Vanx stopped himself. “It is somewhere else.”

  Ronzon was a mere human, and no matter how hard he tried, if he knew there was a dragon’s hoard on the island they’d left Zeezle on, the man would be tempted by greed. For his own good, Vanx left that part out.

  Ronzon gulped.

  Vanx watched through the long glass as one of the score of enraged ogres left the bonfire and charged into the sea. It waded until it had to swim. Then, when it was just beyond the roll of the surf, something snatched it from below.

  “How are we going to land there?” Ronzon asked. “I counted three dozen of them.”

  “Three dozen?” Vanx looked at him and smiled. “I’ll wager my ten coins to your one, Chelda Flar can clear that fire by herself.”

  “Ten to one?” Ronzon’s fear was suddenly gone. “I think I’ll have to put three pieces of gold on that one, sir.” The seaman showed his three coins but kept his head down. “Though I’d hate to see Lady Chelda fall just to make my fortune.”

  “You just lost three pieces of gold, Ronzy.” Chelda stepped up between them. She held one of the other tubes. Vanx came up to her chin, but Ronzon’s head was right at breast level.

  “Well, hell,” the seaman said dejectedly. “Can I get off the bet for one, Captain?”

  “You can,” Chelda answered for Vanx. “And if you ask me too, I’ll go kill them all, Vanx, but I have a better idea, and one coin in the hand is better than three in the wind.”

  “Can’t argue that one.” Vanx winked as he took Ronzon’s coin and put a bite on it to make sure it was soft. “Debt paid,” he said when he found it was. Then he turned to Chelda.

  “Now tell me about this plan.”

  Chapter

  Four

  He took her to the river,

  and he swore his heart was true.

  And then his Molly took his purse,

  and bought herself some shoes.

  – Parydon Cobbles

  Chelda’s plan was simple. Distract the ogres with magic.

  Using the time it would take to kill them, to sneak beyond, would allow them get on with the rigorous journey that much faster.

  It was surprising that Chelda wanted to avoid a confrontation but, since learning the fate of the world hinged on whether they succeeded or not, she’d been a lot more serious, assertive even, which was a side of her Vanx had never seen before.

  Chelda’s plan was a good one. The longboat carrying Master Ruuk, Master Practon, Vanx, and most of their gear, slid up onto the gravelly shore of the mostly untamed mainland, where thickets and tall frond trees lined the banks. They’d rowed near the land before dawn. It was morning, and the sun had just come up. Vanx decided he needed to focus. They were a good way south of the ogre-infested beach where Moonsy had teleported Poops, Chelda, Gallarael, and herself, but here was Gallarael, already in the brush, giving Master Ruuk a hand with the gear.

  Vanx didn’t get out of the boat immediately. He sank into his familiar bond and perceived what Poops was sensing. Which was chaos. The only order was Moonsy’s will, and Vanx was glad the two of them were connecting as mount and rider. There was a bright lavender flash and sand flew up and away. A great divot of beach had been blasted so that the sand half-buried most of the crazed green creatures still raging along the edge of the sea.

  So many, or maybe it was only a few of their kind, Vanx decided, were compelled to follow the magical draw of the Blood Stone. It was leagues and leagues away, on Dragon Isle among Pyra’s hoard, yet they still felt its pull. Vanx had traded the small blood-red rock to Pyra for his life and, after she’d munched a few hundred ogres, using it for bait, she and Vanx had become friends.

  There was a concussive thump and Vanx heard Chelda say, “Yah,” just before Moonsy had them all fleeing the scene.

  Vanx let go of Poops then, and hurried out of the boat. “Teleport us, Master Ruuk. That was your intention. Correct?”

  “I can only teleport us to a place I can see,” the old Zythian grumbled. Vanx knew this, but before they’d destroyed the Octron towers, that wasn’t the case. One only had to have been familiar with a place to teleport there.

  “Gallarael, get us to a point where Master Ruuk can see ahead please.”

  Her response was more snarl than speech, and it gave Vanx a chill, but he ignored it. He grabbed the last of the heavily laden packs and slung it over his shoulder, then took up the rear.

  “Run,” he heard Gallarael yell, but when he tried, he impacted a translucent dome and fell to the ground, momentarily stunned.

  As he lay there, Master Ruuk dropped to a knee. “Sorry, Vanx. I
placed a stationary protection over us.”

  From the ground, Vanx looked to where he thought Gallarael was, and saw her in one of her half-shifted forms. She was using her wicked claws on an ogre that fled Moonsy’s surprise with its mate.

  “Next time she yells run, Master, you run. Both of you.” Vanx was adamant. “Now undo this.”

  Vanx got to his feet and drew his sword. When Master Ruuk’s glassine protective field disappeared with a whoomp, Vanx darted out and drew the attention of the ogre Gallarael wasn’t cutting up.

  It was a female, and its green watermelon-sized breasts slung to the left and right as it juked. Unlike a human or Zythian woman’s tits, these were anything but attractive. Her fanged underbite, and snarl, gave her a look akin to that of an angry wild boar, without the bristly fur.

  Vanx faked one way and dove into a roll the other. He avoided a grasping hand big enough to grab and throw him. When he came up, his sword followed his body into a spin. The blade sliced cleanly into the ogre’s lower leg, just above the back of its ankle. It fell over screaming in terrible pain, hamstrung.

  The ogre Gallarael fought was thrice her size and would have been two full heads taller than Chelda, but the black, hard-skinned changeling was deadly.

  Gallarael, in her half-shifted form, used her claws to climb up the ogre’s back. It wasn’t giving up, but no matter how hard it tried to reach back, it couldn’t get a hold of her.

  After using its hair to keep from being slung away, Gal’s sharp claws found its jugular. After she laid its neck open, she leapt away, changing into a more panther like form in midair as she went. She landed gracefully on an upper tree limb and bounded away from branch to branch in the direction they were supposed to be headed.

  “Come,” Vanx told the two speechless Zythian spellcasters.

  He was impressed at Gal’s ability, but still the fact that he loved a shapeshifter unsettled him. He didn’t have time to dwell on it, though. He had to get the two Zythians to a place where they could see an inland rise, or something.

  Gallarael dropped into the lead, again in human form, save for her claws, which she used as machetes to carve a way through the hearty scrub that thrived in the harsh salty air along this coast.

  The climate was damp, but the ground was solid, not swampy, as Vanx had feared, and it wasn’t too long before they came out of the thicket and could see a mounding hill a quarter day’s hike away.

  “Gather in,” Master Ruuk said before Vanx could ask if the place was in the Zythian’s range.

  Vanx did so and was shocked that, when they appeared, Poops was easing up to him. When he knelt to pet the dog, he was stricken with fear.

  It wasn’t his dog familiar. It was an ant that was just about the same size as the pooch. It had black hairs growing in rows down its bright red body. It had pincers, too. They looked sharp enough to remove a limb.

  Master Practon blasted the one in front of Vanx into a mist. Vanx noticed the dozens of other ants out around them pause, their antenna standing up in alarm.

  This rise was an ant mound, and there was the hole, not ten strides away.

  Chapter

  Five

  Old Master Wiggins

  danced a fancy jig.

  He tossed his hat out to the crowd

  but found he’d lost his wig.

  – A Parydonian Street Ditty

  The main hole, at the top of the mound, was right there, but the dog-sized ants emerged in droves from the many foraging tunnels around the hill.

  In a matter of heartbeats, they were surrounded.

  “Now wouldn’t be soon enough, Master!” Vanx said. He had his arms spread wide, keeping the two older Zythians behind him, and himself between they and the hundreds of ants gathering around the mound. The angry red and black colored insects had those wicked looking pincers in front, near their feeler antenna, and all of them had fat poison sacks with a finger long stinger in back.

  Gallarael looked unsure of what she should do. She’d resumed her human form but clearly wanted to change and flee on all fours.

  Vanx grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her in closer, just as several larger ants came out of the main hole nearest them. These were not surrounding the group as the other ants were. These new horse-sized bastards were moving to attack or force them down the slope into the ranks of ants below.

  Vanx was never happier to feel Zythian magic envelope him and carry them away.

  When they appeared this time, they all fell several feet through some sparse trees before landing in a heap. Vanx had no idea where they were, but they were no longer surrounded by ants.

  The foliage was thicker near the ground. It was just as he remembered the Wildwood. “Where are we?” he asked the two Zythians. He knew they were in the Wildwood, but where he couldn’t say.

  “As far toward the mountains as I could take us,” Master Practon answered. “Master Ruuk, was—is—still in a daze.”

  One glance and Vanx knew the ants had scared Ruuk stupid.

  “Any idea how far that is?” Vanx questioned.

  “The river bed will be obvious. I’ll go see where we are.” Gallarael ran on two legs toward a tree and, as she leapt, she shifted forms so that her reaching hands were clawed paws when they touched the bark. In a graceful scramble, she scaled the tree. Soon she lay low on an upper limb, peering about. The only thing that kept her from looking completely feline was her lack of a tail.

  Vanx didn’t wait. He didn’t want to be overcome with revulsion, so he diverted his mind. Instead of thinking of Gallarael, he reached out for Poops and was glad to feel his familiar there.

  “Follow us! Poops knows where they are,” Vanx heard Moonsy say to Chelda. “Leave them, Chel. There is no need to kill them. They can’t keep up.”

  Vanx knew she’d felt Poops start toward him, and he warned the dog of the ants. He conveyed what parts of their scent his lesser nose could conjure. “Keep up with her, Sir Pooposalot!” Moonsy yelled, and Vanx saw Chelda striding on her long gargan legs through the coastal scrub ahead of them.

  Poops had to dart around the prickly stuff and leaping with Moonsy on his back wasn’t that easy. But when he had a stretch of straight terrain, like he did now, he could bolt like the wind.

  Vanx tried something new and cast a spell to give his familiar more strength and endurance. It was a spell that the Hoar Witch used on her minions before sending them into battle and, incredibly, it worked. His pup sped past Chelda and leapt obstacles instead of wasting momentum by slowing and cutting around to avoid them.

  He was shaken out of Poops’s perception by an impatient, but worried looking, Gallarael.

  He was glad she was in human form.

  “The river is this way.” She tugged him, the concern vanished like it was never there. Then she went to the lead.

  Vanx noticed Master Ruuk looked better, if a little ashamed. He also noticed, even though the sun was higher, when it penetrated the trees, it didn’t do much to warm the chill from his skin.

  “Poops is leading them to us,” Vanx said.

  “I figured as much,” Gal called over her shoulder. “The good Master Practon got us almost to the new road.”

  “Let’s not go there and risk being seen.” Vanx was suddenly worried.

  “What are the travelers going to do, Vanxy? Yell to King Russet that they’ve seen me in the Wildwood.” She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “They’ll be thought insane.”

  “We’ll not risk it, Princess.” Vanx kissed her cheek but didn’t stop when he passed her. “We will wait near the river. Moonsy and Chelda will be here sooner than you think.”

  When Gallarael shifted forms to regain the lead, he found it didn’t bother him.

  Chapter

  Six

  The king saw the wizard and the wizard did sneer

  “You might be a king, but your enemy is here.”

  “Yes,” said the king, “but my fighters are all true.

  My enemy will fal
l before this night is through.”

  –The Weary Wizard

  It was just after midday when Poops, carrying Moonsy on his saddled back, came bounding up the wide, pebble strewn overwash along the lightly flowing river. Chelda wasn’t far behind. When Moonsy climbed off the dog, Poops darted to the water’s edge and lapped the frigid stuff furiously. Then he came to Vanx, waggling back and forth like a four-legged fish. Vanx dropped to a knee and hugged his pup. The dog was excited to have so much energy, and since he was still raring to go, Vanx glanced at Chelda.

  Having spent most of her life doing the sort of running she’d just done, uphill in the snow, instead of on a relatively obstacle free flat, she was only slightly winded. Vanx nodded at her, questioningly. When she nodded back, he spoke, “Let’s go at an easy pace for a while. The road isn’t far. We only need to hurry across it and avoid attention.”

  “You’re no fun at all, Vanx.” Gallarael huffed and eased up alongside Moonsy after she remounted Poops.

  “Which way, Vanx?” Chelda asked.

  Vanx pointed, and Chelda took up the lead, hacking her way through the vegetation with one of the old iron swords Ronson had packed in their gear.

  Vanx noticed she had a long wide sword, she’d gotten recently, on one hip, and the war hammer from Pyra’s hoard hanging at the other.

  “I’m stringing up a bow,” he announced. “Moonsy, you should, too.”

  Vanx was proud to have remembered to do this. So many times in the past he’d found, if he’d only had a bow, a whole lot of trouble could have been avoided. He found that none of these bows were near the quality he was used to. But just like playing the xuitar, one who was proficient should be able to manage even the worst instrument or weapon. He was glad the quiver hung from the grip, near the sight, and wondered where they’d gotten them. It had to have been Harthgar, for they hadn’t stayed at port on Zyth long enough to do more than swap water barrels and load rations.