The Tome of Arbor (The Legend of Vanx Malic Book 9) Page 2

Three

  We’re off to go a questing,

  a questing we will go.

  Who will live and who will die,

  only the Goddess knows.

  – A Tavern Song

  Watches were set before they slept, but dawn came and went without a single one of the group stirring. Vanx woke, his skin wet with sweat. Poops woke too, immediately filling Vanx’s mind and body with agitated worry.

  Vanx had to fight his way out of the deep slumber, but when he did, he realized that the smell of the blooms was overpowering, and that it had to be what caused the drowsiness. It was so potent that Anitha and Castovanti, who had been the second watch, had fallen asleep by the fire pit.

  Go drink and pee, Vanx let the dog tend his necessities. He didn’t wake Gallarael when he got up and found a tree trunk to relieve himself on, but he started waking the rest of the group one by one when he was finished.

  They were all groggy, and Anitha was so upset over falling asleep at her post that she started crying and begging her general to forgive her. Moonsy seemed annoyed by the elven spell caster’s groveling but let her carry on. Castovanti wouldn’t wake up so Vanx interrupted the apologetic elf.

  “I think, because he is human, the pollen, or whatever it is, affected him worse.” Vanx started to ask if Anitha had a spell, but he remembered that he still had the glaive clipped to his belt and stuck the man with it. A few minutes later, when Castovanti still hadn’t stirred, he grew concerned.

  “He isn’t hurt, Vanx,” Moonsy said, crawling from she and Chelda’s bedroll. “The sword only heals. It doesn’t wake people up.”

  “I was afraid he may be poisoned or something of that sort. He’s just a human, after all.”

  “Just kick him,” Chelda growled. She sat up, stretched her arms out and yawned. Her huge breasts, pressed against her normally loose fitting, tattered blouse for a moment, causing her nipples to be pronounced against it. It might have stirred something in Vanx had he not looked upon her as he would a sister.

  “Where in all the hells, is Papri?” Vanx asked, looking at Moonsy and Anitha in turn. Anitha was still upset so he tried to console her. “It wasn’t your fault the blooms affected us in such a way,” Vanx said. “Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

  “I have wards to protect me…us against such things, sir.” She bowed her head in his direction. “I will be more vigilant next time. The Troika Sven allowed Papri and I to come, to protect the—” she paused to stifle a yawn, “glaive. Someone could have strolled right into our camp and taken it.”

  “There is no one here to steal it.” Vanx rubbed her hair like he might a youngster. “See if you can reach out to Papri or the hawks.”

  “Yes.” She nodded and stepped away to find a place to go about her business.

  “I will see if I can wake Castovanti,” Moonsy said. Her golden yellow hair looked like a bird nest that had slid halfway off a branch. He was certain his brown mop wasn’t much better.

  Vanx looked where Gallarael had just been, but she was gone. Panic threatened to overtake his tired mind. Then, through his familiar link with Poops, he felt her approaching. A calming wave washed over him. A glance in their direction told him she was going to the water to fill some canteens and probably give the pup his usual morning belly rub. He was just glad she looked human. She had achieved so much control over her shapeshifting that she could transform, in progressions, all the way into the strange feline thing she sometimes was. But she could stay half formed, or quarter formed, too, and climb, leap, and fight like a pack of acrobatic badgers.

  It only took a few moments for Moonsy to get Castovanti to open his eyes, but what Anitha said sucked away all the relief Vanx felt.

  “Papri isn’t responding.” The elf’s voice was full of concern. “The great hawks aren’t either. I did sense one of them, but what it was emoting was so sorrowful that I couldn’t bear it.” She looked at Moonsy and then Vanx, fighting back more tears. The concern in her expression was bordering on dire.

  Vanx started to suggest something, but hope wiped away Anitha’s look. “Wait.” she held up a hand to belay Vanx’s comment. “One of them is coming now. They are birds and not as sentient as other creatures, but I think it knows where the others are. It isn’t the sad one.”

  “I’d bet the pollen got them, too,” Moonsy said, helping Castovanti sit up and sip from her water skin.

  “I hope—” Castovanti started, and Vanx wondered what sort of untimely comment the man was about to make. Castovanti didn’t disappoint, either. After he took another sip, he finished. “I hope Papri and his—his bird weren’t too high in the air when they lost their senses.”

  “By the Lanch and Lecher themselves.” Chelda jumped to her feet. “I’ll slap your farkin’ jaw off if you don’t stop doing that.” The nature of her swearing was lost to all but Vanx, and maybe Moonsy. Avia Lanch was the witch that caused snow banks to tumble down from the mountains, and the Lecher was the deviant mythical creature who snatched little girls that strayed too far from the gargan village Chelda grew up in.

  Vanx did know that, when she invoked both evils in one curse, she was about to get violent.

  “Enough!” Vanx barked, hoping to quell her anger.

  Poops sensed the approaching great hawk as a rabbit might sense an owl about to grasp it from the ground. Vanx sensed the same thing, through the pup, and turned just in time to get a face full of dust and pine needles. The big bird had dropped right down among them. The back-flapping of its wings stirred leaves and debris as it slowed its descent and landed.

  Before Vanx could tell Anitha to mount the creature, Moonsy leapt to its shoulders and placed her forehead against its feathery neck. Vanx had come to understand this was a way of pairing their minds so that they could fly and fight in concert. A moment later, they lifted into the sky.

  Vanx, now concerned that they’d already lost someone, made his way over to the lake to rinse away the crud stuck to his damp skin. He didn’t go where Gallarael and Poops were, because he wanted to take a peek at the piece of the Mirror of Portent. It wasn’t until he reached for it that he remembered that he’d given it to Zeezle.

  Cursing himself for not bringing it along, he pulled off the sark he was wearing, and went about cleansing his upper body.

  Before he could finish, Anitha was calling them, her voice as full of anguish as it was excitement.

  “Moonsy found them,” Anitha yelled. “She found Papri and his hawk. They are tangled in the trees, in a bad way. The other hawk was there, but it fled when it saw her.” She took a breath and wiped at her eyes. “Moonsy is returning for the glaive.” The emotional elf then fell to her knees, put her head in her hands, and started crying in earnest.

  Chapter

  Four

  The half-demon wizard, Pael,

  he tried to kill them all.

  Only a handful got away,

  and Wildermont did fall.

  –The Ballad of Ornspike

  “What about the other hawk? Why did it flee?” Castovanti asked.

  “Stow it,” Vanx commanded sharply from across the distance between he and the camp. He closed his eyes a moment and used Poops’s senses to locate the approaching bird again. Grabbing the Hoar Witch’s crystal hanging at his neck, he called out to Moonsy, and then hurled the glaive high into the air.

  The great hawk’s shadow slid over them an instant before Moonsy and the hawk did. To Vanx’s grim satisfaction, the bird canted to the side, and the elven general grabbed the hilt of the slowly arcing blade as they passed.

  “Yah,” he heard Chelda say, but Vanx knew she was admiring the throw and catch, not seconding Vanx telling the sea mage to hold his tongue.

  Vanx started to say something to Gallarael, but she was gone. Poops came loping back to the camp, one of the canteens clutched awkwardly in his jaws. He dropped it at Vanx’s feet and sat. Vanx took the moment, dropped to his knees, and tried to clear the haze from his mind while petting the dog. He wished he h
ad a way to contact Ronzon on the Adventurer. Maybe the other hawk would return there and light on the mast or the figurehead Chelda had carved, as they often had when they were crossing the sea.

  “Oh no.” Anitha’s visible sadness was suddenly gone. “General Moonseed was too late.”

  Vanx was hardened to death. It was part of adventuring, but Papri hadn’t really chosen this adventure. The seven ancient elves that made up the Troika Sven had chosen his fate for him. And the hawks, well, Vanx wasn’t sure he liked the way the elves manipulated the otherwise mostly wild creatures, but it had to do with elven magic and the Heart Tree so he had no choice but to accept it.

  “Papri, or the hawk, or both?” Castovanti asked. He’d moved a good distance away from Chelda, Vanx noticed. The man glared at her and looked as if he had a spell on the tip of his tongue, just in case she tried to smack him. “It is a valid question.” He looked at Vanx for support.

  It was a valid question.

  “Tell us, Anitha,” Vanx said, giving Chelda a look. Chelda actually liked the fact that Castovanti wasn’t letting her bully him. Vanx understood her all too well. Neither of them felt sadness over this sort of loss, just the regret that a companion was no longer with them.

  “Both,” Anitha dropped her head again, but after a second she heaved in a breath and let it out slowly. “They are not that far away. We should go help her get them down.”

  Castovanti started to speak, but held his tongue. Instead, he, too, started grabbing up his overnight gear. He didn’t have much to gather because he never got in his bedroll. After a moment, he stopped and did ask something. “Do we have time for me to get out of this robe? It just isn’t practical to wear a robe in the woods.”

  “He’s learning, Vanxy,” Chelda said. “It ain’t practical to wear a robe on a ship either, but all you creepy wizards seem to think it is.”

  “Don’t dally, man.” Vanx nodded, noticing that Chelda and Moonsy’s gear was already bundled and stowed in Chelda’s big backpack.

  “Vanx,” Gallarael’s voice called from the forest around the lakeshore a bit. “You have to see this!”

  Poops tore off in that direction, his tongue lolling out of his mouth, and his nubbed tail wiggling back and forth as if all of life was just a game. Chelda followed the dog.

  “After you’ve changed, come after us,” Vanx said. “You can come or wait on him,” he told Anitha, who nodded.

  “I’m going Castov,” Anitha said when Vanx jogged away. “I’ll walk slow so you can still see me when you are done.”

  Vanx saw Gallarael, and was again glad she was in human form. Once when they were deep into a night of carnal pleasure, she’d shifted just a bit. Not so much her body, but her rhythm, and her eyes had gone wild, and Vanx was torn out of the moment by the happening. Still, he loved her, or thought he did.

  “What is it?” he called out as he gained Chelda’s side.

  “Just come look.” Gallarael smiled as he and Chelda drew near. Poops was already there, sniffing at something rather large, which was fast asleep, and covered in gray-green skin. “Is this what was making those prints you told me about?”

  “No, Poops,” Vanx said sharply when he saw what it was. “Never lick a toad, pup. Some of them have oil on their skin that will make you see your maker and melt like a candle.”

  “Do you think he understands all of that?” Gallarael asked. “He’s just curious.”

  “Papri and his bird are dead,” Chelda said. “If you didn’t hear.”

  “I gathered as much,” Gallarael nodded. “He— They will be missed.”

  Vanx listened absently as he took in what he first thought was a frog of sorts. It was no frog though, or maybe it was part frog. It was half the size of his ship, and it had frog-like skin and a toadish head. It was a four-legged creature though, with what looked like webbed paws. It didn’t seem natural, yet here it was, hanging around the freshwater shore just like a frog would.

  “Well, that is one less thing to keep me awake at night,” Castovanti said as he and Anitha joined them.

  “He said something that wasn’t stupid.” Chelda looked perplexed.

  “Anitha, can you try and summon the hawk that fled, again?” Vanx asked. “I’d like for someone to get a bird’s eye view of the island and see what else the new Heart Tree has put to sleep.”

  This caused them all to look back at the now massive jacaranda Heart Tree they’d quickened. The bell shaped flowers were scattered in clusters that seemed like impossible clouds, formed in hues of purple, red, and yellow.

  Not even Castovanti could find words.

  Anitha found some, though. “My dear friend has just died.” Her tone was severe. “With all due respect, Vanx of Malic, can we please go help the general.”

  “Yah.” Chelda slapped Vanx on the shoulder and indicated that Anitha could lead the way.

  Chapter

  Five

  Good old Master Wiggins,

  grew too old to dance.

  He still came to festival,

  but he forgot to wear his pants.

  – A Parydonian Street Ditty

  The sun had passed overhead. Now, it wasn’t far from setting behind the ridge of the bowl-shaped valley cradling the lake. When Vanx finally saw the scattered feathers, and then the twisted wings, he felt guilty for not feeling anything more than he did. He hoped Papri and the bird died from the impact, instead of suffering, but if they’d been unconscious from the tree’s pollen, maybe they hadn’t felt the pain the sight of their end portrayed.

  Moonsy was on the ground, a streak of crackling yellow energy that made the hair on Vanx’s neck stand up, was lifting Papri’s broken form away from where it was wedged in a fork of limbs. The tree was an older strain of oak that had risen high above the forest. By the look of the ground around the determined elven general, her magic had cut an unforgiving path to get to him. Broken limbs of all sizes, some smoldering from her arcanery, some still full of bright green leaves, were scattered all around her.

  Anitha and Castovanti ran past Vanx and Chelda. Vanx had hoped to see Gallarael, but she was nowhere in sight.

  “Look.” Chelda pointed.

  Moonsy was lowering Papri’s body slowly to the ground. Below the corpse, Anitha and Castovanti had joined their power to Moonsy’s. Vanx didn’t think Moonsy needed assistance but the gesture was what it was.

  When the dead elf was settled on the turf, Castovanti started doing the same sort of thing to the great hawk. Anitha joined him, but Moonsy was mothering over Papri’s form. Vanx knew she was hardened, too, but maybe not so much as he and Chelda. The great wars against the Hoar Witch, and then the Trigon, had taken their toll on all the peoples of their side of the world, especially the fae.

  “Set up camp?” Chelda asked.

  “Yup.” Vanx pointed to the trunk of the grand oak their companions had crashed into. There was a place at the base of the massive tree that looked like perfect shelter.

  “Yah.” Chelda nodded her agreement and went about collecting deadfall.

  Vanx stood there a moment. He started to help Chelda, but a thought occurred to him. Back on Three Tower Island, Anitha had cast a spell to determine where the ruby gem-seed was hidden. He decided to see what Moonsy thought before he interrupted the untangling of the hawk. She needed the distraction anyway.

  Vanx grabbed the crystal hanging at his neck and directed his thought voice to Moonsy alone. Can Anitha cast a detection spell and help us get on with this before anyone else gets hurt?

  On Papri’s map there is a structure. We might not be the only two-legged folk out here, came her response.

  Vanx looked over at her more closely. She wasn’t mothering. She’d unrolled a map on Papri’s chest and was studying it from her knees.

  Vanx went over to see it for himself, but she continued as he came.

  It is probably long deserted, but since the island somehow maintains its invisibility, maybe whoever made this place so hard to find is still
here. She looked up and forced a smile when Vanx came around and squatted beside her. Poops put his head between them and sniffed at Papri. He let out a little whine, before easing back and turning a circle. Only then did he lay down and put his chin on his forepaws.

  “Or maybe whatever else is here was hidden from the world for good reasons.” Vanx looked at the map. “I only found this island because a crazy old wizard sent me. His map is down in that hole where Zeezle almost bought the farmhouse. The hole was here.” Vanx pulled a lead marker from the dead elf’s pocket and made an “X” where he wanted it. Papri had done excellent work but something struck him immediately.

  “Why would he buy a farm hou—” Moonsy started, but Vanx cut her off.

  “Look.” He pointed at the map. “What are these? They look like stream beds, or the like. See, no trees,” Vanx pointed at three areas leading away from the rectangle marked unknown structure. “But the building’s elevation suggests it is higher and close to the sea. So why are there no trees in these, these—?”

  “Lanes?” Moonsy suggested so softly Vanx wasn’t sure she intended to think out loud. A heartbeat later, she looked up at Vanx as if she’d had some revelation, then she stood, bringing herself eye to eye with him.

  “Anitha, let Castovanti finish that.” Moonsy called the order, like the general she was. “We need you here.”

  Anitha came quickly, her elven stride, and the way she kept wiping at her nose, made her seem like a child. When she got there and saw that they were using Papri’s body as a map table, she nearly lost her composure. Moonsy’s commanding tone brought her out of it.

  “Cast your most variant detection.” Moonsy pointed at the structure, and the treeless lanes Papri had sketched. “Concentrate on these areas here. If you have to go to the ridge, take Chelda and Castovanti both, and be back before darkfall.”

  “I’ll try from here first. It doesn’t look to be that far.” Anitha seemed confident in her ability. “If there isn’t too much ore in these ridges, it will be easy.”