The Long Journey Home (The Legend of Vanx Malic Book 8) (5 page)

“Bah!” She stabbed him again, in the other leg, and ran back over to Vanx.

Another pair of spiders had gotten Vanx, Poops, and Castavonti between them, and Chelda just ran right into the situation. Worse, another spider was preparing to leap on them, and Zeezle was caught up fighting the remaining two spiders Vanx could see.

“Get one of them, Sea Mage,” Vanx said. “Chel…”

And his next
Tempus
Fist exploded from his hand upward, blasting red glowing spider goo all over the rocky rise behind them.

Vanx knew Chelda would kill one of them, so if Castavonti did, too, they were okay. Trusting they would manage it, he turned and sent a trio of less destructive, but equally lethal pulses into one of the spiders Zeezle was fighting.

Zeezle managed to dodge a stinger and ram one of his wooden stakes into the bulky back section of the other.

Castavonti did kill a spider, but he exhausted himself to unconsciousness ending it.

All Chelda had to fight with was a tiny magic sword of healing, and a heavy war hammer, and now Vanx could tell that she was afraid of the things.

He’d never seen Chelda afraid before, and he decided that he couldn’t hold the fear of spiders against her. He’d met the Hoar Witch’s spider thing, called Sissy, and nearly shit his pants.

With a sigh, he blasted the final spider away from them all.

“Are there any more?” Zeezle asked.

Vanx let Poops sniff the air, and the dog didn’t detect any of them. “I don’t think so,” Vanx finally replied.

“I wonder if any of them went back down in the hole,” said Castavonti in a groggy tone from where he was just coming to. “I’m no longer as keen on this excursion from the route I was contacted for.”

“It’s a long swim home,” Chelda snapped. Apparently, she’d regained her composure.

Vanx eyed her, wondering how often her exaggerated sharpness toward people was to cover fear, or her father issues, or the unjustified shame over her life choices he knew she sometimes felt. Maybe she was just mean. Vanx didn’t care; she was the most loyal person he knew, and he couldn’t imagine a world without her.

As they got the camp back in order and burned all the gear with spider splatter on it, Vanx wondered about Gallarael. She’d been with child when the Paragon had gotten hold of her.

He couldn’t lie to himself. He was glad the child didn’t make it, for Gallarael was a changeling, saved, but also changed, by dragon’s blood, and Vanx was the only half-human, half-Zythian to survive childbirth…ever. Their offspring could have only been malformed…or worse. He was glad she’d survived, though, and he imagined Chelda wanted to get back to see Moonsy as badly as he wanted to see Gal.

“Light a few torches and drop them in,” Vanx said. “It’s almost dawn anyway, and I need to know what else is down there before I go in.”

“You are not going alone,” Zeezle said.

“Nah, you’re not,” Chelda added, looking as if she were unsure but committed.

Vanx sighed and told them about the portent he’d seen in the mirror.

Even after they all understood the implications of his vision, only Castavonti had objections to going down. Then the conversation over what should be done with Poops started, and it was well past dawn before an agreeable decision was made.

Chapter Ten

If you set out after a copper
,

you might bring home a clipping
.

If you set out after a bar of gold
,

at least a few coppers you will bring
.

I
t was decided, against Chelda’s will but with her agreement and understanding, that she would stay up top with Castavonti and Poops. Vanx didn’t trust the dog with the sea mage alone, and Chelda couldn’t disagree.

There was also the issue of her size. If something bad happened, she could use her gargan strength to pull either of the two out, maybe both at the same time.

Vanx and Zeezle were both as agile as cats and could use magic and weapons, both with expert efficiency. So the situation was fine with Vanx. There was no one else he would rather have with him, and that included the pooch, because he couldn’t get the dog out of the hole without a struggle.

The light of day revealed a series of pegs that spiraled down the imperfect pit. Even though the peg ladder was there, they let a rope down to where the burned out torches could barely be seen. They used it to rappel, one after the other, the hundred or so feet they needed to descend.

Once at the bottom, Zeezle glanced down the single tunnel that led away, and checked the pegs. “They are sturdy enough down here. I could get out by them, I think.”

“Watch your eyes,” Vanx said. “I’m going to burn these webs out of the way.”

Vanx cast a potent blast of wizard fire, and it shot down the downward sloping shaft, burning hundreds of webs to ash.

They were cautious when they entered. There might have been another spider or two still down there, because the sound of a skittering rock, and maybe a groan, came from somewhere farther ahead of them.

Then the orb of light glowing over Zeezle went gliding ahead.

Vanx stepped out of the passage and looked up. He gave Chelda a wave. She was leaned over looking back at them. Poops’s head was there, too. She returned the gesture. Poops gave a yip of confidence, then reminded Vanx that they were still together via their familiar link.

Vanx took in a deep breath and quickly caught up with Zeezle.

“The last place that crazy old wizard sent me was full of pitfalls,” Vanx said. “Be careful.”

“If he sent you here, I doubt there is anything deadly awaiting,” Zeezle responded.

Vanx’s friend had a higher opinion of the ancient mage than he did. It wasn’t that he didn’t respect the legendary man and all he’d done fighting against the demons in Xwarda. It was that he would let generations of humanity suffer just to save his familiar. The Paragon had forced him to swear not to oppose him, just to keep his imprisoned familiar alive. The wizard had used Vanx. He wondered if he wasn’t being used again.

I would save you
. Poops’s thought rippled through his mind, leaving Vanx feeling a little guilty.

He knew he would save Poops, too, but it seemed so cowardly. A true hero would sacrifice himself and his familiar to avoid a thousand years of human oppression. Then he remembered the pile of ancient texts the old mage had been studying for ages and that the wizard had called humanity a sickness.

He should have taken the texts.

Maybe the wizard had a reason, beyond saving his familiar, for allowing the Paragon Dracus to run rampant. Vanx never wanted to be forced to make that kind of choice, but he knew he wanted to sail to Xwarda and ask Faulkramahn himself for the answers. Of course, that would be after he went home to the Deep and made sure all was still in order there.

“There’s something up there,” Zeezle said very quietly. Then his voice went ethereal and he spoke into Vanx’s head.
I can’t tell what it is; Can you sniff it out?

Before he knew what was happening, Poops was using Vanx’s inferior nostrils to try and detect what sort of living scent was ahead of them. The dog had been listening, Vanx knew, and had responded on his own. Vanx decided in his heart that he would have let the world rot to hell before he’d let go of Sir Poopsalot. He remembered the wizard saying that he’d entrusted the task of the Emerald Earth Stone, and now this amber gem, to him because he would understand, if only because of the depth of his and Poops’s familiar bond.

He supposed Faulkramahn really was the greatest wizard who ever lived, for he was correct on all accounts.

“Fargin’ hells!” Zeezle huffed, as one of the spiders, this one bigger and with its large abdomen covered in squirming palm-sized babies, came at them with a purpose.

It was at the same instant Poops recognized a strong reptilian scent that a pair of snake tails reached out and wrapped around the mother arachnid and her young.

Realizing that they weren’t tails, but tentacles, Vanx cast a great blast of wizard’s fire ahead of them. Then Zeezle was unexpectedly off his feet, a smaller tentacle dragging him roughly down the tunnel faster than Vanx could run.

Chapter Eleven

Time is a conundrum

that keeps going round and round and round again
.

Sometimes you have too much on your hands
,

yet there’s never enough, my friend
.

V
anx started after Zeezle but had to swat at all the baby arachnoids.

He finally cast a shielding around himself to avoid the few dozen bright little spiders still skittering around in confusion.

Once he was safe from the arachnoids, he ran, pumping his legs as fast as he could. He was running so fast he had to concentrate to keep his orb of light ahead of him. He leapt over a pile of fallen rock and sloshed through an underground stream. When he came to a “Y” in the cave way, he made to send the orb down each fork but saw fresh blood smeared on the wall of the first he chose.

He dashed down that tunnel and found the grade was taking him down a lot faster than the previous passage he’d been in.

“Vanx!” Zeezle’s yelling voice by his feet nearly scared a turd out of his arse.

There was a length of tentacle, and Zeezle’s sword lying beside his friend. It took Vanx’s racing mind a breath or two to take in the situation and convince himself Zeezle was safe, but once he did, he saw that his friend was pretty banged up.

Vanx’s first thought was that he was an idiot for not bringing the Glaive of Gladiolus with them. But already Zeezle was healing himself while drinking what was left from a leaking waterskin.

“I nearly lost the sword,” he said after a few moments.

“We wouldn’t want that.” Vanx nodded. It was a two-hundred-year-old family blade. Like his sword, it was irreplaceable.

“Nah.” Zeezle grinned. “I think you blinded that thing. If we hurry, we might be able to find and kill it before it regains its eyes.”

“It was reptilian.” Vanx turned the tentacle over with his boot. The bottom looked like a snake’s belly. “It probably senses with the vibration of a tongue or some such.”

“Aye. You scorched it and scared it, though, and it’s still ahead of us somewhere.”

“Yup, but what we are after might be down the other passage. I think that since we know what is in this one, we should go back and check the other. Maybe the gem is down there without some hungry, tentacled bastard.”

“Maybe so,” Zeezle agreed. He got to his feet, and Vanx noticed a slight limp.

“I can leave you at the “Y” and go get the Glaive from Chelda?” Vanx asked.

“Nah, nah.” Zeezle waved him off. “It’s just a horse knot on my thigh.”

“Then let’s get this over with.”

“Let’s.” Zeezle let Vanx lead this time, and they continued with extreme caution at a slow, steady pace.

At the “Y”, they went the only way they hadn’t yet been. They found that, like the rough, borehole tunnel Zeezle had been dragged down, this one was steep. There were scatters of debris here and there, but these passages had either been carved by master dwarves, or made by some great rock bore. The idea of the latter creature put a hollow feeling in Vanx’s stomach.

Luckily, they were soon at the opening of a large cavern.

The cavern of Vanx’s most recent portent.

There was the gem sitting amid all the coppers, and coming from around the corner, where daylight shone in, the shadow of the great crablike thing showed that it was coming, too.

“Stay put,” Vanx told Zeezle as he darted out and snatched the gem from the pile of coppers and returned, just as the monstrous creature came round the corner and saw them.

“Back, Zeezle,” Vanx yelled as he entered the nearly perfectly cylindrical cavern. “Go back.”

Zeezle was there, but he was lying against the wall, slumped over.

Vanx saw Zeezle’s thigh and the festering wound there. It wasn’t from the reptilian thing that had grabbed him. It was a spider sting, most likely from one of the little babies. His leg was twice its normal size, his tough leather pants were restraining flesh that was trying to expand in a few places, making the situation look all the more painful.

There wasn’t much time to think. Vanx stashed the fat amber gem and heaved Zeezle over his shoulder.

He started away from the cavern opening but found that not far up ahead was the tentacled thing, waiting for them.

At least that fargin’ albino crab bastard can’t reach us
, Vanx thought. Then he felt its hot breath and heard it snarling right behind him; but he was right: it couldn’t get to them. He took three steps toward the three tentacles ahead of him and dropped his friend.

Time to make a stand
, Vanx thought as he recited the words to the first spell that came to mind.

Chapter Twelve

Have you heard the screams
,

the wind whistling through the lines?

Have you felt windblown rain so hard

it’ll put out a man’s eyes?

C
helda and Castavonti had been racing after Poops for some time.

Chelda understood they were going to help Vanx, but she had no idea where they were going or exactly what the danger would be when they got there. Castavonti was having a hard time keeping up, but she didn’t care. She trusted Poops as much as she did Vanx, for somehow they were one and the same most of the time.

She held the Glaive in her left hand and the dwarven hammer in the other. Ready to pound or heal, whichever was required of her, but she was about to lose the sea mage, and that worried her, too. If she lost him, the elements would claim him in a night.

She could hear Poops’s loud panting ahead of her, so she slowed enough that Castavonti could keep her in sight, then she started back down toward the lake.