That Frigid Fargin Witch (The Legend of Vanx Malic) (13 page)

“Into the Underland. He will have to come out of there, though, to get to us, unless... those clever little turds!” She whirled, an angry glimmer in her cold, black eyes. “Clytun. Clytun, attend me now!”

A few moments later the minotaur appeared, clad in a dull black, but perfectly formed, breastplate and matching gauntlets, boots, and tightly strapped thigh plates. The armor had finger-long spikes above the knees, shoulders, and elbows, and belted to his waist was a pair of black leather sheaths. The heavy-handled swords were short and designed especially for close combat. His horned bovine head, though, needed no helm.

“Oh,” the Hoar Witch smiled her broken-tooth grin at the sight. “I see you’re ahead of me. Are you reading my thoughts now?”

Clytun made a quick, confused shake of his head. “No, Aserica, the armor is a precaution I always take when I have to deal with that snappy-jawed Skryker.”

“Oh, he is wreaking havoc,” she clapped her hands together like a proud old woman speaking of her grandchild. “That gargan wench’s sword is all that stands between him and the tree. She is already growing weary. Soon she will falter and Skryker will take advantage.”

Clytun nodded.

“At least he is following orders. What of your little devil?”

“He and his rats are keeping the rest of those vile little tweeks busy while Skryker does his damage. Some of Pwca’s sneaky rodents got into the Underland already. I do hope they are having fun down there.”

“What if Skryker destroys the Heart Tree? Won’t his power be useless to you?”

“We want him to take it to the verge, Clytun. Then I will nurture it back to full bloom with my blood.” She darted her eyes about and cackled gleefully, but only until she remembered why she was calling Clytun in the first place.

“We have another problem, my son. I think there is a way from the Underland into our lower levels, or maybe into the caverns in the dungeons below us. That warlock is coming to kill me and the mirror showed he is coming from there. Use your natural skills, Clytun. You are a true minotuar, not one of my creations. Never forget that, love. Had I not purchased you from Glone, you’d be imprisoned for eternity protecting his mazes. I trust you to kill the warlock before he gets to me.”

“There is no way into the lower dungeons, Aserica. I know them far too well, and I’ve seen nothing of the sort down there. If a way exists, it would be in the caverns. But what of the dark one’s wish for you to train the warlock? Would you thwart him again?”

“I can’t very well train him if he comes and kills me, fool,” she snapped.

“Take him alive if you can, but don’t go out of your way for it. I’d just as soon have his head in a jar than have to fuss with him.”

Her anger slowly subsided into a more persuasive demeanor. “The dark one doesn’t have nearly as much power over us as he used to. Most likely, he wants the boy to kill me. I must defend myself. After all, once we have the power of the Heart Tree, not even the dark one will be able to impose his will on us.”

“I understand, Aserica,” Clytun gave a short bow. “May I have a drop of the stuff that will keep Sissy from sinking her stinger into me?”

“Of course, my son, and you can have a potion of silence and stealth as well. You must remember your quarry is as much Zythian as he is anything. He will see well in the dark and hear and smell as well as any animal.”

“He’ll be no match for me, Aserica,” Clytun boasted. “Not if I can lure him into the dungeon, for I know it by heart, and if he gets caught down in the caverns with Sissy he’ll wish he had met me first.”

Chapter
Fifteen
Chapter
Fifteen

As we sail across his sea,

we honor Nepton’s crown.

For if you cross old Nepton,

his waves will take you down.

– A sailor’s song

N
ot long after the passage was sealed behind them, Vanx noticed that the white gold leaf hanging at his chest had ceased its glowing. Exactly when it had stopped he wasn’t sure, but he knew it had been glowing in the nexus, for the oracle had informed him that it was a cutting from the silva tree, not a Heart Tree leaf. The old pixie went into a fit of coughing before he could elaborate. Vanx guessed its glow had extinguished when the magical barrier between the Underland and reality had been reestablished as the passage was sealed. Or maybe the place they were in now, the dark, damp, lifeless cave, had drained it of its power.

It felt that way, as if their surroundings were leaching away at them somehow. The place was just wrong. The humid air was acrid and felt oily on his skin, and the darkness was unnaturally substantial. They carried no torch or lanterns, for all three of them were easily able to make their way in normal darkness, but the bleakness of this place was anything but ordinary.

There were large patches of a slick, spongy slime along the walls and floors of the hard-packed earthen passage. Seep water dripped from the ceiling and oozed along the floor in a greasy sludge. To Vanx’s eyes, everything was tinted silver. Either shadow or darker shadow, as if no color existed in the lightless place. There were no signs of animal life, not even the insects you’d expect to find in such an underground tunnel. Vanx wanted to call the place putrid in his mind but that didn’t quite cover it. Sinister or evil described it better, but he settled on malignant, for the place itself wasn’t causing sorrow or distress. It wasn’t even weakening his hope and resolve, but it was corrupted and disgusting, and more than a little foreboding.

A cobweb that Thorn apparently rode under, broke and slightly pulled at Vanx’s skin as it melted into the sweat beaded on his face.

“Ahghhh!” He batted at it spastically. The touch startled him, for it was unseen and unexpected. His sudden heart-hammering unease caused Poops to bark and whirl around, nearly unseating the equally rattled elf.

“It’s alright. It’s alright,” Vanx hissed rather loudly. “Just a spider’s web.”

“With no spiders, I hope?” asked Thorn.

Vanx spun in a circle, batting and patting at himself to be sure.

“The benefit of traveling with torches,” he muttered, “is that you can burn them away ahead of you. I hate spiders.”

“I like them just fine when they are served with mushroom gravy,” said Thorn, who was trying not to chuckle at Vanx’s silly dance.

“What is it with this place?” Vanx asked as Thorn climbed off of Poops and started walking.

“Why is it called the Rotted Root Way?”

“Well, as the name implies, the shaft was formed when one of the Heart Tree’s roots burrowed and extended out away from the nexus. Mind you, this was long ago. The root probably started this way eons before the Hoar Witch came, but eventually, as the root grew and extended and drew in nutrients from the earth, it got a dose of something foul. Maybe she poisoned it, or maybe it just took in too much of her corruption. Whatever happened, the root grew infected and slowly began to rot. You might ask the oracle, if we–sorry—
when
we make it back. He would know more about it than I. His father was one of those who cut the root and sealed off the corruption.”

“So the space we’re walking in was once occupied by a root of the Heart Tree, and the root has just decayed away?”

“Still decaying, by the feel of it.”

“Yup,” Vanx said.

He was thinking that maybe the fungus-like stuff on the walls and floor was root bark or something similar.

“At least I can walk upright.”

They moved along in silence for a while; the only constant in the darkness was Poops’ steady panting. Of the three, the dog had the poorest vision, but Poops was unconsciously tapping the link he and Vanx shared and was seeing as much through Vanx’s eyes as through his own.

“Tell me of the sword, the Glaive,” Vanx said.

“How is it that a sword, especially one that appears as evil as that one does, can be called an instrument of healing?”

The blade looked like a jagged lightning bolt. In Thorn’s hands it seemed like a two-handed weapon, which meant it was big enough for Vanx to use as a dagger if the need presented itself. The weapon’s intimidating look, or maybe the battle lust swirling through his system, made him hope he had the chance.

“You’ll see firsthand why when we are in the Hoar Witch’s dungeon,” Thorn said, “but I’ll try to explain it. The blade was known by another name before Ayorw Gladiolus, a great pixie warrior, wielded it against one of the Hoar Witch’s monsters a long time ago. Before then it was called Bane of Witchborn. The Hoar Witch’s creatures, as you already gathered, are of multiple origins. A touch of the Glaive’s blade brings a powerful jolt of healing magic. The spell tries to heal the wolf and the badger and the scaly serpent all separately, not as a whole, thus rending apart the witchborn creature by rejecting the parts that don’t match.”

He stopped and turned with a proud, cocksure expression that Vanx could barely make out.

“It’s very effective.”

This came out with a little less confidence, as if a thought had just struck him. He turned and resumed his place leading, the procession, then finally added more, under his breath.

“At least it used to be.”

Vanx could cast a modest selection of spells himself and he understood magic well enough to grasp Thorn’s concern. Enchanted items were strange and fickle—some lasted for eons—others served a single purpose and then extinguished themselves of the power that was infused in them.

“How long ago since it was used?” Vanx asked. “How often?”

“Once, long before I was promoted to general of Queen Corydalis’s personal guard. I was just a sergeant back then. General Wartbloom used it to kill a crazy, flying eagle-winged primate that some Overland fae trapped in a snare. That was almost a century ago, back when we could frolic freely in the Lurr without worry of being snatched up or mauled by one of her creatures. I used the weapon recently on my quest to get the crystal my queen used to call you, but we met no witchborn on that campaign, at least not in battle.”

Thorn stopped again and bowed in reverence. He then turned with a strange and anticipatory grin on his face. Vanx guessed that all of the battle berries the little elven general had eaten had him lusting for a fight, too.

“It’s a sharp little sticker though, I assure you. I killed a few dozen of Pwca’s horde and a nasty wyvern with it.”

“Pwca?” Vanx asked, and Thorn went into a tale about a real devil that dwelled nearby and commanded a legion of flesh-eating rats. The elf couldn’t say why the devil did the Hoar Witch’s bidding, but he did give a detailed account of several of the other things, both natural and ill-formed, that he and his troops had faced over the last hundred years or so.

Vanx had to admit that it was an impressive list, especially the clever trapping and slaying of the twin serpent to the one that killed Gallarael.

Vanx hoped to get a chance to finish off the other one. Gallarael’s death sent him into a seething, jaw-clenching rage that was still burning through his blood sometime later when they emerged into an open cavern space. They didn’t so much see the opening, as they felt the sound of their passage expand and reverberate away from them. And then there was the touch of moving air as it cooled their sweat-slicked skin. Two important characteristics of the great, undefined space became apparent almost immediately. One was that the floor fell sharply away. This they learned because Thorn walked right off the ledge and only Vanx’s keen vision and Poops’ sharp reaction saved him.

Thorn was settling as he wiped the dog’s slobber off his shoulder pack, and that’s when the other important feature revealed itself.

They weren’t alone.

Something huge and hovering bobbed in the open space above the chasm into which Thorn had nearly fallen. The thing was only a pale smudge. The shape of it was hard to make out, even with supernatural sight.

“Cover your eyes,” Vanx warned in a quick whisper just as he cast into being a stark, apple-sized orb of light. Vanx thrust the orb up over his head, letting the illumination reveal what it was. As his mind and eyes grasped what he was gazing upon, he nearly soiled himself.

A mammoth albino thing with long spider legs dangled from a thick strand of webbing. A long stinger dripped amber venom from where it curled like a waiting cobra high over its body and down toward them. Its myriad eye clusters all reflected bright metallic green, but the thing was obviously stunned by the harsh light. Poops darted to a place behind Vanx’s legs, but was barking and growling savagely. Had the arachnoidal monster been able to overcome the light, it could have easily speared one of them with its vicious spike, for all three of them were frozen in shock. Miraculously, the creature’s own surprise at the bright light caused it to flee, and it scrabbled up its web into the shadowy heights beyond where the magical orb could reach.

Looking around them, Thorn saw a way around the sinkhole and pointed it out. Not three dozen paces away, the smaller passage of the rotted root would serve them as an exit from the huge spider’s lair. It was about eight feet across, roughly circular in shape and far too small for the terrifying Insectoid to follow them into.

“Come on,” Thorn reached back and gave Vanx’s sleeve a tug. “There’s not enough battle berries in the world to keep me unafraid of that thing,” Thorn said.

As they rounded the chasm they could plainly see a lacy web would have saved Thorn from falling to his death, and they both wondered what the twitching cocoons off to the side were.

As they passed beyond its view and back into the darkness of the root-formed cave, Vanx decided that he probably didn’t want to know.

It was a good while later when they heard the first tormented pleas for death. The pitiful call was coming from ahead of them and Thorn spoke his concerns over the venomous thing having access to the rest of their route, or worse, that there could be more than one of them.

It was after a second voice called out, a sound more pain-wracked, unintelligible moan than spoken words, which Vanx finally managed to answer.

“Be careful what you wonder,” his voice was a parched croak of a chuckle.