That Frigid Fargin Witch (The Legend of Vanx Malic) (17 page)

At the peripheral edge of the image, smaller branches and tufts of heart-shaped leaves came crashing and swirling to the ground. The Heart Tree was being mauled, and by the amount of carnage spread about, it didn’t appear that the fairy folk would be able to do much other than slow the process with their lives.

Vanx was certain he could get his blade around quickly enough to remove Aserica Rime’s ugly head, but he didn’t want to sacrifice his friends by acting hastily. He could see that the wolfen beasts were not attacking Chelda, but they were itching to kill. The salivating hunger, the blood-lusting look of a feeding frenzy about to commence, showed plainly in their feral eyes. Vanx was sure that only Aserica Rime’s controlling power stood between them and their meal.

“You said something about Galla... Uh, the changeling girl?” Vanx corrected himself, and did his best to mask the anger that was burning inside him. It was all he could do to hold onto the slight tendril of hope that Gallarael was still alive somewhere, and only an eggshell-thin layer of restraint was keeping him from losing all control and attacking.

She must have sensed something.

“Let us have a look at the other one, shall we?”

She spoke quickly and with menace.

Outside the iron-bound witchwood door, the muffled sound of Poops’ aggression, then a heavy, bone-jarring crash jolted both Vanx and the Hoar Witch to the edge of defensive intensity. The sound sent the fires of Vanx’s emotion into an ember-fountaining rage. Only now, the image showing on the pool was of Princess Gallarael in her changeling form, gliding stiffly on her back across a sea of writhing rats. She was so rigid that Vanx had to assume the rigor mortis of death had long set in.

“She’s dead, then?” he asked.

“She’s very alive, only she is spellbound.”

Aserica’s glee faltered substantially when she saw a slimy tadpole-looking creature riding proudly on Gallarael’s chest as his rats shouldered her.

“The problem is, Pwca’s got her and I’ll have to free the little devil from my service to get her back.”

Vanx was boiling over now. He had no way of knowing if the Hoar Witch was lying to him or not. Gallarael looked to be dead and stiff, and she very well could be. Furthermore, he could feel that Poops was barely conscious and feeling a great, searing pain, in long strips, across his underbelly. And now the disgusting little turd of a thing riding atop Gallarael was grinning triumphantly up at them and exuding a thick, nauseating aura that threatened to loosen Vanx’s bowels.

“At the moment, killing me would be the most foolish thing, Vanxy,” said the Hoar Witch, stealing the thought from his brain.

Vanx glared at her and back at Gallarael’s image in the pool.

Worry for the immediate pain of his closest companion overtook his anger and he turned and strode toward the door.

“Go tend your familiar, young warlock,” Aserica Rime spoke as if it was a command, and then the door opened before him.

“I know you came to kill me, but even so, I will make a deal with a devil for the changeling’s life. I still hold hers and the barbarian’s fate in my hands. You’d be wise to keep yourself and that elf in check, lest I let my wolfen breed tear them apart.”

And all the while the rest of your horde is tearing the Heart Tree apart.

A grim weight was suddenly pressing down on his shoulders. If he killed the Hoar Witch and let Chelda and possibly Gallarael both die, then most likely the Hoar Witch’s beasts would abandon the greater destruction of the tree. Even if they didn’t, he could possibly use the crystal she wore to command them away. The uncertainty made the risk too great to accept. But the cold fact was that if he were sure it would guarantee the continued existence of an entire valley full of fairy life, he wouldn’t hesitate to give up the lives of the two women he cared deeply for.

It was a chilling revelation and in his heart and a darker aspect of his existence began to manifest itself. He and the fae were long-lived, but Gallarael and Chelda were mortal. Their fleeting lives were but a flash in the stream of existence. Of course he should be willing to trade them for the lives of hundreds of fae folk. Knowing this allowed a mantle of blackened resolve to settle over him. Only then did the course of action he needed to take become clear to him.

He turned and went back to kill her, but a faint, suggestive presence from deep within his heart stopped him before he took two steps.

“You’d sacrifice me?” The question wasn’t asked in clear words, but with thoughts formed of panicky animalistic simplicity.

“I am a part of you, yet I am a mortal creature even shorter-lived than the humans. Would you leave me down here to bleed to death while you discount your own ability and abandon all hope?”

The voice he heard speaking in his head was his own, but he knew it was Poops sending those suggestive thoughts to him. Or was the dog just evoking his own thoughts?

Without further hesitation, he charged down to his familiar with a singular purpose consuming his heart and mind.

He had almost stepped into the realm of darkness. He’d almost killed two of his closest friends and left a growing part of himself to die in a pool of blood and guts on a cold, stone floor.

Twice over, this day, he owed his life to Sir Poopsalot.

His assessment of his situation wasn’t far from the reality of it. Poops’ belly was open wide and though his intestines weren’t spread across the floor, they were bulging out of the long, bloody, clawed furrows along his belly. He doubted he could save him. The damage was just too bad.

Thorn was unconscious and sprawled in a horrific tangle of some scaly thing’s guts, but the Glaive of Gladiolus was still clutched in his white-knuckled grip. Something about the scene grabbed hold of Vanx’s mind, but it was long after he had cradled his four-legged friend’s head in his lap and gone into a fit of sobbing that it manifested into realization.

The damage to the black-scaled creature was impossible. Three steps farther down the stairway, a chunk of bloody gristle and long, stringy tissue connected to a pair of leathery wings. Formless puddles of scaly hide lay around an uncovered torso of raw, pink-glazed musculature. It was as if the creature had been blasted apart. Understanding of what he was actually seeing filled Vanx with hope. He laid Poops’ head back and forced Thorn’s clinched fingers off the hilt of the Glaive.

Vanx said a quick prayer to the Goddess for strength, for if this didn’t work he would have to spend every bit of his remaining energy to heal as many of Poops’ wounds as possible. Afterward he’d be spell-spent and useless for days.

Gently, he prodded Poops with the sharp tip of the Glaive. At once his heart sank, but then he was rewarded with a thunderous jolt that caused him to drop the dagger-sized weapon and nearly stumble down the stairs. When he recovered himself, he was pleased to see his familiar licking curiously at the long, well-closed scars that ran along his underside. The feeling of love and relief that washed over Vanx through the link he and Poops shared was almost enough to make him forget that the lives of both Chelda and Gallarael still hung in the balance. He just had to find a way to keep it from tipping out of control. He wanted to save his two mortal friends, but rid the world of the Hoar Witch and salvage as much of the Saint Elm’s Deep as possible.

The only question was how.

Another jolt from the Glaive as it punctured Thorn’s skin didn’t come as such a surprise, but the wild-eyed look the elf gave him as he sat up and peeled away the ropes of entrails that draped him was almost comedic. Vanx couldn’t find enough mirth to laugh, though.

“Why didn’t it rend apart that crazy cow-man down in the cavern?” the elf asked after Vanx explained what had happened.

“Because the minotaur wasn’t witchborn. It was real.” He’d known that as soon as he had figured out what had happened to the black-scaled beast whose separate parts were strung all about the stairway.

“She’s got Chelda,” Vanx said. “And, as we speak, the Heart Tree is being torn limb from limb, but I think I have an idea.”

A few moments later, Vanx led them all back up to the Hoar Witch’s lookout. A deep and confident masculine voice cut off as they stepped into the room.

“It’s too much, Puck,” the Hoar Witch snapped at the little flipper limbed devil that had been speaking. The thing radiated evil as it stood there dripping on the rim of her pool. “Keep the wench. What is she to me?” Aserica asked. “I’ll just save the last deed you own me for a few hundred years and let you think about it.”

A growl that could have come from a mammoth rumbled from the little thing. It’s deep voice grated when it replied.

“You won’t live forever, witch. The dark one has tolerated you too long already.”

The devil turned its head toward Vanx and its wide mouth split into an annoying grin. Both Poops and Thorn took a step back.

“You may be right, Aserica,” the slimy creature continued. “Let’s hold off on that last bargain, for if this young warlock manages to have his way, I will be free of you and still have the girl. He is the one who wants her so. I can see it in his eyes. You don’t even know who she is. If I can’t have my freedom, and the Tokaton for her, I’ll keep her and wait you out. She’s even more valuable than that old gem is.”

Pwca’s grin wavered, and his tiny, pinhead eyes seemed to reach into Vanx’s skull and command his complete focus on the image his next words evoked.

“She could easily be used to fantastic effect.”

Vanx saw in his mind’s eye the entire Parydonian host marching behind Gallarael’s father and his powerful order of wizards. King Oakarm would most likely end up submitting to the devil’s will to save Gallarael, but only after he ground his army away in an unwinnable battle.

The slimy little devil couldn’t be allowed such an opportunity.

Vanx understood that Pwca was only fueling his desire to kill Aserica Rime, but now he knew that if he did, he would have to make a deal with the devil to save Gallarael, and that sort of consorting with the powers of the dark was exactly what his Goddess had warned him about. When he glanced at the confused—and now raging—Hoar Witch, the little tadpole devil made a mock imitation of the Hoar Witch’s cackle, plopped into the pool and was gone.

Chapter
Twenty
Chapter
Twenty

On an old barrel keg,

in the shade I sat.

With my pint of watered ale,

and that skinny old cat.

– Parydon Cobbles

T
he fact that the Hoar Witch hadn’t made her deal with Pwca put a damper on Vanx’s simple plan. He’d hoped to get both Chelda and Gallarael together, and under the guard of the wolfen pack before he made his move. He didn’t want to deal with the devil at all, but it seemed he wouldn’t have a choice. His signal for Thorn and Poops to act had been set already and he could imagine no way to immediately change the plan.

As if she was reading his mind, the Hoar Witch indicated one of the two oval, beveled mirrors that hung on the wall adjacent to each other. The faintest trace of a dockside scene appeared deep in one of them, but it was the other one she was pointing at now. “That mirror will let you see the possible futures that await this land if Pwca gets control of the Tokaton.”

He still didn’t know if she knew who Gallarael was, and he gave her nothing but a jaw-clenched glare of fury and unease. Reluctantly, he moved to stand before the mirror. The Hoar Witch spoke a few words of witchy portent and made a quick gesture with her hand. Vanx was close enough to kill her, but once again the images she set to life captured his attention. A whirl of blurred motion assaulted his senses, but it all played out in his mind at a comprehensible pace.

Pwca took the fist-sized gem, which Vanx assumed was the Tokaton, and hurried back into the upper planes of hell with it. From there he worked all sorts of evil mischief, but that wasn’t what Aserica Rime wanted him to see. Ships came to Oryndyn loaded, not with precious wood and trade items, but with platoons of Trigon soldiers, all bearing blue-glowing, spell-forged blades. They cut through the good folk of the frozen city like scythes through wheat, and then split off into smaller groups to run down the Skmoe clans and gargan trading caravans. More ships came, and soon they were turning their aggressive affections to Parydon and eventually Zyth.

“See, my little warlock,” Aserica said, with rejuvenated confidence in her tone. “Try again. This time imagine you didn’t kill me and I made the exchange with Pwca for the changeling girl.”

Vanx did so, and saw that ultimately, the results were the same, save that he saw himself wielding great witchborn power against the Trigon forces, but only to keep Saint Elm’s Deep safe from them.

With an eyebrow raised in prospective intrigue, Vanx turned to her. “In this future you teach me your powers, not kill me.”

“Some of my powers, Vanxy.” A hopeful light flickered in her eyes. “It would take a few hundred years to teach you all of it.”

“And what of the fae?”

“Look,” she prompted.

In that future the Heart Tree didn’t die, but took on a dark, gnarled form. Its leaves turned such a deep red that they almost appeared to be black. The fairy folk were there, but there was little joy in them. Their lives were being lived out in service to the Heart Tree’s needs, which looked to be many. The once protective and glorious vigor it exuded was gone and only the raw, tainted power it fed to the Hoar Witch remained.

“Why would one such as you concern yourself with the well-being of a mere human barbarian and the changeling? They will pass before your eyes and you will live on as if they never existed.” As she spoke she moved back to the pool, but before she gave the image showing on its surface her attention, she invited Vanx to continue his questioning of futures, for she knew there were none that would satisfy all of his hopes.

Either he or one of the girls would die if they didn’t give the Tokaton to Pwca, and even if they did, the Trigon would return to reclaim its foothold on the continent just to sustain its ever-growing consumption.