Vega Jane and the Maze of Monsters

  To Michelle,

  who began this entire journey with a gift

  ‘The past is but the past of a beginning.’

  – H. G. Wells

  ‘To escape from the Quag means imprisonment forever.’

  – Madame Astrea Prine

  CONTENTS

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  A GUIDE TO WORMWOOD AND BEYOND

  1: THE QUAG

  2: THE KINGDOM OF CATAPHILE

  3: A BEASTLY MEAL

  4: BARS OF BONES

  5: BLOOD FROM A STONE

  6: THE FLIGHT OF THE KING

  7: LUC SPEAKS

  8: THE PLIGHT OF GRUBBS

  9: THE KING’S SECRET

  10: NOTHING FROM SOMETHING

  11: GONE

  12: SEAMUS

  13: THE COTTAGE OF ASTREA PRINE

  14: A ROOM WITH A VIEW

  15: A QUESTION OF DOORS

  16: THE KEEPER

  17: REUNITED

  18: TRAPPED

  19: LOOKING BACK

  20: WORDS

  21: THE SIGN

  22: THE OTHER ELEMENTAL

  23: THE EDUCATION OF ME

  24: A SORCERESS OF SORTS

  25: A WARNING

  26: LESSONS FROM HEL

  27: FOR THE AGES

  28: BETRAYAL

  29: ADIEU

  30: A SURPRISE

  31: ORCO

  32: THE FIRST CIRCLE

  33: CAPTAINING THE FURINAS

  34: A PACT

  35: POSITIVE PARCHMENT

  36: HYPERBORES

  37: THE MIGHTY FINN

  38: ENEMIES BESIDE ME

  39: AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR

  40: A SECOND SORCERESS

  41: ONE GOOD DEED

  42: CUCOS

  43: RUBEZ

  44: DEATH BECOMES HER

  45: THE LOST SOULS

  46: VANISHED

  47: A TRUSTING HEART

  48: THE LAST

  49: THE FOUR REMAINING

  50: TAKING FLIGHT

  THE CREATURES OF WORMWOOD AND THE QUAG

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  READ MORE

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  VEGA JANE – 15, a Wugmort from Wormwood

  DANIEL DELPHIA, ‘DELPH’ – 17, Vega’s best friend

  HARRY TWO – Vega’s canine

  In the Quag

  KING THORNE – King of Cataphile

  LUC – an ekos

  SEAMUS – a hob

  ASTREA PRINE – Keeper of the Quag

  ORCO – death

  LACKLAND CYPHERS – a Furina

  PETRA SONNET – a Furina

  SILENUS – a remnant

  MICHA – Chieftain of the hyperbores

  TROY AND ISHMAEL – hyperbores

  RUBEZ – the Obolus River pilot

  A GUIDE TO WORMWOOD AND BEYOND

  Breath of a Dominici

  A long-stemmed flower with a fist-size blood-red bloom that gives off the odour of slep dung. The Breath of a Dominici grows only in viper nests.

  Care

  A place where incurably sick Wugs are sent to live.

  Council

  The governing body of Wormwood. Council passes laws, regulations and edicts that all Wugmorts must obey.

  Event

  A mysterious occurrence that usually has no witnesses. Wugmorts presumed to have suffered from an Event disappear entirely, body and clothing, from Wormwood.

  Excalibur

  A rare type of sorcerer born with extraordinary magical powers and full knowledge of their history.

  Furina

  A Wug-like race made nearly extinct because of continuous attacks from beasts.

  Learning

  A building where young Wugs go to school until the age of twelve.

  light

  What we would call a day.

  morta

  What we would call a gun.

  noc

  What we would call the moon.

  Quag

  A dangerous magical place, made up of five circles that surround Wormwood. It is home to all manner of fierce creatures. It is widely believed among the Wugs of Wormwood that nothing exists beyond the Quag.

  remnant

  A collection of memories from an assortment of Wugs; an embodied record of their remembrances.

  Seer-See

  An instrument used by sorcerers to view other places. The Seer-See consists of sand thrown into a pewter cup of flaming liquid, the contents of which are then poured on to a table to display a moving picture of a distant location.

  session

  A unit of time equal to a year.

  slep

  What we would call a horse, albeit with six legs. It is said that sleps were once able to fly, and that the slight indentations noticeable on their withers now mark the spot from which their wings grew.

  sliver

  A small unit of time, like a minute.

  Stacks

  A large brick building in Wormwood where items for trade and consumption are produced.

  Steeples

  A place for prayer, named after its pointed tower.

  Valhall

  The prison of Wormwood.

  Wormwood

  A place full of humans called Wugmorts or Wugs for short.

  Wugmort A citizen of Wormwood, known as a Wug for short.

  1

  THE QUAG

  It seemed fitting and absurdly poetic that, joined like links in a chain, the three of us would die together: my best friend, Delph; my canine, Harry Two; and me, Vega Jane. But we didn’t have much choice in the matter. Escaping murderous beasts, we had leaped for our lives off a mile-high cliff.

  We fell a long way. And the reason we had any hope of surviving such a fall was around my waist. My magical chain, Destin, allowed me to fly. But we were plunging faster and from a far greater height than I ever had before.

  I tried my best to manage the landing smoothly, though we thudded hard into the dirt. We lay there stunned. But, although we were battered and bruised, we were alive.

  I unhooked Harry Two from his harness, which had allowed him to rest suspended against my chest, and watched as Delph slowly rose and tentatively stretched his arms and legs. Then I looked all the way up to the spot from where we had jumped.

  The beasts that had been hunting us up there now stared down over the precipice. It was a herd of garms and a roughly equal number of amarocs. I couldn’t see them properly from this distance, but I knew the garms were breathing rage-filled fire at us, as their own blood dripped down their scaly armoured chests. The amarocs, giant wolf-like creatures that lived to kill, were just as deadly.

  It was worth all the coins I would ever have that these creatures could not fly as I could. I looked down and patted the chain around my waist with the letters D-E-S-T-I-N imprinted on some of its links. I had not had it long, but it had already saved my life many times.

  I could hardly believe it. I was in the Quag. Me, Vega Jane. I had lived my entire life in Wormwood. It was all I’d ever known. I had been told that the Quag meant death to anyone who ventured beyond Wormwood, and that nothing existed other than those two places. But I believed that to be a lie. I strongly suspected that my parents and grandfather were on the other side of the Quag, and I meant to find out if I was right.

  My brother, John, was the only one of us still living in Wormwood, and although he was younger than me, he was not the innocent lad he used to be. Morrigone, the sinister and murderous Council member, had seen to that. She had become his mentor and teacher, and the things she had taught him were hideous and cruel.

  Thus, my mission wa
s to get Delph, myself and Harry Two safely through the Quag as quickly as possible.

  I breathed more normally and again looked over at Delph.

  ‘Wotcha, Vega Jane,’ he said, trying to sound like his usual laid-back self. It took a lot to get Delph riled up. But though he was slow to anger, he was the best bloke to have around when you were in trouble, as I very often was.

  ‘Wotcha yourself, Delph,’ I replied, failing to keep the smile off my face at having successfully entered the Quag.

  ‘You reckon those beasts can get down here?’ he said. ‘

  I reckon I don’t want to wait around to find out, do I?’ I shot back.

  I hoisted my tuck over my shoulder and Delph did the same with his. I kept Harry Two’s harness on in case we had to take to the air quickly.

  I had a map of the Quag that my friend Quentin Herms had secretly left for me. It was very detailed, but some things were missing. For one, it did not mention the cliff that we had just jumped from. And, correspondingly, I was not prepared for the deep valley we now found ourselves in. And yet I had seen Quentin enter the Quag one light. That’s really what started this whole journey for me. If he could leave Wormwood, so could I. Surely if he created the map, he must have known what lay in here.

  The map gave general directions but did not provide a precise route to take through this place. I would have to figure that out on my own. Luckily, I also possessed a book, which I’d found in Quentin’s cottage, that explained the sorts of creatures dwelling here.

  Delph said, ‘The map has us heading generally that way.’ He pointed. ‘Towards that blue mountain, way in the distance over there.’

  I hesitated and then said haltingly, ‘I . . . I don’t want to start that sort of trek at night. We need to find a safe place till first light.’

  He looked at me like I was completely mad. ‘Safe place? In the Quag? Do ya hear yourself, Vega Jane? The Quag has many things, no doubt, but safe places ain’t one of ’em.’

  I gazed ahead at the flat, open expanse. There were trees and bushes and long, sweeping fields of grass slowly bending in the stiff breeze that blew off the cliff. It looked peaceful and serene and not dangerous at all. Which told me that there were probably dozens of foul things lurking in wait that could and would kill us, given the slightest opportunity.

  I looked down at my feet. Which way to step? I glanced at Harry Two, who was gazing up at me curiously, apparently waiting for me to make up my mind.

  It struck me, rather uncomfortably, that I was to be the leader here. Was I up to it? I wasn’t sure that I was.

  Far, far in the distance was a place the map called the Mycanmoor. It was described as a dull, dead sort of place that went on for a very long way, and which, unfortunately, there was no sure path around. The map was remarkably silent as to the exact perils that lay directly in front of us. But the book I’d taken filled in some of these details.

  I slipped it from the pocket of my cloak and lit a bit of candle stub to read the pages more clearly in the darkness.

  Delph looked nervously over my shoulder. ‘It’s not a good idea to be lighting us up that way, Vega Jane.’

  ‘You know, Delph, you can just call me Vega. It’s not like we’re flooded with folks here named Vega. As far as I can tell, I’m the only one.’

  He took a long breath and slowly let it out. ‘O’course, right you are, Vega Jane.’

  I sighed and stared down at the page. I basically had to match up the map with descriptions of the places in the Quag so I could see which creatures to expect where. It would have been much easier had Quentin Herms conveniently placed all this information in one place, but he hadn’t.

  Suddenly, Harry Two started growling. His hackles were up, his fangs bared. I quickly gazed around to see what was causing this reaction. But there was nothing I could see in the darkness.

  ‘What’s got into ’im?’ asked Delph.

  And then I noticed it. My canine was breathing heavily through his snout. He wasn’t seeing the danger – he was smelling it.

  And in my experience, foul smells usually led to foul beasts.

  I took a whiff of the air, wrinkled up my face and glanced sharply at Delph. ‘Do you smell that?’

  He took in a chestful of the air and then exhaled it. ‘No.’ I thought rapidly. I knew that scent, or at least something close to it.

  And then the clouds in my mind slowly cleared.

  Poison.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked nervously.

  ‘I’m not exactly sure,’ I replied, and I wasn’t. But I had smelt that sort of concoction before, back at Stacks, the factory where I had worked until very recently.

  I pointed to the left. ‘Let’s try that way.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we maybe fly?’ said Delph. ‘Get there faster, won’t we? Let us . . . let us maybe see what’s coming, before . . . before it gets us,’ he finished breathlessly.

  We would get there faster flying. But something in the back of my head said to leave our feet firmly on the ground. At least for now.

  I always tended to follow my instincts. They had served me more right than wrong over my life.

  And that’s when I happened to look up, and saw it. Or rather, them.

  A flock of birds was racing in perfect formation across the Noc-lit sky. This surprised me because I did not think that birds flew at night, but perhaps things were different in the Quag. As I watched the birds soar along, something very strange happened. From out of nowhere appeared a cloud of bluish smoke.

  The birds turned sharply to avoid it, but a few could not make the turn in time. And when these birds passed through the smoke and came out the other side, they were no longer flying.

  They were falling. Because they were dead.

  I stood there, paralysed. Then I felt something grip my arm.

  It was Delph.

  ‘Run, Vega Jane,’ he yelled. ‘Run!’

  As we ran, I looked back once and wished I hadn’t. It was a creature I recognized from a drawing in Quentin’s book, but had never seen for real before.

  I glanced at Delph and knew that he too had seen what I had. Taking to the air would do us no good. Unlike the garms and amarocs, what was back there and coming on fast was something that could fly.

  It looked like our journey through the Quag was about to end before it had even truly begun.

  2

  THE KINGDOM OF CATAPHILE

  A fiendish inficio was behind us. It was a large creature with two massive legs, a set of powerful webbed wings, and a long, scaly torso out of which grew a serpent-like neck capped by a small head, which was fronted by blazing venomous eyes, and a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs. Even more terrifying was the deadly gas it exhaled, instantly killing any who breathed it, like those poor birds.

  I had been right in not taking to the air. We would already be dead if we had.

  Delph looked back as we sprinted along.

  ‘It’s comin’ lower. Comin’ to kill us!’ he yelled.

  I needed to do something. Anything. Why was my brain so muddled?

  ‘Vega Jane!’ screamed Delph again.

  Without really thinking, I reached into my cloak pocket, pulled on my glove, and then my fingers closed round the Elemental. In its present state, it looked completely unimposing, only three inches long and made of what looked to be wood. But when I willed it to full size, the Elemental grew into a spear taller than I was, and coloured a brilliant gold. I had been given the Elemental – along with the glove that I had to wear while holding it – on a great battlefield from long ago, by a dying female warrior. She told me it would be my friend whenever I needed one. Well, I needed one now. I refused to simply . . . die.

  As I looked back, the inficio was closing fast, its clawed feet nearly on the ground. I saw its mighty chest fill with air and then it expelled a great cloud of blue smoke that held death at its centre.

  Still running, I turned and hurled the Elemental, guiding it with my thoughts. It zipped past the out
er edge of the smoke, creating a wake that pushed the cloud of poison back towards the creature. The inficio instantly soared away. Apparently, inhaling the smoke could harm it too.

  The Elemental flew back to me. Just as I grasped it, the ground under our feet gave way and Delph, Harry Two and I plummeted about fifty feet. Whatever we hit was softer than I had expected. Still, I gasped and I heard Delph do the same. Harry Two yipped once, but that was all.

  I rolled on to my back and saw the dark sky disappearing behind the cover of large branches and rolls of matted grass, which were being hoisted into place by what looked to be a series of pulleys and ropes. But that could hardly keep the inficio at bay. I expected it to burst through this flimsy cover and destroy us.

  But it did not come. Instead, a heavy net fell over us and we became tangled in ropes so thoroughly that we could barely move. As we lay there struggling, I heard something approaching. Delph obviously did too, because he grew quiet. I willed the Elemental to shrink and placed it in my pocket, then took off the glove and placed it in my other pocket.

  I reached out as far as I could and took Delph by the hand. In a low tremulous voice, I said, ‘Be ready for anything, Delph.’

  He nodded.

  Our eyes locked for a moment. I think we realized that this might be it for us – two simple Wugs from Wormwood attempting to cross the insanely treacherous Quag. It seemed so absurd right now. We never stood a chance.

  ‘I’m so sorry, D-Delph,’ I said, my voice breaking as I finished.

  Surprisingly, he smiled and, rubbing my hand gently, he said, ‘’Tis all right, Vega Jane. At least . . . well, at least we’re together, eh?’

  I nodded and felt a smile creep to my face. ‘Yes,’ I said. I looked beyond his shoulder and saw lit torches set into holders on the rock walls. They gave the place a shadowy, misty light that added to my sense of fear and foreboding. What would be coming for us now?

  I looked past Delph and stiffened.

  There were dozens of pairs of eyes looking back at me from barely ten feet away. As my vision adjusted to the gloom, I could see that they were smallish creatures with fierce, grimy faces and strong, toughened bodies. But their backs were bent and their fingers dirty and gnarled, perhaps from heavy toil.