A Spell Takes Root by Keith Hendricks

Author:Keith Hendricks [Hendricks, Keith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fans of Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony, and Dune by Frank Herbert are sure to love this book. This book is for anyone who likes: Adult fantasy Barbarian heroes Magical conspiracies Dryads Interspecies romance Fantasy adventure and romance
Publisher: TCK Publishing
Published: 2019-04-15T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

The Doorway

Though his eyes swam, his consciousness lingered. He wondered if he was heavy or light, for he no longer knew; he wondered if Eurilda still clutched his bootstraps or was dead and dashed under a goblin heel; he wondered if Eurilda cut away shadow as easily as a body’s weight; he wondered if Inglefras used him as contemptuously as she talked of others; he wondered why he hadn’t wed Kuilea, who was more than willing, and unrestricted in marrying a brother by hospitality. If Kuilea was not a good woman, she was loyal, devoted, clever, and all other things good in a wife. As Khyte was not a good man either, she suited him more than many.

When his vision cleared, he stayed on the grass, not wanting to black out again. Like dreams, his wonderings vanished in the light of the Abyss. Inglefras snored loudly, her head sprawled on his shoulder. Neither seeing nor hearing Eurilda, he lifted his pounding head, and through clouding eyes saw that her tiny arms pinched his boots so hard that they creased the suede.

As the giantess was now less than a hand’s breadth, he could crush her skull between thumb and forefinger if he believed her up to no good. When he tensed so hard as to become rigid, he realized Eurilda still had a hold on him—and though it wasn’t as compelling and inexplicable as the dryad’s, it was absolute in its own terms.

Still meditative, his thoughts turned to Azuri: as Eurilda was now a fraction of her former height, was the pocketed elf now an ant’s size, or too minuscule for the human eye? Moreover, when she fought as a giant on the tower roof, was Azuri, at some larger fraction of himself, dangling from her belt over the battling elves? How small could the sorceress shrink someone by making them the cargo of someone else who was shrunk, and so on, into infinity?

“Are you going to lie there all day?”

Huiln was still in the glitzy robes he wore as a consultant to the Bankers Capital Building: a light green robe with embroidered tabard, gold-plated helm, and epaulets.

“Huiln,” said Khyte, “meet Inglefras.”

“We’ve met,” said Huiln, “which you know.”

“Inglefras is an excellent teacher, so I know a great deal,” said Khyte. “She’s an open book on many subjects, including promiscuity, and any words for which the dryads have a vacancy in their language, which has been a little tedious. In this case, the dryad word closest in meaning to ‘promiscuity’ is their word for ‘love.’ So, yes, I’ve learned a great deal from your princess, or should I say our princess, for while you would have her belong to you, she’s given herself to many—and right now I think she’s giving herself to me.”

“Khyte, you missed your calling,” said Huiln. “Given the right subject, you’re a professor.” The goblin picked Eurilda off Khyte’s boot with a look of distaste, and with the other hand helped Khyte up.

“Traveling is a classroom,” said Khyte, “a laboratory, and a large storeroom of examples.

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