That Frigid Fargin Witch (The Legend of Vanx Malic) by M. R. Mathias

he moved closer to the blue-green opening, the high-pitched twittering sound resolved itself into several tiny voices.
    Thorn spoke in a commanding tone, but Vanx couldn’t make out his words. The confinement of the narrow shaft and the sweat pouring from his scalp was disturbing his concentration.
    As soon as Chelda eased out ahead of him and grabbed Poops, Vanx felt a stronger wash of cool air sweep over him, a welcome relief. He took his time those last few feet and let the airflow dry some of the dampness and perspiration that had soaked his clothes.
    Just before his head pushed out of the tunnel, he heard a collective gasp of chirping voices and more than one moan of worry and fear. Chelda had stood and he figured that the brownies and sprites were reacting to her height.
    When Vanx finally emerged, he understood better the awe of the fae. The brownies were squat, thick, and only half as tall as Thorn at best. Chelda towered over them like a Goddess. If she had been so inclined, she could have squashed them flat with her huge feet.
    The sprites were tiny, bird-like figures, not much bigger than a finger. They hovered and zipped about crazily, on brilliant butterfly wings in myriad designs and color combinations. One came in low and stopped to hover just inches from Vanx’s face. It was a young boy no bigger than a pinky toe, with doubled, glassine wings, like those of a dragonfly. When he looked into Vanx’s emerald eyes, his curiously fearful expression exploded. “Tsim,” the tiny boy chirped, and zipped away. “Tsim. It’s him.”
    Most of the other expressions Vanx spotted weren’t so hopeful, especially those of the rabbit-sized brownie men who were huddling behind Thorn. They were trying to be polite, yet doing everything they could to keep the elf between them and Sir Poopsalot. They kept looking from Poops, up to Chelda, to Vanx, and back to Thorn.
    Poops was up and quivering with curious energy. He wasn’t trying to defy the gentle grasp Chelda had on the leather strap harness he still wore, but it was plain he wanted to go sniff them. Vanx sent out a mental command for the dog to sit still and calm down. To his great surprise Poops sat, then looked at him and whined out his plea. Even more amazing was that the little things fluttering all about the cavern felt it when Vanx used the familiar link between the two.
    As he stood, Vanx remembered the white gold trinket at his neck was glowing cherry. But when he looked around he forgot about it because the wonder of the cavern they were in suddenly revealed itself. Scores of terraced step-rows, each about half the height of a normal human stair, and three times as deep, spread up and away. The flat of each riser was covered by a bed of some spongy turquoise moss or mold. From this stuff sprouted all shapes of mushroom caps from tall, phallic-looking spikes to stubby oversized toadstools. These were as brilliantly colored and patterned as the wings of the tiny sprites that tended them and he paused to wonder if that wasn’t some sort of intended natural design in order to help the little buzzers hide.
    The mossy stuff was the source of the blue-green illumination. The terraced rows extended forty or fifty yards alongside the path before ending against a rough-hewn wall. The path itself ran through the cavern and kept on going through an arch that was similarly shaped, but a little larger than the one they’d come through in the fairy mound. Along the pathway’s edge, and along the lower terrace steps, there were small, rectangular, hut-like dwellings that had dark, moss-covered roofs. Through coin-sized window holes, Vanx saw several faces peeking out curiously. He noticed that either the majority of these folks were hiding, or they were away somewhere, because there were far too many dwellings to house the meager number of little folk he’d seen so far.
    A young brownie girl, her silken beard looking like a tuft of golden dandelion fluff under a tired