Cost of a Crown (Book 1)

Two Brothers

Chapter Seven: The Fantus Chief

It wasn't his luxurious bed in the palace. But it was worlds better than sleeping in trees or on the hard ground.

Even if he was woken up every two hours.

Keldor woke up on a mattress, with his head on a pillow, a blanket covering him, and something soft and fuzzy curled up in the hollow between his pectorals.

Lifting the blanket, Keldor looked at the little bun of black fluff. The Dylinx cub was curled into an almost perfect circle, his head pillowed on his own tail. Keldor reached under the blanket to pet him. His fur was so soft. It was hard to believe that this little puffball would grow up to be a gigantic and terrifying predator, larger than a horse, that could probably fit Keldor's whole head in his jaws. At the moment, the cub's nose was barely the size of one of Keldor's fingertips.

Woken by the pets and scratchies, the little cub blinked up at Keldor. Then let out another one of those needy little rumbling mews.

"Right. You're hungry." Keldor groaned. It was not the first time he woke up to feed the cub.

Every few hours the cub would wake him up. Either making that same desperate sounding meow of his, or else pawing at Keldor, kneading at his chest or sides, or biting at his nipples.

This was the first time Keldor woke the cub up instead of the other way around.

Cradling the cub as he moved, Keldor sat up and reached for the bottle on the bedside table. Raqquill had given him three bottles for the night, and the cub was pretty close to finishing the last one. Keldor yawned as the cub nursed in his arms. His eyes fixed on a point on the opposite wall, staring blankly, still half-asleep. Then he felt a rumbling in his hand and looked down. The cub was purring as he nursed at the bottle, his paws kneading at Keldor's hand.

"Just remember, I'm not your mother, okay." Keldor informed the tiny cub.

Panthor's only response to this was to fall back asleep in Keldor's hand.

…

When Keldor came downstairs, carrying little Panthor in his arms, it was to find Raqquill the Beastmen in the tavern waiting for him.

"I'm told you're heading to Fantus." He began. "You'll need a guide, and this guy-" he reached a hand out to pet Panthor "-is gonna need someone else on hand who knows how to raise baby animals."

Keldor's kneejerk reaction was to refuse the offer and go on alone.

But then he remembered how it took him three days to cross the Evergreen Forest and was forced to admit that maybe he could benefit from someone who knew the area.

Swallowing his pride, Keldor nodded. "A guide would be helpful."

They headed out not long after Keldor had his own breakfast.

Keldor very quickly realized that it was a wise decision to accept the Beastmen as a guide. If he thought the Evergreen Forest was bad, the Vine Jungle was even worse. The Evergreen Forest had been dense, the Vine Jungle was equally dense, with the added peril of being absolutely predatory!

The trees and plants themselves reached out from the trees to try and grab at them.

Carnivorous flowers tried to eat them alive.

Keldor had to draw his sword and walk with one blade in each hand. Hacking at vines that hung in their way with one, while defending from the predatory foliage with the other.

It was hard to believe that people actually lived here!

Panthor spent most of the morning napping in Keldor's hood. Completely oblivious to the peril they were in, and only waking up to white for food.

Raqquill advised to start alternating between the bottle of formula and real meat. Just little bits of meat at first, to get his tiny stomach used to digesting solid foods. Then Panthor would go right back to sleep in Keldor's hood. It was adorable.

Until the cub woke up for real and decided it was time to play. Batting at Keldor's hair, trying to capture his knot. His tiny little kitten claws got caught in Keldor's hair, pulling strands out of the knot and making the Gar wince.

He snapped his blades back together and held the great sword in one hand while he reached the other behind him and grabbed the little cub. "You were a lot more likeable when you were asleep."

At Keldor's side, Raqquill gave a bark of a laugh. "Everyone thinks baby animals are cute until they start acting like animals."

"I don't mind him acting like an animal." Keldor assured his companion. "I just don't want him tearing out my hair!"

Keldor stopped walking and set the cub on the ground, between his feet where he assumed no predatory plants would get at him, while he reached up to try and fix his hair. Taking out the knot and letting it down to comb it out with his fingers. He pulled it back again, making it as tight as he could without a comb and a mirror, and retied his knot.

While Keldor was doing all this, Panthor decided to try and climb up his leg.

His bare leg.

The little cub wiggled its tiny cat butt, then jumped up, claws out. His jump put him just over Keldor's boot, and those sharp little kitty claws dug into Keldor's bare knee. He then started climbing up the Gar's naked leg.

Keldor snarled and hissed in mingled shock and pain.

Panthor got about as high as his thigh before Keldor grabbed him again.

But his anger at the cub melted the moment he took one look at that cute little kitten face. Seriously. It was impossible to be mad at anything that cute.

"I'm starting to see the ferocious beast you're gonna grow up into." He muttered. Then passed the cub to Raqquill. "Can you carry him for a bit?"

The Beastmen took the cub from Keldor, holding him in one massive hand. He took a pendant off from around his neck, a large heavy looking medallion rendered in turquoise stone and cut to look like a sun, or a star. Something pointy. Keldor wasn't sure. Raqquill dangled it in front of Panthor and the cub pounced on it gleefully.

"You didn't have any pets back in Eternos, did you?" Raqquill assumed.

"Father always said animals belonged in the wild, not in the palace." Keldor confirmed. "He never let Randor or me have any pets. The closest we came was the horses in the guards' stable. I did have a stuffed tiger when I was younger. I slept with it every night." Keldor crinkled his nose, trying to remember what happened to it. "I think father threw it away when he decided I was old enough I didn't need it anymore…" Then Keldor shrugged. "Now I have a Cats of Eternia calendar in my office. The month of Sivan this year was a Dylinx."

He reached a hand out to pet Panthor, but the cub grabbed it with his front paws, bit at his fingers, and kicked at his wrist with his hind paws. Keldor pulled his hand away.

Raqquill laughed again. "Dylinx cubs play hunt and pounce on their mothers."

"I am not his mother." Keldor reminded him.

"Well, you're close enough for him."

Keldor separated his swords again and went back to hacking a path through the jungle. "Just make sure he doesn't get eaten by a catcher plant for me, okay."

They trudged through the jungle for another hour. To Keldor it felt like they weren't making any progress at all. They kept having to stop to defend themselves from carnivorous vines, or catcher planets, and when they were moving forward, it was one step at a time, constantly having to stop and cut out a path for themselves before they could advance.

With his dual swords, it was Keldor doing most of the cutting. Raqquill was just making sure they were heading the right direction and keeping Panthor clear of the work so that the cub didn't get hurt.

Seeing the vines wiggle and twitch, Panthor jumped out of Raqquill's arms and tried pouncing on them. Tearing at the vines with his tiny kitty claws and biting at them with his tiny needle teeth.

"Panthor, no!" Keldor shouted at the cub.

Just in time to watch the Dylinx get scooped up and swallowed by a catcher plant.

"Panthor!" He was not prepared for the feeling watching that tiny cub get swallowed gave him.

Keldor slashed at the neck of the plant, cutting off it's carnivorous flower-like head. He went to his knees and ripped at the catcher plant's petals, prying them apart until it was open enough he could pull the cat out.

Panthor was covered in a bit of plant mucus, but he was otherwise alive, unharmed, and conscious. His fur fluffed out; his eyes wide. He crawled up Keldor's arm until he was nestled safely in the bend of his elbow, just like how Keldor had carried him when he first found the orphan cub.

With his other hand, Keldor stroked at the cub's slime-slicked fur. He had no idea how to comfort a baby animal. He imagined it was similar to comforting Randor when they were children.

But Keldor didn't get a chance to comfort the little cub.

The predatory vines of the jungle that they'd been hacking at all day wrapped themselves around Keldor and Raqquill. Both men found themselves suddenly immobilized.

Panthor dropped from the precarious perch of Keldor's elbow.

Keldor tried swinging at the vines with his sword, but they held his arm immobile, all he could manage was an impotent tilting of his wrist. Then the vines tightened their grip, and he was forced to drop the weapon entirely.

Raqquill snarled like the beasts his species was named for and tried biting at the vines with his teeth.

Panthor clawed at the vines encircling Keldor, trying to free him.

"Run away!" Keldor commanded the cat. But the Dylinx ignored him, continuing to attack the vines that were attacking his surrogate parent.

Keldor pulled harder against the vines. Trying to struggle free. Not to get away himself, but to keep his dumbass foster kitten from getting ensnared too.

Then they heard movement in the trees.

Not the russle of more vines slithering through the underbrush, but the consistent tempo of footsteps. Of a person walking between the trees, just behind Keldor and Raqquill. But the vines held them so tightly that they couldn't turn around she see who was approaching them.

What new peril was the jungle going to throw at them.

The head of a staff came into Keldor's peripheral vision. Then the hand that held it. A human looking hand with sun-browned kin and callused knuckles. Then a whole person came into view.

A man wearing the traditional loincloth and sash of the Fantus people, a small shrug covering his shoulders. Chest and abdominals exposed. The midday sunlight streaming through the trees glinting off his brown skin. His black hair was unbound and hallowed around his shoulders in dark waves. The staff he carried was the Staff of Fantus, a tribal mask perched atop its head.

The man's eyes flicked down to the Dylinx cub clawing at Keldor's vines, then up at Keldor himself.

"You're not a poacher, are you, Gar?" He demanded.

That was the second time in as many days that someone had accused Keldor of being a poacher. Was it something about him? Or did most Gar who managed to get through the mists of Anwat Gar and make it to the mainland just happen to become poachers and villains?

"He's from Eternos on a quest." Raqquill informed the newcomer. "That Dylinx cub is one he rescued and it's imprinted on him."

The Fantus man looked back down at the cub. It did look like the tiny cat was trying to free the Gar, not attack and maul him. He raised his staff. The eyes of the mask atop it glowed, then the vines holding them trembled for a moment, then loosened. Finally, uncoiling and pulling away from Keldor and Raqquill, retreating back to the jungle trees.

"I am the chief of the Fantus tribe." He announced. "My people live in the heart of this jungle. What brings you this deep into the Vine Jungle?"

Keldor knelt down and offered an arm to Panthor. The Dylinx was overjoyed to jump back into his arms and curl up in the crook of his elbow and snuggle against Keldor's side.

"What my companion said is true." Keldor announced. "I am on a quest. To save my father."

He left off the explanation there. There was no need to let the leader of the Fantus tribe know he might be leaving the Vine Jungle with his tribe's sacred stones until Keldor himself was sure that was in fact what he was going to do. He wasn't going to bother with artifacts that were ultimately useless to him.

"A noble goal." Nodded the chief. "I hope my son, Merlo, is as noble a man when he grows up."

Keldor didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing.

"Well, if you'll allow yourself a respite on your quest, you can rest and refill you waterskins at my village." Offered the Chief. "I'll take you there."

With the Fantus Chief and his magical staff that controlled the jungle leading them, they made it to the Fantus village in the center of the jungle quickly.

Fantus was a small village around a large temple.

The temple was yellow stone, carved with a façade of the face of their deity, Fantus, and completely overgrown with vines from the jungle. Keldor knew from his research that the Moonfire Stones would be inside the temple, set in the eyes of a statue of Fantus.

But it was not to the temple that the chief led them.

Instead, he brought them to his own hut where a boy waited.

"Merlo, these men are our guests." The Chief announced. "Fetch them some water, please."

From Keldor's arm, Panthor gave his little desperate sounding rumbling meow that he was coming to recognize as the cub's 'feed me' voice.

"And some meat for my cat." Keldor added. "If you have any."

They sat down while the boy ran out on his errands.

"You must love your father very much." The Chief observed. "If you're willing to break through the cursed mists of your island to come seeking aid on the mainland."

The Fantus Chief, clearly, was not as quick at figuring out Keldor's identity as that other Gar, Kronis, had been. Even though Raqquill already told him that Keldor was from Eternos, and there was only one Gar who lived in Eternos. King Miro's half-Gar son, Prince Keldor.

But then, why would the King's son and heir be out trudging through the Vine Jungle when he could just order his soldiers to do it for him from the comfort of a velvet cushion?

Sitting next to Keldor, Raqquill opened his mouth to correct him. This wasn't just some Gar that managed to find a way off their cursed island. This was Prince Keldor! King Miro's first born and future King of Eternia. And he did not sit idle on velvet cushions while sending others to do his bidding.

But Keldor cut him off before he could. The fewer people who knew how bad King Miro's health really was, the better. "My father raised my brother and I by himself."

It was a true enough statement.

"Ah." The Chief nodded, knowing. "That is hard. Merlo is quite the handful just by himself, but your father had two boys to take care of. Must have been hard."

Keldor thought of what it was like growing up in the palace of Eternos. Sleeping on silk sheets, wearing soft velvets and fine-spun linen, having the best tutors brought to his from across the planet, eating richly flavored cuisines, being given a never ending supply of novelties and entertainments to divert his attention when he was bored, not to mention the army of servants at beck and call so that his father didn't have to do anything if Miro didn't want to.

"…Yes, so hard." Keldor said out loud.

Panthor made another one of his desperate and needy meows and Keldor reached into his pack for one of the bottles of formula. Raqquill advised weaning him off the bottle, but it wouldn't hurt to give the little cub a snack while they waited for Merlo to get back.

The Chief watched the Dylinx cub nurse at the bottle, kneading at Keldor's hand with his tiny paws. "That Dylinx is so comfortable with you. How long have you had him?"

"Since last night." Keldor answered truthfully. In fact, it was less than twenty-four hours since he was attacked and killed the cub's mother.

"That's all the time it takes." Raqquill announced.

Looking up from the cat in his arms, which Keldor had just realized he was smiling at like a fool, he glanced at the other two and shook his head. "Panthor isn't my familiar. I'm just taking care of him until he can take care of himself. Then I'll leave him back in the jungle where he belongs. I cannot take a pet with me on my quest."

He turned his attention back to the cat in his lap.

Both the Chief and the Beastmen exchanged a look over the Prince's head. He could try and leave that cat in the jungle when he left. But the cat would not stay.

Merlo returned with fresh water, cooked meat for Panthor, and sliced mango for their guests.

Keldor pulled the bottle out of Panthor's mouth and replaced it back in his pack -much to the cub's loud and vocal protests. He took a bite of the meat and chewed it into a soft pulp, then spat it back out into his hand and offered that to the cub instead. Panthor's complaints were quickly silenced as he went to town eating the real meat.

The Chief took a slice of mango for himself. "When you're rested, Merlo will show you through the jungle, so that you can continue on your quest." He announced. "I hope you find what you're looking for to help your father."

Keldor looked up startled. "Is there nothing here in the jungle that could help?"

The Chief thought, then shrugged. "There are a number of plants that, when boiled into a tea, can ease muscle pain and sooth headaches."

"What of the Moodfire Stones?" Keldor pressed. That was the whole reason he came to the Vine Jungle in the first place. Otherwise he would have crossed the gentle waters and fast trade winds of the Harmony Sea to get to the Sands of Time instead.

The Chief laughed. A soft chuckle at first, then growing into a roar. "The Moonfire Stones are the eyes of Fantus, and Fantus is a jungle goddess. She is the one that gives my staff the power to command the jungle. All the Moonfire Stones do is act as the conduit through which her power flows. I suppose you could use the stones to make the plants that sooth pain more potent. A drug for eternal sleep, perhaps? Or even a painless and merciful way to send your father on his Next Journey. But they have no healing power."

Keldor just stared at the Chief.

Three days lost in the Evergreen Forest, attacked by a falcon, attacked by a Dylinx, attacked by murderous vines and man-eating plants… and the Moonfire Stones he was trying so hard to get to were not what he needed. Keldor needed something that could restore youth and health. Not some sort of… 'miracle grow' that just made medicinal plants more potent.

If Panthor weren't still eating out of his hand, he would have balled them both into fists in his frustration.

But he didn't. Keldor called on his years of composure attending the court. Not showing any emotion. Face a stoic and impassive mask. Not giving away even a hint of his true disappointment and frustration.

"I see." He nodded. "Then I think you're right. Once we're done eating, we'll leave."

There were still other artifacts on his list.

It was not a long list, but Eternia was a big planet. He had to keep moving if he was going to find one and still have enough time to get home to actually use it to heal father, before father… was gone on his Next Journey.

…