Descent into the Depths of the Earth (25 page)

With a helpless wail, the girl fired her favorite old
stinking fog spell, filling the wide passageway with impenetrable clouds of
murk. She snatched Henry by the scruff of his neck and dragged him fleeing back
down the tunnel.

Behind her, the lich was laughing. Its wild cackle pursued
Escalla into the caves long after the mere sound of it had faded and gone.

In a cavern somewhere near a rampaging beholder, Escalla
crammed herself into a crevasse. With her fist jammed into her mouth, she wept
in silence, her eyes wide and her face ashen, shivering in shock. Private Henry
protected her, peering over the lip of the rock to watch for enemies. The boy
was pale but behaving like a good soldier.

Escalla rocked back and forth, gripping her own skull as
though it was about to blast apart. She had cast a shield against detection
spells, and that was all that she could do. The lich was either coming after
them or it wasn’t.

And Jus was either dead or alive.

“Oh man. Oh man, oh man, oh man. I really fouled it this
time.”

Impossible to believe that once, long ago, she had wanted
nothing more in life than to blow Jus apart, she now felt like her innards had
been frozen to ice. Escalla stared into the dark, while her soul jerked and
fluttered like a wounded butterfly.

There was a careful slither in the gloom. With his eyes on
the caves, Private Henry slid down to Escalla’s side.

“Miss? Um, my lady?” Private Henry swallowed, his crossbow
pointing into the echoing caves. “Lady Escalla, I think that beholder is still
out there.”

Something howled deeper in the caves. It sounded like the
beholder was once again on the prowl. Escalla’s heart sank. Henry looked at her,
lost and oh-so-terribly young, so Escalla deliberately sat herself up, wiped her
hair back from her face and discovered that it hurt like hell to talk.

“Do you think they killed him?”

“What?” Henry’s eyes blinked like an owl. “Mister Polk?”

“Yeah. Yeah, they got Polk, too.” Running her fingers through
soiled hair, Escalla tried to force her mind to think. “The lich was keeping
them off him—the trogs and the big goblin things.”

“Bugbears.” Private Henry stared at shadows in the caves. “I
saw a drawing of one once.”

“Bugbears.” Staring at remembered horrors, Escalla slowly
shook her head. “There must have been a hundred of them.”

“But they’re alive!” Henry crept a little closer, anxious for
reassurance. “You saw! You said the lich was keeping them alive.”

“Yeah. Yeah, so I did.” The faerie’s whole body felt like
ice—numb, chilled, and insensible. She had to
do
something, take
positive action. Escalla shuddered and began making a plan.

A lich. Why did it have to be a lich? A sorcerer so powerful
that it had spent an eternity rotting as its bones hardened with hate. It was
probably the most savage monster in existence—intelligent, deadly, and
apparently the master of a troglodyte tribe.

Escalla idly dangled her locator needle, staring at it
blankly as she tried hard just to stay calm and
think.
The needle pointed
northwest, away from the lich’s caves, and quivered slightly as though the
slow-glass was moving at the very limit of the locator’s range.

The lich was out there, organizing its troops.
Here
was the ally Escalla’s enemy had dealt with to find raiders to attack the
surface world, but if the lich controlled the troglodytes, then why were the
drow involved? What could a faerie possibly need from a city of dark elves?

The troglodytes were stealing living people. Perhaps that was
why Jus and Polk were still alive.

Maybe.

“All right, Henry. We… we have to see where they are and
what happened. Then we have to figure out our options once we see if they’re . .
. once we see if they’re all right.” Escalla tried to calm her ragged breathing
and wipe the tears back from her face. “Just keep calm, all right? You’re with
the faerie. No one touches the faerie.”

The girl had a useful spell up her sleeve—provided the lich
wasn’t just around the corner and about to blast them all into rich meaty
chunks. She tried straightening her hair, sat erect, then forced herself to be
calm.

“Henry?”

“Yes, my lady?”

“I have to concentrate, so just keep low and only disturb me
if that beholder comes into this room.”

“All right.” The young soldier swallowed then crept back into
place, trying to move the way the Justicar would. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect
you.”

“I know you will, Henry. Thanks.”

Escalla took a deep breath and bowed her head. Sitting cross
legged on the floor with a look of supreme concentration on her face, she opened
her hands and quietly spoke a spell. Her point of view shifted to somewhere
between her hands, the position wavering slightly until the spell steadied in
her mind.

She turned slowly and looked up at herself. Her hair hung
bedraggled, and her thin face was smeared with tears. The viewpoint bobbed and
carefully rose, then Escalla turned and shot her viewpoint through the caves,
leaving her mind and body safely behind.

The spell’s eye moved forward swiftly through the caves and
out into the main tunnel. It floated forward in eerie silence, able to see but
not hear. Escalla slowed as she approached the entrance to the lich’s cavern,
feeling her way carefully forward. She wanted nothing to betray her spy spell.
Jus would expect her to be as perfect as possible.

The entrance to the cave lay quiet. Huge bugbears—great hairy
beings eight feet tall with stupid, pig-like eyes—leaned on their clubs and
stared along the tunnel. Six were on guard at the tunnel mouth, with drow
warriors tending a little fire behind them. Escalla hesitated, then drifted the
spy spell past the guards. The bugbears never even twitched an ear as Escalla’s
viewpoint drifted by.

The main cavern was dangerously immense—a great arching space
with an unsupported roof that dripped with slime. To the northeast and
northwest, great tunnel roadways cleaved into the underdark. The vast central
hall seemed to serve as a nexus point where drow caravans and travelers came to
trade.

Beside the entrance to the northwest passageway, a hideous
black presence materialized from the dark. The lich appeared, its rotting,
skeletal face still hung with flaking strips of skin. With its magnificent black
robes trailing all around it, the lich walked slowly forward, its steps so cold
that they made the cave floor steam. The lich turned and stalked back toward its
lair—troglodytes and bugbears bowing and cringing in submission as it passed.
The drow watched coldly from the sidelines—dark, elegant, and vaguely amused by
the spectacle of horrid death. Chilled, Escalla backed away, then whirled about
and hastily sped after the lich.

Outside the lich’s cave, a drow awaited. A huge pack lizard
chewed on rotting meat behind the dark elf. Sitting beside the beast were a
dozen spiritless creatures linked together by a chain, slaves apparently being
traded to the drow. There were cowed, beaten bugbears, troglodytes, a pair of
orcs, and a goblin child.

The lich leaned forward to speak to one of the drow. The dark
elf nodded, paid a sum in precious gems, then walked back to the campsite while
the lich returned to its cave. Torn with indecision over where to go, Escalla
darted left, darted right, then shot after the lich and followed the dreadful
being into its lair.

In a cavern lined with magic mouths that murmured and
whispered in the very rock, Jus and Polk lay unconscious beside a pile of
equipment. Jus still wore his armor, and no one had yet taken his magic ring.
Two large troglodyte guards crouched beside them. The two humans were tied
tight. The lich stooped over each man, staring, then spoke to the troglodytes
and motioned toward the cave entrance.

The troglodytes bowed, lifted Jus between them, and carried
him out to the slave merchants. The lich moved over to a shelf of rock, lay a
hand in a niche, and drew forth a tiny folded piece of cloth. Opening a few
folds of the cloth, it dropped the gems onto the fabric, and the gems seemed to
disappear.

The lich peered into the cloth for an instant, replaced it in
the niche, then lay down upon a shelf of rock and closed its eyes in repose. An
instant later, an illusion spell snapped into place, hiding the lich from view.

Cinders lay in a heap in one corner, his mouth tied shut with
Jus’ own magic rope. Escalla hovered anxiously over the poor hell hound, seeing
the dog’s ears jerk and his head twitch as he saw her spell. Through his
bindings, the black hell hound suddenly began to grin. Escalla bobbed up and
down in encouragement, then as more troglodytes came to gather Polk, she flitted
from the room.

Jus had been carried to the caravan and laid beside the
slaves. The drow themselves were relaxing and eating. Boxes were being unloaded
from their pack lizard, while a few more slaves were beginning to arrive. The
drow were all supremely unhurried, passing their time torturing minor lifeforms
and drinking thick black wine.

The spell began to flicker and fade. Escalla took one last
scan of the route into the cave, drew one long, deep breath, then opened her
eyes and found herself sitting cross legged at the bottom of the crevasse.

Henry lay motionless in cover, frightened yet still
soldiering on. Rubbing her temples to clear a swimming sense of vertigo, the
faerie blinked and then called out to the boy, “Hey, Henry!”

The boy slid back down to Escalla’s side, keeping his face
turned to the cave above, and sat at her side. “Did you see them?”

“Yeah. They’re alive.” Escalla sniffed, hoping that the bad
smell in the air wasn’t her. “The lich is selling them to the drow as slaves.
Must be why the trogs raid the upper world. Looks like the slave caravan won’t
be heading out for a while.”

“Where will it go?”

“Probably northwest. But to follow it, we’d still have to get
past the lich and all his friends.” Escalla felt tired and worn. The relief at
seeing Jus alive had yet to settle her soul. “I could do with some ideas.
Where’s Enid when I need her?”

Private Henry blinked owlishly in the dark. “Who’s Enid?”

“Gynosphinx. Freckles, perfectly spoken, polite and with a
mind like an encyclopedia. You’ll like her.” The dear, quiet, lovely sphinx
would have been such a comfort. “I’d say we have about an hour to effect a
rescue before those drow get on the road.”

Off in the deeper caves, the beholder gave an echoing growl.
Perfectly trusting, Private Henry settled down to look at Escalla in joy.

“So that’s it! They’re alive! And you have a plan, right?”

“Sure!” Escalla blinked. Jus was alive! She sat a little
straighter, her mind racing in a hundred directions and arriving nowhere at all.
“Sure. Yeah, I have a plan, and it’s a hoopy one, too! Best if I keep it secret
for now, though. I’ll fill you in on a need-to-know basis.”

Infinitely relieved, Private Henry sat and hugged his
crossbow for joy. “I knew it! The Justicar can’t be defeated by a bunch of
damned trogs!”

“Yeah, well, let’s just say he’s gathering his resources to
help us with our efforts.” Escalla lay back against the rock wall and stared at
the ceiling, wincing as she tried to find inspiration. “We’ll have to get moving
quick.”

“Just say the word!” Henry was so full of trust that Escalla
could have killed him. “What do we do first?”

The faerie slapped a few half baked ideas together in the
vague hope that they might stick.

“Well, kid, look on it as a five point plan.” Escalla sat up,
knowing that she was heading for a hellstorm of trouble. “First we get a new
weapon for Jus, then we sneak into the lich’s caves, then we take out most of
the trogs, then we kill the lich. After that, we free Jus, Polk, and Cinders,
then run off into the tunnels.”

With a happy sigh of relief, Henry stood up and began to
climb out of the crevasse.

“Thank the gods!” Henry reached the cave floor and gallantly
offered his hand to haul the little faerie up onto her feet. “For a while, I
thought we were in trouble!”

“Yeah, silly you.” Escalla tapped her fingers together,
trying to make vague ideas feel better than they looked. “As I said, the details
will be revealed, ah, as we need to know.”

The faerie heard the beholder growling off in the caves and
fetched her battle wand.

“Come on, kid. Adventure calls.”

Followed by the absurdly happy soldier, Escalla fluttered off
into the shadows. Private Henry checked his crossbow, set his helmet to a jaunty
angle, then marched off in pursuit of the smartest, prettiest, most competent
girl he had ever clapped his eyes upon.

* * *

A beholder’s life was apparently a merry one. Having
slaughtered a horde of ghouls, the beholder now amused itself with the corpses
of the deceased. It had gnawed the faces off one or two and dragged out the
intestines of others to create a vile, nose-blistering stench. All about the pit
that the ghouls had uncovered, body parts lay scattered. Bleeding a noisome
green ooze from a few cuts and severed eyestalks, the beholder hovered above its
kills, chewing on a severed hand and scowling in thought.