by Paul Kidd
The big man swiftly hunted through the line of library shelves, slamming a hand against the last shelf as he failed to find anyone. The building was deserted apart from the scratching of a rat somewhere deep inside the reference section.
Annoyed, the Justicar signaled to the faerie and said, “Startsearching. Look for places where books are missing from the shelves. Look for books on Keraptis. Look for secret exits. Anything!”
Emerging timidly through the library’s front door came theshaken figure of the young law officer Jus and Escalla had rescued in the market. Still dazed from the fight, the man blinked in nervous horror as he saw Jus begin tearing at the library shelves.
“Um, I don’t think we should do this. This is privateproperty.”
The Justicar dug into his purse and pulled out an amber token-the personal symbol of the countess of Urnst.
“This private property has been used as a base for banditry,murder, and attempted assassination.” The Justicar shoved the countess’ tokenaway. “I am under commission from the countess of Urnst. There’s a soul-eatingsword in town, and your librarian has just stolen it!”
“Soul eating…?”
The Justicar began looking behind rows of books on the shelves that adjoined the walls, hunting for secret triggers and hollows. He had less time than usual to waste on polite conversation. “Eats life energy,accelerates the user’s speed… It’s called Blackrazor. It apparentlybelonged to an erinyes. She seems to be controlling your local thieves.”
“An erinyes?”
Jus finished with the shelves. Above his helmet, Cinders sniffed, hunting for the slightest hint of magic.
“Erinyes,” the ranger continued, “a type of diabolical agentfrom the plane Baator. Seductive like a succubus, only smarter.”
The young law officer froze. “How… how do you knowthat?”
“If you want to dispense justice, first study. Itmakes for a universe filled with fewer surprises.” The Justicar dragged a bookfrom a shelf in passing and threw it open on a desk. “Read. They’ll be in thereunder ‘Baatezu’-very nasty.”
The Justicar began using the pommel of his sword to check flagstones of the floor for hollow spaces, moving fast in the hope the job would be over before the sorcerer’s guild could arrive on scene.
High above, Escalla was making an inspection of the library’sbooks. She had found a big, valuable-looking tome bound in gold, but it proved far too heavy for her to lift. There was scroll after scroll piled in confusion all over the shelves, most written in who-knew-what sort of languages. Escalla began to pry at a big, brightly colored stone that graced the cover of a gaudy volume entitled Manual of Puissant Skill At Arms-then suddenlynoticed a tasty pile of documents on the library’s main desk right in the middleof the hall.
Gold glittered amongst the documents. Intrigued, Escalla opened her little wings and drifted happily down to inspect her find.
“Hey, Jus! Look!”
A pile of parchments teetered on the desk-big heavy sheetscovered in maps and diagrams. The whole pile was held down by a golden jewelry box that seemed to cover over some sort of symbol written on the uppermost parchment sheet. Escalla hovered above the pile, looked this way and that at the jewelry box, then reached out happily toward the jewelry box with her hand.
Standing at a nearby bookshelf, the Justicar turned, saw the delicately balanced pile of documents begin to teeter, and caught a glimpse of the magic symbol written in fresh blood beneath the jewelry box. Moving at a shocking turn of speed, he hurled himself across the floor at a dead run, shoving the young law officer into a bookshelf as he passed. As the law officer fell, Jus was already launching into a flying tackle that smacked Escalla hard against his chest. The faerie croaked, the breath smashed out of her chest. A noise of surprised indignation was half out of her mouth when the entire room suddenly lit up with a titanic blast of flame.
The symbol covered by the teetering jewelry box flashed as light touched at the wet ink, then magical force exploded outward. The desk disintegrated, bookshelves blew apart, and wooden wall panels instantly caught fire. Turning on his side in midair and hunching into a ball to shield the faerie with his own bulk, the Justicar caught the force of the heat against Cinders’ fur. The shock wave of the explosion tossed the ranger through theair, and he crashed through a succession of flimsy library shelves. Even as he hit the floor, he was rolling to shield Escalla from the blow. He hit the wall with jarring force and snarled in anger as books and rubble crashed around him.
Escalla emerged from beneath a flap of Cinders’ pelt tostare at the library. The scrolls, books, and shelves were thoroughly ablaze. Emerging stunned from beneath a fallen cupboard was the law officer. Jus gave a vicious curse, shoved a healing spell into himself, then lifted himself up from the floor.
Escalla woefully watched the book collection going up in flames. “Whoops…”
The Justicar rose, ash and burning parchment scraps sliding from Cinders’ fur.
“Fire symbol.”
“Yeah, I gathered.” Escalla rubbed beneath her ribs, stilltrying to recover from being tackled by two hundred and twenty pounds of flying Justicar. “Bastard knew we were coming!”
“He knew someone was.” Jus strode through blazingwreckage and kicked at the few blackened fragments that marked where the library desk had once stood. “Cinders, are you all right?”
Cinders didn’t do it! No burn! Not Cinders!
“Yeah, we know. Don’t worry about it-just enjoy the blaze.”Jus found a burning chunk of book to stuff between Cinders’ champing jaws.“There you go. Good boy.”
Where the librarians desk had once stood, a trapdoor hung open beneath the rubble, blown in by the shock of the explosion. Jus kicked away a few chunks of burning chair and stared down the gaping hole.
“Here’s where he went. There’s a ladder and some light.”
Burning chunks of scroll illuminated a room below the library floor. Jus dropped down into the hidden room, landing upon a hard stone floor. He looked about, glancing at the lanterns burning in each corner of the room. A corridor easily ten feet wide led in a straight line away from the room, the empty spaces echoing to the sounds of fire and mayhem coming from the library above.
Escalla and the law officer peeked over the edges of the entry hole. Escalla irritably blew a spark away from her pristine golden hair.
“Any sorcerers down there?”
“None.” Jus felt Cinders sniffing for magic. “Cinders?”
Magic! Magic down passage. Bad-very bad!
For the benefit of the others, the Justicar passed the message on.
“Cinders doesn’t like it. He says there’s bad magic.”
“Just what we need,” said Escalla.
Escalla leaped down from above.
Giving the faerie a warning glance, the Justicar hefted his sword into killing position and began to walk down the corridor. Escalla followed at his heels.
Jus stalked cautiously along the broad, level passageway. Behind them, the law officer nervously descended into the corridor.
“The name’s Allain, by the way.” Receiving no answer, theyoung man followed unhappily behind the Justicar, hell hound, and faerie. “I’mlaw warden of the Temple Quarter.”
Jus held up a hand to silence the young man. He flattened himself against a wall, checked the corner with a mirror taken from a string about his neck, then looked into a huge and gloomy hall.
A vast underground space, damp and cold, stretched out across hundreds of square yards. The hall seemed to be a titanic cellar, the vast expanse of roof supported by long parallel walls. Row after row of brickwork divided the room into passages. A few lights gleamed from somewhere at the far side of the corridors, while water dripped from the stone ceiling up above.
The water drops were brown and smelled of mud. Jus caught one on his fingertips and gave a casual sniff.
“River mud. We’re under the river.”
Escalla padded swiftly over to the nearest
passages and peered within. Each one had a broad, flat floor that seemed to have been made from hard-rolled gravel.
“It’s clear,” Escalla said. “The floors are kinda funny-really hard, compacted gravel. I can’t see anything moving.”
Jus made a silent motion to Allain, ordering him to stay in place. Moving silently despite his size, the ranger stole forward up one of the parallel passageways. Escalla blinked out of sight, whirring ahead of him on invisible wings.
The passage opened into a broad open space that linked a dozen of the strange passageways. At the center of the hall there stood a wide table laid over with maps and plans. A lantern burned, spreading a reek of fish oil up into the air. A heavy, upholstered chair stood at the table’s side.Escalla hovered carefully above. Her lesson learned, she touched none of the parchments until the Justicar arrived.
“Hey, Ev,” she whispered, “lookie! We got maps!”
“Don’t call me Ev.” The Justicar tested the floor for traps,then leaned over the table to look at the parchments, careful not to touch anything. The drawings showed sketches of corridors and rooms, and a drawing of a mountain pierced by tunnels. Various rooms were marked in red ink, the writing in no language that the Justicar could recognize.
At his side, Escalla peered at a list peeking out from beneath a paperweight.
“What’s this, a recipe?” The girl read. “‘One crab. Sixlobsters. Six scorpions. Green slime…’”
The air reverberated to a sudden rumble. As the whole hallway began to tremble, Jus looked upward, expecting to see the ceiling in mid-collapse.
Escalla hastily withdrew away from the tabletop. “It wasn’tme! I touched nothing!”
“Shh!” Jus listened, turning his head back and forth. Theceiling seemed solid. “It’s not the river. Something’s moving in here!”
Bad! Big magic thing! Fast!
Cinders swiveled his ears. The faerie and the Justicar both turned. Erupting from one of the passages came a vast, top-heavy monstrosity that moved at such speed that the entire hail shuddered beneath its wheels.
Two stone rollers ten feet wide supported a crude stone statue shaped like a hobby horse. Stone pistons pumped out ahead and behind of the horse, jabbing back and forth with each turn of the stone wheels. The juggernaut swiveled to face the Justicar then surged forward.
Escalla flew one way and Jus ran in the other. The ranger dived into one of the multiple passageways just as the juggernaut ran over the table, lantern, and chair. Wood flew to pieces as the huge mobile statue reached the Justicar’s hiding place and began to turn into the corridor.
Flattened against the wall and waiting, Jus gave a huge warcry and hacked down in a massive blow of his sword. The enchanted steel of his black sword struck at the piston pumping the juggernaut’s front. In a hugespray of sparks, the sword sheared through the stone, crashing the severed piston to the ground.
The juggernaut turned inexorably into Jus’ chosen corridor.Jus turned and ran, fleeing hard and fast down the passage. Behind him, the juggernaut rumbled forward, slowly gaining speed until it rushed along the corridor, sparks spitting into the darkness where its sides scraped against the walls. Fast as a charging horse, the juggernaut swept down on the Justicar, intent on crushing him underneath its rollers. Jus thundered down the corridor with death following hard on his heels.
Escalla flew up from behind the monster, poised beside its front roller, and jammed a broken chair leg between the roller and the axle fork. With a sudden flash and bang, the monstrosity pitched onto its face. The stone horse gave a screech of tortured stone as it slid along the floor, crashing and banging against the walls. It finally came to a halt in a heap of rubble right at the Justicar’s feet.
Jus stood, breathing hard and staring at the wreckage. The juggernaut spun its wheels and rollers, unable to turn right way up.
Curious, Escalla flew down to inspect the damage.
“Hey, I do good work! That thing really had you running!”
Jus growled, settling Cinders back into place atop his head.
“Say, did that bust up your sword?”
“No.” The Justicar inspected the fallen juggernaut anddecided to leave it as it lay. “I told you it’s enchanted.”
A voice drifted from behind them, somewhere in the dark. “Interesting…”
The Justicar whirled with a snarl, his black blade poised to ram through any enemy. Floating in the gloom there hung a huge apparition: the face of the librarian now painted half black and half white. The image of the sorcerer bobbed slowly up and down in the air.
“Interesting.” The sorcerer’s voice echoed down thepassageways. “Yes, you are worth encouraging onward. Strong. Disciplined.You might well make a good contribution to the physical form of the new Overman! Come and take the test of Keraptis! As it once was, so again it shall be! Come to my halls and retrieve the three!”
Hovering in midair, Escalla looked sourly at the librarian’sghostly face.
“Hey two-tone, you call that poetry?” The girl made a rudenoise. “You know, if I was powerful enough to project images of my swelled headall over the universe, I think I’d spend a bit more time in polishing my prose!”
The image turned hungry, knowing eyes upon the faerie and seemed… pleased.
“You too, little one. Take the test of the mountain. Retrievethe three prizes. Who knows? Even you might provide worthy substance to the new lord of space and time.”
The face faded away, leaving nothing but darkness, a thrashing juggernaut, and a growing drip and hiss of water. Escalla blinked into the gloom.
“‘Contribute to the Overman’? ‘Provide worthy substance’?”The faerie bit her lip. “I really wish he’d phrased those invitationsdifferently.”
A section of wall beside the juggernaut suddenly collapsed. Above the monster, a stone block fell from the ceiling, and river water streamed onto the tunnel floor. Jus grabbed for Escalla’s hand and towed her rapidly downthe passage, accelerating to a run as more and more stones could be heard collapsing far behind.
Escalla tried to look back “What about those maps?”
“We’re leaving!” Jus broke into the main corridor that ledback to the library. Allain the lawman still stood waiting in the door. He saw Jus running toward him, and an instant later he saw the river water spilling out of the passageways. As a distant ceiling collapsed inward with a watery crash, all three explorers fled back into the room beneath the blazing library. Jus held Cinders’ pelt up as a shield for his companions as they struggled out ofthe secret room and up into the flames.
The library shelves were burning in earnest now. Fire had spread to the ceiling and the tapestries, the window shutters, and the walls. Jus led his companions through the heat and sagging doors out into the sun.
Soot stained, blood-spattered, and near exhaustion, Jus stumbled to the bottom of the steps and leaned upon his sword. The library burned behind him while big bubbles rose from a new whirlpool out in the river shallows. Cinders wagged his tail, happily basking in the heat of the burning building.
Drawing the stares of a shocked crowd, Escalla fluttered down to land upon the Justicar’s shoulders.
“Hey, troops! We’ve had breakfast, we’ve fought a demon, andwe’ve burned your library down.” The faerie gave a tired sigh. “What now?”
Allain cleared his throat. “We should see the baron. Tell himabout your mission.” The young man looked back at the burning library. “He’llknow what to do.”
Jus sheathed his sword and shrugged. For the moment, there might be advantages to cooperating with the law. The Justicar settled Escalla on his shoulder, dusted ashes out of Cinders’ fur, and led the way down into amarketplace still streaked and smeared with blood.
11
Over the past twenty years, the county of Urnst had survivedinvasion by Iuz, raids from the Bandit Kingdoms, strifes internal and external, and a hundred other problems big and small. The countess-an old, sharp-tonguedwoman with little patience for fools-
kept her capital in the west where shecould keep a sharp watch upon her taxes.
The great headache of her realm was Trigol, a city governed in the countess’ name by a baron. The post had little to recommend it. Banditraids, refugees, and civic riots were rife. The baron’s daily life was anythingbut restful.
The central keep of Trigol served as the administrative center for the entire southeastern marches. There was a constant traffic of couriers and patrols. Military scouts and sorcerers came in to file their reports while squads of crossbowmen patrolled the walls. As darkness fell over the city, the keep sheathed itself in light. With new wars gathering on the borders, nighttime brought no rest to the hard-worked garrison.
The keep’s main hall had been cleared of its usual clutter ofmess tables. A heavy bench stood in the middle of the hall, and here sat the throne of the baron. The baron himself-a surly, thickset man with a neatlypointed beard-sat sternly in place, leaning his elbows on the table andglowering at a dozen arguing, shouting men. To give himself patience, the man drank wine-and had apparently been drinking ever since the riots a dozen hoursbefore.
Soldiers sat along the table beside priests, scholars, and sorcerers. Cinders lay like a rug in front of the hearth. Two large hunting dogs sat nose to nose with him, staring at him in puzzled amazement and anxiously wagging their tails. As silent as the baron, the Justicar crouched beside the great hall’s hearth and fed hot embers to his hell hound skin.
Having set up shop on a side table all her own, Escalla had gathered a choice selection of wines, glazed fruits, and other sticky treats. She ignored the arguments behind her and stuffed her face, occasionally casting an eye at the baron’s silver cutlery.
A civil war of apocalyptic proportions was about to grip Trigol. The temples of Geshtai and Bleredd, with their thousands of worshipers, were preaching holy war against each other. The baron had heard their first screams of outrage as each had decried the other’s crimes, and now he made alast attempt to enforce a parley.