White Plume Mountain (greyhawk)

by Paul Kidd

  Across the cave, the Justicar dodged steam and bellowed in alarm. “Are you all right?”

  “Ouch! Damn! I’ve burned my butt!” The girl pulled at herbackside and glared at a livid scald mark. “This dungeon has no respect forquality!”

  Fanning at her rump, Escalla rose painfully to her feet. She sighed, anointed her bottom with a few drops of healing potion, then looked into the dark tunnel mouth beyond the door.

  A body lay stretched out in the doorway, lying on its back. Plate armor lay bent and buckled, and the open visor showed a pale, staring face.

  Escalla kept her distance, nudging at the fallen figure as it lay lifeless on the floor.

  “Um, guys? I just found the Bleredd priest!”

  The man’s armor had been battered. He lay frozen in terror,his face bleached white as paper, his lips and fingernails pale blue, and blood showing at a tear upon his throat. Out of respect for the dead, Escalla refrained from searching him for gold teeth, contenting herself with going through his purse for loose coins.

  “Guys? He’s really dead!” Escalla looked down the narrowcorridor just beyond and saw a door waiting invitingly ajar. “But there’s a roomhere. I’ll go take a look and see if the passage goes on!”

  She flew into the passageway, peering this way and that. From behind her, Jus’ voice shook the walls. “Escalla? Escalla!” The ranger’svoice boomed out over the roar and hiss of geysers and boiling mud. “Escalla,don’t touch anything!”

  “Hey, it’s just one little door! Just a peek!” The faerieturned the latch. “How much danger can there be?”

  The door had been deliberately perforated by dozens of little holes. Mist seemed to swirl out past Escalla and into the corridor. The girl threw all her tiny strength into shoving at the door, her wings beating and her legs straining as she tried to swing it open. She managed to open the portal by a shoulder’s width. The mist slithered and coiled past her, leaving Escallablinking into the dark.

  The space beyond the door was utterly dark. The faerie’smagical light seemed to fail at the threshold as though running into an invisible black wall. Escalla poked a finger at the darkness and found it to be made of empty air. She bit her lip as a foul, crawling sensation rippled down her spine.

  Something seemed terribly, terribly wrong. Despite the geysers and volcanic mud a few yards behind, the air had taken on a distinct deathly chill.

  A cold sweat ran down the faeries spine. Conceding that she might have been just a little rash, Escalla eased away from the door and turned around.

  Looming above her, a black figure was coalescing from the mists. A dark cloak swirled, and claws seemed to trail off into icy wisps of fog. Tall, cadaverous, and pale, the creature gave a predatory smile, his incisors gleaming, as he filled the air above the frozen faerie.

  With a leer upon his face, the vampire loomed and spread his claws. Escalla made a little move backward, her antennae falling limp and flat.

  “Oooh, joy…”

  Escalla’s day had definitely taken a turn for the worse.

  18

  Grinning a big placatory grin, Escalla backed slowly away.Quite suddenly she gave the vampire a friendly little wave.

  “Um, hello! Look, I’m just having a look. Didn’t touch athing, I swear! So I’ll just be on my way now. Sorry to have bothered you.”

  The vampire came toward her, and Escalla’s antennae drooped.

  “Aaaw, come on! I’m just a snack for you! You keep eatinglike this between priests and you’ll get all fat and bloated!”

  Lean as a strand of wire, the vampire bared his fangs. Claws shot from the ends of his fingertips as the last of his body coalesced from the swirling mists.

  With a pop, Escalla instantly changed form.

  “Look, I’m a skunk, a talking skunk!” Now a pink and lavenderfemale skunk, Escalla waved her tail. “One more step and I do the musk thing!Yeah! Pow!” The skunk retreated as the vampire continued his slow,deliberate advance. “You guys do have a sense of smell, don’t you? Comeon, man, I’m serious! One step closer and you’re gonna reek like the dead! Justlike the dead…” The skunk suddenly looked a little anxious. “Then again,you already are dead. Oh, damn!”

  Radiating a lifeless cold, the vampire spread his claws wide and gave a feral hiss. Quavering, Escalla changed herself into a spiny sea urchin and enthusiastically waved her prongs.

  “Look, I’m all spiky! You’ll pierce your lips if you try tobite! Definitely a stupid meal!” Seeing the vampire still coming toward her,Escalla changed herself into a floating rock. “Whups! Silicon life form! Look!No blood, I swear!”

  A vampire claw ripped past her. The rock that was Escalla screamed and dodged aside. She turned back into faerie form, back-flipped, and then ricocheted from the ceiling as the vampire slashed at her with blinding speed. After an evasive somersault, Escalla hung hovering in the air, gleefully readying her last remaining battle spell.

  “Oh yeah? You think you’re pretty tough?” The whole dungeonlit up as brilliant sparks arced between the faerie’s hands. “Well suck onthis you undead yo-yo!”

  Escalla screamed with laughter as sorcerous power blasted into life between her palms!

  “Lightning bolt, attack!”

  A blast of electricity stabbed out from the faerie’s palms,sheeting the entire tunnel with light. The lightning bolt blasted into the vampire, arcing out to snake coils of power all across the floor and walls. Escalla fluttered her wings in triumph as. she saw her enemy ripped apart by the spell.

  “Escalla! Escalla!” The Justicar’s booming voice drifted fromacross the cavern. “What’s going on?”

  The hole blown through the vampire simply closed itself. Scarcely even ruffled, the creature resolidified from mist.

  “Oops!” Escalla’s face fell, and she hovered in midair. “Look,about that ‘undead yo-yo’ thing…”

  Furious, the vampire flexed his talons. Clearing her throat, Escalla steepled her fingers and became the soul of calm.

  “Look, let’s be reasonable about this. I’m sure we can bothcome to a mutually advantageous-”

  With a scream of wild hunger, the vampire attacked. He ripped the air with his talons, missing Escalla by the barest fraction of an inch. Fluttering madly back and forth, the girl screeched in panic as the creature howled for her soul.

  “Jus! Jus, there’s a vampire here!”

  The answer came echoing back past the sound of geyser steam.

  “Don’t let it touch you!”

  “Don’t let it touch me!” Escalla roared as she dodgedvampire’s claws. “What kind of damned fool advice is that?” The faerie tried tolunge between the vampire’s feet, only to have a claw smash into the stone andblock her path. “Six foot four, shaven headed, and the brains of a dead ant!”

  Escalla tried to dodge past the vampire and into the corridor that led to her friends. The fanged monstrosity blocked her every move, snatching at her with claws that seemed to rip the heat from the air.

  “Jus, I could use some help here!”

  “Hold on! I’m coming!”

  The vampire whipped his head about and gave an ululating cry. From the little crevices and shadows hidden in the corridors, a chittering, squealing horde of bats came whirling through the air. They descended about the Justicar in an enraged black cloud, blinding him with their wings. The ranger cursed, shielded his eyes, and retreated as he swatted at the bat clouds with his hands.

  Hissing as he summoned his winged minions to harass the Justicar, the vampire’s instant of distraction gave Escalla an opening. The girlhurled herself backward into the pitch black room from whence the vampire must have come. Hitting the magical zone of blackness, Escalla’s magic lightinstantly flared and failed, breaking both spells but plunging the room into utter darkness.

  “Oh, great!”

  The darkness seemed less complete-merely a “bowels of theearth” darkness as opposed to the “magical spell” kind. Escalla shot up to thedoor lintel, licked, slapped her ha
nd on the stone, then hovered a few feet behind the frame of the door.

  “Yoooo-hooooo! Hey, fang boy! Nice coffin! Wanna bet Ican break it?”

  The vampire whirled.

  Escalla twiddled her fingers at the creature and waved in mock friendliness. “What, you’re so lame you can’t even take down a faerie?”

  With a snarl, the vampire lunged for Escalla’s throat. He passed beneath the portal, and a massive crash of force pounded downward from the sphinx’s parchment stuck above the doorframe. The vampire spun anddropped like a stone, lying stunned and twitching weakly on the floor.

  Leaping in utter glee, Escalla gave a screech of victory.

  “Yes! I did it! He’s out like a light!”

  With the bats dispersing, Jus answered the faerie’s cry. “What? You stunned it?”

  “With the sphinx’s papyrus-thingie! Wham! One in, onedown!” Escalla weaved back and forth, boxing at shadows. “Pow! You betterwatch yourself if you try takin’ on this faerie!”

  “It won’t hold for long!” Jus bellowed across the geysercave. “You’ll have to kill the vampire while he’s down!”

  Having changed shape into a large firefly to light the room, Escalla blinked and looked down at the vampire.

  “Kill it! How? I just used my last major spell!”

  “What spells do you still have?”

  “Ummm, lessee…”The firefly ticked its list of spells offon its feet. “Um, two magic missiles, a sleep spell, web spell, a stinkingcloud, and Tensor’s floating disk!”

  “Floating what?”

  “Disk! It levitates stuff! I wanna use it to haul all mytreasure out of the dungeon!” Escalla hovered over a long wooden box in themiddle of the square room. “Hey, he has a coffin in here!”

  In the geyser cave, Jus retreated as a lethal blast of steam shot up through the mud. There was no way to cross the chasm in the few scant minutes Escalla had left.

  “Escalla, listen to me! Use a magic missile! Hurry! Blast hiscoffin and use a sliver of the wood as a stake!”

  The man cocked his head, Cinders helpfully lending his own keen hearing as the girl’s voice drifted back through the steam.

  “Wood slivers? What, you want me to kindle a fire?”

  “No!” Jus leaned over the ledge to give his voice an extraounce of force. “Hammer the stake through his heart!”

  “No way!”

  “Just do it! Hurry!”

  “But I’m a girl!” Escalla wailed. “I’m a faerie! Blood’llsplurt over my dress!”

  “Just do it!” Jus felt a thrill of fright as though thevampire was already reaching for the girl. “Hurry, before it wakes up!”

  A flash came from the distant tunnel. Seconds later, there was a revolting sound of hammering, and Escalla’s wail managed to carry acrossthe intervening yards.

  “Eeeeew! Eeeeeew-ick! I can’t believe you’remaking me do this!”

  Jus helplessly clenched his sword.

  “Is it done?”

  “Yes, damn it! I staked him, and there’s black guck all overme! Are you happy now?”

  Jus breathed out a deep sigh of relief, swapped a brief look with Polk, and felt Cinders happily wagging his tail.

  “She did it.”

  Whack in heart! Splat splat splat! Cinders dwelt on thecool sound effects and jiggled in glee. Stick bad monster again!

  “Yeah, time to finish it.” The Justicar turned back to bellowout across the open cave. “Escalla?”

  “Yeah?”

  “The vampire’s out, but he’s not dead. To kill it, you haveto do something more.”

  “What now?”

  Jus stood at the edge of the mud and folded up his arms. Smiling, he shouted, “Now turn into a big rat or something and gnaw off hishead!”

  There was a long moment’s pause.

  Spattered with goo and utterly unamused, Escalla appeared at the ledge opposite the Justicar’s perch.

  “You have got to be kidding.”

  “Just do it!”

  “No way, no where, no how!” Escalla met Jus eye to eye andplanted her fists upon her skinny hips. “You want someone’s head gnawed off, youcome over here and do it!”

  The Justicar sighed.

  “All right, take my sword and do it.”

  “Yeah, right!” The faerie gave a toss of her gooey hair.“Like I can really carry that chunk of ironmongery all the way over the mud!”

  “Well, find another way!” The Justicar clenching his fists infrustration. “Your magic missile spell fires darts! Saw his head off with astream of those!”

  The faerie glared at her friend.

  “You are a sick, sick man, you know that?” The girlturned back down the tunnel. “I am doing this under serious protest-andonly because this vampire really pissed me off!”

  Holding a torch made from a chunk of vampire coffin, the girl tramped off into the gloom. A staccato series of little blasts revealed that the grisly job was being done.

  Spattered, bedraggled, and extremely annoyed, Escalla appeared back at the ledge.

  “Hey Jus, what about the dead priest? Isn’t he gonna turninto a vampire too?”

  “No!” The geyser gave its customary warning cough, and Jusducked down low. “You don’t turn into a vampire unless you’re buried in theearth! That’s why you leave the bodies out for the scavengers.”

  “Oh, great!” Escalla stood on the chest of the dead Blereddpriest to give her voice more height so it would carry. “Great, I can see it allnow. You get fanged to death by a vampire, and just to add insult to injury, your friends just leave you on a roadside to get eaten up by crows!” Pausing,Escalla considered the point. “Hey, but what if you were half eaten bycrows, but then someone came back and buried you? Would you turn into a sort of half-skeleton, half-vampire?”

  She disappeared back into the gloom. Flinching back from hot steam, Jus edged closer to his own rim of the ledge.

  “Escalla? Escalla, get back here!”

  Jus heard a warning rumble from the boiling mud down in the cavern and dodged back as a geyser spurted its lethal column up into the cave. When the steam and raining water had finally cleared, Polk, Cinders, and the Justicar blinked to see Escalla leaping and waving excitedly from the opposite ledge.

  The faerie made a little dance of triumph in the air and shouted, “I found it! I found it!”

  The Justicar’s heart gave a surge of joy. “One of the magicweapons?”

  “No!” Escalla came dancing out onto the ledge holding alittle coin. “I found gold! The vampire had a big bag of treasure!”

  Shaking his head to clear a rain of hot sulphur-water from Cinders’ snout, Jus gave a sigh.

  “Does the dungeon go on?”

  “Naah, dead end.” Escalla shoved her gold coin down hercleavage for safekeeping. “But there’s treasure here, bags and bags of it! Oh,and there’s a big hammer hidden underneath the coffin!”

  Polk applauded, jerking his head in approval. The faerie took a bow as the teamster showered her with praise.

  “That’s it! That’s got to be the magic hammer. She did good!She did damned good!”

  “Damned good.” Jus felt himself relaxing piece by piece. Hisfingers had almost stamped their outline into the handle of his sword. The man blew out his breath and fixed the faerie with his eye.

  “You be careful!”

  “Why Jus, are you concerned for little me?” Escalla posed andfluttered her lashes. “Now wait there! I’ll go get the treasure!”

  The girl disappeared, and Jus tried to see where she had gone.

  “Escalla? Escalla! Don’t touch the hammer with your barehands! You’ll get a power shock unless you’re aligned with the damned thing’sgod!”

  A flash came from down the dark corridor, joined with a screech of pain. Jus closed his eyes and rubbed at his forehead with his fingertips.

  “You touched it, didn’t you?”

  “Shut up!” The girl’s distant voice went into a sulk.“I’m going to drink my he
aling potion now.”

  Long minutes passed, and then Escalla came fluttering into view. Behind her came a big floating force-disk, upon which rode a dozen huge bags of coin, a hammer wrapped in scraps of the vampire’s cloak, and the undeadcreature’s raggedly severed head, riding on the prow like a figurehead.

  Grinning, Escalla timed the geysers, picked a gap and flewhappily over the mud. The floating disk behind her went out into the open air then plunged down to ride three feet above the boiling morass.

  Her wings whirring, Escalla flew past the swinging, dripping chains and came hovering up to land in the Justicar’s arms.

  “I’m here! I’m a vampire slayer!” The girl helped herself tothe ranger’s canteen, pleased to find that the scoundrel was carrying beerrather than water. The girl wiped foam from her mouth. “Right! That’smy blow struck for truth and light! Let’s go!”

  The disk, however, remained stubbornly stuck three feet above the mud. Annoyed, Escalla peered over the ledge at the disk in alarm and knitted her alabaster brows.

  “Damn it! Stupid floating disk spell!” The girl signed forPolk’s rope. “Right! Gimme the rope! We’ll bring the gold up the old fashionedway. I’ll go tie the sacks to the line.”

  Jus looked at the steam-drenched cavern in glowering disbelief.

  “You’ll be cooked like a dumpling!”

  “No way! Three minutes between the geyser over there goingoff, and five minutes between blasts for this one! That gives me a window of…of two minutes!” The faerie dived down toward the mud, trailing a noose in hergrasp. “Now come on! We’ll get your magic hammer first!”

  The magic hammer Whelm was hauled up from below, with the severed vampire head dangling below it on the rope. Jus removed the grisly head and tossed it over to Polk.

  “Here. Catch!”

  Polk held the head and almost screamed in fright.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Stuff the mouth with holy wafers.”

  “Wafers?” The teamster stared. “Where in damnation am Isupposed to get wafers from?”

  “You forgot the wafers?” Jus shook his head in disappointmentas he hauled up the first heavy bag of gold. “I don’t know what adventureparties are coming to. Well, just stick it in your pack.”