by Paul Kidd
A vast cavern opened beyond the monsters-a cavern that teemedwith troglodytes by the score. The lizards sat in their scores at the cave center, tearing at bleeding chunks of food. A dozen giant goblin guards cradling huge clubs loomed at the tunnel entrance. The first rubbed its skull where Escalla had crashed into it.
Beyond the other monsters, pack lizards and drow merchants knelt reverently before a sinister, robed figure at the far side of the hall. The whole image hung frozen in time as Escalla stared, and then she heard the pounding of boots behind her as Jus, Polk, and Henry arrived upon the scene.
A hundred monsters turned to stare. Over by the kneeling drow, the tall figure dressed in black robes turned and brushed its cowl back across its shoulders.
There was no face, only a rotting skull with mad, staring eyes. Escalla took one look at the thing, screamed in panic, and shot backward past Polk and the others.
“Lich! Run, boys! Ruuuuun!”
Used to instant obedience, Private Henry turned and did what he was told. More bull headed, Polk and Jus stopped to judge for themselves. They stood for one tiny split second, staring at the cavern with its horde of enemies.
The lich, an undead sorcerer of terrifying power, stood at the center of the hall. Rotted jaws screeched with laughter as the monster threw its arms open, summoning a spell. Jus and Polk turned and ran.
Too late. The lich gave a vile scream as magic blasted through the cavern and into the tunnel mouth. A blazing wall of force sealed the tunnel shut, blocking Jus and Polk from escape and locking Henry and Escalla away from their friends.
The giant goblins smashed at Jus with their huge clubs. The ranger spun into the first blow and wrenched the monster off balance while crashing his elbow into its jaw. A kick from his heavy boots sent another monster reeling back. Jus finished by disarming the first monster and smashing its skull with one blow of its own club. He turned as Cinders blasted flames into the onrushing monsters and sent six of them staggering away with their flesh aflame.
A gigantic goblin picked up Polk and tossed the helpless teamster against a wall. He fell, was lifted by the hair, and then punched unconscious by one of the goblinoids. With hell hound flame sheeting all about him, Jus fell back against the force wall as a dozen monsters surged toward him like a tidal wave.
They were too close-packed to fight with clubs and claws. Jus roared, his rage making the whole tunnel shake as he crashed his clenched fist down onto a giant goblins skull. His other hand crushed the windpipe of a troglodyte, the huge creature screaming and thrashing. The fangs of a fallen lizard snapped into Jus’ calf. He raised a boot, smashed the creature’s neck,then fell back to thud against the force wall as monsters climbed toward him in a swarm.
There must have been a hundred monsters, all surging into a screaming mob that choked the entrance to the cave.
Escalla fluttered madly above Private Henry on the other side of the magic wall. She fired a lightning bolt, the spell blasting into the wall without causing so much as a wrinkle in its shine. Two blasts from her frost wand stabbed into the wall and disappeared. The faerie saw Jus rock beneath the blow of a giant goblin’s fist, and she tried prying at the edges of the forcewall with her nails.
“Jus! Jus, I’m coming!”
“Go!” The Justicar bellowed at the faerie, wrenching a clawfrom around his throat and breaking a monsters elbow with one huge blow. “Escalla, go!”
“Jus!” Weeping helplessly, Escalla hammered uselessly at theedges of the force wall with her spells. “Jus!”
“GO!” Now almost buried under a wave of troglodytes, Jusroared as Cinders fired a last vicious blast of flames. “I order you to go! Saveyourself and the boy!”
Something lanced through the screaming, ravening horde of monsters-a gigantic disembodied fist that snatched up the Justicar and poundedhis head against the cavern ceiling. Unconscious, Jus was thrown to the floor, the huge hand hovering above. Linked to the lich by a tendril of force, the magic fist kept the other monsters at bay, shielding the fallen Justicar and Polk from harm. Escalla saw the lich turn to look right at her through her invisibility magic, saw the abomination lift up its hands to cast another spell-
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.
15
In a cavern somewhere near a rampaging beholder, Escallacrammed 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 thistime.”
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 crossbowpointing into the echoing caves. “Lady Escalla, I think that beholder is stillout 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 throughsoiled hair, Escalla tried to force her mind to think. “The lich was keepingthem off him-the trogs and the big goblin things.”
“Bugbears.” Private Henry stared at shadows in the caves. “Isaw a drawing of one once.”
“Bugbears.” Staring at remembered horrors, Escalla slowlyshook her head. “There must have been a hundred of them.”
“But they’re alive!” Henry crept a little closer, anxious forreassurance. “You saw! You said the lich was keeping them alive.”
“Yeah. Yeah, so I did.” The faerie’s whole body felt likeice-numb, chilled, and insensible. She had to do something, takepositive 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, andapparently 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 theslow-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 thesurface 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 andwhat 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 breathingand wipe the tears back
from her face. “Just keep calm, all right? You’re withthe faerie. No one touches the faerie.”
The girl had a useful spell up her sleeve-provided the lichwasn’t just around the corner and about to blast them all into rich meatychunks. 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 meif that beholder comes into this room.”
“All right.” The young soldier swallowed then crept back intoplace, trying to move the way the Justicar would. “Don’t worry. I’ll protectyou.”
“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 andout 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 hairybeings eight feet tall with stupid, pig-like eyes-leaned on their clubs andstared 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’sviewpoint drifted by.
The main cavern was dangerously immense-a great arching spacewith 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 bythe 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 lizardchewed 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, seeingthe dog’s ears jerk and his head twitch as he saw her spell. Through hisbindings, 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 faceturned to the cave above, and sat at her side. “Did you see them?”
“Yeah. They’re alive.” Escalla sniffed, hoping that the badsmell 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’tbe heading out for a while.”
“Where will it go?”
“Probably northwest. But to follow it, we’d still have to getpast the lich and all his friends.” Escalla felt tired and worn. The relief atseeing 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 amind like an encyclopedia. You’ll like her.” The dear, quiet, lovely sphinxwould have been such a comfort. “I’d say we have about an hour to effect arescue 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 littlestraighter, 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 secretfor 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 ofdamned trogs!”
“Yeah, well, let’s just say he’s gathering his resources tohelp us with our efforts.” Escalla lay back against the rock wall and stared atthe ceiling, wincing as she tried to find inspiration. “We’ll have to get movingquick.”
“Just say the word!” Henry was so full of trust that Escallacould 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 newweapon for Jus, then we sneak into the lich’s caves, then we take out most ofthe 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 gallantlyoffered his hand to haul the little faerie up onto her feet. “For a while, Ithought we were in trouble!”
“Yeah, silly you.” Escall
a tapped her fingers together,trying to make vague ideas feel better than they looked. “As I said, the detailswill 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. Havingslaughtered 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.
Escalla’s plans were detailed, concise, and foolproof. Inaccordance with these directives, something went “chink” against the beholder’sarmored shell, rebounded, and fell rattling to the floor. Utterly unharmed, the beholder swiveled around to look at the offending object. Lying on the floor, the drugged crossbow bolt lay pointing back down the corridor like an accusing finger.
Still frozen with his empty crossbow pointed at the beholder, Private Henry crouched behind a pile of rubble. The boy squeaked, the beholder roared, and a beam lashed out to blast a huge chunk from the rocks overhead. Henry ducked and fled like a hare. The boy’s wail of panic brought the beholdershooting out of its cave like a cork popping from a bottle.
Spells shot from the beholder’s upper eyestalks, blastingrock as Henry wove madly through the caves. With a shuddering roar, the beholder flew down the tunnels. As the monster flashed past, Escalla swung out of hiding. The girl gave a nasty little grin and fired her very best charm monster spell right into the beholder’s unprotected back.