Queen of the Demonweb Pits

by Paul Kidd - (ebook by Flandrel; Undead)

  Escalla tucked her frost wand under one arm, held her lich staff and the portable hole in taloned feet, and soared up along a titanic strand of spider web. She slowed near the silver mist and edged into it slowly, blinking her eyes against the sudden change in atmosphere.

  The place smelled even worse than the Abyss. Escalla had found a dead tarantula in a box once, and this new reek had something of that eye-watering stench about it. Coughing and wiping her eyes, the faerie fluttered over to a strand of web and looked around.

  The webs formed giant roads that led to a solid silver wall. One strand headed to vast doors six stories high—apparently the entrance for the spider palace. Escalla headed over to another strand, looking for somewhere decent to set down, then spied a small door of arsenic green.

  The door was attended by two figures—one female, blindfolded with a shawl over her hair, and the other a tiny demon sitting at a desk and surrounded by quills. Alcoves to either side showed the presence of at least twenty armed and armored drow.

  No problem. Escalla flew straight for the imp, bypassing the drow entirely. From the mouth of the portable hole, Jus’ voice came hissing out.

  “Escalla, are we across the river yet?”

  “Almost! Now shh! There’s a big fish or something here!”

  Escalla flapped up to the little demon, wrestling madly with the portable hole, and screeched to a halt. Her command of tanar’ri language came from one term of classes she had slept through at school. Bawling in a panic, Escalla skidded onto the desk outside the door.

  “Hey-lo! Hey-lo! Deliverings is! Special things deliverings—yes! Moment is impregnated with urgency. Hoopla!”

  The little demon scowled and tapped an absurdly long quill on the desk. The blindfolded woman leaned forward, and something hissed and writhed beneath her shawl. Escalla pretended to fight with the struggling portable hole, wailing in panic and trying to hold it back.

  “Yours now! For you! Not mine! I go!”

  In theory, the demon would fear the bag and wave her through. Unfortunately, the creature hopped up onto the desk and pointed at the portable hole, sensing something alarming inside and apparently demanding an explanation. Escalla screamed and ran out of patience a split second before the demon.

  “Tedious conversation anyway.” Escalla hit the creature with her lich staff, slinging it across the desk to crash into a pile of papers, and turned into her beautiful faerie self. “Hey, uglies! See this faerie butt? Silken pure!” She whirred backward, dashing off into the mists. “Lolth sucks rocks! Lolth sucks rocks!”

  There was a roar of rage. A female voice screamed, and there was a hissing of snakes. Drow yelled at one another, armored feet tramping as they poured from their guardrooms. Escalla fled on foot, theatrically dragging one leg and wing behind her. The snakes hissed a foot or two behind her, and then Escalla laughed and broke into a run.

  Another alcove opened up in the wall. Escalla dodged into it, finding a short corridor that took a sharp turn to the right. The maddened hiss of vipers followed, and shadows on the walls showed a woman with hair made from a writhing mass of snakes pelting behind Escalla, followed by a dozen angry drow.

  Escalla fired her frost wand at the wall ahead then dived, hitting the wall and running madly around the bend. She screeched to a halt as a sound of crashing stone and breaking glass filled the corridor.

  The wall at the corner shed a last few jagged shards of ice, the sheets crashing down onto a pile of broken stone at the foot of the wall. The medusa had been confronted with a wall of reflective ice, and her gaze had totalled the entire guard contingent. They had turned to stone, hit the wall, and broken like a pile of garden gnomes. Escalla flew over the wreckage, spotted one drow still alive and unparalyzed, and bopped it unconscious with a single blow of her staff.

  From inside the portable hole, Jus’ voice whispered in panic, “Escalla, what happened?”

  “Ha! The inevitable happened!” Escalla blew a wisp of frost from the tip of her wand. “The faerie is dealing with inferior mentalities! Now come out of that hole! We’re at Lolth’s back door.”

  The faerie threw the portable hole down on the ground. Escalla posed happily over the broken statues as her friends dazedly emerged.

  “Hey, look! Wreck of the Medusa!” Escalla spied some gems gleaming about the rubble pile. “Hoopy! All this fun and cash, too!”

  Annoyed, the Justicar looked over the scene. “Escalla!”

  “Hey! She has some nice stuff here, and we’re out of treasure!” The girl found a necklace of amber. “Ooo! Hey, Enid! Catch! This ought to pick up the color of your eyes!” The faerie coiled close into Enid’s hair as she fastened the necklace about her friend. “You know a girl has to look her best.”

  “Best?” Enid flicked a glance at Henry and blushed pink. “Why?”

  “No special reason.” Fluttering upward, Escalla led the way to Lolth’s back door. “All right! Tour leading to the Demonweb Pits, now departing!”

  The Justicar seethed with ill humor. He kicked shards of petrified drow out of his way and pursued Escalla up the corridor.

  “You promised you were just going to cross the river.”

  “We’re across the river! Hey! Riverbanks can be kind of vague! I mean, what’s a riverbank, anyway? Is it where the river stops? Is it where the river once dried? Wetlands, water meadows…”

  “Escalla!”

  “Hey! We’re here! Trust your favorite faerie.” Escalla inspected the petrified demon and stored it in the portable hole for later use as a garden ornament. “We can sneak in here. I did good!”

  The Justicar looked at Henry as Polk bustled happily past them for the door.

  “This is the way it’s done, son! Direct, forthright, to the point!”

  “Polk, shut up. Don’t touch the door. It probably has an alarm spell or a trap on it.” The Justicar carefully inspected the little demon’s desk. “Everyone look around carefully. Watch for traps. There might be a key or a password somewhere.”

  “What about this?” Enid laid her face sideways on the ground, where she could take a closer look at a silver sphere the size of a lemon that had fallen off the desk. “Is this a key?”

  “Oh! Is it valuable?” Escalla shot over to Enid like a lightning bolt. “Is it a pearl? A giant pearl?”

  “No. I think it looks more like a spider egg.” Enid batted the object with one paw, and it broke. “Oh, dear.”

  The sphere had been hollow, and it contained a collection of little objects: a tiny iron pyramid, a silver ball, a little bronze star, and a pale blue crystal. The Justicar took possession of them before Escalla could take one and break it.

  “Keys or identity passes.” The green door itself was horrible to look upon. The metal seemed to have been pressed out of tortured, screaming faces. “No one touch the door. Polk, do not touch the door! Polk!”

  Polk touched the door. The badger simply butted his head against it to push it open. The door instantly glowed a blazing, hellish green, and three bolts of energy shot silently along the corridor. Jus and Enid ducked. Escalla looked up with interest. Having managed to miss the entire group, the energy bolts faded, and the door was open.

  Polk looked back at Jus in irritation and gave a superior little waddle of his feet.

  “Son, what are you doing lookin’ for clues down there? The adventures this way, son! This way! You’re addled, son.” The badger walked through the door. “Got to sharpen up your game. Fate keeps pitchin’, and you keeps missin’!”

  Through the door came a deep silver mist. Stinking and sour, it was as impenetrable as quicksilver. The Justicar unsheathed his sword and moved carefully for the door as Cinders searched the mist. With Escalla at his side, Enid behind, and Henry covering the rear, the Justicar edged into the Demonweb.

  * * *

  At the edge of the River Lethe, amidst the surge and roar of the titanic waterfall, a shape stood over a butchered body. Golden armor and an eagle helm flaked shards of rust, torn
across the chest to show the ragged wound where a living heart once had been. A human hand ended one arm, and the undead monster stooped to sever the foot from a dead, bleeding denizen of the Abyss. The living cadaver held the foot against the stump of its ankle. Tendrils of flesh bound the new foot in place. Able to walk once more, the snarling corpse looked through the soot of the Abyss toward the titanic spider webs beyond.

  Behind Recca lay a hissing raft of vipers. Recca stared across the howling Abyss, turned his back upon the river Lethe, and walked onward, hunting for his prey….

  They stood upon a pathway of slick, polished stone suspended in the middle of a yawning, empty gulf. The path was wide, flat, without walls or ceiling, like a bridge through an abyss of fog.

  Faces distorted in pain and terror formed and vanished in the mists before being torn apart by violent winds that never seemed to stir the air. Inside the stone surface of the path, flattened figures scratched and pleaded. Escalla looked about, a little crestfallen, and pulled on her chain mail.

  “Oh, this is so un-hoopy.” The girl winced and shifted her feet. “Jus, I think I’m treading on someone’s soul.”

  Only the soul of a sinner. Benelux gave a prim little shimmer of disdain. Go ahead, dear. Scuff your feet. The blighter deserved it.

  “Spiky, go stick your head up a rust monster’s bum.” Escalla decided to solve the problem with flight, and her wings whirred into action.

  Staring about the mists, Henry jerked his crossbow left to right, covering shapes that screamed and swirled.

  “What is this place?” asked the young soldier.

  “The Demonweb.” Of them all, only the Justicar seemed undisturbed. He scanned the pathway, looking for tracks. “This is the antechamber to Lolth’s home plane.”

  Henry looked around and slowly stood straight. “So where’s the spider palace?”

  “Looked like it went above us.” The Justicar rested a hand upon Henry’s shoulder and pointed overhead. “Somewhere up there.”

  “Can we fly up and see?”

  Still whirring her wings but still very much on the ground, Escalla’s face had gone red. She flapped with all her might, the rising whine of her wings drawing the party’s attention one by one. The faerie jumped madly up into the air, and still she failed to get aloft.

  Enid carefully scratched her ear with one hind paw. “Oh, dear. There may be a few technical difficulties with that plan.”

  Escalla leaped and jumped, rapidly losing her temper. “Fly! Come on, damn it! Fly!”

  “Escalla?” Jus finally solved the problem by grabbing the angry faerie by the scruff of her clothes. “Escalla! Stop. This is Lolth’s plane. Laws are different here.”

  “Laws!” Escalla kicked and struggled. “I hate laws! Law represses freedom, and loss of freedom is tyranny!”

  “Physical laws, Escalla. Like gravity.”

  “You mean we have to walk while we’re in here?” Escalla allowed herself to be put on Jus’ shoulder. “That is so un-hoopy! People will think I’m a brownie or something.”

  “Not with a backside like that. Perfect lift and pinch.” The Justicar studied the mists that surrounded the path. “On top of the spider palace, none of you could fly. The same laws must have applied.”

  Enid blinked. “Oh, meaning we’re supposed to walk along these paths?”

  “Meaning the paths are a guardian maze.” Shrugging, the Justicar looked around. “This is the way Lolth guards her door.”

  The Justicar and Cinders took point, with Escalla sitting on Jus’ shoulder, her frost wand cradled on her knees. Enid, Polk, and Henry came behind. They moved silently, while all around them, lost souls screamed inside a universe of fog.

  Footfalls had an unnatural silence. There were no walls to throw back echoes, no stones to shift and rattle. Enid’s big soft paws, the Justicar’s careful tread, Henry’s boots, and Escalla’s feet—none made more than the slightest sound upon the horrible pavement. The floor with its images of screaming faces and clawing hands throbbed as warm as flesh.

  The path turned at sharp ninety-degree angles—turning, then turning again. Escalla edged as close as she dared to the brink of the path and looked down. Below her through the mist, she could dimly see another path identical to the one she trod.

  “Hey! Look!”

  They all looked down and traced the shape of another path that ran at right angles to them forty feet below. It was almost invisible in the horrible, haunted mist. Escalla looked carefully about, her sharp eyes spying other shapes in the mist up above. There was a maze of paths above and below, locked together like pieces of a puzzle.

  “The palace was headed for the top of the web. Should we try and climb up?”

  “Don’t put temptation in front of the boy.” Polk sat on his haunches like a mouse, unable to see more than a few feet into the mist. “We have to do the maze. Defeat the guardians! We can’t complete the adventure without killin’ all the guardians.”

  “Polk, shut up.” The Justicar looked up through the mists, judging their jerk and flow. “How do we get up there?”

  Escalla rubbed her hands together in glee. “We have the tangle rope! The one Jus got from the erinyes!”

  “Too short.” Cinders had burned through that rope in a fight long, long ago. It was now only twelve feet long and hung from the Justicar’s sword belt. “And there are ghosts in the mist.”

  They turned and surveyed the horrible shapes in the mist. By unanimous consent they all moved on, looking for the stairs and ladders they all felt sure must be there.

  The long, quiet walk went on—turn after turn, yard after yard. Walking softly at their head, the Justicar suddenly sank to his knees in silence, and the entire group froze in response.

  “Henry.”

  Around the next corner, dimly seen through the mist, four horrible shapes pattered along the path. They were whip scorpions the size of wolfhounds. Henry looked, knelt, and fired in one smooth action. His crossbow shuddered and threw out a stream of bolts from its magazine. Two scorpions staggered sideways, already curling as the poisoned darts struck home. The remaining two lifted their claws high like dogs locking the scent, and they raced straight at the party. Enid and Jus surged forward, but a swarm of golden darts shaped like bees streaked through the air, smashing chitin and blowing holes through the scorpions. The creatures staggered and died as a second strike blasted them off their feet.

  Escalla stood, her spell finger trailing a wisp of magic. The girl blew it away and gave a little shrug.

  “Henry and I will clean up the little stuff on the way.” The faerie used Cinders’ tail as a handhold as she scaled the Justicar. “Jus’ stoneskin will only block a few hits. We want to save it for when he fights Lolth.”

  The scorpions all wore silver bands about their tails. They had moved in unison, like a purposeful patrol. The party gave their bodies a wide berth, mistrusting the way the monsters twitched and oozed.

  The pathway led on. There were more turns, more twists, until finally the way fed into a junction. A door gleamed in the mist—a door that seemed to lead to nowhere. Jus pointed, and the party fanned out. Enid and Henry watched the other pathways while Jus, Cinders, and Escalla moved carefully to the door.

  The door simply hung in space, its bottom joined to the pathway, and its rear opening onto empty fog. Escalla peered behind it, shrugged, then cracked her knuckles. A careful search for traps, the approval of Cinders, and Escalla listened at the door with one pointy ear. She crept back to the others, her voice a sly little whisper.

  “There’s a room behind the door. I hear big things moving and arguing.”

  The Justicar nodded. “Cinders?”

  The hell hound’s nose wrinkled as Cinders was allowed to sniff at the crack beneath the door. Big fangs gleamed, and the dog wagged his tail.

  Stinky trolls!

  Escalla happily wagged her wings. “Oh! Hoopy!”

  “Guards!” Polk was overjoyed. He opened a tiny notebook stuck throu
gh his belt and began jotting notes into his endless chronicles. “We’re in luck, son! Killing guards is heroic! Blade to blade! Man to man! Pure heroism against the cunning of evil!”

  The rest of the party ignored him. Escalla leaned against the doorjamb, molded magic between her hands, and nodded. Jus kicked open the door, and Escalla gleefully launched a fireball into the space beyond. Everyone dived aside, leaving Polk blinking until Jus grabbed him by the fur and yanked him to safety.

  The fireball exploded, billowing flame across the path. Chunks of debris hurtled out the door, across the path, and were snatched by the fog. The Justicar jumped up. Henry stood in front of the door and drew his sword. As a burned, raging troll came lunging through the portal, the Justicar’s white sword sheared its head from its trunk. Benelux whipped blindingly fast into the stomach of a second troll. The big man kicked his victims back into the room and followed, his blade severing an arm from another troll, all in a single blur.

  Damaged trolls and severed troll parts began to grow and regenerate. The Justicar swept his gaze across the room, then parried a troll claw with his forearm before burying his sword in a monster’s skull.

  “Cinders!”

  The flame crashed like a wave across the trolls. The monsters screamed, reared, and writhed as they died. The hell hound gave a feral growl of pleasure as the trolls burned to a crisp. Jus flicked Benelux clean and sheathed her all in one silky, fluid move, rising from fighting stance to turn his back upon the room.

  Escalla was holding the slowglass gem up to her eye, recording the moment.

  “Got it!” The girl popped the gem back into her cleavage and then looked at the burning, ruined room with a sigh. “Gods I love it when you go all homicidal!”

  Escalla looked back along the path outside while Jus tore the burned hide from the corpses of trolls. Enid carefully smudged her feet in soot and walked out into the passage with Henry at her side.