Descent into the Depths of the Earth (23 page)

Another yawn came, this time wider than the last. “Spell
shields, black tentacles, lightning bolts, couple of magic walls…”

Cinders’ fur was obscenely soft and silky. Escalla lay with
her head propped on her elbow, a little blanket drawn up over herself as she
worked. “A few”—another yawn—“few utilities. A charm… charm monster spell.”

It seemed a good idea to rest her eyes for a while, then
awaken Polk for his turn on guard. Full of good intentions, Escalla never even
felt herself slide beautifully off into the world of sleep.

The fire died down. The uneaten bits of roasted spider
cooled. Cinders lay in a warm fuzzy daze, his tail occasionally twitching. In
the caverns, all was peace and quiet as the water drip-drip-dripped endlessly
from the mildewed walls.

After a long, peaceful time, the sound of movement came from
the passageway. Bumbling along the tunnel came a single silly shape—a creature
questing forward behind an absurd pair of long, thin feelers. Armored in a
sturdy shell and searching the dark with addled eyes, the creature hunted after
a particular delicious smell that seemed to quiver in the air.

The scent came from the travelers’ cave. Edging forward, the
creature pat-pat-patted with its feelers, tasting eagerly at the air. It stole
forward just a little way, saw Escalla lying on the hell hound skin and the
other figures wrapped in blankets by the fire. The creature shrank and kept
perfectly still—timid and frightened—but the only sound was Escalla making
little chipmunk noises in her sleep.

The scent struck—sharp and utterly delicious! Overcoming
fear, the creature edged slowly forward, then suddenly saw its prize lying on
the cave floor nearby. Its feelers reached out toward the Justicar. A long tail
tipped with strange propeller-like blades waved happily in the darkness as the
creature carefully began to feed.

Several minutes passed, then quite suddenly, Escalla shot
bolt upright in bed, her eyes wide open and staring at the dark.

“Dad! The sculptures of me were all fakes. I swear!”

The creature froze, then bolted off in panic, its belly full
and its legs galloping off into the gloom.

Far behind the fleeing creature, Escalla collapsed back in
bed. Sleeping the deep sleep of the just, she snored raucously for many long and
uneventful hours to come.

“ESCALLA!”

The noise shot Escalla up out of her bed, eyes wide open and
her hands moving to snatch spellbooks, pens, and scrolls to look as though she
were still working. She blinked about in a daze, only to see Jus looming over
the dead campfire and wringing something in his hands. The faerie instantly
turned invisible.

“It wasn’t me! It was Polk!”

Polk awoke in a mad confusion of blankets. “It’s a lie! A
lie!”

“Of course it’s a lie!” Jus whirled, uncannily able to see
right through Escalla’s invisibility. “You slept on guard!”

“It’s not my fault! I was working! Everyone knows I fall
asleep when I’m working!” Now near the ceiling, Escalla took shelter behind a
stalactite. “Look. Everyone’s still alive. What is your problem?”

Hundreds of pounds of stubble-headed fury paced like an
enraged cave bear below Escalla’s hiding place.

“This
is the problem!” Jus waved the wolf-skull hilt of
his sword. “My sword! Something’s eaten the whole blade of my sword!”

The black blade was now nothing but a rusted stump about half
a finger long. Escalla blinked back into view, hoping that calming words and a
nervous grin were better than calming words alone.

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“Then whose fault was it?!?” Jus’ bellow must have reached
halfway to the drow citadel. “We left you in charge!”

“Well, Cinders was there!”

“Cinders is still humming away from some damned idiot’s
repair spell! We’ll be lucky if he wakes up before lunchtime!”

Huge with anger, the Justicar paced back and forth, his
furious eye always fixed upon Escalla.

“That sword saw me through a hundred fights. That sword
wasn’t stopped by any blade. That sword was the only thing I had to keep us
alive long enough to beat your damned murder charge!”

Private Henry peeked out from behind a stalagmite. “Murder?”

“It’s a bum rap!” Escalla shot a comment at the boy, then
squeaked as Jus’ hand fastened around her and dragged her down to face him.
“All right, I made a teeny error of judgment! I was tired, man! Those drow
really blasted me!” The girl clasped her hands. “I’m really sorry. Really really
really sorry! Really really really really
amazingly
sorry! Now will you
just calm down?”

Jus released the faerie and sat down, fuming angry and
swearing at the dark. Polk cleared his throat to speak, but Escalla waved the
man down before he could make a bad situation worse.

“Jus? We can get you another sword.”

“We are in the bowels of the earth a hundred miles from
anywhere!” Jus seethed, his head stubble standing up like porcupine quills.
“Where were you planning on going shopping?”

“Hey! We’ve got swords! See! Lots of swords!” In a mad panic
to head off Jus’ rage, Escalla spilled captured drow short swords all over the
floor. “See? These are swords.”

The drow weapons were scarcely eighteen inches long. Jus
picked one up, the weapon looking like a toothpick in his hand. He dropped it
and sat down to brood, seething in annoyance at the whole wide world.

Escalla wrung her hands in misery and hovered at his side.
“Jus… ?”

“I’m really mad, Escalla.”

“I’ll make it up to you. I promise! I’ll find a better sword,
a much much better one.” The girl bit her thumb in shame. “And I’m really sorry
about falling asleep. I stayed up for
hours
working, man. Honest.”

He smoldered. Escalla ended up in his arms, trying her very
best to be contrite.

“I promise you I’ll do the next thr—err, two things you order
me to do without question. All right?” Anxious and much cowed, Escalla sketched
a little salute. “Promise.”

Looking at the sad little stub of his sword—the wolf skull
pommel still intact, but the blade a total ruin—Jus sank into a bearlike sulk.

“I pulled that sword out of my dead master’s hands back in
the Iuz wars. Killed the wight that was after me. Saved my life a thousand
times.” Bitterly unhappy, Jus sheathed the blade stub then jammed a drow dagger
through his belt. “We’d better find some proper armament before we run into any
more of our murderer’s little friends.”

There was a shy shuffle from behind. Looking up at the
Justicar, Private Henry cleared his throat and timidly offered his sword.

“Sir? I’m really not much use with it.” The boy unsheathed
the first few inches of the blade and looked down at his feet. “I watched you
fight. I… I could never be a fighter like that.”

The Justicar looked down at the boy with a sudden grim pride.
Rage and annoyance forgotten, he laid a hand on Private Henry’s shoulder.
“What’s your name again, son?”

“Henry.”

“Thank you, Henry.” Jus hefted the boy’s sword, then laid it
back in Henry’s hands. “Keep it. You’ll need it. You kept a drow off my back.
Well done.”

Henry slumped in self-made misery. “It was only one, and she
would have killed me if it wasn’t for the faerie.”

Perking instantly up, Escalla whirred over to the rescue.

“Spell! Ha! That’s right! That was
a. faerie
spell!”
The girl dusted off Henry’s helmet in pride. “Didn’t they ever tell you about
faerie magic? That spell is only effective if the recipient is pure of heart.”
Escalla smoothed the boy’s hair and jerked his collar straight. “You’ve got the
right stuff, kid. Magic never lies. Now let’s get moving. We need your sharp
eyes covering the rear while we go find Jus a new sword!”

Private Henry drew himself fully upright, reaching almost to
Jus’ chest. Full of pride and energy, he clapped a bolt into his crossbow,
squared his helmet, and marched off into the passageway. Watching him go, Jus
cradled Escalla in the crook of his arm.

“Was that true about that spell?”

“What, stoneskin?” Escalla pulled her nose. “Naah! But look
how good it made him feel.” The girl spread her wings and whirred into the air.
“Come on, J-man! Time’s wasting, and that slowglass is gettin’ halfway to drow
central!”

Jus sighed and hung back a few moments to use his healing
spells to cure his wounds. Unarmed yet still dangerous, he stalked out of the
cave mouth and moved into the dark.

They walked into the vile tunnel, water dripping and worms
slithering wetly through the mold about them. Polk marched unsteadily, dwarfed
by the pack of loot balanced on his shoulders. Somehow the little man never
minded the load, being driven onward by sheer bloody-mindedness as he cleaved
the dark like an icebreaker forging through a polar sea. Coming level with
Escalla, he shot the girl a long glance, swelled his pigeon chest, and cleared
his throat. “Discipline!”

“What?” Escalla eyed the man suspiciously. “Polk, have you
been reading those stories about dryads again?”

“Discipline!” Polk sniffed, never to be swayed from his
purpose once he had begun. “That’s what you need. Rewards never come by
accident. Since the fall of evil is a reward to the good, the good need
discipline, application, a sense of responsibility!”

The faerie made a face and simply stopped listening. “Yeah
yeah. Blah-blah-blah. The faerie fell asleep, so it’s
her
fault Jus’
sword got eaten!”

Walking just ahead of her, Jus raised one finger without
bothering to look around. “Escalla.”

“Yes?”

“Order number one. For the next hour, listen very closely to
everything Polk has to say.”

Escalla shot Jus a look that could kill, glowered, then sat
herself atop Polk’s backpack, propping her chin in her hands. Swelling grandly,
Polk marched doggedly along behind the Justicar and tucked his thumbs into his
braces.

“Well now! You see, back when I was a lad, schoolin’ was
different.
Focus,
that’s what they gave us—focus and a sense of worth.
Why, once I remember I gave my lunch to another little boy because his family
was poor. Day after day I helped him out. No credit wanted! No fuss! In those
days you spoke when you were spoken to! Kept your thoughts to yourself. Lesson I
learned to heart!”

Escalla sighed, propped her elbows on her knees, and endured.

* * *

The locator needle pointed northwest. Ignoring side tunnels
and slimy caves, the group moved northwards in skill and silence, watching
carefully for sign of ambush. Their path continued sloping downward, descending
in occasional steps and terraces where waterfalls of slime trickled slowly in
the shadows.

Jus knelt to examine strange footprints he found gleaming
wetly on the fungi here and there. None of the marks were fresh, but they gave a
horrible feeling of presence, of a hidden life lurking always just out of sight.

Miles passed. It was a weird limbo in which time scarcely
seemed to exist. One patch of fungi-smothered tunnel could have been any other,
and the underdark was sealed away from the rhythms of night and day. Drifting
from his peaceful haze, Cinders’ eyes finally gleamed bright again. He wriggled
himself into place across the Justicar’s warm back and said,
Hi!

“Hello.” Jus carefully examined a hanging curtain of mold for
danger, then led the party well away from the obstruction. “Nice rest?”

Nice!
The hell hound wagged his tail, his grin gleaming
like a nightmare.
Cinders better!

“Well, wake up and keep your ears open.” Jus cautiously
steered Escalla away from an innocent looking covey of screamer fungi. “We’re in
trouble. I lost my sword.”

Cinders help!
His long black tail went wag-wag-wag.
Fun!

The main pathway dissolved into a maze of interlocking
caverns—some large, some small. Jus squatted down and had Escalla consult the
locator needle, choosing a route that seemed to lead in the required direction.
The team ducked one by one beneath a low ceiling and walked uncomfortably
crab-wise between shallow pools of slime. They emerged into a new cave, where
the lost tunnel reappeared.

Escalla heaved a sigh of relief at having found the right
path again, waved the others to follow her, only to freeze, turn invisible, and
dart madly back down amongst the mounds of bat dung.

“Down!”

Three shapes hovered in the gloom, bobbing malevolently up
and down. They were huge, grim spheres, each one topped with a cluster of eye
stalks and with one huge eye glaring off into the dark. Gaping mouths slashed
across the arc of the spheres, mouths crammed with fangs that seemed to thirst
for blood.

In a mad panic, Escalla grabbed Polk and Jus by the ears,
trying to tow them back into the caves.