Descent into the Depths of the Earth (27 page)

Sharper than
that! A sneer crept into the sword’s voice.
I was forged from pure metal from the positive energy plane.

“Do tell.” Escalla matched sarcasm for arrogance. “Meaning?”

Meaning that I have an adverse effect upon things of darkness
and creatures that draw power from the negative energy planes.

“Ooo! Like ghouls?”

Yes.

“And ghosts and wights and mummies?”

Yes.

“And demonic spider queens and liches?”

Yes!
Thoroughly annoyed, the sword had lost its temper.
Negative energy influenced creatures.

“Hoopy!”

The sword made a sneer.
I had no idea education standards
had dropped this low.

Giving the sword a wry look, Escalla pulled her nose. “Hey,
Spiky! Do you get out much—you know, hang out with other swords and stuff? Or
don’t
they
like you either?”

I can afford to be choosy.
The sword gathered its
dignity.
My last owner was a perfect gentleman. I must say, you are hardly an
adequate substitute.

“Lady, do I look like I’m going to be waving you around my
head and smiting the smitable?” Kicking away a probing rust monster antennae,
the faerie struggled to drag the huge sword to a safer place. “I’ve got you in
mind for a friend of mine.”

Full of suspicion, the sword hummed and hawed.
What sort
of friend?

“Oh, a warrior for good, upholds justice rather than the law,
death on wheels, cleaves things apart, that sort of thing.”

Is he skilled?

“I hope to kiss a duck the guy’s skilled!” Escalla dropped
the sword. “You’ll like him! Remember when you were a little kid at school?”

I am a magic sword. I was never a child at school.

Escalla ground her teeth. “Then remember when you were a
little baby poniard in the cutlery barrel?”

No.

“Hey! Just gimme the benefit of some creative self-projection
here!” Escalla slapped the sword’s sheath in annoyance. “Remember when you were
young and other critters came to bully you? Remember how you wished some big kid
would just stroll in out of the blue, scare the bad guys off, and look after
you?”

The sword’s voice sniffed in suspicion.
You’re saying your
friend is similar to that big child?

“Yes!” Grabbing the sword sheath, Escalla dragged it
underneath the shaft. “If that kid was about six foot six, shaven headed, could
tear mountain lions in half with his bare hands, and hung out with sentient hell
hound hides.”

The sword seemed confused.
That doesn’t seem a close match
to your comparison.

“So few metaphors stand up to close examination.” The girl
waved her hands in annoyance. “Are you coming to help my friend fight for
justice, or are you staying for lunch with mister rust monster over there?”

Supremely calm, the sword gave a huff.
I believe I shall
ascend and render assistance to your friend.

“Great. Could you quit grousing and try giving me a hand
here?”

Prim and proper, the sword gave a snort.
What is it
now?
What do you need?

“Well, if you don’t want to end up as rust monster food…”
Escalla swatted at a probing rust monster antennae yet again. “I suggest you
help me make a plan to get you up this shaft!”

You could use the rope over there in one corner of the cave.
The sword sighed.
Just give it to your friend and have him pull me up.

“What rope?”

The one over by the backpack full of scrolls.

With an unkind glare at the sword, Escalla wandered over to
the edge of the toadstool. Amongst a collection of dismembered skeletal remains
lay a backpack, a rope, and a broken lantern with all the metal bits missing.

“Stay here!”

Escalla whirred over to the rope and managed to retrieve it.
With much picking, she peeled away enough hemp stands to make a
three-hundred-foot long strip of hairy string. She tied one end about the sword,
scared the rust monster away with an illusion spell, then zipped up the shaft to
find Private Henry anxiously waiting for her return.

The girl handed Henry the end of the string and said, “Heave
ho. Company’s coming!”

“Company?” The young soldier blinked. “What sort of company,
ma’am?”

“Irritating company!” Escalla dived back down the shaft.
“There’s a blabber-mouthed sword on the end of the string. Bring it up when I
give you two tugs. Lower the line again once you’re done. There’s scrolls or
something down there, too.”

The transfer took about ten long minutes—time that Benelux
spent lecturing empty air on the shortcomings of the new generation of
adventurers. With the swords voice dwindling above her, Escalla took stock of
the spells written on a newfound scroll, gave a happy smile as she saw some
useful new magic, then sped up the shaft in pursuit of Benelux.

Up at the head of the shaft, Henry sat with the sword in his
lap, looking chastened and bemused. Benelux was in full flow, informing the boy
of the shortcomings of his uniform, when Escalla appeared and slapped the weapon
on its overly ornate, enameled sheath.

“Hey, Spiky! Meet Private Henry of the Keoland border guard.”

Indeed.
The sword was indignant.
Surely you do not
plan to put me in the hands of this child?

“Nope. Henry has enough troubles of his own.”

The beholder lay paralyzed at the rear of the cave, looking
angry but incapable of doing much about it. Escalla summoned her old trusty
Tensor’s Floating Disk spell beneath the beholder. The spell bore the monster on
a bobbing plate of magic force. Escalla had Henry toss the sword behind the
beholder, and the faerie happily sat astride the monster and rode the whole
contraption down the passageways.

“The grand plan! Step one: Catch a beholder. Step two: Get a
sword.” Pumping her fist like a cavalry general signaling the charge, Escalla
sent her ponderous cargo floating off down the corridor. “All right, Henry,
let’s do a quick stage three, then get this show on the road!”

Stepping confidently behind her and looking the part of a
conqueror, Private Henry checked his crossbow, drew himself straight, and
followed Escalla as the disk drifted off to who-knew-where. The caverns lay
empty, the dead ghouls decomposed, and Escalla’s voice argued with the magic
sword as she drifted off into the dark halls.

In a dark universe of fear, all manner of hideous creatures
had set their minds to inventing tortures to inflict on living souls.

There were tests.

There were punishments.

There were foul torments so horrific that even their creators
screamed at the very thought of them.

There were mind-wrenching terrors so foul that even the lords
of the Abyss dared not speak their names…

… And then there was being tied back to back with Polk
the Teamster.

Two hours, and Polk was still talking.

“…see, a
real
hero
anticipates
trouble,
son, has a sixth sense—warnings from the gods, uncanny awareness, a taste for
subtle hints… ! That’s your problem, son. No sense for danger. No ability to
know when death is imminent!”

Polk leaned his head back against the stalagmite at his back.
Behind him, Jus tried to heave on his own ropes and use the pressure to strangle
Polk to death, but the bugbears had used too many knots and turns. Jerking at
his ropes in fury, Jus flung his head about to try and catch sight of Polk
behind him.

“Polk,
shut up.”

“See? Now I knew you were going to say that. That’s
anticipation, son! That’s what you have to learn.” Polk sighed sorrowfully and
contemplated the sad state of the world. “Guess I still have to train you. Guess
the fault’s all mine. I see errors, son, and I’m too forgiving, too quiet! I
just let ’em slide. I don’t comment—too polite, that’s always been my failing.
Never say an unkind word. Try to let fellers figure things out for themselves. A
doctrine of non-interference, son! That’s my way. I’m too quiet!”

Jerking back and forth to try and break his ropes, Jus
breathed heavily, his eyes bloodshot with an utterly volcanic rage.

“Polk, enough.”

“Well, that’s nice of you to say, son. I see what you’re
getting at. The way I teach you is good enough for normal folks, but you’re just
a bit slow on the uptake, thick as a plank…” Polk gave a concerned shake of
his head. “Ain’t
your
fault, son! All great heroes have a few failings.
It’s just up to people like me to make allowances. It’s my own mistake. I didn’t
take you properly in hand. ‘Let the young feller learn from his own mistakes’, I
said. ‘Experience is the best teacher’, I said.” The teamster gave a tragic
sigh. “I should have been more forthright, guided you better. Now we’re just
gonna be fed to a demonic demigod, and that’s that.”

His hands tied behind his back, Jus flexed his fingers with
the need to crush and rend.

“What?”

“Fed to demons, son. These drow are agents of evil. Stands to
reason they have demonic overlords. Stands to reason overlords have to be fed.”
Clucking his tongue, Polk leaned around the pillar to look back at the Justicar.
“Son, that’s what I mean. You ain’t got a logical mind.”

They both sat roped back to back, tied to a huge, solid
stalagmite. Bruised, cut, and gouged, the Justicar was still smothered with
blood. Savage and dangerous, the Justicar watched events in the lich’s caverns
with predatory interest.

They were tied beside a slave caravan. A line of dispirited
bugbears, goblins, and troglodytes—apparently failed tribe members—were chained
in a line beside a reeking pack lizard. Drow merchants and guards lounged
nearby, breathing perfumes, drinking wines, and idling away their time. The
merchant leader walked languidly behind his men, seeming utterly unconcerned.
Jus took stock of each drow, the position of their weapons, and the location of
intervening cover.

The lich’s cave, a dark cavern opening from which hundreds of
soft voices were murmuring, stood only thirty feet away to the north. Beyond
that, the main cavern was relatively empty. Four bugbears stood guard at the
southern entrance—the one through which Escalla would come when she started her
rescue. The rest of the cave sloped away eastward where it became warrens for
the mutually hostile tribes of bugbears and troglodytes. The two species were
ferociously antagonistic. Raw terror kept the stupid creatures in line—terror
and a greed for the rewards brought by service to the drow.

There were signs that another previous caravan had left only
hours before. Tracks and less wholesome spoor betrayed that Sour Patch’s lost
population had been brought here and then moved on. Conceivably this second,
smaller slave train was heading in the same direction.

A hooting noise began to grow and swell. Around the cavern,
colors shifted as troglodytes dropped their protective coloring. The chameleons
emerged from their guard posts on the walls and leaped clumsily to the floor,
expanding throat pouches to give off deep, ear-splitting
booms.

A huge troglodyte chieftain paced out from the warren caves.
Twenty warriors came with him—all huge lizards draped with belts made from badly
flayed goblin skins, some with the wet red skulls of victims still hanging in
their hands. They dragged prisoners along with them—six gnolls and a hobgoblin,
all gouged, bleeding, and nearly dead.

Scores of angry bugbears flowed out from the other warren
caves, following the troglodytes. Surly and snarling with jealousy, they eyed
the bleeding prisoners. Leaving the slave caravan, the drow merchants walked
over to meet the troglodyte leader and began talking in a braying, barking
tongue.

Troglodytes offered their captives to the drow, pointing at
the slave caravan. The prisoners were clearly too badly injured to march to the
caravan’s destination. The drow used gestures to reject the goods. Roaring in
anger, the troglodyte chieftain turned and bellowed to his followers, who
instantly gripped the captives and tore the creatures apart with their bare
hands. Screams echoed through the tunnels, and the troglodytes closed in like
piranha to feed on screaming, shrieking flesh.

Polk shrank back against his stalagmite in horror as he
watched the captives being eaten alive. “Ah, son? Have you an escape plan of
your own? Because mine still needs a little bit of work.”

“Polk,
quiet.”
The Justicar tensed, leaning forward to
gaze at the southern tunnel entrance. “Do what I damned well tell you the moment
it starts.”

Polk blinked and looked around at the Justicar. “It?”

* * *

Lurching up the southern passageway came a large pack lizard—a big thing covered in mildewed scales and occasional fungus growths. The
creature was led by a solitary drow—a thin, somewhat tall creature armed with a
heavy crossbow and with an unusually long sword slung over its back. Watching
the drow come closer to their cave, four bugbears at the cavern entrance came to
their feet.