Descent into the Depths of the Earth (35 page)

Polk followed the Justicar, carefully recording the route.
Henry brought up the rear, his crossbow at the ready. Escalla looked over her
companions in satisfaction, dusted a speck of lichen from Cinders’ freshly
brushed fur, then flew down to salute the skull-pommeled sword at Jus’ hip.

“How’s life on this beautiful subterranean morning?”

I am not talking to you.
The sword was in a most offended
huff.
You tricked me.

“What trick?” Escalla opened her hands, admiring the sword.
The wolf-skull pommel, the stark black grips… it all looked wonderfully
grim. “It’s dire, it’s dark, it’s minimalist. It’s a statement! This is a sword
for striking fear into… into… into folk who need to be fear strucken!”
The faerie fluttered along beside the sword. “This is
your
look. I
swear!”

The sword remained indignantly silent.

Unperturbed, Escalla shrugged and flew ahead to scout for
danger. As the party moved on, Benelux snorted then muttered in ill temper.
Justicar? I am beginning to feel your companion the faerie is perhaps a tad
tarnished.

“Yup.” The big man never once took his eyes away from
scanning the gloom. “Tarnished in some ways and surprisingly pure in others.”

Polk snickered, and from the corridor ahead, Escalla’s angry
voice drifted back. “I heard that!”

Cinders gave a brilliant grin.
Funny!

* * *

Half a mile beyond the ants, the tunnel opened out into a
great echoing cavern filled with ghastly phosphorescent light. A fortified wall
ran across the cave, pierced by a gate studded with bronze spikes. Guards
patrolled the wall above, and more guards stood at the gate. They were
drow—ebony skinned, silver haired, and sinister.

Jus lay flat in cover with Henry at his side, both carefully
scanning the distant scene. Behind them, Escalla watched master and student at
their work.

“A guard post has at least four times as many soldiers as you
can see.” Jus carefully pointed out the hidden spy holes in the distant wall.
“There’s probably thirty drow soldiers with commanders, a priest, and a powerful
sorcerer as back-up.”

Trying to count the drow, Henry bit his lip. “How do we kill
them all?”

“No point.” Jus shrugged. “Escalla, what have we got spell
wise? You had some scrolls?”

“Yeah. All earth ones. Stone to flesh, flesh to stone, dig,
pass wall. That kind of thing.” The faerie patted the scroll case slung across
her back. “I can make a hole through the wall, but we’d still be seen.”

Behind Jus, Benelux made an irritated little noise and spoke
to Polk.
The drow city is nearby, and that means there’s work to do.
The
sword wriggled unhappily in its sheath.
We can’t fight stone walls. I do wish
they’d just find a way to sneak past.

“They’d never consider it! No, it’ll be a frontal attack,
blades swinging—courage against all odds!” Polk gave a self important puff of
his chest. “These people are adventurers. They’re the slayers of Keraptis,
conquerors of White Plume Mountain, masters of the underdark!”

Escalla appeared, peeking over Polk’s shoulder as he spoke.
“Polk, have you got those gee-gaws we found on the drow guard post back before
the trogs? You know, those spider amulets?”

“Yes! Yes I do!” Polk had proudly organized the portable
hole’s storage space and had inventoried every single item. “Six medallions,
black, spider images on the reverse!”

“Hoopy!” Escalla held out her hand. “Pass ’em over! I’m gonna
talk our way past these guards.”

Polk and Benelux gave an almost identical squawk—
“Talk?”
—but had no choice in the matter.

The faerie led the way into the middle of the cavern. Polk
hung at the rear, kicking toadstools. Escalla flew straight up to the drow,
tipped them a salute, and presented them with one of the black medallions. Her
other hand was behind her back, readying a spell.

A drow passed a detection spell over the girl, seeking to
discern whether she was a secret agent of purity and goodness. The spell
inevitably came up blank. The drow consulted one another, made a note in a
record book, then opened up the gates to let the party through.

Walking past the guards, Polk shot a sidewise look at the
dark elves and then glared at the other adventurers.

“That’s it?” the teamster whispered hoarsely. “We’re just
walkin’ though?”

“Yep!” Escalla tied the spider medallion about her neck. Her
suspicions were growing richer. “And the drow were amazingly unsurprised to see
a faerie pass them by. How about that?”

“We’re just leaving then?”

“Polk, there are waaay more drow in the world that we have
time to bump off! Now if you want to get to the drow city, just shut up and
march.”

* * *

The long tunnels were joined now by other paths. A reeking
drow merchant caravan plodded past, guarded by warriors and trailing a swarm of
flies. Cinders growled as he passed the drow, and Jus firmly kept the hell
hound’s snout pointing toward the walls.

Dark elves glared as the party passed. Escalla nodded and
waved in response, her grin staying even as she sweated in fright.

“Oooh, we are going to get so killed!” The drow caravan had
an armed escort of a dozen trolls—massive green creatures that dragged their
knuckles as they walked. Escalla gave them a tinkling little wave. “I’m gonna
kick the arse of that Seelie Court when we get home.”

Jus kept a quiet eye on the disappearing drow. He walked
slowly and carefully, one hand resting upon Benelux, his eyes spearing every
shadow. Above his head, Cinders’ red eyes gleamed as they searched into the
dark.

The tunnels were now a well traveled road with the marks of
thousands of marching, hopping, or dragging feet. Walls grew farther apart, the
glowing fungi seemed deliberately tended, and nightmarish streaks of
phosphorescent minerals added their pulsing light. The miles went slowly past,
and then quite suddenly the tunnel walls simply disappeared.

Standing in a great, gloomy silence, Escalla, the Justicar,
Polk, Cinders, and Private Henry gazed upon the vault of the drow.

It was a vast, empty space in which echoes simply died. A
cliff wall soared into unknown distances above, dwarfing the adventurers below.
A roof arched upward, disappearing into the distance a thousand yards above, the
ceiling’s arc shown by nebulous sprays and swirls of colors stolen from a
madman’s dreams.

The caverns stretched for untold miles. Overhead, a great
bloated node of minerals stole a lurid glow across the scene. Light the color of
blood seeped across the rocks, making each formation shimmer with sickly colors
all its own. There were pale blues and acid yellows. Clouds of blue spores
drifted from titanic mushrooms that loomed into the sky.

Half hidden in the eerie hush, noises drifted in the gloom:
distant night creatures gave screams and cries or wept like children and sighed
awful promises. There was no wind. The air never stirred, and the false stars
upon the ceiling were dead and cold.

The light made all shapes flat and lifeless and turned
familiar colors into startling new hues. Escalla hovered, staring at the hideous
kingdom, and her bared skin shone a cadaverous lavender-blue. The Justicar
turned to look at her and slowly raised a smile.

“Lavender?” Jus seemed amused. “Heh.”

“Lavender!” Recoiling in panic, Escalla almost expired in
shame. She was utterly appalled as she looked at her own usually milk-white
flesh. “Lavender! Aww man! What sort of style credibility is lavender?” Escalla
whirled, trying to see her rear.

The cave gave an impression of vast, terrifying space, yet
the light was dim enough to make vision fail to see more than a few hundred
yards. A path of crushed crystal ran out of the tunnel. Overhung with stinking
toadstools in which gibbering little creatures lurked, the path shone a horrible
violet-blue. Jus stepped cautiously onto the crystals, felt them crunch like
bird skulls underfoot, then led the way forward into the emptiness.

The huge, dark figure of the Justicar seemed utterly
indestructible. Having hesitated at the threshold, Escalla and Private Henry
moved instantly onward in the Justicar’s wake. Simply being near him seemed
protection against the horrors of the unseen. Standing and writing in his book
of chronicles, Polk finished a paragraph with satisfaction, looked up to find
that he was standing alone, and ran after the other explorers as fast as he
could.

A tower loomed above the path—a savage shape framed by
impaled corpses that were gnawed and worried by jabbering creatures of the dark.
Lit by stars that were not stars, the carnivorous beasts tore strips of flesh
from corpses and cackled as they ate.

The magic sword at Jus’ side stirred softly in its scabbard.
Undead.

“I see them.” Jus kept his voice low. “We’re too near the
tower to risk killing them.”

Ah.
The sword seemed thoughtful.
I take it we shall
pursue such aims later? If so, I believe I can coach you in appropriate heroic
rhetoric.

“I look forward to it!”

A checkpoint barred the road ahead. Drow stood to watch the
party approach, while others leaned over the parapets of the tower. A freshly
impaled victim still jerked and twitched beside the road, blood pouring out to
seep through the glowing crystal path. Jus looked upon the sight and bristled
like a vast, dark animal.

“We have a very great deal of work to do.”

Drow soldiers stirred—males left to do the dirty work while
their dark sisters indulged their appetites in the tower.

Escalla whirred forward, producing her black medallion for
the guards, and announced, “Greetings.”

The senior guard looked at Escalla as though she were filth
from underneath a stone. The drow took the medallion, tossed it into a basket,
then wiped his hands upon a cloth as though they were suddenly unclean. The
elf’s voice, oddly accented, dripped with scorn, soft and sibilant, sweet as
poisoned syrup and utterly foul. “Why have you come?”

It was Escalla’s moment to shine. Dressed in artfully torn
black silks, she arrogantly threw back her long blonde hair and disdainfully
looked the dark elf up and down.

“I have business. Business far too complex for a mere elf to
understand.” The girl flicked a hand toward the other adventurers. “These three
humans are my retainers.”

Escalla very deliberately ran her fingers into her hair,
lifting her glorious golden locks. The spider pin gleamed, and the drow
instantly stiffened and backed a step away. Weapons wavered and then pointed
aside.

“Go.” Looking as though the words choked him, the chief drow
motioned for his men to let the travelers pass. “Go along the right hand path to
the city. Do not deviate.”

“As you wish.” Escalla made a wave as she turned away,
muttering beneath her breath. “And a nice day to you, you walking sphincter!”

Followed by her entourage, Escalla began to move away.

As he passed, the Justicar turned, vast and deadly, and
looked coldly down at the drow.

“When did a convoy of two hundred slaves pass here?”

The drow sneered.

Escalla snapped an icy glare at the elves. “Answer him.”

Reluctantly, the elf shot a glance at Escalla’s golden hair
pin then looked away. “Yesterday. The ceremony will not be for another four
hours. Cross the river to the temple.” The drow wrote a description of the
visitors into a book and slammed the cover shut. “Go. The presence of lower
creatures is offensive.”

Cinders grinned at the very flammable elves, his teeth
promising a later meeting, and then Escalla grabbed Jus and dragged him away. As
they moved down the road, Escalla let the man’s bulk hide her from the elves.

“I thought they were going to go for you, man. That gold pin
saved the day.”

A dozen armed elves stood by the roadside, crowding close
enough to be threatening, their weapons only just pointed aside. Escalla led the
way ahead of her retainers, giving a cold, disdainful sniff toward the watching
elves. She whispered to her friends as they passed slowly through the gauntlet
toward the open mushroom fields.

“It’s all right. Just be natural.” Escalla glared coldly at a
drow who stood watching her pass beside a huge alarm gong. “We’re evil. We eat
broken glass and wire for breakfast. We do bad things to woodland wildlife.”

Bum elves now! Funny!

“Pooch, be good, or I’ll smack your nose!”

Walking past the drow, Jus came level with the faerie. “They
have a ceremony planned. The traitor faerie is probably involved somehow.”

Escalla kept her face neutral in case the elves were
watching. “I
know
that, Jus. Great! So we’re heading for their main
temple?”

“Looks like it.” The Justicar settled his armor across his
shoulders. “We can’t get back out the same tunnel we used to get here. Any idea
how we find a route to the surface once we’re done?”

“No idea in the world.” Escalla seemed amazingly unconcerned.
“Let’s just wing it. We’ll figure something out!”

The Justicar shot a look at the girl, who replied with an
open little shrug, “Trust me. I’m a faerie!”

The road took a bend around an outcrop of rock. Safely out of
sight of the guards at last, Escalla breathed a sigh of relief and whirred down
to stand encircled by her friends. She pulled out the locator needle, which now
bucked like a beetle dancing a country jig. The needle pointed northeast, toward
the farthest reaches of the drow cavern. Henry, Polk, Jus, and Cinders joined
the girl in bending over the needle in thought.

“All right, so the slowglass is here. Maybe the murderer is
even here.” Escalla sat down on the gravel with a frown. “Now we ask why. Jus,
you’re the investigator guy.”

The Justicar turned to look over the vast reaches of the drow
homeland. The venous light made distances impossible to judge. To either side of
the roadway, forests of titanic toadstools loomed, the dark spaces alive with
horrible, cautious movements.