by Paul Kidd
"Recca is too proud to change." The big ranger turned to look up into the mist. "Yes. For three hundred years, he was swordmaster and a chief of the Grass Runners. He wants his victory to prove his perfection."
Jus glanced at the pathway overhead, then turned away, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword. His other hand took Escalla's, and they walked back to their friends.
Henry spared a hard glance for the overhead fog, then peered briefly into the troll-littered room as he passed. He gave a sudden frown and held up one hand.
"Justicar, sir? Look at this!"
A neat white folder lay in the middle of the ash. The group stared at it in puzzlement. Cinders gave a sniff, paused, sniffed again, then his grin brightened.
Girlie girl smell!
"Girl?" Escalla sniffed, almost choking on smoke and carbonized troll. "What? Like a little girl?"
Big girl. Nice skin!
"There speaks the connoisseur." Escalla crept toward the folder then stroked her lich staff. It grew to the size of a broomstick. "All right, people! Let a professional handle this! Heads down!"
Enid hid outside the door. "Escalla? Do you really think you should touch it?"
"Sure we should! Hey! This is my professional opinion!" The faerie displayed her tiny skirt. "So just duck and let me do my job!"
Everyone dived for cover as Escalla flipped the folder open with her staff. No spells discharged. No poisoned needles shot out. No trap doors opened or monsters appeared. Emerging cautiously from cover, the party gathered to find Escalla holding the folder and shaking it in disappointment, as though hoping some gold and jewels might fall out.
"Hey! I think it's a map!" She tossed the folder at Jus. "All right! I solved the dungeon. Here! Find me Lolth, or I'll let Cinders lick you!"
Yuck.
Escalla leaned on the hell hound and whispered, "Don't knock it till you've tried it." She leaped onto Jus's back. "Well, am I hot or am I not?"
"You're hot." The Justicar looked at the open folder. It showed a maze of interlocking lines that seemed to be the pathways in the fog. Someone had even thoughtfully penciled in neat marks to show their initial point of entry, a dot to mark the trolls' room, and a big red X at a far point of the maze. Other places were marked with discrete red numbers-two "ones," two "twos," and two "threes." Each one was marked with a "travel" rune. Traps? Ladders? Stairs?
The map was a godsend. Too much of a godsend. It had appeared as if by magic. It all smacked of an elaborate trap. The Justicar weighed the implications in his mind then cast a careful search over the room.
The ash had been disturbed. Marks lay in long strokes-diagonally parallel. The Justicar rubbed ash between his finger and thumb.
Henry squatted at his side. "Drag marks, sir?"
"Snake. A big snake." Jus showed his student how to tell the marks by shape and distance. The ash had been compacted quite hard, which meant the snake weighed at least as much as a man. "Lolth's handmaiden."
Demons could teleport. That would explain how she entered the room even while the party fought outside its door. A layer of airborne ash had not yet settled on the folder's cover. She must have left the folder only seconds before Henry peered into the room.
Henry scratched the thin stubble of his newly sprouting beard and asked, "Why would Lolth's handmaiden give us a map?"
"If Lolth knew we were here, I would expect cruder traps than these." The Justicar breathed slow and hard. He took a piece of charred troll and passed it up to Cinders, who ate it with noisy glee. "We'll use the map, but we'll be careful." The big man put a finger on Henry's shoulder. "Very, very careful."
"Morag! We have rats! Nasty, furry little rats!"
Recharging her magic, Lolth lolled with her feet in a bath filled with the blood of a few hapless sacrifices. She had been idly planning her conquests, making slaves plant pins on her maps of the Flanaess when Morag arrived in the throne room.
Her long lashes tilting in elegant surprise, Morag poised in the door. "Magnificence?"
"Intruders, Morag. In the Demonweb. I sense something different in my home."
Morag bowed gravely. "Escapees from the prison levels, Magnificence?"
"Perhaps." Lolth carefully watched her secretary. "Morag. I do hope we have had no little break-ins from outside."
Morag spoke carefully, knowing that she played for very, very high stakes. One slip, and Lolth would command her to pull her own intestines out-slowly-yard by yard.
"Magnificence, the guards at the gates have reported no trouble."
"Have they not?"
Lolth's voice, sly and acidic, dripped with irony. She shot a sidewise glance at Morag.
"Morag, how long have you been with me?"
"One hundred and one years, three months, three days, six hours, and twenty-seven minutes, Magnificence."
"Ah. Leaving eight hundred and ninety-eight years, nine months, twenty-seven-odd days, seventeen hours and thirty-three minutes until our little arrangement comes into review." Lolth paddled her feet, lounging back in her throne. "I do so hope it is a good review, Morag."
Morag rippled her long tail. "I'm sure everything will be properly dealt with, Magnificence." Her swords clattered as she shifted her weight. "Our reentry to the pits has been normal. All guard posts were changed immediately after we docked. I have unleashed a hundred extra spiders into the Demonweb." Morag flourished an order for Lolth to sign. "Here are the hatchery reports from the spider pits. Here is the oath of allegiance from the Ixitxachltl of the Flanaess's inland sea. And here is an execution order for that priestess you thought had bigger breasts than you."
"Oh, just polymorph her into something nasty for an afternoon." Lolth signed, already bored with the procedures.
"Yes, Magnificence."
"I shall be refreshed in about ten hours, Morag, so have the stokers raise a head of steam, and get my dinner. Oh, and nothing living, this time! Not if it can speak. I don't want my appetite spoiled by another idiot trying to give me three wishes if I let him go free."
Morag bowed, her six arms spreading in obeisance, then she slithered back out of the room. Lolth sniffed a vague scent of soot upon the air, scowled, and then went back to her plans for conquest and slaughter.
18
The adventurers squatted at a bend in the path as Jus, Polk, and Henry puzzled over the new map. Letting the boys pretend to navigate, Escalla amused herself with a spider leg, tossing it off the path.
"Hey, Cinders! Fetch!"
The leg bounced. Cinders lay beside her, thump-thump-thumping his tail. Escalla gave an unhappy sigh and collected the spider leg for later.
"Are you really trying, or what?"
Cinders trying. Stick moves too fast.
"Oh, all right! I'll try to roll it slower or something. Maybe we should make it smell of coal?" Escalla looked over at her friends. "Have you guys figured out what that map means yet?"
"I think these paths are all different levels. The levels never seem to link. No one level is entirely below or above any other-all except for this top level here, where the red X is marked." The Justicar looked down a pathway and scowled. "So there's no way to communicate between levels, unless that's what's been marked here in pencil. The paired numbers on the map might be link points."
Henry scratched underneath his helmet. "Can we be sure?"
"They're the only things marked on the map at all." The Justicar looked down at the tortured tangle of lines marked on the map. "The first number marked is over that way. Past another door and to the left."
Enid came and settled on her haunches beside Escalla. The big sphinx folded up her paws and lowered her voice so that only the faerie could hear her. "That undead ranger is unpleasant. I hope the Justicar can find him soon."
"Yeah. Well, we'll get him. Jus just has a little problem with him."
"You mean he's holding back?"
"No. But he's pretty miffed."
"Oh." Enid thoughtfully kneaded the path with her big claws. "I wo
nder where your sister is? She's been remarkably quiet."
"Oh, she's a lady. She won't work unless she has to." Escalla snorted and threw Cinders's spider leg once more. "If I know her, she'll sit there glued to her crystal ball, waiting for my scrying shield to fade."
"She won't come hunting for us here?"
"You don't get as plush as that girl by walking the wilderness and camping under trees. Nah. She'll use magic to look for us. She's probably still back in her cave."
Cinders was wagging his tail more happily. Jus returned and picked the hell hound up, smiling fondly as he dusted the dog's pelt clean of ash and troll. He swept Cinders back into place across his back, then lifted Escalla onto Enid's back, where the faerie could ride comfortably upon her friend.
A distant glimpse of a path far below showed a horrible pack of giant spiders skittering along the roadway. The adventurers kept back from the edges and speeded their pace, passing by doors and side paths as they followed the map for turn after turn, path after path. Finally the Justicar held up his hand as the road led up to another floating door.
Escalla slithered down from Enid's back and peeled off her long gloves. She kept her voice a whisper as she handed her wand and staff to her friends. "Stay here. Henry, turn around! Mama's going natural again!"
Henry blushed and turned around. The faerie shucked her fine black mail, tossed it to the Justicar, and changed herself into a flat-worm. She slithered her front portion carefully under the bottom of the door, remained half in and half out of the room for a long, silent minute, then stealthily withdrew. She converted back into her usual form and motioned her friends to gather a few yards away from the door. When she spoke, she spoke in a careful whisper.
"All right. There's four demons in there. Big vulture guys!" The girl scanned carefully, staying quiet and unhurried. "The floor's covered in broken skeletons-all busted up, legs broken and stuff. The demons are in the corners on pillars about a hundred feet high, all facing the center of the room and just sitting there. They must be guarding something!"
"Four demons?" The Justicar kept careful watch on the paths and mist. "Real demons are important. Lolth and Iuz use them to control whole regiments. If there's four demons there, then it's an important room."
"Should we try to take them?"
"Yes."
It seemed easier said than done. Escalla picked her teeth and tried to come up with an idea. Henry looked nervously about his circle of friends.
"Vulture shaped?" Henry was all at sea. "Are they dangerous?" The Justicar said nothing. Escalla took it on herself to answer. "You bet your pearly white buns!" She kept her voice in a careful whisper. "Tanar'ri are about as bad as it can get. Pretty much immune to magic, tough as iron, dirty as a roach, and just plain nasty. All sorts of powers. You know-teleporting, making darkness, telekinesis… If we take them out, it has to be fast! Real fast. We can't let them teleport out and raise the alarm."
Enid brightened. "I could try to coax them out with a riddle!"
"They're demons, hon." Escalla shrugged. "They get their jollies from other things."
"Oh." The sphinx folded up her paws and frowned.
The Justicar took a piece of charcoal saved for Cinders's dinner and made a sketch of the room upon the floor.
"Escalla? Are there enough skeletons to interfere with footing?"
"Not too thick. I dunno-maybe a dozen dead guys."
"The bones on the floor are all broken?" The Justicar took on a meaningful look. "Like they've been dropped from a height?"
Escalla sat back, looking displeased. "Telekinesis! These guys can lift weights with their minds. Crap!" The girl explained Jus's point to Henry. "That's the trap! Telekinesis. They use mind power to lift you up a hundred feet, then drop you to the floor. Simple."
Henry looked at the rough sketch of the room and blanched. "So how do we kill them, and do it fast? They're a hundred feet above us!"
Still naked but supremely confident, Escalla spread her arms and said, "Oh, tanar'ri? You want to see how I handle tanar'ri? Insanely bloodthirsty, outnumber me four to one, outweigh me by three hundred pounds. Watch this! A great mind is at work beneath the pretty face."
The Justicar sensed a stupid stunt about to happen. He leaped forward to stop her, but it was too late. Everyone scattered madly aside as the faerie danced over to the door and raucously knocked on the demons' door.
"Hey, you! Hello in there! Anyone here order a two-foot-tall goddess in a thong? Yoo-hoo! I'm too short to reach the handle! Open up!"
The door gave a click and swung open as if by magic-or as if by telekinesis. Escalla shoved it wide open and gave a happy cry. She fired a lightning bolt high into the ceiling of the chamber, blowing apart a ledge that a vulture demon was standing upon. The creature fell, and Escalla whooped as the tanar'ri spread its wings. She dashed into the room and fired a spell up into the ceiling, which immediately became clogged with a pretty pink fog that smelled of strawberry flowers. Outraged, all four tanar'ri howled in anger.
Escalla turned herself into a huge limpet and stuck herself fast to the floor. A mouth tube stuck out from one side and showered abuse on the demons above.
"Hey, vulture boys! Do you guys fight as bad as you smell? You call that telekinesis? Come on! Put your frontal lobes into it! Pull! Pull!"
Escalla the limpet was having the time of her life.
The tanar'ri abandoned all pretense at rational planning. Berserk with rage they fell on the limpet with their claws, pounding at its thick shell and trying to wrench it from the floor. Huge, stinking, with vulture heads and verminous bodies, the demons screamed in rage.
"Is that all you've got? Hey, you! The one with the beak! Yeah, I'm talking to you!"
The savage ring of Benelux smashing through tanar'ri flesh was pure music to Escalla's ears. She grew an eyestalk and watched as one vulture monster staggered, the white blade protruding from its shoulder and into its chest. A kick of Jus's boot freed his blade. A second blow, then a third smacked into the tanar'ri and killed it.
Henry's crossbow hammered five darts into a demon's side. The monster spun, leaped to attack, and tripped as Enid pounced on it from behind.
The melee spread, Jus furiously defending himself from a vulture's talons with his sword. Henry whip-cracked the Justicar's magic rope and sent a tanar'ri spinning to the ground, choking to death.
Escalla whistled, turned back to her usual form, and dashed outside for her clothes. She fetched her lich staff, pelted up behind a tanar'ri, and took its leg off with a single well-placed blow. Demon claws ripped empty air as Escalla made a fantastic handspring onto a tanar'ri's back and smote the monster upon its skull while Polk bit it in the rear. The last of the creatures staggered as Enid ripped it apart like a cat shredding a chair. Feathers flew, then Henry drove his sword into the last monster's chest.
The party had a mass of wounds and scratches, but nothing too severe. The Justicar issued his healing spells, while Escalla dusted off her hands.
"A-a-and that's how we do it in the bad side of the faerie forest!"
Panting, wounded, and a little dazed, Henry leaned upon his sword and said, "Wow! You… fought tanar'ri… before?"
"Who, me? Nah! I'm daddy's little angel." Escalla shrugged. "But you should have seen me in pillow fights!" The girl picked up her slowglass gem and scanned it about the room. "All right! Here we are in tanar'ri central, our heroes standing triumphant above piles of four vulture things!"
The Justicar scowled. "Will you stop doing that?"
"Hey! These are precious memories! In two weeks' time we can watch all this and laugh!"
The Justicar cleared his throat and murmured in Escalla's ear. "Most of what we see will be a view down your cleavage."
"Oh, yeah." The girl looked down at her bosom. "Well, we can put a bag over Henry's head at those points. All right! Let's look for treasure!"
The promised cache never came. The tiny iron pyramid they'd found outside Lolth's gates rose up out of Jus
's purse. It twirled, flared with light for a moment, and disappeared.
With a blink, the dead tanar'ri, skeletons, and blood were gone, leaving the adventurers standing in a blank stretch of open path. Mists swirled. Ghosts moaned.
Fastidiously washing her paws, Enid sat on her haunches and looked around. "Oh, I say! That was jolly well done. I do so dislike stairs."
Wide-eyed, Escalla looked around. "Hey! My treasure!"
"Do vultures keep treasure?" Enid blew vulture fluff from her nose. "I thought they mostly liked decaying bits of bone?"
"Maybe they had gold fillings or something! This is an adventure, damn it! I demand financial rewards for acts of homicide!"
The Justicar sheathed his sword and knelt to examine their map. He pointed at two bends in the corridor and tapped the markings penciled down in red.
"We're here on the map. This corridor junction is a match. We just climbed up one level of the maze." The big man flipped the map into a strip and put it through his belt. "We were given an accurate tool."
He moved away to stare down the paths. Behind him, Polk looked up from his notebooks with a quill pen quivering in his paw.
"Wait, son! How do you spell 'lissome'?"
"E-S-C-A-L–L-A." Dressing, the faerie leaned helpfully over Polk's notebook. "And those things in my bottom are called dimples, not divets."
"Oh!" Polk crossed out a few words. "That's all right. That's fine! As long as the gist of it's there! I can get the prose really purple when I edit it after the adventure!"
The badger kept writing. Enid picked him up with her teeth and carried him down the corridor. They were deep into the Demonweb, and Polk still had half an empty notebook to go.
19
They walked onward through half an hour of silent footfalls and sobbing ghosts. The only food they had was a few preserved fish, which they washed down with canteens of lukewarm river water. Time was of the essence. Lolth had to be caught before she could return to the Flanaess.
And so the party ambled on, eating as they went.
