Descent into the Depths of the Earth

important.”

“You know, I could wax it for you-smoother finish thanshaving.”

“I just shave it to be practical.”

“Yeah right, and in no way to project a monastic, ruthlessappeal.” Escalla dipped her brush in her bath and scrubbed at something beneaththe waterline. “But hey, there’s candles and stuff here. We can do wax.”

“Escalla, there aren’t enough healing spells in all theFlanaess to let you wax my head.”

Trying to get on with the business of his bath, Jus sniffed suspiciously at a piece of soap-flower scented and taken from Enid and Escalla’sprivate stores-then awkwardly began to scrub his feet.

“Good book?” he asked.

“It’s a spellbook,” she replied. “High level. There’s onlyone or two bits I can understand.” Escalla made a little sign with one finger,retrieved her book, and turned a page. Little flakes of burned parchment showered onto the floor. “I might be able to salvage something useful and get afew new spells out of it.”

Jus raised one shaggy brow and said, “How do you get morespells? Will you have to go see your teacher?”

The change in Escalla’s countenance was infinitely subtle.Only someone who knew her well would ever have noticed the pallid stiffness of her hands.

“I don’t have teachers.” Pages closed with a coldsnap. “I work alone.”

The subject lay where it had fallen. Jus had hounded countess clues to ground before now, but he knew when to leave well enough alone. Escalla’s past was a line drawn across her soul. The period before she had takenup with Jus and Cinders was something she preferred to forget.

Jus threw a wash cloth at her. It hit with a satisfactory splat.

“Spell copying is expensive. Don’t you need gems to grindinto ink?”

“It’s no problem!” Escalla peeled the wet cloth away from herface and looked into the kitchen. “Hey, Polk! Do we have any gems?”

Enid and Polk had just pulverized gems in a pestle to make Enid’s next stun symbol papyrus. Freezing guiltily, Enid covered the pestle withone paw and said, “Ah, no.”

“Damn!” Escalla rested in her tub with her pretty pink feetsteaming out in the open air. “Polk, go look in my bags, will you?”

Indignant at being disturbed, Polk slammed pots and pans about the kitchen table, putting the powdered gems dangerously close to the seasonings for the night’s meal.

“We spent ’em, girl!” shouted the teamster. “That’s whattreasure’s for! Supplies! Essentials! Gifts to the needy and glory to the gods!”

The faerie pursed her mouth. “You spent it on booze, didn’tyou?”

“Essential exploration assets!” Polk waved his hands. “Anevening drink by the campfire is a prime piece of any adventure! Just read the literature!”

“Polk, one of these days, you are going to get such a pinch.”Escalla irritably went back to her book. “All right, I’ll use the burned versionfor now, but we need some gems-just little semi-precious ones.”

Jus reached out with the point of his sword and tugged a hanging blanket back into place, sealing the bathroom off from the kitchen.

“If I find any lying around, I’ll let you know.”

With an expressive little sigh, the faerie slung her hair down the back of the cooking pot. She leaned her head against the rim of her bath and paddled with her toes.

“My water’s getting cold. Can we get Cinders in here to warmit up?”

“Near a bath? Remember last time?”

The last time had been in the city of Trigol about two months before. The trouble of dunking a wailing hell hound skin into an unwanted bath had been amusing, to say the least. Escalla chuckled, then suddenly discovered that she was sitting on her scrubbing brush. “You know, for a refugee from theAbyss, that dog can be a real coward!” The girl lay in her bath and smiled. “Doyou think they ever replaced that ceiling?”

“Remember the noise he made?”

“I remember.” Rolling her head, Escalla slyly regarded hershaven-headed friend. “Hey, J-man! That was the first time I saw you getting outof the bath.”

Jus decided not to comment. He propped his sword within easy reach and reclined once again.

Unperturbed, Escalla leaned over the rim of her pot and gave a feline little smile. “You have two cute little dimples in your rear.”

Jus glowered. “That is called ‘muscle confirmation’.”

“That just happen to be shaped like cute itty bitty dimples!”

Jus nursed his pride with a sniff and rearranged his sword again.

There was something odd about the village. Something disquieting. Jus knew Cinders had sensed it, though the hell hound had seen nothing invisible. There were no traps and apparently no creatures lurking underneath the floors, yet there was a sense of imminence, as though something dark and sinister had the place on its mind.

For her part, Escalla had no suspicions. She seemed to have other troubles on her mind. Coming to the edge of her bath, she looked out of the cooking pot at the Justicar.

“This is kind of a nice place though, huh?” The girl waved anervous hand about the room. “It’s a convenient little stop. Did you see all thesquirrels? Those things are really cute!”

“Very.”

“I like them. Too bad we can’t stop. We should get out ofhere first thing tomorrow.” Escalla sighed and sniffed the delicious smell offrying in the kitchen. “I thought we only had hard tack left. What’s fordinner?”

“Just eat it. You’ll love it.”

The faerie squirted water through her clasped hands. “So arewe leaving at dawn?”

“Maybe.” The Justicar heaved a sigh. “Polk’s gotten us lost.We’ll have to circle around, find a settlement, and figure out just where we areso we can plan a route.”

“Will it take long?”

The Justicar rose half out of his barrel, stretching and cracking his shoulders. His skin was pale where his armor always covered him, but his head and hands were tanned. “You’re very keen for us to keep heading forHommlet.”

“Yeah.” The faerie shrugged, sat up, and began to wring outher long blonde hair. “There’s something weird about these woods, something…I don’t know. It makes me feel creepy. I just want to get out of here.” The girlsighed. “I wanna go to Hommlet. We’ve got the deeds, man! Still, I want to makesure no one’s really unhappy about it or anything.”

“No one’s unhappy.” Jus watched Escalla for a long moment,strangely pleased by the efficient way she wound her wet hair into a towel and tied it into a turban. “Most everything has good in it. You just have to knowwhere to look.”

With her slim, naked back to him, Escalla’s little wingsgracefully fanned themselves dry. “I’ve never really been told that I have muchgood in me.”

Jus knew when to listen. He rose out of his bath and sat with a towel wound about his middle, leaning forward onto his hairy knees and watching her in silence. Slim and strangely graceful, Escalla quietly wound herself inside a towel. She turned to look over at him, her face thin, her shape tiny and vulnerable.

“I lived alone for a long time, Jus. A long, long time.” Thegirl turned away and pulled her towel tight. “Thanks. You know, just for… forstuff.”

Jus studied the faerie for a long, quiet moment. She fidgeted with her towel, staring at a puddle of bath water on the floor. Jus had never gotten on particularly well with people. He did what he had to in order to follow clues, sift information, and feel the pulse of a town, but his days and nights were spent in the company of his own thoughts. First Cinders and then Escalla had come to knock on the doors of his citadel, and now his days of solitude were over.

Trudging damply over to Escalla’s side, the man took hersmall hand into his fingers, squeezed softly-and then turned to wander off andfind his clothes.

“Dinner’s done.”

Escalla looked down at her hand and gave a rueful little smile. Wavering up into the air, she flew off in search