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
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!
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.'
