away.
25
The Flanaess. After the dead stench of the Abyss, the smell of grass and dirt struck the senses like a fist. Escalla knew the shadows, the light, and the grass. She hadn't grown up here, but this was home now.
Morag had gone to Lolth's gate in the Abyss. From the Abyss to Keggle Bend, and then to a cave deep in the earth.
Even the dank caves smelled clean and pure compared to where they'd been. Enveloped in gloom, Escalla whirred from Morag's back. She hovered above a floor of hard limestone in a place that had the soft, slow echoes of an underground lake. Escalla levered open the portable hole. Cinders lay with his nose just peeking out into the dark. Escalla took a quick look about the cave and saw a dozen tunnels leading off into the dark.
'Morag, which way?'
'The lower tunnel.' The tanar'ri thrashed her tail, undecided. 'I can't go with you. Lolth will know I helped you.'
'Fine! I don't frazzin' need you!' Escalla was already on her way. 'Just stay here! You move one scale, and I use that secret name of yours to blow you open like popcorn!'
The faerie moved fast. Time was racing. With Cinders to guide her, she stormed down a corridor into a darkness that clinked with hidden chains.
'Sis!' Escalla bellowed into the darkness as she flew. 'Hey, sis! Expecting a call?'
The sound of her shout echoed though the tunnels. Somewhere in these caves Tielle lurked, and nearby would be the horrible pool Henry had described. Speeding through the air, Escalla swerved madly though tunnels and caves. In the Abyss, time was passing fast and hard.
'Tielle! It's family reunion time!'
They entered a long, low cavern, and Cinders's voice hissed inside Escalla's mind.
Two chain monks had been hidden by a strip of illusory wall. Escalla detonated a fireball amongst them, blasting the monsters apart. The chain monks flailed forward in a mass of chains, dying as Escalla shot past.
Six more chain monks erupted from the nearest tunnel. They threw chains ahead of them, screeching in eagerness to drink Escalla's blood. She blasted a lightning bolt through the dense-packed tunnel, knocking chain monks into a shattered mass of bone and steel.
Escalla caught the glint of light from behind them, and she flew over the molten wreckage in a red haze of panic, grief, and pain.
'Tielle!'
She burst out into a huge cavern filled with silvery light. A narrow shore of limestone ran about a lake that shimmered an unwholesome quicksilver hue. Sluggish waves moved toward the faerie, as if the lake were a gigantic amoeba yearning after the scent of living flesh. Escalla sped above the lake to the distant shore and an archway of stone that stood conspicuously alone in the cave. It was a teleportation gateway, like a thousand others Escalla had used all her days.
'Keep an eye open!'
Escalla dropped the portable hole, propped Cinders's head on the floor where he could keep watch, and dived past him into the hole. She rummaged in the boxes stored deep in the hole, found Enid's stun parchment, and felt sick as she crushed it against her breast. The parchment still smelled of Enid's spicy, feline scent. She saw the regeneration potion-the tiniest of vials-and weighed it in her hand.
'There's a plan! The faerie always has a plan.' Escalla shot up out of the hole and planted the stun parchment beneath the arch. 'Trust me, I'm a faerie!'
Cinders suddenly scowled, his eyes burning bright red.
The hell hound blasted a huge gout of flames into a rock crevice. Chain monks leaped out of the hollows where they had been hiding, recoiling away from the flames. Escalla flew back to the lake, leaving Cinders and the portable hole where they lay.
'I'm bored, Tielle! One more minute, and I'm gone!'
Motion stirred at the far end of the lake. Emerging from her own luxurious apartments, Tielle posed in midair, attired in leather, gauze, and jewels. She held her magical drinking horn in her hands.
'Escalla! Come to taunt?'
The lightning spell almost caught Tielle square in the stomach, but she hurtled aside with only a hair's breadth to spare, slamming hard against a wall. The girl's magic horn flew off into the gloom. Still thoroughly alive, Tielle wiped blood from her mouth. Over the center of the vampire lake, Escalla hovered inside her anti- magic shield. Naked and coldly savage, the little blonde faerie waited for her sister. She had no lich staff, no sword or dagger, just bare hands, skin, and eyes that glinted murderous green.
'Come on, you fat git! Come over here and drop dead! Make my day!'
Chain monks capered on the banks of the lake, hurling chains into the air to fall well short of Escalla. Tielle looked left to right-saw none of Escalla's friends lurking in the darkness, and came flying low over the lake. Quicksilver fluid surged up at her, hungry for blood, and the whole lake trembled in need.
Tielle closed carefully with her sister then paused. She hovered just short of Escalla, tilting her head carefully, looking for hidden dangers and traps.
'No staves, no poisoned rings, no daggers…' Tielle flexed her fingers, suddenly intent-her skin tingling with building pleasure as she thought of her sister's life being choked out between her hands. 'And just how were you planning on hurting me, Escalla? Have you been off training with the monks?'
Escalla bunched a fist. 'Nope. But I'm shacked up with someone who has!'
She flew at Tielle and punched her with a savage left hook. Tielle tumbled in midair, then caught herself and attacked in a wild fury of fists and nails. Tielle screeched, howling in bloodlust as she attacked, and Escalla whirred about, punching fast and drawing blood with her hands.
Tielle grappled Escalla and choked her. The two faeries smashed into the roof, then Escalla had her teeth locked in Tielle's arm. Tielle screeched and changed shape into a flying serpent, crushing Escalla in her coils. Escalla flashed, changed into a spiny urchin, and pierced Tielle in a hundred places with her spines. The snake dropped the urchin, which turned into a flying squid and grappled the snake in a mass of tentacles. Turning into acid slime, the snake wrenched itself free.
The two faeries battled in a raging fury, shifting shapes almost faster than the eye could see. They hacked and battered at each other with tentacles, stingers, arms and tails, gored with horns, and ripped with claws. Escalla turned into a flying puffer fish and fired a stream of poisoned spines. Tielle switched into an armored ribbon-snake and whip-cracked Escalla, spinning the puffer fish away. Both faeries tangled again in a welter of blood and screams, shifting shape into lizards, wasps, and crayfish high up in the air. They surged and fought even after Escalla's anti-magical shield finally faded away. They smacked into stalactites, crashed into walls, then crashed into the shoreline in a tumbling mad fury of hate.
The monks gathered in shock around the battle. A stonefish lurched out of the fight, and changed into Tielle. She pointed at her opponent in a foaming rage as she screamed orders to the monks.
'Kill her! Do it! Kill her!'
Chain monks lashed at the other faerie, who wailed and turned back into Tielle. Shaking herself, Escalla dropped her last, most repellent form, no longer pretending to be her own sister. She watched the chain monks flailing madly at Tielle. They were tightly packed, like jackals ripping at a kill. Torn and hurting, Escalla rose into the air.
'Hey!'
The chain monks whirled, saw Escalla hovering in midair-and then disintegrated as she detonated her last fireball spell. The chain monks flew apart. Tielle jerked up out of the wreckage, having formed into a stone tortoise to save herself from her own monsters' chains. Bleeding and exhausted, she took one look at Escalla and fled toward the faerie gate at the back of the cave. Tielle hit the portal-Enid's stun scroll flashed-and the faerie
