tail. We've got it in the portable hole. All we have to do is get you in there, read the spell, and you're back as good as new! So let's blow this joint!'
'A clone?' Enid was agog. 'Just how much trouble have I put you to?'
'None! Nothing we minded!' The faerie happily shoveled priceless scrolls into the portable hole. 'Well, we had to steal the clone spell from this wizard guy in Greyhawk, then make you a new body at Dad's place, then find the river Mnemos, fight a few evil denizens, avoid a few rampaging armies, then find this place and bust in. Simple!' Escalla finished looting. 'Morag! Teleport time! Do your stuff, snake-babe. I think these locals are working into a real rage!'
Morag was there under protest. Escalla had tempted her with booklets of swatches and a roll of plans for Morag's dream home, but the tanar'ri was regretting the deal. Annoyed, the secretary peeked her thin face up into the light.
'Why are you all crying? I don't see what there is to cry about.'
'Oh, yes you do.' Escalla clicked her fingers. 'All right! So now we get into the hole, and you teleport us to our getaway boat a few dozen planes away!'
Morag thrashed her tail.
'No.'
The entire party stared.
'No?' Escalla placed a hand on the frost wand tucked beneath her belt.
'I can't. Not in here.' Morag sniffed at the air as though it were poison. 'This is Thoth's home temple. My magic won't work here. You have to get outside into open air. A garden or a field.'
The Justicar grumbled, grabbed Enid by the hand, and led a charge to the far end of the hall. Behind them, the barricades collapsed. The group found a door into a colonnade and raced for the promise of open sky.
As they ran down a vast cascade of marble stairs, Escalla flew happily beside Enid's ear, so happy to have her girlfriend back that she couldn't let her go.
'So how's the food here? What do you afterlife guys eat?'
Enid ran awkwardly, holding up her kilt.
'Pulse.'
'Is that a kind of sandwich?'
'Not really.' Enid looked back over her shoulder. 'Oh, dear.'
Striding over the rooftops came Thoth himself, heading straight for the fugitives. As the colossal figure stepped over the colonnade onto the stairs, Escalla looked back and cast one of her oldest, simplest spells.
'Grease!'
'Hey Morag!' The faerie flew merrily onward. 'How's that teleport thing coming?'
The tanar'ri grumbled from deep down in the portable hole.
'I'm working on it. Must you always be so pushy?'
From overhead, Thoth sang the song of avenging glory. With his sword in one hand and his scepter of life in the other, the god overstepped the roofs and planted his foot right in the middle of a greasy patch that had suddenly spread over the stairs. Hundreds of feet tall, golden and magnificent, Thoth fell over like a jester treading on a banana peel. Escalla whooped and leaped high into the air.
'The faerie scores!'
Half the temple collapsed in the shockwave as Thoth fell. His scepter crashed to the ground beside the fleeing adventurers. Escalla immediately plucked out the hoopiest looking gem and threw it into the portable hole. Polk gave a screech of pain.
'Ow!'
'Sorry!' The girl looked around. 'So can we do any more damage here? I think we're done!'
The Justicar had already pushed everyone else into the portable hole. He grabbed hold of Escalla while Morag stood waiting impatiently on the pavement. Jus leaped into the hole, Morag rolled it up and tucked it under her arm, and they teleported away.
A Perfect Ending
A thousand miles away, the river Lethe crashed and tumbled into a maze of rapids. Grumbling, Morag slid across a fallen log to a hidden isle, passing through the unseen veil into another plane. The tanar'ri teleported again, and then again, muddling their trail as best as she could. Finally, she reappeared on the hind deck of a disreputable old boat and shook out the portable hole to let her employers clamber into the light.
They were on an alien river in a land haunted by pyramids and pteranadons. Coiling her long tail, the tanar'ri heaved a sigh and pushed off from the shore. They would have to cross into another plane by following the river before she could teleport again, making the leaps and jumps that would finally take everyone home.
They sailed onward, scooting into the river mists. Enid emerged from the hole-a sphinx once again, and with one of Lolth's best jewels hanging at her breast. The big cat settled quietly at the prow between Henry, Escalla, and the Justicar while Morag grumbled and propelled the boat from behind.
Enid looked at her dear, familiar paws, then out at the river as it crossed into another plane of reality. The riverbanks were now inhabited by dinosaurs dancing in feather headdresses.
'Um, where are we now?'
The Justicar shot a glance at Escalla, then gave a heavy sigh.
'Apparently those details are supposed to fix themselves.'
'Ah.' Enid neatly curled her tail about her hind feet, folding Henry beneath her wing. 'Do you have any idea where you're going at all?'
Escalla threw a length of sausage to a velociraptor that danced along the riverbank.
'Sure I do! Trust me! I'm a faerie!'
'Yes.' Enid purred quietly. 'And no one touches the faerie.'
Thoth's Kingdom was far behind. The nightmare of the afterlife was fading to memory. Enid looked back and felt a little twinge of sadness in her heart.
'You saved me, but it will happen again one day. One day, we'll all have to part again.'
Sitting happily in Jus's lap, Escalla polished her new engagement ring.
'Hell no! You guys are with me!'
Enid sighed. 'We'll get old.'
'Um, no.' Escalla looked at her friends as if they were incredibly thick, then rapped her knuckles against their heads. 'Hello? Has it not sunk in that you guys hang with a faerie? You won't get old! No one ages around faeries. Why do you think we're so popular?'
The Justicar raised one brow.
'I'd wondered.'
The boat floated onward. Escalla rummaged through loot taken from the temple of Thoth. There were schemes to make, a wedding to plan, and Henry and Enid's romance to encourage-all that any interfering faerie could desire. Escalla plucked out magic scrolls, magic tomes, and scraps of parchment, delighted by each and every find.
'Hey! A shrinking spell! This is going to save me a fortune in potions.'
'How?'
Escalla whispered into her friend's ear, and Enid blushed.
'Oh, I see.'
'Hey,' Escalla whispered again in Enid's soft fuzzy ear, 'I'll promise you a thousand uses of my polymorph spell as an engagement present.'
Morag slithered cautiously out of hiding, looked nervously about, then found that the Justicar had made a space for her at his side. She nestled down, unsure whether she was welcome, and then Henry handed her a piece of fairy cake.
Morag looked along the river and asked, 'So do we have somewhere to go?'
Everyone looked to Escalla. The faerie rolled here eyes.
