Descent into the Depths of the Earth

a swarm.

There must have been a hundred monsters, all surging into a screaming mob that choked the entrance to the cave.

Escalla fluttered madly above Private Henry on the other side of the magic wall. She fired a lightning bolt, the spell blasting into the wall without causing so much as a wrinkle in its shine. Two blasts from her frost wand stabbed into the wall and disappeared. The faerie saw Jus rock beneath the blow of a giant goblin’s fist, and she tried prying at the edges of the forcewall with her nails.

“Jus! Jus, I’m coming!”

“Go!” The Justicar bellowed at the faerie, wrenching a clawfrom around his throat and breaking a monsters elbow with one huge blow. “Escalla, go!”

“Jus!” Weeping helplessly, Escalla hammered uselessly at theedges of the force wall with her spells. “Jus!”

“GO!” Now almost buried under a wave of troglodytes, Jusroared as Cinders fired a last vicious blast of flames. “I order you to go! Saveyourself and the boy!”

Something lanced through the screaming, ravening horde of monsters-a gigantic disembodied fist that snatched up the Justicar and poundedhis head against the cavern ceiling. Unconscious, Jus was thrown to the floor, the huge hand hovering above. Linked to the lich by a tendril of force, the magic fist kept the other monsters at bay, shielding the fallen Justicar and Polk from harm. Escalla saw the lich turn to look right at her through her invisibility magic, saw the abomination lift up its hands to cast another spell-

With a helpless wail, the girl fired her favorite old stinking fog spell, filling the wide passageway with impenetrable clouds of murk. She snatched Henry by the scruff of his neck and dragged him fleeing back down the tunnel.

Behind her, the lich was laughing. Its wild cackle pursued Escalla into the caves long after the mere sound of it had faded and gone.

15

In a cavern somewhere near a rampaging beholder, Escallacrammed herself into a crevasse. With her fist jammed into her mouth, she wept in silence, her eyes wide and her face ashen, shivering in shock. Private Henry protected her, peering over the lip of the rock to watch for enemies. The boy was pale but behaving like a good soldier.

Escalla rocked back and forth, gripping her own skull as though it was about to blast apart. She had cast a shield against detection spells, and that was all that she could do. The lich was either coming after them or it wasn’t.

And Jus was either dead or alive.

“Oh man. Oh man, oh man, oh man. I really fouled it thistime.”

Impossible to believe that once, long ago, she had wanted nothing more in life than to blow Jus apart, she now felt like her innards had been frozen to ice. Escalla stared into the dark, while her soul jerked and fluttered like a wounded butterfly.

There was a careful slither in the gloom. With his eyes on the caves, Private Henry slid down to Escalla’s side.

“Miss? Um, my lady?” Private Henry swallowed, his crossbowpointing into the echoing caves. “Lady Escalla, I think that beholder is stillout there.”

Something howled deeper in the caves. It sounded like the beholder was once again on the prowl. Escalla’s heart sank. Henry looked at her,lost and oh-so-terribly young, so Escalla deliberately sat herself up, wiped her hair back from her face and discovered that it hurt like hell to talk.

“Do you think they killed him?”

“What?” Henry’s eyes blinked like an owl. “Mister Polk?”

“Yeah. Yeah, they got Polk, too.” Running her fingers throughsoiled hair, Escalla tried to force her mind to think. “The lich was keepingthem off him-the trogs and the big goblin things.”

“Bugbears.” Private Henry stared at shadows in the caves. “Isaw a drawing of one once.”

“Bugbears.” Staring at remembered horrors, Escalla slowlyshook her head. “There must have been a hundred of them.”

“But they’re alive!” Henry crept a little closer, anxious forreassurance. “You saw! You said the lich was keeping them alive.”

“Yeah. Yeah, so I did.” The faerie’s whole body felt likeice-numb, chilled, and insensible. She had to do something, takepositive action. Escalla shuddered and began making a plan.

A lich. Why did it have to be a lich? A sorcerer so powerful that it had spent an eternity rotting as its bones hardened with hate. It was probably the most savage monster in existence-intelligent, deadly, andapparently the master of a troglodyte tribe.

Escalla idly dangled her locator needle, staring at it blankly as she tried hard just to stay calm and think. The needle pointed northwest, away from the lich’s caves, and quivered slightly as though theslow-glass was moving at the very limit of the locator’s range.

The lich was out there, organizing its troops. Here was the ally Escalla’s enemy had dealt with to find raiders to attack thesurface world, but if the lich controlled the troglodytes, then why were the drow involved? What could a faerie possibly need from a city of dark elves?

The troglodytes were stealing living people. Perhaps that was why Jus and Polk were still alive.

Maybe.

“All right, Henry. We… we have to see where they are andwhat happened. Then we have to figure out our options once we see if they’re.. once we see if they’re all right.” Escalla tried to calm her ragged breathingand wipe the tears back from her face. “Just keep calm, all right? You’re withthe faerie. No one touches the faerie.”

The girl had a useful spell up her sleeve-provided the lichwasn’t just around the corner and about to blast them all into rich meatychunks. She tried straightening her hair, sat erect, then forced herself to be calm.

“Henry?”

“Yes, my lady?”

“I have to concentrate, so just keep low and only disturb meif that beholder comes into this room.”

“All right.” The young soldier swallowed then crept back intoplace, trying to move the way the Justicar would. “Don’t worry. I’ll protectyou.”

“I know you will, Henry. Thanks.”

Escalla took a deep breath and bowed her head. Sitting cross legged on the floor with a look of supreme concentration on her face, she opened her hands and quietly spoke a spell. Her point of view shifted to somewhere between her hands, the position wavering slightly until the spell steadied in her mind.

She turned slowly and looked up at herself. Her hair hung bedraggled, and her thin face was smeared with tears. The viewpoint bobbed and carefully rose, then Escalla turned and shot her viewpoint through the caves, leaving her mind and body safely behind.

The spell’s eye moved forward swiftly through the caves andout into the main tunnel. It floated forward in eerie silence, able to see but not hear. Escalla slowed as she approached the entrance to the lich’s cavern,feeling her way carefully forward. She wanted nothing to betray her spy spell. Jus would expect her to be as perfect as possible.

The entrance to the cave lay quiet. Huge bugbears-great hairybeings eight feet tall with stupid, pig-like eyes- leaned on their clubs andstared along the tunnel. Six were on guard at the tunnel mouth, with drow warriors tending a little fire behind them. Escalla hesitated, then drifted the spy spell past the guards. The bugbears never even twitched an ear as Escalla’sviewpoint drifted by.

The main cavern was dangerously immense-a great arching spacewith an unsupported roof that dripped with slime. To the northeast and northwest, great tunnel roadways cleaved into the underdark. The vast central hall