seemed to serve as a nexus point where drow caravans and travelers came to trade.
Beside the entrance to the northwest passageway, a hideous black presence materialized from the dark. The lich appeared, its rotting, skeletal face still hung with flaking strips of skin. With its magnificent black robes trailing all around it, the lich walked slowly forward, its steps so cold that they made the cave floor steam. The lich turned and stalked back toward its lair-troglodytes and bugbears bowing and cringing in submission as it passed.The drow watched coldly from the sidelines-dark, elegant, and vaguely amused bythe spectacle of horrid death. Chilled, Escalla backed away, then whirled about and hastily sped after the lich.
Outside the lich’s cave, a drow awaited. A huge pack lizardchewed on rotting meat behind the dark elf. Sitting beside the beast were a dozen spiritless creatures linked together by a chain, slaves apparently being traded to the drow. There were cowed, beaten bugbears, troglodytes, a pair of orcs, and a goblin child.
The lich leaned forward to speak to one of the drow. The dark elf nodded, paid a sum in precious gems, then walked back to the campsite while the lich returned to its cave. Torn with indecision over where to go, Escalla darted left, darted right, then shot after the lich and followed the dreadful being into its lair.
In a cavern lined with magic mouths that murmured and whispered in the very rock, Jus and Polk lay unconscious beside a pile of equipment. Jus still wore his armor, and no one had yet taken his magic ring. Two large troglodyte guards crouched beside them. The two humans were tied tight. The lich stooped over each man, staring, then spoke to the troglodytes and motioned toward the cave entrance.
The troglodytes bowed, lifted Jus between them, and carried him out to the slave merchants. The lich moved over to a shelf of rock, lay a hand in a niche, and drew forth a tiny folded piece of cloth. Opening a few folds of the cloth, it dropped the gems onto the fabric, and the gems seemed to disappear.
The lich peered into the cloth for an instant, replaced it in the niche, then lay down upon a shelf of rock and closed its eyes in repose. An instant later, an illusion spell snapped into place, hiding the lich from view.
Cinders lay in a heap in one corner, his mouth tied shut with Jus’ own magic rope. Escalla hovered anxiously over the poor hell hound, seeingthe dog’s ears jerk and his head twitch as he saw her spell. Through hisbindings, the black hell hound suddenly began to grin. Escalla bobbed up and down in encouragement, then as more troglodytes came to gather Polk, she flitted from the room.
Jus had been carried to the caravan and laid beside the slaves. The drow themselves were relaxing and eating. Boxes were being unloaded from their pack lizard, while a few more slaves were beginning to arrive. The drow were all supremely unhurried, passing their time torturing minor lifeforms and drinking thick black wine.
The spell began to flicker and fade. Escalla took one last scan of the route into the cave, drew one long, deep breath, then opened her eyes and found herself sitting cross legged at the bottom of the crevasse.
Henry lay motionless in cover, frightened yet still soldiering on. Rubbing her temples to clear a swimming sense of vertigo, the faerie blinked and then called out to the boy, “Hey, Henry!”
The boy slid back down to Escalla’s side, keeping his faceturned to the cave above, and sat at her side. “Did you see them?”
“Yeah. They’re alive.” Escalla sniffed, hoping that the badsmell in the air wasn’t her. “The lich is selling them to the drow as slaves.Must be why the trogs raid the upper world. Looks like the slave caravan won’tbe heading out for a while.”
“Where will it go?”
“Probably northwest. But to follow it, we’d still have to getpast the lich and all his friends.” Escalla felt tired and worn. The relief atseeing Jus alive had yet to settle her soul. “I could do with some ideas.Where’s Enid when I need her?”
Private Henry blinked owlishly in the dark. “Who’s Enid?”
“Gynosphinx. Freckles, perfectly spoken, polite and with amind like an encyclopedia. You’ll like her.” The dear, quiet, lovely sphinxwould have been such a comfort. “I’d say we have about an hour to effect arescue before those drow get on the road.”
Off in the deeper caves, the beholder gave an echoing growl. Perfectly trusting, Private Henry settled down to look at Escalla in joy.
“So that’s it! They’re alive! And you have a plan, right?”
“Sure!” Escalla blinked. Jus was alive! She sat a littlestraighter, her mind racing in a hundred directions and arriving nowhere at all. “Sure. Yeah, I have a plan, and it’s a hoopy one, too! Best if I keep it secretfor now, though. I’ll fill you in on a need-to-know basis.”
Infinitely relieved, Private Henry sat and hugged his crossbow for joy. “I knew it! The Justicar can’t be defeated by a bunch ofdamned trogs!”
“Yeah, well, let’s just say he’s gathering his resources tohelp us with our efforts.” Escalla lay back against the rock wall and stared atthe ceiling, wincing as she tried to find inspiration. “We’ll have to get movingquick.”
“Just say the word!” Henry was so full of trust that Escallacould have killed him. “What do we do first?”
The faerie slapped a few half baked ideas together in the vague hope that they might stick.
“Well, kid, look on it as a five point plan.” Escalla sat up,knowing that she was heading for a hellstorm of trouble. “First we get a newweapon for Jus, then we sneak into the lich’s caves, then we take out most ofthe trogs, then we kill the lich. After that, we free Jus, Polk, and Cinders, then run off into the tunnels.”
With a happy sigh of relief, Henry stood up and began to climb out of the crevasse.
“Thank the gods!” Henry reached the cave floor and gallantlyoffered his hand to haul the little faerie up onto her feet. “For a while, Ithought we were in trouble!”
“Yeah, silly you.” Escalla tapped her fingers together,trying to make vague ideas feel better than they looked. “As I said, the detailswill be revealed, ah, as we need to know.”
The faerie heard the beholder growling off in the caves and fetched her battle wand.
“Come on, kid. Adventure calls.”
Followed by the absurdly happy soldier, Escalla fluttered off into the shadows. Private Henry checked his crossbow, set his helmet to a jaunty angle, then marched off in pursuit of the smartest, prettiest, most competent girl he had ever clapped his eyes upon.
A beholder’s life was apparently a merry one. Havingslaughtered a horde of ghouls, the beholder now amused itself with the corpses of the deceased. It had gnawed the faces off one or two and dragged out the intestines of others to create a vile, nose-blistering stench. All about the pit that the ghouls had uncovered, body parts lay scattered. Bleeding a noisome green ooze from a few cuts and severed eyestalks, the beholder hovered above its kills, chewing on a severed hand and scowling in thought.
Escalla’s plans were detailed, concise, and foolproof. Inaccordance with these directives, something went “chink” against the beholder’sarmored shell, rebounded, and fell rattling to the floor. Utterly unharmed, the beholder swiveled around to look at the offending object. Lying on the floor, the drugged crossbow bolt lay pointing back down the corridor like an accusing finger.
Still frozen with his empty crossbow pointed at the beholder, Private Henry crouched behind a pile of rubble. The boy squeaked, the beholder roared, and a beam lashed out to blast a huge chunk from the rocks overhead. Henry ducked and fled like a hare. The boy’s wail of panic brought the beholdershooting out of its cave like a cork popping from a bottle.
Spells shot from the beholder’s upper eyestalks, blastingrock as Henry wove madly through the caves. With a shuddering roar, the beholder flew down the tunnels. As the monster flashed past, Escalla swung out of hiding. The girl gave a nasty little grin and fired her very best charm monster spell right into the beholder’s unprotected back.
The magic stabbed straight toward the beholder’s shell-ashell no longer guarded by its anti-magic front eye. As the spell struck home, Escalla hopped up and down and did a little dance of glee.
The beholder screeched to a stop, whipped around, and gave a violent roar. Escalla stared for one brief instant, then screamed like a peeled weasel and flew madly up through the stalagmites. Death and disintegration beams blasted rock right at her heels. Utterly unaffected by her spell, the beholder barreled after her like a runaway wagon, smashing into stalagmites and shattering them like glass.
Tunnels and caverns opened up at every side. Escalla blurred inside a cave and rolled madly aside as a death beam stabbed half an inch below her nose. She saw a side opening and made toward it to escape, only to have a disintegration beam from the monster blast into the arch and bring the whole cave mouth thundering down in an
