White Plume Mountain

upward as something dark passed across the image of Luna, the larger of the two moons now riding the sky.

As light rippled reflections from the water, a distant hunting cry echoed through night. It was answered by an even fainter call from somewhere across the marsh.

Appalled, Escalla froze and stared up at the sky. “What are those things?”

“Varrangoins, abyssal bats, a type of demon-very dangerous.They’re hunting you.”

“Me?” The faerie blinked in horror. “Just me?”

“Just you…” Stark and dangerous, the Justicar simplylooked at the faerie. “Stick close to me if you want to live.”

The faerie nodded blank agreement. Ruefully inspecting the ashes clinging to Cinders’ wet fur, the man gave a growl. “Hey, Cinders, areyou all right?”

All right.

“Good. We’re going now.”

The Justicar tightened his cuirass and snatched his helmet. He whirled, swept up Escalla, and lumbered straight toward the water at a dead run. Escalla saw what was coming and frantically tried to fight free.

“Oh, oh, now look! Guys, it’s really cold, and the water andI really don’t agree with each other vereeeeeee-”

The Justicar plunged beneath the water just as a black shape cut across the sky. Escalla snatched half a breath, almost drowning as the big man plunged her down into the dark, chill waters. Claws struck at the water, then an acid blast stormed down into the mire, but the Justicar had already darted aside, swimming slowly and powerfully like a leviathan from an ancient world.

Long suffocating seconds passed. Still underwater, the Justicar and Escalla sheltered beneath a submerged branch, shadows showing through the water as more bat-winged shapes passed mere inches overhead.

Terrified of drowning, Escalla thrashed in a mad dance of fear. Her lungs screamed for air, and she desperately lunged toward the surface. She was caught from below and hauled back down. The faerie thrashed, desperate for breath, then suddenly bulged her eyes as she felt the human covering her mouth with his own. She tried to spit the man away-only to have herself crushedtightly in place. She took a breath straight from the man’s mouth as a sinisterblack shape skimmed over the waters just above.

An instant later, the light spell stuttered and went out, plunging the whole marshland into darkness. Escalla and the Justicar hung beneath the water for a long moment more, then rose up through submerged branches and took swift stock of the upper world.

Hunting cries echoed in the night as the creatures searched the far side of the island. The bats found the slaughtered body lying on the island and lifted up a scream of rage. As the remaining monsters flew madly off into the swamp, thirsting for revenge, the Justicar slipped underwater once again and swam quietly away.

Surfacing, he cruised through the thigh-deep water, planting the faerie atop his neck where she could cling to Cinders’ fur. Escalla spatand blustered, scrubbing her tongue as she fearfully hissed into the human’sear.

“You kissed me!”

“You’re alive.” The Justicar’s growl implied that this couldeasily be changed. “Shut up.”

“You frotting-well kissed me!” Escalla tried to abrade thetaste buds off her own tongue. “I’ve kissed a damned human! That’s the mostdisgusting thing I’ve ever done!”

“Unlikely.”

The faerie bridled, was about to launch into a stream of curses, and then shrank against the human’s broad back as something dark flappedpast a line of distant trees. The girl looked about in dawning fear.

“You’ve seen these things before?”

“I’ve seen them. I’ve watched them over Iuz.” The Justicarcrawled through the water without even raising a ripple. “They’re hunters. Theylike to kill.”

“A-are those things really hunting j-just for me?”

“Just for you, and they take quite a bit of summoning.”

The Justicar rose dripping from the water to check the skies for sign of pursuit, then swam through a few mere handspans’ depth of water,never once leaving a trail.

“Looks like I’m not the only one who wants you to shut up.”

The abyssal monsters quartered and searched the waterlogged isles, spreading a chill of evil across the entire marsh, but the Justicar’sskills apparently had thrown them off the trail. Climbing up between Cinders’tall damp ears, Escalla clung to her two companions in fright. She swallowed, following the sounds of the demons hissing through the dark.

“Powerful wizard, huh?”

The Justicar gave a grim, measured nod. “Yup.”

“A-and kinda p-persistent too, would you say?”

“Yup.”

Wet and bedraggled, the faerie cleared her throat and struck a thoughtful little pose. “All right, I can see that… that in the cause ofjustice, you need my help. And, ah, as a really, really reformed and deeply good kind of person, I will be really pleased to offer you my aid.” The girl shrank flat as a bloodthirsty scream echoed out over the woods.“Um, they can even see me when I go invisible, can’t they?”

“Yup.”

“That’s… that’s good. That is a challenge. We canhandle that. You and me and dog breath here, all together.” The faerietook a stronger grip upon her two new bodyguards. “All of us together.”

“Oh, really?”

“Look, it’s… it’s my pleasure!” Another hunting screamechoed in the dark. Escalla felt quite sick. Whoever wanted her dead was clearly pretty dedicated to the job, and the Justicar was the only protection she had. “You need a guide, and… and a mentor! Someone to help you on yourquest! So I guess we’ll just stick really close together from now on. Really,really close.” The girl scrubbed at her mouth with the back of her hand. “SoI’ll help you find this guy you’re looking for, but we have to have just alittle understanding first, all right? We need a protocol of professional courtesy.”

The Justicar cocked an eye upward in annoyance as he swam. “Such as?”

“No one touches the faerie! Right?” Vaguely aware thather bare bottom was exposed to the night, Escalla tugged her acid-burned tunic into place. “Do we have an agreement on that?”

“Whatever.” The Justicar rose onto all fours to crawl over ahidden mound of drowned grass, then slithered back into the water. “Let me knownext time you just want to drown.”

Escalla kept watch on the sky and patted the Justicar upon his head.

“Oh, and later on, you and I are going to work on polishingsome of those social skills.”

“Shut up and let me swim.”

In a vast, dark chamber, a thin figure worked late by thelight of: magic spells drifting down from above. In a place utterly filled with books, maps, charts, and scrolls, he labored with a curt, unforgiving energy. Equation followed equation running simultaneously down slates and parchment scrolls. A tiny, crumpled booklet written on sheets of flexible metal sat before the figure as he worked. Translating the code of the tiny journal through memory, the figure worked in dedicated silence.

Trigol’s library had yielded great treasure. It was a placethat obsessively stored relics-even those it could not begin to understand. Hereamidst the shelves, pieces of the great dream had been found. Patient years of study had slowly brought reward.

His work had built itself slowly. Here, beneath the soaring scroll shelves, a vision of greatness slowly rose….

It was a magic from before the time of the great sorcerers such as Tensor, Bigby, and Otiluke, a lore millennia old and intermingled with dark skills gleaned from a dozen other worlds and other planes-the brainchild ofa single man.

This great work finally had a student to bring it to fruition, a successor worthy of the great secret buried for untold centuries here amongst the shabby scrolls.