White Plume Mountain

am doing this under serious protest-andonly because this vampire really pissed me off!”

Holding a torch made from a chunk of vampire coffin, the girl tramped off into the gloom. A staccato series of little blasts revealed that the grisly job was being done.

Spattered, bedraggled, and extremely annoyed, Escalla appeared back at the ledge.

“Hey Jus, what about the dead priest? Isn’t he gonna turninto a vampire too?”

“No!” The geyser gave its customary warning cough, and Jusducked down low. “You don’t turn into a vampire unless you’re buried in theearth! That’s why you leave the bodies out for the scavengers.”

“Oh, great!” Escalla stood on the chest of the dead Blereddpriest to give her voice more height so it would carry. “Great, I can see it allnow. You get fanged to death by a vampire, and just to add insult to injury, your friends just leave you on a roadside to get eaten up by crows!” Pausing,Escalla considered the point. “Hey, but what if you were half eaten bycrows, but then someone came back and buried you? Would you turn into a sort of half-skeleton, half-vampire?”

She disappeared back into the gloom. Flinching back from hot steam, Jus edged closer to his own rim of the ledge.

“Escalla? Escalla, get back here!”

Jus heard a warning rumble from the boiling mud down in the cavern and dodged back as a geyser spurted its lethal column up into the cave. When the steam and raining water had finally cleared, Polk, Cinders, and the Justicar blinked to see Escalla leaping and waving excitedly from the opposite ledge.

The faerie made a little dance of triumph in the air and shouted, “I found it! I found it!”

The Justicar’s heart gave a surge of joy. “One of the magicweapons?”

“No!” Escalla came dancing out onto the ledge holding alittle coin. “I found gold! The vampire had a big bag of treasure!”

Shaking his head to clear a rain of hot sulphur-water from Cinders’ snout, Jus gave a sigh.

“Does the dungeon go on?”

“Naah, dead end.” Escalla shoved her gold coin down hercleavage for safekeeping. “But there’s treasure here, bags and bags of it! Oh,and there’s a big hammer hidden underneath the coffin!”

Polk applauded, jerking his head in approval. The faerie took a bow as the teamster showered her with praise.

“That’s it! That’s got to be the magic hammer. She did good!She did damned good!”

“Damned good.” Jus felt himself relaxing piece by piece. Hisfingers had almost stamped their outline into the handle of his sword. The man blew out his breath and fixed the faerie with his eye.

“You be careful!”

“Why Jus, are you concerned for little me?” Escalla posed andfluttered her lashes. “Now wait there! I’ll go get the treasure!”

The girl disappeared, and Jus tried to see where she had gone.

“Escalla? Escalla! Don’t touch the hammer with your barehands! You’ll get a power shock unless you’re aligned with the damned thing’sgod!”

A flash came from down the dark corridor, joined with a screech of pain. Jus closed his eyes and rubbed at his forehead with his fingertips.

“You touched it, didn’t you?”

“Shut up!” The girl’s distant voice went into a sulk.“I’m going to drink my healing potion now.”

Long minutes passed, and then Escalla came fluttering into view. Behind her came a big floating force-disk, upon which rode a dozen huge bags of coin, a hammer wrapped in scraps of the vampire’s cloak, and the undeadcreature’s raggedly severed head, riding on the prow like a figurehead.

Grinning, Escalla timed the geysers, picked a gap and flewhappily over the mud. The floating disk behind her went out into the open air then plunged down to ride three feet above the boiling morass.

Her wings whirring, Escalla flew past the swinging, dripping chains and came hovering up to land in the Justicar’s arms.

“I’m here! I’m a vampire slayer!” The girl helped herself tothe ranger’s canteen, pleased to find that the scoundrel was carrying beerrather than water. The girl wiped foam from her mouth. “Right! That’smy blow struck for truth and light! Let’s go!”

The disk, however, remained stubbornly stuck three feet above the mud. Annoyed, Escalla peered over the ledge at the disk in alarm and knitted her alabaster brows.

“Damn it! Stupid floating disk spell!” The girl signed forPolk’s rope. “Right! Gimme the rope! We’ll bring the gold up the old fashionedway. I’ll go tie the sacks to the line.”

Jus looked at the steam-drenched cavern in glowering disbelief.

“You’ll be cooked like a dumpling!”

“No way! Three minutes between the geyser over there goingoff, and five minutes between blasts for this one! That gives me a window of…of two minutes!” The faerie dived down toward the mud, trailing a noose in hergrasp. “Now come on! We’ll get your magic hammer first!”

The magic hammer Whelm was hauled up from below, with the severed vampire head dangling below it on the rope. Jus removed the grisly head and tossed it over to Polk.

“Here. Catch!”

Polk held the head and almost screamed in fright.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Stuff the mouth with holy wafers.”

“Wafers?” The teamster stared. “Where in damnation am Isupposed to get wafers from?”

“You forgot the wafers?” Jus shook his head in disappointmentas he hauled up the first heavy bag of gold. “I don’t know what adventureparties are coming to. Well, just stick it in your pack.”

Escalla helped push the first heavy bag of gold onto the ledge and began to frenziedly untie the rope. She ignored the warning rumble from the geyser down below and triumphantly pulled the rope free.

“Right! Next bag!”

“Escalla?” Jus crouched as the ground began to shudder.“Escalla, get back!”

“What? No way!” The faerie blinked. She began edging backtoward the ledge. “I have time! Just a few more bags!”

A sudden roar came from the mud pits as the geyser exploded into life. Already running for cover, Jus tackled the girl and dived with her back into the passageway. An instant later, a vast roaring column of boiling water shot into the air. Amidst the steam, gold and silver coins could be seen showering through the cavern.

“No! My treasure!”

Flapping and fighting, Escalla desperately tried to reach the gold. Jus grimly held her fast, and the girl slumped as she watched the coins go dancing down into the boiling mud. Finally, the girl simply ceased struggling. When the geyser finally halted, she clung miserably in the Justicar’s arms witha tear welling in her eye.

“My gold! My beautiful gold!”

The ranger’s face brimmed with sympathy.

“Hey, cheer up. I’ll get you more treasure.”

“But it was my gold!” Escalla made a miserable littlenoise, looking wanly off into the boiling mud. “I won it on my very own.”

Shooting a glance toward Polk, who was no damned help at all, Jus patted Escalla on the back.

“You did well. You took out a vampire all on your own. We’llmake a Justicar out of you yet.”

“You’d have to eradicate my fashion sense first.” The girlgave a sigh for lost glories then seemed to cheer up. “Easy come, easy go, Iguess.”

“Hey, you’ve still got one bag and the hammer. And the piecedown your front can be your lucky piece, hey?” Jus tried his to cheer her up.“Come on, let’s get back to the sphinx.”

The man sat Escalla up on his shoulder where she could talk to Cinders, and the hell hound did his best to wag his tail and nuzzle at her hand. Jus picked up the little sack of gold and stuffed the money into Polk’sbackpack.