White Plume Mountain

Flitting between the ranger and the exit, Escalla irritably drummed her wand with her fingertips. “Hey Jus, did I mention the need for alittle speed here?”

The man sent her a furious look and slithered carefully on his way. The second bridge seemed even thinner and more brittle than the first. Jus blew out a breath, tested the ice with his hand, then slid carefully across the ice.

As he began to cross the second bridge, Escalla came closer and whispered, “Do you need a push or something?”

With a snarl of annoyance, the ranger rose up onto his hands and shouted, “Shut up! It’s slippery, and the stuff’s too damned thin!”

A cracking sound came from the bridge, and Jus’ eyes wentwide. With a sudden snap, the whole mass broke free. Escalla screamed in fright as the bridge slammed down onto the steel blades below. The faerie flung her hands to her face and flew through a cloud of frost to flap madly in the air.

“Jus!” In a panic, Escalla bit her hands. “Jus, did youdie?”

Five feet below the rim, Jus lay sprawled on an intact six-inch-thick slab of ice. The blades had penetrated halfway through the ice, but they managed to make the bridge more stable than before. Muttering to himself, Jus picked his way from ice chunk to ice chunk and crept across the lip of the trench onto proper stony ground.

Safe at last, Jus kicked at a random piece of ice. He wiped off the frosted front of his armor and peeled Polk away from the wall.

“Let’s get moving.”

Escalla let Jus kick open the exit door, took a swift peek about the corner, then zipped forward to scout the way ahead. Jus dragged Polk along in his wake, the teamster struggling vainly to come to terms with his handful of scrolls, the magic trident, and a lantern.

“Hold up!” the teamster protested.

“Come on, move!” Jus took a swift look into thecorridor then hauled Polk behind him. “Keep close and keep quiet!”

The corridor came to a branch. Escalla risked a swift glance both ways, saw nothing, and ducked back into cover. With his sword at the ready, Jus planted his back against a wall and edged up to the intersection.

“Cinders?”

The hell hound sniffed at traces of monster stench and said, Left.

Jus jerked his chin at the faerie. The girl turned down the left-hand passage and flew on her way.

It was yet another corridor, this time dry floored and well traveled. The long walkway led down to yet another door. This time the door hung open, and a horrific stablelike stink wafted through the air from beyond. In haste to catch her foe, Escalla flew into the room, saw that it sank deeper into the ground in a series of huge steps, then caught a flash of white wings at the lowest level of the room.

The little faerie yelled, “There she is!”

Wand at the ready, Escalla shot down at the erinyes. She gave a whoop of victory that suddenly turned into a scream as a cloud of silver came hissing through the air. A line of spikes stitched a line in the wall behind her, three darts smacking into her midriff and hurtling her aside.

The Justicar threw himself in front of the faerie as three more darts came flashing up at her. The black blade whipped in a figure eight, battering aside the missiles. He backed away from the room, going to ground and gathering Escalla up by the roots of her wings.

The ranger snatched a glimpse of a flat arena below as the erinyes raced through a door. Behind the erinyes, three man-headed lions screamed in hate. The three manticores whipped their spike-studded tails through the air. Jus ducked an instant before a fresh cloud of iron darts hammered into the wall behind him. With Escalla cradled bleeding in his arms, he backed back in the dungeon corridor so that he could study the room from relative safety.

The room had been constructed like an inverted ziggurat. A huge space sank downward step by step, each layer forming a platform in which monsters roamed. Three manticores occupied the lowest level, screeching as they shot darts up toward the passageway. Jus kept flat on the floor out of the manticores’ firing line and wrenched the darts out of Escalla’s side.

He worked with grim efficiency, holding the girl with an uncommon gentleness as he staunched her wounds.

Doubled up in agony, the faerie tried to push Jus away and said through clenched teeth, “Get her! Get after her!”

“To hell with that!” Jus crammed his hand against the girl’swounds, then wrapped her in a length of bandage. He poured their last healing potion down her throat, cupping her in his arms until she swallowed every drop.

“Lie still! Let the potion work!”

Potions made for humans would take their own sweet time to work upon a faerie. Stirring weakly, the girl tried to rise up and help. Jus put a hand on Escalla to reinforce his order to stay down. Slithering flat on his stomach, he took a swift glance over the edge of the floor, ducked a shower of manticore spikes, and then looked again. Below him, the manticores screamed for blood.

Polk slithered forward in a clatter of trident, hammer, and backpack. “Son, ain’t this dangerous? Don’t manticores fly?”

“They’re trapped down there. And the erinyes has held themoff herself with some kind of spell.” The Justicar risked a final glimpse of theroom from a different angle. “Stay down!”

The huge chamber dropped down at least forty feet toward a central arena. Three square, concentric levels separated the adventurers from the lowest level-and the lowest level held the only other door that exited fromthe room.

The descending levels each formed a pen, and in each pen, monsters roamed. The first and third were filled with water and giant lobsters. The middle level had been dusted with sand, and here six giant scorpions roamed. The creatures lifted their claws and spread them wide, sensing prey above. From the central arena down below, the manticores roared and struck sparks from stone with their spiked iron tails.

Sitting down to think, the Justicar pondered distances and options. His concentration was spoiled by Polk’s voice and the scratching of theteamsters wax marker against one of his parchments.

“Held back by fear, hesitatin’ right at the very brink o’greatness…” Polk frowned. “Is ‘lassitude’ a real word?”

“Shut up!” Jus wriggled back from the edge, the motionprovoking fresh howls from below. Somewhere beyond the door, light flashed and a distant battle raged. “Sounds like the erinyes is fighting a guardian.”

“And she’ll win!” Polk sat up too straight and ducked as ablast of manticore spikes showered overhead. “She’ll get Blackrazor and getaway! So then where will our legend be?”

“Nowhere.”

“How do we get down?”

Jus collected up the faerie and cradled her against his chest. Her injuries were healing, but the shock of them had left her quaking and pale. She put her arms weakly about the Justicar’s neck as he carried herfarther back out into the corridor.

Polk scuttled nervously backward, hurrying after the Justicar.

“Son? Hey son! How are you planning to get down?”

“I’m not.”

Unamused, Polk folded up his arms.

“So you’re just giving up. You’re sayin’ you have no idea howto get down there?”

“Of course there are ways.” Jus tenderly lifted Escalla up,and the faerie clung against him, still leaking blood into her bandages. “We canwait until Escalla gets better, have her make a sloping ice wall and just toboggan our way down.”

Polk’s eyes went wide as he immediately fancied the idea andasked eagerly, “So that’s what you’re going to do?”

“Nope.” Jus passed the lolling faerie into Polk’s care andpushed the man farther along down the corridor. “Take her out of the mountain.”

“Son? Son, you have a devil to catch!”