White Plume Mountain

dome. The big man discovered Escalla and Polk lying at his feet. He gently picked up the faerie-small, frail,and swathed in bloody bandages-and cradled her in his arms as he took stock ofthe scene outside his cage.

A tangled pile of equipment lay carelessly beside the pentagram. Two black swords, one shimmering slightly from the pinpoint lights of a myriad of stars, joined a trident and a hammer. Thrown about, almost as an afterthought, were their backpacks and the erinyes’ magic rope. Cinders laydraped upside down over it all like a throw rug, the light in his eyes gleaming slyly. Jus met the hell hound’s gaze, nodded, and felt the cunning hound hissslightly in reply.

Far below the transparent floor, lava bubbled. A brilliant coil of power lanced up from the crystal columns and out into the pentagram. The hideous skeleton in the trough took on glistening new flesh, sucking obscenely on the energy that crawled across the floor.

The volcano shuddered as magma welled into the fire lake far below. Here and there, a few flecks of fallen rock passed through the screen that shielded the open platform from the heat. The rock chips spattered to the floor like a brittle rain.

The noise of bubbling lava made the platform shiver. Escalla stirred and sat up, rubbing at the side of her skull. She worked a bad taste out of her mouth and looked around at the volcanic chamber.

The faerie sighed and rested a hand against her wounds. “Iguess we passed the librarian’s test, huh?”

“Looks like it.”

“Jus? If you had a great plan for this moment, this is a goodtime to clue me in.”

“I have one.” The big man remained calculating and calm. “ButI need to get free and get close to the librarian.”

“Oh, great.” Escalla craned her neck to see the skeletontrough and its surrounding array of torture tables. “Oh, I really likethe look of that. Gotta admire a host who really knows how to entertain.”

Jus pointed to the skeleton trough with his chin. “Keraptis?”

“Cloned from his own hair strands.” Escalla looked carefullyat the pentagram arrangement, the crystal columns, and the ring of tables with their manacles. Blood-red magma light made the very air seem to boil. “Thisstuff is all really major magical construct. This must be Keraptis’ old hauntsbeneath the mountain.” The girl tilted her slanted eyes, her intelligence sharpas a razor. “Those torture tables are new, though. See-it’s all new- sawn wood.”

The Justicar carefully put Escalla down on the transparent floor. She sat there with lava bubbling two hundred feet below her bottom while the Justicar stood and pressed his hands against the ceiling of his prison. He rapped the dome with his knuckles, raising his eyebrows as it gave off a metallic clang.

Escalla winced as she touched her bandages.

“So what-are they going to do human sacrifices to get thepower to raise this mage?”

“It might be worse than that.” The Justicar carefully tracedthe join of the prison’s walls to the floor. The dome felt cold and hard. Thefloor seemed to be a living, pulsing slab of pure force. “They set thislabyrinth up deliberately to kill the weak but let a few heroes through.”

The faerie cocked an eye. “You’re saying we’re heroes?”

“No, I’m saying the maze is actually a filter.” The Justicarseemed satisfied with his examination of the prison. “Polk, wake up.”

The teamster came suddenly awake and sat up, eyes wide open and his head spinning. “I’m up, son! I’m up!”

“Good. We’re leaving.”

The Justicar took a quick look over the open platform above the lava. The place still seemed utterly devoid of life, “We’re in Keraptis’laboratories now. They won’t expect us to get free. We’ll get into the mountainand hunt the librarian down on our own terms.”

Escalla gave an elegant gesture to indicate the little dome that held them prisoner. “And this jail-thingie we’re in? What? Did you find akey?”

Jus sniffed. “It’s not part of the original room. It’s not aforce field. It’s magical steel. It rings when you rap it with your knuckles.”The big man planted his shoulders against the ceiling. “They even put in someair holes! I think it’s just resting on the floor.”

Both the teamster and the faerie looked around as if they could somehow test the truth of the Justicar’s words.

Jus braced himself. “I’ll lift it. You two get out, get mysword, and use it to prop up the dome so I can escape.”

“Gotcha!” The faerie instantly ran over to the edge of theprison, then turned and looked at Jus with a dubious eye. “You’re really goingto be able to lift this thing?”

Jus never answered. He planted his body beneath the invisible prison dome and took the weight upon his shoulders. He shot the faerie a rare smile-full of shared pleasure-and slowly began to stand.

With a noise like the lid being raised upon a cooking pot, the dome slowly began to lift. Escalla probed at the edge of the invisible prison, felt a gap beginning to open, and slid beneath the edge and into the open air. She stood, brushing roughly at her bandages, and grinned with feral delight at her friend the Justicar.

“Oh, man! You can be my hero anytime!”

She spread her wings and turned toward the equipment pile. “Polk? Come on, man. I need you to lift the sword!”

Polk stared at the Justicar in absolute approval and total joy. Slapping his hands together in satisfaction, he backed away and wriggled beneath the invisible dome. Escalla caught the teamster by the hand, and they both ran side by side toward the welcoming grin of Cinders.

A sudden huge blow lifted Escalla up into the air, crushing her inside a giant fist. Polk fell skidding on the floor, knocked almost senseless by the massive ghostly hand that snatched itself about Escalla’s body.

A second fist lifted up the invisible prison dome, cast it aside, then snatched up the Justicar as well. The huge fists trailed tendrils of force, magical links running back toward the cavern mouth that led into the mountain.

Walking coolly through the portal came the librarian. His two acolytes followed at his back. The man lifted his hands and squeezed. The ghostly fists copied the motion, making Escalla croak with pain as she and the Justicar were held dangling like toys.

“A superior man proves his superiority by leaving nothing tochance.” The librarian cast a brief glance toward the faint shimmer of theoverturned prison dome.

“You were right. It was glass steel. You made an impressiveshow of deduction, a good display of physical force.” The librarian turned hisfists as he finally walked onto the vast, invisible platform. He examined the Justicar like an imprisoned insect in his grasp. “It will be interesting todiscover what you do and how you do it. The erinyes was a poor match. She lacked your cunning.” The librarian thoughtfully turned the Justicar this way andthat. “A very useful cunning…”

The librarian nodded to his acolytes, and both men immediately walked over to the tables at the edges of the pentagram. Manacles were unclasped and chains attached. One table was conspicuously adjusted to hold a victim of faerie-size.

Polk sat up, blinking. He sat beside the pile of abandoned equipment, looked dazedly at Cinders where the hell hound lay draped across his backpack, then the teamster finally seemed to see the librarian and his acolytes.

The sorcerers went about their business as a plume of lava hissed upward from the pool far below. Staring at the librarian, Polk changed colors, from pale white to bright red with fury.

“Good triumphs over evil!” The teamster puffed up like afrog, utterly incensed. “You may think you’ve got us, but you’ve lost!”

“Ah, the insect speaks.” The librarian was carefullyinspecting the skeleton inside the trough. Muscle fibres coiled wetly about the bones while power surged up through the mighty pillars that held the force platform up out of the mountain’s molten heart. “I was never in a contest,little man. Therefore I cannot lose.” Still holding his two prisoners in hisghostly fists, the librarian carefully observed his acolytes making adjustments to their equipment. “I have no time for selecting worthy donors, so we let thelabyrinth perform our selection process for us. The trap was