The second assistant threw himself between his injured master and the Justicar. The apprentice screamed symbols and sent a rain of darts scything through the air. The Justicar growled and waded forward through the storm, ignored the pounding, and finally punched the apprentice across the face. The apprentice fell, sprawling on the ground. Jus turned and found the librarian standing, grinning in triumph through a mutilated, blistered skull.
The librarian hissed, his breath bubbling. In one hand he held a black-bladed sword. With his back to the abyss, the man lifted his hand and readied a spell, ready to blast the Justicar to atoms.
Suddenly a clear voice pealed in from a dozen yards away.
The librarian jerked his head to stare at the center of the pentagram. Escalla, her wounds gone and her body utterly undamaged, gave the man a wave. She tapped at the unmarked skin of her midriff and gave a smile. “Polymorph! I do a good fake death scene, huh?”
The girl stood astride the half-formed body of Keraptis in its glass trough. She had her flask of green slime lying directly above Keraptis’ chest. Sloping over her shoulder, she held the hammer Polk used forhis iron spikes and pitons. “Say bye-bye to your super clone!”
The librarian screamed as Escalla whipped the hammer down onto the slime jar. The flask shattered, spurting green slime all over Keraptis’ naked flesh. The savage infection instantly took hold, bubbling asthe skeleton melted into a formless morass of bubbling flesh.
Jus was already moving. He cast his last spell-long-hordedand long-planned for-straight at the librarian’s feet. A surge of force rippedthrough the air, spreading outward in a sphere about the librarian. The sorcerer saw his enemy charging at him and whipped up his hand to smash Jus apart with a spell. He opened his mouth to scream the spell’s syllables-and no sound camefrom his throat.
Horror lit the librarian’s eyes. The Justicar’s battle screamcut off the instant he crossed the edge of his own silence spell. Unable to cast magic, the librarian shrank back against the edge of the abyss, his own acolyte held before him as a shield.
He had no magic, but he
No energy surge came. The librarian looked at the sword in astonishment, staring at the wolf-skull pommel in dawning shock.
An instant later, the Justicar fell on him in fury. A savage chop of Blackrazor hacked the librarian’s hand free from its wrist. Thelibrarian’s black, skull-pommelled sword fell to the floor as Jus steppedforward with Blackrazor flicking down into a thrust. He rammed the soul-sword through the librarian’s guts and instantly released the blade.
The librarian gripped Blackrazor in shock, staggering slightly back until he stood at the brink of the abyss. Retrieving his own much-beloved sword, the Justicar simply smacked off the librarian’s head. With acontemptuous push, he then shoved sorcerer, severed head, and soul-sword over the edge into the abyss.
With a look of annoyance on his face, the big man walked out of the sphere of silence, wiping off his blade. He gathered Escalla in one arm as both of them watched the librarian splash down into the magma far below.
Jus sniffed, watching the flare of light in grim satisfaction.
“Right on, J-man!” Escalla retrieved her frost wand from theloot pile and thrust it through her belt. Satisfied with a job well done, Escalla reached out to thump Polk on the skull. “Hey! Well done, big nose!”
A blast of light suddenly burst up from the lava. Blackrazor’s destruction unleashed a storm of energy that blew sideways,shearing huge cracks into the columns of crystal. The force platform began to tilt, sliding Keraptis’ slime-covered body inexorably toward the edges of theledge. Another explosion sounded deep down in the magma lake as Blackrazor blew apart with a massive blast of force. The power of countless thousands of drained souls shuddered through the earth to bring White Plume Mountain startlingly awake.
A shower of stones from above began to smash down onto the platform, rebounding and tumbling off into the empty air. The platform tilted sharply sideways as two crystal columns cracked apart. Escalla saw Cinders start sliding off toward the abyss and flew over in a rush to catch him by the tail. The hell hound hung half over the edges of the platform, staring into the surging magma. Burned by heat, the faerie wrestled him back from the edge and dragged the creature back up toward the Justicar.
“You’re welcome!” The faerie watched her bag of gold piecesfalling down into the lava. “Aww, man! That was my treasure!”
Jus and Polk seized the magic weapons, clinging onto Whelm and Wave as the whole platform lurched sideways. The only exit seemed to be through a single jagged cave. As the platform sizzled with energy, Jus caught hold of Polk, gave him Wave and Whelm, and then physically threw the teamster toward safety. Polk clawed over the lip of the rock shelf, hunching as hot rocks crashed and fell about him.
The force platform hung sloping straight down toward the lava. Jus clung onto a projecting knob of crystal pillar a dozen feet short of the ledge.
Still attached to Polk’s backpack, the erinyes’ magic ropecame slithering by. Jus frantically kicked and caught the rope loop around his boot. He snatched the rope, dragged it free, then whipped it up toward Polk’sreaching hands.
The magic rope cracked through the air. Braced in the cave mouth, Polk took the strain as Jus climbed hand over hand into the cavern.
Yards behind him, Escalla flew clumsily through the air, dragging Cinders by the tail. The whole force platform went spinning down toward the magma lake, the magic flaring and disappearing as the crystal columns broke. Raw heat came fountaining upward, catching the faerie and wrapping her in Cinders’ pelt. Shielded from the furnace, she was hurled straight into Jus’hands, blistering winds jetting into the tunnel mouth and almost bowling the adventurers from their feet.
A long corridor ran past rooms filled with laboratory equipment, books, and scrolls. Jus snatched Cinders and pushed the others ahead, hanging the hell hound skin about his neck to shield the party from the heat. Behind them, the lava bubbled like a stew, the whole mountain beginning to throb with building force.
The group pelted down a jagged corridor. As they passed a table, Jus ducked beneath a tongue of fire and snatched up a bag of gems. Escalla blinked at it in shock as Jus shielded her from a fire blast.
The entire mountain shook as the adventurers sped onward down the hall. Escalla snatched a ruby from a shelf as she passed. Stuffing the treasure down her meagre cleavage, she sped down the passageway, shooting up an overhead tunnel as the corridor took a turn straight into the air.
Jus shoved Polk up the steel ladder rungs then began to climb hastily behind the teamster. Keeping just ahead of Polk and his rather careless trident, Escalla discovered a hatchway and threw her tiny strength into trying to turn the wheel that opened the door. Below the tunnel entrance, flame sheeted through the air, heat blasting up the tunnel to lick in hunger at their feet.
“Polk! Press the catch!” Shielding himself unsuccessfullyfrom the heat, Jus clung onto the ladder rungs. “Get the damned thing open!”
Encumbered by his trident, Polk fought past and rammed his hand against the hatch. The trapdoor flung backward, and a cascade of filthy water began to tumble inward through the open hole.
The adventurers fought their way past the flow to find themselves in familiar algae-spattered corridors. They were in the north passage of the dungeon, and Enid the sphinx’s backside faced them only a few yards away.The Justicar tried to slam shut the trapdoor, but steam shot out to fill the corridor with a choking fog.
“Out! Kelpies! Enid! Move! Get out of the mountain!”
Enid looked about, saw the adventurers pelting pell-mell down the passageway toward her, then saw a lick of flames come shooting from the hole just behind. Hard on the Justicar’s heels came two shrieking women made ofbundled kelp, their weed-strands steaming as fire licked into the passageway. Escalla shot past Enid and grabbed the big catwoman by the ear.
