“All right. Have him bring up the rear behind Polk. He can berear guard. You take the point, and I’ll be right behind you.” The Justicarlooked up at the faerie girl. “You got your spells memorized?”
“Sure! And you?”
“Healing, anti-poison…”
“So it’s all hoopy! We go in, kick troglodyte tail, release afew thousand prisoners, catch that murderer, and retrieve the evidence!” Thegirl gave an airy wave of her hand. “What could be simpler?”
The trail seemed long, the chasm deep. Back-lit by volcanic fires, Jus stared down into the depths. “We only have a few days of rations andabout one gallon of water.”
“Don’t worry about it! It’s a dungeon!” The girl flewbackward without a care in the world. “It’s just a hole in the ground, Jus! Howdeep can it possibly be?”
11
Through a darkness so absolute that it hung like velvetfolds, the party descended into the depths of the earth.
It was a well traveled route, a tunnel partly natural and partly carved by hand, that formed a roadway plunging into the heart of the Flanaess. The tunnel floor had been leveled roughly flat, but the jagged roof dipped and soared into vaults and dripping ceilings. A reeking little rivulet led the way ever deeper, twisting left and right, then splashing down into a limestone cave.
The tunnel descended down, down, down… first a hundredyards and then a thousand. Soon all memory of the outer world, all breath of sulphurous air, all light of sun and moon, had almost vanished. The long, cautious descent plunged the party half a mile below the earth. Neither Escalla nor the Justicar suffered from delusions of collapsing walls or crushing roofs. Even so, the sense of so much rock above and the infinite earth to either side made the tunnels seem horribly oppressive.
Finally, a wide limestone cavern opened before the party. Escalla flew with her little light out into a massive void. Long stalactites hung down like spears overhead, while drips of water fed into trickles that joined into the single stream. Jus held up a hand to halt Polk and Private Henry, then lifted his magic light to spill its glow into the cave. The light shone as brilliant as day, flooding into the cave to strike sparks and highlights from countless outcrops of wet stone. While comforting, it was also a trifle blinding.
Escalla swirled up toward the roof and tried to peer down into the maze of shapes below. “Hey, Jus!” she whispered, “there’s a dead guydown here!”
Her voice carried strangely, the strength of it lost amidst muffled echoes. Jus lowered himself down a gigantic limestone shelf and frowned.
“What killed him?”
“Dunno. I can’t see.” Escalla flew to hover above the corpse.“Oh wow! Hey, guys! I see a-whoa!” A stalactite detached itself andplunged from the ceiling, almost spearing her. Escalla sped aside, and the stalactite missed her by a country mile. It fell to the floor with a heavy thud, righted itself, and fixed a beady eye upon Escalla above. The creature seemed to be a tall, thin mollusk with a shell shaped like a razor-sharp stalactite. It began to make its way slowly across the cavern floor toward a wall, traveling with the glacial, bubbling pace of a gastropod.
There were other stalactites near Escalla. The girl eyed them with clear suspicion, readying her wand. “The ceiling’s alive with thesethings.”
“Don’t get under them!”
“Thanks, Jus. I don’t know where I’d be without yourconstant good advice.” Escalla swerved to the ground, where a human body lay. Ithad been pierced from the neck into the abdomen. Nearby there lay the empty shell of one of the stalactite mollusks, still smeared with blood and lined with goo.
“I think one of these shell-critters killed a captive. Thetrogs must have eaten the shell creature.” Escalla hastily backed away. “Eeew!And ate most of the dead human, too. Damn!” Appalled and angered, Escallacircled the body.
She had found the main exit from the cave-another huge tunnelthat led due north. Moving to join her, Jus thumped down to the floor, sliding down the rock slope in a pool of light. He caught Private Henry and helped the boy to the ground, steadying his crossbow with one big hand.
“Son, do you really know how to shoot that thing?”
“Sir yes sir!” The teenager blinked. “Well, kinda. I scoredthirty out of fifty on the target range.”
“At what distance?”
“Um, thirty yards.”
“Wonderful.” Jus set the boy to watching the rear, thencaught Polk as the teamster came sliding noisily down the limestone slope. Still annoyed with the man, Jus dragged him onto his feet. “Don’t fall behind. Keepbetween me and the boy, and keep your eyes open!”
“Sure, son! They’re open!” Polk still reeked of fermentedkelp. “I jus’ stayed back to watch the lights-real pretty! Now that’s whatadventure should be all about. Pretty things and the unexpected! Surprising vistas, boy! A fitting backdrop to heroics!”
Jus fixed the man with a suspicious glare, while Cinders leaked a wisp of smoke and flames.
“Are you still drunk?”
“No, son! Jus’ look behind us! See! The whole place is realdamned pretty!”
Jus knelt and waved a hand. Private Henry, Escalla and even Polk all settled down in silence. Jus covered his light and waved the others to do the same.
With the light gone, the eyes were shocked into blindness, but it was a blindness that slowly filled out with little points of light.
Bands of minerals on the walls slowly began to glow in blues and greens. Lichens on the ceiling gave off a weird yellow light. Piece by piece, as their eyes forgot the brightness of day, the underworld began to come alive with light.
The air felt dank and cold, moving with slow breaths from tunnels and caverns in the far off dark. The only sounds were subtle, far off twitterings-bats, rats, or worse. The drip and echo of distant water filled thehuge tunnels with a quiet stir of sound. Dung made a foul stench along the tunnels. Some of it seemed to be human, some reptilian, and some came from creatures best left unidentified. Toadstools grew in the compost, their caps shining with a sickly green and yellow luminescence. Clinging to high tunnel roofs, other lights shifted and moved in the gloom-luminous beetles, slugs, andworms going about their daily grind.
Jus hid his magic light inside a pouch and shoved it through his belt. Escalla followed suit. The light spells were brilliant enough to blind creatures used to this pale phosphorescence. It seemed best to keep them as weapons, moving through the tunnels with more stealth.
Over at the new tunnel, Jus looked carefully at the dim, dark shadows and touched a troglodyte footprint still fresh in the mud. He thoughtfully dried his fingertips.
Escalla inspected her friend’s work and asked, “Recent?”
“About half a day’s lead.”
“Know what we’re going to do when we find ’em?”
“Play it by ear.” The Justicar arose. “Locator?”
Escalla produced the magic pointer. The little compass swung to point straight north down the tunnel. The pointer no longer quivered; the quarry had gained many miles of lead. With a curse, Escalla put the thing away and unslung her battle wand. The Justicar nodded. Escalla turned invisible and took the lead position, scouting far ahead of her friends. The Justicar settled Cinders on his helm and felt the hell hound lift his ears and begin carefully scanning the gloom. Moving with a stealth that was perfection to behold, the big man paced down the wide tunnel on Escalla’s trail, his hand poised on his swordhilt for a lightning draw.
Polk watched his companions, reached for his whiskey bottle, and then remembered that his drink had been confiscated. With a concerned look at the tunnel, the man ran to catch up with the Justicar.
“Son, this is no lair! This ain’t a dungeon!” Polk’s voicecarried shockingly far in the gloom. “Are you sure we’re on the right track?”