Descent into the Depths of the Earth (3 page)

Jus raised one shaggy brow and said, “How do you get more
spells? Will you have to go see your teacher?”

The change in Escalla’s countenance was infinitely subtle.
Only someone who knew her well would ever have noticed the pallid stiffness of
her hands.

“I don’t have
teachers.”
Pages closed with a cold
snap. “I work alone.”

The subject lay where it had fallen. Jus had hounded countess
clues to ground before now, but he knew when to leave well enough alone.
Escalla’s past was a line drawn across her soul. The period before she had taken
up with Jus and Cinders was something she preferred to forget.

Jus threw a wash cloth at her. It hit with a satisfactory
splat.

“Spell copying is expensive. Don’t you need gems to grind
into ink?”

“It’s no problem!” Escalla peeled the wet cloth away from her
face and looked into the kitchen. “Hey, Polk! Do we have any gems?”

Enid and Polk had just pulverized gems in a pestle to make
Enid’s next stun symbol papyrus. Freezing guiltily, Enid covered the pestle with
one paw and said, “Ah, no.”

“Damn!” Escalla rested in her tub with her pretty pink feet
steaming out in the open air. “Polk, go look in my bags, will you?”

Indignant at being disturbed, Polk slammed pots and pans
about the kitchen table, putting the powdered gems dangerously close to the
seasonings for the night’s meal.

“We spent ’em, girl!” shouted the teamster. “That’s what
treasure’s for! Supplies! Essentials! Gifts to the needy and glory to the gods!”

The faerie pursed her mouth. “You spent it on booze, didn’t
you?”

“Essential exploration assets!” Polk waved his hands. “An
evening drink by the campfire is a prime piece of any adventure! Just read the
literature!”

“Polk, one of these days, you are going to get such a pinch.”
Escalla irritably went back to her book. “All right, I’ll use the burned version
for now, but we need some gems—just little semi-precious ones.”

Jus reached out with the point of his sword and tugged a
hanging blanket back into place, sealing the bathroom off from the kitchen.

“If I find any lying around, I’ll let you know.”

With an expressive little sigh, the faerie slung her hair
down the back of the cooking pot. She leaned her head against the rim of her
bath and paddled with her toes.

“My water’s getting cold. Can we get Cinders in here to warm
it up?”

“Near a bath? Remember last time?”

The last time had been in the city of Trigol about two months
before. The trouble of dunking a wailing hell hound skin into an unwanted bath
had been amusing, to say the least. Escalla chuckled, then suddenly discovered
that she was sitting on her scrubbing brush. “You know, for a refugee from the
Abyss, that dog can be a real coward!” The girl lay in her bath and smiled. “Do
you think they ever replaced that ceiling?”

“Remember the noise he made?”

“I remember.” Rolling her head, Escalla slyly regarded her
shaven-headed friend. “Hey, J-man! That was the first time I saw you getting out
of the bath.”

Jus decided not to comment. He propped his sword within easy
reach and reclined once again.

Unperturbed, Escalla leaned over the rim of her pot and gave
a feline little smile. “You have two cute little dimples in your rear.”

Jus glowered. “That is called ‘muscle confirmation’.”

“That just happen to be shaped like cute itty bitty dimples!”

Jus nursed his pride with a sniff and rearranged his sword
again.

There was something odd about the village. Something
disquieting.
Jus knew Cinders had sensed it, though the hell hound had seen
nothing invisible. There were no traps and apparently no creatures lurking
underneath the floors, yet there was a sense of imminence, as though something
dark and sinister had the place on its mind.

For her part, Escalla had no suspicions. She seemed to have
other troubles on her mind. Coming to the edge of her bath, she looked out of
the cooking pot at the Justicar.

“This is kind of a nice place though, huh?” The girl waved a
nervous hand about the room. “It’s a convenient little stop. Did you see all the
squirrels? Those things are really cute!”

“Very.”

“I like them. Too bad we can’t stop. We should get out of
here first thing tomorrow.” Escalla sighed and sniffed the delicious smell of
frying in the kitchen. “I thought we only had hard tack left. What’s for
dinner?”

“Just eat it. You’ll love it.”

The faerie squirted water through her clasped hands. “So are
we leaving at dawn?”

“Maybe.” The Justicar heaved a sigh. “Polk’s gotten us lost.
We’ll have to circle around, find a settlement, and figure out just where we are
so we can plan a route.”

“Will it take long?”

The Justicar rose half out of his barrel, stretching and
cracking his shoulders. His skin was pale where his armor always covered him,
but his head and hands were tanned. “You’re very keen for us to keep heading for
Hommlet.”

“Yeah.” The faerie shrugged, sat up, and began to wring out
her long blonde hair. “There’s something weird about these woods, something…
I don’t know. It makes me feel creepy. I just want to get out of here.” The girl
sighed. “I wanna go to Hommlet. We’ve got the deeds, man! Still, I want to make
sure no one’s really unhappy about it or anything.”

“No one’s unhappy.” Jus watched Escalla for a long moment,
strangely pleased by the efficient way she wound her wet hair into a towel and
tied it into a turban. “Most everything has good in it. You just have to know
where to look.”

With her slim, naked back to him, Escalla’s little wings
gracefully fanned themselves dry. “I’ve never really been told that I have much
good in me.”

Jus knew when to listen. He rose out of his bath and sat with
a towel wound about his middle, leaning forward onto his hairy knees and
watching her in silence. Slim and strangely graceful, Escalla quietly wound
herself inside a towel. She turned to look over at him, her face thin, her shape
tiny and vulnerable.

“I lived alone for a long time, Jus. A long, long time.” The
girl turned away and pulled her towel tight. “Thanks. You know, just for… for
stuff.”

Jus studied the faerie for a long, quiet moment. She fidgeted
with her towel, staring at a puddle of bath water on the floor. Jus had never
gotten on particularly well with people. He did what he had to in order to
follow clues, sift information, and feel the pulse of a town, but his days and
nights were spent in the company of his own thoughts. First Cinders and then
Escalla had come to knock on the doors of his citadel, and now his days of
solitude were over.

Trudging damply over to Escalla’s side, the man took her
small hand into his fingers, squeezed softly—and then turned to wander off and
find his clothes.

“Dinner’s done.”

Escalla looked down at her hand and gave a rueful little
smile. Wavering up into the air, she flew off in search of Cinders, hoping he
hadn’t eaten too much brown coal before blowing her hair dry. Polk ran past her
through the kitchen holding plates of surprisingly glittery-looking meat. There
was whiskey in the jug and a fire in the grate. All in all it seemed the village
offered them a cheery night.

* * *

With the kitchen now deserted, an eerie quiet fell. Outside
on the roofs, the stirges hooted plaintively for blood. Ashes hissed in the
stove, and an old brown tea kettle leaked steam into the breeze. Above the
stove, there was a subtle stir of motion. A wisp of smoke in the chimney swirled
then crept out into the light to hover just above the floor. A single eye
solidified in the smoke, and then a long trunk-like snout sniffed and snuffled
at the table top. The smoke creature drifted carefully along the table then
flowed down onto the floor. It sniffed at the giant wine barrel with its cloudy
water.

A scent caught the trunk’s attention. The eye swiveled,
blinked, and the creature hovered above Escalla’s deserted bath. The trunk
sniffed deeply at the water while the eye carefully examined the old rusty pot.

A single golden hair lay floating in the water. The smoke
creature carefully picked up its find, examined it carefully, staring at it inch
by inch, then gripped the strand tight.

A sudden noise came from the door. The smoke creature made a
splash as it tore across the room and shot back up the chimney, fleeing into the
night. Padding into the kitchen with an empty bucket hanging from her mouth,
Enid blinked, then put down her bucket and frowned. She lumbered into the room,
sniffing carefully and following a smoky trail that wound across the table and
over toward the baths.

Escalla’s voice pealed in from the taproom behind her. “Enid!
Come on, hon! We have to rinse all this gem powder off the food before it sets!”

Her freckled nose snuffling, Enid creased her pretty brows
into a frown. “Wait! There’s something here!” The cat-woman peered suspiciously
at the chimney. “Something’s up the chimney.”

“It’s just a stirge. Don’t worry. I blocked the chimney with
a metal grate.” Escalla, still resplendent in a pair of little towels, popped
into the room. “Come on. Let’s clean off this fried rabbit or whatever it is,
then we can beat Polk with a stick!”

Reluctantly Enid filled a bucket from Jus’ bath then turned
to go. With a last look behind her, she padded back to the taproom to join her
dinner and her friends.

Morning stole over the old, bleached giants’ bones and crept
cat-footed through the tavern windows. Ashes cracked in the tavern fireplace.
Huge and fuzzy, Enid slept beside the fire, flexing her huge talons in a feline
dream. Polk snored like a sawmill, curled protectively about a big stone whiskey
jug and muttering occasionally in his sleep.

The Justicar opened his eyes slowly, carefully searching out
the room. Curled against his ribs and bundled in an old beaver skin, Escalla
slept happily. She made little chipmunk noises, unwilling to keep quiet even in
her sleep. Propped above them on the back of a chair, Cinders grinned his
crocodile grin, keeping watch over the room. All seemed quiet. All seemed still.

Something was wrong.

Cinders’ ears stiffened. In perfect rapport, Jus and the
hell hound listened to the air currents in the quiet room. Jus could sense no
movement, no presence hovering in the room. Cinders had given no warning of
illusions, invisible creatures, mysterious scents or noises, yet—

There was a sudden sense of movement. In a blur, the
Justicar’s sword hissed through the air above Escalla. The black steel clove
emptiness, and the room seemed still once more.

“Cinders?” Sitting in bed, his huge sword gleaming in his
hand, the Justicar breathed slowly as he sensed something strange in the air.

The hell hound sniffed at the air, his red eyes gleaming
dangerously.

Magic!

“Where?”

Gone.

Jus rose and began jamming on his clothes. Beside him,
Escalla rolled into the warm space of his abandoned bed. Jus slid into his black
armor, the straps simple, well tended, and efficient.

“You were asleep?”

Cinders snooze.
The hell hound cautiously searched the
room, seeming annoyed at himself for sleeping.
Magic soft. Didn’t smell.

“That’s all right.”

It might have been a scrying spell. Certainly there was no
physical presence. No creature mortal, immortal, or undead could sneak past
Cinders. Jus buckled his helmet into place, swept the pelt about his shoulders,
and settled the hell hounds head atop his helmet.

The big man nudged at Escalla with his foot and whispered,
“Escalla?”

“No one wears underwear with these, Dad! I swear!” The little
faerie sat upright, a look of blank wonderment upon her face.

With his attention on the windows, Jus moved carefully over
to one wall. “Escalla, there’s something spying on us. I’m going to investigate.
Wake the others and stay alert.”

Silent and grim, he went hunting.

“Yeah,” replied Escalla sleepily. Her eyes were wide open as
she sat in her bed of beaver fur. Jus gave her a glance, nodded as he saw her
awake and alert, then slipped stealthily into the dawn like a wolf upon the
prowl.

Behind him, Escalla stayed upright in bed, eyes staring
blankly at the wall.

“…but if it was orange, how would they put wheels on it?”
The faerie fell backward, continuing her rather strange little dream. At her
side, a fresh bouquet of flowers suddenly gleamed in the light—delicate
champagne roses, still frosted with dew.

Escalla turned over in her bed and breathed the scent of
roses. Tucked into a ball, the little faerie smiled and hugged her pillow in her
sleep.

* * *

In the cold light of dawn, a soft mist filled the village
streets as sunlight warmed the nights dew. Even the old gray thatch on cottage
roofs seethed with steam as the warmth of morning set in.