Descent into the Depths of the Earth (8 page)

Incredulous, Escalla lifted up the jewel and watched it
sparkle. With the prettiest of little blushes, Escalla quietly put the necklace
on. She admired it in awe, unable to believe just what was happening.

The gold was a dark, rich orange that showed her hair to be
of a far more precious hue. The clear stone hung between her breasts and seemed
to shimmer and flow with all the colors of the forest sky. It caught the green
of her eyes and turned it from a sly glimmer to a shade innocent as forest
grass. Escalla turned and gazed at her reflection in the mirror, looking at
herself in blank astonishment.

It had been custom made for her—custom made with infinite
care.

Escalla turned and looked toward Jus. The man knelt beside
the stream, carefully examining fallen autumn leaves in the mud. The faerie felt
something akin to a tear well in her eye, even as she swelled her breast like a
puffer fish about to burst.

A blush spread from her eartips to her toes. Suddenly
girlishly shy, she found herself unable to move or even speak. The necklace hung
fluid and gleaming about her neck, while Jus artlessly managed to avoid watching
her.

Polk corked his jug and gave a loud, satisfied sigh. He had
given his astonished mule a slug of whiskey, and the poor animal now stood with
its knees knocking and its eyes staring into different dimensions of space and
time. Turning, Polk saw Escalla’s necklace glistening about her alabaster
throat.

He creased his brows and exclaimed, “Jewels!” The teamster
scratched his head with a noise like sandpaper. “Is that treasure?”

“Oh,
definitely.”

Escalla floated quietly into the air, feeling a strange, numb
sensation. She hovered indecisively for a long moment then tugged her skirt
straight, took a deep breath, and flew over to the Justicar.

He knelt, examining a fallen maple leaf, one of untold
thousands that carpeted the banks of the forest stream. This particular leaf
showed a tiny mark on the moist dirt that sheened its upper surface—a mark like
a tiny footprint only a few inches long. Escalla landed softly on the mold
nearby, her hands behind her back and her body swinging from side to side like
an embarrassed child called up before her school.

She cleared her throat. Jus contrived to carefully lever up
the fallen maple leaf and examine the indentation left in the mud below. The
footprint could not have been made by a creature any heavier than a modest house
cat.

Escalla took a step closer, and the sheer radiance of her
blush made Jus look up into her coy smile. Looking at him from the corner of her
eye, Escalla held her necklace stone in her hands.

“It’s, aah, a beautiful necklace.”

Jus knelt in the leaves before her, and Escalla cleared her
throat.

“It’s slowglass. It sees everything I do and filters it out
the back in a fortnight’s time.” She blushed a deeper shade of cherry pink.
“They’re called newlywed stones.”

Jus bared his head, slipping Cinders down onto his shoulders
and letting his unhelmeted head gleam in the light. Escalla ventured a little
closer, suddenly feeling an urge to pat the velvet stubble of Jus’ skull. She
instead bit her lip and smiled down into the fallen leaves.

“This is just too too sweet!”

Blinking, Jus looked at her from her tight little leggings up
to the roots of her hair. “The necklace suits you.”

“Well, it is
gorgeous.
It’s tailor made.” The girl
half turned away, hugging herself and casting one eye back across her shoulder.
“Jus, I can’t! This is, like,
really
expensive!”

Looking a little confused, Jus sat back on his heels. Muscles
moved under his shirt, making Escalla’s heart flutter in strange ways.

Jus scratched thoughtfully at his chin and said, “It does
look expensive, but if it’s what you want…”

“Oh, oh, I want!” Escalla whirled, paled, blushed, and hid
her face behind one hand. “I mean… it’s really appreciated. I know you think,
well, that maybe I didn’t understand. I just wanted you to know…” Escalla
bit her finger, struggling her thoughts past her embarrassment. “I just wanted
you to know that, well, I’ve been
thinking.”
Her cheeks were aflame.
Escalla pressed the backs of her hands against her face to cool them and felt a
lump in her throat. “I’ve, ah, been thinking it through. I know that’s what
you’d want me to do.” She felt her hands shake and hid them behind her back. “I
mean, we have to be careful about all of this. It’s a change—not a bad
change!—but it shifts everything into… well, you know… a new light.”

Jus rubbed at his nose, his confusion growing. He raised one
brow and asked, “What have you been thinking?”

“Um, well, I’ve been thinking that it’s all right. You’ve
sort of grown, I’ve sort of grown…” The girl swallowed. “I… I think it’s
time.”

Jus’ brows creased. “Time?”

“Oh, I know what you’re saying!” Escalla whirled,
all-of-a-passion. “I know size differences might seem a… well, you know, a
bit of a problem! But, ah, I think there’s a spell somewhere that can help! You
know, I could make myself a better scale. More able to, ah… to share… ah
…” The girl suddenly blushed beet red and began prodding the tips of her
index fingers together. “Well, it just opens up possibilities, but we can wait.
We have to wait. We might just have to be patient. You know—for a while…
until we find the means…”

Sucking on a tooth, Jus crossed his legs, collected the
faerie and arranged her on his knee. He hunched down to meet her eye in concern.

“Escalla, are you all right?”

“I’m fine!” The girl almost jumped out of her skin. “Just
fine!”

“Good.” Jus tilted his head to examine her as if she might be
mad. “Escalla, what are you talking about?”

Escalla felt the blood drain out of her whole body and go
into storage somewhere on another plane. She wilted like a boiled lettuce as she
stared at the Justicar.

“You didn’t give me the necklace, did you?” Still mystified,
Jus shook his head. Escalla felt her whole life sliding into a horrible pit of
embarrassment. “You didn’t give me roses, and you didn’t give me the sweets
either.”

“Ah, no.” Jus scratched his head. A mind used to sifting tiny
clues and solving crimes struggled with the events of the last five minutes.
“What was all that about
scale
?”

““Nothing!” Escalla jumped to her feet in fright. “Nothing
at all! It was—” The girl looked for something neat and glib to save her face.
“It was wing scales! Like butterflies! I need to change my scales! Dust them
off, polish them! And it will all take time!” The girl fluttered like a mad moth
in a bottle. “Yep! Time! Which implies anticipation! Lots of anticipation, all
working toward, ah, fruit. No, not fruit. Cherry picking!” The girl whirled and
grabbed Jus by the armor. “No,
not cherries!
Bananas! Apples! Yes! Gotta
have my wings ready by apple blossom time! Faerie tradition!”

Suddenly Escalla stopped, stared at Jus, and leaned away.
“You gave me none of those gifts?”

“Nope.”

“Not roses, not my favorite sweets, not this tailor made
necklace just for me?”

The Justicar spread his hands in innocence. “Escalla,
really!”

“Shhh!”The faerie’s face went blank. She lifted a hand for
silence as horrible thoughts skittered through her mind.

“It wasn’t you…” Sudden cold fear griped Escalla, and
she whirled to stare around at the forest in fright.

She fired off a battery of spells—an anti-scrying shield,
then an illusion of herself and Jus still sitting talking by the stream. The
girl grabbed Jus by the shirt and dragged him into a run, yanking him back
toward the cart.

“Run! Come on!
Run!”

She snatched her ice wand, Enid’s stun scroll, and her
spellbooks all in a single mad second. Polk began wrenching his cart around to
follow as she dragged Jus out across the stream. The girl took one look at the
cart and fired a swarm of little magic bees that slashed the mule’s traces and
cut them in two.

“Polk, get on the mule and ride! Hurry!”

“My cart!” Polk stared at the abandoned vehicle. “My cart!”

“Lose it!” Escalla whacked the terrified mule across its
rump. “Go!”

With a bleat of fear, the mule sped into the trees, plunging
Polk through a bramble bush. Jus backed away from the stream, his hand on his
sword, trying to cover Polk and Escalla’s backs.

“What is it? What’s there?”

“Just
run!
Just do it!” Escalla felt tears of panic
flood her eyes. “Come on, man. I don’t want to lose you!”

The girl dragged Jus away, and he broke into a run. He led
the way past Polk and the mule, twisting sideways down a deep gully filled with
leaves that helped cover their trail. They fled past fallen statues, past
another giant’s skeleton, and sped out onto an old road with weeds jutting up
between the cobblestones. Escalla danced in a cold fright, keeping her
companions in the cover of the trees.

They ran for a mile. Breathing hard, Jus stopped beneath a
broken oak to look behind him. Nothing moved. The world seemed still. Escalla
shot out of the skies, her eyes roaming in fright across the leaves.

“Jus, if we get separated, meet me at the Hydra’s lair! Just
wait! Wait as long as it takes!” She half tore out of his hands, surged forward,
gave him a kiss, and broke away. “You’re my friends! I’m not losing you!”

Something unseen flashed through the leaves high above.
Escalla whirled, stabbed a spell into the treetops, and blasted a web across the
trees. Something small and invisible struck the web, kicking and cursing.
Escalla shot aside, invisible again. A line of golden bees hissed from midair to
show her position as she passed. She blasted the branches and tops from trees,
sending a cascade of debris tumbling through the forest.

Something invisible hovered in the falling leaves—something
that cursed and threw up a shield to ward away the debris. Stabbing upward from
below came another spell, and another of Escalla’s webs hit something full force
and plastered a struggling shape against an old dead tree.

Leaves jerked as Escalla sped invisibly away—until a vast
wall of fire suddenly thundered upward in her path. Escalla’s voice could be
heard cursing, then cursing again as another fire wall blocked her escape off to
one side. In a sudden flash, Escalla’s invisible body was somehow outlined in
sparkling light as an unseen enemy neutralized Escalla’s camouflage.

Jus was already running to her aid. He tackled the girl,
balling himself about her as he leaped through the fire wall. Cinders’ pelt
shielded them from the heat. Rolling to his feet, Jus released the girl.
Breaking away, she sped hard and fast through the underbrush.

“Jus, keep back!”

A spell stabbed at her from above. Escalla rolled aside, but
the magic had never been intended to hit her. Instead it lanced into the fern
beneath, which instantly sprang into life and caught the girl about the waist.
Struggling, Escalla became visible as she fired a shower of little missiles into
the plants and blew them apart.

She flung out a hand and scythed a spell into a patch of
empty space. A female scream echoed in the woods, and a small form smashed into
the autumn leaves, flickered, and instantly became visible.

It was Escalla in mirror-image: small, lithe, blonde, and
winged like a dragonfly. Dressed in white lace, the faerie had a face and hair
that could have been Escalla’s own. With a vicious screech, the newcomer
scrabbled to her feet and threw a killing glance at Escalla.

Escalla hissed, whipped open her hands, and the blinding
sizzle of a lethal spell flashed into life. The other faerie snarled at her,
matching Escalla’s motion and wreathing herself in dancing electricity. The two
girls were about to open fire, when a sudden imperious voice pealed out from
above.

“Enough!”

It was a voice that hit with a tidal wave of matronly power.
On the forest floor, the two young faeries jerked sullenly back as though struck
a blow. Unused combat spells leaked off into the ground.

“Escalla! Tielle! Cease this at once!”

A regal presence shimmered into being above the two glaring
girls. Lean and arrogant, blonde and beautiful, it was a female faerie dressed
in icy splendor. Her body had a wild hauteur that almost stung the eye.

Other figures shimmered into view—faeries, male and female,
in hunting costumes and in gowns. Their fashions were exquisite, their faces
arrogant. Here and there, tiny dragons buzzed and hovered at a faerie’s side.

Looking stark in her black leathers, Escalla stood and coldly
wiped the spell taint from her gloves. Standing proud and arrogant amidst her
peers and keeping a good grip upon her battle wand, she stared at the
magnificent woman floating above and gave her a look that dripped poisoned
icicles.

The woman looked down at Escalla as though examining a found beneath a log.

“Hello, Escalla.”

Escalla matched the woman gaze for gaze.

“Hello, Mother.”