“Now I’m not saying that I have always been exactly good,but I have tried, in my way, to lead a life devoted to certain positive principles.” Remaining perfectly calm, the pixie tried to let reason speakfor itself. “So although on the surface some of my actions might appearquestionable, I can assure you that I have always been pure at heart.” Thelittle creature shot a dark sideways glance at her companions. “Look, are youlistening to me or what?”
Soaked, dark, and glowering, the Justicar collected twigs and branches and stacked them in a pile. Cinders helpfully shot a small flame jet into the kindling, and a sturdy campfire was instantly ablaze. Bound hand and foot and dangling helplessly above the ground, the pixie anxiously watched as yet more wood was stacked upon the fire.
“Um, all right, I am aware that I have not been… as goodas I should. However, I believe I can try to be better.”
The flames crackled as more and more wood was tossed into the suspiciously large blaze.
“Look! Would you stop doing that while I’m talking to you?”
The lands north of the River Franz were largely covered in fern and marsh. Autumn had broken the riverbanks and flooded the low-lying fields beyond. What in summer were tangled thickets and little hillocks had now become a maze of islands stranded amongst knee-deep, freezing ferns. The Justicar had waded doggedly onward for at least two hours, leaving the river, burning pleasure barge, and vengeful pursuers far behind. With an hour to go before evening, he had finally climbed onto an islet, cut down some bushes, and dangled his captive from a tree.
Helpless in the clutches of a huge, violent man and a pyromaniacal sentient dog skin, the pixie could only kick her heels and jitter in despair. With her hands tied, she could cast no spells, and if she shifted shape, the dog skin would smother her in flame. This left only her considerable powers of persuasion, which would have been more comforting if her captor would perhaps deign to even look her way.
The flames rose higher, spreading heat across the little island. The Justicar planted two forked sticks, one at each end of the fire, then glared at the pixie and began to shave a long, thin sapling into a spit.
Beginning to sweat a little in fright, the pixie gave a squirm. “Look, I’m sure we can make some kind of deal. I mean, you’re with theforces of good, right? And… and I’m a faerie, and faeries are cute, lovablelittle icons of forest fun, right? So… so there’s a joining of interestsright there, huh?”
The Justicar rose, holding his sturdy spit as he marched toward the pixie. He slapped the rod in his hand as he walked, and the pixie’stwin antennae stood madly on end.
“Um, look, you’re a reasonable man. I can see that. Soperhaps it’s time we just came to a logical arrangement?”
The Justicar drew a knife from his belt, cut the pixie from her perch and shoved the skewer up through the back of her bonds. The girl dangled beneath the stick like a rabbit trussed for roasting and instantly began to kick and squeal.
“Oh no! Oh no-no-no-no-no! Faeries have a curse on them,you know! You eat a faerie and-ooooh-and you’ll go sterile! No sex drive at all,I swear!” The pixie wriggled frantically as she was carried toward the fire.“And you’ll get fat!” The girl tried to shrink down to the bottom of the stake.“You’ll get eczema, plus your eyesight will go! A-all food will taste exactlylike week-old ham!”
“Shut up.” The Justicar seated himself by the fire, holdingthe trussed, naked pixie up in the air. “You’re annoying. All pixies areannoying.”
“Oh my goodness, it’s a vision of Saint Cuthbert!” The pixiestared in amazement off into the empty scrub. “It’s a sign from the gods! I’mconverted to the good life from now on, Good be praised!”
The Justicar jammed the bottom of the pixie-stick into the sod, propping the little creature comfortably close to the fire.
“Shut up. Get warm. Keep quiet,”
The pixie relaxed, her breast heaving a little as she was slowly drained of her fright. The Justicar had taken a knife and sawed the bottom off his own coarse tunic. He began cutting the cloth into a rough, pixie-sized dress, and looked damned annoyed to be doing so. The man’s armor hadbeen hung out so that its felt lining could dry.
Casting a quick eye left and right, the pixie quite suddenly felt safe. “Sure, I’ll keep quiet. My name is Escalla, by the way. That’sPrincess Escalla or Lady Escalla. Sometimes Your Highness or Brightflower Maid. Or-or a pet name? I mean, you could even give me a petname.”
The Justicar glared at his captive through cold, dark eyes. “Pixie.”
“Uh, yeah…”The girl tried to coax a little morecooperation out of her host. “Or maybe a more bonding kinda term?”
“How’s about fishbait?”
The pixie hastened to agree. “Endearing! I mean, a sense ofhumor is good. We can laugh together now, I can see that. We have a rapport!”Escalla blew a strand of stray hair away from her face. “But about the ‘pixie’thing. Funny thing is, most people look at me and say, ‘Ooh! Pixie!’ when I’mactually a faerie. I mean, a proper name for everything, and everything done properly. Am I right?”
Having finished a rough strip of cloth to serve as a pixie dress, the Justicar glowered at the girl and hissed, “I said quiet!”
He untied the girl from the stick, roughly wrapped her torso in coarse cloth, and tied the dress in place with woollen thread. Escalla began to say thank you, only to find herself immediately bound hand and foot again and threaded right back onto her stake beside the fire. She decided to glare in annoyance at the Justicar, watching him as he drew a fishing line from his pouch and sent a line trailing off into the water.
She considered changing shape into a snake and slithering from her bonds. Unfortunately, the hell hound skin lay propped on the ground a foot from her rear, and she could feel the creature grinning at her. The pixie tried surreptitiously picking at her ties until the Justicar came to sit directly in front of her and glare into her face.
“Speak. Who were you spying for?”
Escalla made a little wiggle-waggle of her head, and the Justicar frowned at her warningly.
“Well how can I tell you if I have to keep quiet?”
The huge warrior gleamed like a demon in the red light of the campfire.
“You will tell me who paid you to spy. Where were you sendingyour information?” The Justicar glared at the pixie and folded his arms. “Startnow.”
“Or you’ll what?” With a sudden, brilliant surge ofinspiration, Escalla gave a derisive toss of her hair. “You’re not going tostick me in that fire! I can tell. Oh yeah, you look tough, but there’sno way you are going to take a sleek, pretty, helpless young woman and simply burn her alive.” The pixie stuck out her tongue. “So I guess I’ll just keep mylittle secrets after all!”
The Justicar gave the faerie a level look, then picked her up, levered open Cinders’ jaws, and fed her feet first into the hell hound’smaw. He closed the hound’s jaws about her rump, then simply went back to tendinghis fire.
Sweating rather large, genteel beads of perspiration, the faerie tried to remain perfectly calm.
“Um, he still has a tongue in here, doesn’t he?”
Cinders gave a snigger, wig-waggling his ears.
Girlie taste good! The hell hound’s nostrils leakedsulphur into the air. Burn now?
“Oh, gods…” Wide-eyed, Escalla bit her upper lip andgave a dazed, measured little nod. “All right, I’m going to scream like a peeledweasel now. I just wanted to warn you that you’ve only brought this onyourselves.”
Escalla took a deep breath and suddenly began to shriek and thrash in abject terror. Her screams sent echoes shooting all across the swamp.
“Get me out! For the gods’ake, get me out!Don’t~kill~me~don’t~kill~me~don’t~kill~me! God~oh~god~oh~godplease~please~please~please~please! I’ll spill my guts! I’ll tell you everythingI know!”
As a demonstration of pure spineless, backsliding terror,it was rather impressive. The Justicar fished the girl back out of the hell hound’s maw, and Cinders mentally smacked his chops.
Aftertaste. Yummy!
“You’re welcome.” The Justicar planted the faerie’s stakeinto the ground and regarded the weeping, wailing girl. “Spill your guts. I’mlistening.”
Now several shades paler, the girl hastened to be as helpful as possible.
“All right all right! N-now you have to understand that I’mnot malicious! I have been outcast from my rightful position as a leader in the forest community by-”
Escalla went into a panic as the Justicar opened Cinders’jaws. “They paid me fifty gold a time! I needed the money! I repent! Irepent! I repent!”
“Who paid you?” The Justicar pulled out a tuber he had foundin the woods and began carefully peeling it with his knife. “Names.Descriptions. Whereabouts.”
“Ah, it was just a guy on the boat. He found me stowing awaybehind the figurehead and cut me a deal.” The faerie gave a shrug. “He was justan extortionist! He worked a ton of different deals-took a cut from pickpockets,gamblers, had his own enforcers. His men were the guys who tried to stab you in the back!”
“And one of them tried to shoot you dead.” The Justicar threwtuber peelings in the fire. “You’re at the top of their hit list. What did yousee that makes them so keen to have you dead?”
Escalla bit her lip in anxiety.
“Well… there was one other guy they reported to. Apriest guy or maybe a sorcerer! He-he’s the one who wanted to know all about thecaravans. Tall, skinny, long hair but only at the rear. They met at Trigol City docks once. That’s all I know, I swear!”
Wiping clean his knife, the Justicar gave a satisfied growl. The information was enough to lead him back up the chain. If he found the paymaster of the spy scheme, then he might be able to bring the conspiracy to justice.
“Excellent. When we get to Trigol, you can help me search forthe man.”
“No! No, I can’t go! Cities are really bad for mycomplexion!” Escalla jerked at her ropes in alarm. “Really! I can give you adescription, paint you a picture, write you a poem!”
The Justicar glared at Escalla in ill humor. “I need to findhim, so you’re coming along.”
“No! No way! They’ll kill me!”
“They are already trying to kill you.” The Justicarsaw his fishing line give a tug and roused himself to pull in a large black bass. “Right about now, they’ll be hiring an assassin-maybe even throwing ascrying spell. They should be on your trail by around dawn.”
The girl dismissed the thought with a superior little sneer. “Hey, if they could do all of that, why hire a spy!”
“A scrying spell costs two hundred nobles, but youwork for fifty.” The Justicar threaded dinner onto a stick above the fire.“You’re not only a snitch, you’re a cut-price snitch. Gives you a real glow ofpride, eh, Your Highness?”
Behind the faerie, the hell hound skin gave another snigger.Seething with hate; Escalla went into a magnificent huff. She kept her hurt silence for almost ten minutes, finally unbending when a sniff of her nostrils told her that dinner was almost done.
Over the next few minutes Escalla let her regal sulk slowly waver; the mere effort of keeping quiet was almost killing her. As she saw dinner cooling by the fire, she finally relented and allowed her captors to hear her speak.
“Hmph! So are you going to starve me or feed me like agood servant should?”
“Ooooh-one look at you, and I can just see that you’re a lady, realprincess material.” The Justicar had been happily at work, constructing a cageout of sticks and woollen twine. “Have you got to go?”
“Go?”
“Relieve yourself.” The Justicar finished his cage. “Or don’tfaerie princesses obey the call of nature?”
“What?” Escalla bridled. “No, I don’t have to ‘go’, and it’sno business of yours anyway!”
“Fine.”
The Justicar scooped up the faerie, pulled off her bindings, and unceremoniously tossed her into her new cage. He tied the door shut, leaving the furious little woman to rattle her bars. Moments later, a chunk of fish, a slab of tuber, and a capful of apricot brandy were thrust through the bars. The Justicar sat Cinders nose-to-nose with the bars, then settled down to thoroughly enjoy his meal.
Escalla ate her fish, burned her fingers on the tuber, and consoled herself with brandy. She looked up to see herself under the unwinking scrutiny of the hell hound’s baleful eyes.
Hi.
A few final tasks remained before the evening was done. Clothing was dried and then put back on. The Justicar apparently intended to sleep fully armored with his boots on and his black sword at his side. The ranger brushed Cinders’ fur into a nice clean shine, then banked over thecoals, bedded himself down upon the hell hound pelt, and went to sleep.
Left alone inside her cage, the pixie muttered to herself, seething with plots of revenge. She planned a hundred ways to escape. Unfortunately, they all required that the hell hound drop dead or fall asleep. Showing no inclination to do either, the canine merely fixed her in his gaze, watching as the prisoner paced her cage.
Eat. Scratch tummy. Sleep.
“Yeah right, red-eyes.” Escalla sneezed and waved asulphurous wisp of smoke away with her wings. “And a good night to you too, youflea-ridden throw rug!”
With nothing else to do, the faerie burrowed into a bed made of dead, dry grass and drifted off into a muttering, dismal sleep.
Up! Kill! Kill!
Jerking up out of sleep instantly, the Justicar rolled over and wrapped Cinders about his shoulders. He immediately slithered into the cold water and lay almost submerged. Nerves tingling, he searched the empty night, feeling Cinders bristling instinctively in hate.
“Cinders, where?”
High!
Awakened by all the untoward activity, Escalla poked her head out of her nest of grass, saw that it was scarcely midnight, and made a huge, irritated yawn.
“What is it now? Don’t you bastards ever sleep?”
A chilling scream suddenly echoed over the fens. The howl sobbed and yammered in unearthly hunger as a palpable aura of evil flooded through the night. Summoned by the echo of Escalla’s voice, a hunting screechcame from above. With a rush of wings, something huge and terrible came plummeting wildly down out of the sky.
The faerie wailed in fright, instinctively turned invisible, and fluttered madly about inside her cage.
“Open the cage! Open this gods damned cage!”
High above the island, a dark shape banked and flung itself straight toward the sound of the faerie’s voice. With ragged wings spread wide,the monster lofted low across the water and screamed for Escalla’s blood.
Sickly moonlight sparkled from the water, illuminating the monsters face. A head shaped like a huge human skull gaped over a muzzle full of fangs. Huge bat wings held aloft a body that ran with mucus like an enormous rotting corpse. The beast hissed, chemicals slobbering from its mouth to drip a phosphorescent trail into the water. Escalla stared at the apparition in fright, trying to wrench apart the bars of her cage as the monster blasted a putrid column of acid straight toward the isle.
As the fiend neared the campsite, the water beneath its wings erupted. In a sudden flash, the Justicar’s black sword smacked a long gouge intothe creature’s wing. With an outraged howl, the monster sawed aside, spinningtoward the source of the blow.
A blast of stinking fluid thundered from the creatures mouth, eating away the plants and soil as it hosed across the campsite. Deflected by a handspan as the creature wrenched in pain, the acid hissed past the faerie’scage. Escalla made a dazed little sound as she saw one side of her cage simply slump and disappear. An instant later she flapped out into the open sky.
Surging up out of the water below her, the Justicar saw huge bat wings swerve to pursue the girl and gave a shout of warning. “It’s anabyssal bat! Get down in the water or it’ll see your body heat!”
Cursing, the Justicar hefted his sword and sped to the remnants of the campfire. He dug out the warm ashes with his helmet, tossing them across the tiny island until the place became a maze of coals and fine white dust.
High above the swamplands spindly trees, Escalla blurred herwings and flew as fast as her skinny little body could go. A savage, bubbling shriek revealed that the monster was coming up fast from behind. Escalla frowned, looked back across her shoulder, and let her brilliant mind deal with the problem. The monster couldn’t possibly be pursuing her. She wasinvisible and also far too clever to have left a traceable trail. The monster merely happened to be flying in this direction.
Escalla decided to haul off and simply let the creature pass her by. She made one of the graceful loops for which she was so justly admired, looked derisively over at the monster, and saw a seething jet of acid coming right toward her eyes. The faerie screamed and made a mad tumble through the skies, the acid clipping her across the back as she tumbled free. She felt one wing collapse, and agony spasmed through her as she tumbled through the air. She hit the treetops, ripped through twigs and branches, then felt herself caught by a waiting pair of hands.
“Hold still!”
A blast of healing magic crashed into the faerie’s wounds.She gasped and jerked as her body reacted to the sudden, shocking absence of pain. The Justicar held her cradled against his chest, wiped her hair back from her astonished little face, and then stuffed her beneath a warm layer of ashes that lay across the ground.
“Lie still!”
Ashes lay everywhere-hot, gray, and choking. Escalla blinked,but the Justicar had disappeared into the dark. A screaming shape came whipping through the trees, and the faerie could only watch in fright as a huge beast hovered above the isle. With a vile sound, the creature spat acid once again, landing the deadly stream square upon a little humanlike shape sculpted out of embers that lay beneath a tree. The acid sent up clouds of toxic steam as it burned the sculpture into sludge. Shrieking in triumph, the monster landed on the acid-spattered ash to tear into its target with its claws.
An instant later, the entire island lit up beneath a pure, brilliant light. The Justicar launched a light spell, blinding the abyssal bat. The monster screamed and lurched into a tree, flapping its wings in an attempt to shield its eyes. Smoke hissed from its skin as the light burned into it like fire. Riveted with horror, Escalla lifted up her head and stared at the thing that flapped and gibbered in hunger for her blood.
The monster stood like a giant dessicated cadaver, its black skin stretched over an inhuman frame of jointed bones. It spread huge batlike wings, fixed its gaze upon the faerie, and gave a roar of pure demonic rage.
Lying stunned beneath the ashes, Escalla stared at the thing and felt her courage slowly deflate.
“Oooh, poop!”
Half-blinded, the monster reared aside as a human figure erupted from the ash below. The eight-foot abyssal bat dwarfed even the Justicar. Trailing dust, the Justicar’s black sword smacked into the monster’sgut. The blade rang as it chopped into stony flesh, black steel flashing as the blade beat aside the fiend’s claws and smashed down into its shoulder joint.Screaming in pain, the monster staggered backward, simply shook off a blast of flames from Cinders’ snout, and lunged to wrap its huge bat wings about theJusticar. Escalla gave a scream of fright and lifted up her hand, a spell half-formed, but froze in indecision as she saw the human warrior trapped inside the monster’s arms.
The Justicar’s face stood out in the stark shadows cast byhis own illumination spell. Trapped in the monster’s arms, the man roared andsmacked his shaven head straight into the creature’s face. He hit it a secondtime and then a third, blood streaming down his face from cuts made by the creature’s breaking teeth. As the creature’s grip loosened, the Justicar rakedhis boot down the beast’s long shin.
It relaxed its hold, and the Justicar wrenched one arm free to rip his fingernails down into the monster’s shoulder wound. The man rippedand tore at the exposed end of a bone, and the fiend threw the man aside in agonized rage.
The monster staggered one half-pace back. Gripping his sword halfway down the blade like a quarterstaff, the Justicar rammed the weapon’spoint into the beasts’ throat and twisted at the blade as it came free.
The monster still lived. The creature fought free and lumbered bleeding and howling straight toward Escalla’s hiding place. The faeriescrabbled backward and felt her back jam against a tree as she blasted her very best web spell at the creature. The monster ripped its way out of the web and lunged straight for Escalla, its needlelike teeth gaping wide enough to fill her entire world.
The Justicar’s shout echoed through the night. Steppingbetween the faerie and her demonic attacker, he decapitated the monster with one savage swing. Its fangs snapped shut an inch from the faerie’s throat. Escallablinked as the severed head thudded down onto the ash, gaping at her with its wide-open jaws.
Acid leaked from the corpse to burn a hole into the ground. With a shudder, the monster finally stopped beating its wings. The faerie stood up very, very carefully. With mincing, delicate little steps she withdrew from the monster’s maw. She wobbled her way over toward the Justicar as the manwinced and sank down onto the ash.
The girl blew out a dazed breath. She saw the Justicar holding onto his own ribs and came to stand at his side.
“You, ah, you do little spells, but you do good ones.” Shetouched a hand against her side where the acid had burned away a sheet of skin. Her flesh was now pure, seamless, and as perfect as ever. “Thank you. And the,uh, the warm ashes idea… pretty good.”
The man cursed and thumped a spell into his own flesh, hissing the invocation in annoyance.
The Justicar’s light spell lit up the island in a pure whitebrilliance. Covered in warm ashes from head to foot, Cinders, the Justicar, and Escalla looked like ghosts. The girl began to dust herself off, casting a frightened glance upward as something dark passed across the image of Luna, the larger of the two moons now riding the sky.
As light rippled reflections from the water, a distant hunting cry echoed through night. It was answered by an even fainter call from somewhere across the marsh.
Appalled, Escalla froze and stared up at the sky. “What are those things?”
“Varrangoins, abyssal bats, a type of demon-very dangerous.They’re hunting you.”
“Me?” The faerie blinked in horror. “Just me?”
“Just you…” Stark and dangerous, the Justicar simplylooked at the faerie. “Stick close to me if you want to live.”
The faerie nodded blank agreement. Ruefully inspecting the ashes clinging to Cinders’ wet fur, the man gave a growl. “Hey, Cinders, areyou all right?”
All right.
“Good. We’re going now.”
The Justicar tightened his cuirass and snatched his helmet. He whirled, swept up Escalla, and lumbered straight toward the water at a dead run. Escalla saw what was coming and frantically tried to fight free.
“Oh, oh, now look! Guys, it’s really cold, and the water andI really don’t agree with each other vereeeeeee-”
The Justicar plunged beneath the water just as a black shape cut across the sky. Escalla snatched half a breath, almost drowning as the big man plunged her down into the dark, chill waters. Claws struck at the water, then an acid blast stormed down into the mire, but the Justicar had already darted aside, swimming slowly and powerfully like a leviathan from an ancient world.
Long suffocating seconds passed. Still underwater, the Justicar and Escalla sheltered beneath a submerged branch, shadows showing through the water as more bat-winged shapes passed mere inches overhead.
Terrified of drowning, Escalla thrashed in a mad dance of fear. Her lungs screamed for air, and she desperately lunged toward the surface. She was caught from below and hauled back down. The faerie thrashed, desperate for breath, then suddenly bulged her eyes as she felt the human covering her mouth with his own. She tried to spit the man away-only to have herself crushedtightly in place. She took a breath straight from the man’s mouth as a sinisterblack shape skimmed over the waters just above.
An instant later, the light spell stuttered and went out, plunging the whole marshland into darkness. Escalla and the Justicar hung beneath the water for a long moment more, then rose up through submerged branches and took swift stock of the upper world.
Hunting cries echoed in the night as the creatures searched the far side of the island. The bats found the slaughtered body lying on the island and lifted up a scream of rage. As the remaining monsters flew madly off into the swamp, thirsting for revenge, the Justicar slipped underwater once again and swam quietly away.
Surfacing, he cruised through the thigh-deep water, planting the faerie atop his neck where she could cling to Cinders’ fur. Escalla spatand blustered, scrubbing her tongue as she fearfully hissed into the human’sear.
“You kissed me!”
“You’re alive.” The Justicar’s growl implied that this couldeasily be changed. “Shut up.”
“You frotting-well kissed me!” Escalla tried to abrade thetaste buds off her own tongue. “I’ve kissed a damned human! That’s the mostdisgusting thing I’ve ever done!”
“Unlikely.”
The faerie bridled, was about to launch into a stream of curses, and then shrank against the human’s broad back as something dark flappedpast a line of distant trees. The girl looked about in dawning fear.
“You’ve seen these things before?”
“I’ve seen them. I’ve watched them over Iuz.” The Justicarcrawled through the water without even raising a ripple. “They’re hunters. Theylike to kill.”
“A-are those things really hunting j-just for me?”
“Just for you, and they take quite a bit of summoning.”
The Justicar rose dripping from the water to check the skies for sign of pursuit, then swam through a few mere handspans’ depth of water,never once leaving a trail.
“Looks like I’m not the only one who wants you to shut up.”
The abyssal monsters quartered and searched the waterlogged isles, spreading a chill of evil across the entire marsh, but the Justicar’sskills apparently had thrown them off the trail. Climbing up between Cinders’tall damp ears, Escalla clung to her two companions in fright. She swallowed, following the sounds of the demons hissing through the dark.
“Powerful wizard, huh?”
The Justicar gave a grim, measured nod. “Yup.”
“A-and kinda p-persistent too, would you say?”
“Yup.”
Wet and bedraggled, the faerie cleared her throat and struck a thoughtful little pose. “All right, I can see that… that in the cause ofjustice, you need my help. And, ah, as a really, really reformed and deeply good kind of person, I will be really pleased to offer you my aid.” The girl shrank flat as a bloodthirsty scream echoed out over the woods.“Um, they can even see me when I go invisible, can’t they?”
“Yup.”
“That’s… that’s good. That is a challenge. We canhandle that. You and me and dog breath here, all together.” The faerietook a stronger grip upon her two new bodyguards. “All of us together.”
“Oh, really?”
“Look, it’s… it’s my pleasure!” Another hunting screamechoed in the dark. Escalla felt quite sick. Whoever wanted her dead was clearly pretty dedicated to the job, and the Justicar was the only protection she had. “You need a guide, and… and a mentor! Someone to help you on yourquest! So I guess we’ll just stick really close together from now on. Really,really close.” The girl scrubbed at her mouth with the back of her hand. “SoI’ll help you find this guy you’re looking for, but we have to have just alittle understanding first, all right? We need a protocol of professional courtesy.”
The Justicar cocked an eye upward in annoyance as he swam. “Such as?”
“No one touches the faerie! Right?” Vaguely aware thather bare bottom was exposed to the night, Escalla tugged her acid-burned tunic into place. “Do we have an agreement on that?”
“Whatever.” The Justicar rose onto all fours to crawl over ahidden mound of drowned grass, then slithered back into the water. “Let me knownext time you just want to drown.”
Escalla kept watch on the sky and patted the Justicar upon his head.
“Oh, and later on, you and I are going to work on polishingsome of those social skills.”
“Shut up and let me swim.”
In a vast, dark chamber, a thin figure worked late by thelight of: magic spells drifting down from above. In a place utterly filled with books, maps, charts, and scrolls, he labored with a curt, unforgiving energy. Equation followed equation running simultaneously down slates and parchment scrolls. A tiny, crumpled booklet written on sheets of flexible metal sat before the figure as he worked. Translating the code of the tiny journal through memory, the figure worked in dedicated silence.
Trigol’s library had yielded great treasure. It was a placethat obsessively stored relics-even those it could not begin to understand. Hereamidst the shelves, pieces of the great dream had been found. Patient years of study had slowly brought reward.
His work had built itself slowly. Here, beneath the soaring scroll shelves, a vision of greatness slowly rose….
It was a magic from before the time of the great sorcerers such as Tensor, Bigby, and Otiluke, a lore millennia old and intermingled with dark skills gleaned from a dozen other worlds and other planes-the brainchild ofa single man.
This great work finally had a student to bring it to fruition, a successor worthy of the great secret buried for untold centuries here amongst the shabby scrolls.
The moment of ultimate greatness was still an elusive dream, but at last the plans and requirements were laid. The chambers of the ancient master had been discovered once again. Only a few simple tools were needed, and the last phase finally could begin.
The scholar finished the last line of the final equation upon the chart. In cold satisfaction, he laid his hands flat upon the table, staring into empty space as he held his majestic vision in his mind.
His two assistants stood waiting in the shadows. One man inclined his head toward his master and came softly forward into the light. His master turned a thin, bald head, the long strands of red hair at his shoulders catching the light of candle flames.
“The pixie?”
“Has evaded us, my lord.” The assistant inclined his head,his voice habitually held in the whisper of his trade. “Our ally will requiregreat payment for the services of his beasts. Shall I request their aid for another day?”
Arising from his desk, the master slowly folded his hands into his sleeves. One side of his face shone bright beneath the lights while the other side gleamed darker than a slice of night.
“Dismiss the demons. We need no more debts to our ally.”
“And the pixie, my lord?”
“If she is fleeing in fright, she is hardly a danger.” Themaster carefully stored his reference books away, indexing them with an unconscious, habitual skill. “The northern settlements are already as good asgone. We are secure to begin our work at last.”
A second assistant waited with his fingertips steepled. The man drifted forward, his voice scarcely louder than the slow drifting of the dust across the library shelves.
“The third weapon has been found, my lord. Blackrazor is nowin the city.”
The master closed his eyes and drew in a slow, deep breath of ecstasy.
His first assistant raised an eyebrow and turned toward his comrade in mild surprise. “All three weapons are here?”
“All three.”
Still standing with his eyes closed, the master let the glory of it run like fire through his mind.
“All three weapons, and the great maze prepared at last.” Thelong, slow spell of an ancient sorcerer was coming to its triumph. “We shallbegin the final phase.”
Turning, the master swept open his hands and uttered the syllables of a spell. A glowing portal flashed open in the air behind him, filling the entire library with an eerie golden light.
“It has begun at last All will be as it was. We shallrecreate the triumph of the Great One, but this time, we shall exceed even the Great One’s dreams.”
The figure closed its copy of the wizard Keraptis’ journals.Its equations had been so tantalizingly close to completion yet so tragically flawed. It had taken a successor to realize the dream, to find the courage to reach out and grasp true greatness.
The master turned, and in the light of the magic portal, his face shimmered with painted shadows, one half black and one half white. He sent his acolytes through the portal, took one last glimpse at his workplace, then simply stepped through into the light.
The portal flashed and closed, leaving the library in utter darkness. Trigol dreamed onward in its restless sleep while from the north, a cold wind began to blow….