[Greyhawk 03] - Descent into the Depths of the Earth Read online

  GREYHAWK

  DESCENT INTO

  THE DEPTHS OF

  THE EARTH

  Greyhawk - 03

  Paul Kidd

  (A Flandrel & Undead Scan v1.0)

  Clan Sable had an eye for spectacular locations, and in a court jaded by centuries of tinsel and frippery, the talent had a certain dark appeal. At the very least, their choices would spark off a frenzy of one-upmanship as the other faerie clans sought to offer wilder, madder thrills.

  Acheron had been a choice of genius. On this plane of existence, the entire universe seemed to be trying to smash itself to pieces. A vast infinity of air suspended countless turning cubes of iron. The sepia-tinted atmosphere sizzled with electricity as lightning arched insane shapes between the cubes, leaving brilliant: violet trails scorched on the eye. The cubes were tiny worlds, and the worlds tumbled like dice. Here and there the cubes collided, the noise ringing through space like titanic bells. Fragments of iron and helpless little bodies went tumbling free into space while far away, wars and violence went ever on. The place stank of lightning strike, of the hammer-and-forge reek of the smashing cubes, and the rusty stench of blood.

  The Seelie Court

  was unconcerned. They were the faerie, the deadly sword point of a secret world. Although Queen Titania and the sylvan powers held state in distant planes, they used the faerie as their hands, their eyes, and their ears. Sinking deeper and deeper into their introverted world, the sylvan powers now scarcely knew fantasy from reality and left the power of the Seelie Court

  in the hands of the clans.

  Faerie control over the sylvan powers was absolute, and with power came intrigue—plots and plans, schemes and dreams. Wrapped in glorious isolation, the Seelie Court

  posed and schemed in a frenzy of activity that filled the centuries with the comforting illusion of activity.

  Sitting languidly upon outcrops of jagged iron and rust, today’s gathering had eyes only for the conflict being fought at the bottom of a crater just below them. Two combatants, both male faeries, fought and posed in the battlefield. Small, lithe, and winged like dragonflies, the creatures battled viciously with sword and magic. The duelists were slim and elegant, with clothing gleaned from a dozen exotic planes. Holding absurdly thin little swords, they stood and flung spell after spell at one another in a display full of flash and glory but rather empty of blood. Spellfire lit and stained imperfections in the metal of the crater, making it glow brilliant green, lavender, and orange. Here and there a faerie gave an appreciative patter of applause, while mortal servants poured out tinctures of faerie wine.

  Today’s duel served as a welcome little diversion. Ushan, Lord of Clan Sable, sat beneath a fan waved by one of his servants. It amused him these days to be attended by female orcs, their bestial forms draped in courtly finery. A man much in love with his own image, Ushan raised his glass to another faerie, who wandered over, keeping his eyes upon the fight.

  Ushan’s comrade drew himself up on a stool that had been covered with a leucrotta skin. He accepted wine from a serving girl and said, “My Lord Ushan.”

  “My Lord Faen.” Silver haired, Ushan had today dressed in robes of animated flame. “I trust Acheron suits you well?”

  “Well enough, well enough.” Lord Faen affected spectacles and a pointed beard, considering himself to be the greatest scholar of the Seelie Court. He gave a quiet flutter of his wings. “Can you recall the reason for this duel?”

  “The usual—insults, women…” Lord Ushan seemed more interested in watching the slow tumble of a distant iron cube than following the duel. “Who remembers?”

  “The participants, perhaps?” Carefully watching the nearest duelist, Faen slowly stroked at his antennae. “Your man Tarquil has quite a touch. Do you have hopes for him?”

  Watching the boy, Ushan appreciatively sipped from his glass. “His technique has improved. I believe him to be the best duelist in the lower court.”

  “He is your sisters son?” Lord Faen steepled his fingers, carefully watching the two faeries below as they stabbed spell and counter spell at one another. “He likes killing too much.”

  “Not a bad thing in a noble. We see too many milksops in the current generation, too little thirst for blood.”

  Ushan relaxed. All about him spread the Seelie Court, the nobility of faerie. Small, winged figures—some remaining elegantly in form and others changing shape as they pleased—lay scattered languidly about. The inhabitants of Acheron had wisely fled. Few creatures ever mistook a faerie for one of the lesser forest folk and escaped to tell the tale.

  In the crater, spell followed spell. The two battling faeries flew and circled—invisible one moment, then outlined by detection spells in the next. Etiquette demanded non-lethal spells, yet Ushan’s nephew stabbed these spells home with vicious intensity. He slammed his opponent back against the ground, sending the faerie skidding along hot rusted metal.

  Lord Faen narrowed his eyes as he watched the combatants. “Splendid isolation is an illusion. We have wasted our intellects on self aggrandizement.”

  “A superior being is allowed aggrandizement.” Ushan shot a dark glance toward Lord Faen. “Our intelligence makes us strong.”

  “The mark of intelligence is the ability to adapt to unseen changes.”

  “The mark of intelligence is to prevent the occurrence of any unseen changes.” Ushan’s lavender eyes sparked. “Events are merely sculptures of action made in the medium of time. We can control and shape events to meet our own needs. We are not mere butterflies to be blown along in the winds of any random storm.”

  Matching cold anger with disdain, Lord Faen smoothed his beard. “We have already produced one dark goddess from our ranks. She too believed that events could be controlled.”

  “All it won her was an eternal prison.” Ushan made a sharp motion with his hand. The Faerie Queen of Wind and Woe was not a topic for open discussion. “Clan Nightshade saw to it, and good riddance to her… and them.”

  A heavy sigh escaped Lord Faen as he sat back in his seat. He took more wine and swirled the amber liquid slowly in its glass as he said, “We must speak of Clan Nightshade.”

  Ushan slowly turned a frosty gaze upon the other faerie. “They played for power, and they lost. The lesson has kept the lesser houses in line.” Once the greatest of faerie houses, Clan Nightshade had been exiled for centuries. “Clan Nightshade is no more.”

  Faen speared Ushan with an acidic, mocking gaze. “Clan Nightshade is alive. Your Clan Sable is aware of it. We are all aware of it. Only a fool would remain ignorant of a potential ally—or a potential enemy.”

  “They are no longer of the Court.” Lean and elegant, Lord Ushan held out his glass to his towering serving girls. “They have adapted to other worlds. Why should we care for what Nightshade does?”

  “Clan Nightshade now has a great deal of experience in the outer worlds—in the material plane, in particular. Experience and knowledge are weapons, Ushan. Without weapons, the universe may overtake us, intelligence or no.” Lord Faen set his glass aside. “Clan Nightshade clipped the wings of the Queen of Wind and Woe. It is a skill we may soon need again.”

  “Faen! We have no need to go chasing demons in the outside world!”

  Faen tapped his index fingers carefully together and replied, “Yes. We are all too skilled at breeding them from within.” The faerie tugged straight his long goatee. “If we do not curb the habit, it will be the death of us.”

  In the crater below, Ushan’s nephew scored a hit, smashing his opponent from his feet. Ignoring the duel, Faen rose to leave
. Ushan immediately shot to his feet, his wings spread in fury.

  “Clan Nightshade are outsiders! They are not of the body!”

  “Then we need ties.” Faen turned away. “A means of welcoming them truly back into the family of faerie.”

  “It cannot be done!”

  “It must be done. The council meets before the Queen Titania tomorrow. I shall propose exactly this: that Nightshade be brought back from its exile in the wilds.”

  Ushan flexed his fists only to feel Faen’s voice derisively caressing his rage.

  “Truly, Ushan, turn your intelligence to the task. A new age is being born! Faerie must survive it.” Lord Faen rose into the air. “We need tools, Ushan. We need weapons.”

  The faerie scholar faded into invisibility and then departed. Left alone with his serving girls, Lord Ushan sat in stony silence. In the crater below, Tarquil wiped his blade above his kill and looked up to meet his uncle’s eyes. His thin mouth twisted into a smile.

  CY 588

  Autumn had stripped the maple trees of their green leaves, carpeting the forest in a deep, damp carpet of flame red and russet brown. The smell of damp and mold was everywhere, strangely fresh and enervating.

  A man dressed in armor made of black dragon scales plodded silently along the road that meandered through the trees. A shimmering black hell hound pelt hung down his back, the canine’s head sitting atop the man’s helmet and grinning madly with bright white fangs. The man’s hand rested upon a huge sword that jutted through his belt. Heavy hiking boots, a backpack, a coil of rope… it was the equipment of a man who marched fast and slept rough. Shaven headed, powerful, and suspicious, the Justicar marched his tireless march, his eyes watching the forest for the slightest stir of life.

  Hovering gaily in mid air beside him, wearing an outfit to make a mother scream and a father reach for weapons, Escalla the faerie whistled a tune. Two feet tall, her long blonde hair shining straight and free, the faerie travelled without a worry in the world.

  Along the road behind them rumbled a mule cart driven by a little man with an axe-beak nose. On the cart hung a banner reading: TRANSPORTS TO ADVENCHER. Polk the teamster drew in deep breaths of satisfaction as he looked about, as if the forest were a personal construction project in which he took huge pride. Beside the cart padded Enid the sphinx—brown haired, smothered in freckles, and enjoying the dappled forest sun immensely.

  They followed an old overgrown road lined occasionally with the heads of sunken statues, the granite faces of ancient kings frowning down at the travelers. Sparing the statues a brief glare of annoyance, the Justicar adjusted the fit of his hell hound and gave a seething growl.

  Their road map had finally been found. Polk had been using it as a wrapper for a greasy pile of ham sandwiches. As it turned out, their destination, Hommlet, was not in Keoland as Polk had claimed. Instead it lay three hundred miles to the northeast. Jus was lost, bruised, battered, and had almost been eaten by a hydra a few miles back. This was not one of his better days. Nursing righteous indignation, Jus shot a dire glance back at Polk where he rode upon the wagon.

  “Keoland indeed!”

  Happy as a clam, Escalla simply shrugged and said, “Get off his case! So he got the map upside down. It’s the Flanaess! With these kind of place names, anyone can make mistakes.” Escalla happily fluttered her wings. “We’ll just go north for a few hundred miles and bam! We’ll be in Hommlet.”

  Unperturbed by the detour, Escalla, Polk, and Enid simply seemed to look forward to the journey and enjoyed the views. More concerned with safety, food, shelter, and keeping his companions alive, the Justicar looked about the forest and seethed.

  “Keoland. I’ve never been to Keoland before.”

  “Well, these autumn leaves are neat.” Flying backward, Escalla plucked at a huge red maple leaf. “Feels kind of homey, like I’ve been here before.”

  The fact that they were totally lost had made no impression on her. Jus looked at her with one raised brow and asked, “Have you been here before?”

  “Ah, I dunno. Trees… yeah. Leaves… yeah. One patch of forest is really pretty amazingly like another.” Escalla turned around in midair as she flew. “But this”—she gestured at the slowly crumbling remains of a long fallen statue—“this could be familiar! I know I’ve seen statues like this somewhere before. I mean kinda similar…” She darted forward down the road. “Hey! I know! Let’s follow the road! It must lead to a town!”

  “Escalla, we are following the road.”

  “Oh. Hoopy!”

  The road turned a bend, and a row of thatched roofs suddenly met the travelers’ eyes. It was a village long deserted and left to the weeds. In a wilderness of deserted buildings, only the squirrels reigned. Cottage doors hung open, some creaking slowly like the sagging bones of the dead. Other houses simply lay cold and empty with thistles sprouting from the thatch roofs. The squirrels sped and flitted from roof to roof, wall to wall, perching atop rusted wagons and twittering atop abandoned ploughs. They even perched on the faded sign of an old tavern, making the painted boards sway slowly in the wind.

  War had come and gone. The village lay abandoned, the inhabitants having been wise enough to retreat before powers they could not resist. The buildings were still intact but were now home to only an occasional nest of stirges.

  As Enid padded her way down the weed-ridden street, Polk the teamster reined the cart to a halt. The sudden silence was deafening.

  Grim and tired, the Justicar plodded over to the tavern and prodded the door open with his black sword. The gloomy taproom was deserted, all except for a family of voles.

  “Cinders?”

  The hell hound searched with senses far sharper than any mortal’s. Stirges, tree hoppers, moss, mold, mouses with tailses, rain puddles, little spiders.

  “No movement?”

  No monsters, no magic.

  Jus knelt to carefully examine the street. The hard-packed earth was carpeted with weeds, none of which seemed bent or broken by the passing of feet. “And no tracks.”

  “Hey! Look at this! It’s a dead elephant!” Escalla hovered over a broken cottage. “Wow! Ivory! We could find a fortune in ivory!”

  Jus walked over to the girl and looked at a row of crushed and shattered houses. Lying sprawled amongst the fallen walls was a huge skeleton easily three times the size of a man. The skeleton’s feet were wrapped in moldering boots. A tree limb had served it for a club. It lay long dead, furred with moss, and with dandelions growing from the sockets of its eyes.

  Escalla darted above the houses and rubbed her hands in glee. “There’s another elephant over here! And another!”

  “They’re not elephants, Escalla. They’re giants.”

  “How do you know?”

  “A remarkable lack of elephant-like properties.” Jus levered a flaking piece of bone from the top of a giant’s shin and passed it up to Cinders. “I judge them about sixteen feet tall. They must have driven off the villagers.”

  Sitting on a rooftop, Escalla went into a sulk. “Well, they could have been elephants.”

  “Escalla, there are no elephants in the Flanaess.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m a ranger. Trust me.”

  Whatever had happened to the village, it had happened many years before. The place was clean, no dangers, no enemies. With a heavy sigh, the Justicar unfastened the paws of the hell hound pelt from his neck and drew Cinders from his shoulders to shake the dust out of his friend’s fur. The big man walked back and sat down on a mounting block outside the tavern, unfastened his helmet and let it crash down into the grass, then began to carefully brush the hell hound’s fur.

  Cinders’ tail thumped as the dog skin grinned its mad piranha grin. Camp? Start fire?

  “Yep. Guess we can.” The Justicar, a ranger who had fought a savage war against injustice for more years than he cared to tell, spread his friend out across his lap. A big currycomb brushed the hell hound’s fur to a brilliant shi
ne.

  Tired and with his ribs aching from a hydra’s bite that had failed to pierce his armor’s scales, the Justicar and rose heavily to his feet. New territories meant new work. There would be towns here, meaning inequality and injustice. More than enough labor for a mortal man to do…

  “Night’s coming,” he announced. “We’ll stay in the tavern. It’s big, and we can block the doors. Polk, get the mules under cover before the stirges get them. Enid, see if there’s any water down that well.” The ranger retrieved his helmet and his hell hound skin, then shoved open the tavern door. “Check every room. Keep your eyes open. If there’s trouble, call me.”

  Inside the tavern, heavy ceiling beams were still hung with bunches of dried herbs. A single iron pot lay overturned beside the hearth. Jus strode ahead of Escalla, checked the kitchens with their pot hooks and empty pantries, then clumped upstairs to check for lurking terrors. A single stirge—big as a small dog, feathery, and shaped like a mosquito—fled in terror out a window of the master bedroom. Jus banged the shutters closed then turned to make his way back downstairs.

  Escalla sprang into view beside him, shedding invisibility with a barely audible pop. Her long blonde hair shimmered like golden silk as the faerie toyed with it nervously in her mouth.

  “Hey, Jus? Good fight with the hydra back there, huh? Really livened up the day. I mean, you look at a place and think, ‘Gee, now here’s a dead spot.’”

  She wavered nervously, keeping out of reach. Bone tired, Jus sat down on the steps, wincing as his bruised side twinged. He unclipped the shoulder fastenings of his dragon scale cuirass, unbuckled his sword belt, and let the whole ensemble crash heavily to the ground.

  “You and your hydra! Damned thing almost stove in my rib cage.”

  “Yeah, but you’re not mad about it or anything, are you?” The girl hovered back and forth like a nervous bee. “I mean, it just lets you see how cool this journey is! Danger everywhere! And I’m sure we can find some injustice just dying to be, um… re-justiced and stuff.”