Descent into the Depths of the Earth Read online

  “Sport?”

  “Of course.” The cavalier gave a mocking smile to Escalla. “Shall the pot call the kettle black, my dear? You have an impressive kill record of your own—monsters, creatures, brigands. It sounds like quite the little crusade.”

  Escalla bit back a savage reply, half turned away, then flew over the balcony railing to land in the garden. Today, her father’s gardens were a fantasy of roses. Even the grass seemed to be fashioned out of tiny little flowers, all illusory, all slightly false to an eye that loved the glorious imperfections of the real world. Escalla walked onward for a way then stood still as she felt eyes running over her from behind.

  She turned and glared at the cavalier.

  “Quit looking at my butt!”

  “Your pardon, maid, but it is a most noteworthy rear.” The cavalier toyed with his sword. “When my father informed me of this match, I never once thought that it might prove to be so… beneficial.”

  Escalla flicked her shirts out to hide the benefits in question.

  “The benefits aren’t yours yet, bub!”

  “No? A shame.” The cavalier took a swift, searching look across the open garden. “Shall we move into the shade?”

  “You mean into cover.” Escalla looked a the man in sudden intuition. “Who’s trying to bump you off?”

  “Perish the thought. A mere habitual precaution, nothing more.”

  She took him into a rose bower—a bower carefully searched by Tarquil’s bodyguard before he entered. Standing in privacy with Escalla, the man visibly relaxed. He leaned against a towering rose trunk and looked Escalla appreciatively up and down.

  “A flower in the wilderness.”

  “Yeah, that’s me. Bloom bloom bloom.” Escalla lifted up the slowglass necklace that hung about her throat. “This is yours?”

  “Of course. Slowglass is rare. Slowglass is beautiful—almost as rare and beautiful as you.”

  “Oh, your clan must want me somethin’ awful. Where the hell did you find the slowglass? This stuff is rarer than hen’s teeth.”

  Tarquil twittered his fingers and replied, “Your sister found it for me. Your family was keen to help me pursue my suit.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  Escalla sniffed and turned away. A moment later, she felt a very unwelcome presence behind her. Tarquil set his hands upon Escalla’s bare shoulders and leaned his face into the curtain of her hair.

  “I am in your own old rooms. The mirror, the bed… places where you must have dreamed so many restless adolescent dreams.” The man nuzzled at Escalla’s ear. “Dreams can be so much tastier when we snatch them secretly. Perhaps you want to sample a little piece of the cake before eating it becomes simply a duty to be done… ?” Tarquil leaned much, much closer. “Your old mirror might show you something you might like.”

  He slid his hand onto her breast. In one blindingly fast movement, Escalla whirled, balled her fist, and struck him in the face—the force enough to send him staggering.

  “Touch me again, and I’ll kill you!”

  With a look of private amusement on his face, Tarquil touched at his cheek. “You had best get used to it, my dear.” The faerie hissed as he probed the bruise on his cheek “Yes, you are exactly as we thought. How gratifying.”

  In a whirl of his blue cloak, Tarquil turned and left the bower. Escalla watched him go, flexing her hands and trying to hide the fury in her eyes.

  “No one touches the faerie.”

  A slither in the shadows behind Escalla told her that mother’s invisible spy was still at hand. Without looking at it, Escalla angrily picked up her skirts and passed it by.

  “Go tell Mother: no free samples until the deal is signed and sealed!”

  Beneath a flame tree in the gardens, Lord Faen quietly approached Lord Ushan. Ushan of Clan Sable stood stroking his chin, his eye on the distant rose bower that held his nephew and the bride to be. As Tarquil walked silkily forth, dusting at his clothes with a smile on his face, Lord Faen came to stand at Ushan’s side.

  “You seem agitated, colleague.”

  “New alliances always bring birthing pains.” Ushan’s flame robes made colors dance within his quiet eyes. “Still… romance makes interesting viewing.”

  “Quite so.” Faen smoothed his goatee, his eyes on Escalla as the girl walked disdainfully through an illusory bridge and stream. “An interesting creature.”

  “She’s a savage.” Ushan glared at Escalla as though she were an unwanted scientific specimen. “She wallows in the real like a beast in mud.”

  Faen made an exasperated sound. He turned on Ushan with his antennae held low and said, “Ushan, the drow are moving. There is a dark Seelie, my friend, a reflection of all that we are. The old court of the Queen of Wind and Woe has been approached by the dark elves, and with the dark elves comes the demon Lolth, the Spider Queen!” Faen’s voice hissed low in Ushan’s ear. “We have enemies gathering, Ushan. We need allies on the material plane if we are to protect our flanks.”

  Lord Ushan clicked his fingers. Two of his serving girls brought a sedan chair to his side.

  “The Queen of Wind and Woe was once Lolth’s mistress. If we handled the dark queen, then we can handle her pet spider well enough.”

  “We did not handle the dark queen! It was Nightshade. Only they have the secret!”

  “Then if we give Nightshade what they want, we can trade. You have made your point, Faen.” The sedan chair turned away. “The wedding will proceed. Prepare your list of which court positions you want Clan Sable to abandon to the barbarians and present it to me tonight.”

  Ushan’s servants bore him off, leaving Faen standing upon the flowery grass. With an irritated sweep, Faen banished the illusion. He now stood upon honest moss, pacing up and down as he furrowed his brows.

  Two days until the wedding. Faen walked and watched the Nightshade palace, his brows permanently creased into a scowl.

  In the abandoned village amidst the giants’ bones, the morning seemed miserably quiet. Outside in the frost, the Justicar practiced with his sword. The huge black blade made fast slices, thrusts, and parries. Stripped to the waist, Jus rehearsed his savage combat style, matching blade work with kicks, punches, head butts, and elbow strikes. His breath steamed as he worked, coming in harsh puffs as he repeated his movements for the eleventh time. Sitting on a pile of stones beside him, Cinders hung limp and desolate, sniffing softly at a tiny little faerie vial.

  Inside the tavern stables, Polk and Enid leaned on a windowsill, the human dwarfed by the freckled sphinx. Both looked equally miserable. Both sighed listlessly and stared blankly into the morning air.

  Polk sighed yet again. His usual bluster was faded and gone. “I left my bacon to cool this morning. No one stole the crunchy end bits while I was gone.”

  Enid’s tufted tail hung limp as an old wet rope. “There was a dirty ditty folded up in one of these old books, but there’s no one to explain it to me.”

  Both companions sighed unhappily, feeling as though a vast weight were crushing their souls. They could hardly bear to look as the Justicar fought shadows in the tavern yard.

  His hard work seemed sad and futile. He was using action as a substitute for grief. Enid and Polk both nodded wisely, then turned away from the window with a sigh.

  On the tavern table lay a little bundle of goods—a tiny leather dress, gloves and leggings, plus a bundle of papers. Rather than magic scrolls, Escalla’s gift to Jus had simply been her own spell-books, and wrapped within them had been her battle wand.

  Polk reached for Enid’s currycomb to brush her pelt, but instead fell into apathy as he saw the sad pile of papers on the table.

  “I guess she’s really gone for good.”

  Out in the courtyard, Jus could be heard sluicing himself down with water. He stomped into the tavern dripping wet, breathless, dark and brooding. He dropped his sword on the table and proceeded to dry himself vigorously with a villainous piece of old sacking. The Justicar’s heavy body
showed a pale network of scars. Magic healing left few traces, although reknitted wounds looked less weatherbeaten than the rest of Jus’ skin.

  He took the small silver mirror that always hung about his neck and propped it on a windowsill. Taking a razor from his pouch, Jus warmed it briskly in the tea kettle, then squatted down to peer into the mirror as he shaved his head.

  The harsh scrape-scrape-scrape of the razor set Enid’s nerves on edge. The big sphinx arose and began pacing back and forth, swishing with her tail. She sighed in agitation. Jus shot the sphinx a look, turned back to his shaving, and finally knocked his razor clean against the windowsill.

  Perfectly calm, Jus drew in his breath, looked out the window, and then drew his brows into a frown.

  Smoke smudged the skyline.

  Jus shrugged on his tunic, keeping his eyes on the skyline. He found his armor and tugged the black dragon scale cuirass into place. He tied his sword belt with one hand and swept Cinders about his back with the other.

  The distant smoke had a broad base, deep black and unmoving. It was a village burning, not a forest fire. Jus had seen enough towns destroyed in his time to know the signs. The big man checked the edge of his sword and then flung open the door.

  “I have to look at something. Stay here and get ready to move. I’ll be back by midday.”

  The Justicar slammed the door behind him as he left. He took a deep breath of forest air and looked about the abandoned village. Only the birds and squirrels were stirring.

  This was how it used to be—alone except for Cinders, alone in the silence. Jus closed his eyes for a moment and tried to savor it. The cool, the quiet, the isolation… He held it in his mind, but the old perfection of it had gone.

  The ranger turned and strode down the trail toward Sour Patch, moving at a grim and silent speed. Still a ways from the village, he sank into the woods, feeling the breath and movement of every tree.

  Autumn had left the trees stark. Leaves lay in deep drifts, wet and heavy, muffling every footfall in the gloom. Jus moved fast. In the damp, sound carried badly, and few ears were sharp enough to hear him coming. He crossed three miles in brisk time, keeping his eyes on glimpses of the smoke cloud that smudged the sky.

  A scent struck him, and he dropped. The wind had changed, and with it came a foul bestial reek. The stink of it hit like a hammer, and Jus lay instantly invisible among the leaves.

  Nothing moved in the forest. There were no footfalls, no bending twigs. Even so, the stink seemed to come from an animal—or a vast swarm of animals. It smelled like a thousand putrid menageries, like rotting flesh and rotten fish and unwashed bodies festering with slime.

  “Cinders?”

  No moves. The dog winced. Smells bad!

  If it moved a hell hound nearly to tears, then the reek was bad indeed. Rising into a half-crouch, Jus sped forward from cover to cover and followed the source of the breeze.

  A towering hill of manure steamed in the chill. It marked the edge of Sour Patch, a town that now stood beneath a haze of smoke made from burning homes. Jus slithered on his belly though a patch of leaves, raised his head, and looked at the ruined village in silence.

  The tumbledown refugee cottages were all gone. Here and there, flames leaped high, but most had already slumped into a sullen smolder. The fires had burned for at least two hours—time enough to sink into ashes.

  Every roof had gone. Most of the shacks were burned, though damp and rain had kept the fires miserably small. Doors in the crowded shantytown lay smashed where something had battered its way into every hiding place.

  Nearby, a body lay face down in the mold with a feathered javelin jutting from its back. Jus took careful stock of the silent village, then slithered forward and inspected the corpse.

  It was one of the half-orc guards. Jus rolled the body over, looked at the obsidian javelin head that stood out from the corpse’s chest, and then let the body lie.

  From here, he could see other bodies. These had been physically torn apart, their heads and organs splayed in shocking patterns all over the mud. Jus moved silently from cover to cover, then squatted down to stare into a dead face.

  It was an old woman. Beside her lay an old man. The other corpses all seemed to be the aged, the crippled and infirm—here, a boy on crutches, there a veteran warrior missing a leg. Someone had culled the villagers with an obscene, callous brutality, discarding those that failed to meet their needs. The hundreds of survivors had been taken… where?

  There were tracks in the mud—human and… something else. Jus knelt and inspected his find. The non-human tracks were long, clawed, and smeared occasionally by what looked like a heavy tail.

  Lizards.

  The bestial stink filled the air. Jus approached a broken door and carefully inspected a smear of oil that smudged the wood. The oil gave off a strong whiff of the stench. It gleamed slightly, showing where a large oily creature had shouldered open the door.

  Inside the burned house lay the charred skeletons of babies. The Justicar breathed deep and slow, feeling the old, cold fire spreading into his soul, filling his very essence. Cinders growled, deep and feral. Jus narrowed his eyes and lay a hand upon his sword hilt, looking back across his shoulder as he backed into the street.

  There were no tracks leading into the village from the woods. Jus walked slowly around the village, finding nothing but the body of another man who had tried to run. The woods were free of the lizard stink. Frowning, Jus returned to the village and stared at it in thought.

  Prisoners had been herded together in the street, culled, then marched toward an ancient apple orchard. Jus followed the river of tracks—perhaps two hundred prisoners with half as many captors—and then the tracks suddenly seemed to stop.

  The tracks simply shut off as though a line had been drawn across them. Jus looked carefully at the tracks and then stared upward at the crooked apple trees.

  Something seemed strange about the bend of two trees up above. The boughs leaned inward to form a perfect arch, almost as if deliberately tied in place.

  The arch rested directly above the tracks. Jus circled it, passing a hand carefully into the empty space defined by the archway. His hand tingled as if expecting to find a door, but his fingers met no resistance. He touched only empty air.

  Something flickered in midair. Before Cinders could shout a warning, Jus had already turned, his sword a blurring arc of black steel. A javelin split in two as Jus sliced it from the air. He ran roaring at an apple tree that suddenly tried to blunder to one side.

  Jus jammed his black sword through the bark and heard a scream. Blood jetted as he ripped the steel free, parried a claw, and hacked a savage blow straight down. His sword cleaved into a reptilian skull, and a reeking creature fell writhing on the dirt.

  Colors shifted. What had once looked like the trunk of an apple tree now lay sprawled over the leaves. It was reptilian, a huge bipedal lizard with a chameleons skin. Colors faded as the creature died, its thick skull split open. Oil oozed from its hide, filling the air with its foul stench. Jus kept away from the creature’s reach as it died and wiped his sword on a handful of wet leaves.

  “Troglodyte.”

  The secret of survival was knowledge. Jus had made it his business to study every creature in, on, or under the Flanaess. Troglodytes were a carnivorous lizard species—savage, cunning, subterranean dwellers. Hating sunlight, they would scarcely be likely to venture far away from their caves.

  Caves beneath this sort of soil seemed unlikely. Jus looked at the apple tree arch, knowing it was a faerie gate, and wondered just how far away it led.

  Intensely stupid, troglodytes would normally have killed and eaten their prey. Were they intelligent enough to herd their meat on the hoof? Perhaps, but no troglodyte could ever puzzle out a magic gate. Jus cast about the orchard carefully then began inspecting every tree.

  A flicker of motion caught his eye on a bough high above. Jus scowled, sheathed his sword, and climbed into the lower boughs. />
  Motion flickered again, and he found it. A single black silk thread had snagged upon the bark. Jus inspected without touching, then brought Cinders’ snout close to the treasure.

  “Can you smell it through the stink?”

  Little bit. Cinders snuffled unhappily. Is faerie smell.

  Jus sat in the tree for a long moment of silent thought. He carefully retrieved the fallen thread and stored it in a folded paper inside his pouch.

  It seemed he had work to do.

  * * *

  Half an hour saw him home again. He passed a giant’s crumbling bones and then walked into weed-strewn streets. Outside the old tavern, Polk’s cart stood hitched to his rather nervous mule. Enid stood amongst her saddlebags and scrolls, awkwardly trying to fit them across her own back. Jus appeared silently, hitched the sphinx’s bags into place, and tied the straps. She beat her huge, heavy wings to test the load and then looked back at him in alarm.

  “Heavens, what’s that smell?”

  “Troglodyte.” Jus went to a rain barrel and took a handful of ash to scrub his sword and his hands. “Polk! We’re leaving! Move it or we’ll be late!”

  Bustling out of the tavern and looking as though he had been seeking the solace of his magic faerie bottle, Polk winced as he walked into the light.

  “What is it, son? What’s happening?” Polk’s bluster was weighed down by misery. “We ain’t late. There’s nowhere we have to be, nothing we have to do.”

  “We have to get to the ruined castle.” Jus tightened his sword belt, settled Cinders properly in place, and then fastened a hand into Polk’s tunic and lifted the small man onto the driving seat of the cart.

  “Why the castle?”

  “The day’s wasting.” The Justicar began leading the way down the road. He could feel his two companions staring at his back. “We have to get back to where I killed the hydra. If we’re not there by midnight, we’ll be late.”

  Enid hurried along, drawing anxiously level with the Justicar. “Late? Whatever for?”