Escalla disappeared. Seething, Morag thrashed her tail and said, "I do wish she would stop saying that."
Outside the portable hole, the battle raged. They were deep amidst vast mazes of book-laden shelves that towered a hundred feet high. Librarians atop spindly ladders clutched for dear life as Jus and Escalla rampaged below, knocking into shelves and toppling ladders behind them. Still carrying a heavy brass urn of water, still with his ibis head and beak, Henry gave an apologetic bob and nod as he passed the librarians and hurried after his friends. Polk called out from down in the portable hole, and Escalla halted hovering at the next intersection and shoved her friends into a new row of shelves.
"That way! Hurry!"
The sound of the pursuing multitudes was like an onrushing tidal wave. The Justicar led the way, Cinders's smoke trailing behind him as he ran. The big man turned a corner, there was a thunderous roar, and the bookshelf just above him blasted apart as a huge lion paw came crashing through the air.
A titanic being loomed over the intruders. The creature was monstrous-a huge statue of black marble thirty feet high. Part hippopotamus, part crocodile, part lion, it roared and smashed down with a paw. Shelves splintered and tumbled in all directions. Escalla went tumbling in midair and landed hard upon her backside, bruising it fiercely. She shot to her feet, chittering in rage.
"You cut-price bag of golem puke!" She flew at the monster in an insane rage. "I'll get you for that!"
Jus stamped in anger as he saw her shoot by.
"Escalla! No!"
The faerie flew at the monster like an enraged gnat attacking a bear. She whacked the creature on its backside with her newly recharged lich staff. Stone chips flew, cracks began to work their way through the behemoth, and the monster whirled awkwardly around and about like a monstrous dog chasing its own tail. It crashed into shelves five stories high, which tilted, crashed, and fell into more shelves, then more, then more…
A crash and jumble came as the wisdom of the ages hit the floor and was trampled underfoot. The multitudes pursuing the interlopers were buried under the shelves. Somewhere in the distance, the god Thoth could be heard roaring in anger. All hell was breaking loose. The Justicar stopped in place, opened his hands and formed magic between his palms. The wooden shelves of the nearest library racks suddenly burst to life, shooting out leaves, branches, and tendrils. The vines snatched at the huge monster, forcing it to blunder clumsily about. Taking Benelux in his hand, the Justicar ran straight for the behemoth's nearest paw.
"Henry! Charge!"
Benelux crashed into black marble, showering chunks of stone across the floor. Henry carefully set down his sealed brass jar. He was just in time to hear the thud and see Jus knocked off his feet by a blow of the monster's foot. Jus flew one way-Cinders fluttered in another. They both hit the ground rolling, the Justicar coming up with his sword flashing in a parry and a massive stroke that severed the statue's paw. Roaring, the titan reared-still with Escalla battering its backside into rubble. As Henry charged, he heard her voice jabbering away in a frenzy of hate.
"I wear a thong! Do you know what this is going to look like in a thong? Do you have any respect for art? Do you? No! Well, respect that! And that! And that! And that!" The power charge of the lich staff had run out again, and now Escalla was just hitting a huge stone statue with a stick. "Oh, you're gonna play dumb? Well, take this!"
The top of the monsters head was wreathed in a fireball-not the most effective spell against blank stone. The Justicar cursed, shook his head, and surged back into action again. He dived, rolled to end up between the monster's hind feet, and hewed at the creature's legs, his sword ringing like a bell.
Jus tossed his magic rope to Henry. Henry whip-cracked the rope and swung up onto the statue's head, smashing his own sword down onto the monsters eye, making it shake its head and rear in anger. Henry was thrown clear, crashing through a bookshelf to land beside Cinders, who lay grinning atop a pile of magical scrolls.
Hello!
"Hey, Cinders." Henry blinked. His brass jar was a dozen yards away, still miraculously intact. "Having fun?"
Fun!
Escalla finally jumped free and whirred down to ground level. Jus pointed at the monster's flank, meeting Cinders's eye, and the hell hound enjoyed his friends clever idea. As the monster came close, Cinders wriggled forward, reared, and blasted his flames. Hot enough to melt steel, Cinders's fire sent ripples chasing all through the marble along the monster's side, and the dozens of cracks from Escalla's lich staff glowed white-hot.
The Justicar disengaged, and his huge voice bellowed at Escalla through the smoke. "Escalla! Frost! Go!"
The faerie unshipped her frost wand and opened fire. Extreme heat followed by ice cold did the trick. The cracked stone burst, and the statue splintered like glass.
The Justicar parried falling rubble with his sword, too angry and too dangerous to dodge. As the dust settled, he strode through the ruins, collected Escalla, then signaled Henry and Cinders to regroup. The hell hound rippled over the wreckage, moving like a huge furry caterpillar, and behind him, hundreds of Thoth's followers came charging down the paths between the shelves. Some of the larger creatures forsook the paths altogether and scrambled over the mounds of scrolls, books, broken shelves, and stone.
Escalla watched Cinders pass her by and waved an astonished hand.
"Does anyone else find that amazingly disturbing?"
"You had to teach him to fetch." The Justicar parried an arrow shot from somewhere amongst the shelves. "Polk, which way?"
"Left, son! Go left!"
"Henry, Cinders, move!"
Galloping along to rejoin the Justicar, Cinders stopped, looked down a row of shelves, then humped out of sight and disappeared. An instant later, he came charging madly back, row after row of bookshelves exploding into flames behind him. The hell hound sniggered, and Escalla wagged her finger angrily at him as he passed.
"Cinders! Bad dog!"
F-U-N-N-Y! Funny!
"Damn it, Cinders! Steal that stuff! Don't just burn it!"
Henry snatched a glimpse over his shoulder at the fires and said, "I feel a bit guilty about this."
"Hey!" Escalla scoffed. "We asked them to let Enid go, and they said to go take a hike! So they can look on this as a lesson in not pissing off faeries by using my best pals as slave labor!" The girl had retrieved some wisps of clothing from Jus's belt and was pulling on new gloves of fine black elven mail. "Henry? Still got the jug?"
"Yes."
"Hoopy!"
Jus snatched up the hell hound and tossed him over his shoulder. Behind them, the fires spread. Winged guardians could be heard screeching as the soldiers of Horus were called upon to destroy the interlopers.
The group charged out from between the shelves and into a great quiet hall where hundreds of figures lifted scrolls, books, and tablets from great untidy piles and sorted them at tables made from ebony. The workers never once looked up as the adventurers pelted past them, until suddenly a screech came from the portable hole.
"Back! Back, boy! You're runnin' too fast!" Polk blustered down in the depths of the hole. "Turn right, son! Right! Stop! Now go straight! Straight! Back!" There was a scrabble, and Polk's head emerged from the hole as Morag lifted him on high. "That's it! She must be right here!"