Standing at a nearby bookshelf, the Justicar turned, saw the delicately balanced pile of documents begin to teeter, and caught a glimpse of the magic symbol written in fresh blood beneath the jewelry box. Moving at a shocking turn of speed, he hurled himself across the floor at a dead run, shoving the young law officer into a bookshelf as he passed. As the law officer fell, Jus was already launching into a flying tackle that smacked Escalla hard against his chest. The faerie croaked, the breath smashed out of her chest. A noise of surprised indignation was half out of her mouth when the entire room suddenly lit up with a titanic blast of flame.
The symbol covered by the teetering jewelry box flashed as light touched at the wet ink, then magical force exploded outward. The desk disintegrated, bookshelves blew apart, and wooden wall panels instantly caught fire. Turning on his side in midair and hunching into a ball to shield the faerie with his own bulk, the Justicar caught the force of the heat against Cinders’ fur. The shock wave of the explosion tossed the ranger through theair, and he crashed through a succession of flimsy library shelves. Even as he hit the floor, he was rolling to shield Escalla from the blow. He hit the wall with jarring force and snarled in anger as books and rubble crashed around him.
Escalla emerged from beneath a flap of Cinders’ pelt tostare at the library. The scrolls, books, and shelves were thoroughly ablaze. Emerging stunned from beneath a fallen cupboard was the law officer. Jus gave a vicious curse, shoved a healing spell into himself, then lifted himself up from the floor.
Escalla woefully watched the book collection going up in flames. “Whoops…”
The Justicar rose, ash and burning parchment scraps sliding from Cinders’ fur.
“Fire symbol.”
“Yeah, I gathered.” Escalla rubbed beneath her ribs, stilltrying to recover from being tackled by two hundred and twenty pounds of flying Justicar. “Bastard knew we were coming!”
“He knew someone was.” Jus strode through blazingwreckage and kicked at the few blackened fragments that marked where the library desk had once stood. “Cinders, are you all right?”
Cinders didn’t do it! No burn! Not Cinders!
“Yeah, we know. Don’t worry about it-just enjoy the blaze.”Jus found a burning chunk of book to stuff between Cinders’ champing jaws.“There you go. Good boy.”
Where the librarians desk had once stood, a trapdoor hung open beneath the rubble, blown in by the shock of the explosion. Jus kicked away a few chunks of burning chair and stared down the gaping hole.
“Here’s where he went. There’s a ladder and some light.”
Burning chunks of scroll illuminated a room below the library floor. Jus dropped down into the hidden room, landing upon a hard stone floor. He looked about, glancing at the lanterns burning in each corner of the room. A corridor easily ten feet wide led in a straight line away from the room, the empty spaces echoing to the sounds of fire and mayhem coming from the library above.
Escalla and the law officer peeked over the edges of the entry hole. Escalla irritably blew a spark away from her pristine golden hair.
“Any sorcerers down there?”
“None.” Jus felt Cinders sniffing for magic. “Cinders?”
Magic! Magic down passage. Bad-very bad!
For the benefit of the others, the Justicar passed the message on.
“Cinders doesn’t like it. He says there’s bad magic.”
“Just what we need,” said Escalla.
Escalla leaped down from above.
Giving the faerie a warning glance, the Justicar hefted his sword into killing position and began to walk down the corridor. Escalla followed at his heels.
Jus stalked cautiously along the broad, level passageway. Behind them, the law officer nervously descended into the corridor.
“The name’s Allain, by the way.” Receiving no answer, theyoung man followed unhappily behind the Justicar, hell hound, and faerie. “I’mlaw warden of the Temple Quarter.”
Jus held up a hand to silence the young man. He flattened himself against a wall, checked the corner with a mirror taken from a string about his neck, then looked into a huge and gloomy hall.
A vast underground space, damp and cold, stretched out across hundreds of square yards. The hall seemed to be a titanic cellar, the vast expanse of roof supported by long parallel walls. Row after row of brickwork divided the room into passages. A few lights gleamed from somewhere at the far side of the corridors, while water dripped from the stone ceiling up above.
The water drops were brown and smelled of mud. Jus caught one on his fingertips and gave a casual sniff.
“River mud. We’re under the river.”
Escalla padded swiftly over to the nearest passages and peered within. Each one had a broad, flat floor that seemed to have been made from hard-rolled gravel.
“It’s clear,” Escalla said. “The floors are kinda funny-really hard, compacted gravel. I can’t see anything moving.”
Jus made a silent motion to Allain, ordering him to stay in place. Moving silently despite his size, the ranger stole forward up one of the parallel passageways. Escalla blinked out of sight, whirring ahead of him on invisible wings.
The passage opened into a broad open space that linked a dozen of the strange passageways. At the center of the hall there stood a wide table laid over with maps and plans. A lantern burned, spreading a reek of fish oil up into the air. A heavy, upholstered chair stood at the table’s side.Escalla hovered carefully above. Her lesson learned, she touched none of the parchments until the Justicar arrived.
“Hey, Ev,” she whispered, “lookie! We got maps!”
“Don’t call me Ev.” The Justicar tested the floor for traps,then leaned over the table to look at the parchments, careful not to touch anything. The drawings showed sketches of corridors and rooms, and a drawing of a mountain pierced by tunnels. Various rooms were marked in red ink, the writing in no language that the Justicar could recognize.
At his side, Escalla peered at a list peeking out from beneath a paperweight.
“What’s this, a recipe?” The girl read. “‘One crab. Sixlobsters. Six scorpions. Green slime…’”
The air reverberated to a sudden rumble. As the whole hallway began to tremble, Jus looked upward, expecting to see the ceiling in mid-collapse.
Escalla hastily withdrew away from the tabletop. “It wasn’tme! I touched nothing!”
“Shh!” Jus listened, turning his head back and forth. Theceiling seemed solid. “It’s not the river. Something’s moving in here!”
Bad! Big magic thing! Fast!
Cinders swiveled his ears. The faerie and the Justicar both turned. Erupting from one of the passages came a vast, top-heavy monstrosity that moved at such speed that the entire hail shuddered beneath its wheels.
Two stone rollers ten feet wide supported a crude stone statue shaped like a hobby horse. Stone pistons pumped out ahead and behind of the horse, jabbing back and forth with each turn of the stone wheels. The juggernaut swiveled to face the Justicar then surged forward.
Escalla flew one way and Jus ran in the other. The ranger dived into one of the multiple passageways just as the juggernaut ran over the table, lantern, and chair. Wood flew to pieces as the huge mobile statue reached the Justicar’s hiding place and began to turn into the corridor.
Flattened against the wall and waiting, Jus gave a huge warcry and hacked down in a massive blow of his sword. The enchanted steel of his black sword struck at the piston pumping the juggernaut’s front. In a hugespray of sparks, the sword sheared through the stone, crashing the severed piston to the ground.
The juggernaut turned inexorably into Jus’ chosen corridor.Jus turned and ran, fleeing hard and fast down the passage. Behind him, the juggernaut rumbled forward, slowly gaining speed until it rushed along the corridor, sparks spitting into the darkness where its sides scraped against the walls. Fast as a charging horse, the juggernaut swept down on the Justicar, intent on crushing him underneath its rollers. Jus thundered down the corridor with death following hard on his heels.