“I’m here! ’Course I’m here!”
“Stand still.”
Jus closed his eyes, sheathed the magic light, and let the stairwell plunge into impenetrable darkness. The stairwell seemed to thrum and shudder with the pulsebeat of the volcano’s steam. The air hung thick with aswampy stench that scratched mercilessly at the sinuses.
Cinders stirred slightly as he tested the subterranean air.Smell slime. Hear water. Much magic. The hell hound gave a snort and then a sneeze. Evil walked here, little while ago.
Escalla slowly unshielded her light and said, “He scentsevil, huh?”
“Evil passed here.” Jus settled the hell hound’s snout firmlyinto place. “Meaning it walked in here from outside.”
“Oh, lovely.” Escalla looked a little miffed. “Ourex-comrades are sounding better and better.”
A slow, careful descent began. They marched down the stairs for interminable minutes, until finally the stairway opened out onto a square-hewn room. The pure, clean light from three necklaces flooded out to fill in the details of the room. Rough-surfaced walls gleamed slick as mucus with mottled patches of algae. Oily water-filthy, blood-warm, and smelling like anabyssal swamp-reflected rainbows from the floor. A rotten stench hung in thethick air. A slow lap of water echoed in the distance, and the atmosphere clung warm and sticky to their skin.
A prod of the water with Jus’ sword revealed that the floorwas about one foot below the surface. It would be unpleasantly easy to hide traps and tripwires underneath the muck. Enclosed by untold thousands of tons of volcanic rock, Escalla had turned slightly pale.
“So, um, this is a dungeon, then?”
“Yep.” The Justicar carefully prodded his sword into themire. “Claustrophobic?”
“Me?” The faerie shook her head, keeping careful watch as ifthe walls and ceilings were about to mash her as flat as a bug. “Never! Nope!Not me! No way am I longing for the wide open spaces!”
“Good.”
Cinders could see and smell nothing lying in wait under the water. Even so, it could hide a monster lying in ambush. With no choice except to move forward, the Justicar secured his sword to one wrist with a leather thong and stepped cautiously down into the scum.
The filthy stuff was warm as phlegm and crept insidiously inward through his bootlace holes. With a curse, the Justicar waded forward, his motion making far too much noise. The way things were going, the whole dungeon would be able to hear him coming.
A short corridor extended away into the dark. Jus looked back to see Polk holding a scroll upon a clipboard and scribbling notes as fast as he could write. Though he half-wished the man would be swallowed up by a carrion crawler, Jus seemed to be cursed with a streak of responsibility.
“Polk! Stop that, and stay close.”
“I’m chronicling, son!” The teamster held up a page coveredwith awful, childish letters written with a waterproof wax marker. “Don’t pay meno mind. I’m just an observer. Hey, how do you spell ‘thews’?”
Jus muttered, exchanged a look of annoyance with Escalla, then jerked his chin toward the tunnel ahead. The faerie gave her partner a confident nod, then popped instantly out of view. On invisible wings, she whirred slightly ahead of the Justicar as he felt his way forward through the water.
They moved slowly onward, senses testing at the darkness beyond. Moments later, Escalla came back to hover at Jus’ side.
“What is a thew anyway?” she asked.
“Who knows.”
The tunnel took a sudden ninety-degree turn. Jus flattened himself against a corner, knelt down in the muck on all fours, and peeked around the bend with his head down low.
“Let’s go.”
The faerie whirred invisibly ahead, and Jus followed. With a clang and a rattle, Polk brought up the rear, diligently watching for the slightest slip in his companions’ professional codes.
Cinders gave a warning growl. Cat smell.
“Cat?”
Wet cat. The hell hound didn’t seem particularly worried.Big wet cat, sitting in water.
Far down the tunnel, a lamp cast a little yellow pool of light. The Justicar moved carefully forward, and a figure slowly materialized out of the gloom.
The passage up ahead forked three ways. Just in front of the junction, a large female sphinx sat unhappily in the mire. Bigger than a cart horse, with her fur matted and her hair hanging limp, she looked rather like a huge, bedraggled lion. The creature sat up as she noticed her visitors and tried to make herself look haughty and prim.
She wore a natty headdress made out of gold and gems. Straight brown hair had been cut into a rather attractive little bob, but the effect was spoiled by the horrible humidity of the tunnels. Brown eyes and a smattering of freckles made the sphinx’s face look rather more like the girlnext door rather than a carnivorous monster.
A shimmering, transparent wall of force screened the sphinx and her intersection from the adventurers’ end of the corridor. Smoothing backher hair, the creature drew herself up and tried to make herself presentable as Jus, Polk, and the faerie drew near.
With one paw laid importantly upon her breast, the sphinx cleared her throat, then spoke a rhyme.
“Round she is, yet flat as a board
Altar of the Lupine Lords
Jewel on black velvet, pearl in the sea
Unchanged but e’erchanging eternally.”
The sphinx intoned her riddle in a beautifully culturedvoice. Before anyone else could move, Escalla popped into view and waved to the two men to keep away from the action.
“Guys, back off.” The faerie cracked her knuckles. “It’s timefor auntie to do her stuff.”
The faerie fluttered joyously toward the force wall and waved quite happily at the sphinx. “Hey, that’s a really great riddle! No one seems tomake them with that sort of quality anymore.”
The sphinx recoiled a little in surprise, then shrugged her furry shoulders and nodded. “Thank you. Answer the riddle, and I shall let youpass.”
“Again, classic technique used to best possibleeffect!” Escalla shook her head in admiration. “Riddle-solve, magic door. Imean, you just take tradition, and you make it work!”
“Oh.” Combing at her muddy hair, the sphinx sat up a littlestraighten “Well… well, thank you.”
“Oh, you’re welcome! I’m Escalla, by the way.” The faeriehovered happily in midair. “Boys, come up and meet…?” Escalla tilted herhead at the sphinx. “Sorry, I didn’t quite catch your name?”
The sphinx gave a shy little smile and said, “It’s Enid.”
“Enid! Really?” Escalla raised one brow and introducedher companions. “Well, here’s Polk, the world’s most pedantic wagon driver, andthis is Ev-” The Justicar’s warning growl cut the faerie off. “Um, ev-everyone’sfriend, Jus the Justicar.” The girl leaned a little closer to the sphinx.“Overdeveloped sense of justice but has pecs to die for!”
“Really?”
“Oooh, yeah!” Escalla decided to sit upon Jus’ shoulders totalk with the sphinx. “So anyway! You’re magically held here in place, or areyou working freelance?”
“Hmmm? Oh, magically held.” Enid the sphinx minced about in acircle, trying to find a place out of the slime. “That little two-tonedreprobate put an enchantment on me. I’m stuck here for a whole month!”
“A month!” Escalla clapped her face to her hands. “Sittinghere in the mud? You could get swamp itch! You could get fur fungus! Isn’t thereeven a dry place to sit?”
“No. Not at all.” The woman-headed cat shook out her ruinedfur. “They give me eight hours to sleep over in a pokey little room-no brush, nocomb, and raw meat for supper. There’s not a book to read, not a thing to do butmake spell symbols and cook up new riddles!”