Swinging slowly outward, the heavy metal doors flooded a baleful red light into the corridor. The air swirled stifling hot with steam, and the fish smell hovered thicker than flies. Escalla snorted in disgust and drifted onward down the passageway, looking at walls that now dripped with condensation.
She emerged into a great, transparent tube. The floor was stone, yet the clear, curved walls and ceiling roiled violently with bubbles. Escalla looked nervously about and shrank away from the dripping surface of the tube. The impression of savage heat looming in on every side made the little faerie quail.
The passage apparently went beneath the waters of a boiling lake. From somewhere far below, the light of the volcano ebbed and pulsed, lighting the lake with all the colors of clotting blood. The faerie stared at it all, then hesitantly approached the ceiling to reach upward with one delicate little finger.
From behind her, the Justicar called out a warning. The faerie waved him down and softly prodded the hot, transparent surface of the passageway. It stretched slightly away from her touch.
The walls felt red hot, rubbery, and dangerously thin. Hot as they were, the waters beyond boiled with all the force of a superheated kettle, sending vast bubbles wobbling upward through the baleful glare. Escalla carefully touched a water droplet on the walls, then tasted it with her tongue and made a face.
“Ewwww! Sulphur! Must be an underground lake that touchesthe lava.” The girl prodded her finger against the ceiling. “Dunno what thisstuff is. It feels kinda flimsy. Let’s see if we can poke a hole right through!”
“Let’s not.” Jus grabbed the girl by an ankle andhauled her down. “Leave it alone.”
“Hey!” Escalla snatched her foot back. “No one touches thefaerie!”
Ignoring her protests, Jus made a careful inspection of the walls, making sure Sir Olthwaite was well in front of him. “Those doors behindus are waterproof-all three sets of them. They’re there to stop boiling waterfrom flooding the dungeon if this tunnel gives out. The outrush of water would automatically slam the doors closed.”
Everyone stopped and stared at the boiling lake. Even Polk’spen-scratching halted.
Escalla took a sudden retreat to the rear.
“So it’s a trap? They slam the doors on us then boil us likecrayfish to kill us all?”
“No, I don’t think that’s what this place is for.” Jus lookedcarefully down the tunnel. “Everything has been a careful test of one kind oranother, like an obstacle course. If they simply wanted to kill us, they’d justhave filled all the tunnels with poison gas.”
Escalla blinked. “Really?”
“Yup. Don’t worry. We won’t get to that stage until we beatall the tests and try to leave.”
With a patronizing smile, Escalla patted the Justicar upon his head. “Well, that’s very reassuring, Jus! I feel sooo muchbetter now.”
“Good.” The ranger jerked his chin toward the far end of thetunnel. “Keep going.”
A fish head here and a fish head there marked the pathway down the boiling tunnel. The passageway stretched into the center of the volcanic lake, slowly opening outward until it formed a vast hemisphere. The chamber echoed to the sound of boiling bubbles in the lake beyond. Even with a ceiling arching ten feet overhead, the transparent cavern had a horrid, claustrophobic feel. One stab into the walls could rip it open like a curtain, bringing the whole lake thundering inward through the hole.
Garbage all across the chamber reeked in the heat. A wide pile of stinking refuse lay upon the floor. There were festering fish heads, mounds of weed, and broken human bones. The stench of it all made Escalla gag, and even Cinders set up a mournful whine.
Escalla landed near the garbage, trying to cover her nose and mouth as she pointed at a huge chest just beyond.
“Dead end, but there’s a treasure chest!” The girl shied awayfrom rotting chunks of dead fish. “So what’s supposed to be down here: hordes ofrats, killer cockroaches? The fish patrol?”
A sudden flash of movement flickered through the room. Cinders whipped his face to the right, and the Justicar instantly ducked. A vast crab claw blasted out of the pile of decaying trash, almost shearing Jus’ headoff his shoulders. The Justicar’s sword shot upward to deflect the blow, but hehad to duck aside as another claw erupted into the gloom.
With a ponderous rumble, the entire trash pile lumbered upward. Shedding a rain of fish heads and bones, a gargantuan crab rose from the refuse and lurched toward the intruders with frightening speed. Two huge pincers snapped and clashed. The adventurers stared for one brief instant at the monster that had lain hidden underneath the trash, then they scattered wildly back as the thing lashed at them with its claws.
The crab towered overhead, arcing its claws wide. The beast had a shell at least thirty feet wide, with claws large enough to shear through a horse. Festooned with garbage and sheathed in its own natural armor, the giant crab gave a bubbling roar then surged forward straight toward Escalla.
The faerie’s smile simply froze on her face.
“Mother!”
A crab claw scythed toward her. Escalla turned invisible, tumbled sideways, and fired a spell. A thick green cloud of vapor wrapped itself about the crab. Unperturbed, the creature surged out of the gas and waded straight toward Sir Olthwaite and the Justicar as the two men backed away with drawn swords. Beating a hasty retreat, Escalla backpedaled through the air.
“Oooh, that is the second largest crustacean I ever clappedmy eyes on!”
Staring in terror at the crab, Polk cleared his throat.
“Wh-what was the largest?”
“Do you know Farewell Island?”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“The bad news is, it’s not an island.” Jerking well away fromthe clashing claws, Escalla bellowed toward the Justicar. “Jus, you’re a ranger!Don’t you have some kind of affinity for wildlife?”
Both men charged forward, the paladin leaping fully armored over a blow from the crab’s gigantic claw, while Jus simply smashed a pinceraside with a massive blow of his sword The ranger stepped in to hack at the crab’s arm, his blade moving almost too fast to see. His weapon rebounded offthe crab’s hard shell, ringing as though it had just been smashed into an anvil.A claw bashed backward into him, lifting Jus from his feet. He clung to the vast pincers and hammered his blade down at the creatures limb, unable to crack a fracture through its thick shell. Cinders leaked sulphur through his barred teeth and let flames spill out into the air.
Cinders burn crab!
“It’s covered in wet weeds!” Jus felt his blade rebound offthe crab’s armor. “Wait till we find a soft spot!”
Beside him, Sir Olthwaite fought in utter silence, tumbling aside like an acrobat as a claw almost cut him in two. The paladin came up against the walls, made the transparent substance stretch, and sped away as a little spurt of boiling water fountained into the air.
Fluttering in panic, the invisible faerie hung at the Justicar’s side.
“Jus, what do we do?”
“Fight!” The Justicar battered aside a crab claw then choppeddown into the creatures shell. He finally felt the black sword bite, but it was a mere scratch that the titanic creature ignored. “Throw a spell at the damnedthing! And don’t bust the walls!”
Escalla’s spell repertoire had come down to a singlespell-her web spell-and the crab was certainly too powerful to be slowed by thatfor more than an instant. The faerie panted, backed through the air, and tried to come up with a plan.
“Jus, have you got any spells left?”
“A silence spell!” The man smashed a sweeping claw aside.“I’m saving it!”
“Why?”
“Because I have to!”
Slipping on a fish head, Jus went down on one knee. A pincer nearly ripped off his arm but caught instead on the black sword. Cursing the rotten slimy floor, Jus ripped his sword free and stabbed it into the crab, the point punching through the creature’s chitin and driving back the claw.