A side trail led off the main track. Forced to slow down, theJusticar cursed the mule and cart for the thousandth time as he swung them onto the new route. Hanging back as the cart blundered onward, Jus swept the new trail with a severed branch and retreated away from the main track.
Escalla sat atop the cart counting a little pile of gold. She smiled at Jus, holding up one of her glittering trophies. The Justicar growled under his breath, swept the trail clean of cart tracks, then walked irritably along at the wagons tail.
A mile down the track, Jus allowed the mule cart to slow to a halt. Wheezing like broken bellows, the mule staggered forward to a little stream where it stood hock-deep in water. Polk took the chance to uncork his whiskey bottle. The little man took a swig, sighed, sealed his bottle, and then sat up in his seat.
“When do we go back to town? Your ruse must have worked, boy!The soldiers will be out searchin’, so now’s the time to head back and face downtheir leader with cold, hard steel!”
Annoyed, Jus glared at the little man, half tempted to harness him next to his own mule. “Polk, we are not fighting anyone!”
“But they said they knew a pale lady! Were she good, she’d bethe ‘fair lady’, but ‘pale lady’… she just has to be evil!”
“They thought we worked for her, Polk. Shut up anddrink.”
The glade seemed peaceful, deserted, and quiet. Little birds twittered amidst the brilliant red autumn leaves while the cups of fallen acorns shone twinkling in the sun. Water flashed and sunken leaves lined the streambed with red and gold.
The Justicar stood, feet planted wide apart, and his gaze speared Escalla. The little faerie raised one brow and pointed at herself in inquiry. Jus answered by crooking a finger in her direction.
“Escalla. A word.”
Deliberately innocent, Escalla drifted into the air and kept pace with Jus as he stalked beside the stream. Already guessing virtually everything he needed to know, the Justicar turned toward Escalla.
“The tavern…?”
Rubbing her hands together and looking a tad embarrassed, Escalla shook her head in wonder. “Yeah, some place, huh? Sad how some peoplejust take an instant dislike to you for no reason at all!”
Unamused, Jus held her in place with a scowl. “You promisednot to cause any more trouble.”
“Aw, but it’s an endearing kind of trouble!” Escallamade a sheepish grin, then pranced in midair in front of the Justicar. “It’slively! It’s fun! You’d miss it if it wasn’t there every day of your life! How’syour hand, by the way?”
“Hurts.”
Escalla took his hand and gave it a little faerie kiss, light as a feather and strangely warm. “Well, it was a good punch.”
Jus flexed his hand and winced-then remembered that he wassupposed to be cowing Escalla beneath the weight of his indignation.
“You promised no more scams! You lied to me!”
Escalla sighed miserably and suddenly seemed the heart and soul of guilt. Her long antennae wilted, and her pointed ears fell. “I’m sorry,because you know, when you think about it, when we lie, we murder the truth.”
“Yes.” Puffing up with righteousness, Jus gave a dire nod.“Well put. I agree.”
Escalla put on her most gentle, wise, and sorrowful face. She laid one hand on the Justicar’s shoulder and used her other hand to show him theglory of the trees.
“Autumn leaves falling, branches stark and withering, andwithin it all, the acorns send green shoots into the soil. Beautiful, aren’tthey?” The girl floated like a spirit of the wilds, while overhead tall oaktrees soared. “Each new green shoot springs from the loam, but do you know wherethat loam comes from?”
Jus stood his ground and folded up his arms. “Do tell.”
“It comes from the dead leaves and trees that have gonebefore.” Escalla seemed full of an infinite, quiet motherly love as she floatedamidst natures timeless wonder. “New life springs from the death of old, andideas are the same! Truths are just preconceptions, ideas trapped and put into a box! Sure, lies murder the truth, but when we kill truths, it allows new ideas to spring up in their place! A glorious profusion of nature. Intellectual freedom! Art and science and light and love!” The avatar of a glorious future,Escalla turned a pirouette up in the sky. “Jus, we owe it to futuregenerations. They deserve that intellectual freedom! And it’s all in our hands,Jus! I say we owe it to the future to lie through our teeth right now!”
He stopped and stood there, arms folded, and watched her patiently. Escalla hovered in front of him, coyly biting one finger.
“Not buying it?”
“Not really.”
“Still… pretty hoopy speech, huh?”
A warrior for justice should not be amused at falsity. Jus sniffed and kept a straight face. “One of your better ones.”
“Ha! Sorry, man. I drive you nuts.” Escalla flipped a fingeras though tipping an imaginary cap. “If you didn’t love me, you’d never put upwith me.”
“Yeah.”
Jus’ face cracked into a fond smile despite itself. SuddenlyEscalla met his eyes and matched his expression. The girl suddenly blushed, then paled and hastily whirred backward, thoroughly flustered. Aware that his ears were glowing an uncomfortable red, Jus cleared his throat, scowled, and turned to look along the stream.
Escalla cleared her throat and sped off to the wagon, busying herself by tidying an already neat pile of coins. Jus decided to walk along the stream and look for nonexistent tracks.
From his perch atop Jus’ head, Cinders sniggered and hissedsmoke. Funny!
Choosing not to comment, Jus tugged his armor straight and went about the serious business of being the Justicar.
Back at the wagon, Escalla meandered in midair like ahummingbird surveying her domain. With a sly, self-satisfied little smile, she blew a strand of hair from her eyes, pushing her long cornsilk locks behind her pointed ears. Remembering a hand mirror tucked into dark recesses of her baggage, the faerie fluttered down to pull at the satchels stored upon the cart, spilling her embarrassing collection of lingerie, old scrolls, and stale faerie cakes into the sun.
Gold sparkled amidst the bric-a-brac. Busily propping up the mirror against the baggage, Escalla flicked the gold a single annoyed glance. She stood before the mirror and turned sideways to admire her little figure, tidied her hair… and then frowned as the golden glimmer caught her eye oncemore.
There, lying amidst a colorful scatter of underwear, was a tiny little necklace on which a single clear stone shone and glittered in the sunlight. Escalla approached it, looking at it in startled disbelief. She touched it. The gold work was impossibly fine and fashioned perfectly for the scale and delicacy of a faerie.
Incredulous, Escalla lifted up the jewel and watched it sparkle. With the prettiest of little blushes, Escalla quietly put the necklace on. She admired it in awe, unable to believe just what was happening.
The gold was a dark, rich orange that showed her hair to be of a far more precious hue. The clear stone hung between her breasts and seemed to shimmer and flow with all the colors of the forest sky. It caught the green of her eyes and turned it from a sly glimmer to a shade innocent as forest grass. Escalla turned and gazed at her reflection in the mirror, looking at herself in blank astonishment.
It had been custom made for her-custom made with infinitecare.
Escalla turned and looked toward Jus. The man knelt beside the stream, carefully examining fallen autumn leaves in the mud. The faerie felt something akin to a tear well in her eye, even as she swelled her breast like a puffer fish about to burst.
A blush spread from her eartips to her toes. Suddenly girlishly shy, she found herself unable to move or even speak. The necklace hung fluid and gleaming about her neck, while Jus artlessly managed to avoid watching her.
Polk corked his jug and gave a loud, satisfied sigh. He had given his astonished mule a slug of whiskey, and the poor animal now stood with its knees knocking and its eyes staring into different dimensions of space and time. Turning, Polk saw Escalla’s necklace glistening about her alabasterthroat.
He creased his brows and exclaimed, “Jewels!” The teamsterscratched his head with a noise like sandpaper. “Is that treasure?”
“Oh, definitely.”
Escalla floated quietly into the air, feeling a strange, numb sensation. She hovered indecisively for a long moment then tugged her skirt straight, took a deep breath, and flew over to the Justicar.
He knelt, examining a fallen maple leaf, one of untold thousands that carpeted the banks of the forest stream. This particular leaf showed a tiny mark on the moist dirt that sheened its upper surface-a mark likea tiny footprint only a few inches long. Escalla landed softly on the mold nearby, her hands behind her back and her body swinging from side to side like an embarrassed child called up before her school.
She cleared her throat. Jus contrived to carefully lever up the fallen maple leaf and examine the indentation left in the mud below. The footprint could not have been made by a creature any heavier than a modest house cat.
Escalla took a step closer, and the sheer radiance of her blush made Jus look up into her coy smile. Looking at him from the corner of her eye, Escalla held her necklace stone in her hands.
“It’s, aah, a beautiful necklace.”
Jus knelt in the leaves before her, and Escalla cleared her throat.
“It’s slowglass. It sees everything I do and filters it outthe back in a fortnight’s time.” She blushed a deeper shade of cherry pink.“They’re called newlywed stones.”
Jus bared his head, slipping Cinders down onto his shoulders and letting his unhelmeted head gleam in the light. Escalla ventured a little closer, suddenly feeling an urge to pat the velvet stubble of Jus’ skull. Sheinstead bit her lip and smiled down into the fallen leaves.
“This is just too too sweet!”
Blinking, Jus looked at her from her tight little leggings up to the roots of her hair. “The necklace suits you.”
“Well, it is gorgeous. It’s tailor made.” The girlhalf turned away, hugging herself and casting one eye back across her shoulder. “Jus, I can’t! This is, like, really expensive!”
Looking a little confused, Jus sat back on his heels. Muscles moved under his shirt, making Escalla’s heart flutter in strange ways.
Jus scratched thoughtfully at his chin and said, “It doeslook expensive, but if it’s what you want…”
“Oh, oh, I want!” Escalla whirled, paled, blushed, and hidher face behind one hand. “I mean… it’s really appreciated. I know you think,well, that maybe I didn’t understand. I just wanted you to know…” Escallabit her finger, struggling her thoughts past her embarrassment. “I just wantedyou to know that, well, I’ve been thinking.” Her cheeks were aflame.Escalla pressed the backs of her hands against her face to cool them and felt a lump in her throat. “I’ve, ah, been thinking it through. I know that’s whatyou’d want me to do.” She felt her hands shake and hid them behind her back. “Imean, we have to be careful about all of this. It’s a change-not a badchange! — but it shifts everything into… well, you know… a new light.”
Jus rubbed at his nose, his confusion growing. He raised one brow and asked, “What have you been thinking?”
“Um, well, I’ve been thinking that it’s all right. You’vesort of grown, I’ve sort of grown…” The girl swallowed. “I… I think it’stime.”
Jus’ brows creased. “Time?”
“Oh, I know what you’re saying!” Escalla whirled,all-of-a-passion. “I know size differences might seem a… well, you know, abit of a problem! But, ah, I think there’s a spell somewhere that can help! Youknow, I could make myself a better scale. More able to, ah… to share… ah…” The girl suddenly blushed beet red and began prodding the tips of herindex fingers together. “Well, it just opens up possibilities, but we can wait.We have to wait. We might just have to be patient. You know-for a while…until we find the means…”
Sucking on a tooth, Jus crossed his legs, collected the faerie and arranged her on his knee. He hunched down to meet her eye in concern.
“Escalla, are you all right?”
“I’m fine!” The girl almost jumped out of her skin. “Justfine!”
“Good.” Jus tilted his head to examine her as if she might bemad. “Escalla, what are you talking about?”
Escalla felt the blood drain out of her whole body and go into storage somewhere on another plane. She wilted like a boiled lettuce as she stared at the Justicar.
“You didn’t give me the necklace, did you?” Still mystified,Jus shook his head. Escalla felt her whole life sliding into a horrible pit of embarrassment. “You didn’t give me roses, and you didn’t give me the sweetseither.”
“Ah, no.” Jus scratched his head. A mind used to sifting tinyclues and solving crimes struggled with the events of the last five minutes. “What was all that about scale?”
““Nothing!” Escalla jumped to her feet in fright. “Nothingat all! It was-” The girl looked for something neat and glib to save her face.“It was wing scales! Like butterflies! I need to change my scales! Dust themoff, polish them! And it will all take time!” The girl fluttered like a mad mothin a bottle. “Yep! Time! Which implies anticipation! Lots of anticipation, allworking toward, ah, fruit. No, not fruit. Cherry picking!” The girl whirled andgrabbed Jus by the armor. “No, not cherries! Bananas! Apples! Yes! Gottahave my wings ready by apple blossom time! Faerie tradition!”
Suddenly Escalla stopped, stared at Jus, and leaned away. “You gave me none of those gifts?”
“Nope.”
“Not roses, not my favorite sweets, not this tailor madenecklace just for me?”
The Justicar spread his hands in innocence. “Escalla,really!”
“Shhh!”The faerie’s face went blank. She lifted a hand forsilence as horrible thoughts skittered through her mind.
“It wasn’t you…” Sudden cold fear griped Escalla, andshe whirled to stare around at the forest in fright.
She fired off a battery of spells-an anti-scrying shield,then an illusion of herself and Jus still sitting talking by the stream. The girl grabbed Jus by the shirt and dragged him into a run, yanking him back toward the cart.
“Run! Come on! Run!”
She snatched her ice wand, Enid’s stun scroll, and herspellbooks all in a single mad second. Polk began wrenching his cart around to follow as she dragged Jus out across the stream. The girl took one look at the cart and fired a swarm of little magic bees that slashed the mule’s traces andcut them in two.
“Polk, get on the mule and ride! Hurry!”
“My cart!” Polk stared at the abandoned vehicle. “My cart!”
“Lose it!” Escalla whacked the terrified mule across itsrump. “Go!”
With a bleat of fear, the mule sped into the trees, plunging Polk through a bramble bush. Jus backed away from the stream, his hand on his sword, trying to cover Polk and Escalla’s backs.
“What is it? What’s there?”
“Just run! Just do it!” Escalla felt tears of panicflood her eyes. “Come on, man. I don’t want to lose you!”
The girl dragged Jus away, and he broke into a run. He led the way past Polk and the mule, twisting sideways down a deep gully filled with leaves that helped cover their trail. They fled past fallen statues, past another giant’s skeleton, and sped out onto an old road with weeds jutting upbetween the cobblestones. Escalla danced in a cold fright, keeping her companions in the cover of the trees.
They ran for a mile. Breathing hard, Jus stopped beneath a broken oak to look behind him. Nothing moved. The world seemed still. Escalla shot out of the skies, her eyes roaming in fright across the leaves.
“Jus, if we get separated, meet me at the Hydra’s lair! Justwait! Wait as long as it takes!” She half tore out of his hands, surged forward,gave him a kiss, and broke away. “You’re my friends! I’m not losing you!”
Something unseen flashed through the leaves high above. Escalla whirled, stabbed a spell into the treetops, and blasted a web across the trees. Something small and invisible struck the web, kicking and cursing. Escalla shot aside, invisible again. A line of golden bees hissed from midair to show her position as she passed. She blasted the branches and tops from trees, sending a cascade of debris tumbling through the forest.
Something invisible hovered in the falling leaves-somethingthat cursed and threw up a shield to ward away the debris. Stabbing upward from below came another spell, and another of Escalla’s webs hit something full forceand plastered a struggling shape against an old dead tree.
Leaves jerked as Escalla sped invisibly away-until a vastwall of fire suddenly thundered upward in her path. Escalla’s voice could beheard cursing, then cursing again as another fire wall blocked her escape off to one side. In a sudden flash, Escalla’s invisible body was somehow outlined insparkling light as an unseen enemy neutralized Escalla’s camouflage.
Jus was already running to her aid. He tackled the girl, balling himself about her as he leaped through the fire wall. Cinders’ peltshielded them from the heat. Rolling to his feet, Jus released the girl. Breaking away, she sped hard and fast through the underbrush.
“Jus, keep back!”
A spell stabbed at her from above. Escalla rolled aside, but the magic had never been intended to hit her. Instead it lanced into the fern beneath, which instantly sprang into life and caught the girl about the waist. Struggling, Escalla became visible as she fired a shower of little missiles into the plants and blew them apart.
She flung out a hand and scythed a spell into a patch of empty space. A female scream echoed in the woods, and a small form smashed into the autumn leaves, flickered, and instantly became visible.
It was Escalla in mirror-image: small, lithe, blonde, and winged like a dragonfly. Dressed in white lace, the faerie had a face and hair that could have been Escalla’s own. With a vicious screech, the newcomerscrabbled to her feet and threw a killing glance at Escalla.
Escalla hissed, whipped open her hands, and the blinding sizzle of a lethal spell flashed into life. The other faerie snarled at her, matching Escalla’s motion and wreathing herself in dancing electricity. The twogirls were about to open fire, when a sudden imperious voice pealed out from above.
“Enough!”
It was a voice that hit with a tidal wave of matronly power. On the forest floor, the two young faeries jerked sullenly back as though struck a blow. Unused combat spells leaked off into the ground.
“Escalla! Tielle! Cease this at once!”
A regal presence shimmered into being above the two glaring girls. Lean and arrogant, blonde and beautiful, it was a female faerie dressed in icy splendor. Her body had a wild hauteur that almost stung the eye.
Other figures shimmered into view-faeries, male and female,in hunting costumes and in gowns. Their fashions were exquisite, their faces arrogant. Here and there, tiny dragons buzzed and hovered at a faerie’s side.
Looking stark in her black leathers, Escalla stood and coldly wiped the spell taint from her gloves. Standing proud and arrogant amidst her peers and keeping a good grip upon her battle wand, she stared at the magnificent woman floating above and gave her a look that dripped poisoned icicles.
The woman looked down at Escalla as though examining a found beneath a log.
“Hello, Escalla.”
Escalla matched the woman gaze for gaze.
“Hello, Mother.”