Night Arrant (10 page)

Gord demurred, breaking off a bit of rusk and flavoring it with a thin layer of black current jelly before nibbling it. After sipping the astringent infusion he had ordered, the young thief finished his exposition. "It seems certain that we have discovered a place where we are free from the filth who hounds us. With luck, we can find quarters here in Weird Way and use them as a base of operations. There is also much of interest here. Despite our unpropitlous start, and I mean Yagbo, the hostel, and that blood-sucker Plincourt, this might prove our most favorable occurrence."

"I'll say!" Chert said happily, sinking his teeth into a leg of fowl. "And despite the number of odd-looking folk about the place, most of the girls are absolute smashers!"

"Brother!"

"Yes, we are brothers indeed!" The barbarian nodded, not looking up from his trencher. "But, ah, we have at least another hour before the gem shop is open, so what say we order more food, brother? I'm famished!"

Eventually the third hour arrived, and with it came old Sogil. Gord and Chert were loitering outside his shop, and the gemner eyed them suspiciously. "Do you have any business with me?" he demanded, fingering an oddly shaped brooch he wore at his neck.

"Are you Sogil the Gemner?" asked Gord.

"None other indeed," the bald jeweler said.

"Then we have business for certain!" exclaimed the barbarian.

This was nearly too much for the skinny ancient, for he doddered back with a look of fear on his face, and his fingers fumbled to unclasp the apparently enchanted brooch.

"You don't need protection from us, we simply wish to buy from you," Gord said with haste, as he took out a sack of coins and shook it. "Something very expensive."

Relief flooded the merchant's countenance. "Ah, I understand! Your gains are in coin and you wish small items of high value instead. This is easily accommodated. Come in!"

Sogil attempted to sell the two all sorts of exotic and unknown stuff, but neither showed the least bit of interest. After this tack failed, the conniving fellow tried to foist off gemstones at ten times their actual worth. This again met with no success, so he got down to basics.

"What do you desire?"

"Two pieces of identical value. Each must be salable to any jeweler for not less than five thousand gold — orbs, I mean. The pieces should be set with many fine stones salable separately, and the stones must be diamonds, emeralds, jacinths, rubies or the like. For these two pieces we will pay seven thousand in gold and four thousand in platinum," Gord finished flatly.

"How do I profit from such a sale?" the gemner asked querulously.

"The margin is small, I admit," the young thief said. "But how often do you sell goods of such value? The gold that you clear from this deal will operate this shop and keep you in style for a good year — if not longer!"

Sogil grumbled and cursed under his breath, but he went into the back room and returned with a velvet-covered tray. He set this down on the counter and flipped open the covering. Revealed was an exquisite ensemble of jewelry: necklace, bracelet, diadem, earrings, and ring, all in gold and set with square-cut diamonds and emeralds of great size and clarity. The gems seemed to flash and sparkle a£ the two adventurers gazed at them.

"Wonderful," Gord said laconically. "May we see the remainder at this time as well?"

Sogil tottered off, doing his best to stamp disgustedly in the process, but he was simply too decrepit to manage anything effective in this vein. Eventually he brought forth more trays from the mysterious back room. Finally an agreement was made, and Gord and Chert handed over their bundles of coins. While the ancient gemner counted them carefully, the pair of adventurers examined their newly purchased fortune in gems and jewelry.

Chert took the diamond and emerald jewelry set and a dozen precious stones of unparalleled clarity and color. Gord had similar jewelry set with sapphires, a ruby the size of a small egg, a pouch of black pearls, and various other gems as well. Each then selected a brooch for his cape, a rich thumb ring, and picked up small silver coffers filled with miscellaneous lesser stones. "Done?" they inquired in unison.

"Be gone," Sogil cried, still fondling the coins as he counted.

"I wonder where all this wealth came from," Chert mused. "And how it found its way to that old fart's establishment."

"A place ideal for the likes of us," his companion said softly.

"Yes, I get your drift," agreed the barbarian as he strode through the bright sun of mid-morning toward the street known as Weird Way.

Noon came and they had made no progress toward their first objective. Simply put, neither Gord nor Chert could find a way to escape the confines of Weird Way. The portal at its end, identical to the one they had entered through, did not yield when Gord tried using the coin he still held in his possession. "Apparently the way out of this place is as strange as the way in — but not identical," Gord said dejectedly. Not a single building — and they had managed to explore a few — had a rear exit. Each opened onto Weird Way and nowhere else. "Let's try the rooftops," Gord said in exasperation.

"What can we lose?" Chert shrugged.

Gord had a sinking feeling, but he strode jauntily toward a narrow opening between two of the nearby buildings. The space was a gangway between the two structures, opening onto a small courtyard. Sure enough, on each side of the courtyard were stairs leading to apartments on the upper floors and above. Three storeys later, both adventurers stood on the roof. There were dovecots, small gardens, lines of washing, and the like. By positioning themselves just right, they could see a good bit of Weird Way. Beyond the area. In the place where adjacent buildings should be, where Greyhawk was, there was a wall of impenetrable, colorless nothingness. Sunlight came through but nothing else.

"Trapped!" Chert growled, desperation keening in his voice.

"Use your head, man!" Gord exclaimed. "How can we be trapped here? Look at all the people — and other creatures too — that we see down there. The plaza is jam-packed with shoppers. The public houses are full. There are more living things here than will fit into these buildings, and they come and go somehow!"

"They must all know something we don't, then," Chert sighed, hefting his massive axe.

"Possibly some do," his comrade agreed, "and we will just have to acquire this information for ourselves, now, won't we?" He nudged his gloomy friend in a playful manner. Chert managed a weak grin and Gord continued. "Mark you the gate area," he said, taking Chert and turning him so he faced the end of Weird Way. "Wait for two minutes and tell me how many folks you see coming and going in" the space of time."

Chert squinted and watched for almost two full minutes before asking, "Is the time up?"

"Close enough," Gord replied. "Now, how many did you see?"

"Six leaving, two seeming to come."

"Passage through that portal is too cumbersome for all to use. Besides, would not the folk of the city notice such a stream of pedestrians — especially strangers of such unusual nature as these — coming and going from the Old City's less frequented sector? There must be other places from which to come and go!" Gord exclaimed, hope rising in his voice. The iron portal is controlled by some magic. and I am convinced that all other means of entrance and egress are also tied to some dweomercraeft."

"Agreed," Chert said glumly. "But can we discover it? There's the rub."

"With all the traffic that flows in and out of this place? Come now, my giant friend, how can we not?" Gord chided as he clapped the barbarian on his muscular shoulder. "We just have to think a bit."

"In that case, I’m going to sit down. Thinking wears me out," Chert said half-heartedly.

Gord stayed where he was, taking in the aerial view of Weird Way and its establishments. "How can one person be so bereft of his senses?" the young thief suddenly cried, hitting the side of his head with his open palm.

"Hey! Insulting me isn't going to make me think any faster!" Chert protested. "In fact, that kind of talk may cause your own brain to suffer some serious damage if I have half a mind to use your head as a stomping ground, which I just might decide is worth the effort."

Gord laughed. "No, you idiot. I was referring to my own mental abilities." He pulled the confused barbarian to his feet. "Look, down that way, what do you see?"

"A crowded street with strange-looking people, so what?"

"No, no, no! Look at the sign across the way. We didn't know what we were looking for. Now we do. If you could discern the written word half as well as you can — Oh, never mind. The sign I'm referring to proclaims the edifice to be the 'Pavilion of Portals'. What quest could be simpler?"

"Perhaps," Chert said with a ring of doubt in the word. Patting the steely bit of Brool for reassurance, the great barbarian followed his slender companion down the stairs and back into Weird Way.

Streams of people were leaving and entering the Pavilion of Portals. The broad double doors were shaded by the wide portico that ran the entire length of the large, plastered building. The whole had an exotic air, with its strange columns, tent-like roof and tower tops, and the draped windows and entrance. It was cool and dim inside, with the faint hum of conversations and comings and goings to be heard. Broad corridors led left, right and ahead. The marble walls and tiled floors seemed to lead away endlessly.

"May I be of assistance?" inquired the owner of a high-pitched voice.

Both men turned quickly. The speaker was a spidery gnome dressed in tailored livery of apple red and saffron which displayed many modish puffs and slashes that revealed flashes of contrasting colors. Gord nodded and replied. "Yes, I believe you can be of service." he said handing the gnome an electrum coin.

The gnome tucked the lucky into his pouch without expression. "Pray tell?"

"We are considering the utilization of your . . . services. Be so kind as to enumerate them for our edification," the young thief instructed the spidery servitor — if indeed he was not the proprietor.

"Novices to the Way, I see," the little gnome squeaked. "Well, your worships have certainly come to the right place!" he added with enthusiasm. "Unlike some of our competitors, the Pavilion serves the main parallels - and a few of the trunk lines, of course - of the multiverse. We have no trunk with the unhospitable planes, off byways, dead-end dimensions and the like. No, sirs!"

Taking them by the arms with his gnarled hands, the colorfully garbed gnome led Gord and Chert a few paces along the corridor. He gestured to a strange maze of shifting lines and glowing, pastel-colored dots displayed on the wall of an alcove. "There, see? All the routes that our gates serve are shown here. Fares are given in credits, domars, and sequins, as well as the standard precious metals, as displayed to right and left."

Chert stared wordlessly at the display. Gord nodded, pretending to study and understand the complex depiction.

"Would this perhaps deposit us within the City of Greyhawk?" Gord asked as casually as he could.

"Never, good sir!" the gnome reassured him.

"Oerik?"

"Of course not!"

"Any other of the towns or principalities of the Flanaess?"

With an expression of pain showing clearly, the gnome drew himself up to his full three feet and said. "This establishment provides safe and convenient travel to safe destinations along every proper line. Our record is nearly accident-free, and not even a major scrambling of fluxes would bring such disaster to our patrons!" he squeaked indignantly.

"Ahem!" Gord managed.

Chert just looked confused and scratched his mop of curly hair reflectively.

"Do you hail from Yarth? Aerth?" the little fellow asked in a barely restrained horrified tone. Gord and Chert exchanged glances and said nothing, prompting the little fellow to conclude hurriedly. "I must be off, for there is much business to attend to." As he scuttled away, the gnome called back over his shoulder. "Gates are clearly identified with sigils that correspond to those you see. You'll have no trouble finding one you desire — unless, of course, you wish to travel to lands this establishment does not see as being worthy of visiting!" And with that he turned a comer and disappeared.

"Now what?" demanded Chert.

"I was wondering just that," his friend replied.

The barbarian snorted. "It is certain that we have no need to use any of the gates that gnome raved about. They will carry us only to some other place from which we know not how to escape!"

"You speak the truth, I fear," Gord said somberly. "It seems that this place is a nexus for travel to the probabilities common to our own existence."

"What?"

"The portals lead to parallel planes similar to our own — the Prime Material, as we call it on Oerth."

"Oh," the huge barbarian said in a subdued tone, for he understood that. "That explains why there are so many oddly dressed folk and unnatural creatures here."

Gord motioned toward the entranceway behind^ them. "Let's try our luck elsewhere. We now know where humans and demi-humans enter and leave this pocket-sized place. Somewhere are the gates that lead to more alien planes, too."

"And our world?"

"If we eliminate all else, we will find the way. There are certainty a fair number of folk from the Flanaess treading Weird Way. After all, we have noted Aerdians. citizens of Dyvers, Kettites and other Westerners, and an odd Frusti or two. Some establishment here serves to transport these folk to and from their own countries," Gord asserted.

"But what if they merely use the tokens as we did?" Chert asked.

"Then we find the gate that leads to Greyhawk and acquire an 'exit' token in much the same manner as we got our hands on the magical disc that got us in here in the first place." -

"Yuuch! Don't you remember what else we got our hands on when we 'acquired' the key to unlocking that enchanted gate?" Chert asked, screwing up his face so badly his friend had to laugh.

"If you walk around looking like that we may not need to leave. Chert. Why, you fit right in with all the rest of the strange folks here!" Chert changed his expression to a menacing one, and Gord continued to chuckle off and on again as the two searched the business district of Weird Way for a travel agency that could provide them passage to Greyhawk.