Saga of the Old City (8 page)

Something rang false in this explanation; it sounded like something Furgo had rehearsed, or someone else’s words that he was repeating. But what could Gord say? At best he was a youngster, even if he was a least master and a relatively successful servant of Theobald. Furgo and a score of others here outranked him, not only in status but in age and experience. He did not openly question or contest what Furgo had told him, feeling that this was the truth as far as Furgo knew it to be.

“I’m heading for the audience room now to report. If he has time, I’ll see if Theobald wishes you to appear. Get something to eat, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.” So saying, Furgo turned and scurried off to see the head of the Union.

It seemed a good idea, that. Gord was feeling peckish, and something from the kitchen might not hurt, even if the stuff was slop. Better something than nothing. He’d come a long way, Gord thought, recalling how a rat-sullied chunk of grease-coated bread had once seemed a feast to him… and how that vegetable swill had seemed to be nectar and ambrosia when he had first eaten in the Beggarmaster’s kitchen. Things had changed.

Nobody was in the kitchen, so Gord helped himself to the best provisions he could find-cheese, a fatty sausage of scant size, and a stale bun. No wonder the place was empty-it certainly didn’t have much to offer. After finishing the meager meal and waiting for a half-hour, Gord decided that Furgo would find him if the Beggarmaster commanded his presence, so Gord headed for the upper loft. He said hello to some of the apprentices who were loafing around there, and then went to his own quarters. He was hardly surprised when a brief inspection revealed him that someone had searched the place in his absence. Everything had been put back in its place so he supposedly wouldn’t notice, but whoever had done the job hadn’t discovered that he’d set things up just so as to be aware of rifling. A hair placed here, a strand of cobweb there, had been displaced.

Gord decided to check his cache of money, not in the least worried that it had been disturbed. He pulled the old crate that served as his table and dresser over to an empty corner of the room, stood upon it, and removed a splinter from the rafter overhead. The beam was old and dry, and the piece had been loose when he was assigned the room. Gord had carefully worked it free and used his knife to gouge a space behind it, a place large enough to hold a handful of coins. Being more careful still, he had used the blade to drill and peg the beam and the splinter. When he replaced the broken piece, it stayed firmly in place, and his most careful scrutiny satisfied Gord that nobody would guess that the piece could be taken off without breaking it. Inside he had first stored his few brass bits; now the trove held far more than that.

Gord took out the coins quickly, replaced the chunk, and moved the crate back where it belonged. He added the bronze zees, copper commons, silver nobles, and one shining silvery-gold electrum lucky to the purse he had tucked under his belt. They clinked against the pair of coins and the ring he already had in there. He stretched out on the lumpy cot, relaxed, waited for his summons, and dozed off….

Gord, always a light sleeper, came awake instantly at the sound of a noise he did not know. What was it? The old building was full of noises. It creaked and settled by itself, and there were always other noises, too-the voices and comings and goings of the many beggars who stayed here. But what had awakened him was something else.

There, again! It was a muffled thud from the chamber next to his. The wall between was thin, and Gord could hear more faint sounds through it now. It sounded unmistakably like a near-silent struggle to Gord, and he reacted swiftly, hoisting himself up soundlessly to the rafter above his cot. Then, a furtive footstep outside his door told him that his decision had been wise. From his perch on the rafter, Gord watched the door. The latch moved quietly upward and the portal swung inward with barely a creak. The dim light of the guttering tallow candle on the crate glinted off the reddened point of a sword. The hand and arm that held the blade swiftly followed it inside. Gord saw a leather-armored man scan the room quickly, noted the rumpled cot, and the apparently empty room. The swordsman stepped in, felt the place where Gord had dozed only moments before, and grinned evilly. He stepped back from the bed, stooped, and thrust the short, bloody weapon into the place under the bed where he imagined a frightened beggar-thief was hiding. As he did so, Gord pounced.

The force of his fall sunk the long dagger Gord held before him through the thick hide and padding so that its full length buried itself into the would-be killer’s back just beneath his left shoulder blade. Gord’s weight and the momentum behind his plunge felled the fellow as if he’d been pole-axed, and as he flattened on the floor with a whoofing noise, the tip of the dagger bit into the wood and pinned him to the floor.

This foe was a tough one-no run-of-the-mill thief, to be sure. Without outcry, the man tried to turn and get at the weight on his back, but the dagger held him immobile long enough for Gord to take out his second weapon, the short knife, and strike again. His wild swing slashed the killer’s right forearm as the fellow tried to ward off the blow. The wound caused him to gasp and reflexively drop his sword. Gord tossed away his shorter blade and, by lunging out and away from the man’s body, managed to snatch up the invader’s weapon. Even as the man freed himself from the floor, Gord was up and attacking again. The third time was the charm.

The sword rose and fell twice more before Gord was satisfied that the enemy was finished. Had he not taken him totally unawares, and then had him pinned down, Gord knew that the man would have slain him. Gord was shaking and sweat-covered. He stood absolutely silent, holding his breath. Had anyone heard the fight? Was another murderer coming? No footsteps indicated this, and no outcry arose. Whatever was going on, apparently no one but Gord knew about it.

With actions born more of instinct than intention, Gord searched the body of the dead thief. There were a few coins in the man’s girdle, and Gord pocketed them without thinking. He returned his knife to its sheath on his right hip, drew out the great dagger, wiped it clean, and replaced it in the sheath between his shoulder blades. Finally, he took the belt and scabbard from the corpse. The belt was too large for his slender waist, but he used it as a hanger, slinging it over his right shoulder, and sheathed the sword on his left hip. Softly, Gord crept from his room and into the unlit corridor beyond to discover what was going on.

He passed several open but dark doorways before the glow from a flickering lamp within one room allowed him to determine what was happening. The bloody truth was there before his eyes. Jenk lay on the floor of his room in a pool of congealing gore. His corpse was covered with wounds, and his throat was cut. He had been the first of the masters, and the first renegade thief to enlist with the Beggarmaster.

Further examination of a few more of the apartments told the whole story. Somehow, a band of thieves had penetrated the place and set about killing the beggar-thieves and beggars inside. Gord felt that it would be pointless for him to go higher in the building. They had probably started from above, assaulting the beginners and apprentices first after gaining entry from the rooftop, and worked their way down. As the least of the masters, Gord had been assigned the smallest room and the one farthest from the stairs. He was most thankful for that. Gord surmised that the man he had slain was the only one left on the floor, the one given the job of cleaning up the last bit of work before moving on. He decided he had better do something fast, for the killers would certainly be finishing the floor below by now and readying themselves for the final encounter-the settling with Theobald.

Gord ran to a secluded back stair that was hardly ever used and silently bounded down the steps all the way to the bottom, where the passage opened into the pantry of the kitchen. Gord saw light around the edges of the ill-fitting door that separated the storeroom from the commissary area beyond. Cautiously, he peered through a large crack to see what was going on. There was the gross Beggarmaster, lantern in hand, followed by San straining under the weight of a metal box he carried, heading for the concealed entry to the subcellar. Gord jerked the door open and stepped out. The suddenness of his appearance made Theobald utter a startled gasp and nearly caused San to drop his burden.

“What? Oh, it’s you, boy! Don’t ever do anything like that again, or I’ll have you flayed and impaled, damn your eyes!” All that was said in the Beggarmaster’s usual falsetto, but the threat was real. The fat man took a breath and continued in a slightly more rational tone. “Don’t stand there like the fool you are! Help this weakling carry my chest. We must leave now!”

Gord said nothing and moved quickly to take one of the handles of the iron box from his small friend’s grasp. Together they managed its weight easily, the box held between them. The Beggarmaster had moved on ahead to the hidden portal, glancing back a couple of times to make sure that the boys were bringing the chest as he’d ordered. Theobald got the door open and stood aside as the pair struggled through. He then followed, shut the portal, and pulled a bar across it.

“That should keep them out for a bit,” he observed. Then he spun to face the two boys again. “Fortunate for you two rats that you’ve survived this debacle…. I have been betrayed by none other than the Lord Mayor himself!”

Gord nearly snickered aloud at the rage and hurt in Theobald’s tone. It seemed incredible to Gord that the fat idiot hadn’t expected something like this to happen. What other result could have occurred, given the circumstances and the power of the two quarreling groups? As members of the ruling elite of Greyhawk, surely the thieves counted for far more than the lowly beggars, even with their associated fellows-all of them deserving of whatever vengeance the Directors chose to mete out. How could that blubbery clown ever have imagined that a handful of hostages would tip the balance in his favor? It had always been but a matter of time before the Guildmaster of Thieves and his henchmen would strike.

“How did you escape?” Gord whispered to San.

“I heard a fight in the room next to mine, and I ran for my life,” San whispered back. “I stopped to alert the master, and as a reward he made me carry his treasure box,” he concluded sarcastically with a cold look in Theobald’s direction.

The Beggarmaster did not overhear any of this because he was occupied. He had gone to a corner of the chamber and uncovered the mouth of a hidden well-yet another exit from the place, and one Gord had never seen.

“Bring that box here,” Theobald grunted. Gord and San complied, then stood waiting for what would happen next.

“Put it on the floor, you little oafs,” the Beggarmaster said imperiously. “Can’t you see that I need assistance in getting down the first part of this wretched ladder?”

They rested the heavy chest on the stone flags as commanded and helped the obese man to carefully find the first rung of the ladder that descended the side of the shaft.

Theobald’s pudgy fingers closed around Gord’s shoulder, sending pains shooting into his neck, as the fat man nervously felt with his foot for the next step down. “Be careful now, you idiots!” he blustered. “One slip is all it takes… it’s a hundred feet to the bottom of this cistern.”

When he got low enough, the Beggarmaster released his grip on Gord’s shoulder and grabbed the topmost rung of the ladder. Gord watched him slowly continue to climb down, moving forward to see into the shaft. Some eight or nine feet below the floor level was a narrow ledge beside the iron rungs protruding from the stone blocks of the well. The Beggarmaster stepped off the ladder onto this projection, and the light of the lantern that swung from his belt revealed the mouth of a small opening that led off to the side. Theobald looked up at the pair above, once again completely sure of himself.

“I suppose I’ll save you, too-you’ve been faithful servants and can be useful still.” He stretched his arms up and said, “Pass me the chest, and then get your arses down the ladder-and be sure and close the trapdoor as you come down!”

Gord motioned San to one side, lifted the weight of the iron box by himself, and knelt beside the opening with the coffer in his arms. The Beggarmaster peered up expectantly as he saw the coffer come into view.

“Give it to me, dolt!”

Without a word or a glance downward, Gord let the box drop. There was a brief scream, a meaty sound of metal striking flesh, and then a long, drawn-out shriek that echoed off the walls of the old well before being cut off by a faint splash.

“That was the bugger’s treasure box, Gord!”

“It was worth it,” said Gord quietly, with a smile.

Chapter 7

It was a quiet night in the Roc and Oliphant. Sometimes the little tavern at the end of Burnbook Lane would be packed to overflowing, but not this time. Gord was the only customer. The young man sat at the back table where the senior students congregated when they were around, a half-empty pewter flagon of wine before him. He was at ease in the wooden chair, his mind lazily wandering through what had transpired in his life after he had slain the Beggarmaster with his own iron treasure box….

He and San had then made haste to get away, taking the side tunnel off the well-shaft that the fat tyrant had planned to use for his own escape. They had found a way out easily enough, for the drain had long been sealed off and prepared as a route in case flight was ever called for. Thoughtful, that fat bastard was, mused Gord. At the far end, near a manhole, they had found a large trunkful of gear stashed for possible need. He and San had both found much usable in its contents-some clothing, a sack to carry it in, materials for use in disguise that they took for later, and a pouch containing a pass that allowed unquestioned exit and entry through the various gates of Greyhawk for whoever presented it. Gord wondered about the origin of that benison as they opened the manhole cover and emerged into a closed courtyard in an abandoned building; once they got into the outdoors, stealing away into the night was a simple matter. Gord had not dared to use the gate pass right away, fearing that its employment by one so young might arouse suspicion as to how it was obtained. But it had come in handy several times in the more recent past.