by Kate Novak
"No problem," Joel said coolly.
The waiter studied the bard's face, searching his even features for any sign of a lie.
"Except that we could really use a plate of sandwiches and an ale for our friend here," Joel added.
"Yes, I'm parched and famished," the kender said.
"As you wish, sir," the waiter said with a shrug. He hurried off to the kitchen.
"Urn, I'm Joel, a priest of Finder," the bard introduced himself.
"Pleased to make your acquaintance," the kender replied. "My name's Emilo Haversack. Just call me Emilo." He held out his right hand.
Joel accepted the kender's handshake.
"Finder, hmm?" Emilo queried. "That's another god I've never heard of."
"He's a new god from another world," Joel explained. "Let me have a look at those cuts on your neck before our meal comes."
"I'd appreciate that," the kender replied.
There was nothing in Emilo's tone that was the least bit sarcastic or threatening. His voice and manner were soft and mild, rather different than one might expect from a thief, but also different from the behavior of an innocent man accused of a crime. It was as if the creature were completely indifferent to the violent skirmish his actions had caused.
Joel pulled a stool over from the bar for the kender, and Emilo slid down onto it. Very gently Joel laid his fingers about the kender's bloody neck. Emilo closed his brown eyes, as if he thought the healing might hurt. He re minded Joel of a boy waiting for a birthday gift to be set down in front of him.
Joel noticed Jas looking up at the kender. The woman's face was pale beneath the feathers that covered her flesh. There were tears in her eyes, though whether from shame or self-pity, he could not tell. Noting that Joel was watching her, Jas looked back down at the floor.
Joel returned his attention to his patient. He noticed there were streaks of gray in the hair gathered back from Emilo's temples and fine lines all over the kender's face. In a soft voice, the bard prayed to his god. A dim blue aura of healing energy illuminated Joel's hands and seeped into Emilo's body.
The puncture wounds sealed up easily, leaving little scars, like flea bites. Joel wiped the blood from Emilo's neck with a handkerchief. "That's much better," Emilo said, opening his eyes wide, as if surprised. "You're good at that," he said to Joel.
Joel bowed his head modestly. There was an awkward silence as he realized he was stuck with a chatty kender when what he really needed to do was talk some sense into Jas. "So, where is it you're from, Emilo?" he asked politely.
"Well, I was born and raised in the East, about twenty miles south of Render-more, in a small village called Ten-grapes," Emilo explained. "I've been wandering most of my life. Before I came here I was in the lair of a dragon called Flayze somewhere near Thorbardin. I stepped through a magical vortex and ended up in this city. I've been trying to get my bearings ever since I got here three days ago. I've asked all sorts of people, but not one of them can tell me how to get to any major city or kingdom that I've ever heard of." The kender gave a tiny shrug. "Geography seems to be a lost art among the people of this city."
"True," Joel agreed. "Maps are not particularly meaningful to them."
"We don' need no stinkin' maps," declared a drunken man seated at the bar. He wore a chain mail shirt and carried a double-headed axe. He pointed the axe handle in Emilo's direction. "You don' like that, you clueless sod, go back to Prime."
Jas stood up, whirled around, and took two steps toward the bar so that she stood nose-to-nose with the interloper. If the man had been standing, he would have towered a head taller than the winged woman. In a harsh whisper, Jas asked, "Did it ever occur to you that if you were on a Prime world, you'd be the clueless sod?"
"Never happen," the drunk said with a grin. "Never be so addle-coved that I'd leave the Cage."
"The way you're drinking, it's only a matter of time," Jas retorted. "Some night you'll make a wrong turn and step into a hidden portal by mistake. Could be a one-way portal, or you might never find the key that opens it on the other side."
"Bar that. What would you know?" the drunk muttered.
Jas stepped back and grabbed the crystal paperweight from Emilo's hands. Then she stepped back to the drunk. "Oh, yeah," she said. "Let's see, if you've got the guts to scan this." She shoved the crystal in the drunk's face.
The drunk moved his head back, trying to focus his eyes on the glittering flecks.
"What do you see?" Jas asked.
"Nothing… just little specks of light," the drunk answered belligerently.
"Ah-ha!" Jas said. "Those little specks are called stars."
"So?"
"So. Like I said, it's only a matter of time before you'll be seeing them." Jas snatched the crystal away from the drunk's eyes. She shook her head and tched sympathetically. "Oh. Here's our sandwiches at last," she said as the waiter returned with a plate piled high with cold meat and cheese sandwiches and a mug of ale for Emilo.
Jas returned to her chair, slid the crystal back into her cloak pocket, and grabbed a sandwich.
The drunk staggered up to the table. "Are you telling me that crystal can see into the future? Let me see."
Jas shook her head. "Sorry. Only one look per person. Any more and you're likely to go mad. Besides, it doesn't matter what you see. It's your fate. You can't change fate."
"Let me see that crystal!" the drunk demanded, yanking at Jas's cloak.
Joel looked up at the waiter. "This gentleman's becoming something of a nuisance," he said.
The waiter nodded understandingly. He raised his hand over his head and snapped his fingers twice.
"You sodding Prime. You're going to give me another look at that crystal ball," the drunk insisted, "or I'm going to nick you good."
"Nick me well," Jas corrected.
Two bariaurs, creatures with the torso of a man and the body and horns of a mountain ram, took up a position on either side of the drunk. Each bariaur took an arm and lifted him from the floor. Together they carried him off, despite his loud protests that he "wasn't doing nothing" and that it was all that clueless birdwoman's fault.
Jas took a bite out of her sandwich. "Mmm. This is good." Joel shook his head with a grin. "You may not stick out like a sore thumb here, but you'll never fit in with these Cagers," he said. "Their arrogance will always get on your nerves."
Jas shrugged and took another bite of her sandwich.
"So you do come from someplace where you can see the stars, don't you?" Emilo asked.
"I don't just come from a place where you can see the stars," Jas said. "I've traveled to the stars."
Emilo's eyes widened with amazement. "Really? That must be interesting."
"Sometimes," Jas agreed.
"Is the magic crystal ball from the stars?" the kender asked.
"No. My friend bought it at Lizzy's Paperweights over at the Great Bazaar," Jas said.
"Then it's not magical?" Emilo asked with a disappointed tone in his voice.
"Magical enough. It banished that lousy Cager, didn't it?" Jas asked.
Emilo chuckled. "Emilo Haversack," he reintroduced himself to Jas, holding out his hand.
"Jasmine. Just call me Jas," the winged woman said, accepting the handshake.
As they ate their sandwiches, Emilo kept up the conversation, relating a long, complex tale featuring a mad magician, a dragon, a human boy and girl, a historian, and himself.
When they'd finished their meal, Joel studied Jas, trying to gauge her mood. He'd known the winged woman for a little less than a month, so she was still something of an enigma to him. She looked calm and happy enough. Of course, that could work against Joel. When she was calm, Jas was less likely to accept the fact that she had a problem controlling the dark stalker within her.
Her behavior toward Emilo had taken a complete about-face. While it seemed highly improbable to Joel that Emilo had only been looking at Jas's crystal and had not intended to steal it, Jas now seemed to find th
e Render's company quite acceptable. Joel wondered if he could use that. The kender might serve as bait, or at least as a face-saving excuse for Jas to accompany Joel to Finder's realm.
"Emilo, I was planning on making a trip to Arborea to visit a friend of mine," Joel said, deliberately avoiding Jas's gaze. "He's something of a scholar. He might be able to help you find your home again. Would you care to accompany me?"
"That's a very gracious offer," Emilo replied. "I'd be happy to take you up on it. Not that I'm unhappy wandering, even in this strange city, but one does like to have one's bearings, you know?"
Joel nodded.
"Are you coming, too, Jas?" Emilo asked.
Jas shot Joel a sly smile, as if to let the bard know that she was wise to his tricks. "I'll walk you to the portal," she said. She stood up and tossed enough coins on the table to cover the cost of the food and drink and a large enough tip that the disturbances with Emilo and the drunk would be quickly forgotten. "Let's go."
Outside of Chirper's, it was very dark. A foul-smelling fog hung over the city day and night, making the days gloomy and the nights pitch black. Once upon a time, or so Joel had been told, the city's streets had been lit by magical lamps on poles. Then, so the story went, some enterprising street urchins had discovered a cache of magical lights and used it to create their own industry. After dispelling the light on every lamp pole in the city, they began offering their services as "light boys." The lamp poles had been abandoned, and light boys were now an institution in Sigil.
Although he could create his own magical light, Joel had been convinced of the wisdom of spending the change it took to hire a light boy. For one thing, the native youngsters knew their way around the city far better than he did. For another, the natives of Sigil had a vehement dislike of stinginess, and persons too cheap to hire a light boy were more frequent targets of Sigil's very large population of pickpockets and muggers.
As they stepped away from the inn, Joel signaled to a group of light boys on the corner. One broke away from a crowd of his associates and ran up to Joel. The urchin held a silver wand enchanted with a light spell, which cast an unnatural orange glow in a circle all around him. He was no taller than Emilo, but a good deal thinner.
"Where you off to, sirs and lady?" the light boy asked.
"The Civic Festhall," Joel said, handing the boy a small coin.
The light boy started off down the street at a quick pace; the festhall was quite a ways off. Joel and his companions hurried after him. The fog was thicker than usual this evening and carried the stench of both sulfur and burning animal fat.
As they hurried through the darkness, Emilo began quizzing Jas about her travels to the stars. Jas described her spelljamming journeys among the crystal spheres that surrounded the worlds. Emilo listened, enthralled. Apparently the kender's people believed the gods came from the stars or someplace beyond. The idea that mere mortals could visit where the gods lived intrigued him.
Joel, who'd already heard some of Jasmine's tales, was trying to think of some way to convince Jas to come through the portal to Arborea with him. While he was pondering this problem, he became aware of the footsteps that seemed to be following the group. At first Joel dismissed the notion that they'd picked up a tail. The citizens of Sigil hardly recognized the difference between night and day. The footsteps could have been those of any number of people hidden by the dense mist going about their own business. Indeed, they often crossed the paths of other persons traveling in sedan chairs or on foot, guided by their own light boys. Besides, in the fog, it was hard to discern which direction a sound came from.
Joel grew aware that there was a clinking sound following them, as if they were being pursued by a ghost wrapped in chains. When the light boy made a left turn, the clinking sound followed them around the corner.
Emilo tugged on Joel's shirt sleeve. "I think we're being followed," the kender said softly.
"It's just echoes in the fog," Jas said with a shrug.
Joel shook his head. "No. I think he's right."
Their suspicions were confirmed in the next moment. A grating voice mumbled some indecipherable words, and some fell magic extinguished the light from their guide's wand, leaving them in total darkness.
"Hey!" the light boy cried out. "What's the big idear?"
Joel's first thought was to get the boy out of the way of whatever was undoubtedly preparing to attack. He dashed forward to push the boy to one side, but it wasn't necessary. Joel could hear the urchin's boots slapping on the cobblestones, veering off to the right. The bard crouched low to the ground on the chance that their attacker would aim high.
Jas screamed, then shouted, "Let go of me!"
Joel heard a sound like a sheet beating in the wind and felt a luff of air. Jas had spread her wings.
Joel drew his sword and murmured a prayer to Finder. His blade flared like a torch. It wasn't as bright as the light boy's wand had been, but it was enough to see what was going on.
They were being attacked by five men. Four were common street thugs, undoubtedly hired just for the purpose of abducting Jas, but the fifth one wore the white and green robes of a priest of the evil god Iyachtu Xvim, Xvim's priests were determined to recapture Jas and enslave her as their dark-stalker slave. One of the thugs, an especially large man, weighted with chains, had grabbed Jas about the middle, making it impossible for her to take to the air. The three remaining thugs, scrawnier than their companion, were dragging forward a large weighted net to throw over the winged woman.
Jas began screaming at the top of her lungs. Wise to the ways of the city, she wasn't crying for help but screaming, "Fire!" over and over again.
If the priest were brought down, Joel realized, the others might abandon the attack. With his sword raised, the bard moved toward the servant of Xvim.
The priest held his hands out as if to ward off a blow. A dark shadow seeped from the priest's palms; then two whirling black blades of mystic force shot out from his hands. The blades spun toward Joel.
The bard was able to ward off one of the blades with his sword. It sparked against the naked steel and then spun off into the darkness. The second spinning blade sliced Joel's chest and left shoulder, then it, too, spun away. A horrible searing pain gripped Joel's whole left side, but he didn't let it deter him from his attack.
The evil priest raised his hands again, and Joel's sword smashed into the bracer protecting the priest's left wrist.
Joel dropped the tip of his blade and lunged. His sword sliced through the fabric of the priest's robe and stabbed into the priest's inner thigh. Blood gushed from the priest's leg, and he screamed in pain. Before the bard could press his attack, two blades buried themselves in his flesh, one in his back, the other in his right arm, causing the bard to drop his sword.
Joel looked down at the weapon that had struck his arm. It was the same ebony blade that had whirled off into the night. As he watched wide-eyed, it dissolved like the mist. Blood seeped from Joel's arm, staining his sleeve red. At least, Joel thought thankfully, there's no sign of the other blade.
The priest of Xvim unslung a mace from his belt and whirled it over his head, charging toward Joel.
The bard leapt to one side and rolled away.
The priest of Xvim spun about. Keeping his back to a garden wall, his eyes searched for his foe.
Crouching in the shadow of a wall buttress across the street, Joel cast a hasty healing spell to stanch the bleeding from the wounds he'd received from the magical blades. Then he eyed his sword with irritation. It lay in the middle of the street, glowing from the spell he'd cast on its blade. Should he try to retrieve it, the weapon would only serve as a beacon, and he was by no means certain that he would be able to use it to any effect with the injury to his arm. Suddenly he was aware that Jas had stopped screaming. Joel scanned the street for any sign of his friend, but in the darkness, he could spot neither Jas nor her attackers. They'd disappeared into the mist. Emilo was nowhere to be seen. In fact, Joel cou
ldn't remember seeing Emilo at any time during the attack. Was the kender involved in the ambush? he wondered uneasily.
The question was moot at the moment. The priest of Xvim was still a problem. Joel considered casting a spell to heat the metal the priest carried, but he wasn't certain if the foe wore any armor beyond the bracers about his wrists, and the handle of the priest's mace was wooden, Then Joel's eyes fell on the answer.
A thick clump of razorvine climbed up the wall behind the priest of Xvim; its tiny dark leaves glittered in the light cast by Joel's sword. Not only could the bard use it to immobilize his enemy, but also if his enemy fought against it, its razor-sharp stems would do grave injury to any flesh they touched. Joel began whispering a prayer, motioning toward the vine with his fingers.
The vines twisted and writhed, then fell forward, wrapping themselves about the evil priest's throat, his raised mace and arm, and his waist. The priest cried out in surprise and tried to pull away from the wall. Then he began to scream in pain from the lacerations inflicted by the vine's stems.
Joel dashed out from his hiding place and scooped up his sword. In the next moment, he stood before his attacker with his sword pointed at the priest's chest, ordering him, "Don't move, or the vine will cut through your flesh to your bone. It's called razorvine. You must be new to Sigil, or you would have known not to get anywhere near it. The citizens here grow it to keep thieves out."
The priest of Xvim glared at Joel. "You are too late, priest of Finder," he gloated. "We have captured the winged woman. My master's servant will come to claim her, and she will be our dark stalker again."
"Jas!" Joel shouted down the street in the direction he suspected the thugs had dragged his friend. "Emilo!" His voice echoed back in the fog, but there was no reply from the winged woman or the kender. "You're going to tell me where they're taking her," Joel insisted, pressing the point of his sword ever so slightly against the priest's belly.
"Never," the priest replied.
"What's going on here?" a voice bellowed.
Joel lowered his sword and turned around slowly. Five Hardheads, the city watch, stood behind him. One carried a wand enchanted with a light as bright as the sunshine,
