by Kate Novak
“Finder said he would try to help you,” Joel said, reminding the older woman that his god had offered her his assistance. “All you have to do is ask. I’ve found a portal from Sigil to his realm in the outer planes. We can go there now if you want.”
Jas shook her head vehemently. “I’m going to handle this myself. I don’t want any god’s help.”
“Jas, you’re being ridiculous about this,” Joel said. “Give me one good reason why you won’t come with me.”
“I don’t have to give you any reasons,” Jas retorted. “This is my business. Why don’t you just let me be?” The whites of her eyes and her dark brown irises began glowing green.
“You don’t mean that,” Joel argued.
“Damned if I don’t,” Jas snarled.
“Damned if you do,” Joel whispered softly.
The winged woman glared at Joel for a moment, then whirled about and grabbed at something behind her chair. Something yelped behind her. With a sharp yank, she pulled the something forward, depositing it on the table in front of her with a unceremonious thunk.
The something was a small man with pointed ears and a topknot of very long brown hair. Over his indigo homespun trousers and shirt, he wore a scarlet vest covered with pockets and an orange cloak over that. He was holding a crystal paperweight full of some dark liquid, in which floated a thousand glittering specks. Joel recognized the paperweight. Holly had bought it for Jas as a gift to help remind the winged woman of the stars, which couldn’t be seen in Sigil. Joel didn’t recognize the small man. He guessed that he was some sort of halfling who’d just picked Jas’s cloak pocket.
“You lousy little halfling thief!” Jas hissed. She had both her hands about the creature’s throat.
Joel gasped, alarmed by the sudden transformation of Jas’s hands into the talons of a bird of prey. Her claws were piercing the thief’s flesh. Blood was trickling down his neck.
“Ow! Careful with those claws,” the creature squeaked.
Joel put his hands about the winged woman’s wrists and managed to pull one talon away from her prey. The little creature tried to pull away, but Jas caught a clasp of his vest with the claws of the other talon, and he was stuck fast.
“You’re mistaken, lassie,” Jas’s captive said with an offended air. “I’m not a halfling thief.”
“Halfling, tiefling, leprechaun—I don’t care,” Jas said. “It won’t matter once I’ve put you in the dead book.”
“Kender, lass. I’m a kender,” the creature said proudly. “I don’t think I’d fit in a book, not even a great mage’s tome, though once when I was a child I managed to crawl into a magic pouch. Magic is tricky, though, you know, and I couldn’t find my way back out. My parents searched for me for hours. Finally I kicked my way out. Tore a huge hole in the back, ruined it. The man who owned it was furious, but, really, he shouldn’t have left it lying around where a child could find it. I might have suffocated.”
Jas growled at the kender.
“I was just going to ask if this was yours,” the kender concluded quickly, holding out the crystal paperweight. “It’s very lovely. Is it magical?”
“Jas,” Joel whispered softly, “think what you’re doing. Let the authorities handle this.”
Jas snarled, deep in the back of her throat. If Joel were to release her wrists, she could tear out the kender’s throat with a single blow or even break his neck.
“For gods’ sake, Jas, if you’re going to lose your humanity, at least do it killing something your own size,” Joel implored.
“It reminds me of the stars on my home world,” the kender said, peering into the crystal, apparently oblivious to how close he was to death. “Funny you can’t see the stars in this town, or the sun. I miss the stars, don’t you? Of course, if you’re from around here, you’ve never had them to miss. Which is a real shame.”
As if they were a magical chant, the kender’s words softened Jas’s heart. Her eyes became human again; her talons transformed back to hands. She pulled her hands from Joel’s grasp and pushed her chair away from the table. She put her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands so Joel couldn’t see her face.
“Is something wrong here, sir?” a waiter asked Joel.
“Just a little misunderstanding,” the kender said.
Joel might have asked the waiter to remove the kender, but the creature was still bleeding from the wounds Jas had left about his throat. Brawling would get a person bounced out of Chirper’s, but if they suspected Jas had drawn a weapon and wounded someone, the staff would alert the authorities.
“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.
“Um, 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 reminded 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 Kendermore, in a small village called Tengrapes,” 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 ba
r. 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 the kender’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.
