by Gary Gygax
One warm night his boss took Red Mel and three others with him to work the Strip. They spotted a likely-looking prospect soon. The mark was a river-man, probably the owner of one of the small ships that carried cargo from the lake to Greyhawk and then took goods from the city on downriver to the lands below. The man was winning big, and he and the two sailors who accompanied him were drinking in proportion to the gains being made on the table. Idnorsea sauntered out, and as he went he signed for Red Mel to follow. After a little time, the thief did as his master indicated without anyone in the place noticing his movement.
“What do you think, Red?”
That was very flattering. Red Mel smiled and replied, “You always pick ’em right, boss. That riverman will be a pushover!”
“I’m not so sure of that, but he’s worth taking.” Idnorsea liked to deflate his henchmen now and then just to make sure they understood who was the top man. He was gratified to see Red Mel wilt at his words. He stared at the man a moment as if weighing his worth. “You and the others can take his two bully-boys, can’t you?”
“With one hand tied behind us,” Red Mel assured him eagerly.
“See to it, then,” the richly clad thief said, adjusting his blue velvet doublet and brushing off his sleeve where he saw a little fleck of dirt. “You get the others and wait across the street. We’ll try to get them between your group and me, so that at least one of us can take them from behind… And leave the captain for me!”
“I’m at your service as always, boss,” said Red Mel as he hurried to get back inside the gambling house and carry out Idnorsea’s instructions.
It was an easy matter to round up the other three and drift back outside. Just as ordered, Red Mel and the others loitered casually across the street from the dive, awaiting developments. Idnorsea knew his trade well. The captain would soon be too drunk to continue gambling, so the four of them would not have to wait long. In fact they didn’t.
“I’ll tap my bladder in yonder passageway,” the riverman said in a loud voice as he and his pair of sailors crossed the half-empty street and passed by Red Mel and the others. Red Mel saw Idnorsea exit the place too, and his master gave him the high sign immediately. He and the boys were to get around to the back of the building and catch the mark while he was pissing. With a quick gesture to his mates, Red Mel entered the structure, a seamy tavern with rooms above and various vices offered in its cellar. Without hindrance the four thieves passed through the barroom, the kitchen, and a storeroom. The little alley beyond was feebly lit by light from windows. The illumination was sufficient for them, however, and Red Mel led them silently and quickly around to the left where the captain and his guards would be relieving themselves.
Hilgar happened to round the corner first, and he let out a yell as the sailor waiting there let the thief have it with his knife. “At ’em!” Red Mel shouted, knowing that the boss would soon come up and take these damned rivermen from the rear. He drew a pair of daggers and suited action to command. The sailors were quicker still, however, and came out to meet the thieves before the latter could bottle them into the gangway. Hilgar managed to grab one of the guards by his leg, and that took the fellow from the fight for the moment. Big Suggill had the other sailor by the throat and was trying to hit him with his cosh, but the riverman was tough, and somehow managed to avoid the blows while slashing the thief badly.
Trant jumped in to help his wounded pal Hilgar, which left Red Mel facing the bull-like captain. “Come on, killbuck,” the riverman taunted. “Have no taste for fightin’, do yer, yer slimy barstid?” Just then Idnorsea came up and ran the dolt through with his sword.
“Great work, boss…” He was going to say more, but something stuck him from behind at that moment and sent Red Mel sprawling. The thief saw Hilgar’s dead eyes staring into his own, while Trant sat atop the sailor who had done for Hilgar, driving his knife into the riverman again and again. The sounds from behind indicated real trouble, though, for the ring of steel on steel meant that others were now involved. Red Mel staggered up, saw Idnorsea and Big Suggill engaged with three sword-wielding men, and did the only logical thing he could do. Leaving his comrades to their fate. Red Mel clapped one hand over his wound and ran off down the passageway leading back to the Strip as fast as he could go.
Two scrawny boys were heading for the passage from the other direction, but Red Mel disregarded them. “The stupid little farts will get quite a lesson there,” he was thinking to himself as he went past the pair. Just in time he noticed that one of the kids had a slender blade and was trying to stick him. Wounded or not, Red Mel was still fast. He caught the arm and almost had the offending knife free from the filthy little bastard’s grip when a bolt of excruciating pain shot through his brain. Too late the thief realized that both of the small boys had weapons, and while he was stopping one, the second had killed him.
“You hurt, San?” The boy who had first tried to stab Red Mel said he was fine. “Good! Then let’s see what this lousy thief has on him,” his friend Gord said to him. The two boys, beggar-thieves in service of the union, quickly frisked the body. Gord found the ring that the thief wore and slipped it easily from the dead man’s finger. A warm tingling shot up his arm when he held the object, but Gord said nothing. Slipping it into his shirt, Gord pointed into the alleyway, where the fight was in its last stages. “Let’s see if there’s more for us to do.”
Events had run their course by the time the lads got to the scene. The riverboat captain and his men, who were not nearly as helpless as they had led the thieves to believe, had killed all but two of their assailants-and since the boys had done for one of the others, they were congratulated and welcomed into the group.
Soon thereafter the two lads were accompanying three sell-swords and a captive thief, a master named Idnorsea, to a place where the prisoner could be secreted for transportation to Theobald’s headquarters. Not one of them was aware of where the ring had originated, how it had come into Greyhawk, left the city, and made a circuit of the Nyr Dyv before returning to the one who should have possessed it always in the first place. Even Gord regarded the thing only as a valuable trophy. It would be years before he knew differently.
Chapter 11
“That’s the lot, Tapper. How Much?”
The locksmith gazed at the array of mechanisms before him. There were a dozen locks there, all as good as new. “Gord, you are a wonder! How about taking a position as a journeyman with me?”
“Journeyman?”
“Master, then. I’m getting to a point where I’ll want to spend less time working anyway. I’ll split the profits with you if you become a master and my partner here.”
The young fellow shook his head. “Nobody would believe that a locksmith my age was a master. Besides, the work is too… quiet for me. I need something more exciting. Too bad my chum, San, has gone to try his hand at other work. He might have enjoyed the opportunity, and he’s a better man than I at all this.”
Tapper shook his head as if in disbelief. He knew very well that San was the better of the two when it came to solving locks. Because he was still associated with the guild of thieves, Tapper also knew full well where San had gone to and what he was doing. He pretended ignorance, though.
“Hmmm. Perhaps I can understand your position, Gord. I was rather inclined toward excitement myself when I was your age…”
“About the locks,” Gord said with a smile. “Are you interested in buying the lot?”
“Oh, of course. Let’s see now,” Tapper said, and he began a careful examination of each device, recollecting the price for which he had sold them to the lads and assessing their current value now that they had been opened and repaired. “A bronze each.”
“Hah! They’d sell for a silver each.”
“Two!”
“Ten!!”
“Done at five, then, and it’s a hard bargain you drive for one so tender in years, master Gord of Grey College.” Tapper was secretly pleased, proud of the boy. Gord
knew the actual worth of things and held fast to his knowledge. Now Tapper would install these locks and charge about a noble for the lock, plus his work. He’d make a few zees on the lock, and extra money for his time would bring the bill to a nice profit even after accounting for overhead. As he rummaged around to find the correct coins to pay Gord, Tapper asked, “Is your mate, San, doing well?”
The boy shook his head a bit and shrugged. “I never run into him anymore, Tapper. I suppose that means he is fine.”
“Probably for the better,” the locksmith said encouragingly. “You’ll have more time to study now that you two aren’t out and into mischief all the time. Say! Do you need another batch of old locks?”
“No. Thanks, Tapper, but I’m too busy with studies to manage the work on them now.” That wasn’t exactly true. Gord simply didn’t find enjoyment in the work anymore. He knew about all he could learn, or at least cared to learn, on the subject, and without San there to encourage him, the effort was sheer drudgery.
Tapper studied the boy for a moment. He’d grown some and filled out well In the last few years. There was lean muscle on the lad, and there could be no doubt that he was nearing full manhood. Gord’s voice was deep and his cheeks showed the darkness of a heavy beard that the boy hadn’t bothered to shave today.
“Sorry to hear that, lad. We had a nice little business going, but all things come to an end eventually, don’t they?” The question was obviously rhetorical, and Gord didn’t bother to reply. “You will come and see me now and again, won’t you?” That was not a question to be ignored.
“If I happen to be around here. Tapper-but I doubt that will be very often,” Gord said in straightforward fashion. “Not much reason to come to Old City-at least other than the attractions of the Foreign Quarter.”
There was some wistfulness in the boy’s tone. There was also pain hidden underneath, but not so deeply that the other man could not sense it. Tapper could understand him not liking to refresh his memories of childhood in the slums or of his stint as a beggar-thief.
“Not much excitement hereabouts, that’s true,” the locksmith supplied. “Here’s your payment, Gord, and luck be with you.”
Gord seemed a little hesitant about leaving. He hated to sever this link with his most recent and enjoyable past, for it was so unlike all of his previous experiences. He took the little heap of coins from Tapper, set them down, and clasped the man’s hand. “You have been a good friend, Tapper. I’ll miss seeing you… Thanks, and you have good fortune, too,” he added in a serious tone.
“If you don’t come to visit me, I’ll drop in at the university to see you.”
The boy grinned. He knew very well that wasn’t likely to happen. “You do that. Tapper. I’ll show you how we students toss off bumpers of ale while singing!” With that, Gord departed.
The whole of the city had altered greatly in the last few years. The Beggars’ Union had been soundly defeated by the Thieves’ Guild, and a new beggarmaster, Chinkers, ruled the re-established organization-called the Beggars’ Guild, of course. As far as Gord knew, he was the only master beggar-thief to have survived the debacle. The thieves and their hirelings had done for the rest-all but Theobald. The hunt was still on for the ex-king of beggars, but Gord knew that the obscenely gross devil would never be found.
Quite a few thieves had been slain in the brief war. Now the number of beggars in Greyhawk was slowly increasing again, but after the last fight-the invasion of Theobald’s headquarters-so many beggars had died that hardly one in six of the old union survived. Even those who only tithed to Theobald’s organization had suffered. The citizens of the city were indeed pleased at the overall result: fewer thieves and not half as many beggars, street gangs nearly wiped out as well, and honest folk the better for it all.
Gord had changed in appearance sufficiently so as to no longer fear recognition as a former Least Master of the Beggars’ Union. Other than San, there was no one alive to recognize him anyway. Well, he thought, perhaps Chinkers also might be able to, but Gord had serious doubts about that. The wily old fellow had been too busy with his own schemes, certainly, to notice a boy beggar-thief; otherwise he wouldn’t be beggarmaster today. Any thieves who had encountered Gord two or three years ago would never recognize him now either.
He and San had feared a hunt for them at first.
They had fled from the Beggars Quarter when the end came. First they’d hidden here, then there-Foreign Quarter, Craftsmen’s Ward, and even the Low Quarter briefly. Then they settled down below the Halls District in the University’s precincts, just south of Clerksburg. They insinuated themselves into the academic community and took up formal studies, primarily as a means of concealing themselves. In the throng of students, the two boys were as invisible as they could be to any search-and probably there had been none at all anyway. Both of them had overestimated their importance, but that was part of being boys.
Of course, being a student had other advantages, too. The time he had spent studying under a tutor and then in a college had served Gord well. He had matured, grown, changed. He was far better educated now and more capable of dealing with the world as it really was. Being able to survive in Old City was by no means a measure of viability anywhere beyond those circumscribed limits.
Gord was pleased with recent events, all in all, yet he missed San. He was near manhood, but the part of him that was still a boy needed and wanted a companion of the same sort. He had been denied that luxury throughout most of his life, and the feeling of being close to another was something that Gord now comprehended and appreciated more than ever. But now San had left, feeling a need to follow his own path, and Gord was on his own again.
Gord paid over a small iron coin, toll for passage from the Foreign Quarter into New Town. Suddenly it occurred to him that he was halfway back to the apartment that he had, until recently, shared with San. He had been so lost in thought that he couldn’t recall most of the walk. Alone again…
“I am meant to be that way,” he murmured to himself as he strode through the streets on his way south to the university area. “I’m a loner, and that’s another reason why San left. I’m pretty poor company.” No, he told himself in the next instant, that wasn’t really true. Gord’s estimation of himself went from one extreme to the other as he tried to take stock of himself and decide what to do next. He knew that when he felt like being so, he was excellent company, always ready to banter, desport, or devise some new prank. Much of the time, however, he did prefer to be on his own. That wasn’t being selfish or reclusive, considering his skills and his lot in life. Study, weapons practice, exercise, and thinking all required time alone.
And being alone did have its benefits. A solitary person was not burdened by responsibility for anyone else’s welfare or safety. And there were some things he could do by himself that would be impossible, or at least more difficult, to do as one member of a team. If there was treasure to be gained, and it could be gained without someone else’s assistance, was it not better to undertake the project as an individual?
Snatches of thought began to come together in his mind, and as they coalesced he began to feel better and better. Soon Gord came to his own neighborhood, his loneliness submerged beneath the excitement of a new plan he had conceived.
“Doctor? Doctor Prosper, are you there?”
The old sage was getting crotchety these days, and when he came out to answer the call he didn’t look too pleased at first.
“What? Oh, it’s you, Gord. Now what is it?” The boy started to reply, but the old fellow cut him off. “Don’t stand out there. The draft is going to be the death of me! Come in, come in. Talk inside where it’s warm.”
The day was balmy, the season spring. Gord noticed the woolen shawl wrapped around Prosper’s narrow shoulders and understood. Leena had always been chilled-not because of the temperature, but because of old age, poor circulation, death creeping closer day by day.
“I brought you a bottle of nice brandy, doctor
,” Gord said as he entered the old sage’s little cottage.
“Pour a glass for me, and bring it over by the hearth. Have a jot yourself, but not too much, mind you! Growing boys must avoid ingesting quantities of spirits, you know.”
Having done as the old sage instructed, Gord brought two glasses to where Prosper sat by the fireplace. Parchment sheets and several quills nearby indicated that the old fellow had been writing when Gord had interrupted him.
“May I sit down?” he asked respectfully.
“Of course! Take that stool there and draw it close,” Doctor Prosper said, and as the lad did so the old man carefully straightened up the mess, placing the pages face down. “Are you in trouble again?” the sage asked as Gord sat.
Gord couldn’t resist the urge to grin. He was still half-boy at best. He and San had found it necessary to beg intercession from Doctor Prosper several times to get out of scrapes and worse at Grey College or with the university officials. “No, sir,” he said through his smile. Then he put on a straight face again and added, “I came to seek your assistance in a scholarly matter.”
“That’s a relief, then,” Prosper said, sipping the fiery brandy and giving a little grunt to acknowledge its quality. The old man very much appreciated Gord’s thoughtfulness. He had tutored Gord and San for a year before using his influence to gain them entrance to the University. He had found the other lad bright and capable, but Gord was his favorite, for never had Prosper taught a more natural student. The doctor didn’t know quite how to define Gord’s mental ability-remarkable recall, strong logical reasoning, maybe simply overall genius. At any rate, he was always pleased inside to have Gord call upon him, even if it was only to have him help the two rascals out of trouble. He did his utmost to keep his pleasure a secret from Gord and San both, for he didn’t want to make the former too self-confident or the latter jealous.
