Night Arrant

by Gary Gygax

  "I fear I will have to be more restrained in my evening activities.'' he ventured to Hop at dinner one night.

  "What? What's this you say? Ruin an already too brief holiday by self-denial? You have but a few days left, old campaigner! You and I must live those days - and nights - to the full!"

  "Necessity is a harsh taskmaster, Hop. I admit I erred in bringing too few clinkers and those of too little value, but what is done is done."

  "Bah! I'll lend you a few luckies to tide you over until you must depart"

  Gord shook his head. "No, that is not acceptable. Hop. When I leave, I leave for time indefinite. I may never return, may never be able to repay you. The offer is kind and generous, but I must decline," he said adamantly.

  "So. ... I respect that, Gord. I will not press you. But wait a bit, and Hop the Savant will devise another plan that will rid you of the onerous need for retreat and quiet contemplation of the night." He jumped up and went off to see to the running of the inn. Despite all else, the mountebank ran a well-ordered, efficient, and usually excellent establishment. It was a miracle he managed to do so, but Gord had come to expect this from the man.

  A few hours later Hop returned. "Are you sure a few luckies wouldn't do?" Before Gord could respond, the mounteback noted his firm look of resistance. "You've been here often in the past, and there's every reason to suppose you'll return again, but I yield. Now, I have come up with something that will cost you nothing out of your purse. You and I, friend, will venture into the forest primeval this night to search by the light of a full moon for ... certain mushrooms."

  Gord was intrigued by this, and tried to wheedle and pry, but Hop would say no more. He merely dashed off to complete one more inspection, serve a few libations to the patrons, jovially explain that he'd play and sing another time, and then he was back again.

  "They enjoy it well enough, but none of those here truly appreciate the music I devise — save possibly yourself, Gord. Still, I must not tell them that, lest they take needless umbrage. Just as you venture to these parts, I too must make occasional pilgrimages to satisfy my spirit and play the chords and melodies I so love. Say, that's a thought! Perhaps we will meet again in Greyhawk!"

  At that Gord laughed, for he doubted Hop would ever stray very much farther from the Score than Olgers Bend or Gawkes Mere. Or, if he did, the irrepressible mountebank would go on another journey to a faraway place — certainly many times farther away than Greyhawk. Hop was impulsive, and he was a man of extremes. Gord changed the subject. "Come on, you larcenous rogue, stop keeping me in suspense! Are we actually to go forth this night to seek fungi?"

  "Yes," Hop said seriously. "I did not jest it is not quite time yet, but before the moon has risen we must be well away from here. Put on appropriate garb, bring your sword and dagger just in case, and meet me out in front in a bit — say an eighth of your candle."

  Gord nodded and hurried off to get ready. Half an hour later he walked silently to the front of the inn. Hop detached himself from the shadows there. "Shall we be off?" he hissed to Gord in a conspiratorial tone.

  "By all means. Hop, let us be on our adventure," Gord whispered back with a smile. The pair went out into the night, and the darkness quickly swallowed them.

  "Ssssh," Hop said softly to Gord, for no good reason, after they had walked for almost an hour.

  "Ssssshh yourself! I am making no noise but this whispering." the young thief retorted. Although the mountebank could creep quietly as a woodsman, he occasionally rustled some dead leaves, snapped a tiny twig, or made small sounds by brushing against the undergrowth. If Hop was nonetheless as quiet as a deer, Gord was as silent as a stalking cat. His training as a thief and his experience in the woods combined to make him practically perfect in this regard.

  Gord motioned for the mountebank to lean close. "What exactly are we creeping up on?"

  Hop spoke into Gord's ear in the same hushed tone with which the young adventurer had queried him. "The glen ahead has an ancient ipt, a twisted and strange growth of many trunks. The tree is the sole survivor of what must have been a great ring of ipts."

  "Ipts? How do you know? If the place around the lone tree is now a glade, who can say what trees, if any, once stood therein?"

  "I know. Local legends say it was a sacred grove in olden times," Hop said. "The proof, they claim, is that great rings of a huge fungus grow there now, each ring marking the place where once an ipt stood."

  Gord assented, but only partly. "That faerie rings grow where once a tree did, I learned from Curley Greenleaf, a ranger and druld friend of mine. Still, this is no proof of ipts."

  "When the rings are made of sprites' tables and atomies’ cups, it is proof, Gord."

  Not having the foggiest notion what sort of fungi these were, Gord grunted noncommlttally. "Then we should press on, I suppose," he told his friend. "But why is it we creep up on mushrooms in the dead of the night?"

  "The moon is rising! Come on, Gord, or we'll be too late," and Hop suited words to action by going on swiftly in the pale beams of Luna. The light of the waning half-moon afforded them better vision, and Gord had to hurry to catch up.

  "I thought you mentioned something about a full moon," Gord whispered.

  "Must have misspoke myself, old fellow. I meant whole," the mountebank whispered back.

  "Whole?" Gord felt stupid at having to ask all of his questions, but he was determined to find out what this was all about, and a waning half-moon was neither full nor whole. "Will you please explain all of this?"

  "Celene will rise soon, and when she joins Luna, the two halves will equal a whole. Then, and only then, dweomerdots shoot up. You and I, Gord, will be there to pluck the little devils up and steal away before the little folk come to do the same."

  "Sprites and atomies, I suppose," Gord murmured, recalling Hop's earlier reference to what grew in the faerie rings. "Anyway, what in the hells are dweomerdots?"

  Hop turned and grimaced at his young companion. "You have more questions than a kid! City boys, bah! Dots are tiny fungi that come in various colors. The color determines the magic it possesses when eaten, and the ingestlon empowers the person eating the dot to have the dweomer it possesses for the space of several hours."

  Gord was suddenly excited. "If the powers are of potent sort, these little mushrooms could be worth a fortune! Which colors go with which dweomer?"

  "All mushrooms appear pale in the night, Gord! We just pick as fast as we can and hope a lot. Not a few bestow powers such as being able to sing like a nightingale, become transparent, or grow a thick coat of fur — not highly salable, those last sort."

  The young thief could make out a clearing ahead, the thinning forest allowing moonbeams to show the place clearly. Hop recognized that they had finally reached the glen, too, and both men ceased their whispering. Should the little folk hear them, these small ones would rush to prevent the looting of what they considered theirs by right. Gord and Hop would then be in deep difficulty.

  Just as the mountebank had said, the hidden glen had a huge, ancient, many-trunked ipt This conglomeration of vegetation turned and bent so as to make it impossible for the eye to determine which trunk or limb went where. The gentle hollow of the glade seemed to form a near-perfect circle around the one remaining giant tree. Surrounding the ipt at regular intervals were ring after ring of fungi. The giant, flat-capped ones ringed by smaller versions of the same ilk were evidently sprites’ tables, Gord assumed, while the tall stalks with slightly wider heads might be atomies' cups. All around these bizarre fungi grew a host of other sorts — morels, shaggymanes, puflballs. and more kinds that the young adventurer didn't recognize. There was no living thing visible, no sounds audible save the chirruping and singing of insects and other occasional sounds of the forest.

  "I see the azure orb just there," Hop said softly, pointing up to where Celene was moving to meet Luna. "Let's get into the middle of the nearest ring now, so when the dweomerdots appear we can grab them fast if we can clea
r one ring and get out of the glen, we'll be rich for a month of high-spending nights and lazy days!"

  Needing no further prompting, Gord sprang into the glade and was into the nearby ring of fungi with a bound. Hop followed on his heels, crouching down to peer at the sward where the small mushrooms would soon appear. Both of them got out the bags they would use to contain their quarry. A few minutes later, as if by magic, one grew into existence before the young thiefs startled eyes. Gord took a moment to grasp the hilt of his enchanted sword, for it gave him special visual powers. Then he could see a faint hue of pale fuchsia haloing the plump little disc.

  "Pssst Hop! I can see color. This one is fuchsia!"

  "Put it in your sack with haste, then, and tell me what other hues you detect — how can you see colors, anyway?"

  "My ... I ... I just can." Gord stammered, reluctant to give away his secret and not eager to spend their precious time explaining anyway. He reached down, plucked the thumb-sized growth, and thrust it into his bag. Then he turned to observe his companion and the fungi that had suddenly sprung up all around them. Alternately touching his sword hilt and grabbing out for mushrooms, he called out a litany of colors. "There, that one is amber, that puce, there citrine."

  Soon Gord had handed his bag over to Hop and was doing little more than calling out the hues he detected, save for the occasional plucking of a few mushrooms that he secreted in the small pouch that dangled from his belt. He figured that if these things were truly as valuable as Hop said they were, it wouldn't hurt for him to stash some away for his own private use. Hop was so busy selectively plucking the more colorful of the dweomerdots and putting them into the bags — while slipping more than a few in the pocket of his cloak — that he didn't notice that Gord was also sneaking some on the side. Scarlet, purple, puce, cerise, mauve, carmine, tangerine, maroon, azure, indigo — a rapidly growing spectrum of colors popped into existence before the two temporary mushroom harvesters faster than Gord would have thought possible.

  "Some of these colors are unknown to me, " Hop murmured as he frantically snatched up mushroom after mushroom. "I'm passing those whose hue is of known undesirabillty, but there will be some surprises. Nevertheless, this will be far better than I could have hoped!"

  They were at the far edge of the circle. "Opalescent white," the young thief told Hop.

  "That's one we should bypass, I think. No matter! On to the next ring as fast as we can go!"'

  "Shouldn't we get out of here?"

  "And leave a fortune behind for unappreclative little folk? Not on your life, Gord! It's still quiet, and we can fill both sacks to overflowing with the best of the dots in another few minutes. Then we can slip away rich! None'll be the wiser."

  The excitement of their work, the prospect of riches, and the possibility of retaining a few especially powerful types of these magical fungi for himself overcame Gord's concern. Perhaps it was a case of good sense being lost to greed, but .... He hurried after Hop and was soon again pointing and advising the mountebank as to which fleshy body of fungus to pluck. Those in this circle were not as varicolored as had been the others, and only a few were taken. "What now?" the young thief inquired.

  "There's room in the sacks still. Over there is the largest remaining faerie ring I can see. We'll work that one and leave."

  This one was indeed a choice picking ground. New, unknown hues were in profusion, so Hop took first the known colors for surety, then the unique hues for good measure. "Where are the saffron ones?" said Hop, rattling off colors almost as fast as Gord could locate them. "How about the olive color you noted? The russet? Mustard? Salmon? Pearly pink?"

  Gord kept calling and pointing, and his friend plucked eagerly. Fifteen minutes after they had entered this last ring Hop announced, "I've filled both bags now, Gord. Off we go!"

  Gord restrained him. The sharp-eared adventurer thought he had heard some new sound that was different "Be quiet and let me look and listen for a moment," he hissed.

  After a tense few seconds Hop whispered back. "I hear and see nothing. How about you?"

  Uneasy but unable to find anything out of the ordinary, Gord gave the glen one more careful sweep with his eyes and ears at peak. "It was either some forest creature passing or my imagination, I guess," the young thief said slowly. "Let's make a dash for the trees now, for I am growing nervous. I think-our luck is running out"

  "That never happens to Hop!" the mountebank said with a sure and certain tone. "It is high time for us to leave, though. Last one into the forest is a rot—"

  "A wha—" Gord managed to get out before he, too, slumped to the ground. Tiny shafts protruded from their bodies, each one quill-sized, and so numerous that the pair of unmoving bodies looked somewhat like pincushions.

  Gord awoke feeling lethargic, chilled, and weak. His mouth tasted as if an offal-bird would have found it a pleasant nesting place. He managed to blink and open his eyes, even though the undersides of the lids felt grainy. And there was Hop, looking like hell's bottom tier, smirking at him.

  "Top o' the morning to ya."

  "Sod off!"

  "Did ye rest well, me lad?" Hop continued his banter, albeit in a rather hoarse and croaking voice.

  The young thief managed to prop himself up on one elbow and peer around. Greenish light from monstrous glowworms in a suspended cage of thick wire hung overhead, and this radiance allowed him to survey the scene. He was nudel No wonder he felt chilled, for he was reclining on hard-packed clay. In fact, the whole domed chamber he and the mountebank were in was made of clay. Here and there a boulder protruded. Roots thrust and twined everywhere, some merely arm-thick, others bigger than Gord's torso. There were no doors, no openings. At the topmost portion of the dome the ceiling appeared to be formed of a single slab of timber of odd sort This wood revealed a knotty, roughly circular plug or trap door. That was certainly how they'd come to be in this pit.

  "Like the accommodations?"

  "Cut the crap, will you. Hop? How long have we been out?"

  The mountebank shrugged his naked shoulders. "You've as good a guess at that as I, Gord. I came around to blissful awareness just a few minutes before you did."

  "I see. Where are we?"

  "In a clay cave, I'd say."

  "How'd we get here? Who stripped us?"

  "Person or persons unknown."

  Gord sighed and stood up. He began a routine of stretching and flexing. Soon the young thief was lost in the exercise, leaping, bending, straining one set of muscles against the other so that tension would build both.

  "All that jumping and bending is making me tired." the mountebank drawled as Gord paused a moment in a weird, contorted position.

  "You should work out a bit yourself," Gord chided. "It's healthy, makes one vigorous, and aids in all sorts of physical endeavors."

  "I’ve done all I need," said Hop haughtily, "for I follow Western principles of meditation and exercise — the mind does more than the muscles, as Rhumsung Lampba P. says."

  "Perhaps that worthy one will come to rescue us now." Gord said sarcastically.

  "The most renowned of guru mystics? That notion is offensive, even when uttered in jest or jape," Hop said with a sniff. "Rhumsung— "

  "Can be blasted!" the young thief interrupted rudely. "Stand in the center of this chamber, Hop, and stop blabbering about the redoubtable guru! If you can make a stirrup with your hands and boost me. I think I can get up high enough to grab the chain holding that cageful of gigantic glowworms." Gord pointed up. "Where do you suppose those monsters come from, anyway? Do such things inhabit this region?"

  Hop stood where he'd been told to and cupped his hands with fingers interlaced. They grow pretty big here in Gnarlvergia. Gord, but these are ten times bigger than any glowworms I’ve ever seen, before," he said in reply as he spread his legs and worked his shoulders to warm the muscles.

  "Here goes, then! Heave me upward with all your might when my foot lands in your hands!"

  The young man hurtle
d forward, springing from his left foot so the right came into the stirrup Hop made with his hands. Grunting with the effort, the mountebank heaved up, and Gord's momentum was translated to an upward arc. He didn't quite make the heavy chain, but his grasping fingers managed to clutch the upper portion of the wire cage. The metal strands sagged but held. He clawed upward and found the chain, hauled himself up some more, and quickly came to the uppermost part where the chain was fastened to the timber roof with a huge staple.

  "Now what?" asked the mountebank, watching with concern as his companion dangled froIII one arm while thrusting against the trap door with the other.

  "We . . , ugh! . . . shove . . . oof! . . . this out!"

  "Never mind! I get the picture. But how about using your feet to kick it out?"

  Even from where he stood. Hop could detect the realization dawning in the mind of the acrobatic adventurer. Gord was being stupid trying to open the trap door with one arm. "I was just about to try that," he called lamely down to his companion. Then, after grabbing onto the huge staple with both hands, he swung back and forth a couple of times to gain momentum. The impact of his bare soles upon the wood made a loud, snapping sound, and the force nearly made Gord lose his grip, but he managed to recover and hold on.

  "Great going!" Hop called up enthusiastically. The circular trap door had moved upward about a cubit. "Is that enough for you to crawl through?"

  "Easily, Hop. I'll find a rope or something and have you up and out in jig time!" So saying, the young thief swung himself again, this time by one arm, launched his body into the opening, and pulled himself through and out.

  A minute later, the end of a thick rope dropped into the chamber where Hop waited, falling until it swung about a foot above the earthen floor of the prison. The rope even had knots spaced at short intervals to facilitate climbing. Gord didn't call any instructions and it was dark above, but the plug was now sitting a full yard above the hole it had stopped, so Hop had no difficulty clambering into the chamber above. As he cleared the opening, a reedy voice sounded from behind him.