Adventurers Wanted 1) Slathbog's Gold (7 page)

“I don’t understand,” said Alex, trapping a package under his chin.

“Once he’s offered to stand good for you, he’ll expect you to take advantage of his offer,” Andy explained. “It would be an insult to him if you didn’t buy everything you needed—and the best of everything you needed at that.”

“An insult?” Alex wondered out loud as they entered another shop. “I would insult Thrang if I didn’t spend as much of his money as I could?”

“You’re not spending as much as you could,” Andy laughed, piling Alex’s packages in the corner of the shop. “You’re not spending like there’s no tomorrow, or buying more than you need. You’re just spending as much as you need on what you need.”

“But it seems to be a lot.”

“And it is,” Andy agreed. “But if you don’t have the best of everything you need, Thrang will take it as an insult.”

“But can he afford what I need?”

“As long as you spend it on what you need, Thrang would happily let you spend all the gold in his bag—down to the very last coin,” Andy replied. “And between you and me, I don’t think we could spend everything in Thrang’s bag in a lifetime of trying.”

“That’s crazy,” said Alex, stacking packages on top of the pile Andy had made.

“It may sound crazy to you and me, but that’s how dwarfs are,” Andy replied, turning to look for the shopkeeper.

Alex thought about what Andy had said, but it still didn’t sound right. Thrang had been extremely generous, and Alex couldn’t help feeling he was taking advantage of the dwarf.
Knowing that every gold coin was worth thirteen silver coins didn’t help at all.

“What will it be then, gentlemen?” asked a round shopkeeper in square glasses. “Something in a deluxe model with a pool? Or maybe a nice garden?”

“Nothing so grand, master bag maker,” replied Andy. “My friend needs a top quality bag, but hardly a pool or a garden.”

“Ah, yes,” the shopkeeper said, looking at Alex. “Something in a three- or four-room model I should think. That’s always the best place to start. You can add on later as you need to.”

“Okay,” said Alex slowly.

“Sorry, Alex,” said Andy, noticing the confused look on Alex’s face. “You’ve never seen a magic bag before, have you?”

Alex shook his head.

“Do you have a demonstration model that my friend and I can look at?” Andy asked the shopkeeper.

“Oh, yes,” the shopkeeper replied. “I have a lovely four-room model that you can look at right over here.”

Alex and Andy followed the shopkeeper to the back of the shop. On a table was a leather bag with a long strap attached to it and silver fastenings at the top. The bag was about twice as long as it was wide, and Alex thought it looked like a postman’s bag.

“Standard passwords,” said the shopkeeper, nodding to Andy, before leaving to help another customer.

“Right,” said Andy. He turned to Alex. “All you have to do is pick up the bag, open it, and say ‘enter.’”

“What?” Alex asked.

“Just do it,” Andy laughed. “It will be all right.”

Alex hesitated for a moment before reaching for the bag. The leather was soft and flexible, but the bag appeared to be empty. He was sure this must be some kind of joke, but he couldn’t see what the joke was.

“Go on,” urged Andy. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“Enter.”

Everything went dark. Alex felt like he was dropping from a high place and spinning slightly as he fell. Then, as quickly as the feeling started, he felt himself come to a sudden stop. He could feel a stone floor under his feet, but everything was still dark.

“Lights,” Andy’s voice said from the darkness next to him.

Several lamps sprang to life, and Alex could see he was standing in a large square room made of stone. The room was empty except for a doorway in one wall.

“Sorry about that,” said Andy, moving toward the doorway. “I thought the lamps would be burning. If I’d known they were out, I would have come first.”

“Where . . . where are we?”

“In the bag,” Andy replied happily. “Let’s see the other rooms.”

“Wait. What do you mean, in the bag?”

“We’re in the leather bag on the table,” said Andy, as if there was nothing strange about his answer. “It’s a magic bag after all. What did you expect?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” said Alex.

“I’ll try to explain,” said Andy, motioning for Alex to follow him into the next room. “You can tell by how much gear you already have that we will have a lot of things to carry with us on this adventure. But there are only eight of us to carry it all, right?”

“Right,” Alex answered.

“And we’d need a lot of horses to carry all of our gear and supplies if we were going to carry it the normal way,” Andy continued.

“Yes, I suppose so,” Alex agreed.

“That would attract a lot of attention, wouldn’t it?”

“I suppose it would.”

“So instead of all that extra attention and the extra work of taking care of so many horses, we use magic bags,” Andy concluded with a smile.

“I still don’t understand,” said Alex.

“What’s not to understand? A magic bag lets you carry all your gear in a very small space. And believe me, it makes life a lot easier.”

“I’m sure it does, but how does it work?” Alex questioned.

“It’s magic,” laughed Andy. “It’s like Arconn always says, ‘If you’re willing to accept the fact that there’s magic involved, everything else is easy.’”

Alex had never really thought about magic, or at least not real magic, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He had seen the table at Mr. Clutter’s move and change shape, but that wasn’t really the same as this, was it? Looking around the stone room, however, he had to believe there was magic.

“Not a bad size,” said Andy as they walked around the different rooms. “If we have one room modified to expand as needed, and add a little furniture, you should be good to go.”

“Expand as needed?” Alex asked.

“If we manage to get the hoard from Slathbog, your share wouldn’t fit into just these four rooms,” Andy answered with a laugh. “If half the tales of Slathbog’s treasure are true, you’ll need twice as much space just to get started.”

“And magic can make one of the rooms bigger as it fills up?” Alex asked, trying hard to understand.

“Exactly,” said Andy. “You can use the other rooms to keep your things in. You’ll probably collect a lot of things as we travel.”

“Okay,” said Alex, still a little unsure about how the magic bag worked.

“Don’t worry,” said Andy. “We’ll get you set up, and I’ll show you how to work the bag until you get the hang of it.”

“Does everybody in our group have a magic bag?”

“Of course. Most adventurers do. I have a five-room bag that my father gave me. I’ll have to show it to you sometime. Of course you should be careful who you show your bag to,” Andy cautioned. “And you shouldn’t share your passwords with anybody, not if you can help it. Well, except your heir, of course.”

“Passwords?” Alex asked.

“Like when you said ‘enter’ before,” replied Andy. “That’s the standard password to get in, and there’s a different one to get out—‘exit.’ You’ll want to use something different for your own bag of course, so not just anyone can get in and out of it.”

Alex decided it all made perfect sense, as long as he accepted the fact that magic was involved. He still had his doubts, but they were fading fast.

“Ready to go then?” asked Andy.

Alex nodded, his thoughts cluttered with the idea of real magic.

“I’ll just put out the lights before I go,” said Andy. “Then listen carefully so you’ll know the password to get out of the bag.”

“All right,” said Alex nervously. “But if I’m not out in a minute or two, come back and turn the lights on.”

Andy’s laugh was full of kindness and good humor and it made Alex like him even more.

“Dark,” said Andy, and all the lamps went out. “Exit.”

Alex waited in the darkness. He wasn’t sure if Andy was still there or not. He listened carefully, but could only hear his own breathing. Deciding he was alone in the bag, he took a deep breath.

“Exit.”

As quickly as Alex had entered the bag, he was out of it again. He was standing in the brightly lit shop, the soft leather bag in his hands. He looked at Andy, a little surprised by how easy it had been.

“Neat little trick, isn’t it?” said Andy.

“Very neat,” Alex agreed. “But how do you get things in and out of the bag without going in yourself every time?”

“You hold the bag next to the thing you want to put in and tell the bag where to put it. When you need something, you ask for what you want and it’ll come out. You don’t normally have to specify where things are when you’re taking something out, unless you have more than one of something. You can practice tonight with your packages.”

Andy went to find the shopkeeper, leaving Alex alone with the magic bag. Alex quickly looked around to make sure nobody was watching him, and then he looked into the top of the bag to see what was there. The bag was completely empty, and Alex’s doubts about magic started creeping into his mind once more.

After several minutes of discussion and a little debate on price, the shopkeeper wrote Alex’s name in a large black book. Alex held the bag while the shopkeeper read something in a language Alex didn’t understand, waving his hands over Alex and the bag.

“It’s a good thing they bind the bag to you,” said Andy, putting Alex’s packages into the new bag. “That way you can’t lose it, no matter what.”

“Can’t lose it?”

“Not unless some powerful magic is used against you,” Andy said. “The bag will either stay with you, or stay where you put it, no matter what. Unless of course you’re dead.”

“Oh,” Alex said in reply. His head felt stuffed with information, and he was afraid he was running out of time to do any serious thinking.

“There you go,” said Andy, handing Alex his new bag. “All your gear is inside and ready to go.”

“Thanks,” said Alex. “Will we be sleeping inside our magic bags as we travel?”

“Of course not,” said Andy in a surprised tone. “Why would we do that?”

“It seems to me that we’d be safe and comfortable inside our bags,” said Alex.

“Safe until you come out in the morning and find a bunch of goblins standing around you,” replied Andy. “How could you warn the rest of us if there was trouble?”

“I didn’t think of that,” said Alex.

“If you were alone, you could sleep in your bag, I suppose,” Andy went on. “But when you are with a company, it is best to camp as a company. We’ll all be there if trouble shows up, and it helps to build fellowship as well.”

“Yes, of course,” said Alex. “It was a foolish question. It’s just that . . .”

“What?”

“Well, we don’t really have magic where I come from,” said Alex. “I mean there are people who do things they call magic, but it isn’t real. I don’t know anything about real magic, and I don’t know anything about adventures either. I’m starting to think I don’t know very much about anything at all.”