City of Hawks (20 page)

“The very same, Gord. I think, with care and skill, it could be restored to the very state it was in when I saw it in the scrying.”

“Nine black sapphires?…”

“Star sapphires of purest ebon, they were, I recall distinctly because of the circumstances.”

Setting the box aside, Gord demanded, “What exactly were those… circumstances?”

Gellor had wanted to examine the box more carefully, to thoroughly inspect it to see if some additional clue could be discovered, but his young friend’s insistence would brook no more delays. “In a scrying of the sort done by those of great power, Gord, even as the present and future unravel, a shadowing of the past manifests itself as well. Those trained in the arts can easily ignore such scenes at will, for following them wastes precious time, time better spent discovering future probabilities. I am no master of dweomers, and my attention was often distracted by the phantoms of your past-the actual and that which might have been as well. In one of the adjunctive shadowings, my friend, I saw a plump and happy child. He played at the feet of a lovely woman, and among his playthings were that box there and its contents. The infant was you, Gord, and the box held the stones-gems which you poured out and replaced gleefully.”

“So… and the woman?”

“Who knows? She was none I have ever seen. Was there a beautiful lady ever around? Can you recall?”

“No… Would there had been,” Gord said ruefully. “That one must have been exceptional and wealthy beyond belief to allow an infant to make playtoys of gems!”

“Set aside the value of the stones for the moment. Think on this: To have been shown thus, those nine black star sapphires must have been yours, a part of your inheritance or a gift. The woman was what was meant for your childhood, a governess or protectress, I am unable to differentiate. The stones were a vital portion of what had been meant for you as well.” Gellor looked steadily at the young man. “Do you have the slightest recollection of those precious gemstones? Any memory at all?”

“None! But perhaps if I saw them, held them, something would return. Do you know where they are now?”

Without answering, Gellor sat back and sipped the wine from his nearly empty goblet. “What memories does your ring evoke?”

“This?” Gord held it up. The setting in the piece of jewelry held a deep green emerald with a star pattern in it that made it look like a cat’s eye. From its hardness he had at first taken it for a chrysoberyl, but then he decided it was far too green and deep for such a stone. Only an emerald of the corundum sort could be as lovely as that. “No memories. I gained it from a stupid man, a thief and manslayer, when I was just a boy. I thought I’d told you of that.”

“No matter. I have a clue as to the whereabouts of the nine stones, and that is of import, no?”

“Yes! Out with it, man!”

With a long sigh, Gellor admitted his frustration. “I made inquiries here in Greyhawk as soon as I arrived. Rare specimens such as that have a way of being kept track of by gem merchants, jewelers, and those with a lust for their likes. It seems that I was but a few weeks too late in coming-blame my failure to associate the two images of the box, if you will.” Gord interjected his assurance that he could never affix any blame, rather only approbation for the ability to see the one in the other, so disparate were the two forms and so tenuous the one-eyed man’s connection to either.

Thank you. Anyway, the nine are still together, it seems. They could be no other gems, for even a single black star sapphire is as rare as compassion in the heart of a hag! They are part of a necklace now-a thing of astonishing beauty, made of wrought platinum and also set with diamonds, I’m told. The piece was brought to Greyhawk a month ago by a trader from the Wild Coast. He claimed that the necklace had come from far to the west, and the merchants viewing it said the workmanship was so fine that they dared not doubt the fellow’s statement.

“A work of that sort is never openly advertised for sale. The necklace was viewed privately for some few days, and then the trader auctioned it off in the company of a select private group of individuals who typically have interest in rare gems, jewelry, and works of art. It was sold to the agent of a powerful foreigner, a lord from Dyvers, evidently. Although the purchasing agent left Greyhawk only a few days ago, you can be certain that the necklace went off long before that-say three weeks past, A known dealer in such precious commodities doesn’t travel with funds, or with purchases either. Thieves and brigands would soon have all. and him dead.”

It was all Gord could do to restrain himself from pulling his friend out of his chair and hugging him. “And the name of the buyer?”

“Neither the buyer nor the man he bought for are known. That’s hardly surprising. The agent is known hereabouts as Demming, or Sharpeye Demming. The descriptions I have heard could fit any man of middling height, common features, and average age. You can wager with assurance that the name he uses elsewhere will be different from his alias here. There is nothing else.”

“Then let’s be satisfied at that! Dyvers is not quite as large a city as Greyhawk, and hiding in the place is one with a clue I seek. We can ferret out him and the stones in no time at all!”

“I hate to say this, Gord, but what makes you suppose the man will be in Dyvers? If he is an active trader, and one seeking to earn a living, he’ll be off again by now, looking for such things in other cities-and the whole of the Flanaess is a large place to disappear in.”

After pondering that for a moment, the young man inclined his head in agreement with Gellor’s statement. “Yes, there is merit to what you say. The necklace, however, is not at all likely to be making its way about the lands of the west, east, north, and south. In fact, such a treasure will be locked up safe in a special place-that I know from experience!” Gord exclaimed with a roguish grin.

“Except…” Gord added with a gleam in his eye, “when such a thing is brought forth for others to envy and admire. A necklace of this sort will grace the throat of some gorgeous courtesan ere long, if not already. Thus its owner shows off a pair of prized possessions at the same time… Oh, yes, Gellor, my boon friend! We shall have them soon!” Gord paused, snapped his fingers, sprang up, and began to bustle about the apartment.

“How soon can you be ready to go, Gellor? It won’t take me an hour to put my gear together. Allow me twice that long to settle a few other matters, and then I’m horsed and away!”

Gellor stood then too, walked over, and gripped the young man firmly by his shoulders. “All of us, you know, are not quite as free and unencumbered as you are, my boy. You propose a journey of a week in length, and possibly three times that long nosing around in Dyvers thereafter. If I could accompany you, I would, and I would that I could! There are other things for me to see to, however-duties which I can neither neglect nor pass off onto another’s shoulders. I leave tomorrow on a coaster, and I’ll be gone on various business for at least a month. Perhaps when those affairs are tended to, I’ll be at liberty.”

Gord was disappointed but determined. “It would be better with you, Gellor. But with or without, I am setting off for the west road this very day! When will we meet again?”

“This is something neither of us can know, but I will return here as soon as I am able-two months at the outside.”

“If I’m not returned by then, I’ll never be back,” the young man said with a confident laugh. “Look for me here or at the Chessmen Tavern-now, isn’t that a fitting place!”

Gellor stayed on as his young friend went about gathering and packing. They exchanged only a few words for the better part of an hour, and then Gord addressed the one-eyed man when his packing was almost done. “You’ll find your way all right until your vessel departs?”

“But of course,” the one-eyed man said with a chuckle. “That’s something I’ve managed alone quite well for many more years than you’ve seen. Now be on your way as quick as you like, and don’t waste any concerns about hospitality. This is a matter which cannot be ignored in favor of small talk and pleasantries, now, isn’t it?”

“Thanks, Gellor. You are a good friend in all respects. I shall expect to see that bright eye of yours again in a few weeks. Farewell!”

Gord picked up his gear, and the two men clumped hastily down the long flights of narrow stairs and out into the afternoon’s waning. The one-eyed man went off to find a comfortable place to spend the night near the docks, while Gord finished up a few errands and then made for the stable not far from his lodgings. The dust from his cantering mount made a golden plume in the last rays of the setting sun as he left Greyhawk behind on his way to Dyvers.

The city of Dyvers was like Greyhawk in many respects, but the differences were significant. Dyvers was older, not quite so large in area or population, more crowded with strangers. The buildings were different, squarer, the towers squatty with even thicker walls than those of Gord’s home city. The place had no new and old cities; Dyvers was one municipality. It had slums and poor sections, but none so bad as Greyhawk’s, just as its finer portions were not so grand as those of its rival to the east.

The hilltop villas and mansions of Greyhawk looked out over the snaking waters of the Selintan. In Dyvers, similar palatial structures had vistas of the Velverdyva River or the endless-seeming expanse of the Nyr Dyv. Beautiful and ugly were intermixed, poor and rich, just as in great cities everywhere, Gord supposed.

His journey here had been rapid and relatively uneventful. After arriving in Dyvers, Gord had spent a day simply relaxing and refreshing himself. He chose a middle-priced inn near the middle of the city where most of the clientele seemed of middling sort. It was drab, dull, and quiet-just the place he wanted for his coming work.

Being an able scholar was a boon indeed. It didn’t take long for Gord to locate a seller of books and maps, and there he found a fairly accurate map of the city. He retired to his room to commit the map to memory, using key features as landmarks. That night, his second at the inn, he ventured forth and began making the rounds of taverns and inns frequented by the wealthier folk who dwelled in Dyvers or came regularly to the city to do business. That excursion gained him nothing, but Gord wasn’t discouraged. He had expected nothing, even though it was worth the chance anyway.

The detective work required several sets of new clothing and extensive drinking and frequenting of various high-class establishments of many sorts to accomplish fully. A slim lead was obtained here, a possibly false name there. There were only a handful of people in the whole of Dyvers able to afford a costly piece of jewelry of the sort Gord was looking for, and of those, most wouldn’t have agents traveling around to find specific pieces.

The work would have been far simpler had he not been constrained by the need for discretion and confidentiality-his need, of course, not that of the owner of the nine sapphires. If Gord boldly inquired in the seamier establishments of the town, he could have soon come up with the name he wanted. But then, however, every government informer, thief, and assassin in Dyvers would have known him as well. The trick was to gain information while revealing none about yourself. That required more time, great skill, and considerable expense. Gord had all three commodities at his beck and call, so in a few days he had what he needed.

“I shall be departing for Veluna City today, landlord. May I please have my reckoning?” Gord made a production of it all, paying, leaving a good sum in addition for the proprietor, ordering his horse, and then departing. He was sure the landlord would not forget him for a long time. In fact, Gord actually did leave the city by its western portal, stopping there a moment to chat with the sergeant of the guard, complimenting him on his community and remarking with a wink on the looks and friendliness of the women. Of course, that last remark rubbed the fellow the wrong way, just as Gord had intended.

When the sergeant countered with a protest and demanded an apology, Gord sneered, called him an ignorant yokel from a backward city, and cantered away. “The folk of Veluna are better and brighter too,” he drawled over his shoulder with a disdainful air. That man would remember him, too.

Several days later, on a different horse and garbed as a traveler from distant Keoland, Gord re-entered Dyvers by one of its southern gates. He found a low hostel where no questions were asked as long as payment was made in advance. Now his real work could begin. If by the slightest chance someone recalled his earlier inquiries about a person most likely to be interested in rare and precious gems, because that worthy soon thereafter lost the most valuable prize in his collection, the individual who would be sought after was the one who would be found to have departed Dyvers days prior to the theft.

Gord as he appeared now was older, hair streaked with grey, and was noticeably taller than the fellow he had been before. The young thief grinned to himself, thinking of how well a bit of dye, built-up boots, and a hat could so easily deceive the untrained eye. The observation of skilled eyes was another matter, but he didn’t plan to expose himself to any such scrutiny.

Gord went out early in the evening and returned to the hostel before midnight reeling drunk. He sang and stomped his way boisterously to his quarters, attracting the attention of several other patrons along the way, slammed and locked the door, and collapsed noisily on his bed. In a few minutes he was cold sober, clad in black, carrying all the thieving gear he figured to need, and creeping out a window on the way to seek his prize.

A lot of trouble to go to? No-too much caution could not be used when a rogue thief was planning to invade the Temple of Nerull and steal from its high priest a necklace of inestimable worth… particularly when that very same high priest had announced that the nine black stones of the piece meant more to him than could be guessed!

That tidbit of information had been gained from the steward of a rich and degenerate aristocrat of Dyvers. The man’s master was a worshiper of the evil deity Nerull, for whatever reasons he had. That aside, this same man, the noble worshiper, was the collector of gems whose agent had obtained the nine sapphires. Only he had not kept the necklace, as Gord had supposed he would. Instead the piece had been given to the chief cleric of Nerull as an offering. No matter-whether they were held by aristocrat or priest, Gord would this very night have the black stones from whatever repository they were locked in.

The squat temple of basalt lay on the edge of the district of the city that was given over to places of devotion. But unlike the other temples, the House of Nerull had no buildings close to it. The streets nearby were deserted, and the place seemed lifeless. Gord knew better. Night was the time for the followers of this evil being to pay their duty to their deity. Somewhere below ground, in a dark and foul chamber, the devotees of the vile god of death would be chanting their praises and making blood sacrifices. Such activity was good for him, for all inside would be busy, and Gord could operate undisturbed. He would enter, burglarize, and leave before the fools knew what had occurred.

Thanks to a dweomered blade he had gained In his eastern adventures, Gord was able to see in utter darkness as if it were dim dusk, while in starlight his vision was as sharp as if it were early twilight. Thus the low wall surrounding the grim temple and the sentries silently prowling the open ground between wall and temple were nothing to him. Any skilled thief could have scaled the wall, of course, despite the clawed spikes atop it. Wickedly planted iron spears and a dense hedge of dwarf yarpicks on the inner verge of the wall were a matter to be dealt with carefully. Still, the stationary obstacles would not have been insurmountable. His biggest problem was the padding guards with their accompanying beasts. Each sentry was matched with a black ape!

“Now there’s a type of vicious killer I’ve never seen before,” Gord said to himself as he studied the area beyond from a precarious position between the spikes atop the wall. Now he understood why the points hooked both outward and inward too. These apes were undoubtedly carnivores and man-killers. The result of one or more running loose in the city would bring severe repercussions to the temple’s master priest.

“I could fall upon man and beast,” Gord ruminated. His acrobatic ability was sufficient for him to clear the abatis of metal and thorny growth without difficulty, and he could land ready to fight. His short sword and long dagger were sufficient armament for the young thief to dispatch both adversaries quickly and with possibly no sound-or at most some stifled cries.

“No, the pairs meet and exchange soft words at intervals. The priests have covered themselves well,” Gord reflected. So he changed his thinking. If this place was a typical one of its sort, and there was no reason to think it was not, he knew that there would be some hidden subterranean way inside, a secret passage meant to be a death trap for anyone foolish enough to trespass. Gord stayed still a few minutes longer, watching the movement of the sentries, the snuffling and peering of their apes. Then he acted.

As the guardian pairs moved away, Gord vaulted outward and tumbled into a somersaulting roll as his feet touched the sward surrounding the squatty pile of the evil temple. Quickly gaining his feet again, the young thief crouched, opened a small bag at his belt, turned, and tossed a handful of red pepper back over the area he had just been. Then he dashed toward the grim building itself, sprinkling the powder behind him as he went. The sharp-smelling stuff was meant to irritate and confuse guard dogs, but he knew it would likewise confound the nose of any ape that came near to where he had landed.

The big blocks of basalt comprising the outside of the temple were smooth and closely set, and it required his utmost effort to ascend the nearly sheer face quickly enough to avoid being seen. Gord had no more than grasped the top edge of the first tier of the temple when he heard a barking sneeze from below. Without a sound, he pulled himself up onto the ledge and flattened his body. The primate was sneezing, pawing at its nose, teeth showing white in its inky-face as it did so. Gord watched as two more pairs of sentries hastened to the scene. The men exchanged whispers, the two new apes began snuffling, and then those creatures were taken with sneezing fits too.

As the men sought to discover the reason for the trouble, Gord decided it was time to move. He would have only a short period of relative safety, of that he was sure. Soon the guards of Nerull would be searching for a possible intruder. He mustn’t waste the interval, or his opportunity would be lost-and possibly his life as well!

He discovered a door leading to a balconylike area, and the portal had been carelessly left open. Or perhaps, he corrected himself, the denizens of this place did not bother to lock out intruders-otherwise, how could they have fun dismembering the curious and foolish who dared to enter? That was not a pleasant line of reasoning, so Gord forced it out of his mind.

The young adventurer slipped inside the temple and hurriedly descended a nearby flight of steps. This brought him to the main floor of the place, in a location obviously reserved for the clerics. Light showed here and there from beneath doors, warning him that many of the rooms along the long series of corridors were occupied-by lesser priests, acolytes, and the like, as well as guards perhaps. He didn’t bother with any doors, however. Gord kept his eyes on the stone flags, seeking a telltale sign. The temple was old, and countless sandaled feet must have walked these flagstone passages over the centuries. Such traffic would take its toll.

What had seemed to be a blank wall a moment before revealed itself as a concealed door under the young thief’s scrutiny. He had been led to it by an almost imperceptible path worn into the stone, a path that ended where the “wall” began.

“Not so much a secret, now, is it?” he observed under his breath as his dagger blade found the hidden catch and the door swung inward. Here was the way-or one of the ways, anyway-that the priests of the vile god of darkness got to the altar below. “And here too,” Gord said softly as he went rapidly down the steps, “is where the chief priest will have his most privy sanctum. Let us hope he is busily engaged in some foul rite.”

A low, indistinct, but somehow obscene chanting came up the staircase. The farther Gord went, the louder the sound became, but he could still discern none of its meaning even when he finally arrived at the bottom of the flight of steps. Deep-throated iron horns suddenly bellowed, adding to the noise at odd intervals, while great drums rambled as an underbeat to the chant, and discordant sounds like the random plucking of monstrous harps accentuated the strange rhythm. The sounds came from his left, so Gord went to his right into a narrow passage.

The darkness was deeper than black, but he had no difficulty making his way, of course, and the enchanted vision granted to him by the sword he had gained while adventuring with Gellor even enabled the young thief to distinguish which passages were the most traveled. When he had a choice, he always selected the least-trod way. After a dozen false leads and dead ends, Gord came to a small, circular chamber at the end of the corridor he had chosen. The only feature or ornamentation inside it was a quartet of ordinary-looking candleholders, each one set into the wall equidistant from the ones adjacent to it.

“This is strange,” he said quietly to himself. “A place like this has no purpose, not even benches, a lavatory, an idol… What might it be?” His actions were not those of someone searching for a place to rest, wash, or worship. Gord was checking the walls, rapidly, using eyes and fingers. Finding nothing remarkable, he worked his way back out toward the corridor. He finally realized that where the tunnel entered the little circle of space, there was a gap between walls, which meant…

“No stone of the passage meshes with those of the chamber!” It was an exclamation of discovery, albeit uttered in a hushed voice.

Darting back into the room, his mind working faster than his hands or feet could move, Gord turned his attention to the high-set sconces, ancient affairs with long prickets for the setting of massive candles. Bronze they were, and each of the four polished too.

“This is the one,” he murmured, noticing that the one immediately to the right of the tunnel entrance was more worn than the other three. Gord gave it a tug, then a push upward, then tried to twist it from side to side. It was unmoving, solid and firmly set.

“This cannot be…” Gord started to lament, his hands still working, and the words were barely out of his mouth when he hit the right combination, first pressing down the spike of the pricket and then pushing upward on the sconce. Accompanied by an almost inaudible grinding, the whole circle of the chamber slowly pivoted through a half-turn. Gord was briefly disconcerted, but because he had half expected something like this, he was not so startled that he forgot to draw his weapons as the chamber turned.