D& D - Greyhawk - Night Watch (20 page)

But Kestertrot was still here. He was only half-orc, though. For that matter, Burge was still here. Garett frowned, suddenly worried about his half-elven friend. What if there was something in his elven blood that was trying to warn him of danger? Would Burge recognize such a warning? Someday, he was going to have to reconcile himself with his magical heritage. No one could live with such self-denial forever.

Garett took a drink from his mug, feeling like a man with all the pieces of a puzzle spread on the table but no clear idea of where to begin. It was an irritating admission. He gripped his mug tightly between his hands and stared down into it. With a start, he realized he was trembling.

I need some sleep, he told himself. He gazed up uneasily, wondering if Blossom had noticed, but his lieutenant appeared lost in her own deep thoughts, her eyes turned toward the darkest corners of the tavern. He stayed long enough to knock back the rest of his beer, then rose. “I must be going,” he said with a vague sense of disappointment. He had thought to have a long, pleasant conversation with a friend and fellow officer over a couple of drinks, but something—he didn’t know exactly what—had spoiled it. The mood was suddenly as oppressive as The Tomb itself. “I’ll pay for the beers,” he added.

Blossom snapped to alertness and fumbled for the purse on her belt. “No, no!” she insisted, embarrassed. “I invited you!”

Garett laid a hand gently on her arm as he came around the table and smiled at her, trying his best to shake off his burdensome solemnity. “Captain’s prerogative,” he told her firmly, “and captain’s privilege.”

Blossom acknowledged the compliment with a grin and a sharp salute. Then she rocked her chair back again, propped her booted feet up on the table, crossing them at the ankles, and raised her beer in a silent toast to his health.

Garett looked around for Kestertrot, to pay him his coins. The fat old owner wasn’t to be seen, though, and

Garett remembered the kitchen. He pushed through the door. The room, lit by a single lamp, was crammed with kegs and barrels and crates, old blackened pots and pans, jugs and mugs and wooden spoons, all scattered everywhere. Garett wondered how even a half-orc with an ore’s eyesight distinguished the clean vessels from the dirty ones, or if he bothered.

A table stood against the far wall, its top cluttered with all manner of utensils. A dark shape lurked beneath it. Garett crept a little closer. Bending down, he called, “Kes-tertrot?”

A bulbous nose poked up out of the gloom. A moment later, the rest of Kestertrot followed. The old fellow rose stiffly and made a show of brushing the knees of his trousers.

“What were you doing under there?” Garett asked in puzzlement.

“Dropped something,” the half-orc answered too quickly. He moved away from Garett to a fat keg balanced on its side upon a rickety old crate. He grabbed three mugs from another table and began filling them. “What do you want back here, anyway?” he demanded.

“The beers,” Garett answered quietly, frowning at the tavern owner’s broad back. “How much?”

“Four commons,” Kestertrot snapped. “That’s two coppers each. Just leave it.” He didn’t turn around. Garett fished the coins from his purse and set them on a packing box by the kitchen door. He started to back out when the half-orc turned a little and muttered over his shoulder. “You watch your back, Starlen,” he said, trying to sound a bit more pleasant.

Watch your back. It was a common expression in the ore nations, like “so long” among humans, or “be seeing you.” But there was an edge in Kestertrot’s voice. And Garett could not shake the impression that the old owner had actually been huddled under the table when he came into the kitchen, as if he’d been hiding from something.

But Kestertrot turned away again and concentrated on filling his mugs, plainly intending to say no more.

“You, too,” Garett told him. He left the kitchen then and nodded to Blossom as he strode toward the door to the street. She raised her mug to him once more and watched as he went out.

He gave a sneeze in the bright sunlight and blinked until his eyes adjusted. The noise from the High Market Square and from the Processional assailed him. The intensity of it surprised him. The thick stone construction of The Tomb had shut it out almost completely. Not far away, a great cheer went up and seemed to last forever. It spread and built and fed on itself, and suddenly he knew that just a few short blocks away, Kentellen Mar was passing by.

Garett thought of heading for the Processional. The parade and the pageantry would be spectacular as Kentellen’s entourage wound its way to the square. Garett had never quite gotten over his boyhood admiration for the tumblers and acrobats and dancers that he knew would be there. But right now, he dreaded the thought of the crowds and decided to work his way through the Garden Quarter by the back roads. He glanced up at the sky. It was still the same slate-gray color, full of dark, threatening clouds.

It took him twice as long as normal to get home. By following the Garden Road, he went all the way to the wharves, where the great trade ships that plied the Nyr Dyv and the Selintan River rocked gently in their berths, abandoned, for the most part, by sailors and dock workers who had gone to join the celebration. Most of those he saw there were the blue-shirted private guild watchmen, hired to guard the vessels and stacks of cargo goods. He entered the River Quarter by way of the Cargo Gate and made his way wearily to Moonshadow Lane.

Almi was sitting in her window, watching the street, as he approached. He went up to her and leaned on the sill.

“You stink!” she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

“I’ve been told that by better men than you,” he answered with mock sweetness, and he blew her a kiss. “Would you mind having your girls draw me a bath if they’re not off celebrating?”

“My girls?” Almi answered indignantly. “Let them run loose among all that rabble?” She shook her head. “I’ll send up some lunch, too. "Ybu look as bad as you smell, you know.”

Garett thanked her and started up the steps to his apartment. Before he went inside, though, he happened to turn. A sound caught his ear, not the sound of the crowd or the noise of celebration, but something else, something that had now become almost familiar. He gazed up toward the sky.

Hundreds of black birds wheeled and gyred in the ashen sky, riding the wind on outspread wings. Garett stared across the street, over the rooftops to the west. He leaned out and raised as high on his toes as he could to gaze eastward over his own roof as he listened to them, calling, calling.

They were everywhere.

Wearing only a loose white robe of thin material, Garett climbed the stairs to his apartment and went inside. His hair still dripped rivulets of water, and his face felt raw from the close scraping he had given it. At least he felt clean again. Now all he wanted was some sleep.

He opened the shutters on his windows. On such a gray day the sunlight would not keep him awake. He welcomed the gentle breeze, though. Later, when the revelers spread away from the High Market Square and the Processional into the River Quarter, the noise might wake him. On the other hand, he thought he had a fifty-fifty chance of sleeping through anything.

He pulled the soft robe over his head, carefully folded it, and placed it on the table next to the coin purse and sword he’d put there earlier. Naked, he fell face down onto the cool sheets of his bed and scrunched the pillow under his head. The light wind whispered upon his bare flesh, a soothing sensation that relaxed him. As an afterthought,

he drew a corner of the sheet over his body, remembering that he’d left Almi with instructions to wake him at dusk.

He wasn’t sure how long he lay there. It surprised him that he didn’t fall asleep at once. Outside, the birds continued their incessant screeching, though it sounded a bit farther off. A pair of women walked by in the street below, giggling like giddy virgins. A fly set up a steady drone as it explored the apartment. The door to Almi’s tavern slammed. Garett closed his eyes. Please, he begged, straining toward sleep. His body ached so, and a heaviness weighed down his thoughts. In the street below, someone laughed. At last, though, sleep did claim him.

An odd light penetrating his lids woke Garett. Wearily he cracked open one eye. A soft violet light filled the room. All his senses snapped alert, though he kept perfectly still. It was no natural illumination, he knew. With careful deliberation, Garett rolled over onto his right side. Silently he cursed himself. His sword was not where it should be at the head of his bed. He had left it on the table across the room, out of reach. He slowly sat up and turned toward the source of the strange purple illumination.

The five amethyst octahedrons hung in the air, burning with a steady glow as they spun in a circle, like jewels on an invisible ring, on the far side of the room. They had been in his coin purse, but some force had freed them and set them dancing. The same force, he assumed, had closed and sealed the window shutters.

He rose cautiously, crept to the table, and freed his sword from the scabbard. The purple light rippled up the silvery length of the blade as he drew it clear. He touched the coin purse. The strings were loose; a few silver nobles and gold orbs lay scattered on the table, likewise shimmering as if touched by violet fire.

Around and around the crystals whirled, faster and faster, as he stepped away from the table and into the center of the room. The purple glow began to throw off streaks of whiter intensity, but in the center of the circle described by

the spinning gems, a spot of blackness took form.

Now Garett felt that same sensation he had known on Kastern’s Bridge and in the sewers. Someone was watching him, observing from out of the center of that black spot. He felt that unknown gaze like a lightning charge on his skin. The hair rose on the back of his neck, and his every nerve trembled. Suddenly a wind ripped through that tiny black void and swept about Garett. It overturned his table, scattering coins everywhere. It snatched the sheets off his bed and set them snapping and dancing about like costume ghosts. The white robe he had set aside earlier, and a few other pieces of clothing, whipped violently through the air. Garett flung up a hand to protect his eyes from the stinging force of the unnatural gale.

Then the black spot began to grow. It filled the circle described by the jewels. Next it swallowed them. Still the purple light shone, as if from behind the swelling blackness. Garett took an uncertain step away and felt the foot of his bed brush against the backs of his legs. He brought his sword up and gripped it tightly in both hands. Now the circle of darkness began to stretch and reshape itself, and he watched, mesmerized, as it became rectangular and its growth abruptly stopped. The wind, too, stopped, and an eerie silence filled the apartment.

A door, Garett realized, staring at the black rectangle. Within its darkness he could just make out the dim shadows and outlines of a world cloaked by night. There were mountains, he thought, and a shifting expanse of something darkly silvered. The smell of salt air brushed his nose, and he knew it was a sea. But what sea? What world?

It would do him no good to stand here and wonder. Whatever or whoever had such power to reach into his apartment and create this portal could have, no doubt, slain him just as easily in his sleep. Instead, it had sent him an invitation, and as he stood there, staring into that vague otherworld, he knew his curiosity would not let him decline.

Sword in hand, he padded barefoot across his floor and experienced a frightening instan t of icy coldness and utter dark as he stepped through. Then it was dew-damp grass that cushioned his footsteps, and a peppering of bright stars twinkled overhead. It took but a moment for him to observe several familiar constellations. They were somewhat skewed, as if he had traveled a great distance. But still, he knew their shapes. Wherever he was, he was still on Oerth, and he found a measure of relief in that.

He turned, half-expecting to gaze back into his old apartment above Almi’s tavern. The magical door and the purple glow from the amethyst crystals, however, were gone. He stared, instead, at the highest point of a ring of mountain peaks' barely visible against the night sky.

Not far away he heard the sound of breakers, and again he inhaled the fragrance of the sea, much stronger now. A gentle salt breeze brushed his skin, reminding him that he was naked. He experienced a moment of annoyance with himself for not snatching up a garment, but he pushed the feeling aside as a more important consideration occupied his thoughts. His sword had not made it through. Whoever had brought him here had brought him unarmed.

He waited for guidance, not knowing which way to go or what to do. He still felt that arcane gaze upon him. His host knew he was here. Well, what now? he wondered, and at last he shrugged his shoulders and began walking, not toward the mountains, but toward the sound and smell of the sea.

He had no idea how long he walked. Behind him, a fat crescent moon, Kule, the first and larger of Oerth’s two, climbed slowly above the peaks and poured a pale radiance across the land, and the beads of dew glimmered mysteriously upon the blades of grass, seeming almost to wink as numerous little insects hopped or fluttered out of Garett’s path. He perceived, in the moon’s milky glow, that he was approaching a great cliff, for far beyond, at the rim of his vision, the darkness turned liquid and a vast stretch of ocean rolled and shifted, gleaming where its waves and

whitecaps strained up toward the heavens.

The night breeze sang in his ears, and the sound of the surf rushing upon rocks that he could not yet see kept a steady rhythm. Despite the danger and the nature of his coming here, he began to feel a rare sense of peace. He glanced skyward again, finding those familiar constellations to reassure himself that, yes, this really was his own world.

I’m dreaming, he decided. I’m back home in my bed, and this is a dream.

The sound of the breakers was much nearer now, and Garett could see the sharp edge of the cliff jutting out over the sea. He quickened his pace in unconscious anticipation. Ahead he could clearly see the black line where the land met the sea, and beyond that, another line where the sea touched the star-flecked sky. Boom, went the breakers, and the surf answered, sshhhh, as if it were the guardian of the world’s tranquility.