D& D - Greyhawk - Night Watch (32 page)

Upstairs in his own room, he sat down on the foot of his bed and tugged off his boots. The sounds from downstairs came up through the floor, and he listened to them with half an ear as he unfastened his sword, drew out the blade, and set it with the scabbard on the coverlet. He would run a polishing cloth over Guardian before he retired.

As he undressed, the soft flutter of wings caused him to turn toward the window. The shutter was open, and a large black bird perched there. It watched him with small, gleaming eyes and gave a chirp as it paced back and forth.

“Yah!” Garett cried, waving his arms to drive the bird away. It spread its dark wings and leaped into the air, and Garett continued with his disrobing. A moment later, the bird returned. Again Garett drove it away, and this time, he closed the shutter, but not before noticing his visitor had left droppings on his sill. “I hope a hawk catches you!” he muttered as he slammed the latch in place.

It was then, in the abrupt gloom that resulted from the shutter’s closing, that he turned and noticed the faint green glow from Guardian.

Garett woke with one hand curled lightly around Guardian’s hilt. The sword lay sheathed on the sheets beside him. A lamp burned dimly on the table, its wick turned down low. He’d put it there himself, knowing he would sleep past sundown. He stared at the tiny flame and at the shadows it cast around his room as he stretched and slowly sat up.

Almi had been wrong. Despite the noise from the tavern, which even now seeped up through his floor, he had slept better and deeper than he had for days. He felt truly rested and alert for a change. He went to the window and threw open the shutter. Voices rose up from the street below, where a man and woman walked arm in arm. He listened for a moment. They were haggling over some price.

The night was black, and the stars burned like fiery diamonds. He leaned a little farther out, trying to spot either of Oerth’s two moons, but his window faced the wrong direction. He wondered what time it was, then told himself it didn’t matter. He didn’t have to report anywhere tonight.

That didn’t mean he intended to sit around. It was past time someone found out what had happened at the wizards’ guildhall. Sorvesh Kharn had tried and lost two men in the attempt. No one had ever successfully broken into the guildhall before. The magic wards and protections were far too powerful.

But if what Mordenkainen had told him about Guardian was true, that the blade could cut through magic spells, then Garett stood a good chance.

He went to a trunk and took out trousers of rough black leather and pulled them on. Among the other garments in the trunk lay a black linen tunic, decorated at the lace-up neck and collar with silver embroidery. He pulled it over his head, adjusted the laces, then belted it with his usual wide leather belt. Then he fastened his sword belt over that, arranging Guardian so that the blade rode low on his hip. In the top of his left boot he concealed a sturdy dagger. Lastly, he tied his hair back with a short leather thong.

In the street below his window, a minstrel took up a position near Almi’s door and began to strum a lute and sing. The voice was rich and sweet, and the song told the tale of Derider Fanchon, a woman of the old days, a constable and director of the city, who was known for her devotion to justice and to the poor. She was one of the great heroines of Greyhawk, almost a legend. The minstrel sang her song beautifully.

Garett remembered that he had lost all his coins in the Mist Marsh, and he had kept none of the money he had taken from the bodies of the dead youths on High Street. He picked up his purse from the table. It contained only the two remaining amethyst octahedrons. He carried it by the strings to his largest and heaviest trunk and dropped it on the floor while he kneeled down and twisted the trunk’s middle catch, then twisted the left catch a different way.

A small concealed tray at the bottom of the trunk sprang outward. Coins of all different values glittered in the lamplight: Garett’s savings. He sorted through it swiftly, scattering and stirring with his fingers. Finally, five commons, three silver nobles, and an electrum lucky went into his purse. He tied the strings around his belt and tucked it out of sight under the thick band, as was his usual wont. He pushed the tray back in again and felt the spring latch fall into place. It was almost impossible to see the narrow drawer when it was closed.

He paused for a moment, listening to the minstrel’s song, then he turned the lamp’s wick down even lower until the barest hint of a flame remained. Garett turned, ready to leave. His shadow loomed upon the wall and reached out to shake hands with him as he reached for the door. He opened it, and a warm night breeze blew upon his face.

“Evenin’, Cap’n,” Burge said. The half-elven lieutenant craned his neck and looked up from where he sat on the landing outside Garett’s door. “I was wonderin’ when you’d wake up.”

“What are you doing here?” Garett asked with surprise, noticing at once that Burge wasn’t in uniform either.

“Funny thing,” Burge said, scratching his chin as he stared out over Moonshadow Lane. “Soon as word came down you were bein’ replaced, I started thinkin’ I was kind of tired of the watch anyway. In fact, I’ve had this itchin’ at the back of my neck to get out of here.” He leaned back against the wall, drew his knees up, and rested his arms on them. “Then, when they told me who was replacin’ you . .

“Kael.” Garett snorted in good humor. “That brown-nosing kid. I guess we don’t have to wonder who told Korbian about our sneaking out to the Mist Marsh anymore.” He nudged his friend in the side of the leg with a toe. “So you quit.”

“Yup,” Burge nodded. “So did Blossom. She’s over at The Tomb now. Decided to join all the celebration.”

Garett regretted that his friends had chosen to sacrifice their jobs for him, but he appreciated the loyalty and couldn’t resist a wistful grin. “Rudi, too?”

Burge craned around again to look up at Garett, and he cocked an eyebrow. “Now you ask too much,” he said disdainfully. Then he softened a bit and shrugged. “But, what in the hells. He’s got a new wife to support.” Burge stood up and rubbed the back of his neck as he gave his captain a questioning look. “So where we goin’?” he asked.

Garett stepped past his friend and led the way down the narrow stairs to the street. “To Wizards’ Row,” Garett called back over his shoulder. “It’s about time we found out what happened to the magicians in this town.”

“You’re going to break into the guildhall?” Burge asked doubtfully, and Garett only nodded.

The minstrel still played his lute outside the door to Almi’s tavern. Garett stopped long enough to draw a couple of commons from his purse and drop them in the performer’s cap, which lay at his feet. The minstrel smiled and executed a deep bow without pausing in his current song.

The Crusty Widow was overflowing with customers. Almi was not in her window. Probably still passed out, Garett decided with an amused snort.

He and Burge walked down to Cargo Street. It was jammed with celebrants. A pair of white-robed, bald-headed acolytes from the Temple of Pholtus rushed up to them, banging tambourines and begging for donations. Burge’s lip curled unpleasantly. He gave a feral snarl, and the acolytes found someone else to annoy.

For the first time in years, Garett had to sign a note of passage before the sentries would allow him through the Garden Gate into the Garden and High Quarters. Word had gotten out by now of his fall from grace. The watchmen were quite apologetic, but still they insisted he sign his name. It was a small requirement, merely a way of keeping undesirables out of the wealthier sections of the city, and Garett had not quite fallen that low. He wondered briefly if i hey would challenge his right to wear a sword, but he had only been suspended, not busted out of the watch entirely, and they said nothing about it.

Grumbling, Burge signed the list also, and the guards admitted them.

They moved swiftly through the Garden Quarter, where the restaurants, the finer taverns, and the elaborate gambling houses were just as full and rowdy and noisy as the River Quarter’s, and the streets were just as gay. The only difference, as far as Garett could tell, was that the drunks dressed better in the Garden Quarter and a better class of beggars worked the crowds.

Garett and Burge crossed High Street, which separated the Garden Quarter from the High Quarter. Almost at once, things became quieter. In the High Quarter, where Greyhawk’s nobility lived, the parties were more subdued and confined to the estates. It was also much darker. The magic-powered street lamps were almost all out now.

Wizards’ Row was deserted. As they turned down the wide street, Garett stopped suddenly.

Burge put a hand on his sword’s hilt. “What is it?” he asked nervously.

“Necropolis,” Garett answered in a soft voice as he stared ahead.

Kule, the largest of Greyhawk’s moons, hung low and red over the broken tower where Prestelan Sun had fought his last battle. The remains of the tower stood like a black splinter thrust at the moon’s heart. The moonlight lent a silver-red glow to the sharp edges and to the dark silhouettes of the other buildings within the compound, and a frosty radiance limned the top of the
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wall. None of the noise from the Garden Quarter reached this far. An icy silence floated over the scene.

Burge stared, too. “It’ll be full tomorrow night,” he said in a near-whisper.

“So will Raenei,” Garett answered. “And that’s when the dung will start to rain.”

Burge turned toward his captain and raised an eyebrow. “A colorful metaphor,” he commented. “What’s it mean?”

“Think about it,” Garett suggested as he started up the road toward the guildhall’s great wooden gates. “Two full moons on the night before the summer solstice. Astronomically speaking, how many times in a lifetime can that happen? It doesn’t take a genius to realize such a night would have special significance to a wizard or a sorcerer.”

Burge frowned. “You think there’ll be another murder?”

They reached the gates and stepped into the deep shadow that cloaked the massive entrance. Garett put out a hand and felt the smoothly polished roanwood. A large sigil was painted on the doors, barely visible in the gloom. Garett didn’t know its meaning, but it was rumored to be just part of the protections that sealed the guildhall against intruders.

“This is about more than murder,” Garett told his friend. “It’s something bigger. The seers were killed to prevent their foretelling it and giving warning. Only the Cat, that old seer in the Slum Quarter, escaped. But he left something carved in the wall over his desk. That horned skull. It was all the warning he had time to leave.”

“But what weren’t they supposed to see?” Burge muttered, standing back while Garett explored the gates.

“Something powerful,” Garett answered without looking around. “Something coming to Greyhawk. I think others sensed it, too. Others who couldn’t foretell, but who, nevertheless, knew something was in the air, the way an animal knows a storm is coming. That’s why the Attloi left town, then the elves and the dwarves and a lot of the ores.” He thought about Kestertrot, the half-orc owner of The Tomb, and about the way he’d found him curled under a table in his kitchen. “Even some of the half-breeds have felt it,” he reported, giving Burge a look.

Burge’s frown deepened, and he scratched the back of his head. “Maybe that’s why I’ve been thinkin’ so much lately about movin’ on and gettin’ out of this town,” he admitted.

Garett went back to his explorations. “Maybe you don’t feel it as strongly because you work so hard at denying your elven heritage.”

Burge didn’t say anything, and Garett realized he’d taken a step over the bounds of friendship. It was one thing to sometimes joke about his friend’s blood. It was another to chide him seriously about it.

“Anyway,” he said, continuing, “I think Chancreon, the dragon who’d been living in the Halls as a human poet, sensed it, too, and it drove him crazy. Or maybe something attacked him to drive him out of town. I haven’t figured all the details yet.

“What about the other murders?” Burge pressed quietly.

“The murders in Old Town,” Garett continued as he ran his hand over the gates and over the huge iron locks. “I think Blossom was right. Those were part of it, too. They were sacrifices, "You yourself found the altar down there in the sewers. Whoever this wizard is, he offers blood to his deity. That brings us back to the Horned Society again, where such a thing is common practice.”

“You talk as if Greyhawk is under attack,” Burge said.

Garett nodded. “It is.” He moved back from the gate and drew Guardian from its sheath. A mild emerald radiance washed over the ground and the high gate. Garett held the blade up, marveling. He took a step closer to the gate, and the glow brightened perceptibly.

“It’s reactin’ to the magical wards,” Burge observed.

Garett stepped back, then moved closer again, testing Burge’s theory. The glow dimmed and brightened. Mor-denkainen hadn’t mentioned this aspect of the sword’s power. Apparently, there were mysteries unknown even to the Circle of Eight.

“That bird,” he said slowly.

Burge moved closer to his side. He held his hand close to the blade, and the light bounced against his palm, turning it green. The half-elf moved his hand through the glow, almost as if he were petting the sword, stroking it. “What bird?” he asked.

Garett told him about the bird on his windowsill. “The sword was glowing very slightly when I turned around. I didn’t connect that until now.”

“There’s somethin’ about the birds?” Burge asked, glancing up at the sky, where winged shapes fluttered swiftly across the bright face of Kule and across the star-speckled night. “But there are thousands of them!” Garett gazed up also as he shook his head. “One bird, or thousands,” he answered. “I don’t know. But that thing that found Prestelan wore the shape of a bird.”

Burge nodded grimly toward the guildhall gates. “I think we’d better take a look in there.”

Garett agreed. “Stand back,” he instructed as he approached the gates with Guardian held before him.

He touched the point of the arcane blade to the sigil painted on the roanwood. A green-tinged fire erupted at the contact, and a startled Garett sprang back. The strange flame hissed and crackled as it traced the lines of the enchanted seal. A foul-smelling white smoke spewed into the air. Then it was not fire that revealed the lines of the sigil, but a burning white light that grew and grew in brightness.