With a shriek Gord rose, water flying from him as he stood. He still held his sword, and he used the weapon to strike at the grinning sphere of bone. There wasn’t sufficient water between skull and blade to lessen the force of his blows. The third time the edge struck bone, the thing broke into bits.
“There, Theobald, there!” Gord cried as he delivered the last stroke. “This time you’ll die forever!”
With that, he used his boot to kick the fragments, and they washed away into the deeper channel and out of sight, just as the other parts of the unnatural thing had done but a short time before.
The trauma of what had just transpired was gone. He had proved he was able to stand up to Theobald, both as a human and as a monstrous horror of the worst imaginable sort. The thing he had just fought had to have been fashioned from the remains of the beggarmaster. No other will could have been strong enough and evil enough to collect rottenness and filth into a congealed mass and make it have semblance of life and a purpose.
Oh, yes, the monster had had a purpose. It had lurked there by the treasure, waiting, growing, knowing that some day Gord would come there to find the iron box and take the wealth away. Then the thing that had been Theobald would strike. Revenge, assimilation of his body into its own bulk, and… and what? The thought made him shudder again, mentally and physically: unlife as a conglomerate thing, a lurking horror seeking other lives to consume, a oneness with Theobald.
“It was the lightstone that did it,” Gord said aloud as the realization came to him. The enspelled brilliance of his lantern destroyed the corrupt creation born of hatred, darkness, and vile stuff.
“I did well enough, Theobald, for I struck the blow that finally ended you. But the light weakened you, ate your form away, and made it possible.” He was exhilarated, almost satisfied, by what he had accomplished. He was almost ready to turn away then and there, forget about the treasure, and go back the way he had come. But he stayed-not out of greed, he told himself, but because to leave without the strongbox would be to give the beggarmaster a last triumph. Small it might be in relative terms, but the treasure was what the thing had held dear, and that too must be cleansed.
Hours later, Gord was back In the sunlight. It had taken a long time to find the iron container, even with the help of the light that water didn’t extinguish. When he located it, he fixed his leather thong to one handle and dragged it out of the muck that covered the bottom of the basin and into the channel of the canal that it fed. That finally done, he had broken the lock and seen the contents of the chest for the first time.
It was disappointing. But, all things considered, Gord supposed it had to be. Most of the coins were corroded brass, bronze, or copper-corroded because the chest was not waterproof. But there were some of more precious sort, enough silver, electrum, and gold too to fill one of his small pouches. Like the man, Theobald’s treasure was shabby and mean for the most part. Only cheap jewelry, glass, and valueless stones remained in the chest with the stained coins. Gord left the lot standing in the dark waters of the canal beneath Old City. If any others should ever find it, let them wonder.
Rather than try to climb back up by using the knotted cord, Gord decided to find an easier means of leaving the subterranean realm. He was too tired physically, too drained to face a climb like that, but his mind was still keen. In a short time he found a way upward, just as he remembered seeing depicted on the old plan, and after that it had been an easy matter to get to the clean air above. It was a long slog home, but he managed, cloak pulled around him to hide the bedraggled condition of his garments.
One thing more remained to be done before Gord could go to his apartment and sleep for a whole day. He was determined to accomplish that last thing before allowing exhaustion to have its way…
“What’s this?” The tall cleric was astonished at the glittering coins he had just found in the chapel’s poor box.
His sole acolyte was uncertain. “A young student was here briefly an hour or so ago. I didn’t pay attention, because I had duties to perform… Could he have given so much?”
“If he was a slight, dark-haired lad of about sixteen, I think he just could have,” the priest said, letting it go at that.
Chapter 14
What is a city? What makes it singular? Memorable? A place regarded with affection or distaste? Gord knew the city of Greyhawk. Industry and trade made it what it was. Its location and government made it a singular entity, similar to other cities, perhaps, but distinctive too… perhaps.
Gord was beginning to hate the place, hate his existence in it, and the questions in his mind had no final answers. Was it eighteen or nineteen years he had been dwelling within Greyhawk? He didn’t know exactly. What was important was that he had never been farther than a long bowshot from the double walls of the place. What was the city of Dyvers like? He had heard about it, read its history, but beyond that the other great free city of the Flanaess might as well have been on one of the moons for all Gord had experienced of its reality.
“Bring me another bottle of the black wine of Pomarj,” the young man called. There was no friendliness in his tone, and the harassed serving wench shot him a look as dark as the wine he had just demanded. Gord returned her look with hard eyes, and the girl went off quickly to comply. She and Gord had been on other, more pleasant terms not long ago, but she knew he was moody and thought him strange.
“Why do you drink this filthy stuff?” the girl demanded crossly as she banged the heavy bottle down before him.
Gord regretted being sharp. After all, it wasn’t her fault that he was thoroughly discontented. “Because it reminds me of you, dear Meg-dark and tasty,” he replied with a small smile, handing her several large coins as he did so.
“Liar!” Despite the compliment and the overpayment. Black Meggin was having none of Gord’s overtures. “You swill it because of the stuff they put in it. You’re an addict!”
“Keep the change, love,” Gord said as the girl spun around and went to answer the call of another patron. She had a point. At two hundred a bottle, the inky stuff was costly. Its bitter aftertaste did grow on one, and its effects were at least habituating.
“Do I drink to dispel the dark mood? Or is it the drink which cloaks me in such a state?” He asked these questions softly aloud. No one was near enough to his little table to hear. “What does it matter? I like it, and I can easily afford it. Drink it I shall.”
A trio of men sat and conversed among themselves several tables away from Gord. They were strangers to this tavern known as the Man in the Moon, and from their garb it was evident that they came from another place-Urnstmen, possibly, and surely merchants or traders. Without being obvious about it, the three had been keeping a close watch on Gord’s every move. Black Pomarj wine was rare, especially costly since so little was made now due to the humanoid occupation of the territory.
“He gave the wench the value of a full silver piece,” a hawk-nosed man murmured to his two associates.
“That’s nothing,” a man with small eyes next to him said. “I saw the gleam of yellow when he reached in and fetched his payment forth.”
The third fellow, a bull-necked man with a closely trimmed beard that only partially hid a sickle-shaped scar on his cheek, merely nodded and called, “Come, girl, more ale here!”
Sunk as he was in his own mood, Gord gave no indication that he was noticing the men’s attention. Since he had abandoned his studies in favor of a more active life, the young man had changed considerably. Even after his friend and companion, San, had gone off to pursue membership in the Thieves’ Guild, and also to pursue the daughter of a member of that association, Gord had remained pretty much unchanged. For a time he had remained a carefree student, a seemingly normal member of the large group attending one or another of the various colleges of Greyhawk’s university.