Gord had known about the box for several years, ever since the day he had accidentally discovered Leena’s current hiding place while groping around under her bed for a scrap of food he had dropped. She wasn’t in their shack at the time, so he took the opportunity to leaf through the pieces of parchment he found inside. None of them had meant anything to him or even interested him, so he had simply put the whole batch back in the box and replaced the container in the hole. Leena had cuffed him soundly and cursed him viciously when she realized the box and its contents had been handled-and threatened to do much worse to him if he ever touched the box again. Since he didn’t have any use for the thing anyway, it was not at all difficult for him to leave it alone, but he had not forgotten about it.
Clutching the small coffer, and with a thick mattress of rags around him, Gord crooned himself to sleep beside the slowly dwindling flames of the fire.
The next day he moved from the hut to a cellar beneath the ruins of an old building, fairly near the old site where he and Leena had dwelled. Gord thought it would be a good idea to move, because as soon as the rest of the neighborhood found out that Leena had died, the other boys would terrorize him even more than they did already. His new place was small, dark, and difficult to enter for anyone or anything larger than the size of a small boy. An old chimney provided ventilation for a fire, and the little space was easy to warm. It suited his needs perfectly, and he was happy at having found such a good place so quickly.
But if Gord had been very lucky on this day after Leena died, his fortune turned round thereafter. He had to be very careful when he went out, because the gangs had heard that the old witch with the evil eye had looked in a mirror and killed herself. Gord didn’t realize how much indirect protection Leena had provided him until he had ventured forth on a few expeditions after she died. The boys that used to beat him up and take what he had salvaged still did that, of course, whenever he couldn’t avoid them. The difference was in the slum-gangs that formerly had merely cursed him from a distance and thrown rocks at him. They too were now confronting him directly, roughing him up, and stealing from him. It became harder and harder to garner anything worthwhile anywhere, and finding food was becoming a major task. By spring Gord moved again, seeking better pickings.
The gangs of the sprawling slums stayed within their own confines. Within the crumbling district they were virtually supreme, because nobody outside the slums cared. The place was home to the homeless, the insane, the flotsam and jetsam of the city. If the local economy ever began to flourish again, then the Slum Quarter would shrink as laborers increased and property was rebuilt, refurbished, repaired for those who contributed to the city’s wealth. In truth, the slums were a preserve, a place for the misfits and useless to dwell within the walls of Greyhawk, but the place had not been intentionally provided for that purpose. They existed simply because nobody cared about the area at the time. Many of the constructions therein were abandoned now because of slow trade, a weak economy, and lack of demand. No one stayed there if he could go elsewhere, unless he was a crazy person or a wanted criminal.
Of course there was an economy, of sorts, within the quarter. There were food shops, peddlers, stores selling old clothing and used things, places to buy small beer and sour wine, and all that. There were three relatively thriving places within the Slum Quarter, but they were the haunts of those forced to dwell there because of being wanted criminals, or else the territories of those who chose to deal with the slums for some related reason. If a denizen of the slums had money to spend, he could enter these three islands of activity, but when his coins were gone he had to leave. There was no safety in these places of activity, no safety anywhere in the quarter, unless you bought it or were strong enough not to be threatened by roving gangs of boys, muggers, crazy men, and the rest of the feral folk of the place. Needless to say, Gord stayed well away from the active parts of the quarter.
Three gangs claimed territories that virtually surrounded the place where the boy dwelled. It would be no use to go elsewhere, for no other place would necessarily have fewer threats. Gord had to deal with the threats, the predatory neighbors of all sorts, as a matter of course. Without Leena to frighten off the gangs, Gord was in trouble. Although he had become very clever and wise from having dwelled in the slums since infancy, the prospect of his staying alive was dwindling. Without allies or a protector, he was nothing more than prey for the other boys.
Not only was he small for his age, but Gord was also not very strong. It was more a case of late development than innate weakness, but the harsh environment made no allowance for that. Because he was subject to being bullied by virtually any gang boy, Gord was an undesirable potential member as far as the gangs were concerned. He might be clever, but that threatened the leadership of the gang. He might be fast, but speed and agility weren’t considerations in the society of a group of homeless boys, unless these characteristics were associated with toughness and fighting ability.
Gord’s nature denied him membership anyway. He was a loner, and the very idea of having to be the lowest on the scale, the butt of all others in a gang, was sufficient cause for the boy to stay away from a gang even if he would have been accepted. He was known to many of the other lads in the area, and because he fled from them or was caught and trounced by them, these boys despised and derided him. He was never simply called “Gord”-gutless, chicken, or a similar term always accompanied Gord’s name or was used in place of it. The nature of the slums was for the strong to pick upon the weak, and there was no question that Gord was physically weak.
“You live in our fief now,” a member of the gang called the Headsmen told him at the start of low summer. “You give us half of everything you get, or else we’ll take everything-and beat the crap outta you in the bargain.” Gord told the boy he would do as he was told, but he didn’t actually comply unless circumstances compelled him to. He could be physically bullied, and he cried from the pain of being beaten, but mentally Gord had plenty of courage. Threats and beating made him agree then and there. But once he was away, it was an altogether different matter. He did try cooperating once or twice, voluntarily going to the gang’s headquarters to split some haul with the other boys-only to discover that they took all of his loot anyway. After that, he never sought them out and decided to take his chances instead.
The Headsmen soon caught on to Gord’s defiance and lurked in ambush for him. Whenever they caught him, these bullies seized whatever Gord had, pummeled him, and then let him loose again. It was diversion, amusement, and profit all in one, for Gord usually had something worth taking. The gang profited, but Gord grew weaker still, for he could manage to amass no store of things against the future. Each day he had to find enough to eat, devour what he found immediately, and then attempt to carry anything remaining back through the hostile territory to his own den, without revealing the location of his hideaway either coming or going. Most of the time the return was a disaster. Gord would throw his prizes away, if the opportunity allowed, to avoid being beaten; or else he would be caught, his booty taken from him, and then he would be hit and kicked in the bargain.
There was no other place for him to go, so Gord had no choice but to put up with it. It was a humiliation and a shame. It began to prey upon his mind even as the conditions ate away his strength and stamina. The very names of Chopper, Jot, Snaggle, and the others of the Headsmen were enough to make the boy furious Inside. Finally, after living this way for the better part of a year, Gord decided he had to do something. If he were still in the same area when another winter came, the lad knew that he’d die as Leena had.