Now the cleric stopped and assessed the boy before him more carefully. There was more to the lad than he first thought. This boy wanted the thing as more than a novelty, for some other reason than a light to study by.
“Perhaps you and I should go into my personal apartment and have a chat. If you explain to me exactly why you have need of the lightstone, we may be able to strike a bargain. What say you…?”
“Gord, sir,” he supplied without thinking. “I have my reasons, and I’ll be honored to speak further with you, but I don’t think I will actually be able to explain fully.”
The tall man smiled again, taking a closer look at the lad. “Well, Gord, you are certainly honest in your statements. Perhaps I won’t have to hear a full explanation. Still, let’s you and I have a chat to see about this matter.” With that the priest led the way to the rear of the place where various administrative offices and lodgings were located.
After perhaps an hour the two emerged again, the boy talking as they did so. “… and you see, sir, that I have reason to search out this thing because of need!”
“It is a foolish undertaking-typical of youth!”
“With or without your help. I will do it.” Gord’s voice was firm, his face a study in determination, but he was neither wheedling nor imploring. The youngster simply stated fact.
The cleric was a good judge of character, and he read Gord easily.
The lad had admitted no details, but did tell the cleric that he planned to seek treasure in a place where difficulty, not danger, was the major obstacle. Wise in the ways of the world, the tall cleric knew that where one factor was present, the other would likely be encountered as well. Still, he was not inclined to belabor that point. And there was something about this boy…
“You shall have my help,” the cleric said after a brief pause, “in the form of a lightstone and a blessing too. Give your contribution over for those in need, and both will I then bestow. When you return with your treasure, you will pay the agreed-to fee and also again contribute to the needy.”
Gord presented his hand. The cleric noted ink stains, a sure sign of bookish pursuits. He also found the hand calloused and hard. The lad did physical work as well! There was certainly more to the small student than first met the eye.
“Happily agreed, good priest!” Gord said heartily.
The tall man smiled. “And gladly done, Gord. May all be well with you.”
The boy waved farewell. “In two days I’ll be back to see you. You are truly a fine man to understand this matter so well!”
The cleric smiled wryly at that. He doubted that his decision would meet with approval from on high, but he was subject to mortal weaknesses too. The lad had him caught up in adventurous nonsense.
As promised, Gord appeared in two days, and the lightstone was ready.
Chapter 13
He entered the sewers from the Moat Stream Canal, where a narrow strip of warehouses and shops existed between the waterway and the wall that separated Old City from New Town.
Gord chose a place where he would come under the beggars’ section of the ancient portion of Grey-hawk, rather than farther south where the passages would take him under the Thieves Quarter. The reasoning was simple. The more southerly sewers would be heavily trafficked by thieves, while those to the north, where the beggars held sway, would be virtually unused-particularly now that the business of stealing was the sole province of the thieves. Because of his training, Gord was able to detect the secret signs of both thiggers and thieves. Any concealed adits would be marked, and Gord needed to find some means of getting lower in the subterranean maze.
He had used his mechanical skills, those gained at locksmithing principally, to fashion a small case for the enspelled stone. It was a tight cube of sheet tin, each of its six faces only a few inches square. The lightstone was tightly wedged between the top and bottom of the box so that it would not move or even rattle. One of the side faces was solidly and permanently fastened to the top and bottom for added rigidity, and a handle affixed to it, so that half of the sides of the cube were set. Each of the other three faces was flanged at the top and fasteners were placed there to allow locking. Along the bottom each side had a hinge. Flip the hook, shove the flange with thumb or finger, and the face would drop away to allow light to spill out.
The face opposite the handle was, by definition, the front of the lantern-the gadget, for all its distinctiveness, was actually nothing more than that, all in all. Gord had made a small hole there and added a flat piece of tin that could be slid aside to uncover the aperture. That allowed the light-box to send forth a thin, bright beam of light without illuminating all the space ahead or nearly around him, as was the case when all three sides of the device were allowed to drop open.
He was pleased with his work, even though he had been unable to keep the cube from emitting any light at all when he closed it. Try as he might, Gord could not stop the bright light from being visible along the cracks where the moving faces met the frame. Finally he decided to use the side-face openings only in an emergency and plugged the light leaks there with beeswax blackened with soot. Because there was no help for the other glimmerings, from where the front face met its four neighbors, Gord carried the box inside a baggy jacket where he could easily conceal its illumination by the cloaking effect of the dark, thick cloth.
He wore a long cloak over his other garments as he walked northward to arrive at the place where he planned to enter the sewers. Having set out just as the sun was sinking, Gord timed his arrival so it was just fully dark when he came to his destination. The boy was small enough to be able to slip through the side opening in the grate that covered the entrance, and being familiar with such places enabled him to find the iron rungs of the ladder leading down without using any illumination.
At the bottom of this first shaft, some fifteen feet below street level, Gord blinked and looked around. His eyesight was excellent, his night vision superb according to those who knew about such things. The faint light from above was sufficient to enable Gord to discern the walls and the places where the vaulted drains ran from the conjoining point of the shaft. After orienting himself, Gord chose the one going north and carefully proceeded up the tunnel for several yards. Then he took out his magical lantern and allowed a little light to spill out from the hole in the front face.
“Just a trickle,” he said aloud, satisfaction evident in his tone, as he viewed what was before him. The old drain had a concave bed in which a small stream of waste ran. The stuff was mostly water, and it was flowing in the same direction the boy was headed. Gord stood on a narrow ledge some three feet above the channel. The stones were enslimed and worn, dangerous unless one was careful. The odor was nauseating, but not so horrible as to make breathing painful.
“It could be worse,” Gord said as he slipped a wrapping of black cloth up from around his neck to mask his nose and mouth. At the last minute he had thought of this added bit of gear, as well as a small flask of vinegar to douse it with, but that would be used only if the air got really foul. Off came the cloak, and in a trice he had it rolled, slung, and tied over his right shoulder.
Pacing carefully ahead, Gord found no secret sign to indicate that there was any concealed means of egress from the sewer. Coming to another junction point, he decided to turn right, into the system that ran under the center of the Beggars Quarter. This tunnel was about a foot above the north-south one, so he had to step up. The concave drain on the floor in this conduit was absolutely dry. There were heavy webs and a few scurrying beetles, but nothing else. The existence of the webs confirmed his judgment. The sewer he had been in was not one that had been used by anyone coming from Old City, else these webs would have been mangled and torn down before now.