Night Arrant (27 page)

"I see the azure orb just there," Hop said softly, pointing up to where Celene was moving to meet Luna. "Let's get into the middle of the nearest ring now, so when the dweomerdots appear we can grab them fast if we can clear one ring and get out of the glen, we'll be rich for a month of high-spending nights and lazy days!"

Needing no further prompting, Gord sprang into the glade and was into the nearby ring of fungi with a bound. Hop followed on his heels, crouching down to peer at the sward where the small mushrooms would soon appear. Both of them got out the bags they would use to contain their quarry. A few minutes later, as if by magic, one grew into existence before the young thiefs startled eyes. Gord took a moment to grasp the hilt of his enchanted sword, for it gave him special visual powers. Then he could see a faint hue of pale fuchsia haloing the plump little disc.

"Pssst Hop! I can see color. This one is fuchsia!"

"Put it in your sack with haste, then, and tell me what other hues you detect — how can you see colors, anyway?"

"My ... I ... I just can." Gord stammered, reluctant to give away his secret and not eager to spend their precious time explaining anyway. He reached down, plucked the thumb-sized growth, and thrust it into his bag. Then he turned to observe his companion and the fungi that had suddenly sprung up all around them. Alternately touching his sword hilt and grabbing out for mushrooms, he called out a litany of colors. "There, that one is amber, that puce, there citrine."

Soon Gord had handed his bag over to Hop and was doing little more than calling out the hues he detected, save for the occasional plucking of a few mushrooms that he secreted in the small pouch that dangled from his belt. He figured that if these things were truly as valuable as Hop said they were, it wouldn't hurt for him to stash some away for his own private use. Hop was so busy selectively plucking the more colorful of the dweomerdots and putting them into the bags — while slipping more than a few in the pocket of his cloak — that he didn't notice that Gord was also sneaking some on the side. Scarlet, purple, puce, cerise, mauve, carmine, tangerine, maroon, azure, indigo — a rapidly growing spectrum of colors popped into existence before the two temporary mushroom harvesters faster than Gord would have thought possible.

"Some of these colors are unknown to me, " Hop murmured as he frantically snatched up mushroom after mushroom. "I'm passing those whose hue is of known undesirabillty, but there will be some surprises. Nevertheless, this will be far better than I could have hoped!"

They were at the far edge of the circle. "Opalescent white," the young thief told Hop.

"That's one we should bypass, I think. No matter! On to the next ring as fast as we can go!"'

"Shouldn't we get out of here?"

"And leave a fortune behind for unappreclative little folk? Not on your life, Gord! It's still quiet, and we can fill both sacks to overflowing with the best of the dots in another few minutes. Then we can slip away rich! None'll be the wiser."

The excitement of their work, the prospect of riches, and the possibility of retaining a few especially powerful types of these magical fungi for himself overcame Gord's concern. Perhaps it was a case of good sense being lost to greed, but .... He hurried after Hop and was soon again pointing and advising the mountebank as to which fleshy body of fungus to pluck. Those in this circle were not as varicolored as had been the others, and only a few were taken. "What now?" the young thief inquired.

"There's room in the sacks still. Over there is the largest remaining faerie ring I can see. We'll work that one and leave."

This one was indeed a choice picking ground. New, unknown hues were in profusion, so Hop took first the known colors for surety, then the unique hues for good measure. "Where are the saffron ones?" said Hop, rattling off colors almost as fast as Gord could locate them. "How about the olive color you noted? The russet? Mustard? Salmon? Pearly pink?"

Gord kept calling and pointing, and his friend plucked eagerly. Fifteen minutes after they had entered this last ring Hop announced, "I've filled both bags now, Gord. Off we go!"

Gord restrained him. The sharp-eared adventurer thought he had heard some new sound that was different "Be quiet and let me look and listen for a moment," he hissed.

After a tense few seconds Hop whispered back. "I hear and see nothing. How about you?"

Uneasy but unable to find anything out of the ordinary, Gord gave the glen one more careful sweep with his eyes and ears at peak. "It was either some forest creature passing or my imagination, I guess," the young thief said slowly. "Let's make a dash for the trees now, for I am growing nervous. I think-our luck is running out"

"That never happens to Hop!" the mountebank said with a sure and certain tone. "It is high time for us to leave, though. Last one into the forest is a rot—"

"A wha—" Gord managed to get out before he, too, slumped to the ground. Tiny shafts protruded from their bodies, each one quill-sized, and so numerous that the pair of unmoving bodies looked somewhat like pincushions.

Gord awoke feeling lethargic, chilled, and weak. His mouth tasted as if an offal-bird would have found it a pleasant nesting place. He managed to blink and open his eyes, even though the undersides of the lids felt grainy. And there was Hop, looking like hell's bottom tier, smirking at him.

"Top o' the morning to ya."

"Sod off!"

"Did ye rest well, me lad?" Hop continued his banter, albeit in a rather hoarse and croaking voice.

The young thief managed to prop himself up on one elbow and peer around. Greenish light from monstrous glowworms in a suspended cage of thick wire hung overhead, and this radiance allowed him to survey the scene. He was nudel No wonder he felt chilled, for he was reclining on hard-packed clay. In fact, the whole domed chamber he and the mountebank were in was made of clay. Here and there a boulder protruded. Roots thrust and twined everywhere, some merely arm-thick, others bigger than Gord's torso. There were no doors, no openings. At the topmost portion of the dome the ceiling appeared to be formed of a single slab of timber of odd sort This wood revealed a knotty, roughly circular plug or trap door. That was certainly how they'd come to be in this pit.

"Like the accommodations?"

"Cut the crap, will you. Hop? How long have we been out?"

The mountebank shrugged his naked shoulders. "You've as good a guess at that as I, Gord. I came around to blissful awareness just a few minutes before you did."

"I see. Where are we?"

"In a clay cave, I'd say."

"How'd we get here? Who stripped us?"

"Person or persons unknown."

Gord sighed and stood up. He began a routine of stretching and flexing. Soon the young thief was lost in the exercise, leaping, bending, straining one set of muscles against the other so that tension would build both.

"All that jumping and bending is making me tired." the mountebank drawled as Gord paused a moment in a weird, contorted position.

"You should work out a bit yourself," Gord chided. "It's healthy, makes one vigorous, and aids in all sorts of physical endeavors."

"I’ve done all I need," said Hop haughtily, "for I follow Western principles of meditation and exercise — the mind does more than the muscles, as Rhumsung Lampba P. says."

"Perhaps that worthy one will come to rescue us now." Gord said sarcastically.

"The most renowned of guru mystics? That notion is offensive, even when uttered in jest or jape," Hop said with a sniff. "Rhumsung— "

"Can be blasted!" the young thief interrupted rudely. "Stand in the center of this chamber, Hop, and stop blabbering about the redoubtable guru! If you can make a stirrup with your hands and boost me. I think I can get up high enough to grab the chain holding that cageful of gigantic glowworms." Gord pointed up. "Where do you suppose those monsters come from, anyway? Do such things inhabit this region?"

Hop stood where he'd been told to and cupped his hands with fingers interlaced. They grow pretty big here in Gnarlvergia. Gord, but these are ten times bigger than any glowworms I’ve ever seen, before," he said in reply as he spread his legs and worked his shoulders to warm the muscles.

"Here goes, then! Heave me upward with all your might when my foot lands in your hands!"

The young man hurtled forward, springing from his left foot so the right came into the stirrup Hop made with his hands. Grunting with the effort, the mountebank heaved up, and Gord's momentum was translated to an upward arc. He didn't quite make the heavy chain, but his grasping fingers managed to clutch the upper portion of the wire cage. The metal strands sagged but held. He clawed upward and found the chain, hauled himself up some more, and quickly came to the uppermost part where the chain was fastened to the timber roof with a huge staple.

"Now what?" asked the mountebank, watching with concern as his companion dangled froIII one arm while thrusting against the trap door with the other.

"We . . , ugh! . . . shove . . . oof! . . . this out!"

"Never mind! I get the picture. But how about using your feet to kick it out?"

Even from where he stood. Hop could detect the realization dawning in the mind of the acrobatic adventurer. Gord was being stupid trying to open the trap door with one arm. "I was just about to try that," he called lamely down to his companion. Then, after grabbing onto the huge staple with both hands, he swung back and forth a couple of times to gain momentum. The impact of his bare soles upon the wood made a loud, snapping sound, and the force nearly made Gord lose his grip, but he managed to recover and hold on.

"Great going!" Hop called up enthusiastically. The circular trap door had moved upward about a cubit. "Is that enough for you to crawl through?"

"Easily, Hop. I'll find a rope or something and have you up and out in jig time!" So saying, the young thief swung himself again, this time by one arm, launched his body into the opening, and pulled himself through and out.

A minute later, the end of a thick rope dropped into the chamber where Hop waited, falling until it swung about a foot above the earthen floor of the prison. The rope even had knots spaced at short intervals to facilitate climbing. Gord didn't call any instructions and it was dark above, but the plug was now sitting a full yard above the hole it had stopped, so Hop had no difficulty clambering into the chamber above. As he cleared the opening, a reedy voice sounded from behind him.

"Thank you for saving us the trouble of fetching you."

"Huh?" Hop whirled and peered in vain into the darkness.

"Come this way. Your fellow criminal has already been taken to the Arch of judgement."

Soft light sprang forth from the Up of a slender wand. Hop saw a trio of creatures that looked very much like sprites, but these slender, sharp-featured beings were far more beautiful than sprites — and they were larger than he was! One held an unsheathed sword of needlelike shape casually, and the other two had small bows with arrows nocked and pointed at him.

"This is, of course, an honor I cannot refuse," the mountebank said with a courteous bow. "But could I borrow a bit of clothing first?"

"Get going!" the swordbearer said.

Hop did just that.

"There is no great evil within them." intoned the aged male clad in priestly garments.

"None?" inquired the beautiful, spritelike being seated on a throne of carved and polished wood.

"Tinges of peccadillo, a touch here and there of larcenous desire, and a wisp of dishonesty, yes. But true evil? None of that, your glorious majesty."

"Truespeech is to be laid upon them, then." the queen said in a commanding manner.

Two pairs of armed males advanced on Gord and Hop. Both of the prisoners stood naked and feeling exposed in more ways than one. Worse still, there were many other lovely females present in addition to the queen, and they all seemed to be staring.

"Eat this now!" one of each pair of guards ordered the two prisoners. Each man was offered a wedge of steel-blue fungus about the size of a small piece of pie. Gord and Hop opened their mouths, for their hands were tied behind their backs, so they could do nothing else. The guards crammed the fungus wedges in. "Chew and swallow."

"Ulp!" Gord managed to get it all down, bitter as it tasted. He and the mountebank stood in a large, weirdly arched hall. At least two score of the man-sized sprites were here, not counting the queen, her half-score of attendants, and a dozen armed soldiers.

The place wasn't exactly large enough to accommodate the entire throng, even though it was evidently the throne room, audience chamber and hall of justice all in one. There were shafts and galleries and balconies, with more of the spritelike people crowding every available place. These areas, like the walls, floors and almost everything else in the place, were hewn from living wood!

Where they could be, what tree could be so vast. Gord could not imagine. He had heard of roanwoods that grew nearly ninety feet thick, but this was not roanwood, and their surroundings measured more than ninety feet from end to end. Gord knew this, for after being brought up from the storage cellars above the cell he and Hop had been in. he had been led up curving stairs and through a series of oddly shaped and interconnecting rooms, chambers and corridors. All were on one level — and it was the same level that held this weirdly arched chamber.

"Answer her glorious majesty!"

"A ... a thousand pardons, glorious majesty," Gord stammered. "I was bemused. . . ."

"Her glory asked if you had meant to deprive the Poochauns of their treasure." the officer told him in a hard voice.

"Poochauns? Treasure? I was simply gathering wild mushrooms. Of these Poochauns and their treasure I cannot say, for I do not know them or it."

"You!" another official said to Hop. "Did you know to whom the 'mushrooms' belonged?"

Hop opened his mouth, seemed to inhale and swallow, then said, "I knew that the little folk — sprites, grigs, atomies, pixies, and brownies — favor such places. I knew that tales told indicate that these folk relish the dweomerdots. I have crept into the glen aforetimes, though, and picked some small amount. Never did I see anyone to contest my right to do so. The produce of the wild wood is surety the property of the one who takes it first"