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.

Using his sword to clear away the webs, and being careful to avoid the spiders that hid within them, Gord walked quickly along his route, covering ground at a good pace because the ledge was dry and easy. Soon thereafter that changed.

Several openings here released effluent into the main tunnel. Those that opened onto his side made going difficult, and Gord had to use his athletic ability a few times to avoid being drenched by the noisome outpouring of one pipe or another. There were glitterings ahead, and nasty chitterings and squeakings that told the boy that there were rats here.

Just as he was becoming discouraged, Gord saw a series of marks on the opposite wall. They were barely discernible and to the untrained eye would have appeared as nothing more than worn places in the stone blocks. Gord read a sign that alerted the initiated to the fact that there was a means of leaving the sewers just ahead.

“Damn!” he said under his breath. The exit led upward, not below. Where there was a means of leaving the maze, however, there might also be a way deeper as well. Gord forged ahead.

About half an hour later he came to a place where several sewer tunnels met. The effluents formed a deep pool in the circular chamber where the various drains converged, and there were flying bridges built to span the noxious pond. Gord flashed his light atop one of the spans, and when Gord’s light struck its greenish-black body a reptile shot off its perch to land with a splash in the pool below. The tail of a huge rat was hanging from the side of its mouth. Gord saw that clearly before the thing vanished under the scummy surface.

Shuddering involuntarily, the boy paused a minute to make certain than some even bigger monster wasn’t lurking about. The stench here was practically unbearable, so while he was pausing, Gord decided to douse his scarf with vinegar. Again he changed directions, going right to parallel his initial route. After carefully traversing the flying bridge that led in the desired direction, he was again prowling along a passage, this time walking southward.

He saw a narrow opening about a hundred paces from the pool. It didn’t seem promising, but something urged Gord to investigate it Just in case. The corridor was not more than twenty feet long and terminated in a flight of steep stairs… upward. He turned away in disgust, using that emotion to fight off his despair, when something caught his eye. It was another marking on the wall, one he had overlooked at first because of the narrowness of the passage and his rush to find out where it led. The sign indicated access to a lower pathway!

With a sigh of relief, Gord began searching along the wall opposite the marking. He knew from experience that such signs were often used to mark location as well as give information. Thanks to his sharp eyes and with the help of his light, Gord was able to discover the hidden door in just minutes. It took much longer for him to discover how the mechanism worked that enabled the doorway in the stone blocks to open. Eventually he found the place where a knife blade could be inserted to release a catch, and a low section of the wall swung inward to reveal another passageway going off at a right angle to the narrow passage he was in. Gord entered the place without hesitation, pushed the door shut, and smiled to himself in triumph.

The low tunnel led to more stairs, but these spiraled down. It was impossible to discover if this was an oft-traveled route, because the damp stones would not leave traces of passage-at least not to one who was not an expert at tracking. Gord was many things, but no expert at discovering such signs, He merely looked as he progressed, checked to see if he could notice his own trail behind himself, and shrugged. Whether or not there were other users, Gord meant to go downward now and take his chances.

The circling steps took him down and down. By counting Gord was able to estimate that he was at least another twenty feet deeper when the staircase ended in the corner of a small room with four passages leading from it at right angles to one another. All well and good, but thanks to his spiraling path Gord now had no idea of direction. There was only one way to get his bearings, and that required that he go back up the stairway and mark the wall on the way down using his chalk, noting every time he had made enough of a turn to leave him pointing in a different direction. Eventually Gord determined that the little room at the base of the stairs was hewn eastward from where the steps ended. That meant that the narrow, arched exits from the room led off in the cardinal directions. Excellent!

Gord stopped to catch his breath and to take a sip of the brandy he had. This was exciting stuff! As he rested, the enormity of what he was doing, where he was, suddenly struck the boy. Even though he had been in the sewers previously, this excursion was more than a bit frightening now that he stopped to think about it. When he had pondered this mission during the planning of it, the thought of risk had simply added zest to his undertaking. This was ah altogether different situation. Now Gord was actually in the totally unknown, where great dangers probably lurked, seeking a place he was uncertain of, and as alone as any boy could be. Despite his best efforts, Gord’s rate of breathing increased until he was panting, and his heart raced. Fear was getting hold of him.

“Calm down, or else they’ll be calling you ‘Gutless’ again,” he said aloud. The sound of his voice helped to reassure him, and the epithet he hated so much was sufficient to do the rest. Unknown monsters were one thing, but the fear of being thought of as a coward was stronger than the apprehension of facing hidden perils here. Gord slowed his breathing with conscious effort, took a pull from the little flask of brandy, and spoke aloud again.

“That’s better now, isn’t it? High time we showed everyone that there is no more little boy to shove around!” The fiery liquor spread outward in him, and he reassured himself further by touching his hand briefly to the sheath of his dagger and the hilt of his sword. Then, getting back to business, he took out his waterproof case and flipped it open. He checked his three sketch maps carefully, trying to locate his position on the second one by guessing where he had been on the first when he found the spiral steps that led to this second tier of ducts beneath Old City.

“Then I must be about here,” he muttered to himself as he made a small mark on the second map. “South will take me to the place where the canal runs below, and then I’ll need to head west, so it’s a right turn at that point… Anyway, the flow will be east, toward the great basin of the reservoir, so it’ll be easy to know direction.”

Despite his returned confidence and bravery, the boy stopped to listen, his lantern dark and sword at the ready, at each of the room’s other exits before he ducked through the one that went to the south. He was now in the system of tunnels and passageways that the assassins and thieves held as their own secret highway. Gord had no desire to disillusion the likes of them, or to stumble unwittingly into some creature who dwelled in this labyrinth, and caution was not cowardice! There was a faint dripping sound from the shaft he had just come down, but otherwise the stillness was absolute. Gord held his breath, quieted himself as completely as he could. Nothing. Carefully moving the slide on his light-box to allow a tiny shaft of illumination to spring ahead, Gord set off once more on his quest.

He came across side openings at regular intervals. Gord’s light showed that there were empty chambers beyond. He couldn’t guess why these had been chiseled out. Possibly to store food or weapons or both, possibly for some reason that could not be guessed at now. The passage was dry, and there were no living things along its way. Both of those facts changed, however, as he went farther.

The air went from cold and chilly to actually damp, and Gord noticed thick webs stretched across an opening on the right-hand wall. He paused and looked carefully at the walls ahead and to the rear. They had not been immediately obvious, but there were certainly wisps and small fragments of web clinging to the walls. This passage had been used by someone, and not very long ago! Whoever had come along its length had cleared the way of most of the webbing, but traces remained.

As he took this in with his eyes, Gord also used his ears. The sound of trickling water came first, then he heard voices somewhere ahead, their words indistinguishable in the echoing tunnel.

Dimming his lantern to its lowest illumination, the boy sank down to the stone floor and used his sword to make as small an opening as he could in the curtain of silken strands that covered the archway on the west wall. He then slithered through the hole and tried to replace the strands of web he had sliced away, to partially hide the space he had passed through. The effort was clumsy at best, but it was the best he could manage. Then he crept quickly along to where this entrance tunnel opened up into a chamber beyond, slipped around the corner, and tucked the light-box into his jacket. All of this was done in utmost haste, and he didn’t stop to consider what might be in this place with him. Gord simply sat very still, his back pressed against the slimy stone of the wall, and waited. Something scuttled across his hand. Gord nearly shrieked, then bit his lip, huddled tightly to make himself even smaller, and held his breath.

There were footfalls in the passage just a half-dozen feet away. Rough voices spoke in hissing tones punctuated with guttural sounds and sharp barkings. Were they ogres? Trolls? Then the sounds became clearer.

“Dat was a nasty bunch o’ creeps we had ta take out,” one deep voice said. There were a score of others discernible too. There was a whole platoon of men going past the place! At least they sounded like men, and the rattle and clink must have come from armor and weapons. “Who needs duty like this here?” another voice said with a questioning whine. Most of the troop had clumped past where Gord was hiding when one must have seen the break in the webs.

“Hey, lookit! Sumpin’s been ’round dis!” The flickering light of torches shone dimly through the veil of spiderwebs, and a dark shadow made a long shape stretching into the place where he crouched. “Shove yer torch into ’em, and frazzle da ettercaps. Den we have a little look-see, huh?”

The sounds of feet were fading off northward. “Whaddya, crazy? Who gives a rat’s ass what’s been goin’ in dere anyway? C’mon!” The second man’s voice trailed off.

“Hey, wait up, Albie!” shouted the first voice. The light faded as did the sound of feet and voices. Gord let out his breath with a gentle whoosh. Relief flooded over him. The passing group apparently had been no more than some sort of patrol, probably a branch of the city watch-men that normally stayed above ground. Whoever sent the soldiers down to this place, and why, was beyond Gord’s understanding. But no matter what the reason for their presence, the realization was comforting to the boy. He was accustomed to ducking squads of the watch, and the soldiers’ presence here meant that this part of the maze wasn’t filled with dangers.

There could be some perils, of course. The fact that Gord could avoid such groups meant that others could also, and that the boy understood. One man had talked of “taking out” something called “creeps.” Gord figured that this meant the patrols of men did come here once in a while to keep the place relatively clear of dangerous threats. This subterranean system of passages was used then, and used frequently, by those powerful enough to employ men-at-arms to police it.

All sound was gone now, so Gord decided to take a look around the chamber he was in before venturing back into the passageway. He nearly dropped his lantern when he saw the place.

Not more than twelve inches from his feet was a yawning hole in the floor! He was sitting on a ledge that encompassed the well, but the portion along the wall next to the entrance tunnel was the only place the stone floor didn’t slope steeply, funnel-like, into the great opening. If he had taken one more step into the chamber, or even crawled a short distance in the darkness, he would have gone over the edge and fallen to whatever lay below!

A big, pale-colored spider froze into motionless-ness as the beam of light from Gord’s lantern centered on it. It was as big as his fist and had wicked-looking mandibles. Perhaps that was what had run across his hand. “Ugh!” he said aloud. Gord’s voice echoed strangely in the room, and he was instantly silent, wishing he hadn’t made such a noise.

The spider scuttled off when Gord brought his sword’s point near. Ignoring it thereafter, the boy stood up and looked down into the well. It was deep, but his light illuminated its bottom well enough. Then Gord played the lantern upward, found an opening in the ceiling as well, and instantly knew what he had stumbled upon. Here was one of the drains that used to send water from ducts and conduits, from collection points above, down to the system below for storage in the great reservoir. He had found a passageway to the lowest level at last!

The chamber was indeed similar to a well. It must have been meant as a place where the besieged defenders of old Greyhawk could come to draw up water from the canal below-the very same canal in which Theobald had plunged to his doom. Red stains and bits of corrosion on the sides of the shaft told him that there had once been iron rungs set into the sides of the well, but time and rust had had their way with the metal.

“Well, now,” he whispered to himself, smiling at his own pun, “it’s time for me to shimmy down and have a look.” The boy unwrapped his stout cord from around his waist, put a few knots at regular intervals along its length, and then took a flat piece of steel out of his belt pouch. The metal wedge was pointed at one end and had an eye at the other.

Gord jammed the pointed end into a crack, then pounded it in farther with the pommel of his boot knife. After assuring himself that it was firmly set, Gord ran an end of the thick cord through the eye and knotted it securely around the spike. He dropped the loose end over the side and heard a tiny splash when it hit the water below.

“That’s about forty feet,” he said to himself after shining his light over the edge and counting the knots that were visible in the line. The cistern in the subcellar at Theobald’s headquarters had gone down a hundred or more feet, but the place where he stood now was farther below the surface. Gord was certain that the water below was what he sought. After thonging the lantern securely around his neck, Gord opened the front face fully and slipped over the ledge. He used his feet to push off from the wall and slide down the rope without banging into the stone. Centuries of erosion had made the shaft smooth and slippery. “It’ll be a bugger to climb back up,” he said through gritted teeth as he carefully lowered himself hand over hand down into the well-like shaft.

After about thirty feet there was no more wall. Once his head was beneath the place where the shaft pierced the ceiling of the canal, Gord used his feet to grip a knot, hung swaying, and grabbed the little tin box with his right hand. The black water below was impervious to his light, but Gord knew from the ancient plans that the depth of a canal such as this was only fifteen feet-ample volume for any flood of rainwater or diverted stream being sent to the waiting reservoir. From the place where the well shaft entered the tunnel to where his boots rested was just about seven feet, and he dangled at least five feet above the inky surface of the water. This meant that there could be no more than four feet of water at the lowest portion of the curving conduit. Where he dangled there would be no more than a foot or so between the surface of the liquid and the rock beneath. Gord lowered himself on down the line, allowing his feet to sink below the black surface.

The water flowed sluggishly away to the right. Gord balanced on the slippery, sloping stone beneath his feet, the black liquid covering his boots to a point midway up his shins. Still clasping the rope, the lad tried a few small, sideways steps, first away, then back to where the line depended from above. The footing wasn’t terrible, and he gained confidence. Still grasping the line, he walked cat-foot, one step just ahead of the last. If he went cautiously and leaned slightly to the left, toward the curving wall of the tunnel, he could move along fairly well. Leaving the lantern where it was hanging at his chest, Gord decided the time had come. With his sword drawn and held toward the inky surface of the channel, and casting sideways glances suspiciously there, Gord loosed his hold on the cord and headed off to his left. Somewhere up that way, certainly no more than a few hundred yards distant, lay the bones of Theobald and a rusty iron strongbox!

The effort required to keep from slipping toward the center of the canal and falling into the lurid water, combined with the necessity of constantly checking ahead, behind, and above, was exhausting, and Gord’s progress was agonizingly slow. He refused to panic and rush ahead, though. He deliberately went over and over his routine in his mind as he performed the steps. Look back and to the right… and watch for ripples approaching or the gleam of feral eyes. Now look ahead, search carefully for the same danger. Now flash the light’s beam above. No openings. Check ahead before you move on, go slowly when you move, and stop before you repeat your scan for potential danger.

At about sixty paces Gord chalked a mark on the wall. After three such marks the boy went through his search procedure carefully again, took time for a sip of brandy, and pressed ahead. The squishy feeling inside his boots told him that they were beginning to allow the water of the subterranean canal to penetrate their oil-soaked and greased exterior. Well, that was bound to occur, and the discomfort wouldn’t stop him.

After making a seventh chalk mark on the wall, Gord was starting to become disheartened. Perhaps he had misjudged the eastern orientation of his location when he entered from above. Could Theobald’s former headquarters lie off in the other direction? It seemed unlikely, but the cold and dark and silence were beginning to tell on him. His nerves were frayed, and his mouth opened and closed with each breath. Why had he ever done anything so stupid and crazed as this anyway? No treasure was so great as to risk all this for.

“It Isn’t the treasure, dolt, it’s the need to prove yourself that drives you on!” That thought made him pause and regroup. “Do I need to prove myself to myself?” That answer was clear, but he verbalized it to himself anyway.

“Who else is benefiting from this exhibition? We are alone in our head, you and I, and if we are not brave now, only a coward will remain hereafter…” Stop! He was mumbling to himself, just as old Leena used to talk to herself. The thoughts were true, nonetheless, and they served to urge Gord onward.

Where he would have made his ninth mark there was no wall. Gord had come to a basin, a widening in the canal. As in the sewer above, the canal was enlarged to form a chamber where two smaller ducts met on either hand to empty into the main conduit. His light was strong, but it barely enabled him to see the distant walls of the chamber. The near wall was only about twenty feet away. The eastern one, where the water of the canal flowed from, was not less than sixty feet away, and the far wall seemed to be the same distance as well. The domed ceiling above was smooth save for a small hole. From that aperture hung the remains of what apparently had been a ladder. This had to be the place-the cistern into which he had precipitated the beggarmaster and his strongbox three years ago.

By racking his brain Gord could recall seeing basins such as the one before him drawn in the ancient engineering diagrams. They were spotted along the course of each canal to serve as waterholes, more or less, for those not able to tap the central pool, the reservoir far beneath the old citadel. Gord berated himself mentally for not considering the possibility that the cistern might plunge into such a basin. What had the drawings indicated? The basins were dish-shaped and had a central depth of twenty feet… which meant that bones and box were twenty feet below the black water!

“Godsdamn you, Theobald!” Gord screamed this out, and the echoes gave it back to him in a broken taunt: “…damn… damn… damn… you… you… you… Theobald… eobald… bald… aid… aid.” As if in answer to the cry, the dark surface of the circular basin rolled and heaved-and something rose above the inky waters.

Gord turned at the sound of it breaking the surface, and the full beam of the lantern fell upon the thing that was there. What the monstrosity was he couldn’t tell. If ropes and rotting seaweed were intertwined and covered with the black ooze found at the bottom of a stagnant pond, a correct picture of the thing would begin to take shape. Add to that the trailing tendrils of a monstrous jellyfish and the thick tentacles of a great octopus. Finish it off with encrustations of things, vast bumps like rotting anemones, broader patches that resembled nothing other than masses of exposed intestines, and excrescencies that might have been putrescent mollusks without their protective shells.

That is what reared up from the black waters of the basin, and Gord wanted to flee at the sight of it. But there was no place to run.

Gord stood, more paralyzed with fear than steadfast because of bravery, and the light of his lantern brought the creature into stark relief as it heaved its way through the water, making the inky liquid dance under the illumination, drawing closer by a yard with each heave of its rotten, slinking body. The horror made him cringe, and his feet moved instinctively, taking him back along the conduit, but only one foot for each yard the creature was covering. There could only be one end to this encounter.

As the monster thrashed toward him, beating the ebon waters into a dark froth with its furious passage, Gord kept his eyes fixed upon the thing, backing still, sword now pointed at the ghastly abomination. As if hypnotized he watched the scene before him, and was quietly amazed to see that parts of the horror were breaking off as it advanced.

A massive tentacle broke into writhing pieces as it came. Bits of stuff, the rotted growths and adhering pieces, flew away or slid off the mass with audible, sucking pops. The thing was disintegrating before his eyes! At the same time, its rush was slowing, but it still gained on him. Now it was within the canal, and its bulk was evident. Its congealed mass of a body was vaguely seal-shaped, as large as a great walrus, and had a necklike protrusion that thrust toward the boy, snaking ahead with each convulsion of the monster’s body.

Gagging in terror as much as from the fetid stench that arose from the mass, Gord kept backing. Soon the monstrous thing would be upon him!

Smack! The form heaved up and came down closer still. Splash… plop…plop, plop-plop. The waves of displaced water struck the walls and his own legs, nearly knocking Gord off his feet, as pieces of rotten stuff continued to drop off.

Schlooop! It was drawing its body up again, this time with the long neck rearing as if it were a serpent coiling to strike. As if in slow motion Gord saw it all, and he finally realized what was happening. Under the bright light from his magical stone, the foul substances that composed the body of the thing were melting away, but the horror seemed totally unaware that it was dwindling, unaffected by its parts sloughing away in hunks and bits.

The reptilian forepart was high above Gord’s head now, its end bulbous, its neck melting away to show white beneath the blackness of rot and muck. But the thing was still coming on, and there could be no further retreat. The creature was upon him.

As the snakelike neck began to move forward and down, Gord grabbed the hilt of his sword with both of his small hands. Despite the chill, both of his palms were sweating freely. Holding on with all his might, Gord swung the puny blade to meet the terrible head as it swung down to smash him. Steel met corruption with a disgusting sound. There was a spray of putrid stuff everywhere, and then the head and neck were lying in the water just in front of him.

“Oh, gods!” The boy cried the words so loudly that they nearly deafened him, but at the same time he was comforted by the fact that he could speak-that meant he was still alive!

The horrible body, meanwhile, deprived of its forepart, flapped and writhed. Tendrils and tentacles continued breaking away, or simply dissolved in the waters. Great sections of the unnatural agglomeration of stuff similarly disappeared, falling into bits, washing away; going into nothingness.

Gord watched this, his teeth chattering, eyes bulging, until there was nothing of the horror left to see. It took only a very brief time even in the slow current of the canal. In minutes the black water was as placid as a quiet pool, and even the noisome reek of the monster had wafted away along the great pipeline. Gord shook himself, reached into his shirt, and pulled out the small container of brandy with a trembling hand. Using his teeth to pull the cork, the boy downed the remaining liquor with a gulp and tossed the empty flask away without a thought.

“Hollering hags of Hades!” he uttered with a long, whooshing breath thereafter. Too weak to stand any longer, Gord put his back against the curving rock of the conduit and allowed his knees to buckle. Slowly he sank to a sitting position, the cold flow of the dark water washing his body all the way to his ribcage. He didn’t notice, for his eyes were riveted to something discernible in the water nearby. There, just under the surface, picked out by the light of the enspelled stone of his lantern, was a globular object, white and familiar somehow. Then he recognized it. The thing was a human skull!

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.