"Just so!" Gord said in hearty comradeship as he strolled haughtily along with the Nyrondel nobleman. Cursing under his breath. Chert hastily placed the crate of wine atop the load on the two-wheeled cart and trundled after the receding pair.
The Helix was an exclusive club, evidently, and, as he feared when he learned the status of the establishment, Chert was relegated to the servant's, dining hall while Gord and Lord Maheal supped in the Grand Salon of the place. They had entered a garden through a plain doorway off the Way. The little space was quite lovely and shielded from view by a two-storey wall separating it from the street it formed the patio for the club building, which was a throne-shaped edifice with low wings and a tower in the middle. After passing through a guarded antechamber and climbing a wide, spiral stair to the second storey, Gord and his new friend marched off to their splendid repast.
Chert had been seated on a bench, given a small beer, and then fed a bowl of turnips and hog jowls swimming in a greasy broth, plus a lump of black bread with which to sop up the mess. He was disgruntled at first but the conversation in the drab chamber was open and lively. The huge hillman ended up making several acquaintances there, and when the meal was finished he and a group of five or six others moved to a corner where they could gamble undisturbed.
"Chert!" The insistence in the call was unmistakable and immediately broke through the barbarian's concentration on the game. He looked around and saw Gord just inside the door of the hall. Gord beckoned urgently, and Chert stood up and strode to where his slight comrade waited.
"Tired of fine fare and noble talk already?"
"Spare me your sarcasm. I have not learned as much as I had hoped, but I am invited to the festivities in Rel Mord. That gets us out of here, for you are coming as well of course."
"Strong backs are always needed for transportation of quantities of potables," Chert mused with thoughtful agreement "So how else could it be? Still, I have not exactly wasted my time either and have gleaned some valuable knowledge."
Gord interrupted impatiently, not allowing his brawny friend to say more. "No time for that now. Maheal excused himself to attend to privy needs but will return momentarily and-"
"Not so fast, Gord. Listen to me for once," Chert said forcefully. "I know now how to enter and exit this place without need of some vain twit from Nyrond to carry us as supercargo in order to gain the wine you squandered a fortune on."
"Squandered? How you talk!" Gord nearly shouted, ignoring the rest of what his towering companion had told him. "With thousands in our purses, no count of ones and tens need be taken!" he exclaimed with derision for such copper-clawing accountancy as the barbarian had suggested. Chert merely stared back at him, his eyes unwavering. After a moment Gord's face registered shock. "You've what?" he asked, grabbing the forearm of the silent hillman. "Did you say you know the ins and outs of Weird Way?"
"Yes, Gord," his friend said smugly. "But tell me, did someone come along in the last few seconds and clean out your ears without me noticing?"
"No need to be a smartass, even though I deserve it. Fill me in."
"What about Lord Maheal? Won't he miss you?" Chert asked innocently.
"Futter that fop. Holding the key to entering and leaving this place at will is of utmost importance to us." Gord replied earnestly.
Moments later, nobleman and game both forgotten, the pair were deep in conversation, hunched over the long board where Chert had recently eaten his unappetizing turnip supper. Chert was doing most of the talking, with Gord occasionally asking a question or interjecting a rueful exclamation. A quarter of an hour, perhaps more, passed before they concluded.
"I should have guessed it all along!" Gord said with anger directed at his lack of discernment.
Chert shook his great head. "Not so, my friend. The answer is not so easily gained without the bits and pieces of the puzzle to put together. You did well enough as it is, for had I not managed to find the key you, at least, had our leaving assured."
With an expression of wry disbelief, Gord arose from the bench and clasped the huge barbarian in an embrace. "Thanks, good friend, for your solid thinking and ever-toiling efforts. It is you who have saved the day, not I. Come on. Let's do what we must and be out of Weird Way for a time. This confined place makes me abridged in mind and spirit, it seems!"
The two were leaving, arm in arm, when Lord Maheal called out "Say, I say there! Master Drogo!"
"Time to give this perfumed popinjay something to bite on," Chert said with a grin as both men turned in his direction.
Gord assented and they walked up to the linen-covered table at which the lily-skinned aristocrat was seated, awaiting the return of the fellow he thought to be Master Drogo of the bottomless purse.
"What droll humor causes you to clasp your manservant's arm?" the noble Szek of Dohou-Yohpe asked crossly. "Furthermore, where have you been, Master Drogo? it is improper to leave a lord waiting alone while a common gentleman twaddles about with servants."
Chert was fairly beaming in anticipation, and Gord was readying his retort when a burning, itching feeling at the base of his skull distracted him. The young adventurer instinctively turned, and out of the corner of his eye saw two familiar figures. The more noticeable of the two was the ogrish creature they had encountered yesterday. With him, though, was the vampire, Plincourt. The latter figure flashed Gord a white-fanged smile when the slender thiefs eyes met his red-rimmed ones. Gord turned away hurriedly. Chert had failed to notice anything unusual.
"I say there, this appears to be the start of a very fine evening!" Plincourt said loudly to no one in particular and then added, "I do so love the night life!"
"Shit!" Gord exclaimed.
"I await your apology!" Maheal said petulantly.
"My good lord, you have it — and a thousand more!" said Gord.
Chert scratched his head in utter bewilderment, looking down at his comrade as if the darkly handsome young man had gone mad. Gord nudged his friend and tipped his head in Plincourt's direction.
"Double shit!" Chert bellowed, forgetting himself for the moment.
Leaving Maheal standing oaflshly with a strange expression of amazement on his countenance, Gord seated himself and said confidentially to the Nyrond nobleman. You see. Furd was my playmate and whipping boy as well when I was a lad. I allow him such familiarities and breaches of propriety for the sake of old times, as it were."
Shaking his head over the manners and customs of the folk of so rustic a community as Greyhawk, Lord Maheal thought of the five other bottles of Magoo, or whatever it was called, and the favorable impact it would have on his uncle and the king. The matter of impropriety could be settled later — after the wine was gone and the royal guest had departed. "I now understand," he said in a conciliatory tone. "Let us be off. The revel will not wait for dilatory persons!"
"At your service, your lordship." Gord said as he sprang up and assisted the scrawny aristocrat to his fashionably shod feet. As Maheal straightened his stylish hat, Gord gave a sign to Chert, directing the hillman's attention to the pair of diners glaring at them from a booth at the rear of the salon. As Chert now gaped even more foolishly at the sight revealed, Gord was whispering to the Nyrondel Szek. "You will note, my lord, that the poor fellow is not quite right in the head. I had to strike him once for disobedience, and I fear it was too severe a blow. Furd has been a bit hoddy in the peak ere since."