Night Arrant

by Gary Gygax

  Hissing and baring his fangs, the vampire Plincourt, unable to transform himself into bat form, had fallen from the air where he had suddenly appeared. Plincourt popped onto the scene directly above the upper end of the hall, the place where the king and his attendants, Lord Fizziak, and several noble priests were seated in state. The vampire landed squarely upon the lap of the Most Venerable Quinthup, Chief Cleric of All Nyrond. Reacting instinctively, the vampire sunk his inch-long fangs into the holy man's left thigh, even as the outraged cleric smote Plincourt a tremendous thump with the silver symbol of his exalted state, which he had been holding aloft ceremonially. Both vampire and chief cleric bore expressions of shock and horror at this exchange, but the Holy Father was the first to recover. He quickly proceeded to beat the vampire with his ancient and blessed divine relic while lesser priests surrounding the two hastened to add blessed water and various and sundry other sorts of attacks upon the undead creature. Plincourt, teeth viciously closed upon Quinthup's leg, was brought to a long-deserved end within a matter of moments. But Gord had no time to observe or enjoy the event.

  Steel-clad guardsmen had finally managed to get through the wild, screaming press that filled the chamber. The young thief ducked a scything sweep of a halberd, only to be struck squarely on the temple by a chance stroke from the metal-shod butt of a second such weapon. Blackness descended, and the roaring swelled into a velvety silence. EscapingWeird Way had been accomplished, but even narrower confines now hedged them in. It was a sorry pass indeed.

  Prisoners soon graced Lord Fizziak's dungeon cells, Gord among them, but he wasn't aware of his sad state for several hours. The king, hastening to get clear of the melee between priest and horrid-visaged vampire, gave a most unroyal bound. His feet came down squarely on top of the spilled fruit, skidded, reached the pool of rich cream laden with butlerfat, and left the floor in a relatively horizontal position. "Whoosh!" his majesty exclaimed as the exalted seat of power struck the marble tiles on the floor.

  "I am undone!" wailed Lord Maheal.

  "He, too, goes below!" his uncle commanded, glaring at the young Szek. "Perhaps the king will get over this — eventually — but it might require the removal of a few heads from their useless bodies!"

  Lord Maheal was carried off after the others, wailing and pleading most piteously. Despite his loud blubbering, however, the foppish nobleman heard the voice of the king plainly enough.

  "Heads? Heads, you say? A dozen will not be sufficient to compensate for my losses!" the monarch of Nyrond roared. "Guardsmen, to me! Who knows what further treachery is planned?"

  Lord Fizziak hastened to make apologies while swarms of varlets went to work to restore order. Eventually the whole affair was smoothed over to some extent.

  The inhabitants of the dungeon were not so fortunate, however, to escape from the confines.

  A Revel in Rel Mord

  "WHEN I AM RELEASED you'll pay for this." the noble Szek of Dohou-Yohpe blubbered.

  His threat was followed by a few derisive laughs and a muttered command to "Sit on it!"

  This response so infuriated Lord Maheal that he forgot about his sniveling. Standing straight, arms at his sides and flsts clenched in anger, he glared at his fellow cellmates and loudly proclaimed. "That will make your punishments more painful, you base-born knaves! I will personally lash you soundly before you are beheaded!"

  "Shall I shut the pipsqueak up — or do you want to do it, Gord?" Chert asked his comrade.

  "If he says another word, you can have what's left of him when I finish," Gord replied, his voice heavy with malice.

  Undaunted, the noble Maheal peered from one enemy to the other, an ugly sneer accompanying his words. That's another damning bit! I recall you claimed to be one Master Drogo while that great churl you just called Chert was masquerading as Furd. Such lies are simply more grist for the mill of revenge," Maheal sniffed in haughty conclusion and then, deciding that he was not quite finished yet, turned to face the third of his cellmates and added, "And this . . . thing! How dare mine own dear nuncle incarcerate me with . . . with ... a monster both menacing and ugly!" His final words were sputtered in a fit of near rage.

  The object of Maheal's new tirade bared his large fangs and advanced upon the Szek of Dohou-Yohpe. The rumbling in his throat and the clutching motions of his long, thick fingers made his intent unquestionable; this ogre was about to tear the abusive nobleman limb from limb. One look was sufficient to convey this message to Lord Maheal as well. He uttered a frightened squawk and darted behind the other two humans.

  "Save me, save mel" he whined, dropping to a, crouch and groveling in abject terror.

  "Don't do something you'll regret, Pinkus!" Gord cautioned the enraged creature as he situated himself, somewhat reluctantly, between the ogre and the cowering Maheal. Although there were three of them against one, if need be, Gord knew they were probably no match for the monster. It would be best to try to reason with him.

  "Are you crazy, Pinkus?" Chert said, dispensing with reason and psychology altogether. "Use that horny lump on top of your shoulders for something other than a battering ram," he added, referring to the creature's immediate reaction to their incarceration a day ago. The ogre-magus had then attempted to smash down the bronzewood door of their dungeon cell by butting it. All the fellow had received for his efforts was a bump on his thick cranium.

  "Yah, Pinkus." Gord figured if Chert's words had not done any damage, his two cents' worth wasn't going to hurt anything after the fact. "If the Grand Count of Fizziak is determined to blame us for his recent loss of favor with the king, how much more so if we usurp his prerogatives and kill his nephew here!"

  The huge enjure stared at Gord with bloodshot, yellow-pupiled eyes, snarled, and ceased his threatening approach. "Sometimes I wish I were of the savage stock of pre-ancestral sort found on this world rather than the enlightened race we have become. Frankly, I don't give us one chance in a hundred regardless of what we do to that little monkey," Pinkus concluded, with a casual sweep of a monstrous arm that dismissed the huddling Lord Maheal as not worthy of consideration.

  Gord had to agree in his heart. If Lord Fizziak valued his nephew, the young noble would never have been thrown into the same cell with himself. Chert, and the creature calling himself Pinkus, a seeming ogre-magus. The affair would be laughable if their current situation were not so dire.

  The terrible ruin made by their precipitation over the Grand Hall when the transportation device failed was not so easily dealt with. When Gord had been surrounded by guards, and the ogre, Pinkus, knocked unconscious. Chert had done his barbarian best to prevent the guards from putting him hors de combat it was a valiant fight, but eventually Chert, too, had been laid low.

  Grand Count Fizziak was humiliated and in his ire quite prepared to put the lot. including Lord Maheal, on the gibbet instantly. But King Archbold, covered from head to foot with the food he had hoped to offer his guests, decreed that punishment would be less swift. He ordered Lord Fizziak to confine the offenders in the dungeon of the castle until further notice. As theirs was an offense against his person, a crime of lese majeste, as it were. Arch-bold III would make it his personal responsibility to decide the eventual sentence to be meted out.

  Although beside himself with his own desire for revenge, the grand count had no choice. Stripped of all weapons, the four offenders were tossed into the cell they now inhabited. A full week had passed since, and the bread was more stale and the water more foul than when they began their incarceration. The cell was constructed to hold prisoners of special sort — those capable of employing spells and magic. No dweomer would function within the confines of the place. The walls were solid stone, and the bronzewood door was bound in silvered bands of iron, triple-locked, and watched constantly by a hard-eyed turnkey. The prisoners would remain securely in their cell until the king decided their fate; of that there was no question.

  Lord Maheal had alternately wept and cursed the others during the first day
or two. Meanwhile, Gord and Chert learned a bit about the ogre-magus. It seemed that this creature was from an alternate world, a place where humans were nothing more than savage, apelike creatures living in forests and jungles. Ogres, too, were animals, but the monsters known on Oerth as ogre-magi were the civilizing-force of that world. The creature introduced himself as Pinkus, claiming that he was an agent for a firm that imported and exported goods from many worlds and planes.

  "Why help Plincourt attack us?" Chert had inquired mildly.

  "I owed him a favor — besides, I don't like either of you!" Pinkus had said with a snarl. Fortunately, the civilized ogre-magus was not nearly as big or as strong as the monstrous sort that plagued Oerth, although he was large enough to be threatening, being a span more than eight feet in height and weighing about five hundred pounds or so.

  For the last few days, the Szek of Dohou-Yohpe had been nagging and threatening his fellow prisoners with terrible punishments. The noble had recovered sufficiently to imagine that somehow he would prove that he was blameless, gain his uncle's forgiveness, and thus be able to visit his wrath upon the heads of those he held responsible for his current pass.

  Gord had to laugh at the whole. Childless, Lord Fizziak had shown great favor to his nephew Maheal, and it seemed that for some time all the grand count's court had presumed that Maheal was the heir apparent to all the Fizziak fiefs and holdings. So too, the young Szek of Dohou-Yohpe had aspired. But no longer! The grand count had made a point of sending a page to read a pronouncement naming a distant cousin of Maheal's as chamberlain. This position was the most likely one for the heir of the family to hold, and Maheal fell into a deep depression and was silent for nearly a whole day after hearing the news. Then he had begun his hysterical tirade that culminated in the near-attack by Pinkus. Gord waited for the creature to calm down some before addressing him again.

  "Even if you were a real ogre-magus, this cell would prevent you from using magic to escape — or even give that twit the comeuppance he deserves," Gord said to the still angry creature. "But then again, maybe you can do something! What sort of stuff can you civilized ogre-types do. anyway?"

  "None of your business, you hairless little monkey," Pinkus said, going back to his own corner of the cell to brood darkly.

  "That's no way to talk to your comrades!" Chert admonished the fellow with a grin. "We're willing to let bygones be bygones and help you out, so why not return the favor?"

  "Go roll yourself in ryxzotilofuul!" Pinkus countered in triumph. The evident delight on his hideous face spoke volumes, and the humans could only guess at what sort of insult he had delivered, but it pleased him mightily, no doubt.

  Any further exchange was cut short just then by the sudden noise of tramping feet. A whole squad of armored guards came marching down the passageway, led by a brightly clad officer and the new chamberlain. Lord Preppyn. The latter had such a smug expression on his round, chubby face that Gord feared the worst. It turned out to be something other than what was expected, however, for the doughlike visage was wearing its look due to the man's station, not his message.

  "You are ordered to appear before His Lordship, Grand Count Fizziak, immediately! Maheal — and you other curs, too — come along quietly and smartly. If you cause the least bit of trouble, I am authorized to deal with you in most rude fashion!"

  The Szek of Dohou-Yohpe was ashen-faced and shaking with indignant rage at the tone used by Preppyn, who had been a mere thegn of a petty territory before his recent elevation. "How dare you speak to me in such a tone, you . . . you . . . dearly beloved cousin!" Maheal managed to blurt out. For all he was, the Nyrondel nobleman was not totally stupid. Without any power at the moment, Maheal thought twice and attempted to use family ties to gain favor with this distant relative.

  "Don’t mention our kinship, distant as the consanguine ties are. You bring shame to all who have the noble blood of the Fizziaks in their veins!"

  Maheal clamped his mouth shut and stepped out of the cell. The other three prisoners followed, each having a trio of guardsmen with ready weapons to assure meek and prompt compliance with the chamberlain's commands. In a few minutes they were out of the dark and dank labyrinth below the castle and were heading for a wide archway that led.

  Into one of the lesser chambers of the administrative area of the sprawling chateau. While the four stood in a line, sharply pointed steel held against their spines, the plump Preppyn strutted to a small door in the opposite wall and rapped softly. "Noble nuncle," he cried respectfully, "the prisoners await your disposition."

  The door flew open, nearry smacking the unctuous chamberlain's pudgy face, which he jerked back most hurriedly to avoid the panel. Sputtering over the loss of dignity, Preppyn quickly smoothed his doughy features into blandness, the closest he could come to stern authority, as the grand CQunt strode forth, his expression hard and his bearing harsh. Preppyn trailed after Lord Fizziak like a fly trying to catch up with a platter of sweetmeats.

  "So!" the grand count thundered. "It is time to determine your punishment."

  "My lord uncle— "

  "Silence!" Fizziak roared, cutting off the blenching Maheal in midsentence. "I did not give you leave to speak. If you interrupt me again it will go hard with you — and do not call me uncle!"

  "You heard mine nuncle!" Preppyn said with a smirk. "Speak only when his grand lordship addresses you!"

  "Oh, shut that fat face of yours, Preppyn!" Lord Fizziak muttered angrily in the general direction of the dithering official. "Sometimes I wish that more robust breeding were to be found within our lineage," he added to himself as he eyed the pale chamberlain sourly.

  Gord thought that the grand count certainly bore little resemblance to either of his kinsmen. Lord Fizziak was tall, lean, and muscular despite advancing years. At one time he must have led a soldier's life, and Gord imagined that the grand count would happily take the field at the head of an army once again if the opportunity arose. The nobleman tugged absently at one of his drooping, iron-gray mustaches as he glared at his captives.

  "Your crimes are great, and were it strictly up to me you all would have been dealt with already," Lord Fizziak snapped. Then, harrumphing, he went on: "I must be ruled by my liege. King Archbold, in this matter, so I now pronounce the sentence of the king." The Lord Fizziak produced a sheet of heavy vellum that bore the Royal Seal of Nyrond at its bottom and began reading. "I, Archbold III, King of Nyrond, Duke of Flinthill, etc., etc., do hereby decree that the prisoners, to wit Lord Maheal, the commoners called Chert and Gord, and the creature named Pinkus, an ogre or ogre-magus of some unknown sort, are charged with numerous crimes against Nyrond. Having been found guilty, the four must either be brought to justice by beheading or accept a test of perilous nature. If the former course is taken, sentence will be carried out instantly. ..." -

  The grand count ceased reading at this juncture, for Lord Maheal had fainted, and the noise of his sudden fall disturbed the process. "You there!" he said irritably to the officer of the guards. "Stand that lily-livered nephew of mine upright, and slap him smartly until he is again in possession of his senses, such as they are." Then, looking hard at the limp Maheal. he waited until the fellow was again conscious before resuming his reading.

  ". . . sentence will be carried out instantly and in any order Lord Fizziak determines best. However, should the condemned prisoners elect to show mettle and courage and accept the test, sentence is withheld until such time as they complete the trial. Royal Pardon will be bestowed upon all who accept said test and meet death or succeed. Failure in the completion of the test shall mean death — one way or the other."

  The grand count looked at each prisoner, then asked. "Is it to be the axe or the test? You have one minute to decide."

  Gord and Chert took a step forward without hesitation, signaling their desire for the latter choice. Grumbling about apish barbarism, Pinkus followed. Maheal fell forward in another swoon, a gesture that Fizziak took as concurrence.

&nb
sp; "That is that," Lord Fizziak said with a shrug as he toed his nephew's body. "Guards, see that these prisoners are taken to the Tower of Winds. Our Court Wizard Phompton and Good Priest Boffly will take charge of them there." Without another word the grand count stumped back to his private room.

  "Awaken!"

  At the command, all four prisoners snapped alertly erect in the stiff wooden chairs in which they had slumped moments before. A wizard with bushy, black brows and an even bushier beard was peering at them with his startlingfy blue eyes. Beside the magic-user stood Good, Priest Boffly. smiling benignry upon the quartet.

  "You are now charged and properly directed upon your test." the cleric said with a smile. "And my blessing is upon you all," he added.

  "What Boffly here means," the Court Wizard of Fizziak said in a gravelly voice, "is that you have been geased, enthralled, and otherwise tampered with to assure that you'll either see the mission through or die in the trying. If you so much as turn aside you'll be stricken with pain, a burning itch, and far worse if you attempt to deviate further!"

  "But what is the test?" Gord demanded. "Nobody's bothered to tell us!"

  "Oh no, my son," the Good Prtest Boffly said with a tone of hurt fatherliness in his voice. "We have taken great pains to instruct each of you in all matters pertaining to the test. You will recall them as time and circumstances demand."

  Bristling beard thrust forth, the Wizard of Fizziak interjected, "What Boffly means is that you'll know what you need to know when you have need to know it — and not a moment sooner! We don't want you wandering about spilling everything in the meantime, so we have used various forms of dweomercraefting and priestly spell-tinkering to lock the knowledge safety away until proper events trigger it forth."