Gary Gygax: Come Endless Darkness

"And the rulers of the city too, I am told," the one-eyed bard supplied. "You think that such as those will intervene directly?"

The great ones of evil will send word to the powerful here in Greyhawk. Of that I'm sure! If we are seen, you can bet a squad of watch will be there to make an arrest. Clerics of evil and assassins will league to see we never live to protest the injustice."

"So we come back to my original question."

"If we can get to one of my own places of hiding- " "Then we could use the pyramid to move… elsewhere," Gellor finished.

Gord seemed uneasy, uncertain. "I wonder about that, Gellor. If we were observed closely, then the aura of that object could be known, our route plotted, and a detour prepared."

"Why have it at all, then?"

"When I held the device it was safe from scrutiny, because I have a warding against prying magics. It passed to your hands in time of jeopardy. You could have used it without fear. Now I think it most unwise to try the pathway it would open for us."

"Then we have only one hope," Gellor said softly. "We must try to go to the main headquarters in this city, fighting our way if need be, or…"

"Or?"

"Or we can slip quietly out of Greyhawk and speed to the stronghold of the lord-mage Tenser."

That is an option I wasn't considering," Gord admitted. "His castle is the nearest place of true safety, but the passage there is difficult and dangerous."

"True, true," Gellor nodded in agreement. "Perhaps the very reason why the enemy won't place the likelihood of our doing that high on its list."

"The water route?"

Gellor shook his head. "I know you have a fondness for the Rhennee, Gord, but too many of those folk are unscrupulous. What think you the reward for your head at this very moment? Ten times its weight in gold orbs, I'll wager."

"I hate to mention this, Gellor, but traveling by land is dangerous, because it is no problem to note a one-eyed man."

"But a blind man being led to the Shrine of St. Cuthbert By The Lake for healing would raise no notice, I think. Two pilgrims amongst a whole troop of the faithful trudging through the fringes of the Cairn Hills would be quite unremarkable."

"And the holy ones and relics borne with the train, the blaze of the aura of such a body; there would no chance of discovering us two in such a crowd!" Gord was enthused now. "It will be no problem to slip from the city between afternoon and evening — but we must be disguised ere then. Here's my plan…." And the Champion of Balance eagerly set forth his ideas on what they should do in the seven or eight hours time that remained before then.

In half an hour the pair departed. Using the less traveled routes, and with hood and cowl raised, they managed to get to a small set of rooms that Gord kept as a second hideaway. They were in the River Quarter, at a place where a fishmonger had his shop in the front of a ramshackle building. The man and his family lived above the store. A small, cluttered storage room was left vacant, though, by terms of the agreement. This place had a concealed entrance that led into a narrow room beyond and from there to the larger basement room below. It was damp and musty, as were the various garments cached there. Such garb suited both men. It would draw no notice.

"Not much in the way of coin," Gord noted sadly, parceling out the few coppers and silver nobles between himself and his comrade.

"A blind pilgrim and his devoted nephew will have few riches, Gord," the troubador noted with a smile as he returned the money to his friend. "You are the master of the purse, for a blind old codger such as I could mistake a zee for a common… or vice versa."

Just after the fourth hour, at the time of early evening when the streams of visitors to the city began their long treks homeward, Gord and Gellor slipped out of the place and found a ferry to take them across Hook Harbor to the place along River Street outside Greyhawk where pilgrims gathered to make their journey northward to the fabled shrine. Dressed as they were, and haggling over the price of smoked fish and wheat loaves, nobody paid them attention, not even the sharp-eyed men who moved here and there along the quay and wharves searching for wanted men. At sunset the two were camped with a half-hundred folk preparing to begin the march into the hills next day. They did so without molestation when the warm red of the sun's great disc pushed above the horizon a few hours later.

It was a slow and arduous passage. The pilgrims wished it thus. How else could one benefit? The trials and perils were tokens of faith and offerings, as it were. Days later, just short of the shrine that was the object of the pilgrimage, Gord and Gellor disappeared, leaving in the dark when all the good folk, and even the tough and not particularly prayerful soldiers guarding the flock of pilgrims, were sound asleep or nodding by fireside or sentry post.

The slow pace of the train had been beneficial to both men. Bruises and cuts had time to heal, damaged internal portions of the two began to mend. To veterans such as these, twenty miles of walking each day, plain fare, and seven or eight hours sleeping on the ground were both restful and restorative.

Gord worried about the sword. He had wrapped it carefully, but its length made the bundle rather noticeable, he feared. Because the group was large and the champion kept the weapon near his person at all times, nobody took interest in it, and no good priest or faithful paladin sensed its dark dweomer. Many of the members of the long stream of pilgrims undertaking the trek were taciturn, somber, and remote. Those more sociable and garrulous simply steered clear of the few who wished to be left alone. Although Gord and Gellor did not announce such a desire for privacy, their attitudes and introspective silences quickly placed them into the category of those not active in the pilgrim train's social community. Neither outcast nor shunned, for that was unthinkable to such persons as these, their attitude was simply accepted as part of what these men held dear. In fact, a score of others were similarly not a part of the activities. Most of the introspective ones had afflictions that were similar to or worse than that which the bard supposedly suffered from.

"I feel rather shoddy," Gellor whispered one night. "How many of these honest men and women are truly in need of help?" It was a rhetorical question. "It bothers me to pose as another blind one seeking the blessed cure."

"We are helping them all to live, old comrade," Gord noted as softly. "Not one of the truly decent folk here would say aught of it if they were aware of our feigning and the cause thereof."

"Yes, I know that's true, Gord. Yet it disturbs me nonetheless. I also am forced to wonder why more of such disabilities cannot be cared for by the great clerics."

"Too few are the priests with the power to heal such needs as these, too many are those with serious deficiencies to be rectified. I would not be a priest for any reason, Gellor. The need and my shortcomings would soon bring dementia to my brain."

There was more bothering them than either could articulate. Curley Greenleaf had been the bard's oldest and closest friend. The druid had been Gord's mentor for a time and dear comrade since. It was not possible for either man to speak of the loss they felt, not yet. It was too deep, too strong.

So, too, the death of Chert. He and Gord had shared a youthful time together in such fashion as bound man to man in bonds of brotherhood. Gellor had patted the big hillman's curly head when Chert could barely toddle, hunted with him when the lad received his first bow, advised him as a man. The four had undergone desperate adventures together, fought the enemy side by side. Two comrades in arms as well as old friends had gone outward and would be with them no more. The aching void that left within each breast was indescribable. The two kept their own counsel about that feeling and made each day as busy and mundane as possible. It was in all ways a beneficial journey.