"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."

"Oh, ho," Maheal said thoughtfully, eyeing the barbarian as he slowly turned toward them again, his mouth working and a glazed look in his eyes. "It is much clearer now than before!"

"Absolutely, your lordship. As large and oxlike as he is now, I must occasionally humor his childlike mind, or else he might become violent and forget his station."

"Why keep such a dangerous brute then?" Lord Maheal demanded.

"Huh?" Chert grunted.

"He protects me as a mastiff would its master," Gord replied with a wise expression and a wink, and the Szek of Dohou-Yohpe nodded sagely.

"Come on, Furd, be livery now! His Lordship and I require your strong back in a very important matter." So saying, they left without further ado.

Gord had not planned to actually accompany the egotistical nobleman beyond the precincts of the Helix. Upon reaching the lovely garden with its myriad blooms and pattering fountain, however, his sixth sense made him turn and survey the building. For just an instant he saw a figure outlined against the warm light of the candles inside. The shape had been tall and very thin.

"Let us make all haste!" he shouted to the sweating Chert as that worthy strained under his load of wine casks and crate. "It is most inconsiderate to keep Lord Maheal from his appointment. Now hurry along!"

Chert uttered a garbled oath but quickened his pace, noting the direction of Gord's gaze. The noble Szek beamed at the just recognition of his station now being evidenced by the formerly lax Master Drogo, and he thought perhaps he would not be quite as harsh when it came time to set matters aright as he had originally determined.

"Yes, do show a bit of life there . . . Furd," Maheal cried, brushing at his fuchsia velvet pantaloons as if to remove the dust of toil. "Our destination is right over there," Maheal went on, pointing toward a steep flight of narrow stone steps leading to the impenetrable darkness of the rooftops above.

"Up there?" Gord asked. "But the gate is-"

"Yes, dolt up there!" Maheal shot back. "That is where the turret is that leads to my beloved uncle's castle, and that is where we must go. What's this business about a gate?"

Soft footfalls sounded from behind them. Gord grasped Chert's bulging arm and thrust him ahead. "Utter nonsense on my part, of course, my Lord Maheal. Mind me not if my non-noble head sometimes becomes addled by noble doings." With that, he fairly dragged the startled Nyrondel aristocrat up the steps, crying out behind him as he did so. "Get a move on, Furd, or I shall have you caned when we reach our host's fair castle!"

Chert groaned and broke into a lurching run, for his keen hearing had likewise detected the stealthy sounds of approach, and he knew full well that these footsteps came from a rail-thin man and a man-like ogre bent on mischief and foul play, to say the least. "Gladly, Master Drogo!" the sweating barbarian called in reply as he somehow managed to take the steep risers three at a time.

Flustered and annoyed at being handled thus, Lord Maheal was thrust into the opening that he stated was the way to Lord Fizziak's castle in Rel Mord. He made up his mind to double the severity of the eventual lesson in manners he would teach this Drogo. Chert nearly bowled him over as he leaped into place hot on Gord's heels. Despite this, the fellow daintily withdrew a disc of reddish metal from inside his padded doublet and placed it upon the slabs of gneiss upon which all three men stood. "There, we are off to Uncle's!" he declared triumphantly. Just as they were wavering between the "here" of Weird Way and the "there" of Castle Fizziak, however, a snarling vampire and a roaring, ochre-complexioned ogre hurled themselves into the chamber and onto the massive block of stone.

"I say!" the stupefied nobleman managed to utter in a distant, fading voice.

"Oh, shit . . ." Chert swore as his component atoms were dissolving into another plane.

Faintly, as if from a million miles away. Gord's voice began calling out a list of items essential to his predicament. "Holy symbols, blessed water, garlic, sharpened stake, mallet of wood . . ." and then the small room was silent and empty.

The enspelled device was completely overloaded. Somehow its dweomer managed to draw the huge ogre and the vampire, Plincourt, along with the rest, but then its power failed. Objects began to pop into the splendid chateau called Castle Fizziak. The malfunction of the transportation magic was such that these objects were precipitated in an unexpected place. Instead of coming safety into the room that Lord Fizziak's mage had designed for the reception of such travelers, Gord, Chert, Maheal and the rest were suddenly dropped unceremoniously into the Great Hall.

The vaulted ceiling was sufficiently high to allow the sudden materialization without solid objects interfering. Thus, the precipitation involved no devastating explosion. Twenty odd feet beneath the ceiling a throng of nobles and courtiers were assembled to pay formal welcome and homage to the king, A sea of startled faces turned upward at the popping noise of the arriving objects. Startled shouts and screams followed as these objects began to plummet downward.

Casks of Yugharian Purple tumbled, hit, smashed and sent their contents spraying over rich robes and silken gowns. The case of straw-wrapped Mar-geaux struck an oaken table, and its bottles shot out to explode like grenades against walls and pillars. Chert had divested himself of these encumbrances as disintegration occurred, so they rematerialized accordingly, sailing in divergent arcs. Then the barbarian came crashing down upon a trestle laden with cakes and dainty pastries. Covered with icing and spangled with jam tarts, the hillman bounced upward from the spring of the planks and landed amid a half-dozen or so ladies in waiting. His fall brought all of these startled beauties down with him in a heap, appropriate cries and shrieks accompanying the tangle.