The Old Quarter

Chapter 3 of Team Gilligan

Four figures materialized in the caged teleport at Montfort Abbey in Khot. It occupied the far corner of the "arena", the outfitting area for missions into the labyrinth. Derek van Helsing wasn't happy while awaiting camp guards to escort them out. "Cambris, I thought you'd be coming along in mist form inside the canister. Your eyes will give you away."

"I wish to see this place." She kept her cowl up as Gilligan handed over their voucher from Master Oro.

"The Old Quarter?" The helmeted guard looked over the strange quartet: three dandies with sword belts and an aristocratic woman. "Nothing but thieves over there. You must be thieves yourselves."

"Do not delay us, manling." Cambris kept her eyes slitted.

The skipper chuckled nervously. "Highbrows. What can you say? But we aren't thieves. We're going there to recover the lady's property."

The guard didn't look at all convinced while leading the way across white tiles toward a rowdy, fenced-off tavern. Team members pulled on armor, one foot propped on a bench, while others sat to check weapons. The labyrinth operation was an around the clock business. Those who lacked the chops for deep missions could always hire out as escorts for thrill seekers. For others, it was a full-time career.

At the tavern gate, their escort announced them as Team Gilligan. Heads turned not only at the unfamiliar name, but at the word "team". Oro had told them about speculators who wanted to hire a team for some personal quest. He neglected to mention those who wanted to create their own team, a proposition that hinged on magic talent. With fighting men in good supply, it all came down to an available spell caster. Close scrutiny by experienced eyes quickly unmasked Cambris.

"A vampire!" some wag called.

Derek put hand to sword hilt. "Blast the luck. Keep moving, gents."

Despite the commotion, it was clear that Cambris wasn't a threat to the trio. She must, therefore, be their spell caster.

"Fifty sesterces to be on my team!" a tall merchant shouted.

"One hundred!" barked another.

"Twenty gold noummion!"

"Bloody hell." This was about to become a massacre. Derek pushed at the grasping hands that reached for a snarling Cambris. "Take wing, Cambris! We'll see you topside!"

With a swirl of her cloak to clear some room, Cambris transformed and flew over ducking patrons toward the stairs. No one tried to stop her teammates for obvious reasons.

"Follow that bat!" Gilligan led the charge after her, exiting at a guard station and into a courtyard. Lighted windows overlooked a loading dock to the kitchens at the street side. Hired hands clustered around barrel fires across from a covered dray.

"That way!" Derek headed for a breezeway between buildings. It came out onto a grassy expanse slightly downhill from a spiked iron fence at the street. A cloaked figure waited there. The trio went out the guarded gate to reunite beneath a street lamp.

Cambris' eyes glittered inside the hood. "Commercial cretins!"

"It will be more of the same," Derek pointed out, "across that bridge. If there's trouble, you can come out at a moment's notice." Reluctantly Cambris misted into the steel mug and closed the slot.

The skipper put it inside his coat, where it stuffed an inner pocket. "Let some light-fingered thief try to get it now!" They walked along the cobblestone street toward the bridge, guarded only on this side. Across the river, the zigzag silhouette of the Old Quarter's skyline beckoned ominously. The guards eyed them as if they were crazy; their destination was dangerous enough by day.

They went left coming down the hump into the thieves' warren, keeping to the waterfront, where all manner of makeshift craft bobbed at their moorings. Oro said to look for a tavern called the Sunken Ship, where they might find a guide called simply "Key". Patterned light printed the street in front of a repair shop, where coils of rope sat, too heavy for carting off. Farther along the smelly lane, they spotted a huge sailing ship sunk at pierside. A hanging sign proclaimed the tavern named after it. Off-key brass notes assailed them in concert with voices lifted both in song and quarrel.

"Swinging place," Gilligan said dubiously. He stepped aside for a drunk to go reeling by. "Do we really wanna go in there? I have this vision of being in a wrestler's overhead spin, followed by a flight out the window."

"Why not wait here?" the skipper said. "Somebody's bound to notice us." The tactic wasn't a bad idea, as they had the look of those waiting to roll some unfortunate sot. After a few minutes, it worked.

"I ain't seen you boys before." The speaker came out of the dark, a yellow-haired girl of about seven in a nondescript dress. Her left arm was missing at the elbow, and window light showed her skin was the palest green.

"You're Lunari?" Derek asked.

She frowned. "Go ahead and say it. My ma was had by a right Eolcan. So what? She owns this place." She paced around them while channel wash sloshed against the pilings, and a buoy clanked farther out. "I don't think you boys know what end of a sword to hold."

Gilligan crouched down to be at eye level. "We're hoping to find Key."

"You just did." She let the shock wear off. "I know everybody and everything. What's the play?"

"I take it, miss," Derek began, "you mean what we're about. We shall be delighted to tell you, but we need a safe base of operations."

Key listened with head cocked. "I never heard that accent before."

"It's from England on the home world."

Her gray eyes rounded. "We been lookin' for a way to go there! You better come with me. I'll show ya the way to Sewer Town."

"Sewer Town?" The skipper grimaced. "Isn't there a cleaner place?"

Key laughed. "Outlanders! No, it ain't a sewer. You get there by takin' the sewer tap off the Promenade. Well, we can gab all night, or I can show ya." She set off with surprising dexterity down an alley. In some places, the darkness made it necessary to navigate by the silhouettes of roof lines above. When they were confronted by a scraggly trio at a tripod fire, Key put her only hand on a hip. "They're with me, unless you wanna take it up with Jili, you mutt-mutt ponks!" The rowdies slunk away.

"Mutt-mutt?" the skipper queried.

"It means twice a cur. As for Jili, she decides who gets to see Karst." Key avoided the more open plazas and squares, pointing out sewer taps, cellars, and other hiding places. One broad thoroughfare hemmed in by lofty tenements had a canal down the center. A high flyover walkway, of Tekniker build judging by the crazy structures slapped together on top of it, was a town unto itself, complete with hanging laundry. The bang of a pile driver grew louder as they neared a boatyard.

Derek noted children and women going down steps at bridges crossing the canal, searching beneath it.

"They're looking for fleece wort," Key said. "Wizards make healin' tonic from it. I used to scrap around there before I hooked up with Jili."

Near the boatyard end, burlap-covered objects were stacked outside a club from which emanated cheers and the clang of weapons. As they watched, attendants lugged a body outside and added it to the pile.

"My word," Derek said. "Fights to the death?"

"Not with each other. They get in a cage with a skeletoid from the dark realms. If they win, they hafta get out before it comes back together again. Lots of widows in this part of town." Key took yet another short cut, coming out on the snidely-named Promenade, which was as rundown as any other street. A white-washed, four-story square building served as Karst's lair, more full of treasures than any pirate could dream of. At its junction with another street, people were climbing in and out of a round hatch.

When it was clear, Key led them down the dank confines, which ended at a broad platform. "The sewer's that way, but Sewer Town is right here."

"That face in the wall," Gilligan said breathlessly. "It's watching us!" The circular cartoon face with its fat cheeks kept them under its baleful gaze.

"That's just Face," Key said. "He won't let you in if you're here for no good." She addressed the phantasm. "Face, you be good and let 'em in. They're with me." She thumbed herself importantly.

The skipper conferred privately. "I don't know if we're any closer to that ring, but I'm hoping we have a safe place to pass the night."

"On the contrary," Derek countered, "this child is our 'key', if you will, to this whole adventure. We'll set out tomorrow on a proper quest for the ring. Now—if only Cambris can get in."

"Are you comin'?" Key called in the tunnel echo.

Gathering courage, they walked into the face, and Cambris did indeed get by with them.