step into a hidden portal by mistake. Could be a one-way portal, or you might never find the key that opens it on the other side.'
'Bar that. What would you know?' the drunk muttered.
Jas stepped back and grabbed the crystal paperweight from Emilo's hands. Then she stepped back to the drunk. 'Oh, yeah,' she said. 'Let's see, if you've got the guts to scan this.' She shoved the crystal in the drunk's face.
The drunk moved his head back, trying to focus his eyes on the glittering flecks.
'What do you see?' Jas asked.
'Nothing… just little specks of light,' the drunk answered belligerently.
'Ah-ha!' Jas said. 'Those little specks are called stars.'
'So?'
'So. Like I said, it's only a matter of time before you'll be seeing them.' Jas snatched the crystal away from the drunk's eyes. She shook her head and tched sympathetically. 'Oh. Here's our sandwiches at last,' she said as the waiter returned with a plate piled high with cold meat and cheese sandwiches and a mug of ale for Emilo.
Jas returned to her chair, slid the crystal back into her cloak pocket, and grabbed a sandwich.
The drunk staggered up to the table. 'Are you telling me that crystal can see into the future? Let me see.'
Jas shook her head. 'Sorry. Only one look per person. Any more and you're likely to go mad. Besides, it doesn't matter what you see. It's your fate. You can't change fate.'
'Let me see that crystal!' the drunk demanded, yanking at Jas's cloak.
Joel looked up at the waiter. 'This gentleman's becoming something of a nuisance,' he said.
The waiter nodded understandingly. He raised his hand over his head and snapped his fingers twice.
'You sodding Prime. You're going to give me another look at that crystal ball,' the drunk insisted, 'or I'm going to nick you good.'
'Nick me well,' Jas corrected.
Two bariaurs, creatures with the torso of a man and the body and horns of a mountain ram, took up a position on either side of the drunk. Each bariaur took an arm and lifted him from the floor. Together they carried him off, despite his loud protests that he 'wasn't doing nothing' and that it was all that clueless birdwoman's fault.
Jas took a bite out of her sandwich. 'Mmm. This is good.' Joel shook his head with a grin. 'You may not stick out like a sore thumb here, but you'll never fit in with these Cagers,' he said. 'Their arrogance will always get on your nerves.'
Jas shrugged and took another bite of her sandwich.
'So you do come from someplace where you can see the stars, don't you?' Emilo asked.
'I don't just come from a place where you can see the stars,' Jas said. 'I've traveled to the stars.'
Emilo's eyes widened with amazement. 'Really? That must be interesting.'
'Sometimes,' Jas agreed.
'Is the magic crystal ball from the stars?' the kender asked.
'No. My friend bought it at Lizzy's Paperweights over at the Great Bazaar,' Jas said.
'Then it's not magical?' Emilo asked with a disappointed tone in his voice.
'Magical enough. It banished that lousy Cager, didn't it?' Jas asked.
Emilo chuckled. 'Emilo Haversack,' he reintroduced himself to Jas, holding out his hand.
'Jasmine. Just call me Jas,' the winged woman said, accepting the handshake.
As they ate their sandwiches, Emilo kept up the conversation, relating a long, complex tale featuring a mad magician, a dragon, a human boy and girl, a historian, and himself.
When they'd finished their meal, Joel studied Jas, trying to gauge her mood. He'd known the winged woman for a little less than a month, so she was still something of an enigma to him. She looked calm and happy enough. Of course, that could work against Joel. When she was calm, Jas was less likely to accept the fact that she had a problem controlling the dark stalker within her.
Her behavior toward Emilo had taken a complete about-face. While it seemed highly improbable to Joel that Emilo had only been looking at Jas's crystal and had not intended to steal it, Jas now seemed to find the Render's company quite acceptable. Joel wondered if he could use that. The kender might serve as bait, or at least as a face-saving excuse for Jas to accompany Joel to Finder's realm.
'Emilo, I was planning on making a trip to Arborea to visit a friend of mine,' Joel said, deliberately avoiding Jas's gaze. 'He's something of a scholar. He might be able to help you find your home again. Would you care to accompany me?'
'That's a very gracious offer,' Emilo replied. 'I'd be happy to take you up on it. Not that I'm unhappy wandering, even in this strange city, but one does like to have one's bearings, you know?'
Joel nodded.
'Are you coming, too, Jas?' Emilo asked.
Jas shot Joel a sly smile, as if to let the bard know that she was wise to his tricks. 'I'll walk you to the portal,' she said. She stood up and tossed enough coins on the table to cover the cost of the food and drink and a large enough tip that the disturbances with Emilo and the drunk would be quickly forgotten. 'Let's go.'
Outside of Chirper's, it was very dark. A foul-smelling fog hung over the city day and night, making the days gloomy and the nights pitch black. Once upon a time, or so Joel had been told, the city's streets had been lit by magical lamps on poles. Then, so the story went, some enterprising street urchins had discovered a cache of magical lights and used it to create their own industry. After dispelling the light on every lamp pole in the city, they began offering their services as 'light boys.' The lamp poles had been abandoned, and light boys were now an institution in Sigil.
Although he could create his own magical light, Joel had been convinced of the wisdom of spending the change it took to hire a light boy. For one thing, the native youngsters knew their way around the city far better than he did. For another, the natives of Sigil had a vehement dislike of stinginess, and persons too cheap to hire a light boy were more frequent targets of Sigil's very large population of pickpockets and muggers.
As they stepped away from the inn, Joel signaled to a group of light boys on the corner. One broke away from a crowd of his associates and ran up to Joel. The urchin held a silver wand enchanted with a light spell, which cast an unnatural orange glow in a circle all around him. He was no taller than Emilo, but a good deal thinner.
'Where you off to, sirs and lady?' the light boy asked.
'The Civic Festhall,' Joel said, handing the boy a small coin.
The light boy started off down the street at a quick pace; the festhall was quite a ways off. Joel and his companions hurried after him. The fog was thicker than usual this evening and carried the stench of both sulfur and burning animal fat.
As they hurried through the darkness, Emilo began quizzing Jas about her travels to the stars. Jas described her spelljamming journeys among the crystal spheres that surrounded the worlds. Emilo listened, enthralled. Apparently the kender's people believed the gods came from the stars or someplace beyond. The idea that mere mortals could visit where the gods lived intrigued him.
Joel, who'd already heard some of Jasmine's tales, was trying to think of some way to convince Jas to come through the portal to Arborea with him. While he was pondering this problem, he became aware of the footsteps that seemed to be following the group. At first Joel dismissed the notion that they'd picked up a tail. The citizens of Sigil hardly recognized the difference between night and day. The footsteps could have been those of any number of people hidden by the dense mist going about their own business. Indeed, they often crossed the paths of other persons traveling in sedan chairs or on foot, guided by their own light boys. Besides, in the fog, it was hard to discern which direction a sound came from.
Joel grew aware that there was a clinking sound following them, as if they were being pursued by a ghost wrapped in chains. When the light boy made a left turn, the clinking sound followed them around the corner.
Emilo tugged on Joel's shirt sleeve. 'I think we're being followed,' the kender said softly.
'It's just echoes in the fog,' Jas said with a shrug.
Joel shook his head. 'No. I think he's right.'
Their suspicions were confirmed in the next moment. A grating voice mumbled some indecipherable words,
