the floor. The applause was loud and long and spiced with a few shouts of 'More!' Joel made an exit, stage left. Though a very young man, he had been a bard long enough to know the three main rules of the entertainer. Don't turn your back on your audience. Don't upstage the act that follows. Always leave the audience wanting more.
'And that was Joel, the Rebel Bard, at the end of his exclusive engagement here at Chirper's Seawind Theater,' the master of ceremonies announced. 'Coming up in ten minutes, our next performer, the renowned juggling act of Shar Nova.'
One of the stagehands slipped Joel a note.
The bard perused the writing quickly. 'Finally,' he muttered. He slipped through the dressing room, tied back his hair, retrieved his sword and knapsack, and stepped out into the theater. Nonchalantly he followed a few members of the audience who were taking advantage of the break to leave the theater.
Chirper's Seawind Theater emptied into Chirper's dining room. At this hour, the dining room was still very busy, so it wasn't easy picking out the author of the note. A woman with wings didn't stand out from the crowd in a place like Chirper's. As one of the most popular inns in Sigil, the City of Doors, Chirper's catered to a clientele as diverse as the multiverse. More than a few of the guests possessed wings, not to mention tails, horns, talons, and antennae.
The native population of the Cage, as Sigil was called locally, was comprised mostly of humans, the humanlike githzerai; the half-ram, half-human bariaurs; the half-human, half-fiend tieflings; and a few elves and dwarves. The transient population outnumbered the natives by two to one. Creatures from every known world and plane were represented, and they all seemed to visit Chirper's. Evil fiends from the lower planes who stood several feet taller than an average human dined beside halflings no taller than human children. Creatures that looked like giant frogs argued across the dinner table with women with six arms and snake tails instead of legs. Beings whose bodies seemed to burn with fire broke bread with foxes and bears who walked upright and wore clothing.
The only way to enter or leave Sigil was through one of the city's innumerable magical portals. Many of the visitors were stranded there, having stepped through a oneway portal and been unable to locate a portal that led home or been unable to find the right key to a portal that led home. Other, more worldly, visitors had come through one of the two-way portals as tourists to the city. Some came to negotiate with their enemies in the neutral city. And since, for some mysterious reason, the portals would not admit beings of godly power, a few came to do their god's bidding here, while others came to escape the gods.
Joel had come to Sigil the first time searching for an artifact for his god. He returned to use the city's portals to disperse the pieces of that artifact throughout the multiverse, and to fulfill a bargain made with one of the city's natives. Both tasks completed, the bard was anxious to leave Sigil, but not without at least saying good-bye to Jasmine of Westgate, one of his companions on his last adventure. After fruitlessly scanning the crowd, Joel pulled aside the maitre d' to ask where he'd seated the winged woman who'd sent the note. The maitre d' directed Joel to a small table by the bar. Joel found Jas sipping an ale just where the maitre d' said she'd be. She was not bothering to cover up her gargoyle-like wings of patina-tinged copper or the black feathers on her face. She wore a new outfit, consisting of leggings and a jerkin of black leather that clung to her slender, well-muscled frame. A short sword in a scabbard and an azure cloak hung on the back of her chair. Her dark black hair was cropped close to her skull, and it shone nearly blue in the amber light of the lantern hanging over the table.
'Where have you been?' Joel demanded, taking the chair opposite her. He set his pack and weapon beneath his chair. 'Holly and I were worried about you.'
'I hate just banging around,' Jas explained. 'So while you were away, I took some work as a private courier for a high-up. Blood wanted to have me at her beck and call. So I left Dits's to stay at her case.'
Joel grinned at the amount of Sigilian slang the woman had managed to pick up after only two weeks in this foreign place. Of course, that was to be expected. Jas was an experienced traveler. She knew how to make herself fit in anywhere.
'So, did you and Holly unload all the pieces of the hand?' Jas asked.
Joel nodded. The artifact whose pieces he had dispersed throughout the multiverse had been known as the Hand of Bane. He'd done it to help a paladin, Holly Harrowslough. Holly's god wanted to be sure the hand could never be made whole and used to resurrect the evil god Bane.
'Holly's friend Bors showed us several portals to other planes where we could hide the pieces,' the bard explained to Jas. 'Holly spilled the pieces into the void out over the edge of the city. Then she was summoned to Elysium to give the ring finger of the hand to her god.'
'What's Lathander going to do with a stone finger?' Jas asked.
Joel shrugged. 'Use it for a paperweight? Who knows? Anyway, Holly was thrilled. She waited around for two days, hoping to see you, but she couldn't keep her god waiting. She left for Elysium this morning. She's not sure when shell be back.'
The bard nodded as Jas's waiter set a mug of ale down in front of him and a fresh one in front of Jas.
'She's probably secretly hoping Lathander will ask her to serve in his court or something,' Jas said.
Joel nodded in agreement. That was his suspicion as well. As a paladin of the Order of the Aster, Holly lived to serve the god Lathander. 'She said she'd send word back if she wasn't returning soon,' Joel explained. 'So we could return home.'
'Joel, you mean you're not keen to stay in the Cage?' Jas asked with a grin, using the slang term for Sigil.
Joel gave a quick glance at the tables nearby to be sure he didn't offend any eavesdroppers. 'No, not really. This city has more political intrigue than Waterdeep, the people are more arrogant than Westgate merchants, and the air's more foul than a Zhentil Keep sewer,' he answered.
'But that's all part of its charm,' Jas replied.
Joel studied the winged woman's expression carefully, trying to determine if she was serious. Jas came from the same world as Joel and Holly, a place Joel called the Realms, but which Jas referred to as the world of Toril in the sphere of Realmspace. Jas had traveled through the void to worlds in other spheres in a magical ship called a spelljammer. Joel found it hard to believe she was now prepared to settle down in this awful city, but their last adventure had changed Jas. Perhaps she had decided to give up her wandering.
Jas grinned. 'It does have one thing in its favor,' Jas said.
'What?' Joel asked.
'I don't stick out like a sore thumb here,' she said.
'You don't stick out all that much,' Joel said.
'Ha!' Jas retorted. 'Back on Toril, it was bad enough when I just had wings. Wizards were always trying to capture me to study me. People in the Realms would mistake me for a succubus or an erinyes and run me out of town. Once there was this kid who thought I was a were-eagle and tried to get me to attack him so he would contract lycanthropy and become a were-eagle, too. One crazy lich tried to put me in his harem just because of my wings. Gods only know what would happen if I went back to Realmspace now.'
'If you'd stay in one place long enough for people to get to know you, they'd feel differently about you,' Joel pointed out.
'Joel, you're too nice. Your friendship has made you blind to what I am,' Jas declared. 'Look at me… No, don't look away. Really look at me. I have black down and feathers all over my flesh and a crest of green feathers sticking out of my forehead. If I don't stay calm, my eyes glow like an owl's. Yesterday some snotty Taker tried to tax me twice in one hour, and I got so angry that one of my hands changed into a claw again. If that Taker hadn't been spry, he'd be missing an eye instead of just the tip of his nose. I'm more animal than human now. If I go back to Toril, there isn't anyone who's going to welcome me, except of course all those priests of Iyachtu Xvim.'
Joel took a sip of his ale, debating whether he should continue arguing with the woman. The priests of the evil god Iyachtu Xvim had transformed Jas with a curse, trying to make her a dark stalker-a hunter they could use for their own foul purposes. Jas had managed to fight the transformation and retain part of her humanity, a testament to her willpower. If she were to kill someone, however, Jas would transform completely and forever into a creature of evil. There was a way for her to overcome the curse, however.
'Finder said he would try to help you,' Joel said, reminding the older woman that his god had offered her his assistance. 'All you have to do is ask. I've found a portal from Sigil to his realm in the outer planes. We can go
