Night Arrant by Gary Gygax

placed before him on the counter.
    "Hmmm. Just so. Yagbo said you preferred to manage it yourselves, but we must always extend every courtesy to our guests. And this is your first visit to Weird Way?"
    "Why do you ask?" Gord demanded suspiciously.
    "No reason, no reason at all — other than to describe the finer services and accommodations that we at the Hostel of Ineffable Comfort offer!" The fellow then described the drinks and meals available, clothes-cleaning and tailoring services offered while guests took their repose, and various and sundry other offices that the hostel could provide.
    "What are these Gedrusian Exotic Dancers?" Chert asked as they approached the door that led to their quarters.
    "Never mind," Gord said sternly to the lanky fellow. "My friend tends to be overzealous. but we are tired and have a full day on the morrow. Simply show us our chambers."
    "Here you are." the fellow said, ushering Gord and the glum-faced barbarian into a large parlour. There is only one bed," he continued as he led the pair into the adjoining room. "But notice how large it is."
    "I care not for a bedstead of heavy iron," Chert said, eyeing the thing distrustfully and shaking his head.
    "Ah, but notice the fine feather mattress and down pillows. Do you know that this device — bed, that is, was created by the renowned Procrustes himself?"
    "No. We don't like this suite at all," Chert replied over the protests of their tall, thin host. "Be so good as to show us another, or we will take our custom elsewhere."
    "Well, I have a very fine set of chambers, what we call the Burke and Hare Suite, but it is quite expensive."
    "Bugger the cost!" Chert said forcefully. "Show us that place now."
    Gord disliked the thick, padded canopies of the beds in the Burke and Hare Suite, and neither adventurer cared much for the cramped suite the proprietor identified as the Bates complex. Finally, after much muttering and exasperation, the lanky fellow settled them in a large, ordinary room. The bed was smallish, but each took his turn sleeping while the other kept vigil. Neither Gord nor Chert felt at ease in the hostel despite the claims and services offered. An hour before dawn. Gord detected a faint draft. Grasping the pommel of his enchanted blade, he peered around the room, using the dweomer of the sword to see in the pitch blackness as if it were a normally lit place. The room remained pitch dark to any who did not hold the enchanted blade.
    Yagbo stood in a newly revealed opening in the wall near the head of the bed. With him was another man who, if anything, was less savory than the rascally porter. Each had a cloth tied over his face and a wad of lint clasped in hand. Yagbo was unstopper-ing a flask, bent on pouring its contents into the wad of lint each held. Gord could see fumes rising as the stuff issued from the bottle. Yagbo worked with swiftness, and as soon as both balls of stuff were soaked, he and his villainous associate pitched them onto the bed where Chert's head was, and where Gord's should have been. Chert groaned softly, tossed, and then began to breathe most heavily and unnaturally.
    That does for ‘em!" whispered the porter with an evil chuckle. "Light the candle and we'll tie 'em up nice and tight for Plincourt's supper!"
    Holding his breath, Gord stepped to the bed and skewered the nearest ball of lint on the point of his shortsword. He flicked it through the air with unerring aim. The wet, fuming clump of fiber took Yagbo full in the face and hung for a heartbeat before dropping. As the soggy mass slid down to gravity's will, Yagbo's eyes bulged, his hands clutched at his throat, and he wheezed forth a croaking cry of agonized defeat.
    "Wazzamatter?" the other would-be killer whispered as he looked up from the sputtering stub of candle he held. "Youse trussin' ‘em already, Yagbo?"
    The needle-sharp point at his throat, pressed just hard enough to cause a bead of crimson to drip forth, answered his query. "If you move