With that item, you can turn any door in any world into a portal to any other door. All that’s
needed is to put in the Key (it fits any lock, you know) and think of a door near your destination,
and you can walk through a doorway in Qaanaaq of Greenland and emerge from an ivory shed
in the flower-meads of the High Elves if you like.
But apparently it doesn’t work at Dill’s.
“Keep your justice,” I told the long - ears. “And stuff your serenity. All I want is a bit of
windfall, it’s no concern of yours.”
“You shall not sail by this wind, bearded one.”
“Enough! Mirielavay, we’ll meet some other time.” I turned and bolted for a squat glass -
walled building across the street. Upon the door was “Dino’s Diner” writ. All I needed was to
reach the knob and I was free.
But I underrated Groth Grathson. From the doorway of Dill’s he hurled a Dire Coal with
the mighty arm of our race, and the whole diner erupted in flames. “Ha! No escape that way now,
eh?”
“Groth,” Vissarion said mildly, “I could have caught him.”
“Aw, no!” Jones mourned. “That place had the best cheese fries.”
The tavern’s patrons were swirling into the street to see the inferno; the diner’s, to escape
it. Flashing lights and banshee wails were converging on us — the gendarmerie, no doubt. Two
of the folk from Dill’s abruptly split their shirts and began to sprout fur and fangs: startled
werewolves in the moonlight. This was looking grim.
Then — I was distracted, or he would never — Groth tackled me to the hard black stone.
“The Key!” he roared, digging at my coat. “Where is it?”
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