Swords: 06 - The Third Book of Lost Swords - Stonecutter's Story (20 page)

      
When he saw Wen Chang moving quietly toward an exit, he followed. Outside the temple the air was much cooler and easier to breathe. Others, seeing Wen Chang and Kasimir go out, followed suspiciously.

      
But the Magistrate gave no sign of trying to get away. He looked at the moon, full and near setting now, and breathed of the damp air, and stretched his arms.

      
Kasimir sat down again, and before he knew it he was drifting into sleep…

      
Something, perhaps it was revelation, came to Kasimir in a dream. And suddenly he understood much that had been hidden from him. He awoke with a start, having the impression that someone had been shaking him. No one had, unless it were possibly his own Muse.

      
What a damned fool he had been.

      
Somewhere beyond the tall buildings of the city, the sun had definitely come up.

      
And, shortly after dawn on this first day of the Festival, another urgent summons arrived for Wen Chang and his associate. This one came directly from the palace, and the face of the messenger who brought it was ashen in the early light. His master the Hetman must indeed be in a rage.

      
Benjamin of the Steppe had just managed to escape from his cell in the palace. The delegation going to his cell to bring him out for execution had found the chamber empty. A tunnel originating somewhere outside the building had been cut neatly up through the stone floor. There was not the least doubt that the Sword had been used.

      
The Magistrate, having been apprised of all these facts, turned and repeated them calmly to those who were standing nearest to him—Kasimir, Almagro, and Lieutenant Komi. To Kasimir, Wen Chang’s face now appeared wooden with fatigue. With his new insight, he tried but failed to read something more in it than that.

      
As for Kasimir himself, he did not trouble to hide his feelings particularly. This struck him as the first piece of good news they had heard in some time. Komi appeared to feel the same way.

      
Almagro on the other hand was professionally cautious and gloomy.

      
There was no time now for anything like a private conference. The Hetman had sent a carriage for the people he wanted, and the Magistrate and his three associates piled into it.

      
As the news brought by the Hetman’s messenger spread among the dignitaries gathered in and around the Blue Temple, it had the effect of bringing their weary efforts against robbery to a halt. Indeed, it required only a moment of detached thought to see that little or nothing useful was being accomplished anyway. Priests and clerks and guards looked at each other blankly in the dawn, seeking answers that were not to be found in the faces of others as weary as themselves.

      
Some of the more important of these people found the energy to decide to follow the carriage to the palace.

      
The High Priest himself did not go to the palace. He was handed a message which he read, frowning with thought, then tucked inside his garments.

      
He announced that he had too much to do here in trying to put his own house in order, the house of Croesus and the other gods and goddesses of wealth.

      
Inside the carriage, jolting along swiftly on its way to the Hetman’s house, no one had much of anything to say. There were only the sounds of the swift ride.

      
When their conveyance turned into the square before the palace, Kasimir observed the gallows standing empty in the dawn, the new wood of the construction still damp from the recent rains. The carriage was forced now to slow down, because the plaza was so crowded with people. Of course, a mob would have gathered to see the hanging. Kasimir wondered if now some other victim would have to be found to take the place of Benjamin. He could not entirely avoid the thought that he himself might, before the morning was over, find himself being escorted up those new wooden stairs.

      
Such was the crush of would-be spectators near the empty scaffold that the carriage had to come almost to a halt. Putting his head out a window, Kasimir got the impression that the crowd was in a lighthearted mood, not too much downcast by the lack of an execution. He supposed that news of the dramatic escape, and the accompanying official discomfiture, provided compensation. Also there might have been an undercurrent of support for Benjamin that would cause people to view this outcome as an even happier one.

      
Now some mounted patrolmen of the Watch were starting to disperse the throng, and presently the carriage was able to move on. Kasimir, bringing his head in from the window, caught Wen Chang gazing at the scaffold, and there appeared in the Magistrate’s eye something of the same faint twinkle Kasimir had noticed when last they passed through this square. This time Kasimir thought he understood, but he said nothing.

      
The rear gates of the palace opened promptly for the official carriage, and in a few moments its occupants were disembarking within the walls. Very soon thereafter they were all in the main building, being escorted single file up a flight of narrow and very utilitarian stone stairs. The odor of a prison, reminding Kasimir of animal pens and primitive surgery, began to engulf them.

      
Presently the stairs brought the ascending party to a heavy door, and beyond the door they entered a dark corridor lined with tiny cells. From some of the barred doors the faces of inmates looked out, their expressions variations on madness, fear, and hope.

      
The four men who had come in the carriage were ushered into one of the cells, already crowded with official bodies. Some already present, who were of lesser ranks, had to vacate the cell before the four newcomers could get in. Voices on all sides demanded that they confront the evidence of their failure.

      
Now Kasimir was able to see for himself just how the escape had been accomplished. Several officials were pointing out to him and to Wen Chang, as if they might not be able to see for themselves, the fact of a dark, irregular opening in the stone floor. The hole was only half a meter in diameter or a little more, and people getting in and out through it must have undergone something of a squeeze.

      
The tunnel, as several officials were now explaining simultaneously and unnecessarily, had been started at some distance from the palace, and dug up unerringly to this point through both bedrock and masonry. Actually its other end had already been discovered; the passage had its beginning in the curving wall of one of the great municipal drains that ran right beneath the plaza, a good many meters outside the palace walls.

      
And there was more the failed investigators had to be shown; the demonstration of outrage was not yet complete. Perhaps, thought Kasimir, it was only getting started. And so far the Hetman himself had not even put in an appearance.

      
“Look here! Look here!” someone was barking at him.

      
Now one of the palace officials had brought out an Old World light, a kind of hand lantern, and was directing a bright white beam down into the dark aperture in the floor. In the unwavering brightness Kasimir was easily able to see the distinctive, inescapably familiar little markings left in the freshly carved-out surface of the tunnel’s wall. Here was proof—if any proof was needed beyond the mere existence of the tunnel—that Stonecutter must have been used to make it.

      
For the moment the young man was able to ignore the personal difficulties this tunnel was likely to create for him. He could only marvel, silently but wholeheartedly, at the daring of the project, and at the amount of intense, hurried work it had required.

      
By now Kasimir had seen enough of the projects accomplished with the Sword to realize that the actual cutting of stone, so easy with the aid of Stonecutter’s magic, had been only the beginning of this job. Here all the work had to be done inside a long, narrow tunnel, and all the debris cleared out through the original tunnel entrance, a task that grew more difficult the longer the passage became. The diggers must have shed liters of sweat in the course of this job, and doubtless some blood as well, handling the sharp rock and crawling through piles of it. Pausing for frequent measurements, someone in the rescue party must have known the shape and the dimensions of the prison very well. And they had been working against a deadline.

      
When had the digging started? Doubtless very soon after the Sword had changed hands there in the Red Temple. Kasimir thought that he could see the history of it now. Right after Natalia and her people had got away with Stonecutter right under the noses of a score or so of guards and priests. Not to mention one very inept young investigator.

      
Ignoring the continuous babble of accusation that surrounded them both, Kasimir cast a sharp, probing glance at his mentor. Wen Chang’s smoothly composed features gave little indication of either the fatigue or the emotions that must be behind them. Still, Kasimir, who was beginning to know his man, thought that he could detect certain subtle signs of—satisfaction.

      
A hush fell suddenly within the cell. The Hetman himself had come upon the scene at last, and was now standing in the doorway, an aperture so narrow that, even had there been room for him inside the cell, he might have thought twice before attempting to push his corpulent body through.

      
“What is your answer to this, O great investigator?”

      
The ruler’s question was delivered with what was obviously intended to be scathing sarcasm.

      
But Wen Chang imperturbably refused to be scathed. “I am not required to have an answer for this, sir. I was never engaged to prevent the prisoner’s escaping, therefore his deliverance is not my responsibility.”

      
“Oh, is it not? Well, in any case he is not going to get away for long.” The Hetman wiped sweat from his face with a silken cloth. “He could have had at most a few minutes’ start before his absence was discovered. And once the discovery was made, the warden acted with commendable speed, notifying the Watch at all the gates of the city by winged messenger. Every man who leaves Eylau is being identified, and every vehicle that departs the city by land or water is being thoroughly searched.”

      
The Magistrate bowed, slightly but graciously. “In that event it would seem that Your Excellency has no cause for concern.”

      
The Hetman’s round countenance darkened. But just as it seemed to Kasimir that his learned associate had finally managed to talk himself into serious trouble, a rescuer appeared. The voice of Prince al-Farabi was heard in the corridor outside the cell.

      
Naturally the Hetman had to turn away from the cell door to greet his peer. Then a moment later he had to move courteously out of the way of the Prince, who was expressing a desire to see the inside of the cell.

      
A moment later al-Farabi, now accompanied by a couple of his own men as bodyguards, came into the cell loudly proclaiming his wish to behold with his own eyes the evidence that the missing Sword had indeed been here within these very palace walls, only a few hours ago. Perhaps only a single hour!

      
But the moment his eye fell upon Wen Chang, the Prince broke off these lamentations. In a quite different voice he demanded: “What hope is there of Stonecutter’s return?”

      
The Magistrate began a reassuring answer. But, as soon as it was apparent that the answer would not be simple and direct, half a dozen other voices, angry and weary, broke in on him, and drowned him out. Above all the others rose the near-shout of the Blue Temple’s Director of Security.

      
“If you, O famed Magistrate, who are credited with the power to see into the secret places of the heart, to sift out the honest from the evil-doer—if you had recovered the Sword before now, in accordance with your pledge, then this would not have happened!”

      
Wen Chang faced the man coolly. “As I have said before, sir, this prisoner’s escape was not my responsibility.”

      
“But you are responsible for what you promise. And you did promise to have the Sword for us by now, or at the very least to give us some definite word as to its whereabouts. Very well, sir, I now hold you to your word. Where is the Sword?”

      
“Sir, your demand is premature. I was granted twenty-four hours of free action, and that period is not quite over yet. I still have hopes of being able to recover the Sword-—not for you but for the rightful owner—before the time expires.”

      
At these words, calmly uttered, a stir ran through the little crowd filling the cell.

      
Wen Chang now turned to look out into the corridor, addressing the Hetman directly. “Your Excellency must admit that the objective to which you yourself assigned the highest priority, the safeguarding of the Blue Temple and the other centers of great wealth within the city, has been accomplished.”

      
“You claim credit for that, do you?”

      
“I neither claim credit nor refuse it, sir. I merely call attention to the fact.”

      
The Hetman glanced toward the Prince. He wiped sweat from his face again. “Yes, I must admit that. And you say there is still hope of recovering the Sword?” The first rush of his anger had passed now, and he sounded wistful, wanting to believe.

      
“Yes sir, certainly there is at least hope. Perhaps there is even a good chance … you have said that you already know where the other end of this tunnel is, gentlemen. I intend to go there myself, without further delay.”