Stonecutter's Story

by Fred Saberhagen

  “Is that all?” The Captain was relieved. “Sure, I can look that up. What’s the number?”

  “Nine-nine-six-seven-seven.”

  Almagro pulled out a scrap of paper and laboriously made a note to himself. “Nothing to it.”

  “But I suppose,” said Wen Chang after a moment’s silence, “that in this huge city, despite the degeneracy of these modern would-be criminals, and the futile protesters, there remain a small number of real thieves, and also some genuinely dangerous individuals.”

  “Ah yes, of course. If you say so, it’s possible you’re really onto something about a plot—to swipe the Orb.” The Captain looked around him cautiously before uttering those last words. And now conversation was briefly suspended while the barmaid placed in front of each of them a bowl of steaming stew.

  “Only place on the street where I’d order stew,” Almagro muttered, taking up his spoon with energy. “But here it’s good.”

  “Indeed, not bad,” said Wen Chang, tasting appreciatively. Kasimir, who would have declined if he had been asked whether he wanted stew or not, tried the stuff in his own bowl and had to agree.

  Half a bowl later, Wen Chang prodded the Captain: “You were saying, about the present elite of real criminals—?”

  “Yes, of course. Well, in this city there are naturally lawbreakers beyond counting. But very few of this modern bunch would have the nerve, talent, or resources even to think of undertaking any job like the one you suspect is being planned at the Blue Temple.”

  “And I suppose that once such a gem was stolen, it would be difficult even in Eylau to arrange to sell it, or dispose of it in trade for lesser gems.”

  The Captain smacked his lips over the stew, and tore off a chunk of bread from the fresh loaf the barmaid had deposited in the middle of the table. “Difficult, yes. But in Eylau nothing is totally impossible. No matter how rare and unique an object of value may be, there’ll be someone in this city who can buy it—paying only a small fraction of the real worth, maybe, but—”

  “Naturally.” Wen Chang nodded. “And it is part of your job to know who these folk are.”

  “I know most of them. And there are not many who’d want to handle something like the Orb—today there are even fewer, in fact, than there were just yesterday morning.”

  The Magistrate’s hand paused, supporting a mug of ale halfway to his lips. “Oh? And what is responsible for this diminution in numbers?”

  “I’d say it was the result of a disagreement between buyer and seller, of just what property I don’t know.” The Captain went on to relate how, only yesterday evening, one of the city’s most rascally merchants and most celebrated dealers in stolen valuables had been found dead, his body drifting in a backwater of the Tungri, near the lower docks.

  Wen Chang had set down his mug again without drinking. “And have you turned up any clue, old friend, as to who killed this man or why?”

  “Interests you, does it, Magistrate? I should have realized it would. No, I’m afraid that there’s no such clue. Apart from the fact that whatever happened was a bit more than your ordinary little squabble. Two other bodies were also found nearby, of men who must have been killed at the same time, in the same fight. Don’t know who they were.”

  “And there is no clue as to who killed them, either.”

  “Just so. Ah, we do our best, Magistrate. Whenever there’s a complaint of robbery or assault in the city we in the Watch will do what we can to get the miscreants taken into custody, and hold them for trial before the magistrates of this city.”

  “I am sure that you do your best.”

  “We do. But as you can well imagine, in a city of this size it would be hopeless to expect to solve very many of the crimes.”

  Wen Chang drained his tankard. “It would interest me very much—and I am sure it would interest Kasimir too-—if we could see those bodies, of the men killed yesterday.”

  “Ah? And maybe your interest is a little more than purely theoretical?” The Captain’s eyes, suddenly shrewder than before, probed at both of his companions from under shaggy brows. “Well, the gods know I owe you a bigger favor than that, Magistrate. We’ll see what we can do, though the family of our late prominent merchant may not welcome any more attentions by the Watch.”

  “It is the other bodies, the unidentified ones, that I find more particularly interesting.”

  “Oh? That’s all right, then. Except that they may already have been exposed on the northern walls. We’d best go right away and take a look.”

  Kasimir and the Captain finished their drinks.

  * * *

  In Eylau, as Captain Almagro explained while they walked, the disposal of paupers’ bodies, and any other unidentified or unclaimed dead, was carried out atop a section of city wall, a tall spur of fortification about a hundred meters long, which currently went nowhere and protected nothing. This section had become disconnected from the main walls of the city as a result of the destruction of some ancient war, and the subsequent rebuilding according to a different plan. Here, barely within the city’s modern walls, and four or five stories above the ground, the remains were set out in the open air to be the prey of winged scavengers. Many of these creatures were reptilian; others, originally the product of experiments in magic and genetics, were hybrids of reptile and bird.

  There were no human dwellings very near the isolated section of wall now called the Paupers’ Palace, except for a few huts of the poor and almost homeless, who from their doorways could contemplate what their own final fate in this world was likely to be.

  When the investigators arrived at the base of the mortuary wall, Captain Almagro sought out and spoke to a particular attendant. This man bowed and murmured his respect for the Captain, and passed the three visitors along to another man. This fellow conducted the three investigators up a stone stairway, dangerously worn and crumbling, to the wall’s top.

  Here, under the leaden sky, filling the broad strip of pavement between the parapets, was a scattered litter of more-or-less dried human bones, with here and there a more recent arrival. The older bones, pulverized and scattered, crunched underfoot; if you moved about at all there was no way to avoid stepping on some of them. Kasimir understood from a few words of explanation offered by the attendant that the bones finally rejected by the scavengers were gathered periodically and burned or buried somewhere.

  By now it had begun to drizzle again in Eylau, and Kasimir had heard people talking about the fierce windstorms out over the desert. Up here atop the Paupers’ Palace the drying-out of corpses was undoubtedly being set back by the wet weather. The smell here at the moment was rather worse than at the last opened grave, out in the quarry, and Kasimir once more pulled out an amulet from his pouch of magical equipment. Presently a scent of fresh mint began to dominate.

  At a word from Almagro the attendant who had escorted them upstairs pointed out the two bodies that had been brought in with knife wounds yesterday afternoon.

  Whatever the losers of that fight might have possessed in the way of clothing or valuables had of course been stripped from them already, either before or after they arrived at this last stop. By now, Kasimir noted, their eyes were missing as well, evidently the first gourmet morsels to be claimed by the scavengers. One of these reptilian beasts, the size of a large vulture but with iridescent scales, was in attendance now, and flew up heavily with a squeak of protest as the men approached.

  But certain items of important evidence remained, and it might be possible to learn the essentials, thought Kasimir, even without making a very close examination of these bodies.

  One of them was that of a red-haired, freckled man whose stocky build and thick limbs indicated that he had been strong, before someone’s narrow blade had opened those thin fatal doorways in his chest.

  “The treacherous foreman,” Kasimir commented, almost at first glance. He chose to disregard the fact that his words could be heard by Almagro, who was standing back, watching intently to see
what his old friend would be able to make of this evidence. There would be no keeping the Captain out of the matter now.

  Wen Chang, kneeling by the first body, nodded abstractedly. In a moment he had concluded his own examination, and stood up, brushing off his hands.

  “Treachery is a powerful medicine, and those who rely upon it are likely to die of an overdose. It is easy enough to imagine the scene yesterday. A meeting, somewhere near the river, between the murderous foreman Kovil, and the equally dishonest Eylau merchant, with each principal supported by at least one retainer. From the beginning, an enlightened distrust on both sides, who are strangers to each other. Then, the display of the stolen treasure—a vaster prize than even avarice had imagined—and then the sudden flare of treachery and violence.”

  In a moment he had turned his attention to the second body. It was that of a stranger to Kasimir, though it ought to have been identifiable, he thought, by anyone who had known the man in life. This fellow too had died of blade wounds, and these wounds were larger, as if made by a full-sized sword, perhaps Stonecutter itself. By all reports eleven of the Twelve—all except Woundhealer-—were fine weapons apart from the magical powers they possessed.

  “This one has been neither prisoner nor overseer at a quarry in the desert,” Wen Chang muttered after a minute, standing up again. “His skin is everywhere too pale for that. I assume he is some minor criminal of the city.” Then he turned to Almagro and asked: “I would like to see the place where the bodies were found.”

  “Of course.” They descended from the wall, and Kasimir was able to put away his magic scent. Next Almagro conducted them back into the center of Eylau. Standing on the bank of the river, he pointed out the place where the bodies were said to have been found, drifting in a pool or large eddy on the left bank of the river.

  The Magistrate looked up and about, slightly upstream.

  “I see dark stains,” he announced, “upon that windowsill.”

  Kasimir could see very little at the distance. But along with the Captain he followed the Magistrate into an old building whose empty windows gaped out over the Tungri.

  * * *

  The three investigators entered the building and climbed to an upper level to find that there were still bloodstains on the worn floor.

  “There is no doubt that the fight took place here,” mused Wen Chang. “And whoever survived took the trouble to dump the bodies into the river, hoping thereby to postpone their discovery. Ah, if only I had been able to inspect this place sooner! Clues have a way of vanishing quickly with the passage of time.”

  But Wen Chang soon gave up his lamenting and went to work, examining every centimeter of the scene with a thoroughness Kasimir found surprising—not so Almagro, who had evidently seen similar performances in the past.

  Soon the Magistrate was able to discover, on an inner wall of exposed brickwork, a place where Stonecutter had left its distinctive marks. Kasimir could easily imagine the great Sword, swung in combat, taking a small chunk neatly out of the solid wall—and then, its energy unslowed, going on to cut down someone.

  Almagro, scowling, looked at the place. He said: “I think you’d better tell me the whole story.”

  “We shall,” Wen Chang promised.

  Kasimir asked, “But then who has the Sword now?”

  “Someone who was strong and fierce and cunning and lucky enough to survive that meeting yesterday. It seems that our task may be only beginning.”

  Chapter Nine

  Still standing in the room where the fight had taken place, Wen Chang and Kasimir completed the job of taking Captain Almagro into their confidence regarding the true nature of their mission in Eylau. The Captain, naturally anxious to hear the whole story, listened eagerly.

  He had of course heard of the Twelve Swords, and was naturally impressed with the value of such a treasure. “Small wonder, then, that these scum are killing each other over it. And you say the dead man with the red hair was really a foreman on one of the Hetman’s stone quarry gangs?”

  “I have no doubt that it is the same man. He and a companion brought the Sword here to the city. Doubtless Kovil—that was the foreman’s name—expected that his absence from his post would not cause any problems until they had completed the sale—and once he had his fortune in hand it would no longer matter.”

  The Captain shook his head. “As a rule those convict-labor places are not very well supervised. Not even the ones with the really dangerous people in them. I don’t doubt he thought he could get away with it.”

  “And is the quarry in question populated with really dangerous people, as you call them?”

  “Ardneh bless you, Magistrate, that one gets some of the worst. The worst in the line of ordinary, nonpolitical crooks, I mean. I heard a judge tell a convict that hanging was too good for him, and then send him there for ten years—which in the quarry is the same as life.”

  “And where, I suppose, even the worst offender may be almost forgotten, and ignored.” Wen Chang looked worried. “Almagro, I want you to arrest Kovil’s hand-picked replacement, Umar, now, and bring him into the city. Preferably to some quiet place where I may be able to question him in privacy, and no one else will pay too much attention. Meanwhile it might be a good idea to preserve the body of the red-haired man, so that Umar can be confronted with it, and shown that at least he has nothing to fear from that quarter any longer. Then, perhaps, he will tell us who Kovil took with him as a companion from the quarry. If Umar still hesitates to tell us the truth about that, a matching of the records at the quarry with the prisoners still actually there may be necessary to tell us who is missing. I want to know the identity of the second man.”

  “Because he’s most likely the one who has the big knife now.”

  “Exactly. And, by the way, there is something else that you should know, my friend. A large reward has been promised me if my search in this city can be brought to a successful conclusion. You will remember from our past dealings that I am inclined to share such rewards generously.”

  “I remember that fact very well, Magistrate! And I’ll certainly see what I can do about fulfilling all your requests. But reward or not, remember that I can promise nothing.”

  On leaving the riverside building, the three separated. Almagro had plenty of official work to occupy him. Kasimir had an appointment in the afternoon to meet Natalia, and he did not want to miss it. And Wen Chang was now rather anxious to get back to the inn, fearing that in his absence the elderly caller of yesterday might return, and Lieutenant Komi would after all not detain him.

  Kasimir, hearing this fear expressed as the two walked toward the inn, remarked: “You have little faith in Komi, then?”

  “I admit that I have some doubts about him.” The Magistrate refused to elaborate on that.

  * * *

  As soon as Kasimir and his mentor arrived at the Inn of the Refreshed Travelers, Wen Chang fired questions at Lieutenant Komi, but the replies were disappointing. The Firozpur officer said he had seen nothing of yesterday’s elderly visitor. There had been a couple of other people in today asking about antique weapons, but when Wen Chang had heard the details of these inquiries he judged neither of them to be of any importance.

  When Kasimir asked Komi a routine question about his men, the lieutenant responded in a satisfied voice that almost all of them had so far kept out of trouble—the one exception was of small moment, involving as it did only one trooper, and a minor altercation in a tavern, which fortunately had been resolved before anyone had called in the Watch.

  Wen Chang put in a question: “I don’t suppose it had anything to do with the sale or purchase of antique weapons?”

  “Nothing whatsoever, sir.”

  “I thought not. You are continuing to send out winged messengers to your prince?”

  “I’ve dispatched a couple, sir.”

  “Have any yet returned?”

  “No sir.” For the first time in Kasimir’s experience, Komi looked worried. �
��They say that there are sandstorms over the desert. Flyers going either way might have trouble getting through.”

  “Too bad. And are your men all present and ready for duty now?”

  “Yes sir. With one exception.” The lieutenant went on to assure the Magistrate that the one exception was only a trooper—not the same one who had had the fight—who had relatives in what was called the Desert Quarter of the city. It was called that because of the high proportion of former nomads among its population. That trooper had gone, with Komi’s leave, to pay his relatives a brief visit.

  Wen Chang ordered the officer to grant no more leaves for the moment—the one already authorized could remain in force—and turned to gaze out the third-floor window. The intermittent rain had now stopped for the time being, leaving picturesque puddles in the courtyard. Now, as the sun emerged briefly from behind a cloud, some of these puddles turned to rainbow pools, stained with spilled dye from the cargo of some merchant’s load beasts.

  Without turning from the window, the Magistrate said to Kasimir: “So far we have observed three different groups in the city, any one of which in my opinion is likely to have the Sword in their possession now, or to very shortly gain possession of it from our mysterious former quarry man. For the time being I intend to concentrate our investigation upon these groups.”

  Already the sun was gone behind clouds again, and already rain had once more begun to fall, making a steady drip from eaves and gutters just outside the window. Kasimir said: “The first group, I take it, are the authorities at the Red Temple.”

  “If you wish you may count them as the first—if you include with them the sculptor Robert de Borron.”

  “Then is it true that you don’t think the Red Temple are really the most likely candidates?”

  “I did not say that.”

  Kasimir sighed. “Well, I shall of course find out all that I can about them—and about the sculptor—from Natalia when I see her today.”