Stonecutter's Story

by Fred Saberhagen

  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.”

  In a moment Wen Chang had shed his dignity entirely, and was lowering himself feet first into the dark and narrow opening in the floor. “Hah!” was the comment of the Blue Temple’s Director of Security, delivered in a tone of loud derision. But having said that much he did not know what else to add.

  Everyone else—except for Kasimir, who was preparing to follow his leader—stood motionless and silent, watching Wen Chang’s descent and disappearance. Only a moment after the Magistrate was out of sight, Kasimir was waist-deep in the hole himself, and rapidly working his way lower.

  The young man, chin at floor level now, groped below him with his toe for the next
foothold—there it was. You really had to go down feet first, because climbing down headfirst for any distance would be impossibly awkward. And if the tunnel was this narrow through its whole length, as seemed likely, there wouldn’t be any place to turn around.

  Now the walls of the tunnel wall had swallowed him completely, the cell he had just left was somewhere overhead. Renewed argument had broken out up there, and now he could hear sounds indicating that someone else was following him down. He trusted that whoever it was would avoid stepping on his head, as he was doing his best to avoid treading on the Magistrate’s.

  The descent took a long time, and was full of turns and twists, vertical drops alternating with horizontal stretches. That the tunnel was a long one came as no surprise to Kasimir. The diggers would have had to begin operations a fair distance away; they would have needed a secure place, a place where they could drop a lot of displaced rock without hauling it any farther to avoid undue attention.

  Now Wen Chang had reached the end. He was calling encouraging words back to his assistant in a soft voice, from somewhere not far ahead. And the darkness in the tunnel around Kasimir was beginning to moderate. In another few moments his feet came out into empty space, and then he had emerged.

  He found himself standing on a narrow catwalk, that ran beside a deep drain through a rounded subterranean vault. A steady breeze, cool but decidedly foul-smelling, blew through the larger tunnel. The scene was rendered visible by a wan illumination that washed down through small patches of grillwork set at wide intervals into the stone vaulting overhead. The pattern and spacing of that grill-work was somehow familiar; Kasimir decided that they must be underneath a part of the plaza that surrounded the Hetman’s palace.

  A rat went scurrying away along the narrow ledge on the far side of the drain. Just at the place where the narrow escape tunnel came out of the wall, the flow in the main drain was partially blocked, so that it ran in a series of miniature waterfalls and rapids. The cause of the blockage was several tons of rock, all in pieces of modest size, an impressive pile of sliced-up and displaced minerals, including building-stone, that had been dumped here by the hurried rescuers.

  Wen Chang, standing close beside Kasimir upon the narrow ledge, was squinting thoughtfully up and down the gloomy tunnel of the drain. Now from somewhere in his pockets the Magistrate pulled forth yet another Old World light, this one no bigger than a finger, and began to use it.

  “In that direction, of course,” he remarked, jiggling his little beam of light downstream, “all of these city drains must empty into the Tungri. And almost directly above us, just over here, must be the palace—yes, I think I am sufficiently well oriented now.”

  Scraping and grunting noises were issuing from the mouth of the little escape tunnel. In a moment these were followed by a set of legs and feet, garbed in the Hetman’s military colors. Soon an officer of the palace guards was standing silently on the ledge, straightening his uniform and looking at Wen Chang and Kasimir with controlled suspicion.

  “Ah,” said Wen Chang to the newcomer. “You may reassure your master that my associate and I are not trying to escape—far from it. But never mind, here come others to see for themselves.”

  Another man who had been in the cell above was now grunting his way out through the last meter or two of the constricted tunnel. Scarcely had he found footing on the ledge when another came after him. Soon half a dozen, the most eminent of them Prince al-Farabi himself, were decorously jostling one another for position on the little shelf of masonry, meanwhile watching Wen Chang closely to see what he might be up to now. The group also included the Blue Temple’s Director of Security.

  “No one was coming down after you, sir?” the Magistrate inquired of the last arrival, when the tunnel had been silent for a little while. “Good! Then we are ready!” And to Kasimir’s surprise Wen Chang relieved the crowding on the ledge by jumping right down into the knee-deep stream. Splashing briskly to the other side in a few quick strides, he went scrambling nimbly up the opposite bank of stone.

  Kasimir, after only the most momentary hesitation, followed. He did his best to look as if he knew exactly what his leader was doing. Privately he wondered, not for the first time, whether his leader might have gone quite mad.

  Wen Chang had put away his pocket light. On reaching the catwalk on the other side of the drain, he paused just long enough to glance back once at the assembly he had just left. Then with an air of indifference, ignoring the cries for an explanation that came from behind, he started walking along the new ledge toward an intersection of drains not far away. Again Kasimir followed.

  One after another, the other men came after them. It was either that or stand waiting in a sewer for they knew not what, or else make the hard climb through the escape tunnel back to the cell.

  Their subterranean progress, lighted by the Magistrate’s Old World lamp, continued for some minutes. Then the small party came to an even greater branching of the ways. From here an even larger drain led on in the direction of the river, and a waterfall somewhere in that direction was large enough to sound a note of distant thunder.

  Here, on a walkway large enough to accommodate a conference, Wen Chang called a temporary halt.

  “From this point forward, gentlemen,” he taxed them seriously, “he who accompanies me must remain as quiet as a ghost, say nothing, and follow my orders strictly as regards to noise and movement. He who splashes or mutters, whispers or sneezes—I hereby charge that man with full responsibility for our failure to regain that which we seek.

  “Whoever cannot agree to these terms must turn back now.”

  There was silence as his audience looked at him stubbornly, challenging him to make good on his pledge.

  Wen Chang was not perturbed. “Then all of you are with me? Good. Follow where I lead, and be as silent as the grave.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  As soon as he had seen the Hetman’s carriage depart hastily for the palace, the High Priest Theodore quickly turned away and issued urgent orders to a few of his most trusted associates.

  Then he hurried into his temple, where a few necessary personal preparations had to be made. As soon as these had been completed he descended to the lowest level but one of his establishment, then hurried along a half-buried passageway in the direction of the river, passing numerous tired-looking guards as he progressed.

  At a dock covered by its own roof and served by an artificial inlet of the river, the High Priest walked past a large ceremonial barge which was used very rarely, and stopped beside a much smaller launch, whose crew, having been sent word of his intentions, was already making ready to put out. Upon the wharf beside this vessel Theodore paced impatiently until a few more people arrived, men he wanted to bring with him on this venture. These sheltered docks were very handy for certain transactions in which the temple sometimes found itself engaged—deals involving some substantial bulk of cargo requiring to be moved in or out. Such goods could be much more readily and unobtrusively transported by water than by moving them in caravans that had to wind their way through all the streets of Eylau.

  The Director of Security was notably absent on this occasion, but the High Priest thought that was probably just as well.

  The launch had space for only four rowers on a side, and a half deck under which a few more men might lie concealed. Discussing these matters with the captain, Theodore nodded and gestured, and gave more orders.

  * * *

  A couple of minutes later he was standing near amidships in the launch, gliding across the open surface of the Tungri. River traffic was for the moment comparatively light. The face of the water was spotted with remnants of the morning mist that were rapidly being burned away by the sun. The launch in which he rode was, like the much greater barge, a brightly decorated, somewhat ostentatious craft, and was usually employed only during the Festival and on certain other rare occasions. But it had been the only boat quickly available. The fact that this was the first morning of the Fe
stival might make its presence on the river less surprising to anyone who happened to observe it.

  The note that Theodore had received just before the Magistrate’s departure was still clutched in his right hand. He stood with eyes shaded under a light gold awning, holding lightly to one of its supports, impatiently scanning the fog-spotted river for any sign that any of the busy vessels in sight had any intention of approaching his launch.

  The aide who crouched beside him repeated a doubt, voiced earlier, that the note the High Priest had received was genuine.

  On his part the High Priest maintained that he could not afford to ignore any communication like this one. Thieves of some kind were certainly in possession of the Sword of Siege, and what was more logical and natural than that those thieves should seek to sell it at great profit to themselves?

  As for taking out the launch in this furtive way, of course it was essential to keep other people, who might take it into their heads to put in their own inconvenient claims, from knowing about the negotiations should the note prove an authentic offer.

  Theodore looked down at the note once more, though by now he certainly had it learned by heart. It specified, in crude, block printing, in just what area of the river he was to cruise. He looked up sharply, making sure that the oarsmen were ordered at the proper moment to put about smartly and coast downstream for a while.

  Meanwhile the three heavily armed men he had managed to conceal under the half deck were crouching there in awkward patience, now and then shifting their positions stealthily.

  The High Priest had also brought with him on this voyage a wizard, the best available at a moment’s notice, but a man who was more a specialist in guarding treasure than anything else, so that Theodore had doubts of how useful he was going to be upon this mission.