Swords: 06 - The Third Book of Lost Swords - Stonecutter's Story (4 page)

      
“Greetings, gentlemen! Our road, as you see, is not yet complete. But if you are willing to wait a few days, my brave men here and I will do our best to finish it for you.”

      
Wen Chang squinted into the shimmering reach of emptiness extending to the horizon ahead of the road-builders, and allowed himself a smile. “My good man, if you continue to labor to such good effect as you did when cutting your way through this ridge behind me—why then I have no doubt that a few more days should see you at your destination, whatever it may be. What is it, by the way?”

      
The smile had congealed unhappily upon the foreman’s beefy face. “I am given only a general direction, sir, in which we are to extend the road. Beyond that—” He shrugged.

      
“Of course, of course. It does not matter. My name is Wen Chang, and my companion here is Doctor Kasimir, a physician; and this is Lieutenant Komi, who with his soldiers serves Prince al-Farabi of the Firozpur. And your name is—?”

      
“I am honored indeed to meet all Your Excellencies! I am Lednik, foreman of this gang of the Hetman’s road-builders, and holding the rank of supervisor both of the Hetman’s prisons and his roads.” Having bowed deeply, Lednik looked up suddenly and slapped both palms upon his leather belt. “Ho, there! Keep those fellows working! No one has told any of you to stop for a vacation!”

      
These last admonitions were directed at one of the supervisors, and a moment later a loud whip crack detonated in the air above some workers’ backs; the sounds of work, that had once more slackened, hurriedly picked up. Kasimir, looking at the laborers, thought they looked a miserable lot, as who would not, wearing chains and doing heavy labor under the lash?—but still they were better off than some prisoners he had seen, at least well-enough fed and watered. Apparently the Hetman of Eylau and his supervisors were more interested in getting their roads built than they were in mere sadistic punishment.

      
He realized that Lednik the foreman was looking at him now. With a different kind of smile, and a small salute, the man asked: “Did I understand correctly, sir, that you are a physician? A surgeon too, perhaps?”

      
“I have a competence in both fields. Why?”

      
“Sir, a couple of my workers are injured. If it would not be too much trouble for you to look at them—? I appeal to you in charity.”

      
“It would not be too much trouble.” Kasimir, grateful for a break in the day’s ride, got down from his riding-beast and began to unstrap the medical kit that rode behind his saddle.

      
“They will be thankful, sir, and so will I. Here, any man who cannot work is useless, and we can spare no food or water for those who remain useless for very long.”

      
“I see. Well, show me where these injured workers are. I will do what I can for them.”

      
Working under another simple shade-cloth that served here as the hospital, Kasimir put a splint and a padded bandage on one man’s broken finger. After administering a painkiller he swiftly amputated that of another which looked beyond healing. According to their stories, simple clumsiness had wounded both. With bandaged hands and pain-killing salve, both men ought to be able to return soon to some kind of productive work, and indeed they both got to their feet at once, ready to make the effort.

      
From some muttered remarks among other prisoners who were getting a drink nearby, Kasimir understood that any injuries perceived as seriously and permanently disabling were treated on the spot with execution. There would be no malingering tolerated in this gang, and no benefit to be derived from self-inflicted wounds. Here, a crippling wound was a ticket to the next world, not back to a shaded prison cell in Eylau.

      
Meanwhile Wen Chang had accepted the hospitality of the foreman’s own square of shade. Seated there in the foreman’s own rude chair, sipping at a cup of cool water, he had also engaged the man in casual-sounding conversation.

      
“Unfortunately,” Kasimir heard the Magistrate say when he was able to join him again, “we cannot wait for the completion of this road, however efficiently you may be able to accomplish it.”

      
“Then what can I do for Your Excellency?” Lednik seemed to be doing an imitation of a certain kind of shopkeeper, all anxiety to please.

      
“You can,” said the Magistrate in a soft voice, “tell me all about the man who brought the magic Sword here to your camp a few days ago.”

      
“Sir?”

      
“I assure you, Lednik, that trying to look like a fish and pretending ignorance will not gain you anything.” Wen Chang pointed with a firm gesture. “Those marks on the walls of the cut through the ridge back there testify far too loudly to the presence of a certain magic Sword in which I have an intense interest. I rather imagine that before the Sword showed up you were stymied for some days by that ridge—a piece of rock too long to get around, too steep to readily go over. And much too hard to dig straight through, in any reasonable amount of time—if you had been digging with ordinary tools, that is. So the arrival of the man with the magical Sword was very opportune, was it not? Tell me what agreement you reached with him, and where he has gone now. Come, Lednik, I bear you no ill-will, and if you tell me the truth you need not fear me.”

      
Lednik was now sweating more intensely in the shade than he had been a few minutes ago out in the sun. “Magic Sword? Is that what you said just now, Excellency? Alas, I am only a poor man, and have never heard of such—”

      
“You will be a much happier poor man in the end, Foreman Lednik, if you do not try to treat me as an idiot. It is true that in this territory I have no official standing as an investigator. But I can go from this spot directly to the Hetman himself, and inform him of the suddenly improved technology of road-building in this portion of his domain. He will, I am sure, be interested to hear of it. And to hear the reasons why you, his trusted foreman Lednik, neglected to inform him of the presence in his domain of one of the Twelve Swords that—”

      
“I want no trouble, sir!” Lednik was beginning to turn pale under his tan and sweat and road dust.

      
“Then tell me, from the beginning, the truth about this visitor you had.” Wen Chang turned his head to glance at Lieutenant Komi. The officer, Kasimir noticed, was moving closer to the others, to stand inside the square of shade, from which vantage point he was better able to follow the progress of the interrogation.

      
And now Lednik’s story came out. Yes, a man, a complete stranger to Lednik, had indeed appeared at the work site only yesterday. And this man had worn at his side a black-hilted Sword of marvelous workmanship.

      
“Was there a device upon the hilt?” Wen Chang interrupted.

      
“A device?”

      
“A special marking.”

      
“A device. Yes sir, there was such a thing. It was a little shape in white, the image of a wedge splitting a block. I did observe that much.”

      
“Excellent. Continue.”

      
Lednik continued in a halting voice with frequent hesitations, describing how the stranger had been willing to demonstrate the power that he claimed for the weapon, cutting away the rocky ridge as if he were digging in soft clay, or wood.

      
“No, not even like wood, sir. Like butter is more like it. Like melting butter, yes. And that thing, that tool, that must have come somehow from the gods, why it made a dull, heavy hammering noise all the time that it was working, even though it was just slicing along smoothly. My workers had to scramble to move the chunks of rock away as fast as he could cut them out. He demonstrated the power of his Sword beyond all argument, and then he took it away with him again. I did nothing to interfere with him. No, you may bet that I did not. Who am I to try to interfere with a wizard of such power?”

      
“His name?”

      
Lednik looked blank for a few seconds. “Why, he gave none. And I wasn’t going to ask him.”

      
“What did he look like?”

      
Lednik appeared genuinely at a loss. “His clothing was undistinguished. Such as everyone wears in the desert. He was thirty years of age, perhaps. Almost as dark as you are, sir. Middle height, spare of frame. I did not pay that much attention to his looks. I feared his power too much.”

      
“No doubt. Well, be assured that my own powers are formidable too, Foreman Lednik. And they tell me that you have not yet revealed the whole truth. What was the nature of the bargain that you struck with this stranger?”

      
Eventually the full story, or what sounded to Kasimir like the full story, did come out. As payment for the stranger’s help, Lednik had agreed to release to him a certain one of his prisoners.

      
Wen Chang squinted suspiciously when he heard this answer. “And what were you going to say to your superiors when they asked you about the missing man?”

      
“It’s unlikely that anyone would ever notice, sir, that one of them was missing. They are all minor criminals here, and no one cares. If someone should notice, it would be easy enough for me to say that the man died, and no one would question it. A good many do die in this work.”

      
“And if someone should question it? And ask to see his grave?”

      
“Bless you, sir, we keep no record of the burials out here. No markers are put up. They go into the sand when they die, and the sand keeps them. How could we ever be expected to find one of them again?”

      
“I see.” The Magistrate ruminated upon that answer, which had sounded reasonable enough to Kasimir. Then Wen Chang resumed the questioning. “And what was the name of the prisoner that you released, in return for getting your ridge cut through?”

      
The foreman gestured helplessly. “Sir, I do not know his name. They have only numbers when they come to me.”

      
“I see. Well, had this man been with you long? What did he look like? Who were his workmates?”

      
“His number was nine-nine-six-seven-seven … I do remember that because I looked it up, wondering if it was an especially lucky number, which would be worth remembering next time I visited the House of Chance. But I don’t see how that will be of any use to you. He had been here for several months, I think. Yes, he was young and strong, and might have endured a long time yet, so for that reason I was sorry to see him go. And as for workmates, he had no special ones. None of the men do, I see to that. It helps immeasurably, I assure you, sir, in cutting down on escape plots and other nonsense of that kind.”

      
“Young and strong, you say. What else can you remember of his appearance?”

      
“I’m trying, sir, but there really isn’t much I can tell you. Hundreds of prisoners come and go. I believe—yes, he tended to be fair instead of dark. Beyond that there isn’t anything I can say. Oh, he and the man who rescued him were well acquainted with each other. They were real friends, I could see that from their greeting when they met.”

      
“But, during the course of this joyous demonstration, neither of them ever called the other one by name?”

      
“That’s right, sir, they were very careful.”

      
“And presumably they left together yesterday, the stranger and his rescued friend?”

      
“Yes sir, exactly. They didn’t want to hang around. Cutting through the ridge with that Sword took that strange wizard no more than an hour, while my workers scrambled to carry away the chunks of rock as fast as he could carve them free. He had brought a spare riding-beast with him, and he and his friend took three filled water-bottles from our supply. They headed out into the desert, sir, that way.” Lednik gestured in the direction away from Eylau. “Have mercy upon me, Your Excellency, for I am only a poor man!”

Chapter Three

      
In response to Wen Chang’s continued questioning, Foreman Lednik assured the travelers that the city of Eylau lay at less than two days’ distance, back along the winding length of the completed portion of his road. To travel on to Eylau that way would be a shorter and easier journey than to go back to their original caravan route and approach the metropolis by that means.

      
Kasimir inquired: “And is there any water to be found on the way?”

      
“Not directly on the way, sir. The roadside wells are not yet dug. Of course you may happen to encounter one of our water-supply caravans outward bound, in fact it’s quite likely, for one comes out almost every day. They will be happy to fill your canteens for you. Otherwise to get water it will be necessary to make a short detour to the stone quarry, where there is a natural supply. You will see the branching road about halfway to the city.”

      
Presently Wen Chang and Kasimir were remounted and trotting back along the new road, with Lieutenant Komi and his full complement of men riding escort behind them as before.

      
When they had been riding for a few minutes, Kasimir asked, “How did you know, sir, that the thief had come this way with the Sword?”

      
Wen Chang roused himself from deep thought and glanced around him. “I only knew there must be water in this place, if men or animals could stay here raising dust so steadily into the sky. And I knew of course that the thief would almost certainly be seeking water. When I saw the marks left by Stonecutter in the rock, it was a pleasantly unexpected bit of confirmation—and also a sign that the thief had other things than water on his mind when he sought out the road-building crew.”

      
“How’s that?”

      
“Here in the desert, he who has water shares it freely. The thief would not have needed to make such a demonstration, endure such a delay, simply to refill his canteens.”

      
“I see. You think, then, that Lednik told us the truth, after you frightened him?”

      
“I think so, yes.” The Magistrate sighed. “But I suspect he had only a small portion of the real story to tell.”

      
“What do you mean?”

      
“Whoever stole the Sword of Siege must have had a greater plan in mind than simply freeing a man from that road gang, though the fact that he brought an extra riding-beast along indicates that rescuing the prisoner had been some part of his plan from the beginning. A modest bribe in cash would have accomplished the rescue more simply and quietly. The foreman implied as much, and I believe him on that point … no, freeing the prisoner was only a part, though perhaps a very important part, of some greater plan. But the fact that the Sword-thief did it opens up a whole realm of fascinating speculation.”

      
“I confess I am more bewildered than fascinated. If only we knew the identity of the freed prisoner!”

      
“Yes, who is number nine-nine-six-seven-seven? If Lednik gave us the correct number, we may eventually learn the prisoner’s identity. Yes, I think that we are making progress. So far I am satisfied.”

      
And the small party rode on. Kasimir glanced over his shoulder to see Lieutenant Komi riding not far behind, in a position where he might well have overheard at least part of the conversation. The officer’s face still showed no real curiosity, but Kasimir thought that his stoic expression had acquired a thoughtful tinge.

      
That day they encountered no water-supply caravan coming out from the city, or indeed any other travelers at all, and that night made a dry roadside camp. Kasimir, stretching out upon his blanket to sleep, reflected that two days and two nights had now passed since the theft of the Sword. If it was not for the presence of the Magistrate, he would have considered the chances of its recovery zero. But Wen Chang inspired confidence.

      
Shortly after Wen Chang and his party resumed their march in the morning, they came to the first branching road that they had seen. There were no road signs, but Kasimir supposed this must be the way mentioned by Lednik as leading to a quarry.

      
Komi asked Wen Chang: “Are we detouring to replenish our water, sir?”

      
Wen Chang nodded. “I think that would be prudent. It is possible that the thief has visited this quarry too, and that we will be able to learn something to our advantage.”

      
“And shall I send a few men around to the other side of the quarry, as we did at the road construction site?”

      
“You might as well do it again, Lieutenant, though I doubt the Sword will be here now.”

      
The party proceeded according to this plan, and after they had ridden a few kilometers the quarry came into view; it was the rim of the great almost-square pit, seen from outside, that first defined itself out of the jumbled badlands. The road approached it from above.

      
At the point where the road began to switchback down a steep slope, to enter the quarry through its hidden mouth below, Wen Chang ordered a detour. While a small detachment under a sergeant moved around the quarry to take positions on the other side, the Magistrate led most of his escort toward a place on the upper rim of rock. From here it was possible to overlook the pit and its swarming laborers, with a good chance of remaining unseen from below. Looking down cautiously, Kasimir observed pools of water, looking clear and drinkable, in the bottom of the deepest excavation. Evidently it welled up naturally from the deeply opened earth.

      
The Magistrate’s attention soon centered on that relatively small part of the great excavation in which the workers were now most active. Soon, in an effort to get a closer look at the area of fresh cutting, he moved over the rim and started climbing down. His goal was an area of huge rock faces, at the feet of which great blocks were lying, evidently having been recently split away.

      
Wen Chang reached one of the opened vertical faces, and began to examine it closely but had not been long at this inspection job before he was discovered by some workers. There was a shout, and one of the overseers who had seen the tall figure of a stranger moving among the rocks started forward, whip in hand—only to change his mind and withdraw quickly on catching a glimpse of the Magistrate’s following escort.

      
When Kasimir came up to him, Wen Chang, smiling faintly, gestured slightly toward the vertical rock face just in front of them. Having seen similar evidence earlier on the road cut, Kasimir this time was certain of Stonecutter’s signature at first glance—those long, smooth strokes were unmistakably recorded here too, their texture plainly shadowed by the glancing angle of the sun.

      
Now the Magistrate climbed the rest of the way down to the bottom of the quarry, in the process demonstrating a lanky agility, and a disregard of dignity that both pleased and surprised Kasimir. On the quarry’s level floor, the two chief visitors, with their military bodyguard still filing down slope after them, confronted another foreman who wore the Hetman’s gray and blue.

      
This man was smaller and younger than Lednik. He was also more openly nervous from the start on finding himself confronted by such a formidable caller as Wen Chang.

      
This foreman, whose leather belt of rank seemed to have been designed for and once worn by a bigger man, introduced himself as Umar. At first Umar, like Lednik, denied having had any visitors at all during the past few days. Nor had he any knowledge of a magic Sword. But when faced with the sort of pressure that had moved Lednik, Umar too caved in and admitted to a different version of the truth.

      
Yes, Excellency, two strange men had indeed arrived here the day before yesterday, almost at sunset, bringing with them a magic Sword of great power. They had been willing, even eager, to demonstrate what their tool could do, using it to split enormous stone blocks easily out of the living cliff.

      
“Yes sir, that Sword was a marvel! Just rest it on its point, under no more pressure than its own weight, and it could bury itself right up to the hilt in the solid stone. And its blade was a full meter long.”

      
Wen Chang nodded encouragingly. “And what bargain did these two men make with you, in return for the work they did in cutting stone?”

      
“Bargain, sir?” Now little Umar’s eyes were popping in apprehension. “No, I made no bargain. We gave them a little food and water, yes, but we would do as much for any honest travelers. What kind of a bargain would such wizards want to make with a simple man like me?”

      
“That was my question. Perhaps they sought the release of one of your prisoners?”

      
Umar appeared to find that a preposterous idea. “One of these scum? I would’ve given them one for nothing if they’d asked.”

      
“So, they showed you what their Sword could do, purely for your entertainment it would seem, and then they simply went away again?”

      
“That’s it, Excellency. That’s just what happened.” Umar nodded, glad to have the matter settled and understood at last.

      
Wen Chang, somewhat to Kasimir’s surprise, abstained from pressing the line of questioning further, and apparently lapsed into thought.

      
Kasimir chose this moment to again identify himself as a physician and surgeon, and volunteered to tend whatever injured might be on hand. He had surmised correctly that here, as on the road job, there would always be at least a few men partially disabled.

      
The foreman, still smiling as if he now considered the matter of the Sword closed, immediately accepted the physician’s offer. Kasimir was conducted into a shady angle of the quarry wall, and shown two patients lying there on pallets. These men had suffered, respectively, a head injury and a broken foot.

      
Kasimir opened his medical kit and went to work. The man with the head wound complained of continual pain and double vision. His speech came disconnectedly, at random intervals. Usually it was addressed to no one in particular and made little sense. He also had difficulty with his balance whenever he tried to stand. There was nothing, Kasimir thought, that any healer could do for him here, and there would be little enough even in a hospital.

      
The only attendant on duty in the rudimentary infirmary was a permanently lamed prisoner who handled other odd jobs as well for the foreman. This man stood by while Kasimir bandaged the second patient’s freshly damaged foot.

      
This time Wen Chang had come along to watch the physician work. Leaning against the shadowed rock as if he had no other care in the world, the Magistrate observed to the lame man in a sympathetic voice: “There must be many accidents in a place like this.”

      
The crippled attendant agreed in a low voice that there certainly were.

      
“And no doubt many of them are fatal.”

      
“Very true, Excellency.”

      
Wen Chang squinted toward the quarry’s mouth. “And those who die in these sad accidents are of course buried in the sandy waste out there.”

      
“Yes sir.”

      
“And how long has it been now since the last fatal mishap?”

      
“Only two days, sir.”

      
“Oh. Then it occurred upon the same day that the two strangers paid their visit?”

      
The attendant said no more. But under renewed questioning the little foreman Umar, who had also come along to the rude hospital, admitted that that was so.

      
“A very busy day that must have been for you.” Then Wen Chang looked up at Lieutenant Komi, who was standing by alertly, and announced in a crisp voice: “I want to take a look at those bodies.”

      
“Yes sir!” Komi turned away and started barking orders to several of his men.

      
Umar began a protest and then gave it up. He had more overseers under his command than the foreman of the road-building gang, and these were somewhat better armed. Still, they did not appear to be a match for the Firozpur occupying force.

      
Within a couple of minutes some of Komi’s soldiers were making the sand fly with borrowed tools, at a spot out in the sandy waste about a hundred meters from the quarry’s mouth.

      
They had encountered no difficulty in locating the two-day-old burial site—the grave had been shallowly dug, and from a distance flying scavengers were visible about the place. At closer range tracks in the sand were visible, showing that four-legged beasts had been at the bodies too. Kasimir as he walked closer to the grave saw that a pair of human feet and legs had been partially unearthed by the scavengers and gnawed down to the bones. He opened the pouch at his belt containing things of magic, and began to prepare a minor spell to help disperse the odors of death and decay.

      
The first body unearthed by the soldiers was naturally the least deeply buried, the one with the gnawed feet, that proved to be clad only in a dirty loincloth. Undoubtedly, Kasimir thought as he began to brush the last dirt away from the inert form with a tuft of weeds, it was that of a quarry worker. In this dry heat, decay might be expected to move slowly; a few whip-scars, not all of them fully healed, were still perfectly visible on the skin of the back. The head had been badly injured, perhaps by falling rock, so that not even a close relative would have been able to recognize the face.