Now Kasimir, looking back toward the elevator shaft while holding himself motionless in shadow, could see and hear two people-now three-arriving at the top and climbing out, crouching in the very place where he had been only a few moments ago. Whoever they might be, they were not Red Temple security. These people were clad in close-fitting dark clothing, including masks. Kasimir saw a long dagger in one hand. He had thought for a moment that the new arrivals were all wearing swords, but when he got a momentary glimpse of them in slightly better light he saw that they were actually wearing sword belts with long empty sheaths.
And, whoever they might be, Natalia was definitely expecting them. The way she had glanced in their direction and then started a diversion was good evidence of that.
Whoever they were, there was no doubt in Kasimir’s mind that they were going for the Sword.
>From beyond the wall of fabric Kasimir could hear the sculptor’s weary voice: “We can put up a prop for you to rest your arms on.” Then de Borron’s voice grew louder, barking orders at the people who were still banging away at their work on the other side of the big room.
A moment later all the sounds of hammering had ceased. Kasimir, with his eye again to his latest observation hole, saw that the people on the far side of the room had now put down most of their tools and were coming this way.
The Sword of Siege, with no one very near it at the moment, hung gently bobbing in its homemade tool-holder. A few meters from the Sword, de Borron was pacing back and forth, pushing his hands against the small of his back as if to ease the muscles there.
Natalia was stretching herself too, and rubbing her side under her robe where perhaps the cramp was real. Now, as if following a sudden impulse of curiosity, she moved to stand close beside the low table holding one of the radiant Old World light-globes. Then she reached out one hand to touch the dark material of the lamp’s base.
“How does this work?” she asked in a clear, innocent voice. “Why is there no heat?”
“Don’t fool around with that light, girl. Stop it, I tell you! That’s not your-”
But de Borron’s shouted orders were ignored. Natalia’s fingers had found the control they sought, and suddenly the lamp went dark.
The other lamp, the one nearest the elevator shaft, was still lighted, flooding the big room with plenty of illumination for everyone to see what happened next. In a moment the remaining lamp had been snatched from its table and extinguished by the first of the three dark-clad figures who now burst out of concealment and came running into the room from that direction.
Kasimir had already made up his mind to act, and when he saw the dark figure running for the one remaining light source he knew that the moment for decisive action had come. The barrier of draped cloth in front of him was no impediment at all. Even as the studio went almost entirely dark, he pushed between the folds of hanging canvas, heading for the Sword.
He was certain that a number of other people would be rushing toward the same goal, but he felt sure of having at least a moment’s start on most of them. And when the lights went out he was already moving in the right direction.
As his legs drove him forward the few necessary strides, he heard the blackness around him come alive with oaths, cries of surprise and fear, and sounds as if people were colliding with one another. There was even what sounded like a clash of steel blades; perhaps the Red Temple guards were after all not totally incompetent, or perhaps they had only drawn swords out of fear for their own lives.
The bulk of the unfinished likeness of Natalia, and its scaffolding, loomed up just ahead of Kasimir and to his left, back lighted by the faint red glow that came through crevices from the lights along the front of the temple. The same dim light showed Kasimir something else: Despite the speed with which he was rushing for the Sword, he was not going to be the first to reach it. De Borron was there ahead of him, and the sculptor already had Stonecutter out of its wooden sheath before Kasimir could come to grips with him.
The sculptor had Stonecutter’s hilt in his right hand, and was ready to use the Sword as a weapon, when Kasimir crashed into him, determined to wrest the blade away. Kasimir’s left hand closed in its hardest grip on de Borron’s right wrist.
The physician was no trained warrior, but rough games had been a part of his growing up and of his youth, and he possessed considerable stocky strength. De Borron was perhaps just as strong, but when the two men fell together Kasimir was on top, and most of the sculptor’s wind was jarred out of him in the impact.
The Sword fell free. For a moment only it lay unattended on the floor of the studio, almost within reach of the struggling men; and then someone snatched it up. Kasimir had only the impression of a lone running figure, unidentifiable in the near-darkness, grabbing the Sword of Siege in passing, and running with it in the direction of the elevator shaft.
A moment later the wrestling match had reached an end, by common consent. Kasimir and de Borron were both back on their feet, trampling and clawing at each other in an effort to gain some advantage in the pursuit of this most recent Sword-thief.
Around the running pair, other skirmishes were still proceeding under cover of darkness, with oaths and cries and sounds of impact.
Kasimir, glancing to one side caught a glimpse of Natalia, distinguishable by her robe and her pale legs running below it, running in the same direction he was. This time he could be sure it was not she who had seized the Sword and was getting away with it.
This time, he vowed grimly, no one was going to do that, unless it was himself.
Someone was giving the trick a great try, though. The person carrying Stonecutter had now disappeared in the general vicinity of the head of the elevator shaft, and Kasimir assumed that he-or she-must be climbing down the rickety interior sides, or sliding down the chains and cables, in near-total darkness. But how would anyone be able to carry a Sword while doing that? Suddenly Kasimir understood why the latest set of intruders had been wearing empty Sword-sheaths at their belts.
Running up to the shaft himself, the physician in his haste came near diving into it headfirst. His entrance was not quite that precipitate. Having climbed the sides of the shaft before, he was better able to handle it in darkness than most of those pursuing would be.
De Borron, reaching the top of the shaft only a step or two behind him, delayed the start of his own descent briefly. He took time out to bellow uselessly for lights, and for more guards to come and save the Sword.
Then, despairing of any effective help, the sculptor swung out boldly on the chains and ropes. On the end of a loose line he started an almost free-fall plunge into the dark depths below, and had to grab at another chain to save himself.
Meanwhile Kasimir kept doggedly to his own more patient method of getting down, and whoever was carrying the Sword ahead of him and below him still maintained a lead in the descending race. Kasimir looking down could barely see a movement, shadow deeper into shadow, and only some faint sounds, clinking together of the long chains, drifted up.
Now a brief outcry in a familiar voice came from above, and Kasimir glanced in that direction. Something had delayed Natalia, but she had reached the shaft at last, and was struggling with de Borron a couple of meters above Kasimir’s head.
In a moment the sculptor was somehow pushed free, or lost his grip on chains and ropes, and started to fall down the shaft. At the last possible moment before disaster he saved himself by regaining his hold on one of the cables or chains.
Once more steel weapons clashed in the near-darkness. The members of the intruding group, one above Kasimir’s position and one now somewhere below, had drawn blades to defend the Sword-bearer, and indeed he or she must certainly be using the Sword itself, meanwhile trying to hang on with one hand.
Someone climbing in the gloom nearby lashed out at Kasimir. He stuck to his climbing and succeeded in getting away from this attack. If the attack should be renewed he thought he would have to draw his dagger and try to fight with one hand while he hung on with the other.