With a sharp splintering sound, a loose slat in the wall nearby gave way under someone’s grasp. There was a scream and a falling body, followed after a sickeningly long interval by a crash in the darkness far below.
But there was no indication that the person carrying the Sword had fallen.
Scarcely had the sound of that first fall died when de Borron, still a meter or two above Kasimir and just to one side of him, fell again. Someone or something had knocked the artist loose from his grip inside the shaft, and he tumbled past Kasimir, screaming a string of imprecations that were cut short suddenly when he hit the invisible bottom.
And, half that distance below Kasimir, at about the level of the highest inhabited rooms, the vague shadow he had tentatively identified as the Sword-bearer left the shaft, to glide almost silently into some kind of opening in its wall.
Kasimir followed.
His pursuit of the latest thief went on relentlessly, crossing narrow beams and leaping gaps over darkness, going more recklessly with each momentary frustration.
Nor were any of the other pursuers giving up on the confused chase. Rather the number of hounds seemed to be growing, with the guards of the Red Temple forming a gradually increasing presence. However tardily and ineptly they were being mobilized for action, they were everywhere in the building, and they greatly outnumbered all the other participants together.
Kasimir now had lost sight of Natalia completely. But not of his primary quarry, the sinister shape who bore the Sword. The figure tried to lose him and the other pursuers, leaping from one narrow beam to another. But Kasimir, his blood now aroused to the full excitement of the hunt, would not be shaken off. His quarry climbed a stony column, dropped down again, and leaped another gap. But Kasimir stuck with the other as if his teeth were already fastened in his prey’s flesh.
They were both centimetering their way across the thin ceiling of one of the orgy rooms on the third floor when Kasimir at last caught sight once more of Natalia’s unmistakable bare-legged figure. She was starting to creep toward the quarry too, though holding on with one hand to a solid support. Whether she meant to strike at the Sword-thief or aid him Kasimir could not The ceiling underneath them all was giving way.
This time it was really The slow-motion sensation of desperate action took over. Kasimir knew a moment of despair, a moment of resignation; there followed in an instant an almost anticlimactic splashdown. He, along with numerous fragments of ceiling, had landed upon what he first took for a gigantic bursting waterbed. But when he went in up to his waist, he realized that the first impact of his fall had been borne by a flimsy raft afloat upon a shallow perfumed pool. Half a dozen naked bodies, looking clinically exposed and vulnerable, were thrashing in the shallow water now, and from the bottom of the tank unsavory things came swirling up. Wine and food, their fragile containers broken, were churning in the water, scattered into garbage.
Whatever performance had been in progress on the raft was over now. Another body, that of a security guard, fell through the ceiling, drenching Kasimir afresh with a great splash as it landed right beside him. The quondam performers were rolling, swimming, scrambling for shelter outside the pool, intent on getting out of any of the target area before more people fell.
An audience, some fifteen or twenty strong, was looking on.
There were two rows of chairs, the rear row elevated, making something like a small grandstand. All of the seats were full. The occupants of the chairs, a jaded-looking and weary crew, brightened enough at the violent innovations to offer a small round of applause, even as the Red Temple guards came crowding in through both doorways.
Kasimir, still waist-deep in the noisome artificial pond, looked round him in despair. There were plenty of blades in sight now, drawn and ready in the hands of the Red Guards who came bursting in the room’s doors, and dropping through the newly opened ceiling. Swiftly their attention was concentrated upon Kasimir.
And again the Sword was gone.
CHAPTER 14
ABOUT an hour after dawn next morning, an elderly and majestic individual, announcing himself as the personal representative of the Hetman, and accompanied by an armed escort that augmented his already formidable dignity, came calling upon Wen Chang and Kasimir at the Inn of the Refreshed Travelers.
Despite the early hour, Wen Chang was wide awake and ready to receive visitors. Kasimir, on the other hand, had to be awakened, a task that was not accomplished without difficulty. The young physician had been intensely questioned by the Red Temple authorities until well after midnight, and then released only on Captain Almagro’s written acceptance of responsibility for any further crimes and outrages that this self-proclaimed investigator might commit.
The early-morning business of the Herman’s representative at the inn was soon stated: The Magistrate Wen Chang, and his chief associate, one Kasimir the physician, were courteously but very firmly invited to attend a meeting that was due to begin as soon as they could reach the palace, and was to be presided over by the Hetman himself. The purpose of this meeting was the discussion of certain strange events known to have taken place recently in the city, and the resolution of the resulting problems.
Despite Wen Chang’s attempt to question him, the Hetman’s representative would be, or could be, no more specific than that.
As the two investigators were concluding their hasty preparations for departure, with the representative of the Hetman waiting in the room just below, Kasimir asked Wen Chang in a low voice: “Shall I tell them everything that happened to me last night?”
The narrowed eyes of the Magistrate widened momentarily. “I presume that you have told me everything?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then I see no reason why you should not repeat the same story to the Hetman. Truth is very often an effective weapon; and we mean no harm to anyone in this city except Sword-stealers.”
Wen Chang and Kasimir were soon as ready as they could be; they descended to the courtyard and mounted for the ride to the palace. Their escort remained courteous, and the two were not searched, but once in the street they were surrounded continuously by mounted troopers. A light rain was falling again, adding to Kasimir’s thoughts of gloom; he took heart from the fact that Wen Chang appeared not at all discouraged.
As their small cavalcade entered the square in front of the Hetman’s palace, Kasimir observed that the scaffold that had been erected for tomorrow morning’s execution had somehow been severely damaged, and was now undergoing reconstruction. There were signs that fire had destroyed portions of the original wooden structure, while other parts of it had been knocked down and broken. The rebuilding was being carried out under military guard.
Raising his eyes, Kasimir saw that this morning there was a face looking out at one of the small barred windows that here overlooked the square. Looking carefully, he was able to recognize the man he had earlier seen riding in the tumbrel, on the occasion of Kasimir’s first visit to this square.
Why should Benjamin of the Steppe, or anyone else, trouble to stand at a window to watch the instrument of his own death take shape? It would seem to indicate a morbid, helpless fascination, certainly. Kasimir gazed up with a kind of sympathy at the face in the small window. But if the prisoner was aware that he had a commiserator, he gave no sign.
Wen Chang, taking in all of this with a glance or two, informed the dignitary in charge of their escort that he intended to pause for a moment. When this was allowed, the Magistrate called over the officer in charge of the military guard, and questioned him.
The officer, of junior rank, plainly enjoyed the chance to be seen talking in public to these important-looking people who were on their way to the palace. He provided what information he could on the situation regarding the scaffold. During the night just past some of those persistent rural protesters had tried to burn the platform down. When rain prevented that, they had mounted the wooden structure with axes and hammers and tried to knock it all apart. The Watch had finally come on the scene and driven them off, but not until the devils had managed to do quite a bit of damage. Never fear, though, the instrument of execution would be ready in time, and this time would be kept under careful guard-there would be a live hanging, drawing, and quartering to begin the Festival tomorrow morning.
Kasimir, who had no intention of attending that kind of a curtain raiser, muttered something about the hopelessness of people who protested by trying to burn a scaffold. Wen Chang was scowling-it was hard to tell just what his reaction was. But as the Magistrate signed that he was ready to ride on again, his eyes twinkled for just a moment.