Kasimir was gaining ground slowly. In a moment the man, one of the Watch, who had been closest to the fleeing Valamo tried to jump too broad a gap, and disappeared with a cry of despair.
Now Kasimir himself was closest to the enemy. Glancing off to one side, he was astounded to catch a glimpse of someone else running in the night, moving away from Valamo rather than toward him, and carrying some object. Light, timing, and distance were all against Kasimir, but he thought that he might have just seen Natalia. Or perhaps it was only that he expected to see her now in every scene of action.
He had no time now to try to puzzle the matter out. The river was very near ahead; the quarry was being brought to bay.
Someone’s slung stone whizzed past Valamo’s head; the shot had been too difficult in moonlight. The white-haired figure turned on a parapet, two stories above the water’s edge. Kasimir, running up, knew that he was going to be too late. There were men rowing a small boat in the stream just under the place where the Juggler perched, men who called up to him with urgent voices.
Valamo turned toward Kasimir, and made a graceful gesture of obscenity. The acrobat’s body crouched, then lunged out in an expert dive that ought to land it in the water just beside the boat.
Running out of shadows, the figure of Wen Chang appeared beside the leaping man at the last instant. Moonlight glinted on the faint streak of a bright rapier.
The Juggler’s body, pierced, contorted in the air. A choked cry sounded in the night. The graceful dive became an awkward, tumbling splash into the river.
Wen Chang, panting with the long chase, his own sword still in his hand, stood watching beside Kasimir. No one saw the submerged man come up.
CHAPTER 17
BEFORE nightfall Wen Chang, Kasimir, and Komi had made their way wearily back to the inn. Kasimir’s wound-an ugly bruise, and minor laceration-was throbbing, and at his direction his companions helped him wash it, then took salves from his medical kit and applied them. Wen Chang needed no directions to apply a professional-looking bandage. Kasimir was still functional, doing as well as could be expected.
Meanwhile Komi had retreated below to look after his men, and the Magistrate had ordered food brought to the upper room. While he and Kasimir were eating they conversed.
“I cannot believe that I had Stonecutter in my hand and lost it.” Kasimir was loud with growing anger.
Wen Chang did not reply.
“It was you yourself who took it from me. You who passed it on to someone else.”
Still no answer.
“Magistrate, I saw you wrap a fake Sword in a bundle. Then you gave the package to me. But later the Sword in the bundle was genuine. I saw it, in your hands, hack to bits a wall of solid stone. I heard the sound of its magic as it did so. The Sword I was carrying was genuine, and I am sure you knew it.”
Wen Chang appeared to be meditating.
“I know you are the real Wen Chang, and I cannot believe that the real Wen Chang is a criminal.”
At last the narrow gaze turned back to Kasimir. “Thank you.” The words sounded sincere, and curiously subdued.
“Then, am I going mad? Or is it not your objective, after all, to get the Sword and return it to its rightful owner?”
“That is my objective,” said the Magistrate stiffly, for the first time sounding offended. “I have undertaken it as sincerely as any commitment in my life.”
“Then-” Kasimir made a helpless gesture. “Then I am at a loss. If I am to be of any further use to you, I must know what is going on. Was the seeming appearance of the real Sword some result of magic? But no, you do not like to use magic, do you?”
“Magic is not the too! I prefer. Kasimir, if you cannot see what is going on, now is not the time for me to tell you. For your own good, if my efforts should fail.”
“Then tell me this at least. Are there magic powers, a curse, arrayed against us? The Sword comes almost into my hands, again and again, and then it flies away-generally into the hands of that woman.”
“There is no curse upon us that I know of. We face no overwhelming magic.” Wen Chang drank tea from a mug and put it down. “I have heard that the Sword Coinspinner moves itself about freely, refusing to be bound by any merely human attempts at confinement, whether by means of solid walls or of spells. I have not heard that about Stonecutter, or any of the other Swords.”
“Then what is the explanation? All I can see clearly is that Stonecutter’s gone again,” Kasimir declared, in what sounded more like an indictment of Fate than a lament. “You wrapped an imitation in a bundle here; and when I unwrapped the same bundle there, the Sword inside was genuine. I can imagine no nonmagical explanation for that.”
Unless, of course, Kasimir’s thought went on, you substituted the real Sword for the imitation by some sleight of hand. You could have done that easily enough. I wasn’t really watching. But that means you had the real Sword here, and didn’t. . .
No, Kasimir told himself firmly. That would make no sense at all. The Magistrate himself was trustworthy, if anyone was. He, Kasimir, had committed himself to that.
Unless . . .
“If it was true that we were faced by some overwhelming magic,” said Wen Chang, as if he were calmly unaware of all that might be going through Kasimir’s mind, “impossible for us to understand or overcome, then there would not be much point in worrying. However that may be, I am going to get some sleep while I have the chance, and I suggest you do the same.”
Kasimir was on the verge of pointing out that more than half of the Magistrate’s twenty-four-hour grace period had now elapsed, but he decided that would be useless, and took himself back to his couch. The salves were working, and his wound pained him hardly at all. He dozed off hoping that enlightenment might come in dreams.
But this time there were no dreams. It seemed to Kasimir that he had barely closed his eyes, when he was awakened by a remote pounding, as of mailed fists or heavy weapon-hilts upon some lower portal of the inn. Groaning and cursing his way back to full wakefulness, he rubbed his eyes. By the time the sound of boots ascending the stairs became plain, Kasimir was sitting up and groping for his boots.
A few moments after that, Lieutenant Komi, also freshly awakened, was at the door of the upper suite. “A robbery attempt is reported at the Blue Temple,” the officer informed Kasimir tersely. “It seems certain that the Sword of Siege was used.”
Kasimir groaned. “An attempt, you say? Was it successful?”
“It doesn’t sound like it to me. But the messengers didn’t really tell me one way or the other.” Komi glanced down the narrow stairs. “Naturally, you and the Magistrate are needed at the Blue Temple at once. The Hetman commands it personally.”
“Of course. All right, we’ll go. Give us one minute. And get your men up and ready for action. We’re probably going to need them again, though for what I don’t know.”
“They’ll be ready before you are.”
Wen Chang was sleeping as peacefully as an infant when Kasimir intruded upon the inner chamber to bring him the news. But he woke up with a minimum of fuss, and gave no indication of surprise at this latest development.
Everything was soon in readiness. The trip on riding-beasts through the evening streets was uneventful. This time the Hetman had sent a larger escort, and the level of their courtesy was noticeably less.
When they came in sight of the Blue Temple, Kasimir beheld a swarm of people, many of them bearing torches or lanterns, gathered at one corner of the fortress like edifice. The High Priest Theodore himself was present, to grab Wen Chang by the sleeve as soon as he had dismounted, and attempt to hustle him forward like a common criminal.
But somehow the hustling was not to be accomplished in that fashion. Wen Chang remained standing where he was, erect and dignified, while the priest stumbled, slightly off balance, as he moved away, and had to recover his own dignity as best he could.
A confused babble of accusing voices rose. Kasimir, now that he could get a good look at the corner of the massive wall, had to admit that it certainly did look as if the Sword had been used on it. Carvings had been made in the stone blocks, deep and narrow cuts that must have required a very sharp, tough tool. And there on the pavement below the cutting were the expected fragments of stone.