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.