Quest for the Secret Keeper (27 page)

Still, as long as he lived, there was hope. So the sorcerer of fire clung to that, especially since there was nothing else to do.

P
erry crept over to join Ian and Carl after Wolfie and the priest had disappeared into the church and Dieter had driven off. “Am I to understand that the boy who argued with his father is the fifth Oracle?”

Ian nodded while Carl cursed. “This is likely to get quite sticky,” Perry said.

Adria and Iyoclease joined them too and motioned them a bit deeper into the woods, lest they be spotted from inside.

They arrived at a small clearing. Perry still appeared very worried by the prospect of their challenge. Carl continued to grumble and in general be completely disagreeable. “How do you suppose we go about snatching him, then?” Carl snapped. “I mean, we can’t just walk in there and kidnap the bloody lout!”

“Master Lawson,” Perry replied crisply. “Language.”

“Sorry, sir,” Carl said contritely. “But this is blo—suicide!”

“It is indeed,” said Adria. “I recognized the boy’s father. He is a servant of Magus the Black.”

“Herr Van Schuft,” Ian said. “We recognized him too.”

Perry pulled his chin in. “Do you mean to say that the next Oracle is a
servant of the sorcerer
?”

“No,” said Adria. “But his father clearly is. Still, the boy has all the markings of a Thinker. Able to read and control thoughts and even plant ideas in the minds of others. That priest was not weak minded. The boy shows extraordinary talent.”

“This is a most dangerous quest, then,” Iyoclease said. “If the boy can read thoughts, it would be difficult to lure him away from the abbey with a ruse. And surely five strangers approaching the abbey and inquiring about the boy would call unwanted attention.”

“Especially in your attire,” Adria remarked. Iyoclease looked down at himself and nodded.

“This is impossible,” Carl grumbled. “There’s no way to get him to come to us without him seeing the trick, and there’s no way to sneak in unnoticed to entice him away where we can nab him and force him through the portal.”

“Perhaps there is a way,” Perry said. “Although I believe it might take some time to work it through—certainly longer than the morning.”

“Do you have an idea, sir?” Ian asked.

Perry nodded. “With our pieces of the Star, we’re able to speak flawless German. No one would suspect a man with two young sons inquiring about their admittance into the abbey’s school, now, would they?”

Ian brightened. “Quite right!” he said. “Yes, sir, that does seem like a good idea!”

“Are you
mad
?” Carl gasped before he remembered to whom he was speaking. When Perry leveled a look at him, Carl amended himself by saying, “Er, what I mean, sir … with all due respect … you can’t very well expect us to pretend to be
German
!”

“That’s exactly what I expect, Mr. Lawson,” Perry replied, and Ian could tell their schoolmaster was quickly losing patience with Carl’s attitude.

“Carl,” Ian said, knowing he might be able to talk some reason into him. “We’ll be acting as spies, working not just to bring back Wolfie, but also gaining any valuable information we can give to the crown.”

As he’d hoped, Carl pounced on the idea. “Spies, you say?” Ian nodded vigorously. Carl’s face lit up with interest and he looked back again at the school. “I suppose some of those louts have parents who know what the German army is up to, eh?”

Again Ian nodded vigorously. “Some of their fathers might be high-ranking officers, in fact,” Ian said. “You saw how Herr Van Schuft was dressed. He was wearing an SS uniform. I believe he’s got himself a post in Hitler’s personal army. So who knows what we could learn by posing as students and mingling with the others?”

“There’s a flaw in your plans, though,” Adria said to them. When they all turned to her, she said, “Mr. Goodwyn, however are you going to convince the headmaster at
the abbey that you have money to pay for Ian and Carl’s attendance?”

“Has no one brought along any money?” Ian asked.

Perry dug into his trouser pocket and pulled up a few pound notes. “These won’t do,” he said.

Adria held her hands open. “I have a few gold coins left, but not enough. We’ll need a considerable amount of German Reichsmarks.”

Perry’s face turned pensive, but Carl seemed to brighten even more. “Leave it to us,” he said, pointing to himself and Ian.

“Leave what to us?” Ian asked. He had no idea what Carl had in mind, but he knew he probably wouldn’t like it.

Instead of answering him, Carl simply motioned for Ian to follow him, and set off. Grudgingly, Ian followed Carl and soon caught up with him. “What’re you planning?” Ian asked him.

“I saw a house from the bluff,” Carl told him. “It looked to be a nice home where someone with a bit of money lives.”

Ian had an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Yes, and …?”

“In a home like that, I bet they’ve got loads of valuables just lying about.”

Ian stopped and caught Carl by the shoulder. “You want to
steal
from them?”

Carl looked at him frankly. “Yes, Ian. I want to steal from the same people who have bombed our cities, killed
our countrymen, and murdered Madam Scargill, Monsieur Lafitte, and Eva’s grandmother.”

Ian felt the sobering truth of what Carl had just said sink into him. Still, he thought Carl’s plan was far too risky, and he wanted to talk him out of it but Carl had already set off again. Ian decided to hold his tongue just long enough to find out what Carl intended to pinch.

Reaching the outskirts of the yard surrounding the stately home, the pair crouched down behind a row of trees to observe it before attempting to go inside. “Someone’s home,” Ian whispered, pointing to the back end of a motorcar partially hidden by a low wall.

Carl eyed the vehicle. “Let’s hope they’re not home for long,” he said.

Luck seemed to be with them again, as not ten minutes later they heard a rear door open and saw a man in a long black leather coat and matching hat come out of the house and get into the motorcar.

They caught a better glimpse of the vehicle and the driver then, and Ian couldn’t help sucking in a breath of surprise. “It’s Van Schuft!”

Carl grinned wickedly again. “Oh, I think I’m going to enjoy this,” he said, and when the motorcar was barely out of sight, he stood up and crept to the house.

Ian had no choice but to follow quickly. “Carl!” he whispered as he came close to his friend. “What if someone else is home?”

Carl paused, sliding his sword out of his coat. “We’ll deal with them,” he said.

Ian didn’t like the venom in Carl’s eyes, but he understood it nonetheless. And in a moment of anger he decided nicking a few of Van Schuft’s valuables sounded like the right thing to do. The pair moved over to the rear door and Carl tried it but it was locked.

“Should we break a window?” Ian asked, looking around for a rock to use.

But Carl only laughed, and Ian noticed the air about Carl shimmering as the metal of the door handle seemed to soften for a moment and the door opened with a click. “I rather like being a Metal Master,” he said.

The boys entered the home on tiptoe, listening intently for any sounds of other occupants. They heard nothing but the faint ticking of a clock in another room.

“There,” Carl whispered, pointing to what was obviously the home’s dining room. “I’d wager there’s some good silver in there.”

Ian frowned; once again he was having misgivings. He didn’t like Carl’s plan to steal from the home for several reasons: the first of which was that Van Schuft would surely see that his silver was missing and alert the authorities. And second, would they ever get away with presenting the forks and knives to the headmaster of the school?

He almost voiced this concern, but Carl was already opening the door to a large credenza and digging through the contents. “Aha! There’s enough silver here to serve twenty people!”

“Do you really think the headmaster at the abbey will
take forks, knives, and spoons for our tuition?” Ian asked, knowing the idea was absurd.

But Carl was undeterred. “We can nick a few of these and sell them for Reichsmarks.”

“Who are you going to sell them to?” Ian asked, still uncomfortable with the plan.

Carl paused. “Right,” he said, considering the silver again. “We can have Mr. Goodwyn give the silver directly to the school’s headmaster and tell him it’s a family heirloom and he’s exchanging it for his sons’ education.”

Ian moved over and placed a hand on Carl’s arm. “Carl,” Ian said. “We can’t pinch something so obvious. Van Schuft’s going to realize his silver’s missing.”

“So?”

“So,”
Ian said impatiently, “once he realizes he’s been robbed, he’ll alert the authorities, who will likely go first to the school, as it’s so close to this home. And who’s to say that one or two of the students didn’t nick the silver between classes?”

Carl sat back on his heels, still holding on to the flatware. Reluctantly he began to put it back. “Well, we’ve got to find something valuable that he won’t miss,” he said. “I can change the shape of anything we find that has metal in it, but you’re right. Van Schuft will likely spot his missing silver straightaway.”

Ian let out a small sigh of relief, grateful that Carl was finally being reasonable. He then got to the business of opening drawers himself, searching for anything valuable that Dieter Van Schuft wouldn’t immediately notice was gone.

In the back of the credenza, behind a silver serving bowl, Ian spotted a large box wrapped in velvet and bound with a cord. Something about the box unsettled him, almost as if he could sense there was something inside that nagged at him in a most disturbing way.

Curious, he reached for the box and brought it out to inspect it. It was heavy and the cord was tightly knotted. Ian had to work at it for a bit before he was able to undo the knot, but eventually he managed. He then removed the velvet wrapping and revealed a wooden box beautifully engraved. He pulled back the lid and saw that inside was a chessboard, folded in the middle and clasped together on the ends.

The moment Ian pulled out the chessboard, he felt his thoughts turning dark, and a ripple of anger coursed through him. “What’s that you’ve got, Ian?” Carl said.

“Aren’t you a nosy one?” Ian snapped.

Carl’s eyes widened and he looked a bit hurt. “No need to bristle,” he said. “I was just curious.”

With great effort Ian set down the chessboard and moved away from it for a moment. Without even seeing the contents, he knew what was inside, and his body shook slightly with the struggle to leave it alone.

“It’s a chessboard,” Carl said, moving to pick it up.

“Don’t!” Ian said, reaching out to grab him by the shoulder, and again Carl appeared injured by Ian’s rather snappish tone.

“What’s eating at you, anyway?” his friend asked, roughly pulling his arm out of Ian’s grip.

“Carl,” Ian said levelly, taking another step back from the chessboard. “Do you remember Jaaved’s grandfather Jiffar?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course I remember him!”

“Do you remember the chess pieces he was working on the night he was murdered?”

Carl’s eyes bulged. “In there?” he asked, pointing to the closed chessboard.

Ian nodded gravely.

Carl laughed. “Oh, but that’s perfect!” he exclaimed. “Van Schuft’s not going to miss those pieces! I mean, look at that box. It looks like it hasn’t been opened in ages!”

“No, Carl,” Ian said angrily. “We can’t take the pieces. They’ll turn us against each other just like they did the last time, or have you forgotten?”

The chess pieces in question were carved from an evil stone called Gorgonite, which had a most distressing and dangerous effect on anyone who handled them.

Carl’s enthusiasm ebbed immediately. “Oh, right,” he said. But then he added, “Still, if I remember correctly, the pieces had quite a bit of gold, silver, and precious gems attached to them.”

Ian narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What’re you suggesting?”

“I could melt the metal right off the Gorgonite,” he said. “I know I could.”

Ian bent to put the chessboard back in the wooden box.
“No,” he said, placing the lid on top quickly. “It’s far too dangerous. We’ll find something else to pinch.”

Carl placed a hand on Ian’s wrist to stop him from putting away the chessboard. “Anything else we find might be missed. This is our best chance to bring back a bit of gold without it being noticed.”

Ian knew Carl was right, but the thought of him handling the pieces to melt the gold worried him.

“I’ll be careful,” Carl assured him. “And you can stand over there, if you’d like.” Carl pointed to the far corner of the room, beyond the reach of the chess pieces’ influence.

Ian felt his stomach flutter nervously. He didn’t like being in this house, nicking Van Schuft’s valuables, no matter how awful the man was. Stealing was stealing, and he felt ashamed for participating in it.

And then there was the chess set itself, which was a vile item not fit for humanity. He eyed the box critically. The one good thing about Carl’s plan was that the chess pieces would be rendered useless once the gold and silver were removed. The box would simply be filled with lumpy pieces of awful black rock.

With a sigh, Ian said, “Very well, Carl.” He then unwrapped the velvet again and handed over the wooden box. “Remove the gold, silver, and gems as quickly as you can. I’ll be right over there, so if you begin to feel a bit wonky, tell me and I’ll pull you away to help clear your head.”

“Right,” Carl said, bending eagerly to start the task.

Ian retreated to the far corner of the room, where he could watch his friend for signs of trouble.

Carl removed the chessboard and examined the catch for only a moment before opening it and exposing the pieces. Even from where he stood, Ian couldn’t help admiring the chess pieces as a few of them spilled out onto the floor. Carl picked up the ruby-inlaid queen and got straight to work, melting away the silver into a round ball, then setting that aside along with the rubies and going for the next largest piece, the gold and emerald queen.