Swords: 06 - The Third Book of Lost Swords - Stonecutter's Story (15 page)

      
Every Red Temple—at least every one Kasimir had ever seen from the inside, admittedly a comparatively small selection—was divided according to the same basic scheme, into interconnected domains devoted to various pleasures. Here as elsewhere there were the Houses of Flesh, of Food, Wine, Chance, Sound or Music, and Heavenly Vapors. The last was a catch-all category for various entertainments, mostly chemical. Kasimir had heard that in other regions of the world the arrangement varied somewhat, but as far as he knew a Red Temple was basically a Red Temple the world around.

      
Every time you entered a different House you had to pay another fee, though otherwise it was easy and convenient to pass from one to another. The House of Flesh was on the third floor here, the highest level currently open to the public, and for that reason Kasimir had made it his official goal. As soon as he had paid the rather hefty entrance fee, he was free to climb the winding, recursive stairs, liberally provided with landings and chairs for the benefit of the unsteady devotee who might be coming this way from the House of Wine on the ground level. Kasimir’s was a popular choice tonight, and he had plenty of company on the stairs.

      
Once having attained the third level, he entered and passed through a large, softly furnished waiting room. Here youthful servants of the temple, most of them female, all of them provocatively clad, waited to be chosen by customers. From this anteroom corridors branched off, and Kasimir chose one under the icon of a staring eye. Ignoring low-voiced invitations from the employees on the benches, he went that way alone. According to the directions he had received at the last minute from Almagro, his way to the private regions of the temple lay through the Hall of Voyeurs.

      
The Hall of Voyeurs was almost dark. At regular intervals small, very narrow corridors branched off from it. Closed doors blocked off several of these passages, meaning that they were occupied, each probably by only a single worshipper. Kasimir had never entered a Hall of Voyeurs before, but as he understood the arrangement, the walls of each branching corridor were pierced by numerous peepholes, opening into a selection of lighted rooms. In these rooms servants of the temple, joined sometimes by exhibitionistic customers, were more or less continuously engaged in a variety of sexual performances.

      
Ignoring the opportunities presented by empty observation posts, Kasimir went straight on to the far end of Voyeurs’ Hall. There, in accordance with Almagro’s briefing, he discovered a latrine—Kasimir could hear one of the real flush toilets inside working as he approached.

      
Once inside the dimly lighted and evil-smelling facility, Kasimir fumbled and stalled, feigning intoxication, until other customers moved on and he felt reasonably sure of having a few moments free of observation. Then he hurried to a service door, really only a panel set into a wall, whose lock he had been told was broken.

      
Actually, as he discovered in a moment, the door or panel was held in place by no lock at all. Typically sloppy Red Temple building maintenance, he thought as he eased the light panel aside, worked his body cautiously through into the dark cavity beyond, and then maneuvered the loose panel as closely as possible back into place.

      
Now he was standing in a darkness greater than that of the dim latrine, and on an awkward and uneven footing. Kasimir decided to wait, before moving another centimeter, to give his eyes a chance to become adjusted to the gloom.

      
Soon he was able to discern that he was definitely in an unfinished portion of the building, where he stood surrounded by its darkened skeleton of timbers and stone piers, along with a lot of empty space. There was no real floor anywhere in sight. He was standing on a narrow beam, and even a small step in the wrong direction would earn him a nasty fall. A floor or two below him, the furnished and inhabited rooms were rendered visible in outline by little sparks of light that here and there leaked out through the joints between their walls and ceilings. Also from down there somewhere came loud, drumming music, and wisps of other and more human sounds emanating from the hundreds of occupants.

      
Looking up, the view was different. A solid roof at about the sixth-floor level blocked out the sky. There was almost no light at all above except for a few more stray gleams of that unearthly looking illumination that had first caught Kasimir’s eye when he was still outside the building.

      
And Robert de Borron—or someone—must indeed be at work up there, three levels above where Kasimir was hiding, for the sounds of the sculptor’s studio, an irregular pounding accompanied now and then by voices, came drifting down.

      
The next thing Kasimir had to do was to get up there.

      
Some meters distant horizontally from where he stood-—it was hard to judge distances in this great darkened cavern where there were only tantalizing hints of light—the light from above was coming down more freely than elsewhere. Traces of the strange illumination shone out through the leaky sides of a large, roughly defined vertical column, that Kasimir presently realized must represent the shaft of the freight elevator used to haul de Borron’s heavy blocks of stone up to his studio. That elevator shaft, if he could get into it, certainly ought to offer a way up.

      
Having got his bearings as well as possible, Kasimir began to work his way in the direction of that vaguely glowing column, two or three meters square and extending its way up from ground level. The task, he discovered almost at once, was even more difficult than it looked. His only means of progress was to edge nervously along a narrow beam, his pathway interrupted at intervals by the thick columns of stone and timber holding up the upper floors. Once he had moved away from the paneled rear wall of the latrine, he had only space on right and left.

      
He had made only a few meters’ progress by this means when his way was blocked more substantially, this time by one of the projecting side corridors of the Hall of Voyeurs, complete with its set of performance rooms. The only way to get past this obstacle was to go over the top, and presently Kasimir found himself creeping across the broad upper surface of a thin ceiling. At one point the surface bent alarmingly beneath his weight; he sprawled out flat, as if he were on thin ice, and centimetered his way forward holding his breath.

      
From inside the lighted room just beneath him there issued moans and rhythmic cries that suggested torture. Of course in a Red Temple other kinds of sensation were more probably the cause. Still, with every movement Kasimir made, the thin panels—and the plastering, if there was any—of the ceiling beneath him threatened to give way. He expected momentarily to go crashing and plunging down amid the bodies mounded on some bed. When that happened, the men with their eyes at peepholes in the lonely adjoining corridors would see a different show than they had expected.

      
Kasimir surmounted the barrier of the rooms at last. Now, feeling more and more like a beetle burrowing through the woodwork, he was back on his narrow beam again, working his way closer and closer to the silent, faintly glowing elevator shaft. No hoisting was in progress now, he was sure. If it had been, he would be able to hear men or load beasts straining at a windlass somewhere, and the creaking of the network of pulleys and cables he had once glimpsed from above. Anyway the sculptor’s work was supposed to be nearly done now, and it seemed likely that all his massive work pieces had already been hauled up.

      
It occurred to Kasimir to wonder briefly why the workshop had not been situated at ground level, and only the finished statues hoisted. But then he supposed that space on the lower levels of the temple would probably be at a premium, already occupied by the various Houses of worship. And then too, secrecy would probably be easier to maintain at the higher level. Might that have been a consideration with de Borron and his employers from the beginning of the project?

      
Closer and closer Kasimir drew to the enclosed shaft, until at last he reached it. Putting an eye to a chink in one of the roughly enclosed sides, he could see loops of chain as well as lengths of thick rope hanging inside the shaft, whose interior was bathed in near-daylight brilliance falling from above. Kasimir felt sure now that those must be Old World lights up in the studio, relics of the age of technology whose human masters had ruled the world even before Ardneh lived, before Ardneh’s Change had come upon the world to restore the dominance of magic.

      
Right now, as Kasimir had felt sure would be the case, the ropes and chains hung motionless, the hoisting machinery was idle. Not so the workshop above. A number of people were there, he could tell by the intermittent murmur of voices; and at least a few of them were working, as evidenced by the continued sound of tools.

      
The next step toward reaching the studio was to get inside the elevator shaft. With his eye to a crevice, Kasimir could see that the inner sides were ribbed with cross-bracing that should make an ideal ladder once he got within reach of it.

      
To get inside that shaft it was necessary to pry one of the ill-fitting side panels loose. That proved to be no great trick once Kasimir had brought his small, sharp-pointed dagger into play. Crude nails loosened quickly. In a few moments the panel was free, and Kasimir was able to slide his body into the shaft, where he clung to the ladder like sides with a fair degree of security.

      
Looking up, he could see the big pulleys, wound with chains and ropes, at the top of the shaft. He could see also a part of the overhead of the sculptor’s studio, illuminated with that wondrous light, whose source was still invisible.

      
Before he began to climb the last few meters to his goal, Kasimir, trying to be thorough, moved his loosened panel back as nearly as possible into its proper position. He glanced down once, into darkness—heights had never bothered him particularly—and then started climbing the shaft’s ribbed side.

      
He had about nine or ten meters to ascend, and he moved up as quickly and silently as possible. As he got closer to the top he could see that the head of the elevator shaft was barricaded from the workroom by nothing more than a rude length of rope, stretched as a precaution across the side of the shaft that was open to the room.

      
As he neared the top of the shaft, he crossed over to the side where the light was dimmest. Even here it was uncomfortably bright for a man who was trying to hide, and he was going to have to be careful to avoid being seen before he had the chance to observe anyone else.

      
At last, moving very slowly now, Kasimir was able to raise his eyes above the level of the studio floor, and look out into the more distant parts of the big room. Most of it was indeed as bright as day, in the flood of illumination from what Kasimir now saw were indeed two Old World lanterns, each resting on its own small table.

      
Never before in his life had he seen Old World lights as big as these. But these lamps could hardly be anything else.

      
And standing between the two lights, almost exactly equidistant from them, with her pale flesh glowing like soft marble in their radiance, her naked back turned toward Kasimir, was Natalia, posing as a model.

Chapter Thirteen

      
As a secret observation post, the head of the open elevator shaft suffered from at least two major drawbacks: First, any observer who stationed himself there was far too likely to be seen by the folk he was trying to observe. And second, if he was discovered, he had nowhere to retreat to safety.

      
But a ready solution was at hand. The empty elevator shaft came up at the edge of the huge workroom, and the three sides of the shaft away from the studio were not tightly enclosed. Kasimir needed only a moment to slip out of the shaft onto the rough floor behind the nearest of the draped canvases that had been hung around the high unfinished walls of the studio. He could see more reason for these hangings now, see them as an effort, not entirely effective, to keep the Old World light from being seen at a distance and arousing people’s curiosity. The fewer people who knew about de Borron’s efforts here, the fewer would be likely to come around and bother him.

      
Once Kasimir had established himself behind the canvas, he had only to examine the cloth barrier in front of him, using reasonable caution to keep from moving it very much, until he located a small gap between two imperfectly overlapping pieces. When he put his eye to this aperture, he was able to examine most of the room in front of him while remaining virtually invisible himself.

      
Now he had a good view, from a different angle, of the two Old World lanterns on their separate tables, seven or eight meters apart. Each light source was a white globe approximately the size of a man’s head, almost uncomfortably bright if you looked straight at it. Each globe was supported on a stout dark cylinder with a broadened base, that held it above its table by about half the length of a man’s arm.

      
Ordinarily Kasimir would have found such rare Old World artifacts intensely interesting. But not just now. To begin with, there was Natalia, posing nude halfway between the lights. She was standing in front of a white cloth hung as a backdrop, on a low dais or stand that looked as if it could be rotated on demand.

      
And there was Robert de Borron, standing with his back turned almost fully to Kasimir. The artist was four or five meters from Natalia, and right beside him was the almost-finished statue he was working on. The statue, larger than life like the others in the studio, was of marble, almost pure white, and it rested on its own small foundation of short but heavy timbers. Close along one side of the marble figure rose a scaffolding, a sort of wide ladder, to enable the artist to reach the upper portions of the work.

      
Natalia had a robe lying beside her on the rough planks of the floor. She was facing toward both the sculptor’s and Kasimir’s left. Her pose was erect, standing with hips thrust forward, one foot a little in advance of the other, her arms curved wide as if inviting an embrace. In front of her, and slightly more distant from her than the artist was, a pair of Red Temple security guards in soiled and shabby crimson cloaks had frankly abandoned any pretense of paying attention to their duties, and were devoting themselves to staring at her.

      
She was managing to ignore them completely.

      
Beyond both sculptor and model as Kasimir looked at them, far across the broad expanse of the shallowly L-shaped studio space, a handful of other workers were toiling at some tasks that Kasimir did not bother to try to identify exactly. Now and then, out of the relative dimness in which those other people labored, a thin cloud of white stone dust drifted, slight air currents carrying it gradually closer to the lights. But some of the people over there seemed to be working on wood; Kasimir looking at them got the impression that they might be simultaneously demolishing one small scaffold and putting another one together. The sounds of their hammering tried with little success to echo in the large but cloth-draped space.

      
Besides the statue that de Borron was working on, four or five others were still standing about in the studio. All of these appeared to have been finished by now.

      
The glow provided by the Old World lights was certainly as strong as daylight in the vicinity of the sculptor and his model, but even at its brightest it was subtly different from the light of day. De Borron’s face, plainly visible to Kasimir whenever the sculptor turned his head a little, showed clear as a marble carving in that light. But for once the man’s expression was not a study in arrogance. Instead there was something strained and pleading in his look, as if the artist were praying to his Muse.

      
But none of this, not even the sight of Natalia posing unclothed, claimed Kasimir’s attention more than momentarily. Within a few seconds after he had made his peephole in the cloth draperies, Kasimir’s attention was entirely riveted upon the object in de Borron’s hands.

      
The sculptor was now indeed working with the Sword of Siege.

      
The hidden observer could be very sure of this, even though very little of Stonecutter’s length was actually visible. Almost the entire weapon was out of sight, sandwiched between a pair of thin, flat boards that were held firmly together with clamps. From one end of this sandwich a dull black hilt protruded, and from the other end, that nearest the work, a few centimeters of bright steel.

      
Attached at right angles to the flat boards making up this improvised sheath were rounded wooden handles. These offered good grips for the artist, who needed only the few exposed centimeters of the blade to work the stone.

      
But the most ingenious part of the Sword-holder’s design, as Kasimir observed it, was the way in which the whole sandwich of Sword and wood was suspended from overhead, on what looked like a fishing-rod of slender steel, with counterweight attached. By this means the sculptor’s arms and hands were freed of the continual burden of the weighty Sword, his muscles were liberated to concentrate upon the demands of art and of the client’s deadlines.

      
Obviously the work was going very swiftly now, and doubtless the artist, despite the occasional expression of anguish that passed across his face, was basically satisfied with how it went. The Sword as he used it to cut stone made little thudding noises. These seemed to have little or no connection with the physical work it was accomplishing, being rather a by-product of its magic. Kasimir needed a minute or two to convince himself that such an inappropriate sound was really coming from the Sword, and was not an echo of the coarse pounding by the workers in the background.

      
But the dull little thudding sound was proceeding from the Sword, all right. Under the sure control of de Borron’s strong hands, Stonecutter’s irresistible point was peeling and scooping delicate little chips of stone from the white marble shape. Already the work had taken on at least the crude shape of its model in all its parts, and some of those parts looked completely finished. Only the final stages of carving and smoothing remained to be done.

      
It was obvious that the work had been going on in this swift fashion for some time. For hours, probably, if the drift of tiny, distinctively shaped chips and shavings around the sculptor’s feet offered any reliable indication.

      
The amplified likeness of Natalia, subtly transformed by de Borron’s skill, was rapidly emerging from the stone. But despite the evidence of rapid progress, and the fact that de Borron appeared pleased and fascinated with his new tool, it was apparent to Kasimir that the artist had not yet mastered the Sword to his own satisfaction. Fascination was far from contentment. The artist was intent on learning everything that this magical device would let him do.

      
He was muttering to himself—or perhaps to his Muse-—almost continually as he worked. Kasimir was not quite able to make out any of these comments.

      
The studio was not as busy as it had been during the day, but a few more people were present, all of them Red Temple personnel of one kind or another. Chief among these, the High Priest himself, now came strolling around the corner of the L, heading in the direction of the laboring artist. The priest had his hands clasped behind his back, and his expression was one of impatience held in check by deliberate toleration; it must appear to him now that his precious deadline was going to be met after all. In no more than a few hours, perhaps, the installation of his precious gambling tables in this space could begin.

      
The official spoke. “So, it appears that you are going to finish on time, de Borron.”

      
The sculptor, without removing his eyes from his model, muttered something in response. Stonecutter continued to make its dull incongruous noise, and thin stone leaves released by the bright blade fluttered almost continuously to the floor.

      
“What’s that you say, sculptor?”

      
The man with the Sword in his hands looked up. “I said, ‘Yes, if I am not bothered too much by fools.’ ” This time the answer was spoken with fierce clarity.

      
The man in the red robes flushed. “One day, stonecutter, you will push your arrogance too far.”

      
But with that the exchange of sharp words died out; de Borron had already turned back to his work and Kasimir, watching, thought it doubtful that he had even heard the priest’s reply.

      
Meanwhile some of the other people in red livery were also strolling closer to where the master artist worked. A couple of them, besides the two enthralled with Natalia, were from security. Two more, women, were probably minor officials, Kasimir thought, come up here to see where the gambling tables were going to be when the remodeling was finished.

      
The two supposed guards who had abandoned all thoughts of duty in favor of gaping at the model were gaping at her still. Only when one of these moved closer for a better look, actually getting himself into the sculptor’s immediate range of vision, did de Borron bark something that sent both men into a hasty retreat.

      
The High Priest, who had earlier retreated a few steps, said something in a low voice that Kasimir did not catch.

      
The sculptor heard him, though, and snapped back: “If you want me to finish quickly, then in the name of all the gods get out of my way and let me work!”

      
Kasimir was just wondering whether he ought to start back down the elevator shaft—he foresaw that getting out of the temple again would take time—and report to Wen Chang as quickly as possible that the Sword was definitely here, when his thoughts were interrupted by a faint and furtive sound coming from somewhere to his right.

      
Turning his head sharply in that direction, he saw that some of the ropes and chains that hung down into the elevator shaft were stirring slightly, as if someone below were pulling on them or at least had touched them.

      
While Kasimir had been busy making his own unauthorized entrance into these private parts of the temple, it had not even occurred to him to wonder at how easy it all was. You expected security to be lax in a Red Temple. But now he wondered suddenly whether his entrance had not been suspiciously, ominously easy. Whether a path might not have been deliberately left unguarded; not for him, of course. For someone else, and he had happened to find it.

      
There were more sounds from the elevator shaft, very faint sounds. Sounds that he would not have heard or noticed if he had not been listening intently for them.

      
Someone else was coming up to the studio, by the same route Kasimir had taken.

      
If Kasimir stayed where he was, the new arrival or arrivals would be certain to discover him as soon as they reached the top of the shaft. Maybe it was Red Temple security, after all alert enough to do some checking up on loosened panels. Maybe it was someone else.

      
As quietly as he could, Kasimir scrambled away from the opening of the shaft, moving into the deeper shadows along the wall of canvas draperies.

      
From beyond that wall came Natalia’s voice, speaking suddenly and clearly. “I need to take a break,” she said.

      
Kasimir, satisfied for the moment that he was safe from discovery, fumbled at the cloth in front of him again until he found another tiny hole, which enabled him to once more look out into the studio. He was in time to see Natalia grabbing up her robe from the floor and pulling it around her, while at the same time she shot a swift glance toward the open elevator shaft. It was not a look of puzzlement, or idle curiosity; instead it was full of calculation. She had heard the sounds there too, and Kasimir got the impression that she had been expecting them.

      
“Can’t you wait?” de Borron barked at her, automatically protesting the interruption of his work.

      
“No, I can’t.” Tying the belt of her robe, the tall young woman tossed back her drab hair defiantly. The Old World light did nothing for its color. “We’ve been at it for hours. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold my arms up like that.”

      
“All right, I suppose you’re due for a break.” The artist’s voice was tired. He was rubbing his hands together now, as if to restore circulation in his own tired limbs. He had let go of the apparatus that held the Sword, so that Stonecutter in its odd wooden sheath bobbed lightly in midair, dependent on its fishing-rod support.

      
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.