Swords: 10 - The Seventh Book Of Lost Swords - Wayfinder's Story (4 page)

      
The wizard nodded briskly. “Very well, then. I see that a demonstration will be necessary.”

      
The Director’s expression became uncertain. Hyrcanus behind his desk started to say something, then remained quiet.

      
Silence held for a long moment.

      
Wood’s eyes closed. His left hand extended slightly in front of him, palm upward. The long fingers quivered. Then the hand moved, and the forearm, slowly, made a gentle lifting gesture. Near the high ceiling an almost imperceptible turmoil in the air grew briefly, lightly sharper.

      
In moments this gentle disturbance was answered by a much heavier vibration. An inhuman groaning and thudding seemed to start in the roots of the huge building and progress slowly upward. Soon distant frightened yells could be heard, rising from somewhere below the thickly carpeted office floor.

      
Tigris was smiling faintly now, watching the Blue Temple men for their reaction. Neither of them had moved, though the eyes of the Chairman seemed about to pop.

      
Wood’s face, his eyes still closed, had hardened into an implacable mask.

      
The door to the secretary’s anteroom burst open, to frame the large form of an armed guard officer. “Sir! The gold—” The man had trouble finishing his sentence.

      
Hyrcanus snapped: “What of the gold?”

      
The guard turned halfway round, gesturing over one beefy shoulder. “It’s—coming—up the stairs—”

      
The Chairman leapt up from his chair, trying to see out past him.

      
The deepest rumbling, which had begun down around the massive, vaulted foundations of this Mother Temple, was now gradually shaping itself into a heavy, metallic rhythm. It sounded like a company, perhaps a regiment, of heavy infantry, clad in armor, marching upstairs in close formation.

      
There were continued cries of alarm, and more security people came pressing up behind the officer in the doorway.

      
Hyrcanus started to come around from behind his desk, and then went back.

      
The guards now crowding the doorway were pushed aside. But not by human force.

      
Bursting past them, into the Chairman’s private office, came moving gold, coins and bars and works of art, all moving as if alive. The yellow treasure had somehow been conglomerated, magically held together, into the shape of a huge and heavy many-legged creature, a gigantic centipede. At intervals this animation broke apart into separate marching figures, all headless, some in the shape of men and some of beasts. Whether in the form of many bodies or only one, the gold tramped upward and forward, the several shapes enlivened by Wood’s magic all glowing dull yellow in this chamber’s parsimonious light.

      
The Director of Security, jabbering incantations, avoided the score of trampling golden legs. Gesturing, he intensified his magical efforts to undo what Wood was doing.

      
But it was obvious to all that the Director’s attempted counterspells were failing miserably. Losing his temper, he rushed at his rival.

      
That was a serious mistake.

      
Halfway toward the object of his wrath, the Director slowed, then staggered to a halt. It was as if he had forgotten where he was going. Worse than that, it was as if he had almost forgotten how to walk.

      
Turning now to Hyrcanus, and then to all the others in the room, a smile of infantile imbecility, the Director of Security sank slowly into the nearest chair. Simpering vacuously at nothing, he appeared ready to be entertained by whatever might happen next.

      
His eyes lighted on the inexorably marching metal. “Gold,” the old man whispered, obviously delighted. “Pretty, pretty.”

      
Meanwhile Wood, his arms folded, had turned away from the Director and sat down on the edge of Hyrcanus’s desk. He was watching the proceedings with an abstracted look, as if he were not personally very much involved. Tigris, taking her cue from her master, was now seated also, in a leather chair. From a purse that had appeared as if from nowhere she had actually brought out some knitting, with which she appeared to be fully occupied.

      
With the intrusion of the marching gold, and the ruthless disabling of his first assistant, Hyrcanus abandoned all pretense of calm control.

      
He jumped up onto his desk. With screams he rebuked his Security forces. Then he turned to Wood, pleading: “Put the gold back! Send it back at once!”

      
“And you will listen to me if I do?”

      
“Of course, of course. And this fool here” —the Chairman indicated his chief aide, now smiling as he counted up his fingers— “can you restore him to what ordinarily serves him as his right mind?”

      
“If you will listen.”

      
“I will. I swear it, by Croesus and Midas. What was it you wanted to discuss?”

      
Accepting this surrender graciously, Wood slid off the desk and with a few gestures quickly restored Blue Temple headquarters more or less to normality. The weird upward progress of long-hidden treasure ceased. The marching golden centipede and all its fragments, immediately obedient to Wood’s most subtle command, reversed direction, and headed docilely downstairs. And at the same time the Director lost his carefree interest in his own fingers; his eyes closed and his head sank slumberously upon his chest.

      
Within moments after the tramping treasure had retreated, the building ceased to vibrate. Inside the Chairman’s office only the shouts of guards, somewhere in the middle distance remained as evidence that something remarkable had occurred.

      
Slowly, shakily, Chairman Hyrcanus resumed his seat behind his desk. He wiped his brow. With a gesture and a few muttered words, he offered Wood and Tigris chairs. The three were now alone.

      
With the opposition satisfactorily crushed, Wood was calm and reassuring. He glanced at the Director, who was snoring faintly. “He will regain his wits—such as they were.” Then Wood focused an intense look on the Chairman. “Hyrcanus, understand me. Your wealth is safe, for the time being—safe from me, at least. Every coin is now back where it was. I do not crave Blue Temple gold, or any other treasure you may possess.”

      
Hyrcanus, smiling glassily, murmured an excuse. Then, turning away momentarily, he beckoned the clerk to him from the next room, and dispatched the man with orders to take a complete inventory of the wealth down below.

      
Wood shook his head impatiently at this interruption. “Depend upon it, Hyrcanus, not a gram of your metal will be missing. I am not your enemy. Rather we have enemies in common, and therefore should be allies.”

      
The Chairman brightened a trifle. “Yes. Enemies in common. Certainly we do.”

      
Tigris had put aside her knitting, and was now sitting with folded hands, paying close attention to the men.

      
Her master said to Hyrcanus: “I am thinking in particular of Prince Mark of Tasavalta. I suppose you may rejoice almost as much as I do over his recent misfortunes.”

      
The Chairman, relaxing just a little, nodded heartily.

      
His formidable visitor said: “I am told that Mark is making every possible effort—so far to no avail—to heal his wife of the injuries she sustained last year.”

      
“A pity,” said Hyrcanus, and uttered a dry sound intended for a laugh.

      
“Indeed. My agents assure me that Princess Kristin is hopelessly crippled, and in continual pain. The only real hope of ever helping her lies in the Sword Woundhealer.”

      
Mention of the Sword concentrated the attention of the red-faced man behind the desk. “Ah. And where is Woundhealer now?”

      
Wood’s eyes twinkled again. “Your question brings us to the very point of my visit. The best hope of anyone’s getting Woundhealer in hand lies in the Sword Wayfinder—would you not agree?”

      
Hyrcanus responded cautiously. “It is said that Wayfinder can guide its holder to any goal he wishes.”

      
“Even, as has happened at least once in the past, into the deepest Blue Temple vaults of all … but I have no wish to remind you and your associates of past sufferings and embarrassments. Hyrcanus, I have come here to offer you a partnership.”

      
“What sort of partnership?”

      
“The details can be worked out later, if you will agree with me now in principle. You were already Chairman of the Blue Temple nineteen years ago, at the time of the great robbery. I believe I am correct in thinking that you and other insiders still consider that the worst disaster that your Temple has ever suffered?”

      
The Chairman’s face grew somewhat redder. “Let us say, for the sake of argument, that you are right—what then?”

      
Wood put on a sympathetic expression. “And Ben of Purkinje, the wretch who was chiefly responsible for that calamity, still lives and prospers, as the right-hand man of our mutual enemy Mark of Tasavalta.”

      
The Chairman nodded gloomily. Ever since Mark had become Prince of that generally prosperous domain, there had been no new Blue Temple installations at all in Tasavalta—the organization maintained in that land only a single banking facility, relatively unprofitable, in the capital city of Sarykam.

      
Tigris so far had been maintaining a demure demeanor, so it had not become necessary for Wood to banish her, or take any steps to alter her appearance. Brightly and alertly she continued to pay attention to everything that was said and done between her master and their reluctant hosts.

      
Genial-sounding Wood now inquired after the health of legendary Old Benambra, founder an age ago of the Blue Temple
.

      
Hyrcanus assured his guests that the Founder (“our Chairman Emeritus, in retirement”) was still very much alive—more or less alive, by most people’s standards, since he was now turned completely into a Whitehands, and lived underground somewhere, jealously counting up the bulk of his remaining treasure. Then the current Chairman, supremely stingy unless he made an effort not to be, belatedly ordered some refreshment to be served.

      
Presently—while the Director of Security by stirrings and mumblings gave indications that he might soon awaken—Wood smoothly returned to the subject of the Sword of Wisdom. “You, the Blue Temple authorities, have certainly known for a long time that Wayfinder was used by those daring thieves to despoil your hoard.”

      
“Well … yes.”

      
“For years you have been keeping a jealous watch for that Sword in every quarter of the world, ready to try to seize it as soon as it should appear again.”

      
The Director of Security, had by now risen and stretched and finally re-settled himself in a chair at a little distance, much chastened in his manner. Whether he was aware of what had just happened to him or not, he was evidently grimly determined to keep an eye on Wood as long as the intruder remained.

      
Now the Director said: “Wayfinder’s vanishing, as you probably know, was utterly mysterious. The only report we have—admittedly unconfirmed—says that the Sword of Wisdom was stolen, by some unknown agent, from the belt of the God Hermes, after he had been struck down by Farslayer.”

      
Everyone in the room was silent for a moment, no doubt meditating on that unlikely-sounding but undeniable event.

      
“Yes. I know,” Wood answered patiently. Though he had not been personally present at the fall of Hermes, he stood ready to accept that story as confirmed.

      
The slight jowls of the Chairman of the Blue Temple were quivering. “The treasure we lost at that time, including three Swords, has never been recovered.”

      
“I know that too.” The handsome, youthful-looking Wood was now doing his best to soothe his hosts. Tigris looked sympathetic too. Wood continued: “How unjust, how odious, that the robbers should have been able to prosper as they have.”

      
“Odious is an inadequate word,” said Hyrcanus fervently. “But let us get down to business.”

      
Wood, with a smile and gesture, indicated that he was perfectly ready to do just that.

      
The official inquired: “What exactly do you want from the Blue Temple, that you have taken these, uh, drastic steps to bring about this conference?”

      
Wood smiled. His answer was straightforward, or at least it seemed to be: “I want no more than I have already indicated. A chance to use Wayfinder for my own purposes, which will in no way conflict with yours. A league of mutual assistance against Tasavalta. And against the Emperor.”

      
Blank looks on the faces of the Blue Temple functionaries greeted Wood’s last assertion. He was silently contemptuous of their ignorance, but not really surprised. The Blue Temple evidently knew little about the Emperor, and seemed to care less. Or perhaps their lack of interest was only feigned. Like the Ancient One himself, they must be aware of certain recurrent rumors, concerning the enormous treasure that potentate was reported to have stashed away.

      
But the problems posed by the Emperor could wait. Spelling out his proposal in a straightforward way, the wizard confirmed that he wanted to be informed as soon as any of the Blue Temple people had any knowledge, or even a clue, concerning the whereabouts of the Sword of Wisdom.