"Why don't they post more men at the city gates?" I wondered aloud. "Then they wouldn't need to send half a regiment out on marching patrol."
"I don't know," Saysi replied. "But you're right. It doesn't make sense."
We started on as the receding footsteps of the patrol faded away down a connecting street. "The sea's down there," Saysi said, pointing along a broad avenue we were crossing. "Remember when we walked there and saw the ships from all over the world, and the big temple to Patrikon down near the water? As I said, that's where I've been staying."
I nodded at the memory of the granite, square-walled edifice. Like most of Patrikon's holy places, it had resembled a fortress more than a place of worship. I hadn't spent much time there, but I recalled that the vast chambers had seemed unusually quiet, almost like abandoned ruins amid the bustle of Argenport's streets.
"What about the rod?" Once again our mission began to take on a sense of urgency in my mind.
"Right here," she said as we entered a broad, paved plaza. An outdoor dining area, shaded by large, fat-leafed bushes, occupied one side of the square, while across the open expanse rose a high stone wall.
"Behind that?" I asked, indicating the barrier.
Saysi nodded. I looked upward, over the few people moving across the plaza, studying the top of the wall and anything I could see beyond. The turrets and gables of a building within were visible and suggested a square pattern for the occupant's house. The tops of lofty pines and spreading oaks also extended above the wall, and from these, I guessed that the trees on the enclosed estate had been planted in a very regular pattern.
"Wait here," I suggested, indicating the nearby tables of the café. "I'll go have a look around."
"What about shackles?" Badswell asked, frowning at the walled enclosure and the small fence surrounding the outdoor inn.
"Don't worry. You and Saysi should just act like you belong there," I said breezily. After our experiences thus far, I didn't think it likely that they'd be bothered by guards. In fact, there were people sleeping in the open around the fringes of this very plaza, a circumstance that would never have been tolerated in Argenport's High City, so far as I could remember.
In a slow, deliberate circuit around the fortified mansion Saysi had identified, I noticed a number of unusual features. Perhaps most dramatically, the compound was laid out in an absolutely regular pattern: an octagon of high walls, with identical towers jutting up from each of the eight corners, and four solid, closed gates in the middle of the north, south, east, and west walls.
I saw no sign of the owner's identification, no coat of arms or herald emblazoned on the walls or gates. Indeed, none of these portals seemed any different from the others; nothing suggested one as a main entrance or front door. Nor had I seen any flags or pennants flying from the turrets that had been visible above the surrounding wall. Still, the very size and splendor of the place denoted that some kind of nobleman, or perhaps a very wealthy merchant, dwelled within.
Small plazas or marketplaces faced several of the compound's walls, while the others were skirted by wide streets. These avenues were littered with garbage and refuse, though none of the waste had been allowed to collect along the wall around the stately mansion. I completed my circuit and returned to the small café where I had left my two companions.
I found Badswell and Saysi at the table on the outdoor patio of the inn. This early in the day, the place was mostly empty, but it served our purposes well because it provided a splendid view of the walled enclosure.
"Did you notice? There's no one sleeping near the place," Saysi remarked as I made my way between the tables to rejoin her and Badswell.
"That, and the streets are clean around the wall—cleaner than anyplace else I've seen in Argenport."
"Too clean," Badswell muttered, clearly uncomfortable with his bulk wedged into a small chair. "I like Low City better."
"But even in the High City, there are drunks flopped all over the place, and beggars squatting on just about every corner," Saysi observed.
"Every corner but those around here..." My eyes were drawn again to the rigidly organized compound, to the towers and the ranks of regimented evergreens arrayed within the walls. "I'm betting it has something to do with whoever lives there."
"You're sure the next piece is in there?" asked Badswell, scowling as he followed the direction of my gaze.
"Sure as I can be," Saysi replied. "You've both carried pieces of the rod. You know how that direction sense works. It drew me all the way to Argenport, to the High City. Then, when I walked around that place, every instinct in my body told me that I should try to find a way to get inside—that that's where the fourth piece of the rod is."
"Let's go get it, then," Badswell muttered, shuffling his feet.
"Shouldn't we have some sort of plan?" I asked, laying a restraining hand on his big arm.
"Any ideas?" Saysi wondered.
"We could try knocking on the door," I suggested reluctantly. The idea sounded too much like walking into a trap for my tastes.
"What'sat?" questioned Badswell, pointing to a square of parchment that had apparently been nailed to the gate in the nearest wall of the compound.
"That wasn't there before—at least, I didn't see it when I walked around the place!" Given the extent of my earlier reconnaissance, there didn't seem to be any way I could have missed the yellowed sheet. I felt absolutely positive that it had been posted since my circuit of the octagonal compound's walls.
"I didn't notice it either," concurred the priestess. "But I didn't see anyone putting it up just now."
"I can't say that I like this much," I groused.
"Somebody put it there." Saysi's logic was irrefutable. "Maybe it says something useful."
"It could be a trap." The situation still smelled of treachery as far as I was concerned.
"We just gonna stand here? Let's look." The half-ogre was clearly growing impatient.
"I'm with Badswell," Saysi declared. "We've got to do something."
I was tempted to suggest that "something" could conceivably include abandoning all thought of the Rod of Seven Parts, turning our back on this place, and getting on with the rest of our lives. Saysi had returned, as if by a miracle, and it would have been very easy to wander off with her in search of further, safer adventures. The business of potent artifacts, of age-old strife between law and chaos, was clearly nothing but trouble.
Yet in my heart, I knew that turning aside now was an unsatisfying notion; something strange, deep, and compelling made it essential that we try to locate the next piece of this ancient artifact. The others agreed. Only later did it occur to me that, as we made up our minds, each of us reached down to touch our individual stub of ebony.
"Let's go see what the sign says," the little priestess suggested.
"I don't know.... It seems too obvious, somehow, to just walk over there. How about having a look at the other gates?" I suggested. "Maybe each of them has a sign now. The one to the left, at least, was a lot more private than this one across the square."
We made our way casually along the street leading from the plaza, following the high wall of the compound around to the left. Going around another corner, we were on a stretch of street that had earlier struck me as the least traveled section of the compound's environs. Trying to be surreptitious, I yawned and stretched, tilting back my head and allowing my eyes to sweep along the crest of the wall. It was crenellated, suggesting a platform for fighting or observation behind it, but I still saw no sign of a guard or any other inhabitant.
Walking along the side of the street opposite the wall, we drew near the western doorway. Like the others, this portal was a heavy stone archway, with a door of massive oaken planks banded with bolts of iron or steel. There was no aperture to suggest a window or even a speaking hole in the barrier; the door seemed, to all appearances, like a very solid surface indeed.
As on the gate in the plaza, a sheet of parchment, curled slightly at the l
ower corners, had been nailed into the middle of the door. From this distance, we could see several tiny symbols scrawled on the sheet.
"The writing's too small to read from across the street," Saysi observed.
"But who put it there?" I demanded crossly. "I couldn't have missed two of these signs, could I?"
"It hasn't been there for long," deduced the priestess. "The first rain—or even a strong wind—would rip it right off."
"Maybe somebody 'spects us to come along," Badswell declared dryly. "What's it say?"
"Only one way to find out," I muttered.
I looked left and right, glad to see that there were no other pedestrians in sight. Trying to maintain an elaborately casual air, we sauntered across the street and gathered in front of the oak-paneled door. Saysi and I craned upward, reading the words on the sign and looking at each other in surprise.
"Say it out loud," gruffed Badswell.
"Sorry." I had forgotten that the big fellow had no doubt never learned to read. "It says, 'If you are the bearer of the key, you must enter here! My command is etched with all the power of the law.' "
"Who says?" The half-ogre glowered to all sides, ready to argue the point.
"Does it matter?" Saysi asked. "Try the gate."
I pushed at the door. I wasn't surprised to find that it was in fact very securely locked.
"What key? Does it say that?" Badswell pressed.
"No," Saysi replied, as her hand fished into the big pocket of her gown. It emerged, pink fingers clenched around an object of glossy black. "But I have an idea."
"Do—do you think that's a good idea?" I wondered, suddenly hesitant.
"I don't know what else to do," she said. "And, yes, I think it's the right thing to do. After all, this sign doesn't seem to be a threat or a warning. It's more of an invitation, and it invokes the name of law."
This didn't seem like a good time to mention that a threat could easily be concealed as an invitation. Besides, despite my misgivings, I was forced to agree with Saysi: Trying to open the door—lawfully—seemed like the right thing to do. That command was phrased in terms of the undeniable lightness of law, and I believed in law. If we had the key, then we had no choice but to enter.
There didn't seem to be any kind of keyhole, so Saysi simply raised her stub of the rod, touching the door just below the parchment.
I was beyond surprise when the portal swung soundlessly open, revealing a straight walkway of crushed gravel between sentinels of lofty pines. The path connected directly to a door in the manor house that came into view as we passed hesitantly through the outer gate. I gulped back my apprehensions as I heard the barrier swing softly shut behind us. Part of me wanted to turn around and make sure that it would open for us again, but—perhaps because Saysi advanced with unhesitating courage—I quelled that notion, proceeding abreast of my companions along that inviting walk.
Stone crunched softly under Badswell's boots, while Saysi's and my bare feet barely disturbed a single chip of rock. Beside the walkway was a lawn of precisely trimmed grass, broken by the verdant umbrellas of pine clumps and the stately, solitary oaks. The lofty trees were arranged with care between stretches of smooth lawn, broken by several swaths of brightness that were clearly small, formal gardens. Not surprisingly, the garden on the left was a virtual mirror image of the one we could glimpse to the right.
Birds chirped and squawked, adding to the pastoral gentility of the surroundings. I saw a pair of robins hopping on the lawn, and a male woodpecker, his crimson head vibrating, hammered at the limb of a tall oak while a brown female perched watchfully nearby.
Without discussion, we advanced toward the great house, looking upward at the great structure with growing awe. The lower fringe of the building was made of uniquely matching fieldstone, a gridwork of perfectly matched hexagonal pieces. The upper walls were paneled in dark timbers and crossed by grids of heavy beams. Several windows were visible in the upper floors, though neither movement nor light suggested the presence of anything or anyone alive or moving up there.
"Look! Another sign on the door!" Saysi pointed, her voice tightening in excitement and tension. A yellow sheet was nailed prominently in place, bold script proclaiming something that we couldn't read at this distance.
Once again I wasn't surprised, but neither was I reassured. We climbed three marble steps to the landing of the house, discovering that the front door was every bit as solid and windowless as the gate in the compound's outer wall.
I immediately saw that the message was similar to the one we had seen outside.
" 'Ye who would serve the law must enter here, for only thus may the tides of chaos be held at bay!' " Saysi read the words aloud and, before anyone could object, reached forward with her chip of the rod.
"Wait!" I gulped, pulling her hand back before it made contact. "Are you sure...?"
She looked at me, her brow creased in a clear invitation for me to offer a better suggestion. When I said nothing else, she nodded—a touch smugly, I thought—and pressed the stub of the rod against the door.
Immediately the portal swung smoothly open, revealing a corridor leading into the depths of the mansion. A floor of black marble gleamed as if freshly waxed, and walls of sleek mahogany reflected the marble's glow with a sheen of their own. Overhead, several crystal chandeliers led into the distance; from each of these a few candles flickered, the minimal illumination proving more than ample when reflected by the glossy surfaces of wall and floor.
"Well, no point stopping here," Saysi said, stepping boldly forward.
Feeling far less bold than the priestess looked, I nevertheless accompanied her. Badswell kept pace, and together we marched into the depths of the strange house. I was not surprised to hear the door click softly shut behind us.
"I'm worried," I said in a low whisper. "I'm afraid this might be a trap."
"Well, take a look around," Saysi retorted. "You used to be pretty good at finding traps. See if you see anything that worries you."
I moved into the lead, conscious of my companions following close behind me. My eyes roved from the ceiling, which was lost in shadows except around the chandeliers, to the walls and floor. The mahogany paneling was smooth and flawless—I saw no sign of any irregularity that might have indicated a hidden door, peephole, or anything else out of the ordinary. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that I wasn't doing this right. I was missing something, or forgetting to look for obvious clues.
We had progressed for more than two dozen steps when I saw the first unusual feature: a small metal lever in the wall, with one of the ubiquitous parchments nailed to the wall just below it.
" 'You must pull this lever, for the law compels you,' " I read aloud as I stepped up to the unusual feature. Without thinking, I reached out, took hold of the handle, and jerked it sharply downward.
The rattling of chains gave us a split second's warning—enough to panic, but not to move. Metal crashed with an ear-shattering clang, the sound resonating down the long corridor. By the time I took a step, I met the bars of a heavy cage that had dropped from the ceiling to completely enclose the three of us.
"I think you found a trap," Saysi declared wryly.
"Why did I pull it?" I groaned, cursing my thoughtless stupidity.
"Because of the rod—you carry an artifact of law," she replied, her tone surprisingly gentle, considering the circumstance. "When you saw the instructions, you did the right thing—the lawful thing—and followed them."
"Catching you all very neatly, I observe."
The new voice emerged from the depths of the corridor, spoken in a man's well-modulated tones. Bitterly I looked for our captor, watching as a door slid open in the side walls of the corridor, farther down than we had progressed.
"This should prove to be a very profitable encounter... very profitable indeed."
The speaker came into view then, and I was surprised to see a man of relatively diminutive status. Somehow the voice had made me expect someone
much taller. He wore a red silk jacket of impeccable tailoring, and his cleanshaven face was smooth, though the gray in his hair suggested that he was past middle age. Still, his steel-colored head was carefully, even immaculately groomed, with not a hair out of place. Eyes that were dark and piercing flashed with keen intelligence from behind metal-framed spectacles, and though he smiled as he approached, I saw no trace of humor in anything about his appearance.
"Welcome to my humble home, travelers. I have been expecting you."
"You knew we were coming?" Saysi blurted.
"Well, not you exactly, but I've been expecting at least one visitor. You see, I possess something that has attracted you. By the fact that you have come through my doors, I know that you possess that which I seek."
"You have the fourth part of the rod," I accused, having no patience for vague games.
"Ah... I see that you are aware of the nature of the precious segment you bear. Perhaps you are not as unworthy as appearances might indicate." With careful dignity, the gray-haired man stroked his smooth chin.
"Your supposition is correct. I have the fourth piece. And I know that you have the third." Abruptly his forehead creased more deeply, then brightened with an anticipatory smile. "I should say, at least the third. But there are three of you. It occurs to me that you might have the first and second pieces as well."
None of us replied to his statement. Recognizing the truth, I suspected that we wouldn't have the segments of the artifact for much longer.
"Rathentweed! Come here, my good gnome!" cried the man, clapping his hands together. "Come and meet our visitors."
Moments later a short, stocky figure with round cheeks, a flowing brown beard, and a colossal nose bustled into view, entering through another panel in the hallway that slid aside to reveal a secret door. That portal, I saw with chagrin, was located on one of the walls I had already inspected. Though I had noticed not the faintest irregularity, the aperture revealed was as broad and high as a normal door, dwarfing the little fellow who stepped through and now stood, blinking curiously, tugging on one of the tassels that dangled from his floppy hat as he regarded us.
The Rod of Seven Parts Page 16
