Alexander, Lloyd - Vesper Holly 01 (7 page)

"I don't care what Nilo says about not accepting favors," Vesper told me later. "As soon as we're back in Zenta, I'll have a long talk with Osman. Somebody has to start listening to reason."

The possibility of reaching Zenta before the fighting broke out struck me as dim. More likely, we would become permanent residents of the cave and eat sausages the rest of our lives. Nilo did not intend to release us.

"This is the safest place, Lincilla, " he said when he returned after nearly a week's absence. "Zalik has been looking for you even harder than he is looking for Vartan.

"I can stay no longer," he continued. "I have work to do in other villages. Milan and Silvia will come with me. You must wait here, Lincilla. You will be well cared for."

"No," said Vesper. "We're going with you. We can help each other. I want to go to Zenta. You want to go— wherever you have to. There's a way to do both.

"Can you get hold of horses and a carriage? A wagon? Then do what you did before. Be our dragoman. Milan and Silvia can wear Zentan uniforms and ride along as our escort. We have out firman, we have a letter from Osman. They're very impressive documents; no one will question them. Once you're where you want to be, we'll separate and go our own ways."

"We have no uniforms," Nilo said. "The btmhashi's men found them. They confiscated your baggage, too. As for the rest of your plan—" He rubbed his chin and thought for several moments. "Yes. It is a good one. It will serve your purpose and ours. Milan will see to everything we need."

"One more thing," said Vesper. "I'm not going to Zenta without a look at Vartan's Castle. It's important and I may not have another chance. The matrona said it was by Lake Lara. That's not far from here."

"You will find nothing of interest," said Nilo. "Only ruins."

"Then it won't take long to see them. We have to go in that direction anyway. We'll need to stop for a rest. We might as well do it there."

Milan looked doubtful. I felt the same. Our situation was touchy enough without adding a side trip. Nilo and Milan spoke apart for a while.

"Lincilla," said Nilo, after they finished, "we have an old proverb. The bear gladly trades a few grapes for the fox's pomegranates. When you offer me a service in Vartan's cause, I cannot refuse a small favor in your own."

"I hoped you'd see it that way," said Vesper.

We started next day at first light, leading our horses down the rocky slopes. Milan, Silvia, and a few others had already gone. They would meet us a safe distance from Alba-Collia with whatever vehicle they could obtain.

Now that he had stopped playing incompetent dragoman, Nilo proved an excellent guide. He knew the area, his shortcuts were as short as he claimed. By midday, we had our first view of Lake Lara shining silver blue in a litde valley.

"I can imagine water sprites living here. A perfect setting for them," said Vesper. "No wonder that Zentan prince in Matrona Mira's story was spellbound. But we'd better not let it happen to us."

She pressed eagerly on, Nilo matching her pace. I caught up with them at the summit of a high, grassy mound. There, overlooking the lake, stood Vartan's Castle.

"It's magnificent," Vesper said in a hushed voice.

What I saw was a large heap of rubble.

"Magnificent—if you look at it the way it must have been." Vesper began striding toward the ruins. "You have to rebuild it in your mind, Brinnie."

Nilo and I followed as she scrambled over broken pillars that lay like stumps or fallen tree trunks. Vesper examined a fragment.

"Marble? That's not local stone, is it? It must have been hauled—who knows how far?"

Vesper went on enthusiastically, estimating the height of the pillars, where they had stood, and in effect, restoring the building in her imagination and making it take shape there before us.

"But—it's not a castle. The pillars must have stood— there, to make a portico. These broken slabs were steps leading up to it. A fortress wouldn't have that kind of architecture. I think it must have been a temple."

Vesper was correct. What had been the central portion was overgrown with myrtle and laurel; it seemed to have caved in on itself. But, as Vesper pointed out, it was a temple, far too elaborate to be a simple rustic shrine. The structure would have been rectangular, with pillars on all sides lo form graceful arcades.

"What could have destroyed it?" said Vesper. "Damage like that—I'd say, an earthquake."

Probably so. As I recalled my history, the region had suffered tremors at the same time as the catastrophic Lisbon earthquake of more than a hundred years ago. Illyrian folklore gave credit to Varian stirring in his sleep.

"This is older than the Illyrtad, " Vesper went on. "From what I've studied about architecture, people didn't build like this in the twelfth century. It goes a lot farther back. Do you realize what that means.-* There was a civilization here long before Vartan. That's an important discovery in itself."

It was regrettable, I said, that we had no time to investigate thoroughly. There might well be a substructure: the private quarters of the priesthood, storage chambers, perhaps a special sanctum forbidden to all but those initiated in the secret ritual. I should have bitten my tongue.

"There's more belowground?" exclaimed Vesper. "How can we get in.**"

We could not. The temple was in a state of collapse. Even if we found an entry, the structure had been weakened and might fall about our ears. For a safe and proper exploration, we required timbers, a framework, posts to shore up the excavation.

"Still," said Vesper, "it can't hurt to look around."

Disregarding my advice, she clambered over the ruins, poking here and there, scrabbling at loose rocks. Nilo caught her enthusiasm, and the pair set about probing every nook and cranny.

Vesper finally sang out that she had found something.

At the end of what had been the portico, a broken pillar lay across a gap in the flooring. She ran to the fringe of trees and soon came back, dragging a couple of long branches.

"Come lend a hand, Brinnie."

With Nilo's help, she began levering one end of the pillar while I prized up the other. The work put us all in a fine sweat, but we did at last roll aside the marble blockade. Vesper dropped to her knees and peered into a jagged opening a couple of feet across. She tossed a handful of rubble into the shaft.

"I can't tell how far it goes, but it seems clear. Let's take a look."

Nilo fetched a coil of rope and a lantern from his pack. I kept pointing out that we all had urgent business elsewhere, but Vesper's curiosity was aroused, and I finally gave in. The sooner she was satisfied, the sooner we would be on our way. Having had some experience with Holly in this kind of work, I thought it wiser for me to go first. Vesper refused to hear of it. While Nilo secured one end of his line around the pillar, Vesper lashed the other into a harness. She hooked the lantern to her belt and disappeared into the shaft.

Nilo and I waited anxiously. After a few minutes, I heard Vesper's muffled voice calling excitedly. Insisting it was my duty to be with her, I left Nilo stationed at the rim of the opening while I inched my way down.

The shaft was more or less free of debris, and widened as I descended. Vesper was waiting, lantern in hand. She hurried me along a low-ceilinged passage of stone and timber construction—in reasonably good condition, considering the damage at ground level. Several chambers opened into this little corridor, but they had been mostly blocked by rubble.

"I didn't take time to look around much," Vesper said, leading me into a fairly large and unobstructed room. She strode to a ledge at the farther wall and raised the lantern. "But—Brinnie, you have to see this."

To my astonishment, I glimpsed a row of wooden figures, superbly carved, ornamented with gold and silver, studded with gems. These statuettes stood nearly a foot tall. Each bore some tool or implement. Their masklike faces held an expression of supernatural calm.

"Do you recognize them, Brinnie? They're like those dancers in the village. There—up above—three women, just as at the festival. How old would you say?"

I could only guess: well over a thousand years. They were unquestionably ancient.

"The folk in Alba-Collia must have been going through that ceremony for so long they've forgotten how or where it began."

Vesper's face shone with excitement. Justifiably. We had —that is, she had—stumbled on an example of a long-vanished, unsuspected Illyrian culture. The temple and its mysterious figures were enough to keep scholars busy for years. The whole area might yield all manner of treasures.

But Vesper had not finished. She drew me into what appeared to be an anteroom. Here, my foot struck something, and I cried out.

The sight of a skeleton, no matter how ancient, has always been unsettling to me. This one on the ground was not quite a skeleton; the dry air had preserved it and its garments quite well. Still, the fellow was not in good condition. I would gladly have parted company with him.

Vesper had no such queasiness. She drew my attention to what remained of richly embroidered robes and turbanlike headgear.

"He's not Illyrian. He's Zentan. He's dressed like the pictures in my old Illyriad. But what was a Zentan doing in an Illyrian temple?"

She pointed to a sword nearby—the typical slender, curved Zentan blade. Another figure sprawled on the ground. A third, still clutching his weapon, had fallen next to it.

"What happened here? There must have been an awful fight." Vesper glimpsed an object on the stone floor. She picked it up. "An Illyrian archer!"

She scrambled over the ground. "Here's another. A Zentan, this time. And more of them, scattered everywhere. Brinnie, they're chess pieces—but look at the size of them!"

She held up a handsomely wrought piece in the form of a grand vizier, easily a foot high, an impressive work of craftsmanship, then resumed her search.

"Most of the set's here," she said after a short while. "No—the Zentan king's missing. I found Vartan, but not Ahmad. That's odd."

She broke off suddenly and thought for some moments. "Brinnie, let's say the magical army is folklore. But what if something real got changed into a legend? Wouldn't you call chessmen a kind of army? Could Ahmad's gift have been a chess set? A royal game, a royal present from one king to another?"

Nilo was calling urgently. Reluctant to leave her discoveries and vowing to come back for a longer look, Vesper hurried down the passage and shinnied up the rope. Less nimble, I waited until she and Nilo hauled me to the surface.

Nilo, in some agitation, was pointing down the slope. Some pack mules had come into sight, along with a number of men bearing hand tools. Our horses had been tethered on the far side of the mound and thus went unobserved by what appeared to be a Zentan work party.

Nilo motioned us to crouch behind the bushes. A couple of the Zentans began spreading out sheets of canvas for a tent, while another set up a camp chair and folding table. Moments later, a horseman joined them, dismounted and glanced around, issuing instructions.

I jumped to my feet, surprised and delighted. Vesper was shouting something after me, but by then I was halfway down the slope, eager to greet this unexpected, though welcome, arrival.

"My dear Professor Garrett—really, this is quite extraordinary."

Dr. Helvitius shook my hand with intense cordiality. The scholar was dressed in very durable travel garments, a cloth cap covering much of his great shock of white hair, his feet encased in stout, knee-high boots. He appeared in the best of trim, hearty and vigorous. Clearly, he had not been sleeping in caves and living on overspiced sausages.

"But, good heavens, sir, what has happened to you?"

I could not, I told him, begin to describe our tribulations, nor could I adequately express my pleasure at finding a civilized individual.

"My unfortunate colleague, I must hear all the details of your harrowing journey. Will you take luncheon?" He gestured toward the table where one of his Zentan crew set out an array of victuals.

Vesper and Nilo had, by now, joined us. Nilo had resumed his pose as humble dragoman. Except for a few scornful glances, the Zentans paid him no attention.

Vesper, surprisingly, behaved with almost impolite abruptness. Offering only minimal greetings, she demanded to know why he was here.

"For your own welfare, dear Miss Holly, and your guardian's." Helvitius was a little wounded by Vesper's attitude. "Our encounter is not accidental. I have spared no effort to find you. I only regret that I did not succeed before now."

"You've found us," said Vesper. "Why were you looking for us?"

"King Osman has been troubled, without word from you. His vizier is equally distressed. He has received news from Colonel Zalik of civil unrest, local disturbances, that you had vanished into thin air—perhaps met with misadventure. I took it on myself to learn what had befallen you."

"A lot has befallen us," replied Vesper. "Most of it thanks to Zalik."

Dr. Helvitius raised his eyebrows. "I am astonished to hear that. I met recently with the bimbashi. He impressed me as an excellent and diligent officer."

"That bald-headed crocodile," said Vesper, "has lied to us, robbed us, hounded us, tried to throw us in jail. Yes, I'd call that diligent."

"What alarming accusations," said Helvitius. "I do not understand."

"Neither do I." Vesper turned her glance on the camp furniture and the tent. "And I don't understand why you brought all this. Searching for us? You're setting up housekeeping."

"In addition to my concern for your well-being," said

Helvitius, "I hoped to join you in your field research. I found your enthusiasm and determination both admirable and intriguing. Your insistence on the reality of an impossible aspect of the Illyriad, I confess, aroused my curiosity. Like you, I wished to discover the facts."

"We've already done that."

Helvitius blinked. "Have you, indeed?"

I interrupted to explain that such was far from the case. Briefly, I told him of Vesper's notion. It was, of course, pure speculation. We had nothing to support it.

"Then let me share my own information with you." Dr. Helvitius invited us to seat ourselves, offered refreshments, and leaned back in his canvas chair. "As you know, it was my firm opinion that this so called magical army was mere folkish fantasy. Yet, even the most learned may fall into error. As an honest researcher, I am duty bound to admit my mistake and correct it.

"Since our last meeting, I have examined evidence convincing me that this magical army has a basis in reality. Ahmad's promised gift to Vartan was, in fact, a set of chessmen."

"What made you change your mind so fast?" put in Vesper.

"I have been able to piece together certain details," Helvitius replied, "and form, to my complete satisfaction, a fairly clear picture of the historical events surrounding that episode. Admittedly, a small measure of speculation is involved. Nevertheless, I believe my interpretation is, on the whole, accurate.

"When Ahmad returned home after his release by Vartan, he intended to keep his promise. He commanded a chess set to be made. He entrusted delivery of this gift to a loyal retainer and provided him with an armed escort to conduct him to Vartan's realm. Ahmad's gift, however, never came into Vartan's hands.

"As I interpret certain of the documents, Ahmad's vizier was dismayed at his king offering such a gift to an enemy —the chess set was immensely valuable. The vizier schemed to acquire it for himself.

"Accordingly, he hired a band of robbers to attack the emissary, seize the chess pieces, and secretly bring them back to him. Since the attack would take place in Vartan's territory, King Ahmad would blame Vartan's warriors.

"The vizier's plan failed to this extent: The chess set was never returned to him. Indeed, it vanished entirely. I am convinced it existed, but its whereabouts have remained unknown.

"The facts, my dear Miss Holly, are perhaps not as entertaining as the fiction. They have only the advantage of being true."

"Hold on a minute," said Vesper, instead of thanking Dr. Helvitius for his lucid exposition. "What evidence are you talking about? At first, you'd said there wasn't any. When I searched the archives, all the documents from that time were missing. Did they suddenly turn up again? That's magical."

Dr. Helvitius smiled indulgently. "We scholars have other techniques. Ah—collateral corroboration, evidentiary implications ... I shall not bore you with details."

"I'm not bored," said Vesper. "I'd like to know more. I'd also like to know what you'd have done if you hadn't found us."

"I was prepared to conduct my own exploration—on your behalf, naturally. In the spirit of academic fellowship and collegiality, I would have shared my discoveries with you.

"You see, Miss Holly, I have concluded that the attack on Ahmad's emissary took place in this area. I, too, have a theory: Set upon by assassins, Ahmad's people might have escaped, fled, and sought refuge in the very structure we see before us. In those days, it would not have been in its present state of ruination."

What a pleasure it was to observe the workings of the scholar's intellect. It inspired me to offer some elaborations of my own. I suggested that when Ahmad's retainers found refuge in the temple, the assassins pursued them into the underground chambers. There, the emissary and his men made a last stand, protecting the gift to Vartan.

"Why, then," asked Helvitius, "did the assassins not make off with their prize?"

"That is a question whose answer has been lost in the mists of time," I replied. "The fact remains: The chessmen exist. We, sir, have discovered them."

Vesper must have grown excited by my remarks, for her foot kept twitching against my shin.

Helvitius leaned forward. "The actual chessmen? I congratulate you. May I assume you will extend to me the same professional courtesy I would have extended to you? If you would permit me to examine this long-lost treasure—"

"There are many other treasures as well. Greater than anyone suspected," I said. "Yes, of course, we welcome your examination and the benefit of your opinion."

"Not now." Vesper turned hastily to me. "We can't stay here any longer."

I had completely forgotten, my thoughts distracted by the scholar's brilliant exposition. We had promised Nilo the safety of traveling with us. He was, in fact, making discreet but urgent gestures.

"Miss Holly, you astonish me," said Helvitius. "Having reached your goal, do you propose to abandon it?"

"We have something else to do first," said Vesper. "I'm not abandoning anything."

"Naturally, you will not object to my pursuing my own investigations during your absence?"

"I do object," said Vesper. "Any investigations to be done—we'll be the ones to do them."

"Miss Holly, my equipment is excellent," replied Helvitius. "Need I point out that you have none at all?"

He was, as he said, completely outfitted. His supplies even included a case of dynamite. Surely, I remarked, he did not contemplate using high explosive that might further damage the structure.

"It is my own formulation," Dr. Helvitius answered. "An improvement on the invention of Herr Nobel. Have no fear, professor. As a chemist as well as an experienced mining engineer, I am accustomed to dealing with volatile substances."

"No one's going to deal with anything until we get back," said Vesper. "Right now, I only want the chessmen. They're the evidence we need. We'll take them with us. I'm going to the chamber to collect them."

Beckoning to Nilo, she started up the slope. I followed, as did Helvitius, who continued his attempt at persuading Vesper to change her mind.

"Allow me, at least, to assist you," he said when he saw the rope we had used as a means of entry. Several of his crew had trailed after him; he instructed one to fetch some items from the pack. The Zentan soon hurried back with a rope ladder and several excellent lanterns.

Nilo had already clambered down. Vesper paused for a moment. "This gear looks familiar," she muttered to me. "In fact, it looks like ours."

They were, I assured her, standard items commonly available. We discussed it no further, as Nilo was calling for us to make haste. Dr. Helvitius climbed after me. Once we reached what I chose to call the sanctum, I directed his attention to the row of ancient figures.

Surprisingly, he showed no interest. Instead, he pulled away brusquely and went into the anteroom, where Vesper and Nilo were busily picking up the scattered chessmen.

I stood a moment, admiring once again the array of priceless statuary. In that instant, all grew clear to me. How had I failed to realize it? How had Vesper, with her keen mind, overlooked an obvious explanation? I hurried to the anteroom.

"That reprehensible bimbashil" I cried. "Dear girl, do you wonder he did all in his power to hinder us? He wanted the statues for himself. He feared we would discover those marvelous figures before he could remove them."

How easy it would be, I went on, for Zalik to sell the valuable artifacts, no questions asked, to collectors, dealers, and sad to say, respectable museum curators.

"I doubt that," said Vesper. "He might not have known about the temple. If he did know, he could have cleared it out whenever he wanted. Nothing kept him from coming up here and ransacking the place.

"No—there is something that might have stopped him," Vesper went on, pondering her own words. "He might have been told to keep away. Ordered to keep his nose out of the whole business."

That, I replied, was most unlikely. As regional commander, Zalik would follow no one's orders but his own.

"No, professor," put in Helvitius. "Miss Holly is correct. The diligent colonel has his instructions."

"Who from?" Vesper rounded on Helvitius. "Do you know?"

"I do," Helvitius replied. "The bimbashi, in fact, serves two masters. One is Ergon Pasha."

"And the other?" asked Vesper.

Dr. Helvitius smiled. "Myself."