The Seventh Book of Lost Swords : Wayfinder's Story by Fred Saberhagen (best books for 7th graders TXT) 📗

      Hyrcanus himself was wasting no time, but not hurrying particularly either, shuffling papers about in front of him, methodically getting ready to undertake, in his own good time, whatever business might be required.

      Behind the Chairman, piled inconspicuously in the shadows toward the rear of the tent, Valdemar could see what appeared to be certain metal tools, looking too complicated to be simple weapons. Vaguely he wondered what they were.

      The Chairman cleared his throat. He made an announcement, something to the effect that this session was going to be only preliminary.

      Looking sternly at his clerks, seated at another table along one wall, he added: “The fact that we must conduct, in the field, operations more properly performed at headquarters, is no excuse for inefficiency. Everything must be done in a businesslike fashion.”

      Yambu, having somehow been restored to at least partial consciousness, was now being brought into the pavilion too, and made to stand beside Valdemar. They exchanged looks; neither said anything. Valdemar thought that probably there were no useful words to be said at the moment.

* * * * * *

      Rain and wind surged against the blue and gold tent, as if in a fruitless endeavor to get at the papers inside.

      Several folding chairs, enough—as Valdemar thought he heard someone remark—for the absolute necessary minimum of meetings, were disposed about within the tent. Two or three of the strange Old World lights had been placed on the tables, and another mounted on a folding metal stand. Valdemar got the impression that there was some kind of heating device as well, Old World or magical, giving off a gentle invisible glow of warmth around the Chairman’s feet.

      Hyrcanus, mumbling almost inaudibly to himself, was busily extracting more sheaves of paperwork from a dispatch case of dull leather, and laying the stuff out upon his table under the bright, efficient light. Valdemar, watching, assumed that this array of written records must be intended to serve some magical purpose. He could not picture any mundane necessity for it.

      At a nod from the Chairman, one of his subordinates gave the order for the prisoners to be moved, one at a time, somewhat closer to the central table.

      Before getting down to serious questioning, the Chairman, acting in the tradition of his organization, saw to it that his captives’ names and descriptions were noted down, and that they were methodically robbed. Hands went dipping into Valdemar’s pockets, and his clothing was patted and probed, by means both physical and magical.

      Valdemar realized to his surprise that these people were more concerned with him than with the Silver Queen. The only reason he could imagine for this was that he had happened to be holding the Sword when they arrived.

      An exact inventory was taken of all valuables confiscated from the two prisoners. Actually these were very few, and of disappointingly little value.

      Valdemar noted that the high officials of the Temple took very seriously this business of accounting for items of trivial financial value.

      “Money?”

      “Practically none, sir.” But the clerk, under the Chairman’s cold stare, went on to itemize the few small coins which had been taken from Valdemar and Yambu. This painstaking listing, accomplished in the meticulous Blue Temple fashion, occupied what seemed to Valdemar an inordinate amount of time.

      Though Valdemar had never before had any direct dealings with the Blue Temple, he like everyone else had heard a thousand stories exemplifying its legendary greed and stinginess. While the young man had no liking for the picture painted by those stories, the tales inspired in him not terror so much as contempt and wariness. He was now waiting impatiently for a chance to argue that he should be considered a non-combatant here and allowed to go on about his business.

      But the Chairman was in no hurry, nor were his clerks, who evidently understood exactly the attitude toward work that was required of them. While Hyrcanus sat shuffling and rearranging his papers at one folding table they were busy writing and calculating at another. Among their other tasks, Valdemar gathered as he listened to their clerkly murmurs, was that of keeping a precise expense account—how much was this mission costing the corporation?

      In the background, two or three meters behind and above the droning clerks, a small window high in the rear wall of the pavilion afforded Valdemar an occasional sight of one of the griffins, or perhaps two—he could not be sure whether it was really the same huge, nightmarish head and neck that now and then loomed up in the morning’s gloom, as if the beast were curious about what was happening inside the tent. The griffin, or griffins, had evidently been tethered close behind the pavilion.

      The griffin or griffins, Valdemar realized at a second look, were eating something out there. Lion-jaws dripped with a dark liquid in the uncertain, cloudy light. Suddenly he had the horrible feeling that the creatures were tearing some animal—or human—body to pieces for a snack.

      The Chairman coughed drily. But then, just when Valdemar thought Hyrcanus might at last be ready to get down to business, the Chairman delayed again, turning to his Director of Security to lament the cost to the Temple in time and money of this journey. He had spent some days in getting here, traveling from the unnamed city of his headquarters, and he considered the expense of shipping his necessary equipment to have been almost ruinous.

      Talking to his Director of Headquarters Security, upon whose bald head the Old World light gleamed brightly—and who, here in the bright light, looked even older than he had outside—now and then looking up to glare at his new prisoner or prisoners as if he considered them to blame—the Chairman deigned to give them all several reasons why he had felt it necessary to take charge personally of this expedition:

      “One, because I feared that Master Wood, on once getting the Sword of Wisdom into his hands, would never relinquish it.” Hyrcanus paused thoughtfully. “Of course I suppose