It was late October and the last leaves were falling along the avenues and canals of Poyn-- on the upper slopes of the mountains the strands of aspen and mountain oak had ceased to burn in gold and red and had subsided to a wintry grey, and the first snows glistened on the ridges of Mount Uruit-- when Anduir's company, thirty strong with the men hired to guard Jerr Chavi's treasure, on horseback, and twenty mules laden with bags of loot and with chests of gold, rode over the East Bridge. There was no triumphal procession this time, for no one had known the day of Anduir's return, and anyway, the capture of a Brunnanese highwaymen, however notorious, was not so grand as to bring the capital of a great kingdom to a standstill. It was ordinary day in Poyn, bright though cold, with shops bustling and fish vendors selling their wares along every street and the carriages of lords and ladies sometimes rumbling by, and children playing in the streets, full of noise and scent and color. Many faces recognized Anduir and stared with awe at the legendary hero. More stared at the treasure-laden mules. Two mules and their burden in particular attracted all eyes, for these were yoked together, with two strong boards across their backs, and from these boards hung such a treasure chest as no one in the capital had ever seen. The chest itself seemed to be made of gold and jewels. When it caught the sun its brilliance was blinding. No Poynese had ever beheld such a finely-wrought vessel. Along its upper and lower edges human figures were carved in miniature, so that it seemed a whole story was told there, or even that a whole city lived in the frames of the chest's workmanship. Some of the gems that studded the gold surface in tesselated patterns the Poynese had seen-- diamonds and emeralds and amethysts, for example-- but others were strange: there were pink ones and sky-blue and dark purple and sea-green; there were colors that no painter's palette could supply, and all arranged so as to captivate the eye of man. It was said afterwards, by those who had seen the chest only for a moment and more for the sake of telling tales than because they believed it, that the chest was so made that a man could gaze at it forever, bound by ever-increasing fascination to the beauty of intricacy of its materials and workmanship. And so a following was attracted as Anduir and his company rode through Garden Street, Furriers' Square, and Nighthorse Way.
Here Braeth the bard was plying his trade, singing a new ballad he had written (so as to be first, though he was shamefully ignorant of all the details of his theme) about Anduir's hunting and slaying of Jerr Chavi, to a small audience of a few idlers and loafers, a pair of lords' sons, a few tale-loving boys who intended to be great men one day and listened to the bards to learn how, and one great gloomy merchant dressed in furs who was Braeth's chief mark, for a pittance from his deep pockets could feed Braeth for a day or perhaps a week, with some left over for the tavern besides, when suddenly the hero of Braeth's song appeared in the flesh, and Braeth was emboldened to make his acquaintance.
"Anduir, my good man!" called out Braeth, halting his song in the midst of a phrase, laying aside his guitar, and bounding across the square, the tale-loving boys and idlers following him like an ill-disciplined flock of sheep. Seeing the mules and their burdens, he added, "Have you conquered some kingdom that you bear with you a treasure such as would put King Midas to shame?"
"It is," said Anduir, "the treasure hoard of Jerr Chavi the outlaw, whom we-- myself and Sir Arthur and his brothers and Sir Lars and Sir Menander and others who are not with us," pointing these men out as he named them"-- have captured, after slaying Jerr Chavi and his band of brigands in the hills of Golhelm. We bring it to the king as his rightful plunder."
"Yes, I know," said Braeth. "It has been the talk of the taverns for a fortnight now. But I can see why you did not outrun the messengers, carrying all this loot. Poyn welcomes you proudly as its most illustrious son!"
"And who are you," Anduir asked, "that you greet me thus as a friend, when I have never had the pleasure of meeting you before?"
Braeth felt hot with shame at his presumption thus being justly, though gently, checked, but showed nothing.
"I," he said, "am a humble singer, poet, minstrel, and storyteller. It is my trade to be a teacher of the imagination and feelings of man, and thus to ennoble him, to inspire in each man the courage and compassion and pride proper to his station, that he may better conduct himself in the ways of virtue, in return for a few minor gratuities from those who can afford it, deposited in my hat during performances by a few of my hearers..." This was more for the merchant's ears than Anduir's, but Braeth checked himself. "In short, I am Braeth the bard."
"Well, good day to you," said Anduir. Sadly, Braeth had not made a good impression on Anduir. By ill-luck the tune of his new ballad, The Death of Jerr Chavi, resembled in harmony and rhythm that raucous eulogy to Jerr Chavi which Anduir had heard in the tavern in Oxbellows-- Anduir had not heard enough of the words to realize that the song was about him, though that might not have pleased him, either-- and it put that tune in his mind, and added to his sense of foreboding.
He did not like this homecoming. He saw a spark of tantalized greed in the eyes of all those who beheld Jerr Chavi's treasure chest. It suddenly occurred to him that they ought to have covered it in skins to hide it. He hated the treasure, which had burdened the mules, which had been the source of danger for his company, which had forced him to ride with these hired men, who might themselves be stealing from it when his back was turned, who might-- how was he to know?-- who might even have ganged up on him and slit his throat to steal it. He hated it because he had been forced to admit to himself that he himself might well be accused of stealing from it. Indeed, the temptation had once or twice occurred to him... It seemed that every thought which sprung from this treasure was ignoble. Rightful plunder -- that was the legal term, but it seemed a paradox. And now he was marching to an interview with the king which was shrouded in a fog of inarticulate fears. What would the king think of what he had done? His feelings upon this return to Poyn were so different from the glorious patriotic delight which he had always felt before, that it seemed to be a different city.
...
"Your Majesty," said the loremaster, "before I answer the question which you have put to our council, there is another matter about which I must urgently inform you. As you know, when my council, the Council of Loremasters, was established, in the days of King Donbold, a conspiracy of wizards had been found guilty of plotting to kill the king using their dark arts. Donbold responded by expelling wizards from the Kingdom of Poyn. Because wizards' councils were valued by many of Poyn's great and leading men, Donbold established the Council of Loremasters to take their place. We are to be versed in sciences and stargazing and the study of ancient runes, and we are meant to learn what we can of white and black magic, in order to protect the king from magics employed by his enemies, but we are forbidden to practice it.
"Now, at the time of the expulsion of the wizards, Donbold also banned from the kingdom of Poyn all artifacts of wizardry. Artifacts of wizardry are of many kinds: gauntlets, girdles, robes, all manner of weapons, musical instruments, cups and plates and cauldrons for cooking, rings and other ornaments, and so forth. They are endowed with magical properties. Magic may be divided into two kinds, called white and black. White magic gives a thing more excellence according to its own nature, and may tend towards beauty and usefulness, whereas black magic changes a thing in a manner contrary to its nature, and thus tends towards the diabolical and grotesque. For example, a certain artifact of wizardry called a 'bag of holding' is an example of white magic. It is charmed so as to be able to hold far more items than an ordinary bag of the same external size could hold, and with less weight. This capacity is consistent with the peculiar excellence of a bag, which is to contain and carry things. An example of black magic is a detestable artifact of wizardry called a 'bag of eating.' This despicable contrivance is so designed that when a person puts his hand into it, as if to take out some of its contents, the mouth of the bag turns into the mouth of a monstrous beast and eats the hand placed inside it. Thus white magic serves order, at least by intention if rarely in practice, whereas black magic leads only to chaos, disintegration, and ruin.
"Donbold forbade white and black magic alike, and wisely, for white magic, too, more often than not has mischievous consequences. To see why, consider the artifact of wizardry known as a 'sword of swiftness,' a sword charmed to be lighter and swifter in the hand and sharper in cutting than a natural sword could be. This is an example of white magic, for it is the purpose of a sword to slice the air, to thrust and parry, to pierce flesh and slay men in a just cause, and the sword of swiftness excels in these things and no others. It is not like an artifact of black magic called the 'serpentine sword,' which turns into a snake and bites one's opponent with lethal venom, a charm contrary to a sword's nature and vile, as our horror and disgust bears witness. But now suppose that a man came to a tournament equipped with a sword of swiftness, unbeknownst to his opponents or the judges of the tournament. A peasant equipped with such a sword might defeat a knight, not through skill but by deceit, gaining honors not properly his and depriving great men of the respect they deserve. Years of training in the martial arts might prove to have been in vain, as a better man is made to lose to a worse by magic tricks. Worse still, suppose that a commander, persuaded by the honors gained in a tournament by this trickster, were to place him in the hottest part of a battle, at the top of a siege ladder perhaps, or defending a crucial bridge, and that the man should somehow lose his charmed sword. He would be helpless to fulfill his charge, and the battle would be lost!
"Now, this treasure chest which you have asked us to examine is, unfortunately, an artifact of wizardry. We have not perhaps been able to discern its whole power, for as I have said, none of us are practitioners of magic, and there is only so much one can learn from books, so we may be less able to tell you what charms have been placed on this chest than the counselors of other kings who practice wizardry as well as study it. But one thing is certain: no locksmith will open this lock, nor will any axe shatter this treasure chest. Its lock is magically immune to any physical violation. Even if a stronger magic could be brought to bear upon it this would only destroy the chest and its contents together. It can only be opened with the key. Now, this is, as far as we can discern, a case of white magic, for it is the nature of a chest to protect its contents, denying access to thieves and giving it only to the rightful owner, as known by his use of the true key. So Your Majesty may feel relief that, at least as far as we can discern, no work of dark wizardry has been brought under the roof of the noble Donbold's house. Nonetheless, it is unlawful for this chest to be here, to be here in the palace especially, but also even to be anywhere within the boundaries of the kingdom of Poyn. I urge you to send a company of trusted men to send it out of the kingdom forthwith."
Medvelil thought the loremaster might have said this in many fewer words, but suffering pedantry was the price of dealing with scholars. The advice was not wholly to his taste, either.
"Well, I suppose I shall do as you say, though if it is a case of white magic... well, it might be useful, if only we can find the key... Is that law against white magic really enforced nowadays? Don't some of our dukes have 'ancient amulets' and the like?" Medvelil had not expected to say this, quite, and was surprised at his own words, and even more at an unregal tone that had crept into his voice; there was just a hint of the whining schoolboy in it.
"It is often said that minor artifacts of wizardry are still bought and sold in Poyn. So as to offend no one I will not repeat the allegation," growled the loremaster. "Most 'ancient amulets' alike have no true magical properties, it is only that tales told about them to titillate the credulous. This is a true artifact of wizardry, and a powerful one. It would not be at all fitting for it to be kept in Poyn, let alone in the palace, even for a single minute."
"Well, all right, then," said Medvelil, ignoring the phrase even for a single minute, for he had no intention of making the council haul the chest outside and continuing their meeting in the cold outdoor air. "We can always sell it in Tazraj or something. But it would be better to open it first and see what's inside. The contents might not be 'artifacts of wizardry' even if the chest itself is. You say we can't open it without the key. Might there be some way to find the key?"
"The key to this chest," said the loremaster, "is also an artifact of wizardry. If it were found, it would not be permissible for it to remain in the kingdom. And of course, the contents of the chest may be artifacts of wizardry, too, which is all the more reason to send it away as quickly as possible."
"Well, yes, all right," parried Medvelil, "but first we could open the chest with it and take out whatever is inside, and then send it out of the kingdom? Provided, of course, that its contents, some of its contents at least, are not 'artifacts of wizardry'?"
"Concerning the question whether the use of the key to open the chest would be an unlawful use of magic, I would have to consult the Council," said the loremaster. "I must admit that in our deliberations the question was not discussed, as it did not occur to us that Your Majesty would consider such a course of action." There was no hint of insolence in his tone as he said this, but it was felt nonetheless. "But in any case, since we do not know where the key is, and since a search for it would presumably take a good deal of time, the chest will presumably not be in the kingdom by the time the key is found, if it is ever found."
"It must be found, surely... it being, as you say, an 'artifact of wizardry,' so that we can expel it from the kingdom," said Medvelil, make a slightly disingenuous argument.
"That is a matter of no importance," said the loremaster. "A charmed key would be a minor artifact of wizardry even if the chest it unlocks is a great one. In any case, there is no danger of the key being used if the chest is not in the kingdom. A charmed item which no one can use and of whose properties no one is aware of can do little, if any, harm."
"But it is a 'matter of importance!'" said Medvelil with a little heat, his impatience-- and greed?-- getting the better of him. "The kingdom of Poyn has incurred great debts to its allies and its subjects during its war for survival against the empire of Tuvel. Since the days of Donbold we have always honored our debts. Now it is unclear how we can do it. The revenues of the crown would have to be dedicated for a forty years at current rates to pay the its creditors. And meanwhile there are so many other expenses to be paid... Now we have been blessed with this windfall, the largest the crown has received since Donbold's dragon-hoards. And that is without Jerr Chavi's enchanted treasure chest. If Jerr Chavi had hoarded gold and jewels and precious objects worth five years of the crown's revenues, lying loose on the floor of a cave, what must he have stored up for himself here, in this chest?... It hardly seems too much to hope for that it might be of such value as to pay off all the debts of the kingdom! At any rate it will be of use. It may be the means to preserve the honor of the House of Donbold."
"Preserve the honor of the House of Donbold by breaking Donbold's laws, Your Majesty?" the loremaster asked.
Medvelil retreated. "At any rate the chest itself would fetch more in the Tazraj markets with the key than without. Who will buy a treasure chest that can't be opened? Except perhaps for the sake of its mere beauty..."
"The question of whether it is lawful to profit by selling artifacts of wizardry is, I fear, another which the Council neglected to discuss."
"Well, in any case, we don't know where the key is," Medvelil mumbled, frightened now by his own outburst and looking for some way to save face. "Searching the rest of the treasure hoard is, of course, the first thing we did, even before we knew it was magic. It isn't there. If it was dropped on the road the chances are a hundred to one of its being found before it is buried or washed away somewhere. We'll do as you say, my friend, and send it on to Tazraj in the morning. We'll sell it if it's legal, or else, I don't know, sink it in the river."
This seemed to be the end of the counsels and the assembled knights and dignitaries and clerks began to think of other things and prepare for disperse, waiting for a clearer signal. But then a voice said:
"But I know where the key is."
It took some time for people to figure out who spoke. It was a shabby and incredibly short figure, who had a way of not being noticed. A glance at his face told you he was a fool with whom one would not have attempted a sensible conversation, but the eye had difficulty discerning whether there was something impish or malign about them: one felt one detected it but was not sure. Except that on this occasion there was something that those who knew him hadn't seen before: a sort of maniacal greed flickered in his eyes when he looked at the chest. The higher servants knew who he was: he was none other than Rosselrink, the idiot cook, who had been driven mad with fear and greed and finally cracked on the night of Anduir's homecoming a few months before. Since then he had kept taking orders in the kitchen, indeed he could still be useful at times for he had not wholly forgotten his skills and was ready to obey any order, except that his attention was prone to sudden failures; he would sometimes wander off in the middle of a task. When he did so he was most often found in the dovecot, feeding the birds, so they decided to make that one of his duties and it was the only one he did faithfully, and he had a way with them, too, for he liked to imitate them and the cooing sounds he made seemed to comfort them. Except that sometimes his mood would change and he would burst into a laughter like that of a nasty child, and this not only irritated the birds but seemed to drive them into a panic. Once they did not lay for a day thereafter. And so the servants really wanted to get rid of him, for it was hardly fitting for such a man to be in the king's service at all, but where would he go to? He apparently had no family or friends to turn to, nor any capacity for planning. So the stewards of the castle talked and worried and, for the time being, kept him on. And that is how the idiot cook came to be present amidst the king and the loremaster and the knights and dignitaries and clerks.
"I know where it is," he repeated, grinning. Now all eyes were on him.
"Excuse me, who is this man?" asked Medvelil.
"Sire," said the chief steward guiltily, "he is-- he works in the kitchens, he is a cook, and he feeds the doves-- we took him on a few months ago... only he has proven to be less... fit for duty... than we had hoped... he called himself Colclad when he first arrived but since then has called himself Rosselrink, and we know less of his family and station than we should like..." The chief steward was in terror and thought himself on the brink of losing his post, but Medvelil had his answer and lost interest in him.
"How do you know where the key is?" asked Medvelil, turning to Rosselrink.
"I am the reason the key was not in the treasure hoard," he said, beaming as if it were a great boast.
"How so?"
"Only don't tell Barnabas. I'll tell you everything, if only you promise not to tell Barnabas." The name 'Barnabas' had a strange effect on Rosselrink. He kept repeating it to himself, 'Barnabas, Barnabas...' with an incongruous expression on his face that combined laughter and terror. He was remembering at once his mortal terror and his triumph at his successful deceiving the great thug, but it made him look more like a madman than ever.
"Who is Barnabas?"
"Barnabas, Barnabas..." Rosselrink kept repeating.
"Well, never mind about him," Medvelil cut him short. "Why is the key not in the treasure hoard?"
"Because I stole it."
"How? Where? When? What did you do with it?"
"I stole it from Jerr Chavi's hoard while he was sleeping," chanted Rosselrink in a taunting, sing-song voice.
Medvelil did not know whether the idiot was answering his question or merely repeating a line from a ballad that had occurred to him at that moment. He tried a different tack. "Where is the key now?"
"In Anduir," said Rosselrink with a grin.
"Do you mean that Anduir kept it with him, that he didn't hand it over to the royal treasury with the rest of the hoard? But why would he do that? Even if he were a thief, why would anyone want to steal the key to magic treasure chest when they didn't have the chest?"
"Why indeed?" sighed Rosselrink with a sad resignation.
"But have you any proof of this? Are you his valet or something? Did you see the key, in his pocket perhaps? Surely you might be mistaken!" exclaimed Medvelil. For such a usually calm man his state of mind was almost like frenzy.
"But the key is not in his pocket," said Rosselrink. "It's in him."
Medvelil stared blankly. "You're saying that Anduir stole the key to Jerr Chavi's treasure chest, are you not?" he asked, desperately seeking for clarity.
"Not stole it," said Rosselrink. "Ate it."
Despite the high tension in the room, this answer evoked guffaws of laughter from a few of the onlookers and nervous tittering from many more. Some expected Medvelil to dismiss him with a laugh as a harmless lunatic, and how much would Medvelil have given, later, to have done just that! But greed still held him, and instead of giving up the pursuit, he exploded with exasperation. "Who is this man?! Why is he here?! When did he come to us?! What is he talking about?!"
Though the questions seemed thrown into the air and directed to no one in particular, the chief steward, who was in an agony of shame and wished that he were invisible, felt that it fell to him to answer. He must take responsibility for having a madman on the staff.
"Your Majesty, Rosselrink was first employed by us on the day of Anduir's arrival in Poyn last May. A great banquet was planned for that evening and we were short-staffed. Basil Bolls, the chief cook, had intended to post notices two weeks before, but the boy apprentice, a lad named Benjamin, who was ordered to post them forgot to do so. This was discovered the morning of the banquet, and Basil Bolls was desperate. And so Benjamin was sent on the morning of the banquet to recruit anyone he could find with any experience as a cook, to help in preparing the banquet. Benjamin seems to have found this man in the square, idle, asked him his profession, and sent him to the royal kitchens. He seems to have acquitted himself well on that first day and he won the gratitude and admiration of Basil Bolls, who took him on as a regular employee. Since then, however, he has proven to be unreliable and even... well... rather dim-witted... and we have considered letting him go, but... well, he seems to have no family, and he is hardly fit to... in short we don't know how he'll be provided for... I am very sorry, Your Majesty..." The chief steward trailed off, unable to discern from Medvelil's face whether what he said interested the king or not.
But now Rosselrink cut in. "Exactly. I was hired as a cook, and Mr. Bolls told me to prepare the plate for the 'guest of honor,' for this Sir Anduir. But as I was preparing it, Barnabas burst in and had a knife to my throat and demanded to know where the key was. But I moved very fast, so I did! I slipped it into Anduir's soup, a thick soup, and you couldn't see it there, no more than if it had been buried under an inch of mud! And I lied to Barnabas, I lied to his face, and he believed me! He let me go, he didn't kill me. I fooled him, and they all said that he was so smart, that he could beat the truth out of anyone. Barnabas, Barnabas, Barnabas..."
Medvelil took a moment to take this in. "So this Barnabas was one of Jerr Chavi's brigands, but he was under the roof of my own palace?"
"I knew nothing about that, Your Majesty," said the chief steward. Worse and worse! he thought.
"But there was some such man here, I think," said another of the servants. "I remember that Mr. Bolls saw some huge stranger in the kitchens then, on the day of the banquet, a dangerous-looking man, well over six feet tall, a nasty face, thick black hair, or grey, like a wolf. He was on his way out anyway, but Mr. Bolls flew into a rage, blaming us all for not telling him, but how were we supposed to know? He had hired so many new people that day, and some of them worse than usually serve with us. I suppose those who did see him thought he was one more. We chased him out but he was leaving anyway."
"That's Barnabas," said Rosselrink with a sort of strange delight. That the object of his private, terror-stricken yet triumphant, obsession was now known to other human beings dispelled a certain loneliness.
The room fell silent for a few more seconds. Minds were busy, putting together the puzzle pieces, and in some of them the illumination began to occur. Medvelil saw it on others' faces-- a sudden transition from bewilderment to the satisfaction of discovery-- before he realized it for himself. "So what you're saying," Medvelil finally turned to Rosselrink to confirm, "is that you put the magic key in Anduir's stew to hide it from Barnabas, and that the meal was taken out to Anduir, just like that, with the key still in the soup, and that Anduir ate it? I mean, not just that he ate the soup, but the key, too?"
"Exactly," said Rosselrink with satisfaction. "It's in him."
"But how do you know he ate the key?" asked Medvelil.
"It wasn't there after the banquet," said Rosselrink.
This seemed an inadequate answer, although somehow Medvelil felt that perhaps it was decisive after all. This greedy idiot would not have abandoned his prize unless he were certain that it was lost. Still, he pursued further: "But he might have found the key in the soup and taken it out, and done something with it. Thrown it away, maybe, or kept it."
The loremaster, who had been silent for a time, now spoke up. "But Your Majesty was there, at the table, with him. You sat across from him. You would have seen him if he had done that. Others would have seen him. In any case, he would surely have mentioned it."
Medvelil silently assented to the correctness of this. "But is it possible? Can a man eat a key without knowing it?"
Rosselrink unexpectedly danced across the room to the chest and touched it lovingly. Then he pointed to the keyhole. "But look how small it is! And the key, too, is very small. Just a tiny morsel of a key, a tiny morsel, to open the door to such riches!" Rosselrink chanted with impish delight.
"He is correct, Your Majesty," confirmed the loremaster gravely. "The key must be very small. That was our first clue that the lock is magical. No natural lock so small could have possessed any strength to guard such a treasure."
Medvelil thought aloud as the comedy and horror of the truth gradually filled his mind. "I remember that he ate fast, like a soldier... I was thinking even at the time that it was not quite the way to behave at a king's table, that he lacked the refinement of a gentleman... and then he got excited by the conversation about nobility... that was when he spoke about the coins of gold, silver, and bronze, about men being like coins, about 're-stamping the coins'..." He fell silent. The truth was plain. Everyone in the room now knew it beyond doubt. "But the key wouldn't stay in him, would it?"
"It might stay in him, Your Majesty, for two reasons," said the loremaster. "First, in other lands they unfortunately dissect human cadavers, and by defiling the dead gain great knowledge about the anatomy of a man's body, which we, in spite of its nefarious origins, feel we must learn in order to apply it to service of the living. In these cadavers, particularly in an organ called the appendix but also in other places, they have sometimes found objects accidentally eaten, things like the bones of fish for example, purposely or by mistake, and lodged in the body such that it has no power to expel them. That is the natural reason why the key might still be in Anduir. Second, there is a magical reason. A key is an object that ought not to be lost by its owner. A key charmed with white magic might be given properties that make it not easy to be lost. It might, for example, be charmed so as never to fall out of a man's hand. The same charm might cause a key once ingested never to be expelled from his body."
"If the key is lodged in Anduir's body," began Medvelil, and his intention with these words may have been to mock, "is Anduir himself an 'artifact of wizardry,' who must be expelled from the kingdom?"
"The law would not apply in such a case," said the loremaster calmly. "Justice to a human being is more important than justice to any artifact. It is no fault of Anduir's own that this ill-luck has fallen on him. He cannot be held responsible for ingesting an artifact of wizardry by accident. As he has done nothing wrong, but on the contrary has been of constant and heroic service to Poyn's king and people, a sentence of banishment would be unwarranted."
"Well, in any case, we might as well send it away," said Medvelil, "since if the key is lodged in Anduir's body, the treasure chest cannot be opened."
"At least until Anduir is dead."
It was never discovered afterwards who said those words. It was anxiously queried afterwards, but no one confessed. Arguments went back and forth. It couldn't have been one of the servants, for they knew one another's voices, said some. It must have been one of the servants, said others, for a knight would never have said something so base. It was the king himself, said some, but he was ashamed and denied it and no one dares contradict him. Someone must have known at the time; someone must have been standing next to the speaker; but if so, they remained silent. Second-hand eyewitness accounts circulated; eyewitnesses themselves denied them. At the time, it took a long time for the horror of what had been said to sink in. It was not, after all, not necessarily, not directly, a call to slaughter Anduir to recover the magic key and pay off Poyn's debts. But it pointed that way. It contained a suggestion, too, that when Anduir did die, in battle or of old age, there would be a motive to dissect him.
In the silence a horrible realization dawned on Medvelil, and others. The loremaster broke the silence.
"Your Majesty will send this treasure chest as far away as possible at once," boomed the loremaster's voice. "Do not sell it but send it as far away as you can, to the ends of the earth. Sink it in the deepest part of the sea."
"And to what men would I entrust such a mission? " asked Medvelil, his voice desperate now. "Who would not covet it for themselves? And even if they were incorruptible they would not be invincible. Kings would turn robber for the sake of such a prize. The sea is 2,000 miles to the west, past the Tuvelain empire and the white city of Ceric and the Gumlard forests. Or would we reach it through the trackless elvish forests, or across the mountains and deserts of Soyada, thick with barbarian tribes? Or northward through the taiga and the Witching Wastes?"
"But try, at least," insisted the loremaster. "It is not lawful for this artifact of wizardry to be here. You have kept it under your roof for but half-hour longer than you might have done, and look what evil has occurred. Had it been removed at once, this idiot cook would never have told his tale. Now the shadow of a terrible threat, not only of murder but of defilement of his corpse by greedy blades, has fallen over Poyn's greatest knight and hero. Such is the mischief that magic does. Perhaps, if you do your utmost to get right with the law, further evils may be averted. I begin to suspect, too, that the charm is not as benign as we had hoped. It seems to me that it is the work of this chest and its key that this cook has lost his reason and fallen into some sort of mad stupor of senseless greed and paralyzing fear. If it does the same work upon greater men than he, terrible will be the consequences."
"I cannot send it away, now," said Medvelil. "It must remain here. As long as the walls of this castle guard the treasure chest, no one stands to benefit by Anduir's death. But if the treasure chest falls into the hands of unscrupulous men, they will not hesitate a moment before killing Anduir to get access to what is inside. The chest must be secured at all costs. And where is it secure if not within the walls of this castle?"
"Such villains might not find it easy to kill Anduir," suggested the loremaster. "He is an alert soldier, a skilful fighter, and popular with the people. In any case I am sure that Anduir would not wish for the king to break his own laws to secure his personal safety. In all the risks he has taken, the dangers he has braved, the battles he has fought, Anduir has shown that he properly values king and country above his own life. However that may be, the law must be obeyed. One cannot abandon a wise and just law every time it seems inconvenient or dangerous. That is the path of lawlessness, of chaos. Send it away, Your Majesty. And in any case, is it so secure within these walls? And if you believe that it is so, will Anduir believe it? As long as the chest is within the royal treasury, you have a motive to see him dead. And who could slay him, if he so desired, more easily than you? You are his lord, he is sworn to obey your commands. You can order him into the thick of a battle, you can send him on a quest to near certain death, and he is sworn to obey. You might send him into a trap that you set yourself. It might never even be known that you had cut open his body to steal its precious contents. There are arts to make a defiled corpse look whole, and in any case a brave knight might be cut to pieces in the line of duty. And as no one knows the contents of the chest, you might remove and profit by its contents even while saying that the chest remained inviolate in your treasury. I do not say, Your Majesty, that such fiendish schemes would occur to you, or if they did, that your will would succumb to them. But they will occur to him. He will wonder, every time you give an order, whether you are sending him into a trap. He will watch your every expression for clues as to your intent. He will be driven mad by suspicion. Brave men who can face death in battle without fear can be undone by fears of betrayal, by intrigue, by second-guessing their friends, and there is no bound to the machinations of greed which this artifact of wizardry may yet set in motion, perhaps has already--"
"Enough!" shouted Medvelil. This last speech of the loremaster's had had a terrible effect on him. He had begun to writhe, he bowed his head and then tore his hair with his hands, his eyes suddenly filled with tears and now were wild with rage and despair. "Nonsense! Impossible! Absurd!" he cried out. "No, it cannot be so, me at least Anduir can trust, I at least will never betray him. I let his father die. Do you understand that? I didn't tell him to withdraw, I didn't send reinforcements, he was under orders to hold. I don't know why I did it. But it saved the kingdom maybe... but I don't know why I did it. I didn't expect him to obey, not that, not in the face of certain death, but I did it, I placed him in the path of certain death. He saved my crown even as I left him to be slaughtered. Can I do the same thing now to his son? The chest will stay here. Dig the treasure hold deeper, make the walls of cast iron if we can, set fifty men to guard it day and night, whatever it takes. The chest must remain under our control, at all costs. Me at least he can trust. It is enough. The council is ended."
After a long, stunned silence the council dispersed. The sentries, acting on Medvelil's orders, carried the chest into the deepest vaults of the royal treasury.
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