"A government agent?"
Dodger sighed. "You have been unbearable for days.
Have you gone deaf now, too?"
"Sorry, Dodger." The apologies were becoming a habit. Sam's nerves were frayed, but Dodger's must be worse. The elf had been doing all the hard work.
"Apology accepted, Sir Twist." Dodger massaged his forehead, then stared down at his hands. Without looking up, he said, "I fear that I have not helped matters, either. I wish I had never gotten you involved in this."
"I got myself involved. You may have found the list with a name that might be my sister's, but I was the one who decided to chase that phantom. Going to the Orient was supposed to get us closer to her trail. We were supposed to find out what Glover was doing and who the woman was. Now look at us. We're in England and practically under house arrest. We still don't know anything."
"Not entirely true. We know that Glover, ATT rogue or not, is part of an efficient organization. While we were helping him acquire Sanchez and Corbeau, someone else has been completing the rest of the list.
At the rate they are moving, whatever plans they have are coming to a head soon.''
"You've gotten an update on the list? Let me see it."
Dodger furrowed his brow as if the request was an annoyance.
"Wait a minute," he said, tapping keys. He snapped open the back of his cyberdeck and rolled out the monitor screen. After locking it, he turned it so Sam could see. "Here it is."
Sam read it quickly. Five out of the seven names were listed as acquired. Janice Walters, still last on the list, was unacquired. Reason enough to stay. Her acquisition might be why Glover had retained them. "So what do we do now?"
"Wait. With time and additional endeavor, I shall uncover more details."
Sam shook his head. "You've done more than enough for today. If you decked now, you'd trip over the first node you encountered. You need a rest."
" 'Tis true." Dodger stretched. Sam could hear his joints crack. " 'Tis also true that I need to get some exercise. Mayhap a walk in the garden would get the blood flowing again."
The late afternoon sun slanted across the garden, throwing chill pools of shade from the carefully trimmed evergreen trees and shrubs. Winter had stripped the massive oaks of their leaves, leaving their shadows a net of enmeshing branches. Oppressed by the image, Sam guided their walk into the topiary maze. Within its walls, the grasping oaks were only visible near the outer edge.
The curving paths went from shadow into sunlight and back again, alternately chilling and warming them. They took turns at random, not caring whether they reached the maze's heart, simply satisfied to be moving. After a while, they found themselves at the edge of a clearing. The grass was brown, withered into dormancy by the season. In summer, the circle would have been lush, a quiet, pleasant place to laze in the sun. A quartet of stone blocks, apparently seats, were set at the cardinal points.
Dodger headed for the one bench still touched by the sun and stretched out on it. The block was long enough that only the elf's feet hung over the edge. Sam sauntered over to join him. When he reached the stone, he crouched.
"What do you make of this?"
"A popular place to look at the scenery?"
"No, these symbols. There's something carved along the side of the stone."
Dodger rolled over onto his side and ran his fingers along the carving. "Hmmm. Writing. Most of the letter forms seem to be roman, but the frequencies and juxtapositions are not English. 'Tis not a language I know."
Sam stared at the words, if they were words. Most of the letters were familiar, but they were not ordered into words he knew. Silently, he tried sounding out the syllables he knew. There seemed to be a rhythm to the sounds, an interlocking cadence. Like the locking spell Sally had taught him.
"Didn't you once tell me that all mansions had secret passages?"
Dodger chuckled. "You don't think that this is some kind of hidden entrance to an underground tunnel complex where Glover and his fellows plot the overthrow of all who stand in the way of their re-establishment of the British Empire? Speak the incantation and the stone shall rise?"
"Since you put it that way, why not?"
"Because this is not some cheap piece of fiction." "But there does seem to be a crack. Like the top of the stone is a lid."
Dodger slid from the stone and examined the shadow
Sam pointed out. "Mayhap."
"Give me a hand to lift it." Lifting didn't work. Nor did sliding, pushing, pulling, or twisting. Sam knelt in front of the stone, frowning at it. Dodger sat on the grass, leaning back on his hands.
"A trick of the light. A crack in the rock."
"I'm going to try something," Sam said. He stared at the symbols, clearing his mind of his frustration. He focused his magical energy, using the rhythmic mnemonic by which he., recalled the counter to Sally's locking spell. Into its steady but broadening cadence, he wove the rhythm he had discerned in the carved symbols. Nothing happened. He tried again, working at smoothing the flow of his thoughts, forcing them deeper into the pattern of the spell. This time he felt something in the stone relax.
Tentatively, he reached out his hand and pressed on the top of the stone. The upper surface slid back slightly, revealing a dark hollow wide enough for fingers. Sam stood and slipped his fingers into the gap. He braced himself, ready for the weight, and found the stone swinging up far more easily than he expected.
Visions of concealed stairways and torch-lit underground passages flashed through his head. With a final heave, he swung the slab back. It rocked up, but instead of sliding free, stayed upright as if hinged to the back of the bench. He looked; it was.
The bench contained no entrance to secret places. It seemed filled with carefully folded white cloth. Sam tugged on one pile. It unfolded to reveal that it was a robe. Complex swirls were embroidered on its chest. "Tacky rags," Dodger said. He was standing too, looking over Sam's shoulder. "Wizard stuff."
" 'Tis hardly a surprise. We saw what he did to that
Mihn-Pao gunner."
"I've seen these symbols somewhere."
"Mayhaps Friend Glover is Merlin Ambrosius reawakened to save the world."
"Merlin?" Sam asked thoughtfully.
"Sir Twist, I jested."
"But you jogged my memory. When I was studying about magic, I read some about the different kinds. A lot of sources suggest that Merlin, if he existed, was a druid. These are druidic symbols."
Dodger poked at the bundles of cloth still in the bench. He disturbed the piles enough to reveal a golden glitter. Careful not to snag the cloth, he removed a small sickle. Its blade glittered a ruddy gold in the sunlight.
"A sacrificial knife?"
"A ritual implement for the cutting of the holy mistletoe. Druids are nature magicians, shamans of a peculiar breed. They were very prominent in the restoration of the wild lands in Ireland before the Shidhe took control."
"Driven out like the snakes before Padraigh's wrath." Dodger tossed the sickle back into the bench. "There are enough robes here to clothe a dozen or so people. 'Twould seem Friend Glover is part of a circle of druids. Mayhap he acts in their interests and, if so, he might even be a government agent."
"How so?"
"Know you not that the Lord Protector is a druid?"
"I didn't."
" 'Tis true. His Green Party is a coalition of members of both Houses of Parliament."
"I didn't realize the Greens were druids. I remember hearing how they ousted the last Conservative government after the restoration of the monarchy."
"They were instrumental in the restoration and have yet to face a serious challenge to their control of the government. England has not seen such a powerful interest group since Cromwell's Puritans."