The warrior stared the white wizard.
“Why did you bring us here?” he demanded.
“I brought you here,” she said. “The others were invited along because it seemed like a better option than staying in the ghetto.”
“Thanks for that,” Dram said with a nod of his head. “How did you know we were in such a load of trouble?”
“Oh, I have friends in court. And in the gutters, as well,” the enchantress added with the trace of a smile.
“I’m not your friend. I want to go home,” Sulfie said, sniffling.
“I’m afraid you can’t, for the time being,” Coryn explained soothingly. “Since Jaymes was found at your house, you would be arrested by the knights as soon as you showed up. At the very least, they would want to interrogate you for a very, very long time.”
That only added to the gnome’s sniffling. Carbo patted her shoulder consolingly as Dram followed Jaymes over to the entrance of the overgrown ring-hedge. A tangle of vegetation covered the ground, with many clumps of wildly colored blossoms. Beyond rose a tall chimney, charred black and bereft of any surrounding structure. A few timbers and beams were distinguishable in the midst of a large area of burned wreckage.
“The gardens have suffered,” Coryn said gently, coming up behind the pair. “They have had no care for more than two years now.”
“What’s that?” Carbo asked, intrigued. The bald-headed gnome strolled past them and right up to the ruin. He picked up a blackened board, scrutinizing it. “Nice carpentry, once. Have to allow for warping of weather. And the fire. Was this some kind of palace?”
“It was the manor house of a Solamnic nobleman. A Lord of the Rose,” Jaymes said quietly. “He died here.”
Carbo nodded, stroking his white beard. “Fire of natural origin-that is, not dragonbreath. Started here in the great room would be my educated guess, then spread out in all directions. It stopped for some reason, before those ends burned up.”
“It started to rain,” declared the warrior grimly. He turned again to Coryn, his expression cold. “Why are we here?”
“I need something, and I think you might know where it is. Lord Lorimar possessed a strongbox, a container of steel marked with his L in filigree. You have seen it, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I have seen it,” said the warrior.
“Well, I need that box-or rather, its contents. I thought you might know where Lorimar kept it.”
“What makes you think it didn’t burn in the fire?” Jaymes asked.
“Lorimar told me it was protected-it wouldn’t burn. Maybe you’ll help me find it, if only because I just saved your life…”
With a frown, Jaymes turned to Dram. “See if you can find some digging tools in what’s left of the stable. A pick and a shovel should do it.” He turned back to Coryn. “All right, come this way.”
He led her past the remnant of a stone wall, mostly crumbled, that had once been the front of the great house. They stepped carefully between the litter of partial timbers, including trunk-sized beams that had obviously fallen from a lofty ceiling. Using the chimney as a marker, Jaymes paced off a dozen long strides along the base of a broken stairway. He knelt and brushed away the soot and muck that smeared the floor, clearing several flagstones by the time the dwarf arrived with a solid pick and a short-handled spade.
The warrior took the shovel and wedged the tool under one of the stones. With a powerful push he drove the shovel in then leaned on it to lever the stone loose. Dram pulled it out of the way while the man loosened two more of the flat sections of dark slate, revealing a layer of plaster over the red clay. When the flagstones were removed, Jaymes lifted the pick and chopped until he had broken up the plaster and the hard-packed dirt.
He dug until the tool struck something solid with a metallic clank. Carefully Jaymes scraped away more dirt, digging down around the edges of a rectangular box. When he knelt and brushed it clean, the ornate “L” was visible, even through the rust. Dram helped, using the shovel for leverage, as the man lifted the box.
“Looks like a pretty stout lock,” the dwarf observed.
“I might have the key,” said the enchantress, adding, “after a fashion.”
Jaymes set it on the raised stone shelf that had once been a hearth, and Coryn, the hem of her white robe already dark with soot, knelt beside the box. She touched a finger to the latch and muttered a soft, sibilant word. A slight spark flashed from the box, and she bent with both hands to lift the lid. It rose up with a creak of rusty hinges, and, looking inside, the white robe cried, “No!”
“Not what you expected?” Jaymes asked caustically.
She stood and stared at him, her lips clenched in a tight, angry line. With one hand she gestured at the box. “It’s empty!”
“What were you expecting?” asked the dwarf, his eyes shifting between the two of them as he peered into the container, feeling around with his hands to confirm Coryn’s findings.
She didn’t answer the dwarf. Instead, she continued to regard Jaymes with her brooding stare. Her dark eyes glinted. “Was this tampered with after the fire?” she asked. “Could someone have dug it up, opened it, then returned it to its hiding place?”
The warrior shrugged. “The soot and debris I cleaned away was like the rubble everywhere else around here. My best guess is no, it hasn’t been disturbed since well before the fire.”
“And the lord was dead at the time of the fire?” she prodded, as Dram eyed them. Both of the gnomes had edged closer, glancing at each other, trying to understand the mysterious conversation.
Jaymes nodded and turned away, rubbing his hand across his face. “He was already bleeding to death when the fire started.”
“Then the contents of the box must have been removed before he died. That tells me something,” the enchantress said.
“What in the name of Reorx is so all-fired important about this box?” fumed Dram.
“It’s called the Compact of Freedom,” Coryn replied, her eyes never leaving Jaymes’s. “Lord Lorimar wrote it and was instrumental in getting it signed. But it bears the imprints of Lord Regent du Chagne of Palanthas, as well as all three of his dukes.”
“Just a mere piece of paper?” the dwarf said skeptically.
“More than that, it’s a promise agreed to by those four nobles: a pledge that Garnet will remain a free city, with none of the orders of knighthood presiding over it. It further limits the powers of the knighthood throughout the rest of the old empire, requiring that every ten years the people must approve the actions of their leaders or they will be replaced by others.”
“Whoa! Du Chagne signed that?” Dram said with a low whistle.
“His arm was twisted slightly. All their arms were,” Jaymes noted. “Lorimar used his stature-he was the only one who could broker the power of the independent merchants, and he convinced the lords that the alternative would be civil war.”
“Let me get this straight. Lormimar was murdered, and this piece of paper is missing-this compact that was in this box?”
Jaymes shrugged. “That’s where he usually kept it. The last time I saw it, I watched him lock it in the box. In fact”-he flashed a look at Coryn-“I helped him bury it. There was more than the compact in the box, too. Something else of great value.”
“The Green Diamonds,” she said. “I’ve heard about them, but are they mythical or real?”
“Real enough, and beautiful, each of them bigger than an eyeball,” the warrior declared. He added for Dram’s benefit, “In gratitude for Lorimar’s loyalty and assistance, the merchants of Solamnia gave him a gift: six unique diamonds, huge, green in color. Lorimar planned to incorporate them into a crown if ever Solamnia united behind a king. The third thing in this box was another sign of that hope: He had a banner made, white silk emblazoned with gold. It depicted all three signs of the knighthood, the crown, the rose, and the sword, all on the same pennant.”
“Sounds like someone figured out what Lorimar was up to and assassinated him,” Dram said slowly, staring at Jaymes. “Probably a good thing-sounds like this Lorimar wanted to be the new king of Solamnia.”