The Tangle Box

He looked beyond the mounds of useless inventory to the single steel-lined door at the far side of the room and sighed wearily. Beyond that door was a tunnel that ran for almost a mile underneath the compound to a garage, a silver and black 4WD Land Cruiser, and safety. A careful planner was never without a bolt hole in case things went haywire, as they had just done here. He had not expected to put this one to use quite so soon, but circumstances had conspired against him once again. He grimaced. He supposed it was a good thing that he was always prepared for the worst, but it was an annoying way to live.

He glared purposefully at Biggar, who was perched on the crates safely out of reach. “How many times have I warned you against giving in to acts of conscience, Biggar?”

“Many,” Biggar replied, and rolled his eyes.

“To no purpose, it seems.”

“I’m sorry. I am only a simple bird.”

Horris considered that mitigating circumstance. “I suppose you expect another chance, don’t you?”

Biggar lowered his head to keep from snickering. “I would be most grateful, Horris.”

Horris Kew’s gangly frame bent forward suddenly in the manner of a crouched wolf. “This is the last time I ever want to hear of Skat Mandu, Biggar. The last. Sever whatever lingering relationship you share with our former friend right now. No more private revelations. No more voices from the distant past. From this moment on, you listen only to me. Got it?”

The myna sniffed. Horris didn’t understand anything, but there wasn’t any point in telling him so. “I hear and obey.”

Horris nodded. “Good. Because if it happens again, I will have you stuffed and mounted.”

His wintry gray eyes conveyed the depth of his feelings far more eloquently than his words, and Biggar’s beak clacked shut on the snappy retort he was about to make.

From far back in the cellar came a rending sound—the prying of nailed wood away from its seating. Horris stared. The faithful were tearing up the floorboards! The steel door had not deterred them as completely as he had anticipated. He felt a tightening of his breathing passages as he hurried not toward the tunnel door but through the crates and furniture to a series of pictures bolted to the wall. He reached the fake Degas, touched a pair of studs in the gilt frame, and released the casing. It swung away on concealed hinges to reveal a combination safe. Horris worked the dial feverishly, listening to the sounds of the enraged mob as he did so, and when he heard the catch release, he swung open the layered steel door.

He reached inside and withdrew an intricately carved wooden box.

“Hope springs eternal,” he heard Biggar snicker.

Well, it did, he supposed—at least in this instance. The box was his greatest treasure—and he had no idea what it was. He had conjured it up quite by accident shortly after coming into this world, one of those fortuitous twists of fate that occur every so often in the weaving of spells. He had recognized the importance of the box right from the first. This was a creation of real magic, the carvings ancient and spell-laden, rife with secret meaning. Something was sealed inside, something of great power. The Tangle Box, he had named it, impressed by the weave of symbols and script that ringed its surface. It was seamless and lidless, and nothing he did would release its secrets. Now and again he thought he could hear something give in its bindings, in the seals that bound it close about, but conjure though he might the box defied his best efforts to uncover what lay within.

Still, it was his best and most important treasure from this world, and he was not about to leave it to those cretins who followed.

He tucked the Tangle Box under his arm and hastened on across the room, weaving through the obstacle course of spare furniture and worthless literature to reach the tunnel door. There he worked with a steady hand a second combination dial set close against a lever that secured the door’s heavy locks, heard them release, and shoved down.

The lever did not budge.

Horris Kew frowned, looking a little like a truant caught out of school. He spun the dial angrily and tried the combination again. Still the lever would not budge. Horris was sweating now, hearing shouts to go along with the tearing up of floorboards. He tried the combination again and yet again. Each time, he clearly heard the lock release. Each time, the lever refused to move.

Finally his frustration grew so great that he stepped back and started kicking at the door. Biggar watched impassively. Horris began swearing, then jumping up and down in fury. Finally, after one last futile try at freeing the inexplicably recalcitrant lever, he sagged back against the door, resigned to his fate.

“I can’t understand it,” he murmured woodenly. “I test it myself almost every day. Every day. And now it won’t work. Why?”

Biggar cleared his throat “You can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Warn me? Warn me about what?”

“At the risk of incurring your further displeasure, Horris—Skat Mandu. I told you he was displeased.”

Horris stared up at him. “You are obsessing, Biggar.”

Biggar shook his head, ruffled his feathers, and sighed. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we, Horris? Do you want to get out of here or not?”