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Ben nodded. “Some of the remnants of the imperial palace. Not everything was used in the new building, and that was brought here.”
“So the emblem of the emperor is a dog?” I asked him.
“Often with a staff in its mouth that is generally accepted to be a depiction of the Prima Staff,” he told me.
I thought about the matter for a moment as we continued our search. “I suppose a dog isn’t too bad. I mean, they are loyal.”
Ben chuckled. “The more appropriate term is ‘hound.’ The first emperor was fond of hunting and counted his hounds among his most loyal of subjects.”
Amid all the unfamiliar sights, I did recognize something that pierced the skyline. I caught Ben’s eye and pointed at the ruined spire. “Isn’t that the church with the statue? The talking one?”
Ben looked at where I pointed and nodded. “Pazari Abbey. The statue casts his long shadow over the whole of this area and influences the ‘trade.’”
“You mean the bust businessman attracts the most unscrupulous of traders?”
“In a word, yes.”
I couldn’t help but study the ruined remains of a thunder as we passed by the wrecked machine. “I hope we’re not too late.”
“We met with the professor for only a few minutes,” he assured me as he studied the ground. “That would hardly have given them time to study the console and decide which parts to scavenge.”
“Comforting thought. . .”
Ben slowly raised his eyes and followed the trail that I couldn’t see to a large jumble of stone rubble. “We may have some solid comfort. The trail leads to that mess.”
My face drooped as we reached the pile of junk. There were broken columns, busted busts, and sheets of rusted metal.
I tilted my head from one side to the other. “It’s in there?”
Ben raised his hand and touched the mess. The pile shimmered like disturbed water before it completely vanished, revealing a formerly secret road. The cobblestones changed to dirt and now even I saw the distinctive tire patterns of our missing thunder.
I looked up at Ben. “Magic?”
“Of the most mundane kind,” he confirmed as he followed the trail with his eyes. It wound its way through a graveyard of structures to a small shack some fifty yards ahead of us. The junk was piled some twenty feet high on either side of the path, creating a tunnel of sorts. I noticed a large wagon beside the shack and a horse tied up to the building. “Let us hope those who took Bashful are of the same temperament.”
We ventured forth into the domain of the thieves, and as we passed through the magical barrier the way shimmered shut behind us. I couldn’t help but cast a wary look at every dark, junk-created nook and cranny.
“You sure we shouldn’t get some help?” I whispered as I tiptoed onward, my eyes ever on the trash. “Like maybe the army?” No reply came. I frowned and turned to my companion. “Ben, I said-”
Ben couldn’t answer because Ben had vanished.
I skidded to a stop and spun around in a full circle. He was nowhere to be seen.
“Ben!” I hissed in a low voice. “Ben, where the fu-”
“Who are ya?”
The gravely voice came from behind me in the direction of one of the junk battlements. I eased my head around and beheld the burly figure of a man. He was about forty with a huge chest, thick arms, and a large nose that stuck out from his round head. The man was covered in ratty clothes and a cap of some long-dead creature sat upon his greasy head.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and gave him a sheepish grin. “H-hey, I was just wandering through and thought I’d take a look at your selection.”
He marched down the steep slope as agile as a mountain goat with his long legs and came to a stop on the ground. His long shadow stretched over my much shorter and frailer frame as he narrowed his dark eyes at me. “How’d you get past the barrier?”
“W-what barrier?”
He curled his lips back in a sneer and clapped a heavy, dirty hand on my shoulder. His body odor wafted over me and nearly made me gag. “Yer coming with me.”
I didn’t have much choice, but as he marched me toward the shack I had plenty of time to think up new and exciting names for Ben the next time I met him. That is,ifI met him again, a prospect that looked increasingly unlikely as I was led to the grimy building. The shack had been slapped together with spare columns and rusted sheets of thunder metal.
