by Karen Chance
And nobody questioned it.
“Come on,” I told Caleb. “I have an idea.”
• • •
“You’d think we’d get more for a fine camel thing than that,” I grumbled at Caleb, ten minutes later.
“Ever since the XP-38 came out, they’re just not in demand.”
“What?”
“You don’t get cultural references, do you?”
I frowned. “I get them. You just have weird ones.”
“That was from Star Wars. It wasn’t weird.”
“I’ve seen Star Wars and that wasn’t in it.”
“In the first movie, when they’re in the desert?” he asked. “When they have to sell Luke’s speeder?”
“Oh. You mean the old ones.”
“The old ones? The old ones? You mean the only good—” He saw my expression. “Never mind. What did we need more money for?”
“So I could get an outfit like yours,” I said, looking enviously at the rich green woolly fabric of his long, caftanlike garment. It was warm. It was attractive. It covered his ass.
“What’s wrong with the one you have on?”
“Other than the fact that I look like a hooker?”
I tugged at the back of the tight pink panties I was wearing, but it didn’t help. They were still at least two sizes too small and riding up my butt. But they’d been the closest thing the merchant we picked had that we could afford. And we hadn’t had time to comparison shop.
Of course, it didn’t matter if you were in a nice, all-encompassing robe like Caleb’s. It was a little more problematic when it came to sexy slave girl attire, particularly when the only thing I had on besides the ass-baring panties was a pair of diaphanous, slit-up-to-heaven harem pants and a top that wasn’t covering as much as my bra had. But it was the pants that were really bothering me for some reason.
“You look like I Dream of Jeannie without the ponytail,” Caleb said, helping not at all.
“I think it looks like they copied it from a low-rent Aladdin,” I snapped. “Along with everything else.”
“If there was copying, I’d say it was the other way around,” Caleb said, glancing a little longingly at the buildings we were passing. The people here might not have wood, but they’d used what they had to full advantage, carving lintels, columns, stairs, even elaborate grills over their windows, all out of the same red stone.
Caleb looked like he’d have liked a chance to explore a little. He looked like the proverbial kid in the candy store, only without any money. I felt kind of bad for him suddenly.
But I didn’t think hanging around would be too healthy.
“What?” I asked.
“The incubi came from here to earth, right?” he asked.
I nodded.
“And this place came first. So I’d say the incubi brought bits of this culture to earth, not the other way around.”
“Yeah, but why these bits?” I asked, still trying to dig one out of my ass.
Caleb just looked at me. “Really? You have to ask why incubi would encourage an outfit like that?”
I sighed. “It’s just . . . once, you know? Just once, I’d like to go on a mission without my butt hanging out, or getting shot, or otherwise being an issue.”
“Look at it this way,” he said, handing me up to the back of the semiwrecked chariot we were about to steal. “Maybe the guards will be too busy staring at it to pay us any attention.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Or maybe we were about to make Rosier’s job really, really easy. But at least the shop owner wasn’t trying to stop us, even though Caleb’s outfit was striped and the other guy’s had been plain, and even though his skin had been a different color, and even though I was a blonde and the driver had left with a brunette.
Of course, he was an incubus, so I supposed that last one could be explained.
But nobody was asking about the other stuff, either. Nobody was even looking directly at us, as if our glorious presence was too much for them to bear. In fact, Caleb got a little too close to a porter when he was fighting with the camel things, who had been contentedly grazing on the shopkeeper’s wares all this time and were in no hurry to leave. And the man turned over his wheelbarrow, scattering packages everywhere, rather than brush up against the hem of Caleb’s robes.
Damn it, I hadn’t been here an hour and I already hated this place.
I really hoped I wasn’t going to be a permanent resident.
“All right, then,” Caleb said, gathering up the reins. And then he just stood there.
“All right, then,” I agreed.
“All. Right,” he said again, his lips pursing, as we continued to go nowhere.
“Is there a problem?” I asked, after a few seconds.
He shot me a glance. “You don’t, uh, know how to drive one of these things, do you?”
I looked at him. “Do I know how to drive a chariot, Caleb? Is that what you’re asking me?”
He sighed. “Yeah. Me, neither.”
He fiddled with the reins some more, until one of the camel things turned around and gave him a withering look. Caleb glowered at it. “You know, they don’t cover this in war mage training!”
“Do they cover stunning spells?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because I think the owner wants his chariot back.”
And I had to give it to Caleb. He might not be rivaling Ben-Hur anytime soon, but there was nothing wrong with his reflexes. He spun and thrust out a hand, and the pissed-off demon who had just lurched out of the bar went flying. Literally—the spell tore the guy off his feet and sent him sailing back at least five yards, crashing through the open front of the tavern and scattering chairs and tables and patrons everywhere.
And normally, that would have been that. Except for the fact that we weren’t anywhere normal. So what happened instead was that a now super-pissed-off incubus rose out of its unconscious host and came for us, at about the same time that a dozen or so guards who’d been searching shops down the street realized they’d just hit the jackpot.
Well, this part’s normal, I thought, and grabbed the reins. And Caleb started firing off spell after spell in what in a lesser mage might have looked like a panic. But war mages didn’t panic. Or if they did, they made sure everyone in the vicinity was right there with them.
And there’s nothing like the threat of imminent death to turn formerly meek people into a raging mob. A few fire spells setting half the street alight, a few pulse-types causing all the overhead lanterns to burst in a colorful rain, a few hammerlike percussion blows to wagons and piles of goods and tables outside eateries, and suddenly, the guards had more to worry about than us. Like being trampled as everyone on our end of the street, all couple hundred of them, suddenly decided they wanted to be somewhere else.
Everybody but His Assholeness, that is, who just kept coming.
But that was okay, because the fire had finally done what we couldn’t and gotten the camels moving. Only they weren’t just moving, they were moving, in a blind panic and with no more concern than their owner had shown for anybody else’s person or property. I tried to steer them away from the people at least, but it was a little hard with so many running everywhere, and while also holding on for dear life. And Caleb couldn’t help me, being busy trying to find out what in his arsenal worked on an incubus.
Not much, it looked like, and the demon was still coming and the state of the street didn’t seem to bother him, because now he wasn’t so much running after us as flying, and I didn’t think we’d like what would happen when he caught up.
“My bag,” I gasped at Caleb as we barreled through a gate, the incubus right on our heels and extra sparkly in the dimmer light of the brief tunnel.
“What bag?”
“That one!”
I bumped him with my hip, and
the small tasseled piece of uselessness I’d bought to replace the pockets I’d lost with my robes shimmied. It was as tacky as, well, hell, but I’d had to have something, because I wasn’t crazy enough to show up entirely unprepared.
And because I’d never given Pritkin back his little, silver demon-fighting gun.
“What does this do?” Caleb yelled, pulling it out.
“Shoot it and find out!”
I guess he agreed, because a second later he got off a perfect shot into the incubus’ sparkly cloud formation. And a second after that, it broke apart into a bunch of smaller clouds, which hovered in the air for a moment, looking a lot less sparkly. And then flowed back together, both dimmer and smaller, but still moving fast.
In the other direction.
“Damn!” Caleb looked at it with bright eyes. “I gotta get me one of these!”
“Stop quoting and help me!” I yelled back, because the camels were demented and the streets weren’t even close to level and the incubi weren’t going to have to kill us in a minute, because we were going to capsize on our heads. “Take the reins!”
“I don’t want the reins!”
“Damn it, why not? You can’t be any worse than—”
“That’s why not!”
I didn’t have to wonder what he meant. A bolt of something red and sizzling hit down beside us almost the moment the words were out of his mouth, causing the camels to rear and then swerve across to the other side of the street. All the way across. Suddenly, we were throwing sparks off the unyielding stone, having to duck baskets and rolled-up awnings and lunging through a pile of crockery, which was definitely going to be in the scratch and dent and shattered-to-bits bin tomorrow.
Of course, we might be, too.
Because in between trying to pull the damned creatures back into something like the middle of the street, and avoiding decapitation, and trying to miss the darting people, who luckily appeared to be used to horrifically bad driving, I saw security forces converging on us from all sides.
But not out of the gate ahead, where I guess the guards hadn’t got the memo yet. Or maybe old training just died hard. They were so used to letting their lords and masters do whatever the hell they wanted that they just stood there with confused looks on their faces as we barreled past, despite having a dozen yelling guards right on our tail.
“How many gates is that?” Caleb asked, throwing a spell that caused the portcullis on our side to come crashing down as soon as we shot past it.
“Two!”
“Shit. And the outer wall makes three, and there’s three above that damned palace. . . .”
“That leaves three.”
“No, two. The palace is on the sixth level, not beyond it. We don’t need to pass through the sixth gate.”
Yeah, but we needed the fourth and fifth, and I didn’t think we were going to get them. Because bells were suddenly clanging out a warning from higher up on the walls, and the guards were getting closer, and the warren of streets meant that we kept flashing by alleys on both sides, and more and more of those had red energy bolts coming out of them. At the rate we were going, I doubted we’d get one more.
Of course, I could be wrong.
A couple of guards stepped out in front of the next gate, arms stretched out in warning, too far away to worry about getting run down. But not too far to get blown off the street with a single spell. We shot through the gate, which they hadn’t bothered to bring down, because of course we were going to stop when politely asked to do so.
Of course we were.
Our manners need work, I thought, and giggled. And wondered if I was going mad.
“One more,” Caleb said, looking at me strangely.
“Yeah, maybe,” I breathed, because suddenly I couldn’t even see the palace anymore.
I stared around through frizzled blond hair, trying to figure out where, exactly, I’d taken a wrong turn, because I couldn’t remember turning at all. But the streets up here were even worse than in the souk, a tangled mess of intersecting passages, like a bandit’s dream, and anything but straight. And the palace, when I saw it at all, didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Like a mirage, it gleamed in glimpses through buildings or at the end of alleys, shining mockingly as we scattered people and dodged lightning bolts and ran over every freaking thing—
And then plunged straight into a mass of guards.
They’d gathered in a small plaza, ahead of the last gate, which two of them appeared to be trying to bring down. But it looked like maybe these inner gates hadn’t been shut in a very long time and weren’t in the best repair, because they appeared to be having trouble. But they clearly didn’t intend that we get any farther. A storm of red lightning tore through the air at us and then burst into a blinding halo just beyond our camels’ noses as Caleb flung up a shield.
It kept us from being fried, but there were too many of them, and that shield wouldn’t last long under this kind of pounding, and it looked like they’d finally gotten the gate moving and—
And screw it.
“Are you crazy?” Caleb said when I stopped trying to hold the half-crazed camels back and gave them a little smack on the butt with the reins instead.
I didn’t answer, because I didn’t have a good one, and because we’d just jumped ahead, hitting a dip in the street and sailing over, knocking several guards to the ground in the process and possibly running over a third. Although I didn’t see how since I was pretty damned sure that both wheels had left the ground. And then we were hitting back down, hard enough to have me biting my cheek half in two as we flew through the last gate, the camels’ noses almost straight out in front of their bodies, and me and Caleb ducking down to where ours were barely visible over the top of the chariot.
And I still felt those wicked spikes, miniature versions of the ones on the main gate outside, brush my curls as we passed.
I didn’t care. I swallowed blood, too busy trying not to fall out on my ass to care about anything else. I didn’t even try to steer anymore; it was virtually impossible at this speed anyway, and besides, the camels seemed to know where they were going. I just held on, the little leg brace on the side of the chariot digging into my thigh, my hands white-knuckled on the front, and Caleb cursing and camels screeching and bells clanging—
And the palace suddenly reappearing in front of us, up a long stretch of hill.
There was yet another gate in front of it, a flimsy-looking thing that seemed more ornamental than anything else, and a couple of white-robed guys with fancy gold belts who looked a lot prettier than the blue-robed fiends behind us. But judging by their expressions, they were also mostly there for looks.
I guess not too many people tried storming Rosier’s palace.
Or if they did, these weren’t the guys to stop them.
They took one disbelieving look at us, out-of-control camels and fleeing people and fiery spells just whaling on us now, as the guards converged into a single long line behind us. And then they jumped to either side as we burst through the gate, with shards of precious wood flying and several planters crashing and a swaying lantern overhead shattering.
And then we were in.
Chapter Seventeen
We didn’t stop. There were more pretty, pretty guards coming down the sweeping front staircase and Caleb’s shield had just given up the ghost. And judging by the pounding it had taken, it wasn’t going back up anytime soon.
So we plowed through the middle of them, camels and all, straight up the stairs, and into a blur of brilliant colors and intricate patterns and gorgeous tile work. Servants in white and gold ringed an atrium with a long pool and fountains, serving a bunch of beautiful people. Who stopped eating long enough to stare at us party crashers in shock, one woman even having a canapé fall out of her lovely mouth.
And then Caleb had me by the hand and we were over the side
of our messed-up vehicle and up another gorgeous set of stairs, not because we knew where we were going, but because the blue-robed guards couldn’t be far behind.
“Which way?” Caleb asked as we burst onto the next floor, and almost got beaned by a guy in a skimpy outfit and a fancy tray.
I don’t think it was on purpose; he looked like the servants downstairs, in flimsy gathered trousers and a gold sash. And once Caleb snatched the tray away from him, he just stood there quivering, his eyes huge. Until Caleb shoved him in the direction of the stairs and he went running, yelling something in a language I didn’t know, but in the universal tone of “oh, shit!”
“Where?” Caleb said again, practically crushing my biceps.
“I don’t know!”
“What do you mean—”
“That’s what Rian was for!”
“Shit!”
And yeah. But then the noise from downstairs suddenly elevated, and we were out of time to debate it. “Run,” I suggested.
It was seconded and carried, leading us to pound down the hall and up some more stairs, narrow back ones this time. It looked like they were only used by servants, which was fine—unless we got caught on them with no room to maneuver. But we didn’t, because the guys chasing us were coming from behind, and the few people we saw going up made no effort to hinder us.
Which would have been great—if we knew where we were going.
“Look for guards!” Caleb told me as we passed a tiny landing leading to an expansive hallway. “He’ll have some on his door!”
But there weren’t any guards on any doors on that floor, or the next, or the one after that. I tried to tamp down my panic, but it wasn’t working. This place hadn’t looked so big from the souk, but up close was a different story. It would take hours to search it all, if Rian had even been telling the truth about Pritkin being here, which I wasn’t placing any bets on right at the—
I crashed into Caleb, who had abruptly stopped, one foot on the next flight going up, in order to look at someone down the hall. Not a guard, although the guy was in blue. And not a servant, although he came staggering backward out of a room as if somebody hadn’t liked the dinner entrée.
