The Palace Job

by Patrick Weekes

Loch regained her senses to find herself prone on the deck, her saber quite some ways away and her entire left side sore. There were a few crewmen still on deck, and Hessler was suddenly visible, lying unconscious in a heap by the railing.

  Everyone was on the ground, or at least on their knees. Loch tried to get up, failed, and thought she'd taken a shot to the head before realizing that the ship was swinging with wild movements while still moving forward and skyward.

  Jeridan clung to the rigging, hanging over empty space. "Free." And with the effort of a man lifting a mountain, he let go.

  "No! Damn it!" Loch fought her way to her knees, but he was already gone, a speck far below.

  "Sorry!" Dairy called from across the deck. "I didn't mean—"

  Loch got to her feet. "You're doing fine. Don't throw anything else!" A flash of movement from the corner of her eye was followed by a stunning pain that sent her into the railing. She dived sideways as a boot splintered the wood of the railing where she'd lain.

  "Mmrff rrmrrmm," Jyelle growled, and then tore the gag from her mouth and tossed it to the deck, next to the unlocked shackles and the key she'd gotten from Pyvic's unconscious body. "This time, Captain, I'll see you dead."

  The crowd roared as the passenger ship reared up over the dock like an ancient dragon come to life. The balloon missed the dock itself by no more than a few feet, sailwings lashing the air, and one whipping rope sent a section of planking whizzing past Silestin's head.

  On the torn and splintered remains of the deck, men and women were locked in combat. Silestin caught a glimpse of two Urujar women fighting near the railing, and then the ship whooshed over his head and reeled drunkenly over the city with sawdust falling behind it. In the bright morning air of Heaven's Spire, shouts erupted in the streets.

  For a moment, the crowd was silent. Silestin gave them a quick look.

  Then he turned to Orris and, in a shocked and angry voice, demanded, "Warden, just what the hell was that?"

  Kail was still parrying. Desidora was driving most of the remaining crew back on their heels with great sweeping strikes. Dairy was making his way to Hessler, either incredibly lucky or incredibly skilled at avoiding the lashing ropes and flying debris over at that end of the ship. Tern's plate, at the moment, was mostly empty.

  "Um, Loch?" Tern called. "If we pass over the city, that's going to negatively impact the plan!"

  "Little busy!" called Loch, who was engaged in an enthusiastic knife-fight with Jyelle. "Ever flown a ship?"

  "I'm sure it's like driving a wagon!" Tern reached into a pocket and withdrew a vial of purple powder. She tore the stopper free with her teeth and flung the contents past Kail into a crewman's snarling face, and the man yelled and clutched at his eyes until Kail kicked him over the edge.

  Tern had never driven a wagon, either, but since Loch was involved in a knife fight, Tern was ready to get outside her comfort zone.

  Carefully pulling herself along the railing with a few nasty surprises at the ready in case the few remaining crewmen came her way, Tern made her way over to the helm. She pushed the unconscious navigator aside and studied the helm.

  The six levers obviously corresponded to the sailwings, and she was reasonably certain that the large crystal surrounded by a bunch of smaller crystals (many of them blinking red, which was almost never good) had something to do with the big balloon.

  "What do you want me to make it do?" Tern looked over. Loch and Jyelle were doing some kind of intricate dance of death, their blades moving faster than Tern's eyes could follow as the two women circled the rubble-strewn deck. Tern wished she'd learned something about knife-fighting, but she was really good at cracking safes, and safes didn't usually stab you in the stomach when you botched the tumblers.

  "Land!" Loch shouted, and then stumbled on one of the holes Ghylspwr had made in the deck and barely ducked under a slash that would have taken out an eye. The two women collapsed into a mess of arms and legs and knives, and Tern, who really didn't want to even think about the logistics of adding wrestling into the knife-fight equation, went back to consulting the helm.

  Landing, landing, landing. Well, if her limited grasp of Ancient was any good, that panel marked "Oankilar" probably had something to do with descending, but there were several buttons in that area, and there was probably some all-important procedure to follow with—

  "Die!" Tern looked up to see one of the crewmen glaring at her, arm raised to throw a knife. Before she could do anything, he hurled it at her, and then a flash of gold obscured her vision, and all at once Icy was there, crouched in a coiled warrior's pose after leaping from the rigging, one arm flung to the heavens.

  "Icy!" Tern cried. "No!"

  "There is no need for apprehension," Icy said calmly. "I knocked the blade aside harmlessly." The crewman snarled and went off to find greener pastures.

  "No!" Tern grabbed Icy's shoulder and pointed up. "What I was going to say was, 'Icy, no, you knocked the knife straight up, and it appears to have torn a hole in the balloon overhead, and now the wind-daemon is trying to claw its way out!'"

  Icy looked up at the balloon, where a smoky, mustard-yellow tentacle with a dozen barbed claws was wriggling out of a tiny tear. "Ah. Did Loch not instruct you to land the airship?"

  "I'll get right on it."

  As the ship's balloon distended, Bi'ul sniffed the air, then smiled. "Wind-daemon. Lovely bouquet."

  "Archvoyant, you can't blame me for this!" Orris insisted. "I left before they found her! I wasn't even there!"

  "All I know," Silestin said ominously, "is that this was your chance to put everything right, Orris, and now one of the Republic's ships is coming apart at the seams. I don't know what to say. I'm beginning to think the Skilled were wrong to put you and Justicar Pyvic on that task force. "

  "It gains substance as it interacts with the elements of this little world," said Bi'ul, and made a face. "Pity. They taste so much better when fresh."

  The news writers started scribbling.

  They were losing altitude now, either because of what Tern had done or because the damn wind-daemon was trying to claw its way to freedom. As Loch circled, breathing hard and hoping Jyelle was feeling the small cuts on her arms and side as much as Loch was feeling the ones on her leg and shoulder, she saw a church steeple rise into view ahead, shouted, "Down!", and rolled away from Jyelle's slash just as the shuddering impact knocked everyone off their feet.

  The entire starboard railing tore away in a series of earsplitting cracks. The helmsman, lucky unconscious bastard that he was, landed gently on a rooftop. One of the crew, not quite so lucky, had a much longer fall and a much harder landing. Loch, flung to the port railing hard enough to bruise a rib, got a quick look ahead and saw the rim approaching. "Everyone get ready to jump ship!"

  "Leaving so soon?" Jyelle called from behind her, and Loch scrambled to her feet, barely knocking aside a wicked slash and diving away, her own knife coming back in a wide sweep to keep Jyelle at bay. "You wanted to get on this ship! Why don't you stay awhile!"

  She lunged in again, her off-hand hidden, and with someone like Jyelle, that could mean only one thing. Loch parried the first stab and desperately jumped away from the slash from the second knife Jyelle had picked up.

  Now the advantage was wholly Jyelle's, and Loch gave ground. The airship hit another building and lost most of its aft section, which was pretty close to where Loch was, and she dropped her knife and clung to a flailing rope as the deck slid out from under her and she felt open air yawning sickeningly beneath her dangling legs.

  "Reached the end of your rope, Loch?" Jyelle stood on the edge of the shattered planking, her knives raised to slash at the rope Loch clung to, eyes wild and smile vicious. "I figure cutting this rope is a bit like you leaving me—"

  "Jyelle!" Loch ignored the jagged pain of the knife cuts and the dull ache of battered muscle as she hauled herself up hand over hand.

  "What is it, Loch? Do you want to plead for your miserable life?"
Jyelle grabbed the rope, and raised the other knife to start sawing. "Do you want to beg me for mercy?"

  "Well, I was going to warn you about the wind-daemon," Loch muttered as mustard-yellow claws closed around Jyelle, "if you'd let me get a word in edgewise." She grabbed the shattered decking, ignoring the jabs of splinters, and pulled herself up. Overhead, Jyelle disappeared into the writhing mass of coiled tentacles billowing out of the now-large hole in the balloon.

  A quick backward glance revealed that the fall might not kill anyone from this height. A quick forward glance revealed a lot of open sky ahead. "Everybody out, now!"

  An ash-white eagle the size of a draft horse flapped ponderously away, Dairy clutched in one claw and Hessler in the other. Icy leapt from the ship, Tern hugging his back—he landed with limbs splayed on the side of a brick building, slid down a bit, and then snagged a ledge. Loch saw Desidora and Kail leap from the side as well, nodded in swift satisfaction, and then saw the prone form of Pyvic lying alone on the deck.

  It took precious seconds, but the man was only trying to do his job, Loch thought as she slung him over her shoulder, staggered to the railing, and flung herself and Pyvic overboard.

  She tried to roll as best she could, and this section of Heaven's Spire appeared to be a gentle garden area, because she hit a hedge, fortunately, and then a tree, unfortunately.

  The morning sky whirled dizzily overhead, but she was alive. Judging by the nearby groans, so was Kail. Loch blinked the dizziness away and saw Desidora standing in the middle of a large impact crater, apparently unharmed—she didn't know exactly how, but she guessed it had something to do with the hammer. The white eagle crash-landed awkwardly on a lawn, dumping Dairy and Hessler, and then turned in a flash of light into a beautiful white mare with a glowing horn and some grass stains.

  All nine, alive and evidently unharmed. Loch glanced over at Pyvic, saw that he was still breathing.

  She got to her feet and looked at the rim, all of twenty feet away. Beyond it, the wind-daemon writhed in the balloon like three cats in a potato sack, dragging the shattered remains of the ship in its wake. A trio of Republic warships was already in the air, chasing the runaway daemon.

  "Any landing you can walk away from," Loch said. "Come on."

  In the alley near Trailer Square, an ambitious pickpocket looked through the wreckage of crates.

  Jyelle had disappeared—some said captured, some said killed. Some said she'd beaten that other Urujar woman she'd had the guild hunting, and some said the other Urujar had beaten her.

  The only thing anyone knew for sure was that whatever had happened had happened in Trailer Square.

  And to the ambitious pickpocket, that meant power. He sifted through the rotten cloth of a crate, then moved on, his fingers gliding easily over everything.

  Knowledge was power. If he found Jyelle dead, he'd be the first to bring the news to one of the new contenders. He examined scuff marks in the dried mud, frowned, and looked at the wall.

  Magic was power. If the fight had been frantic, Jyelle or the other Urujar might have dropped something he could sell... or even use himself. He tensed as a tiny sound whispered through the alley. He'd lived his whole life trusting his senses without doubt or hesitation. A small pile of crates had just shifted slightly.

  Gratitude was power. If Jyelle had been hurt, even gotten cracked over the head and lost in the darkness, and he found her, she'd owe him a favor. He crept to the pile of crates. Underneath, he could see something—not a person, but darkness deeper than seemed natural in the morning light.

  "Jyelle?" he asked quietly. "That you?"

  There was a small, soft groan, and the crates shifted again. He pulled some of the wreckage aside. "I knew you'd have something up your sleeve, ma'am," he said, staring at the inky blackness underneath.

  The knife went straight through his right eye.

  Heaven's Spire Spire wasn't a real city at all, Tern decided. The sound was all wrong.

  They'd gotten out of the park quickly, Ululenia staggering (and back in human form, but so dazed that her horn was showing) and Hessler slung over Icy's shoulder. They'd been far away by the time the local guard had reached the scene.

  Heaven's Spire had a market district, and a residential district, and taverns and inns and palaces (twelve of them, one for each Voyant, arranged around the city). If you saw a picture of it, you might not even realize that it was floating in the heavens. But the ground was paved with a shiny gray material. It was shaped like flagstones, but the texture was different—more slick, like crystal or hematite. With every step, Tern's steel-toed boots made a dull click-thump instead of the normal clop-clop of boots on cobblestones or the even more normal clop-shlup of boots on cobblestones that hadn't been replaced in years and had a lot of mud squelching out from between them.

  There were merchants hawking their wares, but no street sweepers pushing their brooms and banging pots for tips. There were people shopping in the streets, but no beggars calling for charity. Tern heard the clink of money changing hands and the creak of small wagons, but couldn't smell the stink of the slaughterhouse or the tannery.

  It was a city that started at "gentry" and went up from there. Tern decided that she hated the place.

  "The air," Desidora said. "It's not... real. It is refined by magic somehow." She didn't have the weird death priestess aura on—her hair was still red, and her dress was still green.

  "Kutesosh gajair'is?"

  "I'm not certain, but it is very old."

  "We're clear ahead," Kail reported, limping back from the corner of the alley they had paused in. "This the right way?"

  "Will they not find us in this hedged garden?" Ululenia asked, still shaky.

  "It's not much further." Loch pushed off from the alley wall and motioned for them to go.

  "We're going to be easy to track," Kail noted, "if things keep blooming wherever the unicorn walks."

  Ululenia glanced back into the alley, where a barrel she had leaned against had put forth small branches and buds. "Sorry." She gestured, and the buds bloomed into green leaves that rapidly turned golden, then red, and then fell off.

  "Great," said Kail. "We're fine, then, unless Dairy here asks someone a question or throws his truncheon again and turns off all the magic in the city." He slung Hessler over one shoulder and followed Loch out of the alley.

  "I'm really sorry, Mister Kail!" Dairy yelped, darting after him.

  "You know," Tern said to Icy as they started moving again, "I think I figured out what happened to turn off the shield on the balloon."

  "You possess a curious mind," Icy responded, "capable of cutting to the heart of puzzling matters. It is an admirable trait."

  "See, the balloon was protected by a magical shield to stop things like, well, you deflecting a knife up and tearing it. In order for that shield to be taken offline, someone would have to override safety procedures. Then they would have to disengage the shield matrix maintenance protocols from the daemon-summoning system, which is a bitch and a half, since the whole point is to have the shield up whenever the daemon is summoned. Then they would have had to reroute the shield matrix energy to an alternate subsystem!"

  "I understand," said Icy, "that what you are saying is a matter of critical import to you."

  "I am saying," said Tern, "that the odds of that happening by accident are... very small."

  "The helmsman was unconscious," Icy said. "If the probability of such an event occurring is greater than zero, it must simply be the result of chance."

  "I don't know." Tern frowned and looked at Dairy. "It just seems wrong."

  They came through the wagon-street, darted through another alley, and came out near the rim again. Loch motioned, and they darted across the broad circumference street and down a side road between a palace and an old museum.

  After a block or so, they stopped at a side-gate leading into the palace's courtyard. "Loch?" Tern asked. "You need me to—"

  "We're good," Kail sai
d. Loch leaned in close to the gate and said something Tern couldn't make out. The gate opened. "Okay, everyone inside."

  They were moving quickly, so there wasn't much time to gawk, but they made their way through a good-sized garden, across a broad and well-maintained lawn, and finally to one of the side-doors of the palace. Loch moved in and said something again, and the door opened to her touch.

  Tern was becoming curious about the word Loch was using. That kind of thing could be handy.

  Again, Kail gestured for them to get moving, and everyone was quickly inside. Inside turned out to be a gorgeous room with marble floors and gold scrollwork and expensive paintings. Tern looked at an Imperial vase and guessed it to be from the Liu dynasty, which would be nearly enough for Tern to retire on. She glanced at Icy, who caught her stare and nodded.

  "We're here," Loch finally said, looking around the room. Tern had expected her voice to hold a triumphant edge, but instead she sounded resigned.

  "This is our contact?" Tern asked.

  "Gosh!" said Dairy.

  "Besyn larveth'is?"

  "Looks like," Desidora murmured.

  "Put Hessler on one of the couches," Loch said. "I'll bring back the owner."

  A side door blew in off its hinges, and Tern spun to see gem-studded security golems the size of ogres, holding enormous crystal swords. "Unnecessary," came a voice from behind the golems. "Unluckily for you, the security isn't quite as poor as it appears."

  The crystal swords shimmered with scarlet light, and the golems stepped forward.

  Nine

  "Today's discussion: security," intoned the dragon in the puppet show that morning. "With today's debacle, the Republic has lost an airship complete with wind-daemon, and three dangerous prisoners have escaped justice."

  "If I could just start," the manticore butted in, knocking the dragon aside as the crowd laughed, "I think debacle is a very loaded term. We've got people assigned to their jobs, and they're doing their jobs, and it's very presumptuous to judge how they're doing."