The Palace Job

by Patrick Weekes

  Ululenia's mouth opened in a little "oh".

  "You killed Desidora." Kail drew his sword and put himself between Ululenia and the hunter.

  "She left me no choice." Mirrkir raised his spear. "Her death was a necessity."

  He parried Kail's thrust, then went sprawling as Kail body-checked him. Kail got the sword up, only to have it swatted away by the slashing spear, and the butt of the spear slammed Kail hard to the ground.

  Hunter Mirrkir rose to his feet, unperturbed. The runes on the floor where he had fallen continued to glow in the shape of his fallen body. "You have no magic. You cannot stand against me." He caught Kail's punch, grabbed his shoulder, and flung Kail to the floor. "Stand aside."

  He got two more steps, then fell flat as Kail took him at knee-level from behind. A golden gauntlet batted Kail away, and he slid several paces along the smooth crystal of the floor.

  A snowy white dove streaked past Mirrkir and Kail to the doorway, then fell back and collapsed into her unicorn form as tendrils of crackling blue energy wreathed around her.

  "I took the precaution of warding the door," Hunter Mirrkir explained. "You have proven most resilient, and—" He broke off as Kail's punch glanced ineffectually off the golden helmet, then grunted as Kail's sword, recovered during Mirrkir's moment of distraction, punched through his shimmering golden ringmail.

  Mirrkir's backhand slammed Kail to the ground again, and with a slight effort, he pulled the sword from his body. "Why do you continue to put yourself in my way?" he demanded, tossing the sword out over the cliff on the far side of the room. "You have no magic. You are not my enemy." The sword finally clattered at the bottom of the cliff. "You cannot stop me from killing the unicorn."

  Kail pushed himself back to his feet. "It isn't about the unicorn!"

  Hunter Mirrkir tossed out a negligent backhand, and Kail ducked, then lunged up and lifted Mirrkir by the waist. "She didn't ask to be a death priestess!" Kail yelled, staggering toward the cliff with Mirrkir over his shoulder. "She just wanted to be loved!"

  He was almost to the cliff when the butt of Mirrkir's spear punched the base of Kail's spine. Kail went down hard, and Mirrkir regained his footing, then spun the spear to level it at Kail's neck.

  "She deserved more," Kail muttered, grabbing the spear just below the head in a futile effort to stop it.

  "You loved her."

  Kail coughed. "She had nice eyes."

  "Then I apologize," Hunter Mirrkir said without pause, "but she stood between me and my goal. As do you."

  He does not, Ululenia thought. The blue shackles had faded, and she gotten back to her feet in her true form. Her horn was dim and flickering, and she came forward shakily, shining hooves clicking on the crystal. Take me, and let him live.

  Mirrkir stepped away from Kail and raised his spear. "Perhaps you are not entirely bereft of the spark of soul," he allowed. "Your death will save this one's life."

  Agreed. And she knelt before him.

  "Ululenia!" Kail got back to his knees. "Don't give arrogant apple, babbling brook...." He slumped back down.

  Hunter Mirrkir raised his spear over Ululenia. "With your death, the magic of the ancients is reclaimed."

  He struck.

  He missed.

  Badly.

  Hunter Mirrkir stared down at his spear, which had, against all logic, bent double in the air to stab into his own stomach. "What..." he rasped, as blue crackling energy raced along the spear from where he gripped its base to where it had torn through his golden ringmail. "How..." The blue tendrils of energy flared brighter and faster, until the spear was a half-circle of brilliant blue light before him. "No!"

  The blue radiance cast harsh shadows on every surface of the room, flared once, and then flickered and died.

  And Desidora, priestess of Byn-kodar, stood before Hunter Mirrkir with one arm held high in his grasp and one fist sunk into his gut. Her skin shone like alabaster, and her hair and robes drew in the light from all around and returned only shadows.

  "Did you think," she said coldly, "that you could kill a death priestess?" She pulled her fist from Mirrkir, then raised her open hand to the sky.

  There was a flash of light, this one familiar, and a flare of silver in her hand.

  "Besyn larveth'isr

  Hunter Mirrkir flew in a graceful arc, shattered golden armor spraying out in all directions from where the blow had struck, and hit the far wall before falling back into the blackness of the chasm.

  You're alive! Ululenia shimmered back into human form, pale but smiling.

  "I thought..." Kail was shaking his head. "I thought you were... Hey, you didn't hear anything we said while you were—"

  "It doesn't matter." Ululenia stepped forward, arms outstretched. "All that matters now is that she's—"

  "Finished." Desidora raised her free hand, and coils of absolute black snaked from her fingers to twine around Kail, who collapsed again, clutching at his throat. She turned to Ululenia, and her eyes were pitch black. "My quest cannot be allowed to fail," she said in a voice like razors. "The world needs me. I need power."

  The crystals under Desidora's feet faded to a smoky black, and the runes traced into them slid into spiderlike patterns as Desidora the death priestess smiled, a slash of crimson across her chalk-white face. "I will take what I need."

  Archvoyant Silestin's personal quarters and private vault were located in the western section of the palace. Loch ducked around a corner, slipped past a guard, and crept into the personal rooms.

  The first room was a sitting room. It had some chairs and a sofa and some tables and a lot of knickknacks. Some of them were tacky, but the determining factor in displaying them seemed to be how much it had cost.

  The second room was a small study. The desk, black marble with gold scrollwork, had some papers and a few gilded and bejeweled desk accessories.

  The third room was a small kitchen. It had fewer exotic decorations, but it did have a nice pantry, a wide range of drinks and finger foods, and two lithe and scantily clad Imperial women sitting at a table.

  The Imperial women slid to their feet as Loch came inside, their silk trimmings rustling exotically.

  "Personal assassin guards?" Loch asked. "Or pleasure-girls? Or both?"

  "Personal assassins," said the one on the right.

  "Well, I'm both," said the one on the left, "but mostly personal assassins."

  They assumed exotic combat stances that showed a lot of leg.

  "Not a lot of muscle on you girls," Loch observed. She didn't have a sword. At least her dress had the slit up one leg, so she could move in it. She slid out of her high-heeled sandals.

  "The Archvoyant's Blades do not need raw muscle," said the one on the right with a little sneer.

  "Your own bulk will slow you down," added the one on the left.

  Loch stepped forward. "That should be something to see."

  The one on the left sprang into the air to execute a flashy kick, and Loch punched her in the face. The one on the right tried some acrobatic rolling maneuver, and Loch stepped into it, and as the woman stumbled back, Loch punched her in the face, too. Neither of them got up from where they'd landed.

  She left her high-heeled slippers in the kitchen.

  The next room was technically a library, although half of the bookshelves were taken up with vases and statuettes. One large display table held a gaudy golden plate that might have been dwarven, going by the runes.

  "Gurdarik dynasty," said the Imperial assassin woman standing on the other side of the room. She was older than the girls, though still lithe and not wearing clothing you'd go outside in. "Extremely rare."

  "Nice," said Loch. "What do the runes say?"

  "Not a clue." The assassin shrugged. "I don't think Silestin bought it to read it."

  "No," Loch agreed. "He's not the reading type."

  She got the plate up just in time to deflect the assassin's throwing knife. Then she flung the plate at the assassin, who rolled smoo
thly out of the way. The golden plate shattered an ancient elven vase and clattered to the floor.

  "So I'm guessing you're in charge," Loch said, slowly circling the room.

  "Second Blade." The assassin mirrored her movements. "More than enough for you."

  Loch batted aside a claw-hand strike, tried to catch the wrist but missed, then set her weight hard to stop the assassin's ankle sweep and drove forward with a punch. The assassin ducked it, then answered with a kick that Loch took on the arms, and Loch moved in for an ankle sweep of her own but had to sidestep instead as the assassin kicked out with her other leg and leaped into a backflip. She came down perfectly and rolled out of range.

  "You've trained."

  "Here and there." Loch rolled out her shoulders. She'd have given a month's combat pay to be wearing a good pair of boots for this fight.

  "A few years in the monasteries, and you could have been a master." The assassin leaped, and this time she was a glittering golden ribbon of death. One kick snapped into the back of Loch's knee just as the other kick slammed into Loch's jaw, spinning her away and dropping her to one knee with its force.

  And as the assassin landed, necessarily off-balance for one critical moment, Loch lunged backward and threw an elbow into the assassin's gut. "Fancy trick might've worked..." Followed by a right cross to the temple. "...if I were a one-kickto-the-head kind of girl..." Followed by a left uppercut to the chin. "...which I'm not." She stepped in, palmed the assassin's face, and slammed her head to the ground.

  "You've trained too, lady," Loch said, panting. "A few years in the field learning to take as good as you give, and you could have been a real fighter." The assassin woman didn't get up. Not dead, but she wouldn't be serving as a pleasure-girl for a few weeks, either. "I'll be honest, though. I'd hoped for something a bit more challenging."

  Behind her, a sword slid free of its sheath.

  "I'll try not to disappoint," said Justicar Pyvic.

  Twenty-One

  "Desidora," Ululenia said carefully, "you do not wish to do this."

  "You have no idea what I wish, puny beast." The death priestess glanced at her imperiously. Coils of energy continued to choke the life out of Kail. "The wishes of the woman are cast aside at the needs of the gods. I am that need."

  Kail's eyes bulged as he clutched at his throat. "You are not a murderer," Ululenia insisted.

  "I am what I must be." Beneath the death priestess's feet, the runes formed terrifying shapes that Ululenia could almost understand. "I am the last hope of the gods." The words cut into Ululenia's mind as she opened herself to the priestess. "I am the blade that tears away the rotted arm to save the patient. I am the thing that violates the souls of hundreds and kills thousands so that millions may live." She raised Ghylspwr. "I wield the last king of the ancients, who bound his soul to a weapon to forever fight the darkness. I am justice, beast, justice without hesitation, mercy, or regret."

  "Kun-kabynalti osu fuir'is," Ghylspwr said softly.

  Ululenia stepped forward. "You are a priestess of Tasheveth. You will not kill this man. I am—"

  "You are what?" the priestess asked with a sneer. "You think I do not know your kind, formed from the stray energies of the artifacts of the ancients? You are a parasite, a tapeworm in the belly of creation. If I could feed upon what laughably passes for your soul, I would drain you dry as well. You are nothing but stolen magic and a few mental tricks."

  Such as this one, Ululenia said, and hit the priestess with everything that Kail, in his deepest and most secret places, held for Desidora.

  The priestess staggered, shaking her head frantically as the darkness slid across her eyes. The dark coils wavered, grew frail and tenuous around Kail. She raised Ghylspwr, her arm trembling, and pointed the hammer at Ululenia.

  Ghylspwr did not strike.

  "Kill her!" the priestess screamed.

  "Kutesosh gajair'is!" Ghylspwr shouted back, and did not strike.

  "She is evil! She is making melee!! I must not—"

  "Kun-kabynalti osu fuir'is," Ghylspwr said flatly. And did not strike.

  The priestess turned a baleful stare upon Ululenia. "There will come a day," she hissed, and then collapsed, and a wave of cold washed across the room.

  Kail gasped, bucked, and began to breathe.

  Thank you. Ululenia nodded to Ghylspwr.

  "Besyn larveth'is."

  "I'm sorry," Desidora said softly, in her own voice. She was pale, but it was a natural pale, the pallor of exhaustion. "I'm sorry. I couldn't come back. I tried. I..."

  "You..." Kail coughed and got back to his knees. "You got turned into a spear, Diz. I'm inclined to cut you a break." His eyes were watering, but he looked otherwise unharmed.

  "I couldn't see anything but her." Desidora frowned, shook her head. "How did you drive her away? I sensed you sending something at her."

  Ululenia glanced at Kail. "The arrogant apple trick," she finally said with a shrug. "Works every time."

  "Glad to hear it," Desidora whispered as Kail shot Ululenia a grateful look. "But we must hurry. They'll be getting to the vault any moment."

  "Kail, attend Desidora. I will handle the console myself," Ululenia said confidently, and strode to the podium. The crystals hummed under her fingers while Kail got Desidora propped up and breathing easily again.

  The priestess, for all her vitriol, had been right. While Tern and Desidora understood the mechanics, Ululenia was a creature of magic, and as she opened herself to the energies, she could intuitively sense the steps necessary to force the Voyancy ward to stop drawing energy from several different matrices throughout the palace, and instead draw power only from one matrix... which Icy and Tern had hopefully disabled. It was as simple as the circle of life.

  And had there not been a failsafe alarm to prevent exactly what Ululenia was doing, things would have gone perfectly.

  Instead, a curtain of iridescent light, like a rainbow caught in the spray of a waterfall, rose up from the chasm, and from behind that shimmering curtain flowed the glowing forms of two spectral figures in ancient armor that shone like moonlight on water.

  "Ciel'urti ufa gaveth'isti," they proclaimed in hollow voices. "Ynu gedesar'urti? Osu gedesar'urti, osku byn-kodar'isti." "That could be a problem," Desidora said weakly.

  After a moment of silence, the spectral knights looked at each other. "Byn-kodar'isti," they agreed, and drew swords that crackled with blue flame as they drifted toward Ululenia.

  "Keep working!" Kail shouted. He stepped over the still-fallen form of Desidora and called to the knights, "Ynku isti kukutosh'urti!"

  The knights paused and turned from Ululenia to Kail. "Ynu ur ku-kutoshi'is?" one of them asked in spectral suspicion.

  Kail grinned. "Yeshki-aitha'al'ur, al-ajetosh 'is!" he proclaimed with a gesture that transcended the centuries.

  "Gods, he knows it in every language," Desidora murmured as the two spectral knights roared wordlessly and floated his way.

  Ululenia kept working on the crystals, bending them to her will. Off to one side, Kail dodged a strike and then dove back from another. "Be careful!" Desidora shouted. "They're backing you toward the cliff!"

  "Hey, thanks, Diz!" Kail shouted. "I hadn't noticed the giant drop right there behind me until—" He paused and rolled away from another strike. "—you pointed that out to me!"

  "Besyn larveth'is!" Ghylspwr shouted.

  The knights paused.

  "Ynu besyn larveth'ur?" one of them asked, still skeptical. "Besyn larveth'is," Ghylspwr said again, more confidently this time.

  "Ynu ufa osu gedesar fuir'ur?" the other knight asked. "Kutesosh gajair'is," Ghylspwr said firmly.

  The first knight gestured at Ululenia, then Desidora. "Ynu alti veth'ur? Ynu alti iofelarur?"

  "Kun-kabynalti osu fuir'is," Ghylspwr declared.

  The knights thought for a moment.

  "Hyur'urti," they finally said, and bowed once to Ghylspwr. Then they rose into the air back out into the chasm, where t
he rainbow veil shimmered into existence again.

  One of them paused and turned to Kail. "Ynku kumet'ur yeshki-aitha'aris," he said flatly.

  "I was totally mistaken," Kail said quickly. "Your mother was a saint."

  The knights stepped into the veil and disappeared.

  "Damn, Ghyl," Kail said after a moment, "if somebody had said that you were going to be the one talking us out of tight spots, I'd... well, I'd have bet heavily against it."

  "I am finished," Ululenia said, sighing in relief. "The Voyancy ward is disabled, provided that Tern and Icy disable the energy conduit."

  "They can't be having any more trouble than we had," Kail said sourly. "Let's get out of here. Every time we stop to catch our breath in this damn room, something goes wrong."

  With Kail and Ululenia helping Desidora, they left to meet Loch and the others at the vault.

  Bi'ul gestured at Icy imperiously. Nothing happened.

  "Too much ambient energy," the Glimmering Man muttered. "Wasteful design by the ancient fools."

  "So you can't use all the horrible magic?" Tern called from across the room. "Hah! What are you going to do now? Jump up there yourself?"

  Bi'ul brightened, ducked into a crouch, and leaped fifteen feet into the air to catch one of the crystal spurs.

  "I would appreciate it—"

  "Sorry!" Tern started reloading her crossbow.

  "—if you would refrain from giving the Glimmering Man helpful suggestions." Icy pulled himself up, switched to a handgrip, swung quickly to the next grip, and then swung off that with a big leap that ended with him landing feet-first on a large faceted plane and then kicking off to catch hold of another crystal spur some ways away.

  Bi'ul flicked his wrist and swung a good twenty feet through the air to easily catch another handgrip. "Impressive," he called with no trace of sarcasm. "I admire the degree to which you have maximized the performance of your limited mortal shell. Are you certain that I cannot convince you to sell me your soul?"