Beside him, Ululenia gasped and began to tremble, one hand going to her forehead. Dairy reached out to steady her, and she pushed him away. "Back, back!"
"Oh, that's right," said the little man. "Lust would hit you rather hard with one of your virgins nearby, wouldn't it?"
Ululenia was sweating, and her horn flared with ugly red light. "Get out... of my.. mind!" White light flashed around her as she changed into a great white bear, her claws as long as Dairy's fingers.
"Isn't that just like a unicorn?" Elkinsair rolled up his sleeves, "bringing a bear to a magic duel." He flung open his robes.
And then Dairy understood, for he had a magical shining horn, just like Ululenia's. Only not on his head.
Also, he had goat's legs.
"Come on, boy!" Mister Hessler shouted, and grabbed Dairy by the hand. "We need to get you out of here!"
"I won't leave Ululenia!" Dairy shouted.
"No release for you since Woodsedge?" asked Elkinsair the satyr as his horn, which Dairy was trying very hard not to look at, flared with light, and Ululenia dropped into a crouch with a growl of pain. "And this supple young virgin is right here, tantalizing your frustrated desires. I can feel you slipping away even now. Deep down you want to give in and lose yourself, don't you?"
Ululenia shifted back into human form, her horn now mostly red. "Run, my virgin," she hissed, turning away from him. Her skin was flushed.
Everyone kept telling Dairy to run.
"No, Ululenia," he said clearly. "I'm not going to run. I... I believe in you."
Elkinsair spared Dairy a glance. "Well, isn't that just adorable apple, babbling brook, creeping cat, son of a bitch!" He stumbled backward, and Ululenia's horn flared again, and Elkinsair flew across the room and hit the wall.
Hessler grabbed Dairy by the arm. "Now, while he's distracted!" he cried. "Ululenia can catch up!" He pelted down the hallway with Dairy in tow, then turned and flung out his hand, filling the hallway behind them with a wall of pure darkness. When it was in place, he pulled Dairy through a side door. "That should make it harder to find us," Mister Hessler gasped.
"What about Ululenia?" Dairy asked, easily keeping pace with Mister Hessler.
"I don't think she could lose your mind if she tried." Mister Hessler smiled.
"I'm worried about her," Dairy admitted.
Mister Hessler pulled him into a hallway. "That's very noble of you, Dairy, but... well, trust me, she's better off without you there."
"Oh."
"We need to get you out of here, Dairy," Hessler said quietly. "Nothing else matters. Not the book, not Loch, not Ululenia. All that matters is keeping you..."
They came around a corner into a large room. There were a lot of guards in the room, and just like the guards up on the airship, their faces were twisted into snarls of hatred, and their eyes were wrong.
"...safe."
Loch came out of Silestin's personal quarters to find the dining hall emptied of guests, except for a couple of people who had already been killed by the dozen or so soul-drained guards who now occupied the room.
The guards turned to her, their eyes cold and empty and their bestial snarls in place. Two of them stopped stabbing the already-dead guests who hadn't left quickly enough and raised their blades along with the rest.
"I know that Silestin did something to you," Loch said slowly, walking into the hall. "I know he's got you under his control."
The blades followed her movement, and the guards slowly began to circle. Some of them were panting.
"If there's any of you left in there," Loch said, "fight it."
She was in the middle of the dining hall now. They almost had her surrounded. She forced herself not to tense up.
"I will find some way to bring you back. I swear it. But I need your help. Show me that you're in there."
The guards moved in.
Loch lunged, caught a descending arm, smashed her elbow into the attacker's face, wrenched the sword free with an offhand slash that eviscerated another guard, ducked under a slice that mistakenly killed the guard she'd just disarmed, and brought her blade up in a great two-handed arc that killed another even as she kicked another one in the chest to knock him down.
She parried an overhand strike, ran the man through, and then used his sword to gut another one while her free hand collapsed the windpipe of a third.
After that, things got a little messy.
When it was done, she dropped the two bloody blades she'd ended up with and looked at the fallen men.
"Sorry," she said.
Then she turned and started running again.
None of it would have happened if they hadn't found out about him selling the magical artifacts on the side, Hessler mused.
He'd been careful, but not careful enough, unless it was part of the prophecy that had caused him to get caught, and kicked out, and thrown into that cell so that Loch would find Dairy and bring him up to Heaven's Spire.
Hessler didn't know. A few weeks ago, he wouldn't have shared a drink with anyone foolish enough to believe in prophecies, which were obviously propaganda promulgated by religious figures in order to reinforce the predominant morality of the time at the expense of the undereducated working class.
Now he stared at the guards, and then at Dairy, and then at his own slender hands.
"Dairy," he said quietly as the guards drew their weapons, "I need you to trust me."
"I11 do anything you ask, Mister Hessler." The kid stepped between him and the guards, who growled wordlessly and raised their weapons.
"I need you to run back to Ululenia," Hessler said, and his voice caught a little. "I'm going to leave an illusion of myself here for them to fight, but 111 be with you, invisible and silent. Do you trust me?" Dairy nodded, and Hessler shut his eyes for one selfish moment. "Then go. 111 be right beside you. 111 always be with you, Dairy. Remember that."
The kid ran, and as the soulless guards moved to chase him, Hessler threw up an illusionary wall of fire that blocked the doorway behind him. "He's gone," Hessler said with quiet pride. "All you get is me."
He didn't go easily. As they moved in on him, Hessler plunged all of them into darkness, then tried to creep to a corner, ducking below their blind slashes. One of them bowled him over by blind luck, though, and the distraction killed his illusions.
A frantic blast of light blinded the guard who'd knocked him over, and he formed a shadow-Hessler across the room that drew the attention of a few of them, but two more were coming his way, and even after he made himself invisible and rolled to the side, they were following, kicking at the area where he had lain.
A boot caught him in the ribs, and his cloak fell away as the stabbing, crushing pain made it impossible to breathe. He blinded the other two with another flash of light and pulled himself back to his feet, but every breath was pain lancing through his lungs, and he couldn't concentrate.
He is safe, Magister, came Ululenia's voice in his mind, and her grief made it clear that she understood. You will not be forgotten. And Hessler knew that it would not be painless, and he feared that it would not be swift, but in that moment, it was enough.
He made it three more steps before a blow drove him to his knees, and then he was being held up by two of them, their swords ready, and as Hessler looked up through the thudding pain, he saw Justicar Pyvic walk into the room, sword raised and face contorted with grim fury.
It wasn't the same mindless snarl that the guards had, and Hessler's heart hammered with desperate hope.
"You don't understand," Hessler gasped. "Bi'ul is..."
Pyvic struck without hesitation, and the crushing blackness that shattered Hessler's vision was the last thing he felt.
The gardens were dark, lit only by the moon. Behind Icy, the palace windows gleamed with a crisp blue-white glow.
The western gardens were overgrown, the hedges untrimmed and the wildflowers watered but unchecked, creating a lush and verdant forest that mixed several different climates for
a singularly beautiful effect.
Icy picked his way along a gentle path, looking up at the dim silhouette of the trees above.
"I'm always frightened to come out here at night," Naria admitted, her voice a whisper. "Will we be here long?"
"My friends should arrive shortly," Icy assured her. "We shall be gone soon enough."
The path led into a small clearing lit gray by the moon. The wind rustled the leaves, sending little crackles through the foliage.
"And then will we..." Naria paused. "Will we have to stay outside? I... I can, I'm not afraid to, but—"
"No," Icy said, chuckling. "There is a kahva-house with a small inn upstairs. I imagine we will stay there. For the moment, however, we are simply heading to an alley near Voyant Cevirt's palace."
She smiled, then stiffened in sudden alarm. "Indomitable!" He turned, putting himself between her and the danger, peering into the darkness of the trees.
Something leaped at them from the other side.
Icy spun as Naria hit the ground with a cry, saw the figure standing over her, and moved forward, hands raised in combat positions he had practiced for years but hoped never to have to use against a living being. But for Naria
"If you want to court my sister, Icy, there are three things you have to know," said Loch, standing over Naria's fallen form. "The first is that she'd never date a peasant Imperial unless she had an ulterior motive."
Icy opened his mouth to respond indignantly, and then stopped when he saw the dagger in Naria's hand.
"Too late, Isa. He already told me where your little gang is meeting." Naria swept Loch's legs out from under her with a smooth kick and rolled to her feet in the same motion. Then she lunged, the blade moving in a smooth arc toward Loch's throat.
Loch caught Naria's wrist, lunged back to her feet, and body-checked Naria into a tree.
"The second," Loch said, "is that with all the money and power she has at her command, she'd never settle for crystal lenses to cover her ruined eyes... unless they're magical lenses. My money'd be on mental illusions to compensate for the blindness."
"They do more than that," Naria hissed, and vanished from view.
"She is not simply invisible," Icy said quietly. "Her movements are not disturbing the grass or creating any noise."
"And the third," Loch said, "is that she was too delicate to handle a real fight. The only time she ever beat me in anything is when she cheated. Which makes her..." She broke off, spun, and threw a hard, nasty punch directly behind her.
As Naria shimmered into visibility directly behind Loch, her knife raised to slit her sister's throat, the punch caught her square in the face. She went down bonelessly and didn't move.
"...easy to predict."
Icy dropped to his knees, the breath sucked out of his stomach. "She was..."
"The Archvoyant's First Blade. Last one anyone would ever suspect. Add in whatever shadow-magic Silestin picked up for her, and she's a damn fine assassin." Loch's face relaxed. "And she was always good at twisting men around her finger." She shook her head, then picked up Naria's slim knife.
"I told her where we were meeting." Icy hated himself for saying the words, but would have hated himself more for not saying them.
"I know." Loch reached down with the knife, and Icy shut his eyes.
He heard fiber snap and opened his eyes to see Loch pulling the lenses away from Naria's face. The cord which bound them to Naria's head was neatly cut, and Naria's knife lay discarded in the grass.
"We'll be long gone by the time she wakes up," Loch said. "And I don't think she'll be pulling any more assassin-y surprises." She rose to her feet, dropped the crystal lenses to the ground, and stomped hard. Icy winced as magical crystal crunched in the darkness. "Come on."
Icy followed Loch out of the clearing, though he did turn once to look back.
Ambassador Bi'ul followed Archvoyant Silestin into a small sitting room. The Archvoyant gestured, and Bi'ul sat.
"The problem, Ambassador, is that I know what you want," Silestin said without preamble.
Bi'ul nodded, unoffended. "The ward set by the ancients was quite specific."
"You need souls." Silestin smiled. "And much as I appreciate your assistance, I have no intention of offering mine."
"So we find ourselves at this impasse." Bi'ul smiled, toying with a goblet of wine.
"Pretend for a minute, though, that there was no impasse." Silestin sat down and filled his pipe. "Pretend I've got some souls—not voluntarily given, but mine nonetheless. Convince me that allowing your kind into the world doesn't lead to the destruction of everything I hold dear."
Bi'ul blinked. "You value nothing save your own power." Silestin waved at him irritably. "Ah. You fear that if the Glimmering Folk return, you would lose power. Charming." Bi'ul smiled. "What you fail to consider is that as mortals find fragments of the ancients' power, someone, somewhere, will allow us into the world. It is only a question of when and where."
"Not good enough." Silestin puffed on his pipe.
"The world as you know it will end, one way or the other," Bi'ul noted. "Would you prefer to be the capital of the new and glorious empire of the Glimmering Folk, with the world bowing to what was once your Republic and you living in luxury as a regional governor? Or would you prefer that your Republic be one of the conquered nations ground into dust, your last thoughts before your soul is forcibly extracted that you could have had the power, but were too worried about the risks?" He smiled, rainbows shimmering across his face. "But this is merely an academic question, as you have no souls to offer me."
Silestin withdrew a slim emerald crystal wand from his vest. "The prisoners who work on the underside of the Spire? They clean the floating stones and keep everything running."
"Wasteful." Bi'ul shrugged. "Before the ancients fled this world, maintenance was performed by golems."
"The prisoners say that it's unlucky to talk near the stones." Silestin spun the crystal wand between his fingers. "They say that your voice gets caught in the stone, that the stones can steal your soul."
"An entertaining story, Archvoyant."
Silestin grinned. "I believe you about the golems. I'm certain that the ancients never intended for anyone living to be near the stones for long. They would certainly never have intended the voices of the workers to imprint in the crystals in such a way as to allow soul-binding." He touched his ring to the crystal wand, and its emerald glow flushed to a dull and angry red. "Luckily for you, Bi'ul, the old men weren't infallible."
Bi'ul stared at the crystal for a long moment, his mind tracing the energy pattern.
He smiled. "Luckily for me indeed, Archvoyant."
"Kutesosh gajair'is!"
"That the last of them?" Kail asked, panting, as Desidora's swing sent one of the snarling guards crashing into the far wall of the small dining room where they'd been ambushed.
"No more on my end," the death priestess said coolly.
"I'm good," Tern chimed in. She'd gotten a couple of the guards with an alchemical bolt that splashed a quick-drying glue everywhere. "So, Diz, what are these guys?"
"I don't know." Desidora looked at them without expression. "Their auras are polluted somehow. I don't know what Silestin did to them, but it isn't natural."
"And that's you saying that," Tern noted, and then coughed when Desidora stared at her. "Well, it is. Is it reversible? Maybe rather than fighting our way out, we could cure them."
"Unlikely," Desidora said, dismissing it with a wave, "and dangerous. It would require too much investiture of power to even be possible." She looped Ghylspwr back into her belt and started walking.
"Wait," said Tern, leaning against a table that Kail had knocked over before leaping up onto the chandelier and bringing it down on a bunch of the guards. "That's it? It's too hard for you, so we just leave these people?"
"Tern," Kail said quietly, "let it go."
"Why? It's cold, Kail. The whole reason Loch put this job together was to hurt
Silestin. If he's got people enslaved, freeing them has got to hurt him as much as stealing a book."
Kail was still looking at Desidora as she peered around the corner for more guards. "She shouldn't use that death-priestess power unless she really needs to. It's not..." He grimaced. "She just shouldn't have to, is all."
"She doesn't need to? It's too much investiture?" Tern raised an eyebrow. "How is it that as somebody who took awhile to get on the zombie-loving bandwagon, I'm the one pushing for her to try something? Either she's with us, or she's not."
"Tern..."
"No! If I could pick a lock to get us outside right now, I wouldn't be complaining that it was too hard."
"It's dangerous. When we were in the—"
"I'll try," Desidora said from the doorway. "You're right, Tern. It's worth making an effort." She moved to stand over an unconscious guard. "You should both stand back and avoid making any sudden movements. With the complexity of the aural tampering, I will have to..." She looked at Kail, then at Tern.
"You're going to get really pale, and any nearby artwork is going to get spiky?" Tern guessed.
Desidora smiled. "Most likely."
Kail stepped forward. "You were right before. This isn't the time to try. We've got more pressing—"
"Too late," Desidora hissed, and her smile was a scarlet scratch across her alabaster face. "Did you think I would not see?" She flung out a hand, and shadowy coils sprang from her fingers and wrapped around Kail's throat. "No unicorn to hold me back this time."
Kail fell to his knees, eyes bulging in their sockets. Desidora's eyes were jet black, and her hair twisted and writhed in a wind that touched no one else in the room.
Then Tern's sleep-dart caught her in the shoulder, and she had time to shout, "Pitiful fool!" in a truly baleful voice before keeling over.
"See, we tried, and it didn't work," Tern said briskly, hoping Kail was going to get up on his own and not make her go over and help him up, because that was about the only thing that would make her feel worse. "The important thing is that we tried, and now we can move on with a clear conscience."
The Palace Job Page 29
