The Palace Job (22 page)

"You're going out like that?" Melich asked, and Pyvic hooked his fingers into his belt and looked at him flatly. "I'll do what I can."

"Thanks." Pyvic headed for the door, slowly but steadily. "And tell Jyrre good job."

The small bar turned out to have every drink Kail, Tern, and Icy combined had ever heard of.

"Nice place." Kail was behind the bar, pouring drinks. "Being a Voyant pays big. Hessler, ice?"

"For my head, yes," said the wizard from where he still lay on the couch. "For my drink, never."

"Should've figured you as neat. What can I get you, Dairy?"

Dairy looked up from Hessler. "The woman who found me as an orphan used to give me hot milk sweetened with a little honey, Mister Kail."

Kail pursed his lips. "I'll see what we've got."

"No alcohol for the boy," said Desidora.

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

"Because he's
sixteen,"
Desidora insisted. "Kail,
you will not
give him alcohol. Do I make myself clear?" Her hair darkened perceptibly.

"You just
had
to play the death priestess card." Kail grunted. "Fine. Virgin for the kid."

"Virgin," said Ululenia, smiling dreamily, her horn shining brightly on her pale forehead. "Mmm." Dairy blushed.

"So," said Tern, sipping from a cocktail glass filled with something pink and fruity, "what's the deal with Loch and the Voyant?"

"Got me." Kail topped off an ale for himself, then sat back on a barstool. "I just pour the drinks."

"Dammit, Isa, give me something!" Cevirt stood and began to pace furiously. "Tell me your heartbreaking tale of being captured by Imperials and forced to serve in slavery until you heroically escaped!"

Loch nodded thoughtfully. "Wow, Uncle. That's pretty good. Guess the Voyancy keeps you sharp."

He turned and glared. "Always,
Aitha.
Give me something." "Why?" Loch stood and faced him squarely. "So you can assuage your conscience?"

"Yes, dammit! I lied for you!"

"You lied to keep your record clean," Loch said evenly, "so there'd be no little blots on your acquaintances' record when you rode Silestin's coat-tails up to this nice palace."

The slap caught her hard on the cheek, snapped her head back.

"Do you have any idea, little girl, what it's like to be an Urujar Voyant?" Cevirt asked coldly. "To try to convince this proud old brotherhood that the color of my skin doesn't make me a fool? Do you know what I have to swallow to get myself invited to the meetings where the real decisions get made?"

"I gather," said Loch, "that it means falsifying records." Her cheek stung like hell. "The pay looks good, though."

"How
dare
you judge me? While you've been doing Gedesarknows-what all these years, I've been getting schools built in poor provinces. I've gotten good sheriffs put in our towns, not the washed-up lordlings with enough power to beg a favor! I've got roads coming into Urujar towns that will bring them trade. Our people live better lives today because of what I do up here."

Loch stepped back, circling around the desk and looking at the rich room. "So I'm not supposed to believe that you sold your soul for a little comfort?"

He stared at her, eyes wide, and when he spoke, his voice was soft. "How could you ever believe that about me?"

Loch sat down in
his
chair, rested her arms on the desk, and steepled her fingers.
"Give me something,
Uncle."

He sagged as the breath went out of him. "I apologize."

"I got caught behind enemy lines," she said. "It took me awhile to get back." He nodded, and she continued. "You were just trying to help Naria by covering it up."

"I was trying to protect your family name." Cevirt sighed raggedly. "I never thought..."

"You were sure you were right," Loch said, "that it hadn't happened the way the report guessed. You even checked with someone else before doing it, to make sure it wouldn't be taken amiss."

"Silestin suggested it himself, actually," said Cevirt. "He thought it unnecessary to add insult to injury, and—"

"And then he became Naria's ward, using Lochenville's resources to reach the Voyancy while keeping up the appearance of a progressive public figure," Loch finished.

Cevirt stepped back as though she'd slapped him, then sat down in the other chair. "Loch, he isn't like that."

"It's my inheritance." Loch's voice was even, not angry.

"Loch, do you know how powerful the Archvoyant is?"

"It's
mine."
Loch leaned forward. "I don't care if Naria gets the rest when she comes of age. I don't care if Silestin uses her and you as proof that the Republic is fair and equal while spending my money and taxing my people. I don't want all of it. I just want one thing."

Cevirt leapt to his feet again, came around the desk. "Gods, Loch, do you know what could
happen?"

"Would it be worse than being declared a deserter?" Loch asked. "Worse than finding out that your family is dead, that your sister is being used as political currency?"

"Yes," Cevirt said, looking her square in the face. His eyes were full of things that probably kept him awake at night. "Yes, Isafesira, it would be." He sighed, looked away. "So be damn careful." Then he pulled her into a rough embrace.

"Thank you." Her eyes stung, and she squeezed them shut as she returned the hug. The first time he had hugged her had been when she was six years old, showing him how she could swing her wooden sword when he had come to Lochenville to visit her father. "Thank you, Uncle."

"You're foolish and headstrong,
Aitha,
and you never know when to walk away," he said hoarsely. "But if you mean to try now, you won't do it alone."

Then he stepped away, chuckling and clearing his throat. "So why don't you introduce me to this gang of thieves and murderers you've gotten mixed up with?"

Ten

Tern listened.

After a moment, she sighed and stepped back from the yvkefer-plated vault door. Voyant Cevirt spun the dial through the proper combinations, and the vault door clicked open.

Icy poked his head out. "I was unable to detect the tumblers. Perhaps if I were in a meditative state—"

"Hang on, dammit." Tern shouldered Cevirt out of the way and looked at the door. "Wait. Crap. These aren't even tumblers. These are... I don't know
what
these are. Who in Bynkodar's hell makes a vault without tumblers?"

"Nobody," said Desidora the death priestess cheerfully from the other corner of the room, "that I know of." She and Hessler were working on auras or something.

"Well, you
are
the one with working knowledge of Bynkodar's hell," Tern muttered, glaring at the crystal lattice set behind the combination dial. "Let me see... Cevirt, mind if I pop the dial off? I can probably do that while the vault is open."

"Um..."

"Good, good."

Cevirt stepped back and watched the little lockpicker go to work. The only other person in the room was Kail, who appeared to have no responsibilities beyond getting drinks. "They're disassembling my vault," Cevirt murmured, smiling through gritted teeth.

"The captain really appreciates this," Kail said, handing him a beer. It had a lime in it. Cevirt had never told anyone about his favorite drink, and he looked over at Kail curiously. The younger man sipped his own beer absently while watching Hessler and Desidora.

"What about altering the aural-recognition ward through a low-level daemonic conjuration across the lattice?" Hessler asked. Sparkling lights arced between his splayed fingers, and he was squinting at the sparkles intently.

"Good idea!" said Desidora, rocking her weight from her heels to her toes and tossing her auburn locks. "The daemon would only have to remain stable for an instant to disintegrate the warding pattern!"

"...disintegrate the warding pattern,"
Tern muttered in a slightly too-chipper version of Desidora's voice, climbing back into the vault and tapping the inside of the vault door with what looked to Cevirt like a golden tuning fork.
"I
am a
death priestess,"
Tern's voice echoed out of the vault,
"but I'm bouncy and I have pretty hair..."

Kail coughed into his beer.

"And if we have another ward ready to overlay the existing pattern..." Hessler said, still staring at his sparkles.

"We can replace it before the entire field collapses and sounds the alarm!" Desidora finished, giving Hessler an impulsive hug.

"She did
not
just hug him,"
Tern muttered from inside the vault.

"I am certain that that is not the case." Icy poked his head out, glanced at Desidora and Hessler, and added, "And even if she did—"

"Shut up, Icy."

"Good team your captain picked out." Cevirt squeezed his lime into the beer, then took a sip.

"Best of the best," said Kail, smiling vaguely at Desidora as she disengaged from a flushed and stammering Hessler.

"It sort of sounded like they were going to summon a daemon inside my vault, Kail."

"Well, we're not wizards, Voyant. Who are we to say that it isn't some completely harmless magical term—"

"Kail?"

"Yes, Voyant?"

"Please stop snowing me."

"Yes, Voyant."

"I'm a much better liar than you are, and I hate to see it done badly."

"The captain really appreciates this, Voyant."

"That's immensely reassuring, Kail."

"Care for another beer? I can probably dig up another slice of lime."

"I'm sure you can," Cevirt said acidly. "They're my limes." "We should prime the area with a harmonic diffusion mist," Hessler said.

"To slow the ward-incursion response." Desidora nodded. "I wonder if Tern has any powdered
yvkefer?
That would provide us with a larger window of opportunity to safely interrupt the ward."

A small pouch sailed over the vault's half-open door without comment and landed at Desidora's feet.

"She's such a dear," Desidora murmured as she picked up the bag. Cevirt took a couple of casual steps to see into the vault, and was able to confirm that Tern was making a terrible but hilarious face while tapping some sort of crystal against the walls.

"You've got an exceptional grasp of aural pattern manipulation," Hessler said earnestly, making the sparkles do some sort of dance between his fingers.

"It comes with the training." Desidora winked and gave Hessler a mischievous smile. "Before I turned to Byn-kodar, I was a love-priestess of Tasheveth."

"That is
so
hot," Kail murmured.

Inside the vault, Cevirt caught the sound of Tern breaking her crystal against the wall, followed by a muttered curse.

Desidora tossed a pinch of silvery powder into the air over the vault door, and she and Hessler began a rapid chant. Cevirt took an involuntary step backward as the healthy tan bled from Desidora's skin, leaving flawless white behind. Her hair darkened to glossy black, as did her dress, and the pattern on Tern's pouch, which Cevirt remembered as being horses in a meadow, took on a skull-and-spider motif.