The Palace Job (34 page)

As the whooshing flames engulfed the Glimmering Man, Tern spared Desidora, arm still extended in throwing position on the second-floor balcony, a quick wave. And then she helped Kail get Hessler to his feet, and
then
she ran like hell with her wet dress sloshing everywhere, because the Glimmering Man wasn't keeling over or flailing about in pain as the flames engulfed him.

He was laughing.

The hateful chains loosened, and Ululenia came back to her senses to see her virgin standing over her. She shifted to her human shape, and the chains loosened further still.

"But how..." she asked weakly, for her virgin was tearing the chains free with his bare hands, and they came apart like wet paper and fluttered into nothingness.

"It tingles," he said, "but it doesn't really hurt."

"It's evil," Ululenia protested. It was difficult to think, still. "Evil is just an illusion," her virgin said with adorable sincerity.

"But I am not," came the horrible grating voice from behind him, and Ululenia looked up to see Hunter Mirrkir sauntering toward them, his golden armor shining. His spear had returned to his hand. Even at this close range, Ululenia could sense nothing behind the golden mask that shielded his face. "You are mine, creature of magic."

"I have apparently missed events of note," said Indomitable Courteous Fist as he stepped out from a doorway. "But I believe that you are inappropriately optimistic." He put himself between Ululenia and Mirrkir.

"Stand aside or die, mortal." His emerald cloak billowing around him, the hunter readied his spear. Ululenia struggled to her feet.

"I believe," Icy said calmly, "that a third option may present itself shortly."

Ululenia's beautiful virgin chose that moment to say, "But Mister Icy, you aren't allowed to hurt anyone!"

"My disciplines preclude violence against living creatures," Icy agreed, bringing his arms up with his thumbs and fingertips barely touching. "They do
not,
however, preclude demonstrations on nonliving material."

And then he struck the wall.

"Gosh!" said her virgin as the hallway caved in, putting several hundred pounds of rock between Ululenia and Hunter Mirrkir.

Icy rose slowly to his feet and snapped his palms in the air, sending little clouds of dust puffing out. "This concludes my demonstration of applied balance and momentum. It should also, coincidentally, buy us the necessary time to retreat," he said with a little nod, "though I suggest haste nevertheless."

Ululenia shook the last cobwebs free from her mind and shifted to her true form.
Astride me, quickly, both of you. Today, Indomitable Courteous, you are an honorary virgin.

At some point, Loch had lost the sword. She'd stabbed the bastard in the armpit, the knee, even the damn
visor.
She'd taken hard hits for doing so, and for all that trouble, she hadn't so much as slowed him down.

"Getting tired, girl?" he gloated as she got back to her feet, wiping blood from her mouth.

"Tired of you, jackass." She grunted as he came in again, ducking under a swipe that tore the head off a statue and stomping on the back of his knee. It dropped him to a crouch, but he spun and hammered her back with an open palm, and she hit the ground a few yards away and pushed herself to her feet again, bleeding at the shoulder.

"What's the matter, Loch?" he roared. "Not ready to fight a real man?"

"Guess we'll know when I meet one." She probably should have run. Stupid to stand and fight. She could have ducked him for a few minutes, but she'd been so proud, so certain. The bastard was between her and the doorway now, and she was breathing hard and limping.

He came at her again, and Loch dodged, and then dodged again, and then came up with a statue to her back at a critical moment and couldn't quite get out of the way, and a spiked fist clipped her shoulder. She hit the ground hard, and the world went gray as she felt the armored gauntlets lifting her into the air.

The crushing impact slammed her back to wakefulness, and she cried out as she bounced back to the ground. The air over the balcony railing shimmered with pink radiance where he had thrown her.

"Oh, that's right," he declared heartily. "Bi'ul mentioned the safety barrier. Crystals that power it oughta be right about..." As she dragged her aching body to her knees, the armored man punched through the marble stones, sending shards of rock flying. "Here!" He stood, holding red crystals in his gauntlets, and then shattered them in his grip. The air hissed as the barrier blinked away, and Loch struggled to her feet, but not fast enough, as a mailed hand closed around her throat.

He dangled her over the railing, the magical armor granting him the strength to hold her at arm's length with a single hand. She grabbed at her throat with one hand, hammered her fist in vain against the back of his elbow with the other.

"You escaped with a long fall last time," said the man in the black armor. "Let's see if you can escape again the same way."

Both hands went to her throat, now, and with superhuman effort she loosened his grip enough to breathe. "At least," she gasped, "it was you that got me, not that slug, Orris."

The armored man lifted one hand to his visor, and the helmet opened to reveal the sneering face of Warden Orris himself. "That's what you think!" he cackled. "It
is
me in this—"

Loch's hands scissored, one hand slamming into the gauntlet that gripped her throat and the other hammering the
inside
of Orris's elbow. It buckled, and as his collapsing arm brought her in close, she drove her fist into the bastard's face.

He yelled, dropped her, and stepped away, and she hit the ground and stayed on her feet through sheer force of will. He reached up to close the visor, and she lunged in and broke his nose. Orris stumbled backward, flailing wildly, and she grabbed hold of the upturned edge of his visor and used the leverage to wrench him into the railing.

"I..." She hit him in that sneering face, still holding him up by the edge of his visor. "...knew..." Again. "...it..." And again. "...was..." And yet again. "...you!" The final punch struck him with such force that he spun and hit the railing, and he teetered over the edge. Loch grabbed him by the feet and heaved, and Warden Orris left Heaven's Spire once and for all.

Loch would have given a lot to lean there on the railing, hurting from a hundred injuries and bleeding in at least four places, and watch Orris hit the ground. But if they'd found her then, she'd always have wondered if Orris had slowed her down enough to let her get caught.

Elkinsair and Bi'ul had taken Voyant Cevirt, leaving Pyvic and his justicars behind.

The daemon had vanished when the chandelier fell, and most of the justicars were still alive. When the golems had attacked, they'd reacted well. Melich would be proud.

Would have been proud, Pyvic corrected with a knifing grief, crawling toward his captain and ignoring the long and jagged pain where one of the golems had been too fast.

Melich's eyes fastened on him as he crawled over.

"Not your fault," Pyvic's captain rasped. Blood flecked his lips.

"It is." Tears burning his eyes, Pyvic finally collapsed. "I went to Silestin. I didn't get here fast enough. Damn the gods, I fell for her."

"Pyvic." The word bubbled in Melich's mouth. "Not your fault." He gestured with the hand that wasn't holding the wound at his ribs. "They're yours, now. Protect them."

"I will." Pyvic forced himself to his elbows. "We'll get you to a healer, Captain. We'll—"

"Protect them all, Pyvic." Melich lay back, shut his eyes with a final rattling sigh, and died.

Sixteen

"The arrest of Voyant Cevirt, a prominent member of the Skilled Party and the first Urujar in the Voyancy, comes as a shock to the Republic," the dragon proclaimed solemnly to the hushed crowd. "It also raises many political issues on Heaven's Spire."

"Well," said the manticore, rearing up, "I don't think you can have this conversation without asking whether this was a Skilled cover-up from the beginning."

"We don't even know why Cevirt was arrested!" the griffon protested. It tried to rear up as well, but the dragon tripped it with its tail to the laughter of the crowd.

"Voyant Cevirt was arrested for harboring the prisoners who had escaped from Heaven's Spire," the manticore said seriously, lashing out with its scorpion stinger. "The Skilled justicar who was assigned to the case did a completely unacceptable job, and it was Archvoyant Silestin's personal investigators who actually made the arrest."

"But witnesses saw the justicar going in first!" the griffon shouted. The manticore pounced on it, and the griffon ran away, trying to fling the manticore off.

"And now," the manticore shouted, "we've learned that the prisoner who masterminded all of this was in fact Isafesira de Lochenville, Voyant Cevirt's god-daughter, who was
presumed
lost behind enemy lines during the war!"

"The arrests would have been made peacefully without the interference of the Archvoyant's—" The griffon broke off as the dragon swatted it.

"Please, please!" it roared, belching flames as the griffon and the manticore cringed away and the crowd laughed. "Please try to keep this civil. This is
not
a forum for personal attacks!"

"The Skilled have been soft on Imperials for years, " the manticore declared, "and now a possible Imperial agent comes to the Spire, and a Skilled Voyant helps her?"

"We have
no proof
that Isafesira de Lochenville is an agent of the Empire!" the griffon protested weakly.

The manticore wasn't even listening. "I think that decades from now, children in their schools are going to ask, 'How did they respond to this threat?' Now is not the time to question Archvoyant Silestin. Now is the time to let the Archvoyant do his job."

"Strong words in dangerous times!" the dragon declared, turning to the crowd and throwing out candy. "Remember, everyone,
it's your republic!"

"
Stay informed!"