The Palace Job (43 page)

"...need to be sarcastic..." Icy did not catch everything Tern said as she cocked her crossbow, but he understood the gist of it. "Okay, it's only half-cranked, so hopefully the speed won't trigger the disintegration ward. Are you ready?"

"I am ready."

"Icy, you're not even looking."

Icy patiently turned around and extended his free arm. "Fire at will, Tern."

Tern fired. Icy snagged the bolt in mid-air, then looped the trailing line around a spur of crystal.

"It is ready," Icy said, frowning as he looked down at the floor. "Are you certain that you have measured the rope distance properly?"

"It'll be fine," Tern said.

"Because it would be bad if you misjudged the timing or the length of the rope and fell onto the horrible magical floor," Icy said by way of encouragement.

Tern glowered. "The fact that I totally deserved that in no way excuses you. You ready?" Icy nodded. "Okay,
go!"

What happened, very quickly, was this:

Tern jumped, holding onto her end of the grappling line. Because of the length of the line, this would have resulted in her sliding along the floor, which would have been bad.

Which is why Icy, holding the other end of the line, which was looped once around the crystal spur, let go just as she jumped. He fell most of the way to the floor, pulling the grappling line with him and shortening its length so that Tern sailed across the room without touching the floor. As she whisked past Icy, her momentum pulled hard on the line, pulling Icy back up and taking Tern far enough to reach the platform, where she landed with a great deal of clanking... and let go of the grappling line.

Tern winced as lines of energy sizzled up from her trailing end and disintegrated the entirety of the grappling line. "Sorry!" she called to Icy, who now hung by one ankle from one of the crystal handgrips.

"The dismount is always the trickiest part," Icy said calmly. "I'll bear that in mind." Tern looked down at the crystal dais. "I'll
also
see what I can do about deactivating this thing."

"A simple energy conduit," came a voice from the entryway, behind Icy. "Powerful, but hardly elegant." He twisted around and arched his neck to see.

Ambassador Bi'ul looked at him curiously. "That is extremely impressive, however you got there. You must be one of the thieves plaguing the Archvoyant."

"I do not believe that you can conclusively prove that based on the evidence at hand," Icy said cautiously.

"Don't be silly." Bi'ul waved an arm that trailed radiant light behind it. "Is there any chance you'd like to sell me your soul in exchange for me getting you down from there?"

Icy considered this. "I believe I can manage unassisted." "Worth a shot." Bi'ul shrugged. "I suppose 111 just kill you, then."

An yvkefer-tipped bolt zipped through the Glimmering Man, who shimmered like a rainbow over a waterfall for a moment, then returned to his normal glowing form.

"Okay," called Tern, "that was significantly less effective than Pd been hoping."

"So you can sense her aura and stuff, right?" Kail asked as he got to his feet. "So anything I say about her
not
being a unicorn—"

"You are irrelevant," Hunter Mirrkir declared. His golden armor reflected the blue glow of his spear, and his green cloak rippled as a he strode forward. "I have already slain the death priestess. I have no need to kill the living." Under his feet, the runes on the floor-crystals began to glow.

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 smoothly 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.