The Palace Job (44 page)

"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 the 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?"

"Losing my spiritual essence violates my personal code of conduct." Icy leaped off his spur and actually ran
on
the wall for a few steps before grabbing the next spur. He was coming closer.

But Bi'ul was practically flying. "Pity," he murmured, swinging without effort to another handgrip.

"Hang on, Icy!" Tern fired off another shot—this one silver-plated and soaked in the ichor of daemons. It went through the Glimmering Man without doing anything more than making him shimmer for a moment. "Okay, maybe the control panel, then. I'm sure there's a big..." Bi'ul was within a few yards of Icy. "...ancient-horror-from-beyond-stopping button. He's made of energy or... something, so... maybe..." She tapped the panel in desperation, looking for functions that might help. "Cold-reset of core functions? Sure, that might bleed off some magic. That could help. In fact, I'm sure..." She rapped on the crystal.

Long crystal rods shot out from the ceiling and walls, sprouted wickedly sharp multicolored crystal blades, and began to spin.

"Son of a bitch! Sorry, Icy!"

"I appreciate the attempts at assistance," said Icy, who had made a massive leap backward to avoid one set of spinning blades and was now suspended upside-down, balanced on the arch of his foot and bent nearly double to avoid the blades just a few inches beneath him.

"I know, I know! I'll turn them off!"

Icy flexed the arch of his foot and leaped up to grab hold of a long horizontal crystal rod. With a quick effort, he pulled himself up onto it, balanced like a tightrope walker. "Do not trouble yourself. I believe that from here, I can—"

Bi'ul swung through the air and caught a handhold between Icy and Tern.

"I shall have to kill you in such a fashion as to make the most of your athletic aptitude," Bi'ul said. "I've always wanted to see whether a human could survive without his skin." And he leapt from his handhold to the long crystal rod upon which Icy stood.

A bolt of dragon ivory sprinkled with fairy dust shot through Bi'ul's foot just as he touched down.

Like the shots before it, it passed through Bi'ul, doing no more than making him shimmer into insubstantiality for a moment.