The Palace Job (52 page)

He broke into a smile again, a boyish grin. "You know what the best part is? You didn't even steal the real manuscript." He picked up the book again. "I had a forgery placed in my vault, just to be safe. The real elven manuscript is in my library." He tossed the book aside. "After all, young lady, that's where books
go.
"

There was no cure," Loch said softly. "There was no way to save Kail."

Silestin snorted. "Not that he could tell you about." Stepping back carefully, he removed a red crystal wand from a jacket pocket.
"This
is what you should have been after. Sadly, it's a little too late—"

"Finally," Loch snapped. "Pyvic?"

"With pleasure," said the cloaked man next to Silestin, and knocked the crystal from Silestin's grasp with a sharp blow.

Twenty-Five

"Just get it over with," Tern said quietly. The interrogation room was built to muffle the screams of its victims, and the walls seemed to soak up the words.

"It's not going to happen." Desidora lay still, trying to stay relaxed.

"Of course it is." Tern struggled for a moment, then lay back in defeat. "The gods slapped their big death priestess thing on you. The only reason you signed on with us was to get a shot at Bi'ul. The freaky little satyr is right. If you believe in what you're doing..."

"It's not
about
whether I believe it," Desidora said, keeping her voice steady. "It's about not playing the satyr's game. Death magic is too dangerous to be toyed with by someone like him."

Tern sighed. "That's a really great justification, and if I hadn't heard Loch's little talk with Hessler by the vault, I'd be coming up with a whole
collection
of reasons for you not to kill me. But it's important, Diz. It really
is
fate-of-the-world stuff you're dealing with. It's worth killing me for."

"That's not what I was taught." Desidora grit her teeth. She could feel cold blossoming deep in the pit of her soul.

"Damn it, Diz!" Tern's voice broke. "Let it be me deciding, okay? Just do it." She was crying. "That way I'm a hero, and not just some... thief you killed because she stood between you and the quest. Let me have that much."

"If I do it..." Desidora felt her skin inching toward white, her hair darkening. "I don't know if I'll come back."

"Well, as the person who'd be
dead,
that breaks my heart," Tern said acidly, sniffling.

"I nearly killed Kail," Desidora said softly. "Back in the control room, and then again with you. I just reached out and started tearing at his soul. I don't want to be that person. The auras, the zombies... that's just a trick. It's an ugly trick, but... I was one of
Tasheveth's,
Tern. I was
love."

"And I was a moderately wealthy girl who was more interested in science than arranged marriages." Tern rolled her eyes. "And yet, here we are."

"I don't
want
to be what the gods are trying to make me, Tern." The leather of Desidora's restraints was black, and the bindings were silver. Her own voice was cold, and the reasons for her words hard to remember. "Do you know how that feels?"

"Like I said: arranged marriage."

The unyielding light of logic cut through everything else. "The gods were either wrong or right, Tern. If they were wrong, then letting it take me over again could release an insane death priest."

Tern coughed. "I thought, uh, priests weren't supposed to go around saying things like, 'if the gods were wrong'."

"And if they were right," Desidora continued coldly, "then I'm no good as a
tool
unless I serve in the capacity for which I was designed. In which case, I must trust my own intuition, flawed as it is. And my flawed intuition says..."

It came at her, tore through her self, wrenched at her very being. It could not be stopped, could not be reasoned with. It was need, the survival instinct of the gods themselves, the sheer ferocity of absolute imperative action.

And there in the darkness, the one-time priestess of Tasheveth clung to a fragment, tattered and shunted aside, of the feelings that Ululenia had given to her.

A long moment passed.

"...no." And when Desidora, shivering and sweating, weakly opened her eyes, her skin had a healthy flush.

"Disappointing," came Elkinsair's voice from the doorway. "Your faith lasts only as long as you are not asked to do something unpleasant. Fine." He shut the door, shrugged out of his robes, and stood before them, his vile horn glowing. "I see that the death-magic
wants
to come through. You're using... ah, you used
love
to hold it back." He sneered. "Charming. I wonder if I could help you out with that?"

He stepped up to the table and placed his hands on Desidora's legs.

"Get the hell away from her!" Tern shouted.

"Be at peace," Elkinsair crooned. "You'll have your chance. At least, you will if the priestess here doesn't give in and kill you. Being a
love
priestess, she should be ideally suited to enjoy what's about to happen to her." He turned back to Desidora. "I can do things to you that you've never even imagined. I can make you beg for it. I can make you
die
from it." His smile was hard and ugly. "And it's been too long since I've passed time with an unsuspecting maiden in the woods."

Desidora shut her eyes, tried to relax. He would only enjoy it more if she struggled.

It was coiling inside her again, and she tried to keep it locked down, but the fear was there, human and mortal, and now the fear wanted it to come help. His hands pulled at her robes.

There was a flash of silver at her hand, and then her hand tore free of its bonds with inhuman strength, guided by another.

"Kutesosh gajair'is!"

Constrained as he was by Desidora's imprisoned state, Ghylspwr could only swing in a limited area, down and about at the height of the table. Nevertheless, he had at least
one
good target.

When all you are is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.

Desidora heard the impact, which sounded like a flare of powerful magic followed by someone hitting the wall. A moment later, Ghylspwr twisted in her grasp and began smashing things nearby. A moment later, the restraints fell away, and she sat up to see most of the table smashed.

"Ghyl!" Tern shouted. "I am
so glad
I didn't talk Desidora into killing me!"

"Besyn larveth'isr

"You too! Hey, any chance you could destroy this damn table I'm strapped to?"

"I think I can just undo the straps," Desidora suggested, and went to work. In a few short moments, Tern was free, rubbing at her chafed wrists and flexing her legs.

What was left of Elkinsair was crumpled in the corner. His glowing horn had vanished, and his skin had already turned a dull gray.

"You okay?" Tern asked, and put a hand on Desidora's shoulder.

"I will be," Desidora said, and gave Tern a ragged smile. "Come on. Let's find our clothes and get out of here. When we get back to Loch and the others, I'll tell you how to get Hessler into bed."

"What?"

Ambassador Bi'ul was standing in the doorway.

It coiled inside her again, and this time there was no reason to hold it back, for the final fight was upon her, and—

"Get me into bed?"

"Besyn larveth'is!"
Ghylspwr said happily.

"I was coming to help, although it looks you had the situation under control."

Desidora checked Bi'ul's aura. "Hessler, could you please avoid impersonating my nemesis without telling me about it first?"

"Ah. Sorry." In a flash, the rainbow faded around him, and the wizard's features shifted back to normal, although he had a nasty black eye. "I was attempting to infiltrate the palace. Appearing as the ambassador provided me with enough leeway to free Ghylspwr." He blinked. "What were you two talking about when I arrived?"

"What happened to your face?" Tern asked very quickly. "Oh." He touched it and winced. "I was fighting men like the guards on the airship. They're under some sort of—"

"We know," Desidora said.

"Ah. In any event, they had me captured, and Justicar Pyvic arrived just in time to help me. He knocked me unconscious so that they wouldn't see me as a threat."

Tern pursed her lips. "Can't argue with that. So, Diz, ready to go?"

Desidora hefted Ghylspwr. "Let's see what we can find."

The wand tumbled end over end, its angry red light searing in the gray pre-dawn sky.

It landed next to Ululenia, who raised a hoof and brought it down hard.

Kail dropped his knife and fell down behind Loch, retching. "What in Byn-kodar's—"

Loch's uppercut caught Silestin square in the jaw and knocked him flat on his ass.

"Did you
think,"
she said dryly, "that I wouldn't recognize one of my men betraying me? I spent years behind enemy lines with Kail. I spent leave-time dragging him out of taverns. He can lie to a lot of people, but not me."

Around the garden, the soulless men crumpled slowly to the ground. Some of them were crying. Some of them were still.

Three cloaked figures stayed on their feet and drew back their hoods.

"Isafesira," Pyvic said with a brisk nod, "this is Voyant Bertram, Learned Party Leader, and this is Voyant DeVieux, Skilled Party Leader." He gestured to two middle-aged white men who held their crossbows with undisguised distaste. Bertram was a big man who'd gone fat and bald later in life, while DeVieux looked like a former dock worker in an expensive outfit. "Gentlemen, I believe that the admissions we all just heard constitute reasonable cause for a recall hearing."

"The Learned do
not
condone this behavior." Voyant Bertram nodded grimly. "We had no idea that the Archvoyant had such designs, and we fully support any investigation."

"After passing every bit of legislation he put in front of you," Voyant DeVieux said dryly, "you're willing to turn on him now?"

"We're not going to let this turn into a political nightmare." Pyvic glared at DeVieux, then turned to Silestin. "Archvoyant,
Sir,
I'm arresting you under suspicion of treason, murder, corruption, and about a dozen other charges. We'll let the judges figure out the specifics."

Silestin rubbed his jaw. "When did she turn you, Captain?"

"Last night." Pyvic smiled. "I did indeed encounter her, but... statements I had received from both you and Prisoner Loch led me to conduct my own investigation. What I discovered raised some questions."

"I talked with one of my girls." Silestin turned to Loch. "You took her down, but she heard your conversation."

"Justicar Pyvic led a scouting unit during the war." Loch raised a hand. "Your
girl
doesn't fake unconsciousness very well, and Pyvic and I both kept in practice on those scout-signs you were so proud of knowing about earlier."

"You set me up." Silestin was almost saying it to himself. "You were out to take me down from the beginning." He looked up at her suddenly, and his gaze was almost desperate. "Did you even
care
about the manuscript?"

Loch grinned. "As a matter of fact, yes." She reached into the leather satchel and withdrew another book. "It belonged to my father. And I thought you might try something clever with a decoy, so I made certain I checked the library. After all, that's where books
go."

"That's a nice bit of maneuvering." Silestin chuckled and shook his head.

Then raised his head to the sky and shouted, "Bi'ul,
we have a deal!"

"Excellent," came a voice from the trees, and the Glimmering Man stepped out and let his radiance burn through the predawn mist.

A dozen man-sized figures, their black claws and horns wreathed in flame and their scaly red hide oozing smoke, flared into existence. "Consider this an advance payment in good faith." Bi'ul smiled, and his eyes were like prisms set before a bonfire. "Fetch my price, and the rest shall be yours."

"Blood-gargoyles!" cried Dairy, who had been watching the last few minutes with varying degrees of anxiety and bewilderment. Ululenia danced back toward the railing and the elven ship, her horn flaring. The Voyants were doing the same thing.