The Palace Job (54 page)

Silestin frowned. "You're right. It could be dangerous. I suppose—" And then he fired, and fortunately Loch had read it coming and already taken a desperate leap that brought her high enough to catch the piping of the upper grid as lightning crackled across the surface of the
lapiscaelum
behind her. The stone gave off an angry high-pitched whine behind her.

She kept the momentum of her swing and flung herself at the next stone, knowing what any soldier with a ranged weapon would do with a target like the one she was presenting. Lightning flared along the pipes behind her, and a moment of tingling numbness thrilled through her body. She hit the stone hard, slid, and missed the catch on the far side. As her body went over, she had one aching moment of time, balanced on the edge, to see Silestin raising the ring again, and she gritted her teeth and kicked off hard.

The jolt as she hit the lower grid nearly wrenched her arms from their sockets, but she held on, swung desperately for a moment, and then pulled herself up to get the pipe under her armpits. The stone flared a bright red and began to whine like the one before it as the electricity crackled.

She was out of options. She edged over to the next pipe and pulled herself up slowly, agonizingly slowly, to a crouch. Her ribs ached—bruised, not broken—and her shoulder twinged with the sharp pain of a torn tendon.

She climbed to the upper grid, waiting for the shot. It didn't come.

Silestin was making his way to her as she pulled herself up, and his sword was out. She raised an eyebrow. "No more ring?"

"If you think I need a magic ring to finish off one arrogant Urujar thief," Silestin drawled, "that speaks to your own stupidity."

"No more ring." Loch grinned cruelly. "How much money did you just spend trying to kill me?"

"I can always buy another one." Silestin pursed his lips. "So... what's the trick?" At Loch's questioning look he sniffed. "You planning to run off under an illusion? Maybe your unicorn will fly you away? You've had an angle this whole time. I respect that. So... what's it going to be this time, young lady?"

"The trick," Loch said, drawing her blade, "is that this time, the young lady kicks your ass."

The first rays of dawn shimmered off their blades as steel met steel.

They had just reached the palace gardens when the elf arrived in his marvelous living ship. The flight to the garden had taken mere heartbeats. As Desidora leaped off the gangplank and into the garden, Ghylspwr held high, she saw Kail fall to a group of
pyrkafir.
It seemed that fortune had decreed she arrive at just the right time.

Or perhaps fortune had nothing to do with it.

"Besyn larveth'is!"
Ghylspwr shouted as she threw him. He tore through one of the
pyrkafir,
blasting it to ashes, and as the smoke cleared, she saw Ambassador Bi'ul staring at her with an expression of displeased surprise.

"Who are you?" he called in irritation.

It coiled inside her, and this time she stretched out her soul and welcomed it.

"Death," she said, and held out one pearly white hand.

"Insipid," Bi'ul sniffed. "If you wish to bluster—"

"Kutesosh gajair'is,"
Ghylspwr said in a voice as cold as the death priestess's own as he flared into that open hand.

Behind her, the tinker and the wizard were trying to help the unicorn and the boy. They were irrelevant. She stepped forward as the
pyrkafir
charged. "I am the averted death of the gods." She swatted one aside. "I am the sacrificial death of all who must fall to serve their will." Ghylspwr swung up to blast one into the sky. "And I am your death, Glimmering Man." A blinding slash of silver destroyed two more. "Your time in this world or any other has passed."

There were no more
pyrkafir
between the death priestess and the Glimmering Man. Behind her, three mortals and a fey who had once been her friends fought for their lives with magic and steel, bolts and bravery.

"Pitiful," Bi'ul said absently, and hurled a searing flare of prismatic light.

She called upon her power and raised her weapon. Though the light drove her to her knees, she remained when it faded. In a ten-foot circle around her, the grass was withered and dead, sacrificed for her.

"Impressive," Bi'ul murmured, "but how much grass are you willing to kill?"

She stood. "As much as is necessary."

"Forget us, Mister Hessler!" came the cry behind her. "You've got to help Desidora!"

She could feel their auras moving toward her, the two who had been with her on the ship. She said nothing. They could prove useful.

She struck, a testing blow, and Ghylspwr struck multicolored sparks off the rainbow shield that sprang up on Bi'ul's arm. His right hand had become a ball of living light; he struck, forcing Ghylspwr to parry, and the shock of power drove the death priestess back on her heels. The shield knocked Ghylspwr aside, and the blast of light caught her with a glancing blow. Desidora hit the ground, and the trees at the edge of the garden shivered and shed their leaves in a sudden collapse of brown and red and black.

Bi'ul stood over her, shining fist raised, and then stumbled back, his radiance dimming as a field of gray washed over him. A bolt ripped through his glowing shield, and he cried out in shock and pain.

"I had a little time to study," the wizard said, "and it struck me that if you are a creature of illusion..." He raised his hand, and another gray field washed over the Glimmering Man. "...then magic that
abjures
illusions might cause you some discomfort."

"And I borrowed a little dirt from Silestin's garden." The tinker cocked her crossbow. "Since that prophecy says you're not allowed to touch the earth, I figured I'd let the earth touch
you."

The Glimmering Man snarled. "You think you can hurt
me?"
He flung out his hands, and waves of force slammed the two to the ground, where they lay unmoving. "Your best efforts are at best an
irritation!
This pitiful death priestess—"

"Is back on her feet," she said coolly, raising Ghylspwr again in her pale hands. The sacrifice of the others had given her the time she needed. "Will you talk all day, or shall we end this?"

He opened his mouth to answer, but a scream silenced him.

It tore through the mind, not the air, and both the priestess and the Glimmering Man turned.

The
pyrkafir
had obviously been leaping for the boy's unprotected back, and the unicorn, with one creature already clinging to her mane and another clawing at her haunches, had placed herself in the way.

The slash had ripped cleanly across her throat.

As she fell, the boy destroyed the one he was fighting, then turned and, with a cry, killed the three who slashed and snapped at her helpless body.

She was a priestess of death. She could see the pitiful thing that the magical beast had for a soul already tearing loose from its mortal shell.

The boy fell to his knees, shouting words the death priestess did not hear. She saw his face, uncomprehending, the grief intruding at the edges. She saw the unicorn, kicking weakly.

She saw the last
pyrkafir
closing in on the boy.

He was pathetic, weak-willed, unwilling to utilize the sacrifice granted to him. He was nothing. Nothing more than mortal.

Her hair fell into her face, whipped by the morning wind. And in the light of the first rays of dawn, those unkempt strands were auburn.

"Kun-kabynalti osu fuir'is,"
her friend said quietly.

"I know."

She threw, and the
pyrkafir
died, and a moment later the wave of power slammed her to the ground, and the world swam around her, sick and dizzy. The Glimmering Man was a blinding radiance standing over her.

"Touching," he said, and raised his shining fist. "The gods will be so disappointed."

And then he paused and looked up, and his prismatic eyes widened.

"Step away from my friends, Mister Bi'ul, and surrender," called Rybindaris, the Champion of Dawn, "or else I'll have to hurt you." In his hands, Ghylspwr shone with silvery radiance.

On the horizon far to the east, the sun stopped rising.

Loch was was younger and faster. Silestin had stayed in practice and paid good money for every health and youth charm on the market. It worked out to be pretty close.

She parried a thrust, riposted, then swore as he turned her blade to catch on the piping. "We didn't have to be enemies," Silestin said, his slash leaving a thin trail of blood on her arm as she gave ground. "You're a resourceful girl. Why go after me?"

"Why the hell do you think?" She danced back from his following stab, leaped to cut the corner on another
lapiscaelum,
then kicked back off immediately and lunged in, catching him by surprise. "You
killed my family."
As he parried, she locked blades and came over the top with a left cross that sent him stumbling back.

"I
saved
your sister," he corrected, sidestepping Loch's slash and flicking his blade at her eye. She parried, then caught a fist in the ribs she'd banged on the stone earlier. She stumbled back, pain lancing across her vision. "That's what always annoyed me about the Urujar." She caught Silestin's slash just above the guard, and his blade circled and sliced down across her arm.

As her vision cleared, Loch saw her sword fall silently, catching the morning light as it disappeared forever. Then she looked up the length of Silestin's sword into his sneering face. "Always blaming others for your problems."

She feinted left, went right, accepted the cut on the heel of her hand as she knocked his blade aside, and caught him with a right cross to the jaw. "You son of a bitch!" As he rocked back, she hammered on his sword arm, and his own blade fell free and joined hers on the long trip to the ground. "You kill my family, you
own
it!" She stepped in hard with an uppercut.

He took it on the shoulder, lunged in, and caught her with a shot just below the breastbone. "Somebody has to think about the Republic!" She stumbled back as he followed with a flurry of jabs. "Somebody has to make the hard decisions! Somebody has to get the job done!" Her bare foot slipped on the piping as she gave ground, and she fell back, catching herself on a vertical pipe. "Who's it going to be? You? All you care about is blame!" He raised a boot, brought it down hard. "All you care about—"

She dove to the side, holding herself over the mist far below with one straining arm, and trapped his kicking leg. "I care about the Republic. That's why I went after you." Then she hauled herself back in and slammed her free fist into his crotch. "Because there are lines you don't cross." With a grunt, she kicked him off the damn grid.

He fell into the air, face purple with pain, and floated over one of the
lapiscaela.
"Or what?" he gasped, hovering out of her reach as he regained his composure.

"Or me." Loch pulled herself back to her feet. "You don't serve the Republic." She pointed off to where the two stones he'd hit with the lightning were vibrating hard enough to rattle the pipes. "Look at yourself. You're going to bring down Heaven's Spire, the most powerful weapon the Republic
has."

"You
forced
me to do that!" Silestin shouted. "And Bi'ul can fix it! He can make it right! All I need to do is—"

"Sell him some souls?" Loch shook her head in disgust.

"What does it
matter?"
Silestin yelled, balling his fists as he raged. "If it give us a golden age and destroys our enemies,
what difference do a few souls make?"

"To a
real
leader," Loch said, "everything," and jumped.

She caught him squarely, and her weight drove him down to the stone. They both hit hard, and she scrabbled to catch his arm. Then a fist slammed into her side, a knife of pain through her lungs, and as she gasped, Silestin kicked away from her and got back to his feet.

She couldn't breathe. It was agony, lancing through her, and she got to her knees before his boot caught her
other
side, and then she was on her back, coughing, curled up to protect herself, and Silestin stood over her, his carefully styled hair matted and undone, his jacket torn, his face red.