The Palace Job

by Patrick Weekes

"Great. Icy will love this. I'll take it." She tucked the candle into one of her dress's many pockets.

  The candle-seller jumped. "Ah, that will be twenty-five—"

  "Oh, I don't need to pay." Tern fished out a piece of paper with a gold seal on it. "Diplomatic Writ of Accommodation. You'll be fully compensated by the Empire. Thanks!" She walked off without looking back as the candle-seller sputtered behind her.

  She hit a stall with expensive bathing salts next, and was getting ready to flash the Diplomatic Writ of Accommodation to a woman selling watches when the guards closed in from either side.

  A few minutes later, she was hauled into the town jail, protesting loudly.

  "I thought the Republic was the bastion of freedom for all men, but apparently that doesn't apply to women," she yelled as she took in the room, "and if you're from another country, well, that precious freedom doesn't apply to—"

  "Just give us a minute," one of the guards cut her off, and knocked on Sheriff Gaist's door. "Sir?"

  "What?" Gaist shouted back. His voice had the rusty roughness that came from a lot of long nights at the tavern.

  "Woman here who says she's with an Imperial," the guard said to the door.

  "I demand to see the sheriff!" Tern added. "If you people are going to cause a diplomatic incident, I'd prefer that you do it to my face!"

  "Fine!" Gaist shouted. It sounded like he was moving something, and Tern caught the click-clank of something metal snapping shut. "Come in."

  "It's about time," Tern muttered as the guards pulled her into Gaist's office. "Maybe now we can clear up this idiotic misunderstanding, so I can get back to my—"

  "You're not an Imperial," Gaist cut in. He'd lost the lean build of his dueling days, but he still wore the sword.

  "How could you tell, Sheriff?" Tern shot back. "But I am the attaché of an important official from the Empire, and as such, I am entitled to the full protections of—"

  "She was stealing in the merchant square," one of the guards told Gaist. "Claimed she didn't have to pay anything because of some legal thing."

  There was no sign of Icy in the room. In fact, there was little sign of anything much at all in the room, save a battered desk, a knife-scarred dartboard, and a truly impressive safe. The safe was, if Tern wasn't mistaken, of dwarven manufacture, straight from the smiths of Ajeveth. It was nearly indestructible, constructed from an yvkefer alloy that made it impossible to open with magic.

  "The legal thing you're referring to is a Diplomatic Writ of Accommodation!" Tern said when it became clear that the guards weren't going to explain. "Now, my master, an official from the Empire, was coming to see you here, I believe. If you'll simply talk with him, you ignorant yokels, he will prove that I am entitled to requisition items for personal use —"

  "There's no official here, Miss," Gaist said flatly, cutting her off.

  Tern sputtered for a moment. "But he said he needed to speak to the sheriff about something—"

  "He's not here," Gaist insisted.

  Tern looked at Gaist's hand, which clutched at his sword scabbard tightly enough to whiten his knuckles. She looked at Gaist's boots, which were flecked with blood. She looked at the small trail of blood, barely noticeable unless one was looking for it, that suggested something had been dragged to the safe. While bleeding.

  She tried a smile. "Sheriff, I'm certain that we can put this little..." She swallowed. "...misunderstanding... behind us. I'd be happy to—"

  "Oh, we ignorant yokels like to see these things through," Gaist said, smiling grimly. "We'll keep an eye out for your Imperial official, but in the meantime, you'll enjoy our accommodations."

  "But I've got diplomatic immunity as an attaché of—this is a complete abrogation of—you don't understand how important this man—"

  She kept yelling while the guards shoved her into the cell whose iron bars formed one wall of Gaist's office and locked her inside. "When my master arrives, you're going to find yourself apologizing to people on both sides of the border," she said, her cheeks red with anger, "and I have to tell you, I for one am not going to be quiet about my treatment—"

  "Lady," Gaist said in a voice that stopped her cold, "you'd best hope that your little yellow friend shows up at all. Otherwise, things could be very unpleasant for you." With a gesture to his guards, he turned and left his office, shutting the door behind him.

  Tern waited a few minutes, just to make sure he was gone.

  "Lady," she muttered in a fair imitation of Gaist's wine-soaked voice, "you'd best hope that your little yellow friend shows up at all." She paced back and forth in the jail cell, tugging at her plain brown braid. "Why do they always say lady like that?" With her fingers, she eased a lock of hair out of the braid and began to pull on it. "Is that supposed to be some clever dichotomy, or are they completely unaware of the irony of... hah! Got it!" She yanked the lock of hair free, revealing a long length of thin wire with a few tiny hooks near the end.

  "Things could get very unpleasant for you." Tern snaked the thin wire through the bars and into the lock on the other side. "How about being jailed in a backward village with a jackass sheriff?" she muttered as she made careful motions with the wire. "Little unpleasant for me right there—ahhh." The cell door gave a tiny click and opened to Tern's push.

  "Enjoy our accommodations." Tern strode to the back wall of the sheriffs office. She unbuckled her boots, massive steel-toed clunkers that looked like they belonged on someone much taller and wearing many studded leather accessories. Then she wrenched the heel of one boot sharply. A hidden compartment snapped open, revealing a small pouch filled with gritty gray powder. "Like that hasn't been done to death..." A moment later, the other boot revealed a similar compartment containing a small cup of viscous sludge. "Thought duelists were supposed to have snappy comebacks..." She upended the cup near the wall, waiting until the dark material settled fully, and then gingerly sprinkled the pouch of powder onto the sludge.

  "Nice safe though." Tern slid her boots back on and tromped back across the office. "Heard they're nigh-unbreakable. Great place to store your incriminating evidence." She stopped before the safe and pulled a small listening tube from one of her brown dress's many pockets and a pressure wrench from another. "In fact, the dwarves claim that the only way you could crack one of their safes was..." Her dry voice dropped about three octaves and adopted a dwarven brogue. "...to have somebody inside it."

  She knocked twice on the safe door and, in the silence that followed, nervously took off her spectacles and cleaned them on the hem of her dress. A moment later, two knocks answered her, and she let out a long breath.

  Once the pressure wrench was latched onto the combination faceplate, it was just a matter of turning it slowly enough for Icy to be able to knock each time he caught the telltale click of changing tumblers from inside the safe. Once his knock alerted her, Tern could listen through the tube to figure out whether the click meant "keep turning this way" or "start turning that way"—only the tumblers themselves were soundproofed. It was a sophisticated safe, though, and it took Tern and Icy a good ten or fifteen minutes to get it open.

  Finally, Tern felt the handle release, and she opened the door. "You okay?"

  "The sheriff dislocated several joints to fit me into the safe," Icy reported slowly, crunching as he slowly uncurled and slid out onto the floor, "but I am essentially unharmed." He held out Guildmaster Halistan's ring in one bloodstained hand. "And the ring was indeed stored here, where the yvkefer alloy prevented the Textile Guild from finding it with tracking spells."

  "From which we profit. You had enough air?" Tern rifled the safe, pocketing a fair amount of money that Icy had left behind.

  "I was preparing to lower my heart-rate," Icy noted, "but you were quite efficient; my standard meditative state sufficed."

  "And him stabbing you?" Tern drew a sealed packet from yet another pocket and affixed it to the side of the safe. She affixed the seal to the inside of the door, then swung the safe door until o
nly a crack remained open.

  "His reflexes were slowed enough from alcohol for me to redirect his attack, as we anticipated. The blood packet on my hand worked adequately to suggest a mortal injury." Icy rolled out his neck and producing more crunching sounds. "However, I unintentionally swallowed the pellet under my tongue while conversing with the sheriff."

  "You what?" Tern reached up to her hair and untwined the cord holding her braid in place. She strode to the wall, her boots clomping on the wooden floor, and stuck one end of the cord carefully into the dark sludge, into which the sprinkled powder had now dissolved. "How did you do the blood-on-the-mouth thing, then? You need blood-on-the-mouth to sell the kill."

  "I ruptured a small vein under my tongue." Icy arched his back, catlike, before rising to his feet. "It served much the same effect."

  "Probably easier to just not swallow the blood pellet, Icy." Tern put a hand to a pocket, then frowned and tried another one.

  "I become flustered when acting dishonestly. I have already reordered my energies to heal my mouth, and the blood pellet seems innocuous, though I suspect I shall pass... is there some problem?"

  Tern tried another pocket. "Dammit! Hey, remember when I used my special striker to light the candles at the inn last night? Do you by any chance remember seeing me put that back in my pocket?"

  "You have misplaced your striker?" Icy rolled out his shoulders some more and popped a few more joints. Tern suspected that he was just showing off now.

  "That's the general idea, yes."

  "I do not believe our plan is severely compromised," Icy said with a small bow. "If I may?"

  "Oh, get over there." Tern positioned herself behind the safe as Icy sauntered over to the cord sticking from the sludge, held the tip between his middle finger and thumb, concentrated for a moment, and then snapped his fingers with the cord between them. The tip of the cord burst into flame and promptly began hissing as the fuse burned down, and Icy trotted over and got next to her.

  The explosion a few moments later was small, more of a rapid burn than an actual explosion per se. It did, however, open a tidy hole in the wall, and when the acrid purple smoke had cleared enough for safe breathing, Icy and Tern were on their way.

  "Almost wish I could be there to see the look on his face when he opens the safe," Tern said as they reached the market square.

  "What did you do?" Icy asked. "I assumed you had simply removed evidence that could incriminate us."

  "Oh, no. When he opens it, a bunch of papers with I killed Guildmaster Halistan written on them are going to burst out and fly all over the room like an Imperial party favor. He's going to know exactly why we took him down."

  Icy glanced back at the town jail behind them. "The hole we left in the wall probably communicated the same message."

  "Don't ruin the moment for me, Icy." Tern sighed as the shouts began. "Oh, forget it. Looks like we're running."

  When the stiff-necked justicar and the warden had gone, Archvoyant Silestin turned to the shadows near the door. "The white prisoner dies before he tells any embarrassing stories. The two Urujar come back. Make sure this wasn't a double-cross by the guild leader who turned them in." He turned back to his plate, then raised an eyebrow as another thought came to him. "And deal with Pyvic if you deem it necessary," he added, pointing with his fork.

  The shadows rippled and slid into a perfectly black humanoid shape, the colors streaming off like water down an oiled raincoat.

  Silestin's First Blade bowed once, turned, and then was gone.

  Loch and Kail found their first potential recruits on the road outside town.

  "Look about right?" Loch asked as they neared the other pair.

  "An Imperial guy in robes and a woman in spectacles? Not a usual combination." Kail nodded as the other pair stopped, watching them. "I'm guessing they're ours."

  "The woman with the spectacles has really good hearing," said the woman, raising a crossbow with a lot of gears and fiddly bits attached to it.

  "Almost positive," Kail added to Loch, and then said to the woman, "I'm looking for a safecracker named Tern and a man named, ah, Cold?"

  "Icy," said the Imperial man. "You have found us."

  "This isn't one of those silence-the-thief deals, is it?" Tern asked. "Because I've been double-crossed before, but if the Textile Guild is screwing me—"

  "Relax." Loch held up a hand and made the shape of the local guild for this province. "I'm Loch. This is Kail. We've got a job for a tinker and someone comfortable in uncomfortable spaces. Word on the street says you've taken down a lot of rich bastards."

  "Well, the poor bastards don't have much money, or any challenging safes." Tern squinted behind her spectacles. "What's the job?"

  "Long story," said Loch. "High-risk, high-reward."

  "We must finish our business before entertaining new prospects," Icy said politely. "Where would we meet you if we were interested?"

  "Ever been to Ros-Uitosef?" Kail asked.

  "A few days north of Ros-Sesuf?" Tern said.

  "There's a restaurant named Uribin's," Loch said. "They serve the best damn catfish you've ever had."

  "Crusted with sweet potatoes," Kail added, "in a cream sauce. We'll see you there two weeks from today."

  "Two weeks?" Tern asked. "Heading to a few more cities to recruit?"

  "Actually," Loch said with a smile, "we're heading into the woods."

  Three

  "Jeridan!" came the guard's call, and everyone in the Cleaners' dining hall paused.

  People had kept quiet since the escape. Orris was gone, but Tawyer was throwing his weight around, making sure that prisoners weren't going to escape on his watch. People who mouthed off spent a night dangling by a leg-chain.

  And some bastards Jeridan had won money from were whispering that Jeridan had helped Loch and Kail and Akus escape. It was true, but they were still bastards for saying so.

  "Jeridan! Tawyer wants to see you." The guard smiled.

  Jeridan got to his feet slowly. "He say why?"

  "Nothing bad, Jeridan!" The guard laughed and clapped Jeridan on the shoulder. "Warden Tawyer just wants to talk to you!"

  Jeridan filed away the plans he'd secreted in his bunk, the things people could prove he'd done. He'd been planning his story ever since the escape. He was ready.

  Nobody in the Cleaners ever saw him again.

  "I don't love it," Kail said as they hopped off the wagon and walked the last quarter mile into Woodsedge.

  "I'm hurt, Kail."

  "There was a fairy on the Thieves' Guild register back in the last town," Kail said. "Reasonable rates, references available—"

  "You have to be careful with magical creatures, Kail." Loch looked at Woodsedge as they approached, the wagon slowly pulling ahead of them. It was a new settlement, freshly carved out of the forest, with none of the smoke and smell of an established town.

  "That's why they have references, Captain."

  "Kail, how'd you end up in my unit?"

  "It was either join the scouts or go to jail after the rest of my team threw me to the sheriff, and yes, I see your point, honor among thieves, fine." Kail squinted at a hunting party heading back into town. They were empty handed, clutching weapons and looking back over their shoulders. "And these fine people have found something bad in the woods."

  "Ogres." Loch pointed off to scratch marks on the larger trees. "See the territory markers?"

  "I did study some of the scouting manual." Kail looked up at the spring clouds. "And they'd just be coming out of hibernation. These people are digging themselves right into a bloodbath."

  "Looks like." Loch looked at the hunting party again. They had reached the village already, and were yelling excitedly. One of them, a rangy young man who couldn't have been more than eighteen, hung back from the crowd. "And this is where she'll be."

  "This fairy you know and trust, even though she isn't on the register."

  "Magical creatures have their own motives," Loch said,
and smiled. "I know hers. She's here."

  "And how do we find her?" Kail asked, scanning the crowd of villagers gathering around the hunting party.

  Loch gestured. While the rest of the crowd yelled angrily and drew their weapons, the rangy young man was making his way slowly back into the woods.

  "We watch him."

  The humans had come, and with them had come axes and fire.

  Ululenia stood in the clearing and waited. Around her, light danced, catching the pure white of her snowy flanks. Butterflies circled her shining horn, and then fluttered away when she sent them off with a blessing of peace and the promise of sweet nectar in the bushes nearby.

  Axes and fire killed, as swiftly as the hunter's arrow, as surely as the mountain lion's fangs. As surely as an ogre's spiked war staff.

  Ululenia waited. Though the spring was still new, flowers shot from the earth and blossomed around her hooves.

  But fire was part of the forest. No man brought the thunderstorms whose lightning ignited the forest. And when it finished burning, new growth rose from the ashes of the old.

  Ululenia waited, and finally Merigan came.

  He saw her, saw her snowy flanks that denied the shadows, her horn that shone like a rainbow before a waterfall, and he dropped his hunting bow and stared.

  You alone can stop the bloodshed, Merigan, she spoke in his mind. You alone must lead your people.

  He dropped to his knees. "W-why me?"

  Because when you hunt in my woods, your thoughts are of food for your family and not death for your target, Ululenia said, and her horn blazed. Because when you saw the signs left by the ogres, your thoughts were not of the glory and terror of spilled blood, but asking why the ogres would do this. Because you alone are the spark that will burn clean and let the new growth come.

  Merigan flushed and dropped his eyes. "What would you have me do?"

  Ululenia told him.

  Loch and Kail filed into the village hall. It was filled with a lot of scared people, and the yelling had already started. Villagers scuffed the sawdust on the floor and brandished clubs and knives while a tall, dark-bearded man standing behind a table banged a wooden mallet and called for order.