The Palace Job

by Patrick Weekes

  Smoke poured from the sitting room off to the left, and as Pyvic headed that way, Voyant Cevirt, sopping wet, came around the corner. "What the hell is going on here? Who are you?" he asked with angry surprise.

  "Justicar Pyvic of the Heaven's Spire Department of Justice," Pyvic said loudly as the others gathered behind him. "Your pardon, Voyant Cevirt, but we need to search the premises."

  "My palace is of course open for you to search," Cevirt said smoothly. "But may I ask if you have a warrant, and what you hope to find?

  Pyvic saw his chance, took it. "We have information suggesting that a group of criminals has been hiding in your palace, Voyant."

  Cevirt gritted his teeth for just a moment, a barely perceptible tightening across the jaw. "I have not knowingly sheltered any criminals," he said in a cautious tone, as Pyvic gave him a tiny nod, "and in fact, I have no guests at the moment. Should you discover anyone, they—"

  "Are your accomplices," finished Elkinsair, Silestin's oily little secretary, as he glided through the open main doors, his fussy robes barely moving at his feet. He was flanked by two hulking armored figures. One wore shining golden ringmail, a vibrant green cloak, and a long golden helmet that tapered to a point behind him like a teardrop. The other, even taller, wore an absurd suit of spiked black armor with a demon-themed helmet, complete with glowing red eyes. Behind them, Ambassador Bi'ul sauntered in, smiling faintly.

  "I protest these groundless accusations," Cevirt said without changing expression. "I am cooperating fully with an ongoing investigation —"

  "Byn-kodar take this little Uru," rasped the figure in the spiky black armor, his metallic voice somehow familiar, and then he stepped past Pyvic and backhanded Cevirt across the room. "We know they're here! Loch, you can't run forever! I'm coming for your

  And then Captain Melich was there, his walking stick clattering to the ground as he put himself in front of the armored figure. "As Captain of the justicars for Heaven's Spire, I am ordering you to—"

  A knife rippled into view as it sank neatly between the captain's ribs, and he stumbled back from the shadowy figure that was already fading out of sight again. Without hesitation, the black-armored man slammed Melich to the ground with a punch that sent blood spraying.

  "No!" Pyvic shouted, his own voice lost in the din of justicars yelling and drawing their weapons.

  Cevirt, still on the ground with blood oozing from his shoulder, pulled a crystal wand from the pocket of his robes. "Not in my house, you bastard," he muttered, and activated the wand.

  And any chance for a peaceful resolution went to hell as gem-studded security golems burst into the entry hall with crystal swords raised.

  Loch was looking at earrings at a small outdoor stall when Kail came running over. "Trouble?"

  Kail nodded and gave the merchant, a leathery old white woman, a look. She returned it, and Kail sighed and gestured for Loch to come with him.

  "What have you got?" Loch asked quietly when they had a little room. Kail was breathing hard. He'd been looking at swords at a shop down the block when they'd split up.

  "Two old guys sitting outside one of the shops." Kail gestured, and Loch squinted and saw them.

  "I think we can take them, Kail."

  "They saw Justicar Pyvic and twenty of his men heading through town."

  Loch swore. "How long ago?"

  "Quarter of an hour. It gets worse. A few minutes later, they saw some very large gentlemen in armor, along with Ambassador Bi'ul, heading in the same direction."

  "Come on." Loch turned, one hand on her sword hilt from years of training.

  "And do what? Loch..." Kail leaned in and lowered his voice. "If we go, all we can do now is—"

  "Help. Come on." She took off at a run.

  Kail swore, spat into the dirt, and took off after her.

  "Hold," the little man said casually, holding up a glowing crystal wand of his own. The security golems froze in midstep, and their eyes went dark.

  "You son of a bitch!" Pyvic shouted, ripping his sword free from its sheath. The justicars were already moving to surround the others.

  "Okay," said Hessler, peeking around the sitting room corner at the chaos, "the important thing is not to do anything hasty."

  "Hasty in what sense?" Tern asked, and cocked her crossbow.

  "If they fight each other," said Hessler, "we may be able to sneak out undetec..." Tern stepped around the corner, leveled her crossbow, and fired a bolt that exploded out into several coils of what Hessler suspected was yvkefer-lined chain. It snared the black-armored man as justicars lunged in at him. "...ted. Like that! Hasty like that!"

  "Well, you could have been less ambiguous," Tern muttered as the justicars' swords glanced harmlessly off the spiked armor. With a roar, the black-armored man snapped the yvkefer bonds. "I was really banking on that slowing him down."

  Meanwhile, as the justicars swarmed around the golden-armored man, he readied an enormous spear. He deftly parried a justicar's thrust, took another sword in a glancing blow across a shoulder plate, floored one man with the butt of his spear, and ran another through. With nobody between him and the doorway, he took a running leap, vaulted twenty feet up into the air to come down on the balcony overlooking the main entry hall, and disappeared into the palace.

  Tern paled as the black-armored man reached out, grabbed a justicar, and snapped his neck. A second justicar fell a moment later, blood fountaining from a slash across the throat, and the black-armored man turned toward Tern. "Loch! I'll kill everyone in here if that's what it takes!"

  "I'll bear that in mind."

  Tern and Hessler turned to see Loch standing in the ground floor doorway. Her blade was drawn.

  "Aitha!" Cevirt called from the floor. "Get out of here! In Gedesar's name, run!"

  The black-armored man roared and clanked toward her, his spiked fists flinging blood in all directions, and Loch turned and ran the other way.

  "Your warriors are gone, Elkinsair," Pyvic grated. He had the little man at swordpoint, while a ring of justicars surrounded the Glimmering Man. "You'll want to surrender right now before—"

  "Defend," Elkinsair said with a smile, holding up the glowing crystal again, and the security golems returned to life. Pyvic dove back as a glowing crystal sword sheared through the floor where he'd been standing.

  "Unless you'd like to attract more attention," Hessler muttered, "perhaps this would be an appropriate time to leave."

  "You learn that at the universi... crap." Tern turned to the doorway where Loch and the black-armored man had gone.

  A pair of justicars were pulling themselves to their feet between Tern and Hessler and the door. "I suggest simply running," Hessler said. "Given the violence that brute subjected them to, I doubt..."

  The justicars turned to face them. One of them clearly had a broken neck, and the other had a massive throat wound that no longer pumped blood. Their eyes glowed green as they raised their weapons.

  "I just wish Desidora were here." Tern cranked her crossbow again. "I'd have a hell of a zinger for her."

  "Loch, you can't run forever! I'm coming for you!"

  The armored man was behind her, and there were twenty or so justicars between Tern and Hessler and the real threats. Everyone knew the fallback point.

  Loch had done everything she could to help.

  "When I'm done with you," snarled the armored man behind her, "you'll be nothing but a dirty Uru smear on the floor!"

  Loch turned a corner and saw Ululenia and the kid down the hall.

  Or perhaps she could play decoy for a bit longer. "Get out of here, now!" she shouted down the hall, then turned and ran back toward the armored man.

  She was tired from running, but she was still faster than a man in full armor, and she reached the doorway she'd passed before and ducked inside with the armored man close behind her. It was a display room full of statues on pedestals, and the far wall opened to a courtyard that overlooked the rim itself.

  "Die!
" the armored man shouted, lunging at her without hesitation. He didn't even have a sword. Loch sidestepped his overhand blow and lunged in to stab him just under the arm, where he was protected by mail and not plates.

  The sword hit cleanly... and stopped.

  His backhanded swipe sent Loch crashing into the wall.

  Ululenia danced briefly through Loch's mind, saw the distraction Loch was providing, and ran with her virgin clinging to her back.

  She galloped for perhaps twenty heartbeats before the hunter, his armor shining gold and his cloak green, stepped out into the hallway ahead of her. His mind was closed, but he raised his spear as he saw her and called, "Run if you will, creature of magic! I am Hunter Mirrkir, and I sense your foul scent, wherever you flee," and his voice was metal and stone, and she knew that he was no mortal man.

  She ran, as the deer ran when the wolf howled, and her virgin clung desperately to her mane. The hunter pursued, relentless, as Ululenia darted down hallways, her hooves clicking on the marble floors or making muffled clumps on the carpet.

  She should have lost him, if not by the speed of her sparkling white hooves than by the number of times she had left the hunter's sight, but still he came.

  "You cannot escape me!" he called, and the voice was calm. "I have slain hundreds of your kind!" Hunter Mirrkir raised his spear; angry blue magic crackled along its length.

  She knew then that she must flee, for her virgin as well as herself. We must part, my lovely one, she told him. Around the next corner, I shall leave you. Remember what Loch told us, and find me again in the garden.

  "But—" her virgin said, and then they were around a corner and a doorway presented itself, and she lunged inside and shifted, and then she was a bird, and her virgin fell behind her.

  For twenty blessed heartbeats, she flew, horn flaring. And then an angry hiss split the air, and she sensed the spear. She darted to one side, then felt pain sear her soul as jagged tendrils of crackling blue light leapt from the spear as it missed her.

  They coiled around her, cold and hateful, and she fell, four-legged and wingless, her horn fading as the jagged blue light tightened.

  The dead dead justicars came forward, and with a quick backward glance, Hessler saw Bi'ul, the Glimmering Man, staring at them with a bemused smile. His hands were raised, and they glowed with the same crackling green light in the dead men's eyes.

  "You summon zombies?" Hessler cried. "Contend with a daemon of Byn-kodar's own hell!" And then he threw out the tendril-monster illusion that had gotten him the second highest grade on last semester's midterm.

  "That isn't a daemon," Bi'ul called casually. He raised one hand, clenched the fingers into a fist, and twisted sharply. "Now it's a daemon."

  Hessler turned and saw his creation looming over him, and then the tendril blasted him across the room.

  As the daemon turned to the justicars who weren't dead, the dead men continued toward Tern, who had just gotten the abjuration bolt into her crossbow when Kail tackled the two men from behind. "We got made!" he called, punching one of them in the kidney.

  "You think?" Tern shot back. A lot of the justicars were down, but Pyvic was doing something to the body of his dead commander as a golem advanced upon him. He drew a crystal from the man's pocket, and a moment later the security golems froze in place. "By the way, those guys are dead."

  "Oh." Kail grabbed a sword from one of them, punched the dead men a few more times, and then ran the blade through both of them, pinning them together. "Good to know. Uh..."

  Tern looked. The daemon was turning their way.

  "Protect Hessler! I've got an idea!" She ran into the sitting room, her brown dress sloshing with every step, as Kail swore mightily.

  She came out a moment later to see Kail diving under a massive cloud of black tentacles whose claws cracked the marble of the entry chamber floor. She ignored that as best she could, hefting her lighter in one hand and an incredibly expensive bottle of dwarven whiskey in the other.

  "Hey, Glimmering Man!" she shouted at Bi'ul, and threw the whiskey. "This should make you glimmer a bit brighter!"

  The bottle shattered at Bi'ul's feet, sending whiskey everywhere, and Tern flicked her lighter and prepared to throw it.

  Nothing happened.

  "Son of a bitch." Tern looked at her dead lighter while the Glimmering Man turned her way.

  "Besyn larveth'is!"

  It turned out that even a magical crystal chandelier couldn't withstand a thrown warhammer.

  It also turned out that whatever magic the chandelier used actually had a little fire in it.

  As the whooshing flames engulfed the Glimmering Man, Tern spared Desidora, arm still extended in throwing position on the second-floor balcony, a quick wave. And then she helped Kail get Hessler to his feet, and then she ran like hell with her wet dress sloshing everywhere, because the Glimmering Man wasn't keeling over or flailing about in pain as the flames engulfed him.

  He was laughing.

  The hateful chains loosened, and Ululenia came back to her senses to see her virgin standing over her. She shifted to her human shape, and the chains loosened further still.

  "But how..." she asked weakly, for her virgin was tearing the chains free with his bare hands, and they came apart like wet paper and fluttered into nothingness.

  "It tingles," he said, "but it doesn't really hurt."

  "It's evil," Ululenia protested. It was difficult to think, still. "Evil is just an illusion," her virgin said with adorable sincerity.

  "But I am not," came the horrible grating voice from behind him, and Ululenia looked up to see Hunter Mirrkir sauntering toward them, his golden armor shining. His spear had returned to his hand. Even at this close range, Ululenia could sense nothing behind the golden mask that shielded his face. "You are mine, creature of magic."

  "I have apparently missed events of note," said Indomitable Courteous Fist as he stepped out from a doorway. "But I believe that you are inappropriately optimistic." He put himself between Ululenia and Mirrkir.

  "Stand aside or die, mortal." His emerald cloak billowing around him, the hunter readied his spear. Ululenia struggled to her feet.

  "I believe," Icy said calmly, "that a third option may present itself shortly."

  Ululenia's beautiful virgin chose that moment to say, "But Mister Icy, you aren't allowed to hurt anyone!"

  "My disciplines preclude violence against living creatures," Icy agreed, bringing his arms up with his thumbs and fingertips barely touching. "They do not, however, preclude demonstrations on nonliving material."

  And then he struck the wall.

  "Gosh!" said her virgin as the hallway caved in, putting several hundred pounds of rock between Ululenia and Hunter Mirrkir.

  Icy rose slowly to his feet and snapped his palms in the air, sending little clouds of dust puffing out. "This concludes my demonstration of applied balance and momentum. It should also, coincidentally, buy us the necessary time to retreat," he said with a little nod, "though I suggest haste nevertheless."

  Ululenia shook the last cobwebs free from her mind and shifted to her true form. Astride me, quickly, both of you. Today, Indomitable Courteous, you are an honorary virgin.

  At some point, Loch had lost the sword. She'd stabbed the bastard in the armpit, the knee, even the damn visor. She'd taken hard hits for doing so, and for all that trouble, she hadn't so much as slowed him down.

  "Getting tired, girl?" he gloated as she got back to her feet, wiping blood from her mouth.

  "Tired of you, jackass." She grunted as he came in again, ducking under a swipe that tore the head off a statue and stomping on the back of his knee. It dropped him to a crouch, but he spun and hammered her back with an open palm, and she hit the ground a few yards away and pushed herself to her feet again, bleeding at the shoulder.

  "What's the matter, Loch?" he roared. "Not ready to fight a real man?"

  "Guess we'll know when I meet one." She probably should have run. Stupid to stand and figh
t. She could have ducked him for a few minutes, but she'd been so proud, so certain. The bastard was between her and the doorway now, and she was breathing hard and limping.

  He came at her again, and Loch dodged, and then dodged again, and then came up with a statue to her back at a critical moment and couldn't quite get out of the way, and a spiked fist clipped her shoulder. She hit the ground hard, and the world went gray as she felt the armored gauntlets lifting her into the air.

  The crushing impact slammed her back to wakefulness, and she cried out as she bounced back to the ground. The air over the balcony railing shimmered with pink radiance where he had thrown her.

  "Oh, that's right," he declared heartily. "Bi'ul mentioned the safety barrier. Crystals that power it oughta be right about..." As she dragged her aching body to her knees, the armored man punched through the marble stones, sending shards of rock flying. "Here!" He stood, holding red crystals in his gauntlets, and then shattered them in his grip. The air hissed as the barrier blinked away, and Loch struggled to her feet, but not fast enough, as a mailed hand closed around her throat.

  He dangled her over the railing, the magical armor granting him the strength to hold her at arm's length with a single hand. She grabbed at her throat with one hand, hammered her fist in vain against the back of his elbow with the other.

  "You escaped with a long fall last time," said the man in the black armor. "Let's see if you can escape again the same way."

  Both hands went to her throat, now, and with superhuman effort she loosened his grip enough to breathe. "At least," she gasped, "it was you that got me, not that slug, Orris."

  The armored man lifted one hand to his visor, and the helmet opened to reveal the sneering face of Warden Orris himself. "That's what you think!" he cackled. "It is me in this—"

  Loch's hands scissored, one hand slamming into the gauntlet that gripped her throat and the other hammering the inside of Orris's elbow. It buckled, and as his collapsing arm brought her in close, she drove her fist into the bastard's face.