The Palace Job

by Patrick Weekes

  "And none of my men killed them. The Archvoyant's men took care of that." She raised an eyebrow. "Why did you come back here?"

  "To see how stupid you were."

  "Very, apparently. Are you angry because I'm robbing Silestin, or because you fell for me?"

  "Fell for you?" Pyvic's lip curled in disgust. "How many mixed-race Urujar women do you think were both in Ros-Oanki and up here on the Spire? You didn't fool me, Prisoner Loch."

  Her eyes narrowed. "So why the show?"

  "They pulled me off of real cases to hunt you down," Pyvic said, quietly seething. "And I thought that maybe, maybe there was more to the story. More to why Silestin was so desperate to find you, why you were so desperate to take him down." He sat back. "But as it turns out, you're just a deserter and a thief."

  "If you say so, Justicar. I'm sure you've done the necessary research to back up that claim."

  "I could arrest you right here," he said again. "I could blow a whistle and have twenty guards here in a minute."

  "You could do that." She sipped her kahva. "You could bring in your guards to attack an Urujar woman in an Urujar kahvahouse shortly after the arrest of the first and only Urujar Voyant. I'm sure the people here would be just fine with that." She smiled. She didn't try for the seductive look this time. "And then you'd have to explain why you were sitting here sipping kahva with me. I'm sure someone saw us leave together that night. How would that look on your report?"

  "You think I'd let you go because I might look bad?" he asked. "You don't know me as well as you think."

  "Then why haven't you blown your whistle?" She was suddenly tired. Damn the kahva, damn Pyvic, and damn her for coming here in the first place.

  "Because there is more to the story." He leaned forward, his voice low and urgent. "Tell me why you're doing this."

  "Find out yourself." She snorted. "You wouldn't believe anything a thief tells you."

  "Are you working with the Empire, Isafesira?"

  She shook her head. "You know who I am. Start hunting. I'm going to walk out that door now." She tried not to make it a challenge. "It was nice seeing you again. I'm not sorry about that night."

  She walked out. He didn't stop her, didn't blow his whistle. She got out of sight fast.

  About ten heartbeats later, she watched from the alley as he came out, half-hidden in the doorway, trying to trace her steps. He might have been waiting long enough for her to feel confident and make a mistake. He might have been trying to let her get away.

  If he were less honorable, she wouldn't have been interested in him—he'd have been just another crooked justicar to play as the job demanded. If he'd been more honorable, he'd have been easier to dupe, and she wouldn't have been interested then, either. More honorable or less, either would have been fine.

  Instead, he was... somewhere in between.

  She shouldn't have told him her real name.

  She left quickly, checking often to make sure that he hadn't found her trail.

  Seventeen

  The day of the Victory Ball arrived.

  In a ring around Heaven's Spire, the palaces of the Voyants were decked with bunting and ribbons. Illusory heroes fought in the sky, and patriotic music played from behind palace gates. Two palaces remained conspicuously unadorned. The palace of Voyant Cevirt was quiet because of the Voyant's scandalous arrest, its gates shut and its windows dark. The palace of Archvoyant Silestin was undecorated because he was hosting the Victory Ball, and, as he jokingly declared, he did not have the budget to decorate the outside as well as the inside.

  Silestin's Victory Ball was the event of the season, and everyone on the Spire with political or financial pull had received an invitation. If the sheer grandeur of the ball were not enough incentive, there were always the whispers that Silestin was testing the waters with his beautiful young Urujar ward, Naria de Lochenville, who had announced that her older sister's criminal activities would not shame her into postponing her social debut.

  The guests started arriving around sundown.

  Loch, Kail, and Dairy had been standing in the guest line for some time, ignoring looks from nobles and businessmen.

  Dairy was dressed in a page's gray doublet and breeches, which Loch had chosen because it went with the gray suede gloves Ululenia had bought him. With the gloves and the doublet, the silly birthmark on the kid's arm wasn't even visible.

  Kail was dressed in the outlandish garb of a desert warrior, complete with the veil, the headdress, the flowing many-layered robes, and the brace of knives. He was serving as Loch's bodyguard.

  Loch herself was wearing a shimmering copper dress with cream-colored frilly lace along the neckline and sleeves, along with a matching headpiece covered with cream-colored flowers. Going by the stares, she looked like an orange-flavored dessert, both conspicuous and ridiculous.

  Right according to plan, then.

  "Invitation, please," said one of the guards at the gate.

  "Don't just stand there like an idiot, boy!" Loch said helpfully after a moment of silence. "Present my invitation!"

  "You... er... said that you wished to carry it yourself, my lady," Dairy stammered. Gods, but he was a lousy liar. They'd had to work on a reason for the discomfort.

  "I said no such thing!" Loch exclaimed indignantly. "However can you say such a thing, you horrible little boy! Tell the guards you're sorry for losing my invitation!"

  "I'm sorry," Dairy mumbled. The guards shifted restlessly, as did the people behind Loch's party.

  "Good boy. Now, let us go—"

  "My lady," said the guard, "we need that invitation to let you in."

  She fixed him with an arrogant stare. "I do not have my invitation, as should be clear to you! It was lost by this... this little slug of an attendant. Now, you will let me in this instant, or when Silestin himself hears that I was delayed by this, this, this harassment, you will find yourself in a great deal of trouble!"

  "My lady," said one of the other guards, "there are many people trying to attend the party who did not receive invitations—"

  "Are you implying that my mistress is lying?" Kail asked in a deadly voice from behind his veil.

  "Er," the guard stammered.

  "Because I swore an oath to my ancestors that I would uphold the honor of my mistress, however many men I must kill to do so."

  "Er."

  "I can hear my ancestors' dread voices echoing in my mind even now, asking if I must slay you." Kail leaned forward. "Let me level with you: my ancestors are really pushing hard for me to strike you dead right this moment. Anything you can do to help me out would be fantastic."

  "I'm sure this is a misunderstanding," the first guard said quickly. "Why don't you just go right inside? In fact, you can wear these red ribbons, which will mark you as special guests with full access." He shoved ribbons in their direction.

  "I am certain that I would have been on such a list," Loch said airily. "Come, boy." She strode in with Kail and Dairy hustling to catch up.

  "So that's it?" Dairy asked quietly once they were inside.

  "So far," Loch said, glancing in both directions. The path led through a sumptuously ornamented front garden to the main palace itself.

  "Red ribbons?" Kail muttered behind his veil. "Doesn't really go with my outfit."

  Loch smiled. "I don't imagine we'll be wearing them long."

  The aqueducts of Heaven's Spire were beneath the surface of the city. For large buildings, great chambers stored water in reserve and then filtered the new water in late in the evening to avoid shortages during the day.

  The great chambers were also covered, and anyone who got inside would face a fifty-foot drop into the water below, since the ancient builders of the Spire had assumed that anyone doing maintenance on the water systems would be floating in mid-air through the power of magic.

  Icy made barely a splash as he hit the water in a graceful dive.

  Ululenia fluttered in on snowy white wings a moment later, changed into a g
reat silver salmon in mid-air, and splashed into the water just as gracefully.

  I shall determine the correct tunnel, she told him as he broke the surface and shook the water from his face. He nodded, and her scales shimmered beneath the surface, and then she was gone.

  It was dark in the reservoir, and the water was not heated. Someone without the ability to channel their body's energy into a harmonious relationship with very cold water might have been uncomfortable.

  The tunnel off to the right will lead us inside, Ululenia said moments later, and I sense no magical wards, just as Tern predicted. However, the tunnel is long, and the water passes through a metal grate too narrow for you to fit through.

  "I am capable of slowing my breathing rate as long as necessary." Icy smiled. "And unless the metal is magical, it should bend easily enough. Shall we?"

  With a brief mental nod of kinship, the Imperial and the unicorn made their way into the palace.

  "You're sure you can make the shot?" Hessler asked.

  Tern, Desidora, and Hessler stood on the roof of a bank across the street from the west wall of Silestin's palace. From their vantage point, they could see over the palace walls and into the gardens near the palace itself, and specifically near the palace mausoleum.

  "I am sure," Tern said, "that I can make the shot."

  "Okay," Hessler said.

  Tern lined up her crossbow. She had it set on a collapsible tripod and aimed at a ten-foot-tall bronze statue of Ael-meseth, whose arm was conveniently extended in a judgment-giving pose. She took off her spectacles, squinted into the scope (adjusted for her lousy eyesight already), and began to make tiny targeting adjustments.

  "It's just that it's going to look conspicuous if you miss," Hessler added.

  Tern turned around and glared at him. Her eyes looked tiny without the spectacles. "I am not going to miss, Magister."

  "We believe in you, Tern," Desidora said firmly. Tern gave her a narrow look.

  "Of course we do," Hessler said hastily. "We just want to make sure that, you know, you don't miss."

  The bolt loaded into the crossbow was attached to a cable, which was in turn already attached to the wall behind them.

  "Wait a minute," Tern said. "This isn't about me, is it, Hessler? You're afraid of sliding into the palace on the cable!"

  "That is the most—I have summoned daemons who could rend my soul asunder if I misspoke a single word!" Hessler declared irately. "The very idea that I'd be afraid of sliding down a rope is ludicrous, provided that the rope is securely fastened and that you make the shot properly and it doesn't fall out when I'm halfway across the street."

  Tern turned back to her crossbow. "Magister, I do this all the time. Hell, Icy usually walks down the cable instead of sliding. Of course, he's just a damn showoff." She licked her finger and held it up. "Half a tick..."

  "Oh, that's hygienic."

  "Hush, Magister. I'm dealing with daemons that could rend your soul asunder if you don't shut up and let me work." Tern moved the crossbow a tiny bit to the left. "Or at least dump you in the middle of the street," she added absently. "Now, the tightrope-bolts always drag a bit more in the wind, so maybe up just a hair... no, no, add a touch more velocity instead, don't want it to get caught up high in the wind. Aaaaaaand..." she pulled the trigger.

  With a great snap, the bolt sprang free, sailed across the street and over the palace walls, and slammed solidly into the bronze arm of Ael-meseth. The bolt shattered, and a pair of coiling claw-hook lines sprang free from the central casing, tangled around the god's arm, and held firm. A thin cable now ran from the top of the bank across the street and into the mausoleum garden.

  "Hah!" Tern stood up and popped her spectacles back on. "First try!"

  "Wait, what do you mean, first try?" Hessler asked.

  "Oh, you know how these things go." Tern snapped the crossbow free from the tripod and collapsed the tripod down to a series of small metal rods that easily fit into her pockets.

  "No, really, I don't."

  "I thought it was wonderful, Tern," Desidora said.

  "Besyn larveth'is!"

  "Well, thank you, both." Tern hooked the crossbow onto a pocket, then removed three small devices that looked like metal handgrips with half-circles at one end. "So, take your bar, attach it like so..." She gave one of the devices to Desidora and another to Hessler. Then she held the device up beside the now-taut cable so that the cable fit inside the half-circle of metal and pressed a button. The grip split into two halves, one in her hand, and the other snapping out a full hundred and eighty degrees and locking into place, so that now, instead of one handgrip, there were two handgrips, and the cable went through the hole in the middle. "And there you go. All you have to do is run and jump and hang on tight."

  "Wait. That's it?" Hessler coughed. "Could we maybe try it a few times as you watch, or maybe you could hook ours on, or—"

  "You're awfully cute, Hessler, but you need to lighten up," Tern said. "I'll see you both on the other side. Desidora, you've got the wards?"

  "Of course," Desidora said with a smile. "Good luck."

  Tern nodded, took a breath, gripped the handgrip, and leapt off the rooftop.

  "By all the magic of Jairytnef!" Hessler said in a strangled voice as Tern sailed across the street, cleared the palace walls, and then dropped down behind a hedge and out of view.

  "No kidding," Desidora said absently. "Calling you cute had to take you by surprise." She snapped her handgrip into place, locking it around the cable, then checked to make sure that Ghylspwr was secure on her belt.

  "I meant that..." Hessler broke off in agitation. "Aren't you the least bit nervous about this procedure?"

  Desidora laughed. "I was a love priestess, Magister. Helping young lovers break into each other's bedrooms required worse than this."

  "I'm sure we'll... she called me cute?" Hessler blinked. "Oh, you know how Tern is."

  "I do indeed. I might not be a love priestess anymore, but I can still read auras." Desidora smiled. "See you inside, Magister." She tugged once on the handgrip, then leapt.

  Hessler watched her go, staring nervously into the twilight. Desidora dropped safely behind the hedges.

  "She called me cute," he murmured. "Hunh."

  Loch, Kail, and Dairy were ambling through the gardens, listening to the chatter as the twilight set in and the magical lights filled the air, when suddenly there were guards all around them.

  "I don't believe you were given an invitation, my lady," one of the guards said with a sardonic grin.

  "Make a scene, and you'll regret it," another guard added. "Come quietly, and you'll be his guest after all... in a sense."

  Loch looked around in alarm, saw the guards positioned casually at all possible escape routes.

  "Damn," she said. "Red ribbons?"

  "Red ribbons," the first guard confirmed.

  Loch dropped her arms to her sides. "Can't blame a girl for trying."

  Eighteen

  A pair of guards in ancient ceremonial armor stood outside the mausoleum. Tern, Desidora, and Hessler (who had landed safely after all his worrying) got close by sneaking through the hedges, but then there was a bunch of open space, and the guards, and a large bronze alarm gong.

  "So what's the deal?" Tern whispered. "They're a bit out of my range for darts. Diz, can you maybe do that throwing thing you do with Ghylspwr?"

  "There's a ward around the mausoleum." Desidora shook her head, frowning absently. "Pm not certain, but it looks like it would stop anything we threw or shot from reaching the guards."

  "Where's the ward?" Hessler asked. Tern guessed that he was trying to look with his wizardly senses, but it looked a lot like squinting. He was cute when he squinted, though.

  "Protected under the overhang. I couldn't hit it from here even with Ghylspwr helping me."

  "Besyn larveth'isr

  "Don't worry about it, big guy," said Tern. "We'll figure something out. Hey, Hessler, can you lure them outside the
ward with an illusion?"

  "I 1 see what I can do." Hessler concentrated, and a moment later a pretty woman appeared behind a nearby hedge and called to the guards, "Excuse me, can either of you help me back to the party?"

  She disappeared shortly after a flurry of crossbow bolts ripped through her. Hessler turned back to Tern. "No." Then he gestured, and Tern, peeking around the hedge, saw one of the guards strike the gong and make no noise whatsoever. "I can keep them from raising the alarm, though," he said with an effort, sweat beading on his brow.

  They waited a moment.

  "And that's it?" Tern asked, blinking. "They shoot at an intruder, ring the alarm, and then do nothing? Even when the alarm doesn't go off? What's wrong with these guys?"

  "They're..." Desidora raised a hand, and her pink fingernail polish slid to black for a moment. "Ah." She nodded. "Mindless skeletal warriors. They only react as their enchantments dictate." She grimaced, and her color slowly returned. "I could crumble them into dust if they weren't behind the ward."

  Tern began taking things out of her pockets. And to think, she'd been worried about being useful. "But their arrows fired out, right?" A pair of metal rods, some connecting joints, a pair of gear-driven wheel-legs. "So the ward might not protect against something that wasn't an attack?" The all-important wind-up assembly, of course, was in its velvet pouch.

  "What are you doing, Tern?" Hessler asked as she snapped pieces together.

  She smiled brightly as a spring clicked into place. "I'm going to throw Ghylspwr."

  "Kun-kabynalti osu fuir 'is?"

  "Oh, relax, you big baby."

  There were two guards in the water filtration chamber. By rights, it should have been a prime spot for the lucky and the lazy. But when the hatch covering the pipe abruptly tore free from its casing and clattered to the floor, the two guards had their swords free in an instant and lunged forward, snarls of hatred twisting their faces.

  "Arrogant apple, babbling brook, creep... erk," said one of the guards, and then fell over.

  "Dawdling duckling, excellent eggshells," said the second guard, fumbling with a whistle around his throat. He got it to his lips and blew a shrill screech of noise before finally mumbling, "Fondling fern, gullible goat," and keeling over.