The Palace Job

by Patrick Weekes

"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.

  "Thought I forgot the ribs?" he sneered. She took another kick on the arms, another jolt of agony that stole her breath. "Silly girl. That's why you never made it past scouting captain." Another kick. "Too headstrong, too idealistic. A shame, too." He rolled out his shoulders and shook his head regretfully. "You're a hell of a fighter."

  Loch spat blood and grinned fiercely. "I'm a better thief." And in one tightly clenched fist, she held up the flight charm she'd lifted when she'd tackled him.

  Her kick swept his legs cleanly, and he bounced hard on the stone, scrabbling frantically, and slid over the edge.

  This time, he didn't float.

  The sun had gone a peculiar pale color, and the sky was midway between the pale blue of a sunrise and the warm orange-purple of sunset.

  "The Champion of Dawn." Ambassador Bi'ul laughed. "The living vessel that holds the wards of the ancients in place. Your soul must have died and been reborn hundreds of times while we found a way back to this world."

  "I don't know anything about that, sir." Dairy's voice was steady, but his birthmark burned hot and angry on his arm as he looked at the Glimmering Man. "But you hurt my friends, and I'm going to have to stop you."

  "Kutesosh gajair'is," Ghylspwr added, thrumming in Dairy's hand.

  "You, beardless boy?" The Glimmering Man rolled out his shoulders, his glow growing stronger with each heartbeat.

  "Me." Dairy swallowed. "You're a bad man, and you hurt people. If the ancients sent you away, then you should stay away." He straightened his shoulders and stared at the Glimmering Man straight-on. "Or I'll send you away, sir." He lifted Ghylspwr, and shining silver light blazed through the garden.
>
  "Besyn larveth'is!" Ghylspwr shouted.

  "Do your best, child." Bi'ul held out his arms, laughing in delight. "Don't hold back. Show me what you and the tattered soul of a dead old man can do."

  With that, Dairy leapt forward, Ghylspwr swinging back in one arm and then coming down at Bi'ul with a blow that could shatter mountains, so great was the force behind it.

  Bi'ul sidestepped it, sneering. "Pitif—"

  And then the fingers of Dairy's other hand raked across Bi'ul's face, and the Glimmering Man flinched, and Dairy stepped in and drove the point of his elbow into Bi'ul's gut, and then he kicked Bi'ul between the legs, and then he drove Ghylspwr's pommel into Bi'ul's nose, and the Glimmering Man stumbled back with rainbow ichor on his face.

  "It's called a feint, sir," said Dairy. "Captain Loch taught it to me."

  "I cannot be denied!" Bi'ul shouted, his face a mask of blazing fury.

  Dairy hefted Ghylspwr. "That's what your mother said last night, sir. At least, that's what it sounded like. Her knees were pressed against my ears at the time."

  And as Bi'ul leaped at him, a shimmering prism of rage, Dairy swung.

  The world went black for one long moment, and there was only the sound of a glass breaking, a glass containing all the oceans in the world, and those oceans held back the fires of a thousand suns, and it all burst forth in one massive wave of power that spread across creation in an instant.

  Then the light returned, and Bi'ul was gone, but a rainbow began where the Glimmering Man had stood, and its arc carried it over the rim, far into the sky, and finally down to the ground.

  "Well done, lad," said Ghylspwr in a rich, deep brogue.

  Dairy blinked, and looked at the hammer. Where before it had glowed silver, it now shone with the golden light of the sun, and the runes along the handle glowed in all the colors of the rainbow. "Thank you, Mister Ghylspwr. You can talk?"

  "With the stolen magic of the Glimmering Man freed, I am..." Ghylspwr paused. "...more of what I was." The hammer twitched in Dairy's hand. "You defeated a force that I myself could not, lad. Though few will ever know what you did, the world rejoices."

  "I..." Dairy looked at Hessler and Tern and Icy and Kail, all unconscious on the ground. At Desidora, still on her knees, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. At Ululenia. "It isn't my honor."

  "The gods themselves will welcome her into paradise." Ghylspwr's runes shone blazing white. "Though her soul is a construct of stolen magic, she proved herself as true as any child of man. She dies a hero, lad."

  Dairy walked toward her. Her horn was gone. Her snowy white flank was turning gray. "She shouldn't," he said, eyes stinging as he knelt beside her.

  "Lad..."

  Dairy laid a hand gently on her flank. "Captain Loch showed me the difference between is and should. She shouldn't be gone, but she is..." She was still trembling. Tiny whickers of breath barely made puffs of steam in the cold morning air. "But she shouldn't be. Someone needs to start should."

  The morning clouds parted, and the sun rose above the mountains as a bright new day dawned.

  "You're right."

  Behind Dairy, Desidora gasped.

  "A wise old man from a long time ago said, 'None shall die while I watch over them,"' Ghylspwr said gently. "I'd almost forgotten that man. Thank you for reminding me."

  "Ghyl," said Desidora softly, "no."

  "I protect life, Desidora." The hammer flashed, and the rainbow energy flared and poured into the runes. "Besyn larveth'is."

  Ghylspwr moved in Dairy's grasp, and the head touched Ululenia's torn flank gently. The runes flared one last time, and then went dark.

  Ululenia's horn blazed radiant white, and then her whole body did, and then she was a woman again, her white gown torn but her pale skin unscarred. "Thank you," she whispered, dark eyes shining.

  "Kun-kabynalti osu fuir'is," Ghylspwr said fondly, and pulled Dairy's arm around Ululenia's waist.

  The stone beneath Loch's bare feet shivered, and the upper and lower grids rattled around her like a horse's tack. Even stones that hadn't been hit by the damn lightning ring were starting to glow red.

  With one hand clutched to her battered ribs, Loch limped to the edge of the stone and looked down.

  He wasn't dead.

  "You were right," Archvoyant Silestin called up, hanging by his fingertips from the pipes of the lower grid. As he shifted his grip, the vibrating pipe snapped a strut under his weight and began to bend with a slow squeal of protest. "You were right, Isafesira. I killed your family."

  She raised an eyebrow. "You picked a hell of a time to tell me."

  "Do you..." He grunted and shifted his grip again, but another strut snapped, and the pipe started to rock, squeaking with the movement. "Do you want to know why?"

  "You already told me, Silestin. Power." The stone was growing hot beneath her bare feet. She jumped to the pipes of the upper grid and held on carefully, the iron trembling beneath her fingers.

  "For the Republic." Silestin shifted his grip, nearly slipped, and kicked his legs wildly for a moment to right himself. "The things I'd seen in the war, heard in the halls of power... Isafesira, the war with the Empire is coming. The Republic barely held on last time. I needed the power to keep us safe."

  She stared down at him. The whine of magic from the stones slowly grew louder.

  "I'm not going to apologize. It wasn't because your family was Urujar. I... it's important that you know that. I just needed someone in the right place, at the right time. But..." Another strut snapped. There was only one left to connect the pipe Silestin hung from to the rest of the grid. "But we need the Spire, Isafesira. We need Heaven's Spire."

  "You should have thought of that before you shot the rocks with your ring, then."

  "I didn't know! I swear by the gods, I wouldn't endanger the Republic's greatest strength for my own gain." He looked up at her, his eyes wide. "Would you?"

  "Go to hell, Silestin." The iron was getting hard to hold. She needed to start climbing, get up and out of here before things started breaking.

  "I can fix it!" he cried. "I can get Bi'ul to do it. Or Elkinsair. Hell, maybe even the elf. I know more about this island than—" The iron shook one of his hands free, and he swung wildly. "Let me make it right! Let me—"

  The last strut gave way.

  One brown hand, battle-scarred but strong, caught Silestin's fingertips.

  She looked down at him, at the abject relief, an old man's fear. And then she heaved, her ribs screaming, her shoulder on fire, her legs trembling, and swung Silestin over to a stable pipe, high enough that he could pull himself up with shaking arms.

  "That's the difference between us," she said softly through clenched teeth. "I'm—"

  His fist slammed into her injured ribs, and she fell with a wordless gasp as the pain knocked the breath from her. One hand grabbed at the pipe, caught it, but her vision was black-tinged with the screaming pain that stole the wind from her lungs.

  "You're a fool," Silestin said easily, pulling himself up to stand over her. "That's the difference between us." He lifted one of his fine expensive boots. "A fool who lacks the conviction to follow her beliefs to—"

  A knife blossomed in his throat.

  He looked up in surprise, and the hand he'd been holding on with came free, grasping the knife gently, and then he fell back like a man falling into a feather bed after a long journey.

  Loch watched him fall out of sight for a long moment, and when her body would bear it, she brought her other hand up to strengthen her grip. Then she looked up.

  "I didn't know," Naria said, looking down at Loch. The lens she wore over one eye was cracked, sparkling with stray magic. The other eye was milk-white and scarred. "I swear, I didn't know."

  Then she turned and vanished, the shadows closing around her.

  Loch held on for a long moment, the pipe vibrating in her grasp and the whine growing steadily louder in her ears.

  Then she pulled herself up with two
strong hands, ignoring the pain that flashed across her ribs, and started climbing.

  Epilogue

  "All I'm saying," the manticore huffed, arching its wings and raising its stinger, "is that you have to look pretty hard at Voyant Cevirt after everything is said and done."

  "But," declared the griffon, leaping forward with claws bared, "Archvoyant Bertram himself ordered the charges dropped! Your own Archvoyant ordered it!"

  The manticore lowered its wings and swished its tail. "He's everybody's Archvoyant now, and I'll hope you remember that," it groused. "This is a period of mourning, not a time for partisan attacks."

  "Indeed," rumbled the dragon, belching flame and throwing candies to the crowd. "Please, let's all remember that an Archvoyant is dead. Let's try to stay respectful."

  "But out of respect," the griffon pressed, stalking forward, "shouldn't we learn from what happened? After funding for the prison reforms committee was slashed, Voyant Cevirt had to send a friend and former soldier undercover to investigate safety hazards among the lapiscaela."

  "I fail to see what this informal audit—" the manticore began, rising back up.

  "If we'd had the funds to properly perform an official study," the griffon declared, "we might have uncovered the dangerous malfunction in the stones before it became so dangerous. Archvoyant Silestin might still be with us today!"

  "I can't believe you're dragging politics into this!" the manticore snarled, backing up slowly. "It was Silestin's own last-minute negotiation with the elves that saved Heaven's Spire."

  The griffon spread its wings, and its lion tail swished angrily. "Nobody is denying Silestin's heroic sacrifice, but with proper maintenance of the Spire's prison facilities, these malfunctions would never happen. That's what's important here."

  The manticore cowered in the corner. "I just think it's disrespectful to use a man's heroic actions as fodder for politics," it muttered. "That's disrespectful, and that's all I'm saying."

  "I think we can all agree that Archvoyant Silestin died as he lived," rumbled the dragon with a puff of flame, "fighting for the Republic." It tossed out more candy to the crowd. "Remember, everyone, it's your republic!"