The Robin And The Kestrel bv-2

by Mercedes Lackey

  "You see!" Padrik exclaimed. "You see how he summons his evil minions to aid him! But they are not proof against the power of the Sacrificed God _"

  There were shouts now, of "Kill him!" and "Destroy the beast!" Robin went cold with fear. They had to get to T'fyrr to free him_but how could they get past a mob in a killing mood?

  But Padrik held up his hands, and the crowd calmed instantly. "We are not animals, we are not monsters, to tear apart our enemies in the heat of anger," he proclaimed, as Robin added nausea to her fear. "The power of God is sufficient to hold this evil, vile creature in his bonds. Nor shall we permit him to disrupt the work we are truly here for, God's own work of healing! We brought him here only that you might see the true face of your enemies, and know them for what they are."

  "G-give me one of your p-pick-sets," Kestrel whispered, under cover of the speech. "I th-think I can g-get th-them t-to him."

  And then what? she thought_but she handed him the set of lock picks anyway. He slipped off into the crowd, and if she hadn't seen him vanish, she wouldn't have known he was even there in the first place.

  While Padrik continued to pummel the congregation with examples of his benevolence and the nonhumans' perfidy, she kept a watch on T'fyrr's cage. And in a moment, she "heard" that little thread of "melody" that meant someone was using magic. This was familiar enough_magic meant to rivet the attention to the speaker, and make his words seem the acme of truth. She was ready for it, and she was not caught like the rest. Padrik's sermon had mesmerized his audience to the point that no one, not even the guards, was watching T'fyrr.

  And Jonny had taken advantage of that.

  He'd taken advantage of something else, too.

  There was another thin thread of mental "music," weaving with Padrik's siren song. Free Bard Kestrel was invoking Bardic Magic.

  Don't look at me, the song ordered. Don't see me. I'm not here. Ignore me....

  And since it not only didn't interfere with Padrik's spell, it actually worked with the High Bishop's magic, no one noticed it except her.

  She added her power to his, humming under her breath, following that "melody" in her mind with a real melody meant to reinforce the magic.

  Once again, if she hadn't been watching, she would never have seen that shadow slipping among the statues of the saints, the movement down near the floor as something was tossed into the bottom of the cage, and T'fyrr's quick bend to retrieve what had been thrown in.

  As Padrik wound down, Kestrel reappeared on the pedestal of Saint Hypatia, looking as calm as if he had never been gone. But he was breathing carefully, hiding the fact that he had been exerting himself, and he looked very, very tired.

  Just about as tired as she felt. He flashed her a quick glance and a hidden gesture of approval; she gave him a strained and nervous smile in return.

  Well, now T'fyrr had lock picks, hidden in his feathers. Whether or not he could use them was another story entirely. Whether he would get an opportunity to_

  But Padrik's Priests were assembling those in the crowd who felt in need of healing_and with a quick glance and a nod, they both slid down from the pedestal to crowd up a little further to the front.

  She bit her lip as her mind accelerated through plan after plan, shuffling bits of foolhardiness with honest fear. Wasn't there something they could do?

  Suddenly Jonny grabbed her hand, and whistled a soft phrase of melody_that of "The Skull Hill Ghost."

  She stared at him in puzzlement for a moment, completely baffled, as he shook her hand with impatience, and whistled the chorus. Then, as if dawn had suddenly broken over her, she knew what he was trying to tell her.

  If the Ghost was free_oh, surely it was by now!_it would be only too happy to see Padrik again. And if it was free, well, couldn't they call it? They'd called an Elf before, just by thinking about Bardic music and magic and wanting to have an Elf answer them.

  How could it hurt to try?

  She nodded frantically, and began to hum Rune's tune under her breath, concentrating very, very hard on how much she wanted the Ghost of Skull Hill to appear right now_

  Faintly, she heard Kestrel do the same. And as his melody joined hers, the internal music that sang of the power of Bardic Magic took on life and strength.

  The line to the altar was long, but the two of them were so short that the Priests might have mistaken them for children; somehow they found themselves in the first rank when Padrik began the first "healing." Robin's teeth chattered unexpectedly and the melody she hummed broke for a moment. They hadn't expected to be up here_

  Oh no_what am I supposed to be sick of? she thought in a panic, T'fyrr momentarily forgotten. What can I fake? Infertility, maybe_

  Padrik had his hands on the head of a "cripple," one of the Patsonos, of course, who stared up at him in carefully simulated admiration while the High Bishop prayed. And just as Robin decided that infertility was probably a good choice_

  Every light in the Cathedral suddenly blew out.

  Then the windows darkened abruptly as well, plunging the interior of the Cathedral into thick gloom.

  There were screams from outside, as Padrik stopped in mid-sentence, and looked up at the windows, a most unsaintly expression of annoyance on his face.

  "What is going _" he began.

  But before he could complete his sentence, his final word was obliterated, as a bolt of lightning struck the roof of the Cathedral directly over his head.

  The thunder that accompanied it flattened everyone to the floor. Glass shattered and showered the people with tiny slivers and specks; Robin's eyes swam with tears of pain from the burst of light, and she tried to blink away the spots obscuring her vision. Now there were people screaming inside the Cathedral as well as outside, but only the loudest could be heard above the ringing in everyone's ears the thunderclap had caused. The crowd surged towards the exit; she stayed where she was. Trying to move in any direction at all could get them trampled.

  Something made her look up, as soon as she was able to see anything at all. The lightning had torn an enormous hole in the roof; she glanced at Padrik, only to see that he was just as surprised as everyone else.

  So this isn't one of his miracles? Is this_could this be the Ghost?

  She hardly had time to do more than frame the thought. In the next heartbeat, a terrible, chilling wind rushed in through the hole in the roof, a wind that chilled the soul as well as the body, and howled like all the nightmares that had ever walked herded together. It formed into a whirlwind in front of the altar, picking up bits of everything from within the Cathedral and sucking them up into itself. The debris began to glow with a spectral, greenish-white light, and the whirlwind spun tighter, faster, forming a column_

  Oh dear gods. I've seen this before!

  _and then into a manlike shape, a shape that wore a deeply cowled robe, a robe that had never contained anything like a human form.

  But this time the shape was five times the height of a man. And the posture of the Ghost of Skull Hill said without any need for words that he was not happy.

  And that he saw, and recognized, his enemy.

  Padrik made a hasty motion, and a ring of fire sprang up around the Ghost, confining it, momentarily at least. Robin couldn't hear anything above the screams, but she saw Padrik's lips moving, and she didn't think he was praying.

  So he is a mage!

  The Ghost looked down at the ring of flames surrounding him, and moved towards them, but the bottom of his robes flared and flickered as he advanced. The barrier held against him. Padrik's expression brightened for a moment_but in the next instant, the Ghost made a gesture of his own, and the whirlwind formed around him.

  The wind whipped the flames, and the flames thinned, threatening to die away altogether.

  Padrik gestured again, shouting now, words and incantations that Robin didn't understand, but which hummed in the back of her head like a hive of poisonous wasps. The flames rose up again with renewed strength.

 
The Ghost spun his whirlwind faster still, staring at Padrik across the barrier of fire and wind, his hatred a thing so real and palpable that it, too, was a weapon.

  Behind the more dramatic action, T'fyrr worked frantically at the lock of his cage with the lock picks Kestrel had passed him. Robin noticed him_at the same time as the only one of Padrik's guards to remain standing fast.

  The guard's mouth opened in a shout that simply could not be heard over the howling of the Ghost's eldritch winds. He ran towards the cage with the keys in his hands_

  T'fyrr looked up at the movement, and froze, dropping the picks. Before Robin had blinked twice, the guard had reached the cage_

  And had put himself into T'fyrr's reach.

  T'fyrr's taloned hand shot through the bars, and grabbed the hapless guard by the throat, plucking the keys from his hand and tossing him aside like a discarded doll.

  In a moment, the Haspur had the cage unlocked and kicked open the door. But the guard was not giving up on his responsibilities so lightly.

  The guard rose to his feet, drew a sword, and charged the open cage door; the Haspur didn't even pause. His eyes were red with hunger-madness and he was quicker than she would ever have believed. He slashed out with his clawed hands, using them as his weapons, before the man could even bring his blade up to guard position.

  He caught the Guard across the throat, tearing it open with a single blow.

  Robin turned away, sickened, as blood sprayed across the white altar-cloth, and the man collapsed with a gurgling cry.

  There was a thunder of wings, and when she looked again, it was to catch sight of T'fyrr in flight, vanishing up through the hole in the roof, fighting the magic-brought winds. A moment later, and he was gone.

  Movement at her side caught her attention, and she glanced back over at Jonny just in time to see him rumble at his belt and drop the pendant he had carried out of his pocket, along with a few coins. It fell out of its silk handkerchief and onto the floor, although there was so much noise that the sound it made hitting the marble was completely lost.

  He snatched it up, cocked his arm back, and flung it with all of his might, hitting Padrik square in the chest.

  It struck hard enough to distract Padrik, and broke the High Bishop's concentration_and it caught in all the gold embroidery decorating his robe, becoming entangled there. Padrik froze in mid-gesture, staring open-mouthed down at his chest.

  The ring of flames vanished, blown out as easily as a candle_

  And the Ghost reached forward with a howl of triumph, and seized Padrik in both clawlike hands.

  The sound of the Ghost's laughter did not_quite_drown out Padrik's screams.

  Blackness as thick as a moonless night descended on the Cathedral, and the crowd went utterly mad. Gwyna and Jonny simply huddled on the floor for a moment, then slowly crawled towards the altar, hoping in that way to avoid being trampled. But before they reached that haven, light returned, pouring through the shattered windows. Padrik was nowhere to be seen.

  The screams died, and Robin looked up.

  "Witches!" someone cried out in despair. "That evil creature slew the High Bishop!"

  She saw the face of a nightmare, a crowd ready to tear anything and anyone apart in sheer, unadulterated panic. In a moment, they might very well remember seeing Jonny fling that pendant at the High Bishop_

  They'd kill him, and her_and then do exactly what Donnar had feared; run wild through the streets looking for evil mages, killing, and burning. They'd certainly run rampant through the Warren_and if they found T'fyrr, they'd tear him to pieces, too.

  They weren't going to listen to her_

  "You're a man!" she shouted at Kestrel. "They'll listen to you! Say something! Stop them!"

  Jonny knew the face of the mob when he saw it; he'd already had a taste of what they could do. They were poised to act_and someone had to give them direction, or it would turn into hate, fear, and destruction. Someone had to say or do something before one of them pointed him out as the one who'd broken Padrik's defenses and let the Ghost through.

  But him? He could hardly say two words without stuttering!

  Fear held him paralyzed for a moment. Then, in his mind, he heard Harperus. "You can't say it? So sing it."

  He did not even waste a moment on consideration; he leapt to the top of the altar, and held up both his hands.

  And gathered, reached, desperately, for the melody he needed. For the Magic...

  "Stop!" he cried/sang, his voice ringing out like a trumpet.

  The mob obeyed.

  People froze in place, staring at him, mouths agape with astonishment.

  Words poured from him as if from some supernatural source; he told them everything, as their faces gazed up at him, expressions dumbfounded. How Padrik was a fraud, working his "miracles" with the help of criminals. How he had truly used their donations_the House he ran, the luxuries he enjoyed. And before anyone could challenge him, he signaled to Robin, who began to reproduce some of those "miracles."

  She started with bursts of flash powder, and then "magical appearances" of the altar-decorations by sleight of hand. She worked her way around the altar and made a couple of quick movements; Kestrel heard a muffled thump. She then found the mirror-rig, and used it to reproduce the "demon"_a puppet hanging slackly among the sculptures of angels up above the altar, out of sight of the congregation.

  He told how Padrik had bound the spirit of a poor nonhuman, murdered by an evil Abbot of Carthell, to become the High Bishop's own personal executioner.

  He stretched the truth a little, describing Reymond as a "holy mage of the Church," who had discovered this and had freed the Ghost, sending it to take its own revenge on Padrik.

  He poured his heart into his words, falling into the same kind of trance he invoked when playing his music. Behind his words, he heard another strand of melody, as Robin wove her magics in with his. She was singing an accompaniment to his rhapsody, steadying his lips, giving him strength beyond his own. As if the words came from someone else, he heard himself eloquently describing how Padrik had taken over all the trade in the Cathedral market_how Padrik confiscated the goods of those he sent off to be slain by the Ghost_how he had been collecting more and more money, and doing less and less for the poor, the sick, those to whom it was supposed to go.

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, part of him gave an astonished cheer as the crowd began to pay more and more attention to him_and as their mood, staring at Padrik's chosen Priests, turned uglier and uglier.

  "Go!" he heard himself urge, as his voice rang out in a triumphal call-to-arms. "Go and look in his quarters! See what luxuries he has hidden there! See the place where those vagabonds he consorted with are living, how they eat from silver and drink from crystal! These things were bought with your money, and with blood-money! He has been living off of you and off the stolen goods of the innocents he has sent to their deaths, and all falsely in the name of God!"

  A long silence filled the Cathedral for a moment.

  It was broken by a single whisper of sound; the rustle of robes as one of the Priests tried to edge his way out of the Cathedral, ducking behind the statue of Saint Tolemy_

  "They're running away! Get them!" someone shouted.

  The false Priests broke and ran, holding up the skirts of their robes in order to run faster, fleeing into the Church buildings behind the Cathedral.

  Robin plastered herself up against the altar as the mob flooded past her, storming after the fleeing Priests, brushing aside the guards. Kestrel just watched them go, sinking wearily to the surface of the altar. Padrik's quarters were in there, somewhere, and he had no doubt that they were as luxurious as he had described. The mob was going to have something to vent its rage on, after all.

  When they had all gone, their shouts fading as they passed into other parts of the complex, he looked over at Robin and held out his hand. She smiled, exhausted, walked over to him, and took it.

  Sunlight poured down through the
hole in the roof to pool around the altar. Kestrel saw that there was someone lying behind the pulpit, quite unconscious, next to an obviously broken and jammed trapdoor. The back, and the clothing of the figure seemed oddly familiar.

  Robin grinned, and turned the body over.

  "Who is it?" he asked.

  She straightened. The Clan Chief of the Patsonos," she replied, her voice filled with glee. "Come give me a hand with him _"

  She had grabbed one arm and tugged him, none-too-gently, across the marble floor.

  "Why?" he asked, taking the other arm, and blinking in bafflement. "What do you want to do with him?"