“Yes, yes, of course,” said Mister Slant, “our next steps?”
Westteich continued nodding and kept his eyes on Lesaguris at all times. “If you planned to kill me, my lord, there’s nothing I could do to stop you, but I am an asset to your team, and I don’t see you wasting resources at such a critical point in your operation. You could put a band on me, but you have Archvoyant Cevirt banded already, so you clearly don’t lack for political power. Killing me for the failure of the subordinates you assigned me would be like killing you for Arikayurichi and Ghylspwr’s failure to destroy the Republic a few months ago.”
Lesaguris let him hang for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly. “Not bad, Westteich. Not bad at all. You are quite correct. As for Arikayurichi and Ghylspwr . . .” He sighed. “Arikayurichi was too bloodthirsty, and he has paid for it. Ghylspwr was a great fighter and a true patriot, but he always lacked the conviction necessary to make the difficult decisions. You have heard the story about him at the last days of the ancients?”
“They say he was a king who held off the Glimmering Folk while the last of his people fled to the realm of the ancients.” Westteich shook his head. “They also say he gave up some of his own essence to heal the wounds of the warrior wielding him. The legends say that it was his son, but I assume that was time and misunderstanding affecting the telling of the tale.”
“He was a general, not a king,” Lesaguris said quietly, “and he had fought the Glimmering Folk for years. His forces were to hold position while the rest of us retreated back to our realm. Ghylspwr himself was to retreat, leaving a small group to sacrifice themselves.” Lesaguris looked down, and one hand balled itself into a fist.
“It was an excellent plan,” said Mister Slant, “and we left enough thralls to fight the Glimmering Folk to cover the retreat. It was really astonishingly well managed, coordinating that kind of effort with so few losses of our people. Just astonishing.”
“But then,” Lesaguris went on, “he sent the rest back and chose himself as sacrifice. Even when the Glimmering Folk overwhelmed him, when he could have had his thrall throw him through the gateway, Ghylspwr chose to give up what he was, that brilliant mind, to heal the human who had carried him.” His face twisted into something that was either a frown or a snarl. “Can you imagine what a selfish, weak-minded waste of talent that was?”
“It is far beyond me, my lord.” Westteich ducked his head. “Suffice it to say that I am glad you are here now to lead us.”
“Thank you, Westteich.” Lesaguris lifted his head, and the snarl was gone, replaced with the same genial smile he usually wore. “For now, you should know that Archvoyant Cevirt has yielded some very useful information. If our course is, as you say, correct . . . what would you do with the knowledge that Justicar Captain Pyvic is Loch’s lover?”
Loch, Ululenia, and Icy stepped off the treeship the elves had let them borrow and hunkered down in the bushes, not far from the walls surrounding the Westteich family estate.
“Wards?” Loch asked, pointing at the walls with her walking stick.
“I am but the dove to Desidora’s falcon,” Ululenia said, looking carefully at the walls, “but I do sense something.” She stepped forward carefully. “It seems warded against active magic.”
Loch frowned. “Can you break it without triggering an alarm?”
“No. But as the fox creeps across the frozen pond, I will step lightly and swiftly and leave no trace.” She shimmered and shifted into a snowy-white dove and flew off toward the wall.
“I carry no magic,” Icy said, looking over at Loch. “I do not believe I shall have any difficulty.”
“Right.” Loch reached under her leather jacket, pulled the daemon-ward necklace over her head, and tossed it back by the treeship. “No magic.”
She and Icy reached the wall, which was cut stone and fifteen feet high, half covered with long growing vines. Icy, smaller and lighter, stepped up without hesitation, grabbed what looked to Loch like a completely sheer surface, and pulled himself up.
Loch tucked her walking stick into the back of her belt, ran her fingers along the wall until she found a handhold, and then pulled herself up.
“Do you require assistance?” Icy said from atop the wall.
“I was a scout,” Loch muttered, launching herself up and grabbing another handhold. “I know how to climb.”
“As you say,” Icy said politely, still perched atop the wall and looking down at her.
Loch slipped on a bit of vine, swore to herself, pulled herself up by her fingers until her feet found purchase, and finally took the hand Icy wordlessly offered and pulled herself up the rest of the way.
“Show-off,” she muttered.
“Someone must keep you humble while Kail is otherwise occupied,” Icy said, smiling faintly as he dropped from the wall into the estate.
Loch dropped down after him, rolled, and winced at the ache in her still-healing ribs. The yard inside was ruthlessly trimmed, with a single path leading to the manor from the main gate, and hedges and statues scattered across the otherwise-bare expanse of green. “Ululenia, guards?” she asked as she moved behind an ornamental hedge trimmed into a perfect teardrop shape. Icy stepped in beside her.
A snowy-white dove flew up and landed atop the hedge. Ululenia looked down at them and cooed.
“I believe she fears that speaking in our minds would activate the alarms,” Icy said.
“I got that.” Loch nodded to Ululenia. “Go. We’ll follow your lead.”
The dove cooed again, waited a moment, and then flapped to a hedge a dozen yards away. Loch and Icy darted after her. In the distance, Loch saw guards at the gate, and more pacing near the front entrance to the manor.
“You are not worried for Kail?” Icy asked, while Ululenia waited and pecked at the hedge.
“He and Hessler and Dairy will be fine. Besides, he’d be no good to me worrying about his mother in the middle of a job. That thinking gets a scout killed.” Loch snuck a glance out from the hedge, saw one of the guards coming their way, and ducked back. “He was right. He warned me, and I didn’t listen.”
“You made the correct decision in drawing them out,” Icy said quietly. “You are not responsible for the actions of your enemy.”
“Doesn’t matter who’s responsible for it. It happened, and we’re fixing it.” Loch looked over at him. “You’re not worried about your family?”
“I lost my family some time ago,” Icy said.
“Sorry.”
Icy nodded in acknowledgment. “Ululenia has no family, Hessler’s mother has passed away, Desidora was raised by priests of Jairyur after her mother died giving birth, and Dairy is an orphan. You and Tern are the only other members of the team with close living relatives.”
Loch winced. Of course they would have talked it out. “The Lapitemperum is in Tern’s hometown.” Ululenia fluttered to another hedge, and Loch and Icy crept out after her, and then darted quickly to another hedge, keeping their bodies low as the manor came closer. “She checking in with her family while she and Desidora hit it?”
“Presumably,” Icy said as Ululenia flapped to another hedge, then rapidly turned and came back. Loch and Icy ducked back. “Which leaves only the question of Pyvic and your sister.”
“Pyvic is one of us. He can handle himself.”
“And that means you do not worry about him?”
“It means he doesn’t need me,” Loch said quietly, “to save him.”
“You have not yet mentioned Naria,” Icy said.
“Nope.”
Ululenia flapped out to the hedge again, and flapped her wings anxiously. Loch and Icy darted in behind her. They were almost to the manor now, and the guards were within earshot. Loch and Icy circled the hedge carefully, keeping it between them and the nearest guard, and Ululenia flitted up onto a low balcony overlooking the yard.
Loch went first, making no noise as she leaped up, caught the balcony, and pulled herself over. Icy landed beside her a mo
ment later, flattening himself so that the guards on the ground could not see him.
The balcony was a small half circle with a single love seat and a tray where one of the presumed lovers could rest a drink while watching the sunset. A double-glass door led into the manor itself, and Loch looked at Ululenia, who flapped to the door, landed, and cooed again.
Keeping low, Loch tried the door handle. It opened under her grip. No massive alarm sounded. She crept in.
The first thing that struck Loch was a sense of having been in this manor before. The carpet was the same outdated dark green it had been in the noble manors she had visited as a child and played in while her parents drank and talked politics with the adults. The same bronze busts of old generals lined the hallway. The same paintings lined the walls—expensive and famous works, but not originals, because the hallway would get sun in the afternoon, and even if you had fading-wards built into the frames, you didn’t put the good paintings in a hallway people would walk past.
A classic old painting of the gods, and an emotive portrait of proud Ael-meseth that happened to have the face of an old archvoyant, and a modern piece that was considered popular these days: all of them were jumbled together with no thought of style or pacing or grouping or anything except, “Here, look at how many of these I could afford.”
We may safely use magic now that we are inside, Ululenia said, and then proved it by shifting back into human form. She looked at Loch in concern. “Is something wrong, Little One?”
“Nobles,” Loch said. “Come on. We want the study. Westteich felt safe here. It’ll be hidden, but in a room where he can look at it any time he wants to feel smart.”
“Can you locate the study?” Icy asked.
“Could Ululenia find water if you dropped her in a forest? Come on.” Loch started walking.
They moved quietly but without hiding. The hallway was open enough that running from doorway to doorway would be pointless, anyway. Loch reached a corner, peeked around, saw no one, and crossed.
“You should warn your sister,” Icy said behind her as she passed a doorway.
“Still got her hooks in you, huh?” Loch checked a corner, saw an old servant carrying linens down the hall, and raised a hand. The servant stepped into a side room, and Loch nodded and kept moving. “Naria always was good at getting boys to do what she wanted.”
“As the lioness swishes her tail while walking away,” Ululenia added.
“She is a baroness,” Icy said, “who was once Archvoyant Silestin’s First Blade.”
“She is a baroness,” Loch shot back, “who is in charge of our family’s land, and does not need me to come cause trouble.”
“So you are concerned,” Icy said, “and are remaining distant to protect her?”
“I . . . damn it, do we really have to do this now?” Loch glared at him as they crossed an intersection. “If I go to Pyvic, it endangers him. If I go to Naria, it endangers her. He doesn’t need me there; she wouldn’t want me there.”
“You speak of what they need or want, Little One. What of you?”
“Someone has to focus on saving the damn world while the rest of you think about virgins and my sister,” Loch muttered with a little wave, passing an open doorway into a dining hall.
Icy sighed. “Even beyond her value as a lure for you, Naria’s time as an assassin may have left her with information the ancients would find valuable.”
“Naria can take care of herself,” Loch said, and turned a corner to find a guard standing watch a few yards away. The guard, a gargantuan bearded man wearing heavy armor and a large open-faced helmet, looked at Loch in alarm, and his hand wrapped around a whistle he wore on a necklace.
Loch caught his hand with the hook of the walking stick, checking the whistle just shy of his mouth and yanking it back. Then she kicked him in the side of the knee, grabbed his whistle-blowing hand with her own free hand, and cracked the walking stick against his face smartly. The guard went down, groaning, and didn’t move.
“I do not doubt your sister’s ability to counter any threat she is aware of,” Icy said, helping Loch drag the guard into a small sitting room nearby, “nor do I discount her essentially selfish nature. You are aware that paladin bands are being sold for their health benefits. What if becoming a paladin could restore her sight?”
Loch dropped the guard behind a large vase, checked his pulse to make sure he’d live, and stepped back. “I was planning to get a message to her, Icy,” she said, and headed into the room where the guard had been posted.
“I am glad to hear it,” Icy said, following Loch.
It was Westteich’s study. Unlike in the Dragon’s library, only half of the wall space was covered in books. The rest was home to stuffed animal heads and pictures of more old nobles, some of whom had a passing resemblance to Westteich.
“Ululenia?” Loch asked. The large table was bare of everything but rings from where glasses had been left on it.
“The magic of the wards remains present, though not as close,” Ululenia said, her horn flickering fitfully. “I fear that to stretch my senses would alert them.”
“Right. Eyes only, then. It’ll be hidden somewhere in here. There’ll be a hidden button or a lever or a crystal panel or something.” Loch started on one of the bookshelves, carefully moving through the books and checking for fingerprints in the dust or signs of recent use.
“Why would he need such a thing?” Ululenia asked.
“Because his family’s been guarding the secret of the ancients for centuries, and he’s an entitled asshole with nothing else going for him,” Loch said. “Believe me, there’ll be something that makes a noise and reminds him he’s a very important part of a secret society every time he uses it.” A small bronze bust slid unnaturally as she touched it, as though it were fastened down somehow. “Like so.” She pulled the bust, and it slid to one side.
In the corner of the room, a painting of Heaven’s Spire split in two, revealing a small space behind it. A large gold-bound book sat in the hidden space. Loch reached in and grabbed it.
A spark of energy spat out from the painting as she did, zapping her hand.
“Little One.” Ululenia’s eyes went wide.
“Damn it, I know.” Loch wrung out her hand. Little coils of energy crackled along the painting. “Lightning trap? Not much of a punch.”
“No.” Ululenia reached out slowly as the coils of energy sparked out from the painting, little twisty ribbons sliding their way down to the floor. “It is not lightning.”
Loch looked at the ribbons of light as they hit the ugly green carpet. The carpet smoked, and green began to bleed into the coils of energy, like paint dropped into water.
“Daemon trap?” Icy asked.
“Looks like.”
“You left your daemon-ward charm outside to—”
“Yes I did, Icy.”
“LLLLLLOKKKKKKK,” hissed the coils of energy as they pulled themselves into a vaguely humanoid shape.
Loch sighed as an alarm squealed out in the hall, readied her walking stick, and hoped to Gedesar that Tern and Desidora were having an easier time of it.
The Iceford River flowed down from the mountains of the Empire and cut across the eastern half of the Republic before it dumped, warmer and much dirtier than the name suggested, into the sea to the south. The port city of Rossle-Nesef straddled the Iceford like an old woman hiking her skirt up to leg over a velvet waiting-line rope. A vital trade center, the city had been fought over by dukes and earls until a collection of merchants had decided that oaths of fealty could stuff it and hired their own soldiers, at which point Rossle-Nesef became the first lordless port city in the Republic. In the early days, when a city owing fealty to no lord had been unheard of, the guilds of Rossle-Nesef had cracked down sternly on any possible scandal that could suggest the city was unable to govern itself and needed the guiding hand of a noble lord again, and that respectability clung to the locale like a fashionable but high-necked dress even today.
The Rossle-Nesef Lapitemperum was an old-fashioned white-stone building on the riverfront, its spell-washed columns and preening gods and goddesses greeting the morning with glittering politeness. Multicolored crystals glittered in the hands of the deities, a little hint of sparkle on an otherwise pristine building.
“The crystals are new,” Tern muttered as she walked toward the building, her lapitect robes swishing around her. “Bet it was a tight vote to get those guys slapped on.”
“It’s very white,” said Desidora. “And the carving of Tasheveth is fully clothed.”
“Yep. You remember the deal with the Lapitemperum, right? The verifier ward that puts a little purple glow thing over your head if you lie?”
Desidora smiled. “I’m aware, yes.”
“That originated here, not on Heaven’s Spire. Originally, they wanted it to catch rudeness too. Good morning!” Tern said to the guards at the front door with an apple-cheeked smile. “How’s the weather treating you?”
She waited. The guards blinked.
“It’s good,” said one of the guards, a young Urujar woman who seemed a little more awake than the man next to her.
“I’m so glad to hear it!” Tern said, and she was, because the guard responding meant that she was more likely to be willing to get into a conversation with Tern, and that would result in Tern getting inside and gaining access to the Lapisavantum Chamber, which was where she and Desidora could find out what the ancients were doing and, hopefully, how to kick them in the shins. “Listen, I don’t have an entry badge, but I work up at the Lapitemperum on Heaven’s Spire and I’ve got a badge for there. I was told if I came in, someone could make it work here?”
Technically, Tern was on extended leave from her work up at the Heaven’s Spire office, never having formally quit, and she did still have the old badge. She also had in fact been told that if she came in, someone could make it work . . . by Desidora, about five minutes ago.
The Urujar guard ran a finger through tightly braided hair and sighed. “All right, that’s not how it’s supposed to work, but if you’ll go to the check-in desk, they should be able to take care of you.”
The Paladin Caper Page 18