The elf had a great nasty wound in his chest. It would have killed a human, but the ancients had moved the elven heart over to make room for crystals that had replaced some of the less important glands.
“Another failure,” Mister Skinner said, looking down. “You little folks were always better doing the precision work than the manual labor.”
“I can . . . help you,” the elf said, coughing the words out.
“Now, now.” Mister Skinner smiled a friendly smile. “You gave us the Dragon, and you told us where Loch would be. You’ve served your masters well.”
“I can . . . make rings.” The elf coughed again. “Easier than bands. Cheaper. Can make more . . .”
Mister Skinner chuckled. “Now why, little elf, would we want to do that?” He knelt down beside the elf and held his hand. “You make rings, then the price of the paladin bands goes down, and all of a sudden it’s not just the best and the brightest wearing them. You think we want anyone getting one of us? You think we want to ride merchants and bakers and peasants?” He patted the elf’s shoulder. “No, little fellow, we’re fine as we are. And you can just rest easy now.”
Mister Skinner slit the elf’s throat gently. He had always been squeamish about watching animals suffer.
The day of the Republic Festival of Excellence dawned warm and clear, with fluffy white clouds joining the airships in the sky over Sunrise Canyon.
Princess Veiled Lightning watched the canyon as her airship approached. Even in the morning light, it gleamed with its own red radiance. From a distance, the valley looked like nothing so much as a wound upon the land. Near the northern cliff, the new festival ground had been built, a veritable city unto itself with tents and wagons instead of buildings clustered inside the great security fence that crackled, even at this distance, with arcs of pale-blue lightning.
Past the tents and wagons, a great amphitheater had been carved out of the ground. It was a perfect circle, insanely massive in scale, with 128 rows of seats from which the richest and most powerful people in the Republic would watch the contests of skill and strength on the fields in the middle. Veiled Lightning saw a running track, an archery range, and the pale white-chalked outline of a handball square. Near the middle of the field, a large podium stood for the winners to receive the paladin bands they had earned for their skill, and behind it, dead in the middle of the field, a steady red fire fountained from an enormous brazier set into the ground.
She had missed the opening ceremony last night, a calculated move to avoid making the event more political than it already was. A private glamour-screen on her airship had relayed what puppet shows across the Republic had displayed, however—a massive pageant of well-choreographed athleticism and flash. The paladins had leaped and danced with incredible skill, unmatched in so many who were so young. Veiled Lightning had never seen its like.
She was a little unsure why most of the female paladins had been bouncing in such skimpy outfits, but perhaps it was a Republic thing.
Veiled Lightning was a classic Imperial beauty, her face pale but touched with gold where light caught the delicate angles of her brow and cheekbones. Her hair was intricately bound, with two long braids running down either side of her throat and past her bosom. She wore a gown of shimmering red silk, and the Nine-Ringed Dragon, legendary blade of the Imperial family, rode at her waist.
She rested one hand upon the Nine-Ringed Dragon as she frowned at the amphitheater. “I hear they constructed this in only a few weeks.”
General Jade Blossom snorted beside her. She was an older woman whose armor, though enameled black and inlaid with precious stones in the shape of a twining dragon, clanked when she moved with the sound of grim functionality. “Brute work, carving all that out of the stone. Explains why it’s as ugly as it is, then.” She raked fingers through short hair streaked with white. “Any news from your contacts, Highness?”
Veiled Lightning sighed. “No, General. The Dragon requested the young man Rybindaris be given asylum but followed only with silence. From our other friends, I have heard nothing at all.”
Blossom glared at the approaching amphitheater as though she could wring answers from it through sheer force of will. “This feels like a trap.”
“It does. But if accepting the offer brings a chance for more lasting peace with the Republic, what choice do I have?” The last time Veiled Lightning had been in the Republic, she had been chasing Isafesira de Lochenville in an attempt to bring the woman to justice and avert a war. Instead, her efforts had brought that war even closer, and a blast from Heaven’s Spire had nearly destroyed a good portion of both nations.
The floating city hung low in the sky now, directly over Sunrise Canyon, the mirrors along its edges catching the morning light to direct it fully onto the glowing violet stones that held the city aloft.
“I will follow your lead, of course, Highness,” Blossom said with the grim disapproval that only a veteran could deliver.
Veiled Lightning wished, not for the first time, that Gentle Thunder were alive to offer her counsel. She had seen his mutilated body turned into a puppet for a weapon of the ancients, and then cut that body down to bring her mentor and guardian his final peace. She wondered what he would say.
“Isafesira—Loch—will be here when the trap springs, whatever it may be.” Veiled Lightning smiled. “When the time comes, hit whatever she hits.”
“Sounds simple enough.” Blossom grinned. “How long until we land?”
Veiled Lightning checked the paladin band that rode on her forearm, checking the built-in map and timer. “It should not be long now.”
“I don’t even know why they have us patrolling this place any longer,” said Matclar to the other guard beside him as they walked the outer grounds of the archvoyant’s palace.
“It’s where the most important man in the Republic eats breakfast,” said Ruck. “You want to explain why you stopped putting guards outside his bedroom?” They crossed the outside edge of the hedge maze, the gently curving path carrying them past a lovely fountain of Tasheveth. “Plus Archvoyant Cevirt is Urujar. You can’t take guards away. It’s going to look like a race thing.”
“The walls have aural shielding and the strongest security wards the Republic has ever seen,” Matclar said.
“You hear about how that Loch woman broke into the palace six months ago?” Ruck asked. The exact details of this were both classified and hazy, but Ruck had been around for a while, and guards didn’t stay around for a while without hearing things.
“Heard she turned into a fish and swam in through the sewer pipes,” Matclar said. “That’s why we spent two weeks putting shapeshifter wards on all the grates.”
“No, that was a fairy creature,” Ruck said.
“Was she the one who shot an arrow with a rope tied to it over the wall and slid down that way?” Matclar asked. “Because we spent another two weeks lining the walls with crystal amplifiers to increase the height of the wards, and barrier-wards to deflect arrows and whatnot that get fired in.”
“No,” Ruck said again, “I think that was some tinker with one of those trick bows.”
They crossed into the wooded garden behind the main ballroom.
“Well, how did this Loch woman get in, then?” Matclar asked with some asperity.
“Front gate,” Ruck said. “Tried to fake her way in during a party, got herself arrested, and then broke out of the cell.”
“So she’s why we spent two weeks installing double-lock doors with crystal-aura locks in the cell areas,” Matclar muttered.
“That’s not the point.” Ruck stopped and looked out at the garden, which was still shadowed by the flowering trees in the gentle morning light. He thought he’d seen movement at the edge, near one of the trees. It was probably just a swaying branch, but the garden was shady and cool and nice to walk in, regardless.
“Well, what is your point, then?” Matclar asked, following as Ruck strolled out toward the trees.
“You ca
n’t just install more wards and assume the criminals will give up.” Ruck looked through the trees and decided it had probably been nothing. “Criminals want to get in as much as we want to keep them out, and they’ll always try something new. You know what I mean?” He looked behind one last tree, then turned.
Matclar was on the ground, in front of the top half of an Urujar man hovering in midair. “Hey, he’s going to wake up, I promise,” said the Urujar man, and Ruck had time to realize that the man’s lower half was behind some sort of invisible wall—no, not a wall, the side of a ship, just barely visible as the light hit it—as he went for the blade at his waist.
“Arching ardor?” Ruck said for some reason, instead of the shouted cry of alarm he had intended, and as everything went wavy and dark, the last thing he saw was the Urujar man giving him an apologetic smile.
Pyvic found the door, eased it open, and stepped into the enormous room lit by flickering runes on the floor and glowing crystals in the ceiling.
“I cannot believe they simply let you in,” Derenky said quietly behind him.
“I meet Cevirt twice a week. I’m not that big a security risk.” Pyvic scanned the room. The great chasm that yawned across half the floor was still dark, despite there being daylight below them. Not far from it, a waist-high ring of crystal was decked with panes that flickered and hummed luminously.
“This is where you fought the people trying to destroy the Republic?” Derenky asked, following as Pyvic went to the control console.
“This is the place. Archvoyant Bertram was locked into this console. Spines of crystal growing right into his fingers.” Pyvic started working.
“You mean around them, sir?” Derenky asked.
“Into them. Couldn’t tell if it was under the fingernail or right up through the pad.”
“And you’re comfortable using that console, then?”
Pyvic stopped and gave Derenky a look. “Unless you’d like to take over for me.”
“Ah no.” Derenky stepped back, his fingers curling in discomfort. “And you’re certain you know how to redirect the transport rune as your . . . companion requested?”
“Not even a little. But Tern and Desidora can, and they gave very specific instructions.” Pyvic finished pressing crystals, and the console lit up. “Should be ready now.”
The console began chiming.
“Supposed to do that, is it, sir?” Derenky asked with a little smile.
“I strongly suspect not,” Pyvic said, sighing and drawing his blade.
Derenky drew his as well. “Can you at least determine whether it is alerting guards to come to our location or to the location where Captain Loch and her friends will be transporting to the arena?”
“Let’s find out.” Pyvic went to the door, opened it, saw a man in a black coat and a red paladin band reaching for the handle, and stabbed him through the throat. “Good news. It’s us.”
Derenky caught the guard as he fell and eased him to the ground. “We’re sorry,” he said quietly to the man, who blinked in confusion as the life left his body. Derenky shut the man’s eyes. “If we run, the guards may pursue us, but any competent security expert will check to see where the transport rune is set to activate now.” He looked up at Pyvic. “They’ll catch Loch.”
Pyvic had been thinking the same thing. “You draw them away. I’ll get to Loch and buy her time.”
Derenky smiled crookedly. “As soon as the alarm went off, sir, any chance of me escaping through the front gate vanished. At most, I’d be delaying my capture while hurting Loch’s chances of reaching the ground and stopping these creatures.” He stood. “Now if you’d like to stop trying to hog the glory and lead the way, sir?”
Pyvic clapped him on the shoulder. “We get out of this alive, I’m retiring, and this job is yours.”
“Please, sir. I believe I already had enough to get you fired.”
They hit the hallway fast and quiet, blades ready.
“Pyvic will be in the control room,” Loch said to Desidora and Dairy. “If the gate to the Shadowlands isn’t in there, you should at least be able to use the readings to figure out where it might be.”
Desidora nodded. “We’ll find it.”
“Are you sure you want me up here, Captain Loch?” Dairy asked. “If most of the fighting is going to be down there—”
“That’s the plan, Dairy.” Loch smiled. “But you remember my plans, right?” As Dairy smiled and shook his head, Loch glanced at Desidora and added, “Besides, she no longer has Ghylspwr. And while she can take care of herself magically, I’d feel better if she still had a hammer.”
Dairy raised a clenched fist to his heart. “I’ll keep her safe, ma’am.”
Desidora and Dairy headed off down the hallway, and Loch and the others headed into the ballroom. Loch had fought a group of soul-shackled minions in that space once. For that matter, she’d punched out her sister in the garden where they’d landed the ship.
“Place is weird when it’s empty,” Kail muttered beside her.
“Better empty than full.” Loch didn’t look over.
As they left the main ballroom and stepped into a side hallway, a servant carrying an armful of sheets stepped out. She saw them, opened her mouth, said, “Arching ardor,” and fell over.
“Laying it on a bit thick there, are you?” Kail asked.
“She still has her throat,” Ululenia said with a grin that had a lot of teeth in it.
“All right, fair point.”
“Breakfast room isn’t far ahead,” Loch said, and pointed down the hallway. “We can activate the transport runes there.”
The door to the breakfast room burst open, and a trio of black-coated paladins burst out, arms raised.
“Blown!” Loch charged, her walking stick up, and behind her, the others did the same. It was too far, and she knew it, but fleeing wouldn’t get her to the transport runes.
She dove to the ground as a blast of crimson energy cracked past her, then scrambled back to her feet as Ululenia, in the form of a shining white eagle, screeched past her and ripped into one of the paladins, tearing at his face with cruelly barbed claws.
The last paladin aimed at Loch carefully as she got back to her feet, and she dove again, seeing even as she did that he was tracking her movement. Crimson energy cracked out.
Icy leaped across Loch, catching her even before she hit the ground and pulling her away from the blast, and then twisted, taking a glancing blow that still put him down on the ground hard.
A moment later, the paladin who had fired grunted in surprise, a crossbow bolt jutting from his chest. He stumbled and fell, holding on to the shaft, and Loch glanced back to see Tern, pale and grim, standing over Icy’s body.
Ululenia still had one of the paladins, and she was a bear now, ripping viciously at him as he screamed. The other aimed again at Loch, still too far away for her to reach him.
Then Pyvic stepped through the doorway, and his blade took the paladin cleanly across the throat. “Probably want to hurry!” he called.
“I guessed.” Loch turned, saw Kail getting Icy back to his feet, heard the sounds of combat coming from up ahead, and started running again as Pyvic turned and parried a blow from inside the room.
A booted foot caught him in the chest, and he slammed back into the far wall, grunting. Another paladin stepped out, sneering, and Loch slid her blade from the walking stick and across his throat in one smooth motion.
Inside, a justicar Loch vaguely remembered from her brief tenure as one herself stood with one hand pressed to his side, panting over the fallen form of another paladin. Derenky looked up as Loch came in. “Took you long enough.”
Kail came in behind Loch with an arm slung over Icy’s shoulder, half holding him upright. “More behind us!” Tern was supporting Icy on the other side.
Ululenia flapped past them, a small white dove, and landed on the breakfast table, where she shimmered into a human shape, albeit with blood on her face and hands. “Fight
or flee?”
“Flee.” Loch stepped to the breakfast table. “Pyvic!” She pressed the little crystal inlay at the seat of the archvoyant in the configuration Tern had told her. “Derenky, come on!”
Pyvic stepped to the doorway. “How long does it take?” he called over his shoulder, still looking out into the hall.
“About a minute.” Tern stepped past Loch and pressed the crystals. “Good. Everyone touch the table.”
“That includes you,” Loch called to Derenky and Pyvic.
“We’ll try,” Pyvic said. “Count us in.”
Loch looked at Tern as the others stepped to the table and laid their hands on it.
“I don’t know,” Tern said. “I’m trying.”
Through the doorway, Loch saw blasts of energy rip down the hallway. Pyvic and Derenky ducked back, and then slashed out at enemies outside.
“Tern, give me a time.” One hand on the table, Loch took a half step toward the door. “Give me a time, and I can help them and then pull back to—”
“I don’t know,” Tern snapped, still looking at the table.
Pyvic and Derenky slashed and stabbed. Loch heard metal tear through leather and grunts of pain.
She saw a blade punch through Derenky’s gut and out his back, and as Pyvic fell back from a blow, her hand came off the table.
“Now!” Tern yelled, and Kail’s hand clamped down over Loch’s wrist.
Loch saw Pyvic look to her, face taut with pain, before a blast of crimson slammed him to the ground, and then dazzling energy flared all around them, and they were gone.
Eighteen
PYVIC STOOD SHACKLED in a cell of the archvoyant’s palace while Derenky lay slowly dying on a small cot against one wall, chained only by one ankle.
“Derenky. I need you to stay awake over there.” Pyvic tested his strength against the shackles for the hundredth time. They were bolted to the wall and showed no sign of breaking.
“We’ve both seen gut wounds, sir.” Derenky wheezed for a moment, then caught his breath. “Remember the enchanted sword case, all the victims impaled? I said if it were me . . .” He paused again, trying to catch his breath.
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