The Paladin Caper

by Patrick Weekes

  “You said you’d take the time to write a message in your own blood saying who did it,” Pyvic finished.

  “So for the record,” Derenky said, “it was a paladin with a sword.”

  Pyvic hung his head and laughed despite himself.

  He looked up when the door swung open. One of the black-coated paladins looked at him as though taking measurements.

  “My friend here is going to die unless he gets help,” Pyvic said.

  The paladin sucked air in through his teeth with a little whistling noise. “You think?”

  “Are you certain your master doesn’t want us both alive?” Pyvic asked. “Are you absolutely positive?”

  The paladin grinned crookedly. He had a bone structure that bespoke a wealthy upbringing, his skin pale enough that his fine blond hair looked red against his scalp. “You and your pal killed a few of mine before we took you down. You kill the meat while we’re in charge, it kills us as well. You really expect me to look for a healer or a curative charm for him now?” He looked genuinely interested in Pyvic’s answer. “By the way, you can call me Mister Lively. It’s not my real name, but the man in charge felt that occupational names would make it easier for us to move undetected in your world than some tongue twister in a language you can’t speak.”

  “Why go to the effort of chaining him in here, if you don’t want to save him?” Pyvic demanded, tugging on his shackles. “Why didn’t you just cut his throat when you took us down? He’s got to be worth something to you!”

  “I thought you might like company,” Mister Lively said, still grinning, “at least for a while.”

  Pyvic closed his eyes. “He was a paladin himself.”

  “I know.” Mister Lively nodded, looking over at Derenky. “Heard he broke the band. You know that also kills the one inside? Ah, they were mad that day.”

  “He paid for it himself,” Pyvic said. “Saved up everything he had to buy it.”

  “That’s the spirit we like.”

  “Then ride him again.” Pyvic looked over at Derenky, then back at Mister Lively, who cocked his head at Pyvic with the measuring look again. “Put another band on him. I bet you don’t even need a healer. The band should make him strong enough to be back on his feet soon enough.”

  “Sir.” Derenky’s face had gone gray, and his voice was a whisper. “No. I would . . . prefer to die.”

  “But you wouldn’t,” Mister Lively said to Pyvic. “You’d live in slavery rather than die free.”

  Pyvic smiled grimly at the ancient. “You can’t escape if you’re dead.”

  “And see? Now I know that about you, Captain Pyvic,” Mister Lively said happily. “And I know that you think of humanity as such pretty prizes that the chance to ride one of you is something I should really get excited about.”

  “If you don’t like it,” Derenky whispered, “feel free . . . to leave.”

  “You think we’re here because we can’t get enough of your skin and hair and secretions?” He walked over to Derenky and crouched down, putting himself eye to eye with the man. “Our world is old. Most of our people are getting sick because the crystals are cracked and the magic is sour. The ones who came through before were the desperate ones, willing to take a chance and forge a new destiny. It’s the same this time, although,” he added with a little laugh, “I like to think we’ve got a better plan this time.”

  “So you’re colonists,” Pyvic said. Something in Mister Lively’s body language was off. Pyvic didn’t know what it was, but he did know that he didn’t want the man that close to Derenky. “Or maybe scavengers.”

  “Pick your poison.” Mister Lively shrugged. “What matters is that the ones here are either desperate, like those luckless sons of bitches you killed back in the breakfast room, or specialists, like me.” He placed a hand on Derenky’s forehead, gently.

  “Get away from him!” Pyvic pulled uselessly on the shackles again.

  “You think we’re monsters,” Mister Lively said softly, “parasites. Are you a parasite when you ride a horse? Or when you swing a blade? You sacks of meat . . . You’re a product, you’re a service, compared to us. And we’re just people.”

  “Sir . . .” Derenky’s wheezing grew worse. “It would have been an honor . . . to take your job.”

  The floor around Mister Lively slid to pitch black, and the legs of the cot turned from wood into silver clawed feet. Derenky’s body shuddered and went still.

  “People,” Mister Lively said, “with priests, just like yours. All the priests.”

  He looked over at Pyvic and smiled as Derenky’s zombie sat up.

  When the flare of light faded, Loch and the others were standing in a grassy field near the warded fence that marked the perimeter of the festival grounds. The air, when Loch could breathe again, was natural instead of the stale filtered stuffiness of Heaven’s Spire, and looking up, she saw the floating city itself directly overhead.

  Pyvic was up there now.

  “Loch,” Tern said.

  “He can handle himself,” Loch said. She pulled her hand free from Kail, then clapped him on the shoulder. “He and Derenky got us down here. They paid to do it. We do them right down here and hope for the best.”

  “And hope,” Kail added, “that Diz and Dairy realize everything has gone south and try for a rescue.”

  “If they can.” Loch shrugged. “For now . . .” Ahead of them, the tents and wagons formed a great temporary city, and in the distance, she saw the rising hill where the amphitheater had been built. A little to the right was the cliff overlooking Sunrise Canyon, newly fenced for the protection of stupid people who walked near cliffs. “Tern gets the vault door to the processing center open. Icy gets her there, Ululenia buys her time.”

  Any who come for us will bleed, Little One, Ululenia said. She had shifted into her unicorn shape, albeit with claws and fangs.

  “Kail and I go for whoever has their finger on a button topside. We still don’t know what this great beam of energy is supposed to do.” Loch grimaced, tapping her walking stick on the ground. “Hopefully Tern disables it on her side, and we just encourage them to close the gate once the illusion of the Glimmering Folk has everyone scared. If not, we make sure they don’t activate it.”

  “You are confident in your ability to enter the competition area without the appropriate badges or illusions?” Icy asked.

  “It’s never stopped us before,” Loch said. “Stay safe.”

  She walked off toward the tents and wagons.

  “Lot of moving parts in this plan, Captain,” Kail said beside her.

  “Just makes it more rewarding when it all works out.” Loch smiled.

  “You sounded pretty sincere about Pyvic. If I hadn’t served with you, I would’ve absolutely believed you.”

  “I can’t fall to pieces right now, Kail.” Loch grimaced. “We’ve lost Hessler. We’ve probably lost Pyvic. This is a war.”

  “I thought it was a job, Captain.” Kail stopped and looked at her hard. “A job where you get what you need, get out, get home, get paid.”

  “You moving toward a point?”

  Kail nodded at a passing group of young people carrying cups of kahva and Republic flags, and then leaned in as they went by. “Last time things got grim, you hung yourself out to save the rest of us. I’d rather not have to deal with that garbage again.”

  Loch nodded, lips pursed. “All right. I promise, I’ve got no interest in getting myself killed. I’ve got way too many asses to kick first.”

  “And you’ve got a rich-ass family estate to go back to, and Pyvic isn’t dead yet.” Kail’s eyes hadn’t left hers.

  “Also true,” Loch said, and Kail nodded, satisfied for now, and they started walking again.

  They reached the edges of the tents. The first ones they found, at the very edge of the makeshift city, were dilapidated but had once been very brightly colored.

  “Love tents?” Kail asked.

  “Looks like.”

  “I hea
rd the competitors had a uniform,” Kail said. “Kind of a robe-shirt thing in the blue and red of the Republic, so . . .”

  Loch gestured at the tent. Kail rolled his eyes and ducked inside. He came out a moment later holding a pair of gaudy tops that were either short robes or long shirts.

  “The puppets called them a shobe,” Kail said, tossing Loch one of them.

  “I’m not calling it a shobe.”

  “It’s shirt-meets-robe.”

  “I know what it means. I’m not calling it that.” Loch pulled it over her head, realized she had it on backward, and pulled it around to the front with an annoyed yank. It was silky and bright and at least breathed decently, for as stupid as it looked.

  Kail tucked his up around the waist. “All right. Uniforms, check.”

  They moved on into the makeshift city, past food wagons where morning risers stood in line for meat in a bun or expensive salads kept fresh and cool with magic. Merchants outside tents hawked pins and pennants, sheath-caps and jewelry, all emblazoned with a blue circle lined in red, with a bright-red flame in the middle.

  A small crowd had gathered around a puppet show, eating breakfast as they listened. Most wore normal clothing, but there were a few festival tops—which Loch refused to even think of as shobes—visible as well.

  “You know,” the manticore was saying with a laugh, “I used to get lost all the time, but with the map enchantment they just released for the paladins, I actually made it all the way to Ros-Oanki just fine!”

  “I don’t know,” said the griffon, batting at the manticore playfully, “I was so busy looking at the band that I nearly walked off a bridge that was closed for repairs.”

  “Well, I guess they haven’t built common sense into them yet,” the manticore jibed, and the two of them wrestled while the dragon looked on with a flaming smile.

  Loch and Kail moved on. As they got closer to the competition area itself, Loch saw more people wearing the same uniforms they had on. Most of them were young people, fit and healthy, probably competing in something athletic, but a few were older or heavier, either there to assist the athletes or competing in one of the academic events. Almost all were white, especially those who already wore the bands.

  They were almost to the competition gate when Kail paused, and Loch followed his gaze to see a pair of Urujar wearing the uniforms. It was a man and a woman, the man an enormous barrel-chested brute a head taller than Loch, the woman a tiny thing, nineteen at the outside, with the wire-thin build of a runner.

  Kail and Loch walked over. Kail bumped into them. “Hey, sorry.”

  “Good luck,” Loch added. Both the Urujar competitors gave them grateful looks and walked on.

  “Well, now I feel like an asshole,” Kail said, and passed Loch the woman’s badge.

  “If they’d won, they’d’ve gotten paladin bands,” Loch said, clipping the badge onto her front pocket like she’d seen the other competitors do.

  Kail did the same. “Oh, come on, like they’re going to let those two win anything?” He started for the gate, and Loch followed. “You know something will slip, someone will get disqualified, and the rich white kid from the important family walks away with the prize.”

  “And ends up a helpless thrall of the ancients,” Loch added.

  “Yeah, but it’s the spirit of the thing.”

  They reached the gate. The two guards on duty were white men. They looked at Kail, and then at the badge with the picture of the enormous barrel-chested man, and then at Loch, and then at the badge with the picture of the narrow-faced girl.

  “Question for you,” said the guard, and Loch smiled and nodded while hiding the fist she was making in the sleeve of her uniform. “Do you call that a shirt or a robe?”

  “I think it’s called a shobe,” Loch said, and the guards nodded thoughtfully and waved them in.

  She and Kail walked in silence until they were out of earshot.

  “Gods deliver us from stupid-ass white people,” Kail said with a little smile.

  “I hate you.”

  “You know, I didn’t name it, Captain.”

  “And this,” Tern said, waving around the makeshift tent city, “is our recreation area, where those people who came to view the event but don’t necessarily have access to the amphitheater itself can nonetheless enjoy the festival in spirit and watch glamoured projections of the events at one of several puppet shows!”

  Icy Fist nodded politely. Ululenia rode on his shoulder as a small white bird.

  Tern’s heart was still an aching wound, but there would be time for tears and lying in bed all day and drinking way too much when this was over. Right now was the only time she might ever have to absolutely destroy the people who had killed Hessler.

  In the stories Tern had read growing up, the princesses were motivated by an urge to find a boyfriend or a general heroism or, in some of the more progressive books Tern’s mother had gotten when her young daughter started asking inconvenient questions about why all the guild leaders were boys, an urge to prove that she was just as strong or brave as any man.

  Tern had sort of gotten the last one. She didn’t recall any stories where the princess was motivated by absolute bloody-minded vengeance. Perhaps when this was over, she would write one.

  “And over here,” she added, pointing to a vendor, “we have a dish that is traditional to the northern Republic, known colloquially as meat on a stick!”

  Icy nodded politely again. His hands were clasped together inside his golden robes.

  Tern had played “assistant to the Imperial ambassador” a few times before to get them into places. It might not be absolutely necessary right now, but it was at least comfortable. It meant she wasn’t crying or screaming or thinking about killing people.

  “Tern,” Icy said quietly, and nodded off ahead to a small but well-appointed pavilion tent of pale lavender. A pair of Imperial flags hung on either side of the door, along with Republic guards.

  “Princess Veiled Lightning?” Tern’s heart lurched with a sudden bit of almost childlike happiness, followed by an immediate crushing guilt. “You think we should talk to her? She might recognize me, since we talked a couple of times—”

  “She may recognize me,” Icy said, “given that I trained her for several years.”

  “You trained her? How did I not know that you trained her? Wouldn’t she have recognized you when we . . .” Tern blinked, thinking it through. “You and she were never actually in the same room the whole time she was chasing us, were you?”

  “That is correct.” Icy walked to the tent quickly enough that Ululenia flapped her wings on his shoulder, and then said something to the guards outside with a polite bow. By the time Tern had arrived, one of them was going inside.

  “Which name did you use?” Tern asked.

  Icy sighed. “Which do you think, Tern?”

  “So were you ever going to tell me?”

  “I like this life, Tern. On good days, I never even think of the deaths for which I am responsible.”

  “You know I’ve killed people,” Tern said. “The Knights of Gedesar, when they were coming at us? I put bolts right through—”

  “It is not,” Icy said, quietly but clearly, “a competition. I am not angry at you for defending yourself. I have simply sworn that I myself have killed enough for one lifetime.”

  “I thought you were older than me,” Tern said, frowning.

  “I am.” Icy looked over in momentary confusion.

  “Because you sound like I did as a teenager saying, ‘Fine, then never!’ and slamming the door to my room.” Tern shrugged at Icy’s stoic look. “I’m just saying, you make a big vow like that, someday it comes back to bite you—”

  Energy crackled as Princess Veiled Lightning leaped from the tent fist-first and speared her hand into Icy’s chest.

  The black-coated paladin paced the hallway outside the cell where Pyvic and Derenky were being held. It was not a formal measurement of distance but a mark of bor
edom, idly stretching the legs and passing time.

  As such, he’d gotten a ways down when he turned and saw Desidora at the far end of the hallway.

  Her skin went to alabaster and her hair went jet-black as she raised a hand and hissed, “Die.”

  The paladin grinned as her death magic washed over him harmlessly, then raised his arm. “You first.” Red energy snapped out.

  It splashed across Desidora with no more effect than her death magic had on him, and the priestess sneered. “Pitiful.” She raised both hands now, curled them into claws. “I will find the weakness in your wards and wrench the soul from its little crystal case.” The floor around her slid to black lined with flecks of silver, and the lamp on the wall fluttered and hissed to blue-green, the casing on it suddenly shaped like an angry gargoyle.

  The paladin charged her. Desidora’s fingers clenched, then flared wide, and then curled as though she were trying to untangle the threads of an invisible knot. The air around her crackled, and she bared her teeth in hatred as the paladin closed.

  But his wards held against her magic.

  Grinning, the paladin took a few more steps, leaped, and caught the forearm Dairy extended from around the corner right across the throat.

  Desidora, and the area around her, slid from death priestess back to normal as the paladin slid to the ground, gurgling and holding his neck. Dairy stepped out from behind the corner and put the paladin down for good with a solid punch.

  “They aren’t very smart, are they, Sister Desidora?”

  “Powerful people don’t really need to be smart.” Desidora smiled at Dairy sweetly. “It is nice when you try, however.”

  They walked to the door, which had both a crystal plate and a key lock. Desidora frowned at it. “I cannot pick locks. Dairy?”

  “I will see what I can do,” Dairy said politely, and tore the door off its hinges.

  Pyvic was inside, shackled and gagged, but otherwise unharmed as far as Desidora could see. Derenky lay unconscious on a small cot against the wall. Pyvic looked up as they came inside, his eyes frantic, and began shaking his head. He pointed at Derenky as Desidora came forward.