None of that was good, and, more importantly, none of it changed the fact that Kail’s actual job was to disable the part of the font that directed the flow of energy up to Heaven’s Spire, and that job had not accounted for there being five people wearing paladin bands that Kail had to get through to do that.
The room had no overhead lamps. All the light came from the dozen giant crystal panes the five paladins were looking at. Six of the panes showed views of the stadium, where a dragon and a daemon, presumably Jyelle, were chasing Loch and generally wreaking havoc. Other panes displayed what the puppet show looked like to everyone in the Republic, along with a bunch of charts and graphs with colored bars on them that Kail recognized from his airship-piloting experience as a general “Hey, how are things going, is anything going to explode?” readout.
“I can’t very well sell Loch as the mastermind if the dragon keeps attacking her, Mister Skinner,” said Slant.
“The beast doesn’t like taking direction,” Skinner said, sounding annoyed. “You want me to kill her, you want me not to kill her, make up your mind.”
“I want struggle,” said Slant. “Have it burn down part of the stadium, could you? Scrying pod four, replay from two minutes ago? Griffon, history of the festival and apologize for the Urujar, go.”
“Fine,” Skinner muttered. “Starting to leave the stadium, though. Can’t direct what I can’t see.”
In front of the crystal panes, Kail saw control consoles that, as far as he could tell, nobody was using. The puppeteers were working their puppets, and Slant was working his paladin band, tapping at buttons and looking from pane to pane.
“Yes, yes, there, see, we’ve got a little smirk from Loch when she talks to the daemon. We zoom in on that, and cut from pod two, dragon burning down the seats, to the replay on pod four, her smirking, on my mark. Oh, look at you, little warrior woman, just a little too much confidence in your face. Nothing the crowds hate more than a woman who doesn’t keep her head down.”
“For those of you just joining, the Republic Festival of Excellence has been interrupted by a vicious attack,” the griffon said somberly. “Originally intended as a celebration of the capability for anyone in the Republic to achieve greatness with hard work and perseverance, it has instead become a sad example of the violence embraced by those who believe the rules don’t apply to them.”
“Aaaaaaaaand mark. Manticore, ready on counterpoint.”
Kail watched as the dragon destroyed a section of seats with too many damn people in it, and then the glamour-screens cut abruptly to Loch smirking.
“It’s important to remind all viewers that there are countless Urujar in the Republic who wish only to live in peace and work like any other citizen,” the griffon went on, “and an attack by one unbalanced individual cannot, and must not, be taken as a true representation of the rich culture that our Urujar friends bring us.”
“Well, I don’t know.” The manticore swished its scorpion’s tail, getting ready to attack. “You look at the crime statistics, and criminals are disproportionally Urujar.”
One of the panes abruptly flared white, and then went black. Slant swore. “Damn it, we lost five, play back on one.” A different pane began to run backward, which made Kail’s head hurt a little bit, but Slant was nodding. “Ah, wizard. Casts a spell at the dragon, catches scrying pod five . . . here.” In the pane where Slant pointed, Kail saw a man in robes fling out his hand, and little sparkling motes flared out in a cone. They caught a small crystal mote in the sky, and the mote exploded with a brilliant flare of energy that knocked everyone up in the stands backward. “Pull the pods back from the dragon in case anyone else gets ideas. I’m down to five, and I said I needed a full dozen, since the slightest bit of magic makes the damned things turn into a giant light show, but no, this place has half its damned crystals devoted to channeling the font at the key moment, so I only get—”
“Fine,” said Skinner. “Going up. Hard to see the beast now.”
“And kill that wizard, would you?” Slant added. “I’ve got a Heroes in Tragedy segment planned later, but I need guards for that, not wizards. Nobody likes wizards.”
Kail slid into the shadows as Skinner came toward him. There was a section of wall that bubbled out, probably to make room for the giant gout of fire on the other side, and he pressed himself to it.
Skinner didn’t even look as he stomped up the ladder, muttering to himself.
Four, then.
Kail looked at the panes that had the readouts instead of the pictures. Some of them were tied to a little map, and one pane in particular was lit up with a little fire icon. That looked promising.
“I don’t think this is the time to be talking about Urujar committing crimes,” the griffon said, raising its claws and ready to fight. “This is a lone individual, and if it were a white man, we certainly wouldn’t—”
“But most white people don’t commit crimes,” the manticore insisted, leaping at the griffon. The two of them thrashed and rolled, wings flailing wildly. “It begs the question of what’s wrong with Urujar culture that is creating so many criminals!”
The pane with the fire icon was off to one side, actually close to the ladder. Slant and the puppeteers weren’t even looking at it.
“More fire, more fire, keep the idiotic yelling going there for a minute, and I’ll have a splash for you,” Slant said absently.
Slowly and quietly, Kail crept toward the pane with the fire icon.
“The Urujar culture was devastated by slavery,” the griffon cried, throwing the manticore free, “and when you factor in socioeconomic status, they are no more likely to break the law than any other group!”
Kail reached the pane, and very quietly started pressing buttons. The console below hummed, and a crystal popped out of a slot with a little chirp. Kail pressed some more buttons, then moved to pull the crystal free.
“Wait!” Slant cried, and Kail froze, then looked over.
The blond man was looking at one of the panes. “There, there, we’ve got an Urujar and a white man pulling an injured person to safety. Get in on that, get me their faces, can we get names? I need names.”
Kail pulled the crystal free, and very quickly pressed the button that overrode the warning signal that would tell everyone that the font wasn’t going to correctly shoot a giant beam of energy at Heaven’s Spire anymore.
“Slavery was a long time ago!” the manticore growled. “Nobody still alive ever owned slaves or was a slave, and it’s long past time that we stopped using it as a go-to explanation every time an Urujar citizen does something wrong.”
“But you cannot let the people who refuse to recover poison the rich traditions that others can bring!” the griffon said, pouncing again. “I mean, look at this, look here! We’ve got an Urujar athlete and a white athlete working together, risking their own lives to pull someone away from the fire.”
“Names and intel on your bands,” Slant said, “spin family as the compromise.”
Slowly and easily, Kail stepped back from the pane toward the ladder and freedom.
“That’s Tierra Merchel from Ros-Oanki,” said the manticore, shoving the griffon away, “a fantastic gymnast whose parents reportedly moved to Ros-Oanki and worked tirelessly to give their daughter the chance to realize her dreams.”
Kail crept back into the safety of the shadows, breathing a tiny sigh of relief.
“I think it has to come down to family,” the griffon said, no longer attacking. “Urujar or white, the children who grow up to be successful are the children whose parents take the time to raise them properly.”
“I completely agree,” the manticore said, “and you know, it’s great to see Tierra here, doing her people proud, and you have to think, how much different would her life have been had she been raised by someone less caring, someone like that Tressa duQuaille from a few weeks ago, the tax-dodging lady?”
Kail stopped.
“Oh yes, I mean, a woman like that is setting
a bad example for Urujar everywhere,” the griffon said, “just like the woman attacking the stadium here today.”
Kail turned.
“If the Urujar want to stop people from treating them badly,” the manticore said, “we need a lot more Tierra Merchels and a lot fewer Tressa duQuailles, if you know what I mean.”
“Nobody . . .” Kail said as he raised his hand, boot knife ready.
Slant and the puppeteers turned.
The knife in Kail’s hand flew end over end and smashed into the main crystal pane, shattering it with a flare of crackling light and a burst of smoke.
“. . . talks trash about my mom.”
He saw four paladins staring at him, openmouthed, and decided that it was probably a good time to run.
As zombies went, those of the smith priests of Pesyr were particularly hardy.
As Dairy charged into them, fists flying, Desidora tried to force her eyes to see through the painful abundance of magic here in the temple. That had been part of the trap, she realized, using her sensitivity to auras against her.
It was like trying to read a letter written in fine print while someone shoved a blazing torch in her face, and she squinted, her head pounding, and grasped at the weakness she had found before, in the zombie Mister Lively had made from poor Derenky.
These were different. Their wards were stronger, reinforced and overlapping one another like the scales of a fish, so that no one area showed a gap Desidora’s magic could exploit.
“Desidora?” Pyvic shouted. He had grabbed a huge sword from the wall and stood by Desidora’s side, keeping the zombies away with great sweeps of the massive blade. “What’s wrong?”
She stared at the zombies. “Nothing is wrong.”
She let the death aura take her, deeper than she had gone in recent memory, deeper than any time since that terrible day when she had nearly killed Kail. There were times when the only way to fight power was with more power.
When she opened her eyes, the auras were still there, still bright, but the light no longer hurt her eyes. The wrought-iron walls had all rusted and sprouted spikes, as had the banding on the pews, which were now carved bone instead of wood. Every decorative piece on the wall was jet black and inlaid with runes of cold silver.
Her skin was the dead-white moon against the starless night sky of her hair and dress.
“Hear me, fallen of Pesyr,” she said, and her words were the wind between the stars. “I am the chosen of Byn-kodar. I am the keeper of death.”
“So is he,” said the master smith sadly as he kept coming.
“Then it is time that he learned not to bring zombies,” said Desidora as she curled her fingers into claws and raked them up into the air. Every zombie in the temple shuddered as her power ripped into the scaling wards around them, bending the wards out of place—“to a fight”—she speared her fingers forward and her magic stabbed out, through the little gaps her raking strike had left in their wards, and every zombie went still—“with a death priestess.”
She flicked her fingers as though clearing a bit of unwanted dirt from her nails, and the zombies fell, broken and dead.
“Pitiful,” she hissed, and then caught herself, because that wasn’t who she wanted to be, and let the death fade away from her, let the color and the feelings come back, at least mostly. She left just enough of the death aura around her to be ready if another attack came.
“Sister Desidora?” Dairy asked.
“I’m all right.” She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply through her nose, and when she opened her eyes again, it was true. “Thank you. This Mister Lively is very good at shielding his auras.” With the aura of death mostly gone, she looked at the temple. It was strewn with bodies, young and old, senior smiths and junior acolytes, all of them dead and gone now. “Such a waste.”
“This is why people are afraid of death priests,” Pyvic said softly.
“Why would he do this?” Dairy asked. “He was a priest, just like them, wasn’t he?”
“He is an ancient,” Pyvic said. “We’re not people to them. We’re animals, something you ride or eat or wear as you need without a second thought.”
Dairy frowned. “Animals don’t worship the gods, though.”
Desidora raised an eyebrow. “How do you know?”
“Be careful of your answer,” Pyvic added with a grin. “You might find yourself having a harder time eating meat afterward.”
Dairy didn’t smile back. “I guess we should look for the gate,” he said, and began to walk along one of the walls, squinting up at the items hung there.
“Any ideas?” Pyvic asked.
Desidora squinted through the glare of the magic again. “It’s bright. Very bright. These wards are new.” She looked at Pyvic. “Lively put these up himself.”
“Why?” Pyvic asked, frowning. “To stop us, you think?”
“It’s because the gate to their world is open,” Dairy said, not looking back. “First, this gate opening is what scared them into leaving last time, so they want to make certain that it doesn’t happen again. And second, each gate is like a dent in a suit of armor, only the armor is the walls of the world. The first dent makes the armor weaker against the next one.”
Desidora raised an eyebrow. “That’s very insightful, Dairy.”
He looked back this time, smiling shyly. “I studied some of what magic does in the Knights of Gedesar, and Mister Dragon let me read some of his books. I . . . wanted to know what I am.”
“I think the younger version of yourself would say that you are you,” Desidora said, smiling back, “and that is all that matters.”
He laughed. “You’re probably right.” He reached the edge of the wall and turned to the anvil-shaped altar. “The altar is very clean.”
“Most priests don’t let their altars get dirty.” Desidora tried to feel through the auras, looking for anything that seemed out of place. The problem was that everything was out of place.
“No,” Dairy said, “I mean that . . . I used to watch the smiths at the farm where I grew up. A real anvil has lots of little scuff marks on it from the hammer and whatever is being forged on it.”
“Yes.” Desidora nodded. “They don’t actually use it as an anvil, though. It’s ornamental.”
Then she got it.
“And the Temple of Pesyr,” Pyvic said, nodding in approval, “holds nothing that is purely ornamental.” He strode up through the pews to the altar, where Dairy was already looking at it. “You’ve found our gate. Loch would be proud.”
Desidora blinked through the magic, then let a little more of the death aura wash back over her to fight through the glare as she headed toward the altar as well. It had no particular aura around it, but in a room filled with overwhelming magic, that in itself was peculiar.
Dairy’s brow furrowed in a thoughtful frown. “Captain Pyvic, that reminds me of something I wanted to ask earlier. You said that you missed Captain Loch.”
Pyvic raised an eyebrow and looked from the altar to the young man. “I’m not sure me wishing the lady I love was here matters right now, Dairy.”
Dairy shook his head. “No, you said you missed her, and when I talked to Loch one time, she said that you and she were both scouts, and scouts never said that they missed one another.”
“Oh.” Pyvic laughed and clapped Dairy on the shoulder. “I can see how it would be confusing if Loch explained it that way. The truth is . . .”
His fist slammed into Dairy’s gut.
Desidora froze, then broke into a run.
“. . . that you shouldn’t be asking stupid questions like that in the first place,” Pyvic said, still in the same friendly conversational style, as his elbow came up and then slammed down onto Dairy’s back. The young man fell, tried to push himself to his feet, and then collapsed, groaning. “You were my creation, son.” He hauled Dairy up with one hand and slammed him across the anvil. “Your job was to let us back into this world, and then die. Your friend Desidora fouled my plans.�
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His fist slammed down onto Dairy’s chest, smashing the young man into the anvil, and a noise like a great bell rocked the temple. Desidora staggered as a wave of sheer power crashed into her.
“But since you’re so intent on learning about the Shadowlands . . .” Pyvic went on, and brought his fist down again. Again, magic blasted out from the impact, and Desidora fell to her knees. Dairy seemed smaller on the altar now, or farther away. “. . . why don’t you take a good close look?”
Pyvic brought his fist down one more time, and this time Desidora fought through the wave of magic that smashed into her.
But it was too late.
The altar was bare as Pyvic turned back to her, smiling.
“Smith Lively of Byn-kodar,” he said, and tore off the sleeve of his shirt to reveal the paladin band glittering on his upper arm. “A pleasure to meet you, Sister.”
The Hunter golems rose up in the mining lift, and, just like that, everything was clear for Ululenia.
Indomitable, Tern, you will deal with the children of the ancients, she said, and she let the elves and dwarves slip from her grip. And if there is kindness within you, do not tell Dairy what I became.
Then she charged.
They were hunters, pursuers, stalkers, as wolves or great cats or the fox after the rabbit. They were vicious, and they were deadly.
So was she.
They brought their spears up to meet her charge, but they were slow, surprised, and she didn’t hit them in her normal shape, but instead slunk through their lines as a shining white weasel, then ripped out the leg of one Hunter as a wolf, and then darted up as a hummingbird as their spears came down.
She was the terrible pain whose beauty made it worth the risk. She was the fairy mistress who lured the innocent away and sent them back as old men. She was sex and regret and all the unfair lessons of nature.
She flexed her power, in the air over the Hunters, and a vine, dark and thorned but good nevertheless, sprouted from the wall, coiled around the control lever for the lift, and pulled it back to descent.
The Paladin Caper Page 32