The Paladin Caper

by Patrick Weekes

  “Conscience,” Loch said, “or failing that, fear. You’ve seen where this led you last time.”

  “Almost time,” Cevirt said.

  “Please,” Loch said. “I don’t want to do this. I beg you. Leave now in peace.”

  Lesaguris blinked. Loch almost looked like she meant it.

  “No,” he said.

  “NOW?” Jyelle asked.

  “No, thank you,” he said. “I want her to see it.”

  “And . . . now,” Cevirt said.

  Loch shut her eyes.

  The fountain of fire erupting from the font vanished as a great beam of blinding light blazed up from the ground to the sky. It struck the crystals on the underside of Heaven’s Spire with a noise like every bell in the world ringing at once and a blaze of color like every rainbow exploding.

  There was a moment of stunned silence as the sound and light washed over the stadium, so bright and so loud that for just an instant, everyone was simple black and white by comparison, only hearing their own breathing.

  “What was that?” Lesaguris demanded finally. “That wasn’t the crystal-seeding beam.”

  “My team modified your plans,” Loch said quietly.

  Lesaguris gave her his thoughtful nod. “And?”

  In the sky beneath Heaven’s Spire, something growled. Everyone looked up, squinting, to see what it was, but there was nothing visible to the naked eye. It was just an angry sound, a hateful sound that could not be as loud as it was.

  Then, from the crystals on the underside of the city, something grew, something whose shape was impossible to measure with any degree of certainty, except that it was large, and irregular, and either had tentacles or was tentacles.

  No matter what everyone disagreed upon when describing it later, however, they all agreed that it shone with a brilliant glimmering rainbow of light, so that its body was only a shadow underneath.

  “The Glimmering Folk,” Lesaguris said, and took a step backward as the crowd began to scream again.

  “They stopped you before,” Loch said quietly. “They can do so again.”

  “You don’t know . . .” Lesaguris swallowed. “You don’t know what you’ve done.”

  “I’ve taken the world from you,” Loch said, and held her head up proudly.

  “You stupid bitch!” Naria yelled, and vaulted down from the podium.

  She reached Loch before anyone could react. A dagger flashed into her hand, and then it was in Loch’s chest.

  “I had everything!” Naria shouted. “And you ruined it, like you always do!” She pulled the dagger free, and blood fountained from the wound.

  Loch went limp in Jyelle’s grasp.

  In the sky, the first of the Glimmering Folk began to float down toward the earth, while another pulled itself from the crystals of Heaven’s Spire. The guards around the burned areas of the stands dropped their buckets and joined the panicked crowd surging for the exit again.

  “Everyone!” Lesaguris shouted. “Listen to me carefully! We don’t have much time! If we get back to our gate, we can be through safely before the Glimmering Folk reach us! Leave everything and get to the gate, and we . . . we . . .”

  He broke off . . . and started laughing.

  “Oh damn, I almost got through it,” he said, chuckling, as he turned to the other paladins.

  They were laughing as well, their dry amusement crisp and clear against the incoherent screaming of the crowd in the stands all around them.

  Naria turned to them in confusion. “What are—”

  “Please, Loch, discontinue your sad little act,” Lesaguris said, glaring at the apparently dead Loch, who still hung in Jyelle’s grasp with blood dripping from her shirt. “The sudden turnabout, the rash violence that kills the person I would have taken revenge on, leaving me with no other recourse but to flee the impending disaster? I’ve seen this play, and I wouldn’t have believed it even if I hadn’t had an informant in your midst.”

  Loch’s eyes snapped open, and she straightened in Jyelle’s grasp. “You’re lying,” she snapped. “No one on my crew would turn against me.”

  Lesaguris gave her his thoughtful nod. “You might be right.” He cocked his head thoughtfully. “But there are people not on your crew who heard your plan, aren’t there?”

  With a stricken look, Loch turned to Naria.

  Then

  “Oh, Isa,” said Naria, smiling brightly from the throne in Lochenville manor, “you have no idea how long I have waited to hear you say that.”

  Loch looked at the guards. “May we speak alone?”

  Naria raised an elegant eyebrow behind her lenses, and then waved to her guards. “My dear sister would hardly come here openly if she wished me harm. Please attend outside.” The guards nodded and left, and when they were alone in the throne room, Naria’s smile disappeared. “Now.”

  “The paladin bands you’ve seen carry the souls of the ancients, and they take over the bodies of anyone who puts them on. The paladins are just thralls, slaves to the ancients.”

  Loch waited for Naria to tell her that she was crazy.

  “That’s consistent with what I’ve seen,” Naria said instead, and when Loch shot her a look, Naria touched a delicate finger to her lenses. “I don’t know whether these are artifacts of the ancients or the Glimmering Folk, but I can see the energy riding the victim.” She sniffed. “It’s unpleasant, but they are everywhere. Even Cevirt is affected.”

  “I have a way to get rid of them,” Loch said, “but I need your airship . . . and if there’s a way for you to get yourself into their good graces, I could use someone on the inside.”

  Naria laughed, the same sparkling beautiful laugh she had given before. “Easily done, Sister. They are waiting for me to deliver you to them in the reading room.”

  Loch tried for a smile, but it came out as a grimace. “And you were going to do it.”

  Naria shrugged. “I hoped you would give me a better alternative. Besides, I’m not sending you in blind.”

  “All right.” Loch set the anger aside with a shake of her head. “Here’s what I need . . .”

  Now

  “You set me up,” Loch said to Naria. “You led me here, told me everything was ready.”

  Naria shook her head. “I didn’t—”

  “You set me up!” And with a sudden surge of violence, Loch pulled herself free from Jyelle’s grasp. In a flash, she dove to the turf, grabbed the walking stick as she rolled back to her feet, and lunged as she slid the blade free.

  Naria flinched, but the strike wasn’t aimed at her.

  The blade had been handed down through Westteich’s family for generations. It was powerful enough to cut through the armor of the ancients.

  Loch’s aim was perfect as she lunged at Lesaguris.

  The blade stopped an inch shy of the man’s paladin band.

  At first it seemed as though it had been stopped by some unseen barrier, but then the blade twisted in her hand.

  “It wasn’t Naria,” Lesaguris said. “You see, you’re human, and you’re limited that way. In your mind, you threw Arikayurichi into that vat of acid, and you killed him. But we are not creatures of flesh and blood. All you threw into that vat of acid was an ax.”

  “We are tied to objects,” the blade said, turning back toward Loch in her grasp, and its voice was terrible and familiar. “Objects with the right alloy of metal.”

  “Objects like the sword given to Baron Westteich by the ancients themselves,” Lesaguris said, smiling, “or like your good friend, Ghylspwr.”

  “Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is,” Ghylspwr said as his golem hopped down from the podium. In a flash, he had hold of Naria, and Ghylspwr himself was raised and ready to strike if Naria moved.

  “No, indeed,” Lesaguris agreed. “No one need die, even if the tool carrying them is destroyed, as long as we can transfer ourself into a new tool quickly enough.”

  “Hello again, Captain Loch,” said Arikayurichi as he brought himself toward Lo
ch’s throat. “Thank you so much for bringing me along on your little adventures. It has been such a pleasure watching you work.”

  With an effort, Loch flung the blade to the ground, and as she did, Jyelle slammed into her from behind. Loch went down hard, the daemon on top of her. Jyelle was shaped like a person, but she still weighed a lot more.

  “NOW?” Jyelle asked.

  “What do you think, Captain Loch?” Lesaguris asked in amusement. He looked up at the Glimmering Folk, now half a dozen in number and all seeming to descend slowly toward the stadium, although with the way Loch’s eye seemed to slide off the edges whenever she looked at the creatures, it was impossible to be certain how quickly they were moving. “Would you rather die now, or after we heroically use the paladin bands to destroy the illusions that everyone here believes are the Glimmering Folk you summoned?”

  Loch struggled back to her knees. Jyelle didn’t hold her down, but didn’t especially help her up either. “You let me get here, just for a show?” Behind her, the crowd was yelling, screaming in terror as everyone clawed for the exits.

  “So human,” Lesaguris said sadly. “So limited. Archvoyant Cevirt?”

  “Had you not come,” Cevirt said, “or had you come but failed in your attempt to modify our artifacts, the crystal-seeding would have taken place as scheduled.”

  “I was instructed to watch and listen,” Arikayurichi said as Princess Veiled Lightning picked him up, “but not to act. I could keep my superiors informed of your plans, sending magical messages that allowed them to use those plans to our advantage.”

  “And in the unlikely event that you came up with a plan we couldn’t use to our advantage,” Veiled Lightning added, “Arikayurichi would be there as a final defense.”

  “You see,” Lesaguris said, “if you failed, Loch, we won. And if you succeeded, we won anyway.” He smiled at his compatriots. “We just sat back and enjoyed the show.”

  Loch bowed her head, shoulders slumped.

  “When that show is over,” she said, “remember that I gave you a chance to walk away.”

  The first of the Glimmering Folk extended a great tentacle overhead, and glimmering radiance raked the grounds with an impact that staggered everyone on the podium.

  “What in Byn-kodar’s hell? . . .” Lesaguris glared at the illusion in the sky as the crowd began screaming even louder.

  One of the paladins who held Mister Dragon lashed down for the benefit of the crowd released his lash and turned to send a blast of energy at the Glimmering Folk instead. The crimson energy crackled across the radiant surface of the creature, and a moment later another blast of light rained down, sizzling into the paladin who had fired and leaving only scorched ground in its wake.

  “They’re real?” Princess Veiled Lightning shouted.

  Cevirt stepped back, touching studs on his paladin band rapidly and looking up at the thing overhead. “That’s impossible!”

  “It’s a trick!” Arikayurichi yelled. “It’s just another trick, an illusion killing an illusion! I heard her plan! I heard her entire plan!”

  Lesaguris had said nothing. His gaze was focused entirely on Loch.

  She looked up at him with a grim smile. “Hey, Naria,” she said without looking over, “didn’t I leave my walking stick outside when I went in to talk with you? I wonder if I ever left it in another room, just for a minute, when I talked to the others? I wonder if I might’ve learned from how Ghylspwr played me last time. I wonder if maybe I fed the magical weapon with the aura my death priestess could see a slightly different version of the plan?”

  Lesaguris had gone pale, and he shook his head slowly as the Glimmering Folk growled overhead with a sound that made the earth tremble. “I will destroy you.”

  “NOW?” Jyelle asked.

  And Loch said, “Now.”

  With a roar, Jyelle leaped into the crowd of nobles, tearing and ripping with monstrous fury.

  Then

  “For the bad news,” Ululenia snarled through great fangs as she slashed and tore at the daemon in Westteich’s manor, “is that I know exactly how you feel.”

  The daemon with Jyelle’s memories howled in rage as she fell back from Ululenia’s assault. “YOU KNOW NOTHING.”

  Ululenia growled, and her horn flared as the vines that had grown through the room all sprouted great black thorns. “I know the anger that rides you like a beast in your brain,” she said. “I know how it twists you into something you were not, making a mockery of your old life. You were simple as a daemon, innocent as wildfire in your destruction. You were smart as Jyelle, cunning enough to be a worthy adversary. Now you are just the monster Loch rolls her eyes at. What part of you is happy at that?”

  “I WILL KILL HER,” the daemon said, though it did not attack.

  “And will you be happy, then?” Ululenia asked through her fangs. “Will that calm the foaming waters of your rage? Or will you just be the wolf deprived of the only prey it cared to hunt?”

  The daemon paused.

  “WHAT ELSE CAN I DO?” it asked. “WHAT ELSE CAN I BE?”

  “If you wish to let your spirit join the earth and become part of it, I can help that seed flourish and grow,” Ululenia said quietly. “If you wish to die, then the weapons best suited to end you are those of the ancients themselves. In either case, here is what I offer . . .”

  Now

  “Keep the scrying pods showing everything that you can,” Icy said as they saw Skinner headed for them. “I will deal with him.”

  Kail leaned against the console and nodded as Icy headed up the stairs. He’d come out of the rush of battle, and that whole broken-arm thing was getting harder to ignore.

  “It appears that the creatures are aware of our attempts to broadcast this across the Republic,” one of the puppeteers said. “Everyone who can hear this, I’m sorry, I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to keep going.”

  “No matter what happens,” another puppeteer said, “don’t trust anyone wearing a paladin band. Break them if you can.”

  “Please,” said the third, “they aren’t your friends anymore. They’re slaves of these ancients. Look at what’s happening here. This is what they wanted.”

  “Relax,” Kail said, more to himself than anyone else. “Icy’s kicking ass now. He can take one guy.”

  Then, up overhead and outside, Kail heard a flash of energy and a thump.

  “Unless the guy is better at throwing energy blasts than Icy is at dodging them,” Kail muttered, and with a sigh, sat up and headed for the damned ladder.

  In the Temple of Pesyr on Heaven’s Spire, Smith Lively fell to his knees as the entire room bucked and heaved.

  The anvil altar seemed to strain, glimmering light dancing around it, and then with a groan, it settled in place, and a great rainbow radiance flared out from it in all directions.

  “No!” Smith Lively shouted. “You cannot—This—They said it was just an illusion! They promised me it would never be opened again!”

  Cold laughter sounded behind him.

  He turned slowly to see Desidora on her feet, beautiful and terrible in her pale fury.

  “We can close this,” he said quickly, “before they . . . no.” He looked at the ground, squinting as though he could see through the streets of the city itself. “No, they are already out. They—”

  “Come now, Smith Lively,” she chided. “What craftsman does not take pleasure in seeing his greatest creation in use?”

  As he gaped at her, she struck, and her magic flung him across the temple and slammed him against the wall.

  “But I disagree with you,” she said as she walked to the altar. “Your gate is impressive, but it is not your greatest creation. The bands you likely had a hand in as well, but it is not them either.”

  With a silent prayer no god could hear, Desidora put her hands on the altar and felt the magic she had placed there, the magic that had drawn the beam shot from the ground through the crystal underside of Heaven’s Spire and he
re, to the gate, where it opened what had once been closed.

  She heard Lively struggling to his feet, and she looked inside that magic, looked to the gate itself. The underside of the city was the exit point for the Glimmering Folk, but Lively had used the anvil, which meant that it was possible, not likely, not easy, but possible . . .

  She reached in with the cold power of death, plunging a hand into the dark waters of another world. It took power beyond measure to reach such a distance, through such a barrier, and she felt her skin warm, saw the fallen strands of her hair lighten to auburn as every mote of her power stretched out, grasping, reaching.

  Lively was charging behind her, roaring in rage.

  Please, she prayed. Please.

  A hand grasped hers.

  She pulled. Her pale-green dress swirled as she turned.

  And a great blast of glimmering rainbow power staggered Smith Lively, stopping the blow that would have killed Desidora. It flickered out of the room and was gone in and instant.

  And where it was, there stood Dairy.

  “This is your greatest creation,” Desidora said to Lively. “A good-hearted young man who has surpassed you in every conceivable way.”

  Lively’s pale face went still with rage, and he lunged at Desidora.

  Dairy caught the blow with one hand, catching it before it struck. “No, sir,” he said.

  “I created you,” Lively snarled. “You think to use your magical strength against me?”

  Lively’s aura twisted around him.

  And then, with a little pop, his paladin band fell off.

  “Oh, thank the gods. I was hoping he would do that,” Desidora said as it hit the floor.

  “Sister?” Dairy asked.

  “They banded me?” Pyvic asked, blinking and looking around. “Damn it.”

  “When I saw him hurt you, Dairy, I got a glimpse of the magic he used to nullify your powers,” Desidora said. “I thought that if he tried it again, I could twist it against his band.”

  Then she leaped forward and pulled Dairy into a hug. “Thank you for coming back.”