The Paladin Caper

by Patrick Weekes

  He flushed. “Thank you for reaching out for us.”

  “Us?” Pyvic asked.

  Desidora wasn’t listening. Lively was down. Her death aura was safely around her, just in case he had any more traps readied. The gate had been opened. What mattered now was finding another way to hurt the ancients. They could hurry back to the transport rune at the palace. She could find Ghylspwr. She could look at him in the moment the Glimmering Folk laid waste to his world, could let him see how it felt to be played for a fool. She could . . .

  “Sister Desidora?” Dairy asked. “You’re still very pale.”

  And that was how it got you, she realized, and let the death aura go, and became a love priestess again.

  “Thank you, Dairy,” she said, smiling at him.

  Then she blinked. Dairy’s aura was next to impossible to track, but she saw something in it. She’d never have seen it with the death aura. It wasn’t energy, or power, or corruption, or anything like that.

  It was something that mattered so much more, something only a love priestess could see.

  “We need to get you down to the ground,” she said, and turned to Pyvic. “And while we go, you need to . . .” She squinted. “You need to send Loch a message.”

  Pyvic blinked. “I suspect she’s pretty busy, Sister, and I doubt she needs to—”

  Desidora leaned in and rapped her knuckle on his forehead.

  “The two of you,” she said, and sighed. “Need, need, need. You’re allowed to want. Come on.”

  She took both of them by the hand and started running, and as she did, she said a tiny silent prayer to the goddess who pointed the way for lovers.

  The two Hunter golems kicked the door open. “For your crimes against the ancients,” one of them said, “you must die.”

  A bolt thunked into his helmet, and a moment later, a pouch of glittering powder followed it, and the Hunter stumbled back, twitching, and then collapsed.

  The other Hunter lunged forward, its spear slashing Tern’s crossbow from her hands. It stepped past Westteich, who had pressed himself back against the wall, and raised the spear to Tern’s throat.

  “Yes, kill her,” Westteich said. “Then we’ll need to summon someone who can undo the damage she has done.”

  The Hunter looked over at Westteich, though its spear was still pressed just below Tern’s chin. “Your loyalty is uncertain.”

  Westteich raised his now-bare arm. “Listen, my paladin band was damaged in battle—”

  “You asshole,” Tern said with incredible sincerity, without turning her head, as the spearpoint drew a drop of blood just below her chin. To the Hunter, she added, “You may want to get back to the gate room. It’s about to be crawling with Glimmering Folk trying to get into the ancients’ world.”

  The Hunter paused. “Explain.”

  “She’s bluffing,” Westteich said. “It’s another bluff. That’s what they do. They lie and do tricks and con people, but it’s always a bluff.”

  “We opened the gate to the Shadowlands,” Tern said, pointing at the crystal lattice. “They’re pouring down from Heaven’s Spire right now. What’s the top speed on a giant flying rainbow octopus monster from hell, anyway?”

  “They will not come to the gate,” the Hunter said. “The Glimmering Folk never showed an interest in the world of the ancients before. Even if they did, the gate is safely underground. The Glimmering Folk die upon making contact with the ground.”

  “The gate was safely underground,” Tern said, “until your bosses dug a big hole that lets someone go down through the font on the surface all the way to the gate without touching the earth.” As the spear dug in a little bit deeper, she added, “But then, they might not be able to find it, would they? Unless someone told them what to look for.”

  Then

  “Oh dear,” Hessler said as the impossible form of the Glimmering Man uncoiled and came toward him. “Listen, we’re fighting the ancients, and I understand that the two of you didn’t really get along, although it seems to have been a case of rulership versus consumption, and—”

  “Yes,” said the Glimmering Man, “they tasted better than you, but we never found them.”

  “Their gate, you mean,” Hessler said, thinking quickly even as his head began to throb. “But if you did find it? If you came through your gate and could sense the gate that led to their world, perhaps if it had an aural signature similar to your own, would you be willing to go through it instead of staying in my world?”

  “Perhaps,” the Glimmering Man said with a shrug. “If, if, if, but it does not matter, because we are trapped here.”

  “It is possible,” said Hessler with the same care that he had used during his first daemon-summoning ritual, “that we could make that happen.”

  “Or you could stay here with me,” said the Glimmering Man. “Here is now.”

  Hessler winced, suspecting what staying here meant for him. “If I do that, I cannot help you get in.”

  The Glimmering Man focused on Hessler again, suddenly alert. “We want in . . .”

  Now

  “You caused this,” the Hunter said. “Your team.”

  “We did,” Tern said. “And if you kill me, you lose any chance of figuring out what I did to your gate to slap a false glamour aura on top of it like a big old beacon for the Glimmering Folk.”

  “It’s just another trick,” Westteich said. “Only the weak-minded fall for such obvious ploys.”

  “Are you sure you should be worried about me,” Tern asked, “and not the guy who is no longer wearing a paladin band, but still has crazy-powerful magical armor?”

  “He will be apprehended nonlethally once you are dead,” the Hunter said, “as his loyalty remains unclear.”

  “And I will be happy to cooperate fully as a loyal ally of the ancients,” Westteich said, nodding repeatedly with a confident smile that would have looked completely at home on the face of a midlevel guild member with earnest opinions about next season’s turnip prices. “Lesaguris trusted me to capture you all before. He put those tracker creatures in my care.”

  Tern blinked. “The ogre and the scorpion and the troll?”

  “Yes,” Westteich said, “and although he made a regrettable decision to have me controlled with a band, I am certain that once I show him how I stopped you here, he will see that I deserve—”

  “Now, use the golem-bane powder!” Tern shouted, and turned her head away.

  The golem moved, and the spear was away from her throat, and Tern opened her eyes immediately and got to see the Hunter’s spear slam through Westteich’s unarmored forehead.

  The Hunter pulled its spear free, and Westteich, looking very surprised and very dead, slid slowly to the ground.

  The Hunter paused, then turned back to her, bringing its spear back to her throat in a blur of motion. “He does not have golem-bane powder,” it said. “You were lying.”

  “Honest mistake,” Tern said, and smiled though tears stung her eyes. “Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

  Something outside exploded, and the Hunter stood back for a moment, its spear drawing away from Tern’s throat. There was a roar as metal hinges shrieked and tore away.

  It sounded like there was a voice under the roar, or in the roar, or of the roar, and it said something that sounded to Tern like “eighty-nine.”

  Regardless, the Hunter’s spear was away from her throat, and Tern went for the acid flask at her belt, and her hand closed around it just as a metal gauntlet closed over her hand.

  “No,” the Hunter said. “The new threat will be dealt with once you are dead.”

  Something crashed out in the mine, and there was a sound like a lot of crystal breaking, and another roar, and this one sounded like “ninety.”

  Tern shoved hard with her steel-toed boots, and the Hunter stumbled, off balance, and Tern got the acid flask free and threw it, but the Hunter stepped to one side, and the flask crashed into the wall behind it, sizzling against the wall, and
the Hunter’s spear came up.

  “Die with honor,” the Hunter said, and Tern shut her eyes and put Hessler in her mind. If the gods were kind, at least she’d see him soon.

  And with a great burst of glimmering rainbow light, something slammed into the Hunter with a blast that ripped through the golem and then solidified instead of dissipating, the rainbow light coiling into a solid shape.

  It looked like the Glimmering Man, tall and muscular and swathed in rainbow light so that the individual features were just shadows.

  And then it said in a voice that broke Tern’s heart, “Ninety-one seconds.”

  By the time Loch had gotten back to her feet, the daemon Jyelle had already taken down two of the paladins with brutal efficiency.

  Lesaguris wasn’t fighting her, though. He was coming toward Loch, fury mottling his fine chiseled features. Princess Veiled Lightning was at his side, Arikayurichi held in her grasp.

  “You have destroyed your world,” Lesaguris snarled.

  “Actually, I’ve destroyed your world,” Loch said. “Or at least dinged it up a bit, once the Glimmering Folk get through with it. They’re headed for your gate now.”

  “You filthy savage,” Arikayurichi said. “Do you know how much blood will be on your hands?”

  “Says the ax who wanted to blow up half the Republic.” Loch rolled out her shoulders. “Funny how when you boys were winning, you were all about survival of the fittest and deserving whatever you could take by force.”

  “Isa?” Naria asked.

  “Go.”

  Naria flickered and disappeared in the grasp of the golem who had held her, and both the golem and Ghylspwr looked around. “Besyn larveth’is?” Ghylspwr asked in confusion.

  “More tricks.” Lesaguris swallowed and held out a hand. Princess Veiled Lightning passed Arikayurichi over. “They will not save you. Whatever happens, whatever destruction your little stunt causes, it will not keep you alive.”

  “It’s not about tricks,” Loch said as Lesaguris advanced, Arikayurichi held before him. Veiled Lightning guarded his back, clearly ready for Naria to return. “And it’s not about stunts. It’s about people. They might be flawed, but when you understand them, you can find a way.”

  Lesaguris raised Arikayurichi to strike. “How noble of you.”

  “I protect the people,” Loch said, unmoving. “I destroy the enemy.”

  She held out her hand.

  And as Arikayurichi came down, there was a flash of light, and with a perfect silvery peal, the great blow glanced away.

  “Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is.”

  Loch held Ghylspwr up, smiled at Lesaguris, and said, “And nobody will die while I watch.”

  Twenty-Three

  Then

  NOW WE WAIT,” Loch said, in the great crystalline control room in the depths of the archvoyant’s palace on Heaven’s Spire.

  Princess Veiled Lightning was there, kneeling over the body of Gentle Thunder. She had just defeated Arikayurichi and sent the ax plunging down through the chasm.

  “Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is,” Ghylspwr said quietly.

  “You saved us.” Loch rested her weight on the console, staying carefully away from the damned red crystal that Ghylspwr had wanted her to press. “So you care. But you would have let Arikayurichi destroy most of the Republic and the Empire.”

  “Besyn larveth’is.” Ghylspwr’s voice was not happy, but it wasn’t weak either.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Loch looked over at him. “That’s not the one you use when you smash things.”

  “It means,” Veiled Lightning said from where she knelt by the body of her mentor, “that whatever little acts of mercy he might show, he is sworn to defend his people.”

  “Besyn larveth’is,” Ghylspwr said again with a note of sadness.

  “That’s garbage,” Loch snapped. “Your people are wrong. A good soldier doesn’t just follow orders and feel bad about it when his people are wrong. He takes a stand.”

  “Kutesosh gajair’is?” Ghylspwr asked.

  “I’m not asking you to attack them.” Loch pressed a hand to her face and sighed. “I don’t know what I’m asking. But damn it, Ghyl, you are better than this. They’re wrong, and you know it.”

  There was a moment of silence. Heaven’s Spire rattled and shook as whatever the ancients had done powered up.

  “Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is?” Ghylspwr said.

  “Saving both sides?” Loch asked. “How?”

  “Besyn larveth’is.”

  “By protecting your . . .”

  “No,” Veiled Lightning said. “By serving them, not fighting them, and giving you a chance. You don’t need another warrior, and with his limited vocabulary, he is hardly useful to you as a spy.”

  “Besyn larveth’is,” Ghylspwr agreed.

  “You need someone who will push the ancients away from the most violent solution, who will urge a gentle rulership instead of the complete destruction of both our countries.” Veiled Lightning smiled. “Someone who will urge that you be taken alive.”

  “Or we could just kill him,” Loch said as Heaven’s Spire rattled again, “and have one less enemy to worry about.”

  “Kutesosh gajair’is,” Ghylspwr said in a very old voice. “Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Veiled Lightning said. “I destroy the enemy, but then nobody will die while I watch.”

  Loch looked at him, the warhammer on the floor, shiny and silver and inset with rubies and runes.

  She sighed.

  “Fight the enemy, not their people.”

  Now

  Who are you?

  Who are you?

  You are confused. We feel it. You do not know? No. You know but do not want.

  It is the outside. It mixes and changes and makes you different. But you are you.

  You say you are different now. There is no now. No then.

  Be you. Be you. Be you.

  Up in the sky, the Glimmering Folk growled and snarled with sounds that made Loch’s mind ache, as though she were thinking things her head hadn’t been built for.

  Given that Princess Veiled Lightning, Lesaguris, and Arikayurichi were trying to kill her here on the ground, however, it was something she planned to worry about later.

  Lesaguris had tossed Arikayurichi to the golem that had once held Ghylspwr, leaving Loch and Ghylspwr outnumbered three bodies to one.

  Up on the podium, the daemon Jyelle roared as beams of crimson energy slashed into her, but she fought on with savage fury regardless.

  Loch parried a blow from Veiled Lightning, who held the Nine-Ringed Dragon, her family’s ancestral blade, then spun away from a slash by Arikayurichi, and then let Ghylspwr twist in her grip to block a blast of crimson energy as Lesaguris fired at them.

  “Kutesosh gajair’is!” Ghylspwr shouted.

  “You’re a fool and a traitor,” Arikayurichi snarled, “and you could never take me in a true fight!”

  Ghylspwr flashed through the air and smashed through the golem’s torso, blasting the thing into dozens of crystalline pieces and sending Arikayurichi toppling to the grassy turf.

  This left Loch weaponless, but as Veiled Lightning lunged in, Loch sidestepped, took a shallow cut across the forearm in exchange for getting hold of Veiled Lightning’s arm, punched Veiled Lightning across the jaw, chopped down on her wrist, and stripped the Nine-Ringed Dragon from her grip.

  “The real Veiled Lightning wouldn’t have lost her blade again,” Loch said, grinning, as she slashed at Lesaguris and forced him back.

  Then Lesaguris held out his hand, and with a flash of light, Arikayurichi was there in his grip. They lunged in, a magical sword wielded by a magical man, and Loch barely turned the blade as it slid past her.

  Veiled Lightning was on her flank. A kick caught leg, and as Loch stumbled, another kick slammed her to the turf. She rolled, got the blade up in time to block Arikayurichi as Lesaguris came in again, and the
n stumbled back as Veiled Lightning slammed another kick into her side.

  Then, from nowhere, an armored Imperial woman tackled Veiled Lightning.

  “General Jade Blossom!” the Imperial woman shouted, punching Veiled Lightning several times in the head. “The princess ordered me to hit whomever you were fighting!”

  “Kind of her!” Loch parried another stab and risked a look to see where the hell Ghylspwr was. She saw him pressed under the heel of Archvoyant Cevirt, who was blasting the hammer over and over again with flashes of crimson energy. “It’s the paladin band!” she yelled to Jade Blossom. “Break it, and she’s free!”

  She made for Cevirt, but Lesaguris was too fast, cutting between them and lunging in again with Arikayurichi. Loch blocked, took a kick to the ankle, parried but took a cut across the upper arm anyway, and saw an elbow coming in but couldn’t get the Nine-Ringed Dragon up to block it.

  She hit the ground hard, lights dazzling her eyes, and in the distance, saw the Glimmering Folk sliding down the font, moving for the gate just as Tern and Hessler had hoped.

  It was enough. The ancients would have to flee. Loch’s job was done.

  Loch spat blood and rolled to her knees, the Nine-Ringed Dragon held in a weak guard.

  Then, in the distance past Lesaguris, Naria flickered into view and slid a knife across Cevirt’s hamstring. The archvoyant yelled and fell.

  Arikayurichi came down, and Loch came up to block, and again light flashed, and Loch caught the blow with Ghylspwr, who was free and back in her grasp, and then slashed out with the Nine-Ringed Dragon in her other hand and caught Lesaguris across the leg.

  “Loch!” came the yell, and Loch stood, slashing and swinging, and saw Veiled Lightning and General Jade Blossom standing again, the paladin band a shattered pile of junk at their feet. “You stole my sword again!”

  “Borrowed!” Loch yelled, and tossed it to the princess. Loch swung Ghylspwr, and Arikayurichi caught the blow. Lesaguris went for the kick, but Loch saw it coming, checked it, and came over the top with a punch that rocked him back.