A Glimmer on the Blade

by Rachel E. Baddorf

  She blasted the power out of the caster. The fish jerked back, stunned, mouthing at nothing. The other fish arrived. Copelia shot a blast at it and it paused. The translucent fins swirled around them all. A trickling wetness in her glove sent a new course of panic through her. Looking down, she saw the glove was sheared in two spots, and blood was leaking into the water. But the fish did not attack; they were waiting, no longer thrashing about. Copelia moved away from Ketchkei, putting her hand out to the monstrous fish. The first darted sideways and began pushing under her hand like a needy cat.

  Trying to remember how to breathe, Copelia pet the scales. With her other arm, she moved Ketchkei around to her side. Holding her bleeding hand around her, she made sure the fish knew they were one. Ildiko had implied there was some kind of communication between the Sybil and the Great Spirits. Concentrating through her fear, Copelia tried to formulate mind speech to the fish. She concentrated on Ildiko’s description of the Sybil’s special chamber. The fish grew excited, brushing under her hand faster.

  Taking the hint, she took hold of the dorsal fin and was pulled forward, faster and faster. The great light pulled her into a passage, up and under, through a series of turns. As they slowed down, Copelia noticed a huge mirror lit the ceiling of the chamber they were pulled into. She only caught on that they had made it to the Sybil’s chamber when her knees dragged on the smooth bottom of the pool as it grew shallower as they got farther from the underwater entrance.

  She let the fin go and stood up clumsily into the air of the chamber. The pool was wading depth near the carved stone edge. Quickly studying the edge, she found the steps that led out of the pool. She clambered up the stairs and clicked open her helmet. She pressed the buttons that halted the air flow on her suit as Ketchkei stood up and followed her out of the water; Ketchkei’s ride joined the other two fish circling in the pool. Ketchkei put her helmet carefully on the flagstone beside Copelia’s. Copelia noticed that Ketchkei turned back, hands on hips, to contemplate the large circling fish.

  After a long moment studying how close she had come to death she shook out her shoulders as if to shake off her dark thoughts, and resignedly leaned down to haul on the rope connecting the metal trunks together. That’s why I promoted her, Copelia thought; Ketchkei doesn’t let how she feels about a task keep her from getting the task done.

  Ketchkei pulled each trunk up from the water and turned to Copelia. “You all right?” asked Ketchkei.

  “Yes. You?” Copelia said, taking long, calming breaths of the cool and slightly dank air.

  Nodding, Ketchkei heaved herself to her feet and began shucking the suit. Admiring her endurance, Copelia opened the first trunk. It had towels and dark nondescript servant’s wear for them to wear. They toweled off and changed quickly. Copelia pocketed her casters and took a moment to examine the two small gashes on her wrist. Not too deep, but ragged. She spared a moment to tie up the wounds with some extra cloth from the pack. She left the bag with the suits; they wouldn’t need it yet. Wordlessly, the girls went up the stairs and into the former office of the Sybil of the temple, stepping through a scorched wreck of a bookcase.

  The room reeked of smoke and decay. Their lightfishes’ wavering light illuminated destroyed furniture and half-charred books. Tapestries had gone up in flames, scorching the stone walls. Carefully, Copelia went to the mass that had been the desk. In what was left of a bottom drawer Ildiko had told her to look in, she found Alcyenne’s journal. Gathering steam, she and Ketchkei went back to the shelves for the titles Ildiko had asked them for.

  They found twelve of the volumes in good condition, and four too charred to read. They put the important ones into the metal trunks, making sure the rubber gaskets on the edges were in place to create the waterproof seal when they were closed. They took the cases back down to the pool and then hurried back up to the office. The books were the easy part. Now they had to get the prince out of the palace. Between the two of them they managed to get the main office door open, and then stepped cautiously through the shattered pieces of oak. Ketchkei took the lead here, taking Copelia rapidly up the levels to the hallway containing the secret closet. She hadn’t known about the closet, but when Copelia described the hallway, she had known right away which hallway they needed from her years serving in the Temple.

  This time, they climbed the rain drain with hooks and rope they brought with them. The light well was much as Copelia had left it, the prince wrapped in the red cloth, still as death. She took precious minutes giving him water and checking the spells. She hadn’t known what to look for the last time she had seen him. This time searching with the Goddess’s help she could see some of the spell lines wrapping his body. They seemed...tangled, not...what she would have expected—wrong somehow.

  “We need to get him out now,” she said, new urgency suffusing her.

  “You’re sure?” Ketchkei asked. “You’re hurt and your suit is ripped. Maybe we should get more help.”

  Brushing a hand over his forehead, Copelia frowned. “No, we need to get him out now.”

  Shrugging, Ketchkei helped her get him into a secure rope sling. Copelia went down the light well first, and Ketchkei used her stronger muscles to lower the prince’s dead weight. The last few feet, the rope slid painfully in Ketchkei’s hands. Copelia rushed forward and caught the prince, but he was too much and she collapsed under his weight. They went down in a heap, and her awkward grab for his head was just a second too late. She winced at the thump of his head on the stone.

  “Hey!” Copelia rebuked her, struggling to get out from under the prince.

  “Sorry!” Ketchkei came down and crouched beside her to check on him. “At least he doesn’t feel it,” she said as she touched a forming goose egg on the back of his head.

  They carried him slowly, Copelia on the feet and Ketchkei at the shoulders. It took a good hour to get him back to the Sybil’s office, where they dumped him on the floor and both collapsed to rest. He wasn’t even a big man but lugging him this far left Copelia’s arms shaking with exhaustion. Meanwhile, Ketchkei went back and piled the remains of the door back into a natural looking barricade.

  Ketchkei sent a halfhearted kick into the prince’s ribs. “He better be worth it.”

  “I hope so,” Copelia said tiredly.

  ***

  Imperial Palace

  Horacio Franco

  His left lower leg was the source of all things. Each breath was filtered through the stench of its rotting flesh. Each thought was shot through with knowledge that the pain had cleared because the nerves were dead. His mind spun through the fever that had stemmed from the infection. Horacio Franco knew his world had shrunk down to the leg’s parameters. Through a fever dream he heard his jailers enter the room. “He’s going,” said the accursed son. “Unless you want the healers to do a full work up, he’s dead. I can’t imagine why he should be bleeding again, though.”

  “He doesn’t want to be here. He would rather die,” sighed the father. “If he’s going, you should try to get what you can.”

  “Finally,” snorted the son. “I always wondered what it would take to make the vaunted Franco talk.”

  Franco’s thoughts coalesced around those words. There was still so much he could say if they actually tortured him. Anoni and Theresa, and the children.

  “Stellys should get through to the temple sometime today, the guards said. I should be ready for her haul,” said the father, growing fainter.

  “All talk, he is,” muttered the son, so close Franco could feel his breath on his cheek. All the reflexes Franco had honed over the years fired. His hand shot out, twisting into Markham’s shirt, and pulling him even closer. His other hand brought a rusted bit of metal five inches long up to Markham’s throat.

  “Up. Slowly,” ordered Franco. He grit his teeth through his exhaustion.

  “Let me go,” Markham demanded.

  “Smell that? I put this metal into my leg. Keep struggling and you’ll have gangrene in your jugu
lar.”

  Markham went very still. “You can’t get out of here. You’ll never make it.”

  “One way or another, poisonous whelp, I won’t go under your irons.”

  ***

  Imperial Palace

  Copelia

  They got the prince down into the Sybil’s chamber with no more fuss, but getting him into the suit was a nightmare of awkwardness, improper groping, and sympathy flinches from the girls. A cranky evil little voice in her head mocked that this was the last time she would ever feel a man’s body. And body it was. About as sexy as moving a warm corpse would be. Copelia now appreciated how annoying it must have been for her parents when she had gone limp to get her way as a child.

  Finally, they sealed his suit and got it running and got into their own. Her gauges were off, not showing she had any air, yet it still made the air. Her power had fried the gauges all right. Even with the air loss she had suffered, she should still have at least three hours left. At Ketchkei’s questioning look she just nodded. It wouldn’t do them any good to worry and with a little fish cooperation, they would be out of there long before it would be a problem.

  Copelia took one last trip up to the Sybil’s office. Clearing her mind, she searched for anything else they might need. However, her attention drifted to a door off to the side. It was a closet. The sound of scraping stone and voices came to her from the main office door. “...pull! Come on! Pull!”

  Copelia dove into the closet, pushing toward the back, and started searching for what she needed. She came upon a box about two feet wide, one foot tall, and one foot deep, with silver nightlion carvings on the hinges. She grabbed it, clutching it tightly to her chest, and ran. Behind her, came exclamations from a woman and a man at seeing someone through the cracked panels of the door.

  “Hey! Get us through! Who’s there?” yelled the woman.

  Copelia ducked through the secret passage and ran. “Ketchkei! Get him in the water! Now!”

  To her credit the girl didn’t question. The sounds of the destruction echoed down to them as Copelia jumped into the pool with the box. She clutched it under one arm and got her helmet on with shaking hands. The fish rose in the pool and she spared an open-handed smack for the first fish to try and nibble on the prince; in a lunge, Copelia dove deeper into the pool. Ketchkei slung the ropes attached to the metal trunks over her shoulder and then froze in the quandary of having too much to carry and not enough hands.

  Men’s shouts and footsteps pounded down the ramp. Copelia laid a hand on the head of a third fish and pulsed a soft bit of magic at it, leaving a bloody handprint drizzling down its head. With a swear at the chance she was taking, she slung the limp prince into its jaws. It took him gently. Copelia grabbed the nightlion hinged box, Ketchkei grabbed the trunks of books and they dove, as their pursuers shouted and the twangs of crossbow bolts flying filled the air. The fish sank alongside Copelia and she quickly grabbed a hold of one and they were away, breath roaring in her ears.

  Back down into the dark, lit only by the huge brightness of the fish beside her, she realized she had left their globes of lightfish back in the Sybil’s room. Copelia was still able to see the fish in the front carried the prince, his feet flopping in the turbulence. She trailed the trunk behind her, painfully twisting her arm at the shoulder socket. A stolen glance behind her showed Ketchkei being safely guided by another of the beasts. The water seemed colder, biting into her torn hand, as they fled into the aqueducts.

  ***

  Imperial Palace

  Horacio Franco

  The stone room turned out to be on the ground floor off the main passage into the temple. Outside the door was the first light Franco had seen in many days, spreading with blinding clarity over the temple funeral garden.

  “You put me in the temple!” he gasped at the audacity.

  Markham, who Franco was holding very close with the metal brushing his neck, jerked. “No one was going to be using it. You know you can’t escape.” He rolled his eyes up at Franco awkwardly.

  “This is perfect,” Franco said. “Come on. Where are the guards?” He hobbled his hostage into the light, slowly down an aisle in the tall grave markers. There was the aqueduct; there was freedom from questions.

  “They weren’t needed for what I was going to do. They don’t like to be so close. Don’t like to hear.”

  “What, they don’t appreciate the artistry of a pure monster like yourself?” Franco laughed hoarsely. “They don’t, no.”

  They came to the edge of the marble aqueduct. Franco looked down into the water. The chute would take him wherever dead men went with their secrets. “Then, Markham, only you will truly appreciate this.”

  In a lightning move, Franco sliced across Markham’s face, forehead, cheek, and chin.

  He had no strength to make them deep, indeed, had no strength to cut the bastard’s throat deep enough for him to bleed to death. All he could do was hope the noxious slime coming from his leg that he had covered the piece of metal with would infect Markham and eat away his flesh in the way it had eaten his. Pushing the screaming man away, Franco rolled himself into the aqueduct and slid into the darkness of the water and stone.

  ***

  Imperial Palace

  Copelia

  There was impact on the water and then other fish were there, more great spirits swarming around a struggling figure in the water, in an eruption of bubbles. The figure was moving too much to be dead, and as Copelia passed, in horror, she realized they had him by the leg towing and jerking. She screamed into her helmet as with a snap the leg broke away at the knee. Goddess, Goddess, Goddess! She let go of her ride, dropped the trunk, and pulled a strong stroke to the man. His blood tinged the water red. She got between him and the circling hungry fish. She pulsed a blast of magic so bright she was sure she could see their bones in their skin. Then she pulled the extra hose off her suit and jammed it in his mouth as he thrashed. The rubber length from her arm she tied around his knee as a tourniquet as fast as she could.

  She took him under her shoulder. Her ride was gone, but the passage was just behind her. She dragged him up, kicking like mad. She reached the bottom of the well and then it was home free to the surface. Copelia used the guide rope that was waiting there, and then bobbed to the surface next to Ketchkei and the book trunks. The prince was half way up the well in the rope swing when Copelia pushed the man on Ketchkei, unscrewed her helmet, and shrieked, “I’ve got wounded down here! We’ve got to get him out of here!”

  Heads peeked over the side of the well, and the end of another rope tumbled down. She tied the rope under his shoulders. The man was Franco, she realized. She had met him a handful of times through her brother and he was currently passed out, head lolling.

  “GO!”

  The rope jerked and the topsiders hauled him up to the light.

  “Who the burning hell is he?” Ketchkei demanded.

  Copelia waved her off, looking down into the water, trying to see if the fish were still around. The prince went over the side, and moments later the sling came back down. “Ketchkei, get up there!”

  Ketchkei snorted and tied herself in, and shouted for them to pull. Copelia held on to the book trunks. Goddess, she hoped there was a healer there somewhere. She shuddered at the memory of the Great Spirits taking his leg.

  The water around her was getting lighter, brighter as something rose toward the surface. Copelia shrunk back to the wall, heart pounding, searching in vain for what direction it was coming from. She shrieked when something hard with sharp corners caromed off her legs. The wooden nightlion box she had dropped bobbed up next to her and the light faded. Ketchkei screamed down at her trying to find out what was happening, swaying on the rope dangerously as she tried to see down.

  Ammon popped his head over the side as he hauled Ketchkei over the side. “Are you all right?”

  “Get me the hell out of here! Right now! Goddess damn it, get me out of here!” Copelia sobbed.

  CHAPTER 2
2

  Aquillion, Caruda House

  Copelia

  “Repeat after me: this child has been found worthy of the crown. Now, by law, tradition, and covenant with the Goddess, the second decree must be fulfilled. It was written that only a son of the Goddess and the earth may rule the Empire. To rule in the Goddess’s light, a woman must join him on the throne. This union honors the union of the Moon Goddess and the Earth spirit so long ago,” Ildiko read aloud.

  “Do I really have to say that? I mean, it’s kind of stuffy. I have to talk about that dusty stuff in front of the council of lords and Highlords, and the rest of Aquillion. Can’t I just keep it short and simple?” Copelia teased, most of her attention on the titles of the books in the metal box in front of her.

  Ildiko shut the book with a snap and said, “No you may not. In less than a week you are going to have to crown and marry the imperial couple. It is one of the most important things the Sybil ever does, and the most public. Tradition must be preserved.”

  Copelia smiled. Ildiko was so funny when she was ruffled. It was good to have something to smile about. A bath, a long sleep, and the knowledge that her brother’s mentor was even now under the care of the kind old healer in a room down the hall had set her back in a happier mindset than the chaos, fear, and worry she’d felt since the day she’d fled from Anoni in the forest and met the marines.