The Prophecy Con (Rogues of the Republic)

by Weekes, Patrick

  “Right, got it. But it shot that big blast of energy down.” Tern looked over at him for emphasis. “Straight down. It’s no threat to the Empire unless the voyants fly Heaven’s Spire across the border so it’s hanging over an Imperial city—and they’d never do that, because that would mean risking all the wealthy people like themselves.”

  “Yes, Silestin’s weapon would primarily be defensive in nature, to ward against Imperial attack.” Hessler looked down again in irritation. “How many messages are they going to send?”

  “I’ve been working with the lapitects to figure out what Silestin’s people did,” Tern said quietly, as the crowd laughed at something onstage. “I think I figured it out this morning. They did a lot less than we thought.”

  Hessler blinked. “I’m certain that the modifications were elegant, but—”

  “That’s just it: they weren’t modifications. They were repairs. As near as we can tell, Heaven’s Spire has had this weapon in place since the ancients first built it. Silestin’s people just re-enabled it.” Tern looked at the stage, then back at Hessler, whose eyes had gone wide as it sank in. “Why would the ancients make Heaven’s Spire so that it could only fire down on the cities below it?”

  Hessler opened his mouth, closed it, then reached down and yanked a thin, palm-sized crystal backed with silver from his pocket. “What in the world could be so important that . . . docking bay override request? Why would someone contact me about that?”

  “I say,” the manticore said, claws locked around the griffon’s throat, “if the Empire doesn’t want us to have the ability to defend ourselves, it’s a damned good thing we have that ability!”

  The dragon puppet finally pulled the two apart. “Now, now, this is all a moot point,” it roared, sending little gouts of fire between the two to force them to opposite sides of the stage. “We’ve got diplomats going to meet our friends in the Empire, and they’re going to ensure that cooler heads prevail.”

  “I just hope we make use of this opportunity,” the manticore growled, wings hunched in submission.

  “This is a very dangerous situation, not an opportunity,” the griffon insisted, lunging forward until a growl from the dragon sent it scuttling back. “We just have to hope that handing over the people responsible for this accident is enough to resolve this situation.”

  “Wait, what? Silestin was responsible for it,” Tern said, “and he’s dead, so we can’t hand him over. Well, not tastefully.”

  “Then who are they talking about?” Hessler asked, still puzzling over the message crystal. “Loch didn’t say anything about handing over a prisoner.”

  “Remember, everyone!” the dragon shouted, tossing candy out to the crowd. “It’s your republic!”

  “Stay informed!” the crowd shouted back.

  Hessler’s message crystal buzzed again. Tern and Hessler looked down at it, then at each other.

  “Maybe you should get that.”

  Archvoyant Bertram sipped his afternoon kahva in the upper study of his palace.

  He had fifteen minutes until his next meeting, and he saw no godly reason to be early. Back when he’d been the Learned Party Leader, he had drunk four cups of kahva a day, which the healers said was burning a hole through his stomach as clearly as if he’d stuck his sizable gut in front of a flamecannon.

  Since becoming Archvoyant and having to dig the Republic out of the hole Silestin had put them all in, he had moved up to eight.

  Bertram dipped a dry biscuit into the kahva. Having some starch with his drink stopped his stomach from burning quite so badly later in the day. It also tasted divine.

  Behind him, the door to his study creaked open. “What in Byn-kodar’s hell is it?” he asked without turning around. “Tell the bloodsucking bastards I’ve got fifteen minutes.”

  “You may have less than that,” said Isafesira de Lochenville, and something metal rattled just before he felt the smooth edge of a blade at the back of his neck.

  “Justicar Loch,” Bertram said without turning around. “You escaped.”

  “Old rule in the scouts: Don’t walk into any building unless you have a plan on how to get out.”

  He nodded. “That’s a smart rule.”

  “Not going to act surprised or deny that you set me up?” The blade at the back of his neck didn’t move.

  “I was a soldier in my youth, dear, and a damn fine suf-gesuf player in my middle age. This isn’t the first blade at my throat, figurative or otherwise.” He smiled and dipped his biscuit into the kahva. He’d dipped it already, but with the way this day was going, he’d earned a double. “In point of fact, I ordered Threvein not to set you up. Apparently I was overruled.”

  “You’re the Archvoyant, Bertram.”

  “I am indeed.” He took a bite, carefully, so as not to give the impression that he was trying to avoid the blade behind him. “But I am not Silestin, with his ironclad control and his knives in the shadows for people who got out of line. Even the Learned only listen to what I say about half the time, and they weren’t the ones pushing Threvein.”

  There was a pause behind him, and then Loch chuckled. “The Skilled tried to sell me to the Empire?”

  “A couple of them,” Bertram said, taking another bite. “I suspect some Learned folks turned a blind eye. Hard-liners for Silestin, furious that you killed him.”

  “Technically, that was my sister.”

  “Say that to them with a blade at your throat,” Bertram said. “I dare you.”

  That got another chuckle. The blade moved away, and a moment later, Justicar Loch—the woman who’d upended half the Republic to stop Archvoyant Silestin’s insane plan—sat down at the table beside him. She was bruised and battered, her hair stuck to the side of her neck and her leathers were wrinkled and stiff.

  Her grip on what was quite clearly an Imperial noble’s blade was steady and assured, though. “Guessing you got out of the Temple of Butterflies on the Iceford,” he said. “Sounds cold.”

  “A bit, yes.”

  “Impressive as hell, though.” Bertram gestured at the kahva pot. “Pour one for yourself if you like.”

  She did. “So a few Learned tried to send me to the Republic as a scapegoat because they want me dead.”

  “And the Skilled turned on you because they’d turn on their own mothers to avoid another war,” Bertram said, and nodded. “Not Cevirt, of course. He’s, what, like an uncle to you? Family friend, at least. He and I did our damnedest to countermand the orders once we found out what was coming.”

  Loch nodded at that, her face grim. “For all the good it did. I got out on my own.”

  Bertram stirred his kahva as Loch drank. “I didn’t say otherwise. So . . . what now, Justicar Loch? You wouldn’t have broken into my palace without a plan, and I’m sincerely hoping that plan wasn’t just to kill me.”

  She swallowed her kahva. “I’m sincerely hoping not to go to war with the Empire or end up in an Imperial prison.”

  “It’s good to have goals, isn’t it?” Bertram sighed, looking at the pretty young Urujar woman sitting across the table. “Now, I’m not sure what you and your little band of thieves have been doing for the past few months, but I have been trying to talk the Empire down from treating Heaven’s Spire’s little bolt-of-lightning trick like an act of war.”

  “It was an act of war,” Loch pointed out. “We just managed to kill the bastard trying to start it.”

  “We being your sister.” Bertram smiled. “In any event, some of our friends in the Voyancy likely passed information to sources across the border, claiming that you were responsible for weaponizing Heaven’s Spire. The Imperials had already heard about you from our own puppet shows, back when Silestin was trying to frame you as a traitor.”

  “Kind of a lousy traitor to the Republic if I helped turn Heaven’s Spire into a weapon.” Loch toyed with on
e of the apparently decorative rings on the back of her blade.

  “The Imperials knew at the very least that you were involved,” Bertram said, shrugging, “and they wanted you turned over for trial and questioning.”

  “And when it became clear that I hadn’t done it,” Loch said, “they’d realize the Republic had lied.”

  “And we’d be right back to war,” Bertram finished, “with only a small delay and you tortured beyond recognition to show for it. That’s why Cevirt and I proposed an alternate peace offering to the Imperials.” Loch raised an eyebrow. “They’ve made noises about some artifacts and treasures that went missing in the last war, or the one before that.”

  “Magical?” Loch asked.

  “Some of them. Others just rare and expensive.” Bertram took one final sip of his kahva. “The Republic has some of them, and can get its hands on others. There’s only one that’s out of our hands, and it’s the one that the Imperials were most insistent on.” He finished his biscuit, wincing. He hated eating it dry when his kahva was already gone. “If we got that one last thing, we might possibly be able to give the Imperials a peace offering.”

  Loch took another sip, eyes closed. Bertram did not make the mistake of thinking that this was an opportunity for sudden movements, even as her shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. After a pause, she said in a resigned voice, “So what am I going to go get for you?”

  Bertram smiled. “I think you’ll find it familiar. It’s an ancient elven manuscript, The Love Song of Eillenfiniel.”

  Loch’s eyes snapped open, and her jaw dropped. “You’re kidding me.”

  Bertram chuckled. “At least you know what it looks like.”

  Loch was actually sputtering now. “The manuscript that I stole from Silestin? That I gave to the elves to save Heaven’s Spire from crashing?”

  “See, now you understand why we can’t get our hands on it ourselves,” Bertram said easily. “Those pointy-eared bastards won’t even talk to us about buying the damn thing back.”

  Loch’s eyes narrowed. “How does that belong to the Imperials? That book was in my family for generations!”

  “Oh, they’re probably lying,” Bertram said with a little wave of his hand, “but I’m sure they had something about it being theirs originally. So, Justicar Loch, are you going to get that book and save the Republic?” At her glare, he chuckled again. “Oh, come on, how hard can it be? You stole it once already.”

  She shook her head. The veins in her neck stood out a little. If Bertram had been unmarried and several decades younger, he’d have considered courting the pretty woman. As it was, he was just pleasantly distracted, and a little conflicted about the sword in her hand.

  “What can you give me?” she asked.

  “The order for your arrest and handover was illegal. Once the voyants find out that you escaped, though, they’ll push for something official to save face . . . and they’ll push behind the scenes as well,” Bertram said, and checked the time. It was going to be close. “I’ll push back. You won’t get any official trouble from the Republic, and you’ll keep your rank in the justicars.”

  “I probably could have done that myself,” Loch said dryly. “I do know someone in the justicars.”

  “And I’ll make sure he stays there, along with the rest of your friends,” Bertram said, “and I will buy you as much time to get the book for the Imperials. Now, I’d offer you a message crystal to contact me, but we both know that could be used to track you, so when you get your hands on that little elven book of sex poems, you get in touch however you can.”

  She bolted the last of her kahva and stood. “If you cross me, I’ll kill you.”

  “Given what happened to the last Archvoyant,” Bertram said, “I took that as a given.”

  She spun the blade and walked out of the room.

  Perhaps thirty seconds later, one of the servants knocked on the door. “Sir? One of our men was found unconscious in the garden, and we saw signs of forced entry.”

  “It’s under control,” Bertram said. “Show in my next appointment.”

  The servant noted Bertram sitting alone at a table with two kahva cups and said nothing. A moment later, Bertram’s next appointment walked in.

  “She agreed?” Voyant Cevirt asked as he sat at the table.

  “You knew she would,” Bertram said. “Pour yourself a cup.”

  Three

  LOCH MET TERN and Hessler at the kahva-house. They were seated by the window with waxed paper cups in hand. Tern had what was presumably kahva under an enormous layer of whipped cream, caramel, and cinnamon sprinkles. Hessler had tea.

  “So neither of you know how to drink kahva,” Loch said as she sat down.

  “Says the woman who only sits before us because we hacked docking protocols to clear you. What did the Archvoyant say?” Tern asked, licking the whipped cream off the top of her presumably-kahva.

  “You remember the elven manuscript we stole from Silestin?” Loch asked. Tern and Hessler nodded.

  “I need to steal it back.”

  Tern’s cough sprayed whipped cream across the table. “Oh, come on!”

  Hessler produced a paper napkin and wiped it up. “They intend to give it to the Empire instead of handing you over?”

  “Something like that.” Loch thought for a moment. Too much running and fighting followed by strong kahva at the palace had left her mind bouncing uselessly from thought to thought. Having a chance to sit down allowed her to finally focus. “First thing I need to do is trace the manuscript, find out where the elves have it now.”

  “If it’s back in the Elflands, we’re screwed,” Tern said. “Nobody gets in there.”

  “You’re right about that. But we’re not anything. There’s no ‘we’.”

  Tern looked at Loch in confusion. “You’re not getting the gang back together?”

  “The Republic is after me, not all of you.” Loch massaged the bridge of her nose. “I appreciate the offer, and I might need another favor or two, but there’s no need to drag you all into this.”

  “Unless the Republic goes to war with the Empire,” Hessler said, “which would drag us into it quite effectively.”

  “And forget you for a minute!” Tern added. “You think the Empire might ask for anyone else who was part of the team that accidentally triggered Silestin’s weapon? Like, say, the girl who was messing around with the controls?”

  Loch sighed. “Listen . . .”

  “Captain trying to let you guys off the hook?” Kail asked as he sat down at the table. Loch turned to see Icy and Ululenia there as well, Icy in nondescript pants and a shirt instead of his flowing robes, and Ululenia with her glowing horn turned off.

  “It’s okay. I remembered my self-interest,” Tern said. “Hey, Icy! How was the Empire?”

  “Violent and subsequently very cold.”

  “Hey, Tern,” Kail cut in, “did you know all the monks get to fight? It’s just Icy who took a vow not to.” Kail glared at Icy as though it offended him personally. “Come on, Icy—even the unicorn fights.”

  “As the mother doe protecting her fawn,” Ululenia said modestly.

  “Speaking of which,” Hessler said, looking around, “where is Dairy?”

  Ululenia gave him a narrow-eyed look, and Kail shrugged. “She doesn’t want to talk about it.”

  Hessler returned Ululenia’s glare. “I entrusted Dairy to your care, Ululenia, despite my opinions about your predilection for virgins.”

  “Oh, come on, Hessler, it’s not like she killed him or anything,” Tern said. “She probably just used him for sex and then dumped him once he was no longer a virgin. Which . . . wait. That’s, okay, it’s not worse, but—”

  “Dairy is, or at least was, a child of prophecy,” Hessler said, leaning forward and pointing at Ululenia, “and even after the prophecy’s fulfillmen
t, it is possible that he could be targeted by groups with esoteric interests in the gods or the ancients. If you cast him aside after you had your way with him—”

  “Dairy is fine,” Ululenia said in a tone that clearly signaled an end to the discussion. “We have parted ways. I do not know where he is, and I do not wish to discuss it further.”

  “See?” Kail said, elbowing Loch in the arm. “With a team like this, there’s no way things can go wrong.”

  “Their team includes an Imperial acrobat, a safecracker with a lot of nasty alchemical tricks, and Loch herself, who led a scouting unit during the war,” said Captain Nystin of the Knights of Gedesar. He stood in a dimly lit room in the warehouse district of Heaven’s Spire, in front of a chalkboard that had written descriptions of each member of the team, along with a pencil sketch where possible. A team of a dozen soldiers sat before him. “Those are bad enough, but they aren’t the ones we’re worried about. Grid?”

  One of the other knights stood. Like Nystin, she wore the traditional armor of the Knights of Gedesar, made from bands of metal fastened to internal leather straps. The banded strips offered less protection than full plate, but far greater flexibility. The Knights of Gedesar fought a lot of things that had to be dodged. The armor was a dull dark gray, an yvkefer alloy that was largely immune to magic, with wyvern leather underneath that was magic resistant as well.

  “Hessler,” Grid said. She pointed to the bearded man on the chalkboard. “Dropped out of university for illegally creating magical artifacts. He mostly sticks to illusions, but don’t let that fool you. He can use them to blind you, turn one of his pals invisible, the whole deal. No reports of him summoning daemons, but . . . well, he’s a wizard.” Some of the knights in the room chuckled.

  “Scale, what have you got?” Nystin pointed at another knight, who stood and nodded as Grid sat back down.

  “Only monster on the team is a unicorn,” Scale said, jerking his chin at the chalkboard. “No picture, because she can look like pretty much anything she wants, although it’s usually white. We’ve got her listed at entry-level nature magic—less than you’d see from an elven adept, and not usually used offensively. Her real trick is the mental crap. She’s confirmed to at least have mind-reading and mental attack capabilities, with unconfirmed reports of enslavement and control.”