Desidora spun Ghylspwr and nodded. Ululenia bobbed her head. Icy stepped into a kind of low, wide-legged crouch with his hands linked together at about knee-level. “We are ready.”
He hauled back on the rudder, and Iofegemet jerked to a stop.
As she did, Desidora ran directly at Icy, swinging Ghylspwr in an arc off to one side as she did. The love priestess kicked into Icy’s linked hands just as the deck jolted, flung her hammer up over her head, and flew across the space between the two ships.
A moment later, she went hammer-first through the hull of the treeship, with a little white bird trailing behind her.
“Subtle,” Pyvic said, helping Tern up.
“Right on my bad arm, damn it!”
“You got hit in the chest, not the arm,” Kail said without looking over. Alarm bells were ringing down below, and Kail started pushing crystals on the console. “Oh, yes, my, what a terrible mistake.”
“And nobody is going to notice that Desidora just knocked a hole in the side of that ship?” Pyvic asked.
“Not if I had the sailwing positioned correctly to block their view from the ground.” Kail pointed, then pressed some more buttons to send the right signals down to ground. “Yes, yes, terrible mistake, apologies to everyone, send all fines to the justicars . . .”
“And Ululenia will heal the ship’s hull, so nobody aboard is aware of their arrival,” Icy added.
Pyvic shrugged. “I’m not going to lie. I’m skeptical.”
“This is probably the smoothest one of Loch’s plans has ever gone,” Kail said, right as the grappling hooks latched onto the railing.
Desidora felt the crash in the strange way that she felt things when Ghylspwr was guiding her. It wasn’t that the splinters didn’t touch her, but for just one moment, as they went through the hull, all of her was so much more solid than she usually was that nothing seemed to matter.
He pulled her into a roll and brought her up into an acrobatic pose that she would never have managed on her own, hammer over her head, one knee bent, the other leg flung out wide.
Desidora could not believe anyone would ever stand like that voluntarily. With a self-conscious adjustment of her skirts, she brought Ghylspwr down close by her side, so as not to scream to everyone who saw her that she was carrying a large warhammer, while still leaving him available to gently concuss anyone who got in her way.
They had been aiming for the passenger cabins, and as she looked around, she saw a bare room whose sloped wall was marked with sprouting beams and what looked like great leather tarps or sacks. It was lit only by yellow-green veins that pulsed along the wall, marking everything with harsh shadows.
“Not the passenger cabins,” she said.
The air shimmered beside her. “No,” Ululenia said, turning back to the impressive hole Ghylspwr had made in the hull. “The bladders.”
“I . . . may need more context than that,” Desidora said, “unless this is where everyone is supposed to go use the privy.”
“Air bladders.” Ululenia extended a slim white hand to the jagged edges of the hole, and Desidora saw the wood begin to glow. “Air is drawn in through the sails, funneled through the bladders, and then released from the roots at the stern to propel the ship forward.”
“Do normal trees have bladders?” Desidora asked, peeking out the doorway. The hallway ahead was deserted, but with the senses of her goddess, she could feel an aura approaching.
“Normal trees do not fly,” Ululenia said, and without looking, Desidora heard the hum of magic and the tiny crackle of wood beginning to grow. “The hare has heard the vixens approaching. Its ears are sharp, and it is ready to thump the ground with its feet.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Desidora felt the guard approaching. He was elven, young, and nervous. His aura felt like excitement and longing, a dawning awareness that life on the treeship was not giving him the happiness he had hoped for, but home felt wrong as well. He had dreamed of sailing on smaller treeships, fighting wild fairy folk on the frontier and finding adventure, and he was not sure what to do.
Desidora reached around the corner and tapped him very lightly with Ghylspwr.
He went down bonelessly, and Desidora reached out with Ghylspwr’s head and dragged the boy inside. “Ululenia, what’s the most adventurous job a young man in the Elflands can reasonably find that has something to do with sailing treeships?”
Ululenia did not look back from where she worked, both hands now pressed to the wood. “The Blackwood Riggers sail small treeships through forest fires so that water druids can stop them from spreading.”
“Thank you.” Desidora leaned down close to the unconscious elf. “Blackwood Riggers,” she whispered.
She had no idea whether it would take, but it was the most a love priestess could reasonably do in such a situation.
“How much longer?” she asked Ululenia.
“The flower blossoms when the seed is ready.”
Desidora bit her lip. “All right. I’ll get to the central security station and analyze the aura we need to mask our presence. I should have a reasonable picture by the time you’re finished.”
She made her way quietly down the hallway until she found stairs leading up. She sensed no auras upstairs and headed up to a deck that was brighter, lit by glowing stones set into neat little recesses in the wall that made it seem they had grown there. For all she knew, they had.
Doors along the walls were decorated with inlaid patterns of twining gold and green leaves, with numbers marking each door. “One floor off,” Desidora muttered to Ghylspwr. “Kail did a passable job after all.”
She noted the numbers, checked the mental map in her head, and then gave up and picked a direction at random. She was moving carefully down the hallway when the outside alarm finally shut off.
That meant they’d finished checking the horrifically sloppy crystals Hessler had concocted, which had indeed been strong enough to overload the security wards. They would now shut down the wards, wait a few moments, and power them back on.
If that happened without Desidora and Ululenia having the proper aural signature, that would be when everyone on the treeship would find out they were here.
With that in mind, she picked up the pace a bit, jogging down the hallway. A wealthy human woman in rich furs stepped out of one of the passenger rooms and stared at her imperiously. “The towels are completely unacceptable,” she said, and then Desidora knocked her on the head with Ghylspwr, and she went down just like the elven sailor.
It took a few precious seconds to nudge the woman back inside, and Desidora couldn’t help but notice the woman’s aura as she did. “You have enough money,” she whispered into the woman’s ear. “See if the noble who loved to play with feathers is ready to settle down.”
She found the door leading to the security center around the next corner, popped the lock off with a sharp rap from Ghylspwr, and stepped inside.
A pair of elven security officers turned as she entered. Desidora knocked one of them on the head, then felt herself step to the side without really meaning to as Ghylspwr nudged her out of the way of the second guard’s wooden blade. Ghylspwr caught the guard on the chin, and the guard staggered back, then went down as Desidora knocked him on the head as well.
“Stop spending time with people just because they’re smart, and start spending time with people who make you happy,” she whispered to the first one as she shoved her up against a wall. The second was actually in a happy relationship already, as far as Desidora could tell. “Looking good. Try cuddling more,” she said, and then turned to the control console.
It looked a lot like one made from crystals, but everything was wood and roots and leaves instead. A shallow pool of water had roots and—Desidora thought—mushrooms, perhaps, growing in the bottom of it, all blinking or shining in a variety of colors.
Desido
ra let her eyes unfocus and concentrated on seeing the auras. As a death priestess, she could have affected them with a simple effort of will. Now, she could only see them, but if she could get an accurate picture of what the auras felt like and communicate that to Ululenia, then Ululenia could use her nature magic to give them something that would fool the wards for them.
“I believe this might actually work,” she murmured, smiling as she looked at the auras.
Then one of them caught her eye.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh, dear.”
“Besyn larveth’is!” Ghylspwr agreed.
As he spoke, the alarms roared back to life.
This time, they included a harsh buzzing light that took Desidora by surprise, forcing her to shield her eyes. It was glaring red, almost too bright to look at.
When she forced her eyes open, she realized that the light was actually hundreds of tiny little red motes pouring from vents in the walls and ceiling.
The motes were all swarming around Ghylspwr.
“Hey, Kail, just fly the airship, Kail, I’ll have the hard job standing in line with a fake ticket, Kail . . .” Kail hauled Iofegemet into a quick twist that made the hull creak as the grappling lines strained against it, then whipped the airship back the other way to free up a little slack. “Get them loose!”
Hessler strained at one of the hooks. “Is there a trick to—”
He broke off abruptly as a crossbow bolt chopped neatly through the line and sank into the hull.
“Nope,” Tern said. “Reload me?”
Pyvic was sawing at one with a dagger, and grunted as the line finally snapped. “Little fast with the grappling cables here in Jershel’s Nest, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, they should have fired some warning flares or offered some guidance first.” Alarms started going off again on the treeship off to starboard. They were a nice complement to the ones going off down on the ground. “Ululenia, the hell’s going on over there?”
Across the gap, still standing in the now-somewhat-smaller hole in the hull, Ululenia gave Kail a helpless look. “As the bee swarming when the bear jostles—”
“Fine!” Kail moved on. “Justicar, anybody trying to climb up?”
Pyvic leaned over the railing. “Negative.”
“Hey, Icy, you got any fancy oath against hurting ropes?”
“I do not.” Icy stepped to the railing, rubbed his hands together a few times briskly, and then did something. One moment his hand was at his side, and the next, it was out by the railing, fingers pointing and thumb tucked in, and the grappling line had been cut neatly through with smoke coming off the edges.
“Marvelous. One line left. Anybody?”
“I’ve got it,” Hessler said, and moved his hands through a complex incantation before thrusting them out at the last grappling hook.
A sizzling line of fire lashed out, burned through the rope . . . and set the railing on fire.
“Beautifully done, Hessler, no idea why everyone thinks you should just stick to illusions!” Kail called out. The lines were down, and Iofegemet was free. “All right, baby, I’ll make sure the stupid wizard doesn’t light you on fire again. Now, let’s just lift the hell out of here and—”
“Kail!” At the sound of Desidora’s voice, he looked back at the treeship, and saw the priestess standing by Ululenia, waving frantically.
“Little busy!” he yelled back.
“The ticket checker has a secondary security ward!” she shouted.
“What does that mean?” Kail shouted.
“Aural or procedural?” Tern shouted at the same time.
“Okay, yeah, talk to Tern instead!” Kail forced the controls back into a holding pattern, then grimaced as he saw another grappling hook come sailing over the railing. “Seriously?”
Pyvic starting hacking at the new line, pausing for a moment to look over the edge. “We’ve got an airship coming up portside!”
Tern and Desidora were yelling back and forth. Kail decided he’d leave them to it. “Hessler, that lighting-ships-on-fire-by-accident thing you just did? Think you can manage another one?”
“You did say that you wanted me to clear the grappling line,” Hessler said, “and a small fire seemed preferable to—”
“Great! Tern, Desidora, how we doing?”
“We’ve figured out what we need to do!” Tern shouted, gesturing impatiently with her good arm while Hessler finished cocking the crossbow.
“Anything I should know?”
“Desidora can’t know enough about security wards to do it. I’m going to have to go over.”
“Over there? Really?” Kail looked at the gap between the ships, and then at Tern in her crafter’s dress, one arm still bound with a sling. “I’ll see what I can do.”
The other airship came up beside them, and undead sailors leaped across to board Iofegemet.
“Are you here for the suf-gesuf tournament?” asked a well-dressed young man whose traveling clothes were marked with a noble’s family heraldry.
“I’ve heard people talking about that,” Loch said, trying to ignore the multiple alarms going off and the people on the ground below pointing up into the sky. “It sounds exciting.” She put a little nobility into her own voice as well, and also pitched it up about an octave. The men usually liked that.
“It is. Only reason we’ve got so many of our kind on this treeship. Buy-in is two hundred plus twenty.” He smiled, showing nice teeth. “I’ve done well for myself in a few tournaments near Ros-Oanki, so I thought I might try something a little larger. Baron Lechien, at your service.”
“A baron! Oh, my.” People down in the crowd below were still pointing, and Loch was almost positive she heard the ring of weapons clashing in the sky overhead. “I’m surprised the tournaments are still going on, what with all the trouble with the Empire,” she said without looking up.
“I’m afraid I’m a bit out of touch with all that.” Lechien chuckled. “Politics and I have an agreed not to bother each other.”
“I’m glad that’s working for you,” Loch said, smiling at the wealthy young nobleman. “What was the buy-in, did you say?”
“Oh, here.” Lechien handed her a paper. “Tournament rules, in case you’re interested. See you on board.” He smiled again and stepped forward, passing his ticket to the elf standing by a pedestal of polished wood.
“We wish you good afternoon,” said an elven woman with blue stones set in her cheeks, smiling. “Welcome, and we hope you inform us if there is anything we may do to improve the spirit of your journey. If you have not traveled to the Elflands before, we inform you that all crystal-based magic is forbidden, and if you wish to leave any items behind, it is our privilege to provide storage lockers for you down at the ticket office.”
Loch’s father had told her how the elves spoke, and how to speak to them without giving offense. “Thank you,” she said. “I left all my crystal devices at home.”
“Your gesture is appreciated.” The elven woman smiled and nodded. “You may present your ticket over there.”
Loch nodded in return and moved ahead as the nobleman headed across the gangplank. Behind her, Dairy had been silent for the last little while.
“Something is happening up there,” he said.
“Sure is.”
“Do you know what’s going on?”
“Not at the moment.” She smiled at the elven man at the ticket pedestal. “One, plus a guest,” she said, gesturing at Dairy, and passed her ticket over.
He placed it on the pedestal, and the pedestal glowed for a moment.
Then it gave an angry chirp.
Desidora watched the undead leap onto her friends’ airship.
They were new, many of them freshly killed, and they moved without the jerky clumsiness that would have marked a wizard simply animating the corpses. T
heir auras were intact, horribly shackled to bodies that no longer wanted them with chains of dark magic.
“No,” she whispered.
They swung weapons or bare fists. Some of them were human, while many more were dwarven. From the train wreck, she guessed, and the thought made her stomach twist with revulsion.
Pyvic and Kail were holding the deck, but there were more than a dozen undead warriors. Icy was guarding Tern and Hessler. Hessler had evidently convinced Icy that the undead were no longer living creatures, and Icy was driving the sad creatures back with great sweeping kicks.
“There!” Ululenia pointed through the small hole that was all that remained of the breach Ghylspwr had made in the hull. “Hunter Shenziencis and the bodyguard!”
And with that, Desidora knew who was responsible for the corpses rising from the dead to attack the Republic. The Imperial warrior cast no aura Desidora could see. He might have been masked, or he might have been other than human.
The Hunter should have had no aura at all, like the golems Desidora had fought before . . . and she did not have one of her own, it was true.
But the black chains that bound all the dead warriors ended in thin lines of pain that snaked back to her. She was not even fighting. She was directing the undead, flexing the evil magic that emanated from her to bend them to her will.
“Ululenia,” she said, “you need Tern to get Loch aboard?”
The pale woman looked at her, horn flickering in fear. “Yes.”
“I will fetch her for you.”
Desidora swung Ghylspwr in a fast underhanded arc, took two steps, and leaped through the small hole just as she Ghylspwr pulled her forward.
The Imperial warrior held a magical ax, and he moved with grace and power that bespoke the same guidance Ghylspwr gave Desidora. He blocked Pyvic’s swing, and Pyvic dove back desperately from a return strike that shattered his blade. As the Imperial warrior came forward, one of the zombies grabbed Pyvic by the arm, holding him in place.
The Prophecy Con (Rogues of the Republic) Page 28