The Prophecy Con (Rogues of the Republic)

by Weekes, Patrick

  The cabin that Captain Thelenea had provided was a spacious multi-roomed suite with a full bar. Loch imagined that somewhere, Kail was seething with jealousy and not knowing why.

  “We were just lucky Ululenia was able to give us the auras,” Tern said. She was sitting in an overstuffed chair that seemed to be made from living wood and a lot of very expensive moss, stirring a bright-pink drink with her straw. “The plan got thrown a bit with us here instead of Desidora.”

  “Have you seen the plan?” Dairy asked. He sat on the edge of the bed, drinking milk. Loch supposed that some things didn’t change.

  “I was given to understand that it included a number of contingencies,” Hessler said from behind Tern, and Dairy looked at him, then at Loch, and laughed despite himself.

  “We’re good until either the tournament ends . . . or I do.” Loch took a sip of an elven white wine that was a little too sweet for her, closer to a dessert wine than she liked, but apparently one couldn’t get a good red in the Elflands for love or money. “The tournament starts tomorrow, and as long as it’s running, there’ll be a crowd in the main hall. That gives the rest of you plenty of time to hit Irrethelathlialann’s room before I run out of chips.”

  “How can you be certain he has it in his room,” Ululenia asked, “instead of in the captain’s safe?” She lounged on the massive bed, twirling a flower through her fingers, drinking nothing for a change.

  “The captain and our elf aren’t on the best of terms, apparently.” Loch sipped the too-sweet wine again. “She’s not happy that he brought trouble onto her ship, and I don’t see her agreeing to store more trouble in the ship’s safe.”

  “That’s a little weak,” Ululenia said.

  “So are the drinks, but this is the only way we get them,” Loch said, and raised her wineglass. “If it’s not in the room, we look at the safe, but the room’s easier.”

  Ululenia didn’t look happy, but she nodded nevertheless.

  “How are you going to keep yourself in the tournament?” Tern asked, and everyone looked at her. She pointed at Loch with a straw. “Hey, I didn’t sign up for a tournament with a five-thousand-chip bounty on my head. I assume you can take the idle rich, no problem, but some of these players are here just for this tournament, as it’s one of the biggest ones they do this year. They’re professionals!”

  “You can’t cheat,” Ululenia said, still twirling the flower through her fingers with her eyes closed. “Half the people playing will be fairy creatures. The main hall will have wards in place to prevent anyone from reading a player’s mind, and I imagine they’ll have illusion magic locked down as well.”

  “I’ve played a few hands of suf-gesuf in my time,” Loch said. “I’ll stay alive until you have the book.”

  “What about me?” Dairy asked, finishing the last of his milk and setting the glass down hard on the table.

  “What about you, kid?” Hessler asked after an awkward moment of silence.

  “I can’t open locks or break wards. I can’t pick pockets. I don’t even lie very well.” Dairy balled one hand into a fist, glaring at the floor. “I defeated Bi’ul, so the world is safe. There’s no more prophecy anymore, so why am I even here?”

  Loch looked at Ululenia, but the unicorn was suspiciously silent. Hessler didn’t jump in, either.

  “You’re here because you wanted to be on our side,” Loch finally said. “Don’t worry. We’ll find something for you to do.”

  Dairy swallowed. “Because you feel sorry for me?”

  “Because you’re one of us,” Tern said, and Loch saw her elbow Hessler with her good arm. “For now, you’re getting Loch drinks during the tournament. Nobody gambles well when they’re thirsty.”

  Loch raised her glass of too-sweet wine to Tern, then finished it off. “That’ll do for a start.”

  Eighteen

  LADIES, GENTLEMEN, AND beings to whom gender classifications do not apply,” Captain Thelenea said from the main stage, “it is my pleasure to welcome you to the Elflands Classic Suf-Gesuf Tournament. Play begins in five minutes. Anyone not ready to play at that time will forfeit their place in the tournament.” She glanced through the crowd at Loch as she said it, and Loch cracked a smile and nodded slightly.

  “You look very nice, ma’am,” said Dairy.

  “Thank you.” The treeship staff had helpfully provided a change of clothes for Loch. Evidently the sword was worth enough for them to feel guilty taking it as the buy-in. She’d changed into a simple white blouse with loose flowing sleeves, and a burgundy skirt slit high enough to let her walk comfortably. “I thought I might stand out less this way than if I were wearing riding leathers.”

  Dairy coughed. “You’re not going to, ah, tear parts of your clothes off again, like you did at the Archvoyant’s ball, are you?”

  Loch smirked. “I’ll try to avoid it.” Most of the players wore hats or spectacles, anything that would hide their expressions. “Where are we at?”

  “Right over here, ma’am,” Dairy said, gesturing, and Loch made her way to one of the many round tables that filled the main hall. They were lined with thin moss instead of felt, and the chairs were made from thin green wood that flexed oddly when she sat down.

  “Isafesira de Lochenville?” The dealer was narrow-faced even for an elf, and one of the crystals in his cheek had been cut out, leaving a thin scar. The other glowed angry red.

  “That’s me.” Loch smiled.

  The dealer didn’t. He slid over a stack of chips as other players sat down at the table. “We crossed over into the Elflands, which means we’re playing by elven rules.” He looked around the table, glaring at everyone about equally. “For those unfamiliar with the system, that means that a flush is not a valid hand, but a concordance is, and holds a similar rank, just above a straight and below four of a kind. That would be four numbered cards, one from each suit, with different numbers showing, plus a single face card that must come from one of your two hidden cards. We also do not recognize a full house as you do when playing by Republic or Imperial rules, counting it only as three of a kind. Does anyone have any questions so far?”

  Loch looked at the other players. One was an elven woman whose face was obscured by a feathered half-mask. Her hair was cropped short, as though she’d seen military service. Next to her was a fat dwarf wearing an enormous floppy hat. Next to him was the Imperial man she’d flirted with earlier, still wearing his smoked spectacles, and next to him was Baron Lechien, her noble defender.

  The last seat was empty.

  The dealer glared at them all for a moment, letting the silence drag out, and then continued. “Four shared cards, two open, two hidden. Three rounds of betting, once after the first two shared and the redraw, then on the third shared, and finally on the fourth. The maximum raise is listed here.” He jabbed a thin, ash-stained finger at a board by his seat at the table. “It increases along with the minimum ante every half hour. We play with a half-hour break every two hours, until few enough players remain that we can form a finals table. Now, and for the last time, any questions?”

  Princess Veiled Lightning slid into the last empty seat. “My apologies for my tardiness,” she said, flashing them all a thin smile.

  “You are of course forgiven,” the dealer said sourly, and shoved the chips her way.

  “Glad you could make it,” Loch said.

  Veiled Lightning glanced over. “You play games while innocent people die on both sides of this fight.”

  Loch raised an eyebrow. “Says the woman who just sat down to join us.”

  “I heard about your bounty. I thought I might earn a little money as long as I am here.”

  “Earning money must be a nice change for you, princess. Earn enough, and they might let you buy back the Nine-Ringed Dragon. I had to use it for collateral.”

  Little bits of moss peeled away from the table under V
eiled Lightning’s fingernails. “You—”

  “If you two ladies are finished,” the dealer growled, “perhaps we might all play a hand or two of suf-gesuf.”

  “I was just waiting for you to deal. Dairy?” Loch slid a chip into the center of the table with everyone else. “I do believe I’m going to need something stronger than wine.”

  Tern peeked around the corner and looked down the luxury-deck hallway. “Clear.”

  “Unless they are invisible or shapeshifted into something small you are overlooking,” Ululenia said from behind her.

  Tern looked over her shoulder and glared. “Probably clear.”

  “The tournament has started,” Hessler said. “I doubt we’ll have a better opportunity.”

  Tern stepped out around the corner and walked down the hallway with as much confidence as she could muster. The carpet looked like grass but felt more like thick, spongy moss beneath her feet. It damped the impact of her boots on the ground, which was unfortunate, because she felt like a little confidence-stomping could have made her feel better right then.

  She reached the door to the elf’s room. It was locked with a more sophisticated version of the lock on their own suite, something analogous to crystal magic but based on the plant magic they used instead. It was built to respond to a leaf-key they’d been given.

  “This’d be a lot easier if the elves would just use crystals like the rest of us,” she muttered. “Cloak me.”

  “I don’t think they can,” Hessler said, throwing the cloak up around Tern. “Loch said something about it back in Jershel’s Nest. The elf seemed to imply that his people specifically avoided crystal-based magic in favor of such ungainly and unpredictable—”

  “The magic of nature is not unpredictable,” Ululenia cut in. “It is simply less abrasive. Magic based on crystals emits an aura that elves and my kind can both feel. For those like me, it feels like kinship, since we sprang forth from such magic. For the elves, however, it is an overwhelming noise that affects how they think.”

  “That sounds creepy,” Tern said, using a tiny knife to test the edges of the lock. “Could you have maybe softened that with a metaphor about trees or flowers or something?”

  “As the wolf cannot think when dropped into a vat of perfume,” Ululenia said dryly.

  “Okay, close enough. Oh, ew. Most locks don’t spit sap all over my picks.”

  “I suppose that explains why they’re so reclusive,” Hessler said, lowering his voice as an elven servant came around the corner. Everyone stayed still until the servant opened a door down the hall and went inside. “In any good-sized city, there are enough crystal artifacts to affect how they think.”

  “What do you think that’s like?” Tern rubbed a bit of sap off her pick, then slid it in. She felt the edge of something that was probably the bit that reacted to the leaf-key, and while the specifics were completely alien to her, there were only so many ways to keep a door closed. “Is it like being really drunk, or like chewing some of the berries they tell you not to chew in gardening classes?”

  The others were silent behind her.

  “Gardening classes?” Hessler finally said.

  “Mother thought that if I had something to do with my hands, I might be less interested in mixing chemicals and picking locks. And speaking of the former, I’m about done trying this thing.” She produced a vial from one sleeve and small case of powder from one of her many dress pockets. “You’re going to want to back up a bit. The smoke really stings your eyes.”

  “You realize they’ll know that someone broke into the elf’s suite,” Hessler said.

  “That was probably a given as soon as the lock started oozing sap,” Tern said, and sprinkled a bit of the powder into the vial. She sealed the vial, shook it, and reached into another pocket for a pair of tongs. Using her good arm, she put the vial in the tongs, and then held it to the lock. “Knock, knock.”

  The lock hissed and crackled and blackened as the acid ate through the vial, then it. In a few moments, that whole section of door was a smoking mess. Tern grinned. “No lock I can’t beat.”

  “You ate through the lock with acid,” Hessler said.

  “I probably would’ve gone for picking it had I not been still weak from being shot in the chest with a crossbow bolt because somebody gave them aiming support.”

  “And the acid absolutely counts as a win,” Hessler added.

  “Glad to hear it.” Tern kicked the door open.

  “I’m so pleased you could join us,” said a very large red-bearded man in a chair in the middle of the room, fingers steepled, as elves on either side of the door drew swords.

  Captain Nystin got off the airship in Ros-Oanki with nothing left.

  His men were either dead or in custody. The new recruits would be explaining to a team of justicars that this had all been part of a covert operation. The veterans would be sitting silently, waiting for a release order that would never come.

  Nystin had served the Republic for a good quarter of a century. He’d killed his share of daemons and worse. He’d fought wars that earned no medals and would appear in no history books, all to ensure the safety of his country.

  And just like that, Isafesira de Lochenville had taken it all from him.

  He vanished into the crowd in the docks, a stolen cloak covering the wool shirt whose stains marked it too clearly as having been worn under armor. He had ditched the armor but kept his crystal-tipped mace and silver daggers. They could be traced, but he’d lived too long to go without some way to defend himself.

  The puppeteers had a show running near the ticket office, and a larger crowd than normal had gathered around the stage. They looked angry.

  “The important thing is that everyone keeps doing their part,” the manticore insisted, flapping his wings indignantly.

  “Obviously, we aren’t going to win this war if we panic and stop trusting our government,” the griffon added.

  “Where’s Heaven’s Spire?” someone in the crowd shouted. Nystin stopped walking and looked over casually.

  “Well, a general doesn’t explain his every move to the privates,” the griffon said, stammering a little, “and I think wherever the capital city has moved to, it’s acting for the good of the Republic.”

  “They’re running away!” came a yell from the crowd.

  “Bring back the Spire!”

  “Stand and fight!”

  “Enough!” the dragon roared, sending a little ball of flame rolling out and startling the crowd into silence. “Heaven’s Spire has deviated from its normal route, yes. We have no new information at this time about where it is located, or why the Voyancy has decided to move the city.”

  Nystin started walking again, eyes down, shoulders hunched. The crowd was yelling more loudly. The puppeteer would be lucky to get out of there alive.

  If the Spire was gone, that would make things harder. He had go-bags dropped all across the Republic, but he had assumed that it was still worth a trip to the Spire to make one last case for himself.

  Loch was in the Elflands. He had no way to get to her.

  He figured he might know where she’d be going, though, and that was the next best thing.

  He walked the dock at a casual, ground-eating pace, eyes wandering to the registry and listed destination of each airship. When he found a small cargo ship heading close to the Imperial border, he passed it, ducked back into an alley between two hangars, and waited.

  Workers loaded the cargo ship and started boarding. Nystin was getting ready to make his move when a coach pulled up. An armored and helmeted man got out. Like Nystin, he wore a cloak that obscured his armor, but the helmet was golden and had a great dragon face.

  Just like the Imperials, Nystin figured. Too proud of their armor to toss it.

  The muscle headed to the airship and began what looked like a negotiati
on with the captain. Nystin ambled across the docks, casual and forgettable, and slipped into the coach.

  “Don’t move,” he said to the Imperial woman sitting on the bench across from him. His dagger was out as he slid the door closed. “Stop. Make one sound, and I’ll kill you before your guard arrives.” She looked like she’d been sleeping, and was bundled in blankets that hid most of her, leaving only her delicate face visible. She looked at him wide-eyed as he continued. “Now listen carefully. You’re getting onto this airship, and you’re going to see to it that I come with you. If your guard gets any ideas, I kill you. If you try to escape, I kill you. If you do anything stupid at all, I kill you.” He smiled, letting the hardness show in his eyes. “None of that means I want to kill you. You let me get onto that ship, you play along like I’m your guest, and nobody has to get hurt.” His dagger was up, the silver catching the light to throw the glint into her eyes. That always made it scarier. “You hear me?”

  “I hear you,” the Imperial woman said, and then a green-scaled tail slid from the blanket to coil around his wrist. “Don’t move.”

  “You’re certain?” Kail asked for the third time. He had Iofegemet sailing at full speed already, but he had never liked flying blind, least of all when magic was involved, even more least of all when he was literally flying.

  “Heaven’s Spire casts magic like the sun casts light,” Desidora said. She was standing at the railing, staring off into what looked to Kail like empty space. Her auburn hair swayed as she looked back and forth. “It’s bright enough that most people who can see auras learn to tune it out, so as to be able to see anything else, but if I squint and focus, the wake is just barely visible.” She held up an arm. “A little more that way.”

  Kail eased Iofegemet a bit to port, squinting off into empty space as though he’d be able to see auras if he just tried hard enough. Then he gave up and played with the airship’s controls a little, on the off chance that any of the diagnostic functions could pick up the trail. So far, both options worked equally well, in that neither had done anything worth a damn.