“Or you sabotaged them,” came the calm voice from behind them, and Pyvic turned.
Jyrre stood with a half-dozen Knights of Gedesar at the edge of the nearest hedge. Her normal blade was gone, tossed aside in favor of one of the crystal-tipped maces that the knights favored. Pyvic gave the knights a quick glance. Most of them had chunks torn from their armor, bands battered and hanging loose.
“No crossbows?” Kail asked. “I mean, not that I’m complaining, since you probably would’ve opened fire instead of coming up to talk with us . . .”
“They lost them,” Pyvic said, “when it turned out that the golems weren’t on their side, either.”
“They are controlled by the unseen player,” Icy said, “the one who wishes for the Republic and the Empire to destroy one another.”
Pyvic nodded. “So, the question now is whether the Knights of Gedesar want to save the Republic.” He looked at them, young men and women for the most part, only a few his own age. “Ladies and gentlemen?”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, Captain.” Jyrre sneered. “You want to act like you’re playing some big game the rest of us don’t understand, all the while working with a death priestess—”
“She’s not a death priestess anymore,” Kail tossed off.
“And monsters,” Jyrre went on, as if he hadn’t spoken, “and criminals. You were a damned fine justicar until you let them corrupt you. Now you’d rather play in the shadows than carry out the law you swore to uphold. I grew up on the frontier, Captain. I learned the hard way that you don’t go into that darkness. You don’t cross that line. And when others do, even people you respect . . .” She brought up the hand she’d had down by her side and stared at Pyvic down the length of a bolt. “And we didn’t lose all our crossbows.”
“Captain!” The cry made all of them turn, and then Justicar Derenky tackled Jyrre and crashed to the turf.
Pyvic went in fast, Kail at his side. He stabbed at one knight’s face, and as the man blocked, Kail tackled him at the knees. Pyvic stabbed down through the visor, deep enough to be sure, and then spun and kicked another knight in the knee as he raised his mace over Kail.
Off to the side, Desidora smashed one knight to the ground with a blow that tore a furrow in the ground, then blocked a blow from another.
“Thought these guys were tough.” Kail slammed a stolen mace into the helmet of the knight who’d dropped to one knee. “What’s the matter, guys? Did I leave your mothers too tired to make you breakfast this morning?”
Pyvic ducked back from a blow that would have caved in his skull, lunged in, and trapped the knight’s arms. “I assume the golems left them tired.”
“Hell, we’re all tired.” Kail smashed his own mace into the back of the knight’s helmet before he could free himself. “Difference between a knight and a scout?” He turned as Desidora smashed a second knight to the turf, then blocked a blow from the third.
Kail’s mace flew end over end and smashed into the third knight’s legs from behind.
As the knight dropped to his knees, Pyvic took two running steps and slashed through ringmail to open the man’s throat. “Tired just makes a scout fight dirtier,” he called back, and went for Jyrre.
She had a knife in Derenky’s ribs, though the blond justicar had gotten a few blows of his own in and wasn’t finished yet. Pyvic hauled her off of him and put his blade to her throat as she turned.
“You backed the wrong side,” he said. “You got good people killed doing it, and I don’t have time to arrest you right now. If I were what you thought I was, it’d be really easy for me to slit your throat. But I’m not. Ghylspwr? Unconscious, please.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You bastard,” she snapped, one hand coming up so that he wouldn’t notice the one going to her waist. “If you think—”
“Shut up, Jyrre.” He grabbed her wrist with his free hand, twisted it into a lock, and put her on her knees. “And if you wake up before I get back, I suggest you turn yourself in peacefully, because you and I both know I’ll find you, and if it’s heat of battle next time, I can cut you down and sleep like a baby.”
“Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is,” Ghylspwr said in Desidora’s hands, and rapped Jyrre sharply on the head. The justicar dropped without another word.
“Thank you. Derenky, any chance you’re going to die and leave me in peace?”
“Sadly, sir,” Derenky said, holding the blade in his stomach, “I still very much want your job.”
“Noted.” Pyvic looked at Desidora. “If you were the control mechanism for a giant energy weapon, where would you be?”
It was Kail who answered. “The big room with the runes on the floor. It controlled all the security for the archvoyant’s palace. You remember, Diz?”
“Being possessed by the power of death didn’t affect my memory,” Desidora said, grinning. “I can get us there.”
She smashed open the door with a single blow from Ghylspwr and took off down the hallway.
“Possessed by the spirit of death?” Pyvic asked, falling into step with Kail as the two of them jogged after Desidora.
“Yeah, she was dead for a bit, and when she came out of it, she was pretty pissed off.”
“That when whatever happened to you two happened to you two?”
“More or less,” Kail said, and didn’t elaborate. “Later I got possessed and took out her and Tern. That wasn’t good, either.”
Pyvic shook his head and kept running.
Desidora’s memory was sound, and she led them to a narrow hallway not far from the grand ballroom, where a previously blank section of wall had slid open to reveal a darkened doorway.
“I believe you guessed correctly,” Desidora said. “Shall we?”
Pyvic nodded, and they went in, weapons raised.
The room was lit primarily by the floor, where runes glowed in a flickering pattern, shifting through the rainbow with no two the same color at any given moment. Half the floor ended in a great chasm that presumably led to the underside of the city, although Pyvic suspected that the rules of nature in this room might be a bit looser than usual.
Archvoyant Bertram sat at a hub of crystals. A figure stood before him that was much more human than the great stomping piles of metal out in the gardens, but much less human than anyone else in the room. It turned as they came in, and its eyes shone blue. “You have come.”
“Ghylspwr, please hit it,” Pyvic said, not altering his stride, “and continue to do so every time it tries to put itself back together. Archvoyant Bertram, I’m guessing the golem has not informed you that using the weapon on the Temple of Butterflies will destroy half the Republic?”
Bertram didn’t respond, didn’t even look up from the console.
Desidora and Ghylspwr smashed into the golem, who seemed too surprised to resist. Kail had his mace raised and was looking off into the darkness of the chasm. “Last time, there were spectral . . . ghosts? Spirit golems? I don’t know. They came out of the chasm. If someone’s using the golems, they might show up again.”
“Noted. Archvoyant, please. I know you didn’t want this war, and no matter how far you’ve gone, it’s not too late to . . .” Pyvic trailed off as he reached the control console and looked down.
The crystals on the control console had sprouted dozens of little spurs, a forest of needle-thin spikes that extended from their base into Archvoyant Bertram’s fingers. They glowed in an oscillating pattern that matched the runes on the floor, and Pyvic realized with sick fascination that he could see them glowing under the skin of the man’s hands and arms.
The archvoyant didn’t move his head to look at him, but his eyes flicked ever so faintly up to Pyvic. Words whispered from under the man’s slow and wheezing breaths. “Help . . . me.”
The whites of his eyes were glowing as well.
“Desidora? Ghylspwr?” Pyvic looked
over to where they stood over the slowly reforming pile of crystals. “I may need you to do some very careful smashing.”
“Besyn lar—”
The chasm flared with crackling radiance, and then it went dark, so dark that it was as though the darkness itself were a shade of light, bathing the room in a blackness so complete that even the afterimages were wiped from Pyvic’s eyes.
When that darkness faded, a tall man in Imperial armor stood at the edge of the chasm. It was the bodyguard Pyvic had fought on Kail’s airship, the one with the magical ax.
“The groundside amplifier has been prepared,” he said, “but I would prefer not to risk waiting for a normal recharge. Continue recalibrating the matrix for a forced burn.”
The golem, still reforming, started to say something, and Desidora hit it again. The Imperial man seemed to notice them for the first time.
Kail was already ambling toward the man, likely considering options regarding the man’s mother. “Diz, I’m guessing forced burn is something we should worry about.”
“I believe he intends to deliberately unbalance the energies that maintain all of Heaven’s Spire,” she said, and after hitting the pile of golem-crystals one more time for good measure, she moved in the Imperial man’s direction, Ghylspwr already spinning. “It would generate an incredible amount of energy, but there’s a very good chance it would also flash-fry every living thing in the city.”
“Correct.” The Imperial man raised his ax into a guard.
“You’re willing to kill everyone here?” Pyvic asked. “Even your own people?”
The Imperial bodyguard lifted his free hand to his helmet and pulled up the visor, and Pyvic looked at what now only vaguely resembled a face.
The ceiling burst into shimmering red radiance as thousands of crystals fell free, falling to the floor between the Imperial man, or rather, the ax animating the obviously dead body of the Imperial man, and them. They landed in a pile of glowing red and rose in the form of a dozen armored golems wielding great jagged spikes of black crystal.
“I am Arikayurichi, the Bringer of Order, and my people are waiting to return to this world,” said the ax. “Does it look like I care what happens to a few sacks of skin along the way?”
Twenty-Two
THREE HANDS LATER, Ululenia’s voice echoed quietly in Loch’s mind. The elf scratches at the ground for scraps. The Imperial holds only two pair, while the poet carries three nines.
Loch, sitting on one hidden knave, one open knave, and a knave in the shared cards, nodded ever so slightly.
“I shall raise twenty thousand,” Irrethelathlialann said.
“On that?” Veiled Lightning said, looking down at the pair of sixes she had showing. “I think not. Call.”
“I’m in.” Loch slid most of the rest of her chips in.
“As am I,” said Helianthia, and did the same.
The dealer pursed his lips and flipped out the next shared card. “Seven of palms, no help there.”
Irrethelathlialann shrugged. “Check.”
Veiled Lightning raised an eyebrow. “I thought you could see all the cards. You bragged about it quite explicitly. Raise thirty thousand.” She slid most of her chips in.
Loch looked at her stack. “I seem to be a little shy.”
“I would accuse you of many things, Isafesira,” Veiled Lightning said, smiling, “but shyness is not among them.”
Loch slid the last of her chips into the pot. “All in. And if you win, I will use my own funds to purchase the Nine-Ringed Dragon back from the elves and return it to you.”
“I am not entirely certain that is legal, given how short you are,” the dealer said.
“I beg your pardon,” Veiled Lightning interrupted him, and turned to Loch. “Before . . . you said that you ran away to join the Republic’s army.”
Loch nodded. “Yes.”
Veiled Lightning frowned. “Why did you tell me that? Was that your way of warning me off? If I acted like you had, I would end up a criminal, disgracing my family’s name?”
Loch laughed. It was a laugh with some hurt in it—dead parents and a sister who’d gone wrong in a lot of ways would do that—but it was a laugh nevertheless. “Honestly, Princess, it probably should have been . . . but no.” She nodded across the table. “I told you that out of respect. I get what you’re trying to do.”
Veiled Lightning smiled. “Is there any chance you’d be willing to surrender, then?”
Loch smiled back. “I didn’t say you were right. When this is over, win or lose, check your bodyguard’s story.”
“I may do that. You may even question him yourself, as you will be there with me in chains.” Veiled Lightning turned to the dealer. “I accept her offer as covering the difference.”
“I call as well,” Helianthia said, pushing her chips into the pot.
“Fold.” Irrethelathlialann lowered his cards, still smiling.
“Problem?” Loch asked him.
“Even I cannot simply make the cards I need appear on demand,” he said. “But this was an easy way to take most of you out of the action. Fewer spots at the table, you see.”
The dealer flipped out the last shared card, a nine of swords. Loch’s smile froze.
“Rather than complicate this further,” Veiled Lightning said, “I will check.”
Loch smiled, nodded, and looked from her to Helianthia, the elven poet now sitting on four nines.
She looked back at Loch, her face inscrutable behind the golden spectacles. “You answered a question from the Imperial princess. Would you be willing to answer one from me?”
Loch looked at her. “Of course.”
Helianthia smiled, the expression genuinely warm without giving away anything. “Do you truly believe that you can best Irrethelathlialann?”
“I do,” Loch said.
Irrethelathlialann shook his head, his nose twitching in silent laughter.
“In that case,” Helianthia said, “I fold.”
“You what?” Irrethelathlialann shot from his seat. “You’re sitting on—”
“Dealer,” Helianthia said, “am I within my rights to fold?”
“You are,” the dealer said solemnly.
“Then I do.”
“You would endanger the Elflands!” Irrethelathlialann pointed at her with a shaking finger.
“Dealer,” Loch said, “how long is Ethel allowed to be out of his seat before he’s considered to be forfeiting his place at the table?”
Irrethelathlialann sat down abruptly, glaring at her, his face flushed deep green and the crystals in his cheeks sparkling. He turned back to Helianthia. “You made a foolish mistake and a wise enemy this day, poet. Remember it well.”
The room went silent. Several people gasped.
The elves do not use the imperative, Ululenia said in Loch’s mind. It is considered unspeakably offensive.
“You have either been too long outside our borders,” Helianthia said evenly, “or you have let your crystal trinkets steal your soul one time too many.” She pulled her spectacles from her face, and Loch saw that her eyes shone with tears. “You have forgotten who you are, and you speak to me as a master to a slave. I unspeak you.” She stood from the table and turned to Loch. “I hope that you play well,” she said, and cut through the crowd.
“The poet folds. Imperial and Urujar, I give you the last card.” The dealer flipped it out. “Nothing there. If you are ready to show your cards?”
“How do you intend to pay for the Nine-Ringed Dragon?” Veiled Lightning asked, turning over her cards.
“With my winnings, presumably.” Loch showed her hidden cards and watched as Veiled Lightning’s face went slack.
She recovered quickly, though, swallowed with a jerky nod, and left the table without another word.
Irrethelathlialann smil
ed at Loch. “Well, you outplayed her, at least. Helianthia you got out of pity.”
“I thought I got her thanks to that mouth of yours,” Loch said, pulling the chips her way.
The dealer took what was left from Veiled Lightning and Helianthia’s stacks. “Since neither of the ladies had enough to make the initial ante, their chips enter the pot general. Dragon’s man, Urujar—if you are ready?”
He flipped out the cards. “Seven of swords and three of palms showing for the Dragon, six and nine of crystals for the Urujar. The flop shows seven of crystals and king of wands. Urujar, the first bet is yours.”
Irrethelathlialann looked at his hidden cards and smiled, and Ululenia’s voice whispered in Loch’s head.
As the hunting cat flares her fur to make herself large to her rivals, the elf intends to bluff a concordance. For now, he holds only a pair of sevens.
Loch looked at her hidden cards. Eight of crystals, king of palms. “No trades. Let’s start with ten thousand.”
“Isafesira de Lochenville, you’ll need to do more than that to get my attention. See ten and raise fifty.”
“Call.”
The dealer nodded and flipped out the next shared card. “Two of wands.”
“Check.” Loch put her cards down.
“Oh, that isn’t the straight you were hoping for,” Irrethelathlialann said, grinning. “Raise another fifty.”
He still holds only the pair of sevens, Ululenia said.
“Right. Call. Something funny?” she added as the elf chuckled.
“I’ll tell you in a moment,” he said.
The dealer flipped out the fourth and final shared card. “Four of crystals.”
“Oh, dear.” Irrethelathlialann clucked his tongue. “That doesn’t make a straight very likely for you at all.”
“About as likely as your concordance,” Loch said. “Raise fifty.”
“See that,” he shot back, “and raise . . .” He looked down at his chips. “I’ll tell you what. You seem very confident. I could take most of your chips now, and then spend two or three more hands whittling you down to an embarrassing final defeat . . .” He leaned forward. “But that would delay taking you into custody and removing you to what is soon to be the war-wracked wasteland of your country. So what would you say to this?” He slid the entirety of his chips across the table. “One hand.”
The Prophecy Con (Rogues of the Republic) Page 38