An armored Imperial woman leaped through the doorway, swinging a halberd as long as Desidora was tall.
Desidora dove back, ducked, saw the shackles of magical power binding the woman, and shattered them with a thought. The woman collapsed, gasping, and Desidora turned to the Shenziencis, smiling coldly.
A crossbow bolt hissed through the doorway and slammed into Desidora’s chest, and a cloud of choking gas wreathed her body as it hit. The shock sent her staggering back, coughing and blind, and the bolt clattered on the ground as she kept breathing the gas all around her. Then her foot came down on empty space instead of solid ground for the second time tonight, and she was falling, trying to pull the magic around her to cushion the fall as she had done before. But something was wrong. She couldn’t catch her breath. The magic wouldn’t come.
She hit the sand hard, and could only watch as dazedly—silhouetted against the violet energy of Heaven’s Spire—a man with a crossbow came for her.
“Powdered yvkefer-pouch on the head of the bolt,” he called as he came down the steps. “I imagine you’re having a hard time summoning that death magic right about now.” Halfway down the steps, he jumped down into the sand, landing in a clean roll. “Captain Nystin, Knights of Gedesar.”
Desidora coughed, trying to catch her breath. She couldn’t even see the shackles that bound him, couldn’t reach the magic that would let her break them. The powder in her lungs blocked her from doing any more than shakily raising one hand.
The man was still a silhouette in her vision, black against the light from Heaven’s Spire, which seemed even brighter now than it had been moments ago.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Nystin said, tossing the crossbow to the sand. “Push through it, work through the pain, and you can break her control over me.” He drew a thick-bladed dagger. “Bad news for you, death priestess. Right now, that snaky bitch isn’t doing a damned thing to control me. She could’ve ordered me to do this, and I’d have done it clumsily, like some cut-rate flunky, but she knows me well enough by now to know the things I’d be happy to do of my own free will.”
Desidora coughed again and rolled onto her side, scrabbling for purchase on the sand.
“All you monsters,” Nystin said, shifting the dagger so that he held it point down as he approached, “you fairy creatures and necromancers and death priests. You think you own this world because you’ve got power the rest of us don’t. But a little silver, a little yvkefer, and all your fancy tricks go away. And then what are you?”
“A love priestess,” gasped Desidora, and flung sand into Nystin’s face. He stumbled back, clawing at his eyes, and Desidora lunged from the sand pit to where a fallen soldier lay unconscious, his sword next to him. “And we cheat.” She grabbed it, turned, and swung it two-handed as Nystin stumbled toward her.
She had carried Ghylspwr for months, and every time she had swung him, his magic had guided her. Priests of Tasheveth went through no formal combat training, and Desidora could count the number of times she’d swung a nonmagical weapon on one hand.
Her swing was slow and clumsy, but it was a swing nevertheless, and Nystin leaped backward. The light from Heaven’s Spire blazed bright enough to bathe the courtyard in violet, and up above, Desidora could hear a high-pitched whistling.
Nystin feinted, then slashed at her throat, and Desidora’s block left her off balance. His leg snapped into her ankle, and she fell and landed hard on the stone of the courtyard.
Nystin raised his dagger, his face a pale violet in the radiance coming down from above.
Then he glanced up overhead, squinted, and then flinched.
A bone-shaking impact rattled the courtyard, spraying sand from the pits and water from the fountains and causing intricate glowing runes to overload and blow out in the walls.
Desidora looked to the middle of the courtyard, where one of the giant purple crystals that normally clung to the underside of Heaven’s Spire lay amid a spiderweb of cracks on the ground, glowing fitfully. It lurched back into the air, bobbed for a moment, and then fell back down into a sandpit as its glow died altogether.
“Sorry that took so long, Diz,” Kail said, pushing himself back to his feet shakily. “Had to get a ride.”
“You rode a lapiscaelum down from Heaven’s Spire?” Nystin growled, coming back to his feet with his dagger ready. “For what? Your death priestess?”
Desidora hit him hard on the back of the head with the pommel of her sword, and he went down hard.
She looked at Kail, who was swaying a bit. “He had a point, though.”
“Ah, I’ve ridden one before. S’how Loch and I escaped the Cleaners.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
He shrugged.
Desidora looked to where the great purple crystal lay in the sand, confused. “They don’t levitate at night.”
“Yeah. I got a lightning wand.” Kail held up a blackened and dead length of crystal. “Figured if I hit the lapiscaelum with enough energy, it’d probably turn on enough to slow down the fall.”
“Probably?” Desidora asked. When he didn’t answer, she added, “And what gave you any idea I had survived that fall in the first place?”
“Nothing.” Kail stumbled, and Desidora caught him before he fell. “But I figured the gods hadn’t given you up just yet. And if there’s a chance you’re alive, no matter how small, I’m coming every time. Anything that wants to kill you comes through me first.”
He was heavier than he looked, but Desidora held him upright. “Kail—”
“How charming,” came a voice from the stairs. “Fall.”
Kail dropped to the ground, pulling himself from Desidora’s arms and sending her staggering.
Attendant Shenziencis slid into the courtyard. Her neck flared with a hood that shadowed her human head, and her coils caught the blazing light of Heaven’s Spire overhead. “I detest fighting my opponents myself. Up.” Kail hauled himself to his feet, and the jewel at Shenziencis’s throat shone with blazing rainbow glory. “Fortunately, I do not have to.”
Desidora reached for her magic, but the yvkefer in her lungs still blocked it. “Kail . . .”
“Kill,” said Shenziencis, and Kail staggered forward.
Desidora had dropped her sword. She turned and lunged for it, knowing she wouldn’t make it in time . . .
But she did.
She came up with the sword in hand, looked back, and saw Shenziencis looking as surprised as Desidora felt.
“Mind charm,” Kail said in a very low voice. He had one hand on the back of the naga’s head, just above the hood. The other held Nystin’s silver dagger, which was lodged in the jewel at Shenziencis’s throat. “Grabbed it from one of the Knights of Gedesar.”
He pulled the knife free. Attendant Shenziencis had turned gray, and the jewel at her throat was black and dead. “Nobody screws with my mind. Ever. Again.” Kail stepped back, and Shenziencis fell to the ground, her body crumbling slowly to dust. “It ain’t much, but it’s mine. It’s mine.” His voice broke, and he dropped to his knees. “It’s mine.”
Desidora put her arms around him as the shaking started.
She was still holding him when the Dragon, carrying her friends, landed in the courtyard.
Loch swung Ghylspwr, leaned into the clash with Arikayurichi, and then dove back as the ax turned its corpse-wielder’s stumble into a spin that brought it back at her head in a vicious backhand.
“Do you think you can stop me, Urujar?” Arikayurichi called, spinning as the corpse lumbered toward her again. “Do you think pulling your archvoyant out of my lattice is anything other than a mild inconvenience?”
He swung. Loch knocked it high, slid under, took out the corpse’s kneecap, and blocked a backhanded strike inches from her face. “Well, since you brought it up, I’m guessing it slows down your big plan some,” she said, sh
oving it back. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“You were bred to serve, Urujar,” Arikayurichi said, and Loch could hear the sneer in its voice. “You belong in the fields, tilling the soil to grow crops for the more important servants.”
It lunged in, and Loch blocked one blow, slapped aside another, and then rolled away from its furious onslaught.
“Oh, no,” she called back, “not racism. How will I ever keep my feelings in check from that?” She laughed, spinning Ghylspwr into a guard. “But by all means, come and get me, big guy.”
“Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is!” Ghylspwr added.
“As you wish.” Arikayurichi came in with a great overhand blow, so large that the wind-up left the corpse’s entire body unguarded for one critical moment.
She was supposed to take the shot, hit the body with a great blow.
She feinted, shifted her weight, and chopped up instead, catching the corpse’s arms just past the elbow. The blow wrenched Arikayurichi from the corpse’s dead fingers, and it clattered to the brightly flashing floor along with Ghylspwr, who was torn from Loch’s grasp by the move.
Against a living opponent, such a move would have been foolish—ignoring an easy strike to the head or chest in favor of a disarming attack that left Loch unarmed within easy reach of her otherwise unharmed opponent was a great way to get yourself killed.
The corpse slumped against her shoulder, and then slowly slid back and fell to the ground.
“No!” Arikayurichi shouted, twitching on the floor. “You cannot stop us!”
“Looks suspiciously like I can.” Loch looked to Ghylspwr, who lay not far away on the ground. “All right. What’s our next step, Ghyl?”
“Kutesosh gajair’is,” Ghylspwr said urgently.
“The console, I’m guessing?”
“Kutesosh gajair’is!”
“Taking that as a yes.” Loch hurried over to where Archvoyant Bertram had been held. The entire floor vibrated beneath her feet now, runes blazing as bright as the sun, and the crystals at the control console blazed in every color of the rainbow. “All right? What do I do? Smash something, press something?”
“Kutesosh gajair’is,” Ghylspwr said again, and Loch saw one of the crystals, the bright red of blood, flaring even brighter than the rest.
“The red one?” She pointed. “Push that one?”
“Kutesosh gajair’is!”
“Got it.” Loch leaned against the console, for a moment, breathing hard. “Just be a moment. Side’s not quite ready for this much fighting yet. Hey, Arikayurichi, what did you mean by ‘us’?”
“Besyn larveth’is?” Ghylspwr asked in alarm.
Arikayurichi laughed. “My golems and I,” it said. “The plan I put into motion with them will destroy your Republic, and that old hammer does not have enough wits left to tell you how to stop my plans.”
“Sure he does.” Loch looked over at Ghylspwr. “He just did, clear as day. I’m supposed to hit that red crystal, right?”
“Kutesosh gajair’is!” Ghylspwr said urgently.
“No!” Arikayurichi shouted. “You must not!”
Loch waited until the echoes of both shouts died. The chamber was lit brighter than day now, and in the ceiling, she could see the craters where golems had been formed from the crystals in the ceiling.
“If they were your golems the whole time,” Loch said quietly, “why did they come after my people in the library, long before you ever came to Heaven’s Spire? I can buy that they could keep running on their own once someone started them, but it had to be someone up here.”
“Foolish Urujar,” said Arikayurichi, “my automated wards—”
“If they were your golems the whole time,” Loch said, “why didn’t you use them to stop me from getting the manuscript when you fought me on the rooftops in Ajeveth? Or on the dwarven train?”
“You are unworthy of the magic required to—”
“If they were your golems the whole time,” Loch said, “why did the golems have orders to let Desidora live?”
The ax was silent.
“Because you cared about her,” Loch said, and she was no longer speaking to Arikayurichi. “You care about all of us, which is why you made the golems spare her. It’s why Pyvic over there is unconscious but alive, why you saved my people every time they were in danger, even as you tripped up the plan every now and then to slow them down. It’s why Arikayurichi came in high and let me disarm it. Because you asked it to be merciful. What’s the phrase you use for that?”
“Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is,” Ghylspwr said quietly.
The runes on the floor were no longer shining in different colors. They were all a uniform blazing white now. The shaking was growing worse, rattling the room enough that Loch had to hold onto the edge of the crystal console for balance. She kept her hands far from anything that looked like it did anything.
“Most people just think of you as Desidora’s magical hammer, Ghyl,” Loch said. “They forget you were . . . still are . . . an ancient. A person. You’ve got your own mind. Your own people. And you’d do anything for them.”
“Besyn larveth’is,” Ghylspwr said, his voice low and sad.
“And because most people just think of you as something that gives the death priestess a little hitting power, they’d never in a million years expect you to be part of a two-man con.” The chamber shuddered as something deep in the heart of Heaven’s Spire began to hum, and Loch caught her balance, looking at the weapons on the floor. “One to fulfill the prophecy and take down the Glimmering Folk, and the other to clear the way so the rest of your people could return.”
“You should have let me cut her down and be done with it,” Arikayurichi said.
“Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is.”
“Yes, but for her mind and your pity, we’d have the archvoyant back in the lattice and the forced burn already underway.” The ax twitched on the ground again. “For whatever it’s worth, Urujar, well done.”
“On the train.” It was Veiled Lightning’s voice. Loch looked over and saw her crawling over to where Gentle Thunder’s corpse lay. “Isafesira was ready to surrender. You made Thunder attack.”
“It’s always easier when they get a little old and a little slow,” Arikayurichi said. “A warrior in his prime would never tolerate a weapon that wanted to move on its own. But a warrior getting on in years but still too proud to step down? A warrior who wanted to impress the girl he’d watched over since she was a child? He practically begged me to take control.”
Veiled Lightning touched Gentle Thunder’s body. “He never had to impress me,” she said quietly.
“Pity you didn’t tell him that when you were alive,” Arikayurichi said, chuckling. “What about you, Urujar? What tipped you off?”
Loch swallowed. “One of my enemies asked me if I knew where the word ‘Urujar’ came from. I asked my wizard. Turns out, it comes from euru, which means ‘happy’, and jair, which means ‘work’.” She smiled. “Happy workers, in the language of the ancients. It’s funny. That’s what the Old Kingdom nobles used to call their slaves.”
The chamber shook again, and both Ghylspwr and Arikayurichi slid on the floor.
“It wasn’t like that,” the ax said. “You were barely even people.”
“The Old Kingdom nobles used to say that, too.”
“We were taking care of you.”
Loch gave Arikayurichi a hard smile. “Thanks, awfully.”
As the floor bucked hard, Loch caught her balance again. Veiled Lightning fell back as well.
“I’m sorry, but we’re running short on time,” said the ax, shifting the last few inches into Gentle Thunder’s dead hand. “Nothing personal.”
The corpse rose to its feet.
Veiled Lightning stepped between it and Loch, shaking and weak. “It is absolutely personal.”
Arikayurichi swung, and Veiled Lightning moved, flowing like water past the ax-head and pivoting, and then the Nine-Ringed Dragon came up in a perfect arc.
Arikayurichi flew through the air and into the chasm, still in the grip of a hand severed cleanly just past the wrist.
“Thunder taught me that move, you bastard,” Veiled Lightning said, and fell to her knees.
Loch looked down at Ghylspwr. “So, what about you? Any last plan to distract me and then cut me down?”
“Kun-kabynalti—”
“Don’t.” She chopped the air with her palm. “Don’t tell me you were trying to save lives. Don’t tell me it was for the greater good. You picked your side. You helped your friend get Heaven’s Spire ready to blow up half the Republic.”
She turned and walked back to the console.
“I have no idea what happens if I don’t let this energy out,” she said, “but I doubt it’ll be worse than what you wanted me to do.”
“Besyn larveth’is?”
“Now we wait.”
Dairy stood by Mister Dragon, now in his still-very-large human form, and looked up at Heaven’s Spire overhead. The underside of the city was now a brilliant white, shining like the sun on an overcast day. Every crystal in the courtyard of the Temple of Butterflies hummed with a faint crackling energy.
“Is there anything we can do?” he asked Mister Dragon.
Mister Dragon smiled gently. “Your alchemist, your illusionist, and your death priestess are doing all they can down here. If there is any way for them to stop the Temple of Butterflies from amplifying the blast, they will find it.” He looked up at the city, one hand shielding his eyes.
He smelled very good.
“What about you, sir?” Dairy asked. “You know more about this magic than most.”
Mister Dragon shook his head. “I am not a creature of subtlety, my young man. I believe you will find that out yourself, if you are willing.” He grinned, and Dairy’s stomach went a little funny, but not in a bad way. “I could tear this temple apart, if I wished, but for all we know, that would cause the very explosion we were trying to prevent.”
The Prophecy Con (Rogues of the Republic) Page 41