The Paladin Caper (27 page)

When the airship had plowed its way across the port, trailed by screaming and shouting and a few distant explosions, Kail crawled over to Dairy, who was shaking his head groggily. “Up and at ’em, kid.” Hessler was already awake, moving carefully toward them, and Kail’s mother was clinging to the railing.

Kail spared a quick look for the monsters. The troll, in her unconscious state, looked like a bunch of ropes falling out of a sack. There was no sign of the scorpion.

“Can you fly the airship?” Dairy asked, his eyes wide as the airship crashed into the port wall, bucked, and then made a bunch of crunching noises along the hull as it slid over.

“The airship is about an hour from getting shot down,” Kail said. “We’re walking.” He grabbed a rope, tied it off, and flung it over the side. “Dairy, you get my mother. Hessler, you need a hand?”

“I can manage,” Hessler shouted back.

“Good man.” Kail watched Dairy carefully hoist Kail’s mother over his shoulders. “You got her, kid?”

“She’s not too heavy, Mister Kail!”

Coming from anyone else, that remark would have required Kail to throw a punch, but Dairy was Dairy, and also Dairy was helping, so Kail gritted his teeth and followed Dairy over the railing.

The rope swung crazily as Kail half climbed, half slid down. Luckily, the airship hadn’t yet gained altitude after crashing over the wall, and it banged against a temple at a good time to slow it down enough for Kail to brace against the wall and drop the rest of the way. He landed in the middle of the Ros-Oanki market square, rolled, and got up next to Dairy, who was helping Kail’s mother back to her feet. A moment later, Hessler bounced off a fruit wagon, came down on a table, and landed improbably on his feet.

“Right. Mom.” Kail took her arm.

He had planned to pull her out of the market square, but in fact did not move her at all. Instead, he found himself staring into his mother’s face.

“Binjamet,” she said, “I want you to be safe,” and she looked scared.

“Oh, damn it, Mom.” Kail hugged her.

“You have these bad people after you, and you are dealing with all these people who can do these different things.” Her arms were tight enough to make his eyes water. “I need my boy to come home.”

“I will, Mom, I promise.” He eventually extricated himself. “For now, though,
you
need to stay safe.”

“You don’t need to worry about your mother.” She grabbed his shoulder as he tried to pull away, and hit him with the direct eye contact again. “I will go stay with a friend.” She smiled sassily. “You know there are plenty of nice men who love it when I sleep over.”

Kail looked at Dairy, who was blushing brightly. “Mom—”

She laughed. “So you don’t have to worry about me. You go do whatever your Captain Loch needs you to do, and you come back alive and safe, and you tell Loch that if you don’t, she and I are going to have words.”

“Yes, Mom, I’ll tell her.”

His mother looked at him critically. “You look better than last time I saw you, though. Have you gotten a girl?”

Kail coughed. “Mom, this really isn’t—”

“Oh, sweet Tasheveth, it’s a white girl.” Kail’s mother shook her head. “Well, we were all young once, and times are changing. You bring her home next time.”

She walked off into the crowd with the confidence of a woman old enough not to care about anyone looking at her.

“Not a word,” Kail said to Dairy and Hessler.

“Sorry, Mister Kail.”

“Come on. We’ve got business.” Kail led the way from the market square. In theory, the crowd watched them go, but with alarms and sirens blaring, it was easy enough for them to get lost in the crowd.

They turned a corner, and Kail pointed at an alley. “That way.”

“What now?” Dairy asked. “Your mother is safe. Shouldn’t we get back to—”

“Wait.” Kail raised a hand. “Don’t say anything else.”

Dairy, looking confused and a little hurt, followed him in, with Hessler close behind.

“Okay,” Kail said when the three of them were safely in the alley. He turned to Hessler, drew his dagger, and said, “Drop the act and tell me where the
real
Hessler is.”

Thirteen

H
ESSLER AWOKE IN
a land of wonder.

Hessler had never believed in the concept of lands of wonder. The Elflands were sometimes described as such, but they were simply very leafy and much more reliant upon nature magic than the Republic. The homes of powerful fairy creatures were said to carry that distinction, but given how fairy creatures often disrupted the minds of humans, it was more likely that visitors simply had the feeling instilled in them magically, regardless of whether the area actually merited such an emotional response.

Staring across the vast golden expanse, drenched in purple-and-blue clouds and with streaks of glittering green stars across the horizon, Hessler gazed with a wonder that was fully earned.

After a moment, it struck him to wonder what he was lying on, and he looked down to see absolutely nothing beneath him. This resulted in a moment of flailing panic and spinning in space before he decided that wherever he was, the rules of gravity did not seem to apply, so he was not actually falling.

“Obviously a magical realm of some sort,” Hessler muttered, “and simple deductive reasoning should determine which, and how to get back.” He spun himself around again, on purpose this time, and took in variations in the color of the vast realm that could have been distant rolling hills.

The realm of the daemons was a possibility, but Hessler’s studies had led him to believe that world was chaotic and filled with blazing formless energy. Being in the daemon realm without protective wards was thought to be instantly fatal.

“Not daemons, then.” Hessler squinted at the hills, which were lighter in color, more of a pink that shimmered like oil on water, sending tiny scintillating rainbows across its surface. “Nobody was entirely sure that the ancients even
had
a realm until this whole mess started, so it’s possible, but . . .”

The rainbows reminded him of something. At first he considered the fairy creatures, but Ululenia’s horn had always shone brilliantly, and this was softer. It lit the cliff but also occluded it somehow, in a way that Hessler hadn’t seen since—

“That’s an
extremely
good human,” came a voice from behind him.

Hessler turned. A man hung in the empty golden air. His features were fine and angular, and hard to make out beyond that, as they were also lit by the same shimmering radiance that had covered the hills, leaving his skin a shadow by comparison. He was naked and had the right number of arms and legs, but they bent and wiggled bonelessly, and the arms ended in vague fingerless lumps.

“This is the realm of the Glimmering Folk,” Hessler said.

“Oh, you’re an
actual
human,” said the man, and Hessler saw a little flicker of light trail back from a cord attached to the man, a cord that stretched all the way to the radiance of the rolling hills. “How delightful. I haven’t tried one in ages.”

“Oh dear,” Hessler said, and the rolling hills uncoiled into a multitude of tentacles and came toward him.

Ululenia reached past the daemon slowly taking Jyelle’s shape, grabbed the book in the hidden alcove behind the painting, tossed it to Loch, and, over the blaring alarms, shouted, “Indomitable, Little One, go!”

Loch caught the book, turned, and ran from the room.

“Will Ululenia be safe?” Icy called behind her.

“Jyelle wants me. I’m the one who fed her to the daemon.” Loch turned a corner, nearly ran into a servant, saw that it was a young woman in a hand-me-down cleaning outfit, and turned the punch she’d half started into a shoulder brush that got the girl out of the way harmlessly.

They sprinted down the hallway. It ended in a dining hall featuring a massive stained-oak table, an impressive chandelier of glowing crystal, and a large number of guards.

The alarm was still squealing, and the guards already had blades drawn. They turned as Loch and Icy came into the room.

“Fair warning,” Loch called, “there’s gonna be a big angry daemon in here in short order. You may want to focus on that.” The guards ran forward, yelling, and Loch tossed the book to Icy. “Worth a shot.”

She caught a raised blade with the hook of her walking stick, slammed the guard into the table, and went to work.

“What on earth do you mean?” the illusion of Hessler asked Kail, and Kail flipped his dagger through the air. It flew through the illusion of Hessler’s head and bounced off the wall of the alley behind him.

“Like Hessler would slide down a rope without hurting himself somehow,” Kail said, “or pass up the chance to say something awkward around my mother. Dairy, go low.”

Dairy grabbed at Hessler’s ankles and caught onto something. With a flash of light and a sudden burning smell, Hessler disappeared. In his place was the scorpion creature, the bulbous nodes on its back glowing and pulsing as it writhed in Dairy’s grip.

Kail grabbed the stinger and slammed it against the wall before it caught Dairy’s shoulder. “You got any more tricks, now’s your chance, you spiky little asshole. Because I would
love
for you to try something.
Where’s Hessler?
”

“Wizard,” the scorpion said. Its voice sounded like it was being piped through a tube, and Kail realized it was coming from the thing’s tail. “Illusionist, shadows.” It was hard to tell, but it sounded like the thing was satisfied with itself. “Shadowlands. Glimmering Folk home. Appropriate.”

“You sent Hessler to the land of the Glimmering Folk?” Dairy’s grip tightened. “Bring him back!”

The scorpion made a noise that might have been a grunt or a sigh. “Torture. Yes. Expected. Thieves. Enemies of ancients.”

Kail glared at what he
thought
might be the thing’s eyes, still holding tight to the stinger. “Thieves, yes. Enemies of the ancients, yes. And you serve them, even though you were made by the Glimmering Folk.”

“Glimmering Folk, evil,” said the scorpion. “Service. Redemption.”

“You know, Mister Scorpion—” said Dairy.

“It’s not a Mister, kid! Gedesar’s sake, I’m a Mister!”