The Paladin Caper (28 page)

“I was made by the ancients, I think,” Dairy went on, undeterred. “I don’t know whether they made me completely or just put the prophecy on me when I was a baby, but I fought the Champion of Dusk for them. And when I was done, I wanted to prove that I was more than just a prophecy. I joined the Knights of Gedesar to fight monsters and help people. But it didn’t work. They did bad things. They hurt innocent people. Evil or good isn’t who you came from or who you work for, Mister Scorpion. It’s what you do. That’s all it ever is.”

“So,
no
,” Kail said grimly, “no torture. The very first thing my boss, the lady you’re hunting, taught me in the scouts was:
fight the enemy, not their people
. That means no innocents and no torture. I care about my friend, and I want him back, but I’d rather leave here empty-handed than bloody-handed.”

The scorpion shuddered in Kail and Dairy’s grasp. “Lies!”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Kail muttered. “See how it works
next time
your boss sends you after somebody’s mother. Let him loose, Dairy.” He shoved the scorpion’s stinger away hard as Dairy backed away. “The kid and I are leaving. You come after us again, I will kill you with a clean conscience and sleep just fine that night.”

The scorpion scuttled backward, chittering wordlessly. Shadows closed around it as it left the alley, and then it was gone.

“Could it have gotten Mister Hessler back?” Dairy asked quietly.

“It never helps to ask yourself that, kid.”

As soon as Loch and Icy had cleared the doorway, Ululenia turned to the daemon. It was already pulling itself into a humanoid shape. Its legs had taken on the texture of the carpet, its body was the same stone as the wall, and its arms were the wood of the bookshelves.

“You will not have her,” Ululenia said, and her horn blazed with the strength of her words.

“LLOKK ISS MMIINE,” the daemon roared, and strode toward Ululenia. “NNO UUNICORRNN CANN SSTOP MEE.”

Then it paused in surprise as vines coiled around its legs.

“I feel pity,” Ululenia said, “as the wolf who sees the dog with its leg in a trap.”

The vines twisted and coiled, and the daemon slammed into the wall.

“Jyelle hated Loch, and when the wind-daemon devoured her, that hatred was still fresh enough for you to catch it,” Ululenia went on as the daemon ripped free from the vines, only to catch itself in the tangle of branches that had sprouted from the bookshelf. “The seed of that hatred blossomed inside you, and you were perverted into this.”

“I WILL KILL HER.” The daemon tore through the branches. It had a human shape now, not merely humanoid, and it had added the vines and branches to its appearance. “SHE DID THIS TO ME.”

“No.” Ululenia pulled at water and earth, shaped them to her will, and sent the ceiling crashing down upon the daemon. “You have no one to blame but yourself. Whatever regret you hold, whatever blame you might place, this is the seed you have planted, and only you may decide how it grows.” She shook her head as she spoke to the pile of rubble that crumbled and cracked before her. “I have pranced in woods the humans think enchanted, where daemons who found freedom joined the earth until they became it. Turn from this hatred, and you could be the same. That is the good news.”

The rubble exploded, and the daemon stood in what was left. It had a woman’s form now, and its body was stone. “NO MORE TRICKS,” it said as it leaped at Ululenia.

The air around Ululenia shimmered, and what met the daemon’s charge was snowy white, and it had a rainbow horn upon its brow, but it had a lot more claws and fangs than anything that called itself a unicorn should ever have.

“No more tricks,” Ululenia snarled through the saber teeth that jutted from her face, and she slashed with claws that tore through stone and ripped chunks from the daemon’s hide. “For the
bad
news is that I know
exactly how you feel.
”

Ten minutes, several unconscious guards, and one small office fire later, Tern and Desidora came back to the entry room with the data crystal in hand.

“Hold on,” said the Urujar guard as Tern approached, frowning. “We’re getting reports of possible trouble near the
Lapisavantum
. Would you know anything about that?”

“Well,” said Tern, opening her mouth, “that’s a really good question, and the thing is, when you think about it—”

“That has absolutely nothing to do with us,” Desidora said from behind Tern. “We don’t know anything about it. We weren’t even on that floor.”

Tern looked at Desidora, specifically in the over-her-head-where-flaring-purple-light-should-be area. Nothing.

The guard did the same thing, frowning again. “So where are you headed now?”

“We’re off to do a good day’s work going over the data for our report,” Desidora said. Purple light flared over her head, and she sighed. “Oh, for Tasheveth’s sake. We’re off to get kahva and see if we can meet anybody cute.”

The guard nodded slowly. “All right. Have a good day.”

Tern and Desidora left the white-marbled building and walked off into the safety of Rossle-Nesef.

“So,” Tern said when they were out of earshot, “you can pretty much do your death-priestess aura-manipulation thing on the verifier ward, and all the awesome not-quite-lies I told were totally unnecessary.”

“Maybe a little,” Desidora said, smiling, as they stopped at a corner, “but why waste energy, if you can handle it?” She raised her hand to hail a carriage.

“You could’ve
told
me,” Tern muttered. A carriage came to a halt, and Tern grumped her way inside while Desidora spoke with the driver.

Desidora slid into the carriage beside her. “If I’d told you, you’d have stammered out the first one and then looked to me from then on out,” she said as she sat down. The carriage slid into motion with the sound of hooves clopping on stone.

“Why the hell did I even come in the first place?” Looking out the carriage window, Tern glared at the buildings. “I
hate
Rossle-Nesef.”

“I could have bypassed the verifier wards,” Desidora said, smiling serenely, “and perhaps I could even have altered the aura on your old badge from Heaven’s Spire to make it function here—”

“Oh,
now
I feel better!” The sound of the horses’ hooves changed as the carriage turned onto the Coin Bridge that separated the wealthy mansions of East Bank from the warehouses, guildhouses, and kahva-houses of West Bank.

“But I could not have found the information you did in the
Lapisavantum
,” Desidora finished. “You located data that by all rights should not have even existed, data the ancients went to trouble to remove from all records. You also picked the lock that got us
into
the
Lapisavantum,
and you located the room itself faster than I would have been able to.”

“Hooray,” Tern muttered. The small hexagonal stones that had given the Coin Bridge its name rattled beneath their seats. She remembered too many nights of coming back home across that bridge, feeling herself getting smaller and dumber as the clever girl who hung out with dwarves and alchemists became the disappointing daughter who talked too much at the dances.

At that, another thought struck her.

“Why are we crossing the Coin Bridge?” she asked. “The treeship is waiting outside West Bank.”

The carriage left the bridge as it came onto Poyer Avenue, then made the left turn onto Slowridge, the tight turn that forced the horse on the left to either stop or walk in place for a moment. You could tell which nobles had the most money, because they took the time to train their horses to walk in place rather than just stopping while the other horse made the turn, which was showy and pointless and the kind of thing rich guild families took pride in. Tern knew that the same way that she knew that the Coin Bridge led to Poyer, and then Slowridge, and then Watchcomb, and then . . .

“We are crossing the Coin Bridge,” Desidora said, “because I am a love priestess, and not all love is romantic.”

“Desidora,” Tern said. “Diz, no.”

“You agreed that we should warn them,” Desidora pointed out.

“By
letter
,” Tern said. The carriage swung right onto Watchcomb. “You don’t know what this is like, Diz. You don’t know what
they’re
like.”

“If something happened,” Desidora said, “and you did not try, you would regret it.”

“Would I?” Tern asked with some venom, and the carriage rolled to a stop.

Tern got out of the carriage, glaring at Desidora’s winsome smile, and looked at the stately manor that rose tastefully behind a low iron fence that was more ornamental than practical.

She had hopped that fence to sneak in dozens of times growing up, and hopped it to sneak out dozens of times plus one.

Her steel-toed work boots clopped on the stones of the road. The lapitect robes slid clumsily as she pulled them over her head, revealing the many-pocketed brown work dress she wore underneath.

She tugged at her hair as she walked toward the front gate, like that was going to do something.

“Your business, miss?” said one of the guards at the gate. He was polite and young. Tern had never met him.

“I’d like to see Master or Mistress Silkworth.” It came out scratchy at the end, and Tern wished she’d cleared her throat first.

“Ah.” The guard smiled. “And who shall I say is calling?”

“Tell them . . .” She swallowed. “Tell them Laridae is here.”

The guard nodded, smiled again, and strolled off toward the back entrance of the manor.

Tern stood and waited. After a minute, she realized that she was fidgeting with the cufflink that fired sleep darts and stopped herself with an effort. The other guard watched her impassively. He was older, and she thought that maybe she remembered him.

The first guard finally came back, smiling apologetically. “I’m terribly sorry, miss,” he said through the bars, “but the Silkworths do not know anyone by that name.”

Tern looked at the manor. The second window from the left on the upper floor had been Mother’s reading room. The pale-gray curtain twitched as it closed.

“I see.” Tern forced a smile and a nod to the guard, who was just the poor guy who had to deliver the message. The other guard, the older one, was trying not to smirk, and Tern realized that she did remember him after all.

“They did ask me to give you this,” the nice guard added, and passed a pouch through the bars, “for any trouble you might encounter in the future.”

Tern took the pouch of coins and smiled and started to walk away, her back straight and her head high.

Then she stopped and turned. “Hey,” she called back to the gate. The young guard looked surprised and a bit shocked that she had raised her voice. “The Plumfisher acquisition. You tell them it’s the Plumfisher acquisition all over again, and they should ride tight and count twice.”

The young guard looked offended and confused simultaneously. The old guard frowned and put a hand on his blade.

Tern stepped into the carriage and put the coin purse on the seat beside her. “It was a time when the guild politics turned ugly,” she said to Desidora, “and the nobles tried to play us against each other.”

“Tern.”

“They’ll know what it means. They’ll check security and increase the guard, and—”

“Tern.” Desidora reached out gently and pulled Tern into a hug. “I’m sorry,” and that was when something in Tern’s chest broke and her breath caught and her eyes burned.

“Just get me the hell out of Rossle-Nesef,” Tern said, wiping her eyes, “and buy me a damn good drink later.”