The Paladin Caper (29 page)

Loch and Icy were climbing over the Westteich estate’s wall when a snowy-white dove flapped past them, settled on a tree branch outside, and shifted into human form.

Ululenia’s dress was still white, but it was cut lower and clung to her more tightly. She rested on the branch with one leg stretched and the other bent, sliding out from a high slit in the hem. Her ash-blond hair was no longer simple and straight but tumbled over one shoulder, covering one eye before falling into lazy, sinuous curls.

“Trouble?” Loch asked, hopping down from the wall and rolling as she landed.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle, Little One.” Ululenia smiled. Her lips were darker than Loch remembered, a rich red that made her bright-white teeth seem sharper.

“Glad to hear it.” Loch looked over as Icy landed beside her. He held up the book as confirmation, and Loch nodded. “Let’s go, before Jyelle catches up.”

“It may take her some time to pull herself together,” Ululenia said, still smiling, and slid down from the tree.

“We want in,” said the Glimmering Man, or the incomprehensible titanic creature working the Glimmering Man like a puppet. “It’s more interesting where you are. Things taste better. We’ve eaten most of the good-tasting things here.”

Hessler coughed. “I’m afraid that the path to my world is blocked,” he said, trying to push aside the way that the thing’s words reverberated in his head, as if for a moment he had thought them himself.

“It is very difficult,” agreed the Glimmering Man. The great mass of shimmering rainbows over pink . . . skin, Hessler decided . . . coiled, then stretched, not like a living creature with muscle and tendons but like oil sliding across a hot pan, and all it once it was around Hessler, as he turned to try to follow the movement. Instead of the strange alien starscape, there were rainbows all around him, shining and shimmering in a great sphere, perhaps twenty or thirty yards across, with just him and the Glimmering Man inside. “The things that make up your world are too
heavy
. When we touched the core of it, we could not stay ourselves, and we collapsed into nothing.”

“Yes, as I recall, the Glimmering Folk could not come to the ground,” Hessler said, his voice going up in pitch ever so slightly despite himself. “I assume that was one of the reasons you created creatures to fight for you on the ground against the ancients.”

“Yes. The things we made called this place the Shadowlands. And the ancients, the others? Are they still there?” the Glimmering Man asked as the coils around Hessler tightened into a featureless sphere offering no escape. “They tasted different. They came from
below
, and we came from
above
.” The words twisted around in Hessler’s head, steadily tightening in his skull. “They made the door for us, and they were very angry when we came through.” As Hessler’s eyes began to pound in time with his own pulse, the Glimmering Man said, “If I made a door, I would be happy with whatever came through. Daemons or ancients or you.”

Hessler’s vision was going dark at the edges. “This is going to make for a fascinating paper,” he said, and flung out a hand, “but I cannot write it if my brain explodes.”

He conjured an illusion of flame, a ball of fire between him and the Glimmering Man.

At least, that had been the intent. What
actually
happened was that the Glimmering Man’s skin melted, and then went scorched black as the Glimmering Man opened a toothless mouth in a wordless scream. The great massive coils that had formed the sphere around him darted back far faster than something so large should have been able to move, and in a flash, it was over him, or across from him, still vast but not all around anymore.

It roared, shaking the tiny little cord from which the Glimmering Man hung like a man shaking a finger that had been burned on a stove, and its great expanse of skin or scales or slime shifted from pink to gray, and from the great mass of tentacles—Hessler had still not placed any anatomy that he would properly call a face, and he wasn’t even entirely sure about a torso—arose long barbed blades.

“If illusions are reality here,” Hessler said, wiping cold sweat from his brow, “then you should strongly consider leaving me in peace.”

He flung his hands out again, and—

—collapsed upon the street in the middle of Ros-Oanki.

The crowd looked at him in confusion as he got back to his feet, and he heard people murmuring to themselves as he patted himself down and checked to ensure that he was all back. He saw wagons with tarps hung out to sell fruit, crates holding bolts of cloth and weapons, and people, people everywhere, talking and laughing and arguing as they bartered and walked.

There was no question of it being a trick. The great form had barely been able to imitate a human form. A marketplace was out of the question, much less one with dynamic lighting textures, which as an illusionist Hessler understood to be hideously difficult.

A chittering hiss sounded off to his right, out of place in the market, and Hessler turned to see the scorpion he had fought while rescuing Kail’s mother. It stared at him, the bulbous pouches on its carapace glowing and pulsing.

“Not murderer,” it said, and then shadows closed around it, and it was gone.

Hessler shook his head and, for want of any other idea, headed off toward the treeship.

Fourteen

W
HERE ARE WE
at on the Festival of Excellence?” Pyvic asked Derenky in the main office of the Justicars.

“Construction is actually ahead of schedule, for once,” Derenky said, consulting notes that flickered in the air above his paladin band. “The amphitheater will be done on time, and the fairground is close enough that the guildsmen can throw money at it and make it work.”

“How many are they expecting?” Pyvic asked, keeping his voice casual while he looked at the red band of crystal on Derenky’s arm. It
seemed
like his old justicar, the polite and political young man with the ready smile and the keen interest in eventually getting Pyvic’s job.

“They expect twenty thousand or more at the opening ceremonies.” Derenky smiled. “That’s spectators only, not counting the athletes, scholars, performers, and visiting dignitaries from the Empire. Most of the spectators will be upper-class merchants and nobles, given the necessity of travel and the cost of tickets, but they plan for a healthy number of working-class attendees as well.”

“Twenty-plus,” Tomlin muttered, shaking his head. “And no local guard, since they’re basically building this over that mine.”

“Cevirt has a Mister Skinner handling security for the event,” Pyvic said, “but I’ll be pushing for a strong justicar presence. If anything goes wrong here, it’ll endanger most of the Republic’s best and brightest.”

Derenky pressed a few buttons on his band. “I’d be happy to lead the security detachment, sir. I’ve cleared my own cases and am only assisting on others at the moment.”

“You cleared your cases?” Pyvic asked in surprise.

“Benefits both mental and physical,” Derenky said, holding up his band. “With this thing, I don’t need nearly as much sleep, and it seems to aid in concentration as well. I really think you should consider getting one, if you can afford it.”

“I’m still used to my calendar being on paper,” Pyvic said wryly, “and in any event, if you’re free, I’ll need you holding things in place up here while I supervise the festival.”

Tomlin clapped Derenky on the shoulder. “Being left in charge, huh? Look at you.”

It hung in the air for just a moment too long.

“That sounds lovely,” Derenky said, sounding a little puzzled, “but I thought that Captain Pyvic had been specifically requested as attaché for the Imperial delegation at the festival. Princess Veiled Lightning requested you by name, sir. So you’ll be there, of course, but likely occupied and unable to give the justicars the attention they need . . .?” He left it hanging like a question. Did Pyvic really care about the justicars?

“Mm, good point.” Pyvic nodded. “I’ll see how Cevirt and Mister Skinner would like to handle it. Anyone got a hot case that needs attention?” He looked around, then nodded. “All right. As you were.”

He stalked back to his office, holding his kahva cup just a bit too tightly.

The ancients, whatever they were, exactly, had returned through a gate in the mine. There was no way that a festival taking place in that same location was just a coincidence. Twenty thousand people, among them the wealthiest and most powerful people in the Republic, all in one place.

A long package wrapped in brown paper sat on Pyvic’s desk, apparently delivered while he was meeting with the others. He tore it open.

A glittering bracer made from red crystal stared at him from the wrapping paper.

“Archvoyant Cevirt messaged me on his band,” Derenky said from behind him. “He asked me to tell you that this was compliments of the Voyancy.”

“Generous of him.” Pyvic didn’t pick it up.

“Perhaps now you’ll actually make it to the cabinet meetings on time,” Derenky said with a little chuckle. “Do you need help putting it on?”

“No,” said Pyvic, “I’m fine.”

“Well,” said Derenky, smiling, “let’s see it. I can add you to my list of trusted contacts. We’ll get your calendar synced up and everything.”

Pyvic frowned at the band. “Looks complicated, and I’d rather not spend the rest of the day learning how it works. I’ll take a look at it tonight.”

Behind Pyvic, Derenky stepped fully into the office and closed the door behind him.

“As you . . . It’s really not that difficult, sir,” Derenky said, and his voice went just a tiny bit off in a way that Pyvic would never have noticed had he not been listening for it. “You should really put it on now.”

Pyvic sighed. “Derenky never gives orders,” he said as he turned around.

Derenky shook his head, a smile still crossing his freckled face. “He’ll learn.”

He shouldered past Pyvic, grabbed the paladin band, and reached for Pyvic’s wrist with his free hand.

Pyvic pulled back from the grab, let Derenky step in toward him, and lunged in with a punch that would have floored Derenky under normal circumstances.

This
Derenky rolled with it, spun, and used the spin to build power for a kick that caught Pyvic in the chest and slammed him into the wall behind him.

“They weren’t sure how much you knew,” Derenky said as Pyvic pushed himself back to his feet. “Derenky just thinks you’ve lost focus, that you’re grieving for your criminal girlfriend. He thinks he can convince Cevirt to push you into extended personal leave and take your place.” He grinned. “The tiny little man.”

“So you weren’t controlling him the whole time,” Pyvic said. “Good to know.” He came in swinging.

Derenky blocked the punch easily, took the next punch on his arm, and countered with a low uppercut that took the wind out of Pyvic’s gut. “Don’t get your hopes up,” he said, sweeping Pyvic’s legs out from under him. “Derenky only needs a little voice in the back of his mind. A little nudge now and then, a few minutes he thinks he was lost in thought while I got a few things done.
You
are a different story.” He knelt down beside Pyvic and dragged the captain’s right arm up and across his knee, locking it at the elbow so that he could break it with the slightest pressure. “The poor bastard who drives you will have to take over full-time, which means that
you
, Justicar Captain Pyvic, go away.”

Pyvic fought, but there was no way he could break free considering Derenky’s hold and newfound strength. “Figured you’d
want
to be in charge all the time,” he muttered as he struggled.

Derenky sniffed. “Why would I possibly want to manage every aspect of this sack of meat’s life? I have
real
work to do.” He lifted Pyvic’s paladin band with his hand. “Good-bye, Pyvic. Enjoy oblivion.”

“Same to you,” Pyvic said, and brought out the charm he’d slipped from his pocket as he struggled. As Derenky’s eyes widened, he smashed it to the ground, shattering it, and a wave of pale-blue light washed across the room.

“. . . wish, though turning down a gift from the archvoyant seems . . .” Derenky said in his normal voice, and then trailed to a halt. “What in Ael-meseth’s name?”