The Paladin Caper (52 page)

“Smile,” Loch said. Jyelle’s grip on her mouth had come loose. “You’ve been talking to the entire Republic.”

In the stands, the crowd was starting to get loud. People on the field were coming their way. They didn’t look entirely certain, but they were asking questions.

“Do you really think that matters?” Lesaguris gave Loch a tired smile, then looked up over Loch’s head and raised an arm. A flare of crimson light lashed out, and a moment later, a dazzling white light exploded overhead with a force that made everyone on the podium stumble. “As we are no longer talking to the entire Republic . . . Archvoyant Cevirt?”

“An illusion conjured by Loch’s rogue wizard, Hessler,” said Cevirt promptly.

“Coupled with mental domination of the crowd here,” Princess Veiled Lightning added, “using Skinner’s captured fairy creatures. Everyone here will attest that that conversation never happened.”

“Very good.” Lesaguris nodded, then turned to Loch. “Solved.”

“They won’t all believe,” Loch said.

Lesaguris laughed. “I don’t care what they believe. They won’t be sure, not enough of them, and they won’t know how much is true, and they won’t know how many other people out there believe what they do. I don’t need them to love us. I just need them to get up every day and do their jobs.” He raised an eyebrow at Loch. “I hope this wasn’t your master plan.”

“We’re coming up on time,” Cevirt said.

“Besyn larveth’is,”
Ghylspwr added.

“I’m giving you one last chance,” Loch said. “Leave now. Go through your gate and close it on your side. Do that, and, I swear, we will leave you in peace.”

Lesaguris pursed his lips. “I appreciate the offer,” he said to the lone unarmed woman being held down by a daemon. “What in the name of all the gods would make me accept it?”

“Conscience,” Loch said, “or failing that, fear. You’ve seen where this led you last time.”

“Almost time,” Cevirt said.

“Please,” Loch said. “I don’t want to do this. I beg you. Leave now in peace.”

Lesaguris blinked. Loch almost looked like she meant it.

“No,” he said.

“NOW?” Jyelle asked.

“No, thank you,” he said. “I want her to see it.”

“And . . . now,” Cevirt said.

Loch shut her eyes.

The fountain of fire erupting from the font vanished as a great beam of blinding light blazed up from the ground to the sky. It struck the crystals on the underside of Heaven’s Spire with a noise like every bell in the world ringing at once and a blaze of color like every rainbow exploding.

There was a moment of stunned silence as the sound and light washed over the stadium, so bright and so loud that for just an instant, everyone was simple black and white by comparison, only hearing their own breathing.

“What was that?” Lesaguris demanded finally. “That wasn’t the crystal-seeding beam.”

“My team modified your plans,” Loch said quietly.

Lesaguris gave her his thoughtful nod. “And?”

In the sky beneath Heaven’s Spire, something growled. Everyone looked up, squinting, to see what it was, but there was nothing visible to the naked eye. It was just an angry sound, a hateful sound that could not be as loud as it was.

Then, from the crystals on the underside of the city, something grew, something whose shape was impossible to measure with any degree of certainty, except that it was large, and irregular, and either had tentacles or
was
tentacles.

No matter what everyone disagreed upon when describing it later, however, they all agreed that it shone with a brilliant glimmering rainbow of light, so that its body was only a shadow underneath.

“The Glimmering Folk,” Lesaguris said, and took a step backward as the crowd began to scream again.

“They stopped you before,” Loch said quietly. “They can do so again.”

“You don’t know . . .” Lesaguris swallowed. “You don’t know what you’ve done.”

“I’ve taken the world from you,” Loch said, and held her head up proudly.

“You stupid
bitch
!” Naria yelled, and vaulted down from the podium.

She reached Loch before anyone could react. A dagger flashed into her hand, and then it was in Loch’s chest.

“I had
everything
!” Naria shouted. “And you ruined it, like you always do!” She pulled the dagger free, and blood fountained from the wound.

Loch went limp in Jyelle’s grasp.

In the sky, the first of the Glimmering Folk began to float down toward the earth, while another pulled itself from the crystals of Heaven’s Spire. The guards around the burned areas of the stands dropped their buckets and joined the panicked crowd surging for the exit again.

“Everyone!” Lesaguris shouted. “Listen to me carefully! We don’t have much time! If we get back to our gate, we can be through safely before the Glimmering Folk reach us! Leave everything and get to the gate, and we . . . we . . .”

He broke off . . . and started laughing.

“Oh damn, I almost got through it,” he said, chuckling, as he turned to the other paladins.

They were laughing as well, their dry amusement crisp and clear against the incoherent screaming of the crowd in the stands all around them.

Naria turned to them in confusion. “What are—”

“Please, Loch, discontinue your sad little act,” Lesaguris said, glaring at the apparently dead Loch, who still hung in Jyelle’s grasp with blood dripping from her shirt. “The sudden turnabout, the rash violence that kills the person I would have taken revenge on, leaving me with no other recourse but to flee the impending disaster? I’ve seen this play, and I wouldn’t have believed it even if I
hadn’t
had an informant in your midst.”

Loch’s eyes snapped open, and she straightened in Jyelle’s grasp. “You’re lying,” she snapped. “No one on my crew would turn against me.”

Lesaguris gave her his thoughtful nod. “You might be right.” He cocked his head thoughtfully. “But there are people not on your crew who heard your plan, aren’t there?”

With a stricken look, Loch turned to Naria.

Then

“Oh, Isa,” said Naria, smiling brightly from the throne in Lochenville manor, “you have no idea how long I have waited to hear you say that.”

Loch looked at the guards. “May we speak alone?”

Naria raised an elegant eyebrow behind her lenses, and then waved to her guards. “My dear sister would hardly come here openly if she wished me harm. Please attend outside.” The guards nodded and left, and when they were alone in the throne room, Naria’s smile disappeared. “Now.”

“The paladin bands you’ve seen carry the souls of the ancients, and they take over the bodies of anyone who puts them on. The paladins are just thralls, slaves to the ancients.”

Loch waited for Naria to tell her that she was crazy.

“That’s consistent with what I’ve seen,” Naria said instead, and when Loch shot her a look, Naria touched a delicate finger to her lenses. “I don’t know whether these are artifacts of the ancients or the Glimmering Folk, but I can see the energy riding the victim.” She sniffed. “It’s unpleasant, but they are everywhere. Even Cevirt is affected.”

“I have a way to get rid of them,” Loch said, “but I need your airship . . . and if there’s a way for you to get yourself into their good graces, I could use someone on the inside.”

Naria laughed, the same sparkling beautiful laugh she had given before. “Easily done, Sister. They are waiting for me to deliver you to them in the reading room.”

Loch tried for a smile, but it came out as a grimace. “And you were going to do it.”

Naria shrugged. “I hoped you would give me a better alternative. Besides, I’m not sending you in blind.”

“All right.” Loch set the anger aside with a shake of her head. “Here’s what I need . . .”

Now

“You set me up,” Loch said to Naria. “You led me here, told me everything was ready.”

Naria shook her head. “I didn’t—”

“You set me up!” And with a sudden surge of violence, Loch pulled herself free from Jyelle’s grasp. In a flash, she dove to the turf, grabbed the walking stick as she rolled back to her feet, and lunged as she slid the blade free.

Naria flinched, but the strike wasn’t aimed at her.

The blade had been handed down through Westteich’s family for generations. It was powerful enough to cut through the armor of the ancients.

Loch’s aim was perfect as she lunged at Lesaguris.

The blade stopped an inch shy of the man’s paladin band.

At first it seemed as though it had been stopped by some unseen barrier, but then the blade twisted in her hand.

“It wasn’t Naria,” Lesaguris said. “You see, you’re human, and you’re limited that way. In your mind, you threw Arikayurichi into that vat of acid, and you killed him. But we are not creatures of flesh and blood. All you threw into that vat of acid was an ax.”

“We are tied to objects,” the blade said, turning back toward Loch in her grasp, and its voice was terrible and familiar. “Objects with the right alloy of metal.”

“Objects like the sword given to Baron Westteich by the ancients themselves,” Lesaguris said, smiling, “or like your good friend, Ghylspwr.”

“Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is,”
Ghylspwr said as his golem hopped down from the podium. In a flash, he had hold of Naria, and Ghylspwr himself was raised and ready to strike if Naria moved.

“No, indeed,” Lesaguris agreed. “No one need die, even if the tool carrying them is destroyed, as long as we can transfer ourself into a new tool quickly enough.”

“Hello again, Captain Loch,” said Arikayurichi as he brought himself toward Loch’s throat. “Thank you so much for bringing me along on your little adventures. It has been such a pleasure watching you work.”

With an effort, Loch flung the blade to the ground, and as she did, Jyelle slammed into her from behind. Loch went down hard, the daemon on top of her. Jyelle was shaped like a person, but she still weighed a lot more.

“NOW?” Jyelle asked.

“What do you think, Captain Loch?” Lesaguris asked in amusement. He looked up at the Glimmering Folk, now half a dozen in number and all seeming to descend slowly toward the stadium, although with the way Loch’s eye seemed to slide off the edges whenever she looked at the creatures, it was impossible to be certain how quickly they were moving. “Would you rather die now, or
after
we heroically use the paladin bands to destroy the illusions that everyone here believes are the Glimmering Folk you summoned?”

Loch struggled back to her knees. Jyelle didn’t hold her down, but didn’t especially help her up either. “You let me get here, just for a show?” Behind her, the crowd was yelling, screaming in terror as everyone clawed for the exits.

“So human,” Lesaguris said sadly. “So limited. Archvoyant Cevirt?”

“Had you not come,” Cevirt said, “or had you come but failed in your attempt to modify our artifacts, the crystal-seeding would have taken place as scheduled.”

“I was instructed to watch and listen,” Arikayurichi said as Princess Veiled Lightning picked him up, “but not to act. I could keep my superiors informed of your plans, sending magical messages that allowed them to use those plans to our advantage.”

“And in the unlikely event that you came up with a plan we
couldn’t
use to our advantage,” Veiled Lightning added, “Arikayurichi would be there as a final defense.”

“You see,” Lesaguris said, “if you failed, Loch, we won. And if you succeeded, we won anyway.” He smiled at his compatriots. “We just sat back and enjoyed the show.”

Loch bowed her head, shoulders slumped.

“When that show is over,” she said, “remember that I gave you a chance to walk away.”

The first of the Glimmering Folk extended a great tentacle overhead, and glimmering radiance raked the grounds with an impact that staggered everyone on the podium.

“What in Byn-kodar’s hell? . . .
” Lesaguris glared at the illusion in the sky as the crowd began screaming even louder.

One of the paladins who held Mister Dragon lashed down for the benefit of the crowd released his lash and turned to send a blast of energy at the Glimmering Folk instead. The crimson energy crackled across the radiant surface of the creature, and a moment later another blast of light rained down, sizzling into the paladin who had fired and leaving only scorched ground in its wake.