The Paladin Caper (57 page)

Before it sat a great red crystal as large as she was tall, housed in a cradle of old, dead stone. The crystal tapered to a seven-point tip that was pointed directly at the hoop. The hoop was twenty feet high, and on this side she could see that it wasn’t really gold but rather thousands of tiny yellow crystals bound together into one massive form.

“Full burn?” Loch asked. Her voice echoed strangely, as though she were speaking through a tin tube. “That’s what blows everything up?”

“Kutesosh gajair’is,”
Ghylspwr said grimly.

“Think it’ll take down the gate if I destroy it?” Loch asked.

Ghylspwr hesitated.

“Kutesosh gajair’is,”
he said again, but more quietly.

“And us too.” Loch nodded. “About what I was expecting.” She looked around. The globe they were on was old and ruined except for the gate, as far as Loch could see. Hills of old cracked crystal left them in a makeshift canyon. The cool wind made old crystal chime as it rushed by them.

“Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is.”

“I know, Ghyl. It’s all right.” She forced a smile. “They’ll get by without us
somehow
.”

She raised Ghylspwr, and she could feel him unhappy in her hands, but he didn’t resist.

The message crystal in her pocket chirped.

Loch blinked.

Then, staring at Ghylspwr a little suspiciously as she lowered him, she fished the crystal from her pocket and activated it.

“It’s me,” Pyvic’s voice said. “Dairy and Desidora got me out. We’re all right, headed your way as fast as we can. I’m not dead. Hoping you make it too.” He paused, and Loch heard the rustle of clothes, like someone pushing him. “I need you to come back alive, all right? I need you. So come back to me.” He let out a breath. “Okay, love you, bye.”

Loch dropped the message crystal and sucked in a breath through her teeth.

“This place has good reception,” she said, forcing a laugh through her suddenly tight throat.

“Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is,”
Ghylspwr said, and Loch nodded slowly.

“All right. Well then, what’s our—”

“You.”

Loch turned to see Lesaguris coming around one of the hills, Arikayurichi in his hand. He rushed at her, bounding with great leaping steps, and swung a blow that Ghylspwr knocked aside.

“You have brought death to my world!” He landed between Loch and the gate. The ground crunched under his tailor-made shoes, and his expensive coat was dusty and torn.

“Kutesosh gajair’is!”
Ghylspwr called back.

“You brought slavery to ours,” Loch said. “We’ll call it even.”

Other ancients were coming around the rubble toward them. They were not golems, or people, or anything Loch had ever seen. Some had humanoid shapes, while others walked on four legs, or six, or eight. All were made of beautifully faceted crystal, all glowing and humming perfectly and
alive
in a way that no clicking golem ever could be. She could see individual facets turn and shift, as though momentarily liquid to accommodate the motion, and then slide into a new shape and become perfect faceted stone again.

Some of them were mostly green, while others were blue, and Loch had a momentary flash of curiosity about what it all meant, wondering if they were different races, or different species. She felt a moment’s shame that she was the one here, instead of Tern or Hessler or Desidora, someone who would know what questions to ask.

But she was a soldier, and she was still fighting. Lesaguris snarled and swung again and again. Ghylspwr knocked the blows aside as Lesaguris shouted, “You could have fought honorably! You could have rebelled with standard warfare! Instead, you chose to destroy us!”

“I gave you a chance to walk away,” Loch said. The crystalline creatures—the ancients, she supposed, although it felt wrong to call them that here in their home—were closer but moving slowly. Sparks of light flashed between them. An arc of red here, a glittering stream of blue there, flashing from one of the creatures to another, and each recipient’s body glowed momentarily with the new light.

“A chance,” Lesaguris spat. “Yes, before you sprang your little trap, when we had everything in our grasp. Why would I have walked away then?”

“Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is!”

“Because it was the right thing to do,” Loch said.

Lesaguris swung a third time, and once more, Ghylspwr batted Arikayurichi aside.

“It doesn’t matter,” Lesaguris said, breathing hard. “I don’t need to kill you myself. You brought yourself to
my
domain.” He turned to the crystalline forms drawing closer. “
Lesar g’hyur’is!”
he shouted, and smiled grimly at Loch. “When you are dead, I will bring fire upon your world. When we return, centuries from now, your people will
still
be recovering from the devastation!” He held up his band, and red light flared from it, a wave that washed over all of the nearby creatures.

But their bodies didn’t take in the new color. They flashed light between each other, arms and legs and pincers and wings fluttering uncertainly. The wind made their bodies hum as it swept past them.

Finally, Loch realized what the light meant, and she shook her head. “They aren’t listening to what you’re saying, are they? After all the deaths, all the mistakes, all the destruction
you
brought down upon your own people . . . you still think they’re going to follow you?”

“Besyn larveth’is,”
Ghylspwr said in her grasp, and light flashed from him, not bright but enough, and every creature nearby caught the light, drew it into themselves, and glowed momentarily with the new energy, the new words.

Lesaguris screamed once as the crystalline forms fell upon him, but only once, and briefly. Arikayurichi yelled as the blows fell upon him, and Loch heard the screaming silvery peal as the ancient blade shattered.

Loch turned her back upon them. Now she faced the great golden hoop and the red crystal weapon that was meant to bring death to her world.

One of the creatures, with a beautiful mantislike body made of pink-and-orange crystal, stalked past Loch, then turned to her as it reached the weapon. Light flickered from one of its long claws, and the light flashed to Ghylspwr.

“Kutesosh gajair’is,”
he said, and shifted in Loch’s grasp, drawing her back.

Loch let the hammer pull her, and saw other creatures joining the mantis by the weapon. They pulled it away, light flashing between them too fast for Loch to follow. The mantis saw her staring, and pointed at the crystal, and then up into the sky, where the great impossible forms of the Glimmering Folk writhed and hunted.

“Good luck,” Loch said, as they dragged the weapon away. They were all helping now, the light arcing between them almost blinding. If they were human, she thought they would have been shouting at each other to hurry.

She looked down at Ghylspwr. “Well, then. Let’s finish the gate.” Pyvic wanted her to come back alive. “And it has to be done on this side, right? Any chance of us not disappointing my boyfriend? It’s . . .” She stopped, squared her shoulders, and nodded. “It’s important to him. And me.”

“Besyn larveth’is.”
He sounded confident.

“All right. Same to you, Ghyl.” Loch swung a massive blow, and the hoop rang like a bell.

“Kutesosh gajair’is!”
Ghylspwr yelled, and then again as Loch swung again.
“Kutesosh gajair’is!”

In the sky overhead, the Glimmering Folk roared in pain as the great ruby weapon blazed with light and sliced through creatures of shadow.

By the third swing, the great hoop was dented. By the fifth, it was cracked.

So was Ghylspwr. As Loch drew him back, she saw chips on the head of the great hammer, and a slow hairline crack building where the hammer met the haft.

“Kutesosh gajair’is,”
he whispered.

Loch swung a final time, and the hoop shattered beneath her blow. Everything went a perfect white, all sound driven to the single point of a silver bell ringing across the universe.

Loch felt her body expand to something impossible, then snap back with a wrench that left her mind struggling to catch up, and she felt air flooding her lungs and blood rushing in her veins, and then she felt rocky ground digging into her knees.

When her eyes worked again, everything was red.

She was kneeling in the central chamber of the mine, with the shattered remains of a tiny golden hoop hanging in the air behind her.

Desidora was there, and she was talking, but Loch couldn’t understand it yet, couldn’t hear anything. She pulled at Loch’s hands, or not at the hands but at something in them.

“Kun-kabynalti
. . .
”
Ghylspwr said, and Loch could hear that, and there was supposed to be another part, the part that meant, “while I stand watch,” but instead, there was only silence.

Loch let go, and Desidora took the broken head of the warhammer and held it to her breast.

Epilogue

A
FEW DAYS
later, they sat in the archvoyant’s palace, in the big room with a lot of chairs and couches and cushions and, most importantly, drinks.

Tern sat in front of the now constantly glimmering Hessler, either leaning against him or possibly holding him in place. Desidora sat at the bar next to Kail, helping him serve drinks with his one functional arm, while Icy sat on a cushion on the floor with Princess Veiled Lightning beside him, her sparkly braids dangling by her face. Ululenia, human this time, shared a couch with Dairy and Mister Dragon, who were holding hands.

Loch sat on a little love seat, with Pyvic beside her. They weren’t holding hands, but they were touching shoulders and kind of leaning against each other in comfortable exhaustion.

There were two archvoyants at the front of the room. Cevirt, walking with the aid of a stick that probably
didn’t
have a hidden blade inside it, had limped over to Bertram, whose face still looked haggard but who was at least awake again and talking.

“We’ll be sharing power for the time being,” Cevirt said. “There’s a lot of rebuilding to do.”

“I know much of . . .” Bertram paused, frowned, and shook his head. “I remember much of what the ancients did. I’ll be working to root out any left in this world.”

“And, as the wildfire yields room for new shoots of green,” Ululenia added, “you will be discussing how to make reparations to the kobolds for the wrongs done to them.”

“Yes, of course,” Cevirt said, and then, when Ululenia did not break eye contact, he added, “You have my word. No more mining until we have an agreement with the kobolds that lets us extract the crystals that power this nation, and that sets right the wrongs done to the kobolds.”

Ululenia nodded, smiling brightly, and took a sip of spring water.

“See, that was just a look, but I’m still not getting
entirely not evil
from her,” Tern said.

Ululenia waved lazily. “The butterfly cannot return to the cocoon, but it can dazzle the world with its new wings. Look in your hand.”

“I don’t have anything in my . . .” Tern held up her hand, which now held a fresh apple on a naturally grown stick. “This
should
be covered with chocolate,” she muttered, and then Hessler patted her arm, and she leaned back against him.

“The bigger problem will be rebuilding people’s trust,” Bertram said. “After everything we did under their control . . .”

“We have all done things we regret,” Icy said.

“And punishing yourselves will not help,” Veiled Lightning said, looking at Bertram and then at Icy.

“Speaking of which,” Loch said, “Jyelle?”

“Dead,” Hessler said. Loch had a hard time seeing his face clearly behind the glow, but she thought he was doing his normal thoughtful squint. “The damage from the paladins, compounded with Mister Dragon’s fire, was enough to completely destroy the part of the daemonic whole that retained her memories. It’s interesting, with my new abilities, I may be able to explore the plane where the daemons exist more—”

“What did we say about trying out new Glimmering Hessler powers?” Tern asked without looking around.

“That we weren’t going to,” Hessler said with a little sigh.

“There we go.”

“We’ve lost enough already,” Desidora said, and lifted her wineglass. “To Ghyl?”

Ululenia raised her cup of spring water. “And Captain Thelenea
.
”

“Derenky,” Pyvic added.

“Naria.” Cevirt’s voice was soft, and he looked down even as he raised his own glass.

“I’m not doing Jyelle,” Kail said to Loch. “We do Jyelle, we might as well do those fish in your family garden that Diz turned into zombies.”

“To my family’s fish,” Loch said gravely, and everyone drank.

“I’ll need people to go through every inch of Heaven’s Spire,” Cevirt said, “and make sure that there are no more little surprises from the ancients waiting for us. Tern, Hessler, if you’re willing?”

“I can help,” Desidora said, refilling her wineglass. “The death priestess powers are packed safely away again, but I can read auras others might miss.”