The Prophecy Con (Rogues of the Republic) (12 page)

Security Enforcer Gart Utt’Krenner had time to remember that he had insisted on performing these perimeter checks himself before he blacked out.

Kail got back to his feet, wincing. Crystal didn’t break
nearly
as easily as glass when you slammed into it, and glass broke a lot less easily than people thought it did. Still, considering that swinging down on a rope had in no way been part of the plan in the first place, Kail was willing to take what he could get.

What he could get, apparently, was the security dwarf from earlier that day lying unconscious with what looked a lot like a master key on the ground next to his hand.

“Well, all right, then,” Kail said, and picked up the key. He had to bend over to do it, which made everything go wobbly at the edges of his vision again. Some of that was probably from crashing through the glass, and a lot of the rest was Kail not liking heights a whole hell of a lot—and liking falling from them by surprise because his captain had just cut the rope he’d been hanging from even less than that.

He looked around the room, blinking. “Oh, yeah: Urujar room. Captain said this one was bad.” Back before he’d joined up with Loch and saved the Republic, a room filled with shackles and chains might have thrown him off.

Then he’d had magic clamp down on his very soul and turn him against his friends, and, well, that kind of experience put things into perspective. He tossed the shackles a dirty gesture and left the room without a backward look.

He assumed Loch was fighting bad guys on her rooftop, and that that had something to do with the screaming monsters on the museum rooftop that Kail had been climbing toward. Kail hadn’t caught all the details, focused as he had been on trying not to plunge a hundred feet to his death. He was sure Loch and Tern had it handled.

He nodded to the big golden throne in the Imperial room, and headed up the stairs to the next floor. The dwarf’s master key opened the door, and Icy and Ululenia turned to look at him in surprise as the lights flickered on over their heads. Ululenia was currently a small white hummingbird, and Icy was hanging from the wall.

“I’m pretty sure this disabled the room’s security,” Icy said, and held up the master key.

We were expecting you to come through the window,
Ululenia said in his head,
although the number of shrieking earth-daemons outside led us to not expect you very soon
.

“Well, I like to surprise people.” Kail gestured at the door that led to the elven sub-room. “In there? Probably good to hurry.” Outside, the daemons were still shrieking, and it sounded like people were fighting.

This is extremely unnatural,
Ululenia said, and shifted back into human shape as Kail walked across the room without triggering the floor plates. “I was certain that the earth-daemons were employed only to raise an alarm. Allowing the daemons to manifest and directly confront intruders is a harsh and unforgiving decision from the dwarves.”

“And messy.” Icy hopped down to the ground as well, testing his weight and then flexing his fingers, since he’d apparently been clinging to the underside of an antique wand display for quite some time while trying to disable the security systems. “Dwarves do not usually employ messy solutions.”

“I get the sense this is going all kinds of wrong for everyone,” Kail said, and slid the master key into the lock on the elven sub-room door. As he’d hoped, the lock clicked open. “Didn’t even get to break out
Iofecyl
to try her out on these fancy dwarven locks.”

The elven room’s lights flickered on as the door opened, and Kail stepped inside. Off in the distance, the earth-daemons were still doing their thing. The elven manuscript sat in its display case, safe behind a squared-off section marked with red velvet rope.

“Any ideas how we get out of here once we’ve got the thing?” Kail asked. “I mean, if we’ve got earth-daemons on the roof, I’m guessing we shouldn’t leave that way.” A few months back, while Loch was off saving the world and avenging her family’s honor, Kail had—after recovering from the mind control bit that the Urujar room with the shackles hadn’t reminded him of very much at all—gotten to fight daemons. He’d picked up some new scars for his trouble, and wasn’t eager to live that experience again.

“I may be able to carry you both out from the window through which you entered the building,” Ululenia said, “or at least make your fall more gentle.”

“Less gentle would be difficult.” Kail approached the manuscript. “Now, what did Loch say?” Aside from
Kail, new plan,
which was strikingly different from,
Kail, I’m about to send you plunging toward the street, maybe consider hanging on extra tight, sorry about that
. “Equal weight, one quick movement, right?”

“Quick and smooth,” Icy confirmed, and took from a pocket in his robes a pouch of sand that, to the best of Loch’s knowledge, weighed exactly the same as the elven manuscript. He passed it to Kail, then took a very small pot and brush from
another
pocket in his robes, unscrewed the pot, and whisked around the contents, which looked like either thick slime or thin paste of a milky brown hue. “Tern promised that her reagent would work quickly.”

“Reagent being the goop?”

“Well-reasoned as always, Kail.” Icy dipped the brush into the pot and then dabbed it on the crystal of the manuscript display case, describing a good-sized circle in one side.

Tern hadn’t lied: the effect was immediate. The crystal sizzled and bubbled at contact with the paste, and Kail and Icy both stepped back as oily purple smoke hissed out. The crystal clouded, then drooped, and then dripped away entirely, leaving a good hole for Kail to work with.

Kail waited until the crystal stopped smoking. “She say when it’d be safe?”

“She did not.”

“Well, I’m reassured.” Kail hefted the pouch. “All right. Give me a bit of room here.” He reached forward gingerly. “I’m going to have to—”

As his hand passed the plane of the velvet rope, a brilliant flash of blue light exploded in his face, and an entirely
new
shrieking alarm went off.

“—set off an alarm,” Kail finished, “because
that’s
how it’s going tonight.”

Seven

P
YVIC STOOD ON
the top of the metal bookshelf, looking at the hooded figure in the dim and flickering light. “Desidora?”

“It’s aura is shielded,” she said, squinting.

“If it has one,” Pyvic said. “Remember the golem that the ancients left to hunt fairy creatures?”

“I imagine she remembers it,” Hessler said, clutching at his still-bleeding legs, “given that it
killed
her.”

“Yes.” Desidora blinked, then cocked her head. “Yes, this is similar. It’s like the crab-creatures. It’s not fully formed, like a golem. It’s being held together by magic.”

“As fascinating as this is,” Hessler said, “what I’d really like to know is why it hasn’t attacked us yet,” Hessler said. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”

The hooded creature had not spoken or moved since its first proclamation. It stood between them and the book. Below them, the crabs were now barely visible in the darkness, but Pyvic could still hear their scuttling on the bare stone floor, along with the licking flames of the fire Hessler had accidentally started. Going by the sound of burning paper, the crabs had knocked books from the shelves, causing the fire to spread.

And under that, another noise, an irregular hiss like a sword being drawn, or a ringmail shirt taking a glancing blow from a blade, or . . .

“They’re destroying the shelf,” Pyvic snapped, cursing himself for ten kinds of an idiot. Even as the words left his mouth, the metal shelf creaked and began to tip. “Everyone jump!”

The shelf was tilting to the right. Pyvic couldn’t make the jump ahead, especially not with the hooded figure waiting for him on the next shelf. He jumped left instead, pushing off the falling shelf to make the much shorter jump to the bookshelf that had been behind him a moment ago.

Below him, hundreds of priceless manuscripts fell into the slashing crystal pincers. From his new vantage, Pyvic could now see the shelf itself had been shredded with countless tiny cuts to one side.

Hessler and Desidora had jumped with the shelf instead of against it, which had probably seemed like a good idea at the time, since it let them use the falling shelf to add momentum to their jump. As soon as they landed, however, the shelf they’d just been on slammed into the shelf they were
now
on, and with a great, slow creak, their
new
shelf started to tip over .

“Keep going!” Pyvic shouted. Desidora nodded, wide-eyed, and dragged Hessler up to leap onto the
next
next shelf.

They weren’t going to be up there for long, and when they hit the ground, it was only a question of whether the flames or the crabs got them first. Pyvic looked down at the crabs swarming through the fire, cracked and charred but still scuttling along, and then looked at the hooded figure—who had turned to watch Hessler and Desidora.

Then Pyvic made a gut check.

“I’m going for the book!” he shouted, and took a running jump across the aisle.

He landed on the next shelf, slipped again on the dust, and came back to his feet in time to see the hooded figure leap over from the next row and land before him. Below, a mass of crabs was swirling around his shelf now as well.

“The book is forbidden,” the hooded creature said, its voice a dry crackling hiss. “The hour must not be known.” It lashed out with its crystal hooks.

Pyvic parried, slapping the hooks away. They were definitely crystal, definitely sharp, and probably part of the creature, not just weapons. He slashed, grimaced as the creature caught his blade with its hooks, and then lunged forward and drove the thing back off the shelf.

It fell back, then pivoted with inhuman grace, kicked off the shelf behind it, and sprang back at Pyvic with its hooks raised. Its hood fell off as it did, allowing Pyvic to clearly see the jagged crystals that clung together in a field of magic to make a crude facsimile of a head.

Seeing that would have changed his next move had he not already been acting on instinct. As it was, his blade chopped cleanly into the hooded creature’s neck.

For
most
opponents, that would have been a good strategic move. For a creature held together by magic, though, it was merely an inconvenience. Pyvic jerked his blade back, but not quickly enough. The hook caught his wrist, trapped his blade, and wrenched it from his grip even as it yanked Pyvic off his feet.

Pyvic clung to the edge of the shelf. His body was still on it, but his legs were scrabbling for purchase. He could feel the sudden tug of weight and the tiny slicing slashes of pain, which told him that the crabs had gotten hold of his boots.

That was a problem to be dealt with later, however, since the hooded figure was standing over him, hooks raised to finish him.

“Kutesosh gajair’is!”

Ghylspwr was a silver streak of light as he whistled over Pyvic’s head and then blasted the hooded figure from the shelf.

Pyvic hauled himself back up, kicking the crabs free, and saw Desidora and Hessler a few shelves over, safe again. “Thanks.”

“Thank you for buying us time with your distraction,” Desidora said. Ghylspwr had already returned to her hand. She looked down and smiled. “I see the book. Let us end this.”

Without another word, she dropped down from the shelf, landing nimbly in between the shelves below.

“Desidora?” Hessler looked down. “Do you have a plan?”

“Hessler, buy her some room!” Pyvic pointed, and without hesitation Hessler flung out his hands, sending sheets of fire into the crabs as they skittered away from Pyvic and back toward Desidora.

“Really?” Pyvic shouted to him. “More fire?
Really?
” Not waiting for a response, Pyvic leaped to the next shelf—the actual shelf the damned book was supposed to be on, assuming Desidora’s information was correct. He’d lost his sword, and the only thing he’d been able to do thus far was cause distractions until the people with magical abilities made their moves, but a justicar didn’t let things like that stop him.

Desidora was rifling through the shelves with one hand and swinging Ghylspwr in broad sweeping strikes with the other to keep the crabs back. “Found it!” she shouted, yanking a thin volume bound in blue leather from the shelf.

“You will not read it.” The hooded figure stepped out from around the aisle, its hooks raised.

“I will,” said Desidora, and her voice was cold.

She swung Ghylspwr, and the creature leaped, snared the warhammer with its hooks, and tore it from Desidora’s grasp.

“No,” said the creature, as it flung Ghylspwr away.

“Did you think I could not see the magic that held you together?” Desidora asked. “That a death priestess would not see what would have to be done to tear you apart?”

She raised one hand and curled her fingers slowly into a fist.

Nothing happened.

“You are no longer a death priestess,” the hooded figure said, stepping forward. “You have no power here.”

“I, however, do,” muttered Hessler from atop the shelf, and he traced a glowing sigil in the air.

The hooded creature collapsed to the ground, hundreds of shimmering crystals tinkling on the stone floor as they scattered out from under a now-empty robe.

Pyvic looked over at Hessler, who was pale and drawn. “Nice.”

“Daemon-banishing abjuration. I hoped the magic that held that thing together was similar enough . . .” Hessler took a breath. “Fairly draining to cast, and there’s a good chance it’s actually just
suppressing
the magic, not banishing it, so . . .”

The crabs had drawn back when their master attacked Desidora, but they were skittering closer again. Pyvic hopped down, grabbed Ghylspwr from the ground, raised him over the robe, and brought the hammer down several times until he heard the sound of metal on stone instead of shattering crystals. “That should buy us some time. Shall we?” He turned to Desidora and tossed Ghylspwr her way.

Desidora caught her hammer. She looked pale, but not pale like a death priestess caught in the thrall of Byn-Kodar’s power. She was just pale.

“Let’s go,” she said, and swallowed.

They ran from the library with crabs skittering after them and flames and smoke billowing in their wake. Pyvic only hoped that the damned book was worth it.

The earth-daemons were fast. By the time Loch cut the rope, half a dozen were already scampering across it, and when the rope fell away, carrying an indignantly yelling Kail down to what Loch
hoped
was safety below, the earth-daemons leaped the rest of the way, landing on the rooftop where Loch, Tern, and the Imperials were about to start fighting.

The daemons crashed down, stone claws grinding furrows into the rooftop, snarling and hissing. They were humanoid in shape, but seemed made entirely of planes and angles, their rocky gray hides broken by bone spurs at the joints.

The rings on Loch’s sword rattled as she whipped it up, then across, chopping through the throat of the nearest one. It stumbled back, and then collapsed into a loose pile of rock and sand, and Loch felt an absurd moment of happiness—first because the damn things weren’t immune to blades, and second because finally, for the first time since the Temple of Butterflies, she could hit something without worrying about it just being a good person in the wrong place.

Another daemon reached for her, and she spun the sword as she stepped out of reach. The little red scarf on the hilt of the blade twirled before the daemon’s eyes, and it blinked, automatically tracking the motion, and Loch chopped through its throat as well a moment later.

“Think I figured out what the ribbon is for!” she called out, knocking away another daemon’s arm as it clawed at her.

“You fight like a graceless thug,” Princess Veiled Lightning declared. She stalked forward, lightning still crackling between her fingers.

“A graceless thug with
your
sword.” Another daemon lunged at Loch, and Loch stepped in instead of out. She slashed across its arms, elbowed it in the face, grabbed hold of one rocky arm, and threw it headlong into Veiled Lightning.

The daemon and the princess went down in an ugly tangle of silk and bone spurs. Gentle Thunder, who had been advancing on Tern, stopped, gave Loch a glare that promised death, and ran for Veiled Lightning, chopping a daemon in half with a single swipe as he went.

As the daemons leaped at the Imperials, Loch shot Tern a look. “Smoke.”

“Done.” Tern whipped a vial from a dress pocket and smashed it on the ground, and vivid green smoke billowed out to fill the entire rooftop.

“Hand.” Loch darted toward Tern before the smoke obscured her completely.

“Done.” Tern’s hand closed over Loch’s.

Veiled Lightning and Gentle Thunder were silhouettes a few yards away. The third Imperial, Attendant Shenziencis, was already hidden in the smoke, but Loch heard a squeal of pain and saw a daemon fall to the ground, tangled in a silver net whose links crackled with amber light.

“Window,” said Loch, and pulled Tern along with her through the smoke.

She slashed a daemon from her path, saw the flash of a magical blade and yanked Tern to the side, and then she saw the window ahead and dove forward, letting go of Tern’s hand as she came into the room they’d rented, blade-first.

It was empty. Tern crawled through the window after Loch, coughing. “That
had
to be another malfunction. Dwarves set alarms. They don’t have earth-daemons attack people.”

Loch shrugged. “Hell of a malfunction, then. Come on.” She left the room at a jog, tucking her sword into her belt.

“We going back to the airship? The . . . whatever Kail named it?” Catching Loch’s movement with the sword, Tern slipped her crossbow back down to its hook between the folds of her skirt.

“Not yet.” Loch started down the stairs. “The Imperials are right behind us. We need some room, and the others might need help over at the museum.”