The Prophecy Con (Rogues of the Republic) (50 page)

Acknowledgments

No work this large can be written on its own. My thanks go out to my alpha readers, all of whom provided excellent feedback when I was floundering around the idea of writing my very first sequel: Jennifer Whitson, Christina Grenhart, Susan Peterman, Ritzy Foxx, and Matthew Breen. David Hale Smith, my agent, and David Pomerico, my editor, made the clunky parts significantly less clunky, and were very kind about giving me the time and suggestions to make this something I was proud of. Greg Rucka managed to keep me alive in multiplayer sessions while
also
getting me comfortable with managing the emotional contract one makes with the reader in a sequel with returning characters.

I would also like to thank David Gaider, Cori May, and my wife, Karin, all of whom I owe drinks for the good lines I stole from them.

Many others helped with location checking, internal consistency, and all the other fun and exciting things that happen when you come back to the world for a second time.

Finally, I would also like to thank the readers who cared about what happened to Loch and her gang enough to give them another shot.

Thanks, all. I couldn’t have done this without all of you.

Post-Script

“
And clear!”
Icy Fist shouted from somewhere.

Loch felt the worst pain in her life, a surge of power all through her body that wrenched her upright.

“Easy,” Pyvic said, holding her as she shook and shivered for a moment. He pulled her shirt closed. “Easy, there. I missed you.”

“Bad luck,” Loch mumbled. They were in the woods, all of them gathered in a small clearing. Loch smelled evergreen trees and fresh water and ice that came from mountains. Woods not far from the Temple of Butterflies.

“Welcome back to the living,” Desidora said, her hair a few shades darker than normal.

“You . . .” Loch coughed. “You . . . what?”

Desidora’s hair eased back to its normal auburn. “Slowed your heart down to basically nothing. You were, for all intents and purposes, dead.”

“I was able to shock your heart into starting again,” Icy said, rubbing his hands briskly. “It is an interesting technique. I am pleased that I remembered it correctly.”

“When was the last time you had to do that?” Tern asked.

“Oh, never. But I read about it perhaps a dozen years ago.”

“Well. Glad it worked, then.”

“I got
shot
,” Loch said, staring down at her chest.

“Pff.” Tern lifted her crossbow. “You got shot with a stagecraft bolt. Reinforced paper tip strong enough to carry it in flight, but the head crumples on impact, leaving just these tiny barbs that stick to make it look good. I added a little sleep dust from my knockout darts to put you down.”

“It was sticking out of the
front
of my
chest
,” Loch said.

Hessler coughed.

“
Best illusionist boyfriend ever
,” Tern added, wrapping her arm around him.

“Nystin actually only hit you in the shoulder,” Hessler added. “I had to make it look good.”

“And it did look good,” Veiled Lightning said as she stepped into the clearing. “Had I not known you employed a wide range of thieves and cheats in your gang, I would never have suspected.”

“You knew?” Pyvic asked.

“I also knew she had three knaves,” Veiled Lightning said, “but
I
wasn’t going to beat the elf, and she seemed to know what she was doing.”

“Really? But . . .” Loch pulled her shirt closed and looked up at Veiled Lightning, trying to get her mind working again. She pushed herself up, and Pyvic helped her to her feet. “
I
didn’t know. About this. I didn’t . . .” She turned to Pyvic. “You
let them
let Nystin shoot me?”

Pyvic shrugged. “My part of the plan was to shout, ‘
What the hell are you doing
?’ if you tried something noble and self-sacrificial instead of giving the manuscript over. Tern said she’d take care of the rest.”

Loch looked at Tern.

“I
may
have gone through your bags as we were getting ready to ride the Dragon,” she said. “Speaking of which, how are you this morning, Dairy?”

“Just fine, ma’am,” Dairy said, grinning from ear to ear. Ululenia harrumphed.

“Good. Anyway, you didn’t have the book, so I told the others that there was a chance you were going to do something stupid, and we all agreed that we’d stop you if that proved to be the case.”

Loch looked back at Pyvic. “Trying to keep the Republic and the Empire from war is
stupid
?”

“
I
said noble and self-sacrificial,” he said.

“Drink some juice,” Icy said. “You need to elevate your body’s energies again.”

“Why? For prison?” Loch gestured at Veiled Lightning.

“Oh, please,” the princess said, waving absently. “You being dead takes care of everything. As far as the Empire is concerned, you’re one troublesome political prisoner erased. We have the
lapiscaelum
, so there’s a good chance that we can actually calm down and stop agitating for war now, as long as your side does the same.”

“The Republic just lost a proud patriot who was preparing to surrender herself to bring about peace,” Pyvic said. “If the voyants can’t work with that, I’ll get us some new ones who can.”

“So . . .” Loch looked around at all of them slowly. “You all had a plan to take me down?”

“You’d do the same for us,” Tern said with absolute sincerity, and Loch found herself smiling.

“Damn right I would.” She put her arm around Pyvic. “So, since you all appear to be a bit ahead of me on this, what’s the plan?”

Desidora’s face went slightly pale. “Ghylspwr is still missing. I have a number of very firm questions for him.” Kail put his arm around her, and her skin went rosy again. “And I could use some help. It might be dangerous.”

“I was tired of being a lapitect, anyway,” Hessler said. “This sounds much closer to stealing. Also, Desidora and I have ideas on how to ward you against detection from the daemon carrying Jyelle’s memories and emotional impulses.” He paused. “I understand that it’s natural to think that it actually
is
Jyelle, but—”

“I’m just happy we’re presumably stealing something besides the damn book this time,” Tern added.

“Speaking of which . . .” Dairy coughed. “Mister Dragon has offered to share any information he finds while studying the manuscript.”

“I’ll keep an ear to the ground up on Heaven’s Spire,” Pyvic said, and nodded to Veiled Lightning. “We’re willing to share information if you are.”

The princess smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’ll probably need a sword,” Loch added.

“Don’t push it.” Veiled Lightning sauntered back through the trees, turning to call over her shoulder, “I’ll be in touch.”

“I should go, too,” Pyvic said. “The rest have already left their positions, but they’re expecting me back up on Heaven’s Spire to help with repairs.”

“You all left your positions in a single afternoon?” Loch asked.

Tern coughed.

“It’s been a week,” Dairy said.

Loch shut her eyes. “You killed me for a
week
?”

“It had to look good!” Tern shouted.

“It looked wonderful,” Hessler said. “That was my job.”

Tern glared at him. “How did
I
know the princess was going to go for it?”

“In any case,” Loch said, “I believe we have some ancients to locate and thwart.”

She looked at Pyvic, who smiled sadly.

“Don’t say it,” he said.

“You did.”

“You were dead.”

“For a week, apparently.”

He kissed her, and she held him long enough for his warmth to seep in.

Then she let him leave the clearing and go back to the job, which she knew was where he needed to be to give them the best chance of success.

Still, though.

“I’ll miss you,” she said, very, very quietly.

Then she turned to her gang, who stood waiting for her expectantly.

“All right, then,” she said. “Let’s get to work.”

About the Author

Photo © 2010 Baos

Patrick Weekes was born in the San
Francisco Bay Area and attended
Stanford University, where he received
both a BA and an MA in English
literature.

In 2005, Patrick joined BioWare’s writing team in Alberta, Canada. Since then, he’s worked on all three games in the Mass Effect trilogy, where he helped write characters like Mordin, Tali, and Samantha Traynor. He is now working with the Dragon Age team on the third game in the critically acclaimed series. He has written tie-in fiction for both series, including Tali’s issue in Dark Horse Comics’ Mass Effect: Homeworlds series and
Dragon Age: Masked Empire
.

Patrick lives in Edmonton with his wife, Karin, his two Lego-and-video-game-obsessed sons, and (currently) nine rescued animals. In his spare time, he takes on unrealistic Lego-building projects, practices Kenpo Karate, and embarrasses himself in video games.