The Paladin Caper (44 page)

Behind him, the dragon was burning things, and based on some of the noise, Kail was pretty sure that a daemon was also involved. At some point, those would be his problems.

At the moment, though, eyes closed, he traced the seam and found the one rune that felt different under his fingers, with none of the magical buzz that made his hand tingle. He felt inside the rune until he found the tiny hole.

Then he drew out his trusted lockpick
Iofecyl
, slid her into the hidden lock, and went to work.

“There we go, baby,” he murmured as something exploded behind him. “No worries here, just me and you.” He raked the tumblers gently, felt a catch, twisted her ever so slightly. “You like that? Yeah, you like that.” He sighed. “Damn it, Tern and Icy are right about this sounding weird, and I’ve got Diz now, and I probably shouldn’t be talking to you like that.” He felt another catch. “I know, baby, I know, but we’ve got tonight, we’ve got this one last time, and no matter what happens, I will never forget what we had.”

The panel clicked open.

“That’s my girl.”

Kail slid
Iofecyl
back into his sleeve as the panel opened. He’d expected a small access panel like he’d find on an airship, and then some crystals he could pull out and then call it a day.

Instead, he faced a full-size door that opened upon a ladder leading down a narrow hatch lit dimly by tiny glowlamps.

He climbed down the ladder as quietly as only a small man with good boots could, and as he reached the bottom, which was some sort of large underground chamber lined with crystal panels, he heard voices talking.

“Cut to scrying pod four and bring it in,” said the first voice, which sounded quick and somehow distractedly thoughtful at the same time. “We’ve got a lady trying to protect her baby from the flames . . . that’s good, oh, that’s really good, yes, in on her.”

“More flames, Slant?” said the second voice, brusque and blunt. “I can have it—”

“No, I don’t want more flames,” snapped the first voice, presumably Slant. “If the lady and the baby
die
, everyone gets sick and looks away, and it’s
over
. I need the lady crying but determined and the baby screaming. Griffon, you’re on, sob story.”

“This is just awful,” came a voice that Kail recognized from every puppet show he had ever seen. “These people came here to see a celebration of the greatest virtues of the Republic, they spent their savings to bring their families, and what we’re seeing here, the lives shattered—”

“Okay, wait, I’ve changed my mind, the baby looks really ugly when it cries,” the first voice said. “Let’s shut it up. Skinner, can you flap the wings or something to shut up the baby?”

“Big noise. Done,” said the second voice.

“Manticore, on the dragon, start spinning motive.”

“The dragon is roaring now,” came the manticore’s voice.

“Good, that shut the kid up. Oh, look at those eyes. That’s good, yes, get the face.”

“It’s unclear how this creature breached the wards,” the manticore added, “but clearly, someone intended to ruin today’s festival and cause as much destruction as they could.”

“I need to send it after Loch,” said Skinner.

“Fine, yes, cut to scrying pod five, stay wide, two, stay in close on the face. I want to see the dragon snarling and snapping.”

Kail watched from the dark little alcove, peering into a room lit only by a dozen giant crystal panes where two black-coated men and three puppeteers, all of them wearing paladin bands, worked seamlessly as they ran the tightest con he had ever seen.

Kail nodded, chewed thoughtfully on the inside of his cheek, and tried to figure out what the hell to do next.

Desidora, Dairy, and Pyvic looked up at the Forge of Pesyr in the temple quarter of Heaven’s Spire. It looked almost dwarven, an angular single-story building whose walls were made from hammered iron and decorated only with rivets. The other temples were all tall and beautiful, graceful structures against which the Forge’s ungainly functionality had always seemed jarring. As a love priestess, Desidora had seen it as a deliberate choice by the smith priests.

Now, she saw it as camouflage.

“You’re sure about this?” Pyvic asked. “Every other deep dark secret Heaven’s Spire has been hiding has been in the archvoyant’s palace.”

“Which is why this one is here,” Desidora said. They’d checked in the control room, and the readings had given her the direction on what she was looking for. Now, standing in front of the structure, she needed nothing but her own senses.

The Forge of Pesyr was built like a safe, and the magic it radiated said the same. It held wards and charms, hammered into place for functionality instead of subtlety, and all of them were double-sided, constructed to keep magic both out and
in
. Had Desidora attempted to create such an effect, it would have looked like a jumble of hopeful thoughts, dozens of magical forms smothering one another in a chaotic mishmash. Whoever had created these wards was a builder, a craftsman, capable of forethought and discipline and organization and utterly bereft of sentiment.

“Are you all right, Sister Desidora?” Dairy asked, and Desidora smiled.

“The priests of Tasheveth and the priests of Pesyr do not always get along,” she said.

“And this Mister Lively was here?” Pyvic asked.

“He may well be here now.” Desidora shrugged. “It feels like the zombie felt. It is his power and his wards. Come.”

They walked to the imposing double door and swung the knocker, which rang clear like a bell. A moment later, the double doors swung open, and an acolyte of Pesyr looked out at them with a smile, her muscular arms bare and her silk apron decorated with a flaming hammer and anvil. “Greetings, Sister,” she said to Desidora, nodding at the symbol of Tasheveth on Desidora’s robes. “How may I help you?”

“Please tell the master of the forge that a visitor with urgent business says,
‘Ynku hesyur dar’ur Pesyr
,’” Desidora said, and the acolyte jumped.

“Oh, of course, please come right in.” The acolyte, blushing nervously, opened the door for them. The aura of magic was almost blindingly bright to Desidora, but Dairy and Pyvic didn’t seem to notice anything. They walked in, and Desidora followed.

The temple was laid out as most temples were, with a large area for celebrations and small alcoves for private matters. Where the temple of Tasheveth had love chambers, however, the Forge of Pesyr held rooms where great works were designed and crafted. Desidora understood that the priests and the guildmasters were in constant negotiations over what was brought out for the public, and when.

The acolyte left them with a blushing apology in the main hall, where ironbound wooden pews looked out upon the obligatory anvil-shaped altar. The walls were lined with great works of craftsmanship, mostly in iron, but with some wood as well, and a few pieces of finer materials. There were blades and shields, horseshoes, gears, and even a large clock.

“They have all those pieces, but no art,” Pyvic said. “Always found that peculiar.”

“The smith priests of Pesyr believe that for something to have value, it must have a practical purpose,” Desidora said. “Nothing in the hall is purely ornamental.”

“Why would they hide the gate to the world of the Glimmering Folk in a temple?” Dairy asked as they waited.

“I’m not sure we’re thinking about it the right way,” Desidora said. “I don’t think they hid it here. I think it was made here. The ancients worship the gods, just as we do, and Pesyr is the god of craftsmen.”

“What better place to create a gate between worlds than here?” Pyvic asked, looking around. “The question is, how do we find it? Can you sense anything magical?”

“Too much, in fact.” Desidora was trying not to squint. Everything was overwhelming, the colors sharp and the sounds ringing. The wards pressed in upon her like blows from a hammer. “It’s . . . very strong, but I think I’m sensing wards that . . .” She squinted, then rested her hand on one of the pews. “They’re trying to reinforce reality.”

“That makes sense,” said Dairy, surprisingly. “The Glimmering Folk aren’t real, not the way we think of it. The wards must help keep the gate to the Shadowlands closed.”

“Then that is what I must alter,” Desidora said, nodding and squinting through the wards whose auras made any other magic almost impossible to see. “We alter these, and the ancients will believe that the Glimmering Folk have returned, that the gate is open.”

“When Loch plans a con, she never aims small,” Pyvic said, and shook his head.

“It must have been hard,” Desidora said, “pretending to mourn her all these months.”

“We do what we have to,” said Pyvic, and smiled. “I miss her.”

Dairy looked at Pyvic with a question, but before he could ask it, several priests of Pesyr came out toward them.

“Is it true?” asked one of them, a tall bald man whose arms showed old scars from years at the forge and whose fire-trimmed silk apron marked him as priest-master of the temple. “You are the one who spoke the words?”

“I am,” Desidora said, “and by ancient treaty, you are bound to hear and obey by the four-and-twenty.”

“Yes,” said the master, “that is what he said, as well.”

“He has been here?” Desidora asked. “What did he do?”

“He asked many questions,” the smith priest said grimly, “and when we did not have the answers he wished, he attacked.”

“What?” Desidora looked around the main hall, which, while not as clean as the temple of Tasheveth, did not have the look of a room that had recently seen battle.

“What sort of weapon worked best against him?” Dairy asked, and the smith priest shook his head.

“Our weapons were useless,” he said, frustration wrought keenly on his face.

Everything was still too bright and too sharp, but Desidora felt something in the auras, something that felt wrong.

“No offense, Your Holiness, but I’m surprised he left you alive,” Pyvic said.

The smith bowed. “He didn’t, my good man. I’m afraid he slaughtered us brutally.”

Desidora realized what the aura meant as everyone in the main hall came at them, death shining sadly in their eyes.

The great hangar door of the mine’s main docking bay was closed, which made it a lot easier to land sneakily.

Tern rolled, sort of, and ended up somehow tangled in about thirty different ropes. Icy came back to his feet with no sign of discomfort beyond doing something to the leg that had been holding her. He might have been popping his hip back into its socket. Tern decided not to ask.

“All right,” Tern said, getting back to her feet. “Elves and dwarves. The data from the
Lapitemperum
made it sound like they were enthralled, so they’ve probably replaced the golems.”

“Do you believe they will be hostile?” Icy asked.

“No idea. If we’re lucky, they’re just doing their job, and if we don’t bother them, they don’t bother us.”

As the wolf, fangs bared, hackles raised,
Ululenia said from beside them. She was in her natural unicorn shape now. Or at least as close to it as she got anymore. Tern thought she looked ready to rip something’s intestines out rather than purify water or make flowers grow.

“Ululenia,” Icy said, “they are slaves. They do not act of their own free will.”

Then we will release them from such a sad state,
Ululenia said, looking over at them and smiling fangily.

“I do not believe this is how you would wish to
arching ardor
.” Icy shook his head, and then stepped back. “Ululenia . . .
bejeweled bosom
. . . please stop.”

“Hey, listen, it may not even matter, right?” Tern said, stepping between them. “They might not even notice us, and if they don’t notice us, they won’t attack, and then nobody has to rend or tear or anything, right? Right?” She smiled brightly at everyone. “I just killed
the hell
out of the troll that killed Hessler, and I
really
thought that was going to make me feel . . . right. I thought I was going to pump my fist and say, ‘That was for my baby,’ only it didn’t work. It was too fast, and I was just scared, and now the troll is gone, and the man I love is still dead anyway, and I’m grappling with a
lot
of disappointment right now. The only thing letting me hold it together is getting this job done, so we are going to go in there and hope the elves and dwarves ignore us, and if they attack, then we’ll worry about it then, okay?”