The Prophecy Con (Rogues of the Republic) (16 page)

I will return to Desidora and your justicar as quickly as I can, Little One. Good luck on the silver rails. And be wary. The trains are pulled by fire-daemons, and whatever agitation walks the land of late, it seems to shake daemons loose from their bindings.

Loch nodded as Ululenia soared off, a shining white wedge in the pale sky.

It was one more problem to think about, and she had enough of those already.

Captain Nystin of the Knights of Gedesar took a slip of paper from the justicar at the table, tucked it into his pocket, and stood up. He left a pouch of coins on his seat and walked out of the kahva-house without looking back.

Nystin walked for a quarter of an hour, taking random streets and doubling back twice, before removing the slip of paper from his pocket and reading it. When he had memorized the information, he tore the paper into shreds, then tossed it into a nearby fountain.

He returned to his men, who were already armored and ready to move.

“We’ve got a hit on Loch,” he said without preamble.

“Location?” Grid asked, checking the binding on her crossbow.

“Projected. Ironroad. Our thief is catching a train.” Nystin held out his arms, and Rib, the newest of the recruits, fitted Nystin’s armor on as Nystin kept going. “We’ve got intel that her people raised daemons out in Ajeveth and stole artifacts from the dwarves.”

“Will the dwarves be offering assistance in catching her?” Scale asked.

“I don’t particularly need anything forged at the moment.” Nystin slid his hands into leather gauntlets while Rib quickly laced up his armor. “Less than a day after it leaves Ironroad, that train enters dwarven territory.” He looked out at his soldiers. “I fully expect our team to take this woman down before jurisdiction becomes an issue.”

“How are we getting there?” Hex asked. “Ironroad’s halfway across the Republic.”

Nystin nodded at the question. “There’s a zephyr-class airship leaving Dock 17 in one hour. It belongs to a gang of hexmongers who’ve been running high-grade crystals stolen from the inner workings of the city to use for death-curses.” He let that sink in. “The justicars have been sitting on that intel for six months, hoping to get a lead on the necromancer on the ground. Personally, I’d rather kill the bastards here and now, then take their fast little airship out to Ironroad and catch our target. Thoughts?”

There was a rumble of assent from the soldiers.

“Hexmongers might have traps on their ship,” Hex
said, his dry old voice grim with the memory of old battles. “Permission to lead?”

“Granted.” Nystin nodded at Rib, who had finished helping Nystin into his armor in record time. The recruit had the makings of a decent soldier, if he didn’t get killed. “Glass, your team clears the docks. Let’s avoid any trouble with the workers this time.”

She flushed. “Understood, sir.”

“Good.” Nystin looked out at his soldiers. “We missed her last time. Any deaths out in Ajeveth when Loch hit? That’s on her, make no mistake, but it’s on us, too. I don’t know how many dwarven mothers and fathers are putting out flowers for their children, but it’s too many.” He scanned the room, making sure they were taking it in. “No more. Grab weapons. We move in five. Dismissed.”

The soldiers broke off to grab their gear, and Nystin tightened a few straps on his armor.

Hex alone stayed in the room. The old soldier leaned against a wall, his stance casual, to hide the limp.

“Hexmongers,” he rasped.

“That’s right.” Nystin came closer. “Concerns?”

“Every hexmonger I’ve tracked . . .”—Hex gave Nystin a steely stare—“. . . and it’s been a few . . . every one went with a simple airship. Just did drops down to the port cities when Heaven’s Spire was overhead. Never seen any hexmonger pull in enough money to buy one of the fastest airships in the Republic. Those usually go to some kid with a rich family.”

Nystin smiled. “Times change, old friend.”

Hex didn’t smile. “We going to find crystals on the ship?”

“My intel says we are.” The bag containing those crystals was currently sitting in Nystin’s locker.

Hex nodded, thinking it over. Nystin didn’t change his posture from its attitude of relaxed confidence.

“I’ll bring flashpowder,” Hex finally growled. “My men can make a little bang, point out the traps. Grid will know, but she won’t say anything.” He met Nystin’s stare. “I’d keep Scale and the recruits back, if it were up to me. They might see what looked like us beating some rich noble’s son to death. Might hear us yelling that he was innocent, screaming about his rights.”

“It’ll need to be a small boarding team,” Nystin agreed, “to avoid tipping off their guards. Scale and the recruits will be searching the cargo bay.”

“Understood, sir.” Hex gave Nystin a salute, then left to go collect his things.

The airship’s owner was the oldest son of a minor noble. As far as Nystin knew, the worst illegal magic the young man had ever used was passion-charms to make himself a stallion in the sack.

In forty minutes’ time, the poor young man would die for the crime of having a very fast airship and not enough political connections to be dangerous.

Nystin closed his eyes and said a quick prayer to Io-fergajar, god of warriors who needed no magic to win their battles.

He would make the young man’s death worth it.

Nine

D
ESIDORA SAT IN
the kahva-house with
Ruminations upon the Unutterable by the Queen of the Cold River
resting on the table next to a cup of cold kahva and, because she was feeling sorry for herself, a fattening pastry.

Hessler had left to join Loch and the others on what Desidora understood was going to be a robbery operation on the dwarven railway. Desidora had been left to glean what she could from the impenetrable book.

Whoever the queen of the cold river was, she cared very little for making herself understandable to humans. She seemed to possess senses that Desidora did not, and her descriptions of
The Love Song of Eillenfiniel
would regularly veer off into run-on sentences where the adjectives seemed to be used as verbs and the tenses changed every few words.

Desidora would really have been fine with going to rob the elf on the railway.

Not that a love priestess would be all that useful on a train robbery . . .

She looked over at a young woman sipping kahva by the window. She was unattached, working as an assistant trader or something else that was financially secure but artistically empty, and she hadn’t had much time to think about courting since finishing school and finding work with the trading guild. She was unhappy, though she wouldn’t have phrased it that way herself, and without someone to ground her, she would find herself a bitter middle-aged woman fighting for money with nothing to spend it on.

The young nobleman a few tables over was working on a poem. He would fall hard for the trader, hard enough to anger his family by marrying outside the nobility . . . but he didn’t actually have much to offer the trader beyond hypothetically really liking her a lot. On the other hand, the ebony-skinned woman making the kahva would push the trader from her comfortable life, and the two of them would have absolutely scorching sex. The relationship might even last, provided they were both willing to be flexible.

Her divinely bestowed senses didn’t tell her whether either of the young women or the noble would survive the coming war with the Empire. Personalities and possibilities, that was all she got.

And, of course, no ability to change anyone’s aura except with her own words and actions, like any other person. Altering the energy of life itself was a power reserved for the gods.

Or death priestesses.

Ghylspwr had been quiet the past few days, which she
appreciated. She had actually left him at the temple of
Tasheveth for a good oiling.

Tasheveth, goddess of the heart, I prayed that you might spare me the duty of a death priestess. When you told me that it was necessary, I prayed for a way to complete my task and return to the life I knew. Now, you have given me everything I asked for . . . and I miss what I had before.

Now that Desidora thought of it, that fit pretty well with Tasheveth, actually.

With a sigh, she stood to go buy a refill on her kahva—and share a few words with the lovely kahvarista about how the young trader over by the window looked tired and could maybe use a kind word. Instead, though, she found her path blocked by a pale young woman with ash-blond hair and a friendly smile.

It is a gift to see you again, daughter of the gods,
Ululenia said, and hugged her. She had really been the team’s only other hugger, which Desidora appreciated, even while trying not to spill her cold kahva.

“I’m glad to see you as well.” Desidora gestured at the table. “Hopefully you will be able to make more sense out of this than I have.”

Ululenia slid into a seat at Desidora’s table, giving the nobleman—who was
technically
still a virgin—a speculative look. “Were you getting another drink?”

Desidora looked at the trader in her stylish but stiff shirt and breeches, then at the kahvarista, who was laughing at something one of the servers had said. “No, I’m fine for now,” she said, and sat back down. “So, what can you tell me about this book?”

Ululenia picked it up, running a slim finger down the leather and squinting in a way that somehow did not give her frown lines (a trick that only shapeshifters and love priestesses usually picked up). “The queen of the cold river,” she said, testing the words for their weight. “She is a . . . difficult creature.”

Desidora could not read Ululenia’s aura—this wasn’t a matter of love, and beyond that, fairy creatures had no auras to speak of—but the concern in her voice was obvious. “
Evil
difficult?”

“At times,” Ululenia said, “though my kind is loath to apply such terms to ourselves. Is the wolf evil for killing the stag? The mother bear for mauling that wolf, when its hunt brought it to close to the mother’s cub?”

“The satyr for tying me to a table and trying to make me kill Tern?”

“Oh, Elkinsair was evil, definitely,” Ululenia said, tapping the book with her finger. “No, the queen of the cold river is not so petty, though at times she is as cruel. I have never encountered her, for which I am grateful, but those of my kind who have say that she is terrifying, one of the most powerful of the fairy folk. For her to dictate her words to a mortal to capture for eternity, they must have been important to her indeed.”

Desidora sipped her kahva, then sighed. She’d forgotten it was cold. “Wait: you don’t think she wrote it herself?”

“No hands,” Ululenia said, wiggling her fingers, “and though her magic is considerable, it does not include the shifting of form.” She flipped open the book and started skimming. “She does not like the elven ballad.”

Desidora
thought
she had gotten that from the text, but given that she had been trying to read something that at times was written as though the page had an additional dimension, she had also sometimes felt that she was not capable of reading
up
or
in
or
through
enough. “You can understand it? Is that how your mind works?”

“The swan walks on the summer bank, flies in the autumn sky, and paddles across the spring water,” Ululenia
said, and for a moment, the horn on her brow sparkled into visibility. “We are creatures of the very magic that the elves once worked with in their duties for the ancients, and so we may think as such when the need arises. But as our natures pass time with mortals, our minds mimic theirs.” Ululenia looked down at the book. “The queen composed this critique of the elven book after drinking deeply of their minds.”

Desidora frowned. “Is she a mind reader, like you?”

“I was not speaking in metaphors, daughter of the gods.”

“So she drank of their minds
literally?”
Desidora winced.

“I did say that she was difficult,” Ululenia said with a little smile, and went back to the book.

Kail put the airship he had just about gotten named
Iofegemet
down a few miles outside Ironroad, so that nobody would ask why travelers who had their own airship would want to book passage on the dwarven railway.

When they walked into the town a few hours later, Hessler was waiting for them by the gates.

He had changed from his robe into nondescript traveling leathers, though his gangly frame and semi-permanent squint still marked him as a wizard in Loch’s opinion. Tern rushed into his arms as soon as she saw him, nearly bowling him over as she pulled him into a hug.

“I missed you. Loch said you got attacked by crabs? You look
good
in normal clothes.”

“Thank you, I haven’t been eating entirely healthily while you were gone, but I . . .” He saw Loch’s look. “I just got in an hour ago, so I haven’t had much time to check out the town.”

“That’s our first order of business, then,” Loch said. “Kail, Icy: case the railway. Security measures, guard patrols on the cars, everything.”

“Not my first robbery, Captain,” Kail said, producing his lockpick with a flick of his wrist.

“If we’re lucky, it’ll be the last.” Loch turned to Tern and Hessler. “The lovebirds are with me.”

Hessler flushed. Tern didn’t. “What are we doing? If they’ve got complicated locks at the railway, I’m better than Kail is—”

“Hey!”

“You know more about dwarves than I do,” Loch said. “I’m going to go see if we can just buy a ticket.”

Kail and Icy split off as soon as they were through the gates, heading off to where the telltale gleam of metal spires marked the dwarven railway. Loch took her time walking through Ironroad, hiding her grin at how Tern and Hessler held hands and matched each other’s strides.

“Pyvic gave me a basic report on what happened on the Spire,” Loch said as they walked. “Anything you want to fill in?”

“Many of the books survived,” Hessler said, “and given the threat to our lives, I still believe that using fire was within the realm of appropriate—”

“You burned down the library?” Tern cut in. “I
love
that library!”

“Yes, Desidora said something about that,” Hessler said, and blushed a little, “but really, it was only the basement that burned down—”

“This is why I worry about you using magic that isn’t illusions,” Tern said.

“Well, an
illusion
of fire wouldn’t have stopped the crabs from killing us,” Hessler pointed out, “and I do not intend to run into another situation where the enemy has more magical power at its disposal than we do.”

Loch sighed. “I wasn’t actually asking about the library, Hessler. I wanted to know if you’d found anything more on the attack.”

“Oh.” Hessler coughed. “Then . . . no. No sign of magical runes that triggered upon us searching for the book, and no hint of scrying magic on us, either. However the crabs and the golem knew to come after us, it wasn’t through magic.”

“Or the evidence burned down in the basement,” Tern added, “when you set it on fire.”

“Which, to be clear,” Loch said, “I don’t really care about, as long as Hessler doesn’t get anybody killed.”

Ironroad’s buildings had the squat, functional look common to mining towns that had been around long enough to merit building real homes instead of just leaning pieces of wood together. Some of the buildings had the angled look that Loch had seen in Ajeveth, and she guessed that was where the dwarves lived. The streets were a little cleaner around those buildings, but other than that, they were just a normal part of the town.

“We had fairy folk living out in the woods in Lochenville,” Loch said to break the silence, “but they always stayed there. People like Ululenia, who would come and mingle with the humans, were rare.” She jerked her chin at the dwarven buildings. “The dwarves have integrated.”

“It’s always more common around the borders,” Tern said, “especially with the not-too-poor and the not-too-rich. Hard to make someone into a scary dangerous thing when they make your shoes and you buy their apples.”

Loch nodded. “I saw it with Imperials during the war, but I didn’t realize it would be the same with the dwarves.”

“Far as I know, yeah. You get some of the same mix over near the Elflands, too. Elves living in human cities, that kind of thing. Not as much as with dwarves, though. The elves are weird.”

“I’ve only met a few. They usually acted the way Irrethelathlialann was acting.”

“Except for setting you up to get tagged by the guards while you’re casing the building,” Tern said.

“Yes, that was new. Hessler, what can you tell me about the book itself, beyond the fact that you burned down a library to get it?”

“It was just the basement,” Hessler said, probably involuntarily at this point, “and in any event, Desidora had been unable to get much from it as of when I left.” He still had one hand linked with Tern’s, but his free hand began twitching as he thought. “Whatever fairy creature wrote it seemed to have very little interest in making herself understood to humans, which begs the question of why she chose to write it in the first place . . .”