The Prophecy Con (Rogues of the Republic) (39 page)

“Gotten killed by the Dragon,” Ululenia finished, swirling her brandy, “who is, in fact, a dragon.”

Hessler sighed. “I had really hoped that was a metaphor.”

“What kind of powers does he have?” Tern asked. “You do minds, that satyr who worked for Silestin did sex, I guess, and Shenziencis controls voices, or the dead, or . . . both?”

“A dragon is a force of raw, unmitigated power,” said
Ululenia. “In his true form, he could tear this ship apart, and then set the kindling ablaze with his flaming breath.”

“Wow,” said Dairy, sipping his milk. “That sounds . . .”

“Like we should avoid a frontal assault,” Hessler finished.

“I have a plan,” Loch said, and everyone turned to glare at her. “Really, this time. And no frontal assaults. Mister Dragon let you go upon my assurance that you wouldn’t bother him. You’ve got a new job.”

Ululenia raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

Loch gave them an optimistic smile. “How much do you know about treeship security?”

“Wards at fifty percent!” Kail shouted as flame battered the great balloon over his head, and then, as another blast of fire roared at them, this time at the deck, “Crap, everyone down!”

“
Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is!”
Ghylspwr shouted, and Desidora reached out from the railing and swung.

Light blazed, and Kail shielded his eyes. When it cleared, Desidora stood, slightly scorched but none the worse for wear, atop the smoking railing.

“Ow,” she said, and toppled over backwards. Icy dove forward and caught her.

“Diving!” Kail said, in case anyone was curious, and pushed
Iofegemet
down hard. “Forward full!”

“The flamecannons won’t be able to shoot straight down,” Pyvic said quickly. “If you get us under the city, we should be safe!”

“Not counting the giant blast of lightning it can shoot down at us?” Kail winced as another blast of flame roared out and splashed across the balloon overhead. “Wards at twenty percent!”

“Can you go any faster?” Pyvic asked.

“Yes, I’m just choosing to go this speed because your mother likes it when I take my time!” Another blast roared out, and the balloon groaned as the wind-daemon inside it stretched and strained the canvas. “Wards are down, by the way!”

He looked up past the balloon to where Heaven’s Spire was a great coin that blotted out most of the night sky overhead. The
lapiscaela
that kept the city floating during the day had gone dark, but he could still see glimpses of violet as crystals here and there glinted in the twilight.

They were going to make it. Kail pulled
Iofegemet
up to cut off the angle of fire further and bring the ship up under the barrier so they could dock.

One last blast spat out from above and hissed behind the balloon, past Kail’s field of view.

“Did it miss?” Icy asked, and then the blast hit the balloon.

“You had to ask!” Kail shouted.

It didn’t sound like the splashing spray of fire sloshing against magical barriers. This was the crackling burn of flames hitting the canvas, and while the canvas was treated to be fireproof in the event of just this sort of thing happening, few things in the world were
actually
fireproof when you got them hot enough.

“Byn-kodar’s hell,” Kail muttered, “no offense, Diz.”

“None taken.”

“Did it breach?” Pyvic asked.

Kail looked at the console. “Not yet. It’s burning, though. We’ve got a minute or two, tops.” Pyvic opened his mouth, and Kail waved. “And no, I can’t get us up to the Spire in that time, and no, I can’t land us in that time, and no, the life balloons got wrecked when we lost half of
Iofegemet
fighting the naga and her ax-swinging boyfriend. I’m sorry. I’ve got nothing.”

“What if we extinguish the fire?” Icy asked.

“Sure,” Kail said, “except that they hit the top of the balloon, which is a bit out of reach.”

Icy rolled out his arms. “Then perhaps someone could prepare me some damp rags,” he said politely, “so that I may stop the war with my little acrobatic tricks.”

“Oh, you were just
itching
to throw that one back in my face.” Kail pulled
Iofegemet
into a level ascent while Pyvic and Desidora scrambled to get the rags. “You know your way around the rigging?”

Icy sank into a low stretch. “I will, shortly,” he said, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.

“There’s not a lot to hold onto up on top.”

“A lesser man,” Icy said, “would find a way to reference your mother in response to that sentence.” Pyvic and Desidora passed him a handful of wet rags, and he tucked them into his robes. “Continue docking, smoothly if possible.”

He took three steps, vaulted to the railing, leaped
from
the railing, caught a line in one hand, and pulled himself into another flying leap that, as he somersaulted in midair, let him loop one leg around a line hanging from the underside of the balloon.

He swung once, pulled himself upright, and proceeded to climb through the rigging, upside-down, along the underside of the balloon. In moments, he was out of sight.

“Just
imagine
if he would just man up and hit people,” Kail muttered. “All right, everyone hold tight. We’re coming up under the Spire. Perimeter alarm is telling me we lose containment in about thirty.”

“But Icy can stop it,” Desidora said.

“Icy can buy us a bit more time,” Kail said. “Once the wind-daemon on the other side of that canvas gets a taste of freedom, though, there’s not a whole lot that can stop it. Remember when that one got loose on our way up last time?”

“I remember Tern shooting me with a knockout dart,” Pyvic said.

“I’ll mix that in if we have time.” Kail checked their course. “Getting a few more alerts, just so you know. Probably not a bad idea to start holding onto things.”

Overhead, the canvas groaned, and something deep inside it rumbled.

A line back near the stern snapped from the balloon and fluttered down, still smoldering.

“
Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is,”
Ghylspwr said quietly.

“Perimeter alarm’s saying the fire is out.” Kail kept the ascent going. The ship lifted slowly past the
lapiscaela,
the great violet crystals nestled snugly in the grids that held them in place during the night.

The canvas groaned again, and the balloon bulged as something inside it swam, pressing against the barrier.

“Kail?” Desidora looked at the balloon in alarm. “I can feel the daemon.”

“Yeah, it’s . . .” Kail looked at his console as the
lapiscaela
slid down below them. “It’s poking for holes.”

The canvas tore, the sound of fabric ripping unmistakable as they all waited silently.

“Well, no sense going in gentle now.” Kail pulled
Iofegemet
into a full ascent, and the ship shrieked. “Everybody hang on!”

The ship lurched up, alarms going off all over the place, and Kail looked at the mirror-walled edge of Heaven’s Spire floating a few yards off the bow while his ship slowly came apart overhead.

“We’re going to make it,” Desidora said.

“No.” Kail swallowed, balling his fists on the console. “Daemon’s got a seam. It’s about to start working its way out. Ships can’t ascend when the daemon stops obeying commands and starts breaking free.”

They’d been so damn close.

“Come on.” Pyvic yanked on Kail’s arm. “We can still jump.”

The canvas overhead tore again, and Kail heard the sound of something breaking out.

And then an inhuman roar that still somehow carried the very understandable sound of pain.

Iofegemet
kept ascending.

“All right.” Kail stepped away from his console, which was going black and dead on him anyway. “Happy to be wrong.”

“You weren’t,” Desidora said, looking up with a strange little smile.

The flat and sterile open yard of Heaven’s Spire’s transport docks gleamed overhead, and still
Iofegemet
rose, as the daemon roared overhead.

And then they were level, and Kail took a running jump, covered the yards, and landed in a clumsy roll, banging his shin and ankle as he slid to a stop, with Pyvic beside him and Desidora coming to a gentle landing from a hammer-assisted leap.

Kail’s ship was already falling again, and now Kail could see why it had kept ascending for the few extra seconds that had brought them high enough.

A great clawed tentacle protruded from a scorched tear in the balloon, back near the rear.

Icy Fist had the tentacle in a joint lock.

He’d wrapped one of the lines around it, and was standing atop it, like a trick rider on the back of a prancing show horse, if the show horse had been growing claws and shrieking with inhuman fury while Icy hauled it back and forth.

“Icy!” Desidora yelled, and the daemon tore free, the rest of its shapeless mass splitting the canvas open and sliding out like the yolk of a rotten egg.

Icy leaped, landed on the remains of the balloon, took two steps on the fluttering canvas, and somehow leaped again.

He fell short by a good dozen meters, still reaching.

“
Besyn larveth’is!”

A shining warhammer spun through the air, arced over the side of the docks, and sailed down out of sight.

Desidora extended her hand, shut her eyes, and winced.

With a flash of light, Ghylspwr appeared in her grasp, Icy Fist clinging to the handle.

In a flash of gold and pale-green robes, two humans and a warhammer crashed to the ground.

“Nice catch,” Kail said, moving forward with Pyvic to help them up.

“I was motivated,” Icy said. He waved Pyvic’s hand away. “I am afraid that because Ghylspwr’s teleportation carries momentum across, and I had fallen some distance before I caught him . . .”

Kail looked down and saw that Icy’s leg was twisted at an entirely unnatural angle. “Oh.”

“Can you take care of yourself?” Pyvic asked, pulling Desidora back to her feet.

“I can at least begin treatment of my injuries,” Icy replied. He reached out, took hold of his leg, and twisted it sharply. The leg made a cracking crunching popping noise as it snapped back to something more like a normal angle.

“Holy . . .” Kail shook his head. “I wish
I
knew some monk trick to snap broken bones back into place without it hurting.”

Icy smiled faintly. “So do I.”

Kail swallowed. “Hey. Nice job with the daemon.”

“A restraining hold is not quite harm,” Icy said, and then winced. “I would appreciate it if you left now so that I am free to allow myself undignified expressions of pain.”

Kail looked over at his ship as it fell back down toward the ground below, the wind-daemon a blob of tentacles floating off behind it.

“Justicar Pyvic, Sister Desidora?” he said. “Let’s go stop a war.”

Loch returned to her seat with two minutes to spare, sent Dairy to freshen her drink, smiled at the other players, and played
suf-gesuf
like her life depended on it.

The elf in the feathered mask went all in on three of a kind and lost to Benevolent Dawn, the Imperial man with the spectacles, about an hour later. He himself lost the last of his chips an hour after that, just before their next break, and tipped the dealer politely after praising everyone else for their excellent play. Loch, sitting behind a shrinking pile of chips, looked at the large stack in front of Veiled Lightning, who was smiling despite the bruises on her face.

“Any word?” Loch asked Dairy as he led her to the bar at the next break.

“None yet, ma’am. Tern said that they were going to double-check this time before doing anything.”