The Palace Job (48 page)

Twenty-Three

"So what do we do now, Ululenia?" Dairy asked as they tromped through the hallways. Ululenia was in her human form, but she was letting her horn show and making guards and servants fall asleep.

"Now, my virgin," she said with a sly smile, and Dairy felt the tingly feeling again, more like he'd felt while Loch had torn her dress apart than the way he'd felt when the Glimmering Man had looked at him, "we shall leave this palace and then spend the night sharing a room in the most expensive inn in the city."

"Ululenia," Mister Hessler said firmly, "you are
not
corrupting the boy."

"Is the room expensive enough to have
two
beds?" Dairy asked, and Ululenia laughed and stroked his cheek, and then she stopped, and her eyes went cold, and she and Mister Hessler spun around.

A thin little man in a long robe was standing before them.
"Well,"
he tittered, "not only am I to guard the safety of my master's palace, but now I must guard the honor of this helpless young man."

"Elkinsair." Ululenia narrowed her eyes and stepped between Dairy and the little man.

"Ululenia," said the little man, and his smile was small and cruel.

"You know each other?" Mister Hessler asked.

"Passing acquaintance," Elkinsair said, and then rolled his eyes. "Oh, dear. Ample assets, buxom barmaid, comely courtesan, am I getting it right? If it's alliteration that excites you, how about
unoriginal, unctuous, undefended unicorn?"
And he pursed his lips and squinted.

Beside him, Ululenia gasped and began to tremble, one hand going to her forehead. Dairy reached out to steady her, and she pushed him away. "Back,
back!"

"Oh, that's right," said the little man. "Lust would hit you rather hard with one of your virgins nearby, wouldn't it?"

Ululenia was sweating, and her horn flared with ugly red light. "Get out... of my.. mind!" White light flashed around her as she changed into a great white bear, her claws as long as Dairy's fingers.

"Isn't that
just like
a unicorn?" Elkinsair rolled up his sleeves, "bringing a bear to a
magic
duel." He flung open his robes.

And then Dairy understood, for he had a magical shining horn, just like Ululenia's. Only not on his head.

Also, he had goat's legs.

"Come on, boy!" Mister Hessler shouted, and grabbed Dairy by the hand. "We need to get you out of here!"

"I won't leave Ululenia!" Dairy shouted.

"No release for you since Woodsedge?" asked Elkinsair the satyr as his horn, which Dairy was trying very hard not to look at, flared with light, and Ululenia dropped into a crouch with a growl of pain. "And this supple young virgin is right here, tantalizing your frustrated desires. I can feel you slipping away even now. Deep down you want to give in and lose yourself, don't you?"

Ululenia shifted back into human form, her horn now mostly red.
"Run,
my virgin," she hissed, turning away from him. Her skin was flushed.

Everyone kept telling Dairy to run.

"No, Ululenia," he said clearly. "I'm not going to run. I... I believe in you."

Elkinsair spared Dairy a glance. "Well, isn't that just adorable apple, babbling brook, creeping cat,
son of a bitch!"
He stumbled backward, and Ululenia's horn flared again, and Elkinsair flew across the room and hit the wall.

Hessler grabbed Dairy by the arm. "Now, while he's distracted!" he cried. "Ululenia can catch up!" He pelted down the hallway with Dairy in tow, then turned and flung out his hand, filling the hallway behind them with a wall of pure darkness. When it was in place, he pulled Dairy through a side door. "That should make it harder to find us," Mister Hessler gasped.

"What about Ululenia?" Dairy asked, easily keeping pace with Mister Hessler.

"I don't think she could lose your mind if she tried." Mister Hessler smiled.

"I'm worried about her," Dairy admitted.

Mister Hessler pulled him into a hallway. "That's very noble of you, Dairy, but... well, trust me, she's better off without you there."

"Oh."

"We need to get you out of here, Dairy," Hessler said quietly. "Nothing else matters. Not the book, not Loch, not Ululenia. All that matters is keeping you..."

They came around a corner into a large room. There were a lot of guards in the room, and just like the guards up on the airship, their faces were twisted into snarls of hatred, and their eyes were wrong.

"...safe."

Loch came out of Silestin's personal quarters to find the dining hall emptied of guests, except for a couple of people who had already been killed by the dozen or so soul-drained guards who now occupied the room.

The guards turned to her, their eyes cold and empty and their bestial snarls in place. Two of them stopped stabbing the already-dead guests who hadn't left quickly enough and raised their blades along with the rest.

"I know that Silestin did something to you," Loch said slowly, walking into the hall. "I know he's got you under his control."

The blades followed her movement, and the guards slowly began to circle. Some of them were panting.

"If there's any of you left in there," Loch said, "fight it."

She was in the middle of the dining hall now. They almost had her surrounded. She forced herself not to tense up.

"I will find some way to bring you back. I swear it. But I need your help. Show me that you're in there."

The guards moved in.

Loch lunged, caught a descending arm, smashed her elbow into the attacker's face, wrenched the sword free with an offhand slash that eviscerated another guard, ducked under a slice that mistakenly killed the guard she'd just disarmed, and brought her blade up in a great two-handed arc that killed another even as she kicked another one in the chest to knock him down.

She parried an overhand strike, ran the man through, and then used
his
sword to gut another one while her free hand collapsed the windpipe of a third.

After that, things got a little messy.

When it was done, she dropped the two bloody blades she'd ended up with and looked at the fallen men.

"Sorry," she said.

Then she turned and started running again.

None of it would have happened if they hadn't found out about him selling the magical artifacts on the side, Hessler mused.

He'd been careful, but not careful enough, unless it was part of the prophecy that had caused him to get caught, and kicked out, and thrown into that cell so that Loch would find Dairy and bring him up to Heaven's Spire.

Hessler didn't know. A few weeks ago, he wouldn't have shared a drink with anyone foolish enough to believe in prophecies, which were obviously propaganda promulgated by religious figures in order to reinforce the predominant morality of the time at the expense of the undereducated working class.

Now he stared at the guards, and then at Dairy, and then at his own slender hands.

"Dairy," he said quietly as the guards drew their weapons, "I need you to trust me."

"I11 do anything you ask, Mister Hessler." The kid stepped between him and the guards, who growled wordlessly and raised their weapons.

"I need you to run back to Ululenia," Hessler said, and his voice caught a little. "I'm going to leave an illusion of myself here for them to fight, but 111 be with you, invisible and silent. Do you trust me?" Dairy nodded, and Hessler shut his eyes for one selfish moment. "Then go. 111 be right beside you. 111 always be with you, Dairy. Remember that."

The kid ran, and as the soulless guards moved to chase him, Hessler threw up an illusionary wall of fire that blocked the doorway behind him. "He's gone," Hessler said with quiet pride. "All you get is me."

He didn't go easily. As they moved in on him, Hessler plunged all of them into darkness, then tried to creep to a corner, ducking below their blind slashes. One of them bowled him over by blind luck, though, and the distraction killed his illusions.

A frantic blast of light blinded the guard who'd knocked him over, and he formed a shadow-Hessler across the room that drew the attention of a few of them, but two more were coming his way, and even after he made himself invisible and rolled to the side, they were following, kicking at the area where he had lain.

A boot caught him in the ribs, and his cloak fell away as the stabbing, crushing pain made it impossible to breathe. He blinded the other two with another flash of light and pulled himself back to his feet, but every breath was pain lancing through his lungs, and he couldn't concentrate.

He is safe, Magister,
came Ululenia's voice in his mind, and her grief made it clear that she understood. You
will not be forgotten.
And Hessler knew that it would not be painless, and he feared that it would not be swift, but in that moment, it was enough.

He made it three more steps before a blow drove him to his knees, and then he was being held up by two of them, their swords ready, and as Hessler looked up through the thudding pain, he saw Justicar Pyvic walk into the room, sword raised and face contorted with grim fury.

It wasn't the same mindless snarl that the guards had, and Hessler's heart hammered with desperate hope.

"You don't understand," Hessler gasped. "Bi'ul is..."

Pyvic struck without hesitation, and the crushing blackness that shattered Hessler's vision was the last thing he felt.

The gardens were dark, lit only by the moon. Behind Icy, the palace windows gleamed with a crisp blue-white glow.

The western gardens were overgrown, the hedges untrimmed and the wildflowers watered but unchecked, creating a lush and verdant forest that mixed several different climates for a singularly beautiful effect.

Icy picked his way along a gentle path, looking up at the dim silhouette of the trees above.

"I'm always frightened to come out here at night," Naria admitted, her voice a whisper. "Will we be here long?"

"My friends should arrive shortly," Icy assured her. "We shall be gone soon enough."

The path led into a small clearing lit gray by the moon. The wind rustled the leaves, sending little crackles through the foliage.

"And then will we..." Naria paused. "Will we have to stay outside? I... I
can,
I'm not afraid to, but—"

"No," Icy said, chuckling. "There is a kahva-house with a small inn upstairs. I imagine we will stay there. For the moment, however, we are simply heading to an alley near Voyant Cevirt's palace."

She smiled, then stiffened in sudden alarm. "Indomitable!" He turned, putting himself between her and the danger, peering into the darkness of the trees.

Something leaped at them from the other side.

Icy spun as Naria hit the ground with a cry, saw the figure standing over her, and moved forward, hands raised in combat positions he had practiced for years but hoped never to have to use against a living being. But for Naria

"If you want to court my sister, Icy, there are three things you have to know," said Loch, standing over Naria's fallen form. "The first is that she'd
never
date a peasant Imperial unless she had an ulterior motive."