The Paladin Caper (16 page)

Then the wall of rocks, disrupted by the impact of the scorpion creature, shifted with a gentle rumbling sigh and buried the creature under a pile of rubble.

Icy made sure that the creature was not immediately going to burst out and attack again, and then looked at the nearby trees. He spotted a group that looked familiar, albeit now surrounded by glowing rubble, and hopped up onto the rocks again.

“Tern!” he called. “Hessler!”

He looked and listened. For a long moment, there was nothing save the continued rumble and clatter as the remains of the rockslide sorted itself out around him.

Then he heard what sounded like a bell chime. Following the sound, he saw, in the air a few feet above the rubble, a glittering point of light like a tiny fallen star.

“I am coming!” Icy danced across the rubble, the stones sliding beneath his feet even as his light steps barely touched them. In seconds, he was there, standing atop an unfortunately large pile of rocks that might possibly have had an irregular hump underneath it. “One moment!”

He looked at the largest stone, found the point of stress and weakness, and shattered it with the palm of his hand. He shoved it aside, found another, and shattered that one as well. He swept the rubble away with the outside of his foot and broke another rock, and then another. When his body told him that even his disciplined strikes risked breaking his hand, he switched to kicks.

Finally, he struck past a stone and found something that was not more stone beneath. It was pink by the light of the glowing walls—likely white or pale blue by natural light—and looked like the foam that topped Tern’s immensely impractical kahva drinks. The consistency was like that of an old sea sponge, however, and Icy pushed at the porous surface, looking for points of weakness.

“Is it clear?” came Hessler’s voice by Icy’s ear, and he looked over to see another sparkling point of light.

“It is,” Icy called down.

“Stand back,” said Hessler’s illusionary voice, and Icy stepped away. A moment later, a thin cylinder of white-hot light burned through the foam, creating a clean circular cut. The circular section popped out like a cork from a wine bottle, and Icy reached down and pushed it aside, wincing as the still-hot foam burned his fingers.

Beneath the dome of spongy foam, Tern and Hessler huddled.

Icy reached in. “Three tugs,” he said gravely.

“See?” Tern said as Icy pulled her up. “Aren’t you glad we had that worked out beforehand?”

“
Glad
may be an oversimplification of my feelings on this matter.” Icy helped her to sit on the rocks, away from the increasingly foul-smelling burned foam, and then reached in for Hessler. “Excellent work with what I presume is some sort of alchemical material.”

“Yeah, I never thought it was useful for much, but you know, I have all these pockets, so it’s silly
not
to bring it.”

Icy pulled Hessler up. “What about the trackers?” the wizard asked.

“Buried, at least for now. But given your survival, we cannot discount the possibility of theirs.”

Hessler stretched his back, groaning. “Does that mean running?”

Icy smiled. “I am afraid so.”

Eight

T
HE GOLEM CARRYING
Ghylspwr hit the wall hard, and Desidora swept into the room. Her dress had gone pitch black, and while the chamber was glossy black crystal lit only by a glowlamp shielded behind glass, there now appeared in the walls silver gargoyles and skulls that cackled silently as they looked in.

“Did you think I would not find you?” Desidora asked. She pulled the magic into and through her again, and another bolt of jet-black energy hissed across the room.

This time, Ghylspwr knocked the bolt aside.
“Kutesosh gajair’is,”
he warned.

“Save it.” Ordinarily, Desidora would have had to draw the power for a magical attack from a living soul. Here, surrounded by so much raw energy, all she had to do was endure a little pain.
“You destroy the enemy.”
She flung another bolt, and Ghylspwr batted it aside as well. “After all the times you said that, I never thought you meant me.”

Ghylspwr’s golem was back on its feet now. It was moving back toward Dairy, who still lay chained to the crystal altar. A golden staff with a hoop set upon its head stood planted at the foot of the altar. The hoop looked just large enough for Desidora to pass her head through it.

“Besyn larveth’is,”
Ghylspwr said as Desidora gathered the magic again. He raised himself to bat it aside, but this time the jet-black bolt turned into coiling tendrils that snaked around the golem, writhing and twisting as they worked their way through its armored body.

“You protect the people.”
Desidora smiled coldly as the tendrils tightened. “You
used
me, Ghyl. The gods used me, and this power used me, and I was okay, because you were there.” Crystal cracked as the tendrils tightened further. “But it was always a lie.” Stains of silver glyphs radiated from her feet, twining along the floor to make patterns of terrible power. They reached the altar and the strange staff with the hoop at the top, remaining surprisingly unchanged by Desidora’s aura. No matter. “And now you pay for it.”

“Kutesosh gajair’is!”
Ghylspwr shouted, and the golem’s arm swung down. His shining platinum head struck the black tendrils and shattered them, and a wave of energy slammed back into Desidora, sending her sprawling.

“Ululenia!” Desidora had forgotten about the unicorn in her fury. She looked back and saw her crouched at the doorway, one hand on her head. “Help me!”

Ululenia pressed forward a step, then fell to her knees. “I cannot!”

“Besyn larveth’is,”
Ghylspwr said sadly, and raised himself over Dairy’s unconscious head again.

“No!” Desidora flung another bolt of energy as she stood, for all the good it did. Ghylspwr knocked it aside.

Then he came down, slowly, gently, and tapped Dairy’s forehead.

The young man bucked, back arched, on the altar, and the chains holding him creaked.

Then he went limp.

The golden staff with the hoop at its head flared brilliant yellow, and then the blazing light coalesced into the space in the middle of the hoop. For a moment, a tiny perfect star shone in that point.

Then it exploded, a dazzling burst of light that sent Desidora to her knees. Everything was white, and then, as she blinked away the purple afterimages, she saw, blurry and vague, the golden hoop.

It was a gateway, now, with a shimmering surface of light covering its surface, like a mirror looking upon an impossible shining world.

First one, then several, and then in a rushing stream, motes of flickering energy leaped from the gateway, flitting out into the chamber and up to the crystal ceiling, where they disappeared.

“The ancients,” Desidora whispered.

“Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is,”
Ghylspwr said to Desidora as the river of energy flowed from the golden hoop to the ceiling, twisting and snaking like a blazing reflection of the dark coils Desidora herself had created.

With a casual gesture, he struck the chains from Dairy’s body.

Then he stepped back, and energy coiled around him, and when it faded, Ghylspwr and the golem holding him had vanished.

“No!” Desidora fought back to her feet, gathered another bolt of darkness, and flung it at the golden hoop. It struck the portal squarely and did absolutely nothing. “Get back here, damn you!” Another bolt hissed out into the glowing river of the ancients, flaring and bouncing off some sort of barrier that kept their energy safe. “I will find you, Ghyl! I swear by every damned god in this world and yours,
I will find you
!”

“Desidora.” She looked over at Ululenia’s voice. The unicorn was curled up on the floor now, trying to crawl into the room.

It was pathetic. If the unicorn had been stronger, Ghylspwr would not have finished his ritual, would not have
escaped
, would not—

“Dairy,” Ululenia croaked, and lifted a trembling finger.

Desidora looked at the young man, lifeless on the altar, and let the aura of death fall away.

“Yes,” she said, as the silver glyphs faded and her dress slowly lightened back to normal black, as opposed to the eye-hurting black it had been a moment ago. “Let me . . . let me see.”

It had been less than a minute, and there was no physical injury. If, if, if . . .

She pulled every bit of magic from the walls, even tried for the river that was the ancients, although whatever invisible barrier protected it kept her from drawing from them as well. She drew in more magic than she had used for the energy bolts, and it hurt, power blazing inside like a fire in her veins.

But pain meant that she was alive. Maybe today, it meant even more than that.

“I am a priest of Byn-kodar,” she said, letting the pain keep her focused as the ocean of energy threatened to pull her away. “I am death.” She stepped forward. It felt as though hooks tore at her with every step, the magic locking her in place. She placed a hand on Dairy’s forehead. “And as the priest of death, I say that it will not take you today, Rybindaris.”

She poured that power into him, into the naive young boy who had saved the world, into the innocent who had trusted all of them, into the virgin who had taken a dragon for a lover and helped stop a war.

For a moment, nothing happened, and she pushed, clamped her hand upon his forehead tighter like a fool as though that would somehow help. And deep inside, even though she was blind to the gods with the power of Byn-kodar upon her, she prayed, and it was not a faithful prayer of supplication but a
damn you all, you owe me
kind of prayer, the kind that comes before bargaining and tears, and a small desperate
please
.

Dairy bucked again, lunged upright, and sucked in a lungful of air as he clutched at Desidora.

“It’s all right. It’s all right.” She pulled him into a hug, her eyes stinging.

“What happened? I was on a treeship, and—”

“We’ll explain later, I promise.” Desidora hugged him tighter, then pulled him up from the altar. He stood, his legs shaky. “For now, we need to—”

“Beware!” Ululenia cried, still on her knees at the edge of the room, and Desidora looked at her, and then at the back of the room where she pointed, and saw coils of energy swirling, the same magic that had transported Ghylspwr away. She took Dairy’s hand and pulled him from the chamber as the coils shimmered and solidified into a quartet of golems. Unlike the one that had held Ghylspwr, these were built for battle, massive and armored and carrying broad-bladed swords that were longer than Desidora was tall.

Desidora pulled the energy around her one more time and flung coils of darkness around the golden hoop, but again, it did nothing. “Damn it.
Damn it.
”

“We must go.” Ululenia pushed herself to her feet, and Dairy held her up as he stepped back into the tunnel. “Desidora, we must flee.”

“You’re hurt,” Dairy said as Ululenia hung on him, and Desidora saw that it was not some cheap trick to maneuver herself into caressing him. She was barely able to stand. “Can we outrun those things?”

Desidora backed into the tunnel, with Dairy pulling Ululenia. The priestess glared at the golems as they raised their weapons and stepped toward her.

“I doubt we can outrun them,” Desidora said, and pulled the magic into her a final time. She held up a hand, pointed not at the golems but the ceiling at the edge of the tunnel. “But let us see how fast they can dig.”

The golems clanked forward, blades raised, but they were too late. Her blast of energy hit the ceiling, and with a crackling rumble, rock and crystal creaked and cracked and slammed down to collapse the tunnel before them.

Desidora stared at it until Dairy grabbed her hand.

“Come on, Sister Desidora,” he said, and started to pull her back to the red-lit safety of the main tunnel. “I don’t know what’s going on, exactly, but we should probably run.”

“I am with you,” Desidora said, “in all respects.”

She would need to shake and shiver more later, and there was a good chance channeling that much energy was going to make her sick. But there was no victory and no revenge for her here.

Eyes stinging with unshed tears for several stupid reasons, Desidora ran.