The Paladin Caper Page 3

  “Thanks,” said Loch, and, blinking, Westteich saw that she was holding his walking stick. “Just needed to see how the blade came out. Ululenia, Icy!”

  They are free, Little One, came a voice in Westteich’s mind, and the unicorn shimmered into the form of a shining white dove. The captured magic now poured freely from the containment cylinders, white with sparkling rainbow patterns that matched the unicorn’s still-blazing horn.

  An Imperial man landed on the walkway in a roll that brought him back to his feet, golden robes billowing around him. “I recommend haste,” he said to Loch, and then turned to Westteich and added, “and possibly cover.”

  Loch turned and walked back toward the ascending floor where Tern, Hessler, Desidora, and Kail faced off against a half-dozen Hunters. “Hey, Icy, remember how Hunters don’t have souls and aren’t considered living creatures for your oath of nonviolence?”

  “I do,” Icy said, and drove his fists through a pair of Hunters as he plowed into them.

  Loch bodychecked another, and yet another fell to another pouch filled with the strange powder. The last two fell when a snowy-white bear landed upon them before shimmering back into its unicorn form.

  Loch joined the rest of her thieves in the ascending room as Westteich struggled back to his feet. “I understand that the ancients have a network with resources I cannot possibly imagine,” she said. “Let them know I’m alive, and that I have a message for them.”

  Overhead, the dome of the Forge exploded.

  Westteich fell, scrambling beneath the railing under the walkway as earth and crystal came crashing down amid shrieks of alarms and enormous, gut-churning roars of stone and magic collapsing. Crystals exploded, stone cracked, and the air hissed with smoke and lightning. Westteich huddled, sheltered, and watched the Forge of the Ancients fall. He had no idea how long it went on, only that the walkway left him safe and protected as most of the plummeting destruction was focused upon the containment cylinders and the ancient apparatus that constructed the Hunters.

  The only energy not dissipating wildly was the brilliant glittering auras of the fairy creatures, which spiraled up into the light. Westteich watched it, the pretty tendrils soothing and somehow joyous even amid the destruction, and only gradually did he realize what he was seeing.

  The light that the energy was floating up to was not the ceiling but the sky.

  The great dome had been blown open to the world, the remains of countless years of secret work exposed to the harsh light of day.

  He looked back to the ascending room and saw Loch give him a salute with the walking stick, his walking stick, as she continued to rise.

  Sitting in the middle of the rubble, Handel Westteich wondered if the room would descend again or if he was going to have to climb out by himself.

  Hestridge wasn’t coming to pick him up until half past four.

  Two

  THE ELFLANDS DID not have a king. A race born in service to the ancients, they shunned authority to the extent that even using the imperative in a conversation was considered unspeakably offensive. The notion of bowing to a ruler, be it a king or an emperor or an archvoyant, was anathema to them, and so their reclusive nation was driven by laws of courtesy and respect, answering to no one save their own collective culture.

  This system of government worked for the elves most of the time. For the rest, they had Mister Dragon.

  Rybindaris, a sandy-haired former farm boy who was known more often as simply “Dairy” and much more rarely as the Champion of Dawn, heralded hero of prophecy who had defeated the Champion of Dusk to save the world, kicked hard off the wall and sliced through the cool water on his final lap in Mister Dragon’s pool.

  It was confusing, being with someone who was a dragon as well as a very tall, very strong, very handsome man as well as sort of the ruler of a small country. On the farm where Dairy had grown up, people who ruled countries were great figures of myth and legend, and men who preferred the company of other men were something you told jokes about.

  After fulfilling his prophecy and saving the world, Dairy had tried to figure out who he was. He’d tried to spend time with Ululenia, and he’d tried to join the Knights of Gedesar and hunt things that used magic to hurt people, but neither had felt right, and as someone who was made to fulfill a great purpose, Dairy had learned to trust his heart.

  Mister Dragon projected an authority that filled the room. He was a figure out of myth and legend. But none of that mattered. What mattered was that he and Dairy liked each other, and the elves didn’t care whose company you preferred. It was a long way from the farm, but Mister Dragon’s smile made Dairy’s stomach flip-flop. People in the Elflands didn’t order each other around, and after fulfilling a prophecy, that felt good to Dairy.

  He pulled strongly, the water roaring in his ears, and slapped the wall. Then he stood up, the tiny little stones that made up the mosaic on the bottom of the pool pinching his toes like they always did, and took in great gasping lungfuls of air.

  “You’ve cut almost a minute off since the last time I saw you,” came a voice from by the steam room, and Dairy looked over to see Irrethelathlialann, the elf who oversaw Mister Dragon’s affairs outside the Elflands. He was taller even than Mister Dragon, his skin pale green and the crystals upon his cheeks pale blue. His eyes were golden, like a cat’s, and seemed most often locked in a perpetual state of disdain, also like a cat’s.

  “Mister Irrethelathlialann,” Dairy said politely. He didn’t think the elf liked him, but because Dairy was Mister Dragon’s boyfriend, the elf had never said so outright. “Are you sure?”

  “I am sure of very few things in this world.” Irrethelathlialann tossed Dairy a towel. “Precise measurements of time, however, are one of them. I heard the splash and crash as you began your swim and counted the laps based on when you slapped each wall. Same number of laps, forty-eight seconds shorter time.”

  “I’ve been practicing,” Dairy said proudly, holding the towel aloft as he climbed from the pool. He dried off his hair and face, then toweled his arms and legs. “How was your trip?”

  “Productive, I hope.” Irrethelathlialann watched the waves lap the sides of Mister Dragon’s pool. “He’d like to speak with both of us.”

  “Oh, sorry to keep you waiting!” Dairy toweled faster until his swim trunks stopped dripping.

  “You’re keeping him, not me,” said Irrethelathlialann, and shook his head. “He asked that I wait until you were finished.” He smiled and added, “I suppose it’s in his best interests that you remain in good shape.”

  Dairy blushed and finished drying himself off, then pulled on a loose, brightly colored shirt and wrapped the towel around his waist over his trunks. He followed Irrethelathlialann through the great marble columns that surrounded the pool, past the fountain and small hedge maze, and into Mister Dragon’s home proper.

  Dairy almost didn’t get lost anymore. He’d learned to tell the different paintings of old people on the walls apart and find his way through the different wings of the palace. The other elven servants were always happy to give him directions as well, as were the fairy creatures who worked at the palace. Dairy sometimes felt a little odd being the only human there, but after learning that the crystals most humans used hurt the elves’ heads, he understood why they kept most other people out of their country.

  Irrethelathlialann led Dairy to Mister Dragon’s study, a great room filled with stacks of books and lit by bright shining glass spheres that hung from the ceiling. Mister Dragon’s home was built in a kind of circle shape, with a great garden in the middle, and almost every room let in light from the outside world. This study alone had no windows, and while Dairy could find the room without trouble and had been there countless times, he was still not entirely certain what part of the palace the room was even in. In the picture of the palace that lived in Dairy’s head, the study never seemed to fit. When he had asked Mister Dragon about it, the great man had laughed and explained that a few trick
s of walls and hallways could make a room seem to disappear . . . and that the study was a room where the things that needed to disappear could stay safe.

  Mister Dragon was in his human shape, as he most often was inside, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a massive red beard. He always left his shirt open when at home, which let Dairy clearly see the shimmering rainbow glow that shone from Mister Dragon’s heart, along with all of Mister Dragon’s chest and the muscles of his stomach and all the other parts of his torso that made Dairy blush again just by looking.

  “Dairy.” The great man stood and pulled Dairy into an enormous hug. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  Dairy leaned into the big man’s body, which was always a little warmer than everyone else’s. “How can I help?”

  “I have finished the book,” Mister Dragon said, and the weight in his voice made Dairy push away. Mister Dragon’s face was drawn and pale. “It was not easy, but I know what we need to know.”

  “It’s about time,” Irrethelathlialann said from the doorway. “As difficult as it was to keep The Love Song of Eillenfiniel out of the hands of your friend, Captain Isafesira de Lochenville—”

  “Captain Loch is a good lady,” Dairy said, as he always did.

  “For a human,” Irrethelathlialann agreed. This was another reason that Dairy didn’t think the elf liked him.

  “Please,” Mister Dragon said, and they both stopped. His voice hit with the strength of a hammer, but even still, the tone was pained. “Please, both of you, this is not the time.”

  “What did you find?” Irrethelathlialann asked.

  “It’s bad, isn’t it?” Dairy added. “Does it say when the ancients are going to return?”

  Mister Dragon smiled. “After a fashion.”

  Irrethelathlialann went very still. “Shall I get the horn?”

  “Not just yet, my friend.” Mister Dragon looked at Dairy. “Dairy, I have something difficult to ask of you.”

  “Anything.” Dairy stepped forward and took Mister Dragon’s hands. “You know that I’m not that great at reading, and I don’t know much about magic, but if I can help, whatever it is . . .”

  “Thank you.” Mister Dragon smiled again, the sad smile of a man who had lived for hundreds of years. “How quickly can you pack?”

  Handel Westteich had just finished climbing out of the chasm left by the destruction of the Forge of the Ancients and was leaning against the least-crumpled wall of the tower itself, trying to get his breath back and clean the grime off his hands, when the airship landed.

  “Good afternoon!” he called over. As a noble from a family with money, political power, and land titles far from anywhere interesting, Westteich had a private airship, of course. He used it on his days off to take long flights around the countryside, learning about wind-daemons from the pilot the family kept on staff.

  This airship looked different from the one sitting under the shelter of the Westteich family’s least-popular gazebo. Instead of looking like a sea vessel with, for want of a better term, a giant balloon filled with daemons holding it aloft, this airship was topped by a long metal tube, and its body was dark and narrow, with runners like a sled’s on the bottom. It had no sailwings for steering. Its clean lines were broken only by bumpy extrusions that Westteich realized after a moment were flamecannons, several on each side.

  The airship was a shark in a world of whales and goldfish.

  Westteich’s first thought was that he very much wanted that airship.

  His second thought was that it was unlikely anyone who had an airship like that had just been wandering through the neighborhood and stopped by to help.

  A gangplank extended, and a single figure, a heavyset man whose face Westteich found vaguely familiar, walked down to the ground. He was unarmored but carried a pair of extremely impressive weapons: a great silver-handled war ax with a double-bladed golden head and a silver-handled warhammer whose head was inlaid with glittering runes.

  The man was followed by a half-dozen more figures, all of them wearing long dark coats and walking with the bearing of men from good families. Westteich felt an instant kinship with them. Had his family not been responsible for the Forge, he might have been among them.

  “You are the Protector of the Forge?” the apparent leader asked.

  “Yes, Lord Handel Westteich. I’m so glad you showed up,” Westteich said. “This entire situation is a wreck—”

  “Explain what happened,” the man said. Something about his voice was off, though Westteich couldn’t quite put a finger on it.

  What he could put a finger on was the tone of the conversation. “This was a failure of information for which I hold my contacts in the network directly responsible,” Westteich said. “I performed an excellent operation to entrap the remainder of the team that once worked for Captain Isafesira de Lochenville, an operation that proceeded flawlessly until the arrival of Loch herself ruined everything I had worked for.”

  “Loch,” said the man, and this time his voice was a dry croaking breath. “That’s impossible. Loch is dead,” he added in a much more normal voice. And then, for some reason, he added, “Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is.”

  “Loch being dead is what all my reports read,” Westteich added, “and had I known she was alive, I would certainly have adjusted my own plans accordingly. Whoever is responsible for passing information to the Forge has a lot of explaining to do.”

  “Loch’s continued survival is a surprise,” the man said in his normal voice. Westteich realized what was bothering him about it. The man’s lips were moving when he spoke, but not entirely correctly. It was like watching an illusion whose voice wasn’t synced with the image, or watching a slightly clumsy version of those puppet shows that told news to the peasants.

  “Well, then, I am pleased to pass on the information,” Westteich said, “and if resources are strained, I’d be happy to coordinate the search for her and her people, given that my own position has been compromised.”

  “No.” The man turned back to the airship and whistled once. Three more figures came down the gangplank, each of them in turn more unlikely than the last.

  The first was a cloaked figure much like the others, walking with his arms folded together such that no hint of flesh was visible. Unlike them, he was only the size of a dwarf, though heavily muscled, given the thickness of his robed arms. He walked with a sort of jittery bouncing gait, as though hopping from leg to leg.

  The second ducked as though she feared hitting her head on the underside of the airship. She was an ogre, judging by her size and her tusks, though she was clothed like a normal person. But something about her was wrong. At first, Westteich thought that her face was oddly bright, leathery and gnarled as it was, but then he realized it was because the sun was at her back, and her face was unshadowed. In fact, she cast no shadow at all.

  The third sprang from the airship down to the ground, landing in a crouch with skeletal arms spread wide, her ragged peasant dress billowing around her. Her hair was wild and her face bony and feral, and as she walked forward, she left footprints of dead grass behind.

  “We hunt?” the ogre asked, speaking as carefully as seemed possible for someone with massive tusks jutting from her lower jaw.

  “Loch is alive,” the heavyset man said, and Westteich noticed that the ogre and the . . . whatever the woman in the dress was . . . were both looking not at the man himself, but at the ax he held. “She has destroyed the Forge. That may be all she planned, or she may have some additional goal. Regardless, she is likely still nearby.”

  “Maybe city,” said the hooded figure. “If city fight, many dead.” He spoke with a peculiar whistling tone under his words.

  “Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is?” the leader . . . no. Westteich saw that the man’s lips hadn’t even moved this time. It was the weapons he held. They were speaking.

  “Unfortunate but necessary.” The words, Westteich thought, came from the ax. “Any blow you strike while hunting down Loch and her
companions is in defense of the ancients and the coming light of their return. You are not murderers.”

  “Thank you,” said the bony-faced woman, and without another word, she and the others were off.

  “The Forge of the Ancients has operated in secret for centuries,” said the ax to Westteich in a sudden change of topic. “How must it feel to be the one upon whose watch it fell?”

  “I won’t lie,” Westteich said without missing a beat. “I’m greatly disappointed that failure on the part of our intelligence network led to this attack that cost us the Forge, and I feel betrayed by those who claim to await the return of the ancients as eagerly as I do.”

  “Do you?” the ax asked dryly. “So you were not attempting to entrap Loch’s companions, using the Forge of the Ancients as bait, in some ill-considered attempt to improve your own standing?”

  “I ask only to be remembered by the ancients as loyal when they return,” Westteich said, “and while I would willingly lay down my own life for such a cause, killing me in a fit of pique because our people failed to give me the information I needed would cost the ancients a valuable tool in their coming return.” He looked directly at the ax and added, “And as I understand it, the ancients do not discard useful tools casually.”

  There was a thoughtful silence.

  “Fool,” said the heavyset man weakly, and then went completely silent, staring at Westteich through hollow eyes.

  “A man of your talents need never fear being considered unnecessary,” the ax finally said, and while its axhead had no face, it still managed to convey the impression of a smile. The heavyset man shifted his grip, holding the ax just below the head, and offered it to Westteich hilt first.

  It was the moment Westteich had waited for his entire life. The destruction of the Forge had seemed a huge loss, but if it led him to working with more powerful people on more important projects, he would walk away from it with a smile upon his face.