The Prophecy Con (Rogues of the Republic) (4 page)

In the middle of the plaza, a great statue of Pesyr himself stood in the middle of a fountain, his hammer striking the anvil with which he had forged all the wonders of the world. Glowing red crystals sprayed from the anvil every few seconds, as though Pesyr was striking sparks.

Tern, a mousey young woman wearing thick spectacles and the lavender robes of a lapitect, paused by the fountain, dipped her hand into the water and fished out one of the crystals. It glowed in her palm like a burning coal, but felt no warmer than any stone she might pluck from the dirt.

“Salt crystal with a colored light charm,” Hessler said. He was a tall, thin man in black wizard’s robes fringed with silver. “It would have been significantly less expensive to create illusionary sparks, but because long-lasting illusions are difficult to maintain, most artificers are prejudiced against using them.”

“Mm-hmm,” said Tern, as the crystal slowly dissolved in her hand.

“In fact, look at the scaling on the inside of the fountain from taking in that much salt. I don’t imagine the civil engineers enjoy filtering all that salt, and if this gets into the drinking water . . .”

“Mm-hmm.” Tern tossed what was left of the crystal back into the water, where it winked out and disappeared.

“You have to imagine that in a plaza where the people who keep this entire city aloft work, someone could come up with a design that . . . you wanted a gift, didn’t you?”

“It’s fine,” said Tern.

“I asked,” Hessler said. “I asked if we should do gifts to mark seeing each other for three months, and you said no.”

“I said not to worry about it unless you thought of something,” Tern corrected.

“Okay, but by implication, then, unless there was something that you really wanted, I wasn’t supposed to worry, and since you haven’t talked about really wanting anything, I had assumed we weren’t doing gifts.”

“It’s
fine
,” said Tern through gritted teeth. “Let’s just get lunch.”

“I think we need to discuss this logically,” Hessler said, doing that little squint he did while trying to make a point. Tern usually found it cute.
Usually
. “In a relationship between equals, I think that if you actually expect a gift, it’s fair to state that instead of passive-aggressively leaving it as something where—”

“Can we not talk about this?” Tern asked. She fished into her robes and dug out a small cluster of multicolored crystals linked through a lattice of silver wire. “Here, I got this for you, because I
listen
to you and
care
about things that interest you, and I thought an attunable thaumaturgic capacitor might be something you’d have
fun
with.” She shoved it ungraciously into his hand.

Or rather, through his hand.

Hessler blinked as Tern’s hand passed through his body. Tern waved her hand back and forth, and Hessler flickered and vanished.

“I suspected that given how much you like physical contact during our walks,” came a voice from behind Tern, “it wouldn’t last long.”

Tern spun, and there was Hessler, presumably the real one and not an illusion.

He was holding a bouquet of red roses.

“They’re live-cut by elven gardeners,” he said, “so they can be potted instead of drying out and dying. It doesn’t really matter, since roses don’t produce anything useful, like fruit, but the woman at the shop said that getting you something like a pumpkin would send the wrong—”

“Hessler, shut up and kiss me.”

He shut up and kissed her. He was solid this time.

“Now,” he said, smiling, “what do you want for lunch?”

“Pasta?” Tern asked.

“Pasta it is.” Hessler took her arm. “And if I could see the thaumaturgic capacitor, that would be . . . Oh, yes, this is just what I . . . is this the model with ablative memory shielding, or is . . . no, this is lovely.”

Tern let him talk. As they headed for the pasta place, she saw a crowd gathered at the edge of the plaza. They were looking at a small boxed stage, where puppets danced and capered against a black velvet backdrop. “Isn’t it early for the puppeteers to be out?” Tern asked, reasonably certain that Hessler was fussing with his new toy instead of listening to her. As they got closer to the stage, she could hear what the puppets were saying.

“. . . Not sure why defensive measures on Heaven’s Spire are any business of the Empire’s,” the manticore puppet was shouting as it chased the griffon around the stage.

“Heaven’s Spire caused a great deal of damage with that accidental magical blast,” the griffon called back, trying to pounce on the manticore, “and if the Republic were to turn that into a weapon . . . well, you wouldn’t want your next-door neighbor to walk around with a drawn sword all the time, would you?”

“I’d love it!” The manticore was now being shaken by the tail. “Makes both our houses safer! I wouldn’t worry about it at all, because I’m not planning to attack my neighbor, so I ask again, why is the Empire so worried about Heaven’s Spire being able to defend itself?”

“They’re still trying to claim it was an accident.” Tern shook her head.

“The political elite are unlikely to admit that the leader of the Republic tried to weaponize Heaven’s Spire.” Hessler frowned. “I’m frankly more concerned about turning this into a debate about war with the Empire.”

“The manticore wants to turn everything into a debate a war with the Empire,” Tern said.

“You know that the manticore doesn’t actually have opinions of its own—even beyond being made of felt, it’s just a mouthpiece for the Learned Party’s political messaging . . .” Hessler caught the look Tern was giving him. “Of course you know that. Right.”

“It’s getting serious,” Tern said as the manticore flared its wings and bounced on top of the griffon to the laughter of the crowd. “Loch and Pyvic talked about it last week at lunch. Loch was going on that mission to talk the Imperials down? Icy went with her.” Tern grimaced.

“I don’t think there’s any cause for concern,” Hessler said, seeing her look.

“No, I wasn’t worried about them. I mean, no more than usual. I . . .” She paused when Hessler glanced down at his hip pocket in irritation. “What’s wrong?”

“Message crystal. It can wait. I’m on lunch hour.” Hessler put an arm around Tern’s shoulder. “I would rather spend time with you.”

Tern suspected that their mutual friend Desidora, a love priestess of Tasheveth, was coaching Hessler on the basics of relationships. She made a mental note to send her a nice card.

“Anyway, what
were
you worried about?” Hessler added after a moment, as the manticore and the griffon took to the skies, still shouting their talking points each other.

“Heaven’s Spire shot a big blast of energy down at the ground, right?” Despite her annoyance at the puppet show, Tern had actually been thinking about this for most of the morning.

“Well, technically, it created an energy gradient between the crystals on the underside of the city and the ground, causing an arc—”

“Right, got it. But it shot that big blast of energy
down
.” Tern looked over at him for emphasis. “
Straight
down. It’s no threat to the Empire unless the voyants fly Heaven’s Spire across the border so it’s hanging over an Imperial city—and they’d never
do
that, because that would mean risking all the wealthy people like themselves.”

“Yes, Silestin’s weapon would primarily be defensive in nature, to ward against Imperial attack.” Hessler looked down again in irritation. “How many messages are they going to send?”

“I’ve been working with the lapitects to figure out what Silestin’s people did,” Tern said quietly, as the crowd laughed at something onstage. “I think I figured it out this morning. They did a lot less than we thought.”

Hessler blinked. “I’m certain that the modifications were elegant, but—”

“That’s just it: they weren’t modifications. They were
repairs
. As near as we can tell, Heaven’s Spire has had this weapon in place since the ancients first built it. Silestin’s people just re-enabled it.” Tern looked at the stage, then back at Hessler, whose eyes had gone wide as it sank in. “Why would the ancients make Heaven’s Spire so that it could only fire down on the cities below it?”

Hessler opened his mouth, closed it, then reached down and yanked a thin, palm-sized crystal backed with silver from his pocket. “What in the world could be so important that . . . docking bay override request? Why would someone contact me about that?”

“I say,” the manticore said, claws locked around the griffon’s throat, “if the Empire doesn’t want us to have the ability to defend ourselves, it’s a damned good thing we
have
that ability!”

The dragon puppet finally pulled the two apart. “Now, now, this is all a moot point,” it roared, sending little gouts of fire between the two to force them to opposite sides of the stage. “We’ve got diplomats going to meet our friends in the Empire, and they’re going to ensure that cooler heads prevail.”

“I just hope we make use of this opportunity,” the manticore growled, wings hunched in submission.

“This is a very dangerous situation, not an opportunity,” the griffon insisted, lunging forward until a growl from the dragon sent it scuttling back. “We just have to hope that handing over the people responsible for this accident is enough to resolve this situation.”

“Wait, what? Silestin was responsible for it,” Tern said, “and he’s dead, so we can’t hand
him
over. Well, not tastefully.”

“Then who are they talking about?” Hessler asked, still puzzling over the message crystal. “Loch didn’t say anything about handing over a prisoner.”

“Remember, everyone!” the dragon shouted, tossing candy out to the crowd. “
It’s your republic
!”

“
Stay informed!”
the crowd shouted back.

Hessler’s message crystal buzzed again. Tern and Hessler looked down at it, then at each other.

“Maybe you should get that.”

Archvoyant Bertram sipped his afternoon kahva in the upper study of his palace.

He had fifteen minutes until his next meeting, and he saw no godly reason to be early. Back when he’d been the Learned Party Leader, he had drunk four cups of kahva a day, which the healers said was burning a hole through his stomach as clearly as if he’d stuck his sizable gut in front of a flamecannon.

Since becoming Archvoyant and having to dig the
Republic out of the hole Silestin had put them all in, he had moved up to eight.

Bertram dipped a dry biscuit into the kahva. Having some starch with his drink stopped his stomach from burning quite so badly later in the day. It also tasted divine.

Behind him, the door to his study creaked open. “What in Byn-kodar’s hell is it?” he asked without turning around. “Tell the bloodsucking bastards I’ve got fifteen minutes.”

“You may have less than that,” said Isafesira de
Lochenville, and something metal rattled just before he felt the smooth edge of a blade at the back of his neck.

“Justicar Loch,” Bertram said without turning around. “You escaped.”

“Old rule in the scouts: Don’t walk into any building unless you have a plan on how to get out.”

He nodded. “That’s a smart rule.”

“Not going to act surprised or deny that you set me up?” The blade at the back of his neck didn’t move.

“I was a soldier in my youth, dear, and a damn fine
suf-gesuf
player in my middle age. This isn’t the first blade at my throat, figurative or otherwise.” He smiled and dipped his biscuit into the kahva. He’d dipped it already, but with the way this day was going, he’d earned a double. “In point of fact, I ordered Threvein
not
to set you up. Apparently I was overruled.”

“You’re the Archvoyant, Bertram.”

“I am indeed.” He took a bite, carefully, so as not to give the impression that he was trying to avoid the blade behind him. “But I am not Silestin, with his ironclad control and his knives in the shadows for people who got out of line. Even the Learned only listen to what I say about half the time, and they weren’t the ones pushing Threvein.”

There was a pause behind him, and then Loch chuckled. “The
Skilled
tried to sell me to the Empire?”

“A couple of them,” Bertram said, taking another bite. “I suspect some Learned folks turned a blind eye. Hard-liners for Silestin, furious that you killed him.”

“Technically, that was my sister.”

“Say
that
to them with a blade at
your
throat,” Bertram said. “I dare you.”

That got another chuckle. The blade moved away, and a moment later, Justicar Loch—the woman who’d upended half the Republic to stop Archvoyant Silestin’s insane plan—sat down at the table beside him. She was bruised and battered, her hair stuck to the side of her neck and her leathers were wrinkled and stiff.