The Palace Job (6 page)

Orris grew red. Silestin pursed his lips behind his beard. "You're an observant man, Pyvic."

"My record reflects that," Pyvic said evenly. "That's
likely
why I was chosen."

"Warden Orris will coordinate with you." Silestin smiled.

"I appreciate the gesture," Pyvic said.

Tern watched watched as Icy headed into the town jail to blackmail Sheriff Gaist for the death of Guildmaster Halistan.

Icy was an Imperial, short and slender, and his golden robes billowed around him as he went up the stairs and inside. Tern watched him go, muttered a quick prayer to Gedesar, and then headed over to the town square.

Guildmaster Halistan had, according to Icy, been killed with clean slashes that suggested a duelist's precision. Before his appointment to sheriff, Gaist had been a blademaster with more than fifty wins in both first-blood and death matches.

According to the Textile Guild, Halistan's signet ring would have recorded the last few moments of his life. It should offer enough proof for the Textile Guild to go to the justicars and bring down Gaist.

At which point, Tern and Icy would get paid.

Tern wandered the market for a quarter of an hour. She blended in, a mousy woman with spectacles and a brown crafter's dress with a lot of pockets.

Finally, she picked out her target, a stall selling expensive scented candles. A scowling middle-aged man looked at her suspiciously as she examined his wares.

"Is this ginger?" she asked, sniffing one of them. "It smells more like vanilla."

"It's a mixture of several different spices," the candle-seller said, trying not to sneer.

"Great. Icy will love this. I'll take it." She tucked the candle into one of her dress's many pockets.

The candle-seller jumped. "Ah, that will be twenty-five—"

"Oh, I don't need to pay." Tern fished out a piece of paper with a gold seal on it. "Diplomatic Writ of Accommodation. You'll be fully compensated by the Empire. Thanks!" She walked off without looking back as the candle-seller sputtered behind her.

She hit a stall with expensive bathing salts next, and was getting ready to flash the Diplomatic Writ of Accommodation to a woman selling watches when the guards closed in from either side.

A few minutes later, she was hauled into the town jail, protesting loudly.

"I thought the Republic was the bastion of freedom for all men, but
apparently
that doesn't apply to women," she yelled as she took in the room, "and if you're from another country, well, that precious
freedom
doesn't apply to—"

"Just give us a minute," one of the guards cut her off, and knocked on Sheriff Gaist's door. "Sir?"

"What?" Gaist shouted back. His voice had the rusty roughness that came from a lot of long nights at the tavern.

"Woman here who says she's with an Imperial," the guard said to the door.

"I demand to see the sheriff!" Tern added. "If you people are going to cause a diplomatic incident, I'd
prefer
that you do it to my face!"

"Fine!" Gaist shouted. It sounded like he was moving something, and Tern caught the click-clank of something metal snapping shut. "Come in."

"It's about time," Tern muttered as the guards pulled her into Gaist's office. "Maybe
now
we can clear up this idiotic misunderstanding, so I can get back to my—"

"You're not an Imperial," Gaist cut in. He'd lost the lean build of his dueling days, but he still wore the sword.

"How could you tell, Sheriff?" Tern shot back. "But I am the attaché of an important official from the Empire, and as such, I am entitled to the full protections of—"

"She was stealing in the merchant square," one of the guards told Gaist. "Claimed she didn't have to pay anything because of some legal thing."

There was no sign of Icy in the room. In fact, there was little sign of anything much at all in the room, save a battered desk, a knife-scarred dartboard, and a truly impressive safe. The safe was, if Tern wasn't mistaken, of dwarven manufacture, straight from the smiths of Ajeveth. It was nearly indestructible, constructed from an
yvkefer
alloy that made it impossible to open with magic.

"The
legal thing
you're referring to is a Diplomatic Writ of Accommodation!" Tern said when it became clear that the guards weren't going to explain. "Now, my master, an official from the Empire, was coming to see you here, I believe. If you'll simply
talk
with him, you ignorant yokels, he will
prove
that I am entitled to requisition items for personal use —"

"There's no official here, Miss," Gaist said flatly, cutting her off.

Tern sputtered for a moment. "But he said he needed to speak to the sheriff about something—"

"He's not here," Gaist insisted.

Tern looked at Gaist's hand, which clutched at his sword scabbard tightly enough to whiten his knuckles. She looked at Gaist's boots, which were flecked with blood. She looked at the small trail of blood, barely noticeable unless one was looking for it, that suggested something had been dragged to the safe. While bleeding.

She tried a smile. "Sheriff, I'm certain that we can put this little..." She swallowed. "...misunderstanding... behind us. I'd be happy to—"

"Oh, we ignorant yokels like to see these things through," Gaist said, smiling grimly. "We'll keep an eye out for your Imperial official, but in the meantime, you'll enjoy our accommodations."

"But I've got diplomatic immunity as an attaché of—this is a complete abrogation of—you don't understand how important this man—"

She kept yelling while the guards shoved her into the cell whose iron bars formed one wall of Gaist's office and locked her inside. "When my master arrives, you're going to find yourself apologizing to people on
both
sides of the border," she said, her cheeks red with anger, "and I have to tell you, I for one am not going to be quiet about my treatment—"

"Lady," Gaist said in a voice that stopped her cold, "you'd best hope that your little yellow friend shows up at all. Otherwise, things could be very unpleasant for you." With a gesture to his guards, he turned and left his office, shutting the door behind him.

Tern waited a few minutes, just to make sure he was gone.

"Lady,"
she muttered in a fair imitation of Gaist's wine-soaked voice,
"you'd best hope that your little yellow friend shows up at all."
She paced back and forth in the jail cell, tugging at her plain brown braid. "Why do they always say
lady
like that?" With her fingers, she eased a lock of hair out of the braid and began to pull on it. "Is that supposed to be some clever dichotomy, or are they completely unaware of the irony of... hah! Got it!" She yanked the lock of hair free, revealing a long length of thin wire with a few tiny hooks near the end.

"Things could get very unpleasant for you."
Tern snaked the thin wire through the bars and into the lock on the other side. "How about being jailed in a backward village with a jackass sheriff?" she muttered as she made careful motions with the wire. "Little unpleasant for me right there—ahhh." The cell door gave a tiny click and opened to Tern's push.

"Enjoy our accommodations."
Tern strode to the back wall of the sheriffs office. She unbuckled her boots, massive steel-toed clunkers that looked like they belonged on someone much taller and wearing many studded leather accessories. Then she wrenched the heel of one boot sharply. A hidden compartment snapped open, revealing a small pouch filled with gritty gray powder. "Like
that
hasn't been done to death..." A moment later, the other boot revealed a similar compartment containing a small cup of viscous sludge. "Thought duelists were supposed to have snappy comebacks..." She upended the cup near the wall, waiting until the dark material settled fully, and then gingerly sprinkled the pouch of powder onto the sludge.

"Nice safe though." Tern slid her boots back on and tromped back across the office. "Heard they're nigh-unbreakable. Great place to store your incriminating evidence." She stopped before the safe and pulled a small listening tube from one of her brown dress's many pockets and a pressure wrench from another. "In fact, the dwarves claim that the only way you could crack one of their safes was..." Her dry voice dropped about three octaves and adopted a dwarven brogue.
"...to have somebody inside it."

She knocked twice on the safe door and, in the silence that followed, nervously took off her spectacles and cleaned them on the hem of her dress. A moment later, two knocks answered her, and she let out a long breath.

Once the pressure wrench was latched onto the combination faceplate, it was just a matter of turning it slowly enough for Icy to be able to knock each time he caught the telltale click of changing tumblers from inside the safe. Once his knock alerted her, Tern could listen through the tube to figure out whether the click meant "keep turning this way" or "start turning that way"—only the tumblers themselves were soundproofed. It
was
a sophisticated safe, though, and it took Tern and Icy a good ten or fifteen minutes to get it open.

Finally, Tern felt the handle release, and she opened the door. "You okay?"

"The sheriff dislocated several joints to fit me into the safe," Icy reported slowly, crunching as he slowly uncurled and slid out onto the floor, "but I am essentially unharmed." He held out Guildmaster Halistan's ring in one bloodstained hand. "And the ring was indeed stored here, where the
yvkefer
alloy prevented the Textile Guild from finding it with tracking spells."

"From which we profit. You had enough air?" Tern rifled the safe, pocketing a fair amount of money that Icy had left behind.

"I was preparing to lower my heart-rate," Icy noted, "but you were quite efficient; my standard meditative state sufficed."

"And him stabbing you?" Tern drew a sealed packet from yet another pocket and affixed it to the side of the safe. She affixed the seal to the inside of the door, then swung the safe door until only a crack remained open.

"His reflexes were slowed enough from alcohol for me to redirect his attack, as we anticipated. The blood packet on my hand worked adequately to suggest a mortal injury." Icy rolled out his neck and producing more crunching sounds. "However, I unintentionally swallowed the pellet under my tongue while conversing with the sheriff."

"You
what?"
Tern reached up to her hair and untwined the cord holding her braid in place. She strode to the wall, her boots clomping on the wooden floor, and stuck one end of the cord carefully into the dark sludge, into which the sprinkled powder had now dissolved. "How did you do the blood-on-the-mouth thing, then? You need blood-on-the-mouth to sell the kill."

"I ruptured a small vein under my tongue." Icy arched his back, catlike, before rising to his feet. "It served much the same effect."

"Probably easier to just not swallow the blood pellet, Icy." Tern put a hand to a pocket, then frowned and tried another one.

"I become flustered when acting dishonestly. I have already reordered my energies to heal my mouth, and the blood pellet seems innocuous, though I suspect I shall pass... is there some problem?"

Tern tried another pocket. "Dammit! Hey, remember when I used my special striker to light the candles at the inn last night? Do you by any chance remember seeing me put that back in my pocket?"

"You have misplaced your striker?" Icy rolled out his shoulders some more and popped a few more joints. Tern suspected that he was just showing off now.

"That's the general idea, yes."

"I do not believe our plan is severely compromised," Icy said with a small bow. "If I may?"

"Oh, get over there." Tern positioned herself behind the safe as Icy sauntered over to the cord sticking from the sludge, held the tip between his middle finger and thumb, concentrated for a moment, and then snapped his fingers with the cord between them. The tip of the cord burst into flame and promptly began hissing as the fuse burned down, and Icy trotted over and got next to her.