You might be imagining that things couldn’t possibly get worse. This is a dangerous thing to imagine, as it’s very rarely true and often seen as an impudent challenge which fate is more than happy to issue a stark reprimand for.
This, then, is entirely your fault.
Root took a few turns, slowing her pace to a brisk walk so as not to look too much like a suspect on the run now that the four of them had reentered the branching streets of Urk. The others hustled along at an equally discreet pace. They rounded another bend.
A small crowd huddled a few paces ahead making a whole lot of commotion. Root kept her eyes downcast as she pushed past.
Keeping her eyes on the ground put them just where they needed to be to see a hand lying palm-up on the stones, limp but jolting rhythmically. It piqued Root’s interest just enough to cast a sidelong glance into the crowd to see what was going on.
A girl lay on her back, blonde hair splayed like a halo, as a man knelt over her trying desperately to resuscitate.
Recognition slapped Root across the face and slammed her to a halt. Vit crashed into her.
“What—?”
“Shit.” Root shoved two bystanders aside. “What happened?” she demanded, looking around at the circle of concerned faces. No one answered. “What the fuck happened to her?” she said again, louder.
“Just collapsed here,” said an older woman. “Do you know her?”
“Who is that?” asked Vit, standing beside Root. Azriah pushed through the crowd. When he saw the girl, he sucked in a sharp breath.
Root answered Vit. “It’s Penny.”
“The dog walker?”
“Think you’ve got the wrong girl,” said a man kneeling beside the one pressing on Penny’s chest. “ID says ‘Sarfransa.’” He turned to the other man and put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s no use.”
“What do you mean it’s no use?” asked Root.
He pointed to Penny’s forearm, to an angry red wound, two puncture marks beaded with blood. A snake bite. “Something got her. This far into the city… I don’t know where she ran into a snake in this district. There was a woman here, she ran for some anti-venom. Hasn’t come back yet, and it won’t matter anyway. She’s gone.”
The other man had stopped his chest compressions. Azriah knelt beside Penny now, too. He said, “But you can still—”
The first man shook his head. “We thought it was worth a shot. I’m not a doctor or anything. I really don’t know what to do in this situation.” He looked frazzled.
“You said you know her?” asked the other man.
“Uh,” started Root. “Yeah. A little.”
They handed Root Penny’s bag, a canvas tote. Her forged work papers and fake ID were right on top, pulled out by the bystanders.
“She had a dog with her, too,” said another woman. “Ran off that way if you’re looking for it.”
Several of the onlookers began to disperse in respectful silence. Root stared at Penny’s body, at the wound on her arm.
What in the worlds had happened?
David watched as his guards ushered the guests around like lambs—into lines, isolating each one, patting them down, scanning, then moving them to the corner. The mob of searched guests had grown larger than the dwindling group of guests still unsearched.
If the jewel didn’t turn up after searching the last of them—after the teams finished sweeping the halls, the rooms, every corner of the palace—then they’d all be searched again. And again. They’d be searched over and over and over, the palace scoured, until the jewel was found. It had to be found, it had to be. They’d turn the whole building upside-down if they had to.
(This would be a remarkable relief on the load-bearing elements of the structure and would give the whole building a much-needed reprieve from a centuries-long battle with gravity.)
And where was Lucky? Where was the damn dog? She had a job around here. When David found out which of his aides was responsible for hiring a dog walker of all things, they’d be dealt with severely. A dog walker. Everyone knew dogs didn’t need walks. Dogs were for looking proper and for hunting and for finding things that had gone missing.
The whole room rocked unsteadily beneath David’s feet. He sank back down into his chair. His aides were at his elbows in an instant with a glass of water and another round of recommendations that he retire to his room and let the staff handle these matters.
Pah! They didn’t know what was at stake here—not really.
He sipped his water and closed his eyes for just a moment. Bad wine, perhaps—bad wine had done this to him. Or anxiety. Always anxiety, always creeping in. He’d need more of those pills his doctor had prescribed. Or—or the fiend had poisoned him! Yes, how had he not seen it before? That dastardly thing, that beast that had infiltrated the palace. It had dosed him with its poison!
“I need an antidote,” he croaked to a nearby aide, suddenly frantic. “I need… every antidote that we have. I do think I’ve been poisoned, yes, I think I must’ve been poisoned!”
The aide ran from the room, off to fetch the resident doctor who had already come and gone from the Hall half a dozen times with each of David’s previous theories about what afflicted him.
Leslie, standing nearby, cleared his throat. “I do think you’ll be all right, my friend. I’m sure this is… just a passing episode.”
David swatted the comment away with one hand. Leslie went back to watching the progressing search in silence.
No, no, David couldn’t die here. What a terrible fate that would be. No one at his side, no family to sit with him. No loved ones. No heir, a descendant to carry on the name, inherit his magnificent fortune. Oh, the child. The poor child. His poor nephew or niece. How he would’ve loved to meet them, to hold them, to raise them, his flesh and blood. What a sorry fate.
“Next!” called a guard, then began the search of another guest. David watched. He studied the individual—the way the man stood, the way his face changed, the way he held his hands, his shoulders. An accomplice? A fiend? An outsider breaching these holy halls?
The guard found nothing and waved the man onwards. He summoned the next woman.
Yes, she must’ve been the one. Wily and clever, seeking to break him, break them all!
“Are we almost done here? Because if I don’t do my face mask at exactly ten, it makes my skin sooo oily the next day,” said Aria as the guard felt around her ankles.
As if it wasn’t bad enough letting all these people into the palace once a quarter, now they had to go and conspire against him, against the church, the Children. He’d put an end to the dull events right then and there if it wasn’t such an incentive for these people to dump money into the church’s coffers, to spend big on overpriced tickets. Perhaps background checks before one could purchase a ticket were in order. Yes, background checks—after payment, no refunds for those whose checks didn’t clear them for attendance. That could be good. A nice vacation and a new tub could be in it for him.
The guards kept searching. It was mind-numbingly slow. Or perhaps it was the poison that was numbing his mind. The poison! That’s right! Oh, where was the doctor? He was going to die!
David sipped more water. He felt light—not just lightheaded, but altogether lighter, as if Eu was lifting him to the heavens.
A shadow moved across the wall in his periphery as a staffer shifted. David yelped in fright.
“Your Holiness—are you all right?”
“Fine,” said David, pushing the girl away.
In the corner, the guests who had been searched were looking antsy. Many seemed to suspect there was something else amiss. No—they couldn’t have that.
“Elijah,” said David, summoning the young man to his side. What a nice young man—one of the church’s best. “Go over to the people who have been checked. Placate them. Tell them they’re in Eu’s favor. Take their names, raise them all one tier, tell them it’s thanks to their devotion, their loyalty in the face of the threats that want to see us fall. One tier—only one! And fetch them a round of drinks. Say, where’s our bartender? Oh, never mind, just get them some champagne.”
Elijah nodded and hurried away.
He was halfway to the group when an alarm began to blare. David jumped so high he might’ve managed a record if he’d pursued a career in track and field.
Heavy iron doors rose up to blockade the exits out to the courtyard, closing off the way from the exterior as the regular double doors—wood, metal, and thick glass—swung shut all on their own on the interior side. Shutters clapped over the courtyard-facing windows and slid closed over the skylights far above, plunging the Hall of Relics into dim light lit only by the lanterns interspersed around the room’s perimeter. Guards and staffers quickly lit more.
“Elijah!” The head of security jogged back towards David like a well-trained dog, abandoning his former task. “What is that?” shouted David.
“The alarm system seems to have been triggered. The pattern indicates it’s from the southern wings. If the door protocols have engaged for the whole palace, that means it’s been ringing for three minutes in the respective wing and not disabled.”
“What?”
“The guards stationed nearby determined it’s a palace-wide emergency.” Elijah considered for a moment. “Or a very unusual false alarm.”
“Well go find out!”
“Yes, sir.” Elijah gathered a troop of guards and ran off.
The guests were no longer standing around in mildly-inconvenienced, location-mandated socialization. Everyone moved, clumping up and cowering in corners. Several guests cried out in terror, adding their own notes to the splitting alarm like a chorus of frightened birds. The groups had blurred; some of the unchecked attendees had slipped into the pod of guests who’d already been checked. No, no, no! Now they’d have to start over.
Seconds ticked by. David watched the mess from the sidelines as the guards struggled to corral the guests and put them back into orderly rows and groups. They neglected to consider that the group of checked attendees was now compromised—any one of the unchecked individuals could have handed off the jewel to someone already cleared, using the confusion as cover. The guards sorted the people, taking the easiest route out of the most dire of situations.
David pushed himself out of the chair. He ignored the protests of the aides behind him as he strode toward the room’s center.
“Everyone!” he cried, struggling to raise his voice over the sound of the alarm. “This is more chaos sowed by our outsider enemies—enemies who wish you harm, but who we….” David swayed, woozy on his feet. It felt like he was forcing the words out through a mouth filled with cotton. “We will protect you from. Yes. But we must begin this process from the beginning, seeing as… the situation…”
In the crowd before him, a barrage of gasps burst forth. Eyes widened. Shrieks followed, and the people surged backwards, back towards the far wall, abandoning all groupings.
David turned. Beyond the inner doors to the Hall of Relics, light peeked through around the edges of the thick metal sheets. A corner had been pulled back, wrenched out of place and marred by a huge, clawed hand. A demonic eye—an eye from the abyss, from the pits of hell, looked back, slitted pupil dilating as it fixed on David.
More claws and arms appeared. The metal doors and window shutters crumpled as fiends ripped at them, all gnashing teeth and spitting, evil faces. The gaps widened. There was an army in the courtyard, an army of outsiders, and they were tearing their way into the Hall like the walls were nothing. Behind them, the palace foyer had been reduced to smoldering rubble, the front door blasted aside, a gaping hole in the palace’s front through which more spirits and vile humans spilled forth.
David screamed. He tried to run, but his legs tangled in his long robes. He fell to the floor, scrabbling, shouting.
“Elijah! Elijah!”
David crawled in blind terror as the beasts beat at the doors. Chaos ripped through the room as the guests surged towards the hallways that split away from the room’s rear. The guards no longer sought to keep the people contained; many ran right alongside the mob, turning their backs in terror, shoving past anyone who moved too slowly. Other guards stood their ground with looks of great fear plain on their faces.
“The holy war!” shouted David as he finally regained his feet, careening this way and that on unsteady legs. “The holy war is here! It’s here! Run!”
Some of the guards who’d held their ground started to turn and flee.
“Not you!” screamed David. “Fight! Die for the Children! With the strength of Eu-as-Samur, of Saint Vinzo, patron of gory deaths, of Endkiu and Samesh! For me! I pay you!”
Suddenly, Leslie was at David’s side. He took David’s arm, helping him along, as they ran down the halls and up the stairs.
“Sir!” called a voice. Elijah and his guards ran toward David from the other direction. “We were summoned back before we could discover the source of the alarm; we were told there’s been an attack!”
“We are under siege!” said David. “Every guard, to me!”
“But sir, the guests—”
“Leave them! All guards to me!”
Up and up through the halls they went until they reached a narrow door. David and Leslie entered, enclosed now in a thick posse of guards in tight formation. Beyond, a spiral staircase rose high above.
“Every guard in the palace to this door!” ordered David. “Fortify the tower. No one enters—protect it with your lives!”
Guards flooded up the stairs, filling the hallway, amassing there in a thick layer of defense. No outsiders were among them—yet. But it was only a matter of time. Oh, it was only a matter of time!
Elijah slipped through the door to the tower. He barked a series of orders, then slammed the heavy door and locked it—once, twice, four, five, eight times using a key ring on his belt. Then he turned and sprinted up the stairs, leading the way for David and Leslie and their guards.
David huddled in the center, listening for sounds of battle, of explosions as the Eternal Palace fell to ruin, but he could hear nothing but the continuing alarm.
Oh, we’re all going to die, he thought. We’re all going to die!