The stinging in Root’s nose faded. Luckily, all of the seeds she was snorting couldn’t give her a colossal headache. She had that covered.
She wiped her hand on her dress, rubbing away the sticky juice of the last fata pomorgranate seed, and rejoined the others. Azriah and Beel crouched by Penny’s body; Vit stood nearby with her bag, shuffling through papers pulled from within.
“Done?” asked Azriah.
“Yeah,” said Root. “Good a time as any, even if we’re not as far as we wanted to be. Hopefully that buys us a few minutes to deal with… this. Hopefully. It’s harder without line of sight, but I think it worked.”
He nodded somberly. He gestured toward the few bystanders still chatting off to the side. “The guy there—the one who was trying to resuscitate—said they’ve already sent someone to get the coroner.”
“So they’ll take it from here?”
Azriah was slow to respond. “Yes.”
“Then we should get out of here.”
He looked back down at Penny. “I suppose.”
“There’s nothing we can do for her. She’s dead.”
“I just don’t understand…”
Vit came closer, still rummaging through Penny’s belongings. It seemed a little disrespectful to be looking for cash, but Root wasn’t going to say anything.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” they said. “Look at all of these.” They handed Root a stack of letters, still stuck in their envelopes though the tops were torn open. She flipped through them. Every one of them was addressed to Leslie Sheridan.
“Let me see,” said Azriah. Root passed all but one down to him. She pulled the other from the envelope and scanned the page.
Vit leaned closer. “What does it say?”
“‘Movement of goods…’ blah blah blah… ‘goods.’ ‘Goods.’ ‘Most recent shipment… goods.’ Lots of sums. Damn, lots of sums. Sales totals, looks like. Where’s Saly when you need him?”
“Probably getting swept along in a terrified mob right about now,” said Beel.
“Right.”
“It just says ‘goods’?” asked Azriah.
“Looks secretive.”
From Penny’s bag, Vit withdrew two heavy packets and a smaller one. They peered into the last of the three. It was filled with a whitish powder.
“What is it?” asked Azriah.
“Some kind of drug,” said Root, who had some expertise.
Vit dabbed a finger in the powder and touched it to their tongue. They swished it around their mouth for a moment and then spat onto the bricks.
“I don’t know what it is. But it looks like the stuff Leslie dumped into his drink.”
“And the letters are all Leslie’s.” Root looked down at Penny. “Did she… did she go and steal all of this from him?”
Vit’s eyes widened. They pointed to Penny’s arm. “Leslie collects snakes. The bite…”
Root looked down at the wound. The drugs. The same realization clicked in her mind.
“Quibbule,” she said. “The drugs. Tried to upsell us when we bought the fata pomorgranate. He said he had… what the fuck did he call it? Dragon dew?” She slapped a hand over her forehead. “Straight from upstairs. That’s what he said. Like—”
“And Saly said someone was already messing with the church’s books, right?” said Vit. They took the stack of letters back from Azriah. “Something shady. And here—movement of ‘goods.’ He’s moving drugs. Snake venom.”
Azriah still knelt at Penny’s side. “But why did Penny care?”
Vit shrugged sheepishly. “Looking for a fix?”
“She seemed to have something against the church,” said Root. “More than most, I mean. I believe ‘I hate those stupid bastards’ were her words. Maybe she was trying to expose them.”
“She did come running after us when she overheard us talking with Tohlog and Quibbule,” said Azriah.
“So she had her own motives. Used our way in. Stole from Leslie—the letters, the drugs. Tried to take a snake, by the looks of it. Got herself killed.”
“She wouldn’t have been in there in the first place if we hadn’t recruited her,” said Azriah, voice clipped. “We should’ve found someone else. She was only sixteen.”
“Or twenty-three as needed,” added Root. Azriah gave her a hard look. “What? Damn, sorry.”
“We should…” started Azriah, but he trailed off with a sigh.
“We can’t do anything,” said Root. She jabbed a thumb back towards the palace where the distant sound of alarms still laced the air. There were no guards running through the streets yet; it looked like their last surprise had worked. But it was only going to hold back the inevitable for so long. “We still have to go.”
“Root’s right,” said Vit, though they hardly looked at Penny, and their expression was one of grim, pale sickness.
Azriah gave Penny a long look. Then he stood. “Fine. But take her bag; if the city officials get ahold if it, it’ll just go straight back to the palace.”
Vit nodded. Azriah stepped aside and gave the men who had tried to help Penny an excuse as to why they had to depart, leaving matters in their hands. And then they left the street corner, Penny’s body cooling on the stones.
They bypassed the district gate, but narrowly. The guards looked nervously towards the palace from which the faint ringing of alarms still emanated, but no orders had yet come to close off all passage. The group’s skittishness was masked by the small crowd of fidgety pilgrims, some dressed in raincoats, who filtered slowly, anxiously through the gate, unsure of what the alarms were for but quite interested in being far away from the palace should it suddenly burst into flames or collapse or spew bloodthirsty assassins out into the streets. It was the only time Root had seen the tourists looking to the Eternal Palace with anything short of starry-eyed reverence.
Soon after they crossed into the neighboring district, a runner from the palace jogged up to the gate guards. Root and the others kept their heads down and hurried away before the local authorities could be compelled to do their jobs.
They made it back to the basement of Herb and Apple and slipped inside. Cruncher and Squeej sat in silence at the table.
Cruncher jumped up as they entered. “Oh! Great joy of Kiril, you’re back! There’s been some commotion. Somethin’ bout alarms at the Eternal Palace. We got worried. But you’re here! You… have it then?”
There was a tense and solemn air about the four of them that went unnoticed in the brief moment of celebration. Cruncher couldn’t fathom what they’d truly lost, what they’d gained. An eye for an eye, an even exchange. They’d succeeded, but it meant nothing.
And they’d lost Penny.
“We do,” said Root, dropping her bag and digging out a change of clothes. “But we can’t stay long.”
Cruncher’s expression darkened. “They on your tail, then?”
“They will be,” said Azriah.
“And the others?” Cruncher wrung his huge amber hands. “And… us?”
“Nothing points to you all. You’re all in the clear. And the others are fine. Were, when we saw them last. They may be here soon—if the guards let the guests go once they’re checked over, or if the last mirage caused enough chaos that everyone’s scattering. Hard to say. But we can’t stick around.”
Vit pulled out the stack of blank checks signed in Leslie’s angry scrawl. Azriah began filling out the numbers according to a slip in Saly’s handwriting.
Root and Vit both stepped away to change out of their gala finery into something a little less conspicuous and better suited for a trek through the desert. When they returned, Azriah had finished filling out the checks and reminding the pair how to handle them (all but two, which accounted for Root, Azriah, Vit, and Beel’s share): cashing each one a day or two apart, always at different banks, then pooling the total from all the varied amounts and distributing the profit evenly six ways.
Six—that brought Azriah to the bad news just as Root reentered the room.
“Here,” he said, and placed Penny’s bag on the table. “Our dog walker… something happened. Not entirely clear what. We found her dead on our way back here.”
“Dead?” said Cruncher. His mouth hung open. “By the failures o’ Sheph, how?”
“He said—” started Squeej.
“Right. Oh my.”
“This was hers. Her name was Penny Teap—lived outside the main walls. Cruncher, could you see that this gets back to her… family? Or friends? Whoever she’s got. And her cut of the payout, too.”
“I’ll make sure of it.”
Azriah put a hand on the spirit’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
“Now, say,” started Squeej, looking around. “Where’s Brock gone?”
The four of them shared a look.
“Brock, uh…” started Vit.
“Turned out to be a little less helpful than he promised,” finished Root, in the nicest words she could think of.
“Mm. Thought there was somethin’ odd about that guy,” said Cruncher. “But familiar, too. Couldn’t put my finger on it…”
Squeej looked down at the bag on the table, the pile of checks. “So you four are off, then?”
They all nodded.
Cruncher looked anxiously at the door back out to the street. “I’ll be sendin’ all my good luck with you folks, course. To get out of Urk, you know, with alarms all ringin’ and everyone on high alert and such.”
Root bit her lip. They all shared an uneasy look. Cruncher was right—the job wasn’t over yet. They still had to make it out of Urk. And that would take a…
David cowered at the center of his tight band of guards, tripping on every other step as the world spun around him. The guards kept him on his feet as they hurried him up the spiral staircase.
He remained swaddled in their midst, a baby in a womb, like the child, his poor niece or nephew. Oh, the child. Oh, to face these dark days alone, last of his line!
Elijah led the way, flame licking his fingers as it danced across his knuckles like a tiny serpent, his tremendous power at the ready. He reached the top of the stairs first, surveyed the room, then called down. The posse of guards advanced, bringing David safely to the small chamber alight with silver light filtering in through four myriadic windows—old, never replaced with the church’s own imagery since the building’s dark years. Each one showed a terrible bird, wings spread, an illuminated orb clutched in its beak or shining out from within its hollow skull, the great cardinals of this world looking out in their respective directions.
The room was still and quiet, the air outside broken only by the echoing, shrieking alarms of the palace. Their great bastion, the bastion of Endkiu, under siege by the forces of evil. Was this the day their great legacy would fall, before they’d even realized their true, ultimate purpose?
David shuddered at the thought of dying—of dying at all. It was never supposed to come to this, never! And after all the money he’d amassed, all unspent, wasted…
Elijah stalked to one window and looked out, waiting. David’s woozy mind imagined the four birds peeling out of the glass and diving for him, smashing the tower to rubble as they shredded him.
Elijah’s fire grew brighter. David winced, fearing his mind had conjured up a terrible reality.
Cautiously, Elijah opened the door and strode out onto the balcony. He was gone for many long seconds as his shadow passed each of the windows. He wound around the balcony’s circumference.
“Sir—Your Holiness. President Sheridan. You should see this.”
“Captain Amin—is it safe?” asked one of the other guards.
“It is.”
David and Leslie advanced slowly, accompanied by the guards. David stepped through the door first, flanked by two of the soldiers. He reached the balcony and looked over the edge.
The whole world swam beneath his gaze, and nearly he cried out and scurried back, his addled mind forgetting momentarily that it was in fact quite terrified of heights. But then the other sights came into focus and seized his attention.
He looked north. He looked east, and he looked hesp. He inched along the balcony until he could look south.
There was no army. There were no great smoking holes in the city’s walls, no rubble as the front of the Eternal Palace collapsed under the fists of frightening spirits and outsiders. The courtyard below was empty. The doors to the Hall of Relics were unscathed.
Relief flooded through him, a euphoria more potent than any he had ever known. He blinked. He rubbed his eyes. Was this some horrible trick of the poison? Could it really be true? But he had seen it—seen the destruction with his own eyes.
“The walls…” he muttered. “The courtyard. The palace is safe. There are no outsiders. There’s no mob. The walls… the walls of Urk still stand, unbroken.” He breathed a heavy, unburdened sigh. “It’s a miracle.”
“Sir!” snapped Elijah.
The words sat above the palace like a fishing hook, baited and bobbing, for one full, silent, uninterrupted second. Then a boom ripped through the still, hot desert air, the sound of something moving impossibly fast. Faster than words.
A blur shot through the air, emerging from far across the colorful desert dunes, the spirals of sand, as it slammed into the walls.
A mouth opened wide—wider than it should have been able to open, all biology considered. It tore into the hull of Urk’s towering outer wall, a thick, enormous construction that should’ve withstood an army of fifty thousand with ease. It crumpled like children’s blocks under the stampede of an excited dog, sending a hail of rubble raining across the city.
(Raincoats and umbrellas were of little use, but it saved a shred of Nort Blunder’s reputation in the eyes of those who had been staring skyward all evening muttering that the old man had gone senile.)
More crashing blasts followed like a chain of thunderclaps, one after another, each one louder, closer, and more expensive. The blur tore through the city like an arrow through layers of paper.
The Miracle Eater screeched to a halt at the base of the Eternal Palace, grinning a wide grin of far too many teeth and looking positively sated on a diet of extraordinarity and bricks. David swore she locked eyes with him specifically. Lam flicked her tail, leaped, and took off at an untrackable pace.
From outside the walls, crowds began pouring in. Like a swarm of locusts, the little specks stepped through the massive pores punched through each wall, making their way into the city.
David gripped the balcony railing, his head spinning, the thunderous sounds of wreckage still making his ears ring. No…
It was the last thing he remembered before he collapsed.
Root shared an uneasy look with the others. Cruncher was right. Getting out of Urk would take a…
The ground shook. Explosions rocked the building. One, two, three, four. Somewhere upstairs, Orphalia and her second husband shouted in alarm. Like a sequence of bombs along a fuse, the blasts kept coming. The pelting crack-ack-acack of rubble raining down thudded outside the door. Then the city was still—minus the sounds of a lot of screaming.
“What was that?” asked Beel from where he cowered behind Root’s legs.
Root shrugged. “No idea. But I say we take it as our cue to leave.”
Ajis stepped from the glittering rim of a portal onto softer ground. The air around him hung hot and muggy. Behind him, Ophylla sighed in satisfaction. Her hair perked up and soaked in the moisture.
Ajis looked around. They were in a small clearing amidst a cluster of narrow Atnaterran trees that resembled the Setoterran pines, tall, dark, and razor-like with silver needles, like magnetic staffs waved over a sewing supply factory. Somewhere beyond the tree line, the faint sound of Yg Balta’s slopping waves smacked like a mouth full of peanut butter.
A wide standing stone loomed at the clearing’s center, rough black rock rimmed with smaller boulders. Stark against the dim landscape, a little pink form sat atop one of the smaller stones, kicking her feet where they hung above the ground and singing a faint song under her breath.
“Oh, yay!” said Pippa, interrupting her song. Excitement gleamed in her huge, black eyes, twitched on her upturned nose. She kicked her feet faster the way a dog might wag its tail.
Ajis stepped forward. “As agreed,” he said, and pitched her a heavy parcel. She caught it in her undersized hands with the muffled sound of many, many coins as the momentum threw her backwards off the stone and into the dirt.
“Oofies,” she said as she hit the ground.
“Ajis,” scolded Ophylla.
“I did not throw it that hard,” he insisted, and it was true. It’d been a light, underhand toss at most.
A second later, the little pink face, widely agrin, peeked back over the stone. “I did well?”
“You did entirely acceptably.”
“Which is good?”
“You completed the task as requested. So there is your payment.”
“Yay!” Pippa raised her arms in excitement, struggling beneath the weight of the package of coins, like an overenthusiastic weightlifter hoisting a record-sized atlas stone. “I can join your team now?”
“No.”
“Aw.”
Ajis shrugged. “You have to understand, my hands are tied here, see? That would defeat the whole purpose. I only hired you so that I could keep my team’s hands—and other such appendages—clean. Can’t go letting this slight get traced back to me. No, that would upend the entire agreement. Break the rules. You understand? Now you’d do well to keep up with the rest of our arrangement, too. Don’t go sharing any details. Do not breathe a word of me to them, got it?”
Pippa gave a little salute over a face slow to work through some confusion. “But I’m all done…?”
“Well,” started Ajis, “their people will be after you now, no doubt.” He splayed his hands in a helpless gesture. “But nothing we can do about that, of course! Oh well. You’re quite fast, at least in general, so I’m sure you’ll stay ahead of them. But you know—should you find yourself, oh, captured, tortured, that sort of thing…” He put one clawed finger to his lips and inclined his head towards Pippa.
“Ohhh. Okay, yes, got it!”
“Good.”
Pippa stood there for a moment, watching Ajis and Ophylla. Ajis waited. Then he flicked his fingers. “Well? Go on.”
“Oh, okay. Bye!” Pippa flashed another dazzling smile and then ran off—encumbered by her parcel—towards the trees. She tripped under the weight of it once or thrice. Eventually, the rhythmic sound of all the wind getting knocked from her lungs faded into the distance.
“They’ll probably catch her,” said Ophylla after a minute. “You know the Ooze.”
“Eventually. It’s a grey area, anyhow. I didn’t truly act outside of the agreement. Would it be such to pay a fly to buzz around the Grand Priest’s head all afternoon? A flock of birds to defecate all over their newest billboard? I sowed chaos and nothing more. What do the young things call it? A prank. I pranked them.”
“It was a risk.”
“A necessary one.”
“And a great big waste of energy. And money.”
“Yes, well, you try constructing a replica of a mote periapt next time, done with only the Children’s artwork and hundreds-of-years-stale memories as references. They always make the thing so big, so extravagant.”
“Harnn’s idea to make it damaged in order to hide imperfections was a wise choice.”
“My idea. Harnn didn’t come up with anything, he just accidentally sat on it, the damn oaf!”
Ophylla shrugged. “Some credit is due. Nevertheless, a risk and a waste of time.”
“It achieved the ends necessary.”
“Perhaps.”
“They would not have succeeded otherwise.”
Ophylla laughed. “You great big fool, are you on their side now? Would you like to hand them the rest? You’ve made our situation a hundred times worse. Three—three was an emergency. Four is catastrophic. Too many eggs, all in one basket. Anything could happen.”
“I am what will happen. I do not intend to waste time. No, I’m not on their side, you short-sighted, moss-brained idiot. You know full well the situation they stuck us with, daring to attempt a stupid undertaking like that. Give the Children three more, or give these know-nothings a fourth. Not a hard choice.” Ajis shook his head. “No. And certainly it’s easier to steal from one basket, wouldn’t you say? Especially when that basket doesn’t have thirty walls, a vault, a skip snare.”
“Sure—only the power of four mote periapts united to guard themselves.”
“In amateur hands,” corrected Ajis. “Now come—there’s more to be done, and urgently. My plan hasn’t concluded yet. It’s time to strike.”