Tezzeret would never know were there until way too late. In any given five seconds, I could put critters on the ground that’d make those em-scorps look cuddly as kittens. I had the place tagged and bagged eight ways from Gruulsday, signed and sealed and stamped and shipped, but I was starting to get the feeling that somehow I wasn’t going to deliver. Something had already gone wrong.
It wasn’t just a hunch. I’d had time enough to get everything together, and enough time left over to get bored. It just didn’t scan.
Tezzeret’s a methodical sonofabitch, but there’s not one slow bone in his body. The Tezzeret I knew would’ve hit me like a thunderbolt while I was still trying to separate spellers from choppers. Even coming back from the sort-of dead without that frappin’ arm of his wouldn’t change him that much.
So either something fatal had gone wrong for him-which meant we’d be waiting till the wrong side of forever-or else he got here, grabbed the skinny with both hands and then bailed like the Giant Brain bastard he is. Either way, it wasn’t good news.
We’d missed him. Somehow.
I pulled my Jacequin out of my breast pocket and stood it up on a fold of rock. After straightening its clothing, I had to adjust the legs to keep the damned thing upright, which it mostly refused to do.
I told Jace this was a bad idea. I never played with dolls when I was a girl, and I’m too damned old to start now. If Tezzeret was watching me, I knew he was laughing his ass off. I could feel my ears burning-which for me can be literal-and I had to clench my jaw to keep myself from looking around to see if any of the local talent was smirking, because if they were, my ears wouldn’t be the only things burning.
Pretty soon, though, I found the mana channel to activate it, and the Jacequin’s shimmery blue aura lit the thing up vividly in the cavern gloom. The doll shook itself, took a couple steps to find its balance, then turned its painted face up toward mine. “Do you have him?”
That little squeaky voice usually tickled the crap out of me, but right now my giggles were frozen out by stone cold dread. “I don’t think he’s coming. Any luck topside?”
The doll shook its head. “I’ve got reliable eyes all over the Seekers, the Ethersworn, and the Mechanists’ Guild. We must be missing something.”
“Maybe it was never him.”
“Had to be,” the doll insisted. “Nobody else could have even found his trap, let alone triggered the em-scorps by disarming it.”
“Maybe he’s got a flunky, right? Somebody he can just send, instead of coming himself. Told the guy where it was, and how to disarm it.”
“I don’t buy it.”
“All reports have the guy running from the em-scorps as having two arms. Both flesh. On this plane, they notice that kind of crap.”
“Try to imagine Tezzeret trusting someone enough to tell him where he keeps his spare etherium.”
Couldn’t argue with that. “Unless he tipped to the gaff,” I said. “He could have sent somebody expendable just to trigger the trap, right? Somebody he didn’t like anyway. To make us think it was him. So we’d waste our time laying the ambush here, instead of reinforcing defenses on Ravnica. He’s probably back there right now, killing everybody we ever met.”
The doll lifted a wooden hand to its painted eyes, like Jace was getting a headache. Tezzeret can do that to you. “Ideas?”
“I think he’s got all the edge there is to go around,” I said. “The thing about Tezzeret is that you can’t outthink him. It’s useless to try and guess what he might do, because he can figure what you think he’ll do based on what you know about him… and then he’ll do something else.”
“Then what’s our play?”
“I don’t much like the idea of looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life, but if this kind of stunt was going to work, it would’ve worked by now. We might get lucky. We probably won’t.”
“What about his father?”
“Tough old hunk of gristle, that geezer. I’ve had a couple of my skull bangers work him a couple hours now, and the old bastard hasn’t even told them his name.” I shrugged. “If a beat down on his dad won’t draw him, I can’t guess what would. I been around the perimeter four times. If he was gonna take a shot…”
“There’s only one more thing he’d be waiting for.”
“Jace, don’t. Don’t even think about it. You do not want to tangle with Tezzeret when he’s ready for you.”
“If the two of us together can’t handle him, we might as well just-”
“Might as well and likely will,” I said, even though I could tell he wasn’t listening.
“And if the old man does know anything, I can get it. With you in a sec.”
The blue shimmer faded, and the Jacequin was just a doll again.
I went over to the door of the hovel. “Blade up. Both of you. If Tezzeret has a move to make, it’s gonna be basically now.”
They drew the thick, squarish hacking swords the local talent favored, and pretended to be smart enough to be on guard. The old man just sat there staring at the ceiling, completely pie-eyed, the flask lying forgotten on its side in front of him.
There came a soft whumpf like distant artillery, and the ghost of a breeze stirred the hair on the back of my neck. I turned around. “Hey, boss.”
“Don’t call me boss,” he said, but just on reflex. Jace figures that if nobody in the organization actually knows he’s in charge, nobody will show up to take him out like he took out Tezzeret. It seemed to be working. So far.
“You’re getting faster with that teleport.”
“Practice makes perfect,” he said. “Never know when you might need to make a hasty exit.” He leaned sideways to peer around me, which for a guy his size is a considerable lean. “That’s Tezzeret’s old man? He looks drunk. He is drunk.”
“Hey, nothing much gets by you, huh?”
He flashed me that quick and easy grin of his. “Well, if it does, I’ve got you for a backstop, right?”
I gave him a sidelong squint. “Is that a fat joke?”
“Nah, I’m a fat joke,” he deadpanned. “That was a tall joke.”
“Next time use a ladder. And somebody else’s sense of humor. And you’re not fat. Just soft enough to be cuddly.”
So we had our little chuckle there before Jace got down to business. He’s like that. It’s one of the things that make him a good boss-he wants his people to be happy. Tezzeret only wanted us to be obedient. Though I guess maybe Jace’s mind powers could be part of the deal; it’d have to be hard for a telepath to spend all his time around people who think he’s an asswipe. But even if that’s true, it’s not the whole story.
The big picture is that Jace Beleren really is a damn fine human being. The Multiverse’d be a better place if there were more people like him in it, and I’ll never forget it.
That last dustup, against that little rot-sucking slag Liliana Vess, had left me in bad shape. There wasn’t much I could do except moan and crawl. When I finally managed to drag myself into the Blind Eternities, I made for Ravnica. Not for any reason. I don’t remember being able to even think about it. Just blind instinct, like any other wounded animal. All I wanted was to die at home.
But Jace found me.
He had plenty reason to hate me. Hells, if our situations had been reversed, I would’ve healed him up just so I could torture him to death. Even if he decided not to hate me, he didn’t have any reason to help. He could have left me there to die in the sewers. Instead he picked me up and put me back together. Took care of me while I tried to get past the nightmares of all those shades and spirits Vess had plastered me with. And as soon as I was strong enough to work, he offered me a job.
If I spend the rest of my life paying him back, I’ll never even the score. Every breath I draw, I owe to him. If there is such a thing as a good man in this toilet of existence, it’s Jace Beleren.
He frowned a little as he turned himself around and reached out with his mind, checking off each of my local talents in turn. “Double diamond, huh?”
I shrugged. “Classics never go out of style.”
He glanced up toward the hovel’s rooftop. “Good spot for the spare mercs, too. They’ll never stop him, but at
