Read Online The Paladin Caper by Patrick Weekes - Free Book Online

moment later, her hair and robes did the same.
    “Kail, you and Hessler are on repairs.” Loch looked over. “We’re on the clock. If throwing money gets us in the air faster, make it happen.”
    “I’ll have us in the air in ninety-one seconds or less,” Kail said.
    “It was an example!” Hessler said irately.
    “Sorry, it’s a thing now, Hessler.”
    “Also, fewer .”
    The two headed down the gangplank toward the men with grimy work clothes and speculative expressions, and Loch turned back to Desidora. “What have you got?”
    “By direction and distance and . . . feel,” Desidora said with a little shrug, “they’re at the mining center in Sunrise Canyon.”
    “Damn,” Tern said. Loch looked over and shot her an eyebrow.
    “We attempted to rob it once,” Icy said without opening his eyes or moving from his twisted-pain shape.
    “Really?” Desidora sounded impressed.
    “Pure-grade crystals, unprocessed and ready for energy templates? That’s like a skeleton key for half the crystal-based security systems in the Republic.” Tern sighed wistfully.
    “Sadly, skeleton keys are very well guarded,” Icy said. “The facility itself, along with interior access to the processing wing, was restricted with an aura-coded key that never left the facility.”
    Desidora hmm’d thoughtfully. “Is it coded to a living aura or just a unique random energy signature?”
    “The latter, I think,” Tern said. “You think your death-priestess thing would let you dupe the aura?”
    “If it isn’t the aura of a living creature, you could get me inside, and I could—”
    “Ah, but wait,” Tern cut in, “crystal mine. Ambient magical energy like crazy. You ever walk around carpeted floor in fuzzy socks and then shake hands with someone and zap ?” She wiggled her fingers. “Imagine that, but you use magic of any kind, and then stuff explodes.”
    Desidora gave Tern a hurt look. “That is nothing like fuzzy socks.”
    “The highest-security area had very little information, even on the maps we procured,” Icy said, “but the main processing center sits above it. It appears to be a mine that was abandoned due to magical buildup in the crystals, listed as deadly to any living creature who went inside.”
    “We bought drinks for a few miners who said they saw golems tromping around in that direction once or twice,” Tern added.
    “If a golem can survive the magical energy, I can survive it,” Desidora said confidently.
    Tern nodded. “Just don’t wear fuzzy socks.”
    Kail and Hessler came back up onto the deck, accompanied by a few surly men who shot the women the speculative weasel look every woman learns to take as a warning sign.
    “Control console’s over here,” Kail said brightly, as though men who made their living illegally outfitting airships might not know where the control console of a common airship model might be located.
    “You’re her? The one in charge?” one of them, a big man with a long wrench in one hand, said to Loch. At Loch’s nod, the man rubbed his neck, squinting. “Expensive, but we’ll have you back in the air soon enough. Boys bringing up the new ward-crystals now.”
    Loch nodded as several more men came up the gangplank, carrying large, blanket-wrapped bundles.
    “Glad to have you out here,” Loch said. “Surprised you get much business in the middle of nowhere.”
    “Given the relative location between port cities—” Hessler started, and then stopped when Kail elbowed him.
    “Like the quiet,” the airship leader said as his men filed onto the deck. “Just us and the whisper of the balloons.”
    “All those old balloons and nobody else?” Tern said brightly, gesturing with one hand and casually reaching into a concealed side pocket of her utility skirt with the other. “I can’t imagine what it’s like! I mean, after a while, I think I’d start talking with the wind-daemons inside those balloons!”
    “In fact, prolonged exposure to unwarded