Quick note: this takes place after Ravenshore’s Antimagic, the novel which has just started going up as chapters. I didn’t really think about that until right now as I’m writing this post and thinking why? Why did I do that?
Well, you’ve been warned, I guess. Contains spoilers for the end of Ravenshore’s Antimagic.
—
Justiciar Radiant wanted to like brigadier Kat Morowa-Arnesdotr, but she was making it as difficult as bathing a baby iron dragon. “I am aware you work for King Duncan MacReady and not for the city of Ravenshore,” Radiant said, again, expertly maintaining her professional demeanour, though beneath it she seethed.
Brigadier Morowa-Arnesdotr sat with her feet up on her desk. “Then why are you still here?” she asked.
Radiant stifled a sigh that would’ve made her sound like a pressure cooker about to blow spiceberrybird stew all over the ceiling. She was certain the brigadier wanted the best for Ravenshore, that Morowa-Arnesdotr wouldn’t back down from helping, if she understood what was at stake.
Radiant always did her research. Liked to think she was almost as good at it as the still-missing dragon librarian. She knew the brigadier had a relationship with the city elemental, even before it saved her life five or six years back. She knew the brigadier worked with at least one of the other major spirits. And everyone knew the brigadier saved the city from the Baron Ravenholm and his Nightmares without obligation.
So why was she acting like an ornery porcupine?
Radiant pretended to adjust her tie and shirt collar, actually shifted the chainmail beneath. She looked around the room: the brigadier’s old office, Triple S Investigations, a couple of floors up in a low-rent building in the old city. Why hadn’t the brigadier used the king’s pay and official standing to move into a newer, nicer home? Why hadn’t she moved any of the trinkets and trophies and records of her case work, her supplies, her personal items, to her new office in Protectorate headquarters?
Must be that connection to the city, like a young woman who didn’t want to move away from her parents. Radiant understood. Didn’t think she should bring it up, though.
“The courts are hearing the case of a man accused of seeing the future,” Radiant began, hoping to capture the brigadier’s interest like a battery trap for a linemite. “The prosecution is short on evidence and requires a witness.”
“So?” shrugged the brigadier, the motion exaggerated by her unseasonably heavy sheepskin jacket.
“The best witness is likely to be the ghost of a Protectorate officer who died during the effort to capture the suspect, before the evidence was destroyed.”
“Hm,” said the brigadier. An eyebrow lifted like the arch of a blackwood caterpillar.
Radiant checked her armoured watch. “I have less than twelve hours to determine whether such a ghost exists and convince it to stand witness at trial.”
“Or what?” the brigadier asked.
Radiant suppressed a smile. Pretty sure she’d hooked her. “Or the trial will proceed without the key witness, likely resulting in the suspect going free and unable to be re-tried for the same crime.”
The brigadier pulled her boots off the desk and leaned forward. “What’s so bad about seeing the future? A fr – someone I know told me that’s illegal, but not all the details.”
She was asking questions. Excellent. All Radiant had to do was reel her in. “Magical experts believe that seeing the future forces it to happen. Debate still rages as to whether and how much one can influence what is seen, but regardless, inflicting determinism on others is a violation of their rights.”
“So if this person looked at the future and happened to see… see me, I don’t know, kill someone,” said the brigadier, as if that was a totally casual random example with no relation to anything, “It would have to happen, no matter what?”
Radiant hadn’t meant to take it there, but since the brigadier did herself… “Correct,” nodded Radiant.
“Fine,” said the brigadier, standing abruptly, holster and rapier sheath jostling against her leg. “Let’s go.”
“Thank you, brigadier Morowa-Arnesdotr,” Radiant said.
“Just Kat,” growled Kat.
Radiant held out the official document for transit security. “A warrant to inspect the premises and retrieve a ghost. Justiciar Radiant -” she pointed at herself – “and Kat.” She couldn’t quite tell whether Kat was amused or upset that she hadn’t used her title, but Radiant was pleased as unarmed strike either way. She’d done exactly what Kat told her to do.
The security officers seemed quite relieved. Radiant had been briefed on all the trouble the ghost was causing at transit control: bashing doors open, turning over tables, interfering with power and safety systems and jamming radio frequencies – like a Protectorate officer creating cover on a smash-and-grab raid.
She dismissed transit security. Radiant knew her way.
The building was recent, but designed in the old blackstone style, as if the streetcar control network had been built three or four hundred years ago. Polished shine, blackwood panels, all of it. “Has this case not come across your desk?” Radiant asked as they moved toward the transit control hub.
“It has,” replied Kat, watching the doors and corners, “But so have lots of higher-priority cases.”
“Higher priority for Ravenshore, or for the king of Aulonia?” Radiant asked, too sarcastically. Unprofessional.
“I work for the king, not for Ravenshore,” Kat said again.
Radiant shrugged. The shield on her back shifted. “I heard brigadiers choose their assignments freely.”
“Yeah, well, I choose not to get fired for taking too many liberties.”
Hm. Well, perhaps Kat did see the issue, the possible contradictions inherent in imposing Aulonian law on Ravenshore, even if the city did legally belong to the king with no remaining heirs to the Baron Ravenholm. But still she chose herself, not the city.
“I swore my oaths to Ravenshore and its constitution,” Radiant said.
“Not to some foreign king, I know, you’re not the first person ever to disagree with me,” Kat snapped. “In case you forgot, it turned out that a lot of the people in charge of Ravenshore -“
“Those people are not Ravenshore,” said Radiant, “And Ravenshore is not them.” She paused in front of a pair of secure double doors, steel made to look like carved wood. “We’re here.”
Kat frowned; her eyes flicked back to the intersection. “How’d you know where to go? This place is a maze and I haven’t seen any signs.”
The question was irrelevant and Radiant liked to keep her personal life separate from work. Not official regulation, though, and she still wanted Kat on her side… “My mother is a foundry worker for Ravenshore transit, with enough skill and seniority to semi-regularly advise transit control and management on projects and materials. I’ve been here before.”
To Radiant’s surprise, Kat actually perked up a bit. “Oh, that’s kind of interesting. Wh -“
The steel doors blasted open as if a big-ass giant kicked them from the inside. On well-trained split-second instinct, Radiant cast a protective barrier, a shimmer of translucent silver shielding Kat from the worst of the impact. She didn’t have time to focus on herself – the heavy door bashed Radiant’s nose halfway into her face with a blinding spike of pain.
She found herself sitting against the wall opposite the doors. Lucky she hadn’t hit her head. The mail and padding under Radiant’s suit softened the impact on the rest of her body, so only her bruised skin and muscle felt like the time she’d been shot with an old cannon, not her bones and organs. Still, she’d have much preferred an extra half-second to summon her oath armour. Radiant touched her nose, let the light of her oath more-or-less reconstruct her cartilage and stop the bleeding. Too late to save her white dress shirt, though.
Kat recovered first, obviously. She stepped to Radiant, offered a hand. The one not holding that chrome revolver. “Shit, are you okay? Your nose -“
“It’s fine,” Radiant said, and stood up on her own – Kat wouldn’t expect her weight. She noted Kat’s instinct to draw her gun before her rapier. “Are you all right? I worried your antimagic would interfere with the protection spell.”
Kat cocked her head, probably wondering how Radiant knew about the antimagic. Not that it was a secret after the news reports on how Kat fought the Baron’s Nightmares. “No,” Kat said, “I’m fine. Thanks.”
She was still holding the gun. Radiant motioned toward it. “You’re not planning to use that, are you?”
Kat gave a perplexed frown and looked at the revolver. “I’m not planning to, but I might have to.”
“Absolutely not.” Radiant set her stance, drew her sword and shield. “The ghost is the key witness. It must be brought in. Under no circumstances will I allow you to destroy it.”
Kat opened her mouth, then changed her mind and closed it. Radiant nodded and led the way.
Power was out in transit control. Save for harsh-angled illumination spilling in from the hallway, the cavernous room was lit like a flamedrake’s lair: shadows and dim outlines cast by emergency lamps. Not that flamedrake lairs had emergency lamps.
Radiant could only reconstruct the layout by what she knew she should see. Tables and desks were overturned, chairs and filing cabinets hurled as if by a titan’s sneeze, the small status bulbs mounted throughout network maps on the walls glinted sharp like smashed crystal.
“This is a mess,” Kat whispered. “I’d heard there were problems with the streetcar network, but I didn’t realize -“
“We aren’t here to save the transit network,” Radiant reminded her.
Behind her, Kat huffed, and Radiant was sure she rolled her eyes. “I know. We’re here to capture the ghost. New ghosts can be so disoriented, though, with overwhelming emotions and strange abilities they can’t -“
“Capture only,” Radiant repeated, putting as much steel into her voice as she could muster.
A wheeled office chair flew at Radiant’s head. She knocked it aside with her shield, taking care to send it away from Kat. “Better get started. How does this work?”
Behind her, Radiant heard metal on leather: Kat holstering her gun. Good. Kat flexed her fingers and said “I need some time to focus. Could be a few minutes. Best in the middle of the room.”
Radiant nodded. “Stay close,” she said, and hit her shield with her sword, steel ringing like a muffled bell. She cast a sphere of silver light around them, a shimmer that would block projectiles but not air. A few small objects – a desk lamp, some pencils, a stapler – careened out of the darkness and deflected off the shield.
She picked her way into the middle of the command area where the devastation was worst. Furniture and typewriters and radio equipment had been blown away in a wide radius, leaving a clear space.
“Okay, here goes,” Kat said, breathing deep. “This will probably interfere with -“
Radiant’s bubble shield winked out and the room plunged back into darkness.
“With that,” Kat finished.
Radiant frowned, cast a silver light on the blade of her sword. It flickered, then faded. Right. Kat used antimagic to force ghosts into the open. Shouldn’t affect Radiant, but there was no point in trying to form her armour.
“There’s a flashlight in my bag,” Kat said.
Radiant transferred her sword to her shield hand, doing her best to watch the darkness for flying furniture. She reached into Kat’s side bag, rummaged for a moment, found a couple of heavy cylinders. With a quick wrap-around of tape, Radiant secured the flashlight to the blade of her sword. She raised her shield, rested the blade on the shield’s upper lip, and circled around Kat, tracing the flashlight’s beam around the room.
Kat was doing something with her hands, eyes closed and focused, like she was trying to squish an invisible box. Radiant wasn’t sure what that was about, but she wasn’t going to let Kat be interrupted.
Behind her, a bulb on a network map erupted like a reporter’s camera – no, like a flashbang grenade. She was briefly blinded, but Radiant waved her shield around in case – yes, a desk drawer smashed against the shield. She knocked it aside, only for another to punch her gut. Radiant’s breath blew out, but she forced herself to straighten and continue her watch.
“If it’s already this violent,” Kat grunted, “It’ll probably get worse as I force it in.”
“Acknowledged,” Radiant said aloud, while on the inside she said well, son of an alchemist’s asshole.
The ghost was getting nastier – it hurled a shelf of hardcover books, a box of broken light bulbs, a toolbox full of screwdrivers and wire cutters – but Radiant spotted a rhythm. There was time between every throw and smash, as though the ghost had to physically move from object to object, constrained by the memory of its mortal form. Once Radiant found that rhythm, her shield sang like a xylophone battered by a fallen box of nails. She blocked every attack, fended off even the heavy furniture.
As Kat’s antimagic forced the ghost inward, its options declined. Radiant wasn’t a fan of that – the closest objects were the heaviest ones the ghost’s original blast hadn’t blown away. Silently, Radiant urged Kat to hurry, to get the ghost past the line of –
Heavy steel desks rattled and one leapt off the floor toward Radiant. She dropped her sword and braced both arms against her shield, leaned in, and pushed. The impact jellified her forearms, but luckily just the nerves, not the bones, and she killed the desk’s momentum. She shook out her arms, tried to get feeling back into her fingers.
“Careful,” Kat said, as if Radiant hadn’t been this whole time, “The ghost should be very close, but I can’t force it to be visible.”
Radiant nodded, bent to retrieve her sword and makeshift light. She was breathing hard, and she’d have a lot of bruises in the morning, but she’d been through worse.
Before she could reach it, the sword leapt to her throat. Radiant snatched the hilt with her free hand and snapped her shield up, but the point pressed against steel, forced Radiant to her knees. Fuckbuckets, this thing was strong. “Talk to it,” Radiant gasped. “Can’t breathe. Talk it down.” The shield pressed against her throat. She backed away, meaning toward the floor, but the sword pushed on, grinding into her steel. She could hold out.
“Hey,” Radiant heard. Kat, trying not to yell at the ghost. “You’re Protectorate. You don’t kill people. This is Justiciar Radiant, a Ravenshore court paladin. She’s not the one who did this to you.”
With every word, more air burned from Radiant’s lungs. She’d manage.
“We need you to be a witness against the person who killed you,” Kat continued, her tone rising. Getting desperate. “We only have a few hours. You need to let her go and come with us.”
Spots and curtains of light danced in Radiant’s vision like the aurora, probably, she’d never seen them. She gasped for breath like an idiot autoerotic asphyxiant but no air could get past the shield that was forcing her windpipe shut like an untrained amateur domme. She couldn’t stop thinking in similes and they were getting worse so that was a bad sign. The room went dark as – well, darker.
“Hey!” Kat was losing it. “Let her go!”
A click of steel, like a tiny hammer, but what –
Oh fu
Radiant was coughing, each spasm agony in her throat. She’d blacked out. She brushed her neck with a silver-lit finger, magic easing some pain but not enough to fully reconstruct. Before she felt properly able to speak, she hacked out: “What did you do?”
Kat had her chrome revolver in hand. Her eyes were dark and fierce. Or hollow? “It was going to kill you,” Kat said. “I tried everything I had time for. I talked, I begged, I threatened, but it was going to -“
Radiant fumbled for her sword, cut her fingertips on the blade, but hefted it at Kat. “You destroyed the witness. I told you, under no circumstances -“
“Fuck circumstances!” Kat fumbled the barrel of her gun past the hilt of her rapier to slam the revolver into its holster. She threw her hands up to show both that she’d disarmed herself and she was frustrated. “You were going to die and there was nothing else I could do!”
“You should have let me!” Radiant screamed. “Now the trial will be dismissed for lack of evidence, and an allegedly dangerous accused criminal will go free!”
Kat took a step back, but raised her voice. “I’d rather you live and have another shot than throw away -“
“I swore an oath!” Radiant squeezed her eyes shut. “You have to – I – I don’t want to die for the city, I’m not trying to, but I swore an oath, and if my life is what it takes -“
“You think I don’t know about risking my life for Ravenshore? This is just a trial, not a war -“
“You’re under arrest.” Radiant finally managed to find her work voice, calm and authoritative. “You’re under arrest for obstruction of justice and interfering in court proceedings.”
Kat went rigid. “You can’t arrest me. I’m a king’s brigadier.”
Radiant gripped her sword and shield. She worked her fingers at the leather of the straps and hilt, ground her teeth like she was chewing… something… distasteful she couldn’t find a good simile for through her incandescent fury.
Problem was, Kat was right. King MacReady’s brigadiers had some sort of immunity for operations within Aulonian territory, which Ravenshore now was, technically, according to the constitution that Radiant swore her oath to…
She wilted, let her sword and shield hang by her sides. “Let’s go. Transit authority needs to get things back in order to restore service.” Without waiting for Kat, Radiant turned and shuffled out of the control center.
Kat tried to follow for a while, probably, but Radiant ignored her. She marched the whole route back to the courthouse to report, and, once dismissed, trudged back to the edge of the cliff to look over the lower city and sigh.
Radiant wasn’t accustomed to failure, but that wasn’t what was really bothering her. It was done and she couldn’t change it. Not everything was under her control. People were flawed. Sometimes things just happened that no one could have planned for.
Brigadier Morowa-Arnesdotr, though, had made a choice.
Of course Radiant could understand wanting to save a life, especially from a ghost who was already dead and had no actual legal rights, as much as some argued they should. That wasn’t the choice that bothered her.
Brigadier Morowa-Arnesdotr had once been saved by the spirit of Ravenshore, the city elemental directly intervening to resurrect her from death – and she’d chosen to serve King MacReady instead of Ravenshore. That, Radiant couldn’t understand or defend.
She sat on a bench near the top of the Silent Falls where they slipped ceaselessly into the pool below, in the old park that Radiant believed was the heart of the city. Near the Falls, she never felt alone.
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