Deadly Games (10 page)

“Er.” She was rescued from having to avoid
Sicarius’s gaze by the fact that his eyes were boring into the back
of Mancrest’s head. “We’ll see. Why don’t you tell me more about
your recent story?” She laid the newspaper on the table between
them. “The emperor is going to dine with the winners of all the
events?”

Yes, that was good. Talking about work.
Sicarius wouldn’t glare disapprovingly then, right? And maybe she
could even get some useful information out of her new contact.

With that in mind, she spent the rest of the
dinner chatting with Mancrest about the Imperial Games and avoiding
such fraught topics as hair. He had not heard of the kidnappings,
so she managed to pique his interest with those tidbits. Though he
made no promises in regard to Forge or retracting stories, by the
end of the evening, she had hope that she might make an ally out of
him one day.

* * * * *

After almost an hour of wandering the
grounds, Basilard and Akstyr found something. Rather Akstyr found
something, and Basilard waited while the younger man knelt in the
grass behind the bathhouse examining it.

What is it?
Basilard signed.

Head bent low, Akstyr did not see the
question.

Basilard nudged Akstyr’s arm, drawing the
younger man’s gaze, and repeated himself.

“It’s too dark back here,” Akstyr whispered.
“I can’t see your fingers.”

Basilard waved toward a glass globe lantern
hanging from a post and took a couple of steps that direction, but
Akstyr did not follow. His head was down again, his eyes focused on
some tiny object in his hand. Something magical? That was the only
thing Basilard could think of that would explain Akstyr’s
fascination—especially since it was too dark to examine much with
eyes alone.

He headed to the lantern, figuring Akstyr
would come show him his find sooner or later.

The number of people enjoying the summer
evening had dwindled, but people still ambled along the trails.
Voices drifted from the men’s and women’s bathhouses every time
someone opened a door. Athletes strolled back to the barracks in
pairs and groups, all friends now, but that would likely change
once the events started.

The faint scent of blackberries lingered in
the evening air. Basilard patted himself down, found one of his
collection bags, and followed his nose toward a bramble patch in
the shadows.

Frenzied grunts coming from nearby bushes
made him pause, thinking someone might be embroiled in a battle and
need help. His cheeks warmed when he realized it wasn’t the sort of
battle from which one wanted to be extricated. He supposed he
should move farther up the path and give the enthusiastic grunters
their privacy, but a post-coital chuckle made him freeze. That
laugh sounded familiar.

Basilard plucked the lantern from its wrought
iron perch and returned to the bushes. He parted the branches,
lifted the light, and revealed...

“Oh, hullo, Basilard.” A nude Maldynado
propped himself up on an elbow.

A young woman squealed, snatched a
grass-stained towel off the ground, covered herself, and sprinted
toward the women’s barracks. Judging by the speed her long bare
legs managed, she was one of the athletes, a rather embarrassed
one.

You have the night off?
Basilard
signed, an eyebrow raised.

“Not exactly.” Maldynado stood, brushed grass
off himself, and started retrieving clothing. A shoe from under the
bush, a belt from the grass, and—how did that shirt get ten feet up
in that tree? “The boss sent me to find you fellows and let you
know she’d be late. I hunted all over and didn’t see you. I did see
that exquisite young lady coming out of the baths all by herself,
though, and she appeared lonesome so I struck up a conversation,
asking if she knew how in the old days women used to compete at the
Imperial Games to win the eye of eligible warrior-caste bachelors,
and did she know I was warrior caste—I left out the part about
being disowned naturally—and would she like to...”

There were times Basilard dearly missed
having undamaged vocal cords. He would have liked to bark an,
“Enough,” to cut Maldynado off. It was bad enough few people
outside of his team could understand his sign language, but his
scars and lack of height ensured no Turgonian women looked upon him
with kind—or lascivious—eyes.

Akstyr trotted over, which fortunately
resulted in Maldynado bringing his story to an end.

“Look.” Akstyr held his hand out, oblivious
to the fact Maldynado had yet to find his trousers.

Basilard lifted the lantern, wanting to see
what had occupied the younger man’s attention so thoroughly. It
looked like...

“A cork?” Maldynado asked. “You’ve been here
for two hours and that’s all you’ve found?”

“A cork with the residue of something Made,”
Akstyr said. “A powder or maybe it was a liquid in a vial. I need
to do some research.” He snapped his fingers. “That Nurian book I
have has a section on potions, powders, and airborne inhalants. Oh,
but I’ll need Books to help me translate it. Where is he?” Akstyr
looked around and blinked in surprise when he noticed Maldynado’s
state of undress. “Why are your crabapples hanging out?”

“
Crabapples
? More like Mountain
Generals.” Maldynado made gestures with his hands to denote the
size of the largest local apple.

“Uh, whatever.” Akstyr nodded at Basilard.
“Books?”

Back that way, last I saw.
Basilard
pointed toward the other side of the grounds.

“All right, tell Am’ranthe we may have
something.” Akstyr waved the cork and jogged off. “I’ll grab him
and go back to the boneyard,” he said over his shoulder.

Excited about his find, he sprinted away
almost as quickly as Maldynado’s conquest had. A nervous thread
wove through Basilard’s belly. Akstyr had promised he would share
nothing of their discussion with anyone, but losing track of the
young man made him uneasy. Also, this left Basilard alone
with...

“So, Bas.” Maldynado slung an arm over his
shoulder. Thankfully, he had located his pants and put them on.
“Looks like we found what we needed to find tonight. We ought to be
able to head off and have a few drinks now, eh?”

Is Amaranthe still coming?

“Later, I think. She got held up.” His
easy-going smile faded. “Deret tried to set up a trap to capture
her. He used me to get to her.”

Alarm coursed through Basilard.
Is she all
right?

“She’s fine, or was when I left. Sicarius
figured it for a trap before we went in. She’s going to visit Deret
for dinner and still might get in trouble that way. You know how
she likes to take risks.” Maldynado lowered his arm and swatted a
tree branch brushing his hair. “I helped buy her groceries, but I’m
irked at Deret. I always thought him a decent fellow. Sure, I could
see him feeling compelled to set the enforcers on Sicarius’s tail,
but the boss doesn’t deserve that bounty.”

Agreed,
Basilard signed.
We
shouldn’t drink if she’s coming here. She might expect us to be
working.

Maldynado shrugged. “We can’t find magic
stuff.”

Let’s check the stadium for anything
suspicious. We haven’t yet, and the athletes should have stopped
training for the day.

His prediction proved true, and nobody
occupied the arena or the tiers of seating surrounding it. Lanterns
burned at periodic intervals, providing enough light for walking.
He and Maldynado did a lap of the track, though Basilard did not
know what to look for. Without Akstyr’s nose for magic, they would
have to search for mundane clues.

It took Maldynado only a few minutes to grow
bored of investigating. He wandered into the middle of the arena
where the furnace powering the Clank Race still burned. Someone
must have been out training recently.

Maldynado threw a couple of levers. Gears
turned, pistons clanked, and a moan of releasing steam sounded as
the massive machine powering the obstacle course started up. While
the wood and metal structure remained stationary, the moving parts
created a strange sight in the darkness. Arms and spindles rotated
and turned, propelling sharpened axes and battering rams out to
thwart someone crossing spinning logs and tiny moving platforms. In
more than one spot, bloodstains spattered the sand beneath the
contraption.

Anyone ever die at your Games?
Basilard signed.

“Oh, sure,” Maldynado said, “but I think
there are more injuries in the wrestling. Most of the people crazy
enough to do this thing are agile as foxes. But, yes, someone dies
most every year, and others lose arms and legs. People get careless
when they’re trying to earn the best time.” Maldynado tapped a
paper stuck to the side of a support post. “Looks like some cocky
athletes have posted their times already. Hm.” He eyed the machine
speculatively.

What?

“Want to try it?”

What?
Basilard signed.
After you
just told me it’s killed people?

“Come on. Odds are good Sicarius is going to
make us try it at some point anyway.” Maldynado mimicked Sicarius’s
stony face and monotone to say, “Good training.” The serious facade
lasted almost a second, before he grinned and said, “Doesn’t it
look fun?”

Basilard eyed the swinging blades, clanking
machinery, and the puffs of steam escaping into the darkness with
soft hisses. The long lost boy in him admitted it might be
enjoyable. They were not competing with anyone, so they did not
have to sprint through recklessly.

“Ah, you’re tempted, aren’t you?” Maldynado
grinned and trotted over to a giant clock, its hands visible even
in the dim lighting. “Let’s see, how do we time ourselves.... Here
we go. Loser buys the winner drinks tonight. Ready? Go!”

Maldynado threw a lever on a giant time clock
and darted up a ramp leading into the course.

What? Basilard had not agreed to the terms,
but he sprinted after Maldynado anyway. They did not get paid
enough for him to buy drinks for that bottomless gullet.

He raced up the ramp to a wooden platform
seesawing up and down. Two spinning logs stretched ahead. Maldynado
had taken the left, so Basilard ran right. He darted across as fast
as he could, staying light-footed on the rotating wood, knowing
that going slow or with tense muscles would be more likely to cause
a misstep.

He caught up with Maldynado at the next
platform.

“Look out,” Maldynado barked.

Half expecting the warning to be a trick
designed to slow him down, Basilard almost missed the man-sized
dummy swinging down at him on a series of ropes. Spikes protruded
from all of its wooden sides.

Basilard flung himself to his belly. The
dummy swung past, the draft stirring the hairs on the back of his
neck.

When he rose, Maldynado was already jumping
onto a rope that dangled from a beam. Something—spikes?—protruded
from the ground beneath.

Basilard growled and chased after Maldynado.
After the rope climb, they had to traverse along pegs sticking out
of the beam, thirty feet above the ground. A net took them to the
next obstacle. Tiny circular platforms, some only a few inches
wide, rotated about while axe blades and battering rams swung out
of the darkness. Basilard jumped and darted, relying on instincts
more than thought. By luck more than design, he reached the next
seesawing platform before Maldynado. He clambered up a mesh wall,
over a beam, through a rope swing course, and finally hurled
himself into a net where he scrambled to the bottom and toward a
ten-foot wall.

He burst over that last obstacle and sprinted
to a finish line, beating Maldynado by several seconds. He
staggered a couple of weary steps and collapsed in the sand to
rest.

Stars had come out overhead, though they were
not as bright as those he had once known in his mountain home. He
inhaled deeply; here, surrounded by grass and trees, the air was
cleaner than in the city core, but it still smelled of burning wood
and coal. A homesick twinge ran through him, an aching for a life
to which he could never return.

“Great time, Bas.” Maldynado stood by the
giant clock. “You were as fast as some of these athletes. Pretty
impressive considering this is your first time doing it. Of course,
I would have beaten you, but I was a touch weary from my earlier
vigorous exertions.”

Basilard was about to sit up when a dark
figure loomed over him. Sicarius.

The flickering illumination from a lantern
hanging on the obstacle course frame cast his face half in shadow,
half in light, enhancing his hard, angular features. When he stared
down, Basilard struggled not to cringe or show any nervous
reaction. Sicarius could not know what he and Akstyr had been
discussing earlier. He had just arrived.

“What’s going on, gentlemen?” Amaranthe’s
voice came from a few paces away. “Finding anything
interesting?”

Basilard jumped to his feet and faced her,
glad for the excuse to turn his shoulder toward Sicarius. He had
sensed Sicarius’s suspicions toward him since the incident in the
shaman’s hideout, and now he knew why. He must suspect Basilard
would one day find out about his crimes in Mangdoria. That wariness
would make it all the more difficult to surprise him.

“We found out Basilard can run the Clank Race
as fast as some of these pampered athletes,” Maldynado said.

“Oh?” Amaranthe regarded him with more
interest than Basilard thought the statement warranted. “That might
be perfect,” she said, talking more to herself than him.

What?
Basilard signed.

“It seems the winners of each event get to
have dinner with the emperor. That’ll be...thirty-six people, but
most of those youngsters won’t have anything to talk about.”

Maldynado smirked. “I like how you talk about
youngsters as if your twenty-six years make you venerable and wise,
boss.”