Deadly Games (12 page)

“I imagine your father would be
horrified.”

“Yes, ma’am. I imagine so.”

“He wanted so much for you,
sacrificed
so much.”

“I know, ma’am. I’m trying to...make amends
now.”

“By loitering around the stadium grounds in
the middle of the day? Are you betting on the events or
something?”

“No, I—” Amaranthe cleared her throat. She
would be here all day—or until someone caught her—if she stood
around, explaining her every action. “I was wondering about those
miners. Don’t they have work?”

“Indeed so.
They’re
not outlaws.”

“Then why aren’t they at work?” Amaranthe
asked, pushing the dig aside.

“Some scheme of Raydevk’s. I haven’t the
faintest notion of what, but they’ve been down here all week. My
grandson is racing. That’s why
I’m
here. There’s no reason
for young, able-bodied souls not to be laboring during the
workday.”

“Yes, ma’am. Ah, is that the Foreman Raydevk
my father knew?”

“No, his son. Elder Raydevk passed on last
year, Black Lung, same as your da.”

“I’d like to talk to Raydevk,” Amaranthe
said. It was a long shot, that off-work miners roaming around with
journals had anything to do with the kidnappings, but she had no
better leads. “He has a place in the city, doesn’t he?”

“Not one he’d like me to direct some outlaw
to, I’m sure. You thieving these days, too? He’s got a wife and two
sons, and he scarcely makes enough to keep them fed. He doesn’t
need any more trouble than what he’s already schemed up.”

“No thieving, ma’am. If it matters, I was
wrongfully accused, and I’m trying to clear my name. But now that
you bring it up, I think I’ve been to Raydevk’s flat. Doesn’t he
live down by the railway tracks?” She was guessing, but most of the
low-income housing was down there, near the Veterans’ Quarter. “In
that building on...” She wriggled her fingers, as if searching for
the information in her head.

“Nelview?” the old woman said.

Amaranthe snapped her fingers. “Yes, that’s
it. It’s right by that eating house, isn’t it? The...”

The woman snorted. “I’d hardly call The
Brewed Puppy an eating house. If you don’t stick to drinks, you’re
like to get sick in there.”

“That’s true enough,” Amaranthe said,
conjuring a map of that part of the city in her head. “And
Raydevk’s flat is on the second floor, right?”

The woman opened her mouth, but snapped it
shut again and gave Amaranthe a shrewd look.

“Never mind,” Amaranthe said. “I’ll find it.
Thank you for your time.”

She hustled away, hoping she could escape
before the woman shouted any parting messages, but her words
followed Amaranthe anyway.

“You’d better not thieve from him, girl. Your
father’s spirit must be twisted in knots, knowing what came of
you.”

A pair of athletes walking past from the
other direction gave Amaranthe quizzical looks. At least they
weren’t enforcers.

“Crazy old grandmother,” Amaranthe told them
with a chuckle and hustled toward the stadium.

She wanted to find the miners and see if they
might give her more information on this “scheme,” but a knot of
people blocked the entrance to the stadium. A bare-chested man
hopped onto a bench, his oiled muscles gleaming, a wooden megaphone
held to his lips.

“Sicarius, we know you’re out there!” he
shouted.

Amaranthe tripped and almost fell over.

“I, Erton Garthcrest, challenge you,” the man
went on. “If you’re half the man the rumors say, come and prove it.
Enter the wrestling and see if you’re my match!” He finished by
thumping his fist against his muscled chest, which was so puffed
out that he looked like he could tip over backward and fall off the
bench at any moment.

The bystanders cheered at the short speech.
Amaranthe wanted to go around and into the stadium, but the cheers
went on. “More,” someone hollered, “Bring out Sicarius,” and that
started a chant of, “Sicarius, Sicarius.” This drew more people to
the scene.

The entire episode had an orchestrated feel
to it, and Amaranthe thought about creeping closer to see if she
could identify the ringleader in the crowd, but several enforcers
trotted out of the stadium and headed for the group.

Amaranthe eased off the path. With the
enforcers extra alert to trouble, this wasn’t the time for her to
roam about inside.

She headed for the shrubs where she had last
seen Sicarius, but did not find him. She continued on toward the
greenbelt, figuring he would have gone that way. They had been
following the railways from the boneyard to the grounds the last
couple of days.

Before she had taken more than three steps
into the trees, Sicarius’s voice came from behind the brush.

“You found trouble,” he said.

“I had nothing to do with those people
calling your name,” Amaranthe said. “It seems you’re a popular
fellow around these parts.”

“Too popular.”

“Yes, it’s suspicious. Think someone is
trying to get you to make an appearance?”

“Unknown.” He gazed toward the stadium,
though foliage hid the crowd from view. Perhaps at the enforcers’
behest, the shouts of “Sicarius” had stopped.

Amaranthe summarized her conversation with
the woman for him. “I want to find this Raydevk’s flat, but let’s
check in on Books and Akstyr first. It’s hard to imagine Turgonian
miners coming up with a scheme that involves magic, but I’d like a
better idea about what we’re dealing with, just in case. Unless you
want to go off and start training for the wrestling event?” she
asked, since his gaze was still toward the stadium. “Did that
fellow with the megaphone tempt you?”

Sicarius looked at her as if he suspected her
of having received a brain-damaging head wound. “It would be
foolish for me to go anywhere near the stadium once the Imperial
Games begin, certainly not into the arena.”

He turned his back on the grounds and led her
deeper into the woods. They passed a human-sized statue of an
arachnid that must have once had a head, for it was hewn off with
the granite stump now fuzzed with moss. Another victim of Mad
Emperor Motash’s mandate to decapitate all statues from the old
religions.

“True,” Amaranthe said, “but some men have
egos that demand they prove themselves whenever challenged.”

“That is why they are dead, and I am
not.”

“I guess that explains your longevity.” She
grinned. “I knew it wasn’t a matter of your amiable, warm-hearted
nature endearing you to people.”

That comment received no look at all, and he
said nothing during the trip back to the boneyard. With that much
silence surrounding Amaranthe, her mind was left to its own musing,
and, not for the first time, she wondered why Sicarius’s name kept
coming up here—and why someone would risk impersonating him. She
also wondered what had happened to Fasha to keep her from meeting
Amaranthe.

“Questions,” she muttered to herself.
“Nothing but questions.”

* * * * *

“What are you doing? I thought you were going
on two more runs before taking a break. You’re timing is still off
on those swinging axes.”

Basilard flopped onto his back, hot sweat
streaming down his cheeks. Maldynado stood over him, fists propped
on his hips. The Clank Race whirred and hissed behind him. Most of
the other athletes had left, though a young man was timing himself
on sprints up the nets.

You’re a worse taskmaster than
Sicarius,
Basilard signed.

“That’s because you don’t seem motivated. You
have to win to have dinner with the emperor. I thought that
mattered to you. You want to talk to him on behalf of your people
and slaves in the city, don’t you?”

Basilard sighed and rolled to his knees. If
he attacked Sicarius, he would not live long enough to win
anything. Unless he succeeded. And if he did, Amaranthe would kick
him out of the group, and he’d have no one to translate his wishes
to the emperor anyway.

“Why don’t you get some water?” Maldynado
said. “Then we’ll do another round.”

Basilard stumbled to his feet with thighs
rubbery from the previous twenty runs.
We?

“We,” Maldynado said. “We’re a team. You run
the Clank Race, and I stand over here with the pocket watch and
cheer you on. I think it works well. I’m...” His eyes shifted to
watch something over Basilard’s shoulder. He frowned.

Basilard turned around to follow Maldynado’s
gaze, but did not recognize the man approaching. He wore simple,
but tailored clothing and a wide-brimmed beaver hat. Walking with a
cane made his gait uneven, but it slowed him little, and he
appeared hale. Folded spectacles hung from his shirt collar, a
pencil protruded from the band of his hat, and he carried a pad of
paper under his arm. He strode directly toward Maldynado and
Basilard.

“What do you want, Deret?” Maldynado
growled.

Basilard wondered if he should know this
person.

“I’m working on a story.” The man gave
Basilard a curious look before focusing his attention on Maldynado.
“Interviewing athletes. Trying to figure out what’s going on around
here with the missing people.”

Ah, this had to be the journalist Amaranthe
had gone to see the night before. Mancrest.

“You could apologize for trying to kill my
boss when I promised her you’d take her out to dinner and show her
a nice evening,” Maldynado said.

“You neglected to mention she was a notorious
outlaw,” Mancrest said.

“Seems you figured it out on your own. I’m
lucky you don’t turn me in.”

“For two hundred and fifty ranmyas? Why
bother?”

Maldynado’s fingers curled into a fist.

Basilard waved to get his attention.
Perhaps we should not irritate this man since there are
enforcers around and he knows who we are.

Maldynado sniffed. “I’m not going to irritate
him. I’m not going to talk to him at all.” He turned his back on
Mancrest and pointed at a couple of young men resting in the shade
of the Clank Race’s massive furnace and boiler. “Those two look
like your most promising competition, Bas.”

Basilard kept an eye on Mancrest. If
Maldynado’s dismissal bothered him, he did not show it.

“I have information for your...what is she to
you exactly?” Mancrest said. “A former lover? I can’t imagine you
trying to arrange a courtship for someone you were currently
involved with, but it’s also impossible for me to imagine you
getting out of bed to exercise before dawn at the behest of a woman
you have no feelings for. It is equally impossible for me to
imagine you living in close quarters with a woman and not sleeping
with her, or attempting to sleep with her.”

During this spiel, Maldynado had slowly
turned to face Mancrest again, and he eyed the other man with
suspicion. “Bas, was there an implied insult to the boss in there,
or is he just insulting me?”

I...think the latter
, Basilard
signed.

“All right.” Maldynado’s shoulders lowered,
and he unclenched his fists. “That’s nothing unexpected then. What
do you want me to tell her, Mancrest?”

“What is she to you?” Mancrest asked.

“My employer.”

“You’ve never gotten up early for an employer
before.” Mancrest eyed Maldynado up and down. “You look like you’re
in the best shape of your life.”

Maldynado brightened swifter than the night
sky presented with a lightning flash. “I am! Look!” He dug his
shirt out of his trousers to display the lean ridges of his
abdomen.

Basilard rolled his eyes.
There aren’t any
women around to impress.

He caught a similar eye roll from Mancrest.
Maybe the fellow wasn’t so bad after all.

“Maldynado...” Mancrest sighed.

“Look, she’s my boss and a friend, all
right?” Maldynado lowered his shirt. “And...” He prodded the dusty
clay earth with his boot. “She’s twenty-six.”

Huh? What did Amaranthe’s age have to do with
anything?

At first, Mancrest appeared as perplexed, but
then his lips formed an, “Oh.”

“Tia’s age,” Maldynado said. “And real
adventurous and quick to smile. She’s a good girl, and she doesn’t
deserve that bounty, and she probably only has it because Sicarius
is in the group. She thinks he’s useful, and I guess he is, but
nobody’s going to pardon us as long as he’s around.”

Basilard studied Maldynado’s face, wondering
if he might have another ally to turn against Sicarius. Surely if
the whole group wanted him gone...

“Yes,” Mancrest said. “I wondered about that.
If you’re not sleeping with her, is
he
?”

“Listen, Deret. This isn’t one of those
smutty Aleeta Dourcrest novels your mother has lying all over the
house. We’re a professional team of mercenaries. Elite even.
Nobody’s sleeping with anybody.” He hesitated and whispered to
Basilard. “They’re not, right?”

I don’t think so.

A hint of relief lightened Mancrest’s face,
and Basilard thought the man’s interest in Amaranthe curious,
especially given that he had tried to turn her over to the
army.

“Didn’t my mother catch you reading one of
those novels when you were over to play in the pond with me and my
brother?” Mancrest asked.

“No.”

Mancrest folded his arms over his chest.

“Well, fine, maybe. I wanted to know what
women like, and some of that information has proved useful to me
over the years.”

Ask what he wants to tell Amaranthe,
Basilard signed, hoping to keep Maldynado from wandering off
track.

“Right,” Maldynado said. “Just tell us what
you want. We have training to do.”

“You’re not entering an event, are you? While
nobody is going out of the way to turn you in for that measly
bounty, I’m sure if you were right here in front of everybody on
race day, even the enforcers could bestir themselves to walk the
ten meters to the finish line to lock you up.”