Deadly Games (14 page)

“Just look at the picture.” Akstyr tapped the
page.

Several yellow dots were sprinkled around a
homely brown root with more kinks and snarls than a hair ball.

“That’s the powder that was on the cork?” she
asked. “It comes from that root?”

“This
might
be the powder,” Akstyr
said. “I’m...not real experienced at identifying things yet.”

“An understatement.” Books massaged his
temple.

“If this is the right powder, the root it’s
made from can make you sleepy if you eat it. But wizards have
tinkered with it, and there’s a recipe here for enhancing its
effects, so it can knock someone out completely.”

“Is it put in food or water?” Amaranthe
asked.

“It can be, but it’s so fine that people have
also made blow tubes and breakable capsules for distributing it in
the air. Breathing it can be enough to knock you out.”

“So, it’s Nurian?” Amaranthe thought of
Arbitan Losk. Was it possible another Nurian had come to the
capital with a plan to disrupt the empire? Or to get at the emperor
somehow? Tradition mandated he would be at the final days of the
Imperial Games, and there was that dinner.... She did not know how
disappearing athletes might be used against him though. Could
someone be getting the competition out of the way so a particular
loyal athlete would make it to the end to get close to the emperor?
For an assassination attempt? But, if so, why bother to kidnap so
many people, across multiple events?

“Maybe.” Akstyr tossed his head, flicking
hair out of his eyes. Thanks to his errant experiments, it had the
same snarls and tangles as the root today. “Maybe not. The root is
from the Nurian continent, but it’s actually the Kyattese that made
the powder and have done most of the experimenting with it.”

“They wouldn’t attack the empire, though,”
Amaranthe said. “Or would they? They’re supposedly a peaceful folk
with academic tendencies, but we did try to conquer them a couple
of decades ago. Could they be harboring thoughts of revenge?”

Akstyr looked around. “Are you still talking
to me? ‘Cause I dunno about that stuff.”

“No, just thinking out loud. Books?” she
asked, thinking to draw him into the conversation—he had wandered
away and seemed to be looking for a cloth for his cut.

“Anyone home?” Maldynado’s voice came from
the distance.

Amaranthe winced at the loudness of it.

“We’ve got news for—ouch!”

She jogged out of the dead end to find
Sicarius standing before Maldynado and Basilard. Maldynado was
clutching his shoulder.

“Lower your voice,” Sicarius said. “Enforcers
are nearby.”

“You could have started with that instead of
throwing a rock at me,” Maldynado muttered. He spotted Amaranthe
and said, “Mancrest wants to meet with you.”

Sicarius glared. Maldynado was lucky he had
waited until after the rock throwing to deliver this
information.

“You arranged another meeting for me?”
Amaranthe asked. “Are we certain enforcers and army officer
brothers won’t be involved?”

Maldynado thumped his chest. “
I
set
the meeting place this time. Tomorrow night, Pyramid Park. Nobody
could possibly ambush you there.”

She snorted and looked at Sicarius, thinking
of their first meeting. He hadn’t exactly ambushed her, but he had
appeared behind her as if by magic. She still did not know how he
had gotten there without using the only set of stairs leading to
the top. He appeared to be too busy glaring at Maldynado to ask
just then.

“All right,” Amaranthe said. “Did he
sound...interested in hearing more from me? Did you arrange things
again, or was it his idea?”

“His idea,” Maldynado said. “He wants to talk
about the kidnappings, but he sounded interested in you. And wanted
you to leave Sicarius at home.” Maldynado winked. “I think you
charmed him. Maybe he’s ready to take you to dinner.”

If Sicarius’s glare grew any frostier, it
would leave icicles dangling from Maldynado’s lashes. Or perhaps an
ice spear thrust between his eyes.

“It’s likely another trap,” Sicarius told
Amaranthe.

“This Mancrest thing isn’t the priority now,”
Amaranthe said. Eager to change the subject, she added, “I’d like
you gentlemen to get out of the boneyard before the enforcers amble
through. Please assist Books and Akstyr in their research. Sicarius
and I have something to do tonight and may be back late.”

“Nothing that will make Deret jealous, I
hope.” Maldynado snickered, as if he had made some fabulous
joke.

* * * * *

The building trembled as a locomotive rumbled
into the station down the street. From the darkness of The Brewed
Puppy rooftop, Amaranthe watched a tenement building across the
street while she waited for Sicarius to join her. The stench of
burning meat wafted up to her, mingling with an omnipresent thick
yeasty smell oozing from the building’s pores, and Amaranthe judged
the old woman’s dismal opinion of the eating house’s quality to be
accurate.

With her elbows propped on a low wall and a
spyglass raised to her eye, she checked each window, searching for
a man with a woman and two young boys. She did not know if she
would recognize Raydevk based on a vague memory of the man’s
father, but if she found the right combination of people...

She paused. Could that be it? Beyond a
third-story window, a woman sat, knitting on a couch in a
clutter-filled, one-room flat. Toys littered the floor at her feet.
While Amaranthe was trying to judge if the carved wood blocks and
automata represented boys’ or girls’ playthings, two youngsters
scampered into view from behind a room partition formed by
furniture draped with clothing. They chased each other around the
woman’s chair, but an upraised hand and word from her halted that.
She thrust a finger toward another clutter-partition, this one with
a curtain hanging on a rod to delineate a door. The children
disappeared into the dark space. Their sleeping area, Amaranthe
assumed.

Voices sounded below as a couple exited the
eating house, and she shifted her elbow to move the spyglass from
her eye. Something gooey made her sleeve stick. She drew her arm
back with a grimace and picked off tar.

She yawned and glanced around her rooftop
perch, thinking of Sicarius’s warning to check her surroundings
frequently. Moonlight gleamed against a stovepipe and provided
enough illumination to confirm nothing stirred nearby. No doors led
to the lower levels of The Brewed Puppy—she had climbed up via a
drainpipe—and she doubted anyone except Sicarius would sneak up on
her. She returned her attention to the brick building across the
way.

“Is he there?” came Sicarius’s voice from
behind her.

Amaranthe almost dropped the spyglass.

“Not yet,” she said, putting her back to the
wall so she could face him.

It took her a moment to pick him out,
standing in the shadows of a chimney. Had he just arrived? Or had
he been testing her? Seeing if she would notice him before he
announced himself? And why did she always feel like he was an army
instructor, bent on training her to be a better soldier?

“You found a uniform?” Amaranthe asked.

He glided out of the shadows, soundless, like
a haunting ancestor spirit. The moonlight did not reveal the color
of his outfit, but it appeared less dark than his usual black, and
she thought she detected familiar silver piping and buttons. A boxy
cap covered much of his blond hair.

“Yes,” he said.

She touched his sleeve when he knelt beside
her, and her fingers met the familiar scratchy wool of an enforcer
uniform. She wore hers as well, the only article of clothing she
had retained from her old life.

“Did you...uhm, where’d you find it?”
Amaranthe had asked him not to maul anyone for a uniform, though he
did tend to do things his own way.

“Clothesline.”

“Oh, good.” Her hand bumped an enforcer-issue
short sword hanging from his belt. He had not found
that
on
a clothesline, but it was a typical part of the uniform, so she
decided not to ask. She wore one, too, as well as handcuffs. She
pointed at the window she had identified earlier. “I think I’ve
spotted the wife and children. Maybe we should...interview her
before the husband gets home.” Yes, “interview” sounded friendlier
than interrogate. “She might know what he’s up to. I can talk to
her, see what I can learn, and you can snoop and see what you can
learn.”

“Too late,” Sicarius said. “The husband has
arrived. Or an enthusiastic lover.”

“Huh?” Amaranthe lifted the spyglass to check
on the flat again, but jerked it from her eye as soon as the scene
came into focus. “Ugh. I don’t want to walk in on that.”

“They’ll stop.” Sicarius started for the
drainpipe leading to an alley below.

“Maybe we should wait until they’re done,”
Amaranthe said.

“Why?”

“I’m sure he’ll be in a better mood
afterward. Would you want to be interrupted in the middle
of...stoking the furnace?”

He said nothing. He probably thought it
ridiculous to worry about such a thing.

“We’ll just wait here and...” She groped for
a way to pass time that would not make Sicarius balk. Chat? No.
Draw a grid and play Dirt Defender? No, not enough light. Emulate
the people across the street? Hah. Sure.

“Watch?” Sicarius said when her silence went
on.

“What? No! I used to arrest people for
that.”

Grunts drifted up to the rooftop. The lovers
had clambered out of their window and were undressing each other on
the fire escape. That was one way to avoid waking the children,
Amaranthe supposed. Though the neighbors might not appreciate
it.

“We could discuss the team uniform,” she
said, joking.

“The what?”

“Maldynado thinks we should have a team
uniform.”

The long silence that followed said plenty
about his opinion of the idea. She collapsed the spyglass, tucked
it into a pocket, and moved away from the edge of the roof so she
could not be seen from the fire escape. “We’ll just take our time
getting over there,” she said.

“The plan?” Sicarius asked.

Yes, it would not be as easy for him to snoop
with two adults in the room. “Back to the original.” Amaranthe
patted a pocket that held a forged document neatly folded into
quarters. “It seems we have the magistrate’s permission to search
the premises.”

“If they recognize one of us?” Sicarius
asked.

“I doubt they will. Miners don’t get much
time off to roam the city and peruse wanted posters.”

“If your source is correct, this one
does.”

“We’ll adjust the plan if need be,” she
said.

“It would be far simpler to go in, grab him,
and force him to answer questions.”

“Sicarius...” Amaranthe hung her head.
“Sespian is never going to want to get to know someone whose
solution for every problem is torturing people. I know it’s
efficient, but I don’t think he’s someone who can respect a man who
isn’t humane.”

“Humane,” Sicarius said flatly.

“Yes. At least in one’s actions. Nobody can
be judged for what’s in his thoughts, eh?”

“And the
humane
thing to do is to
disguise ourselves as enforcers and lie to these people to obtain
answers.”

Er, she hated it when she was trying to be
morally superior and someone pointed out that her idea was only
slightly less sketchy. “I think it’s a...humane option, yes. If all
goes well, nobody will be hurt. Is it ideal? Perhaps not, but I
don’t know of an ideal situation. I’m beginning to think our
circumstances preclude those. But maybe it’s always been that way.
If the legends are anything to go by, being a hero doesn’t mean
being perfect. Being a hero means overcoming those imperfections to
do good anyway.” There that sounded plausible. Or pompous. Was she
truly comparing the two of them to the great heroes of old?
“Anyway, I think Sespian is far more likely to admire someone who
eschews the easy solution, however efficient, in favor of the one
that does no harm. I’m sure of it.”

Sicarius said nothing at first, and she
winced in anticipation of a cold reaction. Surely the
philosophizing of a twenty-six-year-old woman could only make him
snort in derision. Inwardly anyway. He would never deign to be that
expressive outwardly.

“I see,” Sicarius finally said. “And are
you?”

“Am I what?” she asked. Her own thoughts had
sidetracked her.

“More likely to admire someone like
that.”

Huh. Did he
care
what she thought of
him? Enough that he might make a humane decision instead of a
practical one? For her? She found herself reluctant to test that
hypothesis, for she might be disappointed—and hurt—if it proved
false down the road. “I know it’s the nature of women to try and
change men, but you don’t have to do anything on my behalf. I’m
just trying to help with Sespian. In my arrogance, I think I’m more
like him than you are, and I may have more insight into what would
make him...interested in knowing you.”

“Not arrogance. Fact. They’ve completed their
coitus. Let’s go.”

Amaranthe blinked at his abrupt switching of
topics, but she recovered and jogged after him. They skimmed down
the drainpipe, waited for a couple of locals to enter the eating
house, and crossed the street to the apartment building. She
slipped past Sicarius to open one of the double doors and step
inside first.

Nobody occupied the shabby parlor, and half
of the gas lamps on the walls were out. She headed for a hallway at
the back. Doors lined both sides, and the staircase she sought rose
at the far end. A faded gray runner had collected so much dirt, she
barely recognized the repeating sword pattern. She did know it had
been one of the early themes woven on the first steam looms, making
it a testament to the rug’s age.