Deadly Games (13 page)

“I’m not racing.” Maldynado pointed at
Basilard. “He is.”

“Oh?” Mancrest asked. “No bounty on your
head?”

Basilard ran his fingers over the scarred
flesh of his scalp. The sweat had dried, leaving his skin dusty and
warm beneath the sun.
No.

“Surprising. You look...” Mancrest shrugged,
perhaps thinking better of offering what could only have been an
insult.

“Thugly?” Maldynado suggested.

Basilard frowned at him.

Maldynado slung an arm over his shoulder.
“Basilard’s a good fellow. Only fights when he hasn’t got a choice.
And besides, who would waste money putting out a bounty for a
foreigner?”

Basilard removed Maldynado’s arm.

“I understand Amaranthe is researching the
kidnappings here, too. I want to exchange notes with her,” Mancrest
said.

“Does that mean you believe what really
happened when the emperor was kidnapped?” Maldynado asked.

“It means...sometimes present deeds count for
more than past actions.”

Basilard shook his head wistfully, wishing
that were true. Neither man caught his movement. He missed being a
more viable part of conversations. He missed...mattering.

“Anyway,” Mancrest said, “I’m interested in
what she knows about the missing people. Tell her I’d like to meet
her at—”

“You don’t get to pick any more meeting
places,” Maldynado said.

“Fine, what do you propose?”

“I’ll tell her you’ll be at Pyramid Park two
hours before midnight.”

“That sounds like a good place to get your
head thumped in and have your purse stolen,” Mancrest said.

“Not with Sicarius around.”

Mancrest snorted. “He’s just as likely to
thump my head in as a pack of gang kids.”

“Quit whining. You’re warrior caste, not some
defenseless kitten.” Maldynado pointed a finger at Mancrest’s nose.
“And if there are enforcers lying in wait, we’ll know not to trust
you. And you better believe Sicarius will do more than thump on
you, too.”

“Any chance you can tell him he’s not
invited?” Mancrest asked.

“I’ll pass on your message, that’s it.”
Maldynado shooed the other man away. “We’ve got training to
do.”

As soon as Mancrest left, Maldynado asked,
“Think we can trust him?”

Doubtful
, Basilard signed.

“Think that’ll keep Amaranthe from meeting up
with him again?”

Doubtful
, Basilard signed again, this
time with a wry twist to his lips.

Maldynado sighed. “That’s what I
thought.”

Before they entered the boneyard, Sicarius
stopped Amaranthe with a hand on her arm. He pointed at plumes of
black smoke wafting into the sky ahead of them. Overgrown
blackberry bushes and the rusted carcasses of locomotives hid the
source.

“Bonfire?” Amaranthe guessed.

“No. Listen.”

Amaranthe closed her eyes and cocked an ear
in the direction of the smoke. Despite the homeless and hunted that
camped in the boneyard, quiet ruled there, except for the cicadas
that favored the trees on the southern end. She and Sicarius were
at the northern entrance, though, closest to the city, and she
heard nothing beyond chirping birds. A working train rumbled by to
the west, following the tracks along the lake and into Stumps.
Wait. She listened harder. Maybe that was not a locomotive, and
maybe it was not far enough west to be on the tracks.

“Steam carriage?” she asked. “No, I can’t
imagine anyone wealthy enough to own one spending time here.
Enforcer wagon more likely.”

Amaranthe took a step in the direction of the
smoke, intending to check it out, but Sicarius had not released her
arm.

“Don’t you want to investigate?” she asked.
“Or did you want to stand here and fondle my arm for a while?”

He released her. “I was alerting you to the
potential of trouble so we could avoid it.”

“So...no interest in arm fondling, eh?”

She expected him to ignore her or perhaps
sigh. Instead, he said, “Were that my goal, your
arm
wouldn’t be my target.”

Amaranthe blinked. “Why, Sicarius, is it
possible you have a playful side beneath your razor-edged knives,
severe black clothing, and humorless glares?”

“I will lead.” Sicarius headed into the
boneyard. “Make no noise.”

She was the one to sigh, but she followed him
anyway. One day, after they finished their work and made peace with
the emperor, she was going to drag him off some place where it
would be impossible to train and the only acceptable activity was
having fun. She had heard of tropical islands in the Gulf where the
inhabitants welcomed everyone with bead necklaces and feasts. Even
Turgonians were supposed to be allowed, so long as they did not
come to conquer.

Sicarius did not choose a direct path to the
smoke. He circled through weed-choked aisles between rows of boxy
freight cars. Nobody stirred in the shadowed interiors, not with
enforcers around.

Sicarius climbed the rusty side of an early
model locomotive. Salvagers had torn away the siding, removed the
wheels, and scavenged any engine parts light enough to carry.

Crouched in the shadow of the smokestack,
Sicarius waved for her to come up. She clambered to the top. They
were closer to the source of the smoke now, and she glimpsed the
top of a steam wagon between rail cars a couple of aisles over. It
gleamed with familiar red and silver paint. Enforcers.

Something clanged, like a baton striking the
metal side of a car.

“See any more?” a man called.

“We probably got the wizard already,” came
another male voice.

“The ones we’ve chained say it’s not
them.”

“Of course they’re not going to
admit
it, patroller. Not when the punishment is death.”

“They’re all gang thugs. They’re probably
going to get a death sentence anyway.”

“The lady said the wizard was
young
.”

Amaranthe mumbled, “What has Akstyr
done?”

Sicarius said nothing.

She had seen enough. She jumped down, her
feet stirring a cloud of fine dust when she landed. It tickled her
nose, and she pinched her nostrils shut. The last thing she needed
was to alert the enforcers to her presence with a mighty sneeze.
Sicarius alighted beside her, somehow not kicking up any of the
dust covering the sun-faded bricks.

“Let’s warn Akstyr and Books,” she whispered
and headed into the maze. Warn wasn’t exactly what she wanted to do
with Akstyr. Kick might be a better verb. Maybe he had a good
reason for doing something that had made someone think he was a
wizard, but she doubted it.

Their hideout lay a half a mile to the east,
close to the far boundary of the boneyard, and she hoped they would
have time before the enforcers made it over there. Between the
hundreds of rail cars and the narrow, cluttered aisles of junk and
weeds between them, the area would not be easy to navigate with a
steam wagon. Of course, she and Sicarius had been gone all day. The
enforcers might have already been to their hideout. That thought
stirred worry in her gut, but, no, even if they had searched her
section of the boneyard, their words implied they had not captured
Akstyr yet.

Amaranthe relaxed when she heard familiar
voices.

“I did
not
mistranslate it,” Books
said.

“Well, it’s not working,” Akstyr huffed. “I
tried three times.”

“Perhaps the error is not with the
translation but your interpretation.”

“Are you calling me inept, old man?”

A clang reverberated from within a rail
car.

Amaranthe and Sicarius turned down the dead
end to their hideout. Books stumbled out of the “parlor” car with a
palm pressed to his temple. She’d thought the men were past the
point of engaging in fisticuffs if she was not around to mediate,
but perhaps not.

“Did Akstyr hit you?” she asked. Maybe she
should
let the enforcers find him.

Books waved an acknowledgement of their
arrival and said, “Not exactly. His concoction emitted fumes that
caused me to lunge away and smack my head on the wall.”

Sicarius climbed the nearest car and crouched
on the roof, standing watch.

Since it appeared Books would recover,
Amaranthe gave him a pat on the shoulder and went straight to
business. “There are enforcers searching the boneyard for a young
wizard with a gang brand.”

Akstyr stuck his head out of the rail car.
The usual spiky queue he styled his hair into had sagged, leaving a
limp carrot top dangling on either side. Soot and blue goo stained
what had started out as a baggy white shirt. A faint smudge
decorated his upper lip.

“What?” he asked. “Why?”

“I thought you might know,” Amaranthe said,
reaching for her kerchief. “Been performing your arts on anybody
outside of our group?”

“I wish he wouldn’t perform them on anybody
inside
the group,” Books muttered, his hand still clutched
to his temple.

“Uhh... I don’t know what you’re talking
about,” Akstyr told Amaranthe.

“Positive?” she asked.

Akstyr shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Yes.”

“What about that girl you were talking to
this morning?” Books asked.

Akstyr scowled at him. “I can’t talk to
girls?”

“She was comely and well-dressed,” Books
said. “Maybe warrior caste.”

“What’re you saying? That no good-looking
girls would talk to me?”

“Essentially.” Books lowered his hand and
curled a lip when his fingers came away bloody.

Amaranthe glanced up at Sicarius, not sure
they should be wasting this time with the enforcers nearby. He
wriggled his fingers in one of Basilard’s signs. The predators were
closer, but not yet a threat.

“Akstyr,” Amaranthe said, “what you do with
your talents is your choice, but doing it where the group is hiding
out can get us all in trouble.”

He bent his head and kicked at a weed
thrusting from beneath one of the rusted car wheels. “I just wanted
to make some money on the side. You don’t pay us hardly nothing,
and I’ve got expenses. I don’t just drink and whore like Maldynado.
I’ve got to buy books and components for researching now.” He
jerked his elbow toward the car without taking his hands out of his
pockets.

“Understandable,” Amaranthe said. “Next
time...” She approached him with the kerchief. The smudge above his
lips was bugging her. Since his hands were occupied, she figured
she could clean it off before he objected. She dampened it and
swiped it beneath his nose.

“What’re you doing?” he balked.

“Cleaning that smudge,” she said.

“What smudge? There’s no smudge.”

“No, there’s definitely something there.”
Despite his protests, she managed to give it a good rub.

“Amaranthe, you’re tormenting the lad,” Books
said, though his eyes glinted with amusement.

“Huh,” she said. “It won’t come off. Oh, it’s
hair.”

“It’s
not
hair.” Akstyr stepped out of
reach. “It’s a mustache.”

“I don’t see anything,” Books said.

“That’s because you’re senile.” Akstyr lifted
his nose and smoothed his upper lip to show it off. “Anyone can
plainly see that it’s coming in nicely. I’ve been working on it for
several days now.”

“I see,” Amaranthe said. “A bit on the wispy
side still.”

“Wispy and invisible,” Books muttered.

She shook her head and settled for wiping
some of the goo off of Akstyr’s face and shirt. He sighed deeply
under this torture.

“As I was saying,” Amaranthe said, “next
time, just come to me if you need help purchasing items that can
benefit the group. I’ll find a way to get the money.”

“And don’t be a dolt and bring your...clients
here,” Books said. “What’d you do for her anyway?”

Amaranthe wondered that, too. And how had the
woman known to find Akstyr? Honored ancestors, he didn’t have
flyers out around the city, did he?

“Healed her,” Akstyr said.

“Nothing appeared to ail her,” Books
said.

“Look, it was her toenail, all right? Some
fungus. It was all black and nasty. Could we not talk about it?
This isn’t exactly what I dreamed about when I started studying
this stuff. It’s embarrassing. I wish I could go to Kyatt or
somewhere that I could study real Science and learn to do
interesting things.”

Leave the empire? Was that the goal to which
he aspired? Amaranthe supposed she could understand that, given the
danger his studies brought him here, but she would have to keep an
eye on him. If he planned to leave, he probably did not care about
exoneration or accolades from the emperor. The day might come when
his goals were at odds with hers.

“Well...” Amaranthe rested a hand on her
belly. “I’ve found your healing skills to be
quite
interesting. And useful. In a thank-you-for-saving-my-life kind of
way.”

Akstyr grunted.

“And please update your flyers to make sure
people know you’d rather visit them than have them visit here,” she
added.

“I don’t have
flyers
.”

“Update whatever your promotional method is,”
Amaranthe said. “Now, tell me about your research. Did you find
anything?”

“Oh!” Akstyr clambered into the rail car.

“I didn’t mean to send him scurrying away,”
she murmured.

“We found a fine yellow powder inside a divot
in the cork,” Books said. “It was visible only with a magnifying
glass.”

Akstyr popped back out again, a hefty tome
balanced in his arms. He held it open, displaying weathered pages
full of foreign text comprised of sweeping curlicues and
complicated symbols. Amaranthe could not imagine writing a page in
the ornate script, much less an entire book.

“What language is that?” she asked.

“It’s Nurian,” Books said, “though a
calligraphy version. It was most difficult to translate, and it did
not help that someone was impatiently breathing down—”