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.”
“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.”
CHAPTER 6
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?”
&nb
sp; 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—”
“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.”