Deadly Games

  Great. Sicarius was missing, and that caused a celebratory mood. Maybe Amaranthe should have led an exercise session, despite his absence.

  Books clambered up beside her. “No sign of him yet?” He nodded toward the metal-filled vista.

  Amaranthe shook her head once.

  “I’m sure he’s fine,” Books said. “He’s always disappearing to do...whatever it is he does when he disappears.”

  “Not when he’s on an assignment for the team.” Amaranthe sat down on one of the crates Maldynado had dragged up while claiming that a person could stand watch just as well sitting down as he could fully upright.

  “He’s probably trying to fulfill his assignment then. Perhaps he’s chanced onto something good and needs to observe it before reporting back.”

  “Perhaps.” Amaranthe rubbed her eyes. She had lain awake most of the night, waiting for Sicarius’s return, and, as the hours had dwindled on, she had begun to question herself for sending him after the miners. They had seemed innocuous enough, but that was before she read the note with his name on it. And before the family had disappeared, leaving her with no link to the miners. “I should have let him do it his way, Books.”

  “Would that be a way that involved killing, torturing, or otherwise maiming people?”

  “I bet he could have gotten the answers we needed by applying force that didn’t do permanent damage.” She poked at a splinter of wood sticking out of the crate. “Instead I got sanctimonious and said it would be better to fool the miners into talking to us by dressing up as enforcers. If we’d done it his way, we’d probably have been finished in ten minutes, and we’d know who we were up against by now.”

  “I’d be uncomfortable working for you if you chose his way very often,” Books said.

  “Well, my way isn’t getting the sword polished.”

  “Why do you say that? We’ve accomplished noteworthy tasks under your leadership.”

  “Because we’ve been lucky. No because he’s gotten me out of trouble. My crazy ideas have almost gotten me killed a half a dozen times now, and I’ve landed the whole group in dire situations more than once. My schemes seem so tantalizing and shiny when they first come to mind, and then I jump off the dock without checking to see if the lake’s gone dry. I should stop and get Sicarius’s opinion first—and listen to it and think about it. I should get all of your opinions. What good is a group if you don’t utilize everyone to his fullest?”

  Books grunted and sat on a crate opposite from hers.

  She eyed him. “This would be the appropriate time for you to say something like, ‘Amaranthe, you’re being too hard on yourself....’”

  “Oh? I thought we’d had a conversation like this before, and you told me the woman wants to rant while the man nods and grunts in agreement.”

  “That was a little different.” She tried to smile for him, but could not, not when she remembered the events that had led up to that conversation with him on a frozen dock outside of a cannery. That night, Sicarius had helped her by slaying a squad of enforcers and her old partner. “You’re right though. Sicarius’s ways of doing things are too macabre for the group and our goals. But mine are...” She propped her chin on her fist. “What do you think, Books? I value your opinion.”

  “I don’t think we’d have accomplished what we have without your ideas. Don’t get rid of them, and don’t stop being...”

  She waited for him to say “crazy.”

  “Creative,” Books said.

  Well, that was nicer than crazy.

  “But...”

  Amaranthe braced herself. She had asked.

  “You lack prudence,” Books said. “I suspect it’s a combination of youth and the fact that, until recently, you lived your life under strict rules, first as a child obedient to your father and your school teachers, and then as an enforcer, obedient to superiors and indeed in charge of enforcing laws yourself. For the first time, you have utter freedom, and it’s natural for you to struggle to find a way that works. We all say we crave freedom, but the truth is many people hang themselves without the structure society imposes. Nobody’s done what you’re trying to do, so there’s no precedent, no guideline to follow.”

  “That is true,” Amaranthe said.

  “Since that’s the case, you should think twice and consider all possible outcomes before embarking on a plan that could get you, or someone else, captured.”

  “It’s not as if that’s always foreseeable.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure? You have a tendency to wander into the enemy camp to chat with the head villain.”

  “I don’t...” She stopped, since his eyebrows were threatening to crawl up to the top of his scalp and leap for the sky. Yes, she had done exactly that with Hollowcrest, the wizard Arbitan, and the shamans from Mangdoria. And now she had sent Sicarius off to spy on what might be the head villain.

  “You do,” Books said, “and I understand why. You get a lot of information from talking to people, and you’re smarter than average, so you probably believe you can get yourself out of any trouble you get into. When I was a professor, I found that bright people sometimes make the worst students. They don’t want to simply do the assignment; they want to add creative flair and sophistication, and they make things so complicated that they fail to finish on time.”

  “What did you say to those challenged-by-their-own-creative-flair students?” Amaranthe asked. “How did you teach them more...prudence?” She smiled, thinking he would appreciate that she used his word.

  His face grew long though, and he shook his head. “I couldn’t teach them that. Only experience could. There are a lot of platitudes that suggest age makes us wise, but the truth is it’s losing that teaches best. Making mistakes. Failing. Some people are wise enough to learn from the mistakes of others, but most need to experience failure first hand. You may need to lose something important before the lessons of life sink in.” He grimaced, perhaps thinking of his son and his own past.

  “I liked it better when you were just grunting,” Amaranthe said.

  “I’m sorry, but you asked—”

  She lifted a hand. “I know. I did. Thank you. I’ll think about your words. And I hope they’re not prophetic. I’m not ready to lose anything, especially not one of you.”

  “Well,” Books said lightly, “if you had to lose someone, Sicarius would be the least missed.”

  Amaranthe stared at him, stricken.

  “Er.” This time he raised an apologetic hand. “Sorry. It was a joke. A poor joke.”

  “He’s the only reason I’m alive, Books. He saves my life again and again, and I repay him by sending him off to be abducted or killed by whatever nefarious magic-hurling zealots are swiping athletes from the Imperial Games. Who does that to people they—” Amaranthe stopped herself from finishing the sentence, certain Books would be horrified by a proclamation that she loved Sicarius. She cleared her throat and switched subjects. “I’m hoping he’s only detained, but I feel it’d be best to go forward on the assumption he’s in trouble. If that is the case, I’d like to prudently extract him from it.” She dug out the note they had swiped from the miner’s pocket. “We lose nothing by working toward that goal, since I’m guessing, if he is missing, he’s where the rest of the athletes are.”

  While Books studied the note, she wondered at her own words. Rest of the athletes? It was applicable, if not official. Sicarius might not have ever competed in a public venue, but she had little doubt, even older than most of the field, he would be at the top if he did enter. Maybe this had nothing to do with the Imperial Games at all. Could it be someone was rounding up the most physically gifted men and women around and using this event to shop for likely candidates? Sicarius’s reputation could place him at the top of such a list even if the people doing the shopping had not seen him perform.

  If her theory were true, to what ends would someone want these people? To create some sort of mercenary army? An elite force? She curled her lip at the
idea. That was her own fantasy for the Emperor’s Edge. Aside from perhaps the wrestlers, the other athletes who had been taken were not necessarily warriors. Being able to run fast or maneuver through the Clank Race did not mean one had studied fencing or unarmed combat.

  “Any thoughts?” she asked Books.

  “Horrible penmanship.”

  “You better give me more than that if you’re going to save me from doing something imprudent.” She smiled.

  “Oh? You have an idea?”

  “I was just ruminating on the common link between the names I know. Superior athleticism.”

  “Why don’t you let me go to the stadium with Basilard today? I’ll see if I can get a copy of the list of entrants and match these two unknown names. If it turns out they, like Sicarius, are not athletes that might give us more to go on.”

  “Agreed,” Amaranthe said. “If we can figure out exactly why these people were taken, we might be able to get a bead on who might want to take them. Akstyr’s going around to the apothecaries in the city to see if any of them has that root in stock and if they remember anyone buying it recently. If you finish early, you and Basilard can join up with him. He may need help researching and finding all the apothecaries.”

  “Huh, and I thought it was going to be a light work day,” Books said, but he smiled, and she suspected he was happy for the chance to do research.

  “I’ll take Maldynado and go back to the miner’s flat to see if the family is back or if anyone has information on where those men meet. Maybe if we work this from both ends we can find the kidnappers’ lair somewhere in the middle.”

  “Assuming we are dealing with kidnappers and not someone who merely wants to kill irritatingly gifted people,” Books said.

  She stared at him. “This would be a case when a grunt or a nod would have been more appreciated.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Under the light of day, the brick building where Raydevk and his wife lived seemed poorer. Every few minutes, a train chugged through, shaking the ground. Surly men hunkered in doorways, drinking from ceramic applejack mugs stamped with the Three Legged Dog logo, a homely mark for the satrapy’s cheapest distillery. Some said the outfit used the bruised worm-filled apples left in the orchard grass after the other distilleries had their pick.

  “Charming neighborhood,” Maldynado drawled after a gaunt old man stepped out of an alley, buttoning his pants. Amaranthe hoped all he had been doing in there was peeing.

  As she and Maldynado approached the building, they stayed near the wall, so the wife, Pella, would not see them coming if she glanced out the window.

  “This is the kind of place Sicarius takes you for evenings out, eh?” Maldynado added.

  “Actually, I took him here,” Amaranthe said. “And got him kidnapped. I’m not a very good date.”

  They reached the front door, and Maldynado held it open for her.

  “Fortunately, Deret likes an adventure,” he said.

  “Is there some reason you’re intent on matching us up?” she asked as they headed up the stairs.

  “He’s a good man, mostly, and you’re a good woman, mostly. And he’s in a position to help us reach our goals, so that doesn’t hurt. Maybe he’s not in love with you yet, but I’ll wager you could talk just about any man over to your side, given time. I mean, emperor’s warts, you’ve got Sicarius working for you.”

  Her lips twisted into a dry smirk. “Getting people to go along with my schemes and getting men to fall in love with me aren’t the same.”

  “Sure, they are,” Maldynado said as they stepped out onto the third floor. “You just make the former your priority. If you tried as hard to woo a man into bed as you did to woo me into joining your mission, you’d never sleep alone.”

  Amaranthe speculated on the idea of putting effort into “wooing” Sicarius, but shook the notion from her head. She had more important things to focus on. She hoped Pella had returned home, so she could question her.

  Two doors away from the flat, Amaranthe halted and stretched her arm across the hallway to stop Maldynado as well. An uneasy feeling raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

  The door to the family’s flat stood open. Gouges marred the wood of the jamb near the lock, and splinters littered the floor beneath.

  “Think Sicarius is in there?” Maldynado whispered.

  A thump sounded inside, like a drawer closing.

  “You think Sicarius would leave evidence of entering or make noises once inside?” she whispered back as she slipped her short sword from its scabbard.

  “Er, no.”

  She would like to think it was he, that perhaps he’d spent the night tracking the miner, lost him, and come back to question the wife, but Amaranthe doubted it. She eased forward, sword in hand, stepping lightly on the hall’s threadbare runner.

  A faint rasp of steel sounded as Maldynado drew his rapier and followed her.

  Before she could peep around the doorjamb, footsteps came from within. Heavy footsteps. A scruffy young man strode out, carrying a canvas tote stuffed so full the contents threatened to burst through the material. When he saw Amaranthe and Maldynado, he threw the tote at them and bolted down the hallway in the opposite direction.

  Amaranthe turned her shoulder, but Maldynado lunged and caught the bag before it hit her.

  “Get him,” she said. “Bring him back.”

  Amazingly, he dropped the bag and sprinted down the hall without stopping to make comments about how hard she worked him for so little pay.

  Another thump came from inside. Amaranthe peeked past the door, did not see anyone, and eased into the room, her back pressed against the wall. Several of the purposely arranged clutter-piles-turned-into-walls had been tipped over. Food cans, cooking utensils, and clothing scattered the floor. All the cabinet doors were open on the credenza where Raydevk had stored his applejack. One dangled from a single hinge. No bottles of alcohol sat inside the cabinets now.

  Footsteps came from the corner of the room near the window, but one of the partitions hid the area. A curtain hanging from a rod marked the “doorway.” Amaranthe eased closer and peered around it.

  A man knelt before a dresser, shoveling clothing and knickknacks into an apple crate on the floor. His back faced Amaranthe. The hilt of a dagger poked up from his belt, but she did not see any greater weapons on him. No thoughtful consideration went into the items chosen for the crate, and she suspected they had stumbled across a mere burglary.

  She crept forward and pressed the point of her sword against the back of the man’s neck. “Aren’t thieves supposed to ply their trade at night?”

  The man froze for a heartbeat, then dove forward into a roll. He twisted and came to his feet, facing Amaranthe. His hand went to the dagger, only to find it missing. Bewilderment widened his eyes.

  Amaranthe held up the blade and raised her eyebrows. “Mind if we skip further attempts at complicating my day? If you tell me how you found out this place was vacant, I imagine I can look the other way over this robbery.”

  “Velks!” the man shouted.

  “I see, you wish to complicate my day.”

  “Velks!” he cried again.

  A grunt sounded in the living area. The man gave Amaranthe a you’re-in-trouble-now look, to which she shook her head sadly. This fellow, barely older than a boy, judging by the thinness of the goatee he aspired to grow, did not seem too bright.

  When his comrade, Velks presumably, came to stand beside Amaranthe, his arms were twisted behind his back, courtesy of Maldynado who loomed behind him. Velks appeared little older than the first young man, and they shared a squareness of face. Brothers?

  “Got him, boss,” Maldynado said.

  “Tie them up, please,” Amaranthe said.

  “Gently or roughly?”

  “Neither!” Velks blurted with a heroic attempt to twist free.

  Maldynado yawned, unperturbed by the slender man’s efforts.

  “Y
es, neither.” The younger man eyed Amaranthe’s sword, but with Maldynado blocking the exit, he did not attempt anything physical.

  “That depends,” Amaranthe said. “Are you working for someone I shouldn’t annoy, or are you independent...entrepreneurs?”

  The old enforcer in her hated the idea of turning her back on a crime because the criminals were working for a gang leader or another influential underworld figure, but she had spent the last few months trying to establish connections with a few of those types, and she would look the other way if it meant keeping contacts happy. If they were independent thieves, she saw nothing wrong with trussing them up and sending a tip to Enforcer Headquarters so they could be collected.

  “We’re working for Sicarius,” Velks said.

  For half a second, Amaranthe thought he might be telling the truth, that Sicarius had sent them back to hunt for clues or some such, but she caught herself. That was wishful thinking, a hope that Sicarius was about and on the mission. Even if this man’s eyes had not darted up and to the left when he spoke—according to Sicarius, that was a tell for many folks when they were lying—the story was implausible. Before he met her, Sicarius had always worked alone. He would not use errand boys.

  “Yes, that’s right,” the younger brother said. “We know him real well, and he’ll assassinate you if you bother us.”

  “Assassinate you for certain,” Velks said. “He owes us a favor on account of us taking him out for drinks last night.”

  “You lads aren’t very good at this,” Maldynado said. “So, boss, gentle or rough for the tying?”

  “Actually...” Amaranthe eyed the clothing strewn about the floor. “I believe they’d like to clean up their mess first. Take their weapons and help them find a broom.”

  “Clean?” The thieves exchanged incredulous looks.

  “Yes,” Amaranthe said. “It’s a type of work. Like stabbing people with knives, but with less blood involved.”

  Maldynado shrugged and patted down the first man for weapons. “As long as I’m not the one waylaying the dust balls, I don’t care.”