Conspiracy

  Amaranthe snorted. “When I told you to start making jokes, I meant for you to do it in front of Sespian, so he could see that you have a sense of humor.”

  Sicarius’s face was the epitome of seriousness.

  “Truly? You’re telling me aliens from outer space brought that knife here—” Amaranthe waved toward his sheathed blade, “—and gave it to you?”

  “Whichever theory is true, the creators of the technology disappeared from our world long ago. Some of their artifacts remain, and they are extremely dangerous. Floating boxes this large—” Sicarius outlined a one-foot square with his hands, “—killed numerous marines by incinerating them.”

  “You saw this with your own eyes?”

  “They tried to incinerate me as well.”

  “Oh,” Amaranthe said.

  “I heard the archaeologist talking with Starcrest, and—”

  “Wait, Starcrest? Fleet Admiral Starcrest? The legendary naval strategist?”

  “Yes,” Sicarius said.

  “Who was the archaeologist?”

  “A professor from Kyatt,” Sicarius said. “Tikaya Komitopis.”

  The name was familiar, and Amaranthe wriggled her fingers in the air as she tried to place it. “The cryptanalyst who cracked all our encryption codes during the Western Sea Conflict?”

  “Yes. She believed these boxes were simple cleaning machines designed to eliminate trash.”

  Amaranthe blew out a slow breath. It wasn’t that she hadn’t believed Sicarius exactly, but having two such significant historical figures contributing to the research did seem to lend more credence to the story.

  “This flying craft,” Amaranthe said, “is something that was brought back from the expedition?”

  “No. We went to a remote area only accessible by dog sled. Nothing large was retrieved.”

  “Then someone got it later.”

  “The marine captain in charge of the expedition blew up the entrances to the tunnels afterward. Regardless, everything was in the middle of a mountain. Even if such a large craft had been inside, it never could have been flown out.”

  “So where did that thing come from?” Amaranthe asked.

  “Unknown. Perhaps an archaeological expedition unearthed another site with ruins from the ancient civilization, and Forge learned of it.”

  “Are you sure this craft is made from the same technology?”

  “I would need a closer look under better lighting conditions to be positive,” Sicarius said, “but I deem it highly likely.” His gaze flicked upward, reminding her of the power it must have taken to collapse so much of the tunnel, a tunnel set deep in what had been a very old and stable cliff.

  “Suppose you’re right. Are we sure those were Forge people up there, piloting that thing?”

  “Who else would want us dead and know where we are?”

  Sicarius had a long list of people who wouldn’t mind taking a shot at him, but... “Even Forge shouldn’t have known where we were,” Amaranthe said.

  “Sergeant Yara may have informed someone.”

  “And then come along so she could put herself in danger? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Akstyr then,” Sicarius said.

  Amaranthe grew still. She hadn’t told Sicarius about Rockjaw’s tip, and she was positive Books didn’t regularly confide in Sicarius either. Had he found out another way? And, if so, did he know that she knew and hadn’t said anything? Surely he’d see something like that as a betrayal, even if her only intent had been to keep Akstyr from getting killed.

  “What makes you suggest him?” Amaranthe asked carefully.

  “He’s not as deeply under your spell as the others.”

  “Maybe it’s because he avoids eye contact,” she said, referring to his comment that her eyes had some persuasive quality. “Anyway, how those people figured out where we were is something to dwell on later. For now, we need to escape.”

  Sicarius looked toward the crevice leading back to the locomotive. A long moment passed before someone came out of it covered with dust. Sespian.

  He paused at the entrance, glancing between Amaranthe and Sicarius with an uncertain expression on his face. When nobody else followed him out, Amaranthe wondered if he might have been concerned at the idea of her wandering off alone with Sicarius.

  Amaranthe lifted an inviting hand. “Any thoughts, Sire?”

  “I was curious as to whether you’d found a way out.”

  “Not yet,” Amaranthe said.

  “I was also wondering if you knew who those people were and if they were trying to kill you... or me.” Sespian grimaced, perhaps worried that this mess was his fault.

  “We don’t know anything for certain yet,” Amaranthe said, “but Forge is always at the top of my list of conniving misfits determined to make my days bad.”

  “Why,” Sicarius said, “is it ‘conniving’ when the enemy does it and ‘planning’ when you do it?”

  Sespian’s eyes flickered with surprise at the joke. Amaranthe bit down on her lip to keep a grin from spreading across her face, though she was ridiculously proud of Sicarius for managing the line with a witness—this witness in particular—around.

  “Because our motives are noble,” Amaranthe said, “and we’re not simply trying to add gold to our bank vaults. We don’t even have bank vaults. Or accounts for that matter.”

  “Most imperial citizens don’t,” Sespian said. “Though that’ll change if those bankers have anything to do with it.”

  “Oh?” Amaranthe put on her most attentive and earnest expression, hoping he might explain further.

  Sespian glanced at Sicarius and shook his head once. Amaranthe wanted to shout out that Sicarius was his father and that Sespian could trust him more than anyone in the world, but she was afraid—no, she was certain—that statement would only drive Sespian away and raise his suspicions against the group. He’d think it some kind of trick instead of the truth. No, she had to get Sespian and Sicarius to spend some time together before anyone sprang that little fact upon him.

  “Anyway, Sire, I don’t think they were after you,” Amaranthe said. “Or at least you weren’t the priority. After all, they’ve been keeping you alive for these last nine months, so why would they try to crush you with a rockfall now?”

  “They may be prepared to make their move,” Sespian said grimly.

  “Possibly, but we’ve... irked them a few times of late.” She winced, knowing ‘irked them’ might describe her team’s meddling over the water-poisoning and baby-creating projects, but wasn’t an appropriate way to talk about thirty assassinations. She had no wish to take responsibility for that, but she doubted Forge would separate her from “her assassin” as so many people liked to label Sicarius.

  “Oh,” Sespian said in a way that suggested he hadn’t considered the possibility.

  That probably meant he hadn’t seen recent newspapers or didn’t know Sicarius was responsible for those deaths. If that was the case, she wasn’t going to bring it up.

  “Either way, it’s time to get out of here,” Amaranthe said. “I imagine they’ve moved on by now.”

  “You have a plan?” Sicarius asked.

  “The digging hasn’t been terribly productive so far,” Sespian said.

  “I wouldn’t have suggested digging if I’d know about this big sturdy chamber.” Amaranthe strolled over and patted one of the walls, blocking the view of a particularly substantial crack.

  “Sturdy,” Sicarius said in a flat monotone.

  He must already have an inkling of what she wanted to try.

  “You might want to stay here, Sire,” Amaranthe said, then jogged for the crevice. She didn’t want to explain her idea, and handle objections, more than once.

  She wasn’t surprised when both Sicarius and Sespian slipped through the dark passage after her. She found Basilard, Maldynado, and Yara sitting inside the cab, digging tools discarded. Given how little progress anyone had made, Amaranthe couldn’t blame them for giving
up.

  “The secret,” Maldynado was saying, “is to hold your nose while you chew so you don’t taste it. He pulps up the meat pretty good and glues it together with bone marrow fat or something, so the texture isn’t as horrific as you’d think, though sometimes you do get these chewy bits...” Maldynado pointed to Yara’s hand; she was holding one of Sicarius’s meat bars. “Then you’ve just got to swallow quick without thinking too much about it,” Maldynado finished.

  Basilard was halfway through one of his own bars, and he merely shook his head as Maldynado went on about them. They’re fine, he signed. Sufficient for the purpose.

  “I can’t believe you’d say that, Bas,” Maldynado said, “you being a fair to excellent chef and all.”

  You are too used to city food. My people make something similar for travel. We usually add spices and dried berries to give it flavor.

  “Flavor, a completely foreign idea to that inhuman—er, hullo boss.” Maldynado noticed Sicarius as he hopped into the cab behind Amaranthe. “And... others.”

  Amaranthe plopped down on the coal box next to Basilard and fought back a yawn. The clock on the wall was broken, and she didn’t know how late it was, but she knew they had long since missed meeting with the others at midnight.

  “Got any new plans?” Maldynado asked.

  “As a matter of fact... yes.” She paused to pick grit out of her eyes, or maybe simply because she had a flair for the dramatic. “Who wants to disable the safety valves and blow up the boiler?”

  “What?” Yara asked at the same time as Sespian did. He and Sicarius remained near the doorway behind Amaranthe.

  Maldynado leaned toward Amaranthe and peered into her eyes. “I thought you got shot in the shoulder, not the head.”

  “We’re close enough to the exit, that blowing up the boiler might clear the rubble for us,” Amaranthe said. “Like using blasting sticks.” She smiled and tried to appear confident, though she wished Books was there to do some calculations. She didn’t know if the explosive power of an overheated boiler could move that many tons of rock, but it ought to at least shift some of the rubble around. Given how close they were to the exit, that might be enough. “There’s a chamber a little ways back where we can hunker down. There should be enough rock between it and the engine that we’ll be protected.”

  “Unless the reverberations in the rock cause the ceiling over that chamber to collapse,” Sicarius said.

  “If it held off that bombardment, maybe it’s sturdy enough to survive our little explosion,” Amaranthe said.

  “Maybe?” Maldynado asked.

  “Does anyone have a pen and paper?” Sicarius asked.

  Sespian unbuttoned a pocket and pulled out a small, leather-bound notebook with a pen clipped to the spine. He flipped past a few pages with sketches on them—Amaranthe was glad he still made time to pursue that passion, if only in hurried spare moments—and opened the book to a blank page before handing it to Sicarius.

  Sicarius stalked to the controls and wrote down a few numbers.

  “What’s he doing?” Yara asked.

  “Calculating the likelihood that the boss has gone insane?” Maldynado suggested.

  Sicarius bent his head over the notebook. From what Amaranthe could see, he was solving equations, and she figured she should be considerate and leave him alone to finish. She managed to do that for almost an entire minute until her curiosity undermined her power for consideration. She strolled over, hands clasped behind her back.

  He gave her a dark look and she froze. He rarely gave her his icy stare any more, and she’d forgotten how chilling it was.

  “You don’t approve of my idea?” Amaranthe asked.

  Sicarius’s gaze flickered toward Sespian before settling onto the paper again. Ah, Sespian’s presence changed his willingness to take risks. Foolhardy ones anyway.

  Sicarius finished writing and stared hard at the paper.

  “Some sort of blast wave calculations?” Amaranthe guessed. “What’s your conclusion?”

  “That your idea might work to free the front of the train.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “There’s no guarantee that the chamber you want to hide in won’t collapse or that we won’t simply end up trapped back there. New detritus might block the return route.”

  “Any way to figure out the odds of that nook collapsing?” Sespian asked.

  “Not when we have no way to determine how much it was damaged in the previous cave-in,” Sicarius said.

  It’d be safer to dig out, Basilard signed.

  “We could cause more rock to fall simply by moving rocks aside,” Amaranthe said. “And that might squish everyone too.”

  “It would take a week to dig out by hand,” Sespian said. “I... don’t have a week. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, I was going to try and escape at Sunders City. I didn’t have much hope of it working, but I figured I had to try. I need to get there sooner rather than later.”

  “If you’re crushed by rock, you won’t get there either way,” Sicarius told him.

  “All right,” Amaranthe said, “we’ll vote. Who wants to dig out and who wants to risk an explosion?”

  “Vote?” Sespian asked.

  “He’s the emperor,” Yara pointed out. “Shouldn’t he be making the decisions?”

  About our lives? Basilard frowned. He’s not my emperor. And he’s eighteen.

  “Nineteen,” Amaranthe said.

  Sespian’s eyes narrowed. “What did he say?”

  “You’re very wise for such a young man,” Amaranthe said.

  Now Basilard’s eyes narrowed.

  “Vote time,” Amaranthe said. “Who wants to dig out?”

  Yara, Basilard, and Sicarius lifted hands.

  “And who wants to blow this engine up, and see if we can be out by dawn?”

  Amaranthe and Sespian raised their hands. Maldynado sighed deeply, then raised his as well.

  “Are you on our side because you have faith in me,” Amaranthe asked him, “or because you don’t want to dig?”

  “Oh, I have faith in you,” Maldynado said, “and I don’t want to dig. My main reason for hesitating was that I fear this story might get twisted around at some future date, and I’ll be blamed for blowing up the train.”

  “Why would you get blamed?”

  “Nobody ever blames the woman for blowing things up, such as garbage vehicles, even when the explosions clearly happened as a result of her crazy schemes.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Amaranthe smiled until she considered the split votes. She might be the leader of the team, but there was so much of a risk of failure—of death—that she didn’t feel like she could order them into this. Even if she tried it, she might bump up against the boundaries of her leadership. If Sicarius didn’t agree to blow up the locomotive, nobody there would be able to go through him to do it.

  “If I issue an imperial mandate that says we will blow up the engine,” Sespian said, “would that affect any of your votes?”

  Amaranthe met Sicarius’s eyes. If he wanted to win favor with Sespian, this might be a good opportunity for him to switch sides and join him. Sicarius stared mulishly back at her. It was Yara who sighed and lowered her hand.

  “Four to two,” Sespian told Amaranthe. “Will that do it?”

  Basilard caught Sicarius’s eye and signed, Will it be at all comforting to know we were right as we lie dying?

  If we’re right, our deaths will be too swift for thoughts, Sicarius signed back.

  “I can tell I need to learn this language,” Sespian said.

  “Basilard will be happy to teach you.” Amaranthe patted him on the back.

  Basilard didn’t quite glare at her, but she could tell he wasn’t interested in “bonding” just then. She gave him a smile anyway. Someone had to be encouraging, after all.

  “Who wants to handle the blowing up of the train?” Amaranthe asked. “I’ll stay, but I wouldn’t mind so
me manly strength in case it’s needed. I assume the steam will need to build to the failure point, and there should be time for us to get back to join the others.”

  “I’ll handle it,” Sicarius said.

  The others grabbed their gear, filed out of the cab, and squeezed into the crevice winding back toward the chamber. Amaranthe picked up the coal shovel, intending to help Sicarius.

  He took the tool from her and pointed for her to follow the others. “Go.”

  “Sicarius...”

  He turned his back to her, kneeling to rekindle the fire in the furnace. His displeasure made her doubt her decision. Maybe she should be listening to him. Maybe they should simply take their time and dig their way out. If the emperor and her team died in that tunnel, Forge would have its way, with no one to oppose the organization. Her contributions to the empire would be forgotten, she’d have no place in the history books, and Maldynado would never get a statue. Dying would be irritating on its own merits as well.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Amaranthe said. “We should just work on digging out. If we’re here long enough, Books and Akstyr might find us.” If they hadn’t had a run-in with the enemy aircraft.

  “It’s too late now,” Sicarius said, his back still to her. “This is what Sespian wants.”

  Thanks to her. “I guess I shouldn’t have mentioned my idea.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have.”

  “Maybe I can make him decide he wants something else,” Amaranthe said.

  Finally Sicarius stood and faced her. “Perhaps you could.”

  “I will.” Amaranthe nodded and turned for the door.

  She had her foot in the air and was about to hop down when Sicarius stopped her with a, “No.”

  “No?” she asked.

  “I wish to protect him.”

  “Yes...”

  Sicarius inhaled and exhaled slowly. “He would not appreciate it. He has a mission of his own that is his priority.”

  A thread of guilt squirmed through Amaranthe’s belly—Sespian wouldn’t have a notion that it was possible to expedite their escape if she hadn’t brought up the idea. “I think you’re right,” was all she said.

  “Go join the others.” Sicarius flipped a thumb toward the crevice.