Conspiracy

  “How did they embed the device to start with?” Amaranthe asked.

  “A team of hooded men came into my bedroom one night, held me down, and gagged me. My first thought was that Sicarius had finally come to kill me, but he always worked solo. I didn’t see any of these men’s faces, though the leader was older. He had hard gray eyes, and I could see the hint of a scar under one.”

  Amaranthe sat up straighter, but Sespian wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at his lap, and he continued speaking.

  “While they held me down, Peadraga, that woman who was with me on the train, strolled in and inserted the device. She didn’t need any tools. She simply laid it on my throat, and it burrowed in while I could do nothing to stop it.” His lips twisted as if he wanted to spit. “I don’t know if my personal guards, who should have been at my door, were Forge’s from the start or were paid to look the other way. Turgonians pride themselves on duty and honor, but it seems there’s little loyalty that can’t be bought. Maybe I’m just not the ruler my father was and people feel they have no reason to risk themselves backing me.” He pushed a hand through his hair.

  “That’s not true. You care about the people. They’ll see that one day and appreciate it. You’ve been born into a difficult era, where the empire is trying to reconcile great technological and socio-economic changes with a centuries-old system of government. None of your predecessors had to deal with anything like this. Besides, you’ve yet to have a real chance to rule, so you can’t compare yourself to Raumesys.” Amaranthe realized that what she meant as an encouraging talk sounded a bit like a lecture, so she tacked on a weak, “Sire.”

  Sespian snorted softly.

  “I honestly believe you’re the open-minded, forward-thinking person we need in charge right now,” Amaranthe said. “We just need to make sure you survive and have the leeway to apply your vision.” It wouldn’t hurt if he had an older, experienced advisor he could trust either. She imagined Books or even Sicarius in that role. Maybe it was hubris, but she thought Sespian would benefit from having her whole team on board. If only she could get him to see that. “Don’t let anyone beat you down. This is worth fighting for.”

  “Odd,” Sespian murmured.

  That wasn’t quite the response Amaranthe had expected. “Me? Or my speech? Or both?”

  “I get a lot flatterers telling me what they think I want to hear in order to get what they want. Why is it that I believe you when you do the same?”

  Maybe Amaranthe should feel insulted—he’d just called her a flatterer who was angling for something, after all—but the puzzled crease to Sespian’s brow took the bite out of the words. “Because I don’t hide the fact that I want something? And I don’t think I want anything that’s particularly evil or would require you to compromise your integrity. I just want my name cleared.” All right, she wanted Sicarius’s name cleared, too, but that probably would compromise Sespian’s integrity, and she doubted Sicarius particularly cared about that aspect anyway. “There’s more to it than that, of course,” Amaranthe went on. “Me wanting to be someone who matters and to live up to the expectations of a dead father, for example. But my life story, dreams, fears, and so on can wait for when we have more time. Right now, I only wish to know what reassurances I can give you to get you to say yes to this surgery. There was a beacon of some sort left behind on that cliff, and I’m afraid that means the other craft will know we’re alive. They may already be looking for us. If someone on board that craft can trigger your implant... Well, I’d find it rather inconvenient to lose you so soon after retrieving you. I doubt Maldynado’s older brother would pardon me.” There, finish with a smile. What more could she do?

  “I’d like to hear the life story sometime,” Sespian said, surprising Amaranthe. That wasn’t the part of her speech he was supposed to focus on. “If we survive the next few weeks, perhaps you’d like to have dinner with me? Some place quiet? And private?”

  “I... uh...” Amaranthe felt like a deer caught on the railway with a train barreling out of the night toward it. Her mind wouldn’t come up with something useful to do, and she could only gape at Sespian. He wasn’t supposed to be interested in dinner with her any more. He was supposed to want to have dinner with Yara. “Sire, you’re...” The son of the man I love, she thought, but she couldn’t possibly say that. “Young. Yes, young to me. I don’t think we’d be a good...” Amaranthe trailed off when she realized Sespian was watching her intently. It wasn’t, she sensed, in hopes that she would agree to his proposition. A moment passed, and he said nothing. Finally, she asked, “Was that a test?”

  Sespian smiled sadly. “If you’d said yes, it wouldn’t have necessarily proven or disproven anything, but because you said no... I suspect I can trust you.”

  Amaranthe slumped back into the cushy chair. She wasn’t certain whether she was more relieved that Sespian had admitted to trusting her or that he hadn’t truly had his hopes pinned to her saying yes about the dinner proposition.

  “As to conditions for the surgery,” Sespian said, “I want everything explained. It has to sound logical and there has to be a good probability of success. I don’t want Forge to be able to hold that power over me any more, but I also don’t want to commit suicide.”

  “Of course, Sire.” Amaranthe stood up and headed for the door. “I’ll let Akstyr know.”

  “Corporal Lokdon?” Sespian slipped off the bed and met her a couple steps from the door.

  “Yes, Sire?”

  “If we both survive this with our sanity intact, I hope you’ll reconsider the dinner offer. I won’t always be young. If it helps, I’ll probably be old and doddering before you, thanks to the drug that curmudgeon Hollowcrest used on me.”

  Amaranthe gripped his hands. “Sire, I’m sure you’ll live a long and fulfilling life.” Except she wasn’t sure of that. Sicarius, she recalled, had been concerned when he learned the name of the drug Hollowcrest had used. That knowledge had fueled his cold fury when he broke the old general’s neck with his bare hands.

  The door opened. Belatedly, Amaranthe remembered that she’d told Basilard to send Sicarius in.

  She released Sespian’s hands and yanked hers behind her back, but not before Sicarius witnessed the handholding. His expression never changed, but he looked into her eyes for a heartbeat, and then he looked into Sespian’s for several more.

  “Nothing’s going on,” Amaranthe said, though she promptly realized that made it sound as if there were something going on. “We were just—”

  Without a word, Sicarius walked away.

  Chapter 20

  Sun shown through the porthole in the tiny cabin, and Akstyr pulled his blanket over his head, trying to block it out. At Amaranthe’s insistence, he’d slept a couple of hours, and he wouldn’t have minded more, but the light was bugging him. Something else was bugging him, too, though he couldn’t put a finger on it. A nagging unease.

  Akstyr stretched out with his senses and nearly fell out of the bunk when he felt someone in the cabin with him. A dark cool presence. He tore the blanket off his head, spotted Sicarius standing in the shadows by the door, and bolted to his feet. That was the goal anyway. The blanket tangled around his legs, and he tumbled to the floor in an ungainly heap. Certain Sicarius wasn’t there for any comradely reason, Akstyr rushed to untangle himself and find a standing position. He finally managed, but not without the help of a hand on the wall.

  If Sicarius were the type to cackle diabolically before killing someone, he’d surely be doing so now. But he simply stood there, wearing all of his knives, his body unmoving, his face unreadable.

  “What do you want?” Akstyr tried to sound gruff and unconcerned, though he knew he wasn’t fooling anyone. Also, it was hard to look tough standing barefoot with a blanket pooled at one’s feet.

  The quietness of that Science-made dirigible engine meant there were no thrums or reverberations coursing through the craft, and Akstyr could feel his heart thumping against his ribs. Fast. He w
ondered if Sicarius could hear it too. He wasn’t saying or doing anything, but Akstyr had the impression that Sicarius might be debating whether to kill him.

  Akstyr clenched a fist. Sicarius could try. Akstyr knew ways to defend himself that had nothing to do with physical contact.

  “Well?” Akstyr demanded.

  “You’ve been talking with bounty hunters,” Sicarius said. “I know you’ve thought often of having me killed.”

  Akstyr tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. He wanted to say something valiant, but he couldn’t get any words out.

  “You may have doomed us all by speaking of our plans to your mother.” Sicarius’s eyes bored into him, hard and unwavering.

  “That was a mistake, I know. It won’t happen again.”

  “I kill those who threaten me.” He wasn’t attempting to intimidate or posture; he was simply stating a fact. That made it worse.

  “I saved Am’ranthe that one time. Amaranthe,” Akstyr added, thinking that it might be somehow important to pronounce each and every syllable in her name just then. Respectful-like. “I’m important to the team. She wouldn’t want you to kill anyone important to the team.”

  “I’ve studied the schematics for the implant,” Sicarius said.

  “Uh?” The topic change surprised Akstyr, but encouraging it seemed like a good idea.

  “The artifact is designed to be sensitive to physical tampering. It hides if it’s touched, and if someone attempts to remove it, it kills its victim.”

  Why was Sicarius telling him this? Akstyr had studied the schematic too. He already knew all about the devices.

  “It’ll take someone with Science training to destroy it,” Sicarius said.

  “I know. I’m not sure I can destroy it, on account of that shaman having been so experienced at Making things, and it’s real strong for something so little, but I was thinking I could stun it for a few seconds. Then someone like you could go in and cut it out before it can squirm away. Once it’s out, you can drop it on the floor and stomp on it.” Akstyr finished with a gulp of air. He’d rushed to make sure he got out the second part, about how he might be able to do something, before Sicarius decided he was useless after hearing the first part. Akstyr didn’t know why Sicarius would care about the emperor or the implant, but if he did that was good for him.

  “If you are successful in removing the implant,” Sicarius said, “I will forget your prior transgressions.”

  A part of Akstyr wanted to be indignant—the man was a notorious criminal, so he hardly had any justification for calling anything Akstyr might have done to get rid of him a “transgression”—but a bigger part of him was so relieved, he could barely think of an answer. If Sicarius was willing to forget the past, then he could start over, work with the team, get the money for school without betraying anyone, and not have to spend his life looking over his shoulder. And he’d been planning to get that implant out anyway. That was why he had joined the group in the first place, so he could work on Science stuff. The challenge of trying to beat that old shaman’s invention intrigued him.

  “Agreed?” Sicarius asked, startling Akstyr from his thoughts.

  It wasn’t like Sicarius to get impatient and prompt someone for an answer. Usually he didn’t care if someone answered or not.

  “I’m planning to get it out, yeah,” Akstyr said. “But, out of curiosity, what happens if something unforeseen happens, and I can’t stop the implant from... doing it’s job?”

  Several long breaths passed before Sicarius answered.

  “Do not fail,” he said and walked out the door.

  * * * * *

  Amaranthe and Sicarius stood by the door in Sespian’s suite. Books sat in one of the purple chairs with the schematic of the device spread across his lap. Akstyr stood by a table laden with scissors, suture wire, tweezers, and Sicarius’s black dagger. Sespian waited on the bed, eying the implements. His face was paler than usual, though he was nodding stoically and grunting in a manly I’m-not-scared-about-this-surgery way as Books and Akstyr explained the procedure.

  “They’re fragile once you get them out of your body, so you can smash them with a hammer, but that’s not a real good option when they’re still inside,” Akstyr said.

  “I’d imagine not,” Sespian said.

  Amaranthe lifted a thumbnail to nibble on only to remember she’d already chomped it down to the nub. She was going to have to find a way to encourage faster nail growth if she was going to be in stressful situations so often. Sicarius’s face seemed a tad paler than usual, too, as he listened at her side. He hadn’t said a word about the handholding, but Amaranthe hadn’t had a chance to pull him aside and explain it either. She wasn’t sure what to explain anyway. Sespian apparently did still care. That was a problem, but one for another day. She forced herself to focus on Akstyr.

  “Don’t worry,” Akstyr said. “With Books’s help, I figured that I could stun them with a... uhm, are you squirrelly about the mental sciences?”

  “Sire,” Books whispered.

  “Are you squirrelly, Sire?” Akstyr asked.

  “Though I don’t have much experience in such matters, I’ve read many of the files in the Imperial Intelligence Office, and I’m aware of reports suggesting the human brain is capable of more than Turgonians officially believe and acknowledge.”

  Akstyr gave him a blank look.

  “Not squirrelly, no,” Sespian said.

  “Good.” Akstyr held a tiger-striped sphere up to one of several lanterns placed around the bed, adding to the light that flowed in through a pair of portholes. “I’ve been practicing on the ones we filched from the shaman’s cave.”

  Sespian leaned close to study the details of the small but intricate sphere. “Hard to believe such an insignificant-looking device could kill a person.”

  A tiny barb sprang from the surface, and Sespian jerked backward. Sicarius stirred at Amaranthe’s side, and she imagined him springing to Sespian’s defense, should the need arise. It seemed Akstyr was merely showing off a... feature though.

  “Slicker than a greased prick, isn’t it?” Akstyr asked.

  Books leaned out of his chair to cuff him. “Don’t say things like that in front of the emperor.”

  Akstyr rolled his eyes.

  “And say Sire,” Books whispered, as if Sespian weren’t right there, watching their exchange. Fortunately, a hint of a smile touched the emperor’s lips.

  “Slick, isn’t it, Sire?” Akstyr asked.

  “I’ve translated the shaman’s notes to determine how they work,” Books said, launching into his best lecturing professor tone. “There are four of these prongs in each sphere. If someone tries to remove the device from the victim’s flesh—”

  “Me,” Sespian said.

  “Ah, yes, you. If someone tries to remove it prematurely, the device attaches to the jugular, and the barbs spring out like that.” Books pointed to the protrusion on the sphere. “The barbs pierce your vein, and poison flows into your bloodstream. It’s a near-instantaneous process. The poison induces a seizure, and the victim dies within seconds.”

  Sespian was staring, transfixed, at the barb.

  “Why don’t you skip to telling him how we’re going to remove it?” Amaranthe suggested.

  Sespian tore his gaze from the sphere. “A splendid idea.”

  “I couldn’t figure out how to destroy them or turn one off,” Akstyr said, “but I have managed to stun some of them for several seconds.”

  “Some?” Sespian asked.

  “Four out of five.” Akstyr shrugged. “Those’re good odds, aren’t they? Each one is a little different. They’re machines but individual hand-Made artifacts too.”

  “Magical,” Sespian said for clarification.

  “If you insist on using that ignorant Turgonian word, I suppose.”

  “Sire,” Books hissed. “And don’t question the emperor’s education, which I’m certain is far superior to yours.”

  Sespian lifted a
hand. “It’s all right. I prefer straight talk here. Akstyr, what happens after you stun it?”

  “I’ll have to keep concentrating to make sure it doesn’t wake up, so someone else will cut open your neck, dig around in there, and pry it out.”

  Amaranthe winced at Akstyr’s bluntness. Surely that had to be straighter talk than anyone would want.

  “I see,” Sespian said. “And who will be wielding the knife?” He didn’t look at Sicarius. In fact, he seemed to be making a point of not looking at Sicarius, as if he feared that someone might have already chosen him, but by pretending he wasn’t there, Sespian could change the outcome.

  “You’ll want our swiftest, most agile person with a blade, Sire,” Amaranthe said and tilted her head toward Sicarius.

  “I’ll try to stun it real fast, so it doesn’t start moving around,” Akstyr said, “but it has this reflex to burrow deeper when there’s a chance it’ll be discovered.”

  Sespian lay back on the bed, and Amaranthe wondered if he was thinking it’d be better to take his chances and leave the implant in there. If he decided that, she’d have to try and talk him out of it. With the shaman gone, there wasn’t likely anyone better around than her team for this surgery.

  “All right,” Sespian said. “Let’s do it. I’m going after Forge people, so it’d be better if they didn’t have this control over me, or the ability to see me coming.”

  That hint of what his mission was made Amaranthe want to grab his arm and wheedle details out of him, but the surgery had to be the first priority. Afterward, she could—

  “Company’s coming,” Maldynado bellowed from the cargo hold.

  Amaranthe groaned. What was he doing in there? Maldynado should be in the navigation room with Yara. Books, after grudgingly acknowledging that his expertise might be needed for translations during the surgery, had given them a flying lesson.