Conspiracy Read online

  With the exertion past, her body was cooling, and the chilly wind needled her damp skin. Amaranthe climbed down the side of the car and slipped inside for its protection.

  When Sicarius joined her, she asked, “Where are the others?”

  “Dead.”

  “Only for the purposes of the training exercise, I assume.”

  Sicarius pressed something into her hand. The duck. “You should’ve stayed together or split the team into pairs.”

  “You gave us four cars to search, and there are four of us. It seemed logical.”

  “It is difficult to search and watch one’s back at the same time,” Sicarius said.

  “I was only expecting booby traps. I didn’t know you would be a player in the game.”

  “It’s not a game.” His tone was cool and clipped.

  Amaranthe sighed. The same night Basilard had been receiving that note at the emperor’s big dinner celebrating the winners of the Imperial Games, Sicarius had taken her for a stroll in the Imperial Gardens where he had surprised the words from her mouth by kissing her. Even though he’d made it clear he wanted to wait until everything with Sespian was resolved before pursing a romantic relationship with her, she’d thought... Well, she’d thought it might have changed something, that he’d relax more around her, maybe make a joke or even deign to smile once in a while. But he’d been more controlled and aloof than ever since reading Sespian’s note. Amaranthe hoped that had to do with concern over the emperor—his son, a fact that nobody knew about except her—and not because he’d realized the kiss had been a mistake.

  The wind had tugged his short hair in a thousand directions, and her fingers twitched. She longed to brush it into a semblance of neatness. Sicarius, however, did not look like a man who wanted to be touched. He gazed out the door, into the passing forest, his jaw tight, his eyes hard.

  “I’m sorry we couldn’t go after him sooner,” Amaranthe said, feeling a need to break the silence. Shortly after giving Basilard that note, Sespian had left on a two-month trip around the empire to inspect the major military stations along the borders and coasts. There was a precedent—most emperors did such a trip once a decade—but Amaranthe wondered if someone had wanted Sespian out of the capital for a while. Books had spoken of an older woman who’d been there at the dinner with Sespian, acting like a chaperone. Since then, Amaranthe had tasked Books with researching Forge, trying to get names and addresses of key members, but it was a far-flung group, and her team had yet to pinpoint a leader. “I’m surprised you didn’t go that first week,” Amaranthe added, “and try to sneak into the Imperial Barracks yourself, to see if you could get him without our help.”

  Sicarius’s eyes shifted toward her, and something lurked in their depths. Wryness? Chagrin? It was so hard to tell with him.

  “Or did you?” Amaranthe asked.

  “Wards.”

  “What?”

  “A new addition to the Barracks.”

  Amaranthe arched her eyebrows. “Magic?”

  The Imperial Barracks was not only the centuries-old building atop Arakan Hill where the emperor and his staff slept; it was also the headquarters for those that ran the satrapy and managed the affairs of Turgonia itself. Hundreds of people worked there. To imagine magic being used openly... magic in an empire that killed anyone suspected of employing it and, at the same time, denied its existence...

  “It’s not apparent to anyone who hasn’t been trained to be sensitive to the Science,” Sicarius said, perhaps guessing her thoughts. “Even then, it’s well hidden.” He flexed his hand, as if in the memory of some pain.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Amaranthe lifted her own hand out of an urge to grasp his and offer some comfort, but she stopped before touching him. Maybe he wouldn’t appreciate it. She’d known him for almost nine months now, and nothing she had learned in that time suggested he found human touch desirable. Amaranthe let her hand drop with an inward sigh. She did think too much.

  “We’ll get him, Sicarius.” She clasped her hands behind her back and settled for standing side-by-side with him, gazing out into the night. “We’ll get him, and we’ll help him with Forge. Whether he thinks he wants our help or not.”

  Sicarius said nothing. Amaranthe hoped it wasn’t only in her mind that he appreciated her efforts.

  * * * * *

  Akstyr leaned against the wall of the rail car, his head brushing the metal roof. He sat on eight feet of greenhouse kits with his book open in his lap, though he was struggling to concentrate on it. His lamp wobbled on his pack, threatening to tip over with every clickety-clack of the train. That was plenty distracting, but it was the thoughts bumping around in his head like drunken soldiers that made reading hard.

  Across the way, Books didn’t seem to be having any trouble skimming his newspaper and scribbling notes in a journal. Farther back in the car, Maldynado wasn’t having any trouble napping—as the obnoxious snores proved. But those two didn’t have anything to worry about. They hadn’t been plotting with Basilard over the summer, thinking up ways to get Sicarius killed to collect on that bounty.

  A trapdoor in the roof scraped open. Greenhouse frames and crates of glass covered the entire floor of the car, reaching to the ceiling in many places, and the only way in or out was through that door.

  Basilard dropped inside, followed by Sicarius.

  Akstyr stared at the pages of his book. After being the one to bring up the kill-Sicarius idea, Basilard had decided he didn’t want to do it after all. Akstyr didn’t figure Basilard had said anything to Sicarius—or Akstyr would have had a dagger shoved down his throat by now—but the simple matter of Basilard having that knowledge made Akstyr nervous. What if Basilard let something slip eventually? What if Sicarius figured it out on his own? Even if Akstyr hadn’t done anything, he’d been thinking of doing something, and Sicarius seemed the type to kill a man for having a notion against him.

  Amaranthe dropped into the rail car last and pulled the door shut. Maldynado sat up with a start, thumping his head on the ceiling, but barely noticed.

  “Hullo, boss,” he said.

  Books lowered his newspaper and gave Amaranthe a respectful nod.

  “Who’s hungry?” Amaranthe grabbed one of the group’s rucksacks. “We have a bounty of delicious ready-to-eat-without-being-heated delights.”

  “So long as it’s not noodles and lamb chunks again,” Maldynado said. “A man shouldn’t have to eat anything with the word chunks on the label.”

  “On that we can agree,” Books said.

  Maldynado gave him a suspicious look, as if he expected an insult to follow. Books was busy eyeing Amaranthe’s rucksack, as if she might pull poisonous snakes out of it. Akstyr thought the others were wimps. He’d eaten far worse stuff when he’d been growing up. The winter when he’d lived on used cooking lard and skewered rats, sometimes cooked, sometimes not, came to mind.

  “Uhm.” Amaranthe rooted through the bag, passed on a couple of cans, and pulled out a flat tin. “How about beans and sausages?”

  Books’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that small print say?”

  “That the sausages are chunked and formed.”

  Books’s lips flattened.

  “How is that better than the lamb chunks we already vetoed?” Maldynado asked.

  “I wasn’t sure if it was chunks specifically you had a problem with,” Amaranthe said, “or all permutations of the word.”

  Basilard lifted his hands and, in his Mangdorian hunting code, signed, I could make a real meal if we had access to a fire.

  “Alas,” Amaranthe said, “I don’t think the engineer would have kind words to say if we showed up at his furnace with frying pans in hand.”

  “He might if all he’s been eating are meat chunks dubiously made in some squalid factory.” Books lifted his newspaper again. “These are strange times we’re living in. Every technological advancement removes us further from nature.”

  “Beans sound good to me,” Akst
yr said, hoping to interrupt whatever lecture or diatribe Books might be working himself up to. The man had some gray at his temples, and was probably in his forties, but sometimes he acted like the doddering geezers who played Stratics in the park and whined about wayward youths.

  Sicarius removed a package from his rucksack and unwrapped his supply of bricks. That’s what Akstyr called them anyway. They were some sort of dried fat and meat concoction Sicarius pounded into bars for traveling. Akstyr doubted the starving people on the streets where he grew up would eat them unless the rat supply was extremely low.

  Sicarius offered a bar to Amaranthe. She glanced back and forth from the can of beans to the proffered brick while wearing the pained grimace of someone deciding between torture by branding irons and torture by toenail pulling.

  Sicarius looked in Akstyr’s direction. Akstyr pretended to be engrossed in his book, but he could feel that stare upon him anyway, about as friendly and warm as a piss pot frozen over in winter. Sure, Sicarius always looked at people that way, but Akstyr couldn’t help but worry. Sicarius knew more about the Science than most Turgonians, and maybe he knew a few practitioners’ tricks himself. Like mind reading.

  Though Akstyr appreciated that Amaranthe watched his back, and nobody here cared that he studied the mental sciences, he figured it would be better for his health if he got out of the area sooner rather than later. And far out. Far enough that Sicarius wouldn’t bother coming after him if he ever learned the truth. Some place like the Kyatt Islands. They were way out in the middle of the ocean, and they were known for their Science practitioners. Maybe Akstyr could even go to school at their Polytechnic and finally learn what texts alone couldn’t teach him.

  “Huh.” Books’s paper rattled. “Look at this. We’re mentioned.”

  “Oh?” Amaranthe had a couple of cans in her lap and was digging out an opener. “I thought you were researching links to Forge people, not reading the exploits of a heroic and wrongfully accused band of outlaws.”

  “It’s a tiny piece,” Books said, “tinier, I see, than this editorial on a perceived cat overpopulation problem in the city. But listen to this: Eye witnesses claim that Amaranthe Lokdon and the group of mercenaries calling themselves the Emperor’s Edge defeated notorious murderer and gang leader Bloody Batvok last week, ending his illegal taxation-for-protection stranglehold on the merchants and grocers working along Thistlemount Avenue. Local enforcers offer no comment. The group consists of a former warrior-caste fop, Maldynado Montichelu—”

  “Fop?” Maldynado asked. “Who wrote that?”

  “—gang member, Akstyr, last name unknown,” Books went on without a glance at Maldynado, “former professor Marl Mugdildor, and a Mangdorian named Temtelamak.”

  Basilard rolled his eyes at his moniker. Maldynado had entered Basilard into the Imperial Games with the name of an old war general who’d been known for his bedroom exploits. Apparently, it had stuck.

  “The assassin Sicarius is also believed to have been there,” Books finished.

  Amaranthe grinned and shared a long look with Sicarius. “Not exactly front-page fame—and it’s hard to compete with feline population problems for attention—but at least someone’s writing us up now. That’s not even The Gazette,” she said, naming the paper where she’d made friends with that journalist, Deret Mancrest.

  Akstyr felt satisfaction of his own because he’d helped take down Batvok. The thug had been from a rival gang that had always been trying to stomp out the Black Arrows when Akstyr had been a member. Too bad he didn’t have any aspirations to be famous. Given his hobby of studying the illegal and forbidden mental sciences, it was best for him to be invisible in the empire. Fame would only—

  His thoughts hiccupped.

  Maybe this was his way out of the empire. Everyone knew about the million-ranmya bounty on Sicarius’s head, and now that Akstyr’s name had been mentioned alongside Sicarius’s, people might know that Akstyr ran with the infamous assassin. There was no way Akstyr would try to kill Sicarius himself, but what if he didn’t have to? What if he just sold information to someone on how to find Sicarius? Akstyr didn’t need a million ranmyas to get out of the city. If he had twenty or thirty thousand, that’d be plenty to buy a train ticket, a steamship ticket, and maybe even pay for his tuition at the Polytechnic. Hairy balls, it might even buy him food and a place to stay while he studied. His heart swelled at that idea of himself as... well, as a wizard. Sure, only Turgonians called practitioners that, but he had to admit it sounded brilliant. It sounded more than brilliant.

  “Beans?” Amaranthe asked, touching Akstyr’s arm.

  He flinched in surprise, and his elbow bumped against his lantern. It toppled, and he lunged to catch it. In the process, he lost his book and slid down the pile of greenhouse kits. He ended up wedged into a gap that left his knees pressed to his chin.

  “Sorry,” Amaranthe said, though her eyebrow quirked in amusement. “I didn’t realize you were so engrossed in your book.”

  “My book?” Akstyr asked blankly.

  She lifted the tome and handed it to him.

  “Oh, right. My book.” Akstyr swallowed. Idiot, he cursed himself. All he’d done was think about his plot, but he was already acting suspiciously.

  “Maybe he’s just that excited over the idea of sausages chunked and formed,” Maldynado said.

  “Yeah, that’s it.” Akstyr laughed. Did it sound nervous? Or forced? He hoped not. He accepted the book and the food.

  Amaranthe smiled, but Akstyr felt Sicarius’s gaze upon him again. Emperor’s warts, Akstyr was acting suspiciously. He was no good at lies.

  In that second, Akstyr decided he’d be a fool to actually betray Sicarius. Maybe he’d sell false information instead. False information on Sicarius’s hideouts and the best way to capture him. Thanks to the newspaper, people should believe he had that information. He still knew gang members who might put him touch with those who could afford to pay well for a chance at a million ranmyas, and by the time everyone figured out what he’d been up to, he’d be out of the city and on his way out of the empire forever. By winter, he’d be on a tropical beach on Kyatt, enrolled in school to learn about the only thing he truly loved.

  What could go wrong?

  Chapter 2

  On the last night of the three-day train journey, Amaranthe woke to a touch on her shoulder. She remembered not to sit up straight, because the ceiling of the freight car was only a couple of feet over her head, and merely opened her eyes. Cold air whistled through the open trapdoor in the ceiling. A dark figure knelt between it and her.

  “Sicarius?” Amaranthe guessed.

  Books and Basilard were pressed against her on either side, and she heard Akstyr and Maldynado snoring on the other side of Books. A chill marked the autumn nights, and the train lacked any sort of insulation, so most of the team was sleeping wedged together to share body heat.

  “We’re slowing for a stop,” Sicarius said.

  Amaranthe rubbed sleep from her eyes. “Early?” According to the schedule, the train should arrive at its final stop at noon, not in the middle of the night.

  “We’re in Ag District Three, not Seven,” Sicarius said.

  She couldn’t feel the train slowing yet. Sicarius must have already taken a look outside. Maybe he even slept up there, cold as it was. He’d never shown any interest in spending nights with the group. Too bad. She would have rather shared a sleeping area with him than with Books and Basilard.

  “Maybe they got a late request for an extra stop,” Amaranthe said, as she lifted her thin blanket and shimmied away from the other men.

  Books promptly pulled the blanket back over him. Basilard rolled over to take her spot and claim part of the covers. Amaranthe smirked when he snuggled into Books’s side.

  “Team bonding,” she said.

  Without comment, Sicarius hopped through the open door. Amaranthe followed him topside with considerably less alacrity. Her sore muscles protested the midnight ri
sing. Sicarius had been driving them hard for the last three days, and she was starting to hate the sight of that wooden duck. At least he hadn’t driven her to fall off the train again.

  Within seconds of climbing outside, Amaranthe wished she had brought the blanket with her. Though no frost slicked the car’s roof, the cold metal penetrated her trousers when she knelt on it. Wind whipped across dark fields, bringing chilly air down from the black jagged mountains running along the horizon. The stars overhead told her those mountains were to the east, instead of to the north, as they would be if they were in Ag District Seven. Sicarius was right. They were in Three, the same rural area they’d passed through on their way up to investigate the secret dam the spring before.

  Lights burned a mile ahead, and, as the train drew nearer, a single dark building came into view. All about it low, flat fields stretched. Though the mountains helped Amaranthe get a vague idea of their location, she did not recognize the area. All of the major rural train depots had towns around them, including stockyards and warehouses.

  “Did we go up some stub away from the main railway?” Amaranthe asked.

  “Yes.” Sicarius crouched beside her.

  Amaranthe wondered if there was anyone awake at that train depot to see them if they didn’t stay low. She wrapped her arms around herself and curled a lip at the idea of flattening to her belly on the cold roof.

  “In this situation,” Amaranthe said, “some men would put an arm around a woman to keep her warm, that being the chivalrous thing to do.”

  Sicarius, eyes focused on the building, did not answer. Steam brakes hissed, and the wheels further slowed their reverberations. Interestingly, the engineer did not pull the whistle to cry out the train’s approach. That was standard operating procedure when nearing a populated area. Of course, one building might not count as a population center.