Conspiracy (28 page)

The lantern puzzled Akstyr for a moment,
until he looked toward the door. Strings dangled from the metal
hinges.

Books held up a blasting stick with the fuse
missing and the end hollowed out. “I very carefully performed a
surgery. Should be enough on there to blow the hinges without
bringing the ceiling down upon us.”

Akstyr considered the carved rock over their
heads.

“
A little hustle, if you
don’t mind,” Books said, his last word breaking off in a coughing
spasm. He wiped his eyes with one hand and waved Akstyr toward the
door with the other.

“
Right.” Akstyr jogged to
the exit with the lantern in hand. Tarry dabs glistened on the
hinges. Before lighting the fuses, he tried the latch again. It’d
be silly to blow the hinges off a door that wasn’t locked, but it
didn’t budge. “Right,” he repeated and lit the two
fuses.

Flames hissed and spat as they climbed the
dangling strings toward the hinges. Akstyr sprinted for the far
side of the room. He didn’t know how much explosive power the dabs
had, but he doubted his “filter” would keep his head from being
blown off.

Books was already hunkered down behind the
row of workbenches, and Akstyr skidded in beside him, ducking low a
split second before a pop sounded. A second followed, the noise
substantial but not bone-shaking like that of the blasting sticks.
Other than pillows of gray smoke joining the murky pink air around
the armoire, nothing happened.

“
It didn’t work,” Akstyr
said.

The door fell inward, landing on the stone
floor with a clunk.

“
Never mind,” Akstyr
said.

Books, a hand to his mouth, was already
stumbling for the exit. Akstyr jogged after him with the box in
hand. Books stopped at the intersection and bent over, hands on his
knees, and retched. Figuring it was fresher out here, and safer,
Akstyr let his filter fade away. He wiped sweat out of his eyes and
was, as always, surprised by how much working his mind worked his
body.

After a moment, Books stood straight again,
his coughs having faded away. He took a step toward the exit, but
paused and gazed back toward the workshop.

“
What?” Akstyr
asked.

“
Nothing,” Books said. “I
just wish we’d had more time to look around.”

“
Why? I mean, I know why
I’d want to look around, but I didn’t think you cared about the
Science.”

“
I don’t. I merely wondered
if there might be some trace of Vonsha Spearcrest.”

“
Who?” Akstyr scratched his
head. He thought that was the woman who Books had nearly been blown
up with in the real estate library the spring before, but he’d
never met her and couldn’t remember for certain.

“
I never found out what
happened to her,” Books murmured. “Her house in the city has been
empty since...”

“
Is now a good time to chat
about women?” Akstyr waved back toward the workshop where the pink
gas was oozing into the tunnel.

A wistful smile crossed Books’s face, but he
said, “Doubtlessly not,” and headed for the mine exit. “The others
are waiting for us. I’ll translate that schematic for you, and you
can spend our travel day figuring out how to get those out of
people’s necks.”

“
What will you be doing
while I’m doing that?”

Books’s smile grew bleak. “In addition to
pondering the ramifications of us having stowaways and a mutinous
pilot on board, I’ll be determining how to take off and get that
dirigible to the Scarlet Pass despite my utter lack of formal
aviation training.”

“
Should I be
worried?”

“
That depends. Can wizards
fly away if a crash is imminent?”

“
If they can,” Akstyr said,
“I haven’t learned how to do it.”

“
Then worry may be
warranted, yes.”

“
Oh.”

The train arrived in Forkingrust after dark.
None of the town’s buildings rose more than two stories, and the
neighborhoods seemed quiet and rustic to Amaranthe’s city-bred eye.
After Stumps’ one million people, Forkingrust and its ten thousand
permanent residents seemed... quaint. Still, thanks to its location
at the convergence of the Capital-Gulf and East-and-West railways,
the town could support a few thousand travelers at a time, and the
brisk autumn air couldn’t keep everyone inside. Numerous people
walked the streets and gathered in eating houses, and the thumps of
dancers’ drums flowed from more than one tavern.

Inside the team’s dark freight car,
Amaranthe had the sliding door open a couple of inches, and
observed through the gap, waiting for an opportune moment to jump
out. The clickety-clack of the wheels on the rails had slowed, and
they only had a mile or so before the train would reach the
station, where there would be more eyes to view its arrival, eyes
that might spot a pack of mercenaries hopping out of one of the
cars.

When they drew even with a few dark
warehouses, Amaranthe pushed the door open. “Time to go,
gentlemen.”

She jumped from the moving train and landed
in a crouch on the gravel. The speed and her heavy pack threatened
her balance, but she caught herself before succumbing to an
embarrassing nose-first topple to the earth. Maldynado, Basilard,
and Sicarius flowed out of the train without trouble. The team
waited for the rest of the cars to pass, then crossed the rails and
jogged into a shadowy street between two warehouses. The windows
were dark, and few people roamed that side of the tracks.

Amaranthe turned onto a wide street parallel
to the tracks. The log and timber-frame buildings had cozy
hand-carved architectural details that gave the area more
personality than the modern warehouses in Stumps.

Maldynado shuffled his feet, stirring the
piles of dried leaves on the side of the street. “No snow.
Good.”

“
We’re out of the
mountains,” Amaranthe said. “Forkingrust is at a lower elevation
than Stumps, and it’s further south as well. It shouldn’t get too
cold tonight.”

“
I can see my breath,
boss,” Maldynado said.

“
I didn’t say it was balmy.
We won’t have to wait long anyway.”

“
Can we wait in the train
station instead of outside?”

“
No,” Amaranthe and
Sicarius said at the same time.

“
So nice when you two are
in agreement,” Maldynado muttered. “They have a big crackling
hearth in there,” he told Basilard, who walked at his side. “And
there’s a lady who sells steaming-hot mulled cider
inside.”

They passed near a
streetlamp, and Basilard signed,
What’s it
mulled with?

“
Wholesome stuff,”
Maldynado said. “Spices, cinnamon, orange zest.”

Alcohol?

“
Oh, naturally. Every mug
is about half brandy.”

“
Not a beverage I’d
recommend given the calisthenics tonight’s mission will require,”
Amaranthe said.

“
You’re not much fun, are
you, boss?” Maldynado draped an arm over her shoulder.

“
Not really,
no.”

Sicarius glared at Maldynado, and he dropped
his arm.

Unfazed, Maldynado went on, “Don’t you think
we should have a beverage to offer the emperor when we get him? We
don’t want him to think we’re savages.”

Maybe Amaranthe
should
have tucked
alcohol in with the blasting sticks she gave Books and Akstyr. She
glanced at Sicarius, thinking of at least one conversation that
might go easier under the influence of a bottle.

“
I do want to check inside
in case Yara is there,” Amaranthe said.

Sicarius turned his glare onto her.

“
No need to fret,” or
glower, she thought, “I’ll go in alone.”

As she spoke, they reached the end of the
block of warehouses, and the train station came into view.
Amaranthe stumbled to a halt. No less than ten army vehicles were
parked around it, including two steam trampers that towered over
the brick building, their banks of cannons bristling like quills on
a porcupine. Lanterns outside and chandeliers inside illuminated
soldiers patrolling the premises, both the debarkation boardwalk
next to the tracks and the big hall inside.

“
What’s going on?”
Amaranthe murmured. “Is all of this just because the emperor’s
train is going through? He’s not even scheduled to get off
here.”

“
You told the enforcer
woman there would be a kidnapping.” Sicarius’s tone was as cool and
emotionless as ever, so it might have been her imagination that
there was an accusing I-told-you-so in there... but she doubted it.
“It’s likely she informed the authorities.”

“
We don’t know that,”
Amaranthe said, though a heavy feeling gathered in the pit of her
stomach. Mistake, that conversation had been a mistake. One she
might not have made if she hadn’t been thinking of ridiculously
unimportant things like who was going to date whom.

“
You did
what
?” Maldynado asked
after a moment of stunned silence.

“
I invited her to join us
and help the emperor,” Amaranthe said. “I didn’t tell her to alert
the army to anything.”

“
What’d you invite
her
for?” Maldynado
sounded like a petulant boy whose parents had told him a
neighborhood girl was coming to play in his treehouse.

“
I thought she might be
useful.” Amaranthe chewed on a fingernail, wondering if they should
avoid the train station all together now. They did have a backup
plan—hopping onto the moving cars from Akron Bridge three miles
northeast of Forkingrust. That had been the reason for their
bridge-jumping practice the week before. “If we have to, we’ll
switch to our back-up plan, but I’m going in there to get
information first. For all we know, this is some splinter group
supplied with modern weapons and assigned the task of taking over
the emperor’s train.” She looked at Maldynado as she said the last
sentence, thinking of his brother, and he scratched his jaw
thoughtfully. Sicarius’s expression, too, grew a little less icy,
as he seemed to consider the possibility.

Amaranthe shouldn’t hope
for such a thing—she didn’t want to witness a bloodbath as soldiers
battled soldiers, with Sespian in the middle—but she
did
hope that these
people weren’t here because of her own foolishness.

“
You three, why don’t you
scout the water tower and coal-filling station?” Amaranthe
suggested. “I’ll meet you back there when I’m—”

Sicarius gripped her arm. “You’re not going
in there alone.”

Amaranthe wasn’t sure if he was concerned
for her safety or simply thought he needed to save her from another
stupid decision. She didn’t like having him countermanding her
wishes in front of the men, but she didn’t want to squabble in
front of them either. Maldynado and Basilard were already
pretending to study the nearest lamppost.

“
Excellent,” Amaranthe
said. “I was hoping someone would volunteer to accompany me. I fear
it shouldn’t be you, however, as those blond locks are quite
distinctive. Maldynado, would you like to dress up in a costume and
go inside with me? Perhaps you can get a jug of that brandy cider
to take with us.”

“
Excellent idea, boss,”
Maldynado said.

Though she had been speaking to Maldynado,
Amaranthe hadn’t looked away from Sicarius, and she raised her
eyebrows, silently asking him if her compromise would do.

He didn’t look pleased, but he released her
arm and stepped back. “Basilard and I will be nearby if you need
assistance.”

Basilard nodded at this.

“
Thank you,” Amaranthe
said, hoping he knew that she meant her thanks to include the fact
that he was still going to support her, even though her loose lips
might be the reason they had an extra obstacle to deal
with.

What costumes will you
use?
Basilard pointed at Maldynado.
His hair is too long for a soldier.

“
I don’t want to beat
anyone up for a uniform,” Amaranthe said, “though I
have
observed that
warrior-caste men tend to ignore such things as army
regulations.”

“
We ignore anything that
gets in the way of good fashion sense.” Maldynado stroked the dyed
raccoon tail dangling from his fur cap.

Amaranthe refrained from comment.
Barely.

* * * * *

“
I can feel Sicarius
glowering all the way over here,” Amaranthe muttered.

She and Maldynado had, courtesy of an
unlocked bedroom window, acquired costumes and were getting ready
to casually stroll into the train station as a couple of weary
travelers. Amaranthe wore a businesswoman’s skirt, blouse, and
fitted jacket, while a wig gave her a head of curly reddish brown
hair. Maldynado wore workman’s togs and was still grousing that
they hadn’t been able to find something suitable to his tastes—as
if anything on an average person’s laundry line would do for him.
She meant to pass him off as her servant, should anyone ask, though
with his bumptious posture that might be difficult.

“
He can hurl that glare
around like a cannonball.” Maldynado adjusted an unimaginative wool
cap that had replaced his raccoon-fur masterpiece. “You don’t
usually get it though.”