Conspiracy (44 page)

Akstyr had seen Books get nervous before,
and he wasn’t much use when he was like that. Amaranthe could
always get him to calm down, but Akstyr didn’t think he could have
the same effect. Nobody on the streets had ever told him he was
reassuring.

“
All our lights are off,
and... maybe I can do something to help camouflage us.” Akstyr
didn’t say the latter with a lot of conviction. He had studied
illusions, sure, and he could do a few tricks, the sorts of things
that might impress dumb guards on a train, but could he hide the
entire dirigible?

“
They’re getting closer.”
Books’s gaze was riveted to the window, his hands gripping the
console, his shoulders hunched and tense. The craft was higher than
the dirigible, and Akstyr couldn’t see it from his spot behind
Books, but the red search beam came into view, sweeping left and
right, probing the snow with its telling light. “If we try to leave
now, they’ll see us,” Books said. “But we’re too close to the pass
too. If they keep coming toward it, they’re sure to see us
anyway.”

“
Not if we hide,” Akstyr
said.

Books was only shaking his head. He didn’t
seem to hear.

“
If you don’t lower us
deeper into this little canyon—” Akstyr rapped his knuckles on the
control panel, “—I will.”

That broke through Books’s worried
trance.

“
Dear departed ancestors,
no.” Books plopped down into the seat. “I’ll do it.” His voice
lowered to a mutter. “If I can find the cursed levers in the
dark.”

Akstyr allowed himself a tight smile. If he
couldn’t be reassuring, threatening was an option.

The dirigible engine offered a smooth ride,
and Akstyr might not have noticed they were descending except that
the scenery outside the windows changed. The view of distant
mountains disappeared, replaced with nearby cliffs and snowy
slopes.

Akstyr sat cross-legged on the floor. He
wished he had more time to think about how to go about
manufacturing the illusion. He’d seen the terrain around the
dirigible when he’d been up on the precipice, but he hadn’t thought
to memorize it and think about how best he could add a piece to
it—a piece that would make it appear like someone was looking at an
empty canyon instead of a ship tucked in a nook. The artistry
required daunted him. Even if he could pull it off, he would have
to hope nobody over there was a practitioner, someone who could see
right through such guises.

A few fat snowflakes blew across the
windshield. Maybe a blizzard would roll in, forcing the other ship
to abandon its search. That gave Akstyr an idea.

“
This is as low as I dare
get,” Books said.

A long squeal of metal assaulted their ears,
and a jolt coursed through the dirigible.

“
Maybe you shouldn’t have
dared to get that low.” Akstyr thought the metal hull of the lower
part of the craft could stand up to a few scrapes, but he was less
certain about the balloon. He didn’t know what it was made from,
but he assumed the material could tear.

“
It’s difficult to steer a
vessel this large in the dark,” Books said. “Especially when my
control panel is also in the dark.”

“
Just hold us here.” Akstyr
closed his eyes and took several deep breaths.

“
Obviously,” Books
grumbled, then raised his voice and added, “They’re getting closer,
so anything you’re thinking of doing should be soon.”

“
I’m already doing it,”
Akstyr whispered, voice strained. He opened an eye to check
outside, to see if the snow appeared to be picking up. The flakes
drifting across the window had increased, though some were falling
straight down while others slanted at an angle. “Stupid wind,” he
muttered. He’d thought it would be easier working with the existing
snow than creating an illusory storm from scratch, but perhaps
not.

“
Are you making it snow?”
Books asked.

Akstyr ignored him and closed his eyes to
concentrate harder. All the flakes had to be going the same
direction, and there had to be more of them, enough to shroud the
dirigible and convince the other ship to call off its search until
the weather improved, ideally long after the team had finished in
the pass.

“
You are, aren’t
you?”

The touch of awe in Books’s voice was
flattering, but Akstyr would have preferred silence. He needed
every iota of concentration he could muster. He caught himself
breathing heavily, as if he’d been running stairs at one of
Sicarius’s workouts. Though cold seeped up from the metal floor, he
was anything but cold. Heat flushed his face, and sweat prickled
his armpits.

“
That craft
must
be magic,” Books
said. “There’s no visible propulsion system. More than that, I
don’t see how something like that could achieve lift in the first
place. Emperor’s teeth, it looks like a big balrock ball that some
student cut in half. Though it does seem to be designed to reduce
drag. Maybe it has internal engines, and the body itself acts as
a...”

Getting irritated or telling Books to shut
up would have disturbed Akstyr’s concentration, so he did his best
to ignore the analysis.

“
They’re close,” Books
whispered a few moments later. “They’re angling for the pass. Maybe
they’ll miss us.”

Akstyr could think about nothing but the
snow. Behind his eyelids, he pictured it, from the clouds high
above all the way to the drifts below. Sheer will turned it into an
illusion others could see and not simply an image in his mind.

“
It’s getting hard to see
them,” Books murmured. “But if I can’t see them, maybe they can’t
see us. Uh oh, they’ve stopped. Their beam is... it’s behind the
precipice. I think they’re looking at the landslide.”

More snow, Akstyr thought. Blizzard.

“
I can’t see anything now,”
Books said.

“
They’re still there,”
Akstyr whispered. He might not sense any Science built into the
craft, but he could still feel the physical presence of something
that large.

“
Are they... coming this
way?”

“
They’re not
moving.”

“
It’s
hovering
?” Books asked. “Amazing. A
dirigible can hover, of course, but that’s because the hydrogen is
used in the balloon, a gas that’s lighter than air,
thus—”

“
Nobody
cares
, Books,” Akstyr
said.

“
Can you make it snow
harder over the pass? Perhaps you could throw a little wind at them
too.”

Akstyr opened an eye and glared. “You don’t
want much, do you?”

The exchange stole his concentration, and
illusion faded, leaving a third as many snowflakes in the sky.
Akstyr gritted his teeth and refocused. Only when he’d filled the
sky again did he feel safe enough to add, “I don’t know how to do
auditory illusions yet. No wind.”

“
Oh, it’s all an illusion?”
Books asked. “That’s quite good. Maybe it’s worth sending you to
school, after all.”

“
Glad you approve,
professor.”

Something nudged Akstyr’s senses. It came
from the direction of the flying craft. Maybe there was Science in
the bowels of that black machine after all. But, no, it felt...
sentient. Like a person, not an object.

“
I think they have a
practitioner.” Akstyr’s stomach sank. Maybe the person had been
asleep and had woken up when he or she sensed someone manipulating
the scenery. That couldn’t be good.

“
You’re overdoing it,”
Books said.

“
Huh?” Akstyr opened his
eyes to a whiteout outside the window. The rocky terrain to either
side of the dirigible had disappeared behind snowfall so thick one
would be lucky to see a foot ahead. The shadow of the balloon
protected the windows from fat flakes that might have coated the
glass otherwise, but enough snow flew sideways that it still
blotted out the view. “That’s not all me.”

Akstyr let his illusion slip away, and it
didn’t make a difference. Wind moaned through the mountains, though
their position in the canyon protected them.

The new presence he’d sensed faded from his
awareness. Akstyr stretched out with his thoughts, but it was as if
the snow was somehow muffling his mental reach. No, that wasn’t it.
The other vessel was moving away.

“
They’re leaving,” Akstyr
said.

“
That’s a relief,” Books
said.

“
Maybe. I think they’re
following the tracks.”

“
North or
south?”

“
South,” Akstyr said.
“Toward the others.”

* * * * *

Maldynado’s voice floated out of the
locomotive, and his words filled Amaranthe’s ears as she swung
through the door to land inside. Yara was in the engineer’s seat
while Basilard leaned against the back wall. Sespian stood before
the furnace, the coal shovel still in his hands. Between Yara and
Sespian, Maldynado lounged against the control wall, his arms flung
wide, draped over valves and pipes, as he spoke.

“
...nothing monstrous in
size,” he was saying, “but substantial enough to show off my
handsome features. And location is important. I’d hate to be like
Korgoth the Cranky with that old, dank copper statue by the sewer
treatment plant. I was thinking something in the Imperial Gardens
would be nice. Or perhaps in the University District where all
those pretty young female students would see—”

“
Maldynado,” Amaranthe
said, “why are you loitering around and talking while the
emperor
is shoveling
coal into a furnace?”

“
Er.” Maldynado’s mouth
opened and closed a few times before he settled on, “He was doing
that when I came in. I thought he was enjoying a chance to live
like a peasant and partake in menial labor.”

Though Sespian did not appear offended,
Amaranthe propped her hands on her hips and stared at
Maldynado.

“
Ah, yes, why don’t I
handle that, Sire?” Maldynado took the shovel from Sespian and
gestured for him to step aside.

Sicarius had come in after Amaranthe, but he
merely stood by the door, as quiet as usual. If Amaranthe was going
to convince him to chat with Sespian, or, ancestors help him, to
make a joke, she would have to get rid of the crowd.

“
Basilard, do you want to
help me dig out our medical kits?” Amaranthe said. “It looks like
we could all use some suture and bandages.”

“
Alcohol, too, perhaps,”
Yara said.

“
For sterilizing wounds?”
Amaranthe asked.

“
Among other things.”
Though the enforcer sergeant retained the usual determined set to
her jaw, the haunted cast to her eyes suggested she had found the
night’s adventure harrowing.

“
We’ll see what we can
find.” Amaranthe faced Sespian. “Sire, I... have to tell you that
your kidnapping wasn’t entirely without casualties. I’d hoped that
if it couldn’t be bloodless it could at least be deathless, but it
seems that was too much to ask.”

Sespian’s young face grew grim, and he
nodded. “I anticipated that. When I made the decision to contact
you... It is something I carefully weighed beforehand. Perhaps it
was selfish, but I assure you it wasn’t only my hide that I was
thinking of. There are... things afoot that I couldn’t have halted
from within the Imperial Barracks. Too many people watch me there.
If I can survive long enough out here to investigate Forge’s latest
scheme further, and to figure out some appropriate action to take,
it will be for the good of the entire empire.”

His defensiveness startled
Amaranthe. It hadn’t occurred to her that
he
might take the blame for the
deaths of his soldiers, though, now that she thought about it, she
realized it shouldn’t surprise her. He was a conscientious young
man, certainly. His hints of evil afoot intrigued her, but the
guarded way he was phrasing things implied he wouldn’t be sharing a
lot of details. Not yet anyway. He must see her and her team as
tools, not as allies. She would have to change his mind about
that.

Amaranthe moved a pack off the top of the
coal box and extended a hand toward it. “Sire, would you like to
sit down? Perhaps you can let us know what, now that we’ve
kidnapped you, you’d like us to do with you.”

Sespian moved toward the box, but, after a
wary glance at the men all around him, chose to lean against the
wall beside it instead of sitting down.

It
was
a tad crowded, and he might not
feel comfortable with mercenaries looming on all sides. Amaranthe
had to remind herself that the men she regarded as
friends—
family
—were strangers to him, and even Maldynado, affable and
smiling as he shoveled coal, was an intimidating figure.
Shaven-headed Basilard, with more scars than most chopping blocks,
looked like a bouncer who relished his work, and Sicarius... well,
Amaranthe already had a good idea how Sespian felt about him. She
didn’t know if he’d exchanged any words with Sergeant Yara, but
doubted her presence alone was enough to put him at
ease.

“
Would you mind telling me
where this train, what’s left of it, is going now?” Sespian
asked.

He hadn’t answered Amaranthe’s question.
Maybe he wouldn’t with such a large audience.

“
The Scarlet Pass,” she
said. “We have comrades meeting us at the top. From there... that’s
up to you.”