Conspiracy (46 page)

“
Buy him a drink,”
Amaranthe suggested, “and I imagine he’ll spill everything on his
eldest brother.”

“
I’ll... consider it,”
Sespian said, and Amaranthe caught him scrutinizing her eyes. He
glanced speculatively at Sicarius, but didn’t say anything
else.

Under other circumstances, Amaranthe might
have laughed at him—at both of them. Her eyes were the same boring
brown shared by ninety percent of the people in the empire, so she
couldn’t imagine what they were talking about, but if something in
her eyes got Sespian to believe she was on her side, she’d be happy
to use it.

“
I hope you’ll consider
letting the rest of us help you, too, Sire,” Amaranthe said. “At
the least, you’ll want that implant out of your neck before you
head off to do... whatever it is you’re going to do.” If they had
to perform some surgery on Sespian, that’d delay him a couple of
days, and maybe she and Sicarius would find their moment alone with
him. “I’m sure my mental-sciences man will have some ideas when we
meet up with him again.” She wasn’t sure of that at all, but she
hoped it would be the case.

“
That’s the teenage boy
with the spiked hair, isn’t it?” Sespian asked dryly.

“
Er, yes, but he studies
hard. He’s healed me before, after I’ve done foolish things and
nearly gotten myself killed. Also, he’s only a year younger than
you, Sire.” Amaranthe decided not to mention that Akstyr appeared
older than Sespian. Emperors probably liked to be told they looked
fierce and commanding, not baby-faced.

“
Yes, and that’s why I’d
doubt him. I’m not terribly wise or experienced.”

“
We’ll find a solution.
Books and Sicarius have a lot of experience they’ll share with
him.”

Sespian shot another look at Sicarius. “How
comforting.”

“
Sire...” Amaranthe
started, but didn’t know what to add, not with Yara there, and she
didn’t think Sespian wanted her to send Yara away.

“
Corporal Lokdon,” Sespian
said, “I’d like to trust you and treat you as a confidante, but I’m
afraid I’d be letting my feelings trample all over my pragmatism.
These Forge people have been consuming my time and my sanity with
their plotting and manipulation, and I haven’t had a chance to
research what your group is doing. Your questionable allies aside—”
Sespian gave Sicarius another narrowed-eyed glance, “—you went to
that elite business school before becoming an enforcer, and some of
your old classmates are affiliated with Forge.”

That was news to Amaranthe. Maybe she ought
to be getting in touch with old comrades to see if they might be
sources of information.

“
I’m sorry to be
mistrustful,” Sespian went on, “but I’ve been wrong once already.”
He grimaced, and Amaranthe wondered how he’d been captured—or
tricked?—into leaving the Imperial Barracks to end up in Larocka’s
clutches the winter before. “If my concerns are unfounded, I
apologize. I hope you can understand my position and won’t hold it
against me.” He offered her a sad half-smile.

“
Of course I won’t, Sire.”
Amaranthe sensed that she’d made headway and had best not press him
further. Knowing how little time they had, she wanted to, but if
she was too insistent, he’d grow suspicious of her motives. At the
least, he’d want to talk to her again with Books present to get
more information on whatever economic scheme he was researching.
“You don’t happen to know
which
of my old colleagues are involved with Forge, do
you?” she asked.

“
Boss!” came Maldynado’s
voice from outside. “We have a problem!”

Amaranthe lifted a hand toward Sicarius,
about to ask him to check it out, but he was already heading for
the exit.

“
What do you think,
Sergeant Yara?” Sespian asked. “Are these outlaws to be trusted?”
He said it casually, as if he were simply making conversation, but
something in the intent set of his face made Amaranthe think the
answer might matter.

Yara turned in the engineer’s seat to face
Sespian. “I think you can trust Lokdon, Sire.”

At that simple endorsement, Amaranthe let
out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Sicarius,
halfway out the door, had paused to hear the exchange. He met and
held Amaranthe’s eyes for a moment before leaving, and she thought
it might be an acknowledgement that she hadn’t been an idiot for
involving Yara after all. She didn’t know if the sergeant’s words
would sway Sespian in the end, but they couldn’t hurt.

Only a few moments passed before Sicarius
returned. “There’s something flying overhead,” he said without
preamble.

“
Books and Akstyr?”
Amaranthe asked.

“
Not unless Maldynado
pleasured a whole platoon of wealthy businesswomen.”

“
That’s... not impossible,”
Amaranthe said, but Sicarius had already swung back
outside.

“
What?” Sespian
asked.

“
I’m not sure. Stay here,
please, Sire.” Amaranthe headed for the door.

Snow greeted her when she climbed outside.
They were still in the forest, with evergreens towering to either
side of the tracks, but the railway sloped upward more steeply than
it had before. Amaranthe climbed into the coal car, where the men
were crouching and looking skyward.

“
That thing’s
huge
.” Maldynado spotted
Amaranthe. “Did you see it?”

“
No, what is
it?”

“
A flying... I don’t know.
Castle?”

It wasn’t a
castle
,
Basilard signed.

“
Then what was it?”
Maldynado asked.

Big
.

Amaranthe scratched her head. A big, flying
not-castle. Lovely description.

Sicarius was crouching on top of the
locomotive cab. Amaranthe clambered up beside him.

“
Can you describe what
we’re dealing with?” she asked.

He pointed through the falling snow toward
the slope ahead. At first, Amaranthe saw nothing. Then, dark
against the white mountainside, a massive black craft floated
across the railway, dwarfing the evergreens beneath it.
Intermittent lights outlined its half-sphere shape. It was flat on
the bottom and convex on top, like the dome of a building. A
steady, conical red beam shot out the front, its focus downward as
it illuminated a swath of snow-covered trees in its path. The
vessel had to be miles away yet, but its size made it seem much
closer.

“
I’ve never seen anything
like that.” Amaranthe twisted to look at the men. “Maldynado, is
there any chance that’s the flying contraption you sent Books and
Akstyr to pick up?”

“
No, they were getting a
dirigible,” Maldynado said, “not a giant black flying
fortress.”

Up ahead, the craft had disappeared, but the
image remained etched in Amaranthe’s mind. Was this some secret new
technology Forge had designed or somehow gotten its hands on? She
thought of the underwater laboratory her team had infiltrated that
summer. For all its strangeness, it had appeared to be a mix of
imperial technology and magic. Whatever this was, it seemed utterly
alien.

Sicarius hadn’t moved. He crouched, elbows
on his knees, gaze toward the spot the craft had occupied.

“
Have you ever seen
anything like it?” Amaranthe asked.

“
It’s making its way down
from the mountains,” Sicarius said, “going back and forth over the
tracks.”

Looking for them, perhaps? “You didn’t
answer my question,” Amaranthe pointed out.

“
It’s possible they haven’t
seen us yet. The snow is picking up. It may hide our
smoke.”

“
Sicarius...”

He pulled out his collapsible spyglass and
lifted it to his face. “There are three tunnels between here and
the pass. If we speed up, we may be able to reach the closest one,
stop the train, and hide in there until the craft flies past.”

Amaranthe doubted he could see the tunnels
with the spyglass, not with so many trees in the way, but she
trusted he knew the railway by heart. While she had rarely traveled
out of the city, he’d been all over the empire and to other nations
during his previous career.

Wind battered at Amaranthe and she pressed
her fingers against the top of the cab for balance. “At the risk of
sounding like a nagging wife, I’m going to ask again if you have an
idea as to what we’re dealing with.”

Sicarius lowered the spyglass. “It reminds
me of technology I saw in my youth. Extremely deadly technology. We
don’t want to be noticed by whoever is piloting it.”

“
Technology? Not
magic?”

“
Come.” Sicarius stood,
unperturbed by the wind and snow gusting at his chest. “We need to
hurry if we’re going to make the tunnel.”

He slithered over the edge of the roof and
into the cabin.

“
I don’t know why I bother
asking him questions.” Amaranthe didn’t feel up to duplicating
Sicarius’s exit, so she hopped down into the coal car before
angling for the ledge leading back to the locomotive
cabin.

“
Can we come back in now?”
Maldynado asked. “I don’t know if you noticed the snow, but it’s
getting a touch nippy out here. I’d hate to be unable to perform to
my fullest capacity because of cold-induced...
atrophies.”

“
The only thing that might
atrophy because of the cold isn’t something you need right now,”
Amaranthe said.

Maldynado hopped onto the ledge and followed
her into the cab. Sicarius had the furnace door open and was
shoveling mounds of coal inside. Yara still sat in the engineer’s
position, but a new grimness marked her face, and Amaranthe had a
feeling she’d seen the mysterious craft. Sespian stood behind her,
gripping the back of her seat.

“
You don’t know that for
certain,” Maldynado said, stepping inside after Amaranthe. “What if
there’s a beautiful woman flying that thing, and her people capture
us using superior magics, and our only hope of survival will come
if I can seduce her, thus distracting her while the rest of the
team escapes?”

“
Maybe I was mistaken,”
Sespian said, “and he’s
not
a Marblecrest.”

Maldynado’s step faltered and Basilard,
swinging into the cabin after him, had to skitter to the side to
avoid crashing into him. For a moment, Maldynado looked like a
bumbling private caught at the end of an enemy cannon, or at least
like someone who’s secret was out, but he recovered and
shrugged.

“
Technically, I’m not,
Sire,” Maldynado said. “I’m disowned. Disappointed the old man one
too many times, as it were.”

I can’t imagine
why
, Basilard signed.

The cab grew crowded with everyone inside,
and when Maldynado lifted an arm to say, “You wound me, Bas,” he
clunked Yara in the head with his elbow.

“
I told you not to touch
me, you ungainly goon,” Yara said.

Maldynado bowed deeply, this time bumping
Basilard. “My apologies, my lady. Perhaps you’d like me to drive
while you stand in a place less likely to be disturbed by human
activity?”

Amaranthe opened her mouth to say less
yammering and more focusing on the problem would be good, but
Sicarius acted first. He spun away from the furnace and hurled his
favorite dagger at the floor. Instead of bouncing off, the black
blade sank an inch into the textured metal. Even though she’d been
watching him, Amaranthe jumped in surprise. She started to ask what
he was about, but Sicarius pointed at the quivering dagger
hilt.

“
Unless I miss my
guess,
that
is
the technology we’re dealing with up there.”

“
If we don’t avoid
detection, we will die shortly,” Sicarius said, his knife still
quivering where it had stuck in the metal floor.

It took a moment for people to pull their
eyes away from the dagger, especially Yara, who hadn’t seen the
weapon before.

“
Yara,” Amaranthe said
quietly, “push the train to full speed, please.”

Yara tore her gaze from the knife.
“Understood.”

“
As soon as we enter the
tunnel, start braking,” Sicarius told her. “We need to stop before
we come out on the other side.”

Yara nodded once.

Sicarius yanked his dagger out of the floor,
sheathed it, and returned to shoveling. Heat poured from the
furnace, and a vortex of red and orange flames writhed inside. The
needle on the gauge that marked miles per hour crept toward the
maximum line. Without the dozens of heavy cars behind it, the
engine needn’t work as hard as usual, but they were climbing a
steep slope, and the locomotive trembled as it picked up speed.
Vibrations thrummed through Amaranthe, rattling her teeth in her
skull. She tried not to think about curves in the tracks that
they’d encounter as they ascended into the mountains, curves that
were not safe to go around above certain speeds.

Basilard gathered the firearms left in the
cabin from the soldiers and hopped onto the coal box. He started
checking and loading everything. If that craft was made from a
material similar to Sicarius’s dagger, Amaranthe couldn’t imagine
what a black-powder weapon could do to damage it. Maldynado was
standing next to her, and she gave him a bleak look.

“
My plan’s starting to
sound better now, isn’t it?” he asked.