Deadly Games (17 page)

“Would that be a way that involved killing,
torturing, or otherwise maiming people?”

“I bet he could have gotten the answers we
needed by applying force that didn’t do permanent damage.” She
poked at a splinter of wood sticking out of the crate. “Instead I
got sanctimonious and said it would be better to fool the miners
into talking to us by dressing up as enforcers. If we’d done it his
way, we’d probably have been finished in ten minutes, and we’d know
who we were up against by now.”

“I’d be uncomfortable working for you if you
chose his way very often,” Books said.

“Well, my way isn’t getting the sword
polished.”

“Why do you say that? We’ve accomplished
noteworthy tasks under your leadership.”

“Because we’ve been lucky. No because
he’s
gotten me out of trouble. My crazy ideas have almost
gotten me killed a half a dozen times now, and I’ve landed the
whole group in dire situations more than once. My schemes seem so
tantalizing and shiny when they first come to mind, and then I jump
off the dock without checking to see if the lake’s gone dry. I
should stop and get Sicarius’s opinion first—and listen to it and
think about it. I should get
all
of your opinions. What good
is a group if you don’t utilize everyone to his fullest?”

Books grunted and sat on a crate opposite
from hers.

She eyed him. “This would be the appropriate
time for you to say something like, ‘Amaranthe, you’re being too
hard on yourself....’”

“Oh? I thought we’d had a conversation like
this before, and you told me the woman wants to rant while the man
nods and grunts in agreement.”

“That was a little different.” She tried to
smile for him, but could not, not when she remembered the events
that had led up to that conversation with him on a frozen dock
outside of a cannery. That night, Sicarius had
helped
her by
slaying a squad of enforcers and her old partner. “You’re right
though. Sicarius’s ways of doing things are too macabre for the
group and our goals. But mine are...” She propped her chin on her
fist. “What do you think, Books? I value your opinion.”

“I don’t think we’d have accomplished what we
have without your ideas. Don’t get rid of them, and don’t stop
being...”

She waited for him to say “crazy.”

“Creative,” Books said.

Well, that was nicer than crazy.

“But...”

Amaranthe braced herself. She
had
asked.

“You lack prudence,” Books said. “I suspect
it’s a combination of youth and the fact that, until recently, you
lived your life under strict rules, first as a child obedient to
your father and your school teachers, and then as an enforcer,
obedient to superiors and indeed in charge of enforcing laws
yourself. For the first time, you have utter freedom, and it’s
natural for you to struggle to find a way that works. We all say we
crave freedom, but the truth is many people hang themselves without
the structure society imposes. Nobody’s done what you’re trying to
do, so there’s no precedent, no guideline to follow.”

“That is true,” Amaranthe said.

“Since that’s the case, you should think
twice and consider all possible outcomes before embarking on a plan
that could get you, or someone else, captured.”

“It’s not as if that’s always
foreseeable.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure? You
have a tendency to wander into the enemy camp to chat with the head
villain.”

“I don’t...” She stopped, since his eyebrows
were threatening to crawl up to the top of his scalp and leap for
the sky. Yes, she had done exactly that with Hollowcrest, the
wizard Arbitan, and the shamans from Mangdoria. And now she had
sent Sicarius off to spy on what might be the head villain.

“You do,” Books said, “and I understand why.
You get a lot of information from talking to people, and you’re
smarter than average, so you probably believe you can get yourself
out of any trouble you get into. When I was a professor, I found
that bright people sometimes make the worst students. They don’t
want to simply do the assignment; they want to add creative flair
and sophistication, and they make things so complicated that they
fail to finish on time.”

“What did you say to those
challenged-by-their-own-creative-flair students?” Amaranthe asked.
“How did you teach them more...prudence?” She smiled, thinking he
would appreciate that she used his word.

His face grew long though, and he shook his
head. “I couldn’t teach them that. Only experience could. There are
a lot of platitudes that suggest age makes us wise, but the truth
is it’s
losing
that teaches best. Making mistakes. Failing.
Some people are wise enough to learn from the mistakes of others,
but most need to experience failure first hand. You may need to
lose something important before the lessons of life sink in.” He
grimaced, perhaps thinking of his son and his own past.

“I liked it better when you were just
grunting,” Amaranthe said.

“I’m sorry, but you asked—”

She lifted a hand. “I know. I did. Thank you.
I’ll think about your words. And I hope they’re not prophetic. I’m
not ready to lose anything, especially not one of you.”

“Well,” Books said lightly, “if you
had
to lose someone, Sicarius would be the least
missed.”

Amaranthe stared at him, stricken.

“Er.” This time he raised an apologetic hand.
“Sorry. It was a joke. A poor joke.”

“He’s the only reason I’m alive, Books. He
saves my life again and again, and I repay him by sending him off
to be abducted or killed by whatever nefarious magic-hurling
zealots are swiping athletes from the Imperial Games. Who
does
that to people they—” Amaranthe stopped herself from
finishing the sentence, certain Books would be horrified by a
proclamation that she loved Sicarius. She cleared her throat and
switched subjects. “I’m hoping he’s only detained, but I feel it’d
be best to go forward on the assumption he’s in trouble. If that is
the case, I’d like to
prudently
extract him from it.” She
dug out the note they had swiped from the miner’s pocket. “We lose
nothing by working toward that goal, since I’m guessing, if he
is
missing, he’s where the rest of the athletes are.”

While Books studied the note, she wondered at
her own words.
Rest
of the athletes? It was applicable, if
not official. Sicarius might not have ever competed in a public
venue, but she had little doubt, even older than most of the field,
he would be at the top if he did enter. Maybe this had nothing to
do with the Imperial Games at all. Could it be someone was rounding
up the most physically gifted men and women around and using this
event to shop for likely candidates? Sicarius’s reputation could
place him at the top of such a list even if the people doing the
shopping had not seen him perform.

If her theory were true, to what ends would
someone want these people? To create some sort of mercenary army?
An elite force? She curled her lip at the idea. That was her
own
fantasy for the Emperor’s Edge. Aside from perhaps the
wrestlers, the other athletes who had been taken were not
necessarily warriors. Being able to run fast or maneuver through
the Clank Race did not mean one had studied fencing or unarmed
combat.

“Any thoughts?” she asked Books.

“Horrible penmanship.”

“You better give me more than that if you’re
going to save me from doing something imprudent.” She smiled.

“Oh? You have an idea?”

“I was just ruminating on the common link
between the names I know. Superior athleticism.”

“Why don’t you let me go to the stadium with
Basilard today? I’ll see if I can get a copy of the list of
entrants and match these two unknown names. If it turns out they,
like Sicarius, are not athletes that might give us more to go
on.”

“Agreed,” Amaranthe said. “If we can figure
out exactly why these people were taken, we might be able to get a
bead on
who
might want to take them. Akstyr’s going around
to the apothecaries in the city to see if any of them has that root
in stock and if they remember anyone buying it recently. If you
finish early, you and Basilard can join up with him. He may need
help researching and finding all the apothecaries.”

“Huh, and I thought it was going to be a
light work day,” Books said, but he smiled, and she suspected he
was happy for the chance to do research.

“I’ll take Maldynado and go back to the
miner’s flat to see if the family is back or if anyone has
information on where those men meet. Maybe if we work this from
both ends we can find the kidnappers’ lair somewhere in the
middle.”

“Assuming we are dealing with kidnappers and
not someone who merely wants to kill irritatingly gifted people,”
Books said.

She stared at him. “This would be a case when
a grunt or a nod would have been more appreciated.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Under the light of day, the brick building
where Raydevk and his wife lived seemed poorer. Every few minutes,
a train chugged through, shaking the ground. Surly men hunkered in
doorways, drinking from ceramic applejack mugs stamped with the
Three Legged Dog logo, a homely mark for the satrapy’s cheapest
distillery. Some said the outfit used the bruised worm-filled
apples left in the orchard grass after the other distilleries had
their pick.

“Charming neighborhood,” Maldynado drawled
after a gaunt old man stepped out of an alley, buttoning his pants.
Amaranthe hoped all he had been doing in there was peeing.

As she and Maldynado approached the building,
they stayed near the wall, so the wife, Pella, would not see them
coming if she glanced out the window.

“This is the kind of place Sicarius takes you
for evenings out, eh?” Maldynado added.

“Actually, I took
him
here,” Amaranthe
said. “And got him kidnapped. I’m not a very good date.”

They reached the front door, and Maldynado
held it open for her.

“Fortunately, Deret likes an adventure,” he
said.

“Is there some reason you’re intent on
matching us up?” she asked as they headed up the stairs.

“He’s a good man, mostly, and you’re a good
woman, mostly. And he’s in a position to help us reach our goals,
so that doesn’t hurt. Maybe he’s not in love with you yet, but I’ll
wager you could talk just about any man over to your side, given
time. I mean, emperor’s warts, you’ve got
Sicarius
working
for you.”

Her lips twisted into a dry smirk. “Getting
people to go along with my schemes and getting men to fall in love
with me aren’t the same.”

“Sure, they are,” Maldynado said as they
stepped out onto the third floor. “You just make the former your
priority. If you tried as hard to woo a man into bed as you did to
woo me into joining your mission, you’d never sleep alone.”

Amaranthe speculated on the idea of putting
effort into “wooing” Sicarius, but shook the notion from her head.
She had more important things to focus on. She hoped Pella had
returned home, so she could question her.

Two doors away from the flat, Amaranthe
halted and stretched her arm across the hallway to stop Maldynado
as well. An uneasy feeling raised the hairs on the back of her
neck.

The door to the family’s flat stood open.
Gouges marred the wood of the jamb near the lock, and splinters
littered the floor beneath.

“Think Sicarius is in there?” Maldynado
whispered.

A thump sounded inside, like a drawer
closing.

“You think
Sicarius
would leave
evidence of entering or make noises once inside?” she whispered
back as she slipped her short sword from its scabbard.

“Er, no.”

She would like to think it was he, that
perhaps he’d spent the night tracking the miner, lost him, and come
back to question the wife, but Amaranthe doubted it. She eased
forward, sword in hand, stepping lightly on the hall’s threadbare
runner.

A faint rasp of steel sounded as Maldynado
drew his rapier and followed her.

Before she could peep around the doorjamb,
footsteps came from within. Heavy footsteps. A scruffy young man
strode out, carrying a canvas tote stuffed so full the contents
threatened to burst through the material. When he saw Amaranthe and
Maldynado, he threw the tote at them and bolted down the hallway in
the opposite direction.

Amaranthe turned her shoulder, but Maldynado
lunged and caught the bag before it hit her.

“Get him,” she said. “Bring him back.”

Amazingly, he dropped the bag and sprinted
down the hall without stopping to make comments about how hard she
worked him for so little pay.

Another thump came from inside. Amaranthe
peeked past the door, did not see anyone, and eased into the room,
her back pressed against the wall. Several of the purposely
arranged clutter-piles-turned-into-walls had been tipped over. Food
cans, cooking utensils, and clothing scattered the floor. All the
cabinet doors were open on the credenza where Raydevk had stored
his applejack. One dangled from a single hinge. No bottles of
alcohol sat inside the cabinets now.

Footsteps came from the corner of the room
near the window, but one of the partitions hid the area. A curtain
hanging from a rod marked the “doorway.” Amaranthe eased closer and
peered around it.

A man knelt before a dresser, shoveling
clothing and knickknacks into an apple crate on the floor. His back
faced Amaranthe. The hilt of a dagger poked up from his belt, but
she did not see any greater weapons on him. No thoughtful
consideration went into the items chosen for the crate, and she
suspected they had stumbled across a mere burglary.

She crept forward and pressed the point of
her sword against the back of the man’s neck. “Aren’t thieves
supposed to ply their trade at night?”