Deadly Games (35 page)

“Yes,” Maldynado said, “she’s not your
average girl who shows up in the middle of the night to ply you
with wine and sex in the hopes of being impregnated with a
warrior-caste scion that your family would feel obligated to help
raise, and, oh, maybe there’d be a stipend for the mother as
well.”

“Surely, that’s not your idea of an
average
girl,” Amaranthe said, though Mancrest’s rueful
smile might have meant he had experienced similar situations. “Are
you willing to meet your brother at the docks in the morning?” she
asked. “If he’s been gone on a long voyage, he’ll doubtlessly be
eager to reunite with family and hear about what’s been going on in
town. And the lake.”

“Doubtlessly,” Mancrest said dryly. “Though
even with his ecumenical background, I don’t know if he’ll believe
any of this. Especially from his little brother, the writer, who
loved
to tell stories as a boy.”

“He doesn’t need to accept it as fact based
on words alone. I’ll give you the location. You just need to
convince him to float over there and send divers down to take a
look.”

“And get eaten by a kraken?”

“Well-trained military men know how to take
suitable precautions, do they not?” Amaranthe hoped Books would
come up with a tactic to use against the kraken, but she knew very
well she might be endangering lives with her request. If that was
what she had to do to get her men back and rescue the captives, so
be it.

Mancrest sighed. “Why do I have a feeling
working with you will cause me as much trouble as trying to capture
you did?”

“That’s a given,” Maldynado said.

Amaranthe merely folded her hands on the
table and smiled agreeably. Mancrest had given in; there was no
need to cajole him further.

Her smile faded a few minutes later when she
was standing beneath a streetlamp, reading Mancrest’s note.

Ms. Amaranthe Lokdon,

I have treated you unfairly, and for that I
apologize. I had plenty of time to think over my behavior when I
was failing to reach those keys and waiting for the soldiers to
wake up and...rescue me. Yes, that’s what it was, and I must
confess it. For the second time, you left me helpless...but
unharmed, though I deserved worse for trying to apprehend you
without listening to your story or researching your situation.

I have done so now, and though I do not
believe all the facts are out there to be discovered, I suspect you
deserve to be exonerated. Of course, I am not in a position to
grant you that, but I am open to listening, if you are still
interested in sharing. You have no reason to trust me, but if you
will give me another chance, I’d like to take you for a picnic
dinner in the Imperial Gardens. I’ll understand if you bring your
bodyguard (but I hope you won’t).

To the peace after the war,

~ Deret

“Guess you wooed him after all,” Maldynado
said.

Amaranthe twitched, jerking the paper away.
She had not realized he had been reading over her shoulder.

“I thought there was no hope for the
relationship once you dropped the keys in the pyramid hallway and
left him locked up.” Maldynado reached over her shoulder and tapped
the page. “I agree. If we’ve got Sicarius back by then, leave him
behind. He’ll kill the sunset-picnic-mood faster than a swarm of
mosquitoes.”

“You know, people like privacy to read
letters.” Amaranthe returned the page to the envelope. She had too
much else on her mind to worry about Mancrest’s words. “Let’s check
on Books and Akstyr. We need a way to defeat that kraken.”

“You mean the plan isn’t to use the marines
as bait while we sneak in from below?”

“It is, to an extent. I do want the soldiers
there as a distraction, so nobody will notice us walking up in our
diving suits, but I don’t want them getting mauled either. We need
to kill the kraken.”

“No chance you can woo it with your tongue,
huh?” Maldynado asked.

“Judging by our previous encounter, I think
it’d be more likely to pull my tongue out, wrap it around my body
like bacon, and swallow me whole.”

“Such imaginative imagery.”

“I get creative when I haven’t had any
sleep.”

“The next few hours should be interesting
then,” Maldynado said.

“Likely so.”

Awareness returned to Basilard slowly.
Memories of dreams wafted away like smoke in the wind. A dim
blurriness met his eyes, and he blinked, struggling to focus. A
face came into view.

Sicarius.

His features held no warmth or friendliness.
Basilard tried to lift a hand, but bindings secured him to the
table. Sicarius was free, though still nude. He wore his brace of
throwing knives on his forearm and held two daggers, one the black
blade he favored and the other one of Basilard’s fighting weapons.
Basilard’s gaze lingered on the sharp steel, and he remembered his
last thoughts; before he had succumbed to the drugs, he had been
sure Sicarius knew of Basilard’s plan for killing him.

Basilard turned his head from side to side.
Other prisoners lay on the tables, some horizontal and others
tipped vertical against the wall. None appeared to be awake. How
much time had passed? Deep shadows shrouded the corners of the
laboratory, and the lights were dimmer than he remembered. It must
be nighttime, though one might never know the difference down
here.

Sicarius lifted his hands and signed,
You
are alert?

That he signed instead of speaking meant he
had escaped, not been released, and being quiet was important.

Had Basilard’s hands been free, he would have
responded with “vaguely,” but, strapped down, he had fewer options,
so he only nodded.

Sicarius slipped a key into the first lock,
the one that bound Basilard’s wrists to the table.

As soon as his hands were free, he asked,
How’d you escape?

The woman.
Sicarius’s signs were as
terse as his spoken words.

She released you? Because she wanted
to...
Basilard stopped. He had no interest in the details; he
just wanted to know if Sicarius had won her over—or forced her
over—and if she could take them to the surface.

She was unable to craft the sphere.

Was?
Basilard asked.
She’s
dead?

Yes. We have to find another way off. Only
the other twin and a male telekineticist can make the protective
bubbles. The woman is incapacitated from your attack, and the male
isn’t on board right now. We may be too deep to swim out.
Regardless, a kraken guards this place. Our blades would be useless
against it.

No, even firearms would be useless
underwater.
The woman told you all this?
Basilard asked.

Yes.
Sicarius’s cool gaze told him to
drop it.

Basilard swallowed, imagining Sicarius
letting that woman think they had some connection, and then turning
around, interrogating her, and killing her. True, Basilard himself
had killed, but only in combat and only men. Not women. His eyes
narrowed in remembrance. Or children.

Sicarius unfastened the bindings about
Basilard’s ankles, then continued with those tying his torso and
thighs to the table.

Basilard tilted his head.
Why come for
me?

Sicarius flicked him a glance that could have
meant anything and continued to unlock the bindings.

When the drugs were overtaking Basilard, he
had not expected Sicarius’s help, indeed had thought Sicarius might
have set him up to die. Was it possible he had imagined
everything?

Sicarius released the final straps and
stepped back.

Do you know I know...
Basilard stopped
himself. If Sicarius had not figured it out, it would be foolish to
alert him.

I know
, Sicarius signed.

Basilard waited for him to continue, to offer
some ultimatum or say something like, “If you make a move against
me, I’ll kill you.” He still held all the knives. Sicarius did not
add anything to his comment though. Maybe he figured it was all
assumed.

You could get rid of me down here with no
one on the team wise to it.
And maybe Basilard should not be
pointing things out. What if Sicarius was only releasing him
because he needed help escaping? And what if he planned to kill
Basilard on the way out? Or maybe...
Do you not see me as a
threat?

You are capable.

As scant an admission as that was, Basilard
found it heartening.
Then why free me?
Basilard asked
again.

Because Amaranthe would wish it.
Sicarius flipped Basilard’s knife and extended it, hilt first.

The answer, or perhaps the honesty of the
answer, surprised Basilard.
So, I’m safe around you as long as
she’s alive?
He smiled, though he knew Sicarius would not
return the gesture.

If you force me to defend myself, I
will
. Sicarius shook the knife, emphasizing Basilard should
take it. Right, they had to escape before anyone noticed Sicarius
missing and the woman dead.

Basilard took the knife and stepped into the
aisle. He paused as one more thought occurred to him.
Is
Amaranthe the reason you were captured?

He thought of the way she had talked him into
the Clank Race. Her intentions had been good—maybe that was what
made her requests appealing—but he would not be at the bottom of a
lake, stripped naked, and the latest specimen in some scientist’s
research experiment if not for her.

I got closer than I should have,
Sicarius signed.
I sensed the Science being used, but...
I did not want to return without answers to her
questions.

Huh, he had been right. Basilard was going to
sign one of his grandfather’s sayings, that many a male duck had
been lured to its demise by the call of a female, but Sicarius
turned away, as if to say, “Enough chit chat. Time for work.”

He strode to the next table and cut the
tubing leading to a young man’s veins. He unlocked the bindings
there as well, though he did not wait for the person to wake before
moving to the next table.

Why free them?
Basilard asked, not
because he objected, but because Sicarius would not do it for
altruistic purposes.

Distraction
, Sicarius signed.

While we do what?

Take this
—Sicarius twitched a hand to
encompass the structure—
to the surface so we can get
off.

Take over the...tiller?
Basilard had
no idea if something like this had a tiller—probably not—but
Sicarius would know he meant the navigation system.

Yes.

You know where that is?

But Sicarius had already turned back to the
captives. Basilard helped with his own knife. Most of the other
prisoners were young, in their teens and twenties. He hoped they
would be able to escape themselves without being harmed. More
harmed, he corrected himself, when he noticed freshly stitched
scars gouging the abdomen and groin areas of more than one.
Basilard glanced down at himself and was relieved to see no
incisions. Sicarius must have found him before they got started
with...whatever it was they were doing exactly. He shuddered.

Sicarius bumped him on the shoulder and
jerked his head toward the exit.

The first captive was stirring.

Wouldn’t it be better to work with
them?
Basilard asked.
A combined force to confront our
adversaries?

Athletes would be useless against
practitioners.

Basilard was not certain what value he might
have against a shaman or wizard either. He recalled the humiliation
of his old owner, Arbitan Losk, plucking him from hiding and
flattening him to the floor with a force he had been unable to
elude.

A noise started up, a throbbing whine that
vibrated from the walls loudly enough to wake any slumbering
guards.

“Alarm.” Sicarius jogged toward the exit.

Basilard remembered the invisible barrier and
wondered if Sicarius had disabled it. He must have if he had come
in from the woman’s quarters or somewhere that direction, but it
was up now, evinced by a strange sheen with yellow tendrils
shimmering in the air.

Sicarius plucked a thin knife off a console
near the hatchway. A bloody ball was skewered on the tip.

Though Basilard noted the gory thing, he did
not realize what it was until Sicarius held it up to the eyeball
reader. The recognition did not quite make Basilard flinch, but he
did curl a disgusted lip. Given his background, he ought not be
squeamish about such things, but he could not help but find it
discomfiting. Maybe because his putative ally was the one who had
removed it, and it might very well have belonged to that woman.

The shield wavered and disappeared.

Sicarius and Basilard passed into the long
corridor outside, ducking their heads to dodge intermittent pipes
along the ceiling. The glow of the orbs on the wall waxed and waned
with each pulse of the alarm. The corridor curved in angled
segments like some mechanical snake stretched along the lake floor.
They passed closed hatches, but Sicarius did not pause to check any
of them.

Rhythmic thumps sounded above them.
Footfalls? Was there a second floor? Basilard had not noticed
ladders on his previous trip, but that had been a short journey.
They had already passed the cabin he had started out in.

Sicarius ran through a four-way intersection,
then rounded a bend. A few feet before a dead end, a ladder rose to
a closed hatch in the ceiling.

Instead of starting up, Sicarius smashed his
black dagger into an orb on the wall. Shadows thickened in the
corridor. He darted behind the ladder and crouched, his back to the
wall. Basilard joined him.

Above, the footfalls started and stopped a
couple of times, and Basilard had the impression of guards pausing
to collect reinforcements.