Conspiracy (24 page)

“
I’m sorry, Books,”
Amaranthe said, wishing she could say something less inane. “That’s
not the reason I had you collect the names. I never would
have—”

“
Oh, I know
you’re
not that callous.
Or
thoughtless
.”
Books jumped to his feet and resumed pacing, hands clenched at his
sides. “He’s just declared war on Forge, that’s what he’s done. Did
you read the article? They were all killed the same way, slit
throats. It’s not going to take an enforcer detective to guess who
was responsible. And what’s it gotten him? However many he’s slain,
it’s not going to be all of them. It won’t be the ones that have
the most power, the people like Larocka Myll and Arbitan Losk who
could afford magical protection, and it won’t be the people who are
in the Imperial Barracks, strong-arming the emperor. No, he’s out
there killing journeymen and apprentices. All he’s going to do is
make the higher powers angry.
He
may be able to dodge their wrath, but what about
us?”

Akstyr stirred. Behind Amaranthe, Basilard
and Maldynado came to the edge of the open freight car.

“
Everybody knows we’re
working with him,” Books said. “People will think... I don’t know
what they’ll think. I don’t even know what
he
was thinking.”

Amaranthe knew exactly what Sicarius had
been thinking. He’d learned that Sespian had one of those nodules
in his neck, and he’d gone into a reckless place where parents went
when their children were threatened.

Books’s pacing ended and he pressed his
palms against the rail car. “Amaranthe, I put that list together,”
he whispered. “I abetted a murderer.”

“
If it helps,” Maldynado
said, “we’ve decided we’re vigilantes, not murderers.”

Books launched a glare so fierce that
Amaranthe thought he might leap into the train and pummel
Maldynado. She put a hand on Books’s arm, lest he be tempted. He
rammed his other hand against the wall of the rail car, but, after
that, he let her guide him away from the others.

“
I won’t say I know how you
feel,” Amaranthe said quietly, “but...”

“
You do. I know.” Books’s
shoulders slumped, and the rage seemed to bleed out of him, though
perhaps not the disappointment in himself. “I remember talking to
you that night outside of the cannery. I don’t know how you could
ever forgive him for killing your enforcer colleagues.”

“
I... realized I’d chosen
to work with him, knowing what he was, so the responsibility was
mine. That doesn’t make it easier, I know.”

“
No. It
doesn’t.”

“
But I’d also be dead by
now, a dozen times dead, if not for him,” Amaranthe
said.

“
Though I’m glad you are
still among the living, does one saved life make up for countless
others taken?”

“
I don’t know.” Amaranthe
liked to think that what she was doing for Sespian, and for the
empire, put her life above that of business people trying to
strong-arm the government, but she was undoubtedly biased when it
came to her own subsistence. And the Strat Tiles had yet to all be
played, so she didn’t know how history would see her in the end. As
a hero? Or some fool who’d tried to fight on the wrong side and had
done more harm than good? Or maybe it wouldn’t remember her at all.
Depressing thought, that.

“
Amaranthe.” Books gripped
her arm and lowered his voice. Akstyr had joined the others in the
car, so they’d lost their light, but Amaranthe had little trouble
reading the earnestness on Books’s face and in his voice. “I make
this request, not as your colleague or team member, but as your
friend, as someone who cares about your soul. Get rid of him.
Please. I know he means something to you, and he has skills that
are valuable, but those aren’t good enough reasons to keep a
murderer around, especially not if he’s going to turn into an
Akstyr, someone who runs around doing random things that can have
consequences without thinking about the welfare of the
group.”

“
Books...” Amaranthe wanted
to tell him that Sicarius’s actions weren’t random, that she could
predict them, indeed had predicted this, but she couldn’t, not
without betraying secrets that she had sworn never to voice to
anyone.

“
Just think about it.”
Books released her arm, took a deep breath, and straightened his
spine. “I’ll collect Akstyr, and we’ll do our part to help the
emperor.”

“
Thank you, Books. Maybe
helping Sespian here... maybe this can be the beginning of the
end.” Amaranthe added, “In a good way,” when she realized the
former might have negative connotations.

“
Let’s hope.”

A steam whistle screeched.

“
We have to go.” Amaranthe
stuck her head inside the car. “Akstyr, Books is waiting for
you.”

“
Be careful out there,”
Books said before he and Akstyr departed. “I’ve come to think of
you all as family, albeit some members are more irritating than
others—” he glanced toward the door where Maldynado leaned, mouth
open for a noisy yawn, “—and I should be most disgruntled if you
did not return from this mission.”

“
Me too,” Akstyr said, the
comment surprising Amaranthe. He might have surprised himself, too,
because he was quick to add, “Being left alone with only Books to
talk to would lick donkey balls.”

“
If Sicarius doesn’t show
up in the next minute or two, you may be left with him too,”
Amaranthe said.

That comment inspired much grousing between
Books and Akstyr as they walked away. The whistle screamed again,
and the wheels of the train started rolling.

Amaranthe swung up into the rail car, though
she didn’t shut the door. She waited, gazing at the stationary cars
across from them, and then peering up and down the long gravel
aisle. The train inched forward, gradually increasing speed.

She resigned herself to Sicarius not making
it, and the team having to undertake the kidnapping without him.
Then, as they were rolling out of the yard, he jogged out of the
dim light beside the fence, his soft boots not making a sound on
the gravel as he ran. He caught up to the train and leaped into the
car beside Amaranthe. Without a word, he passed her and disappeared
into the shadows on the opposite end from where Maldynado and
Basilard were sitting.

* * * * *

Akstyr had never liked
bicycling, and he liked it even less with a crate of blasting
sticks fastened to the rack behind him. Books had been the one who
refused to drive around in the stolen pumpkin lorry, and who had
pointed out that people carrying explosives wouldn’t be welcome on
the city trolleys, but somehow
he
wasn’t toting the volatile load. Worse, it was
a
long
bicycle
trip. Apparently flying machines took up a lot of space and weren’t
stored in the city proper.

They spent the hour after sunrise peddling
through frost-slick streets, past Barlovoc Stadium and the sporting
fields at the south end of the city, and finally turning down a
lane hedged by substantial fences. A couple of the barriers were
made with wrought-iron bars, revealing warehouses and
steam-equipment manufacturing plants, but stone and brick hid most
of the large lots from sight.

Books lifted a hand and
pointed to a cement wall with tangles of razor wire running along
the top. Akstyr saw such security measures as a challenge and could
have found a way over in a minute, but the front gate stood open
beside a brass plaque that read
Experimental Aeronautics
.

A woman wearing a mink cap and a white
leopard fur coat waved them inside. She could have been a
successful businesswoman, but the haughty tilt to her pretty face
made Akstyr think she was one of Maldynado’s warrior-caste
cohorts.

“
Lady Buckingcrest?” Books
asked after he swung off his bicycle.

“
Yes.” The woman peered
down the street the way Books and Akstyr had come.

“
Maldynado’s not coming, my
lady.” Books bowed when the woman looked his way. “He said he’d let
you know we were to pick up your... conveyance.”

Akstyr was glad Books was doing the talking,
as he didn’t have it in him to “my lady” anyone. Warrior-caste
people weren’t any better than him. All their titles meant was that
they’d had an easier time of life.

“
Yes, of course.”
Buckingcrest pulled off her cap, and wavy black locks tumbled about
her shoulders, a contrast to the white fur of her coat.

She smiled at them, and Akstyr gulped. He
didn’t think he’d ever used the word voluptuous, but it popped into
his head as he stared at her lips. When her gaze skimmed across
him, he reconsidered his ability to spout honorifics. At that
moment, he figured he could spout anything, especially if it meant
she might take him off alone for a private meeting. He bowed low so
she wouldn’t see that her regard, however brief, flustered him.

“
I thought your comrade,
the assassin, might be along,” Buckingcrest said.

“
He’s busy.” Books’s voice
was grim as a funeral pyre.

“
Ah, but you’ll be meeting
him, yes? Will he return with you on my vessel?” She was no longer
looking at Akstyr or Books, and a wistful tone crept into her
voice. “I did so wish to meet him.”

Akstyr fisted his hands and
jammed them into his pockets. He could understand Maldynado
capturing some girl’s fancy, but it was disgusting to see women
mooning over
Sicarius
. He didn’t even acknowledge them. If he knew how to smile at
a girl—or anyone at all—Akstyr had never seen evidence of
it.

“
I can add you to the list
in my journal if you want a private meeting with him,” Books
muttered.

“
Pardon?”

“
Nothing, my lady,” Books
said. “Akstyr, do you want to unload our cargo? Lady Buckingcrest,
we’re on a tight schedule. Would you show us to the conveyance
Maldynado... bargained for?”

“
Bargained?” Buckingcrest
chuckled. “Is that what he calls it?”

Akstyr leaned his bicycle against the fence
and removed his rucksack and the box of blasting sticks, careful to
keep the canvas cover tied tightly over the contents. Amaranthe had
also given them a few smoke grenades. Akstyr couldn’t imagine
needing them to blow up some rocks, but one never knew.

Lady Buckingcrest and Books
headed through a short courtyard and walked into an alley between
the fence and a massive building that dominated the large lot.
Akstyr hurried to catch up. So nice of Books
not
to offer to help carry
things.

As they walked alongside the building,
Akstyr tried to get a view of the inside, but the windows they
passed were too high to see through. Midway down, a door was
propped open, and he glimpsed strange rotary devices and huge
engines in various stages of construction. Buckingcrest continued
to a vast open square on the back half of the lot.

Akstyr stopped to gape at the size of the
craft waiting for them. A rectangular metal cabin with numerous
windows—portholes?—hugged the bottom of a dozens-of-meters-long
oblong balloon, filled and ready to float away. Only ropes
anchoring the cabin to the ground seemed to keep the craft from
pulling away.

“
Oh, a dirigible,” Books
said. “Excellent. Craft supported by lighter-than-air gases have
been around for over a hundred years. When Maldynado spoke of a
prototype, I was imagining some crazy ornithopter bouncing and
bobbing through the air, ready to crash at a moment’s
notice.”

Buckingcrest raised an eyebrow. “We do have
other types of flying machines, but Maldynado stressed that the
interior should be opulent and comfortable. A strange request for
mercenaries, I thought.”

Akstyr snorted. Maldynado had a big
mouth.

“
Er, yes,” Books said.
“Maldynado enjoys his comforts.”

“
Yes, that is true.”
Buckingcrest’s smile was a little too knowing.

Akstyr lifted a finger. “If
these have been around for a hundred years, how come
I’ve
never seen
one?”

“
I suspect the military has
laws against people flying over the imperial capital and the local
army fort,” Books said.

“
Yes, though that may
change someday,” Buckingcrest said. “There are a number of wealthy
civilians who have expressed interest in our work. Some buy private
trains, but they must share the railways and work around station
schedules. With a dirigible... there’s nothing to stop you from
going anywhere you might please.”

Books stirred, and his eyes narrowed, but he
didn’t say anything.

“
I’m surprised the army
doesn’t want some for themselves,” Akstyr said. “You could fly to
Kendor or Nuria or anywhere and sneak your troops in at night.” If
he had something like that, he could fly himself to the Kyatt
Islands without worrying about stowing aboard trains or steamships.
He would have to pay attention to how to fly it. Just in
case.

“
I imagine,” Books said,
“the fact that dirigibles are filled with hydrogen, a flammable
gas, limits their usefulness in wartime applications.”

“
You mean they’re easy to
crash?” Akstyr asked.