Deadly Games (23 page)

Amaranthe chose not to contemplate his
statement. She pointed to the soldier. “See if you can use his belt
and pants or something, and then follow me. There are more men. I’m
hoping they’re sleeping, too.”

Not sure how long the powder might last,
Amaranthe jogged back down the corridor toward the cell. She did
not know the dissemination range either. That thought made her slow
down. Would it still be active, or did it wear off shortly after
release? She would feel idiotic if she ran in to check on the
soldiers and passed out on top of some man’s chest.

She thought about waiting for Maldynado and
Books to catch up, but maybe it was best to go in alone. If she did
pass out, maybe they would realize it and avoid the mistake. Or
they’d collapse on top of her on top of the soldier.

“Over-thinking things,” she muttered, though
she dug a kerchief out of her pocket and wrapped it about her nose
and mouth before continuing.

She peered through the gate and counted five
soldiers sprawled on the floor amongst overturned boxes and tipped
lanterns. A couple had taken steps toward the exit, but most had
collapsed where they stood. The vial, now cracked, gleamed where it
had come to rest against the wall. The powder had disappeared,
turned to smoke and vanished.

Amaranthe decided not to risk getting close
enough to investigate further. She checked the keys she had taken
from the soldier. A fob read
Polga’s Pyramid Tours
.

“Let’s hope Polga has the power to lock and
unlock the gates,” she said.

“Talking to yourself again?” Maldynado asked
as he and Books strode around the corner.

“No.” Amaranthe tried one of the keys in the
lock. “I knew you’d be here to hear me.”

“The other soldier is sufficiently trussed
up,” Books said.

“Albeit, he’ll find it a bit drafty in here
without his pants,” Maldynado said.

“They’re the only thing that could be used to
tie his ankles together and bind them to his wrists,” Books
said.

“I’m not judging you,” Maldynado said. “That,
given the opportunity, your first thought was to strip a handsome,
young soldier of his pants doesn’t bother me.”

“You’re odious.”

“They were setting up an ambush,” Amaranthe
said. “Perhaps we should stop talking until we’ve subdued the
bait.”

The fourth key she tried turned in the lock.
Good. She closed the gate and secured the soldiers inside.

“Do we believe the bait is Mancrest?” Books
whispered.

“We’ll see.”

She debated whether to continue forward with
the lantern dimmed, but decided the bait would expect her, so she
might as well come in as anticipated. There just wouldn’t be a
squad of soldiers ready to charge in and capture her.

She pulled her kerchief down around her neck,
and she, Maldynado, and Books followed the corridor to a ramp that
angled downward, then turned at the bottom. More hieroglyphs
adorned the walls down here, though she did not spot any more dogs
engaged in carnal activities.

The corridor widened and angled to the right.
Light came from ahead. More gates marked the walls, and
cells—shops—lay behind them. A mix of tacky “adventuring hats,”
pyramid-related paraphernalia, and history books adorned the
shelves.

The light ahead of them was coming from one
of the shops. Amaranthe cut off her lantern and approached on
silent feet.

She stopped at the gate. She did not see
anyone inside, though a candle burned on a merchant’s counter, the
flame sputtering on the wick, and a hint of beeswax tinged the
musty air. Racks of cheap factory-made clothing stretched along the
walls.

A low groan emanated from the back of the
shop. Ah, there was their bait.

A man lay on the floor, his back to them,
wrists and ankles tied with a fat rope. Perhaps it had been chosen
for its visibility—one could not miss it, even from the corridor.
The wavy brown hair on the man’s head was a familiar hue and
length.

Amaranthe lifted her eyebrows toward
Maldynado. He nodded. Yes, it was Mancrest.

The gate stood open. Amaranthe slid her hand
into her pocket, wrapping her fingers about the cool metal keys.
Though she meant to abandon stealth in a moment, she did her best
to withdraw the fob quietly.

“Evening, Lord Mancrest,” she said as she
selected the key that had worked on the other gate. The number of
shops—and locks—they had passed suggested one key opened multiple
doors. “How’d you get yourself tied up there?”

The muffled response was unintelligible. He
did manage to twist about so she could see a gag blocking his
mouth.

“Disgusting,” Maldynado muttered. “What proud
man of the warrior caste stoops so low as to act as bait in a
stupid trap?”

“Ssh,” Amaranthe whispered, then raised her
voice. “Are you in danger, Lord Mancrest? Who tied you up?”

Again, the gag muffled his response, but she
caught the gist this time, “Help, come untie me.”

“I don’t think so.” Amaranthe shut the gate,
slipped the key into the lock, and turned it with a resounding
thunk.

Mancrest sat up, eyes wide. His “what’re you
doing?” was easy to understand.

“Getting annoyed with your donkey manure, old
boy,” Maldynado said.

“What?” Mancrest said, still playing the
game.

Was it possible he had not arranged this, and
he was actually imprisoned? No, soldiers would not tie up someone
from the warrior caste without permission.

“We have comrades to rescue,” Amaranthe said.
She found a rough corner on one of the stones on the opposite wall
and hung the key ring on it. “I imagine you can find a couple of
clothes hangers, twine them together, and fetch that on your own
with a little patience, assuming your binds aren’t particularly
tight and you can free your hands. I wouldn’t count on the soldiers
rescuing you. They’re incapacitated at the moment.”

“Especially the one without pants,” Maldynado
said.

“
Will
you stop bringing that up?”
Books asked.

“Probably not,” Maldynado said.

“Let’s go, gentlemen,” Amaranthe said. “We
have work to do.”

Mancrest’s shoulders heaved and his face
screwed up as he wriggled his hands behind his back. His bonds fell
free, and he yanked the gag out of his mouth.

“Wait!” He tore away the ropes at his ankles,
leaped to his feet, and sprang to the gate.

Books jumped back. Amaranthe watched
Mancrest’s hands to make sure he did not reach for a pistol or
dagger beneath his shirt. Maldynado leaned against the opposite
wall and yawned.

Mancrest grabbed the bars of the gate. He
tried to open it, failed, and gaped at her. “You locked me in?”

“You were planning to ambush us,” Amaranthe
said, not surprised but chagrinned to realize Sicarius had been
right, that Mancrest could not be trusted to do anything except
turn her over to the enforcers. “I think my response is quite
generous.”

He curled his lip and opened his mouth, as if
to argue, but closed it again and took a deep breath. “What about
my men. Are they...unharmed?”

“I think so. We used what the kidnappers have
been using to knock people out, and I locked them in.”

“Who’s going to let us out?” Mancrest
asked.

“Surely someone else is privy to your plan
and will come look for you eventually.”

“My brother. After he gets off work
tomorrow.”

“Long time without a latrine nearby,”
Maldynado said, still leaning against the wall, arms crossed. “But
you deserve to marinate in your own pee overnight.”

Mancrest ignored him. Hands gripping the
bars, he told Amaranthe, “It’s my duty and obligation to capture
criminals if I have a chance.”

“Our duty sometimes lands us in unpleasant
circumstances.” A fact she knew well, since following duty was what
had set her on the path that resulted in her becoming an outlaw.
She nodded toward the key ring. “I can make it easier for you to
unlock yourself, if you tell me what you know about Sicarius’s
capture and the kidnappers in general.”

Mancrest’s shoulders drooped, and he leaned
his forehead against a bar. He chuckled ruefully. “When I imagined
how tonight would end, it involved me questioning you about what
you
knew, not the other way around.”

“He should have come up with a more clever
ploy then,” Books said out of the corner of his mouth to
Maldynado.

“For once, we agree,” Maldynado said
back.

“Was this interrogation you imagined
happening here or at Enforcer Headquarters?” Amaranthe asked.

“Fort Urgot,” Mancrest said.

“I’ve been questioned there before. I don’t
care to arrange another visit. Are you going to provide the
information I requested, or not?”

“What will you do with the information?”

“Rescue my men and stop the kidnappers from
whatever it is they’re doing,” Amaranthe said. “Given the nefarious
nature of the disappearances, I doubt it’s wholesome.”

“Why are you bothering?” Mancrest asked. “I
understand your comrades are missing, but you were involved in this
before that, were you not?”

“I want exoneration, so I help the empire
when I can. Now, speak.” She gave him her best icy-cold-Sicarius
stare. Given the hours she had wasted coming to Pyramid Park, it
was not difficult to muster.

Still leaning his forehead against the bars,
Mancrest considered her. His eyes flicked downward, taking in her
newly acquired rifle. “I suppose I should be grateful you haven’t
killed me for my attempts at trapping you.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Amaranthe said.

“
I
might,” Maldynado said. “Since you
keep using me to get at her. Street licker.”

“No,” Mancrest said, holding Amaranthe’s
gaze. “I’m beginning to see that. I don’t know who has Sicarius,
only that an anonymous message came into Enforcer Headquarters,
informing them he’d been captured and would be delivered dead by
the week’s end.”

Amaranthe’s breath caught. A steam tramper
stomped all over her theory that these kidnappers were collecting
superior athletes to turn them into soldiers. If they intended to
kill Sicarius in a few days...

She closed her eyes. Then she had a few days
to find him.
That
was what she needed to focus on.

“Also...” Mancrest slipped a hand into a
pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “One of the rookies
brought me this advertisement for approval. Someone mailed it in
with scrip from a mining outfit.”

Amaranthe’s ears perked. Mining outfit?

“I disapproved it.
The Gazette
doesn’t
accept ads for just
any
business, certainly not anything
that sounds like a spiel from a pitchman’s oiled tongue, and we
don’t take scrip for payment either. Later I realized it came in a
couple of days before the first abduction. It could be unrelated,
but...” He spread a hand, palm up. “Perhaps not.”

Curiosity piqued, Amaranthe took the paper
from him. Before it had been folded, it had been crinkled, as if it
had spent time in a wastebasket. Books peered over her shoulder at
it.

Foreman got you down? Do you deserve more? A
home on the Ridge? A say in the government? It’s all possible.
Invest in your future now. Enquire at the Imperial Tea House.

“Interesting,” Books said. “Perhaps a
recruiting letter that was intended to gather more miners?”

“Raydevk didn’t seem too bright,” Amaranthe
said. “I could see him trying to recruit people for criminal
activities in a newspaper.”

Mancrest’s grip tightened on the gate bars.
“Raydevk? That’s the name I got when I checked at the tea house.
Is
this tied in with the missing people?”

“It’s possible.” Amaranthe handed the note to
Books to study further. For all she knew, he could do some
handwriting analysis to identify likely culprits. “We had a run-in
with some miners. What else did you learn at the tea house?”

“Little,” Mancrest said. “Despite the lofty
name, it’s run by the same people that own half of the mines in the
mountains, and it’s something of a slum establishment for lowly
workers who can only pay in company scrip.”

“I know it,” Amaranthe said, her tone cool.
“My father used to go there when he was in town.”

“Oh.”

“Smooth tongue there, Mancrest,” Maldynado
said.

“Yes, uhm, they picked me out as
warrior-caste right away,” Mancrest said, “and nobody answered my
questions. I was trying to find out where the fellow lived and what
he was selling.”

“Perhaps we’ll check it out later,” Amaranthe
said. “We have another mission tonight.”

“If you find out anything,” Mancrest said,
“and you need any help...”

“Oh, sure,” Maldynado said. “You’ve only
tried to lure us into traps twice. Let’s arrange another meeting.
Maybe the third time, you’ll figure out how to get us.”

“I understand why you might not be quick to
trust me,” Mancrest said.

Amaranthe snorted.

“But—” he lifted a finger, “—if you seek
exoneration, then you’ll want me there to witness your magnificent
capture of the perpetrators. As a man from the warrior-caste, I
would also be obligated to report the truth as I saw it.”

She watched his face, trying to decide if he
was eager for a story or if he simply wanted another chance to
ensnare her. If he had gone to this tea house, then it might
indicate the former. But Maldynado was right. She’d be an idiot to
give him another chance to betray her.

“I’ll think about it,” Amaranthe said.
“Gentlemen.” She nodded to Maldynado and Books. It was time to
go.

They started down the corridor, but Mancrest
cleared his throat.

Ah, the keys. Right.

Amaranthe removed them from the protruding
stone on the wall and dropped them on the floor in front of the
shop.

“Didn’t you say you’d let me out if I shared
what I knew?” Mancrest eyed the keys. They were closer but still
too far for him to reach.