The lantern light revealed a chamber filled with cobwebs and layers of dust that made her long for the giant steam-powered cleaning machines she had described to the thieves in the tenement building. Rows of niches on the walls had long since been emptied of their contents, though cobwebs cloaked them like cocoons, and one could almost imagine this place still held ancient treasures.
“Not very likely when we’re in the middle of a city with a population of a million,” Amaranthe told herself.
“That’s why I came down,” Maldynado said.
“To treasure hunt?”
“No, to keep you from talking to yourself. That’s a sign of a lonely, disturbed mind.” He drew his rapier and swiped at a cobweb curtain dangling above a narrow, low-ceilinged stairwell leading down. “This way, you can pretend you’re talking to me.”
“Oh, good.” She turned her head toward the trapdoor again. “Books, are you coming? We need your insight.”
“Since I so rarely hear those words, I’d best join you.”
“We’d crave your insight more if you gave us less of it,” Maldynado told him. “They say scarcity creates desire.”
“I’m heading down,” Amaranthe said. The men could snipe at each other all night if she let them.
She drew her short sword, but waited for Books to shimmy over the side of the hole, dangle from the lip for a moment, then drop down. He landed in an easy crouch. She smiled. He might not realize it, but Sicarius’s training had brought Books a long way in the last six months. Whether one had natural aptitude or not, constant repetition and an unrelenting taskmaster did tend to encourage improvement.
A couple of steps down the stairs convinced Amaranthe to return her sword to its sheath. The narrowness and steepness made her want to brace herself on the wall as she descended, and the lantern seemed the more important thing to hold aloft. Blackness swallowed the bottom of the stairs, but she imagined the fall could be long and far should she lose her balance.
“What kind of tiny-footed people built this place?” Maldynado asked after a bout of cursing when one of his boots slipped.
“Actually,” Books said, “it’s quite fascinating. The Pey’uhara, the first lake dwellers, were—”
“No, no, never mind,” Maldynado blurted. “I didn’t mean it. I don’t want to know.”
“It’s a shame you prefer to wallow in a mire of ignorance when knowledge floats by within reach,” Books said.
“Isn’t it?”
“Let’s practice our stealth mode,” Amaranthe said. “In case there are kidnappers or trap-setters about.”
The men mumbled sheepish apologies and fell quiet.
Silence surrounded them, stirred only by the soft padding of their feet and their own breaths. One could forget a modern city lay less than a block away.
The soft flame of the lantern revealed a short landing below with three options. To the right and the left, more stairs descended. If they continued straight ahead, they would enter a narrow corridor. A low stone ceiling promised much ducking for Maldynado and Books should she choose that route.
Amaranthe stopped on the landing. “Have we gone far enough to be at ground level?”
“I don’t think so,” Books said.
He touched cryptic hieroglyphs carved into the wall. One looked like a dog mounting another dog, but she supposed that was her imagination. Nothing so crude would be represented in two-thousand-year-old glyphs.
“Also the tunnels at the floor level are wider and easier to navigate. I believe that corridor leads to the Graveyard of the Fallen Enemies.” Books lifted a finger, perhaps wanting to explain the place more thoroughly, but he glanced at Maldynado and said no more.
“Doesn’t sound like a place we need to visit,” Amaranthe said.
“Is that a dog humping another dog?” Maldynado pointed to the hieroglyph she had noticed. Leave it to him to have a mind at least as crude as hers.
“Actually, yes,” Books said. “It’s a sign of dominance. These people were letting everyone know they had dominated and vanquished their fallen enemies.”
“Dominance, eh?” Maldynado said. “If you say so.”
“Left or right?” Amaranthe asked. “Any thoughts?”
“Not from me,” Books said.
“There’s an uncommon event,” Maldynado said.
Amaranthe lifted the lantern and examined both stairwells. The right held fewer cobwebs, and soft gouges and stirrings on the dusty steps might be footprints. “It looks like that way has seen traffic more recently.”
When no one disagreed, she led the way downward again. The stairs did not descend far before they reached a T-section with wide corridors.
A faint rustle came to Amaranthe’s ears. Her imagination? She dimmed the lantern in case it was not.
The blackness to the left seemed less absolute than the blackness to the right.
Nothing on the smooth granite floor would be an obstacle for their feet if they moved forward in darkness, so Amaranthe signaled to her men with a finger to her lips, pointed, and dimmed the lantern the rest of the way.
Darkness swallowed them. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. There was not enough light for her to see anything except that it was less dark in one direction than the other, but that would have to be enough.
A hand reached out and found her shoulder. Maldynado’s, she guessed, because he had a tendency to be less tentative than Books when touching people, especially female people. She hoped Books had a hand on Maldynado’s shoulder as well. She did not want to lose anyone down here.
With one hand on the wall, she felt her way down the corridor. She found an edge—a corner. The light increased when she turned down the new passage, though she could not see its source.
“...longer?” a male voice asked ahead.
Amaranthe halted. The grip on her shoulder tightened in warning.
She turned an ear toward the passage, but whatever response the question garnered was too quiet for her to hear. She tried to decide if that had been Mancrest’s voice. It had not sounded familiar, but it was hard to judge anything from one word.
“Want me to check it out?” Maldynado whispered in her ear.
“No,” she whispered back. Basilard would be the first to tell Maldynado he was not the stealthiest man on their team. She pressed the lantern into Maldynado’s hand. “I’ll go. Stay here. Fetch me if I get myself in trouble.”
His snort was soft, but audible. She patted him on the chest, then eased her short sword free and continued down the passage. Toe before heel, she walked, making sure there was nothing on the floor that might crunch or be kicked before committing to each step.
Cobwebs brushed at her face, and she stifled an urge to sneeze again. It was hard to sneak up on someone while discharging dust from one’s nostrils.
As Amaranthe walked, she let her fingers graze the wall, and she twitched in surprise when they found a gap, then bumped against metal. She slid her hand up and down it. A bar. One of many. Some kind of gate?
She continued on, passing several of the wide gates, and finally reached a corner with the warm yellow of lantern light glowing beyond it. Trusting the darkness to hide her, Amaranthe eased her head around the edge. The illumination, several lanterns’ worth, came from inside an open gate. From her angle, she could not see inside, but impatient mutters and shuffles came from the cell beyond.
The snippet of conversation she had caught implied there were at least two people waiting in there, but the noises suggested more. Four or six maybe.
She eased around the corner and tiptoed closer. Stacks of boxes came into view first, the closest stamped with the words “souvenir hats.” Ah, the gates represented shop fronts. She must be nearing the main pyramid entrance.
Another step took her close enough to see past the boxes and into the room. A man in black soldier’s fatigues leaned against the wall, his elbow propped on the muzzle of a rifle.
“Maybe we should turn out the lanterns,” someone opposite of him said.
“We’re three turns from Mancrest,” someone else said. “She won’t see the light.”
“Until it’s too late.”
Soft snickers followed that oh-so-witty line.
“Unless Sicarius is with her.”
That stopped the snickers. A nervous shuffling followed.
“Word from the enforcers is that somebody’s got him.”
Amaranthe curled her fingers into a fist. How had the enforcers found out? Did they know something she didn’t?
“I’ll believe that when his head is on a pike in Mariner Square,” the man in view said.
Clothing rustled—a shrug? “I heard the enforcers were told to send word to the emperor to get the bounty money together, because his dead body would be delivered after the Imperial Games.”
It was just talk, Amaranthe told herself. Rumors.
“Enough chatter,” an unseen man said. “This is an ambush, not barracks cleaning day. Nobody’s paying you to trot your lips.”
The soldier Amaranthe could see sighed and turned his eyes toward the corridor. She stopped breathing. If enough lantern light seeped out of the room for him to see her...
He frowned and squinted in her direction.
Amaranthe slipped a hand into her pocket. Her fingers found curved glass.
The soldier took a step her way.
Before she could debate the wisdom of the move, or the danger to herself, Amaranthe held her breath, thumbed the cork off, and tossed the vial through the metal bars. It skidded beneath the soldier’s feet, and he jumped.
She scurried back, not sure what the range was on the powder, or if it would even do anything without some sort of magical preparation.
The soldier charged into the corridor.
Amaranthe spun and ran. The darkness ahead kept her from sprinting, but she hoped she remembered the layout better than the soldier.
Only her outstretched hand kept her from smashing her face into the wall at the first turn. So much for memory.
Heavy footfalls followed her, but it sounded like only one or two pairs of boots, not the entire squad of soldiers. If only a couple of the men chased her, she and her team ought to be able to take care of them. They could separate—
“Oomph,” she grunted, hitting another wall.
Left turn this time. One more corner, and she should run into Maldynado and Books.
Before she finished the thought, she ran into another obstacle. Not stone this time, clothing and flesh.
“Boss?” Maldynado whispered.
“Yes, sh.”
The clomping footfalls of a soldier rang out as the man rounded the corner. Amaranthe turned to face him.
In the darkness, she could see nothing. The rhythm of the soldier’s run faltered and slowed. He must sense he was close, or maybe it was something else. The powder? His steps were heavy, almost labored. He made no attempt to stifle the sound of his advance.
The gait slowed and grew uneven. Amaranthe bent her knees, sword ready. A loud thud came from ahead, no more than a pace away. Something clattered to the floor.
Silence fell.
A flame flared to life. Maldynado held the lantern high, illuminating the dust-and-cobweb-cloaked tunnel—and the unmoving soldier at their feet, his rifle a foot away from his outstretched hand.
“Huh,” Maldynado said.
“You killed him?” Books stared at her.
“No, at least I don’t think so. I threw that vial you took from the towel boy into their room.” She knelt down, intending to check his pulse, but a soft snore rumbled from the man’s lips.
“Ah,” Books said.
Amaranthe took the soldier’s rifle, then patted him down. She found keys on a clip at his belt and removed them. “Anybody have rope we can use to tie him up?”
“Not me,” Maldynado said.
Books spread his open hands. No rope. Hm.
“I need to come better prepared for these meetings with men,” Amaranthe said.
“Yes,” Maldynado said, “you never know when rope will come in handy on a date. Lots of reasons to tie people up.”
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.