Deadly Games ee-3

by Lindsay Buroker

  “This isn’t any fun. You could be makingthese people up,” Akstyr said.

  “Well, traditionally two people alternatenames of women they’ve slept with, and the name one person says hasto start with the last letter of the name the other personsaid.”

  “How is that more fun?”

  “It’d be more fun for you because youcould reminisce on past loves as well,” Maldynado said, “but sinceI know you’ve a dearth of experience in that area, I chose tomodify the game so you could play.”

  “Real thoughtful of you.”

  “I know. You’re welcome.”

  Attempting to block out their chatter,Amaranthe pointed at the seven fountains circled on the map. “Theseare the closest to the miner’s flat,” she told Books. “Since theysaid they were meeting at the fountain instead of the Fourthand Loom Street Fountain or some such, that seems to imply it was anearby location they were all familiar with. What do youthink?”

  “I think we may want to focus on the railtracks instead.” He tapped the hatched line on the map. “Thatlocomotive headed into town, but, given its clandestine purpose, Idoubt it ever made it to the station where its arrival would havebeen logged. There are a limited number of stubs it could haveturned up before then. A hideout might be located along one ofthose routes, as kidnappers wouldn’t want to carry famous athletesthrough the open city for far.”

  “True, but they could have transferred theircargo to a steam carriage.”

  “If they did, they might have left evidencebehind, or someone might have seen them,” Books said. “There areonly six possible stubs before the station and only two near thefountains you circled.”

  Amaranthe would not get her hopes up, but shesaid, “It’s worth checking out.”

  “Since these are residential neighborhoods,there are limited places where one could store a number ofkidnapped athletes,” Books went on. “I doubt anyone would choose aflat surrounded by nosy residents, so we can narrow our search toabandoned buildings or perhaps those with large basements withexterior entrances. If we split our team up, we could check thebuildings along both of these stubs tonight.”

  “Agreed,” Amaranthe said, “though I hate theidea of splitting up when we’re already missing two people. I don’twant to lose anyone else.”

  “I’m surprised nobody’s tried to kidnap me,”Maldynado said. “I’m at least as good of a find as Basilard andSicarius. It’s obvious these kidnappers aren’t basing their choiceson looks.”

  “We believe they’re basing their acquisitionson athletic prowess,” Books said.

  “I have that, too. I should have entered anevent, so I could get noticed.”

  “Are you actually jealous that you weren’tkidnapped?” Amaranthe asked.

  “Not jealous. I just think they’reshortsighted if they didn’t consider me.”

  “Why would you care?” Akstyr asked. “They’reprobably getting tortured and forced to do unpleasant stuff.”

  Amaranthe winced. She did not need to hearabout those possibilities, not for her men. Her friends.

  “I would have entered if not for the bountyon my head,” Maldynado said.

  “It’s not like anyone ever tries to collectyour bounty,” Akstyr said. “It’s not worth it.”

  “That’s not true. Just the other day abounty-hunting miscreant tried to apprehend me. I was lucky toescape with my life.”

  “Is that the child I saw chasing you throughthe boneyard with a slingshot?” Amaranthe asked.

  “What? No! Er. You saw that?”

  Amaranthe drew her pocket watch. “A quarterpast ten. If Lord Mancrest doesn’t show up in five minutes, we’regoing rail-carriage hunting.”

  “It’s that late?” Maldynado asked. “That’snot like him.”

  Amaranthe picked up her lantern and headedfor the gated entrance to the pyramid. It was set into a wallaround the corner from the steep stone stairs leading to theancient dais. The gate ought to be locked-the woman who owned theproperty ran tours during the day and presumably wanted to keep thetacky souvenir merchandise inside safe-but maybe someone had leftthe door open and Mancrest had gone in to wait. It seemed unlikely,but it did not hurt to check.

  “What’s that?” Maldynado asked.

  Amaranthe squinted at a shape on the groundunder the gate. She stepped closer, holding her lantern aloft. Atfirst she had no idea what the object might be because it wassquished beneath the metal frame. Then recognition jolted her.

  “Mancrest’s hat,” she said.

  Maldynado grabbed a metal handle, turned it,and swung the gate open with a soft creak. A stone tunnel led awayinto darkness.

  “Think someone snatched him?” Akstyrasked.

  “Our kidnappers?” Books scratched his jaw.“How would they know he was here? And why would they want him?Mancrest, with his cane and spectacles, doesn’t fit into the samecategory as the superb athletes they’ve abducted thus far.”

  “He was a decent duelist before he got hurt,”Maldynado said.

  “We going in after him?” Akstyr asked, histone suggesting the idea held no appeal for him.

  “Amaranthe?” Books asked. “What do youthink?”

  She was standing, head down, chin in her handas she considered the hat. “I think…if Sicarius were here, he’dsay this is a trap.”

  “Set by Mancrest?” Books asked. “Or thekidnappers?”

  “Do we believe there’s any connection betweenMancrest and the kidnappers?” Amaranthe did not. “He hasn’t coveredthem in the newspaper, other than to say some people are missing.I’m skeptical they’d be aware of him.”

  Maldynado picked up the hat. “If that bastardtried to get me to set you up again, I’ll…” He squinted atsomething inside the hat, then held it close to Amaranthe’slantern. “That looks like blood.”

  Amaranthe closed her eyes, trying to decidewhether she wanted to devote more time to Mancrest when hercomrades were missing. If he was in trouble, rescuing himmight endear him to her, but she found the location of the hatsuspicious. It couldn’t have been better placed if someone wantedher to find it.

  “Books,” she said, moving away from the gate,“do you know another way in?”

  “Hm, I believe so.” Books stroked his chin.“I researched the pyramid extensively when I wrote a paper on thecivilization that lived around the lake two thousand years ago.They were a fascinating people, primitive and cannibalistic, butsurprisingly advanced insofar as literacy and mathematics. Theyworshiped a-”

  “Books,” Amaranthe said. “I’d like to havetime to look for Sicarius and Basilard tonight. The entrances?”

  “Ah, of course. There’s an undergroundentrance coming up from the ancient tunnels beneath Stumps, but theinstallation of the city sewer system destroyed a lot of thosepassages. Oh, wait. I recall a reference to a trapdoor under thedais up top.”

  Amaranthe nodded, remembering how Sicariushad appeared up there without using the stairs. She had wondered ifthere might be a door up there somewhere.

  “And it connects with this tunnel?” Shepointed through the gate.

  “I believe so. The passages do wind around inthere, and I can’t promise to be an unerring guide, but I have somememory of the layout from the maps in the texts I… Where are yougoing?”

  Already heading for the stairs, Amaranthewaved toward the top of the pyramid. “Up. You can keep talking onthe way if you want.”

  “But it’s not a requirement,” Maldynado said,jogging after her.

  Books muttered something to Akstyr about hisknowledge not being fully appreciated. Akstyr responded with hisusual, “Whatever.”

  When Amaranthe reached the top, she huntedaround for signs of the trapdoor. Sicarius, she remembered, hadappeared behind her when she had been near the stairs, lookingdown. She knelt and prodded around the base of the altar, whichstill sported the headless statue with its two wings, clawed feet,and furry torso.

  “Did your studies tell you how to open thistrapdoor?” Amaranthe asked Books.

 
“Not that I recall,” he said.

  “You can recite the dates of each reign ofevery emperor since Dorok the First,” Maldynado said. “Why can’tyou remember something useful like this?”

  “Historical tomes rarely advise people on howto break into ancient structures through unguarded entrances,”Books said. “I believe they like to discourage the pillaging ofgoods inside.”

  “We’re not pillaging anything,” Maldynadosaid.

  “Unless there’s something good to pillage,”Akstyr said. “Is there?”

  “Not that I’d tell you about,” Bookssaid.

  Amaranthe groped about the stone floor. Thelantern light did little to illuminate the subtle nuances in theancient blocks, but her fingers found dents and divots. She poked afew and nothing happened. She moved to the two rear columnssupporting the roof covering the altar.

  Her knee clunked against a bump, and shewinced. She investigated the object, a slightly elevated triangularstone. She-and her knee-found it suspicious that it stuck out whennothing else did. Amaranthe tried pulling and pushing it. Neitherworked. Maybe a turn? She rotated it to the left, as if she wereunscrewing a lid on a jar.

  The floor disappeared beneath her.

  Amaranthe dropped into darkness with astartled squawk. Though surprised, she twisted in the air, movingquickly enough to get her feet beneath her. The landing jarred her,but she softened her knees enough that she did not injureherself.

  Unfortunately, her lantern did not survivethe fall unscathed. It had gone out as it dropped, and clanks andclatters echoed from the stone walls as it bounced several times,then rolled to a stop in the darkness. Close, dusty air wrappedabout Amaranthe, intruding upon her nostrils. It smelled likevermin had died nearby. Maybe other things as well.

  “Amaranthe?” Books called from above. “Areyou…well?”

  She had their only lantern-well, the darknesshad it at the moment-but she could make out the men’s silhouettesas they leaned over a three-by-three-foot hole in the ceiling. Sheopened her mouth to respond, but a sneeze assailed her nostrilsinstead.

  “Is that a yes?” Books asked.

  “Yes. Looks like I found the trapdoor.”

  “Looks like,” Maldynado drawled.

  “We can’t see anything,” Books said, leaningforward and patting around the trapdoor entrance. “How far down areyou? Is there a ladder?”

  “Maybe ten or twelve feet, and I don’t know.I’ll see if I can relight the lantern. After I find it.”

  Amaranthe knelt and swept her hands acrosscold, smooth stone. Cool air whispered past her cheeks. Aboveground, it had been a warm summer evening, but down here, sheshivered in her thin trousers and half-sleeve shirt.

  It took a few moments to find the first wall,and she determined she was in a room, not a corridor. Some sort ofpreparation area for priests performing ceremonies on the altarabove?

  She found the lantern. A soft thump came frombehind her.

  “Who-” she started to ask.

  “Me,” Maldynado said. “Can’t let a girlwander around a dark pit by herself.”

  “You can if you don’t know if there’s a wayout,” Akstyr said. He and Books waited above.

  “Want us to go grab some lanterns?” Booksasked.

  “Let me see if I can get this one relitfirst.” Amaranthe patted her pockets down. “I have matches.”Somewhere.

  “Is one lantern sufficient lighting forpyramid spelunking?” Books asked, his tone implying he hardlythought so.

  “It’s a long jog to the boneyard and back.”Amaranthe struck a match and lit the lantern. “And I think youshould join us since you’re the pyramid expert. Akstyr can stay outthere in case we…” Got themselves hopelessly lost or trapped bythe enemy? No, she shouldn’t say that. Too demoralizing. “Needbackup,” she finished.

  The lantern light revealed a chamber filledwith cobwebs and layers of dust that made her long for the giantsteam-powered cleaning machines she had described to the thieves inthe tenement building. Rows of niches on the walls had long sincebeen emptied of their contents, though cobwebs cloaked them likecocoons, and one could almost imagine this place still held ancienttreasures.

  “Not very likely when we’re in the middle ofa 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 andswiped at a cobweb curtain dangling above a narrow, low-ceilingedstairwell leading down. “This way, you can pretend you’re talkingto me.”

  “Oh, good.” She turned her head toward thetrapdoor again. “Books, are you coming? We need your insight.”

  “Since I so rarely hear those words, I’d bestjoin you.”

  “We’d crave your insight more if you gave usless of it,” Maldynado told him. “They say scarcity createsdesire.”

  “I’m heading down,” Amaranthe said. The mencould snipe at each other all night if she let them.

  She drew her short sword, but waited forBooks to shimmy over the side of the hole, dangle from the lip fora moment, then drop down. He landed in an easy crouch. She smiled.He might not realize it, but Sicarius’s training had brought Booksa long way in the last six months. Whether one had naturalaptitude or not, constant repetition and an unrelenting taskmasterdid tend to encourage improvement.

  A couple of steps down the stairs convincedAmaranthe to return her sword to its sheath. The narrowness andsteepness made her want to brace herself on the wall as shedescended, and the lantern seemed the more important thing to holdaloft. Blackness swallowed the bottom of the stairs, but sheimagined the fall could be long and far should she lose herbalance.

  “What kind of tiny-footed people built thisplace?” Maldynado asked after a bout of cursing when one of hisboots slipped.

  “Actually,” Books said, “it’s quitefascinating. The Pey’uhara, the first lake dwellers, were-”

  “No, no, never mind,” Maldynado blurted. “Ididn’t mean it. I don’t want to know.”

  “It’s a shame you prefer to wallow in a mireof ignorance when knowledge floats by within reach,” Bookssaid.

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Let’s practice our stealth mode,” Amaranthesaid. “In case there are kidnappers or trap-settersabout.”

  The men mumbled sheepish apologies and fellquiet.

  Silence surrounded them, stirred only by thesoft padding of their feet and their own breaths. One could forgeta modern city lay less than a block away.

  The soft flame of the lantern revealed ashort landing below with three options. To the right and the left,more stairs descended. If they continued straight ahead, they wouldenter a narrow corridor. A low stone ceiling promised much duckingfor Maldynado and Books should she choose that route.

  Amaranthe stopped on the landing. “Have wegone far enough to be at ground level?”

  “I don’t think so,” Books said.

  He touched cryptic hieroglyphs carved intothe wall. One looked like a dog mounting another dog, but shesupposed that was her imagination. Nothing so crude would berepresented in two-thousand-year-old glyphs.

  “Also the tunnels at the floor level arewider and easier to navigate. I believe that corridor leads to theGraveyard of the Fallen Enemies.” Books lifted a finger, perhapswanting to explain the place more thoroughly, but he glanced atMaldynado and said no more.

  “Doesn’t sound like a place we need tovisit,” Amaranthe said.

  “Is that a dog humping another dog?”Maldynado to pointed the hieroglyph she had noticed. Leave it tohim to have a mind at least as crude as hers.

  “Actually, yes,” Books said. “It’s a sign ofdominance. These people were letting everyone know they haddominated and vanquished their fallen enemies.”

  “Dominance, eh?” Maldynado said. “If you sayso.”

  “Left or right?” Amaranthe asked. “Anythoughts?”

  “Not from me,
” Books said.

  “There’s an uncommon event,” Maldynadosaid.

  Amaranthe lifted the lantern and examinedboth stairwells. The right held fewer cobwebs, and soft gouges andstirrings on the dusty steps might be footprints. “It looks likethat way has seen traffic more recently.”

  When no one disagreed, she led the waydownward again. The stairs did not descend far before they reacheda T-section with wide corridors.

  A faint rustle came to Amaranthe’s ears. Herimagination? She dimmed the lantern in case it was not.

  The blackness to the left seemed lessabsolute than the blackness to the right.

  Nothing on the smooth granite floor would bean obstacle for their feet if they moved forward in darkness, soAmaranthe 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 hereyes to adjust to the gloom. There was not enough light for her tosee anything except that it was less dark in one direction than theother, 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 lesstentative than Books when touching people, especially femalepeople. 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 waydown the corridor. She found an edge-a corner. The light increasedwhen she turned down the new passage, though she could not see itssource.

  “…longer?” a male voice asked ahead.

  Amaranthe halted. The grip on her shouldertightened in warning.

  She turned an ear toward the passage, butwhatever response the question garnered was too quiet for her tohear. She tried to decide if that had been Mancrest’s voice. It hadnot sounded familiar, but it was hard to judge anything from oneword.

  “Want me to check it out?” Maldynadowhispered in her ear.

  “No,” she whispered back. Basilard would bethe first to tell Maldynado he was not the stealthiest man on theirteam. She pressed the lantern into Maldynado’s hand. “I’ll go. Stayhere. Fetch me if I get myself in trouble.”

  His snort was soft, but audible. She pattedhim on the chest, then eased her short sword free and continueddown the passage. Toe before heel, she walked, making sure therewas nothing on the floor that might crunch or be kicked beforecommitting to each step.