Dark Currents (12 page)

“Sorry, but Maldynado couldn’t have won the shell game over and over,” Amaranthe said. “Besides, I’m not sure he would have stirred that woman’s imagination.”

“He’s far prettier than I.”

“Oh, he’s gorgeous. But attainable. Your aloofness and your reputation make you seem unattainable.” She laughed to herself, not sure why she’d used the word “seem.” “Some women like a challenge.”

She wriggled her eyebrows, hoping for…she did not know what exactly. For him to ask if she was one of those women? Or perhaps to state he
wasn’t
unattainable?

Sicarius kept walking.

A
s dawn turned the alleys from black to dark gray, Amaranthe jogged the last few blocks of the miles-long route. Usually Sicarius picked their path, and the rest of the men ran with them, but he had not shown up that morning. Books was recovering from his wounds, and Basilard had complained of a stomach bug. Not surprisingly, Maldynado and Akstyr had yet to return from The Pirates’ Plunder.

Amaranthe made sure nobody was following her, then trotted through another alley, up a concrete staircase, and into a door she’d left unlocked. She slipped past the pipes and control valves of the above-ground portion of the pumping station, not expecting anyone inside this early.

The sound of voices made her halt.

“…nothing wrong with the controls, my lord. I assure you, we’ve a man who works here day in and day out. I’d have heard if there was a problem.”

Amaranthe recognized the voice; it was the supervisor who had hired Books. He oversaw the utilities building for the industrial area and rarely visited the pumping house.

“Something’s going on,” a second man said. “You figure out if there are rusted pipes or malfunctioning machines, or I’ll send a private company in with the expense taken out of your salary.”

Footsteps thudded on concrete—the men heading for the door through which Amaranthe had entered.

She squeezed between a fat pipe and the wall, hoping the shadows hid her. Little light came in through the windows yet.

“I know how to do my job, my lord,” the supervisor said. “If something strange is going on, it has nothing to do with my machinery.”

The men passed within a few feet of her. Amaranthe held her breath. The supervisor carried a lantern, but it did not illuminate the face of the other man. He was well-dressed in slacks and a frock coat, as one would expect from the warrior caste. The lord who oversaw the public works?

The door opened, then clanged shut. Amaranthe waited, not sure if both had left, but no more footsteps sounded. She was tempted to follow them outside to see if she could hear more of the conversation, but dawn’s light would make staying close difficult on the open streets.

She eased out of hiding and slipped through the control room to the access shaft in the back of the pumping house.

She wondered what had come up to bring the public works supervisor here. The corpses? After considering several options, she had finagled her team into taking the bodies of the appraiser and the workers to another part of the aqueducts. She had sent a note to Enforcer Headquarters in hopes they could be identified and their families informed. But this sounded like something unrelated to the deaths.

When Amaranthe reached the lower level where she and the men stayed, the sound of someone retching waylaid her thoughts. Basilard?

Frowning, she wound through passages toward the source. Maldynado hunkered over the washout, sides heaving, face pale.

“Are you…uhm?” Amaranthe stopped herself from saying “all right,” since clearly he was not.

Maldynado issued a final heave and sank back against the wall. “Just regretting the night’s activities.”

“You’re back earlier than I expected.”

“I was too miserable to stay.” He dragged a sleeve across his mouth and rubbed his face. “I didn’t think I was imbibing that deeply. I even drank a bunch of water, figuring Sicarius might come yank us out of bed before dawn for some of his horrible exercises. I—” He lifted a hand, cheeks bulging out, and returned to his previous activity.

Amaranthe backed away. “Let me know if you need anything.”

Strange, she had seen Maldynado hung over, but not sick like this. If Basilard also felt poorly, and he had not been drinking, some bug must be about.

Amaranthe stopped to grab a jug of apple juice, then headed past the boiler room, through the following door, and into a cramped space she called, for lack of an official-sounding name, the big pipe place. Most of the chamber lay underground, but shafts of light angled through windows high on one wall. Sicarius’s latest sleeping spot lay in an elevated, dark corner atop a round cap that appeared as uncomfortable as a blanket on the concrete floor. Of course, he could see people coming from the perch. And he, unlike she, apparently had the unconscious wherewithal not to roll off in the middle of the night and crash to the floor.

“Sicarius?” she asked.

When no answer came from the depths, she clambered across the fat pipe leading to his spot, an act that would have been easier if she left the jug behind, but if he
was
there and also sick, he might like a drink. She struggled to imagine him ill. If he had ever so much as sneezed in front of her, she could not remember it. Of course, he might be out, skulking around the city for his own reasons. He did that from time to time, but he always showed up for morning training.

“Sicarius, are you there, or am I crawling up here for no reason?” Her knee cracked against a wheel for regulating water flow, and she grimaced. “For no reason except to bruise myself, that is.”

Amaranthe hopped off the pipe and onto wooden scaffolding left against the wall after some project. From there she could climb to Sicarius’s niche.

“I’m here.” His voice gave little away—as usual.

“Are you sick too?” This close, she could make out his supine form on the wide pipe cap. “I promise I won’t run out and tell your enemies you’re an easy mark right now if you admit you have the flu,” she said.

Wood cracked at Amaranthe’s feet. The hilt of his black knife quivered, the tip a centimeter from her big toe. His way of saying he was not an easy mark, sick or not. She hoped there was not more of a message behind the flung weapon than that, but it sent an uneasy chill down her spine. A reminder that, though he seemed to tolerate more from her than most, she might be unwise to presume he found her teasing amusing.

Out of a sense of stubbornness, or maybe some delusion it would impress him, Amaranthe opted for bravado rather than outward unease—or an apology. She tugged the blade free and held it up. “You dropped this.”

His soft exhalation might have been a snort.

The strange black metal of the knife seemed to swallow the wan light coming through the window above. He had never explained where he had acquired it or what it was made from. She shuffled over and laid it next to him.

“Do you want some apple juice?” She hefted the jug.

“No.”

“You’re probably not that practiced at being sick, but the doctors say you’re supposed to drink liquids.”

“Bring water then. That’s too sweet.”

“You say that about everything that tastes good,” Amaranthe said. “Maybe the reason you’re sick is that you don’t eat anything except fish, meat, and vegetables, and all you ever drink is water. You—” She halted as a new thought ricocheted through her head. “Water. Is that it?”

Sicarius issued an inquisitive grunt.

“When did you start feeling sick?” she asked.

“Last night.”

He
had
been snippier than usual the night before, and maybe not just because of Ellaya’s interests.

“You drink a lot of water,” Amaranthe said. “Where’d you drink yesterday? The city fountains?”

“Yes, and the tap here.”

“Maldynado’s sick, too, and he said he drank a lot of water. I feel fine.” She closed her eyes, thinking about what she had consumed the previous day. “I had water yesterday morning, but switched to a pitcher of tea in the afternoon—tea I made the day before.” Was it possible the public works lord had come because of a complaint about water? Were other people in the city ill? Maybe it had been the water itself Akstyr had sensed down in the tunnels. Some kind of magical poison? “I have to talk to the others.”

Amaranthe started to turn away, eager to check her hypothesis, but she paused, remembering Sicarius probably felt miserable. She touched his shoulder.

“Can I get you anything? Milk? Tea?”

“I require nothing,” Sicarius said.

Of course not. He had probably never accepted help from anyone in his life. “You know,” Amaranthe said, “you’ve saved my life countless times. I owe you a lot, and I certainly wouldn’t mind taking care of you while you’re sick.”

“Go solve your mystery.” Sicarius rolled onto his side, turning his back to her.

Amaranthe sighed and left to talk to the others.

•  •  •  •  •

Books finished his glass of milk and bent over a three-day-old copy of
The Gazette
. More newspapers, those from underground presses as well as government-approved ones, scattered the desk. He scribbled notes onto a piece of paper, cursing when his pencil pierced the page, thanks to a knot hole beneath.

The wood plank balanced on crates made a poor desk, and the lack of windows left him grumbling about the lamp’s weak illumination, but at least he had the boiler room to himself while the other men moaned and bellyached in the sleeping area. Though not Sicarius, of course. He would never deign to wallow in communal misery.

Amaranthe walked in, a fresh newspaper tucked under her arm. “How’s it going?”

“How’s it going? Last night, I was nearly blown up, then I was attacked by a loon with a club, and then I almost smacked into a pile of enforcers, and finally I twisted my ankle following Sicarius out a window. Today I have a monstrous headache, not to mention scabs in places that should never be exposed to violent acts. Also, at some point, I tripped and stubbed my toe against the end of my boot. The nail is turning purple. I think it may fall off.”

She pointed at the desk. “I meant the research.”

“Oh.” His cheeks warmed. “The research is fine. I’m your researcher extraordinaire. You know that. Why else would you have given me this pile of work?”

Someone else would have made a snide comment, pointing out he was the only other person in the group who hadn’t been drinking water and wasn’t sick, but she simply patted his shoulder and said, “Because you can handle it.”

He shuffled through his notes. “I haven’t found anything about the water in these papers, or remote lots in the mountains, but there are a lot of incidents of vandalism and violence toward the foreigners who have set up shop here in the last few months.” He paused at the sound of rustling papers. Amaranthe was tidying the desk, though she watched him as she did it, maybe not aware of her busy hands. “These problems aren’t all that surprising,” Books went on, “but they do seem to be escalating. More incidents in the last couple of weeks than in the previous months combined.”

“Interesting.” Amaranthe finished straightening the papers, swept pencil shavings into her hand, and carried them to the furnace for disposal. “The question is, does this tie in with the water problems, or are we looking at two mysteries?”

“You don’t look daunted by the possibility.”

“More problems, more work. We need to focus on the water issue though. It’s more of an…opportunity. More of a chance for us to get noticed if we solve the problem.” She laid the morning’s newspaper on the newly tidied desk.

The front page headline of
The Gazette
screamed: THOUSANDS ILL; EPIDEMIC COMES TO CITY.

“Ah, I see.” Books skimmed the article. “No mention of the water.”

“My guess could be incorrect, or maybe they hadn’t figured out the connection when the paper was put together.”

“Or they may know and not want people to burst into hysterics,” Books said. “As much as this city enjoys its juice, brandy, and wine, it wouldn’t take long to run out of water alternatives and for people to start hoarding. Theft and fights would break out. It could be utter chaos.”

“The soldiers in Fort Urgot would impose martial law before complete pandemonium broke out, but, yes, this represents a massive problem.” She bounced on her toes and smiled.

“Good birthday present, eh?”

“Well, I don’t wish people to be sick, especially our own men.”

“But…”

“But, yes, this is a gift. Maybe. If we’re able to make use of it.”

“You have something in mind?” Books asked. “A journey into the mountains to investigate the source?”

“That
would
be a good idea, but we’re not sure where that source is yet. I think another trip is in order first.” She nodded at him. “And you’re the perfect person to go on it.”

“A mission for just the two of us?” The incident at Mitsy’s Maze—where he had proven completely ineffectual in a crisis—still haunted him. Though their daily training had improved his fitness and combat skills over the last couple of months, he worried how he would react in another desperate situation.

“More like an errand,” Amaranthe reassured him. “I want to seek out your new lady friend and have a chat.”

“Lady friend?” he asked casually, though a tingle of anticipation fluttered through his belly at the thought of Vonsha.

“Aren’t you wondering how she’s doing after the explosion? And why there was an explosion to start with? Was she the target? Were you the target? Would anyone who was researching that spot in the mountains have been targeted? Is it all tied in with this new illness? That lot is on a river, maybe a river that feeds into the city’s water supply. I want to know what she knows.”

“She didn’t tell me where she lives.”

Amaranthe pointed at the paper stacks. “I thought you were a researcher extraordinaire.”

He rubbed his lips. “That
is
true…”

“You find out. I’ll check the men and see what my new disguise looks like—Maldynado picked it up before heading to The Pirates’ Plunder last night.”