Maybe Sicarius could send another letter. Encoded like the first. But through whom? Some soldier in the camp? True, some of them might be swayed to Starcrest’s side if they knew he existed, but Sicarius had no way to ferret out which ones. He had to assume everyone here, in committing themselves to this march on the throne, belonged to Flintcrest.
Although… there was one person in the camp he could be certain didn’t want to see Starcrest killed.
Sicarius felt his heart rate quicken.
Dare he approach the man? Try to get him alone without Kor Nas finding out?
You still have to figure out where Starcrest is, he reminded himself. A letter couldn’t be delivered without an address. And somehow he had to keep these thoughts locked down deep so Kor Nas wouldn’t stumble across them as soon as he woke up. The practitioner might like his new pet, but that wouldn’t keep him from killing Sicarius and finding another if the situation warranted it.
• • •
Sicarius scrambled up the granite cliff, his fingers finding purchase in the slender cracks and on the ledges where snow gathered. His pace was fast, but not fast enough. The terrifying howl of the soul construct echoed from the canyon walls, following him as he climbed. The beast followed him, too, hulking and black in the dark night, not affected by the snow gusting sideways down the ravine. It bounded from ledge to ledge, knocking rocks and huge clumps of snow off with each leap, but finding a way to scale the cliff nonetheless.
Sicarius didn’t glance back, but he had to sense it gaining. Surely, he did. Amaranthe, watching from some impossible viewpoint floating behind him, tried to scream a warning. It’s gaining on you. Do something! But the snow and the wind stole the words.
The top of the cliff came into view, and Sicarius charged the final meters toward it. But his foot slipped, and the handhold beneath his fingers gave way. He dangled from one arm, legs hanging above the thousand-foot drop. A tiny frozen stream wound through the canyon far below, amidst boulders that might as well have been spikes. Sicarius reached for a new handhold. He would have made it, would have finished the climb, but the soul construct caught him then. It leaped, fangs biting, claws slashing, and tore him from the cliff.
Together they fell, spinning into the dark depths below. Before he plummeted to his death, Sicarius’s accusing eyes met hers, and he asked, “Why, Amaranthe? Why didn’t you come help when I needed you?”
Amaranthe woke with a gasp, her heart trying to jump out of her chest. For a disoriented moment, she stared about, surprised she wasn’t on a mountainside with snow streaking through her vision. Instead, she lay on her back, using her lumpy rucksack for a pillow. The black floor of the control room stretched before her. She remembered reaching it, watching Tikaya and her daughter lock the doors from cuboid intrusions, then setting to work. And she remembered feeling useless as the two women had called up the floating images-the control interfaces, Tikaya had called them-and taken turns manipulating them and considering journals full of notes. She’d announced that her team would get some rest, which had unfortunately resulted in Maldynado and Basilard conspiring to ensure she slept while one of them stood watch.
Amaranthe sat up, wondering if she should be disappointed or relieved that her nightmares had evolved into something new. Neither. That one hadn’t been any better than the others. Her sweat-soaked shirt stuck to her back, and strands of hair that had fallen from her bun lay pasted against her face and neck.
Thirsty, she unclasped her canteen from her rucksack. She hoped the thirst meant she’d actually slept for a number of hours this time, instead of her usual fistful of minutes. She also hoped the two women had, thanks to their interest in alien sewage and plumbing, found something that qualified as a washout. Last time, her team had been forced to make do with… well, Amaranthe hoped neither of her Kyattese explorers had opened that cabinet thing on the far wall. Though maybe the cubes or repair devices had cleaned in there. They’d scoured the floor of the control room of any memory of the fight. The bodies were all gone, not so much as a drop of blood or strand of hair left behind to prove those people had existed. Some funeral pyre.
Someone touched her shoulder. Basilard.
He sat with his back to the wall, a rifle across his knees while Maldynado, using his silly hat for a pillow-how did he keep from losing that thing when he was fleeing killer technological constructs? — snored, his face smooth and relaxed as he slept. No nightmares haunted him.
With concern in his eyes, Basilard signed, Bad dream?
They all are these days, Amaranthe signed back, not wanting to disturb the quiet room.
Tikaya and Mahliki still worked, though now they were sitting, heads bent together over an image displayed on that black sphere. Stuck on some problem? Amaranthe didn’t wish to disturb them.
Pike? Basilard asked, mimicking an actual pike for his sign.
Not this time. Sicarius in trouble.
Oh, Sicarius, she thought, if you’d figure out a way to show me where you are, I’d come help. True, she had no way of knowing if he needed help, but it’d been four days since anybody had seen him, maybe more.
I have wondered, Basilard signed, if he’s…
“Still alive?” Amaranthe murmured.
Basilard hesitated, watching her face, afraid he’d upset her maybe. Injured, he decided on.
“Me too.”
I think it would surprise him, but I’d miss him if he were gone.
“Maybe not surprise so much as perplex.” Amaranthe tried to smile, but couldn’t. She’d been better at false cheer before. Maybe it’d been required too much of late.
Yes. He was just getting…
Human, Amaranthe thought. “Interesting?” she responded aloud.
Less unpleasant, Basilard signed. Perhaps realizing that wasn’t much of an accolade, he added, It was a noticeable improvement. Not bad for a year’s influence.
“Your influence?”
Yours. By the time you’ve been married for ten years and have a pile of children, he might be almost approachable.
Amaranthe almost fell over. “Children?” she squeaked. “Him? Us? Er.”
Her voice had grown louder, and Mahliki glanced in their direction. Amaranthe blushed and made sure Maldynado was still asleep. He’d rib her endlessly for a discussion like this.
You don’t envision it? Basilard asked.
Amaranthe went back to signing, not wanting people she barely knew overhearing the rest of the conversation. I suppose I’ve thought about it from time to time as possibly happening in some distant future. Though she also wondered if the injuries she’d received from the makarovi would preclude her ever having children. I didn’t realize you, any of you thought about it, or that he’d… that we’d be…a good idea. Books had been disapproving for months, and Maldynado kept trying to send her on picnics with other men.
Not all of the others, perhaps. Basilard glanced at Maldynado. But you are a good team. Your strengths complement his weaknesses and vice versa. And you are a good influence on him. The world is safer because he’s with you.
Amaranthe didn’t feel like she could be a good influence on anyone anymore, but Basilard’s approval warmed her heart nonetheless. So few people seemed able to see Sicarius as anything other than a heartless killer, even those with whom he’d spent an entire year in close quarters. It shouldn’t surprise her that Basilard would be the one to glimpse behind the facade, at least a little. It took an observant man to find a tasty herb in a urine-beleaguered alley.