Amaranthe leaned against the closest workbench. Usually she enjoyed talking to people, even the dastardly types who teamed up with the other side, but weariness dragged at her muscles. She would love to lie down somewhere.
“Listen, Mister…?”
“Tarok.”
“All right, Mister Tarok. I’m told I’m going to die if someone with magic fingers doesn’t tend me. I’m willing to do…quite a lot to ensure I wake up tomorrow. Sicarius has been a useful member of my team when he’s bothered to do what we want him to, but life is life. I can tell you where he is if you help me.”
“Perhaps-” Tarok strolled her direction, hands clasped behind his back, “-if I take you prisoner, he’ll come to visit me. You’re much prettier than the man.”
Amaranthe rubbed her face. “As you said, he’s an assassin. This is not the sort of person to develop attachments to others. He doesn’t care about people beyond their ability to be useful to him. He’s not going to rescue Books, me, or anyone else.”
Tarok stopped and studied her, a crinkle to his brow. She was surprised he was having trouble believing this. Most people who had met Sicarius, or heard about him in passing, assumed this to be the case.
“I can tell you where he is,” Amaranthe repeated. “I’ll even take you to him, but I’ll need some magicky medical attention to be fit for the climb.”
“Magicky.”
“We don’t have a lot of words to describe magic in Turgonian.”
He grunted. “On that you don’t lie. You’re ignorant barbarians. I pity you.”
“Do you pity me enough to heal me?”
“Heal you? You’ve been a wart on my toe since you stumbled onto their plot. Your man nearly destroyed the amaskort beyond repair.”
She did not like that he said “nearly.” If there was hope to fix that thing…
“You can’t blame me for that,” Amaranthe said. “You’re harming imperial citizens, and my group works for the emperor.”
Tarok’s blond eyebrows arched.
“Sort of,” she amended. “The emperor doesn’t actually know we work for him, but… It’s a long story. You’re Mangdorian, right? Doesn’t your religion posit the virtues of love for one’s fellow man? And, er, woman? Even if I wasn’t prepared to help you find Sicarius-which I am, remember-wouldn’t you find it a noble choice to heal me?”
She watched his face, trying to determine if he was buying any of her spiel. His lip curled in a sneer. Guess not.
“Have you forsaken your people and your religion then?” Amaranthe asked. “You must have if you’re willing to build devices that can murder people from a distance. And collars to capture horrible creatures that’ll do the same up close.”
His sneer faded. “You are right about our religion, and I would not have chosen to create devices that kill of my own volition. But sometimes…a great good, a victory for a nation, outweighs lesser evils.”
“And you believe that victory is killing Sicarius?” Amaranthe asked.
Tarok lifted his chin. “I will bring his head to my people just as he took the heads of our beloved rulers. That will inspire them, show them that we do have the power to take back what was once ours.”
“If what you want is Sicarius’s head, why the plot against the city?”
“My cooperation in this matter was the price for information about Sicarius. All the information I would need to thwart him.”
Amaranthe wondered what else those spies had pulled out of the files in Imperial Intelligence. “Well, I was kind enough to bring him to your mountain, so there’s no need for you to continue working with Forge.”
Since she did not know for certain Forge was the group behind everything, she watched him to see if he would deny association with the organization. He did not.
“As far as thwarting Sicarius goes…” Amaranthe nodded at the constructs along the wall. “You appear to be set for a battle.”
“You’re trying too hard to get me to go after him,” he said. “You’re attempting to lure me into a trap.”
She offered her best who-me expression, then said, “No, I’m trying to live. Nobody else around here is qualified to help me.”
“Unfortunate for you.” He resumed his stroll toward her. “Do you know what your assassin did to my people?”
When she had said “your monsters,” it had bothered him, and his word choice now bothered her. She did feel responsible for Sicarius, since she had chosen to employ him. “I was a child myself then,” was all she could say. “He answered to another.”
“Your emperor, I know.”
“Who told you? Forge?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” Amaranthe said. “Their motivations aren’t pure. They would’ve only given you that information because they wanted something.” She nodded toward the machines.
“It doesn’t matter. They had something I wanted in return.”
He stopped two paces away from her, and she considered going for her knife.
“And you have something I want,” he said. “The assassin’s location.”
The intensity of his gaze had increased, and Amaranthe took a step back. “I already told you I’d trade you that information for my health.”
“Yes, but I can find out where he is without healing you. And, unlike what your lips are telling me, I’m sure what’s in your mind will be truth.”
“In my…mind?”
He lifted a hand toward her temple.
Amaranthe jumped back, gritting her teeth against a stab of pain from her wounds, and yanked her boot knife free. The shaman waved a hand. Heat flared from the handle, searing her palm.
Cursing, she dropped the knife and backed farther-or tried to. Her shoulders rammed against unyielding metal. Something vise-like clamped down on her shoulder.
Amaranthe twisted and tried to lunge away, but the grip held her fast. She craned her neck to see her captor. One of the humanoid constructs had left the wall and rolled behind her on wheels. She cursed herself for not hearing or sensing its approach.
Tarok grabbed her wrist with one hand and reached for her forehead with the other. She kicked him in the groin.
He staggered back and hunched over. Again Amaranthe tried to yank away. Scabs tore beneath her bandages, and agony seared her torso. She gasped, nearly pitching to her knees. In the end, her efforts were for naught: the construct merely tightened its grip.
Teeth bared, the shaman glowered at her. “Down.”
The machine forced her to her knees, and she had no answer for its power. Tarok’s hand came in again, and Amaranthe could not dodge or kick from her position.
At first, she noticed the cool, dry presence of his palm against her hot skin. Then all she was aware of was the fact that she was not alone in her head any more. Memories came unbidden to her mind. The battle on top of the dam, Sicarius’s shooting of the shaman in the canyon, his last conversation with her outside the mine.
As the shaman dug deeper, Amaranthe tried to fight him. She drove her thoughts in directions she hoped would be useless. Old homework assignments, the enforcer training manual, the-
Pain ripped through her mind, and she gasped, back arched. Tarok squashed her attempts at distraction and barreled back to Sicarius with dogged tenacity. He drew everything up from the last few days, and Amaranthe struggled to keep tears of defeat from burning her eyes. Not only would he not heal her, but she would lay Sicarius’s secrets at his feet.
For a moment, the shaman’s presence faded, and she hoped he had enough, that he would not keep going, but his hand did not leave her forehead. He merely turned toward a machine she had not noticed approach. It was the barrel-chested construct that had guided her into the tunnels.
