The Black Bouquet

She tried the brass handle, and found the panel was unlocked. She slipped warily through into a suite dimly illuminated by the soft greenish light of everlasting candles. The sitting room was lavishly furnished in a frilly, lacy style that set her teeth on edge. It looked like the habitation of a nobleman's pampered daughter, not the lair of a wizard who ran a tavern catering to dastards of every stripe. The books on the shelves were of a piece with the rest of the decor. Instead of tomes of arcane lore, they were ballads and romances, tales of knights slaying dragons for the love of princesses both beautiful and pure.

A small dog yapped, and in response, a feminine voice laughed. Miri followed the sound through the apartment. She crept past one room that manifestly was a wizard's conjuration chamber, with a rather slim grimoire reposing on a lectern, sigils of protection inscribed on the walls, and the memory of bitter incense hanging in the air, then came to the source of the noise. Beyond another doorway, a blond woman in a shimmering blue silk dressing gown tossed a rawhide chew toy for a little fox-red terrier, which bounded after the plaything and fetched it back to her. The dog's mistress sat with her back to the door.

"Mistress Dalaeve," Miri said.

The terrier rounded on her and barked. The blond woman gave a start then, without turning around, swept her hands through what was clearly a cabalistic gesture.

"No spells!" Miri nocked an arrow and drew the fletching back to her ear. "I'm not here to hurt you, but-"

She broke off the threat because Naneetha obviously had no intention of heeding her. Her hands kept moving.

Such stubbor

As far as Miri could see, nothing happened as a result.

Naneetha uncovered her features and said, "Quiet, Saeval!"

The terrier yipped a final time, then subsided. The wizard turned, revealing a flawlessly beautiful heart-shaped countenance worthy of a heroine in one of the sagas on which she evidently doted.

"Who are you," the woman asked, "and what do you want?"

Miri released the tension on her bow and pointed the arrow at the floor, but kept it on the string.

"My name is Miri Buckman. I'm a guide of the Red Hart Guild. I apologize for bursting in on you this way, but my business is urgent, and your staff didn't want to let me in to see you."

"I like my privacy."

"I won't intrude on it any longer than necessary. I just need you to answer a few questions. A robber stole a strongbox from the courtyard of the Paera-"

"I know. Everyone does. You must be the ranger who lost the prize."

Miri sighed and said, "What everyone doesn't know is the name of the thief, or at least, no one's been willing to tell me. But I've learned he's a friend of yours. He and his three accomplices drank here often."

"As I'm sure you've seen, the Dance is a busy place. Many rogues squander their loot here."

"But sometimes you invited this particular scoundrel, who's young, lean, fit, and wears a goatee, to wander back to your suite and visit you."

"You're mistaken."

"I don't believe you," Miri said, "and I promise, I'll pay for information."

"The Dance brings in all the coin I need," Naneetha said. "Now, please go."

"I'm sorry, it isn't that easy."

"Let's be clear, then," the woman asked. "Are you threatening to shoot me if I refuse to betray a friend?"

Even as frustrated as she was, Miri didn't have the stomach for such callous retribution, but she didn't have to admit as much.

"Why shouldn't I kill you?" she asked. "You provide a haven for the worst kinds of vermin to conduct their business and pursue depraved amusements. That makes you as bad as they are."

"It must be nice out in the wilderness, where everything's so simple… good or evil, gold or dung. In Oeble, we live as best we can."

"If your goal is to live, give me the robber's name."

"No," Naneetha said. "I don't have many friends. It's hard to make them when you spend your days in a cellar, and Saeval and my books aren't enough to hold the loneliness at bay. The few companions I do have brighten my days with the stories of their adventures, and the lad you seek has told me some splendid ones."

Miri wondered if Naneetha was an invalid or such a notorious fugitive that she dared not show her face in the city above, for she seemed to be saying she felt unable ever to leave the confines of the Talondance.

"Whatever lies the wretch feeds you," Miri said, "he's a common thief, not a hero out of your storybooks."

The wizard shrugged.

"Look," Miri persisted, "it's nice you have someone to keep you company, but a good many people will suffer if I don't recover the lockbox."

"Why?"

"I'm not at liberty to say, but you have my word that it's the truth."

"Well, you have mine that I'd sooner push a hundred strangers into the Abyss than betray one friend." Naneetha lifted her hands, making a show of poising them for further conjuration, and added, "Now, are we going to fight?"

No, Miri thought bitterly, we aren't.

Naneetha had called her bluff, and that was that. It felt in keeping with the fundamental perversity of Oeble that the first even vaguely honorable person she'd met in the Underways had proved just as unwilling to help her as all the black-hearted scoundrels she'd questioned hitherto.

She was pondering how to make a dignified exit when the dog yapped.

"I see you found her," Sefris said.

Miri glanced over her shoulder. The monastic appeared unscathed and unruffled as usual.

"Thank Mielikki-and Ilmater-that you're all right," Miri said.

"It was no great matter. I won the contest, the orc and goblin took exception to it, and I had to knock each of them senseless. That started a brawl even the umber hulks-it turns out there are two-had some difficulty quelling. In the confusion, I slipped back here to join you."

Once again, Miri was impressed. Logic suggested that when the fight had broken out, Sefris must have been at the very center of it. She'd surely needed almost preternatural powers of stealth and evasion to extricate herself from the fray.

"And what of you?" the monastic continued. "Are you finding the answers you seek?"

"No," Naneetha said, "she isn't. She was just leaving, and I ask you to do the same."

"You don't seem to realize the situation has changed," Sefris said. In the blink of an eye, a chakram appeared in her hand. "The scout and I are both adept at combat. Perhaps your magic could fend off her or me alone, but not the two of us together, and after we've subdued you, we'll make sure you can't give us any more trouble. I never yet met a mage who was much of a threat with broken fingers."

"Nor I a warrior, once she was burned from head to toe," Naneetha replied.

Miri would have sworn the doorway wasn't wide enough to accommodate two women without them squeezing and jostling one another, but Sefris twisted through in one sudden movement, without even brushing her. Once inside the room, she had a clear shot with the chakram, and when she lifted it, the ranger realized she hadn't been bluffing.

Miri snatched frantically and grabbed Sefris's arm.

"No!" she cried.

Her eyes cold, unreadable, Sefris stared at her.

"She knows," he monastic said. "The yuan-ti said so."

"Still…"

Sefris took a breath and let it out slowly.

"As you wish," she said. "It's your errand. I just came along to help as best I can."