The Black Bouquet

"I take it you're leaving," Naneetha said.

"Yes," Miri said. She started to turn away, then yielded to the urge to make one more try. "It's your own people, your own city, that will benefit if I recover the box."

"Such vagaries mean nothing," the wizard said.

At the same time, Sefris murmured something under her breath then sprang past Miri and dashed back down the hall. The ranger turned just in time to see her comrade vanish into the conjuration chamber.

"What's she doing?" Naneetha asked, sounding rattled for the first time.

"I don't know," Miri said.

Sefris strode back into view with the mage's open grimoire. One hand clutched the vellum pages, ready to tear.

"Tell us what we need to know," the monastic said, "or I'll destroy this."

"Is that supposed to frighten me?" Naneetha asked. "I can buy a new spellbook, or scribe one myself if need be."

"Yes," Sefris said, "but in the meantime, you won't have access to your magic. You won't be able to cover your face with a mask of illusion. Everyone will see your scars."

Naneetha stared, swallowed, then said, "I have no idea what you mean."

"Of course you do," Sefris replied. "Is this the page with the disguise spell?" The monastic ripped a leaf in half, crumpled the loose portion, and dropped it to the floor. "Or is it the next?"

"Stop it, or I swear I'll burn you!"

"While I'm holding the grimoire? I doubt it."

She tore a second page.

"Please," the wizard begged, all the defiance ru

"Then the choice should be easy," Sefris said. "Betray one companion, or lose them all."

It took Naneetha several seconds to force the words out, "His name is Aeron sar Randal."

Miri felt a pang of excitement, undercut by a muddled shame at the ma

"Where does he live?" the ranger asked.

"I don't know. I don't think many people do. A lot of thieves are wary of letting folk know where they sleep."

"Well, fortunately," Miri said, "the town's not huge. Did this Aeron talk to you about the plot to steal the strongbox?"

"A little. The Red Axes hired him to do it."

"The Red Axes?"

"The biggest gang in Oeble."

"Then by now," said Miri glumly, "he's delivered the coffer to them."

Naneetha hesitated for an instant as if trying to decide whether to risk a lie.

"No," the wizard said. "For some reason, he didn't hand it over, and now they're looking for him, too."

For once, the ranger thought, maybe the Oeblaun propensity for double-dealing would work in her favor.

"Then we have to find him first," said Miri.

CHAPTER 8

Aeron glanced over his shoulder. He didn't have any particular reason to think anyone was shadowing him, but it was an ingrained habit to check. In so doing, he caught sight of Oeble, its towers, some visibly leaning, black against the evening sky. Ordinarily the view would have pleased him, but the tangled spires seemed somehow threatening just then, like the writhing facial tentacles of those green, centipede-like monstrosities that sometimes crawled into the Underways from Mask alone knew where.

He snorted his momentary uneasiness away. Oeble was home, as good a home as an outlaw could want, and if it had treated him harshly those past couple days, that was part of what made life within its environs so exciting. He'd sell the contents of the lockbox, lie low until everyone tired of hunting him, and everything would be all right.

He hiked on into a stand of trees, trying with some success to keep the dry fallen leaves from crunching beneath his feet, enjoying the sharp scent of the pines. Night engulfed the world, but Selune shed enough silvery glow to guide him. He didn't bother to light his lantern until he reached the glade at the center of the wood, where he and Kerridi had sometimes picnicked.

The benighted clearing was hardly the ideal workspace in which to crack open a magically protected coffer, but Aeron hadn't dared tackle the job in the center of town. If he triggered more thunderclaps, they were likely to lead some of his various and sundry ill-wishers straight to him. Out there in the countryside, that at least ought not to be a problem.

Aeron found a level bit of ground, unrolled the white sheet he'd brought, and set the steel case on top of it. He unpacked the tools he'd taken from Burgell's flat and felt himself tensing, his pulse ticking faster. Aeron willed himself to relax.

Maybe he was no master cracksman like the faithless gnome, certainly no wizard, but he knew the basics of defeating magical traps. He thought that if he was careful, methodical, he could get the box open without killing himself in the process.

He peered at the case through a topaz lens. It didn't reveal anything he hadn't seen already, so he pulled the cork from a glass vial and dusted one side of the strongbox with gray powder. The coarse grains crawled and clumped together, forming letters and geometric figures, covering over and thus revealing the invisible symbols a spellcaster had drawn upon the steel.

So far, so good, he thought, but now comes the tricky part.

Aeron picked up a file and scraped at the glyphs, defacing them. Metal rasped on metal. Though in theory he knew at which angles and junctures he could attack the symbols safely, he kept wanting to flinch as he imagined the magic rousing and striking at him in some devastating fashion.

It didn't, though, not then, and not when he neutralized the sigils on the other faces of the box. He sighed with relief and picked up the brass key, which still appeared in constant flux even though he couldn't feel it changing shape between his thumb and forefinger. He slipped it into the lock and twisted.

Perhaps he felt it stick or shiver. In any event, he sensed he had to let go immediately. He snatched his hand back, and thunder boomed a split second later. The blast slammed him onto his back and brought loose twigs and dead leaves showering down from the branches overhead. Half dazed, he climbed back up onto his haunches, felt a wetness in his mustache, and wiped a smear of it onto his fingertips. His nose was bleeding.

He felt a jab of anger, a regret he'd ever come within a hundred leagues of that wretched box that had killed his friends. He wanted to grab it and fling it into the underbrush, never to be found or trouble anyone again.

But naturally, he didn't really feel that way. No thief truly wanted to cast away his loot Had he won it at great cost, that was just reason to prize it all the more. He swallowed his frustration and pondered the task at hand.

Maybe the glyphs were only decoys. In any case, spoiling them hadn't silenced the thunder, and he didn't see any other way to attempt it.

But so far, the blast had only sounded when someone inserted a pick or skeleton key in the lock. Maybe he could open the case in another way. He turned it around so he could get at the hinges.

Try as he might, he couldn't loosen the pins. If was as if they weren't merely fastened but frozen, glued, or rusted in place. He assumed another enchantment was to blame.

Well, maybe he had the countermagic for that one. He opened another of Burgell's vials and poured a quantity of viscous blue fluid on each of the hinges. Brewed by one of the outlaw community's more capable alchemists, the oil wasn't merely slippery. Rather, according to the gnome, it embodied the fundamental idea of slipperiness. Aeron wasn't sure what that really meant, and he had a hunch it might just be impressive-sounding mumbo jumbo, but he knew from personal experience that the lubricant was slick enough to unstick almost anything.