The Black Bouquet

He resumed his assault on the hinges. The component parts seemed to loosen grudgingly, by infinitesimal degrees, only to tighten back up as soon as he released pressure from them. At first, in the uncertain light, he wasn't sure, but eventually he saw that that was exactly what was happening. like living creatures, the mechanisms were resisting vivisection, screwing and jamming themselves back together.

Most likely that meant he wouldn't be able to disassemble them. By loosening them, he had, however, temporarily opened a crack between the lid and bottom of the box, which until then had fit perfectly together. In desperation, he drew his largest Arthyn fang, a blade sturdy enough to double as a lever, shoved it into the gap, braced the coffer, and pried with all his strength.

The hinges tore with a screech of tortured steel. The two halves of the strongbox popped apart, and the thrice-damned thunderclap boomed once more, bashing him like a club. He gasped a curse, and when he succeeded in blinking the tears of pain from his vision, perceived that the coffer hadn't yet finished giving him trouble.

A vapor wafted from the interior of the box, swirled, and coalesced into a squat, dark thing. At first glance, it was vaguely toadlike, but then he made out the six stubby arms terminating in four-fingered hands and the three eyes, positioned asymmetrically and shifting around at the ends of flexible lumps. The central mass of it was either all head or all torso, depending on how one cared to look at it, with a bizarre vertical maw that opened it almost all the way down to the sexless crotch when it bared its fangs. It oriented on Aeron and charged, covering ground as fast as a man despite the seeming handicap of its stumpy legs.

Aeron scrambled backward, tried to poise his Arthyn fang to meet the threat, then realized he'd lost hold of it, the largest and most formidable of his weapons, when the final thunderclap boomed. He snatched out a throwing knife, a flat, leaf-shaped blade with a leather-wrapped handle, and hurled it. It pierced the guardian demon's flesh, but the creature kept coming.

Still retreating, Aeron flung a second dagger. Though it put out one of the apparition's eyes, that didn't stop it, either. It suddenly sprinted even faster, leaning forward so its jaws were poised to bite off the legs of its prey.

His heart pounding, Aeron made himself stand still until the last possible instant. That way, the demon would have trouble compensating when he dodged. Unless, of course, he delayed too long, in which case it would simply catch him in its spikelike teeth.

He spun to the side and stabbed with his fourth and next-to-last dagger. The demon's teeth clashed shut, missing him, and the blade rammed deep into its flank. Using his off hand, he bashed it with his cudgel.

Unfortunately, that still didn't slow it down. Pivoting, yanking the hilt of the knife from his grasp, it grabbed at his leg with its broad, stubby-fingered hands, no doubt seeking to hold him fast long enough to bring its jaws to bear. Its talons jabbed through his breeches and the skin beneath. He wrenched himself free, but he lost his balance in so doing. He reeled backward, fell on his rump, and the demon pounced on top of him.

It jaws gaped, reaching for his head. Terrified, he jammed the club between them. It served to hold them open for a moment, but the wood bowed under the pressure. In another second, it would snap.

Aeron whipped his final knife from his boot and plunged it into the demon's side. The creature thrashed, made an ugly gargling sound, and stinking slime geysered up from its maw. Its death throes broke the cudgel in two, and it slumped motionless.

Aeron dragged himself out from underneath the carcass, then sat until he stopped panting and shivering. He was used to fighting people, even if he didn't often enjoy it, but demons were another matter.

Still, he'd bested the vile thing, and it was time to see what his victory had gained him. Trying to brush away the sludge the spirit had puked onto his tunic, he strode back to the sundered halves of the broken strongbox.

His prize lay in the padded bottom section, where it fit snugly. It was a big, old-looking book bound in black.

As he reached for it, it occurred to Aeron that perhaps he still hadn't reached the end of the wards. But shadows of Mask, he'd already contended with the warning screech, the glimmering that neutralized his invisibility, spells of locking, thunderclaps, and a guardian imp. Surely even the most cautious shipper would have deemed those protections sufficient, and in any case, Aeron was simply too impatient to muck around with Burgell's tools and powders any longer. He picked up the book, and nothing disastrous happened as a result.

The tome had a title embossed on the cover and spine with a few flecks of gold leaf still clinging to the letters, but since Aeron couldn't read, that was no help. His father had sometimes encouraged him to learn, but it had always seemed like a lot of effort for a minimal return.

His best guess was that he'd stolen a wizard's grimoire, for what other kind of book could be valuable enough to warrant such elaborate defenses? But he'd handled a couple of those in his time, and when he leafed through it, he didn't find the elaborate pentagrams and illustrations of mystical hand gestures he was expecting.

What he did discover were lines of text, pictures of leaves and flowers, and a hundred smells, many exquisitely sweet, faint yet still perceptible even through the musty, nose-tickling odor of aged, decaying parchment.

The dark street was narrow, and the towers crowded close on either side. Miri found it oppressive. Considering that she was comfortable in even the deepest reaches of primordial forests like the Chondalwood, with gigantic mossy trees looming all around, it was ridiculous, but true nonetheless.

Well, at least she had a patch of open sky above her head once more and hope of completing her mission without the necessity of a return to the claustrophobic confines of the Underways. In fact, if she could only ease her mind on a certain matter, she might feel better than at any time since Aeron sar Randal made off with the saddlebag.

The problem was figuring out how to broach the subject with a comrade who'd been nothing but helpful, who had, indeed, saved her life. As a general rule, Miri believed in directness, yet she had a sense that in that situation, she'd feel like an ingrate if she failed to muster a degree of tact.

"I still can't make out how you knew," she said as they hiked along.

"About Mistress Dalaeve's face?" Sefris replied.

"Yes."

"We Broken Ones can see through illusions sometimes. Open eyes are a benefit of our meditations." As they neared an intersection, Sefris pointed to a frieze of manticores decorating a crumbling wall and said, "This is where our informant told us to turn."

Miri peered around the corner, studying the path ahead. Even up in what was allegedly the law-abiding part of Oeble, it appeared to her that an absurd number of folk were skulking about in the dark, engaged in business that, were it wholly legitimate, they would have conducted by day. But none of them looked like they were lying in wait for outlanders, so she and the monastic proceeded on their way.

"But how did you know she was so worried about keeping her scars hidden that a threat to unmask her would break her will?" the ranger asked.

Sefris shrugged and replied, "It was a guess, based on what we'd heard and seen. Her reclusiveness. The dim lighting and frilly furnishings. Her taste in reading matter, and the fact that the false visage she affected was absolutely perfect, like a statue's face."

"Very clever," said Miri.

His cane tapping and bowl outstretched, a stained strip of linen tied over his eyes, a beggar meandered toward the two women. Reminded of sar Randal's disguise, Miri scowled, and the "blind" mendicant, who evidently saw her forbidding expression perfectly well, veered off.