The Black Bouquet

Miri frowned and said, "We're not kidnappers, to hold a man prisoner and barter his life for treasure."

"Do you think the captive an i

"We can't mistreat him just on the basis of our suspicions."

"No," Sefris sighed. "Of course not. What was I thinking? I think this evil place is corrupting my judg-"

Without warning, she leaped and spun, her heel streaking at Miri's head.

Reacting out of sheer reflex, Miri bounded back out of range, and the monastic's kick missed her by an inch. The scout continued her frantic retreat, meanwhile nocking and drawing an arrow. Sefris landed in a deep crouch, one hand high and open, the other clenched into a fist and cocked at her hip.

"What is this?" Miri demanded. "Why would you attack me?"

"The arcanaloth promised you'd guide me along the path to the Bouquet," Sefris replied, "but I think you've done your part. From this point onward, your mawkish scruples and squeamishness would only get in the way. So now I'm going to kill you for daring to set yourself against the Lady of Loss."

Miri didn't understand all of that. She didn't know what an "arcanaloth" was, for example. But it was plain that Sefris was as treacherous a double-dealer as most everyone else she'd met in Oeble, and had been playing her for a fool from the start.

"I'm the one with an arrow aimed at your heart," Miri said. "If you so much as twitch, I'll let it fly. Now, you're no Broken One. Who are you?"

"Perhaps you've heard of the Monks of the Dark Moon."

Sefris's hand leaped toward her pocket and the chakram inside it. Miri released the bowstring.

The arrow flew straight, but the monastic twisted aside. The chakram whirled through the air. Miri simultaneously ducked and flailed at the ring, and by luck as much as skill, she swatted it away with her buckler. Steel clashed against steel.

Sefris pounced, too fast for even the deftest archer to ready another shaft. In desperation, Miri swung her bow like a club. The monastic caught the weapon, twirled it out of Miri's grasp, and cast it aside.

At least that took an instant, which Miri used to scramble backward once more. The retreat took her out onto the balcony, which groaned and dipped alarmingly under her weight. She also had time to snatch out her broadsword and, when Sefris lunged forward again, prompting the platform to creak and lurch, meet her with a stop cut. The robed, shaven-headed woman halted instantly, cleanly, on balance, and the attack fell short.

Smiling ever so slightly, Sefris shifted back and forth, looking for an opening. Miri felt an unaccustomed pang of fear, and struggled to quash it.

I know she's good, she thought, but the sword gives me the reach on her, and she can't dodge around too much out here. The balcony's too small.

Miri advanced, feinted to the head, and cut to the flank. Sefris ignored the false attack and swept down her arm to parry the true one. It shouldn't have worked very well. The broadsword should have chopped into her wrist, but the block incorporated a subtle spi

She riposted with a spring into the air and a front kick to the face. Miri swayed backward, out of harm's way, and slashed at the other woman's extended leg. She grazed the flapping hem of her robe, but that was all. Sefris touched down, spun, and caught the sword with a crescent kick. The impact tore it from Miri's grasp and sent it flying over the broken railing.

The ranger grabbed for the hilt of the dagger sheathed at her belt. Hands poised for slaughter, Sefris whirled around to face her.

Wood cracked and screamed, and the balcony swung down, the horizontal surface becoming a steep incline. The platform was pulling loose from it anchors.

Sefris turned and, nimble as a cat, clambered up the slope and into the safety of the garret. Miri tried to do the same, but scrabble as she might, she couldn't catch hold of anything to pull herself up. Her boots kicked away rotten fragments of railing, wood cracked and snapped, and she and the balcony plummeted, tumbling through empty space.

CHAPTER 9

As the crash sounded below, Sefris drew a calming breath. She hadn't feared Miri's bow or sword, but she had felt a twinge of alarm when the balcony unexpectedly gave way. The fear proved she still had a way to go before she achieved a perfect, contemptuous indifference to the well-being of all unworthy created things, herself included.

It was something to work on in her meditations, but not just then. She had to recapture the opportunity that was receding beyond her grasp. The monastic retrieved her fallen chakram, she then sprinted back down the spiral stairs.

As Sefris hurtled downward, she cast off-she wished for all time-the habits of speech and expression she'd adopted to impersonate a Broken One. The warmth and compassion of a servant of Ilmater were entirely alien to her own nature. It had taken a constant effort to counterfeit them, and she knew she hadn't managed perfectly. Still, she'd passed muster right up until the end, and that was what mattered.

When she reached ground level, she raced down the street in the direction the kidnappers and their victim had taken. She kept to the shadows as best she could, but stealth was less important than speed, and her sandals pounded the wheel-rutted earth.

Indeed, she'd nearly passed the narrow cul-de-sac before she registered the stairs at the end of it, like a well lined with steps twisting downward into the ground. When she spotted it, however, she stopped cold.

The part of Oeble that knew rain and sunlight did possess some semblance of law and order, no matter how corrupt or ineffectual, so it seemed unlikely that outlaws dragging a prisoner along would opt to continue in the streets when they could descend to the Underways instead. Sefris bounded down the narrow, unrailed steps, indifferent to the possibility of a fall. Her Dark Moon training had honed her sense of balance to such a degree that the rapid descent was no more difficult than sprinting on level ground.

The real challenge came when the stairs deposited her in a twisting tu

Accordingly, she listened, hoping that, since they'd returned "below," the toughs would start taunting their victim or gloating over their success. In her experience, such mindless, undisciplined behavior was typical of robbers and goblin-kin the world over.

She thought she heard catcalls and laughter echoing faintly from the right, and she hurried in that direction. She judged she was heading more or less toward the river, though the mazelike warrens were already muddling her sense of direction. She rather wished she could cast a spell of tracking or guidance to keep her on the proper course, but the simple fact was that no sorceress could master every conceivable conjuration and enchantment, and such tricks weren't a part of her repertoire.

As it turned out, she didn't need them. She rushed or skulked past various scenes of the sort the Underways provided in such abundance-a burglar selling a silk wedding dress to a dealer in such stolen commodities, ruffians and apprentices squatting in a circle throwing knucklebones, several orcs closing in on a human who'd managed to draw his dagger but looked too drunk to wield it properly-and the kidnappers came into view. Unfortunately, they still had such a lead on Sefris that she wouldn't have spotted them if that length of tu