The Black Bouquet

Ombert shrugged and said, "In that case, I agree to your proposal, and I pray the Master of All Thieves will receive your spirit kindly when the half-demon sends it into Shadow."

By midday, the rain had stopped, and the sun had broken through the clouds. As she prowled the streets, Sefris rather wished it were otherwise. A good many people were wandering around enjoying the warm golden light, and it would be inconvenient if someone recognized her as the same woman who'd killed two Gray Blades and worked dark magic in the vicinity of Slarvyn's Sword.

She suspected she might have done as well to stay in her hideout until dusk, for after all, her quarry had likely gone to ground. Yet once she'd slept for a couple hours, she found it impossible to linger. She was too impatient to take up her errand once again. Her seeming lack of progress evoked an unaccustomed feeling of frustration.

As the arcanaloth had promised, Miri had led her to Kesk, who had in turn brought her into contact with Aeron. Then, however, everything had gone wrong. The thief had eluded her, the wizard in green had subsequently turned the Red Axes against her, and as a result, she was more or less right back where she'd started.

But obviously she couldn't let it rest there, couldn't fail the Lady of Loss and the Dark Moon. Born a slave in Mulhorand, Sefris had suffered the abuses of a master and mistress who used her cruelly. Finally she escaped their household, only to discover a life in the streets-picking through rotting garbage in search of edible scraps, freezing on cold nights, selling herself for coppers-that was equally terrifying and degrading. It was then that she truly learned to hate the world, to recognize all its bright promises of freedom and happiness for the lies they were.

When the order of the Dark Moon recruited her, it rescued her from want and squalor, and cured her of fear by teaching her to kill. But even more importantly, the Lady of Loss gave her disciples the assurance that the vileness of creation would one day dissolve into the purity of oblivion, and it was that knowledge that truly sustained Sefris. She thought that without it, she might have lost her mind.

She knew that every errand she completed brought universal obliteration a small step closer, albeit generally in a way no mere mortal could comprehend. Such being the case, she'd never allowed herself to fail, and never would.

But how was she to proceed? She'd considered summoning the arcanaloth again, but experience had taught her it was generally pointless to seek a second such consultation on the same problem. The spirit likely wouldn't have anything new to tell her.

She could stand watch over one of the markets full of smuggled and stolen goods, brothels, gambling halls, mordayn dens, counterfeiter's lairs, or other enterprises the Red Axes still had ru

But the odds of intercepting Aeron at any given one of them were slim. He simply had too many to choose from, and wasn't likely to strike before nightfall anyway. In the meantime, one of the Red Axe sentries might spot her lurking about. Ordinarily, she would have pitted her trained aptitude for stealth against their vigilance without hesitation, but she didn't know what magical devices the wizard might have supplied to heighten their natural abilities.

After some consideration, a vague instinct prompted her to visit those locations Aeron had already raided. She didn't know what she might discover there, but thought it would be easy enough to find out. Spread thin, the Red Axes were unlikely to mount much of a guard over a place the red-bearded thief had already attacked.

She hadn't learned anything at the blackened ruin of the floating wine shop. The place had burned down to the waterline. She could only hope the slave market off Dead King's Walk would prove more instructive. As she made her approach, she sca

She marched up to the entrance as if she had every right in the world to do so, and no one paid her any mind. The gate was locked, so she whispered a charm of opening. For a split second, she stood in cool shadow, as if a cloud has passed before the sun. The latch clacked, yielding to the magic.

She slipped through the gate and pushed it shut behind her. The hinges squeaked a little. Before her, the enclosure was deserted. Peaceful. At first glance, only the splashes of dried blood and discharged crossbow bolts on the muddy ground gave evidence of the violence that had erupted there the night before.

Well, those and the taunting "A" chalked in bold white strokes on the roof of one of the low, unwalled slave ke

Once satisfied that none of Kesk's minions was going to leap out and attack her, Sefris prowled around examining the ground. She found the broken fetters and the hammers and chisels the thralls had used to strike them off. On the ground nearby were the distinctive tracks the brass mantis had made as it hopped and scuttled about. The rest of the scene was a muddled confusion that only a ranger might have deciphered.

Sefris felt irritated with herself for even trying. Suppose she could read the tracks. Suppose she could follow the course of the battle from the first flight of quarrels to the final knife thrust. What difference would it make? This was all just a waste of time.

She started to turn to go, and a pang of intuition spun her back around, just in time to glimpse movement inside the window of the tumbledown shack at the back of the yard. Somebody had peeked out at her, then ducked back down under cover, but not quite quickly enough.

Probably just a Red Axe with the good sense to be leery of tackling Sefris by himself. That meant he was no threat at present, but since she and the gang were overt enemies, she saw no point in leaving him alive to get in the way later on. Sefris extracted a chakram from its pocket, charged the shed, and sprang through the doorway, hands poised to deflect a missile or blade.

But it wasn't a weapon that assailed her. Rather, a shrill scream pierced her ears. Huddled on the floor in the far corner, a young woman with an upturned nose and straw-colored hair squinched her eyes shut and shrieked again and again.

The blonde seemed to be rather comely, though it was hard to tell with her features contorted, tears streaming down her cheeks, and snot glistening on her upper lip. She had shackle galls on her ankles, but otherwise appeared relatively free of bruises, scars, or other signs of abuse. She looked well fed, too. Sefris knew what tender young female slaves had to do to earn soft treatment, and felt a surge of contempt directed in equal measure at the wretch before her and the child she herself had been.

The feeling was a distraction, and she stifled it with practiced ease. Viewed properly, the blonde was despicable, but no more so than any other created thing. Which was to say, she was of no importance except as a potential resource to further Sefris's mission.

Assuming the thrall knew something of significance, how best to extract it? Ordinarily, Sefris would have opted for threats and torture, but the blonde was already frightened beyond the point of hysteria. It seemed unlikely that heightening her terror would render her any more coherent. So, distasteful though it was, the monastic rearranged her features into the same sympathetic simper she'd worn while drifting about with Miri.

She tucked the chakram away, crossed the grubby one-room shack with its few sticks of rickety furniture, and kneeled beside the slave. The blonde cringed away from her gentle touch.