The Black Bouquet

Kesk's mood was already sour from several fruitless hours of hunting Aeron through the Underways, and it curdled into cold fury as soon as he tramped into the solar and saw his henchmen. It was obvious from the way they quailed from his gaze, as much as their fresh splints and bandages and the sooty fire damage around the far doorway, that some new fiasco had occurred in his absence.

Ambling closer, his cane tapping the floor, the wizard took it upon himself to explain how Aeron and a female accomplice had entered the house in disguise to spirit Nicos away.

"We would have captured them," the wizard added, "except that Dark Sister Sefris burst in to snatch them away. Evidently she'd been tracking them or something. While we all fought over Master sar Randal and his ally, they escaped. It's rather ironic when you think about it."

Kesk trembled. At that moment, he would dearly have loved to split the rich man's masked face with his axe.

"You think it's fu

"Mildly," the wizard replied. "Now, don't glare at me like that. Aeron didn't rescue his father, which means that except for a few casualties, which you, with your horde of underlings, can readily afford, we're no worse off than before."

"And no better."

What truly infuriated Kesk wasn't the wear and tear on his henchmen. Those too weak to defend themselves deserved whatever they got. What nettled him was that, by arranging the raids on his various enterprises, Aeron had successfully concealed his true intentions. In other words, made a fool of him. Kesk wondered which of his other foes or rivals were actually responsible for the harassment his operation had suffered earlier in the evening, at the same time the redheaded thief was invading his home. He vowed to find out, and pay them back triple, but supposed it would have to wait until he settled the maddening business with the black book.

"If," the wizard said, "Aeron could be convinced we'll make a fair trade, give him Nicos and a reasonable amount of coin, too, and not come after either of them later, don't you think he'd agree to it?"

Across the room, bound to his chair, Nicos laughed feebly until an orc silenced him with a slap.

"I suppose that is the proper response to my suggestion," sighed the small man. "Aeron would have to be mad to trust us at this point. Your malice and bungling saw to that."

Kesk glared.

"Get it straight once and for all," the tanarukk grumbled. "I'm not your lackey, and I don't take orders from you. I did what I thought best."

"And look how far it got us."

"As far as your nimble-fingered wizardry and magical toys."

" 'Toys' you extorted from me after I spent years collecting them," the mage countered. "I wouldn't care if it had done some good. But even equipped with enchanted gear, your Red Axes can't lay their hands on one lone-wolf cutpurse. Instead, he's made you look like a dunce in front of the entire city."

Kesk had been thinking something similar himself, which only made the magician's taunt rankle all the more. For a second, he was so angry that it choked off the words in his throat, and the merchant saw something in his face that made the eyes above the lemister scarf widen in alarm.

"Well," gritted Kesk when he was able, "I'm not going to look foolish for much longer. Tomorrow I'm going to put an end to this business."

"How?"

"My people will spread the word that if Aeron doesn't hand over what I want by midnight, I'll chop his father's head off and dump the sundered pieces in Laskalar's Square."

The wizard shrugged and said, "You've been threatening Nicos's welfare right along. How will this be any different?"

"Because of the deadline, my promise to display the corpse to the whole city, and the fact that my men will repeat it to every robber, slaver, and whore they can find. Aeron will know I have to follow through. Otherwise, I'll lose respect."

The magician cocked his head and asked, "You mean, if things don't work out as pla

"Yes."

"Then we lose our hold on Aeron, don't we? With Nicos slain, what's to stop him from fleeing Oeble with The Black Bouquet still in his possession?"

"Nothing, I guess. At least I'll be rid of him," Kesk replied, "and you."

"Without me for a partner, you'll never rise any higher than you have already."

Kesk sneered and said, "Maybe it doesn't look like it to you, but since the day I first came to Oeble, with nothing but this axe to help me carve out a life, I've climbed pretty high already. If I never go any farther, that will be all right."

"You don't mean that."

"Oh, yes, I do, and you can't talk me out of it. So why don't you turn that twisty mind to yours to the task of laying a trap that Aeron can't possibly escape?"

Aeron kept quickening his pace despite the fact that even under normal circumstances, it could be dangerous to race headlong through the Underways. You could blunder into a strong-arm robber lying in wait for easy prey or intrude on plotters willing to kill to keep their palavering a secret.

Thus, whenever he caught himself, he forced himself to slow down, but it was hard. After fleeing Kesk's mansion, he and Miri had slept aboard an unattended skiff moored at one of the docks. Restless, anguished over their failure to rescue Nicos, he woke first and rose to prowl the streets. It was then that he overheard a team of thieves, two pickpockets, a bag man, and a lookout, discussing Kesk's well-publicized threat to murder his hostage at midnight unless Aeron gave him what he wanted. Since then, he'd felt a seething urgency that made him want to hurry every instant, whether it was sensible or not.

"Do you really think," said Miri, striding along beside him with her bow slung over her shoulder, "our allies are likely to do more than they have already?"

"We won't know until we ask."

"Actually," said the scout, "I already did ask, when we talked to Om-their chief the first time. If you recall, he said he'd snipe at the Red Axes on the sly, but not risk open war."

Squinting against the darkness, Aeron peered down the passage. Three people stood murmuring to one another at the next intersection. He recognized one of them, and once more had to quash the impulse to rush.

"Then I'll just have to change his mind," the thief said.

"I tell you, visiting him again is just a waste of precious time. Let's go to my employer."

"We had this talk already."

The trio ahead were good at their trade. They didn't even glance up as Aeron and Miri drew nearer.

"We had it hours ago," said the scout, "and you promised to come up with a new strategy. This desperate notion won't do, and if it's all you can think of, then we need to try things my way. Fury's Heart, try behaving like a decent, law-abiding person for once in your life. You might like it."

"I might like it all the way up the gallows steps."

The loiterers were just a couple paces away. Aeron's heartbeat quickened.

"I swear by the Forest Queen," said Miri, "I'll make sure you aren't punished. My employer doesn't care about you. He only wants his property retur-"

Aeron pivoted and threw a punch.

Miri must have seen him swing, for she reacted with the quickness of a trained warrior. She dodged, and he only struck her a glancing blow.

She sprang back and reached for the hilt of her broadsword. The problem was that, by retreating from Aeron, she'd merely shifted closer to his three confederates. The largest of them, a half-orc with a broken nose, lashed its cudgel against her back. The blow slapped her leather armor, and she lurched forward.

The other two ruffians lunged at her, bludgeons flailing. She swept her buckler in a backhand stroke that held them off long enough for her sword to clear the scabbard. She cut, the half-orc recoiled, and her blade missed its torso by a finger-length. A passerby who'd stopped to watch the show cried out in excitement.