The Black Bouquet

From above her came a sudden clatter. She was still peering, trying to figure out what the sound meant, when her sandal landed on something small, hard, and round. The objects rolled, and despite all her training, threw her off balance. She fell, caught herself, and at the same time realized that Aeron had tossed a quantity of marbles bouncing down the steps.

A good trick, but the fall hadn't injured her, nor delayed her for more than an instant. She could still catch him. She raced on.

As she neared the top of the steps, the daylight dazzled her. She squinted against it, but still missed seeing the cord her quarry had stretched at ankle level. She tripped and fell a second time.

Her wounded leg throbbed, and she suspected she'd torn open the cut. He still hadn't stopped her, though, nor saved himself. He'd simply a

She scrambled up into a little unpaved cul-de-sac. Towers rose around her, with Rainspans linking the upper stories. To her right, a door slammed. She dashed to it and grabbed the black wrought iron handle. It turned, the latch disengaged, but the panel wouldn't push open. She had to kick it twice to dislodge the wooden wedge her quarry had used to jam it shut.

Judging by the look and stink of the interior, the spire was another of Oeble's squalid tenements, with hordes of paupers living, breeding, and dying in its tiny rooms. Aeron's footsteps thudded on the stairs zigzagging away into shadow overhead. Sefris raced after him.

She thought he'd bolt out onto one of the elevated bridges, but he surprised her. He ran all the way to the top floor, then scrambled up a ladder and through a trapdoor.

She expected him to lie in wait by the hatch, poised to knife her, and when she swarmed up the ladder, she was ready to defend herself. It wasn't necessary. What he'd actually done was retreat to the very edge of the square, flat roof, then hop up on the low parapet that ran along it.

It had to be another trick, didn't it? She looked at him and all around, but couldn't spot the hidden threat.

"You're fine," he panted. "I'm the one who's in danger. If I lose my balance, if anything jostles me, I'll fall to my death."

"What does this mean?" she asked.

"You don't think I just happened to be carrying a bag of marbles, a trip cord, and a wedge around with me, do you?" he replied with a grin. "I wanted to talk to you, so I let people see me in the Door. I figured you'd hear about it and come sniffing around. I spotted you, let you do the same to me, then used my tricks to slow you down while you chased me. I couldn't let you catch up until I led you here. You won't throw a spell or one of those rings at me now, will you?"

"What I will do is take hold of you and pull you down," she said, then started forward.

"Don't try!" Aeron called. "I'll jump, and you'll never find out where I hid The Black Bouquet."

She didn't believe him, but she wasn't absolutely sure she was right, and thus she hesitated. Maybe it would be safer to hear him out first, and call his bluff later if need be. It wasn't as if he could evade her. He'd backed himself into a corner.

"I don't think you want to die and leave your father in the tanarukk's hands," said Sefris.

"You're right, but I know I can't save him by myself-or working with Miri, for that matter. That's why I sold her to Melder."

Sefris frowned, trying to follow his train of thought.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "What did betraying Miri accomplish?"

"Well, I told people it was to raise the coin to bribe one of the Red Axes, but that's not practical, considering that none of them is any more trustworthy than Kesk himself. I just wanted folk to think it was the reason, so they wouldn't figure out I was getting rid of her to clear the way for you."

"Clear the way for me?"

"Yes. I can't very well work with you and Miri both, considering that you'd both demand the black book in payment, and you're the one I need. You fight better than anyone I've ever seen, and you're a sorceress on top of it. Her talents are nothing compared to yours."

"So you're offering me the Bouquet in exchange for my help in rescuing your father."

"And peace between you and me afterward."

"I agree."

Aeron smiled and said, "Good, except that I don't believe you yet. Maybe it's because I'm such a faithless liar myself, but it strikes me that you might promise anything to lure me into your clutches, with no intention of keeping your word."

"I swear by Shar that I will."

Some deities might object to their worshipers making false vows in their names, but the Lady of Loss wasn't one of them. She wanted her work done by any means necessary. Indeed, she relished treachery and oath-breaking to the extent that she could be said to savor anything in the vile stew that was creation.

"That's wonderful," Aeron said, an ironic edge in his voice, "but even so, I want to ask you something. How did my father hold up under torture?"

"Fairly well," she admitted.

In truth, Nicos had borne up remarkably well. After what he'd suffered, he should have been too cowed to utter a word unbidden, yet instead he'd exposed her identity to the mage with the blackwood cane.

"Remember," Aeron said, "he's old and sick. I'm young, healthy, and my father's son. I could hold out even longer. I could sit on the location of the book until it's too late. Until the cursed thing's destroyed."

She felt a thrill of dismay, and asked, "Destroyed… how?"

"If I told you, it might help you figure out where it is. Just take my word for it. If I don't fetch it from its current hiding place by sunrise tomorrow, that will be the end of it. Your only hope of getting it is for me to hand it over voluntarily."

"I understand," she said, and it was so.

Evidently she did have to play along for the time being, and that was all right. Eventually a moment would come when he no longer held the formulary hostage, and at that moment, she'd repay him in full for all the trouble he'd caused her.

"Good."

Aeron stepped down off the parapet. He was trying to appear confident, and it would have fooled most people, but she could read the tension in his lean frame, the fear that she was going to lunge at him. It made her wish she could.

He said, "Here's what I think we should do…"

CHAPTER 16

Aeron noticed a patch of fresh blood staining the skirt of his new ally's robe.

"You're bleeding," he said.

"It's nothing."

Leaning against the weather-beaten railing with its flaking paint, Sefris peered down from the Rainspan at the street fifteen feet below. Aeron hoped that to a casual observer they looked like two i

Which in turn made him want to engage her in conversation, perhaps in hopes of uncovering human feeling in someone who superficially seemed as cold as the brass mantis, and he supposed he might as well indulge the impulse. Maybe he'd find out something useful.

"I'm surprised your cult even cares about The Black Bouquet. I mean, if it was a grimoire full of evil magic, I could see it, but it's just a tool for making perfume."

She glanced over at him and replied, "It's not my place to question the tasks my Dark Father sets me."

"But you must at least think about them. I can tell you're not stupid."

It took her a moment to decide if she wanted to answer.