The Black Bouquet

by Richard Lee Byers

  “There,” said the ranger, as the white sparks danced anew. “Sorry about that.”

  Sefris grinned and said, “It’s all right. Though we’re lucky it didn’t happen a minute or two earlier, or the yuan-ti would have defeated us for certain.”

  “My name is Miri Buckman of the Red Hart Guild. Thank you for saving my life.”

  “I’m Sefris Uuthrakt of the Broken Ones.”

  The Broken Ones were a monastic order pledged to the martyr god Ilmater. Though their philosophy and mission differed radically from those of the Dark Moon, their fighting arts were similar, and by pretending to membership in their company, she’d provided a plausible explanation for the unusual skills she’d demonstrated.

  “Thank you as well,” Sefris continued. “You protected my back as much as I protected yours.”

  “Maybe,” Miri replied, stooping to wipe her bloody broadsword on a dead serpent-man’s tunic. “But you didn’t have to jump in and help me in the first place.”

  “Oh, but I did. I have my vows, as I imagine you rangers have yours.”

  “We have a code.” The scout sheathed her sword, then headed toward her fallen bow as she said, “Believe me, I’m not complaining, but what were you doing in these miserable warrens, anyway?”

  Sefris tried to judge if her companion was suspicious, and decided she was merely curious.

  “We Broken Ones sometimes wander far from our sanctuaries, seeking to learn the lessons only the bustling world can teach. My travels brought me to Oeble, and into the Underways. I heard the sounds of strife, and I rushed to see what was happening. I would have arrived sooner, except that much of the path was dark, and I had to grope my way.”

  In reality, Sefris had waited to burst onto the scene until Miri truly needed her. Presumably that would ensure the fool was grateful for her intervention. The delay had given the monastic the opportunity to assess the ranger’s archery and swordplay. As it turned out, she was reasonably accomplished, though nothing that would inconvenience a daughter of the Dark Moon when the time came.

  “Well, bless you for it,” Miri said. “I’ll make an offering to the Crying God the first chance I get.”

  “May I ask,” Sefris said, “what business brings you ‘below,’ as the locals say? I would have expected to meet a warrior like you in a forest glade or along a mountain trail, not rubbing shoulders with city orcs, smugglers, and kidnappers.”

  “I wish you had,” Miri said. She picked up her bow, inspected it for signs of damage, and evidently satisfied that it was unscathed, she dangled it casually in her hand. “I’ve never much liked any town, and this one’s the nastiest I’ve ever seen. But …”

  She hesitated as if realizing she was speaking too freely.

  Sefris inclined her head and replied, “I understand. Your business is your own. I shouldn’t have pried.”

  “Oh, to Fury’s Heart with it. It’s all right, I trust you. Anyway, by now, everybody else in Oeble knows, or at least part of it. The rangers of my guild hire themselves out, if it’s honest work performed for decent folk. I undertook to carry a treasure from Ormath to Oeble, and just as I was about to deliver it, a robber stole it. Obviously, it’s my responsibility to get it back. It’ll be a great misfortune to any number of people if I don’t.”

  “I understand,” Sefris said. “May I help you find it?”

  Miri’s eyes narrowed and she asked, “Why would you want to do that?”

  “I told you, I’m sworn to aid others, and I seek the wisdom that only comes from immersing oneself in worldly affairs.”

  “It could be dangerous.”

  “And I confess, I’m scarcely the ablest fighter my order has produced. Others are far more competent. But I did manage to help you against the yuan-ti.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” said the ranger.

  “Then let me watch your back for a while longer.”

  “All right, gladly, if you’re sure it’s what you want. Why not?” Miri smiled crookedly and added, “We can’t fare any worse together than I’ve done nosing about on my own.”

  “What tactics have you used?”

  “I’ve offered to pay for information, provided it turned out to be true. But as you’ve just seen, these rogues would rather cheat, rob, or enslave an outsider than earn her coin honestly.”

  “Perhaps it’s time for a different approach,” Sefris said. She found one of her chakrams, pulled it from the wound it had inflicted, wiped it clean, and stowed it away in her robe. Later, when she had the leisure, she’d take a hone to the edge. “If you aren’t squeamish, we could ask questions in a less gentle fashion.”

  “Surely the creed of Ilmater doesn’t allow for torture,” Miri said, peering at her quizzically.

  “We Broken Ones are more practical than people give us credit for. Of course, we would never torture a prisoner in the truest sense of the word. We are, however, allowed to intimidate him and cause some brief discomfort, when it’s absolutely necessary to further a worthy cause. But perhaps your own code doesn’t allow for such tactics.”

  “It’s a gray area. I’ve never liked it much, but … I’m sick of these Oeblaun vermin trying to swindle me and sniggering behind my back. By the Hornblade, this lot are yuan-ti, and they meant to enslave me. I think I could rough up one of them, and live with my conscience afterward.”

  So, gentle Mielikki’s servant had a streak of ruthlessness. The implicit hypocrisy stirred the contempt that was central to Sefris’s nature, but she made sure no hint of a sneer showed on her face.

  “So be it, then,” the monastic said.

  “The problem may be,” Miri said as she surveyed the fallen reptile-men, “that none of them is capable of answering questions.”

  Sefris smiled.

  “That’s one advantage fists have over blades and arrows,” she said. “Often, they merely stun instead of kill.” To be precise, they stunned when she wanted them to, and in the fight just concluded, intuition had prompted her to leave a couple of the yuan-ti alive. “We just need to wake somebody up.”

  Aeron met the Dead Cart on Balamonthar’s Street. As he would have expected by late afternoon, the mule-drawn wagon carried several corpses, which were starting to smell, and was heading to dump them in the garbage-middens southeast of town.

  Hairy and dirty, his limbs twisted out of true by illness or an accident of birth, Hulm Draeridge leered down at Aeron from the seat.

  “Hop in the back,” he said. “Save me the trouble of lifting you up and chucking you in.”

  Aeron snorted and said, “I’m not ready to take that ride just yet.”

  “That’s not the way I hear it.”

  “It doesn’t matter if people are looking for me, tanglebones, not as long as my wits are sharper than theirs. It’s all part of the sport. Speaking of which, if anybody asks, you haven’t seen me.”

  He tossed the driver a silver bit, and Hulm snatched it from the air.

  “I’ve already forgotten you,” the driver said, “as completely as will everyone else ten minutes after you’re dead.”

  Keeping an eye out for Red Axes, Gray Blades, and female rangers, carrying the saddlebag hidden beneath his cape, Aeron strode on into a little cul-de-sac crammed with various commercial endeavors. A tinker’s grindstone whined and spewed sparks as he sharpened a hoe. A small-time slave trader cried the virtues of his half dozen shackled human and goblin wares, who sat around his feet in apathetic misery. Hooded falcons stood on their perches, the bells on their feet chiming when they shifted position. The Whistlers, one of the city’s smaller and less successful gangs, had stolen the birds at midsummer and were still trying to dispose of them at bargain prices. Unfortunately, the average citizen of Oeble didn’t know how to hawk and had no interest in learning.

  Aeron, who likewise lacked any experience with the fierce-looking raptors, playthings of noblemen and merchants with lordly pretensions, crept past the perches a little warily, slipped into a tower, and climbed a corkscrew
flight of stairs. Somewhere in one of the apartments, a baby cried. In another, bread was baking. The appetizing aroma filled the shaft and made Aeron’s mouth water.

  Burgell Whitehorn lived on the third floor. Aeron tapped on the gnome’s door, then positioned himself in front of the peephole. After a while, three latches clinked in turn as someone unfastened them. The door swung open, and Burgell frowned up at his caller.

  Skinny and flaxen-haired, his skin walnut brown and his eyes a startling turquoise, Burgell stood half as tall as Aeron and had to climb up on a stool to look out the peephole. Like most habitations in Oeble, that particular tenement had been built for humans, and smaller residents coped with the resulting awkwardness as best they could.

  But at least the relative largeness of the apartment gave Burgell room to pack in all his gnome-sized gear. The front room was his workshop, and it contained a bewildering miscellany of tools: hammers, chisels, saws, lockpicks, tinted lenses, jeweler’s loupes, and jars of powdered and shredded ingredients for casting spells. A fat gray cat, the mage’s familiar, lay curled atop a grimoire. It opened its eyes, gave Aeron a disdainful yellow stare, then appeared to go back to sleep.

  Despite the jolly reputation of his race, Burgell’s welcome was no warmer.

  “What are you doing wandering about, in broad daylight, no less?”

  “Hulm Draeridge more or less asked me the same thing,” Aeron said, “but I won’t get any business done hiding in some hole. Can I come in?”

  “I don’t think so. Look what happened to the last wizard who helped you, and that was before you angered the tanarukk.”

  Aeron sighed and said, “I’m sorry about Dal, but he knew the risks. I’m not asking you to take the same kind of chance. I just want you to do your usual kind of job. You won’t even have to leave home.”

  “Why not do it yourself?”

  “Because it’s not my specialty, and this particular chore calls for an expert.”

  Aeron had had enough of discussing his business in the stairwell. He pushed forward, and the little gnome had little choice but to give ground. Aeron shut the door.

  “All right,” Burgell said. Irritation made his tenor voice shrill. “Do come in by all means. But you know, I don’t work cheap.”

  “So I recall, from all the times you’ve bled me dry,” Aeron replied as he extracted the steel case from the saddle bag. The gray metal gleamed in the sunlight streaming in through the open casement. “Whatever’s inside this is valuable. I’ll cut you in for one part in twenty.”

  “One part in five.”

  “Greed is an ugly thing.”

  “You’d know.”

  Aeron grinned and said, “I might at that. One part in ten.”

  “Done, but I’ll need some coin on account. Just in case the box turns out to contain something you can’t sell.”

  “Trust me, whatever it is, I’ll find a way to turn it into cash. But if this is what it takes to stop your griping and set you to work …”

  Aeron opened his belt pouch and extracted several gold coins. In so doing, he nearly exhausted his funds. It was a strange thing. Though no gang chieftain or lieutenant, he was a successful thief by most standards. Yet the profits refused to stick to his fingers, and it wasn’t only because his father’s pain-killing elixirs and poultices were so expensive. Maybe he spent too many nights carousing in the taverns, bought the house too many rounds, “loaned” too much gold to needy friends who never paid him back. Yet why risk his neck stealing coin if not to enjoy it once he had it? When it ran out, the solution was simply to steal some more.

  Burgell bit one of the coins, a Cormyrean dinar, then dumped the clinking lot into the pocket of his shabby dressing gown. He gestured to a stubby-legged work table that, like the rest of the furniture, was sized for little folk, not men.

  “Put the box down there,” the gnome said, “and tell me what you can.”

  “It was in this saddlebag when I first laid hands on it. I was invisible at the time, but even so, the pouch screamed a warning and painted me with light.”

  “Faerie fire.”

  “Whatever you call it. Anyway, it hasn’t done that since, so I guess it was a one-time spell. But when I tried to pick the lock of the coffer itself, it boomed like thunder. The noise actually hurt.”

  The wizard nodded and muttered, “Layered protections. Never a good thing.”

  “Truly? Is that your expert opinion?” Aeron teased. “Look, here’s where we stand. I don’t know if the thunder will sound a second time or what other wards may lie in wait behind that one, but I need you to dissolve them all.”

  “Any sign of purely mechanical traps? Spring-loaded poison needles, finger-snipping pincers, or the like?”

  “I didn’t see any, but I wouldn’t rule anything out.”

  “All right,” the gnome said. “Stand back.”

  Taking his own advice, Burgell muttered a cantrip then he pointed his finger at a brass key lying on the workbench. The yellow metal oozed in a way that baffled the eye, as if changing shape and size from one moment to the next. The key floated up into the air and inserted itself in the strongbox’s lock. It jerked, trying to turn, but evidently it couldn’t shift the tumblers.

  Thunder crashed, painfully loud in the confines of the flat. Aeron couldn’t help flinching, even though he’d known what to expect. A framed diagram, depicting the interplay of the primal forces of the cosmos or some such gibberish, fell off the wall. The gray cat leaped off the spellbook, dashed for cover, and vanished behind a wooden chest.

  “The sonic ward is still active,” Burgell said.

  “Is that the only way you had of finding out?” Aeron asked. “I could have done that. Come to think of it, I did.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t shatter every bone in your arm. Noise can hit like a mace, if properly focused. That’s why you need someone who can manipulate his tools without touching them to do the poking and prodding.”

  “Just try to poke more quietly.”

  “Why is it that folk go to the trouble to hire a master, then insist on telling him how to practice his art? Hush, and let me work.”

  “Fine.”

  Aeron sat down on a divan. It was where he customarily sat when consulting Burgell, but as usual, he heeded the impulse to lower himself cautiously and make sure the miniature couch would still bear his weight.

  The gnome stuck a jeweler’s loupe into his left eye and examined the lockbox from every angle. Eventually he drew himself up straight, slashed his left hand through the air, and rattled off a string of words Aeron couldn’t understand.

  Magic blared like a dissonant trumpet fanfare. Blue light pulsed through the air in time with the notes. The strongbox jumped, spun like a top, and crashed back down on the table, still closed. The brass key popped out of the lock.

  “Shadows of Mask,” Aeron swore when the commotion had run its course. “Quietly, I said. What in the name of the Nine Hells is wrong with you today?”

  “Nothing. You brought me a special problem. I’ll solve it, but it’s likely to put up a bit of a fuss in the meantime.”

  “Then let’s at least muffle the ruckus as best we can,” Aeron said as he rose and headed for the window.

  “I’ll have to light the lamps,” Burgell said with a frown. “It’s a waste of oil.”

  “One of the coins I gave you will keep you in fuel until spring.”

  “It still doesn’t pay to be a spendthrift. But all right.”

  The gnome waved his hand, and the various lamps lit themselves. Aeron closed and latched the casement.

  After that, the human had nothing to do but return to his seat and watch the mage work. Burgell spent interminable minutes peering at the strongbox through various colored lenses, periodically muttering strings of mystical words at it. To no effect, as far as Aeron could see.

  In time, having watched the master cracksman work before, Aeron grew puzzled.

  “Aren’t you going to use any of your pigm
ents or powders?” he asked.

  “If I think it necessary,” Burgell said.

  “It’s just that I remember when you opened that priest’s wardrobe for—”

  “Do you want to reminisce about old times, or do you want me to crack the box?”

  Aeron shook his head, slumped back on the couch, and tried to dismiss the unpleasant feeling gnawing at his nerves. He couldn’t believe it was legitimate. He and Burgell had worked together a score of times, and the gnome had always proved trustworthy. Yet, watching the little wizard stare and mumble just then, comparing his ponderous caution to the energy with which he’d attacked other locks, traps, and spells of warding, Aeron couldn’t quite shake the suspicion that something was wrong.

  He thought maybe he shouldn’t be trying to shake it. An outlaw, after all, survived by heeding his instincts. Perhaps he was only striving to ignore them because he’d just lost Dal, Gavath, and Kerridi, and it pained him to think he might lose Burgell in a different but no less final fashion.

  “Burg,” he finally said, “did someone get to you?”

  The gnome blinked and asked, “What nonsense are you talking now?”

  His turquoise eyes, brilliant even in the soft lamplight, glanced down and to the left as he spoke. Aeron was fairly certain it was what gamblers called a “tell”—a sign Burgell was lying.

  “It occurs to me I’ve never known you to work with the casement open,” said Aeron. “You usually don’t want folk peeking in at your business.”

  “We’re on the third floor.”

  “Someone could spy from one of the upper story apartments in the tower across the way. But let’s say you wanted someone to know I’d shown up here. Then the open casement would help you signal.”

  “Did you see me wave a flag or write a note and fling it out?”

  “No, but you triggered the thunderclap, and that kind of clumsiness isn’t like you, unless you did it on purpose. You followed that up with more noise and flashing light, and since then, it looks to me like you’ve just been stalling, waiting for somebody to burst in through the door you didn’t bother to relock.”