"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 innocent loiterers idly chatting and watching the traffic pass under the bridge. He knew, however, that no one who took a close look at Sefris would dismiss her so lightly. In her eyes he discerned a terrifying contradiction, calmness and calculation overlying a deeper madness. Or maybe he only thought he saw it because she made him nervous.
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.
"It takes wealth to wage war," she said finally, "and we're the Dark Goddess's army in the struggle against everyone and everything."
"So you need a lot of wealth."
"Also, when Quwen sacked our temple in Ormath, it was a defeat and an affront to our Lady. We couldn't let it stand. In time, we'll erase it fully. Wash it away with his lordship's blood."
Aeron was sure Sefris wouldn't have divulged such a thing if she thought he might live to repeat it. That simply confirmed what he'd already concluded, but he felt a chill nonetheless.
"In that case," he said, "I'm glad I'm not him."
"It has occurred to me," Sefris said, her unblinking stare becoming a shade less piercing, her tone a bit more introspective, "that it's fitting for my order to lay claim to this particular treasure. Because of the title."
Aeron cocked his head and replied, "I don't follow."
"The Lady of Loss teaches that the whole world is like a black bouquet. Parts of it are pretty, to lure the foolish, but all the flowers are poison."
Though her statement was unsettling, he forced a grin.
He said, "That's a cheery point of view."
"You of all people should see the truth of it. You live in Oeble, where the folk prey on one another like starving rats, and friend betrays friend for a copper bit."
He snorted and said, "I guess we must be pretty bad at that, if our habits make a Shar worshiper squeamish."
"My point is, the rest of the world is no different. It's just that in Oeble, no one tries to cover up the essential foulness."
"Does that mean that in the big bouquet, we're stems as opposed to blossoms?"
"Mock Shar's wisdom if you want," she said. "Your opinion means nothing."
"I wasn't mocking, exactly…"
She pointed and said, "Look."
A few steps below street level, the door to the mordayn den opened, and three Red Axes, a pair of humans and a gnoll, emerged blinking into the sunlight. Aeron was disappointed, but not surprised. He'd assumed that none of Kesk's henchmen would roam around the city alone. The Lynxes had probably stopped raiding their competition-Ombert was shrewd enough to know he couldn't continue the harassment for long without his rivals discovering who was responsible-but the Axes couldn't be certain it was over.
"Loan me a couple of your knives," Sefris said.
"That's not the plan," Aeron answered as he started toward the end of the bridge.
She followed, saying, "If I hide, and throw daggers instead of chakrams, no one will realize I'm helping you. They'll think you made the kills."
"Just do it my way, all right?" Aeron said. "Stay well back unless I need you."
He almost wondered himself why he didn't take her up on her offer. Those past few days, his hands had run red with blood. It was probably stupid to scruple at spilling any more, particularly if it belonged to the cutthroats who were holding his father prisoner. Mask knew, Aeron had come to hate the bastards. Yet even so, given the choice, he'd manage the last part of his scheme without murder.
He slipped down the stairs that connected the Rainspan to the street, then started to shadow Kesk's men. Fortunately, the street was busy enough that he had a fair chance of going unnoticed. As he skulked along, he took inventory of his enemies' weapons. The gnoll bore a crossbow that was already cocked and loaded. Since it could strike fast and at a distance, Aeron needed to be particularly wary of it.
Alas, he had no way of telling what the Axes might be carrying in the way of potions, figurines that grew and came to life, or other magical creations. He'd just have to try to incapacitate them so quickly that they wouldn't have time to use such tricks even if they possessed them.