Richard Byers - The Black Bouquet

Aeron flung himself to the side. Something whizzed past his head, just missing, judging from the breeze. He assumed it was Kesk's battle-axe.

Tharag roared something in the uncouth language of his kind, reminding Aeron that he had two foes, not just one.

Damn it!

He should have taken a split second to knife the bugbear before rolling clear, but had been too rattled to think of it.

He couldn't battle both of them, not when all he could see was spots and blobs swimming before his eyes. Truth to tell, he wouldn't have bet on his ability to outfight Kesk under any conditions. He had to get out of there.

Aeron sensed something lunging at him. He jumped backward, with a sick certainty that it wasn't enough to save him, then heard two bodies smack together and Kesk bellow in frustrated rage. Evidently he and the bugbear had rushed Aeron at the same instant, and on the fairly narrow platform, had gotten in each other's way.

Aeron knew it had only bought him a second, time he needed to use to leap back down into the water, where his foes' axe and scimitar couldn't reach him. But which way was it? Blind as he was, disoriented from dodging, he was no longer sure.

All he could do was take his best guess. He ran-one stride, a second-and pitched into empty space. He felt a split second of elation, then he crashed down on a solid surface.

For an instant, stunned, Aeron couldn't grasp what had gone wrong, let alone what to do next. Finally it came to him that he'd landed inside one of the boats. The craft bounced as someone else jumped in with him.

Aeron scrambled backward, bumped into the gunwale, and swung himself over the side. His maneuver tipped the craft, and Kesk cursed as he struggled to keep his balance.

Aeron plunged into the water, then struck out in what he prayed was the direction of the river. A missile of some sort, a thrown dagger, perhaps, splashed down beside him. Finally his vision began to clear, and he saw he was headed the right way.

As he reached the mouth of the gate, he glanced backward, and felt a jolt of terror. Kesk held his battle-axe poised for a swing at the chain that held the portcullis in the raised position. The weapon's edge glowed scarlet as he activated some magic bound in the steel.

Aeron hurled himself forward. Metal clashed, chain clattered, and the grille dropped just behind him, kicking up a little wave that carried him a few feet farther out into the Scelptar.

The trick then was to make it safely ashore. Aeron thought Kesk would send the Red Axes to prowl along the riverside, but if he kept on swimming as fast as he could, he reckoned he'd be able to make it onto dry land before the tanarukk could organize the search.

The dirty, dark-haired boy cowered in the corner, for Sefris had hurt him until the pain burned all the resistance out of him. She'd needed a deft touch to avoid marking him. It was all right that he already carried a street urchin's usual collection of bruises and scrapes, but he wouldn't be deemed acceptable if she herself spilled so much as a drop of his blood before the ceremony started. That was just the way it worked.

Thanks to his terrified passivity, she didn't need to worry about his trying to bolt through the door. She could sit by the window and watch the moon sink toward the horizon. She couldn't start until the Dark Goddess's twin sister and greatest foe exited the sky.

Sefris had found the skinny, ragged child begging at a busy intersection. Perhaps he stole as well, when the opportunity arose. Representing herself as a simple traveler and devout worshiper of Ilmater, god of pity, she feigned horror at the discovery of a child so young reduced to such wretched circumstances. She insisted on spiriting him away for a hot supper, a bath, and a new suit of clothes.

At first, wary, he'd been reluctant to go, but with gentle persistence, she persuaded him. Evidently feeling at ease, he started to prattle merrily as they strolled along, but the words caught in his throat as soon as she ushered him into the cramped little flat where, supposedly, her brother and his wife were putting her up.

Upon reaching Oeble, she'd known she needed a private place in which to sleep and perform her rituals, so she'd cleared one out. The broken corpses of the previous tenants sprawled where they'd fallen. The boy froze and gawked at them, which made it easy to relieve him of his knife, immobilize him, and administer as much punishment as required.

Eventually Selune hid below the horizon like a pale ghost creeping back into its grave. Sefris rose and advanced on the beggar.

"Don't struggle," she said. "It will only make it worse."

Actually, she doubted it could get much worse, but he presumably didn't know that.

Something in her expression or the way she moved must have alerted him, however, because he finally made a scramble for the door. It didn't matter. She pounced on him, paralyzed him by applying pressure to the proper part of the spine, and laid him on the table she'd cleared to serve as a makeshift altar. She chanted the first invocation as she tore his clothes away.

Most sacrifices required scalpels, lancets, and such to pick apart the offering in just the proper way. Sefris took a cold satisfaction in the fact that her fingers were strong and skillful enough for her to achieve the same sort of excruciating precision barehanded. As a result, life lingered until she performed the final mutilation, drawing forth the glistening intestines and looping them to form a mystic sigil on the victim's chest. The boy flopped once like a fish out of water then expired-gratefully, more than likely.

At the same instant, purple light and a wave of chill pulsed across the room. Unsurprised, for it was the desired result of the ritual, Sefris turned. Before her stood what appeared to be a gaunt human male with the long-eared head of a jackal. Its voluminous robes were black, and its body was outlined by a hazy sheath of flickering violet flame that somehow burned cold instead of hot. The garment and fire together made the arcanaloth a living emblem of the Lady of Loss for those with the wit to understand.

The fiend took a disdainful glance around the hovel, with the untidy litter of corpses, then turned its dark eyes back on Sefris. Few mortals could have abided that gaze, freighted as it was with a malice as deep and as wide as the ocean, but it didn't faze the monastic. Indeed, she respected it as essentially the same attitude she herself had striven so diligently to cultivate.

"Dark Sister," the arcanaloth said, acknowledging her, a hint of a canine yip in its tenor voice, "what do you want?"

In Sefris's experience, arcanaloths-the scribes and mystics of their infernal race-were generally direct to the point of rudeness. In and of itself, it didn't bother her. She shared that trait with them as well.

"Do you know why my Dark Father sent me to Oeble?"

The jackal-headed fiend wrinkled its muzzle in a sneer.

"I know," it said. "Mortal foolishness."

"Neither one," Sefris replied. "When my order assigns me a task, it's because the deity whom you and I both serve wishes it done."

"I have my own essential tasks awaiting me in Shadow."

Sefris reminded herself that while hatred was a virtue, impatience was not, and she took a breath to steady herself.

"Was the offering acceptable, or not?"

The arcanaloth shrugged and replied, "It was all right."

"Then I've paid your price, and you'll either help me or suffer the consequences of your refusal."

The fiend rolled its eyes and asked, "What help do you require?"

"I've never been to Oeble before. I'm confident I can kill whoever currently holds The Black Bouquet, but less sure of my ability to find it. That's where you come in. Your magic is more versatile than mine, so you're gong to cast a divination."