She was pondering how to make a dignified exit when the dog yapped.
"I see you found her," Sefris said.
Miri glanced over her shoulder. The monastic appeared unscathed and unruffled as usual.
"Thank Mielikki-and Ilmater-that you're all right," Miri said.
"It was no great matter. I won the contest, the orc and goblin took exception to it, and I had to knock each of them senseless. That started a brawl even the umber hulks-it turns out there are two-had some difficulty quelling. In the confusion, I slipped back here to join you."
Once again, Miri was impressed. Logic suggested that when the fight had broken out, Sefris must have been at the very center of it. She'd surely needed almost preternatural powers of stealth and evasion to extricate herself from the fray.
"And what of you?" the monastic continued. "Are you finding the answers you seek?"
"No," Naneetha said, "she isn't. She was just leaving, and I ask you to do the same."
"You don't seem to realize the situation has changed," Sefris said. In the blink of an eye, a chakram appeared in her hand. "The scout and I are both adept at combat. Perhaps your magic could fend off her or me alone, but not the two of us together, and after we've subdued you, we'll make sure you can't give us any more trouble. I never yet met a mage who was much of a threat with broken fingers."
"Nor I a warrior, once she was burned from head to toe," Naneetha replied.
Miri would have sworn the doorway wasn't wide enough to accommodate two women without them squeezing and jostling one another, but Sefris twisted through in one sudden movement, without even brushing her. Once inside the room, she had a clear shot with the chakram, and when she lifted it, the ranger realized she hadn't been bluffing.
Miri snatched frantically and grabbed Sefris's arm.
"No!" she cried.
Her eyes cold, unreadable, Sefris stared at her.
"She knows," he monastic said. "The yuan-ti said so."
"Still…"
Sefris took a breath and let it out slowly.
"As you wish," she said. "It's your errand. I just came along to help as best I can."
"I take it you're leaving," Naneetha said.
"Yes," Miri said. She started to turn away, then yielded to the urge to make one more try. "It's your own people, your own city, that will benefit if I recover the box."
"Such vagaries mean nothing," the wizard said.
At the same time, Sefris murmured something under her breath then sprang past Miri and dashed back down the hall. The ranger turned just in time to see her comrade vanish into the conjuration chamber.
"What's she doing?" Naneetha asked, sounding rattled for the first time.
"I don't know," Miri said.
Sefris strode back into view with the mage's open grimoire. One hand clutched the vellum pages, ready to tear.
"Tell us what we need to know," the monastic said, "or I'll destroy this."
"Is that supposed to frighten me?" Naneetha asked. "I can buy a new spellbook, or scribe one myself if need be."
"Yes," Sefris said, "but in the meantime, you won't have access to your magic. You won't be able to cover your face with a mask of illusion. Everyone will see your scars."
Naneetha stared, swallowed, then said, "I have no idea what you mean."
"Of course you do," Sefris replied. "Is this the page with the disguise spell?" The monastic ripped a leaf in half, crumpled the loose portion, and dropped it to the floor. "Or is it the next?"
"Stop it, or I swear I'll burn you!"
"While I'm holding the grimoire? I doubt it."
She tore a second page.
"Please," the wizard begged, all the defiance running out of her at once, "you're a woman, too. Don't make me be ugly. My friends won't come to see me anymore."
"Then the choice should be easy," Sefris said. "Betray one companion, or lose them all."
It took Naneetha several seconds to force the words out, "His name is Aeron sar Randal."
Miri felt a pang of excitement, undercut by a muddled shame at the manner in which Sefris had extracted the information.
"Where does he live?" the ranger asked.
"I don't know. I don't think many people do. A lot of thieves are wary of letting folk know where they sleep."
"Well, fortunately," Miri said, "the town's not huge. Did this Aeron talk to you about the plot to steal the strongbox?"
"A little. The Red Axes hired him to do it."
"The Red Axes?"
"The biggest gang in Oeble."
"Then by now," said Miri glumly, "he's delivered the coffer to them."
Naneetha hesitated for an instant as if trying to decide whether to risk a lie.
"No," the wizard said. "For some reason, he didn't hand it over, and now they're looking for him, too."
For once, the ranger thought, maybe the Oeblaun propensity for double-dealing would work in her favor.
"Then we have to find him first," said Miri.
CHAPTER 8
Aeron glanced over his shoulder. He didn't have any particular reason to think anyone was shadowing him, but it was an ingrained habit to check. In so doing, he caught sight of Oeble, its towers, some visibly leaning, black against the evening sky. Ordinarily the view would have pleased him, but the tangled spires seemed somehow threatening just then, like the writhing facial tentacles of those green, centipede-like monstrosities that sometimes crawled into the Underways from Mask alone knew where.
He snorted his momentary uneasiness away. Oeble was home, as good a home as an outlaw could want, and if it had treated him harshly those past couple days, that was part of what made life within its environs so exciting. He'd sell the contents of the lockbox, lie low until everyone tired of hunting him, and everything would be all right.
He hiked on into a stand of trees, trying with some success to keep the dry fallen leaves from crunching beneath his feet, enjoying the sharp scent of the pines. Night engulfed the world, but Selune shed enough silvery glow to guide him. He didn't bother to light his lantern until he reached the glade at the center of the wood, where he and Kerridi had sometimes picnicked.
The benighted clearing was hardly the ideal workspace in which to crack open a magically protected coffer, but Aeron hadn't dared tackle the job in the center of town. If he triggered more thunderclaps, they were likely to lead some of his various and sundry ill-wishers straight to him. Out there in the countryside, that at least ought not to be a problem.
Aeron found a level bit of ground, unrolled the white sheet he'd brought, and set the steel case on top of it. He unpacked the tools he'd taken from Burgell's flat and felt himself tensing, his pulse ticking faster. Aeron willed himself to relax.
Maybe he was no master cracksman like the faithless gnome, certainly no wizard, but he knew the basics of defeating magical traps. He thought that if he was careful, methodical, he could get the box open without killing himself in the process.
He peered at the case through a topaz lens. It didn't reveal anything he hadn't seen already, so he pulled the cork from a glass vial and dusted one side of the strongbox with gray powder. The coarse grains crawled and clumped together, forming letters and geometric figures, covering over and thus revealing the invisible symbols a spellcaster had drawn upon the steel.
So far, so good, he thought, but now comes the tricky part.
Aeron picked up a file and scraped at the glyphs, defacing them. Metal rasped on metal. Though in theory he knew at which angles and junctures he could attack the symbols safely, he kept wanting to flinch as he imagined the magic rousing and striking at him in some devastating fashion.