Someone with a spy in place, Miri thought, either here or in Ormath, to report on what was supposed to have been a secret transaction.
Beyond that, she couldn't say. She spread her hands.
'Whoever it was,' Melder said, 'he has plenty of coin, or at least convinced the thieves he did. He wouldn't have tried to rob the Paer without a substantial fee in the offing.'
'Did the dead outlaws have a particular comrade with whom they often worked? Someone thin, bearded, and around my age, green-eyed and skilled with a knife?'
'I fear I can't tell you. As I said, I didn't know them personally, and we have so many ne'er-do-wells skulking about Oeble-new ones every day. The river barges float them in, and the Dead Cart rolls them out.'
'Well, presumably somebody knew them,' Miri replied. 'At least you've given me a place to start, and I thank you.'
She gulped down the rest of her beer, laid a silver coin on the table, rose, and headed for the door.
Melder sat and watched the scout stride away. He generally liked his women with a little more meat on their bones and considerably more concerned with presenting a well-groomed and feminine appearance. But even clad in her dirty woods-runner's armor, breeches, and boots, she was a pleasant sight.
Vlint appeared at his elbow and gave a disapproving snort, a mode of expression admirably suited to his bulbous blue nose, though incongruously prissy for a hobgoblin. Melder sighed and turned his head to meet the hulking, shaggy bravo's sallow eyes.
'I take it you were eavesdropping,' the human said, 'and think me too garrulous.'
'It's not for me to say,' said Vlint, in a tone that conveyed his opinion with utter clarity. None of the Door's other guards would have expressed disapproval, but he'd been in his master's employ for a long while, ever since the days when Melder had been a thief in his own right instead of a quasi-respectable innkeeper, and was thus inclined to take liberties.
'I didn't give up any of our patrons,' he said.
Something tickled Melder's wrist, and forked tongue flickering, a gray, wedge-shaped head slid out from under the cuff of his long, floppy sleeve. He caressed the restless viper with his fingertip, then coaxed it to slither back where it belonged.
'Come to that,' Melder added, 'I didn't even give up anyone alive.'
'Still,' said the bouncer and ruffian-for-hire, 'it wasn't the kind of thing you generally do.'
'Most thief takers aren't as pretty as that one, and it should serve to keep her wandering around here below.'
Vlint scratched at his thick, flea-bitten neck and said, 'You think that so long as she's nearby, she might decide to warm your bed after all?'
'Alas, no. The ranger's guilds shouldn't admit women. You let a wench worship a goddess who takes the form of a unicorn, and she's bound to place an exaggerated value on her chastity.'
'Then you want to make a play for the saddlebag yourself.'
'No. Those days are behind us. Though if it simply fell into my lap…What I think is that as pretty Miri blunders about, someone will decide to make some coin from her, and likely sooner rather than later. Put the word out to the slavers that if anybody catches her, I might be interested in buying. Or at least renting for a day or two.'
As befitted his status as chieftain of the Red Axes, Kesk Turnskull lived with a certain style, in an expansive, albeit decaying, house on the river. In better times, the place had likely belonged to a prosperous merchant, who'd built both street entrances and a water gate to facilitate the passage of goods in and out. More recently, diggers had connected the cellars to the Underways.
Thus, Aeron thought, surveying the structure from the Arch of Gargoyles, centermost of the three bridges, he had his choice of ways in. The problem was making sure of a way out. Because it was one thing to resolve to gouge a higher payment out of Kesk and his pack of ruffians, and something else actually to accomplish it. He had to manage the discussion in a manner that would preclude the tanarukk's simply taking him prisoner and torturing him until he divulged the current location of the strongbox.
He pondered the problem for a time, while the reflections of Selune and her Tears sparkled on the black water rippling below the bridge, and the stone imps squatting atop the piles seemed to brood along with him. At length, when he decided on his approach, he trotted back toward shore. New though they were, the planks bounced and shifted under his feet. The folk of Oeble replaced them every year, but not with any extraordinary care or craftsmanship. Why should they, when the Scelptar was destined to devour them in any case?
Keeping an eye on the sprawling mansion ahead, field-stone on the ground level and timber above, Aeron skulked along the docks where, in one of his occasional flirtations with honest toil, he'd loaded and unloaded galleys and flatboats. Nobody called out to him. He would have been chagrined if anyone had. Unlike some thieves of his acquaintance, he had no use for flowing cloaks and masklike cowls of midnight black. Those posturing fools who did might as well have worn placards proclaiming themselves nefarious outlaws. But his inconspicuous clothes of dark gray and brown permitted him to blend into the dark with equal facility.
He stepped out onto a deserted pier, considered removing his tunic and boots, and decided against it. Even if he could be sure of returning to that very spot, somebody was likely to walk away with them before he did, Oeble being what it was. He sat down on the edge of the dock, then lowered himself into the water.
Oeblaun fishermen liked to swap stories of pike and freshwater eels huge enough to gobble a man with a single snap of their jaws, but the creatures, if in fact they existed, were evidently either sated just then or hunting elsewhere. He wasn't an exceptionally good swimmer, but the water was still reasonably warm, the current gentle, and he had little difficulty stroking and kicking his way to the sprawling house's river gate.
The gate resembled the mouth of a half-flooded tunnel protected by a portcullis, which, unfortunately, was down. Aeron dived beneath the surface. There, the white light of the moon, and the tail of sparkling motes that people called her Tears, failed him, and he had to grope his way along the steel grille, seeking a breach. He didn't find one.
When he could stay submerged no longer, he came up and sucked in a breath. He knew he couldn't keep diving and searching for long, or one of the sentries would spot him. As best he could judge, that left him only one recourse.
The portcullis would keep out any boat. The spacing of certain of the bars, however, might permit a swimmer to wriggle through, if he was thin and had studied the art of squeezing through tight places. Aeron had. It was a valuable knack to possess if you dabbled in housebreaking.
He slipped beneath the surface, located one of the larger holes in the grillwork, and started to squirm through headfirst.
Shadows of Mask, it was close!
Closer than it had seemed when he was simply gauging its width with his hands. Close enough to scrape patches of his skin raw. So close that down there, in the wet and the black, it seemed to clench around his chest like a clutching fist.
Aeron had gotten stuck before, in windows and chimneys, but never underwater, where if he couldn't free himself within a minute or so, he'd drown. He felt a surge of panic and struggled to quash it. Without a clear head, he had no hope whatsoever of liberating himself.
He gripped a bar to either side of him and tried to haul himself clear. No good. He drew one of his knives and sawed at his shirt and overtunic, trying to strip away the layers of cloth between his flesh and the metal that held him fast. He managed to yank some tatters out, but was still trapped.
He wondered suddenly, with a fresh shock of terror, if the portcullis was magical. The trader who'd originally built the mansion had obviously been wealthy enough to commission an enchanted defense. So was Kesk, as far as that was concerned. Maybe the cursed thing really was squeezing Aeron like a crayfish's pincers.
No. It wasn't. That was just the fear talking, and he wouldn't listen. He strained to drag himself backward rather than forward, only to find retreat as impossible as advancing. Meanwhile, his chest began to ache with the urge to take a fresh breath. Soon his air would run out.
His air. If he emptied his lungs, his chest would be narrower, wouldn't it? Maybe narrow enough to allow him to writhe his way free.
Even though he knew it was his only chance, it took an effort of will to exhale. He forced himself, and the air
