[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
."About Mistress Dalaeve's face?" Sefris replied."Yes.""We Broken Ones can see through illusions sometimes.Open eyes are a benefit of our meditations." As they neared an intersection, Sefris pointed to a frieze of manticores decorating a crumbling wall and said, "This is where our informant told us to turn."Miri peered around the corner, studying the path ahead.Even up in what was allegedly the law-abiding part of Oeble, it appeared to her that an absurd number of folk were skulking about in the dark, engaged in business that, were it wholly legitimate, they would have conducted by day.But none of them looked like they were lying in wait for outlanders, so she and the monastic proceeded on their way."But how did you know she was so worried about keeping her scars hidden that a threat to unmask her would break her will?" the ranger asked.Sefris shrugged and replied, "It was a guess, based on what we'd heard and seen.Her reclusiveness.The dim lighting and frilly furnishings.Her taste in reading matter, and the fact that the false visage she affected was absolutely perfect, like a statue's face.""Very clever," said Miri.His cane tapping and bowl outstretched, a stained strip of linen tied over his eyes, a beggar meandered toward the two women.Reminded of sar Randal's disguise, Miri scowled, and the "blind" mendicant, who evidently saw her forbidding expression perfectly well, veered off."Thank you," Sefris said."Yet I sense you don't wholly approve of my tactics.""It's not that, exactly.I suppose I'm trained to fight with my hands, not by finding a person's private shame and rubbing salt in the wound.It just felt dirty, somehow."Sefris arched an eyebrow and said, "I intended to master the wizard through the exercise of our martial skills.You stopped me.""Because unlike the yuan-ti, who tried to enslave me, she hadn't done anything that made her fair game.""Operating a haven for the foulest kind of outlaws and goblin-kin doesn't qualify?""It seems like it should," Miri said with a sigh, "doesn't it?""Yet you pity her." To her surprise, Miri thought she heard a trace of scorn in the monastic's generally calm, mild tone, and she wondered if it was directed at Naneetha or herself."Consider this, then.Suppose something scarred you.Would you spend the rest of your life hiding in a hole?""No.It wouldn't make all that much difference to me, I suppose.""Nor me, nor anyone who wasn't bloated with vanity to begin with.Whatever distress Mistress Dalaeve experiences is the result of her own stupidity and weakness.You and I are not to blame.""And your deity is tender Ilmater, god of mercy," said Miri with wry incredulity."Whose sympathy and help are given first and foremost to the innocent and those who strive for the right like you, my friend, and the good folk who you say will benefit when we recover your stolen treasure.There.That's it, isn't it?"The scout peered and saw that Sefris was right.Ahead and to the left were the broken foundations of two spires, like decaying stumps in a row of teeth.One tower had evidently fallen sideways, demolishing its neighbor in the course of its collapse.Imagining the catastrophe, Miri winced at the probable loss of life.But it had happened long ago, and all those unfortunate souls were beyond her power to help.What mattered then was that if her informant, one of Oeble's apothecaries, had told the truth, Aeron sar Randal lived on the top floor of a tower three doors farther down.Miri and Sefris stalked forward, stepping silently and gliding through the shadows.The ranger spotted a hobgoblin lurking in a recessed doorway, its cloak draped so that it half concealed the crossbow dangling in its hairy hand.She stopped and raised her hand, whereupon Sefris, too, halted instantly.Miri pointed."A lookout," she whispered."Yes, I see it now.Aeron's sentry, do you think?""It's possible, but it feels wrong.At the Paeraddyn, his accomplices were all human, and if I understood Naneetha correctly, he doesn't even belong to a gang himself.He might not have any partners as a general rule.""Well, whoever it is, it's likely no friend of ours, not unless you have other allies you haven't told me about.""No," Miri replied."I can't fling a chakram that far, but you can surely hit it with an arrow."Miri reached for a shaft, then left it in the quiver."I can't just kill it without knowing for certain who it is or what it's doing," she said
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]