Steven Erikson: Blood follows

“And what’s so pure about your blood, Punth?” Guld growled as he reached the two men.

“Singular intent, poor sergeant, is the most cleansing of endeavours. Witness here before you amiable myself, and, at my side, himself. We two are most singular.”

Both men wore little more than rags, apart from large, floppy, leather hats-Birklas’ dyed a sun-faded magenta and Blather’s a mottled yellow. Countless rat-tails hung from their twine belts, and encircling their wrists and ankles were more rat-tails, these ones braided in ingenious patterns.

Blather Roe reached for the jar and pried open the lid with a bloodstained dagger. “You’ve come jutht in time, Thergeant. The ratth are almotht roathted and the pickled pinkeeth offer uth a perfect appetither. Pleath, theat yourthelf at our thides.”

“And I,” Birklas added, “shall pour the vintage, whilst my partner fishes out some of those pickled pinkies.”

The vinegar had made the baby hairless rats pinker than was natural, a detail strangely adding to his horror as Guld watched Blather drawing one forth and raising it to his mouth. The pinky vanished between his lips with a sucking sound. The man swallowed, then sighed.

“A fine beginning,” Birklas observed. “Shucked like an oyster, true evidence of cultured breeding.”

Guld scowled. “Cultured breeding? Do you mean Blather, or the rats?”

“Oh, tho very droll, Thergeant,” Blather Roe tittered. “Join uth, pleath!”

“No thanks, I’ve already eaten.”

Birklas turned to his partner. “Can you not discern, friend, that Sergeant Guld here is sorely disposed? Dreadful murders every night! The bells peal! The rats scurry hither and thither, and even Whitemane himself hides in his deepest cove. Aye, something foul stalks fair Moll, and here is its chief hunter, come to us in need of assistance.”

Blather drew back. “Motht thertainly I wath cognithant of the thergeant’th therious plight! I wath but being courteouth!”

“No more arguing about civility,” the sergeant growled. “I’ve heard you talk about Whitemane a hundred times and I want to know once and for all, does he really exist?”

“Thertainly!”

“Indisputably, Sergeant.”

Guld fixed his gaze on Birklas. “And he’s a Soletaken?”

“Aye, he is. An unprepossessing man, when in that shape. But once he’s veered, the most intimidating of rats. A clever and vicious tyrant, Ruler of the Furred Kingdom, Slayer of All Challengers, Fornicator of the Highest-”

“Yes yes, all that. And you’re saying he’s hiding from our murderer?”

“Burrowed deep, Sergeant. Quivering-”

“I see. Should I then assume Whitemane has met the killer?”

Birklas shrugged. “Perhaps he has. More likely his runners have, or his junction guards, or his rooftop peepers-”

“But not hith food tathters,” Blather cut in.

“No,” Birklas solemnly agreed. “Not his food tasters indeed. Blather, how are his food tasters doing?”

Blather Roe prodded the skewered rats. “Done, I would thay.”

“Excellent! Now, Sergeant, is there anything else we can do for you?”

“Maybe. The princess and Lordson Hoom.”

Birklas’ eyebrows lifted. “Oh dear, not a conversation to accompany supper…”

Guld squatted down. “I can wait.”

Dead Sekarand’s tower creaked in the off shore breeze that had grown steadily since the sun had set. Guld wrapped his cloak around his shoulders, exhaustion more than the wind making him chilled. Below, the day’s haze of wood smoke had been stripped away. Oil-glow and candlelight spotted the sides of the tenements like muddy stars at Guld’s feet, as if they were all mortals could achieve to mirror the bristling night sky.

Guld heard a scuffing at the stairway, then Stul Ophan’s grunt as the magus climbed onto the platform. “Burn’s uneasy rest, Guld,” the old man gasped. “A simple rendezvous on a street corner would have done me better.”

The sergeant leaned on a merlon and looked down on the wharf district. “I may have the man, Stul,” he said.

The magus stopped cursing. From behind Guld, Stul Ophan said, “How certain are you? When will you make the arrest?”

“I haven’t worked that detail out yet. Am I certain? Well, my gut’s still in knots-something I’ve missed, but it may still point to the same man, once I’ve worked the unease loose.”

“What do you wish of me?”

Guld turned. Stul Ophan stood near the trapdoor, a silk cloth in one hand with which he blotted his brow. The magus shrugged feebly. “I’m not the best with heights, Sergeant. You’ll forgive me if I remain here, though it relieves me naught with the whole edifice swaying as it is.”

Guld opened his mouth to say something, then scowled and said instead, “You live in a damned tower!”

Ophan shrugged again. “It’s… expected of me. Isn’t it? I reside on the main floor, mostly.”

The sergeant studied the man a moment longer, then sighed. “I was thinking of the hounds. The ones I sent on the trails leading from Lordson Hoom’s murder. A man, maybe two men-one a warrior, or a veteran-the other unknown. And a woman’s scent as well, or two women, or none…”

“If the hounds danced to a woman’s scent, Guld, how could there be none?”

“Good question. Can you attempt an answer? Before you do, let me say there was a woman who fled the scene that night, but she’s not the killer.”

Stul Ophan frowned, mopped his forehead. “I don’t understand.”

Guld grimaced. “Recall your own discoveries, Magus. And your uncertainties. Answer me this: a man is not a man, and might be mistaken for a woman-if sorcerous paths are the means of investigation-or even if a hound finds the scent. Assume your efforts to ascertain the killer’s gender were not confused-that, as with the hounds, your answer was a true one. How could that be?”

“A man not a man? Mistaken for a woman, even by hounds? Sergeant, there is no answer to be culled from such confusion. We were deliberately misled-”

“No. It was more a matter of the murderer’s indifference-a past knowledge that such detection efforts would, inevitably, yield confusion. Like a demon’s riddle, Stul Ophan. The answer is too simple. Do not think so hard.”

The magus scowled. “You mock me, Guld.”

Guld turned back to gaze down on the city. “What, Stul Ophan, would be the mark of a eunuch?”

He heard the air slowly hiss through the man’s teeth.

“You are right, Sergeant. A demon’s riddle indeed. You’ve found the killer.”

“I know him,” Guld corrected. “I’ve not found him.” His gaze narrowed as he looked down at the Noble Quarter. “But I think,” he said, “someone else has. The knot begins to unravel.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, she’s on the move,” Guld said, as he watched lantern after lantern light up the rooftops, each marking a path taken by the one mystery that remained in this game. The sergeant spun and raced to the stairs. “Go home, Magus,” he said. “The night’s work begins in earnest.”

He’d made his inquiries, following his audience with the king. He’d asked enough questions, delivering the right kind of pressure when necessary, and had harvested enough details to put things together. Lordson Hoom’s unpleasant appetites included a taste for blood, the application of pain. It was what had drawn him and Princess Sharn together. It was what had made-for both the Lord and for Seljure-the union unattractive. Damned frightening, in fact.

There’d been no maid-in-waiting at her side last night, because the girl had already been sent off, close on the killer’s trail. Hoomy had been revealed as a mere acolyte in those twisted arts of flesh and pain. The killer had shown the princess just how far-how wonderfully far-things could be taken. A brush of promise on Sharn’s trembling lips, and now she thirsted for more.