Steven Erikson: Blood follows

Emancipor subsided into muttering. He looked around, and found that he was alone. Not a soul in sight-they’d cleared out uncommonly fast. He shrugged and turned his attention to the tarred wooden post.

The note was on fine linen paper, solitary and nailed at chest-height. Emancipor grunted. “ ’Spensive paper, that. S’prised it’s lasted this long.” Then he saw the ward faintly inked in the lower right-hand corner. Not a minor cantrip, like boils to the family of whoever was foolish enough to steal the note; not even something mildly nasty, like impotence or hair-loss; no, within the circular ward was a skull, deftly drawn. “Beru’s beard,” Emancipor whispered. “Death. This damned note will outlast the post itself.”

Nervous, he stepped closer to study the words. They showed the hand of a hired scribe, and a good one at that. Sober, he could have made inferences from all these details. Drunk as he was-and knew he was-he found the effort of serious consideration too taxing. It was careless, he knew, but when faced with returning to Subly unclothed in the raiment of the employed, he had to take the chance.

One arm on the post, he leaned closer and squinted. Thankfully, the statement was short.

Manservant required. Full time. Travel involved. Wage to be negotiated depending on experience. Call at Sorrowman’s Hostel.

Sorrowman’s… less than a block away. And “travel,” by Hood’s cowl, would mean… well, it’d mean exactly what it meant, meaning… He felt a wide grin stretching his rubbery face, until it ached with sheer delight. Coin for the wife, whilst far far away I go. School for the hairless rats, and far far away I go. Heh. Heh.

His arm slipped from the post and the next thing he knew he was lying on the cobbles, staring up at a cloudless night sky. His nose hurt, but it was a distant pain. He sat up and looked around, feeling woozy. The round was empty except for a half-dozen urchins eyeing him from an alleymouth, all looking disappointed to see him awake.

“That’s what you think,” Emancipor said as he climbed to his feet. “I’m getting me a job, right now.” He wobbled before straightening, then plucked at his coachman’s jacket and breeches-but it was too dark to see the shape they were in. Damp, of course, but that could be expected, given the heavy weave of the stiff-shouldered coat and its long, tight-cuffed sleeves. “ ’Spect they’ll have a uniform, anyways,” he muttered. “Tailored, maybe.” Sorrowman’s. That way.

The journey seemed to take forever, but he eventually made out the sign of the weeping man above the entrance to a narrow, four-storey inn. Yellow light descended from the lantern hooked under the sign, revealing a doorman leaning against the door’s ornate frame. A solid kout hung from the man’s leather belt, and one of his beefy hands moved to rest on the weapon as he watched Emancipor’s approach.

“On your way, old man,” he growled.

Emancipor stopped at the light’s edge, reeling slightly. “Got me an appointment,” he said, straightening up and thrusting out his chin.

“Not here you don’t.”

“Manservant. Got the job, I do.”

The doorman scowled, lifting a hand to scratch above his ridged brow. “Not for long, I’d say, from the look and smell of you. Mind…” He scratched some more, then grinned. “You’re on time, anyway. At least, I’m meaning, they’re awake by now, I’d guess. Go on in and tell the scriber-he’ll lead you on.”

“I’ll do just that, my good man.”

The doorman opened the door and, walking carefully, Emancipor managed to navigate through the doorway without bumping the frames. He paused as the door closed behind him, blinking in the bright light coming from a half-dozen candles set on ledges opposite the cloak rack-follower of D’rek, by the look of the gilded bowl on a ledge below the candles.

He stepped closer and looked into the bowl, to see a writhing mass of white worms, faintly pink with some poor animal’s blood. Emancipor gagged, hands pressing against the wall. He felt a rush of foamy, bitter ale at the back of his throat and-with nowhere else in range of his sight-he vomited into the bowl.

Through foam-flecked amber bile, the worms jerked about, as if drowning.

Reeling, Emancipor wiped at his mouth, then at the side of the bowl. He turned from the wall. The air was heady with some Stygg incense, sweet as rotting fruit-enough to mask the vomit, he hoped. Emancipor swallowed back another gag reflex, then drew a careful, measured breath.

A voice spoke from further in and to his right. “Yes?”

Emancipor watched as a bent, thin old man, his fingertips stained black with ink, stepped timidly into view. Upon seeing him, the scriber snapped upright, glaring. “Has Dalg that crag-headed ox gone out of his mind?” He rushed forward. “Out, out!” He shooed with his hands, then stopped in alarm as Emancipor said boldly, “Mind your manners, sir! I but paused to make an offering, uh, to the Worm of Autumn. I am the manservant, if you pl’zz. Arrived punctual, as instructed. Lead me to my employer, sir, and be quick abou’ it.” Before I let heave another offering, D’rek forgive me.

He watched the scriber’s wrinkled face race through a thespian’s array of emotions, ending on fearful regard, the black tip of his tongue darting back and forth over his dry lips. After a moment of this-which Emancipor watched with fascination-the scriber suddenly smiled. “Clever me, eh? Wisely done, sir.” He tapped his nose. “Aye. Burn knows, it’s the only way I’d show up to work for them two-not that I mean ill of them, mind you that. But I’m as clever as any man, I say, and fit to stinking drunk well suits the hour, the shadow’s cast from them two, and all right demeanor and the like, eh? Mind you,” he took Emancipor’s arm and guided him toward the stairs that led to the rooms, “you’ll likely get fired, this being your first night and all, but even so. They’re on the top floor, best rooms in the house, if you don’t mind the bats under the eaves, and I’d wager it’s rum to them and all.”

The climb and the lighter feeling in his stomach sobered Emancipor somewhat. By the time they reached the fourth landing, walked down the narrow hall and stopped in front of the last door on the right, he was beginning to realise that the scriber’s ramble had, however confusedly, imparted something odd about his new employers- new? Have I been hired, then? No, no recollection of that — and he tried to think of what it might be… without success. He came to his mind sufficiently to claw through his grey-streaked hair while the wheezing scriber softly scratched on the door. After a moment the latch lifted and the door swung silently open.

“Kind sir,” the scriber said hastily, ducking his head, “your manservant is here.” He bowed even further, then backed his way down the hall.

Emancipor drew a deep breath, then lifted his gaze to meet the cold regard of the man before him. A shiver rippled down his spine as he felt the full weight of those lifeless grey eyes, but somehow he managed not to flinch, nor drop his gaze, and so studied the man even as he himself was studied. The pale eyes were set far back in a chalky, angular face, the forehead high and squared at the temples, the greying hair swept back and of mariner’s length-long and tied in a single tail. An iron-streaked, pointed beard jutted from the man’s square, solid chin. He looked to be in his forties, and was dressed in a long, fur-trimmed morning robe-far too warm for Lamentable Moll-and had clasped his long-fingered, ringless hands in front of his silk-cord belt.

Emancipor cleared his throat. “Most excellent sir!” he boomed. Too loud, dammit.

The skin tightened fractionally around the man’s eyes.