Steven Erikson: Blood follows

“The face?” Emancipor licked his lips, which had become uncommonly dry. “You, uh, you divined my moment of death?”

“As near as one can,” Bauchelain replied. “Some veils are not easily torn aside. But I think I have as much as needed.” He paused, then added, “Even so, the weapon needs no cleaning. You may return it to its trunk.”

Not just a sorceror, then. A Hood-stained, death-delving necromancer. Damn you, Subly, the things I do… He replaced the lid and set the latches. “Master?”

“Hmm?” Bauchelain was busy over his slab again.

“My face at death-did you see it truly?”

“Your visage? Yes, as I said.”

“Was it, was it a face of fear?”

“No, surprisingly. It seems you die laughing.”

“Die laughing,” Emancipor muttered as he stum bled his way down the empty, dark streets, seeing only his soft, Subly-warmed bed hovering in his mind’s eye. “That’s likely a damned lie, I’d say, unless I quit-get as far away from that death-dealer as I can. Queen of Dreams, what a mess I’m in. It’s the Lad o’ Luck for certain, not the Lady. It’s the push, not the pull. I was drunk-too drunk to sniff it all out, and then it was too late. He’s seen my death, too. He has me. I can’t quit. He’ll send something after me-a ghoul, or a k’nip-trill, or some other damned spectre-to tear my heart out, and Subly’d be cursing the blood-stained sheets down at Beater’s Rock an’ all the lye she’d have to buy and that’d be a curse to my name even then, with me dead and gone and the brats fighting o’er my new boots and-”

He stopped with a grunt as he walked clean into another man, whose body felt as solid as a bale of hides, and who-as Emancipor stepped back in alarm-was as big as a half-blooded Trell. “M’pardon, sir,” Emancipor said, ducking his head.

The man raised a black-mailed arm, at the end of which was a massive, flat, pale and soft-looking-almost delicate-hand.

Emancipor took another step back as the air between them seemed to crackle and something tugged hard at his guts.

Then the hand twitched, the fingers fluttered, and the arm slowly dropped back down. A soft giggle came from under the stranger’s hood. “Sweet fate, he’s marked for me,” he said in a high, quavering voice.

“I said my pardon, sir,” Emancipor said again. He realised he was in the Estate District, having gone by the shortest route between Sorrowman’s and his house-damned stupid, what with blood-hungry private guards patrolling the nobles’ quarter, determined to catch the mad killer for their masters, and the rewards to follow. “If you’ll let me pass, sir,” Emancipor said, moving to step past. There was no one else about, and dawn was still a quarter-bell away.

The stranger giggled again, then said, “Such a mark, saving. You felt the chill, then?”

Damned strange accent. “It’s a hot enough night,” he mumbled as he hurried by. The stranger let him go, but Emancipor felt cold eyes on his back as he walked down the street.

A moment later he was surprised to see a cloaked figure hurrying its way down the other pavement-small, feminine. Then he was further startled by the passage of an armoured man, rustling and softly clanking, moving along on the woman’s trail. Hood’s Herald, the sun’s not even up yet!

He suddenly felt very tired. Somewhere ahead, he now saw, was a commotion of some kind. He saw lantern lights, heard shouting, then a woman’s scream. He hesitated, then took a side route that’d take him around the scene, and back onto more familiar ground.

Emancipor felt clammy under his clothes, as if he’d just brushed… something unpleasant. He shook himself. “Better get used to it, working nights and all. Anyway, I was safe enough-no chance of laughing this damned night, that’s for sure.”

“A messy one,” the chalk-faced guard muttered, wiping across his mouth with the back of his hand.

Guld nodded. It was the worst he’d seen yet. Young Lordson Hoom, ninth-removed from the throne’s own blood, had died ignobly, with most of his insides strewn and smeared halfway down the alley.

And yet no one had heard a sound. The sergeant had come upon the scene less than a quarter-bell after the two patrol guards had themselves stumbled onto it. The blood and bits of flesh weren’t yet cold.

Guld had sent off the tracking dogs. He’d dispatched his corporal to the palace with two messages-one to the king, and the other-far less softly worded-to Magus Stul Ophan. With the exception of his squad detachment and a lone terrified horse still hitched to the Lordson’s overturned carriage- overturned. Hood’s breath! — there was only one other person present at the scene, and that presence had Guld deeply, profoundly, worried.

He finally turned his gaze from the carriage to study the woman. Princess Sharn. King Seljure’s only child. His heir, and, if the rumours are true, a real dark piece of work in her own right.

Though it would mean trouble later, Guld had insisted on detaining the royal personage. After all, it’d been her screaming that had drawn the patrol, and the question of what the princess was doing out in the city well after the night’s fourth bell-with no guard, not even her maid-in-waiting-needed answering.

His eyes narrowed on the young girl. She was wrapped in a voluminous cloak, hooded with her face hidden in shadows. She’d regained her composure with alarming ease. Guld scowled, then approached her. He jerked his head to the two guardsmen flanking the princess, and they moved away.

“Highness,” Guld began, “your calm is an impressive example of royal blood. Frankly, I’m awed.”

She acknowledged this with a slight tilt of her head.

Guld rubbed at his jaw, glancing away for a moment, then swung upon her an intense professional expression. “I am also relieved, for it means I can question you here and now, whilst your memory remains fresh, unclouded-”

“You are presumptuous,” the princess said in a light, bored tone.

He ignored that. “It’s clear you and Lordson Hoom were involved in a clandestine relationship. Only this time, either you came later, or he came early. For you, then, a pull of the Lady. For the lad, a push of the Lord. I can imagine your relief, Princess, not to mention your father’s-who will have been duly informed by now.” He paused at hearing her quickly drawn breath. “So, what I need to know is what you saw, precisely, upon arriving. Did you see anyone else? Did you hear anything? Smell anything?”

“No,” she answered. “Hoomy was… was already, uh, like that,” she gestured toward the alley behind Guld.

“Hoomy?”

“Lordson Hoom, I mean.”

“Tell me, Princess, where is your handmaid? I can’t believe you would come here entirely alone. She’d be your messenger in this affair, obviously, since I imagine the secret love notes flew fast and often-”

“How dare you-”

“Save that for your cowering underlings,” Guld snapped. “Answer me!”

“Do nothing of the sort!” a voice commanded behind the sergeant.

He turned to see Magus Stul Ophan pushing his way past a line of guards at the alleymouth. It was nearing dawn, and the fat man’s arrival was peculiarly accompanied by the day’s first birdsong. “Highness,” Stul said, inclining his head, “your father the King wishes to see you immediately. You may take my carriage.” Stul turned a dagger glare on Guld. “The sergeant is, I believe, done with you.”

Both men stepped back as Princess Sharn hurried past and quickly disappeared inside the carriage. As soon as the door closed and the driver flicked the horses into motion, Guld rounded on the Magus. “Now, I gather that Lordson Hoom was anything but an appropriate hay-roller for the precious princess, and I can imagine that Seljure wants to bury any royal involvement in what’s happened here-but if you ever again step between me and my investigation, Ophan, I’ll leave what’s left of you for the crabs. Understood?”