Stalking Darkness

It was as bad amess as he’d ever seen made of a man. The torso was smashed. Pressing the back of one hand over his mouth, he recognized a familiar sourness amid the horrid stench that rose from the mangled flesh.
    I bought you that wine
, Seregil thought, averting his eyes from the contents revealed in the ruins of the ruptured stomach.
    Lips pressed in a thin line of anger and disgust, he dragged the severed leg back and laid it over the corpse, then took out Nysander’s magicked scroll, the one he’d meant to hand Rythel only moments before. Grasping it in one hand, Rythel’s sound right arm in the other, he pried the wax seal loose with his thumb. An instant later, the street was empty.
    “NYSANDER!”
    Seregil’s furious shout echoed up the prison corridor, jarring Nysander, Alec, and Thero from their patient vigil. Nysander was the first to recover. Rushing to the cell door, he cast a light spell and peered in through the grate. Inside, Seregil crouched over what appeared to be a tangled mass of clothing. The stink that hit the wizard’s nostrils told another story. The door swung open at his command and he stepped in.
    “By the Four! What happened?”
    “He was run down in the street,” Seregil hissed between clenched teeth. “I was practically within arm’s reach of him—He just stood there like a rabbit while a runaway brewer’s wagon rolled over him and I couldn’t do a thing to save him.”
    Nysander heard a gagging sound behind him and looked up in time to see Thero staggering blindly out, one hand clapped across his mouth. Grim-faced and pale, Alec remained at the open doorway, watching as Seregil stripped back the dead man’s blood-soaked garments with savage thoroughness, his fine clothing already smeared with foul-smelling muck.
    Seregil was pale as milk, too, but his eyes blazed with fury. Kneeling on the other side of the body, Nysander held his hands a few inches above Rythel’s ruined head.
    “Again, I sense nothing,” he sighed. “You must tell me everything. Was it an accident?”
    “I’m getting very leery of ‘accidents,’ ” growled Seregil.
    He turned the body over and a bloody purse fell into the straw with a sodden chink of coins. He turned out the purse, inspectedthe remains of the coat, and then flung the whole lot across the cell.
    “Damn it to hell!” he raged. “Damn it to hell! There
was
a note. Someone summoned him to that place, someone he knew. He sauntered off to his death whistling like a bridegroom! Alec, get the boot off that leg and check it.”
    Alec dutifully tugged at the boot on the severed leg. It was snugly fit and he had to brace his foot on the remains of the thigh to get it off. Pulling it free, he felt inside and shook his head. “Nothing here either.”
    “Or here.” Seregil tossed the other boot aside and yanked off the remains of the dead man’s trousers. After another careful inspection, he leapt up with a guttural cry and slammed one bloodstained hand against the cell wall.
    Just then Thero reappeared at the doorway. “Forgive my weakness, Nysander,” he mumbled, still looking green. “Is there anything I can do?”
    “Look well,” Nysander replied somberly. “Someday your vocation will take you from the shelter of the Orëska House; you must be strong enough to face such ugliness. This may have been an accident—”
    “An accident!” Seregil burst out, glaring down at the body. “Bilairy’s Balls, Nysander, the man was murdered, and so was Tym.”
    “Probably so. And we still do not know who was masterminding this man’s work.”
    “But the map—?” Seregil turned to Alec.
    “It wasn’t there,” Alec replied dully, staring at Rythel.
“Nothing
was there. Clothes, papers, chests, everything—gone. The room had been turned out. I don’t think he was planning to go back there again. The old woman who owns the house said everything had been taken away by cart this afternoon.”
    Nysander closed his eyes a moment, then sighed. “Thero and I will retrace your paths tonight using our own methods. Should we uncover anything, I shall inform you at once.”
    Slipping a hand beneath Alec’s arm, Nysander drew the boy from the cell. But Seregil remained, crouching gloomily over the body.
    “You clever son of a whore,” he whispered at it, barely loud enough for Nysander to overhear. “You were better than I thought.”

28
A G LIMPSE OF P ROPHECY
    “F
ather! Father, where are you?”
    Gripping a handful of