The goblin heard me, made a stumbling turn toward me, bellowing and hewing the air with its cleaver, and caught the needle-dart meant for me in its shoulder. It cried out, sagging fast, and I ran, throwing myself against the stone and climbing the stairs in three-at-a-time leaps.
“Now, William,” said the smooth, quiet, but perfectly audible voice of the hooded figure, “don’t be tiresome.”
I think the goblin took a second dart, but I was up the steps before it fell, and running from the purposeful strides I could hear coming after me. I found myself in another short passage which rejoined the main street. I ran hard, but my pursuer had made it up the stairs by the time I got to the corner.
The goblins had fallen quickly: too quickly. The killer’s darts had to have been tipped with something particularly nasty. Bearing this in mind, I ran still faster, weaving erratically down the street. One deserted block, then another. Then a third. From some ways back came the voice again, raised fractionally, but still barely concerned:
“Till next time, then, William. Soon.”
I ran one more block and then looked back. There was no sign of anyone following, but I only paused for a second to take a long, sucking breath. Then I ran again, waiting for the momentary sting of one of those poisoned needles sliding suddenly into my spine.
SCENE XI Words, Words, Words
It was three o’clock in the morning. It had taken me over an hour to work my way as circuitously as possible back to the palace, hiding at every corner, moving from shadow to shadow: You know the drill. It was, I knew, a complete waste of time. Should I have finished up within a block of my former pursuer, no stealth, speed, or hasty camouflaging would have kept those needle-like daggers out of my body. Before, I had been one of four targets, and the other three had been potentially dangerous to the killer, with their gorilla arms and their cleavers. Now I was by myself and about as dangerous to an assassin like that as a newborn lamb: a very irritated and hostile lamb, no doubt, but a lamb nonetheless. In the quick eyes and lethal hands of my would-be assassin, I could hear the crackle of flames around the roasting spit and smell the mint sauce. So I dashed back to the palace and hoped to God my enemy had opted for an early night.
At the palace, I had alerted the guards and sent them to wake Sorrail and scour the city for my multiple assailants. I woke Garnet and Renthrette myself and bombarded them with a version of my story: a version, perhaps, with a little more stoic composure and a little less bowel-shifting terror than I had felt at the time. But I’m not that good an actor, so they spotted enough of my fear-stricken panic to trust that I had actually been in danger.
The search of the city (surprise, surprise) turned up nothing. The assassin, unlike the goblins who had caught me first, had come and gone with all the noise and fuss of a ground fog, the kind you don’t see forming till you can’t find the floor anymore. I hadn’t expected him to leave any grist for the investigator’s milclass="underline" no carelessly dropped letters with names and addresses, no passing witness who felt sure he’d seen him somewhere before, no distinctive jewelry left at the scene. He had vanished from the White City’s immaculate streets like the flame of a quenched candle, and if there hadn’t been a little stack of dead goblins a few blocks from the palace, I doubt Sorrail would have given my tale much credence.
But there was, and he did. He came back to our rooms dressed in his military tunic and his face was grave and pensive.
“Tell me what happened,” he said, running his hand thoughtfully through his hair.
“I already did,” I said.
“Once more, please,” he said. His voice was tired, but his eyes were still keen and alert. I began the story again, casually, bored with it already. Gaspar, apparently one of the king’s closest advisers despite his part-time appearance as a dandified courtly love poet, took notes and looked as gray as his suit. Renthrette sharpened her knife carefully. Garnet yawned.
“And that’s all you remember?” said Sorrail, as I concluded.
“No,” I said. “I forgot to tell you that he said his name was Albert and he came from a village just north of. .”
“Will,” said Renthrette, barely looking up.
“Sorry,” I said. “A joke. Yes, that’s all I remember.”
“What about his voice?” Sorrail continued, ignoring that last piece of stupidity.
“Urbane,” I said. “No accent to speak of. Smooth, you know? Almost oily but not in a bad way. Precise, like the sound of a very finely made crossbow slide. Probably not the voice of a very young man, but I couldn’t say for sure. Not a voice I knew, I’d say. So that ought to really narrow down the possibilities.”
“Would you recognize the man again if you saw him?” said Sorrail.
“No,” I said. “I told you: I didn’t see his face and we really never got that close. Barely on speaking terms really. A nodding acquaintance, you know. Not a mate, exactly. . ”
“Will,” Renthrette warned.
“Sorry. I’m just getting tired of this. I really need to sleep and I never did get my beer.”
Sorrail called a guard and muttered to him. The guard paused fractionally longer than he should have and Sorrail raised an eyebrow in that do-you-have-a-problem-private? way that commanding officers have. Five minutes later the guard came back with a tankard of what looked remarkably like beer. For me.
And at this unexpected delight, something struck me. “Hold it,” I said, rising thoughtfully. “One of the goblins said something.”
“I thought they spoke in their own language when they weren’t speaking to you,” said Sorrail.
“They did,” I agreed. “But when the first goblin fell, one of the others said something that sounded like it wasn’t one of their words. It sounded different. Like regular Thrusian or whatever you call it here. And I think it was connected to the appearance of the hooded assassin. Something ‘claw.’ An adjective, then claw.” I thought frantically. I had begun to pace the room, hands to my temples. “Claw,” I repeated. “Something-claw. Pale!” I said suddenly, snapping my fingers. “That was it, I think. Pale claw. I’m almost sure.”
“Sounds like a name to me,” said Garnet, regaining interest.
“Yes,” said Sorrail, hesitating thoughtfully. “But I do not know how we begin to find who it belongs to. Moreover, if Pale Claw is the killer’s name, then the goblins recognized him. He must have been one of their agents, and I do not know how we would find such a man.”
“But he killed the goblins,” I said. “No. He was a man. Tallish, slim. Not at all squat or heavy like most of the goblins I’ve seen.”
“A human accomplice, then,” said Sorrail. “A traitor. The goblins apparently came into the city in the back of a tradesman’s wagon. We found the wagon and its driver this morning. The goblins could not hope to hide long in the city after their mission was complete, but if the other attacker was a man, he could be anywhere and be quite undetected. I do not see what we could do to identify him.”
“Shouldn’t you be organizing the raiding party that goes back for Orgos and Mithos?” I said, tiring of this circular conversation.
Garnet turned and gave me a curious look, eyes narrowed and head cocked like he was straining to hear something a long way off. He opened his mouth vaguely as if he was going to say something but couldn’t find the words.