setting:
an island called Theft, where the natives speak a language related to Korelrian, and currently under a light occupation by the Malaz Empire
in a city called Moll, often called Lamentable Moll, where barrow mounds are built in the streets
main character:
Emancipor Reese, a man looking for a job to shut up his nagging wife, a very unlucky man
Moll is currently suffering under the deprivations of a serial killer. He, she, or it is known to have necromancer powers, and is powerful and skilled enough to even erase the minds of rats and other animals who have witnessed the crimes.
One killing takes place per night. The corpses are torn apart, as if the killer is looking for certain body organs from each.
One morning the killed person turns out to be the person who has hired Emancipor Reese as his coachman.
Now then, Reese has very bad luck with his employers. He used to be a sailor, but the ship sank. And everytime he has gotten a job since, his employer has died a terrible and mysterious death.
While getting drunk in a local tavern, a couple of blokes tell him that someone has posted a notice for a manservant there in town. Very drunk, he goes to check out the notice and sees a skull - mark of necromancer magic - on the posting. But he is too drunk to care, just as he is too drunk to pick up on and notice a lot of strange clues once he gets the job - from a certain Bauchelain (and his absent partner, Mr. Krobal Broach). They offer him a princely salary and a chance to travel...and the thought of getting away from his nagging wife and two bratty children, all the while earning a bunch of money which will go to the wife and kids while he is on the road is
very attractive to him.
Eventually, the local police (well, the equivalent thereof) track down the mysterious strangers in town - the ones who just hired Reese. And the two are high up on the suspect list for the killings...
Bauchelain orders Reese to get passage westward to leave Moll in two days.
But slipping out of town will be easier said then done, especially when Korbal is quite busy with a certain little project.
(But he is a eunuch and really
wants to create his own child...
Surely his child needs those parts more than the people who used to have them...
)
And as for the police, how do you deal with a matter involving deadly skilled necromancers, princesses, demons, and soletaken???
I really love these little novellas from Erikson. The length makes him really tighten up his writing and plotlines, and results in some of his best writing. Plus they are fileld with gallows humor.
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