Sanctuary ee-1

by Paul B. Thompson

  He never stirred. She took his hand. Despite the sweat on his face, his hand was dry, and hot as the sands outside. She put her face close to his, willing him to waken, to be well, to hear.

  “You must give up the foolish idea that we can find a new homeland. We have a home. Two homes, in fact. It’s our sacred duty and our destiny to return and take them back. That’s what we should do, what we must do!”

  She realized she was squeezing his hand. Releasing it, she stood and paced across the room like a caged version of her namesake.

  “There’s talk about me in the tents, you know. They say I abandoned my warriors to come home to you. I can’t deny it, but I won’t apologize for it. I flew here to be by your side.”

  She halted her restless movement.

  “We have to get out of here, Gil. Once Sahim-Khan drains us of all our treasure, he’ll sell us to the Knights or the bull- men or any of the other half-dozen groups that would like to see us exterminated. Or the nomads and Torghanists will unite against us and save him the trouble. Then what will we do?”

  He didn’t answer, only lay breathing slowly. Six feet away, yet he might as well have been across the continent. Her husband wasn’t here. He’d gone somewhere she couldn’t reach. Fear, frustration, and worry squeezed her heart. She could no longer simply sit and stare at him.

  Picking up her helmet and sword-belt from a chair by the bed, she departed. When she reached the audience room, she sent the healers back in again.

  “Heal the Speaker,” she said curtly.

  Past Hamaramis and Planchet, past the courtiers waiting in hushed circles, past her husband’s loyal servants she strode in unyielding silence. In the square outside the sprawling tent she found the company she’d summoned. One warrior held the reins of her horse. She swung into the saddle without benefit of stirrup.

  The Lioness rode away toward Khuri-Khan with forty armed and armored warriors behind her.

  Gilthas inhaled sharply and opened his eyes.

  “My heart,” he gasped. Healers rushed to his side, thinking the Speaker was complaining about the organ in his chest, but he was not. “I heard you,” he panted. “Come back, my heart!”

  But Kerian was already gone.

  * * * * *

  Water from the recent rains stained the ruined villa’s white limestone walls. Opportunistic seeds, long dormant in the soil, had sprouted, covering the pebbled paths and former gardens in a profusion of hairy, green shoots.

  The Lioness had heard a full account from Hytanthas of his adventure with Faeterus and the mage’s monsters. When she and her riders reached the villa ruins clustered around the broken tower, she sent twenty elves to find the carcasses of the sand beast and manticore, while she and the remaining twenty scoured the grounds for clues to the mage’s whereabouts.

  The clouds above were still, and no air stirred through the rubble piles and toppled columns. The atmosphere carried the heavy, expectant feeling of an impending storm. It was unnerving to the elves and their horses.

  The dead monsters were easy enough to find. The headless manticore was draped over a pile of rubble. Closer to the villa, the sand beast was likewise yielding to corruption. The elves were forced to tie kerchiefs over their noses just to approach its body.

  Kerian entered the mansion’s front doorway. Scraps of parchment blew over her feet. She speared one on her sword tip and brought it up to read. It looked scorched. Every line of ink on the vellum was charred. Her reading skills were limited, but she recognized the curls and tracery of a magical sigil. The weakened parchment broke apart. The fragments fluttered to the floor.

  A warrior hailed her. He had found the sorcerer’s sanctum in the broken tower. She entered the tower through a large door that swung inward on silent hinges. The interior was lit only by the faint daylight from an open trap door overhead. She mounted a ladder they’d knocked together from house timbers, and entered Faeterus’s former residence.

  The round room was filled with carpets, tapestries, and numerous pillows. Daylight penetrated through hairline cracks in the tower walls. Aside from the overblown furnishings, all they found were more pieces of disintegrating parchment, a collar and leash for the manticore, and an empty wicker cage.

  One of the elves bent down, peering into the shadows. He stood up abruptly, cursing.

  Kerian came over. “What is it?”

  “Dead birds!” Six common pigeons, the bane of soukats all over Khuri-Khan, lay dead on the rug. Their headless bodies were arranged in a neat line.

  Kerian spied a squat brass urn in the corner. Recognizing it as a Khurish oil pot, she picked it up and shook it. It was half full. She sent her warriors out. As they went back down the ladder, she began pouring mutton oil on the thick carpet. Tossing aside the empty urn, she swept parchment fragments into a heap on the oil-soaked carpet. With flint and steel, she showered sparks on the little pile of tinder. Soon, the first red flame crept forth. Smoke was puffing from the trap door opening as she joined her elves.

  Outside, Kerian saw the first flames erupt from the windows of the villa proper and knew the job was done. Not only was she taking away an enemy’s fortress, she was sending him a clear message: The Lioness had taken the field against him, and there would be no quarter.

  In the gardens, the other half of her company had gotten a dozen ropes around the sand beast’s carcass. The gangrenous wound on its hip gave Kerian great satisfaction. Hengriff may have slain the beast, but she and her warriors had slowed it down so he could do the job. Had he encountered the sand beast as they first had, she had no doubt it would have killed the Knight as easily as it had her brave warriors.

  Having roped the stinking carcass to their protesting horses, the elves awaited her next order.

  “Follow me,” she told them.

  The company rode out of the Harbalah and into Khuri-Khan proper. At the rear of the procession, six riders dragged the lifeless body of the sand beast behind their mounts. From windows and doorways Khurs reacted with horror as the putrefying remains were dragged past their houses, shedding blood and flesh as it went. Some screamed, and many cursed the laddad as they passed.

  The warrior riding nearest the Lioness said, “General, why are we-?”

  “It’s a gift for Sahim-Khan,” she said calmly.

  The elves held their formation, but all wondered whether they were on a suicide ride. The human Khan had been known to kill for insults far less than this.

  The bulk of the carcass forced them to keep to the wide thoroughfares. These took them through the heart of Khuri-Khan. By the time they skirted the Grand Souks, a crowd had gathered behind them. The Lioness ignored the hostile, angry Khurs and rode steadily on.

  Word of their approach sped ahead, and they arrived to find the gates of the Khuri yl Nor solidly shut against them. Kerian directed her troopers to drag the decaying sand beast up to the gate and cut it loose.

  From the battlements above, a Khurish officer yelled, “What are you doing, laddad? You can’t leave that there!”

  She removed her helmet. Despite the clouded sky, her golden head shone like a land-bound sun.

  “I am Kerianseray, consort of the Speaker of the Sun and Stars,” she proclaimed in her best command voice. “This is a gift for Sahim-Khan with my compliments. Summon him.”

  The officer laughed harshly. “No one summons the Khan of All the Khurs!”

  “Tell him it has to do with the massacre of the nomad camp, and with his pet sorcerer, Faeterus.”

  Mention of the atrocity stirred the mob behind the elves. Angry shouts and denunciations flew. The elven warriors, tense already, fingered sword hilts and worked to control their restive mounts. Only Kerian remained calm. She sat tall on her bay horse, back straight, eyes never leaving the Khurish officer.

  Perhaps it was her calm insistence, or the growling mob behind her, that convinced him, but the officer disappeared from the battlement. For a time nothing happened. Distant thunder rumbled. Flies, drawn by the carrion, tor
mented everyone. “Unclean!” cried the mob. “Drive the killers out!”

  At last the double gates parted. The crowd fell silent. Thunder murmured again.

  A double line of Khurish soldiers, twenty in all, marched out the gate. Behind them walked, not Sahim-Khan, but Hakkam, commander of the Khan’s army. The soldiers halted and Hakkam strode between their lines, approaching the Lioness.

  “Lady Kerianseray,” he said. He grimaced at the carcass. “You’ve been hunting, I see.”

  “No, General. Like a vulture, I only picked up what was already dead. Is Sahim-Khan coming?”

  “Of course not. Say what must be said to me.”

  Sensing that she had gotten as far as she could, she crossed her wrists on the pommel of her saddle and leaned forward over them.

  “This stinking carcass is all that remains of a sand beast. I believe they are native to your remote desert.” Hakkam conceded they were. “It was slain a few nights ago by Lord Hengriff. You know the man?” Kerian said sarcastically.

  Matching her tone, Hakkam replied, “A warrior of considerable prowess. Not the best intriguer.”

  “This beast was slain in the Harbalah, on the grounds of a villa destroyed by Malys. The beast traveled there from the Valley of the Blue Sands, where it tried to kill me and my entire company.”

  Her words set the mob surging and muttering again. Kerian raised her voice to be heard above them. “At first I thought it had come across us by accident, but after its first attack, it tracked us across fifty miles of open desert. We passed by the peaceful camp of the Weya-Lu tribe one night on our way to the valley. We did them no harm. The sand beast, on our trail, must have slaughtered them after we passed on.”

  A profound silence descended. The buzzing of the flies sounded very loud.

  “When we fought the beast a final time, we wounded it, and it escaped.” Wisely, she didn’t cloud the issue with talk of will-o’-the-wisps and the instantaneous transference of - the one-ton sand beast from Inath-Wakenti to Khuri-Khan.

  “Ask yourself, General Hakkam, ask yourself as I have done, why did this creature, wounded and in agony, turn up on the grounds of a wrecked mansion in your city?”

  He folded sinewy arms across his chest and obligingly said, “Why?”

  “It was returning to its mister, the sorcerer Faeterus, who lived in the ruined mansion. Maddened with pain, it attacked one of my warriors who was keeping an eye on the mage. The fortunate arrival of Lord Hengriff put an end to its murderous rampage.”

  Hakkarn stared at her for a moment longer, eyes narrowed in thought, then slowly approached the dead beast. Its rotting hide was nearly invisible beneath a writhing coat of blowflies. Hakkam was a hardened desert fighter and did not flinch.

  “What proof have you?” he called out over the buzz and whir of busy insects.

  “The proof of my word, and the proof of logic. I do not kill innocents. A sand beast will, and did.”

  “And this sorcerer you speak of?”

  “At large in your city, perhaps in the palace of the Khan even now. Find him, General. Put your questions to him.”

  She raised a gloved hand, and in unison her escort wheeled their horses. A crowd of nearly one thousand Khurs packed the back of the square. The Lioness rode back through her warriors and continued unhesitatingly toward the wall of humanity. When the Khurs realized she was not going to turn aside, they scrambled out of her way. The rest of the elves followed her.

  An irritated Hakkam spat on the pavement and glanced back at the Khuri yl Nor. He hoped his sovereign had gotten a good whiff of the Lioness’s gift. After ordering the rotten carcass hauled away, he went to report to the Khan.

  Sahim-Khan was waiting in the inner courtyard. He demanded an explanation. The general gave a brief account of the Lioness’s reasons for bringing the dead monster to the palace.

  The Khan’s expression was odd, unreadable even to his long-time general, but his voice was firm as he replied, “This is a grave affront to the throne of Khur. I will complain to the Speaker.”

  “Mighty Khan, the Speaker lies gravely wounded in his tent,” Hakkam reminded him. “While he is laid low, Kerianseray rules the laddad.”

  The general saluted and was dismissed. He departed quickly so as to hide the faint smile on his face. This also caused him to miss his khan’s low, bemused chuckle.

  Sahim was intrigued by Kerianseray’s argument. The laddad had neatly escaped the massacre charge. Thickheaded nomads might still believe the elves had done it, but word would circle the city within hours and the cityfolk would think otherwise. Sand beasts were nearly legendary nowadays, so rarely were they seen, but every Khur knew the stories of their savagery. In olden times, a single sand beast had been known to rip through a herd of two hundred cattle or sheep in a single night. In the territories where the monsters once dwelt in numbers, nomad bands had to erect timber fences to defend their night camps. Even then, many tribesmen still were slain. To have one turn up here, within the city’s wall, was indeed a wonder.

  Neatly done, lady, Sahim thought, as he reentered the citadel.

  Unfortunately, his thoughts turned to Faeterus, and all trace of amusement vanished. He was rapidly losing patience with the wretched mage. Faeterus’s machinations were costing the throne of Khur far more than his services were worth. Something would have to be done about that. Soon.

  Some distance away, atop the citadel, near where he’d loosed the amazing arrow, Shobbat watched the elves depart and Khurish soldiers drag the dead sand beast away. The smell of corruption reached him even at this height. He turned away, holding a perfumed cloth over his nose.

  “Potent smell, isn’t it?”

  Shobbat flinched. Faeterus was there, where he had not been an instant before.

  “I didn’t send for you!” the prince gasped.

  “I wanted a good vantage point for the spectacle.” The hooded mage went to the edge of the balcony and peered down, resting his long fingers on the parapet. “Ugly creature. I wonder how it got from the desert to the city? Surely someone ought to have noticed it wandering through an open gate.”

  “It appears to have come here from the Valley of the Blue Sands in a single night,” Shobbat said, rubbing his hands together. They were unaccountably cold. “It came straight to you. Did you summon it?”

  “Certainly not. The stupid creature wanted to kill me. This incident will bear some study.”

  “Don’t come here again, Faeterus. It’s too dangerous for me.”

  The hood turned away from the distant view. “Yes, it is,” Faeterus agreed, and then was gone.

  Shobbat’s legs were trembling. He sat abruptly on the sandstone bench at his back. The mage was out of control, coming and going from the palace at will. Something would have to be done about that. Soon.

  Still, he had every reason to feel confident. The elves had made it to the valley, but they’d not stayed. Surely this would overturn the Oracle’s prophecy. He had rid himself of Hengriff, who first bribed him, then blackmailed him about the bribery.

  The memory of Hengriff’s death brought a small smile. In some ways that had been a trial run for the removal of his father. Murder behind closed doors was no good. It aroused opponents, and gave traitors the mantle of pursuing justice. The best assassinations were carried out in public, with loyal supporters standing by. Many of Sahim-Khan’s guards were already in Shobbat’s pay. More would follow. Then Shobbat would strike.

  Soon.

  Chapter 14

  Favaronas awoke with a start.

  The monstrous creatures of his nightmare were still vivid in his mind, and he ached as if he’d been wrestling a legion of attackers. Three hundred sixteen years he had lived, and here he was sleeping in the desert, dodging murderous nomads, and prowling haunted tunnels. The lovingly shaped halls of Qualinost were far away, in time and distance. How he missed his old life there! The measured pace of the royal library, the smell of venerable parchment, the dust of time collected on the wi
sdom of the ages. He feared all of that was lost forever.

  Profoundly thirsty, he sat up slowly and reached for a handy waterskin. The collar securing the spout was a ring of polished tin. It made a small but perfect mirror. In its mirrored surface he glimpsed something on his reflection that brought a gasp of shock.

  Across his neck were four deep, parallel scratches.

  He cried out, dropping the leather waterskin and clutching his throat. The wounds did not hurt, but he could feel the beads of clotted blood clinging to them. It had not been a dream! The bloodthirsty shapechangers were real. He had to tell Glanthon at once.

  The sun was just peering over the featureless horizon. Its light was faint, as the sky was layered with dull white clouds.

  Scrambling up the hill to Glanthon’s tent, Favaronas found himself caught by the sight. He’d not seen an overcast sky since coming to Khur. It actually looked as though rain was possible. He glanced back at his bedroll, to make certain his parchments were covered.

  One of the stone cylinders had unfurled.

  Favaronas hurled himself back down the slope, his need to find Glanthon forgotten. Muted sunlight dappled the book. He touched the page. It was cold, stiffer than natural parchment, but no longer stone. It felt like heavy vellum, the sort usually reserved for covers, not text pages. With great care, he unrolled the curled page. It was covered in writing, a neat scribal hand, the ink copper-brown against the yellow vellum. The words were the same abbreviated Elvish as the labels on each cylinder. He couldn’t simply read off the contents but would have to decode the abbreviations.

  He ransacked his meager supplies for ink, pen, and paper. He must transcribe the writing, get it all down, and worry about deciphering it later.

  While he was engrossed, the sun continued its slow rise, the filtered orange light traveling across his bedroll. When the light fell upon the second and third cylinders, they also softened into readable scrolls, the tightly furled pages loosening with a soft whish. Favaronas’s heart thudded in his chest. What was happening here? The cylinders had been exposed to sunlight before and had not opened. Was it because the clouds were screening the normally harsh sunlight? Was it the first light of dawn? Could it have something to do with his dream that was not a dream?