Sanctuary Tales (Book 1)

by Robert J. Crane

  “May I show you to the refreshments?” Xem asked, guiding her toward the buffet in the far corner of the next room without even waiting for her to answer. She stifled her irritation; it was customary to follow a man’s every suggestion in the male-dominated society of Saekaj Sovar, but it was something that she would never get used to or enjoy.

  “You may,” she agreed. They took their time making their way across the packed ballroom. She looked back and could no longer see the entrance to the foyer through the crowd. The ball was teeming with elves, and Dagonath Shrawn had plainly had to hold it in the Grand Palace simply in order to accommodate all the guests.

  The black and white hues of the women’s dresses were stark in the low light of the room. Even with the torches burning, the ball was a dim affair, absolutely at odds with the bright lighting outside. An unsubtle way, perhaps, of drawing the attention of the uninvited to the palace, of saying, “Look at us!” Crass. Ordinary, at least in Saekaj.

  “I trust you had no difficulty getting here?” Xem said in a low voice, low enough that it could not be heard over the quiet strains of chamber music echoing in the ballroom.

  “None at all,” Aisling replied, letting the corners of her mouth tug up in an entirely fake smile, a well-practiced one that drew on her still-burgeoning acting skills. The nervous tension was gnawing at her stomach, and every step felt surreal, as though she had not slept in days. The affair seemed entirely too loud, the conversations and the music blaring in her ears despite being relatively quiet compared to a Sovar street on market day. Sincerity, she thought. Be delighted to be here, like these vapid whores. “And you?”

  “I tread these paths regularly, so I suspect the guards are quite used to me by now.” Xem tightened his grasp upon her elbow. “Your gown is really quite lovely, and very much in vogue.”

  Ais smiled. “The women of Saekaj are nothing if not predictable.”

  Xem frowned. “Beg pardon?”

  “Nothing,” Aisling said with a light shake of her head. Her hair was done up for the occasion, knotted about her head in a bun that was both tasteful and designed to keep it out of her face during crucial moments. “We meet Norenn by the table.”

  Guests were already swarming the buffet table, a thousand hands picking delicacies off the surface. The smell of rich food wafted off it, filling her nostrils with delightful aromas that replaced some of the heavy clouds of perfume she’d walked through to get there. It was nothing less than a feast of hors d’oeuvres, all manner of imported food and local delicacies—vegetables grown on the surface, pastries baked of flour imported from the Plains of Perdamun, fresh catch teleported in by wizards from Aloakna and not the bony offerings of the Great Sea that rested several hundred feet beneath them. There were sweets aplenty, and Aisling snagged a sugared loaf of bread as she dipped past the table.

  An enclave of fat nobles were already having their way with the buffet, reflecting the belief that the best way to show status was to expand one’s girth. She shook her head at the thought, having been told more than once by her mother that a fat girl was a girl quickly married. She looked down at her waist, which had always been thin but had grown thinner after two years in Sovar, and wondered if she’d ever even want to grow fat, even after she had all the money she could imagine.

  “It’s a bit like a knife fight in the Back Deep here,” Norenn’s voice said from behind them, causing Aisling to turn in surprise. He was there, darting furtive looks toward the head of the room, where a recessed segment of the wall held an alcove that was so shrouded in shadow nothing could be seen within it. “This entire room is so self-obsessed that I doubt a single one of them has noticed me since I got here.”

  “Best to keep it that way,” Xem said, finally turning Aisling’s elbow loose. She hadn’t minded the gentle pressure; it was certainly more gentle than most of the boys who had asked her to dance or give them her company at these sort of things. “Only one of us should garner any attention tonight, and it’s not you, I or her,” he said with a nod to Aisling.

  “Quite right,” Norenn said with a quick nod. “Still, few enough guards are posted at the exits, very light numbers overall.” He nodded quickly at the dark alcove. “That makes me nervous, though. I don’t think anyone will notice us so long as there’s not someone hiding in there watching the room.”

  Xem chuckled. “There’s no one in there.”

  “No?” Norenn said with a raised eyebrow. “Care to bet your life on it?”

  “He’s right,” Aisling said quickly. “It’s the Sovereign’s alcove. That’s why it’s so dark. No one would dare be in there without him.”

  “All right, then,” Norenn said, but she could see by his upright posture that he was still nervous. “I suppose we’re just waiting until the signal.”

  There was a loud noise across the hall, toward the foyer, and the three of them froze. “I think that was it,” Aisling said.

  “Quite right,” Xemlinan agreed, and nodded to Norenn. “Shall we be off?”

  “Lead on,” Norenn said, keeping his voice low.

  “Madam,” Xem said, clutching Aisling’s arm once more. She suppressed the desire to make an annoyed sound, realizing that Xem was simply doing it because an unattached woman was likely to be grasped by another man. Still, she couldn’t shake the annoyance entirely.

  They cut their way through the crowd as a hush began to fall. They headed toward the alcove at the top of the room, and farther and farther from the entry and the foyer. Raised voices crackled through the ballroom, over the heads of hundreds of people who had stopped and begun to shuffle nervously, listening to the unfolding drama.

  “Leneyh Ousck, you have no manners at all!” The voice lashed over the entire room, a stinging rebuke landing on its intended victim.

  Xem chuckled almost soundlessly at Aisling’s elbow. “I knew Lady Glasherney was a sure target.”

  “Better to have no manners than no looks,” came Leneyh’s reply, echoing across the cavernous room. “For I may choose to learn manners at any time.”

  A swell of delight ran through the crowd, and Aisling tried to act as though she were paying attention. Xem had slowed their pace, trying not to be obvious about their motion, even while the rest of the crowd was solely focused on the dispute at the far side of the room. They shuffled sideways, pretending to be jockeying for better position, all the while sidling toward the far wall, right where the attention of everyone in the crowd squarely wasn’t.

  “One guard moving off the door,” Norenn said under his breath.

  “Two to go,” Xem muttered. “Leneyh should escalate things … now.”

  “Don’t think I don’t see you there, chuckling with insufferable satisfaction at this, Lady Hrenshaa,” Leneyh’s voice came over the crowd, drawing a few gasps. “I suppose you think this display of disgusting vulgarity by Lady Glasherney is simply marvelous, given your proclivity for live shows of the most ribald kind.”

  Aisling felt herself cringe inwardly. Leneyh was going to need every piece of gold to escape the city after this night. “She’s really earning her money,” she said quietly.

  The three of them reached the wall just between the Sovereign’s alcove and the far door, now left with one guard to keep watch on it. He was not keeping careful watch, however, instead craning his neck to see where his compatriots were cutting their way through the crowd, gently shoving toward the center where Leneyh and her targets continued their verbal jousting.

  “I have my doubts that this one will leave,” Norenn said nervously, placing his back squarely against the wall.

  “Oh, he’ll leave,” Xem said, but his grip tightened on Aisling’s elbow, belying his confidence. “There is, after all, one last thing to be done …”

  “She hit me!” Leneyh’s shocked voice came over the crowd. Aisling could not see the fracas by now, but the simple and soul-deep conviction with which Leneyh had spoken the words made her wonder for a fraction of a second if it was, in fact, true. Master actress
, that one. I could learn a thing or two from her.

  The crowd began to teem with life, people scrambling for better position, standing on chairs. She saw a group of men in the far corner standing on a table in full armor, doubtless dark knights from some brigade held high in esteem, noble sons of noble men who were now standing around watching women argue with each other at the society event of the season.

  “And that’s three.” Xem’s grip on Aisling’s arm relaxed. “Let’s go,” he said as she caught sight of the last guard breaking away from the door, sprinting into the now-milling crowd, where some shoving was going on closer to the Sovereign’s alcove.

  They made their way along the wall, the wood paneling touching her through her dress. She happened to glance back as they reached the door, looking into the darkness of the Sovereign’s alcove. It was completely enshrouded in shadow, an absolute refuge of darkness in the middle of the semi-lighted room. She had looked into it a thousand times, just like every girl her age, wondering about the gazes of fear that older women at these balls cast at it, women with clear memories of things that had happened in the days before the Tribunal ran the Sovereignty.

  “Come on,” Xem said, a note of excitement infusing his voice as he reached the door. “Hurry.”

  She bent and did her work quickly, two picks from her hair tripping the tumblers within seconds; she’d learned how to pick this type of lock in her parents’ house what felt like ages ago. “In we go,” she whispered as Xem held the door for her.

  Norenn entered first and Aisling followed, taking one last look back at the crowd, which was still alive with people pushing forward, trying to see the disturbance at the far end of the chamber. Not a soul looked back at them as she disappeared into the door. Her last look before she entered the shadowed corridor was of the Sovereign’s alcove, still practically radiating darkness, and then Xemlinan followed behind her and shut the door.

  Six

  The hall was dim but her eyes adjusted quickly, a faint, musty smell of unused corridors replacing that of sweating bodies and the exquisite buffet. The long, dark hallway before them was a quiet affair, pillars every few hundred feet stretching off into the distance. They could either go right or straight ahead, following the hallway into the distant darkness.

  “This way,” Xem murmured and started forward. She found she missed the gentle pressure of his hand at her elbow and looked to Norenn for reassurance. He smiled at her, faintly, but she could sense in him nerves similar to the ones tickling at her belly. Hers were born of mostly excitement, though; his, she suspected, were more rooted in fear.

  They tiptoed down the hall, Xem making more noise than she would have thought a master thief of his reputation would make. There were enormous arches supported by columns, the entire palace a monument to the opulence of the Sovereign’s excesses. She heard a faint noise in the distance and knew there were guards in these hallways. She took a quick breath and exhaled, trying to listen to determine their direction. After a moment she realized they were far off, not nearly close enough to be worrying about.

  The palace hallways became a catacomb of twists and turns as they reached another branch. This was all Xemlinan’s part of things, knowing where to go, and he seemed to be going by memory. The smell of must was still heavy in the air as they passed countless doors, and she realized after a brief pause that Xem was counting doors and corridors.

  “You’re certain you know where we’re going?” Norenn asked.

  “This is the single greatest job of my life,” Xem answered a moment later. “Do you think I would foul it by failing to memorize the map of the palace?” He turned and gave Norenn a rakish grin. “I have spent every night for the last year reading the map before going to bed and repeating the same sequence in my mind. One hundred eighty paces, corridor left. Forty-nine paces, corridor right. Straight ahead for two hundred paces, even as it curves.” He held out a hand to indicate how the corridor curved downward, following the natural caves that it had been built into. “Ignore the next two lefts, then take the right-hand door.” He said it with a sing-song quality, as though he had set it to music only he could hear.

  “Far be it from me to doubt you,” Norenn said, almost apologetic—at least for Norenn. “It is a maze down here, though.”

  “It is,” Xem agreed, turning back to the path. “It’s designed that way. In the days of the Sovereign, only the trusted would know the plan for their segment of the palace. The guard quarters required their own map, the servant quarters got their own, the bastards—” he looked back at them, “the Sovereign’s children, I mean, they got their own wing with their own attendants and kitchens. Very few people were allowed the run of the entire palace, allowed to know the entirety of it. Fewer still was the number allowed to know anything at all about the layout of the Sovereign’s private quarters. It took me the better part of two years to put the right combination of former servants together in order to get an accurate map.” Xem slowed as the corridor straightened out again. “Right hand door ahead,” he said with quiet glee.

  Aisling reached the double door a couple paces behind Xem, who halted at the handle and made a grand display of it to her. She rolled her eyes and sank down next to it, pins once again out of her hair. She picked it in seconds, shaking her head at the ease. “There are tougher tumblers in Sovar.”

  “It’s all old,” Xem said, giving them a reassuring look to squelch the one of panic that had appeared on Norenn’s features. “The Sovereign doesn’t set any stock by innovations, you well know. In addition, this palace has only been maintained in the years since he’s left, not renovated or changed in any way.” He smiled faintly. “I think they were afraid if he noticed any change, it’d be their heads for doing something he didn’t command. Right,” he turned the handle and opened the door, “in we go.”

  “Right,” came a voice from just inside as a spear jutted out of the open door and poked Xemlinan in the gut, harshly enough to elicit a grunt. “In you come, and out you’ll go … to the Depths, criminals.”

  Seven

  Aisling drew the dagger from her sleeve and brought it down on the arm that held the spear at Xem’s belly before the door had a chance to open any further. The blade was honed to a fine edge and she slipped it into the gap between the arm plates at the guard’s elbow. She buried the knife in the meat, dragging the spear out of Xem’s belly before it could burrow any deeper. Her attack left the arm limp and dangling.

  Norenn hit his side of the double door with his shoulder, knocking it open. An armored figure went down behind it, Aisling realized as she caught sight of a gauntlet flailing just behind the paneled door.

  She followed Norenn and whirled around the still semi-closed door to bring her other blade across the throat of a man still crying out in pain and clutching his half-severed arm. His eyes grew wide as she slipped her dagger between his gorget and the strap of his helm, and took care to dodge to the side as the spurt of blood narrowly missed her dress.

  Aisling turned to see how Norenn was doing, but the guard he’d hit with the door was already down, his helm off. Norenn held a short, blunt club that he’d concealed up his sleeve. He brought it down on the guard’s skull again and again.

  “I think he’s dead,” Xem said quietly, with a slight grunt of pain.

  “How are you?” Aisling said as her foe slumped to the ground, still hemorrhaging blood from his neck.

  “Shallow wound,” he said, poking at his own midsection. “Hurts, but I think I’ll be fine.” He took off his jacket with utmost care to reveal a dark stain on his white shirt. “I’ll need to bandage myself up and wear my jacket buttoned, but I think I’ll be all right to escape.” He eyed Norenn, who was splattered head to toe in blood. “You, on the other hand …”

  “Eh?” Norenn looked down at himself, then to Aisling, and his jaw locked tight. “How am I supposed to make it back through the party looking like this? I look like I’ve butchered a vek’tag.”

  “You did go after that
guard with some enthusiasm,” Aisling said.

  “First thing’s first,” Xem said, looking around the room. “We have to get the Red Destiny.”

  “Are you joking?” Norenn said, and extended his arms wide. His once-white shirt was colored with obvious spots of blood. “How am I supposed to get out of the palace looking like this without drawing attention to myself? Let alone with the Red Destiny of Saekaj.”

  “A minor problem, nothing more,” Xemlinan said, glancing back before returning to his survey of the room. “This, on the other hand …”

  The room was a sprawling almost-square with a two-story high ceiling. It was stone all the way through, with arches and columns around the perimeter and what looked like a balcony overhead with a chandelier hanging in the middle.

  A domed structure was sticking out of the floor. It glinted in the low light of the single torch lit in a sconce on the wall, dull metal catching the glimmer of faint light. Aisling took a step out from beneath the balcony, just a step behind Xem. “This is it,” he breathed. “The vault.”

  “Yeah,” Norenn agreed, surveying the area with a nervous air. He looked back at Aisling. She tried to smile at him but found her gaze drawn back to the vault. “Let’s get this over with so we can solve that trifling ‘problem’ of getting out of here.”

  “Agreed,” Xem said, kneeling next to the domed lid. “Ais, would you care to try the first method?”

  “Sure,” she said and looked to her left. Hidden in the shadows under the balcony was a recessed doorway. She closed in on the door and realized it was, in fact, open, and the light caught the glint of something within, then another something, then another. “It’s definitely activated now,” she said, halting just before the aperture.