Ghosts of Sanctuary

by Robert J. Crane

  Cyrus looked at his wife. “So …”

  She stared back. “… Yes?”

  He smacked his lips together, finding them suddenly dry. “… Perchance …?”

  She did not move. Did not smile. Just looked back at him, evenly. “Yes?”

  “Would you like to see … uhm … if our quarters are in the same place?” Cyrus asked.

  She just stared back at him. “No.”

  He felt a hint of deflation. “No?”

  “No,” she said, clear.

  “Thank the gods,” Vaste said, letting out a sigh.

  “No,” Vara said, still staring at Cyrus, eyes starting to take on a deep burn. “I wish to tear every piece of armor from your body, one by one, then shred my way through your underclothes, covering you with bites and kisses such that my fervor will leave its mark upon your very skin—”

  “Damn,” Vaste said.

  “—and when we are finally unclothed, I will press myself naked against you, continuing to assail your senses with my nearness,” she stepped closer to him, fierce determination in her fiery gaze, “my fingers playing against your flesh until you can stand it no more—and then I shall commence—”

  “You really are an evil bitch,” Vaste said.

  “—and the ride will be longer than the year and more you took away from me going to Luukessia—”

  “I hate this so much. My life. All of it. Whose ‘last hope’ were you, again? A randy warrior’s, right? Not the last hope of the elves, surely.”

  “—for it shall be slow, almost agonizingly so—”

  “More like Cyrus’s last hope for physical intimacy, ever.”

  “—and in the best of ways—”

  “Why did I come here? I could have stayed in my mansion in Termina. Sure, they looked at me funny there, but they didn’t subject me to this sort of torment—”

  “—and by the end you shall be begging me to end it, to let you finish your race—and I shall—but only once I have had my fill.” Vara extended a hand, waiting. “And it shall take me quite some time before I have had my fill.”

  Cyrus swallowed. “Oh. Goodness.”

  “There is no goodness here,” Vaste said, head bowed, shaking it. “None. I have made a terrible mistake. First a thousand years in the ether, and now this. There is not nearly enough separation between us all. Not enough stone in this city to muffle the noises I shall surely hear, even were I to go down to the dungeons and bury my head under fifty soft pillows.”

  “Shall we?” Vara asked, hand still extended.

  “Absolutely,” Cyrus said, taking her hand in his. They reached the stairs in seconds, and Cyrus found he had to keep up. When they were at a suitable distance not to be overhead, Cyrus spoke again, in a low whisper. “How much of that was simply to torture him?”

  “Some,” she said, after a short pause. He watched a slow, satisfied smile creep across her face. “The words, perhaps.”

  “But not the thought?”

  She shook her head, still almost dragging him, at a run, up the stairs. “Not at all. I might have let it remain unspoken, but … this was always going to be your fate.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Truly?”

  She smiled as the staircase wound to its close only a few short stories up. “It has been a thousand years, and we’ve just had a battle.” She paused, and he stopped himself as she fell into his arms. The kiss was long and amorous, and when they broke, she was grinning. “And … you are not the only one who feels it …” She dragged him onward, and he happily let her.

  5.

  Vaste

  It wasn’t the fact of Cyrus and Vara having marital relations that felt like a burr under his considerable skin. Vaste had known them both since before they’d shared a bed. These things were expected, healthy, even, he told himself, even as the faint noises began to come from somewhere up the stairs.

  No, he thought as the first grunt wafted its way down a few flights to him as he stood in the foyer, alone, it wasn’t that they were going about each other like two furious wolves somewhere above his head. It wasn’t that at all …

  It was that they were doing it … and he had absolutely no hope of such a thing for himself.

  “Gah,” he said under his breath, to the empty foyer. It rang in the quiet, a not-soft moan coming down the stairs, echoing through the cylindrical tower where the staircase reached up.

  Vaste studied his surroundings with immense dissatisfaction. Like Cyrus, he too did not care for the change he saw around him. Everything was smaller, he observed with distaste. He even stood awkwardly, as though he might now brush the lower ceilings with his head. They were plenty tall enough to guarantee he would not, but still … it was a change.

  And he did not like this change.

  A sharp gasp drifted down the stairs, and he grunted, rolling his eyes. “I want more stone between us, Sanctuary.”

  Silence.

  “You hear me?” he called. “More stone. Heavier doors.” He paused. “Good gods, they left their door open, didn’t they? They would. Just to spite me, because their intimacies make me … uncomfortable.”

  There was no reply. Vaste listened. “You can’t talk, then?” He shuffled his feet, staring at them. They were encased in boots now; heavy and leather, with blood stains at the toes. “I almost imagined I could hear you with the rest of them, over the last thousand years. Talking softly in the background, unable to get a word in edgewise with this crowd forever yammering.” He looked at the dark corners of the room at the high ceilings. “No?”

  He stared at his feet a little longer. “I wish you could talk. Hell, I wish anyone could talk right now. Shout, preferably. For hours. Nonsense, if necessary, anything to fill the air …” He stared at the staircase, wondering how far up Curatio had gone. Closer to the source of the noise, another moan making its way down now. No, he wasn’t going that way to seek conversation. If anything, he’d be better off getting further away.

  Vaste turned, looking at the door. It was shut but not bolted. Outside waited the empty yard … and the gate beyond.

  “Alaric!” Vaste called, shifting back and forth between his feet, looking around. The smell of the fire in the hearth, the warmth of it seeped in, but it didn’t feel like it had before. There was no real warmth here, in this cold quiet. The strangely artificial silence was broken by the occasional gasping cries of the couple somewhere above him, rutting about like angry chipmunks—probably going for each other’s nethers the same way, too. “Curatio!” He waited a beat. “Anyone …?”

  “Ohhhh!” A gasp echoed down the stairs, and Vaste cringed.

  “Okay,” he said, “that’s quite enough of that.” A few steps carried him to the door and he opened it. The darkness outside was near complete save for the fleeting glow of lamps somewhere over the wall, beyond the entries of the alleyway.

  He paused, hesitating. There was a new world out there, one that had questions—and maybe answers. They’d been dropped here in this place, only the faintest direction given, that almost silent voice he would have sworn he heard throughout their thousand year journey through time—

  Save her.

  And then they were here, out the door, in the dark, rushing once more to help those who seemed beyond help. He had little opinion of this Shirri save that she seemed desperate, and yet desperately uncooperative with them when they offered to protect her. Vaste shrugged; humans were peculiar creatures—a moan from inside affirmed his opinion and caused him to roll his eyes—and he had long since become accustomed to most of their peculiarities.

  But pride? That seemed to be Shirri’s chief affliction. And it was hardly an exclusively human quality. He’d seen much of it among his own people, after all, before he’d even left Gren.

  Or maybe it was suspicion? There was a fair amount of that among the trolls as well. She’d stared at Cyrus most peculiarly, as though she’d known him—or doubted him. And that led him to a most interesting conclusion:

  That the man i
n black armor, at least, was known in these strange days.

  His mind raced with the possibilities. All these new revelations—there were ships that sailed the air like the ones that in his days had cut through the rivers and bays around Arkaria! There were weapons that could shoot a ball of metal through the air!—all these thoughts and more crowded in on him, and Vaste felt himself drawn, as Alaric had been, to look for the answers.

  “Yes! Yes!” A deep voice echoed from inside the halls. Vaste closed his eyes and shut the door behind him, hearing the soft click as it shut.

  “Someday, perhaps … I’ll find someone to make those sorts of noises with,” he muttered under his breath. “But it’ll be more tasteful. More artful. Less … stylistically abhorrent? I don’t know.”

  Something gnawed at him, though, some combination of things he’d heard this night …

  But he shook them off; there was nothing for them yet. No point in worrying about that which he could not even be sure was a thing worth worrying over.

  Vaste took tentative steps forward, toward the gate and its heavy bar. He started to reach for it, then stopped himself, listening.

  No sounds in the alleyway. But in the distance, he heard something … voices. Shouts in the night.

  They were seeking this place. Perhaps in their haste, the survivors had forgotten where it happened.

  Either way, they seemed some distance off. But unbarring the gate … no, he couldn’t afford to do that. But how could he pass if not—

  “Oh.” He felt a flush in his cheeks. Foolish, really. Raising his voice a little, he said, “Sanctuary, make me an exit, and then close it behind me after I pass.”

  He stood in the silence for a moment, and suddenly a section of the wall had simply … disappeared. He made a face of grudging admiration. “Good show,” he muttered and passed through. When he looked back, the gap was simply gone, solid stone replacing it.

  The voices were still echoing in the distance, and Vaste had no desire to linger. It was time to move on, to see this world and the wonders it contained. He kept Letum at hand, secure in the knowledge that any who came at him with a knife would get a split skull for their troubles. Cutpurses and prowlers be damned, he needed to see this city, this world, and—

  A grunt somehow echoed its way through the streets—familiar, loud, and passionate. He frowned, recognizing the voice of Cyrus Davidon. “The window, too? Really?” He looked up, unable to see the tower above the shadowy eaves of the building. “You people really need to learn to shut doors and whatnot. For privacy’s sake—and everyone’s sake, really.”

  Gathering his cloak about him and lifting his cowl over his head, Vaste stooped to make himself just slightly less conspicuous—fat chance of that at his height and girth, but he did his best anyway—and off he shuffled down the alley, trying to get the hell away before he could hear another sound from Cyrus and Vara … and so he could get a taste of this new world he found himself in.

  6.

  Shirri

  The streets were quiet once she’d left those freaks behind. It wasn’t that Shirri hadn’t appreciated their help, odd as they were, violent as they were—she knew worse had been coming at the hands of those Machine thugs—it was more that she’d resented it.

  Resented that she’d needed help at all.

  “I don’t need help,” she muttered under her breath, the streets of Reikonos passing in slow movement as she strode through. Her cloak was gathered about her, her eyes flitting through the shadows. Were other servants of the Machine out there, watching her, even now?

  Surely. But maybe, if she was very fortunate, they’d be inside, peering out their windows at her. The gaslamps around her burned quietly, the faint crackle nothing like a real wood fire. It had been some time since she’d seen a real wood fire, though. They were not common in these days. Not since gas had come into its own. That and oil—both far more plentiful than wood here.

  Her steps on the cobbles echoed like signals sent out to waiting servants of the Machine: She’s here! It was enough, quite enough, to make her pick up her pace, but also to try and soften her footfalls. These were the hours when most of Reikonos slept. There were, of course, still carriages about, still factory workers coming off the odd shift and walking home. Her eyes crawled toward the horizon. There, in the north, looking down upon the city, it sat, ever watchful.

  The Citadel.

  And beyond it, somewhere in the dark, were the cliffs and the shore and the airship docks and the port. From there one could hear the crashing of the waves, a sound she missed. A sound she hadn’t heard since …

  Shirri shook her head, detouring around a clump of horse manure still sitting in the street. They spoke of steam engines small enough to drive carriages, elsewhere in the world, but only a few had made their way to Reikonos as yet – she'd heard. She had yet to see one. Little came first to this backwater. Coricuanthi, yes. In the domains of Imperial Amatgarosa, surely. Perhaps even in the closer kingdoms of Firoba.

  But not in Reikonos. Not in Arkaria.

  Not here, at the edge of the world.

  Shirri clasped her cloak tighter. It wasn’t cold, but the evening’s damp was slowly soaking in, chilling her. The spectacle of watching so many servants of the Machine killed? That was chilling as well.

  She’d only said the words. Surely that couldn’t have brought back …?

  No. It was foolishness. She hadn’t even meant the words, really. She’d needed help, and she’d blurted some insipid, silly fairy tale that her mother had told her. That was all. Speaking mere words wouldn’t bring back Cyrus Davidon. He’d been dead for a thousand years.

  And yet …

  No. Foolishness. Shirri’s eyes darted, watching a man in a top hat who passed on the other side of the street, his dark cravat standing out against his white shirt. He was dressed finely, too finely to be out at this hour, she thought.

  Yet he passed with barely a glance, that was all, not even slowing to indicate he gave a damn about her. She thought she saw the sparkle of a monocle in the light of the gaslamps. It could be; they’d become quite popular since arriving on these shores from Firoba.

  Shirri ducked down an alley anyway, after checking it was clear. The brick was dirty, ash dusting it from side to side. The light of the gaslamps faded behind her as she slipped into the dark. Did they know to look for her here?

  Surely not. If they had, the servants of the Machine wouldn’t have needed to follow her before. They would have just waited for her here.

  Down the alley, picking her way through the piles of ash and the heavings of chamberpots, she found the old staircase. Tucked away, leading beneath the street, she slipped down it after checking to be sure that no one had followed her. The scuff of her boots was muted against the layer of ash that had fallen on the steps, and she left fresh footprints as she descended to the basement apartments. The building soared another six, seven stories in the air, looming over the alley. Here was where the city started to get tall, stretching into the core, toward the Citadel. Away from the industrial sectors, the factories and smokestacks, but downwind.

  These were the slums, the tight-knit warren of alleys where clotheslines lay strung between the buildings, and the once-white cloth of even the freshest washing was dusted grey after an hour on the line.

  Down she went, stopping at the door, pausing with her hand on the knob. It turned without even the key, and Shirri let it swing open, silence and darkness waiting for her within.

  She opened her mouth to speak, to call out—and then stopped. The door had been locked when she’d left—

  “Mother?” she called, letting her voice permeate softly into the rooms within. She stepped inside, reaching for the lamp that sat always in the sconce to her left. She found it, the oil sloshing within, and lit it swiftly.

  Its glow cast the suite of apartments in a pale orange light, revealing a most disturbing scene.

  The apartments had been turned over. Not a stick of furniture remained w
hole; the couch was splintered, the wood backing broken cleanly in two, stuffing spread over the rug, which had been pulled from its place in the center of the room and jumbled up on one side of the room. Every item was on the floor, in a pile, every possession they had broken or bent in some vain effort to find …

  It.

  “Mother,” Shirri whispered, frozen in place. She dared not raise her voice, not now. What if one of them—or more—were waiting in the bedroom?

  Yet she couldn’t just … stand here. She needed to know. Needed to know if mother was …

  Gathering her courage, Shirri took a breath. Then another. Then counted to five …

  With slow steps, she picked her way through the debris toward the open bedroom door. The silence in the apartment was oppressive, almost purposeful, as though someone was quelling every normal rattle, every usual snore that permeated through the walls and the ceilings to rain down upon her in these low hours of the morning.

  Her breath seemed louder, too, and the thudding of her heart within her chest struck its own rhythm, reminding her of the drums when the bands played at the local taverns. It beat, louder, faster, the closer she got to the door.

  It felt like miles, but also inches, and when she reached it, she paused, a slow breath sneaking out as though to herald her arrival at the most convenient place for an ambush. She expected a hand to shoot out and grasp her around the neck as she stood there, gasping, a dark and lecherous servant of the Machine breathing stinking breath through rotted teeth at her as he made his furious demands.

  But no demands came, nor any hand either. Shirri gathered her courage and rounded the door and found …

  Nothing. There was nothing in the bedroom, and no one. The furniture was all smashed, the armoire, the cabinet, the bed, and nothing remained whole and in one piece …

  But there was no body, either.

  “Mother?” she called again.

  Only silence answered her.

  With stumbling steps, Shirri turned from the bedroom. They’d gotten her, then. They’d gotten Mother. Taken her …