Ghosts of Sanctuary

by Robert J. Crane

  “The pistols make it hard for me to take you seriously as the real Cyrus Davidon,” the man went on, still smirking. His voice was different, his accent out of place in this Reikonos, Cyrus realized. It was a strange thing; people here tended to speak faster, clip their words in odd ways, but this man …

  He spoke a lot closer to what Cyrus was used to. And his hand just rested on the pommel of that sword, which—

  Cyrus’s blood ran cold, and he elbowed Vara, vambrace clinking against the armor at her belly.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “His sword,” Cyrus said, mouth suddenly very dry.

  “You like this?” The man drew his blade, and seeing it come free—and fast, too, far faster than had it been a normal sword—sent icy chills running down Cyrus’s skin. “I’ve had it for a long while. Longer than you might believe.” The man leered at him.

  It was curved at the front edge, had a thick wooden hilt, curved at the guard—and looked horribly familiar. The man took it and pointed it right at Cyrus. “Now that we know your name, let me tell you mine—I am Tirner Gaull, and I am—”

  “A thief and a murderer,” Cyrus said, rage pumping through his veins as he stared at the blade. “Where did you get that sword?”

  Tirner Gaull blinked at him, still amused, and then looked at the sword as though seeing it for the first time. “Why, it’s mine, of course. Has been for … so very long.”

  “Before it was yours—it was mine,” Cyrus said, “and my mother’s before that, and my father’s before that.” He stared at the edge, fury coupling with hunger and a keen, sudden desire to see that sword ripped from Tirner Gaull’s grasp. “Its name is Rodanthar, and it is called the Saber of the Righteous …”

  Cyrus stared him down, cool resolution blazing through his heart, replacing that sense of worried alarm that had overtaken him when first he’d laid eyes on the blade. This would, perhaps, be a difficult fight.

  But it would be worth it to take back what was his.

  “And I’m going to rip it back from your dead fingers.”

  26.

  Vaste

  Finding the place where he’d seen the beautiful troll girl was not particularly difficult. Vaste’s memory, even for the complex and convoluted streets of Reikonos, was more than equal to the task. He followed the sequence of turns he’d made when dragging Curatio back to Sanctuary, ignoring the stink of the city, ignoring the rising clatter of wagons, the whinny of horses and the streams of well-dressed and ill-dressed people, all in peculiar clothing, and even one rattling, thumping, strange machine upon wheels that he couldn’t explain.

  None of that mattered at the moment. Oh, certainly, it’d all be worth looking at more closely soon—save for perhaps the fashions. Those he didn’t give a fig about. After all, it was unlikely they made those fancy waistcoats with the long tails in his size. Only one thing mattered now.

  Finding her.

  He made his way to the exact spot where he’d seen her. There, in the midst of swarming people upon the sidewalks, he paused, the crowd streaming around him. Some of them wore the most appalling colognes, the sort of thing that wouldn’t have been out of place in a swamp. He attracted more than a few looks, he could tell, but kept his cowl up and remained bent nearly double, which still carved out quite a sizable space upon the sidewalk.

  The scent of burning coal and ash was thick in the air, and looking at where his cloak covered his arm he saw a heavy dusting of grey. He peered up at a smokestack in the distance. Whatever it was they were creating here, it certainly seemed to leave quite the mess. He choked a little on the air thinking about it. Reikonos had never exactly smelled like posies, but it seemed much worse now, as did everything else.

  But it would be worth the change if he could just find—

  She’d been right here. The crowd ebbed around him, leaving him room, probably wondering what such a large man was doing stopped in the middle of a sidewalk. He caught a few grunts of displeasure as people detoured around him. They all seemed to be in an incredible hurry. Where did they need to go? And so quickly?

  He shook that thought off, focusing on what was important. She’d been standing here, and then, when he looked again, she’d been gone. If she’d moved to her right, she’d have been in the road. He took a couple long steps over, drawing sounds of exasperation from passersby who practically had to dive out of the way to avoid his bulk as he moved. Vaste gave no care for their inconvenience; his was clearly much larger, now being trapped in a city of Cyrus Davidon worshippers and hemmed in by the damnable scourge, which brought out Mopey Cyrus, which was perhaps even more annoying than Insatiably Lusty Cyrus.

  Reaching the curb, he looked down. It was a mere six inches or so, and the road, while slightly uneven because of the cobbles, was hardly low to the point where the troll woman would have simply disappeared to below head height had she stepped down into the street. No, she didn’t go this way.

  Looking forward, then back, he returned to his position in the middle of the sidewalk, drawing more noises of consternation and a, “Well, I never!” from some tutting woman. He gave little consideration to these morons who revered a man in black armor who was not a god and never would be to Vaste, no matter how mopey or insatiable he became. Or perhaps because of those things. Vaste could see the faults in Cyrus Davidon as clearly as he could the subtle lines on the back of his own hand. They might not be visible to others, especially at the distance most people kept from him, but they were there.

  Just like the cracks in the Lord Davidon persona. Vaste had known Cyrus for too long to see him as anything other than a man. A brilliant tactician and strategist? Certainly. But blind in his own ways, and frail and fallible. How long had it taken his pigheaded arse to finally get together with Vara? Pride had gotten in the way of that, even though the two of them had been practically magnetized for each other from the start. A blind idiot could have seen that they should be together, and probably a few had, it was so obvious.

  “I won’t make the same mistake,” Vaste said, thinking back to the troll girl. He’d seen her right about here … and then she’d disappeared … she hadn’t gone forward or back, or toward the street …

  Which meant she must have gone into the building.

  It was a rather obvious conclusion now that he thought about it. But perhaps he’d been too busy dragging a healer with a wounded hand back to Sanctuary to come to it. Yes, she must have gone into the building. He stared at the door, the glass-paned windows that revealed a storefront that specialized in …

  Jewelry? What a peculiar thing to dedicate a shop to.

  Of course, Vaste had seen a similar shop or two in Reikonos of old, but he’d thought it similarly absurd then. Ostentatious, actually. Having grown up in a place where the biggest priority was finding your next meal—especially in the famine days after the war—the idea of ornamenting yourself with finely crafted gold and jewels seemed as pointless to him as bathing would probably have seemed to his old friends back in Gren.

  He regarded the door cautiously. Out here on the street he could avoid any serious scrutiny, it being a public place. Stepping in there, though … that might provoke uncomfortable questions such as, “What the hell are you?” And, perhaps, some screaming.

  But there was nothing for it. Vaste was no Cyrus Davidon, content to let his own personal Vara slip away. He stepped over to the door, crushing some idiot’s foot along the way (“Ow! Watch yourself, oaf!”) and elbowing past two others, eliciting a series of grunts, and then threw the door open and walked inside, still bent nearly double, and not just to avoid knocking his forehead on the doorframe.

  A bell jangled as he entered the shop, clutching his cloak tightly closed from within, so no one could see his green hands. He kept his face down, hoping the cowl would shadow him enough. It was fairly dark in here, in spite of the windows. Poor sunlight angle, he supposed, or maybe just the clouds of smoke that hung over this city occluded the sun. He hadn’t dared look up to see, a
t least not since he’d left the alley outside Sanctuary.

  Someone moved ahead of him, and a polite and very human, possibly quite old, voice asked him, “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for someone who came in here earlier,” Vaste said, trying to keep his delivery as smooth as possible. Best not to alarm this woman.

  He could hear the catch in the woman’s voice; this was clearly not a request she was used to receiving, and it took her back a step. “I’m sorry,” she said, “You’re looking for—”

  “A woman, yes,” he said, still keeping his head down. “Very tall. Stately. Also green. Pointy teeth. You’d probably know her if you saw her.”

  “Ahhh …” There was doubt in her voice, and Vaste almost sighed. He couldn’t tell just by listening whether she was stonewalling or truly hadn’t seen the troll woman.

  “Did you see her or not?” Vaste asked, deciding to just drop the charade. He stood to his full height, jangling a chandelier he hadn’t even known was there as he slipped his cowl back and let his cloak open on the side, exposing Letum.

  The woman’s eyes widened as she looked up—and up—and up yet more to stare into his face. Her mouth fell open, worked up and down a couple of times, and then she pointed wordlessly to a staircase in the corner of the room. “I’d never seen her kind before. Thought maybe she came from Firoba. She … rented out the room on the second floor just today.” The older woman swallowed, now quite pale. “I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Good. I’m not here to give you any,” Vaste said, moving past her toward the stairs. He paused, looking into a glass display case at a ruby ring that was particularly impressive. “You know, I don’t go in much for jewelry, but that is quite fetching. I think it’s a little wrong for my skin tone, but still—quite fetching.”

  “Thank you,” she said as he strode on toward the stairs, sounding uncertain whether she was grateful or confused. It didn’t much matter to him either way, as he was quite intent on reaching the second floor as quickly as possible, the stairs shaking as he ascended. Once he got there, there was but one door. The stairs resumed heading upward just down the hall.

  Vaste took a deep breath and sauntered to the door. He tried to compose himself mentally. His first words to her needed to be right: witty, charming—brilliant, even. They needed to set the stage for everything that could come after. To open her mind to the immense possibilities inherent in his mere presence here. He was, after all, witty, suave, possessed of immense intelligence, once skilled at magic—though that was obviously a problem these days—and carried the staff of a dead god.

  Why, who wouldn’t be interested in him?

  He raised up his hand, trying to decide on that opening line, the one that would set the tone for all that would follow, and just as he’d almost decided between the two obvious entries—

  The door swung open and there she was, as beautiful as he remembered.

  Her hair was long and lustrous, black as perfect coal. Her skin was a shade of darker green than his own, like a grape from the temperate lands around Sanctuary in the days of old. Her eyes were suspicious, but a perfect chestnut the like of which he had not seen outside of rich woodwork.

  Vaste stood there, hand still raised, mouth slightly agape, the mental pendulum swinging back and forth between the two brilliant opening phrases for their sure-to-be endless conversation—

  But all he could think of to say, as he stared at her beauty and their infinite possible future together was …

  “Hihi.”

  27.

  Cyrus

  Vara’s pistol roared in Cyrus’s ear. If she felt half as furious as he did at the sight of Rodanthar—his father’s sword, his mother’s sword—in the hands of this black-hearted, thieving villain, the blast of the weapon in his ear made her sentiments clear.

  Tirner Gaull did not drop his smirk as she shot at him; Rodanthar came up as he turned sideways. Vara’s shot was well-placed, but was deflected off the edge of the blade as Gaull held it up as a kind of shield along his flank. It was surprisingly effective given that the bullet moved entirely too fast for him to do much more than give his best guess where it could go, even with the enhanced speed the weapon surely afforded him.

  Cyrus drew one of the remaining pistols and fired it at him, aiming lower. Gaull flexed, stepping back as Cyrus took aim, Praelior in one hand to allow him to match Gaull’s reflexes, the other holding the gun steady as he lined up the sights on Gaull’s thigh.

  The billowing of smoke that followed his shot clouded Cyrus’s vision for an elongated second or two, but when it cleared he saw Gaull a few steps from where he’d been when the shot rang out, still smirking. The bullet must have passed cleanly beyond him, Cyrus concluded, and he dropped the pistol to grab another.

  Vara fired another shot now, having pulled another pistol from his belt without his notice, and it went off like an explosion in his ear. Her aim was true, but once again Rodanthar caught the metal projectile along the surface of the blade, intercepting it before it could turn Gaull’s face into a bloody mess.

  “Damn!” she said in his ear, the word almost lost among the ringing sound. She sounded furious.

  Cyrus had one pistol left, and he put a hand on it—

  Just as the toughs clustered behind Gaull loosed their own volley.

  Cyrus could see the bullets dancing through the air, moving like little metal arrows in quick flight. He could not reach out and tap them from the air, though for a second he thought he might. Vara brought Ferocis up to her face, holding it before her cheek as one of the bullets clanged against its surface and another caused her to make a grunting sound and drove her back a step. When he glanced at her, he saw a small, dark, indentation in her otherwise spotless breastplate, and the deformed metal ball, flat on one side, came rolling off as she grimaced in pain.

  One of the shots took Cyrus in the side of the neck as he ducked, stinging like a wasp had crept between the links of chainmail under his gorget. He reached up quickly to be sure it hadn’t somehow gotten him through the armor, but he felt no blood, only a stinging welt. Another took him cleanly in the chest and bounced off without even the dent that Vara’s armor showed. Another caught him under the exposed armpit when he’d reached up. It felt as though someone had poked him there, but between chainmail and plate, he barely felt it and certainly not as keenly as the hit to the neck.

  “It seems we near the end of our volleying,” Gaull said, still grinning that broad, infuriating smile. He oozed patience in a way that few Cyrus had met did. He brought down Rodanthar, his form that of a very skilled swordsman. “Shall we settle this with crossed swords like the men of old?”

  “I am a man of old,” Cyrus said, letting the hand fall from his last pistol and striding forth, Vara a couple steps behind him, “so that suits me just fine.” He did not move with the full alacrity Praelior granted him; if Gaull had not guessed at his advantage, Cyrus felt no need to betray it to him. Let him think Cyrus a pale imitator; he’d be disabused of the notion when his neck lay open by Praelior’s edge, his life’s blood oozing out and Rodanthar safely back in Cyrus’s hand.

  “Excellent,” Gaull said, waiting for them, eyes gleaming. Any of the toughs they’d encountered thus far would have rushed them. Not Tirner Gaull, though. He waited, sword at ready, watching both Cyrus and Vara. “I get so tired of these dagger-wielding fops who think that jerking a pistol out will somehow bring me into line with their whims.” He looked Cyrus over. “You, though … you have the look of a man who imitates with precision. I bet you even know how to use that sword.”

  Cyrus cut the distance between them to a mean yard before he raised his weapon to a high guard, then brought it down with all Praelior’s speed. “I do indeed.”

  Rodanthar flashed out with equal speed, and Gaull turned aside his attack with ease. “Good,” Gaull said, seemingly unsurprised, save for a flicker of movement in his eyes, at the revelation of Cyrus’s ability. “I have so longed for a good fight wit
h someone who not only knows what they’re doing, but presents a challenge.” The smile did not fade one whit. “Perhaps I was hasty in judging you an imitator. Is that Praelior in your hand, then?”

  “It is,” Cyrus said, coming at him again. Gaull stepped back, still smiling, apparently content to lose ground and keep his head and limbs intact. Cyrus’s blade whizzed neatly past his extended hand and missed cutting into his waistcoat by little margin indeed. Without undue haste, Gaull carefully brought back his weapon, pulling it to a forward guard, not too high. It was the mark of a good swordsman.

  “I always wondered what became of it,” Gaull said, eyeing the blade almost enviously. “Is that, then, Ferocis that your elven wife holds?”

  Cyrus did not look back; he could hear Vara clashing with the toughs. It did not sound as though it were going particularly well for them. “Indeed,” he said.

  “Very good,” Gaull said, narrowing his eyes as Cyrus came at him again. He fell back once more, allowing Cyrus to continue coming at him with hard, broad strokes designed to blast apart Gaull’s defenses. The clashes were surely rattling the man, striking pain to run down his hands and arms to the joints. Gaull, while lithe, was not particularly large. He seemed to favor his agility over trading the heavy hits that Cyrus had learned to dish out at the Society of Arms. No man—especially one with no armor—could stand long against these sorts of hits. His grip would fail, eventually, and then he’d be left at normal speed against Cyrus, who had a fine idea or twelve about hanging Tirner Gaull from the catwalks by his guts.

  “And how did you come by that sword?” Cyrus asked through gritted teeth. He readied another attack, but did not want to be obvious about it. Closing with Gaull was his best strategy, though knocking the sword loose of his hand would produce a similarly enjoyable outcome.

  “Less than a hundred and fifty years after you left Arkaria,” Gaull said, with a zeal Cyrus found distasteful. “I led an expedition into the swamps north of what used to be elven territory. You probably know the place—where dwelled those green-skinned monsters—or at least what few of them remained.” His grin grew wider, uglier. “They’d warred among themselves for so long, you see. They could scarcely put up a defense.”