Ghosts of Sanctuary

by Robert J. Crane

  But with the three of them as battered as they were, the celebration was muted in favor of looking around carefully and trying to determine the best route to proceed.

  “They pulled me in this way,” Dugras said, in that funny accent of his, something between Firoban and Amatgarosan.

  “I was too out of it to have paid attention when they dragged me in here,” Shirri said. It was hard not to be suspicious, but the stink of this place—fetid, rank, of blood and urine and excrement—compelled her to want to be anywhere but here. She looked at Dugras, who was turning his head swiftly in either direction, playing sentinel to their fears, “I will have to trust you to take us from this place.”

  “No pressure, though, right?” he grinned and limped his way forward, picking his chosen direction with care.

  “Are you able to walk?” Shirri asked her mother, who limped along beside her. Blood crusted her forehead where it met her dark hair.

  “Yes,” her mother said, “more easily with every step, though I expect I will feel this tomorrow.” A sharp cringe creased her brow. “And for some time after that, I think.”

  “The next hallway is clear,” Dugras said from just ahead of them, peering around a corner. “This is … very different than when I came in. They had any number of those idiots watching doors then.” He looked around suspiciously. “I don’t know whether they’re having a meeting or they’ve suffered some great loss of manpower, but—I suppose we shouldn’t look a gift steam engine in the boiler, eh?”

  “I … don’t know what that means,” Shirri said, lagging behind with her mother. She kept casting doubtful looks over her shoulder, even as her mother pushed harder to walk more quickly. The strain was showing on her mother’s face, pain radiating out in her expression.

  “Never mind,” Dugras said. “I think there’s an exit just ahead. This looks like the door where they dragged me in out of a wagon.” He beckoned them forward, and then hurried ahead, still nursing that limp.

  Shirri tried to aid her mother, but was waved off. “I’m fine,” she said, “or as near as I’m going to be until all this heals on its own.” She grimaced. “Curse that McLarren and his orb.” Her hand glowed with light, and her speed improved. “Ah. We must be far enough away from him and his accursed sphere now.”

  With a wave of her hand and a carefully thought incantation, Shirri felt a rush of relief run through her. Her pace improved, and her mother was moving a little faster, though she was hardly swift.

  “Come on,” Dugras whispered from ahead. He was holding a door, and beyond it, she could see dusky sky and some sort of loading dock. He beckoned them and Shirri picked up her pace, her mother doing the same behind her.

  They exited into the cool air of sundown, the whispers of the city around them. Shirri stared; there were pallets and crates, barrels and other cargo just standing everywhere. Some were filled, some seemed to be emptied, but none was apparently watched. It was as though the operation had been completely abandoned.

  “There’s a wagon here,” Dugras said, waving them forward as he leapt onto the back of a cart. The horses, already hitched up, simply stood there, a pile of straw at their feet that they were eating.

  Shirri looked ahead; an alley stretched before them, and there, beyond, entry into the streets of Reikonos, where throngs were filing past in the distance. She did not consider a mere crowd safety, but …

  She gave a quick look back at the yawning door to the dungeon building … The busy streets offered far more safety than what was behind her.

  “Come along,” she said, taking her mother’s arm with only a grunt of protest from her mother. She helped her into the back of the wagon, where her mother collapsed against the side, breathing a deep sigh of relief.

  Dugras was already seated up front, reins in hand. “Where should we go?”

  Shirri narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you want to get back to your ship?”

  Dugras shook his head. “I do, but—the airship docks are the most closely watched location in all of Reikonos. If I go there immediately, I might as well just walk back into that dungeon and close the door.”

  “Shirri,” her mother said from behind her, “we have to go to them.”

  Shirri’s eyes fluttered closed. Of course she would say that.

  “This city is not safe for us,” Dugras said. “The Machine is everywhere. They will send messages to all their outposts to be on the lookout for us. We need to find somewhere to lay low.”

  Shirri let out a low breath and looked at Dugras. He showed none of the guile she would associate with a dangerous man, and yet the multiple conveniences that had allowed them to escape roused her suspicions. He could easily be playing them false, in which case …

  He wanted to go somewhere. Somewhere that Shirri chose.

  The medallion. If he was a spy for McLarren, then doubtless that would be what he was after. And if that were the case …

  Better not to lead him to it. Better to lead him somewhere that he could be dealt with by people who seemed amenable to helping those in need.

  And if it made her mother happy … all the better.

  “All right,” Shirri said in a low whisper, “I know a place where we can go.” She nodded as Dugras spurred the horses into motion, the wagon moving with a slow roll forward toward the mouth of the alley. When they reached it, she recognized the street instantly. “Take a right,” she said, following the map in her memory—back to Sanctuary, where she could only hope Alaric and the others would take kindly to the trouble she suspected she was bringing their way.

  49.

  Cyrus

  The commotion at the front gate led Cyrus and Vaste away from contemplation of the pond. With a sigh, Cyrus started around the small yard that surrounded Sanctuary. The walls on either side were like tall sentinels staring down at him ominously, and it gave rise to a sense of claustrophobia, that everything was closing in around him.

  “If you were any more tense,” Vaste said from a few paces behind him, “I think your long, perfectly molded buttocks armor might begin to strain from the puckering.”

  “It’s quartal, so if it does, my arse has become strong indeed,” Cyrus said, hand on Praelior and in motion toward the gate with all the alacrity that provided. Vaste was clearly drawing on Letum’s power behind him, for he was keeping pace easily.

  He rounded the building to find Vara already there with Curatio, Ferocis drawn and eyeing the barred gate with suspicion. Curatio, on the other hand, looked rather amused. Vara jerked at the sight of him and Vaste thundering around the corner. She spun, her sword pointed at him for a bare moment before she relaxed.

  “Just us,” Cyrus said, joining her. He nodded toward the gate as another heavy thud issued from it. “Who’s this?”

  “I don’t know,” Vara said, “but I don’t care for the timing. It stinks of an attack.”

  “Oh, goodness, people,” Curatio said, sighing as though long-suffering, then raised his voice to call out. “Who goes there?”

  “It’s me,” Shirri Gadden’s distinctly high voice called back, “and some others. We need aid.”

  “Well, that’s the magic word,” Curatio muttered, moving to unbar the gate, his mace still in hand. He laid a hand on the bar, then looked back at Cyrus and the others. “Well, don’t just gawk—make ready your weapons, in case she comes with trouble at her heels, or brings it to us in ambush.”

  Cyrus drew Praelior, and Vara took a ready stance beside him as Curatio removed the bar and then opened the gate slowly. Cyrus watched the gap, waiting—

  Shirri came limping in a moment later, an older woman with dark hair beside her, arm draped around her shoulder and leaning on Shirri for support. The woman’s dark hair partially obscured her face, but she looked up at Cyrus with brown eyes that gleamed when she saw him. Her gaze moved its way over to Vara, who met it suspiciously, and then to Vaste and Curatio in turn.

  “And where … is Alaric?” the older woman asked as she and Shirri cleared the g
ate and another man—a dwarf—came waddling in. Cyrus gave him a glance, then a double take. His skin tone was quite different than what Cyrus had seen before, and there was something very different about his eyes.

  The dwarf caught him looking, and spoke in a strange accent. “I’m from Imperial Amatgarosa. This is the look of my people.”

  “I—wasn’t going to ask,” Cyrus said, taken aback by the dwarf’s directness.

  “But you were wondering,” the dwarf said. “I can always tell when I walk through these streets. It’s all right; I’m sure if you were in Amatgarosa, you would get looks, too. Very few of your people have been allowed there.”

  “What is your name, sir?” Vara asked, a little stiffly. She still had her sword at the ready.

  The dwarf executed a bow, and cringed as he lowered himself. He was standing awkwardly, as if one leg were injured. “My name is Dugras, of the ship Yuutshee, and recently a prisoner of the Machine, now escaped, thankfully.”

  “You traveled here on one of those airships?” Cyrus asked, his curiosity piqued. He hadn't had a chance to ask someone about them yet.

  “I’m the engineer that services the engines on the Yuutshee,” Dugras said with obvious pride. “And as soon as I think I can make a break for it without getting caught at the docks, I’ll be heading back. It might be best if I can get a message to my captain first, though, let her know what happened.”

  “What’s going on out here?” Alaric’s voice rang over the courtyard.

  “We have guests,” Curatio called back. “Again.”

  “They look famished,” Vaste said. “We should feed them.”

  “You’re hungry and looking for an excuse to eat, aren’t you?” Vara asked.

  “You know me entirely too well,” Vaste said. “But still, let’s not be rude just to spite Vaste. Come, friends—dinner awaits.” And he turned, beckoning them forward as he moved up the steps.

  Shirri went to follow him, the woman beside her dragging along. “That … is Alaric,” Shirri whispered to her.

  “As though I couldn’t tell that for myself,” the woman said, a strange lightness in her voice.

  Cyrus frowned and caught a glance from the woman. Her look at him was a bit more pointed and lacked the awe with which she watched Alaric. He tried to put it aside and turn his attention back in the direction of his natural curiosity, and found Dugras moving ahead without him.

  “Go on, I’ll just get this gate, then, won’t I?” Curatio called at him, small trace of irritation bleeding through.

  “That’s good thinking,” Cyrus called back with a grin. “You’ll need to work twice as hard or healers will get a reputation for being lazy, now that you and Vaste are about the only two left. You’re going to have work very hard indeed carrying his arse.”

  “I heard that,” Vaste said. “And I’m thinking about it … pondering action … I think I just want to shovel food in my mouth. That counts as action.”

  “It does at the speed with which you do it,” Vara said.

  Cyrus hurried and caught up with Dugras as the dwarf was climbing up the stairs. They seemed suddenly flatter, and he did not struggle with them as he might have just moments earlier when they’d been higher. Cyrus blinked at them, then turned his attention to the engineer. “You said you work on airships?”

  “On the engines, yes,” Dugras said. “Though I have been known to work on other parts, if need be. On an airship, sometimes you get called to work on wherever the work needs to be done.”

  “Fascinating,” Cyrus said, genuinely enraptured. “And … how do you make them fly?”

  Dugras stared up at him. “With the engines, of course.”

  “And … what is an engine?” Cyrus asked.

  Dugras let out a soft chuckle as he entered the guildhall. “It’s a steam machine. Spins the propellers that produce lift—the central masts that go around and around,” he made a motion with his hand suggesting up and down movement. “And we also have engines that spin the rear propellers, which allows the ship to move forward or back.”

  “Huh,” Cyrus said, blinking. “That’s amazing.”

  “You sound like you’ve never seen an airship before,” Dugras said with a soft chuckle. “I mean, I know Reikonos and Arkaria are provincial compared to the rest of the world … but come on. They fly overhead all the time.”

  “I just got here recently,” Cyrus said as they moved through the foyer, the procession’s footsteps echoing in the great space. Dugras was casting an appraising eye over everything. “From somewhere … more provincial, I guess you could say.”

  “Hm,” Dugras said. “Well, if you get me back to my ship, I’ll gladly take you on a tour. You can ask whatever questions you want, see one up close.”

  “Oh, I’m taking you up on that,” Cyrus said as they entered the Great Hall.

  Dugras’s eyes widened as he saw the feast before them. “I think it seems a pretty fair repayment considering I’m about to eat all of this.”

  “Give it your best shot, old boy,” Vaste said, “you won’t be alone in trying.”

  “Now, now,” Vara said, “there’s no need to squabble. After all, as many corpses as we made in that alley earlier, surely Sanctuary has plenty of material with which to continue making more feasts if need be—”

  “… What?” Dugras asked, staring at her.

  “Nothing, she’s being obnoxious and trying to ruin my dinner,” Vaste said as he took his seat.

  Cyrus glanced around; the table had elongated further before they’d arrived, adding more seats. He sat down next to Vara, and Shirri and her mother made their way across from him, the mother eyeing him with a guarded curiosity.

  “I’m Cyrus Davidon,” he said, giving her a curt nod.

  “I figured that out,” she said, just a touch standoffish. She did not touch the food in front of her, but continued to stare at him.

  “It is good to see you returned to us, Shirri,” Alaric said, taking his place at the head of the table. Cyrus tore his gaze from Shirri’s mother to look at the Ghost. “And even better that you brought others.”

  “I’m pretty grateful for that right now, too,” Dugras said, already scooping up a turkey leg, barely getting to it before Birissa, who had just reached the table. She glared at him. He ignored her and began to eat swiftly and a bit messily.

  “Perhaps you might introduce us to your mother,” Alaric said, nodding in their direction.

  Shirri seemed a bit dumbstruck, but she took a breath and said, “This is Pamyra, my mother.”

  “Pamyra,” Vara said gently, “you are most welcome in our halls. How long have you been in Reikonos?”

  “Fifty years or so,” Pamyra said, more gently to her than she’d spoken to Cyrus thus far. It elicited a frown from him.

  “And from whence did you come before that?” Vara asked, as gentle a prod as he’d ever heard from her. “Pharesia, I would guess.”

  “Good guess,” Pamyra said with a nod.

  “How’d you know that?” Cyrus asked.

  “Because she’s an elf, obviously,” Vara said. “And from what we know of the elves—”

  “How’d you know she was an elf?” Vaste asked, mouth full of mashed potatoes. “You can’t even see her ears.”

  “I saw them as she moved,” Vara said. “Her hair parted out of the way on several occasions.”

  “I did not see that,” Alaric said.

  “Nor did I,” Cyrus said.

  Vara blew air impatiently from between her lips. “Of course not. You’re not elves, and thus you pay little attention to such things.”

  “I didn’t notice that, either,” Curatio said, focusing on a bowl of black beans.

  “Nor I,” Hiressam said, slipping in. He reddened and looked away from Vara’s gaze as he tucked in to a bowl of porridge with fresh strawberries.

  “I noticed,” Birissa said, around a chicken bone. “Pointed ears, right there,” and she stuck out a finger right at Pamyra down the table from her
. Indeed, one of the points of Pamyra’s ears was protruding from beneath her dark, frizzed hair on the left side.

  Pamyra wore a frown that, to Cyrus’s eyes, seemed familiar in both its intensity and shape. He let out a frown of his own. “Do I know you?” he asked, and she brought her gaze around to him, rather pointedly.

  “We’ve never met,” she said, and looked away again.

  “That’s hardly a complete answer,” Cyrus muttered.

  “How,” Alaric said, directing his attention to Shirri, “did you escape the Machine—if I may ask?”

  “Dugras stole a key from one of the Machine’s … interrogators,” Shirri said, and Cyrus got the distinct feeling she was leaving something out.

  “I don’t think that man’s just an interrogator,” Dugras said, pausing mid-bite. “He seemed like he had the run of that dungeon while I was in there. I suspect he’s higher up than that.”

  Shirri let out a low breath. “Fine. Dugras attacked a guard while we were being interrogated by a … higher up member of the Machine … and we managed to escape afterward.”

  “How?” Alaric asked.

  Shirri let her impatience flare in a flash of irritation. “I don’t know. The halls of the place were near abandoned, as though they’d lost many of their number.”

  “That was our doing, I expect,” Cyrus said. “How many of them do you reckon we killed in the square before Gaull started cutting us down?”

  “Many,” Alaric said. “Enough to put a dent in their numbers at their nearest base, if that was, indeed, where they took Shirri.”

  “And why would they not?” Vaste asked, cradling a whole chicken in his hamlike fist. “It’s probably how Gaull got there so fast. He was nearby.”

  “If Gaull came from there,” Cyrus said, “that’s probably their headquarters.” He turned to Shirri. “Do you know where this place is?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve never been there before, but it’s on a main road. We could probably get back if we had to, but—”