Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [100]
Stories said the Torch had been a warrior in his younger days, but he’d never been man enough to fill that bronze armor, which begged the question: Who had worn it, and how had it wound up beneath the Maze?
Cauvin looked for a bracket in which to set his torch. There was one beside the doorway but there was also a glass lamp—he was starting to expect the froggin’ unexpected—with a bellyful of oil hanging from the ceiling. He lit the lamp, waited a moment for the froggin’-gods-only-knew-what, then returned to the alcove.
The air turned red the instant his fingertips touched the bronze. Cauvin had a moment to realize that the armor was leather, not metal, and to curse his curiosity before a voice surrounded him. It spoke in his mind and filled his ears.
At last, you have—it began.
A whirlwind circled Cauvin where he stood. It threatened to tear his clothes from his body but did not disturb either his torch or the lamp.
You are not My chosen minion. I do not know you. You are no one. You do not belong here. Close your eyes, mortal; you have seen all that you will ever see.
Cauvin was too sheep-shite frightened to move even his eyelids, but not too frightened to invoke another silent curse that touched the froggin’ Torch by name.
You know him.
The words weren’t a question, and Cauvin didn’t need to answer.
He sent you. He lives?
Cauvin croaked a single word: “Yes,” and the wind around him eased. “Your minion sent me, Holy Vashanka—” He guessed he was trapped in the presence of the Torch’s god. “He did not warn me—”
The man was My priest, never My minion, and ever a source of doubt and stubbornness. Though Tempus was that, too, and more. I have been too long without a minion in the mortal world.
Another wind wrapped around Cauvin; no longer indignant, it had the feel of Mina’s eyes when she looked for bargains in the market.
Frightened as he was, Cauvin was that much more repelled by the god’s curiosity. He’d refused Dyareela; he’d refuse Vashanka, too, disregarding the risks. “I am not for sale.”
Vashanka chuckled. And I do not BUY My chosen ones. Even in Sanctuary. I have come back to Sanctuary-
The chamber went dark. It went more than dark; it froggin’ disappeared like Enas Yorl’s froggin’ house and took Cauvin’s body with it. His awareness was limited to his eyes, and his eyes were bird high above a transformed Sanctuary.
A man wearing the bronzed leather armor and a bloody red glow rode a troublesome gray horse along a cleaner, busier Wideway. Cauvin thought of himself as a brawny man able to overpower any sheep-shite fool who challenged him, but not the bronzed rider. Measured against recognizable landmarks, the pale-haired man had to be at least a head taller and stronger not so much in muscle as manner. He exhaled power and contempt. People kept their heads down and got out of his way without—Vashanka agreed—knowing who the warrior was or why he’d ridden into their city.
A bold youth—or simply a froggin’ careless and unlucky one—darted in front of the gray horse. The animal attacked with a ferocity Cauvin associated with wild dogs, not horses. No one on the Wideway dared come to the youth’s aid. They cowered behind paltry shelters and watched as the armored rider let the attack continue until the youth was past dead and little more than bloody pulp beneath iron-shod hooves. He rode on in silence, his and theirs.
The warrior’s name was Tempus Thales, and he was used to being watched; he’d been Vashanka’s minion for nearly three centuries before he rode toward the palace.
The omens were favorable … a city, isolated on the edge of the world, filled with ambition, with pride and hatred; and more wealth than showed on the surface … I sent My best and expected nothing less than perfection.
Destruction