Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [102]
When Cauvin first came to the stoneyard, ignorant of everything except the streets and the pits, Grabar had told him tales of the days of children, thieves, and living corpses—the days of his childhood, when a man couldn’t leave home without a braid of colored strings and ribbons tied around his arm to grant him safe passage from one quarter to the next. He said the night the dead finally, truly died a pillar of fire rose from the Hill all the way to the stars.
Cauvin knew the Hand was real because he’d lived through it … but living corpses, fiery pillars, and ribbons? Cauvin had listened, because after the streets and the pits he’d do anything to stay at the stoneyard, but listening wasn’t froggin’ believing.
Believe, mortal. The dead did walk and a pillar of fire did burn all the way to paradise. It took the dead, the witches, the mages, and the priests with it. When the sun rose, there wasn’t a sorcerer left who could make water in the rain. And the gods of Sanctuary—the gods who’d banished Me for meddling!—They couldn’t make rain. They couldn’t undo what They’d done, so They went away. They forgot.
Tempus couldn’t forget. He led what was left of his men, of Vashanka’s men, to fight the northern witches. His bronze armor shone, his gray horse pranced, but the minion left Sanctuary without his god. There would be no more victories, not for the Rankan Empire and not for Tempus Thales. He was immortal. No bleeding wound could kill him, but despair?
The burnished armor had returned to Sanctuary while the Hand held the palace. A woman with silver-streaked hair had brought it. She’d dumped it on the floor of an apothecary shop and left without saying a word once-mighty Vashanka could overhear.
Thunder became rain.
Do not weep for Ranke or its gods. Sanctuary did not destroy the Empire. The Empire did that to itself. Sanctuary did not destroy Me. I did that to Myself. Now I wait, the only god in Sanctuary. Are you the one? Do you think you are?
The red wind raised a shiver on Cauvin’s spine before it spun away to nothing. Cauvin shook sense back into his head. He was on the floor, underground in the Maze and staring up at a lamp. It seemed wise to stay there a moment longer, making certain everything still worked and getting clear of the images Vashanka had burnt into his memory.
When Cauvin did move the first thing he saw was a rack of armor: four tunics made from squares of dull metal and worn leather laced together. They’d meant nothing to him when he’d walked through the door, now they froggin’ shouted Hell Hounds, and in his mind’s eye Cauvin could see the men who’d worn them: sour-faced veterans with their backs to the golden prince, Kadakithis, protecting him from Sanctuary.
They’d have given the froggin’ Bloody Hand a hard time if they’d still been in Sanctuary when the city needed them. But Vashanka’s visions revealed the last Hell Hounds had left with the prince. They were buried in unmarked graves, except for one who’d been planted in an herb garden on Red Lantern Street.
Cauvin shut his eyes to end the flow of unbidden knowledge and cursed an old man—
“Gods all damn you and froggin’ damned god—”
There wasn’t room left for a doubt in his sheep-shite mind: He’d fallen into a god’s power—a froggin’ Imperial god—and he wasn’t half the man that Tempus Thales had been.
Cauvin couldn’t lie blind on the floor forever. He had to open his eyes again. That meant more armor—lacquered black, trimmed and laced with leather so dark Cauvin had to squint to realize it was wine-colored rather than black. A face-concealing helmet lay on the floor beneath the armor. It sported a crest of red feathers so bright and fresh it seemed likely the bird was still alive. Words came to Cauvin’s mind: Abarsis, another priest of Vashanka; he’d died not long after he arrived, but the men he brought with him, the Stepsons—the Stepsons of the rapist Tempus Thales—remained behind.
The Stepsons got along well with each other,