Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [123]
Bec wasn’t sure what a safe surmise was, but it might explain why Momma seemed to come looking for him whenever he least wanted to be found. He vowed to remember Grandfather’s wisdom—and to make noise from time to time. In return for the wisdom, he said, “I can show you. I found some stones. I’ll go get them. Wait here.”
He scampered off, chiding himself: Where else is Grandfather going to wait? He can’t walk! …
Bec had snatched up the green stone, the obsidian, and two agates from the hollow when he heard a thump and a following noise that could have been a moan. Breaking into a run, Bec found Grandfather sprawled on the ground. He dropped the stones and raced to the old man’s side.
It wasn’t easy—Grandfather might be little more than skin and bones, but he was still bigger and heavier than Bec, and though he tried to hide it, Grandfather was in a lot of pain. His breath rasped and caught when Bec, hunched on his hands and knees, tried to lift him from below—the way he’d lever a stone out of mud.
“My staff … boy—” Grandfather wheezed. “Hand me … my staff.”
Bec obeyed and between his efforts and Grandfather’s grasp on the staff, they got him back onto the blankets and the windowsill.
“I’ve made fire. There’s water heating, and stew. I can make tea,” Bec offered.
Grandfather went to shake his head that he didn’t want tea and nearly fell off the sill again. Not wanting to take chances, Bec stood himself at Grandfather’s shoulder, ready in a heartbeat—in less than a heartbeat—to catch the old man before he fell.
“I’m sorry,” he confessed, finger-combing dust and leaf bits from Grandfather’s wispy hair. “They told me to watch you, and I didn’t. I’m sorry—and I’m sorry that you hurt. I’ve got a coin—a shaboozh; I’ll take it to Mother Sabellia’s fane—Cauvin will. Her priests will accept it, even though it’s an Ilsigi coin. They’ll say prayers for you.”
“A kind thought, boy—but save your shaboozh for yourself. I’m dying—putting it off as long as I can, but there’s only so much a man can do when he’s sucked himself full of Dyareelan poison.”
“Poison!” That was a detail Cauvin had neglected to share. “Does it hurt?”
“Mercifully, no. The dead feel no pain, Bec, take comfort from that when your time comes. But the poison consumes me, nerve by muscle. Each time it takes a bite, I feel the loss. Each time I strain myself, I pay the price.”
“When you shouted for me to come here, was that a strain? I should’ve been here. I shouldn’t have wandered off. I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t shout, boy, and shouting’s no worse than talking or breathing or eating. I died five days ago.”
Without thinking, Bec retreated, leaving Grandfather to support his own weight against the wall. “I—I don’t understand. You’re alive.” He could see Grandfather breathing, blinking, “You’ve got to be alive; you can’t be dead. Dead people don’t—don’t breathe. They can’t eat or drink.”
Grandfather grinned. “They shouldn’t, should they? But they used to. Your father’s old enough. Ask him about the seasons when dead men held the Shambles.”
“Dead men?” Bec couldn’t help himself; he put his longest stride between himself and Grandfather.
“Don’t be frightened, boy, those days will never return. I will lose my battle with death, but not before I’ve finished what I’ve started.”
“What’ve you started?”
“Nothing that concerns you. Show me those stones you dropped.”
Warily, Bec retrieved them, never turning his back on the old man. “I found them in a hole next to a wall. I’m cleaning them off. I’ll keep the green one and maybe sell the others,” he proudly told Grandfather as he dribbled the stones into a large, gnarled hand, which immediately closed over them.
“Would you desecrate a tomb and sell the bones you found within?”
Bec replied, “Not ever!” Without hesitation.
“Then you must put these back where you found them.”
“Whoa!” Bec complained. “It was just a little hole, not big enough for burying anything in. And, anyway, these’re stones—” He’d decided that Grandfather’s eyes must not be seeing