Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [193]
“Bec! Becvar!”
Grabar shoved Cauvin aside, not noticing or, perhaps, not caring what he stepped on as he searched frantically for his son. Cauvin let him go. He’d already seen that none of the dead was child-sized and was looking for the Torch. The pallet Cauvin and Soldt had put together for him was disordered, but empty. The fifth corpse was dark because, unlike the others, it wore a black robe.
Cauvin circled the body, getting out of his own shadow. Like the first corpse, the Torch had fallen forward, but he’d gotten his left hand up to cushion his chin before he hit. His head lay naturally in profile. His eyes were closed and Cauvin dared to hope that the old pud was merely asleep. He wanted to finish the killing himself.
“Hey, pud—Wake up—” He nudged a shoulder. There was no warmth, no resistance, no chance that the Hero of Sanctuary had survived to fight another day. “This time they got him.”
“What? Who?” Grabar didn’t recognize the black-robed Torch.
“His enemies. This time the Torch’s enemies got him.” Cauvin slid his hands beneath the black cloth. He wasn’t surprised to bump his fingers against the old pud’s hardwood staff. “He went down fighting—”
“The boy, Cauvin! Where’s Bec? If the Torch is dead, we can’t help him, and he can’t help us. Help me look for the boy.”
Cauvin didn’t argue, but he couldn’t take vengeance on a corpse. He lifted the staff and the Torch, intending to carry both to the pallet, but he’d barely raised his hands above the ground when the black wood warmed against his flesh. Before he could free himself, the Torch’s eyes—scarcely a handspan from his own—opened. Gods forbid, but the old pud’s eyes shone silvery white and streaked with shimmering flame.
Yelping like a stepped-on dog, Cauvin dropped his burden and scrambled backward until his shoulders struck the earthen walls.
“Enough of that—” Grabar shouted, then he saw what Cauvin had seen and prayed aloud as he, too, retreated: “Ils, Father of Life, take me in Your hands, lift me up!”
But the only lifting in the root cellar was done by the Torch himself as he braced that blackwood staff and hauled himself upward, hand over hand, like some skeleton come to life. When he’d risen to his knees, the amber atop the staff began to glow. Froggin’ sure, Cauvin knew exactly how the other men had died.
“Lord Torch! It’s me! Cauvin—the sheep-shite idiot who saved your froggin’ life! Frog all, don’t kill me!”
The Torch didn’t seem to hear or care, or maybe there was nothing left of the old priest except a ghost bent on burning anything, anyone, that got close.
“Lord Torch, it’s me—Cauvin. We’re looking for Bec, my brother. You remember my little brother? He called you ‘Grandfather.’”
“Bec?” The Torch’s voice was raspy and seemed to come from somewhere other than his throat, somewhere other than the root cellar. “Cauvin? Is that you, Cauvin?” With each word, his voice grew more anchored in time and place.
“It is, old pud. What …?”
“You’re not alone. Who’s with you?”
“My father—My foster father, Grabar. We’re looking for Bec. He didn’t come home. We thought—I thought he might have come back out here, to be with you during the storm. Was he here?”
Despite all that he’d said in the stoneyard, Cauvin hoped the Torch’s answer would be no, but the skull-like head bobbed up and down.
“I sent him away. Twice I sent him away.” The Torch’s eyes burnt brighter. “Once, with Soldt, but the boy got loose from his parents. The sky was black when he showed up again. First thing he said: too late to send him home. Oh, the boy thought he was so very clever. Offered to make tea and keep the fire burning so I could tell him stories of Sanctuary. I told him he could make tea and tend the fire, but there’d be no stories, no rewards for a boy who didn’t listen to his elders and deceived his parents.”
Cauvin stole a glance at Grabar. His foster father knew the truth now, but the price was much too high.
The Torch continued, “When the gale began in earnest the boy knew he’d made a mistake—a hole in the ground is no pleasant