Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [8]
“This way.”
“The Wideway’s safer,” Atredan insisted.
“The wharves are never safer after sundown, and neither is the Processional, if the Dragon’s men are celebrating.” Molin was confident, but not entirely honest. Witchcraft—his witchcraft—did not deal in precise premonitions. He’d felt danger when he’d looked down the Wideway, no more, no less. The rest was his own logic, his own decision. “We’ll take the Stairs.”
“The Stairs will take us up into the Hill. I’d sooner swim the sewers of Sanctuary than get lost in the Hill!”
“Nonsense. Once we’ve climbed the Stairs, we’ll be at the end of Old Pyrtanis Street, nowhere near the Hill. From there it’s an easy walk along the Promise to the Gods’ Gate behind the palace. You’re not afraid of a few whores or empty temples, are you Lord Larris? See me to the Gods’ Gate, Lord Larris, and I’ll show you a way through the kitchens to your prince’s door and the fastest way between the palace and the Street of Red Lanterns … We never could have the whores traipsing up the Processional you know—Or has your brother already shown you the postern trap?”
Molin asked his last question with the sweetness of a cat about to pounce. It was unlikely that elder-brother Vion Serripines knew about the trap, ten times unlikely that Vion had told Atredan, and ten times again unlikely that Atredan could resist a gift his brother had never received.
“I’ve heard about that passage,” Atredan lied unconvincingly. “Not from Vion. Vion doesn’t know. Vion wouldn’t go anywhere where the hem of his robe might get dirty. Vion’s no better than our lord father.”
Molin led the way without commenting on the young man’s assessment of his kinfolk. Every time he took the Stairs, it seemed they were both steeper and less even. He was breathing hard when they cleared the wall and entered into the old city.
Pyrtanis Street was paved with tidy cobblestones, recalling the day when its part of the city had been home to its most prestigious artisans—jewelers, goldsmiths, and their ilk—and not a few of its aristocrats. The shape-shifting mage, Enas Yorl, had dwelt on Pyrtanis Street as well. The jewelers and aristocrats had fled Sanctuary at the first sign of trouble; their fine houses were among the first to burn when plague had threatened the town. Some said the shape-shifter never left, that he still haunted the town, but any man could claim to be Enas Yorl; the man never showed the same face twice to the world.
What was plain for any eye to see on Pyrtanis Street was that the corner where Yorl’s basilisk-guarded mansion had once stood was empty, even of weeds—as if the stones were simply elsewhere, like their owner, and might reappear at any moment.
Nothing in Sanctuary went to waste. One season’s rubble was next year’s construction, and if the new hard-laboring residents were less exalted than their predecessors, they were also less likely to abandon their homes at the first hint of trouble. Whatever havoc the Dragon and his cronies might be raising in other parts of Sanctuary, they had sense enough to stay off Pyrtanis Street.
“We could do with a torch or lantern,” Atredan said when they’d come far enough to see the emptiness of the Promise of Heaven and the dark wall of the palace beyond it.
“Nonsense, the way is clear, and moon’s brighter than any torch.”
Atredan balked. “This place is haunted. We should go the other way, Lord Torchholder.”
“The Hand’s been gone for ten long years,” Molin countered. “Nothing passes here now except a few whores on their way home to the Hill. You’re not afraid of a few whores?”
“The gods remember. The gods marked this place.”
Atredan was young—not yet twenty—and born outside the city walls at Land’s End. He could have few personal memories of the Bloody Hand of Dyareela doing its awful work on the Promise, nor of Arizak leading his warriors against them in a battle that left the last of the old temples in ruins. When the last of the bodies had been collected it had been Arizak, the Irrune chieftain, who’d decreed that while he ruled Sanctuary,