Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [86]
“What brings you here?” She asked.
What good were gods if They had questions, not answers?
“You’re troubled.” The goddess measured Cauvin with eyes he couldn’t meet. “You’re looking for someone. Something.”
Cauvin shook his head. His feet, which were all he could see, weren’t his feet—not the feet under his blankets. They were the feet he’d had the winter after the Hand got his mother—dirty, wrapped in rags, aching from cold. He’d prayed for boots, for a cloak, for someplace warm and safe. Lady Shipri hadn’t listened.
“It’s never too late,” the goddess whispered.
Cauvin found the strength to raise his head. Froggin’ hell it wasn’t too late. Cauvin didn’t need boots anymore. He was a grown man with a past he couldn’t quite forget. There wasn’t anything Lady Shipri could do. The goddess disappeared, taking the other gods with Her. He should have been alone in his bed in the stoneyard, or at the very least returned to his own dream in the redwall ruins. But the white marble walls remained and instead of gods or an old man’s withered corpse, Cauvin found himself drifting toward a little man with sparse ginger-colored hair and the stained fingers of an artist.
The little man was hard a-work on a drawing. The drawing was the one Cauvin had folded and tucked beneath the boots beside his bed. He was still dreaming.
“You’ve got work to do, pud,” the artist said without looking up from his work. “You’re not finished. You’ve scarcely begun.”
Against his will, Cauvin thought of red walls and bloody hands.
A voice that belonged to neither Cauvin’s nor the ginger-haired artist echoed among the marble walls. “You’re a disappointment, pud, no doubt you are. I prayed for better, but you’re what I got. Rise to it, pud. Surprise us all.”
Molin Torchholder had said some of those very words moments after Cauvin had rescued him. Who wouldn’t have prayed for a rescuer … and who wouldn’t have been disappointed by the sight of froggin’ Cauvin not-quite-Grabar’s son, whose fists were so much quicker than his wits? But had Molin been praying for a rescuer … just a simple rescuer?
“Go now,” the little artist suggested. “There’s only so much a man can give to Sanctuary. Do what I did—find another life, another city. The door’s open.”
It was, along with the walls. Cauvin had fallen out of paradise during the ginger man’s speech. He’d returned to his own dream, to the redwall ruins and the corpse of Molin Torchholder which shone with a gentle, golden light.
“Run away, Cauvin. I did.” The artist rose from the rubble. Cauvin saw his face for the first time: a froggin’ plain face, except for its sadness. “You’re a free man. No one will blame you. No one blamed me.”
Darkness as black as the pits on a moonless night surrounded the ruins. Cauvin could run … but he’d be lost in the froggin’ dark if he did. Then the Torch’s light-shrouded corpse began to move. It sat up, stood up, extended its arms, and began walking toward them.
“Run away!” the artist urged, blocking Cauvin’s view of the Torch’s face. “You’ve been lost before. You’ve been lost all your life. Lost is your home.”
Cauvin decided to run, only to discover that his froggin’ body was nailed to the ground, frozen like stone. He couldn’t so much as close his damn eyes.
“Move it, Cauvin.”
He tried and felt a sharp pain in his side.
“Move it, Cauvin—There’s chores to be done no matter who’s laid on a pyre at the palace.”
Cauvin blinked awake. Grabar was in the froggin’ loft—never a good sign—and there was sunlight streaming through the shutter slats. With an angry sigh, Cauvin got his arms under his shoulders and pushed himself off the mattress. He was still half in his dream—his froggin’ dreams—and wondering what it all had meant. The pain in his side, though, that hadn’t been part of the dream. Cauvin ached from the punches he’d taken in the Silk Court atrium and from the toe of his foster father’s boot.
“Froggin’ hell,” Cauvin snarled. He swung his arm in Grabar’s direction.
“Been calling