Lynn Abbey - Sanctuary: an epic novel of Thieves world

Table of Contents

For the readers and fans
of
Thieves World

Thieves World would not have been reborn and Sanctuary would not have been written without a lot of support and encouragement.

My thanks go first to Brian Thomsen, who believed even when I didnt, and to everyone at Tor Books, especially Jim Minz, who was very patient, and Tom Doherty, who thought it was a good time to bring Thieves World home.

My thanks, too, to my agent, Jonathan Matson, who did all the things I could never do, and to my close friend, Elaine, who deduced that I wasnt getting enough pizza and, despite the thousand miles separating us, arranged to have it delivered regularly.

And, last but not least, to the super-cell tornadoes that ripped through Oklahoma on May 3, 1999. For ten years Id insisted that Id return to Sanctuary when pigs fly; that night, the swine, along with everything else, were airborne.

A full moon shone over Sanctuary, revealing boats in its harbor, dwellings within and without its coiled walls. The city appeared prosperous, but Sanctuary always shone brightest at night. In sunlight, a man standing on the eastern ridge overlooking the city would see that the largest boats tied up along the piers were rotting hulks, that roofs were missing all over town, and the great walls had been breached by neglect in several places.

Sanctuary could have looked worse and had many times during the half century that Molin Torchholder hadhowever reluctantlycalled it home. Gods had foughtand losttheir private wars on Sanctuarys streets, but the city went on, resilient, incorrigible, just possibly eternal. Its citizens repelled catastrophe as readily as they squandered prosperity. Time and time again, Molin had watched fire, storm, plague, invasion, and sheer madness sweep through the city, carrying it to the brink of annihilation, only to ebb away, like the tide shrinking from the hard, black rocks wrapped around its harbor.

And should Molin Torchholder call himself a citizen of Sanctuary?

In the morning years of his ninth decade, no one would deny Molin the right to call himself whatever he wished. He preferred to think of himself as Rankan. Born in the Imperial capital, raised by priests of the war-god, Vashanka, and risen to the heights of their hierarchy before his twenty-fifth birthday, Molin Torchholder had been marked as a man with a glorious future. Then hed come to Sanctuary, a city on the edge of nowhere, a city so far removed from the Imperial Court of Ranke that an insecure emperor had thought it a safe place in which to exile an inconvenient half brother when a sudden attack of conscience stopped the fratricide the Imperial advisorsincluding the high priests of Vashankahad suggested.

Ill be here a year, Molin had thought the first time hed ridden down this road. One insufferable year, then hed be back in Ranke, accumulating power, wealth, and a legacy for the ages. His god had had other ideas. Molins god had a taste for blood and chaos and once Hed gotten a taste of Sanctuarys particular squalor, Vashanka couldnt push the plate away.

Vashanka had amused Himself with children, thieves, and the pangs of lust. The war-god of the mightiest empire in the world had made an immortal fool of Himself for years. Spurred by immortal embarrassment, divine powers both great and small had allied to erase Vashankas name from the white-marble lintel of His own templefrom the temple Molin himself had raised in His honor. Reduced to little more than an itch on the worlds behind, the great Vashanka had slunk out of Sanctuary on a night very much like this one more than forty years ago.

Molin hadnt felt his gods departure until the next morning when hed encountered an indescribable absence during his daily prayers. Vashankas come to His senses and returned to Ranke ; Molin had thought, little realizing that Vashanka had gone not home, but into exile. Worsethe divine powers that had run Vashanka out of Sanctuary had condemned him him! to remain within its walls.

From the beginning Molin had loathed everything about Sanctuary: its wretched, soggy climate; the brackish taste of its water; and, especially, its citizens. He swore he could never be reconciled to an unjust fate; then the moon would rise and hed be drawn to the roof above his palace apartmentor find himself delayed on the East Ridge Road. His thoughts would wander, and Sanctuary would take his soul by surprise, flexing its claws, reminding him of what he tried so hard to forget: This place, and none other, was home .

Footfalls drew Torchholders attention away from the rooftops of Sanctuary. He turned in time to see his escort, a man scarcely a quarter his age, climb out of the roadside ditch. Atredan Larris Serripines face was paler than the moon and shiny with sweat but, on the whole, he looked a good deal better than he had when hed staggered into the grass.

Better now? Molin asked pleasantly.

Atredan favored him with a scowl. So much for Fathers Foundation Day Feast.

In another time and place, Lord Serripines second son might have amounted to something. He had the golden hair and hazel eyes of a true Rankan aristocrat, an amiable personality, and the sense not to get caught when he succumbed to temptation. Lesser men had ruled well in Ranke. But in Sanctuary, a generation after an eastern horde had brought fire, rape, pillage, and death to the Empires heart, Atredan was doomed to ambition without prospects.

No commemoration of the Imperial Founding, however precisely observed, could change that.

Molin dug into his scrip and found a sprig of mint twisted with other herbs, which he offered to the younger man. I think youll find it settles whats left and takes the taste away. When one indulged as the Imperial court in its prime had indulged, one never forgot its remedies and kept them forever close to hand.

Atredan had refused the digestive when Molin had first offered it, but took it gratefully now and chewed hard. Within moments his face had relaxed.

Gods all be damned, Lord Torchholder, I cant believe any emperor has ever sat through a meal like that! The food. The wineespecially that wine. Anens mercy, what did my lord father put in it this year?

Never mind that Anen was the Ilsigi god of vineyards and anathema to the Rankan pantheon, Atredan had a valid argument.

Honey, Molin replied with an honest sigh. A comb of Imperial honey, straight from the Imperial hives, the Imperial garden, and the Imperial pantry. The genuine articleor so he told me. Very rare these days.

Very expensive, Atredan corrected. Very old, very spoilt, and fit only for swine or my lord fathers Foundation Day table.

That is not for me to say, Molin said diplomatically andbecause he was, among many other things, an accomplished diplomathe made it clear that he would have agreed with the young man, had it been necessary to do so.

Diplomatic nuance was wasted on the Serripines cadet heir. Did you actually drink that swill?

Im an old man, Lord Larris, and my palate is as old as the rest of me. Swill or ambrosia, it all tastes the same nowYet, I am sure the wine we drank in Ranke was not so sweet or gluey. And neither did we ferment it ourselves. Truth to tellwe seldom drank Imperial wine, with or without Imperial honey. All the best vintages came by ship from Caronne. They still do, I suppose, but not to Sanctuary. Have a care for your lord father. He was a babe-in-arms when Ranke fell. He dreams of Rankan glory, but he doesnt remember it.

Atredan muttered words too soft and slurred for Molin to catch. The indignities of age! His reputation had been built on his eyes and his ears. Time was when no word or gesture had escaped his senses; that time was gone. It was true that younger men still complimented him and relied on his advice, but they had no idea how much of his edge hed lost.