Sanctuary – some inner darkness into which a man might fall forever and find no
rest.
Shivering, Gilla tried to close his eyelids, but they slid open again upon that
awful, sightless stare. She could feel a scream crouched in her breast, waiting
for her to give way to horror and set it free. but she set her teeth painfully
and heaved herself to her feet.
Hysterics would do neither of them any good now. Time enough to release the
grief that was building in her when – if – there was no hope for him. Perhaps it
was some strange seizure that would soon pass, or a new sickness that time and
her strict nursing would cure. Or perhaps (her mind probed delicately at a
darker thought and flinched away), perhaps it was sorcery.
‘Lalo -‘ she said softly, as if her voice could still reach him somehow, ‘Lalo
my darling, it’s all right. I’ll get you a doctor; I’ll make you get well!’
Already her mind was considering. If he did not wake of himself by tomorrow she
would have to find a physician – perhaps Alien Stulwig – she had heard that his
potions saved more lives than they took.
The teakettle began to wail, and as she hurried across the room. her hip set the
easel teetering. Without stopping, she picked it up and set it in the corner
with the picture facing the wall.
Lalo peered uneasily through murky clouds that roiled about him like the mage
wind that had devastated Sanctuary the year before. But his life was still in
him, though the stink was enough to drive the breath from a man’s lungs. For a
moment he thought himself back in the sewers of the Maze, but there was too much