Shadows of Sanctuary978-0441806010 Read Free Page B

with her longer range, had met them after searching all day at each evening's new camp, ever more exhausted and more driven.
    'Apparently we chose wrong,' Quartz said.
    'Children,' Lythande said, 'children, frejohans -'
    'Frejojani,'' Chan said automatically, then shook his head and spread his hands in apology.
    'Your friend is one slave out of many. You could not trace him by his papers, unless you discovered what name they were forged under. For someone to recognize him by a description would be the greatest luck, even if you had an homuncule to show. Sisters, brother, you might not recognize him yourselves, by now.'
    'I would recognize him,' Aerie said.
    'We'd all recognize him, even in a crowd of his own people. But that makes no difference. Anyone would know him who had seen him. But no one has seen him, or if they have they will not say so to us.' Wess glanced at Aerie.
    'You see,' Aerie said, 'he is winged.'
    'Winged!' Lythande said.
    'Winged folk are rare, I believe, in the south.'
    'Winged folk are myths, in the south. Winged? Surely you mean...'
    Aerie started to shrug back her cape, but Quartz put her arm around her shoulders again. Wess broke into the conversation quickly.
    'The bones are longer,' she said, touching the three outer fingers of her left hand with the forefinger of her right. 'And stronger. The webs between fold out.'
    'And these people fly?'
    'Of course. Why else have wings?'
    Wess glanced at Chan, who nodded and reached for his pack.
    'We have no homuncule,' Wess said. 'But we have a picture. It isn't Satan, but it's very like him.'
    Chan pulled out the wooden tube he had carried all the way from Kaimas. From inside it, he drew the rolled kidskin, which he opened out on to the table. The hide was carefully tanned and very thin; it had writing on one side and a painting, with one word underneath it, on the other.
    'It's from the library at Kaimas,' Chan said. 'No one knows where it came from. I believe it is quite old, and I think it is from a book, but this is all that's left.' He showed Lythande the written side. 'I can decipher the script but not the language. Can you read it?'
    Lythande shook his head. 'It is unknown to me.'
    Disappointed, Chan turned the illustrated side of the manuscript page towards Lythande. Wess leaned towards it too, picking out the details in the dim candlelight. It was beautiful, almost as beautiful as Satan himself. It was surprising how like Satan it was, for it had been in the library since long before he was born. The slender and powerful winged man had red-gold hair and flame-coloured wings. His expression seemed composed half of wisdom and half of deep despair.
    Most flying people were black or deep iridescent green or pure dark blue. But Satan, like the painting, was the colour of fire. Wess explained that to Lythande.
    'We suppose this word to be this person's name,' Chan said.
    'We cannot be sure we have the pronunciation right, but Satan's mother liked the sound as we say it, so she gave it to him as his name, too.'
    Lythande stared at the gold and scarlet painting in silence for a long time, then shook his head and leaned back in his chair. He blew smoke towards the ceiling. The ring spun, and sparked, and finally dissipated into the haze.
    'Frejojani,' Lythande said, 'Jubal - and the other slavemongers - parade their merchandise through the town before every auction. If your friend were in the coffle, everyone in Sanctuary would know. Everyone in the Empire would know.'
    Beneath the edges of her cape. Aerie clenched her hands into fists. Chan slowly, carefully, blankly, rolled up the painting and stored it away. This was, Wess feared, the end of their journey.
    'But it might be...'
    Aerie looked up sharply, narrowing her deep-set eyes.
    'Such an unusual being would not be sold at public auction. He would be offered in private sale, or exhibited, or perhaps even offered to the Emperor for his menagerie.'
    Aerie flinched, and Quartz traced the texture of her