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Was all of Sacor City buried? How had this co herself she was in the future, but she could not draw herself away from the enormity of it, the sense of loss Her time, her world, was hidden, literally buried She shook her head and released a rattling breath
The only one who could explain it to her was down here soe, but faer than ever to find him The as not difficult, for footprints over the dirty, dusty cobblestones had s she recognized, though sometimes she had to think about which one hich, because of their new setting and the dae to otherwise familiar facades There was the harness shop that ht saddles of the Green Riders It was next to a blacksh the crackedand spotted an anvil and forge still intact If ghosts wished to visit her, she thought, this was the appropriate time and place, but not one sothe ruins
More buildings were crushed beneath rubble, actually cutting off the Winding Way The footprints veered off to a gaping doorway There was not est what it had once been, but soan racked her brain but could not remember
Plain wooden stairs ascended to an upper level They were not old, these stairs, but of a more recent construction and covered with dirty footprints She followed the in a room that could have once been a bed chamber She discovered another set of stairs that led into the attic Up she went again and, once in the attic, discovered steep, narrow stairs that rose through a square cut in the roof, through which faint light trickled
She gathered herself and cli a rope that served as a handrail, and rose through the roof, the roof of the old city, as she thought of it, and for several lengths through a vertical shaft of stone and rubble braced with cross bea chas The roo lea painted surfaces They’d valves and levers and gears, and she had no idea what they were supposed to be used for
The faint light she’d seen had not originated here but spilled down the shaft of a stairwell behind her Got to keep going She entered the stairwell, took a deep breath, and cliht iron steps, the handrail clammy to her touch When she spiraled up to the top of the first flight, she found a la open She stepped out onto a wooden floor splotched with dark stains, the air thick with dust and a htness, her taper could not begin to illu rooth like lines of soldiers before vanishing into the dark Shafts were attached to the ceiling, and wide belts of looping leather dangling down fro nooses She shuddered
Deeper in the roolinted on square-framed skeletons of steel heaped in a jumble of parts: rollers eears the size of cart wheels, rods and pipes and chains, and many other unidentifiable pieces She could not fathoether--an iroaned and co noises, and its listless air currents stirred loose tendrils of her hair
To Karigan it was as if the building echoed the energy, activity that itof it remained captured here, restless, contained by boarded up s and disuse
She shuddered again and backed into the stairwell No one was in that darkened rooht shone fro stairs yet one h the door into the dazzling light, she stood blinking some time before her eyes adjusted When they did, she could see the actual proportions of the roo’s throne roo down the center of the roo The floor, unlike the rough one below, shone to a high polish, and it was alh the battered support beams and brick walls were clues to the room’s more utilitarian past The ere not si with heavy velvet draperies Laht
She was not alone
About halfway down the room and to the left, Cade Harlowe, stripped down to his trousers and quite unaware of her, punched at a heavy oblong bag hanging fro on his muscles The wall near hihts were lined up along the wall, as well
Standing near hi his student as critically as any aran first, his gaze alighting on her Then Cade Harlowe paused what he was doing and followed the professor’s gaze The three of the at one another, then the professor broke the spell by striding toward her with his arood to see you up and about, e space "I see your curiosity finally got the better of you"
SANCTUARY