SANCTUM AND HEALING (2/?)
anonymous
November 26 2011, 21:59:30 UTC
Instead, the cool whispers of a quiet, shadowy spot in which to lurk and breathe and think was far more appealing. Even if there were ghosts, sliding down hallways and calling to one another, unable to forget the stone they loved, the lost possibilities of a long-squandered life.
Anders sat on a stone slab, wiping his brow with a handkerchief. Listening to Oghren chopping up broodmothers was hard, sweaty work, and there wasn’t any relish to be found in it, no story Anders could tell himself about how it would all be funny later. He heard the chittering of harmless, intangible things, the echoes of skullcrushers past instead of skullcrushers present, and as he tried not to remember the childers and the childer grubs, he realized it was all so customary now-the sort of thing that happened to a Warden on a regular basis.
He never thought ghosts would lose all meaning, but after the fourteenth haunted thaig, surprise was a tricky emotion to muster.
One of the pale memory-bodies trotted through him; it felt like a phantom sneeze, a bit of dust catching in his nose and his lungs, the tensing of muscle and twitching of nostrils that never fulfilled their promise. He used his sweaty handkerchief to rub the stretch of sensitive, stubbled skin between his nose and his upper lip; he regretted it when he smelled his own stale sweat in the fabric, though at least it wasn’t ancient, beaten, hungry stone, or the recent carnage of smelly darkspawn.
‘Watch where you’re going,’ Anders murmured, still trying to rally a shock or two, to find the joy somewhere in the absurd. ‘I know I’m in the way and everything, but walking through a person when he’s taking a breather-now that’s just rude.’
The conversations continued behind him, deep voices flickering in and out the same way a fire guttered on the open road, flames hunted by the wind. The outlines of their bodies, too, trembled and blinked and shimmered like a weakened arcane shield, and Anders watched them converse, gesture, point and sigh.
Finally, he managed a shiver, all the way from the base of his spine to the nape of his neck: a single, creepy bolt of selfish horror.
‘Apology accepted,’ Anders said.
They were discussing building-what else did dwarves discuss, dead or alive?-and most of the words had been swallowed by time; Anders still felt like he was eavesdropping, pretending to look the other way while he listened in. It was comforting as much as it was depressing to imagine conversations had, over and over, important to no one else but the echoing voices that carried them.
Maybe it might make them feel good to know-if they still felt anything at all-that someone was listening.
The conversation turned to an argument soon enough; Anders swept the room while he listened in on each musty corner and each shifting shadow. There were mushrooms growing out of the rock, hearty stock fed by scant mud and childer offal, and stone slabs and stone columns and stone doorways. The only bit of not-stone was a twisted heap of unpolished metal, glass glimmering for a moment-not reflecting but trapping the light off an arcane body before the ghosts swallowed it whole.
They finished their argument, a trailing wave arcing smoke-light through the stale air, and left in separate directions, disappearing beyond stone walls. Then, they returned to start again from the beginning, and it was Anders turn to walk through them, to run his hand over the tarnished frame, thumb against the broken glass.
A hidden shard sliced his finger.
‘Ow!’ he said, words swallowed up by the stony rafters.
‘Get to…building…’ the memory of a dwarf-or a dwarf’s memory-ordered behind him, quieter than a whisper now. The glass flashed once, and Kal’Hirol got all fuzzy and trembly and swoopy, Anders’s body too high up from the distant floor.
*
The earth was shaking when Anders jolted awake, slamming his elbow against something sturdy in the unexpected dark. His elbow gave; the something sturdy didn’t. He cringed, body curling in on itself to ward off further injury, to protect his vulnerable innards from the lash of a resurrected tentacle, the sting of its barbed tip and the squelch of its sticky suckers.
Anders sat on a stone slab, wiping his brow with a handkerchief. Listening to Oghren chopping up broodmothers was hard, sweaty work, and there wasn’t any relish to be found in it, no story Anders could tell himself about how it would all be funny later. He heard the chittering of harmless, intangible things, the echoes of skullcrushers past instead of skullcrushers present, and as he tried not to remember the childers and the childer grubs, he realized it was all so customary now-the sort of thing that happened to a Warden on a regular basis.
He never thought ghosts would lose all meaning, but after the fourteenth haunted thaig, surprise was a tricky emotion to muster.
One of the pale memory-bodies trotted through him; it felt like a phantom sneeze, a bit of dust catching in his nose and his lungs, the tensing of muscle and twitching of nostrils that never fulfilled their promise. He used his sweaty handkerchief to rub the stretch of sensitive, stubbled skin between his nose and his upper lip; he regretted it when he smelled his own stale sweat in the fabric, though at least it wasn’t ancient, beaten, hungry stone, or the recent carnage of smelly darkspawn.
‘Watch where you’re going,’ Anders murmured, still trying to rally a shock or two, to find the joy somewhere in the absurd. ‘I know I’m in the way and everything, but walking through a person when he’s taking a breather-now that’s just rude.’
The conversations continued behind him, deep voices flickering in and out the same way a fire guttered on the open road, flames hunted by the wind. The outlines of their bodies, too, trembled and blinked and shimmered like a weakened arcane shield, and Anders watched them converse, gesture, point and sigh.
Finally, he managed a shiver, all the way from the base of his spine to the nape of his neck: a single, creepy bolt of selfish horror.
‘Apology accepted,’ Anders said.
They were discussing building-what else did dwarves discuss, dead or alive?-and most of the words had been swallowed by time; Anders still felt like he was eavesdropping, pretending to look the other way while he listened in. It was comforting as much as it was depressing to imagine conversations had, over and over, important to no one else but the echoing voices that carried them.
Maybe it might make them feel good to know-if they still felt anything at all-that someone was listening.
The conversation turned to an argument soon enough; Anders swept the room while he listened in on each musty corner and each shifting shadow. There were mushrooms growing out of the rock, hearty stock fed by scant mud and childer offal, and stone slabs and stone columns and stone doorways. The only bit of not-stone was a twisted heap of unpolished metal, glass glimmering for a moment-not reflecting but trapping the light off an arcane body before the ghosts swallowed it whole.
They finished their argument, a trailing wave arcing smoke-light through the stale air, and left in separate directions, disappearing beyond stone walls. Then, they returned to start again from the beginning, and it was Anders turn to walk through them, to run his hand over the tarnished frame, thumb against the broken glass.
A hidden shard sliced his finger.
‘Ow!’ he said, words swallowed up by the stony rafters.
‘Get to…building…’ the memory of a dwarf-or a dwarf’s memory-ordered behind him, quieter than a whisper now. The glass flashed once, and Kal’Hirol got all fuzzy and trembly and swoopy, Anders’s body too high up from the distant floor.
*
The earth was shaking when Anders jolted awake, slamming his elbow against something sturdy in the unexpected dark. His elbow gave; the something sturdy didn’t. He cringed, body curling in on itself to ward off further injury, to protect his vulnerable innards from the lash of a resurrected tentacle, the sting of its barbed tip and the squelch of its sticky suckers.
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