Ghost of a Chance

“Why?” Alex said. “It’s because of the life rune. The only thing you can do about that is worry, and we both know it.” Iggy glared at him, but Alex didn’t relent. “Right now I’m doing enough worrying for the both of us,” he went on.

“Firstly,” Iggy said, fishing his green-backed rune book from his jacket pocket. “This tremor might not be related to the Incident.”

The Incident was Iggy’s nickname for Alex’s teleporting Sorsha Kincaid’s floating castle out over the Atlantic.

“Secondly,” Iggy went on, “you don’t need to spare my feelings. I’m not some frail old man.” He tore a vault rune from his book and pasted it into a barely visible door frame painted on the wall of the kitchen.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said as Iggy touched the lit end of his cigar to the rune and it vanished, leaving a heavy steel door in its place. “But I’m not dead yet either. We agreed we’d just keep going as usual for as long as I’ve got left.”

Iggy looked at him somberly before he pulled open the heavy door to his vault. Alex knew that look; he’d seen it in the mirror plenty of times. It haunted him on the nights when he couldn’t sleep, which was more and more often these days. That look had only one meaning.

Your days are numbered and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it.

Seeing that look on Iggy’s face, a man he owed almost everything, pained Alex in a way he didn’t want to dwell on. The sorceress had known that look was coming and removed herself from Alex’s life before it became a reality. He didn’t blame her for that. If he was honest with himself, he would have hated seeing that look on her perfect features almost as much as he hated it on Iggy’s craggy face.

Iggy sighed.

“We’ll soldier on,” he said. “It’s all we can do. Now come inside.”

Alex stopped, flat-footed for a moment. He’d never been allowed inside Iggy’s vault before. Stepping around the door, he entered a vast space, much bigger than his own large vault. The central area was a round room, laid out as doctor’s surgery. It had an examination table under a cluster of magelights in the center, and cabinets, cases of medical supplies, and racks of alchemical solutions along the curved edges.

To the right an arched doorway led into what looked like a runewright’s workshop, with a large, well-lit writing desk, and shelves and shelves of inks and components.

On the left, another archway ran into what looked like a study, complete with a comfy chair, shelves of books, and a perpetual fire in a grate.

Above him, the ceiling was vaulted, rising up to a dome. Intricate images covered the ceiling and Alex recognized some of them as Michelangelo’s work on the Sistine Chapel. Other were frescos from other great masters. A wide spiral stair ran up along the back wall to a vaulted opening overhead. From his vantage point below, Alex couldn’t see much, but the top of a four-poster bed stuck up just enough to be recognized.

“Sit on the table,” Iggy instructed as he went to one of the glass-doored cupboards and began looking through a shelf of stoppered vials made of dark glass.

Alex sat on the table, admiring the smooth, painted walls and the tile floor.

“How did you do all this?” he asked as Iggy came back with three of the alchemical vials.

“Drink this,” he said, shoving one into Alex’s hand.

Alex peeled away the lead that was used to seal the cork stopper to the bottle, then opened it. A pungent aroma assaulted him and he almost gagged.

“Better hold your nose when you drink that one,” Iggy added.

Alex did as he was told and managed to get the noxious liquid down. It burned in his gut and made him feel sick.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said, trying to take his mind off his churning gut.

Iggy looked around at his vault.

“You’d be amazed what you can do if you put your mind to it,” he said.

“Why do you have a bedroom in here?”

Iggy chuckled.

“There’s plenty about vaults you still don’t know,” he said, enigmatically. “I can close the door to this vault and it will disappear from the outside. No one can get in unless I open it from in here.”

Alex whistled.

“Sounds like a good place to hide if people are looking for you.”

“Or if you’re traveling,” Iggy said. “Just open the door on the back wall of a train station or a general store in any town you might visit or any stop along the way. You’ve got a place to sleep without having to pay for a room.”

“What if you need to go to the bathroom?” Alex asked. “Or eat.”

Iggy shrugged.

“I’ve got a bathroom in here,” he said. “Shower and all, and I’ve got a little kitchen with tins of food. Plus, there’s a diner in every town in America where you can grab a bite.”

Alex was stunned. He had no idea most of this was even possible.

“But, how do you get water in here for the shower?”

Iggy picked up Alex’s hand and checked the trembling. Alex had been too busy to notice, but the trembling seemed to be a tiny bit better.

“Now drink this,” he said, handing him the second vial.