The Sanctuary

by Raymond Khoury

  Di Sangro’s eyes weren’t deceiving him.

  The day Sebastian and Thérésia had slipped away from Paris together, he’d stopped using the elixir. There would be no looking back.

  The reborn Sebastian Botelho of Lisbon would wither away and die like an ordinary man.

  He’d never truly regretted that momentous decision, and in his rare moments of uncertainty and remorse, he only had to look into the mischievous grin of his six-year-old son to know that he hadn’t made a mistake. There would be no more secrets, no need to escape into new identities, and, best of all, no solitude. He would share the rest of his numbered days with a woman he loved, grateful for every sunrise by her side.

  Until that fateful evening.

  Di Sangro stared at his nemesis. He had markedly changed since Naples and Paris. His face was lined. His hair, now streaked with gray, was receding around his temples.

  Sebastian just stood there, allowing the bewilderment to seep through di Sangro’s resolve. He noticed the prince’s hold on his son loosen even more as, almost in a trance, he edged closer to get a better look at him.

  “But…I thought…?”

  Sebastian leapt at him, one hand keeping the dagger at bay while the other struck di Sangro flat in the chest, knocking him off-balance and sending him to the ground.

  “Go to your mother,” Sebastian yelled to Miguel, who hurried to Thérésia’s side as Sebastian pinned his nemesis. He picked up the fallen dagger and brought it to di Sangro’s neck.

  “Why can’t you leave me alone?” he hissed.

  Di Sangro dropped his eyes, their fiery light snuffed out. “What would you have done, in my place?”

  Sebastian pulled his blade back. “I too have wasted my life searching for something that doesn’t exist. I tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  The prince nodded ruefully. “So you really don’t have it?”

  Sebastian shook his head. “No.”

  A look of heartfelt dismay flooded the principe’s face as the finality of the reply sank in. He reached inside his shirt and pulled out the chain he wore around his neck. He fingered the medallion with shivering fingers. “So this?” he said, holding it up to Sebastian.

  “Nothing but a trick, a mirage,” Sebastian said in a hollow voice. “A siren that lures men and wrecks their lives against the rocks of its false promise.”

  He looked at di Sangro and released his hold. He pushed himself up to his feet and extended a hand to di Sangro. The prince took it, got up, and looked away at the glassy water of the lake, the dejection seeping into every corner of his tired body.

  “Such a shame. A tragedy. For us all.” He turned to Sebastian. “Imagine if it were true. Imagine how it would change the world. What a gift it would be. To have more time to spend with those we cherish. To have more time to learn, to travel, to discover…to truly live.”

  Sebastian nodded glumly. “Go home. Go back to your family. Enjoy the time you have left. And leave me in peace to enjoy mine.”

  Di Sangro took one last look at him and nodded.

  THE BOISTEROUS VOICES and laughter roared all around him, but di Sangro couldn’t hear any of it. He just sat at his corner table in the small tavern, a broken man, nursing yet another jug of ale, staring at the dancing flame of the candle before him, lost in the abyss of his mind.

  All this, for nothing, he lamented. Years wasted. Time, money. His son’s life. And for what? To end up like this, old and withered, drowning in bitter ale, hundreds of miles from home.

  Despite the glaze obscuring his thoughts, he scoured his memory for every piece of background he’d gathered, every word he’d heard, every nuance he’d picked up on during his dogged pursuit of the man who now called himself Sebastian Botelho. Every now and then, the disparate thoughts would emerge from the crevasses of his mind and threaten to coalesce into an affirmation he was yearning for, but each time, the doubt would set in and send them scattering into the shadows. Images and voices competed for attention inside him—the Contessa di Czergy and her recollections of Venice, Madame de Fontenay in Paris, among others—but each time, the shuttered face of Sebastian Botelho would appear, godlike, and overwhelm them into submission.

  For hour upon hour, he replayed his encounters with the man, the words they’d exchanged, the revelations he’d seen—or thought he’d seen—in his eyes. And in that jungle of confusion, a few words kept clawing at him. You don’t want to know, principe . Trust me. It is not a gift, not for any man. It is a curse, pure and simple. A curse from which there is no respite.

  Respite.

  He concentrated on that word and on the haunted look in the eyes of Botelho—the Marquis de Montferrat, at the time—when he’d uttered them all those years ago.

  What if respite was what Botelho had finally found? What if he’d had the elixir, but had—for some demented reason di Sangro couldn’t begin to fathom—decided to stop using it.

  He threw the mug to the floor and rubbed his eyes harshly, trying to wipe away the fog that was clouding his thoughts. His heart thundered in his ears as the angry realization materialized before him.

  He’d been tricked.

  The marquese had done it again. He’d played him like a fool. Yes, Botelho was older. But that didn’t mean he never had it. It meant he was no longer using it. And, like the old fool that he now believed he’d become, di Sangro had allowed the marquese to hoodwink him into believing him and abandoning his quest.

  “Bastardo,” he bellowed as he hurled himself to his feet and staggered out of the crowded inn, fueled by the raging fire in his veins.

  SEBASTIAN WATCHED the faint shadows from the moonlight inch their way across the walls of the bedchamber.

  He couldn’t sleep. The idea of losing Thérésia or Miguel to di Sangro still seethed inside him. He wondered whether he ought to have killed him, there and then, but it was too late for that now. Besides, he didn’t know whom the principe had brought with him, whom he’d told about what he suspected. Killing him was no guarantee of peace.

  His sanctuary had been compromised. The intruder, more than the man himself, was the words he’d spoken, which still rang in Sebastian’s ears.

  Imagine if it were true. Imagine how it would change the world. What a gift it would be. To have more time to spend with those we cherish. To have more time to learn, to travel, to discover…to truly live.

  He’d imagined it many a time, as had Isaac Montalto, as had Sebastian’s own father before him. A gift they all dreamt of giving mankind. A burden that had rested on his shoulders alone. A promise on which he’d reneged.

  Di Sangro was right. It was a tragedy.

  He couldn’t ignore it any longer.

  Thérésia stirred beside him, her smooth skin silhouetted against the pale sheets. From the concern in her eyes, he knew that, as on so many previous occasions, she could read the thoughts written across his troubled face.

  “We have to leave, don’t we?” she asked.

  Sebastian simply nodded and embraced her.

  DI SANGRO BURST into the stately mansion at first light like a demon, brandishing a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, screaming for Sebastian to appear before him, but his shouts went unanswered. He pushed and kicked at the servants who appeared and tried to reason with him and bounded up the central staircase to the upper floor, where the bedchambers lay. He kicked in the carved double doors to Sebastian and Thérésia’s bedchamber, only to find it empty.

  They were long gone, and in his heart of hearts, he knew he’d never see either of them again.

  He dropped to his knees, the weapons tumbling noisily onto the tiled floor beneath him, and wept.

  SEBASTIAN WATCHED as the porters carried Thérésia’s chest and dressing case onto the ship. The harbor was teeming with vessels of all sizes, from the small, Phoenician, crescent-shaped fragatas that performed lighter-age duties around the port to the three-masted tall ships that plied the Atlantic and linked the old port city to the New World.<
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  His heart contracted at the thought of the crossing his wife and son would soon be undertaking. The decision had haunted his every waking moment since they’d all abandoned their house on that night, barely days ago.

  They would never find peace. Not from di Sangro, not from others who would inevitably hear about it. Not as long as they were together.

  And he had work to do.

  A promise to keep.

  A destiny to fulfill.

  “Why won’t you change your mind and let us come with you?” Thérésia asked him. Miguel stood beside her, holding her hand, watching in wonderment as the last crates were loaded onto the towering vessel.

  “It’s not safe,” Sebastian answered, the words barely escaping through his lips.

  He knew what he was talking about. He’d been there before—and he was about to journey there again. He’d return to Constantinople. Assume the persona of a sheikh, just as he’d done half a century earlier. And travel into the Levant, to the bustling cities of Beirut, Jerusalem, Damascus, and Baghdad, and across the mountains and deserts in between, in the hope that this time his search would be more fruitful.

  The ship’s first mate called for the gangway to be withdrawn and the lines released.

  Thérésia’s hand gripped Sebastian’s tightly. “Come back to me,” she whispered in his ear.

  He took her in his arms and kissed her, then knelt down and kissed his son.

  “I’ll do my best” was all he could promise.

  And with a tremulous heart, he watched as the ship’s sails unfurled and took away the only true happiness he’d ever known.

  Chapter 66

  T hey were marched out of the house at gunpoint—Kirkwood, Corben, along with the mokhtar and his family—under a patchwork sky of purples and grays. Frothy clouds scudded along the horizon, backlit by the setting sun.

  The cemetery was at the far end of the village. Simple gravestones clustered around the mazar, a small, conical local funerary monument. The mokhtar led them through the rough, barren ground until they reached a small headstone. He stopped there and, with a morose expression etched across his face, pointed it out.

  Kirkwood knelt down and examined the old marker. The austere piece of limestone barely jutted out of the ground. It was bare, except for a small, circular carving in its center. Kirkwood reached out and brushed the moss and dust away from its edges. The head of the snake appeared more clearly, its simple detail eaten away by the passage of time.

  He noticed something else below it. He passed his fingers over the etching, clearing the detritus of time off it.

  It was a date, in Arabic numerals.

  “Eighteen oh two,” Kirkwood read out in a hollow voice.

  His mouth felt dry as a feeling of infinite loss came over him.

  So this was where his journey had ended.

  The hakeem’s voice broke through Kirkwood’s swirling memories, scattering them. “Eighteen oh two,” he repeated, thinking aloud. “My ancestor died in 1771. Not a huge difference, you might say. Except for one minor detail. Our ancestors met in the middle of the eighteenth century, around 1750 or so. At the time, your ancestor, according to di Sangro’s diary, seemed to be a contemporary of his, that is, approaching the age of forty. Which means that, at his death, he would have been, oh, close to a hundred years old. But here’s the thing. My ancestor died an old man. Your ancestor, well…according to the story that was passed down, the man who came down from the mountain and died here wasn’t an old man. He had walked down the mountain, alone. And it was a fever that killed him, not old age. The mokhtar was very clear about that. Which either means that your ancestor found something up in those mountains that kept him young, or—and this is the explanation I favor—that, as the principe suspected, he’d been using the formula for years. Only you said he didn’t have the complete formula. Which I find confusing. He abandoned his wife and his child to travel to this dangerous and distant corner of the globe, to search for something he already had?”

  Kirkwood stiffened. “He didn’t have it.”

  The hakeem took a menacing step forward, and his brow darkened gravely. “You know something? I think you’re lying. I believe he had it,” he said acidly. “I believe my illustrious ancestor was right all along. I believe Sebastian Guerreiro used the formula to live an extraordinarily long life. And,” he added fiercely, “I believe you’re doing the same.”

  Kirkwood tried to rein in his anger and his fear. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice didn’t waver.

  He felt Corben’s eyes on him, but didn’t dare turn to him. The hakeem was watching him too closely.

  “Really?” the hakeem coldly observed. “Let’s see.”

  He barked an order to his men. Two of them trudged off and disappeared behind one of the houses. The remaining guards raised their machine guns cautiously, watching over Corben and Kirkwood like hawks.

  Moments later, the two men returned, bringing back a prisoner who was dressed in camouflage fatigues and whose hands were cuffed. The prisoner’s head was concealed under a black cloth sack, like the one they had used on Corben. They stood the prisoner next to the hakeem and backed off.

  Even before the hakeem made his introduction, Kirkwood saw through the baggy outfit and the mask. The realization paralyzed him. He glanced sideways at Corben, but he couldn’t read the agent’s shuttered expression.

  “You were saying…?” the hakeem asked gruffly, before yanking the sack off his prisoner.

  Evelyn’s eyes squinted a few times, adjusting to the light. Then she saw Kirkwood standing before her, and her jaw dropped.

  “My God…Tom?”

  Chapter 67

  T he sight of Evelyn’s bewildered eyes sent an ice pick through Kirkwood’s heart.

  “Evelyn, thank God you’re…” He shook head with anguish. “I’m so sorry.”

  The hakeem was scrutinizing Evelyn’s reaction with resounding satisfaction. He turned to Kirkwood, his face beaming with the most irritating self-satisfaction, and stepped closer to him until he was only inches away.

  “I know plastic surgery does miracles these day, but this…,” he said to Evelyn, waving his hand down Kirkwood’s body, “this is far more than cosmetic, wouldn’t you say?”

  “You’re…” The words were catching in her throat. “How is it possible?”

  The hakeem nodded to one of his men, who grabbed Evelyn and pulled her back. The hakeem turned to Kirkwood, his face contorted with renewed menace. “You have the formula,” he seethed. “What are you really after?”

  Kirkwood summoned any reserves of will he had left and held firm. “The same thing you want.”

  “But you have already have it,” the hakeem rasped.

  Kirkwood didn’t respond.

  The hakeem grabbed a gun from one of his men and shoved it against Evelyn’s head. “You already have it, yes?”

  Every nerve in Kirkwood’s body bristled with fury, but he held firm and didn’t react.

  The hakeem’s finger tightened against the trigger. “You already have it, yes?” he raged.

  Kirkwood just scowled at him mutely.

  “Have it your way then,” the hakeem hissed, his sharp voice slicing the air, and he blinked his eyes over to Evelyn, his wrist bending slightly as he prepared to put a round in her head—

  “Wait,” Kirkwood yelled.

  The hakeem turned, the gun still held there.

  Kirkwood looked at Evelyn, then dropped his eyes to the ground. “I have the formula,” he muttered.

  Without looking up, he felt everyone’s stare on him.

  “I don’t get it,” Corben blurted out. “What the hell are we doing here then? Why are you here? What are you so desperate to find?”

  Kirkwood heaved out a ponderous, frustrated sigh. “The experiments in the book we have…they weren’t complete. The formula doesn’t work on…everyone.”

  “What do you mean, ‘not everyone’?” the hakeem asked, bringing
down the gun.

  Kirkwood glanced at Evelyn, then raised his eyes angrily at the hakeem. “It only works on men.”

  The hakeem processed his words, his face lighting up with a manic euphoria. “So you’ve been using it?”

  Kirkwood nodded. “The book Sebastian found wasn’t complete. It was partially burnt, and the last few pages—who knows how many, really—were missing. The experiments it detailed hadn’t been satisfactorily completed, at least not in the pages we had. There was still this critical flaw. For many years it was pointless to try and figure out the reason for the deficiency and try to fix it. Science wasn’t yet advanced enough, and besides, there were more important problems for our best minds to work on, more urgent diseases to overcome. It’s only in the last fifty years, really, that we’ve felt the time was finally right to devote some serious scientific resources to try and solve this riddle.”

  “‘We’?” the hakeem asked, waving the handgun questioningly.

  “We’re a small group. There are four of us. Carefully selected and approached by the descendant of Sebastian who’s been bequeathed with the…the burden. It’s something my father started.”

  “And he, in turn, passed it on to you,” the hakeem surmised.

  “Yes.” Kirkwood turned to Evelyn. “That’s why I couldn’t stay with you. I had taken an oath, and it wasn’t a life I could share with anyone. Not when I was taking the elixir. We had to work on fixing it, on figuring out how to make it work for everyone, and our cells, our blood, was part of the experiments. But it all had to be kept secret. We couldn’t risk letting the world know of its existence. If it ever came out, if it were available—and it’s not complicated to prepare, not in its current form anyway—it would turn society on its head. Men living a couple of hundred years, while women only lived a third as long and died off…it would redefine our world, it would rewrite all the rules of our civilization.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” the hakeem mused cynically, keeping a bemused but interested eye on the mokhtar. “Muslims and Mormons take on several wives, and it seems to work for them. This would be the same, only sequentially.”