Amber and Iron Read online

People stared at the monk and kender as they walked along the streets of Solace, obviously wondering how the two had managed to get so wet on a day when the sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. They hadn’t gone far, however, before Nightshade came to a sudden stop.

  “Why are we walking toward the jail?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Don’t worry,” Gerard assured him. “My house is located near the prison. I live close by the jail in case there’s trouble. The house comes as part of my pay.”

  “Oh, well, that’s all right then,” said Nightshade, relieved.

  “We’ll have something to eat and drink, and you can retrieve your staff while you’re there, Brother,” Gerard added as an afterthought. “I’ve been keeping it for you.”

  “My staff!” Now it was Rhys who halted. He regarded his friend in astonishment.

  “I guess it’s yours,” said Gerard. “I found it in the prison cell after you’d left. You were in such a hurry,” he added wryly, “you forgot it.”

  “Are you sure the staff is mine?”

  “If I wasn’t sure, Atta was,” said Gerard. “She sleeps beside it every night.”

  Nightshade was staring at Rhys with wide eyes.

  “Rhys—” said the kender.

  Rhys shook his head, hoping to ward off the questions he knew was coming.

  Nightshade was persistent. “But, Rhys, your staff—”

  “—has been in safe hands all this time,” said Rhys. “I need not have been worried about it.”

  Nightshade subsided, though he continued to cast puzzled glances at Rhys as they walked on. Rhys hadn’t forgotten his staff. The emmide had been with him when they’d made their unexpected journey to the death knight’s castle. The staff had probably saved their lives, undergoing a miraculous transformation, changing from a shabby wooden staff into a gigantic praying mantis that had attacked the death knight. Rhys had thought the staff lost to Storm’s Keep and he’d felt a pang of regret, even as he was fleeing for his life, at having to leave it behind. The emmide was sacred to Majere, the god Rhys had abandoned.

  The god who apparently refused to abandon Rhys.

  Humbled, grateful and confused, Rhys pondered Majere’s involvement in his life. Rhys had thought the sacred staff a parting gift from his god, a sign from Majere that he understood and forgave his backsliding follower. When the emmide had transformed itself into the praying mantis to attack Krell, Rhys had taken that to be the god’s final blessing. Yet now the emmide was back. It had been given for safekeeping to Gerard, a former Solamnic knight—a sign, perhaps, that this man could be trusted, and also a sign that Majere still took a keen interest in his monk.

  “The way to me is through you,” Majere taught. “Know yourself and you come to know me.”

  Rhys had thought he’d known himself, and then had come that terrible day when his wretched brother had murdered their parents and the brethren of Rhys’s order. Rhys realized now he’d known only the side of himself that walked in the sunshine along the riverbank. He had not known the side of himself that crawled about in his soul’s dark chasm. He had not known that side until it had burst out to shriek its fury and desire for vengeance.

  That dark side of himself had prompted Rhys to renounce Majere as a “do-nothing” god in order to join forces with Zeboim. He had left the monastery to go out into the world to find his accursed brother, Lleu, and bring him to justice. He had found his brother, but things hadn’t been that simple.

  Perhaps Majere and his teachings weren’t that simple either. Perhaps the god was a great deal more complicated than Rhys had realized. Certainly life was far more complicated than he’d ever imagined.

  A sharp tug on Rhys’s sleeve brought him back from his musings. He looked at Nightshade.

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “Not me,” said the kender, pointing. “Him.”

  Rhys realized Gerard must have been talking to him all this time. “I beg your pardon, Sheriff. I started down a path of thought and could not find my way back. Did you ask me something?”

  “I asked if you’d seen anything of that lunatic woman who apparently feels free to let herself in and out of my prison whenever she feels like it.”

  “Is she there now?” Rhys asked, alarmed.

  “I don’t know,” returned Gerard drily. “I haven’t looked in the last five minutes. What do you know about her?”

  Rhys made up his mind. Though much was still murky, the god’s sign seemed clear. Gerard was a man he could trust. And, the gods knew, Rhys had to trust someone! He could no longer carry this burden by himself.

  “I will explain everything to you, Sheriff, at least, as much as can be explained.”

  “Which isn’t much,” Nightshade muttered.

  “I will be grateful for anything at this point,” Gerard stated feelingly.

  The explanation was put off for a short while. The salt water crusted on their skin was starting to itch, and so both Rhys and Nightshade decided to bathe in Crystalmir Lake. The Sea Goddess, having recovered her son, had generously deigned to remove the curse that she’d put on it, and the lake had been restored to its state of crystal purity. The dead fish that had choked the lake had been carted off and dumped into the fields for use in nurturing the crops, but the stench still lingered in the air, and the two washed as swiftly as possible. After he had bathed, Rhys cleansed the blood and salt out of his robes and Nightshade scrubbed his own clothes. Gerard provided clothes for them to wear while their own dried in the sun.

  While they bathed, Gerard stewed a chicken in broth flavored with onions, carrots, potatoes, and what he named as his own special secret ingredient—cloves.

  Gerard’s house was small but comfortable. It was built on ground level, not in the branches of one of Solace’s famous vallenwood trees.

  “No offense to tree dwellers,” Gerard said, ladling out the chicken stew and handing it around. “I like living in a place where if I happen to sleepwalk, I don’t break my neck.”

  He gave Atta a beef bone and she settled down on top of Rhys’s feet to gnaw contently. Rhys’s staff stood in the corner next to the chimney.

  “Is it your—what do you call it?” Gerard asked.

  “Emmide.” Rhys ran his hand over the wood. He recalled every imperfection, every bump and gnarl, every nick and cut that the emmide had acquired over five hundred years of protecting the innocent.

  “The staff is imperfect, yet the god loves it,” Rhys said softly. “Majere could have a staff of the same magical metal that forged the dragonlances, yet his staff is wood—plain and simple and flawed. Though flawed, it has never broken.”

  “If you’re saying something important, Brother,” said Gerard, “then you need to speak up.”

  Rhys gave the staff a last, lingering look, then returned to his chair.

  “The staff is mine,” he said. “Thank you for keeping it for me.”

  “It’s not much to look at,” said Gerard. “Still, you seemed to set store by it.”

  He waited until Rhys had helped himself to food and then said quietly, “Very well, Brother. Let’s hear your story.”

  Nightshade was holding a hunk of bread in one hand and a chicken leg in the other, alternating bites of each and eating very fast, so fast that at one point he nearly choked himself.

  “Slow down, kender,” Gerard said. “What’s the rush?”

  “I’m afraid we may not be here very long,” Nightshade mumbled as broth dribbled down his chin.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because you’re not going to believe us. I give you about three minutes to toss us out the door.”

  Gerard frowned and turned back to Rhys. “Well, Brother? Am I going to toss you out?”

  Rhys was silent a moment, wondering where to start.

  “Do you remember a few days ago I posed a hypothetical question to you. ‘What would you say if I told you my brother was a murderer?’ You remember that?”

  “Do I!” Gerard exclaimed
. “I almost locked you up for failure to report a murder. Something about your brother, Lleu, killing a girl—Lucy Wheelwright, wasn’t it? You sounded like you meant that, Brother. I would have believed you if I hadn’t seen Lucy for myself that very morning, alive as you are and a whole lot prettier.”

  Rhys regarded Gerard intently. “Have you seen Lucy Wheelwright since?”

  “No, I haven’t. I saw her husband, though.” Gerard was grim. “What was left of him. Hacked to pieces with an axe and the remnants tied up in a sack and dumped in the woods.”

  “Gods save us!” Rhys exclaimed, horrified.

  “Maybe he said he didn’t want to worship Chemosh,” Nightshade said somberly. “Like your monks.”

  “What monks?” Gerard demanded.

  Rhys didn’t answer immediately. “You said Lucy has disappeared?”

  “Yeah. She told people she and her husband were leaving town to visit a neighboring village, but I checked. Lucy never came back and, of course, we know now what happened to her husband.”

  “You checked on them?” Rhys asked, startled. “I thought you didn’t take me seriously.”

  “I didn’t, at first,” Gerard admitted, settling back comfortably in his chair. “But then after we found the body of her husband, I got to thinking. Like I said to you during that same conversation, you’re not much of a talker, Brother. There had to be some reason for you to say what you said, and so, the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. I fought in the War of Souls. I battled an army of ghosts. I wouldn’t have believed that if someone had told me about it. I sent one of my men to the village to see if he could find Lucy.”

  “I take it he couldn’t.”

  “No one in that village had ever heard of her. As it turned out, she never went near the place, and she’s not the only one to disappear. We’ve had a rash of young people up and vanishing. Leaving their homes, their families, quitting good paying jobs without a word. One young couple, Timothy and Gerta Tanner, abandoned their three-month-old baby—a son they both loved dearly.” He cocked an eye at Nightshade. “So you don’t have to gobble your food, kender. I’m not going to throw you out.”

  “That’s a relief,” said Nightshade, brushing crumbs off his borrowed shirt. He helped himself to an apple.

  “Not to mention your own mysterious disappearance from the jail cell,” Gerard added. “But let’s start with Lucy and your brother, Lleu. You claim he murdered her—”

  “He did,” said Rhys calmly. He felt suddenly relieved, as though a heavy burden had been lifted from his heart. “He murdered her in the name of Chemosh, Lord of Death.”

  Gerard sat forward, looking Rhys in the eyes. “She was alive when I saw her, Brother.”

  “No, she wasn’t,” Rhys returned, “and neither was my brother. Both of them were … are … dead.”

  “Dead as a dormouse,” said Nightshade complacently, biting into the apple. He wiped away the juice with the back of his hand. “It’s in the eyes.”

  Gerard shook his head. “You best start from the start, Brother.”

  “I wish I could,” said Rhys softly.

  ou see, Sheriff, I don’t know where the story starts,” Rhys explained. “The story seems to have found me somewhere in the middle. It began when my brother, Lleu, came to visit me in the monastery. Our parents brought him. He had been running wild, carousing, keeping bad company. I saw nothing more in this than the high spirits of youth. As it turned out, I was blind. The Master of our order and Atta both saw clearly what I could not—that there was something terribly wrong with Lleu.”

  Atta raised her head and looked at Rhys and wagged her tail. He stroked her soft fur. “I should have listened to Atta. She realized immediately that my brother was a threat. She even bit him, something she never does.”

  Gerard eyed the dog, rubbed his chin. “True enough. Though she’s had provocation.” He was silent, thoughtful, gazing at the dog. “Now, I wonder …”

  “Wonder what, Sheriff?”

  Gerard waved his hand. “Never mind for now, Brother. Go on.”

  “That night,” Rhys continued, “my brother poisoned my brethren and our parents. He murdered twenty people in the name of Chemosh.”

  Gerard sat bolt upright. He regarded Rhys in astonishment.

  “He tried to murder me, too. Atta saved my life.” Rhys rested his hand gratefully on the dog’s head. “That night, I lost my faith in my god. I was angry with Majere for allowing such evil to happen to those who were his loyal and devoted servants. I sought a new god, one who would help me find my brother and avenge the deaths of those I loved. I cried out to the heavens, and a god answered me.”

  Gerard looked grave. “A god answering you. That’s never good.”

  “The goddess was Zeboim,” said Rhys.

  “But you didn’t take her up on it …” Gerard stared. “By heaven, you did! That’s why you’re not a monk anymore! And that woman … That crazy female in my jail … And the dead fish … Zeboim,” he finished, awed.

  “She was distraught,” Rhys said by way of apology. “Chemosh was holding the soul of her son in thrall.”

  “She turned me into a khas piece,” interjected Nightshade. “Without asking!” Indignantly, he helped himself to more chicken. “Then she whooshed us off to Storm’s Keep to face a death knight. A death knight! Someone who goes around mangling people! How crazy is that? And then there’s her son, Ariakan. Don’t get me started on him!”

  “Lord Ariakan,” Gerard said slowly. “The commander of the dark knights during the Chaos War.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “The one who’s been dead fifty or so years?”

  “As the tombstones say, ‘Dead but not forgotten,’ ” quoted Nightshade. “That was his whole problem. Lord Ariakan couldn’t forget. And do you think he was grateful that Rhys and I were there trying to save him? Not a bit of it. Lord Ariakan flatly refused to go with me. I had to run across the board and knock him to the floor. That part was kind of exciting.”

  Nightshade grinned at the memory, then was suddenly remorseful. “Or it would have been, if Rhys hadn’t been bleeding with pieces of bone sticking out of his skin where the death knight broke his fingers.”

  Gerard glanced at Rhys’s hands. His fingers seemed perfectly whole.

  “I see,” he said. “Broken fingers.”

  “What happened to us is not important, Sheriff,” said Rhys. “What is important is that we must find some way to stop these Beloved of Chemosh, as they call themselves. They are monsters who go about killing young people and turning them into Chemosh’s slaves. They appear to be alive but, in fact, they are dead—”

  “I can vouch for that,” said Nightshade.

  “And, what is more, they cannot be destroyed. I know,” Rhys added simply. “I tried. I killed my brother. I broke Lleu’s neck with the emmide. He shook it off as you would shake off bumping into a door.”

  “And I tried casting one of my spells on him. I’m a mystic, you know,” Nightshade added proudly. Then he sighed. “I don’t think Lleu even noticed. I cast one of my more powerful spells on him, too.”

  “You must appreciate the dire nature of this situation, Sheriff,” Rhys continued earnestly. “The Beloved are luring unsuspecting youth to their doom and they cannot be stopped—at least not by any means we have tried. What’s more, we cannot warn people about them because no one will believe us. The Beloved look and act in all respects just like anyone else. I could be one of them now, Sheriff, and you would never know.”

  “He’s not, by the way,” said Nightshade. “I can tell.”

  “How can you tell?” Gerard asked.

  “My kind can see that they’re dead right off,” said Nightshade. “There’s no warm glow coming from their bodies, like there is from you and Rhys and Atta and anyone else who’s alive.”

  “Your kind,” said Gerard. “You mean kender?”

  “Not just any old kender. Kender nightstalkers. My dad says there aren’t a lot
of us around, though.”

  “What about you, Brother? Can you tell by looking?” Gerard was plainly working hard at not sounding skeptical.

  “Not at first glance. But, if I get close enough, as Nightshade says, I can see it in the eyes. There is no light there, no life. The eyes of the Beloved are the dead, blank eyes of a corpse. There are other means by which they can be identified. The Beloved of Chemosh have incredible strength. They cannot be harmed or killed. And I think it likely that they each have a mark upon the left breast, over the heart. The mark of the deadly kiss that has killed them.”

  Rhys sat in thought, trying to remember all he could about his brother.

  “There is something else that is odd about Lleu and might apply to all the Beloved. Over time, my brother—or, rather—the thing that was my brother—appeared to lose his memory. Lleu has no remembrance of me at all now. He has no memory of slaying his parents, or any of the other crimes he has committed. He is apparently unable to remember anything for very long. I have seen him eat a full meal and in the next breath complain that he is starving.”

  “Yet he remembers he’s supposed to kill in the name of Chemosh,” said Gerard.

  “Yes.” Rhys agreed somberly. “That is the one thing they do remember.”

  “Atta knows the Beloved when she sees one,” said Nightshade, with a pat for the dog, who accepted his pat with a good grace, though she was obviously hoping for another bone. “If Atta knows, maybe other dogs know.”

  “That might explain a little mystery I’ve been wondering about,” said Gerard, regarding Atta with interest. He shook his head. “Though if it does, then it’s sorrowful news. You see, I’ve been keeping her with me when I do my work. She helps with the kender problem and she’s useful to me in other ways, too. She’s a good companion. I’ll miss her, Brother. I don’t mind telling you.”

  “Perhaps, when I return to the monastery, I can train another dog, Sheriff—” Rhys paused, wondering at what he’d just said. When I return. He’d never meant to go back there.

  “Would you, Brother?” Gerard was pleased. “That would be great! Anyway, back to what I was saying. Every day Atta and I have lunch at the Inn of the Last Home. Everyone there—the usual crowd—has gotten to know Atta. My friends come pet her and talk to her. She is always a lady. Very gracious and polite.”