Amber and Ashes Page 4

He put his mouth close to her lips. “Serve me, Mina,” he said so softly that she did not hear the words but felt them burn her skin. “Give yourself to me. Give me your faith. Your loyalty. Your love.”

  Mina trembled at her own daring, afraid he would be angry, yet she was thinking of what he said about the power of mortals in this Age of Mortals. She saw in her mind the golden scales that Gilean held, balanced so precariously that a single grain of sand could cause them to wobble.

  “And if I give my love to you, what will you give me in return?” Mina asked.

  Chemosh was not angered by her question. On the contrary, he seemed pleased.

  “Life unending, Mina,” he said to her. “Youth eternal. Beauty unspoiled. As you are now, so you will be five hundred years from now.”

  “That is all very well, my lord, but—” she paused.

  “But you don’t care about any of that, do you?”

  Mina flushed. “I am sorry, lord. I hope you are not offended—”

  “No, no. Do not apologize. You want from me what Takhisis was unwilling to grant. Very well. I will give you what you do care about—power. Power over life. Power over death.”

  Mina smiled, relaxed in his grasp. “And you will love me?”

  “As I love you now,” he promised.

  “Then I give myself to you, my lord,” she said and she closed her eyes and lifted up her lips for his kiss.

  But he was not quite ready to take her for his own. Not yet. He kissed her on her eyelids, first one, then the other.

  “Sleep now, Mina. Sleep deep and sleep dreamless. When you wake, you will wake to a new life, a life such as you have never known.”

  “Will you be with me?” she murmured.

  “Always,” promised Chemosh.

  he elves, driven from both their ancient homelands, roam the world, exiles. Some have gone to the cities—Palanthas, Sanction, Flotsam, Solace—where they crowd together in dismal dwellings, working at whatever they can to buy food for their children, lost in dreams of past glory. Other elves live in the Plains of Dust, where every day they watch the sun set on their homeland that is far away, almost as far as the sun, or so it seems. They do not dream of the past, but dream blood-spattered dreams of a future of retribution and revenge.

  The minotaur sail their ships on the foaming seas and fight their battles among each other, yet always the sun shines bright on the swords that vanquish the ancient enemy and on the axe that cuts down the green forest.

  The humans celebrate the deaths of the dragon overlords and worry about the minotaur who have, at long last, established a presence upon Ansalon. The humans do not worry much, however, for they have other problems more pressing—political strife and turmoil in Solamnia, outlaws threatening Abanasinia, goblins rising to power in southern Qualinesti, refugees everywhere.

  The dragons emerge from their caves into a world that was once theirs, was lost, and is now theirs again. But they are watchful, wary, even the best of them suspicious and distrustful, just now starting to realize that what was lost is lost for good.

  The gods return to an Age of Mortals and know that it is truly named, for it is mortals who will determine whether or not the gods will have any influence over their creation. Thus the gods cannot sit at their ease in the heavens or in the Abyss or on any of the immortal planes, but walk the world, seeking faith, love, prayers. Making promises.

  And while all this is happening, a shepherd stands upon a hill, watching his dog bring the sheep to the fold.

  A kender plays games with the ghost of a dead child in a graveyard.

  A young cleric of Kiri-Jolith welcomes a new convert.

  A death knight seethes with rage in his prison and looks for a way out.

  Mina woke from a strange dream that she could not remember to darkness so deep that the lights of the candles did little to illuminate it, just as the cold, pale light of the stars are unable to light up the night. Her sleep was as deep as the darkness. She could not remember when she had slept that soundly. No alarms in the night, no sub-commanders waking her with questions that could have waited until morning, no wounded carried in on litters for her to heal.

  No face of a dead queen.

  Mina lay back on the soft, down pillows that surrounded her and gazed into the darkness. She did not know where she was—certainly this was not the hard, cold floor of the desert on which she had been sleeping. She was too warm, too comfortable, too lethargic to care to try to find out. The darkness was soothing and scented with myrrh. The myriad candles around her bed burned with unwavering flames. She could see nothing beyond the bed. For the moment, she had no care for that. She was thinking of Chemosh, the words he had said to her yesterday.

  When she died, some part of you was glad.

  Mina was a veteran warrior. From where she had been standing on that fateful day, she could have never reached the elf in time to stop him from hurling his lance at the goddess whose punishment for stealing away the world had been mortality. Mina did not blame herself for her queen’s death. Mina blamed herself for having—as Chemosh said—felt joy that the queen was dead.

  Mina had slain the elf. Most thought she had killed him in retribution. Mina knew differently. The elf had been in love with her. He had seen, with the eyes of love, that she was grateful to him for what he had done. She saw that knowledge in his eyes and, for that sin, he paid with his life.

  Her joy over her queen’s death was immediately subsumed in grief and very real sorrow. Mina could not forgive herself for that initial burst of relief, for being glad that the decision to give up her life for her queen had been taken out of her hands.

  “What would I have done when she came to kill me? Would I have fought her? Or would I have let her slay me?”

  Every night, lying awake in front of the hidden entrance to the Dark Queen’s mountain tomb, Mina asked herself that question.

  “You would have fought for your life,” answered Chemosh.

  He drew near the bed. The silver that trimmed his coat glittered in the candlelight. His pale face had a light of its own, as did the dark eyes. He took Mina’s hand, resting on the cambric sheet that wound around her body, and raised it to his lips. His kiss made her heart jump, tore at her breath.

  “You would have fought because you are mortal and you have a strong need to survive,” he added, “a struggle we gods never know.”

  He seemed to brood over this, for she felt his attention leave her, shift away from her. He stared into a darkness that was endless, eternal, and awful. He stared long, as if seeking answers, then he shook his head, shrugged, and looked back at her with a smile.

  “And thus you mortals could say,” he added, with a tone that was part mocking, part deadly earnest, “that the all-knowing gods are not so very all-knowing.”

  She started to reply, but he would not let her. He bent down, kissed her swiftly on the lips, then he strode in a leisurely manner away from the bed, took a turn around the candlelit room. She watched his walk, strong and masterful.

  “Do you know where you are, Mina?” Chemosh asked, turning to her abruptly.

  “No, my lord,” she answered calmly. “I do not.”

  “You are in my dwelling place.” He watched her intently. “In the Abyss.”

  Mina cast a glance around her then returned her gaze to him.

  He regarded her with admiration. “You wake to find yourself alone in the Abyss, yet you are not afraid.”

  “I have walked in darker places,” replied Mina.

  Chemosh looked at her long, then he nodded in understanding. “The trials of Takhisis are not for the faint of heart.”

  Mina threw aside the cambric sheets. She climbed out of the bed and came to stand before him. “And what of the trials of Chemosh?” she asked him boldly.

  The god smiled. “Did I say there would be trials?”

  “No, my lord, but you will want me to prove myself. And,” she added, looking up in the dark eyes that held her, Mina, inside them, “I want to p
rove myself to you.”

  He took her in his arms and kissed her, long and ardently. She returned his kiss, clasping him in her arms, swept by passion that left her weak and trembling when he finally released her.

  “Very well, Mina,” said Chemosh. “You will prove yourself to me. I have a task for you, one for which you are uniquely qualified.”

  She tasted his kiss upon her lips, spicy and heady, like the scent of myrrh. She was unafraid, even eager.

  “Set me any task, my lord. I will undertake it.”

  “You destroyed the death knight, Lord Soth—” he began.

  “No, lord, I did not destroy him …” Mina hesitated, uncertain how to continue.

  He understood her dilemma and he waved it away. “Yes, yes, Takhisis destroyed him. I understand, yet you were the instrument of his destruction.”

  “I was, my lord.”

  “Lord Soth was a death knight, a terrifying being,” said Chemosh, “someone even we gods might fear. Were you afraid to face him, Mina?”

  “Within a few days time, Lord Soth, armies of both the living and the dead will sweep down on Sanction. The city willfall to my might.” Mina did not speak with bravado. She was stating a fact, nothing more. “At that time, the One God will perform a great miracle. She will enter the world as she was long meant to do, join the realms of the mortal and the immortal. Once she exists on both planes, she will conquer the world, rid it of such vermin as the elves, and establish herself as the ruler of Krynn. I am to be made captain of the army of the living. The One God offers you the captaincy of the army of the dead.”

  “She ‘offers’ me this?” Soth asked.

  “Offers it,” said Mina. “Yes, of course.”

  “Then she will not be offended if I turn down her offer,” said Soth.

  “She would not be offended,” Mina replied, “but she would be deeply grieved at your ingratitude, after all that she has done for you.”

  “All she has done for me.” Soth smiled. “So this is why she brought me here. I am to be a slave leading an army of slaves. My answer to this generous offer is no.”

  “I was not afraid, my lord,” said Mina, “for I was armed with the wrath of my queen. What was his power, compared to that?”

  “Oh, nothing so much,” said Chemosh. “Nothing except the ability to kill you with a single word. He could have simply said, ‘die,’ and you would have died. I doubt if even Takhisis could have saved you.”

  “As I told you, my lord,” Mina replied gravely, “I was armed with the wrath of my queen.” She frowned slightly, thinking. “You cannot want me to face Lord Soth. The Dark Queen destroyed him. Is there another death knight? One that is troublesome to you, my lord?”

  “Troublesome?” Chemosh laughed. “No, he is no trouble to me nor to anyone else on Krynn for that matter. Not now at least. He was once trouble for a great many people—most notably, the late Lord Ariakan. Ausric Krell is his name. He is known in history, I believe, as the Betrayer.”

  “The traitor who brought about Lord Ariakan’s death at the hand of Chaos,” said Mina heatedly. “I have heard the story, my lord. The knights all spoke of it. None knew what ever happened to Krell.”

  “None would want to know,” said Chemosh. “Ariakan was the son of Zeboim, goddess of the sea, and the Dragon Highlord Ariakan. The father was dead, slain during the War of the Lance. Zeboim doted on the boy, who was her only child. When he died by Krell’s treacherous hand during the Chaos War, the tears of the goddess flowed so copiously that they raised the level of the seas the world over, or so they say.

  “The fire of Zeboim’s rage soon dried her tears, however. Sargonnas, god of vengeance, is her father, and Zeboim is her father’s daughter. She hunted down the wretched Krell, dragged him from the miserable hole in which he’d been trying to hide, and set about punishing him. She tortured him for days on end, and when the pain and torment was too much for him and his heart burst, she restored him to life, tortured him until he died, brought him back and did this again and again. When she finally grew weary of the sport, she ferried what was left of him—his remains filled a small bucket, I am told—across the North Sirrion Sea to Storm’s Keep, the island fortress built for the Knights of Takhisis and given to Lord Ariakan by his mother. There she cursed Krell, changed him into a death knight, and left him to fret out his sorry days upon that abandoned rock, surrounded by sea and storm that never let him forget what he had done.

  “And there, for over thirty years, Lord Ausric Krell has been a prisoner, forced to live eternally in the fortress where he pledged his loyalty and his life to Lord Ariakan.”

  “And he is there still? During all those years, the gods were gone,” Mina stated, wondering. “Zeboim was not in the world. She could not have stopped him from leaving. Why didn’t he?”

  “Krell is not Soth,” said Chemosh dryly. “Krell is sneaky and underhanded, with the nobility of a weasel, the honor of a toad, and the brains of a cockroach. Isolated on his rock, he had no way of knowing that Zeboim was not around to keep an eye on him. The seas lashed the cliffs of his prison as relentlessly as when she was there. The storms that are so prevalent in that part of the world beat upon his prison walls. When he did eventually discover that he’d missed his chance, he was so furious that a single blow from his fist knocked down a small tower.”

  “And now that Zeboim has returned, does she guard him still?”

  “Day and night,” said Chemosh. “Testament to a mother’s love.”

  “I have no love for traitors myself, my lord,” said Mina. “I will gladly undertake whatever task you set for me in regard to this one.”

  “Good,” said Chemosh. “I want you to free him.”

  “Free him, my lord?” Mina repeated, astonished.

  “Help him escape Zeboim’s watch and bring him to me.”

  “But why, my lord? If he is all that you describe him—”

  “And more. He is shifty and cunning and sly and not to be trusted. And you must never question me, Mina. You may refuse to do this. The choice is yours, but you must not ask me why. My reasons are my own.”

  Chemosh lifted his hand, stroked his fingers over Mina’s cheek. “Freeing Krell will not be an easy task. It is fraught with danger, for not only must you face the death knight, you must first deal with the vengeful goddess. If you refuse, I will understand.”

  “I do not refuse my lord,” said Mina coolly. “I will do this for you. Where shall I bring him?”

  “To my castle here in the Abyss. This is, for the time being, where I reside.”

  “For the time being, my lord?” asked Mina.

  Chemosh took hold of her hands, raised them to his lips. “Another question, Mina?”

  “I am sorry, my lord.” Mina flushed. “That is a failing of mine, I fear.”

  “We will work on improving it. As for your question, that is one I do not mind answering. I do not like these accomodations. I want to walk in the world, among the living. I have plans to relocate. Plans that include you, Mina.” He kissed her hands, soft, lingering kisses. “If you do not fail me.”

  “I will not fail you, Lord,” she promised.

  “Good,” he said briskly and dropped her hands. He turned away. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  “My lord!” Mina called to him, as she began to lose sight of him in the darkness. “There is something I need—a blessed weapon or artifact or spell imbued with your holy powers.”

  “Such a weapon would not avail you much against Zeboim,” Chemosh said. “She is a god, as am I, and is therefore immortal. I must warn you, Mina, that if Zeboim believes for one second you have come to rescue Krell, she will inflict upon you the same torment she inflicted on him. In which case, much as I will grieve your loss, I will be helpless to save you.”

  “I understand, my lord,” said Mina steadily. “I was thinking more of the death knight, Krell.”

  “You faced Soth and lived to tell of it,” Chemosh said with a shrug. “When Krell fin
ds out that you are there to free him, he will be all eagerness to assist you.”

  “The problem will be remaining alive long enough for me to convince him of that fact, my lord.”

  “True,” said Chemosh thoughtfully. “The only amusement poor Krell finds in his prison is slaughtering those who happen to wash up on his rock-bound shore. Being none too bright, he is the sort to kill first and ask questions later. I could bestow upon you some amulet or charm, except …”

  He let the sentence hang, studied her intently, as he carefully adjusted the lace at his wrist.

  “Except that finding a way to defeat him is part of my trial,” said Mina. “I understand, my lord.”

  “Anything else you want, you have only to wish for.”

  He cast a glance at the bed from which she had risen, at the rumpled sheets, still warm from her body. “I look forward to your safe return,” he said and, with a graceful bow, he left her.

  Mina sank down on the bed. She understood his look and felt his promise, as she felt the touch of his lips on hers. Her body ached and trembled with her longing for him, and she had to take a moment to calm herself, force herself to concentrate on the seemingly impossible task he had set for her.

  “Or maybe, not so impossible,” said Mina. “Anything I want, I have only to wish for.”

  She was ravenously hungry. She could not remember eating while she’d been in the prison house of her own making. She supposed she must have. She had some dim recollection of Galdar urging her to eat, but there was no memory of taste or smell or even what it was she had fed upon.

  “I require food,” Mina stated, adding, by way of experiment, “I would like venison steak, lamb stew, a cottage pie, spiced wine …”

  As she spoke, the dishes appeared in front of her, materializing on a table, spread with a cloth. There was wine and ale for her to drink, and clear, pure, cold water. The food was wonderfully prepared—all she could have wished for. As she ate, she went over various plans in her mind, discarding some outright, taking up those she liked, mulling over them in her mind. She borrowed something from one, put it together with an idea from another, and at last came up with the whole. She went over it all and was satisfied.