Amber and Ashes Page 5

  A gesture banished the food and the table, the wine and the cloth. Mina stood a moment deep in thought to make certain she missed nothing.

  “I want my armor,” she said at last. “The armor given to me by Takhisis. The armor forged of her glory on the night she proclaimed her return to her world.”

  Candlelight gleamed from the depths of shining black metal. The armor that she had worn throughout the War of Souls, the armor of a Dark Knight of Neraka, marked by her queen’s own hand, was laid out on the floor at her feet. Lifting up the breastplate, adorned with Takhisis’s symbol—the lightning-struck skull—Mina sat down on the edge of the bed and began to polish the metal, using the corner of the cambric bed sheet, until the armor shone with a high gloss.

  ina’s wish took her to the lord city of Palanthas, where she paid a visit to the Great Library. She did not linger in the city once she had completed her business at the library, though she did note that there were large numbers of elves about, ragged, thin, and impoverished. She looked at them as they passed her in the street and they looked at her as if they knew her, but couldn’t remember where. Perhaps in a bad dream. She left Palanthas and wished herself next to a small fishing village on the northern shores of Abanasinia.

  “You’re daft, Lady,” said the fisherman bluntly. He was standing on the dock watching as Mina loaded supplies onto the small boat. “If the waves don’t swamp you and pound the boat to bits, the wind will rip off your sail, blow you over, and drive you under. You’ll never make it. Ruin of a good boat.”

  “I’ve paid you the cost of your boat twice over,” said Mina.

  She stowed a leather skin filled with fresh water in the stern. Walking precariously as the craft rocked with the waves, she climbed back up the ladder to the dock. She was about to haul down the second water skin when the fisherman halted her.

  “Here, Lady Knight,” he said, scowling as he held out the bag of steel coins. “Take back your money. I don’t want it. I won’t be a party to this folly of yours. I’d have your death on my conscience for the rest of my life.”

  Mina picked up the waterskin and slung it over her shoulder. She walked past him to the boat, lowered the second skin down beside the first. Turning to go back for the food, she saw him still scowling, still holding out the money bag. He shook it at her, jingling the coins.

  “Here! Take it!”

  Mina put his hand gently aside. “You sold me a boat,” she said. “What I do with it is not your responsibility.”

  “Aye, but she might not see it that way,” he said darkly, with an ominous nod of his head toward the blue-gray water.

  “She? Who is this ‘she?’ ” asked Mina, climbing back down into the boat.

  The fisherman cast a glance around, as if fearing they might be overheard, then leaning down, he said in a hissing, fearful whisper. “Zeboim!”

  “The sea goddess.” Mina had wrapped strips of salted beef in oilskin to keep them dry, and these she packed away in a wooden crate along with a waterproof bag of biscuits. She did not take much food because—one way or another—her voyage would be a short one. She removed a map, also wrapped in oilskin, and stowed it carefully, the map being more precious than food. “Do not fear Zeboim’s wrath. I am on a holy quest. I intend to ask for her blessing.”

  The fisherman remained unconvinced. “My livelihood depends on her favor, Lady Knight. Take back your money. If you’re truly going to try to sail across the Sirrion Sea to Storm’s Keep, as you claim, she won’t give you her blessing. She’ll sink you so fast your head will swim, then she’ll come looking for me.”

  Mina shook her head with a smile. “If you are so concerned with what Zeboim might think, take the money to her shrine and give it to her as an offering. I should think that sum would purchase you a large amount of her good will.”

  The fisherman considered this, and after a few moments of sucking his lower lip and contemplating the rolling water, he thrust the bag of money into his oilskin breeches.

  “Perhaps you’re right, Lady Knight. Old Ned, he gave the Mistress six gold coins, each stamped with the head of some bloke who called himself the Priest King or something like that. Old Ned, he found these coins inside a fish he cut open, and he figured that they must have been the Mistress’s. Maybe she stowed them there for safe-keeping. He didn’t figure they were worth much, on account of he had never heard of this Priest King, but they must have been worth something for now he never goes out in his fishing boat but that he comes back with more cod than you can count.”

  “Perhaps she will do the same for you,” Mina remarked.

  The food stored, she left the boat and returned for one last object—her armor.

  “I hope so,” said the fisherman. “I’ve got six hungry mouths at home to feed. The fishing ain’t been that good of late. One reason I’m forced to sell this here boat.” He rubbed a grizzled chin. “Maybe I’ll split the money with her. Half for her. Half for me. That seems fair, don’t it?”

  “Perfectly fair,” said Mina. She unpacked the armor, spread it out on the dock. The fisherman eyed it, shook his head.

  “You best keep it dry,” he said. “The salt water’ll rust it something fierce.”

  Mina picked up the breastplate. “I have no squire. Will you help me put it on?”

  The fisherman stared. “Put on armor? To go sailing?”

  Mina smiled at him. The amber of her eyes flowed over him, congealed around him. He lowered his gaze.

  “If you capsize, you’ll sink like a dwarf,” he warned her.

  Mina fit the cuirass over her head and held up her arms, so that the fisherman could make secure the leather straps that held it together. Accustomed to tying the knots of his net, he went about his task quickly and deftly.

  “You appear to be a good man,” Mina commented.

  “I am, Lady,” said the fisherman simply, “or leastways I try to be.”

  “Yet you worship Zeboim—a goddess reputed to be evil. Why is that?”

  The fisherman looked uncomfortable and cast another nervous glance out to sea.

  “It’s not that she’s evil so much as she is … well, temperamental. You want to keep on her good side. If she takes against you, there’s no telling what she might do. Blow you out to sea and then leave you with never a puff of air, becalmed, to drift on the water till you die of thirst. Or she might raise up a wave big enough to swallow a house, or whip up storm winds that will toss a man about as if he were naught but a stick. We are good people around here. Most of us worship Mishakal or Kiri-Jolith, but if you live by the sea, you always make it a point to pay your respects to Zeboim, maybe drop off a little gift for her. Just to keep her happy.”

  “You mentioned the worship of other gods,’ said Mina. “Do any worship Chemosh?”

  “Who?” the fisherman asked, busy with his task.

  “Chemosh, Lord of Death.”

  The fisherman paused in his work, thought a moment. “Oh, aye. There was some priest of Chemosh came around about a month ago trying to peddle that god to us. Moldy looking, he was. Dressed all in black and smelled like an open crypt. Talked about how the Mishakal cleric was lying to us when she said that our souls went on to the next stage of life’s journey. The fellow told us that the River of Souls had been tainted or some such thing, that our souls were trapped here and that only Chemosh could free us.”

  “And what became of this priest?”

  “Word went about that he’d set up an altar in the graveyard, promising to raise the dead to show us the power of the god. A few of us went, thinkin’ to see a good show, if nothing else. But then the sheriff came, along with the cleric of Mishakal, and told the priest to take his business elsewhere or he’d have him arrested for disturbing the dead. The priest didn’t want no trouble, I guess, ’cause he packed up and left.”

  “But what if he is right about the souls?” Mina asked.

  “Lady,” said the fisherman, exasperated. “Didn’t you hear me? I got six children at home and al
l of them growing as fast as tadpoles and wanting three square meals a day. It’s not my soul that goes to sea to catch the fish to sell at the market to buy food for the kids. Is it?”

  “No, I guess it isn’t,” said Mina.

  The fisherman gave an emphatic nod and the straps a final sharp tug. “If it was my soul went out and did the fishing, I’d worry about my soul. But my soul don’t fish, so I don’t worry.”

  “I see,” said Mina thoughtfully.

  “You say you’re on a holy quest,” said the fisherman. “What god do you follow then?”

  “Queen Takhisis,” Mina answered.

  “Ain’t she dead?” the fisherman asked.

  Mina did not answer. Thanking the man for his help, she climbed down the ladder into the boat.

  “Don’t make sense,” the fisherman said, as he started to cast off the lines that held the boat to the dock. “You’re wasting your time, your money, and most likely your life, going on a holy quest for a goddess that ain’t around anymore, or so the cleric of Mishakal tells us.”

  Mina looked at him, her expression grave. “My holy quest is not so much for the goddess as for the man who founded the knighthood dedicated to her name. I have been told that the one who betrayed my lord to his death lives out his miserable life on Storm’s Keep. I go to challenge him to battle to avenge Lord Ariakan.”

  “Ariakan?” The fisherman chuckled. “Lady, that lord of yours died nigh on forty years ago. How old are you? Eighteen? Nineteen? You never knew him!”

  “I never knew him,” said Mina, “but I have never forgotten him. Or what I owe him.” She sat down in the stern, took hold of the tiller. “Ask for Zeboim’s blessing for me, will you? Tell her I am going to avenge her son.”

  She steered the sailboat into the wind. The sail flapped for a moment, then caught the breeze. Mina turned her gaze toward the open waters, the breaking waves, and the thin, dark line of storm clouds that hung perpetually on the horizon.

  “Aye, well, if anything would make the Sea Witch happy, it would be that,” the fisherman remarked, watching the boat rise to meet the first of the rolling waves.

  A freak wave struck the dock, splashed over him, drenching the fisherman from head to toe.

  “I’m going, Mistress!” he shouted to the heavens and dashed off as fast as he could run to bestow half his money on the sea goddess’s grateful cleric.

  The first part of Mina’s journey was peaceful. A strong breeze pushed the sailboat up and over the waves, carrying her farther and farther from shore. Mina had no fear of the sea, which was odd, considering that she’d been through storm and shipwreck. She had no memory of either, however. Her only recollection—and it was dim—was of being cradled by the waves, gently rocked, lulled to sleep.

  Mina was an experienced sailor, as were most of those who lived on the isle of Schallsea, where the Citadel of Light was located. Although Mina had not sailed a boat in many years, the skills she needed returned to her. She guided the boat into the waves, rising up with the crest—an exhilirating sensation, as if one could keep rising to the heavens—then falling off, sliding down into the foaming trough of the wave, the sea spray blowing in her face. She licked her lips, tasting salt. Shaking back her wet hair, she leaned forward, eager to meet the next wave. She lost sight of land.

  The sea grew rougher. The storm clouds that had been a dark line on the horizon were now a lightning-shot, leaden mass, steadily building. For a precious few moments, Mina was alone in the world, alone with her thoughts.

  Thoughts always of Chemosh.

  She tried to understand her attraction to him, to understand why she was out here in this fragile boat, risking her life to challenge the might of the goddess of the sea, to prove her love for the Lord of Death.

  Mortal men, like that wretched elf, adored her. Galdar had befriended her, but even he had been in awe of her. Chemosh was the first to look into her, deep into her, to see her dreams, her desires—desires she never knew she had until his touch awakened them.

  She had never felt her own flesh until he carressed it. She had never heard her own heart beating until he laid his hand upon her breast. She had never known hunger until she looked into his eyes. Never known thirst until she tasted his kiss.

  Lightning flared in a blazing sheet across the sky, dazzling her eyes, jolting her abruptly out of her dreams. Blue fire flickered at the top of the mast. The waves grew more fierce, slapping at the boat, knocking the tiller from her hand. The wind whipped around. The sail flapped and the boat very nearly foundered. She struggled aft, the wind whipping and tearing at her, the boat plunging and rocking so that she had to fight to maintain her balance.

  “Turn back,” the sea was cautioning her. “Turn back now and I will let you live.”

  Rain spattered against her face. Mina gritted her teeth that crunched on salt. She managed to lower the sail, though it fought her like a live thing. Struggling back to the stern, she sat down, took hold of the tiller, and aimed the boat into the teeth of the storm.

  “For Lord Ariakan!” Mina cried.

  A wave, running cross-wise to all the other waves, struck Mina, swept her out of the boat and into the storm-tossed sea. Mina gasped for air, gulped water, and sank below the waves. Her lungs bursting, she fought the panicked urge to flail and thrash about in a desperate attempt to reach the surface. She kicked hard, propelling herself up with long, strong strokes of her arms. Another kick, stars flashing in her vision, and then her head broke the surface. She gasped a blessed lungful of air as she quickly blinked the water from her eyes to try to see where she was.

  The armor’s weight dragged her down again. The boat was near her. She lunged for it, caught hold of it before the next wave could sink her. She clung to the boat, held fast to it with all her strength, her fear now that the seas would flip the boat over on top of her.

  Another wave came, a towering wave. Mina thought it would finish her, smash the boat to bits. She sucked in a huge breath, determined to fight and keep on fighting. The wave struck her, carried her up and over the gunwale, and dropped her into the bottom of the boat.

  Gasping and shaken, Mina lay on the deck that was awash with seawater and blinked, her eyes stinging with the salt. When she could see, she saw a foot—a naked foot—resting on the deck very near her head. The foot was shapely and protruded out from beneath the hem of a gown that was green and blue, looked to have been made from cloth spun of seawater.

  Hesitantly, Mina raised her head.

  A woman sat in the stern, her hand upon the tiller. The sea raged about the boat. Waves splashing over the deck drenched Mina, but did not touch the woman. Her hair was the white of sea foam, her eyes the gray of the storm, her face beautiful as a sailor’s dream, its expression ever shifting, ever changing, so that one moment she smiled upon Mina, as if she were pleased with her beyond measure, and the next she looked upon her as if would step on her with that shapely bare foot and crush her skull.

  “So you are Mina,” said Zeboim. Her lip curled. “Mommy’s pet.”

  “I had the honor to serve Takhisis, your mother,” said Mina. She started to rise.

  “No, don’t get up. Remain kneeling. I prefer it.”

  Mina stayed where she was, crouched on her knees at the bottom of the boat, that rocked and pitched. She was forced to keep fast hold of the gunwale to avoid being tossed out again. Zeboim sat undisturbed, the sea breeze barely ruffling her long, wild mane of hair.

  “You served my mother.” Zeboim sneered. “That bitch.” She looked back down at Mina. “Do you know what she did to me? Stole away my world. But of course, you knew that. You were in Mommy’s confidence.”

  “I wasn’t—” Mina began to explain. “I never—”

  The goddess ignored her, continued talking, and so Mina fell silent.

  “Mommy stole away my world. She stole away my sea, and she stole away those like you”—Zeboim cast a disparaging glance at Mina—“my worshipers. The bitch took them all away from me and left me
in the endless dark, alone. You cannot imagine,” she said, and her voice changed, ragged with pain, “the terrible silence of an empty universe.”

  “I truly did not know what the goddess had done,” said Mina quietly. “Takhisis told me nothing of this. She never told me her name. I knew her as the One God—a god who had come to take the place of gods who had abandoned us.”

  “Hah!” Zeboim gave a wild laugh. Lightning flared up and down the mast, crackled over the water.

  “I was young,” said Mina humbly. “I believed her. I am sorry for my part, and I want to try to make amends. That is why I am here.”

  “On a mission to Storm’s Keep?” Zeboim idly stirred the water sloshing about in the bottom of the boat with her foot. “How will that make amends?”

  “By punishing the one who betrayed Lord Ariakan,” Mina replied. “As you see, I am a true knight.” She gestured to the black armor she wore, as she lifted her gaze to boldly meet the eyes of the Sea Queen.

  This was the tricky moment, when Mina would have to deceive a god. She would have to keep Zeboim from piercing her heart and discovering the truth. Mina had never considered trying to deceive Takhisis. Chemosh had laid bare all the secrets of her soul with a glance. If Zeboim looked closely, delved deeply, she must see the deception.

  Mina met the eyes of the goddess, eyes that were deep green one moment, storm-ridden gray the next. Zeboim glanced at Mina and apparently saw nothing of interest, for she looked away.

  “Avenge my son,” she said scornfully. “He was the son of a goddess! You are nothing but a mortal. Here today, gone tomorrow. Of no use, any of you, except to admire me and laud me and give me gifts and die when it pleases me to kill you. Speaking of death, I hear you’ve been asking questions about Chemosh.”

  “That is true.”

  “And what is your interest in him?” Zeboim looked at Mina closely now, and in her eyes flickered blue fire.

  “He is the god of undeath,” Mina explained. “It occurred to me that he might help me defeat Lord Krell—”