Amber and Ashes

by Margaret Weis

  “Wizard-locked,” said Nuitari.

  “God-opened,” Chemosh returned.

  He struck the chest with his hand. The oak planks split apart. The silver handles clanged onto the floor, burying the golden latch in a pile of oak kindling. The books inside the chest spilled out onto the floor at the feet of the Lord of Death.

  “So much for your wizard locks. Shall I kick in the door next? I warn you, Nuitari, I will find my artifacts if I have to break apart all the boxes and doors in this Tower, so be reasonable. It will be far less work for your carpenters if you just hand over my artifacts—”

  “Your mortal is dying,” said Nuitari.

  Chemosh paused in what he was saying, realizing, in the instant of pausing, that he had made a mistake. He should have said immediately and impatiently, “What mortal?” as if he had no idea what Nuitari was talking about and could care less.

  He did say those words, but it was too late. He’d given himself away.

  Nuitari smiled. “This mortal,” he said and he held out his hand.

  Something lay wriggling on his palm. The image was blurry and Chemosh thought at first it was some sort of sea creature, for it was wet and flopped about inside a net like a new-caught fish.

  Then he saw that it was Mina.

  Her eyes bulged in her head. Her mouth gaped, gasping. She writhed in agony, trying desperately to find air. Her blue-tinged lips formed a word.

  “Chemosh …”

  He was ready with his response and he spoke it calmly enough, though he could not wrench his gaze from her.

  “I have so many mortals in my service and all of them dying—for such is the lot of mortals—that I have no idea who she is.”

  “She prays to you. Do you not hear her?”

  “I am a god,” said Chemosh carelessly. “Countless pray to me.”

  “Yet her prayers are special to you, I think,” Nuitari said, cocking his head.

  Mina’s voice echoed from the darkness.

  Chemosh … I come to you. I am not afraid. I embrace death. For now I will no longer be mortal.

  “Such devout love and faith,” said Nuitari. “Imagine the surprise of my wizards when, while fishing for tuna, they catch instead a beautiful young woman. And imagine their surprise to find that she breathes water and drowns in air.”

  The spell had only to be reversed and Mina would live. Chemosh had to locate her, though. She was somewhere in this Tower, but the Tower was immense and she had only seconds left. She was losing consciousness, her body shuddering.

  “She is one mortal, nothing more. I can have a hundred, a thousand if I wanted them,” he told himself, even as he cast forth tendrils of his power, searching for her. “She is a burden to me. I am inside the Tower. I can take what I came for and Nuitari cannot not stop me.”

  He could not find her. A shroud of darkness surrounded her, hid her from him.

  “She dies,” said Nuitari.

  “Let her,” said Chemosh.

  “Are you certain, my lord?” Nuitari displayed Mina in his palm, placed his other hand over her, holding her suspended in time. “Look at her, Lord of Death. Your Mina is a magnificent woman. More than one god envies you, to have such a mortal in your service …”

  “She will be mine in death as she was in life,” Chemosh returned, off-handedly.

  “Not quite the same,” said Nuitari dryly.

  Chemosh chose to ignore the salacious innuendo. “In death, her soul will come to me. You cannot stop that.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of trying,” said Nuitari.

  Mina’s eyes flickered open. Her dying gaze found Chemosh. She held out her hand to him, not in supplication. In farewell.

  Chemosh stood with his arms at his side. His fists, hidden by the lace on his cuffs, were clenched.

  Nuitari closed his fingers over her.

  Blood seeped from between the god’s fingers. The red drops fell to the floor, fell slowly at first, one after the other. Then the drops were a trickle, the trickle a torrent. The god’s hand was suffused with blood. He opened it …

  Chemosh turned away.

  cross the continent of Ansalon, the Beloved of Chemosh walked the land. Young men and young women, healthy, strong, beautiful, dead. Murderers all, they walked about openly, fearing no law, no justice. Followers of Chemosh, they basked in the sunlight and avoided graveyards. Beloved of Chemosh, they brought him new followers nightly, killing with impunity, seducing their victims with sweet kisses and sweeter promises: unending life, unfading looks, forever young. All they asked in exchange was a pledge to Chemosh, a few simple words, spoken carelessly; the lethal kiss, the mark of lips burned on flesh, a new-risen corpse.

  As time went by, the Beloved discovered that unending life was not all they had earned. They began to lose the memory of who they were, what they had done, where they had been. Their memories were replaced by a compulsion to kill, a compulsion to find new converts. If they failed in this, if a night passed and they had not delivered that fatal kiss, the god let them know of his disappointment. They saw in their dead minds his face, his eyes watching them. They felt, in their dead bodies, his ire, which burned in their dead flesh, growing more painful day by day. Only when his Beloved came to him with offerings of new converts did he ease their torment.

  And so the Beloved of Chemosh roamed Ansalon, drifting from village to city, from farm to forest, always traveling east, the morning sun on their faces, to meet their god.

  A god who was not on hand to receive them.

  The Lord of Death left Nuitari’s presence with every intention of searching through the whole blasted Tower, from spire to basement, pillar to post, for his holy artifacts. He opened a door and there was Mina.

  For now I will no longer be mortal.

  He slammed shut that door, opened another. She met him there.

  More useful to you dead …

  Mina was in every room he entered. She walked with him through the corridors of the Tower. Her amber eyes gazed at him from the darkness. Her voice, her last prayer, whispered over and over. The sound of blood falling, drop by drop, onto the floor at Nuitari’s feet, thudded in his breast like the beating of a mortal heart.

  “This is madness,” Chemosh said to himself angrily. “I am a god. She a mortal. She is dead. What of it? Mortals die every day, thousands at a time. She is dead. Her mortal weaknesses die with her. Her spirit will be mine for eternity, if I want it. I can banish it if I don’t. Far more practical …”

  He caught himself staring into an empty crate for the heavens knew how long, not seeing that it was empty, seeing only Mina’s face, staring back at him. He realized that he was wasting his time.

  “Nuitari took me by surprise. I had not expected to find the Tower rebuilt. I did not expect to find the God of the Dark Moon taking up habitation here. Small wonder that I am distracted. I need time to think how to combat him. Time to plan, come up with a strategy.”

  Chemosh grew calmer, thinking this through.

  “I will leave now, but I will return,” he promised the moonfaced god.

  He walked through the crystal walls, through the shifting ocean depths, through the ethers heading back to the darkness of the Abyss.

  Darkness that was empty and silent.

  So very silent. So very empty.

  “Her spirit will be here,” he said to himself. “Perhaps she will choose to go on to the next stage of her life’s journey. Perhaps she will leave me, abandon me, as I abandoned her.”

  He started to go to the place where the souls passed from this world to Beyond, walking through the door that would lead to them to wherever it was they needed to go in order to fulfill the soul’s quest. He went there to receive Mina’s soul.

  Or watch it walk away from him.

  He stopped. He could not go there, either. He did not know where to go and in the end, he went nowhere.

  Chemosh lay in his bed, their bed.

  He could still smell her scent. He could see the depression i
n the pillow where she lay her head. He found a strand of glistening red hair and he picked it up and wound it around and around his finger. He ran his hand over the sheet, smoothing it, and he was running his hand over the soft, smooth skin, delighting in the feel of her warm and yielding flesh.

  Delighting in the life. For she brought life to him.

  He had once said to her: “When I am with you, that is the time I come closest to mortality. I see you lie back upon the pillow, and your body is covered with a fine sheen of sweat, and you are flushed and languorous. Your heart beats fast, the blood pulses beneath your skin. I feel life in you, Mina.” All that was gone.

  He lay on the empty bed and stared into the darkness. His plans were all thrown into disarray. The “Beloved” were roaming Ansalon, their deadly kisses bringing more and more converts to his worship, converts who would obey his least command. He would have a powerful force at his disposal. He was not now certain what he would do with them.

  He had meant for Mina to lead them.

  Chemosh closed his eyes in agony and, when he opened them again, she stood before him.

  “My lord,” she said.

  “You came to me,” he said.

  “Of course, my lord,” she said. “I pledged you my faith, my love.”

  He reached out to her.

  The amber eyes were ashes. Her lips dust. Her voice was the ghost of a voice. Her touch ghostly chill.

  Chemosh rolled over on the bed, away from her.

  No mortal, not even a dead one, should see a god weep.

  ar distant from the Abyss, in the former Tower of High Sorcery at Istar—which had been renamed the Tower of the Blood Sea—Nuitari, god of dark magic, was closeted in one of the tower rooms with two of his wizards.

  The three stood staring with rapt intensity into a large silver bowl of unique shape and design. Made to resemble the coiled body of a dragon, the base of the bowl was the dragon’s body winding around and around upon itself, ending in a tail. The dragon’s head, mouth agape, formed the bowl. Four dragon legs were the base, supporting the body. When the gaping mouth was filled with dragon’s blood (blood that had to be taken from a willing dragon) the bowl had the ability to reveal to those who looked into it what was transpiring, not in the world—that was of little interest to Nuitari—but in heaven.

  The theft of the world by one of their own had caused profound changes in all the gods, some for the better, others for much the worse. The three cousins, gods of magic, had always been allies, if they had not always been friends. Their love and dedication to the magic formed a bond between them that was strong enough to accept differences of philosophy in regard to how the magic should be used and promulgated. They had always come together to make decisions in regard to the magic. They had worked together to raise up the Towers of High Sorcery. They had grieved together to see the Towers fall.

  Nuitari still felt a bond with his cousins. He had joined with them to bring back godly magic to the world and he was a staunch—even ruthless—supporter of their desire to put an end to the practice of sorcery. But the relationship between the cousins had changed. Takhisis’s treachery had left Nuitari suspicious of everyone, including his cousins.

  Nuitari had never trusted Takhisis’s ambition. He had many times worked against his own mother, particularly when her interests and his own clashed. Even he had not been prepared for her betrayal. Her theft of Krynn had caught him flat-footed, made him look the fool. She had left him to search the universe for his lost world as a child searches the house for a lost marble.

  His anger at his mother for her betrayal and at himself for being blind to her perfidy was a smoldering fire in him. Never again would he put faith in anyone. From now on, Nuitari would look out for Nuitari. He would raise up a fortress for himself and his followers, one that he alone would control. From the safety of that fortress he would keep close watch on his fellow gods and do what he could to thwart their plans and ambitions.

  The ruins of the Tower of Istar had long rested beneath the Blood Sea. Most of the gods had fondly supposed the Tower completely destroyed. The gods of magic knew better. Following the Cataclysm, they had acted swiftly to make certain that the holy artifacts and relics in the Tower were protected. In order to keep these safe and secret, they buried the ruins of the Tower beneath a mountain of sand and coral. Sometime, in the far, far distant future, when the tale of Istar was nothing more than a fable used to frighten children into eating their vegetables, the gods of magic would restore the Tower, recover the lost artifacts, and give them back to the gods who had forged and blessed them.

  Takhisis shattered those plans. When the gods finally recovered the world, they became absorbed in the pressing need to reestablish magic and quash sorcery. Solinari and Lunitari were dedicated to this cause and oblivious to all others. Nuitari was there to lend his aid when called upon. When he wasn’t needed, he was beneath the Blood Sea, working for himself. He raised up the ruins of the Tower of Istar and rebuilt them to his own design. He recovered the stolen artifacts and relics. He brought these to a secret vault hidden beneath the Tower that he termed the Chamber of Relics. He sealed this chamber with powerful magical locks and posted a guardian—a sea dragon, a fierce, cunning creature known as Midori.

  Thus far, none of the gods knew about his Tower. They were so busy building new temples and recruiting new followers that none thought of peering down beneath the ocean. He trusted their ignorance would continue for some time, long enough for him to firmly entrench himself and his followers. The only two who were a serious threat to him were his twin sister Zeboim and the god of sea life, Habakkuk.

  Fortunately, Zeboim had gone off on one of her tangents—something to do with a death knight she’d cursed. As for Habakkuk, he was embroiled in a bitter battle with a Dragon Overlord who’d taken up residence in the seas on the opposite side of globe, a distraction brought about by Nuitari’s partner, the sea dragon Midori.

  Nuitari had not thought he had anything to worry about from any other god and he’d been surprised and extremely displeased to find Chemosh coolly walking the halls of his Tower. The God’s Eye revealed Chemosh’s growing ambition.

  The God’s Eye revealed Mina.

  Like all the gods, Nuitari was an admirer. He toyed with the idea of seeking her out, making her one of his own followers. The fact that she was his mother’s creation put an end to that notion. Nuitari wanted nothing to do with anything his mother had touched, and so he had left her to Chemosh.

  A good thing, too. Chemosh’s weakness for this particular mortal had been his undoing. Even though Nuitari had not expected Chemosh to actually let Mina die, the god of the Unseen Moon had been quick to see how this could work to his advantage.

  Peering into the Dragon-sight bowl, Nuitari saw the Lord of Death prostrate on his bed, beaten down, defeated, alone, with only the ghost of Mina to offer help, support.

  The ghost of Mina. Nuitari’s thick, full lips smacked.

  “A remarkable illusion,” he said to his wizards. “You have fooled even a god. Admittedly, a god who was ready to be fooled, but still—good work.”

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  “My lord, thank you.”

  The two Black Robes bowed respectfully.

  “Can you sustain this illusion for as long as I require it?” Nuitari asked.

  “So long as we have the live model from which to work, my lord, yes, we can sustain it.”

  The wizards and the god turned to look into the prison cell which they had conjured up on the spot. The cell’s walls were clear crystal and inside they could see Mina—wet and bedraggled and very much alive—pacing, back and forth.

  “She can hear me?” Nuitari asked.

  “Yes, my lord. She can hear and see us. We can see her, though we cannot hear her.”

  “No one can hear her? Not her voice? Not her prayers?”

  “No one, my lord.”

  “That is well. Mina,” called out Nuitari, “I don’t believe I have
had a chance to welcome you to my home. I trust your stay will be a long and pleasant one. Pleasant for us, though not, I fear, for you. By the way, you have not thanked me for saving your life.”

  Mina ceased her restless pacing. Striding over to the wall, she glared at him defiantly, her amber eyes flaring. She called out to him—he could see her mouth moving.

  “I am not a reader of lips, but I don’t believe she is expressing her gratitude, my lord,” observed one of the Black Robes.

  “No, I don’t believe she is.” Nuitari smiled broadly and bowed mockingly.

  No one could hear Mina’s curses, not even the gods. She struck her hands against the wall that was smooth and clear as ice. She struck it again and again, hoping to find a crack, a crevice, a flaw.

  Nuitari was admiring. “She is truly magnificent, as I said to Chemosh. Notice this, gentlemen. She has no fear. She is weak from her ordeal, half-dead, yet she would like nothing better than to find a way to get at you two and rip out your hearts. Use her as you will, but guard her well.”

  “Trust us, my lord,” said both Black Robes.

  Nuitari turned from Mina back to the God’s Eye bowl to see the illusion of Mina standing beside Chemosh, gazing down upon him in wistful sorrow.

  “Look at that.” Nuitari made a disdainful gesture, indicating the misery of the god. “Chemosh is convinced that his lover is dead, that nothing remains to him but her spirit. He weeps. How pitiful. How sad.” Nuitari chuckled. “How very useful for us.”

  “I must admit, my lord,” said one of the wizards, “I had some reservations about this plan of yours. I would not have thought it possible to deceive a god.”

  Nuitari’s thoughts went to his mother.

  “Only one who is weak,” said Nuitari grimly. “And then only once.”

  Note: For more detailed information on the various topics presented in this Appendix, readers are referred to: The DRAGONLANCE Campaign Setting, published by Wizards of the Coast; The Towers of High Sorcery, a DRAGONLANCE d20 System Supplement, published by Sovereign Press; and The Kingpriest Trilogy, written by Chris Pierson, published by Wizards of the Coast.