Amber and Blood

by Margaret Weis

  Rhys and Mina were arguing. Mina apparently wanted Rhys to go inside, and Rhys was having none of it, which Nightshade, as a kender with common sense, approved, for he guessed immediately this building must be the Solo of the Feeble-minded or the Hall of Sacred Litches or whatever it was called.

  Nightshade paddled about, waiting for the argument to end, and soon grew bored. There was nothing to do down here except swim. He wondered how fish stood it. There being nothing to look at except the sand castle, he decided to look at it, and he noticed the castle had an extremely interesting door made up of pearls and the largest, most beautiful emerald the kender had ever seen. He swam over for a closer look.

  Nightshade was never certain what happened afterward. Either his common sense decided to pack its pouches and take a holiday or the kender side of him rose up, struck common sense a blip on the head bone, and knocked it out cold.

  Not that it made any difference.

  The fact was that the emerald was the largest and most beautiful emerald Nightshade had ever seen, and the closer he swam to it the larger and more beautiful it grew, so that in the end the kender part of him that was really there, despite what his father thought to the contrary, simply had to reach out his hand, take hold of the emerald, and try to pry it loose.

  Two things happened, one which was unfortunate and the other more unfortunate.

  Unfortunately the emerald did not come loose.

  More unfortunately the door did.

  The door flew open. All the kender had time for was to yell one startled “Oops!” then the sea water rushed inside the sand castle and took Nightshade with it.

  The door slammed shut.

  Nightshade was tumbled about in the rushing water and for several tense moments he had no idea if he was on his head or his heels, and then the water dropped him down on a solid surface and went on without him. He lay still for a moment gasping at the suddenness of it all. When he was over his shock, he noticed that he was breathing air, not water, for which he was grateful. He’d been going over in his mind what he knew about a fish’s diet and thinking sadly that he was going to have to live on worms.

  After gulping in few deep, reassuring breaths, he decided to get up and take a look around.

  He looked around and looked around again and the more he looked the more he was certain, with a quaking feeling in his gut, that this was somewhere he should not be and there was only thing for a kender of common sense—even a kender with horns—to do.

  “Rhys,” Nightshade wailed, “help!”

  Rhys turned just in time to see Nightshade sucked inside the Hall of Sacrilege and the door slam shut on him. Mina was laughing and clapping her hands. “Now, Mister Monk, you’ll have to go inside. I win.”

  She grinned and stuck out her tongue at him.

  Rhys had never been a parent himself, and he had often wondered how any adult could bear to spank a child. He was now beginning to understand.

  Mina swam to the door, and brushed her hand across the rune-carved emerald. As the door swung slowly open, sea water carried Mina and Rhys inside and bowled over Nightshade, who had been beating on the door with his fists.

  Rhys picked himself up. He looked back through the open door onto the desert-like landscape of rippling wet sand.

  Atta stood outside the door in the wet sand, shaking off the water, starting with her hind end and working her way to the front. When Rhys called to her, she slunk warily through the door. She clearly did not want to be here. Pressing her body up against his, she stood there, shivering.

  Nightshade didn’t want to be here either.

  “Rhys,” he said in a shaking voice, “this is it. This is that Hall place. It’s … it’s pretty scary, Rhys. I don’t think we’re supposed to be here.”

  The Solio Febalas, the Hall of Sacrilege—the repository of the Kingpriest’s arrogant determination to defy the gods. Nightshade’s instincts (and Atta’s) were right. Mortals were not meant to be here. The hall was sacred to the gods, to their wrath.

  “You’re not mad at me for making you come inside, are you, Mister Monk?” Mina asked wistfully, and she slid her hand into his.

  Looking at her, he did not see a god. He saw a child with the mind of a child—unformed, with imperfect knowledge of the world, and he wondered, suddenly, if that was what the gods saw when they looked upon mankind.

  Rhys no longer felt the gods’ wrath. He felt their sorrow.

  “No, Mina,” he said, “I am not mad at you.”

  The Hall was immense, perfectly round in shape, with a high, domed ceiling. The walls were notched with alcoves carved into the stone, each sacred to one of the gods. A single rune adorned the wall of each alcove. In some instances, the runes shone with light. There was the steadily beaming light of Majere, the blue-white flame of Mishakal, the almost blinding silver glare of Kiri-Jolith.

  Alcoves on the opposite side of the hall were dark, fighting to extinguish the light. The dread symbol of Sargonnas, God of Vengeance, was darkness on darkness. The alcove of Morgion was a noxious black green, Chemosh was ghastly bone white.

  The alcoves in between, separating darkness and light, striving to hold each in check, belonged to the neutral gods. In the center was the alcove sacred to Gilean. A book lay open upon the altar. Red light shone upon a set of scales, perfectly balanced, that stood in the center.

  On either side of the altar of Gilean, one on the left and one on the right, were two alcoves that were neither dark nor light, but were both shrouded in shadow, as though a veil hung over them. Once, one had been impenetrably dark, the other unbearably light. Both were empty now—the altars of the banished Takhisis and the self-exiled Paladine.

  The Hall was filled with holy artifacts, stacked on top of the altars, or jumbled in piles, or tossed carelessly onto the floor. Brought here by the soldiers of the Kingpriest, they had been unceremoniously dumped into his storehouse of shame.

  Rhys could not speak. He could not see for his tears. He sank to his knees and, laying his staff carefully at his side, he clasped his hands in a prayer.

  “Mister Monk, come with me—” Mina began.

  “I don’t think he can hear you,” Nightshade said.

  Mina gave a small sigh. “I know how he feels. I felt the same way when I came here—as though all the gods were gathered around me, looking down at me. And I was so very small and all alone.”

  She paused, then glanced trepidatiously back at the alcoves. “But I still have to get my present for Goldmoon and I don’t want to go alone.” She turned to the kender. “You come with me.”

  Nightshade cast a longing glance at the altars, at the vast assortment of the strange and beautiful, horrible and wonderful.

  “I better not,” he said at last, regretfully. “I’m a mystic, you see, and it wouldn’t be right.”

  “What’s a mystic?” Mina asked.

  “It’s a … well …” Nightshade was confounded. He had never been called upon to define himself before. “It means I don’t believe in the gods. That is, I do believe in gods—I have to, I met Majere once,” he added with pride. “Majere even helped me pick a lock, though Rhys said that a god picking a lock was a one-time occurrence and I shouldn’t expect him to do it again. Being a mystic means I don’t pray to the gods like Rhys does. Like he’s doing right now. Well, I guess I did pray to Majere, but that prayer wasn’t for me. It was for Rhys, who couldn’t pray because he was almost dead.”

  Mina looked confused, and Nightshade decided to cut his explanation short.

  “Being a mystic means I like to go my own way without bothering anyone.”

  “Fine,” said Mina. “You can go your own way with me. I don’t want to go back there by myself. It’s dark and spooky. And there might be spiders.”

  Nightshade shook his head.

  “Please!” Mina begged.

  Nightshade had to admit he was tempted. If only she hadn’t mentioned spiders …

  “Dare you!” Mina taunted.

  N
ightshade wavered.

  “Double dog dare you!” Mina said.

  That did it. Nightshade’s honor was at stake. No kender in the long and glorious history of kender had ever refused a double-dog dare.

  “Race you!” he cried, and darted away.

  Caele had never actually seen the Hall of Sacrilege, but he had been able to visualize it for his spell. The dragon, Midori, had once described it to him. Caele had not paid much attention to her description at the time; the dragon had rambled on about it simply to torment him. Midori knew he was terrified of her and she found it entertaining to keep him within snacking distance.

  Caele had been sick with fear the day the dragon had spent a horrible half-hour rambling on about the sand castle and how clever Nuitari had been in building it to house the holy artifacts and how it was too bad he—Caele—would never live to see it. Caele remembered almost nothing from that conversation, but he did manage to dredge up the words “sand castle” from his memory and, with that image in his mind, his magic carried him to this location.

  He materialized in the doorway and immediately froze, not daring to move until he’d assessed the situation. The monk was on his knees, blubbering. The dog crouched at his side. The kender and the brat were off looting an altar. No sign of Basalt.

  Caele had been planning to kill the monk immediately, but the deadly spell he was going to cast slipped from his mind as his stunned gaze went from one altar to another. He had never imagined in his greediest dreams the unfathomable wealth. And it was just lying here, unguarded, simply begging to be taken off and sold to the highest bidder. Caele was so moved he could have blubbered like the monk.

  He snapped back to business. First he had to get rid of the competition. Caele knew any number of spells which would kill people in a variety of unpleasant ways. He was reaching for the magical lodestone that would cause the monk to disintegrate into oozing globs of flesh when he caught sight of movement near one of the altars.

  Caele stared hard in that direction. He wasn’t certain which god the altar belonged to, nor did he care. One of the objects glittering on the altar was a chalice encrusted with jewels. Caele had already marked it as being particularly valuable, and he realized someone else had noted its value as well. A shadowy form crept near it—a shadowy, hairy form reaching out his hand.

  “Basalt!” Caele snarled.

  The dog sprang to her feet with a bark.

  ightshade stood with his hands jammed into his pockets, concentrating hard on keeping them there. He’d never before seen so many interesting and curious and wonderful objects all collected together in one place. Everything he looked at seemed to cry out to him that it wanted to be touched, picked up, poked at, prodded, sniffed, unlocked, unlatched, unhooked, unstoppered, unrolled, or at the very least stuffed into a pouch for further study.

  Several times Nightshade’s hands made an effort to leap out of his pockets and do all of the above mentioned. He managed by a great effort of will to keep his hands under control, but he had the feeling his will was growing weaker and his hands were growing stronger.

  He wished Mina would hurry.

  Unaware of the struggle going on in the kender’s pockets, Mina wandered back and forth between the two altars, both of them in deepest shadow, looking at the objects stacked up around them. Her lips were pursed, her brow wrinkled. She was apparently trying to make up her mind, for sometimes she would reach out to an object, then draw back her hand and move on to something else.

  Nightshade was in agony. One hand had already crept out of a pocket and he’d used the other hand to grab the first and wrestle it back. He was just about to yell at Mina to make up her mind, when Atta’s bark—sounding unnaturally loud in the utter silence of the Hall—caused the kender to nearly leap out from under his topknot.

  “Mina!” Nightshade cried. “It’s one of those bad wizards! He’s here!”

  “I know,” said Mina with a shrug. “They’re both here. There’s another one sneaking around over there by the altar of Sargonnas.” She gave a sly grin. “The dwarf thinks he’s clever. He doesn’t know we can see him.”

  At first Nightshade didn’t see anything, then, sure enough, a dwarf came into view, skulking about one of the altars. He was eyeing a jeweled chalice that had a foot piece formed in shape of a minotaur’s head standing on its horns.

  Atta was barking at the other wizard, lurking about in the doorway. Rhys was on his knees, his entire being given to his god. Caele had his hand in one of his pouches, and Nightshade knew enough about wizards to consider it unlikely he was reaching for a peppermint.

  “Mina, I think he’s going to try to kill Rhys!” Nightshade said urgently.

  “Yes, probably,” Mina agreed. She was still mulling over her choices.

  “We have to do something!” Nightshade said angrily. “Stop him!”

  Mina sighed. “I can’t decide which one Mother would like. I don’t want to make a mistake. What do you think?”

  Nightshade didn’t think. Caele was pointing something at Rhys and chanting.

  Nightshade started to shout a warning, but the shout changed to a gargle of astonishment. A rope made from hemp and twined with holly leaves that had been coiled up on the altar of Chislev, darted like a striking snake and wrapped itself around Caele’s arms, pinning them to his side. The words of the half-elf’s spell ended in a shriek. He fell to the floor, rolling about, trying to free himself from the binding rope.

  At that moment, Basalt grabbed hold of the chalice, and—to Nightshade’s astonishment—used it to strike himself in the head. Basalt howled in pain and tried to rid himself of the chalice, only to end up hitting himself again. He kept bashing himself with the chalice, unable to stop. Blood poured down his face. He staggered about groggily, moaning in pain, then toppled over, unconscious. Only then did he quit hitting himself.

  Nightshade gulped. His hands, still in his pockets, were now quite comfortable there, expressing no desire to touch anything.

  “I think we should leave this place,” said Nightshade in a tight, small voice.

  “I will take this,” said Mina, making up her mind at last.

  “Don’t touch anything!” Nightshade warned, but Mina paid no attention to him.

  She picked up a small crystal carved in the shape of a pyramid from the altar of Paladine and stood admiring it. Nothing happened.

  Holding the small crystal, Mina went to the altar of Takhisis and, after a moment’s indecision, chose a nondescript-looking necklace made of shiny beads.

  “I think Mother will like these,” she announced.

  “What are they?” Nightshade asked. “What do they do? Do you even know?”

  “Of course I know!” Mina said, offended. “I’m not a dummy. I know everything about everything.”

  Nightshade forgot for a moment that she was a god and she probably did know everything about everything. He made a rude noise, expressive of disbelief, and challenged, “What is that necklace then?”

  “It is called ‘Sedition,’ ” said Mina, smug in her knowledge. “Takhisis made it. The person who wears it has the power to turn good people evil.”

  Nightshade almost said, “You mean like you?” but he thought better of it. Even though Mina had nearly drowned him, he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

  “What about the little pyramid?” he asked.

  “This was sacred to Paladine.” Mina held it up to see the crystal sparkle in the blue light from the altar of Mishakal. “The jewel shines the light of truth on people. That’s why the Kingpriest had to hide it away. He was afraid people would see him for what he really was.”

  Nightshade had a an idea. “Pooh, I don’t believe you. You’re making that up.”

  “It’s the truth!” Mina retorted angrily.

  “Then show me,” said Nightshade. He held out his hand for the crystal.

  Mina hesitated. “You promise you’ll give it back?”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die if I don’t,” Nights
hade vowed.

  Since he’d sworn this terrible oath, sacred to childhood the world over, Mina agreed. She placed the pyramid-shaped crystal into the kender’s hand.

  “What do I do?” he asked, regarding it curiously and now a bit warily. He was wondering, suddenly, if the artifact might take offense at being used by a mystic.

  “Hold it to your eye and look at something through it,” said Mina.

  “What will I see?”

  “How should I know?” she demanded. “It depends on what you’re looking at it, ninny.”

  Nightshade held up the crystal and looked at the dwarf wizard lying on the floor. He saw a dwarf wizard lying on the floor. He looked at Caele and saw Caele. He looked at Rhys and saw Rhys. He looked at Atta and saw a dog. Thinking that this was a pretty sorry excuse for an artifact, Nightshade turned the crystal on Mina.

  A white light shone down upon her, shone round about her, illuminating her from within and without. Nightshade blinked his eyes, for he was half-blinded. He tried to brave the light, to stare into it, to see more clearly, but the light grew ever more brilliant, ever more radiant. Bright and blinding, the light intensified, forcing the kender to close his eyes to try to block it out. The light expanded and grew; the light of a myriad suns, the first light, the light of creation. Nightshade cried out in pain and dropped the crystal and stood rubbing his burning eyes.

  Once, when he was a little kender, he’d stared straight at the sun because his mother had told him not to. For long minutes after, all he’d been able to see were dark splotches like small black suns, and that was all he could see now. He wondered for a brief and terrifying moment if that was all he was ever going to be all to see. And after what he had seen, he wondered if maybe that was all he was going to want to see.