“I want Mina,” declared Zeboim.
“Mina?” Nuitari repeated, amazed. First Takhisis. Then Chemosh. Now Zeboim. Did every god in the universe want this girl?
“You are holding her prisoner. You will bring her to me. In return, you may keep your Tower,” Zeboim offered magnanimously. “I won’t make you tear it down.”
“How kind of you, sister,” Nuitari said in honeyed, poisonous tones. “What do you want with this human female, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Zeboim looked up at the sunlit surface of the ocean.
“Just how many of your Black Robes do you think are currently sailing the high seas, Brother?” she asked. “I know of six right now.”
She lifted her hands and the seawater began to bubble and boil around her. The sunlight vanished, overrun by storm clouds. Nuitari had visions of his wizards pitching off rolling decks.
“Very well! You will have her!” he said angrily. “Though I don’t know why you want her. She belongs to Chemosh, body and soul.”
Zeboim smiled a knowing smile, and Nuitari guessed immediately that she and Chemosh had made some sort of bargain.
“That’s why the god did not come to claim his trollop,” Nuitari muttered. “He has made a deal with Zeboim. I wonder what for. Not my Tower, I trust.”
He eyed his sister. She eyed him back.
“I’ll go fetch her,” said Nuitari.
“You do that,” said Zeboim. “And don’t be long about it. I grow bored so easily.”
She gave his Tower a little shake for good measure.
Upon entering the Blood Sea Tower, Nuitari summoned his wizards.
They did not respond.
He thought this ominous. Caele was usually always on hand, falling over himself to be the first to gush over the return of the Master, and Basalt, solid and reliable, would be waiting to launch into grievances against Caele.
Neither appeared in response to their master’s summons.
Nuitari called again, his tone dire.
No answer.
Nuitari went to the laboratory, thinking they might be there. He found it an ungodly mess—the floor awash in spilled potions and broken glass, a small fire burning in a corner, several escaped imps wandering about freely. Nuitari put out the fire with an irritated breath, trapped the imps and locked them back inside their cages, then continued his search for the missing wizards. He had a feeling he knew where to look.
Arriving at Mina’s chambers, he found the door standing wide open. Nuitari entered.
Two stone coffins and no sign of Mina.
Nuitari pried the stone slabs off the sarcophagi. Caele, gasping for air, clutched at the sides of the coffin and pulled himself up. The half-elf looked half-dead. He tried to stand, but his legs were too wobbly. He sat in the coffin and shivered. Dwarves being accustomed to living in dark places, Basalt had taken his confinement in stride. He was far more worried about facing his irate god, and he kept his head down, his hood lowered, trying desperately to avoid Nuitari’s baleful gaze.
“Uh, if you’ll pardon me, Master, I will just go attend to the cleaning up.…” Basalt tried to sidle out of the room.
“Where is Mina?” Nuitari demanded.
Basalt glanced about furtively, as if hoping he she might be hiding under the couch. Not finding her, he looked back at the Master and almost immediately looked away again.
“It was Caele’s fault,” Basalt said, mumbling into his beard. “He tried to kill her, but he bungled it as usual, and she took his knife—”
“You snake!” Caele hissed. Crawling weakly out of the coffin, he raised a feeble hand against the dwarf.
“Stop it, both of you!” Nuitari commanded. “Where is Mina?”
“Everything happened at once, Master.” Caele whined. “Zeboim started shaking the Tower, and the next thing I knew Mina had my knife and was threatening to kill me—”
“That is true, Master,” said Basalt. “Mina threatened to kill poor Caele if I tried to stop her, and of course, I feared for his life, and then Chemosh came and forced us inside these coffins—”
“You lie,” Nuitari said calmly. “The Lord of Death may not enter my Tower. Not anymore.”
“I heard his voice, Master,” gasped Basalt, flinching. “His voice was everywhere. He spoke to Mina. He said the Tower was hers. Except for the guardian …”
“The guardian,” repeated Nuitari, and he knew where Mina had gone—the Hall of Sacrilege. He relaxed. “Midori will deal with her, which means there won’t be much left. I must come up with something to placate my sister. I will put Mina’s remains in a pretty box. Zeboim can trade that to Chemosh for whatever it is he has promised her—a promise he probably doesn’t mean to keep anyway.”
He looked back at his two wizards, who stood cringing before him. “Start cleaning up this mess.” He glanced at the coffins. “Don’t get rid of those. They might come in useful in the future if you dare disobey me again.”
“No, Master,” Basalt mumbled.
“Yes, Master,” Caele gulped.
Satisfied, Nuitari departed to retrieve Mina’s corpse.
Nuitari expected to find the sea globe in an uproar—blood in the water, the dragon looking satiated, sharks fighting over the scraps. Instead, jellyfish undulated about the globe in maddening calm and the dragon was asleep on the sandy bottom.
Apparently he’d been worried over nothing. Mina had not come here after all. Nuitari sent an urgent message to his wizards to search the Tower for her and was starting to leave to assist them when the dragon spoke.
“If you’re looking for the human, she’s inside your sand castle.”
Nuitari stood aghast for a moment, then surged through the crystal wall to confront the dragon.
Midori watched him from deep within the black depths of her shell.
“You allowed her to enter?” Nuitari raged. “What kind of guardian are you?”
“She told me you had sent her,” replied the dragon. The shell shifted slightly. “She said you wanted her to make certain the holy artifacts had not been damaged by the quakes.”
“And you believed her lies?” Nuitari was aghast.
“No,” said Midori, green-gold eyes glittering. “Not any more than I believe your lies.”
“My lies?” Nuitari could not make sense of this. He’d never lied to the dragon, not about anything important. “What—Never mind that! Why did you let her pass?”
“Next time, do your own dirty work,” Midori snarled, drawing her head back into her shell. She closed her eyes and feigned sleep.
Nuitari didn’t have time to puzzle out what was bothering the dragon. He had to stop Mina from walking off with his artifacts. Unseen and unheard, the god materialized inside the Solio Febalas.
There was Mina. She was not ransacking the place, as he expected. She was on her knees, her head bowed, her hands clasped.
“Gods of Darkness and Gods of Light and those Gods who love the twilight in between, forgive my desecration of this holy place,” Mina was praying softly. “Forgive the ignorance of mortals, forgive the arrogance and fear that led them to commit this crime against you. Though the souls of those who stole these sacred objects are long since passed, the weakness in men remains. Few bow down before you. Few honor you. Many deny your existence or claim man has outgrown his need of you. If they could but see this blessed sight as I see it and feel your presence as I feel it, all mankind would fall to your feet and worship.”
Nuitari had intended to grab her by the scruff of her neck and twist her body in his bare hands until her bones cracked and her blood ran red. Like his wizards, he did not believe in using magic for frivolous purposes.
But he did not kill her. Looking around the chamber, he saw what she saw—not artifacts to be bartered like pigs on market day. He saw the sacred altars. He saw the divine light. He saw the awful power of the gods. He felt what she felt—a holy presence. Nuitari drew back his hand.
“You are the most irritating hum
an,” he said, exasperated. “I do not understand you!”
Mina lifted her head and turned to look at him. Her face was stained with tears. She reminded him of a lost child.
“I do not understand myself, Lord,” she said. She bowed her head. “Take my life as punishment for my transgression into this holy place. I deserve to die.”
“You do deserve to die,” Nuitari told her grimly. “But today you are lucky. I have promised you to my sister who has, in turn, promised you to Chemosh.”
He might have been talking of someone else. Mina remained where she was, crouched on the floor, crushed, ground down by the weight of heaven.
“Didn’t you hear me? You are free to go,” he said. “Though I must warn you that if you have, by some mischance, tucked a blessed ring or a vial of life-restoring potion up your sleeve, you should divest yourself of it before you depart. Otherwise, you will find your luck has run out.”
“I have touched nothing, Lord,” she said.
Rising to her feet, she walked toward the door. She moved slowly, as though reluctant to leave. Her eyes lingered on the holy relics of the gods.
“I don’t suppose it would do me any good to ask how you managed to circumvent my magical safeguards?” Nuitari asked. “How you broke into a door that was magically sealed and trapped, and then made your way through rune-encrusted crystal walls, and how you came to breathe seawater as easily as air. I suppose Chemosh aided you in all this.”
“I prayed to my lord, yes,” Mina replied absently.
Nuitari waited for details, but she did not elaborate.
“I would like to know, though,” Nuitari continued, “how you managed to slip past the dragon. She said you told her some far-fetched story that I had sent you. I think, in truth, she must have been asleep and is afraid to admit it to me.”
Mina smiled a half-smile at this. “I believe I did say something of the sort, Lord. The dragon was wide awake. She saw me, spoke to me, and posed riddles for me to answer. After that, the dragon permitted me to enter the globe.”
“Riddles?” Nuitari was skeptical. “What riddles?”
Mina thought back. “There were two: ‘Where did you come from?’ the dragon asked me, and ‘Where have you been?’ ”
“Not much in the way of riddles,” Nuitari stated dryly.
Mina nodded. “I agree, Lord. However, the dragon grew angry when she thought I was evading the questions. That is what made me think they were riddles meant to trick me.”
The sea floor heaved and lurched. The Tower shook on its foundations, and a voice called out in warning, “Make haste, Brother! I grow weary of waiting!”
Nuitari removed the seal from the door and gestured to Mina.
“I will spare your life this time,” he said. “I will not be so generous the next, so let there be no next time.”
He ushered her through the door, which was the last trap. It would not be tripped by the thief, but by the artifact the thief was trying to carry out of the Hall. Mina had said she did not have anything in her possession and Nuitari believed her. He was not surprised to see her pass through the door without harm. He sealed the door swiftly, making a mental note to strengthen the spells he’d cast upon it. He’d had no idea that Chemosh—even at a distance—would prove so adept at breaking through magical barriers.
A whisk of his hand and Mina was gone, transported through water, crystal globe, and Tower walls to the sea beyond, where Zeboim was waiting for her.
Not exactly trusting his sister, Nuitari kept an eye on her, wanting to make certain his sister would keep her word and cease her attacks on the Tower. The moment she had Mina, Zeboim clasped the young woman in a fond embrace and the two disappeared.
Nuitari returned to the globe to question the dragon, only to find Midori gone.
Such absences were not unusual. The dragon occasionally went on hunting trips. He had the feeling, though, that this time she’d left without any plans to come back. She’d been exceedingly angry with him.
Nuitari stood inside the sea globe, staring at the Solio Febalas. He thought back over everything that had anything to do with Mina.
She was, he decided, nothing but trouble.
“Good riddance,” he muttered. He went off, with a grim sigh, to see if he could find and placate the dragon.
he tavern, if one could dignify it by that term, existed inside an overturned boat that had been blown ashore during a storm. The tavern’s name was the Dinghy, though local wit called it the Dingy.
The Dingy lived up to its name. It had no tables, no chairs, no windows. Its patrons either stood grouped around the bar that had been cobbled together out of rotting wooden beams, or they squatted on overturned vegetable crates. Cracks in the hull provided what light managed to struggle in, along with a modicum of fresh air that fought a losing battle against the stench of dwarf spirits, urine, and vomit. Those who frequented the Dingy came here mainly because they’d been thrown out of every other place.
Rhys and Nightshade sat on crates as near one of the cracks as possible, and even then Nightshade found that the smell almost ruined his appetite. Atta’s nose twitched constantly, and she sneezed and snuffled.
In addition to no tables and no windows, there was no laughter, no merriment. The bartender dispensed a dubious liquor he claimed was dwarf spirits, but that probably wasn’t, pouring it into dented tin mugs that had been salvaged from the wreckage. The patrons drank alone for the most part, sunken in misery, staring in stupefaction at the rats that skittered across the floor and who were the only ones enjoying themselves, at least until they spotted Atta. Having been forbidden to chase them, Atta watched the vermin with narrowed eyes and, when one came too near, growled at it.
One of the patrons drinking that day was Lleu.
Rhys and Nightshade had lost track of Lleu for a short time, then, quite by accident, they picked up his trail, heading south from Solace, not east. They traced him to the city of New Port located on New Bay in the southern portion of New Sea. Rhys wondered why his brother was traveling south, when the other Beloved were being drawn to the east. He had his answer when he reached New Port. Lleu had booked passage on a ship sailing to Flotsam, due to leave in a few days’ time.
Finding Lleu had not been difficult. Rhys had simply gone from disreputable bar to disreputable bar, giving Lleu’s description to the barkeeps. In New Port, they located him on the third try.
The barkeepers always remembered Lleu, for he stood out from the other customers, who were generally a slovenly lot, slaves to the dwarf spirits that ruled their lives. Those “caught by the dwarf,” as the saying went, were generally gaunt and pale—for the liquor became bread and meat to them; their eyes were dull, their cheeks hollow. Lleu, by contrast, was hale and hearty, handsome and charming. He had long since abandoned the robes of a cleric of Kiri-Jolith and was now wearing the shirt and doublet, leather boots and woolen stockings of a young man of genteel birth.
Somehow or other he’d come by money, for his clothes were well-to-do and he had managed to pay the steep price for his voyage. Perhaps one of his victims had been wealthy. Either that, or he’d taken to thieving, which wouldn’t be surprising. After all, Lleu had nothing to fear from the law, who would be in for a severe shock if they tried to hang him.
When Rhys entered the Dingy, Lleu looked at him, then looked away. There was no recognition in the dead eyes. Lleu had no memory of Rhys or of anything. Lleu knew his name, and that was all he knew. Chemosh told him who he was, presumably. What he had been was forever lost.
The other patrons in the tavern were absorbed in drinking and wanted nothing to do with a stranger, so Lleu kept up a cheerful conversation with himself. He bragged about his carousing and the women who threw themselves at him. He laughed at his own jokes and sang bawdy songs, and Rhys’s heart ached. Lleu drank until he ran out of coins to pay for his spirits, then he tried to drink on credit. The barkeep was having none of that, however, yet Lleu continued to sit there, his mug in his hand.<
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This went on throughout the afternoon. Lleu would forget from one moment to the next he had nothing to drink and would lift the mug to his lips. Finding it empty, he would bang the mug on the crate and demand more in a loud voice. The barkeep, knowing he couldn’t pay, simply ignored him. Lleu would continue to bang the mug on the crate until he forgot why he was doing this, and then he would set it down. After a few moments, he’d pick it up and shout for more drink.
Rhys sat watching the thing that had once been his brother and making an occasional show of drinking the liquor he’d been forced to purchase in order to placate the barkeep. Nightshade had been bored, at first, then he fell to trying to hit the rats with dried beans he’d found in some old sacking stuffed inside the crate on which he was seated. The kender had come by (Rhys did not like to ask how) a slingshot, and though he was clumsy in its use at first, he had since acquired a certain amount of skill. He could hit a rat with a bean at twenty paces and send it somersaulting head over tail across the dirt floor. He was growing tired of the sport, however. The intelligent rats now kept to their holes and, besides, he’d run out of beans.
“Rhys,” said Nightshade, wrapping up the slingshot and shoving it in his belt. “It’s time for supper.”
“I thought you’d lost your appetite,” said Rhys, smiling.
“My nose lost it. My stomach didn’t,” Nightshade returned. “Atta thinks it’s suppertime, too, don’t you, girl?” He patted the dog on the head.
Atta looked up and wagged her tail, hoping they were going to leave.
“We can’t go yet,” Rhys began, then, seeing Nightshade’s face fall and Atta’s ears droop, he added, “but you could both go for a walk. I have this leftover from lunch.”
He and Nightshade had helped a farmer put a wheel back on a wagon that morning on their way into town and, although Rhys had refused to accept payment, the man had shared his food with them. Rhys handed over a packet of dried meat to the kender.
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