Amber and Iron

by Margaret Weis

  Mina thrust her hands into the blood-red water and seized hold of the prize, the object of her lord’s desire, the gift that would make him fall in love with her. She shook it loose, then wrenched it from its moorings. Her exertions exhausted her, and she had to stop to rest and recover, then she began again.

  The water of the Blood Sea started to slowly swirl around a central point. The Maelstrom—created by the gods to serve forever as warning to mankind in the Fourth Age—returned, moving sluggishly at first, then swirling faster and faster around the vortex that was Mina. Waves crashed against the cliffs, spewing foam and seawater. She felt the salt spray cool on her face. She licked her lips and tasted the salt, bitter, like tears, and the water, sweet, like blood.

  Mina raised up her hand, and out of the center of the vortex came an island of black volcanic rock. Seawater poured off the island as it burst from the midst of the maelstrom, the water cascading down shining black crags. Mina placed her prize upon the island, and like a precious jewel on a black salver. The Tower of High Sorcery that had once been beneath the waves now rose above them.

  The Tower, with its faceted, crystal walls, caught and held the amber light of Mina’s eyes, as the amber of her eyes caught and held the Tower.

  The maelstrom ceased to swirl. The sea calmed. Water ran down the black rocks of the newly born island and poured in sheets down the smooth crystal walls of the Tower.

  Mina smiled. Then she collapsed.

  The amber glow vanished. Only the light of the two moons, silver and red, gleamed in the walls of the Tower, and these godly eyes no longer winked.

  They were wide with shock.

  ightshade woke to cold water in his face and a thumping pain in his head. This led him to erroneously conclude that he was a young kender again, back in his bed, being roused by his parents, who had discovered that only a combination of water and a good smack to the cheek would wake the son who spent his nights roaming graveyards.

  “It’s still dark, Mother!” Nightshade mumbled irritably and rolled over.

  His mother barked.

  Nightshade found this strange behavior in a mother, even a kender mother, but his head hurt too much for him to think about it. He just wanted to go back to sleep, so he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the cold water seeping into his britches.

  His mother nipped him quite painfully on the ear.

  “Now, really, Ma!” Nightshade exclaimed, indignant, and he sat up and opened his eyes.

  “Mother?” He couldn’t see a thing, but he could tell by the feel that he wasn’t in bed. He was sitting on a lot of extremely sharp rocks that were poking him in tender places: the rocks were wet and getting wetter.

  A bark answered him, a rough tongue licked his face, a paw with sharp nails scratched at him, and Nightshade remembered.

  “Rhys!” He gasped and reached out to touch Rhys’s hand. Rhys was only lukewarm, and he was also wet.

  Nightshade had no idea why a previously bone-dry grotto should now be filling up with seawater, but that was apparently what was happening. He could hear the water gurgling among the rubble that littered the cavern floor. It wasn’t very deep yet; thus far it was only a trickle. The water might stick to trickling, but again, it might not. It might decide to start flooding. If the grotto flooded, there was nowhere for them to go. The water would keep getting deeper and deeper.…

  “Rhys,” said Nightshade firmly, and this time he meant it. “We have to get out of here.”

  He slammed his hand down on the rocks to emphasize his determination and said, “Ouch!” following that up with a “Damn!”

  He had slammed his hand down on a splinter of wood that had buried itself in the soft, fleshy part of his palm. He plucked it out and was about to toss it away, when it occurred to him that finding a splinter of wood here in a grotto was an odd thing. Being a kender, Nightshade was naturally curious—even in such a dire situation—and he ran his hand over the splinter, and noticed it was long and smooth and had a sharp point at both ends.

  “Ah, I know. It’s part of Rhys’s staff,” said Nightshade sadly, clasping his hand over it. “I’ll save it for him. A memento. He’ll like that.”

  Nightshade heaved a sigh and rested his aching head in his arms, wondering how they were ever going to get out of this horrible place. He felt sick and drowsy and once more he was a little kender, only this time his father was trying to show him how to pick a lock.

  “You do it by feel and by sound,” his father was explaining to him. “You put the lock pick in here, and you wiggle it around until you feel it catch—”

  Nightshade jerked his head up so fast that blazing pain burst on the backs of his eyeballs. He didn’t notice. Much. He looked down at the splinter in his hand, except he couldn’t see it, what with the grotto being so very dark, but he didn’t need to be able to see. It was all done by feel and sound.

  The only problem was that Nightshade had never successfully picked a lock in his life. In many ways, he had been, as father often lamented, a failure as a kender.

  “Not this time,” Nightshade vowed, determined. “This time I’ll succeed. I have to,” he added silently. “I just have to!”

  He groped about with his hands until he found one of the manacles clamped around Rhys’s bony wrists. The water level was continuing to rise, but Nightshade put that out of his mind.

  Atta whimpered softly and licked Rhys’s face and flopped down on her belly alongside him. The fact that she splashed was somewhat disconcerting. Nightshade didn’t let himself think about that. He had other things to think about, the first being to convince his hand to stop shaking. This took a few moments, then, holding his breath and thrusting out his tongue, which is essential to successful lock picking, he inserted the splinter of wood into the lock on the manacle.

  “Please don’t break!” he told the splinter, then he remembered the staff had been blessed by the god, so perhaps the splinter was also blessed.

  And so, Nightshade remembered suddenly, am I!

  “I don’t suppose,” Nightshade muttered, speaking to the god, “that you ever helped anyone pick a lock before, or that you ever wanted to help anyone pick a lock before, but please, Majere, please help me do this!”

  Sweat dripped down Nightshade’s nose. He wiggled the splinter around in the lock, trying to find the whatever it was that he was supposed to find that would click and make the lock open. All he knew was that he would feel it, he would trip it, and if he was successful, he would hear it go “snick.”

  He concentrated, shutting out everything, and suddenly a sweet feeling stole over him—a feeling of joy, a feeling that everything in this world belonged to him, and that if there were no locks, no closed doors, no secrets, this world would be a much better place. He felt the joy of the open road, of never sleeping in the same place twice, of finding a jail that was warm and dry and a jailer as nice as Gerard. He felt the joy of stumbling across interesting things that glittered, smelled good, or were soft or shiny. He felt the joy of full pouches.

  The splinter touched what it was supposed to touch, and something went “snick,” and that was the most wonderful sound in the universe.

  The manacle fell open in Nightshade’s hand.

  “Father!” he cried excitedly. “Father, did you see that?”

  He didn’t have time to wait for an answer, which might be long in coming, for his father had long ago gone off to pick locks in some other existence. Crawling over the debris and through the water, keeping fast hold of the splinter, Nightshade found the manacle that was clamped around Rhys’s other wrist and he thrust the splinter into the lock and it went “snick” too.

  Nightshade took a moment to lift up Rhys’s head out of the water. He propped Rhys up on a rock and then fished about until he found Rhys’s feet. Nightshade had to dig them out from beneath a pile of rubble, but Atta helped him, and after more expert lock picking, he heard two more immensely satisfying “snicks”, and Rhys was free.

  An extremely go
od thing, for by now the water level in the grotto had risen so high that, even with his head propped up, Rhys was in danger of drowning.

  Nightshade squatted down beside his friend. “Rhys, if you could wake up now, it would be really helpful, because my head hurts, my legs are all wobbly, and there are a lot of rocks in the way, not to mention the water. I don’t think I can carry you out of here, so if you could get up and walk …”

  Nightshade waited hopefully, but Rhys did not move.

  The kender gave another deep sigh then, slipping the precious splinter into a pocket, he reached down and took hold of Rhys’s shoulders, intending to drag him across the grotto floor.

  He made it about six inches, then his arms gave out and so did his legs. He sat down with a plop in the water and wiped away sweat.

  Atta growled.

  “I can’t do it, Atta,” Nightshade mumbled. “I’m sorry. I tried. I really did try—”

  Atta wasn’t growling at him. Nightshade heard the sounds of feet—a great many feet—sloshing through water. Then there was bright light that hurt his eyes, and six monks of Majere, clad in orange robes and carrying flaming torches, hurried past the kender.

  Two of the monks held the torches. Four monks bent down, picked up Rhys gently by his arms and legs, and carried Rhys swiftly out of the grotto. Atta dashed after them.

  Nightshade sat alone in the darkness, staring about in dazed wonder.

  Torchlight returned. A monk stood over him, looked down on him. “Are you hurt, friend?”

  “No,” said Nightshade. “Yes. Maybe a little.”

  The monk placed a cool hand on Nightshade’s forehead. The pain disappeared. Strength flowed into his limbs.

  “Thank you, Brother,” said Nightshade, allowing the monk to help him to his feet. He still felt a little wobbly. “I guess Majere sent you, huh?”

  The monk did not reply, but he continued to smile, so Nightshade, knowing Rhys didn’t talk much either and assuming maybe this was normal with monks, took the monk’s silence for a yes.

  As Nightshade and the monk walked toward the entrance, the kender was in deep thought, and just before they left the grotto, Nightshade grabbed hold of the monk’s sleeve and gave it a tug.

  “I spoke to Majere in what you might call a sharp tone,” Nightshade said remorsefully. “I was pretty blunt, and I might have hurt his feelings. Would you tell him I’m sorry?”

  “Majere knows that you spoke out of love for your friend,” said the monk. “He is not angry. He honors you for your loyalty.”

  “Does he?” Nightshade flushed with pleasure. Then he felt overcome with guilt. “He helped me pick the lock. He blessed me. I suppose I ought to worship him, but I can’t. It just doesn’t feel right.”

  “What we believe is not important,” said the monk gently. “That we believe is.”

  The monk bowed to Nightshade, who was considerably flustered by this show of respect. He made an awkward bow in turn, bending at the waist, which caused several valuable objects he hadn’t remembered he had to tumble out of his shirt pocket. He dropped down to fish about for them in the water, and it was only after he had either retrieved them or admitted they were gone for good, that he realized the monk and the torch had departed.

  By this time, though, Nightshade didn’t need the light. He was enveloped in the strange amber glow he’d noticed earlier.

  He walked out of the grotto, thinking he’d never in his life been so glad to leave anywhere and vowing he would never set foot in another cave so long as he lived. He looked around, hoping to talk to the monk again, for he didn’t quite understand that stuff about believing.

  There were no monks.

  But there was Rhys, sitting on a hillock, trying to calm Atta, who was licking his face and his hands and climbing on top of him, nearly bowling him over with her frantic attentions.

  Nightshade gave a glad cry and ran up the hill.

  Rhys embraced him and held him fast.

  “Thank you, my friend,” he said, and his voice was choked.

  Nightshade felt a snuffle coming on himself, and he might have let it get the better of him, but at that moment Atta jumped on him and knocked him down, and the snuffle was washed away in dog slobber.

  When Nightshade could at last shove the excited dog off him, he saw Rhys stand, staring out to sea, an expression of wonder on his face.

  Solinari’s silver light shone coldly on an island in the middle of the sea. Lunatari’s red light illuminated a tower, black against the stars, pointing, like a dark accusation, toward the heavens.

  “Was that there before?” asked Nightshade, scratching his head and pulling off another beetle.

  “No,” said Rhys.

  “Whoa, boy!” exclaimed Nightshade, awed. “I wonder who put it there?”

  And, though he didn’t know it, he was echoing the gods.

  he first thing Chemosh saw on entering his palace was Ausric Krell, alive and well and naked as the day he’d come (ass-first) into this world. The formidable death knight sat huddled in a corner of the grand hall, bemoaning his fate and shivering.

  On hearing the entrance of the Lord of Death, Krell jumped to his feet and cried in fury, “Look what she did to me, Lord!” His voice rose to a screech. “Look!”

  Chemosh looked and wished he hadn’t. The sight of the flabby, paunchy, fish-belly pale, hairy middle-aged man’s naked body was enough to turn even a god’s stomach. He glared at Krell in disgust mingled with anger.

  “So Zeboim caught up with you,” Chemosh said coldly. “Where is she?”

  “Zeboim! It was not Zeboim!” Krell clawed the air with his hands in his rage, as though he were clawing someone’s flesh. “Mina did this! Mina!”

  “Don’t lie to me, slug,” said Chemosh, but even as he refuted Krell’s claim, the Lord of Death felt a terrible doubt darken his mind. “Where is Mina? Still locked up?”

  Krell began to laugh. His face twisted with loathing and fear. “Locked up!” he repeated, mirth gurgling in his throat as though this were the funniest thing in the world.

  “The wretch has gone mad,” Chemosh muttered, and he left the raving Krell to search for Mina.

  The night was lit with an amber glow that blazed through the windows and shone through cracks in the wall and chinks in the masonry. Chemosh found it difficult to see for the blaring light, and as he shielded his immortal eyes against it, his doubt grew.

  He was heading for Mina’s chambers when the castle shook and walls trembled. A thundering, grinding roar such as he had heard only once before caused him to stand still with astonishment. The last time he’d heard that roar, the world was being born. Mountains were being lifted up, chasms carved through them, and the seas were white with the foam and the glory of creation.

  Chemosh tried to see what was happening, but the light was too bright. He ran up the stairs to the battlements and stopped dead in his tracks.

  On a new-formed island of black rock stood the Tower of the Blood Sea. The Tower shone with an amber glow, and there was Mina, standing before him with her arms outstretched, and it seemed to his dazzled vision that she held the tower in her hands. Then she sank down onto the stone and lay there unmoving.

  Chemosh could only stare.

  Zeboim rose from the sea, walked through the ethers and came to stand over Mina.

  The three cousins left their celestial homes and came down to look on Mina.

  The man-bull, Sargonnas, stepped over the castle wall and planted himself in the courtyard and glared at Chemosh. Kiri-Jolith, armed and accoutered for battle, also appeared; the White Lady, Mishakal, beautiful and strong, by his side. Habakkuk came, and Branchala with his harp, and the wind touched the strings and made a mournful sound.

  Morgion stood in the shadows, regarding them all with loathing yet here regardless, among them. Chislev, Shinare, Sirrion stood together, bound by wonder. Reorx stroked his beard. He opened his mouth to say something, then feeling the weight of the silence, the god of the dwarves sn
apped his mouth shut again and looked uncomfortable. Hiddukel was grim and nervous, certain this would be bad for business. Zivilyn and Gilean arrived last, the two of them deep in talk that hushed when they saw the other gods.

  “One of us is missing,” said Gilean, and his tone was dire. “Where is Majere?”

  “I am here.” Majere walked among them slowly, his gaze going to none of them. He looked only at Mina and there was, on his face, inexpressible sorrow.

  “Zivilyn tells me you know something about this.”

  Majere continued to gaze down at Mina. “I do, God of the Book.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Many, many eons, God of the Book.”

  “Why keep this a secret?” Gilean asked.

  “It was not mine to reveal,” Majere replied. “I gave my solemn oath.”

  “To whom?” Gilean demanded.

  “To one who is no longer among us.”

  The gods were silent.

  “I assume you mean Paladine,” Gilean stated. “But there is another who is no longer with us. Does this have something to do with her?”

  “Takhisis?” Majere spoke sharply. His voice hardened. “She was responsible for this.”

  Chemosh spoke. “Her last words, before the High God came to take her, were these: ‘You are making a mistake! What I have done cannot be undone. The curse is among you. Destroy me and you destroy yourselves.’ ”

  “Why didn’t you tell us this?” Sargonas roared.

  “She was always making threats.” Chemosh shrugged. “Why was this any different?”

  The other gods had no answer. They stood silent, waiting.

  “The fault is mine,” Majere said at last. “I acted for the best, or so I believed.”

  Mina lay cold and still. Chemosh wanted to go to her, but he could not, not with all of them watching him. He said to Majere, “Is she dead?”

  “She is not dead, because she cannot die.” Majere looked at each of them, each and every one. “You have been blind, but now you see the truth.”