Amber and Blood dd-3

by Margaret Weis

  “When Mina was finally returned to the world, she had been shaped and molded in the image of the Dark Queen. Takhisis expected Mina to win victories in her name. All the miracles Mina performed she would think came from Takhisis. Too late, Takhisis realized her mistake. She saw her folly. As do others who tried the same.”

  The other gods all looked accusingly at Chemosh.

  “I did not know she was a god!” the Lord of Bones cried savagely. “Takhisis knew. Witness her final words: ‘The curse is among you. Destroy me and you destroy yourselves.’”

  “Destroy us!” Sargonnas’ laughter boomed raucously through the heavens. “How does a chit of a girl-god pose a threat to us?”

  “How does she not?” Mishakal asked sharply. The White Lady flamed, her beauty and her power daunting. “Even now, you are scheming how to win Mina to your side, to shift the balance in your favor.”

  “And what about you, Mistress Sanctimonious?” Zeboim flared. “You are thinking the very same thing.”

  Kiri-Jolith said coldly, “This god is lost to us. She is now a creature of darkness.”

  Mishakal cast him a sorrowful glance. “There is such a thing as forgiveness… redemption.”

  Kiri-Jolith looked stern and unrelenting. He said nothing, but he shook his head decisively.

  “If she is so dangerous, what is to be done about her?” asked Chislev.

  The gods looked to Gilean for judgment.

  “She has free will,” he determined at last. “Her fate is in her own hands. She must decide on her destiny herself. She will be given time to think and consider. And during this time,” he added with cold emphasis, “she is not to be influenced by either Darkness or Light.”

  Which wise judgment, of course, pleased no one.

  3

  The gods began talking at once. Kiri-Jolith insisted Mina should be banished as Takhisis had been banished. Zeboim protested that this was not fair to the poor child. She offered to take her to her home beneath the sea, an offer no one trusted. She urged Chemosh to support her, but he refused.

  He wanted nothing more to do with Mina. Chemosh was sorry he’d ever seen her, sorry he’d fallen in love with her and taken her as his lover, sorry he’d used her to help him create new followers, the undead Beloved, who had been a sad disappointment, ending up being loyal to Mina, not to him. He held himself disdainfully aloof from the argument raging among the pantheon. Thus he was the only one who noticed the three gods of magic, who had heretofore kept silent, now conferring in low voices among themselves.

  Solinari, the child of Paladine and Mishakal, was god of the Silver Moon, magic of light. Lunitari, child of Gilean, was goddess of the Red Moon, magic of neutrality, and their cousin, Nuitari, son of Takhisis and Sargonnas, was god of the Black Moon, god of the magic of darkness. Despite their different ideologies, the cousins were close, united in their love of the magic. Together, they often defied their parents and worked toward their own ends, which is what they were undoubtedly doing now. Chemosh drew closer, hoping to overhear what they were saying.

  “So it was Mina who raised the tower from the bottom of the Blood Sea!” Lunitari was saying. “But why?”

  Lunitari wore the red robes of those dedicated to her service. Her aspect was that of a human woman with inquisitive, always seeking, eyes.

  “She planned to give it to the Lord of Bones,” said Nuitari. “A love token.”

  He wore black robes; his face was that of a round moon. His eyes kept his secrets.

  “And what of all the valuable artifacts inside it?” Solinari asked in a low voice. “What of the Solio Febalas?”

  Clad in white robes, Solinari was watchful and careful, walked and spoke quietly, his eyes gray as smoke from the smoldering fire of his being.

  “How should I know what has happened to it?” Nuitari demanded testily. “I was summoned to attend. My absence would have been noted. But once this meeting has ended-”

  Chemosh did not hear the rest. So that was why Mina had given him the tower! He cared nothing for some old monument to magic. He desired what lay beneath the tower-the Solio Febalas.

  Long ago, before the Cataclysm, the Kingpriest of Istar had raided the holy temples and shrines dedicated to the gods of Krynn, removing holy artifacts he deemed were dangerous. At first, he took only those from the Gods of Darkness, but then, as his paranoia grew, he ordered his troops into the temples of the neutral gods, as well. Finally, having determined he would challenge the gods for godhood himself, he sent his soldiers to raid all the temples of the Gods of Light.

  The stolen artifacts were taken to the old Tower of High Sorcery in Istar, now under his control. He placed the artifacts in what he termed the “Hall of Sacrilege”.

  Angered at the challenge from the Kingpriest, the gods cast a fiery mountain onto the world, breaking it asunder. Istar sank to the bottom of the sea. If any remembered the Hall of Sacrilege, the survivors assumed it had been destroyed.

  As the centuries passed, mortals forgot about the Hall of Sacrilege. Chemosh did not forget, however. He had always fumed over the loss of his artifacts. He could feel power emanating from the relics and he knew they had not been lost. He wanted them back. He was tempted to go in search of them during the Fourth Age, but he was involved at the time in a secret plot with Queen Takhisis, a plot to overthrow the Gods of the Light, and he dared not do anything that might draw attention to himself.

  He’d never had a chance to seek them. First he was caught up in the War of the Lance, and then Chaos had gone on a rampage, and later Takhisis had stolen the world. The artifacts of the gods remained lost until Nuitari had decided to secretly rebuild the ruined Tower of High Sorcery that lay at the bottom of the ocean. He had found the Solio Febalas, much to Chemosh’s jealous ire.

  Chemosh had asked Mina to enter the Hall of Sacrilege and bring out his artifacts. But she had failed him and caused the first rupture between them.

  Do not be angry with me, my dearest lord… The Solio Febalas is holy. Sanctified. The power and majesty of the gods-all the gods-are in the chamber. I could not touch anything. I did not dare! I could do nothing but fall to my knees in worship…

  He had been furious with her. He had accused her of stealing the artifacts for herself. Now he knew better. The power of the gods had acted like a mirror, reflecting back to her the divine power she felt burn inside her. How confused she must have been, confused and terrified, and overwhelmed. She had lifted the tower from bottom of the Blood Sea to give to him. A gift.

  Thus, by rights, the tower was his. And just now, no one was standing guard. Everyone was yammering about what to do with Mina. Chemosh left the raging argument and sped across the Blood Sea to the rock-bound island on which stood the newly-raised tower.

  The Hall of Sacrilege had been located at the very bottom of the tower. Was it still there, or had it been left behind on the sea floor?

  Chemosh dove to the bottom of the ocean. An enormous chasm marked where the tower had once stood. The ocean floor had been hauled up with the tower and formed the island on which it now stood. The water was so dark that even immortal eyes could not plumb its depths. Chemosh felt no sense of his own power emanating from the chasm.

  The artifacts were still inside the tower. He was certain of it.

  The Tower of High Sorcery that had once been beneath the Blood Sea, but which now overlooked it, resembled the original tower. Nuitari had reconstructed it with loving care. The walls were made of smooth, wetly glistening crystal. Water drained from a dome of black marble and ran down the slick walls as the waves hurled themselves in a sullen, petulant manner against the shores of the new-made island. Atop the dome a circlet made of burnished red-gold twined with silver shone in the light of the twin moons it represented. The center of the circlet was jet black in honor of Nuitari. No sunlight could be seen through the hole.

  Chemosh eyed the tower narrowly. Two of Nuitari’s Black Robes lived inside. Chemosh wondered what had happened to them. If they were st
ill alive, they must have had a wild and terrifying ride. He circled the tower until he came to the door-the formal entryway.

  When the tower had been in Istar and after that, at the bottom of the sea, the wizards and Nuitari alone possessed the secret to gaining access. Only those who were invited could enter and this included gods. But now the tower had been wrenched from Nuitari’s grasp, stolen from him while his back was turned. Perhaps his magic had been broken.

  Chemosh did not bother with the door. He could glide through the crystal walls as though they were water. He started to walk through the walls of shining black but, surprisingly, he found his way blocked.

  Frustrated, Chemosh tried pushing open the massive front doors. They did not budge. Chemosh lost his temper and kicked the door with his foot and smote it with his hand. The god could have battered down a castle’s walls with the flick of his finger, but he had no effect on the tower. The door shuddered at the blows, but remained intact.

  “It’s no use. You won’t get in. She has the key.”

  Chemosh turned to see Nuitari come walking around the side of the building.

  “Who has the key?” Chemosh demanded. “Your sister? Zeboim?”

  “Mina, you dolt,” Nuitari told him. “And she’s sending her Beloved to guard it.”

  The god of Dark Magic pointed across the sea to the city of Flotsam. Chemosh saw with his immortal vision hordes of people jumping from the docks, plunging into the sea, and either sinking or swimming through the waves which glowed eerily with a faint amber light. These were the Beloved. They looked and acted, walked and talked, ate and drank, like ordinary people with one small difference.

  They were dead.

  Being dead, they felt no fear, they never tired, they needed no sleep, they had boundless energy. Strike them down and they rose back up.

  Cut off their heads and they picked them up and put them back on. Chemosh had been quite fond of them until he had found out they were really Mina’s creation, not his. Now he loathed the very sight of them.

  “Mina’s army,” Nuitari stated in bitter tones. “Coming to occupy her fortress. And you thought she was going to give it you!”

  “They won’t get in,” said Chemosh.

  Nuitari chuckled. “As our friend Reorx is so fond of saying, ‘Wanna bet?’” He gestured. “Once she comes to open the doors and let her Beloved inside, my poor Black Robes will be under siege in their own laboratory. The tower will be crawling with her fiends.”

  As Chemosh watched, several of the undead creatures dragged themselves up out of the water and headed toward the massive double doors.

  “Aren’t you the fool!” said Nuitari with a thick-lipped, sneering smile. “You had Mina in your bed and you kicked her out. She would have done anything for you.”

  Chemosh made no response. Nuitari was right, curse him. Mina loved him, adored him, and he’d cast her off, spurned her because he’d been jealous of her.

  Not jealous of another lover. Jealous of her-her power.

  The Beloved served her, when they were meant to serve him. Mina had done to him what she’d done to Takhisis. The miracles she had performed in the name of Chemosh had been her own miracles. Men worshipped Mina, not him. The Beloved were subject to her will, not his.

  And, if he believed Majere, Mina had done this in all innocence. She had no idea she was the god who had given the Beloved terrible life.

  What a fool I’ve been! Chemosh reproached himself, but even as he did, an idea came to him. He remember the broken-hearted look she had cast him before she had leapt into the sea.

  She still loves me. I can win her hack. With her at my side, I can supplant that thick-skulled bovine, Sargonnas. I can cast down Kiri-Jolith and thwart Mishakal and thumb my nose at know-it-all Gilean. Mina will gain me access to the Hall of Sacrilege. I will seize all the artifacts. I can rule Heaven…

  All he had to do now was find her.

  Chemosh cast his immortal gaze upon the world. He saw all beings everywhere: elves and humans, ogres and kender, gnomes and dwarves, fish and hounds, cats and goblins. His vision encompassed them, surrounded them, studied them, all simultaneously, all within the splitting of a split second. He found every living being on this planet and all who weren’t living in the ordinary sense of the word.

  None of them were her.

  Chemosh was baffled. Where could Mina be? How could she hide from him?

  He had no idea and while he was puzzling this out, he realized that back in his castle, Gilean was asking the gods to swear an oath they would not interfere with Mina. Whatever choice she made about her place in the pantheon, whatever side she might choose, or if she would leave the world altogether, the decision had to be hers.

  If I take this oath, Gilean will see to it that the oath is enforced. I will be barred from trying to seduce her.

  Chemosh was confident in his power over her. All he needed was to see her, talk to her, take her into his arms…

  He could not search for her, not at this moment, not while Nuitari was watching him like a snake watches a rat; not while Sargonnas was eyeing him with dark suspicion and Gilean was demanding that each god swear. Chemosh could not search for Mina, but he had someone at his command who could. Fortunately, he had a little time. The Gods of Magic were demanding to know why they needed to swear the oath at all.

  Chemosh sent out a call, his thoughts speeding rapidly through the castle to Ausric Krell, the former death knight, cursed by Mina to become human again. Chemosh had to hurry. He had to issue his orders to find Mina before he took the oath. He could not be blamed if Mina came to him of her own free will.

  One tiny little shove in his direction would hardly count.

  “We should not have to take this oath,” Nuitari was arguing. “We were not even born when this child-god came into being.”

  “We care nothing about Mina,” stated Lunitari.

  “She has naught to do with magic. Leave us out of this,” added Solinari.

  “Oh, but she does have something you want,” said Morgion, God of Disease, speaking in his soft, sickly voice. “Mina has in her possession a Tower of High Sorcery. And she has locked you out!”

  “Is that true?” asked Gilean, frowning.

  “It is true,” Solinari admitted. “Yet even if we are forced to take this oath, we deem it only fair that we be allowed to try to reclaim the tower, which is rightly ours and which she has basely stolen.”

  “Losers weepers,” said Hiddukel with a chuckle.

  “I have as much right to that tower as they do,” stated Zeboim. “After all, it is standing in my ocean.”

  “I built it,” cried Nuitari, seething. “I raised it up from charred ruins! And you should all of you know,” he added with a baleful glance at Chemosh, “that inside that tower, in its depths, is the Solio Febalas, the Hall of Sacrilege. Inside that Hall are many holy artifacts and relics thought to have been lost during the Cataclysm. Your holy artifacts and relics.”

  The gods were no longer smiling. They stared at Nuitari in amazement.

  “You should have told us that the Hall had been found,” said Mishakal, blazing with white flame.

  “And you should have told us about Mina,” Nuitari returned. He clasped his hands over his black robes. “I say that makes us even.”

  “Are our blessed objects safe?” Kiri-Jolith demanded.

  “I cannot say,” Nuitari returned with a shrug. “They were, while the tower under my control. I don’t vouch for them now. Especially as the tower was currently being overrun by the Beloved.”

  The gods turned their gazes onto Chemosh.

  “That was not my fault!” he cried. “Those ghoulish fiends are her creations!”

  “Enough!” said Gilean. “The only thing this proves is that it is more important now than ever that all of us take this oath. Or will each of you risk taking the chance that another might succeed where you fail?”

  The gods grumbled, but, in the end, they agreed. They had no choice. Each was
forced to take the oath if for no other reason than to make sure the others took it, though each was perhaps privately thinking how he or she might twist it, or at least bend it a little.

  “Place your hands on the Book,” said Gilean, calling the sacred volume into being, “and swear by your love for the High God who brought us into being, and your fear of Chaos, who would destroy us, that you will neither threaten, cajole, seduce, plead, or bargain with the goddess known as Mina in order to try to influence her decision.”

  The Gods of Light each placed a hand upon the Book, as did the Gods of Neutrality. When it came the turn of the Gods of Darkness, Sargonnas thumped down his hand, as did Morgion. Zeboim hesitated.

  “I’m sure my only concern,” she said, dabbing a salt tear from her eye, “is for that poor, unhappy girl. She’s like a daughter to me.”

  “Just swear, damn it,” growled Sargonnas.

  Zeboim sniffed and put her hand on the Book.

  After her, last of all, came Chemosh.

  “I so swear,” he said.

  4

  Death had been good to Ausric Krell, and he wanted it back.

  Krell had once been a powerful death knight. Cursed by the Sea Goddess, Zeboim, he had known immortality. He could kill with a single word. He was so fearsome and horrible to look upon, in his black armor with the ram’s head skull helm, that some poor wretches had dropped down dead of terror at the mere sight of his awful visage.

  No longer. When he looked in the mirror, he did not see reflected back the red-glowing eyes of undeath. He saw the squinty pig-eyes of a middle-aged human male with heavy jowls and a sullen brutish face, spindly limbs, flabby flesh, and a paunch. Krell, the death knight, had once reigned supreme on Storm’s Keep, a mighty fortress in the north of Ansalon. (At least, that was how he remembered it. In truth, he’d been a prisoner there, and he’d hated it, but not so much as he hated what he was now.)