Amber and Ashes

by Margaret Weis

  “I don’t hear anything,” he said at last, and he sounded perplexed, “yet the feeling persists. Perhaps it is only my imagination. Come, let us find that which we seek. The ruins are not far.”

  He walked through the water as though he walked on dry land. Mina tried to imitate him, but found walking difficult. She ended up half-swimming, half-walking, propelling herself forward with broad strokes of her arms, kicking with her legs. The fathomless darkness began to grow lighter; she and Chemosh were rising nearer to the surface, to the sunlight.

  He halted again, his expression dour. He looked at her, looked at the filmy, silky gown she wore. “I should never have allowed you to come down here unarmed with no armor to protect you. I will send you back—”

  “Do not send me away, my lord. I am armored in my faith in you. My love for you is my weapon.”

  Chemosh drew her near. Her hair floated free in the water, shifting about her head and shoulders in sensuous waves. Her amber eyes seemed luminescent, the blood-red water lending them an orange hue, so that they had a fiery glow.

  “It is no wonder I chose you as my High Priestess, Mina,” said Chemosh. “Yet I will give you something more substantial than faith to protect your mortal body, and a weapon more capable of doing damage.

  He dove down into the darkness, plunging down to the bottom of the ocean. In a few moments he returned, carrying a human skeleton.

  “Not very pretty, but it’s functional. You will not feel squeamish wearing a man’s ribcage, will you, Mina?”

  “The armor Takhisis gave me was wet with the blood of a man who dared to mock her,” Mina replied. “Will you be my squire, my lord?”

  “Just this once,” he said with a smile, and he began to fasten the bony armor to her body. “Does this fit? If it does not, I can find something that will. We have an unlimited supply of skeletons.”

  “The fit is perfect, my lord.”

  Her cuirass was a man’s breastbone and ribs. Collarbones protected her shoulders, shin bones her legs, and arm bones her arms. Chemosh welded them together with his power, strengthened them with his might. When he had dressed her, he eyed her accouterments and was satisfied.

  “And now, your helm,” he said.

  “Not a skull, my lord,” Mina protested. “I do not want to look like Krell.”

  “God forbid!” Chemosh said dryly. “No, Mina. Here is your helm.”

  He took her head in his two hands, kissed her on the forehead, on her cheeks, her chin and, finally, on her mouth.

  “There, you are protected.” He hesitated, keeping hold of her. His grip on her tightened. “Mina,” he said softly, “I—”

  “What, my lord?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he said abruptly. He drew back from her, away from her touch, her amber eyes.

  “Have I displeased you, my lord?” Mina asked, troubled.

  “No,” he said, and he repeated, “No.”

  He looked at her, at her body, warm and yielding and soft, clasped in the ghastly armor of a dead man’s bones, and it was the Lord of Death who shuddered.

  He snatched the bones off her, tearing them from her and casting them back into the sea.

  “It really did not bother me, my lord,” Mina protested.

  “It bothered me,” he said and turned away abruptly.

  They drifted through the sunlit depths, searching for the ruins of the Tower.

  Whatever power Chemosh sensed down here was growing, not diminishing, or so Mina judged by his increasingly dark expression. He did not speak to her. He did not look at her.

  She tried to remain focused, to watch for danger. She found it difficult, however. She was in a different world, a world of strange and exotic beauty, and she was constantly distracted. Fish swam past her, darted around her, some eyeing her curiously, some completely ignoring her. Shelves of pink-tinged coral rose up from the ocean floor, home to a veritable forest of strange-looking plants and beings that appeared to be plants but weren’t, as she discovered when she touched what she thought was a flower and it lashed out at her, stung her. The colors of everything—fish and plants—were brighter, more vivid and vibrant than any colors she had seen on land.

  She forgot the danger and gave herself over to the enchantment. Schools of silver fish flipped and spun in quicksilver unity. Tiny fish darted at her, nibbled at her hands. Others hid from sight, disappearing into coral doorways and diving through coral windows.

  Suddenly, Chemosh hissed a warning. Catching hold of her, he dragged her into the shadows of green and undulating branches.

  “What is it?” she asked softly.

  “Look! Look there!” he said, disbelieving, and furious.

  A building with walls of smooth, glistening crystal thrust up from the ocean floor. The crystalline structure caught the drowned shafts of sunlight and made them captive, so that the building gleamed with shimmering panes of watery light. A dome of black marble topped the building. Atop the dome, a circlet made of burnished red-gold twined with silver flashed in the sunlight. The center of the circlet was jet black, as if a hole had been opened up in the sea to reveal the emptiness of the universe.

  “What is that place, my lord?” Mina asked, awed.

  “The desecrated, burned-out, meteor-struck, fire-gutted, rubble-strewn Tower of High Sorcery of Istar,” said Chemosh, adding, with a curse, “Somehow, some way, it has been rebuilt.”

  ne moment Rhys and Nightshade were in Zeboim’s cell, patiently arguing with the goddess, trying to make her see reason. The next moment, between the space of one breath and the next, one word and the next, one rant and the next, Rhys was standing on crumbling flagstone in the middle of an island fortress, with the lingering echo of a raging sea roaring in his head. Having grown weary of his argument, Zeboim had brought it to an end.

  Rhys had never been to the Storm’s Keep. He had heard tales of it, but he had paid scant attention to the stories. He was not one who yearned for adventure. He did not join the younger monks, who thrilled to hear ghost stories told round the fire on a winter’s night. More often than not, he left that cozy fire to go walking alone across the frozen hills, rejoicing in the cold, glittering beauty of the frost-rimed stars.

  The bodies of those young monks lay beneath the earth. Their ghosts, it was to be hoped, were roaming free among those very stars. He had set out to solve the mystery of their deaths. Knowing how, he had yet to discover why. His search had brought him here. Looking back on the road that he had traveled, he could not see it for all the bends and twists and turns it had taken.

  If he had obeyed Majere and remained at the monastery to seek perfection of body and mind, what would he be doing now? He knew the answer well. The hour was sunset. Almost time to bring the sheep down from the hills. He would be sitting at his ease in the tall grass, his staff cradled in his arms, Atta lying by his side. She would be watching the sheep and watching him, waiting for the command that would send her skimming over the grass, racing up the hillside.

  The scene was peaceful, but he was not. His spirit was troubled, plagued by doubt and inner turmoil. No longer was he free to walk out among the stars at night. He would go every evening to visit the mass grave and he would feel, as he gazed down at the new grass starting to cover it, that he had failed his brethren, failed his family, failed mankind. Rhys looked at what might have been and the image faded away. If he should die in this dread place—as seemed most likely—his spirit would go forth on the next stage of the journey content in the knowledge that he had done right, though it had turned out all wrong.

  A gaudy sunset washed the sky with reds and golds and purples, splashing the gray walls of Storm’s Keep with lurid color. Rhys’s first incongruous thought was that the fortress was ill-named. No storms raged on Storm’s Keep. The sky was empty, save for a single, solitary wisp of white cloud that ran away swiftly, afraid of being caught. No breeze stirred on land or water. The sea sloshed sullenly against the cliffs. Wavelets slobbered at the bottoms of the jagged rocks, f
awning, caressing them.

  Rhys studied his surroundings, looking them over long and intently—the formidable towers jutting up into the garish sky, the parade ground on which he stood, the various outbuildings scattered amid the rocks. And beyond and all around him, the sea, avidly watching his every move.

  His every move. His and his alone. The kender was nowhere in sight. Rhys sighed and shook his head. He’d tried to explain to Zeboim that the presence of the kender was essential to his plan. He had thought he’d convinced her—of that, at least, if nothing else. Perhaps the kender had tumbled out of the ethers onto a different part of the isle. Perhaps …

  “Nightshade?” Rhys called softly.

  A outraged squeal answered. The squeal came from the leather scrip that hung on Rhys’s belt, and after a moment’s startled amazement, he breathed easier. Zeboim had acted on his plan with her usual impetuosity, just not bothering to tell him she’d done so.

  “Rhys!” Nightshade wailed, his voice muffled by the scrip in which he was ensconced, “what happened? Where am I? It’s pitch dark in here and it stinks of goat cheese!”

  “Keep quiet, my friend,” Rhys ordered and he placed his hand reassuringly over the scrip.

  The scrip obediently fell silent, though he could feel it quivering against his thigh. He gave the kender a soothing pat.

  “You’re inside my scrip. The scrip and I are on Storm’s Keep.”

  The scrip gave a lurch.

  “Nightshade,” said Rhys, “you must keep perfectly still. Our lives depend on it.”

  “Sorry, Rhys,” squeaked the kender. “I’m just a little surprised, that’s all. This was all so sudden!” He shrieked the last word.

  “I know,” Rhys said, striving to keep his tone calm. “I didn’t expect to make this journey, either. But we’re here now, and we have to carry on with our plan as we discussed it. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, Rhys. I lost control there for a moment. It’s kind of a shock, you know, finding yourself three inches tall and stuck in a sack that smells of goat cheese and then discovering you’ve dropped in on a death knight.” Nightshade sounded bitter.

  “I understand,” said Rhys, glad that the kender could not see his smile.

  “I’m over all that now, though,” Nightshade added after a pause to catch his breath. “You can count on me.”

  “Good.” Rhys glanced about again. “I have no idea where we are or where we are supposed to go. Zeboim sent us off before I could ask her.”

  The towers of a massive fortress rose from the cliffs. The buildings all appeared to have been carved from the island as a sculptor carves his work from the marble block, leaving the base rough-hewn, the top smooth and shaped and crafted. Rhys had the eerie sensation that he was standing on the very topmost point of a jagged splinter of earth, with the rest of the world falling away all around him. On his hillside, he had always felt himself to be at one with a benevolent universe. Here he felt himself alone, isolated and abandoned, in a universe that didn’t give a damn.

  The flagstones of the parade ground radiated the heat of the afternoon sun into the air. Sweat trickled down Rhys’s neck and his chest. The kender, he thought, must be suffocating. Rhys opened the scrip slightly to let in more air.

  “Keep quiet,” he reiterated. “And keep still.”

  Two enormous towers that must be the fortress’s main buildings stood at one end of the island. Rhys would have to traverse the length of the parade ground to reach them. Gazing up at the myriad windows in the tall towers, Rhys realized the death knight, Ausric Krell, might be standing, watching him.

  He thought back to the conversation that had taken place in the prison cell just moments before he’d so unexpectedly set off on this journey.

  Majesty, Nightshade and I require your help if we are to survive this encounter with this death knight. You promised me you would grant me your holy power—

  I changed my mind, monk. I have thought it over. What you ask is too dangerous for my son. If you fail, Ariakan will still be in Chemosh’s possession. If he even suspected that I helped you, he would retaliate against my poor son.

  Mistress, without your aid, we cannot proceed—

  Bah! Your plan is a good one, as good as any plan could be, given the circumstances. You might succeed. If you do, you have nothing to worry about. If not, death won’t matter to you. Because of your sacrifice, you will be assured of a peaceful afterlife. Majere could hardly deny you that, whereas my poor son—

  Majesty—

  It was then that Zeboim had ended the argument.

  Now he stood on Storm’s Keep, forced to face a death knight with only his staff for a weapon and a miniature kender for a companion, with no god to give him aid. Gazing out at the sullen waves and the empty, darkening sky, Rhys gripped his staff, which had been a sorrowful last gift from Majere, and said a prayer. He did not know to whom he was praying, if anyone—perhaps to the sea, perhaps to the endless sky. He asked for no spells, no holy magic, no godly powers. Useless to ask. No one would answer.

  “Give me strength,” he prayed, and with that, he started to walk toward the fortress to find the death knight.

  He had taken only a few steps when a shadow fell over him from behind. The shadow was cold as despair, dark as fear. He could hear, behind him, the creak of leather and the rattle of armor and the sound of breathing, which was not the sound of the living breathing, but the hissing, rasping sound of the undead trying to remember what it was to breathe. The stench of decay, of death, filled his nose and mouth. Between the stench and the horror, he was so sickened that for a moment he feared he might pass out.

  Rhys gripped his staff hard. His spiritual self went forth to do battle. Fear was the death knight’s most potent weapon. He had to defeat fear or fall where he stood. His spirit fought with the fear, soul seeking to overcome the weakness inherent to flesh. The struggle was brief, sharp. Rhys had trained for this all his days in the monastery. He could not call upon Majere to aid him, but he could call upon the lessons of Majere. Spirit won. His soul triumphed. The sick feeling passed. The hot prickling sensation in his limbs eased, though his hand clutching the staff had gone numb.

  Master of himself, he maintained that mastery and turned with unhurried calm to look fear in the face.

  At the sight of the death knight, Rhys’s resolve came close to crumbling. Krell stood near Rhys, looming over him. Looking into the eye slits of the helm, Rhys saw the accursed light of undeath, light that was as fierce and fiery as the sun, yet could not illuminate the darkness of the being trapped inside the bloodstained armor. Rhys steeled himself to look past the flaring light at that being.

  It was not daunting. It was mean and shriveled.

  Krell’s small red eyes peered at Rhys. “Before I kill you, Mantis Monk, I will give you a chance to tell me what you’re doing on my island. Your explanation should be amusing.”

  “You are mistaken, sir. I am not a monk of Majere. I came to speak for Zeboim, to negotiate for the soul of her son.”

  “You’re dressed like a monk,” Krell leered, sneering.

  “Appearances can be deceiving,” Rhys returned. “You, sir, are dressed like a knight.”

  Krell glared. He had the feeling he’d been insulted, but he wasn’t sure. “Never mind. I’ll have the last laugh, monk. Days of laughter, so long as you don’t up and die on me too soon, like so many of the bastards.”

  Krell rocked back on his heels, rocked forward, his hands hooked through his belt.

  “Zeboim wants to negotiate, does she? Very well. Here are my terms, monk: you will entertain me as do all my ‘guests’ by playing khas with me. If, by chance, you beat me, I will reward you by cutting your throat.” He added, just in case Rhys did not understand, “Killing you swiftly, you see.”

  Rhys nodded, kept a tight grip on the staff. So far, so good. All was going as planned.

  “If you do not beat me—and I warn you that I am an expert player—I will give you another chance. I am n
ot such a bad fellow, after all. I’ll give you chance after chance to beat me. We will play one game after another after another.”

  Krell made a motion with his gloved hand. “The game board is set up in the library. A rather long walk, but at least you can enjoy this unusually pleasant weather we’re experiencing. You might want to take a good last look at the sunset.”

  Krell chuckled, a hideous sound, his amusement echoing hollowly in the empty armor. He stomped off, gleefully rubbing his hands in anticipation of the game. Half-way across the courtyard, he came to a halt, turned to face Rhys.

  “Did I mention that for every khas piece you lose, monk, I will break one of your bones?” Krell laughed outright. “I start with the small bones—fingers and toes. Then I will break your ribs, one by one. After that maybe a collar bone, a wrist or an elbow. Then I start on the legs—a shin bone, thigh bone, pelvis. I leave your spine until the end. By that time, you’ll be begging me to slay you. I told you I find this game entertaining! I’m going off to set up the board now. Don’t keep me waiting. I do so long to hear what Zeboim has to offer me in exchange for her son.”

  The death knight strode off. Rhys stood unmoving, gazing after him.

  “Oh, Rhys!” Nightshade cried, appalled.

  “Not so loud. How good a khas player are you?” Rhys asked quietly.

  “Not that good,” Nightshade answered, his voice quavering. “We’ll be forced to give up pieces, Rhys. It’s the only way to play the game. I’m sorry. I’ll try to find Ariakan quickly.”

  “Just do the best you can, my friend,” said Rhys, and gripping his staff, he started walking toward the tower.

  rell rose from his seat as Rhys entered the library. Bowing with a mocking show of polite welcome, the death knight ushered Rhys to a chair placed near a small table on which the khas board was all arranged. The room was chill and oppressive and smelled of rotting flesh. Krell irritably kicked aside several bones that littered the floor.