Amber and Ashes

by Margaret Weis

  “Excuse the mess. Former khas players,” he said to Rhys.

  Leg bones, arm bones, collar bones, fingers and toes, skulls—all cracked or shattered, some in several places. Krell casually trod a few underfoot, crushing them to dust.

  He settled his ponderous armored body in his chair and indicated with another wave that Rhys was to sit down. The round khas board stood in between the two players; the shrunken bodies that were the khas pieces stood on the black and white and red hexes, two opposing armies facing each other across a checkered battlefield.

  Seating himself, Rhys appeared to have lost his nerve. His customary calm deserted him. He was shivering, his hands shaking so that the staff slipped from his sweaty palms and fell to the floor. He sought to remove the scrip from his belt and dropped it as well. Rhys bent to pick up the scrip.

  “Leave it,” Krell growled. “Get on with the game.”

  Rhys mopped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his robe. As he sank, trembling, into his seat, his knee jerked, striking the khas board and upending it. The board fell off its stand. The pieces slid to the floor and scattered in all directions.

  “You clumsy oaf!” Krell snarled. The death knight leaned down to pick up the khas pieces, going after one in particular that he snatched up hurriedly.

  Rhys could not get a good look at it, for Krell closed his gloved hand over it.

  “You pick up the rest, monk,” Krell grunted. “And if any of those pieces are damaged, I’m going to break two of your bones for every piece you lose. Be quick about it.”

  Rhys crawled on the floor, on his hands and knees, scrabbling to pick up the pieces, some of which had rolled to far parts of the room.

  “There are twenty-seven bones in the human hand,” stated Krell, returning the pieces he’d picked up to the khas board. “I start with the forefinger of the right hand and work my way along. You missed a pawn, one of the kender. It’s over by the fire pit.”

  Rhys picked up the last piece—a kender pawn—and placed it on the board.

  “What are you doing, monk?” Krell demanded.

  Rhys’s hand on the kender froze. He could feel Nightshade quivering beneath his fingers.

  “Pawns don’t go there.” Krell said in disgust. “That hex is where you put the rook. The pawn goes here.”

  “I am sorry,” Rhys said, and he moved Nightshade to the indicated hex. “I know very little about the game.”

  Krell shook his head. “And here I was hoping you would live to entertain me for a week at least. Still,” the death knight added cheerfully, “there are twenty-six bones in the human foot. You’ll last at least a day or two. You have first move.”

  Rhys resumed his seat. Placing his foot firmly on the kinder pawn he’d switched out for Nightshade, he shoved the pawn beneath his chair.

  Rhys took hold of Nightshade, who stood stiff and straight as the rest of the pawns, and advanced the kender one square. Then Rhys hesitated. He could not recall if he was supposed to move one square or two on his opening gambit. Nightshade apparently sensed his dilemma, for he gave a little wriggle. Rhys advanced him another square then sank back in his chair. The trembling and shaking had been an act, but the sweat on his brow was real. He mopped it again with the sleeve of his robe.

  Krell advanced a goblin pawn two squares on the opposite side of the board.

  “Your move, monk.”

  Rhys looked at the board and tried hard to remember his lessons in khas, given to him by Nightshade the night before. They had a game plan in mind, the object being to move Nightshade close enough to the dark knight pieces so that he could find out which was Ariakan. Nightshade explained all the contingencies—what to move if Krell moved this, what to move if Krell moved that. Unfortunately, Rhys had proved a poor pupil.

  “You have to think like a warrior, Rhys,” Nightshade had said to him at one point in exasperation, “not like a shepherd!”

  “I am a shepherd,” Rhys had returned, smiling.

  “Well, stop thinking like one. You can’t protect all your pieces. You have to sacrifice some of them to win.”

  “I don’t have to win,” Rhys had pointed out. “I just have to stay in the game long enough for you to accomplish your mission.”

  What neither of them had counted on were broken bones.

  Rhys put his hand on a pawn and glanced at Nightshade. The kender stiffened in his place, very slightly shook his head. Rhys lifted his hand off the piece.

  “Hah, monk!” Krell rumbled, leaning forward with a rattle of armor. “You touched the piece. You have to move it.”

  Nightshade’s shoulders slumped. Rhys moved the pawn. He’d barely taken his hand off it before Krell swooped down. Seizing one of his pieces, he slid it across the board and knocked over Rhys’s pawn. Krell triumphantly moved the pawn to his side of the table.

  “My turn again,” said Krell.

  Rising up out of his chair, his small red eyes flaring with anticipation, the death knight seized hold of Rhys’s hand.

  Rhys gasped and shuddered beneath the death knight’s touch, which seared his flesh with the white-hot hatred the accursed dead bear the living.

  The monks of Majere are trained to withstand pain without complaint, using many disciplines, including one called Frost Fire. Through the use of consistent practice and mediation, the monk is able to completely banish minor pains, so that they are no longer felt, and can reduce debilitating pain to a level where the monk can continue to function. The “fire” is rimed with ice, the monk envisioning hoar-frost settling over the pain, so that it subsides beneath the freezing cold that numbs the affected part of the body.

  Rhys had counted upon using this discipline to be able overcome the pain of the shattered bones, at least for a while. Meditation and discipline were no match for thhe death knight’s touch. Rhys had once tipped over a lantern, spilling flaming oil on his bare legs. His flesh blistered and bubbled, the pain so severe he’d almost passed out. Krell’s touch was like flaming oil being poured through Rhys’s veins. He could not help himself. He cried out in agony, his body jerking spasmodically in Krell’s hold.

  Grabbing hold of Rhys’s index finger on his right hand, Krell gave it an expert twist. The bone snapped at the knuckle. Rhys moaned. A wave of sickening heat and dizziness swept over him.

  Krell released him and sauntered back to his chair.

  Rhys sank back, fighting faintness, sucking in the deep breaths used to clear his mind and enter the Frost Fire state. He was having difficulty. The broken finger was discolored and starting to swell. The flesh where Krell had touched it was a ghastly shade of white, like that of a corpse. Rhys was weak and unsteady. The khas pieces wavered in his vision, the room swam.

  “If you give way now, all is lost,” he told himself, wavering on the verge of unconsciousness. “This behavior is unforgivable. The Master would be bitterly disappointed. Were all these past years a lie?”

  Rhys closed his eyes and he was back on the hills, sitting in the grass, watching the clouds drift across the sky, mirroring the white woolly sheep roaming the hillside. Slowly he began to regain mastery, his spirit triumphing over his wounded body.

  Nursing his broken finger, he returned his attention to the khas board. Nightshade’s lessons came back to him and he lifted his hand—his injured hand—and made his move.

  “I’m impressed, monk,” said Krell, regarding Rhys with grudging admiration. “Most humans usually pass out on me and I have to wait for them to come around.”

  Rhys barely heard him. His next move would advance Nightshade, but it meant sacrificing another piece.

  Krell made his move and gave a nod to Rhys.

  Rhys pretended to study the board, all the while composing his spirit, bracing himself for what must come next. He placed his hand on the khas piece, glanced at Nightshade.

  The kender had gone quite pale, so that he was now barely distinguishable from the rest of the shrunken kender corpses. Nightshade knew what was coming as well as Rhys,
but it had to be done. He gave a small nod.

  Rhys picked up the piece, moved it, set it down, and after only a slight hesitation, removed his hand from it. He heard Krell chortle with pleasure, heard him knock over one of his pieces, heard the death knight rise ponderously to his feet.

  The chill shadow of the death knight fell over him.

  For one horrible minute, Nightshade knew he was going to faint. He’d heard quite clearly the rending, snapping sound of that first bone breaking, and Rhys’s agonized moan, and the soft-hearted kender had gone unpleasantly hot all over. Only the terrible thought of himself—a khas piece—suddenly slumping over in a dead faint on his black hex (a move not found in any rule book) kept Nightshade on his feet. Wobbly but determined, he pressed on with his end of the mission.

  Nightshade was an unusual kender in that he was not fond of adventure. His parents considered this a lamentable trait and sought to reason with him, to no avail. His father maintained sadly that this lack of true kender spirit probably came from the fact that Nightshade chummed around with dead people all the time. Some dead have such a negative view of life.

  Thus far, this adventure had gone a long way to confirming Nightshade’s bad opinion.

  From the beginning, he had not been keen on Rhys’s plan to reduce him to the size of khas piece. In a world of tall people, Nightshade considered that he was short enough already. He further did not like the idea of being dependent on Zeboim to shrink him in the first place and in the second place to bring him back from being shrunken. Rhys had assured Nightshade that he would have Zeboim swear on whatever it was goddesses swore upon that she would perform as required. Unfortunately, the goddess had whipped the spell on the kender before they’d had a chance to conclude this important term in the negotiations. Nightshade had been standing beside Rhys in the goddess’s prison cell, and the next thing he knew he was inside a smelly leather pouch, sweating and recalling with a pang that he’d skipped breakfast.

  He’d wanted out of that pouch until the death knight showed up, and then he’d wanted only to crawl inside the pouch’s seams. He supposed he was as brave as any kender living, but even his famous Uncle Tas had, according to legend, been afraid of a death knight.

  After that, there had been no time for fear. After Rhys dropped the scrip, Nightshade had only seconds to crawl out of the pouch and roll away before the death knight could spot him. Then there was the business of trying to hold stiff and unmoving as Rhys picked him up—gently as he could—and stood him on the khas board. In the worry and anxiety over all that, he hadn’t had time to be intimidated by the death knight.

  When that flurry of activity was over, however, Nightshade had quite a good view of Krell, for he was forced to stand facing the death knight, who was every bit as loathsome as the kender had pictured.

  Nightshade wondered if anyone would notice if he shut his eyes. A covert glance showed him that all the other kender on the board had his or her eyes wide open.

  “Of course, they’re corpses—lucky bastards,” Nightshade muttered in his throat.

  Krell did not appear too observant, but he might notice. Nightshade was forced to stare straight at the death knight. Nightshade might not have been able to withstand the awful sight but that he suddenly caught a glimpse of Krell’s spirit. Krell was big and ugly and terrifying. His spirit, by contrast, was small and ugly and craven. In the spirit department, Nightshade could have taken on Krell, thrown him to the ground, and sat on his head. This knowledge made Nightshade feel immensely better and he was starting to think that they just might get out of this alive—something he hadn’t really expected—when Krell broke Rhys’s first finger, and Nightshade had nearly collapsed.

  “The sooner you finish your part of the job,” Nightshade told himself to keep himself from passing out, “the sooner you and Rhys can get out of here.”

  Nightshade gulped, blinked away his tears, and proceeded to do what he’d been sent here to do—find out which of the khas pieces contained the spirit of Lord Ariakan.

  When he’d heard that all the khas pieces were shrunken corpses, Nightshade had been concerned that he’d be overwhelmed with the spirits of the dead. Fortunately, the spirits of the dead had long since departed, leaving their tormented bodies behind. Nightshade felt the presence of only one spirit, but that spirit was angry enough for twenty.

  Ordinarily Nightshade could have used such strong emotions as he felt resonate from the spirit to determine which khas piece was which. Unfortunately, the rage cascading over the khas board was so very strong that it made distinguishing between the pieces impossible. Anger and the fierce desire for vengeance was everywhere and could have come from any one of the pieces.

  Zeboim had insisted that her son was trapped in one of the two dark knights, each riding a blue dragon—for that was what Krell had told her. Nightshade thought this likely, though he could not discount the possibility that Krell had lied. He looked over the heads of the goblin pieces standing opposite him and peered around the corpse of a black-robed wizard to get a good look at both knight pieces to see if he could note anything about them that might help him decide.

  He rather hoped one might quiver in indignation, or give a vicious snort, or poke another piece with his spear …

  Nothing. The knight pieces stood as rigid and unmoving as—well—corpses.

  There was only one way to find out. He would make himself known to the spirit and ask it to please reveal itself.

  Nightshade generally talked to spirits in a normal tone of voice; they tended to like that, it made them feel at home. Speaking aloud was not an option here. While Krell didn’t look any too bright, even he was bound to be suspicious of a talking khas piece. Nightshade could, if he had to, speak to spirits on their own plane in a voice akin to theirs, something he sometimes had to do with very shy spirits.

  Unfortunately, being undead himself, Krell existed on both planes—the mortal and the spiritual—and he might overhear the kender. Nightshade decided he had to take the risk. He couldn’t let Rhys endure any more torture.

  Nightshade looked intently at Krell and his spirit. The death knight appeared to be entirely engrossed in both the game and in torturing Rhys. Krell seemed pretty well entrenched in the mortal plane, as was his small, ugly little spirit.

  “Excuse me,” Nightshade called out in a polite whisper, trying to watch both knight pieces and Krell, “I’m looking for Lord Ariakan. Could you make yourself known, please?”

  He waited expectantly, but no one answered his summons. The rushing tide of fury did not abate, however. Ariakan was here, the kender was sure of it.

  Nightshade was being ignored.

  Out of the corner of his eyes, Nightshade saw Rhys’s wounded hand hovering over the khas board. Nightshade looked up fearfully to see what Rhys was going to do. They had worked out several strategies with the goal of advancing Nightshade across the board toward the knight pieces. He tensed to see the fingers come down and gave a small, relieved sigh when Rhys made the correct move. Nightshade sighed again, more deeply and sorrowfully. Rhys would sacrifice a piece in this move. Krell would break another bone. Nightshade decided to get firm.

  “Lord Ariakan—” he began more loudly, taking a no-nonsense tone.

  “Shut up,” said a voice, cold and sepulchral.

  “Oh, there you are!” Nightshade focused on the dark knight piece standing on his side of the board. “I’m glad I found you. We’ve come to rescue you. My friend and I.” He could not turn around, but he swiveled his eyes and gave a very small jerk of his head toward Rhys.

  The fury lessened a modicum. Nightshade now had the spirit’s full attention.

  “A kender and a monk of Majere here to rescue me from Chemosh?” Ariakan gave a bitter laugh. “Not likely.”

  “I am a kender. I admit that. But Rhys is no longer a monk of Majere. Well, he is, but he isn’t, if you take my meaning, my lord, which you probably don’t, because I don’t understand it very well myself. And it wasn’t ou
r idea to come. Your mother sent us.”

  “My mother!” Ariakan snorted. “Now it all makes sense.”

  “I think she’s trying to help,” Nightshade offered.

  Ariakan snorted again.

  Behind him, Nightshade heard the snap of another bone. Rhys moaned and then fell silent, so silent that for a moment Nightshade feared his friend had lost consciousness. Then he heard harsh breathing and saw Rhys’s hand move over the board.

  Jagged-edged bone protruded from the flesh. Blood splattered down on the khas board. The kender gulped, his heart wrung for his friend’s suffering.

  “Now that you know we’re here to save you, my lord,” said Nightshade, desperately hurrying things along, “here’s our plan—”

  “You’re wasting your time. I’m not leaving,” returned Ariakan fiercely, “not until I’ve torn out the liver of this traitor with my bare hands and fed it to him in small bites.”

  “He doesn’t have a liver,” Nightshade said crossly. “Not anymore. And I’d just like to say that it is this sort of bad attitude that’s kept you in prison all these years. Now. Here is the plan. Rhys will capture you”—Nightshade stated this confidently, though he had misgivings on this score—“and move you to his side of the board. I’ll distract Krell. Rhys will pocket you and we’ll escape and carry you back safely to your goddess mother. All you have to do is—”

  “I do not want to be rescued,” said Ariakan. “If you try, I will raise holy hell. Even Krell can’t fail to notice. I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time. And your lives.”

  “He definitely takes after his mother,” Nightshade muttered. “Poor Rhys,” he added, wincing as he heard his friend draw in a halting breath. “He can’t take much more. Oh, no! There he goes. About to move the wrong piece!”

  Nightshade gave a violent jerk of his head and rolled his eyes and, fortunately, Rhys took the hint. His hand—he was using his left hand now—shifted from the queen to a rook. Nightshade heaved a deep sigh and cast a glance at Krell.

  “That should give him something to think about,” said the kender in satisfaction.