Amber and Blood

by Margaret Weis

  Rhys gently put Atta aside and rose swiftly to his feet. The forest was gone, as was the small house, where, as Nightshade had said, he and the kender, Atta and Mina had spent two days and two nights—days and nights of blessed tranquility and peace. They had intended to set out upon the final stage of their journey this morning, but it seemed Mishakal had forestalled him.

  They looked out upon a desolate, barren valley slung between the charred ridges of several active volcanoes. Tendrils of steam drifted up from the blackened peaks, trailing into a sky that was a stark and empty blue. The air was chill, the sun small and shrunken and impotent, radiating no warmth. Their shadows straggled across the trackless gray stone floor of the valley and dwindled to nothing. The air was thin and sulpherous, difficult to breathe. Rhys could not seem to take in enough to fill his lungs. Most awful was the silence which had a living quality to it, like an inhaled breath. Watchful, waiting.

  Strange rock formations littered this valley. Enormous black crystals, jagged-edged and faceted, thrust up out of the stone. Some standing twenty feet high or more, the monoliths were scattered about the valley at random. They were not a natural formation, did not appear to have sprung up out of the ground. Rather, it seemed they had been cast down from heaven by some immense force whose fury had driven them deep into the valley floor.

  “The least you could have done is bring the gingerbread with you,” Nightshade said. “Now we don’t have any breakfast. I know I agreed to come with you to find the Walking God, but I didn’t know the trip was going to be quite so sudden.”

  “I didn’t either,” Rhys said, then added sharply, “Where’s Mina?”

  Nightshade jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Mina had waited with him beside the slumbering Rhys until she’d grown bored and wandered off to investigate. She stood some distance away, gazing at her reflection in one of the crystalline monoliths.

  “Why are you looking all tense like this?” Nightshade demanded. “What’s wrong?”

  “I know where we are,” said Rhys, hurrying over to fetch Mina. “I know this place. And we must leave at once. Atta, come!”

  “I’m all for leaving. Though leaving doesn’t look to be as easy as coming,” Nightshade stated, breaking into a run to keep up with Rhys’s long strides. “Especially since we have no idea how the ‘coming’ happened. I don’t think it was Mina. She was asleep on the ground when I woke up and when she woke up, she was as startled and confused as I was.”

  Rhys was certain the White Lady had sent them to this terrible place, though he could not imagine why, other than that it was said to be close to Godshome.

  “So, Rhys,” said Nightshade, his boots thunking on the stone and causing dust to swirl in small, slithering eddies over the floor like side-winding snakes, “where are we? What is this place?”

  “The valley of Neraka,” Rhys replied.

  The kender gasped, his eyes going round. “Neraka? The Neraka? The Neraka where the Dark Queen built her dark temple and was going to enter the world? I remember that story! There was a guy with a green jewel in his chest who murdered his sister, only she forgave him and her spirit blocked the Dark Queen’s entry, and she lost the war and the brother came back to his sister and together they blew up the temple and … and this is it!” Nightshade stopped to stare with excitement into one of the black monoliths. “These ugly rocks are pieces of Takhisis’s temple!”

  “Mina!” Rhys called out to her.

  She didn’t seem to hear him. She was staring fixedly at the rock, seemingly mesmerized. Rhys slowed his pace. He didn’t want to startle or alarm her by accosting her suddenly, without warning.

  Meanwhile Nightshade was mulling things over. “Neraka had something to do with the War of Souls, too. That war started when Takhisis became the One God and she was going to keep all the souls imprisoned here. Poor souls. I spoke to a good many of them, you know, Rhys. I was glad for them when the war was over and they were finally free to depart, though the graveyard was awfully lonely after that …”

  “Mina,” called Rhys softly.

  Motioning for Nightshade to keep back, Rhys walked slowly toward her. The kender caught hold of Atta and both of them stopped, both of them panting in the thin air.

  “Neraka. War of Souls. Neraka,” Nightshade muttered. “Oh, yes, now I remember it all! Neraka was where the war started and … Omigod! Rhys!” he shouted. “This is where Mina came to start the War of Souls! Takhisis sent her out of the storm …”

  Rhys made a stern, emphatic gesture, and Nightshade gulped and fell silent.

  “I guess he already knew that,” the kender said and put his arms around Atta’s neck and held onto her tightly—just in case the dog was scared.

  Rhys came up to stand behind Mina.

  “Who is she?” Mina demanded, frightened. She pointed at her reflection in the black crystal.

  Rhys’s breath caught in his throat. He could not speak. The Mina that stood beside him was the child, Mina, with long red braids and freckles on her nose and guileless eyes of amber. The Mina reflected in the black crystal was the woman of the soul-imprisoning amber eyes, the warrior woman who had been born in this valley, the woman who had worshipped the One God, the Dark God, Takhisis.

  Mina flung herself in sudden fury at the black rock, kicking it and beating it with her fists.

  Rhys seized hold of her. The sharp rock had already cut her hand. Blood trailed down her arm. He hauled her back from the rock. She jerked free of his grip and stood panting and glaring at the rock, and wiped the blood from her cut onto her dress.

  “Why does that woman stare at me like that? I don’t like her! What has she done with me?” Mina cried in anguish.

  Rhys tried to soothe her, but he was shaken himself by the sight of the hard-faced, amber-eyed woman gazing back at them from the black crystal.

  “Woo boy,” said Nightshade. Coming up to stand beside Rhys, the kender stared at Mina, then he stared at the reflection in the crystal monolith and rubbed his eyes and scratched his head. “Woo boy,” he said again.

  Shaking his head in perplexity, he turned to Rhys.

  “I hate to add to our problems, especially since they appear to be real doozies, but you should probably know that there’s a large group of minotaur soldiers up on that ridge.”

  The kender squinted, shaded his eyes with his hand. “And I know this sounds strange, Rhys, but I think they have an elf with them.”

  aldar was plagued by ghosts. Not ghosts of the dead, as during the War of Souls. Ghosts of himself, of his own dead past. Here, in Neraka, Mina had walked into this valley and into his life and forever changed him. He had not been in the valley since that night which had been both terrible and wonderful. He had not been back in Neraka until now, and he was not happy to return. Time had healed the wound The scar tissue had grown over his stump. But his memories ached and throbbed and tormented him like the pain of his phantom arm.

  “The dwarves call this place Gamashinoch,” Galdar said. “It means ‘Song of Death’. Guess they don’t call it that now, ’cause the singing’s stopped, Sargas be praised,” he added.

  He talked to the only person with him—Valthonis—and Galdar wasn’t talking to Valthonis because he enjoyed conversing with the elf. The racial hatred between minotaur and elves went back centuries, and Galdar saw no reason why the hatred shouldn’t last a few more. As for this elf being the ‘Walking God’, Galdar had himself been witness to the transformation so he knew the tale was true. What he didn’t understand was why everyone was making such a fuss over him. So he’d once been a god? What of it? He was a man now and had to take a crap in the woods like everyone else.

  Galdar was mainly talking because he had to talk or else listen to the eerie silence that blanketed the valley. At that, Galdar had to admit the silence was better than that horrible singing they’d heard when he’d last been here. The lamenting souls of the dead had finally departed.

  Galdar and Valthonis entered the valley alone; Galdar having or
dered his men to stay on the ridge. His soldiers protested the decision. They even dared to argue with him, and no minotaur ever argued with his commanding officer. If Galdar insisted upon entering this accursed valley, his men wanted to come with him.

  The minotaur soldiers admired Galdar. He was plain-speaking and blunt, and they liked that in a commander. He shared their hardships, and he made no secret of the fact that he didn’t like this assignment any better than they did, especially coming to the accursed valley of Neraka.

  Takhisis had been Sargas’s consort, but there had been no love lost between them. Her favored race, the ogres, had long been enemies of the minotaur, at one time enslaving and brutalizing them. Sargas had pleaded their cause, but she had laughed at him and mocked him and his minotaur race. She was now dead and gone, or so people claimed. The minotaurs did not trust Takhisis, however. She’d been banished once by Huma Dragonbane and she’d come back. She might rise again, and no one wanted to walk the dark valley where she had once reigned.

  “If you’re not back by noon, we’re coming in to get you, sir,” stated his second-in-command, and the other minotaurs raised their voices in agreement.

  “No, you won’t,” Galdar said, glaring around at them. “If I’m not back by sunset, return to Jarek. Make your report to the priests of Sargas.”

  “And what do we say, sir?” his second demanded.

  “That I did as Sargas commanded,” Galdar answered proudly.

  His men understood him, and though they did not like it, they no longer argued. They left the ridge and returned to the foothills, to while away the time with a game of bones, in which none took much pleasure.

  Galdar and the elf continued making their way down what was left of a road. Galdar wondered if it was the road he’d walked that night, the night of the storm, the night of Mina. He didn’t recognize it, but that wasn’t surprising. He’d gone out of his way to try to forget that nightmarish march.

  “I first came here with a patrol the night of the great storm,” Galdar explained as they left the road and entered the valley. “We didn’t know it at the time, but the storm was Takhisis, announcing to the world that the One God was back and this time she meant to have it all. We were under the command of Talon Leader Maggit, a bully and a coward, the sort of commander that would always run from a battle, only to pull some stupid stunt to try prove how brave he was and get half his men killed in the process.”

  Talon Leader Magitt dismounted his horse. “We will set up camp here. Pitch my command tent near the tallest of those monoliths. Galdar, you’re in charge of setting up camp. I trust you can handle that simple task?”

  His words seemed unnaturally loud, his voice shrill and raucous. A breath of air, cold and sharp, hissed through the valley, sent the sand into dust devils that swirled across the barren ground and whispered away.

  “You are making a mistake, sir,” said Galdar in a soft undertone, to disturb the silence as little as possible. “We are not wanted here.”

  “Who does not want us, Galdar?” Talon Leader Magitt sneered. “These rocks?” He slapped the side of a black crystal monolith. “Ha! What a thick-skulled, superstitious cow!”

  “We made camp,” said Galdar, his voice low and solemn. “In this valley. Among the blasted ruins of her temple.”

  A man could see his reflection in those glossy black planes, a reflection that was distorted, twisted, yet completely recognizable as being a reflection of himself.…

  These men, long since hardened against every good feeling, looked into the shining black plane of the crystals and were appalled by the faces that looked back. For on those faces they could see their mouths open to sing the terrible song.

  Galdar glanced at the black crystalline monoliths that littered the valley, and he could not repress a shudder.

  “Go ahead, look into one of them,” he said to Valthonis. “You won’t like what you see. The rock twists your reflection, so that you see yourself as some sort of monster.”

  Valthonis stopped to stare at one of the rocks. Galdar halted, too, thinking it would be amusing to see the elf’s reaction. Valthonis gazed at his reflection, then glanced at Galdar. The minotaur stepped up behind the elf to see what he was seeing. The elf’s reflection glistened in the rock. The reflection was the same as the reality—an elf with a weathered face and ancient eyes.

  “Hunh,” Galdar grunted. “Maybe the curse on the valley has been lifted. I haven’t been here since the war ended.”

  He elbowed Valthonis aside and stood before the rock and gazed boldly at himself.

  The Galdar reflected in the rock had two good arms.

  “Give me your hand, Galdar,” Mina said to him.

  At the sound of her voice, rough, sweet, he heard again the song singing among the rocks. He felt his hackles rise. A shudder went through him, a thrill flashed along his spine. He meant to turn away from her, but he found himself raising his left hand.

  “No, Galdar,” said Mina. “Your right hand. Give me your right hand.”

  “I have no right hand!” Galdar cried out in rage and anguish.

  He watched his arm, his right arm, lift; watched his hand, his right hand, reach out trembling fingers.

  Mina extended her hand, touched the phantom hand of the minotaur.

  “Your sword arm is restored …”

  Galdar stared at his own reflection. He flexed his left hand, his only hand. His reflection flexed both hands. Burning liquid stung his eyes, and he turned swiftly and angrily away and began to scour the valley, searching for some sign of Mina. Now that he was here, he was impatient to get this over with. He wanted to get past the awkward first meeting, endure the pain of disappointment, leave her with the elf, and go on with living.

  “I remember when you lost the arm Mina had given you,” Valthonis said, the first words he’d spoken since he’d been taken captive. “You fell defending Mina from Takhisis, who accused her of conspiring against her and would have slain her in a rage. You shielded Mina with your body and the Dark Queen cut off your arm. Sargas offered to restore your arm, but you refused—”

  “Who gave you permission to speak, elf?” Galdar demanded angrily, wondering why he’d let the yammering go on so long.

  “No one,” Valthonis said with a half-smile. “I will be silent if you like.”

  Galdar didn’t want to admit it, but he found the sound of another voice soothing in this place where only the dead had once spoken, so he said, “Waste your last breaths if you want. Your preaching won’t have any effect on me.”

  Galdar halted to stare squint-eyed into the valley. He thought he’d caught sight of movement, of people down there. The pale sunlight seemed to be playing tricks on his eyes, and it was difficult for him to tell if he’d actually seen living beings walking about, or ghosts, or only the strange shadows cast by the loathsome monoliths.

  Not shadows, he determined. Or ghosts. There are people down there and they must be those I was told to meet.

  There was the monk in the orange robes who was said to be Mina’s escort. But, if so, where was Mina?

  “Blast and damn this cursed place!” Galdar said in sudden anger.

  He’d been assured Mina would be with the monk, but he saw no sign of her. He hadn’t understood why she should be traveling with a monk anyway. He hadn’t liked this from the beginning and he was liking it less and less.

  Removing a length of rope from his belt, Galdar ordered Valthonis to hold out his hands.

  “I gave you my word I wouldn’t try to escape,” Valthonis said quietly.

  Galdar grunted and tied the rope securely around the elf’s slender wrists. Tying the knot wasn’t easy for the one-armed minotaur. Galdar had to use his teeth to finish the job.

  “Bound or not, I can’t escape her,” Valthonis added. “And neither can you, Galdar. You’ve always known Mina was a god, haven’t you?”

  “Shut up,” Galdar ordered savagely.

  Grasping the elf roughly by the arm, Galdar shoved Valtho
nis forward.

  The next lightning flash was not a bolt, but a sheet of flame that lit the sky and the ground and the mountains with a purple white radiance. Silhouetted against the awful glow, a figure moved toward them, walking calmly through the raging storm, seeming untouched by the gale, unmoved by the lightning, unafraid of the thunder.

  “What are you called?” Galdar demanded.

  “My name is Mina.”…

  He had sung her name. They had all sung her name. All those like himself who had followed her to battle and glory and death.

  “You did this,” Takhisis raved. “You connived with them to bring about my downfall. You wanted them to sing your name, not my own.”

  Mina … Mina …

  eeping one hand on Mina’s shoulder, Rhys glanced around to where Nightshade was pointing. He could see the minotaur troops, now leaving the ridgeline, marching away. Two people entered the valley. One was a minotaur wearing the emblem of Sargonnas emblazoned on his leather armor. One was an elf whose hands were bound.

  Too late to flee, even if there had been any place to go. The minotaur had spotted them.

  The minotaur was armed with a sword, which he wore on his right hip, for his right arm—his sword arm—was missing. He had not drawn his weapon, but he kept his left hand hovering near it. His keen eyes fixed a suspicious gaze on Rhys, then left him and flicked over the rest of the group. His scowl deepened. The minotaur was searching for Mina.

  The elf wore simple clothing—green cloak and tunic, well-worn boots, dusty from the road. He was not armed, and though he was obviously the minotaur’s prisoner, he walked with his head up, taking long, graceful, purposeful strides, as one who is accustomed to walking many roads.

  The Walking God. Rhys recognized Valthonis, and was about to call out a warning, when he was drowned out by the minotaur’s roar.

  “Mina!”

  Her name rang out across the valley and bounded off the Lords of Doom, who cast it back in eerie echoes, as though the bones of the world were crying out to her.