Amber and Iron

by Margaret Weis

  “I’ll take it outside to eat it,” Nightshade said. “That way my nose can feel hungry along with my stomach.”

  He stood up and stretched out the kinks. Atta shook herself all over, starting with her nose and ending with her tail, and looked eagerly at the door.

  “What about you?” Nightshade asked, seeing that Rhys remained seated. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  Rhys shook his head. “I will stay here and keep watch on Lleu. He said something about meeting a young woman later this evening.”

  Nightshade took the food, but he didn’t immediately go off with it. He stood looking at Rhys and seemed to be trying to make up his mind whether to say something or not.

  “Yes, my friend,” said Rhys mildly. “What is it?”

  “He’s leaving on a ship in two days,” Nightshade said.

  Rhys nodded.

  “What are we going to do then? Swim across New Sea after him?”

  “I’m talking to the captain. I have offered to work on board the ship in return for passage.”

  “Then what?”

  Leaning near, Nightshade looked his friend straight in the eye. “Rhys, face it! We could still be chasing your brother when you’re ninety and using that stick of yours as a cane! Lleu will be as young as ever, going from tavern to tavern, slinging down dwarf spirits like there’s no tomorrow. Because, you know what, Rhys, for him there is no tomorrow!”

  Nightshade sighed and shook his head. “It’s not much of a life you have. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Rhys didn’t defend himself because he couldn’t. The kender was right. It wasn’t much of a life, but what else could he do? Until someone wise found a way to stop the Beloved, he could at least try to prevent Lleu from claiming any more victims, and the only way he could do that was to track his brother like a hunter tracks the marauding wolf.

  Nightshade saw his friend’s face darken, and he felt immediately remorseful.

  “Rhys, I’m sorry.” Nightshade patted his hand. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s just that you’re a good man, and it seems to me you should be going around doing good things instead of spending your time stopping your brother from doing bad ones.”

  “I am not hurt,” said Rhys, touching Nightshade gently on the shoulder. “Has anyone told you that you are wise, my friend?”

  “Not recently,” said Nightshade with a grin.

  “Well, you are. I will consider what you have said. Go along and eat your supper.”

  Nightshade nodded and squeezed Rhys’s hand. He and Atta turned and were heading outside, when suddenly the door burst open with a slamming bang that jolted the drunks out of their stupor and caused several to drop their mugs. A gust of wind, smelling strongly of the sea, swirled about the interior of the tavern, kicking up the dust and spinning it into miniature cyclones that ushered in Zeboim.

  The goddess casually knocked aside the kender, who was in her way, and stared about the shadowy room for Rhys.

  “Monk, I know you’re here,” she called in a wave-crashing voice that rattled the timbers and set the rats fleeing. “Where are you?”

  Her sea green dress frothed around her ankles, her sea foam hair tangled in the wind that whistled through the cracks in the hull. The barkeep gaped. The drunks stared. Lleu, sighting a beautiful woman, leaped up and made a gallant bow.

  Rhys, startled beyond measure, rose to meet the goddess.

  “I am here, Majesty,” he called out.

  Atta ducked between his legs and hunkered there, growling. Nightshade picked himself off the floor. He’d managed, by some nifty acrobatics, to save his lunch, and he stuffed the meat into his pocket.

  “I’m here too, Goddess,” he sang out cheerfully.

  “Shut up, kender,” said Zeboim, “and you—” She raised a warding hand, pointed at Lleu. “You shut up as well, you disgusting piece of carrion.”

  Zeboim focused on Rhys, smiling sweetly. “I have someone I want you to meet, Monk.”

  The goddess gestured and, after a moment’s hesitation, another woman entered the tavern.

  “Rhys, this is Mina,” said Zeboim casually. “Mina, Rhys Mason—my monk.”

  Rhys was so amazed he fell backward, tripping over his staff and stepping on Atta, who yelped in protest. He could say nothing; his brain was in such turmoil it could make little sense of what he was seeing. He had a fleeting impression of a young woman who was not so much beautiful as she was arresting, with hair like flame and eyes like none he’d ever before seen.

  The eyes were an amber color and he had the eerie impression that, like amber, they held imprisoned everyone she had ever met. The amber gaze fixed on him, and Rhys felt himself drawn to her like all the others, hundreds of thousands of people caught and held like insects in resin.

  The amber seeped around him, warm and sweet.

  Rhys cried out and flung up his arm to block her gaze, as he might have flung up his arm to block a blow.

  The amber cracked. The eyes continued to confine their poor prisoners, but now he could see flaws, tiny cracks and striations, branching out from the dark pupils.

  “Rhys Mason,” said Mina, holding out her hand to him. “You know the answer to the riddle!”

  “Him?” Zeboim scoffed. “He knows nothing, Child. Now we really must be leaving. This was a fleeting visit, Rhys, my love. Sorry we can’t stay. I just wanted the two of you to meet. It seemed the least I could do, since I’m the one who commanded you to search the world for her. So farewell—”

  Lleu gave a hollow cry, an unearthly wail, and flung himself at Mina. He tried to seize hold of her, but she stepped back out of his way.

  “Wretch,” she said coldly. “What do you think you are doing?”

  Lleu fell to his knees. He held out his hands to her, pleading.

  “Mina,” Lleu cried in wrenching tones, “don’t turn away from me! You know me!”

  Rhys stared and Nightshade gaped, his mouth hanging open. Lleu, who did not remember Rhys, remembered Mina.

  As to her, she regarded him as she might have regarded one of the rats. “You are mistaken—”

  “You kissed me!” Lleu tore open his shirt to reveal the mark of her lips, burned into his flesh. “Look!”

  “Ah, you are one of the Beloved,” Mina said, and she shrugged. “You have my lord’s blessing—”

  “I don’t want it!” he cried vehemently. “Take it away!”

  Mina stared at him, puzzled.

  “Take it away!” Lleu shrieked. His hands clawed at her, clawed at the air when he could not reach her. “Take it away! Free me!”

  “I don’t understand,” Mina said, and she seemed truly bewildered by his request. “I gave you what you wanted, what all mortals want—endless life, endless youth, endless beauty …”

  “Endless misery,” he wailed. “I can’t stand your voice constantly dinning in my ears. I can’t stand the pain that drives me out into the night, the pain that nothing can drown, not the strongest liquor.…”

  Lleu clasped his hands together. “Take the ‘blessing’ away, Mina. Let me go.”

  She drew back, haughty and aloof. The amber hardened, the cracks sealed. “You gave yourself to my lord. You are his. I can do nothing.”

  Lleu lurched forward, still on his knees. “I beg you!”

  Zeboim cast the Beloved a look of disgust and drew Mina away.

  “Come, Child. Speaking of Chemosh, he will be growing impatient. As for you, Monk”—Zeboim glanced back at Rhys over her shoulder and her look was not friendly—“I will talk to you later.”

  Storm winds blew into the tavern, caught up Rhys, and flung him back against the wall. Sand stung his face. He could not see for the sand and the lashing rain, but he could hear people cursing, crates being tossed about the room. The storm raged for an instant and then subsided. Rhys found Atta cowering under a crate. Lleu was still on his knees. Hoping against hope his brother’s memory had returned, Rhys hastened over to him.

  “Lleu, it’s me,
Rhys.…”

  Lleu shoved him aside. “I don’t give a damn who you are. Get out of my way. Barkeep, more spirits!”

  The barkeep appeared, rising up from behind the bar. He stared around at the overturned crates and upended drunks, and then he scowled at Lleu.

  “Fine friends you have. Look at this mess! Who’s going to pay for it? Not you, I suppose. Get out,” he shouted, shaking a clenched fist. “And don’t come back!”

  Muttering that he had better things to do and better places to go, Lleu stalked out of the tavern, slamming the door behind him.

  “I will pay for the damage,” said Rhys, handing over his last coin. Whistling to Atta, he started after Lleu, saying to Nightshade in passing, “Hurry! We have to follow him!”

  A whimper from Atta caused Rhys to stop and look back.

  Nightshade was staring at the place where Mina had been standing. His eyes were round and wide, and Rhys saw in astonishment, tears were rolling down the kender’s cheeks.

  “Oh, Rhys,” Nightshade gulped. “It’s so sad. So very sad!”

  He buried his face in his hands and wept as though his heart would break.

  hys hastened back to his friend.

  “Nightshade,” he said in concern. “I’m sorry for being so thoughtless. That was a bad fall you took. Where does it hurt?”

  But all Nightshade could say was, “It’s so sad! I can’t bear it!”

  Rhys put his arm around the kender and led him from the tavern. Atta trotted after them, looking anxiously at her friend, and every now and then giving his hand a sympathetic lick.

  Torn between his worry for his friend and his concern that he might lose track of his brother, Rhys did his best to soothe Nightshade, all the while keeping Lleu in sight.

  His brother strolled along the docks, hands in his pockets, whistling an off-key tune, not a care in the world. He greeted strangers as though they were old friends and was soon in conversation with a group of sailors. Rhys thought back to only moments before, when his wretched brother had been begging for death, and he assumed he knew why the kender was sobbing.

  Rhys patted Nightshade consolingly on the shoulder, thinking he’d soon regain his composure, but the kender was completely undone. Nightshade could only repeat, gulping and blubbering, that it was all so sad, and he cried even harder. Rhys was worried that he was going to have to leave his friend in this state, but then he saw his brother enter a bar in company with the sailors.

  Certain Lleu would be there for some time, especially if the sailors were buying, Rhys steered Nightshade into a quiet alley. The kender plunked down on the ground and sobbed dismally.

  “Nightshade,” said Rhys, “I know you’re sorry for Lleu, but this won’t help—”

  Nightshade looked up. “Lleu? I’m not sorry for him! It’s her!”

  “Her? Do you mean Mina?” Rhys asked, astonished. “She’s the one you’re crying over?”

  Nightshade nodded, prompting more tears.

  “What about her?” Rhys had a sudden thought. “Is she one of the Beloved? Is she dead?”

  “Oh, no!” Nightshade gulped. Then he hesitated. Then repeated, “No …” only this time more slowly.

  “Are you crying for the terrible evil she has done?” Rhys’s voice hardened. His hand clenched around the staff. “If she lives, that is good. She can be killed.”

  Nightshade lifted a tear-stained face and stared at him in amazement. “Did you really just say that? You want to kill her? You—the monk who lifted a fly out of puddle of beer so that it wouldn’t drown?”

  Rhys recalled his brother’s despairing plea and Mina’s callous and uncaring reply. He thought of young Cam in Solace, all the young people, slaves of Chemosh, driven to murder, the imprint of her lips over their hearts.

  “I wish I’d killed her as she’d stood there before me,” he said.

  Rhys reached over and shook the kender, pinching his shoulder hard. “Answer me! What is so sad about her?”

  Nightshade shrank away from him.

  “I really don’t know,” the kender said in a small voice. “Honest! The feeling just came over me somehow. Don’t be mad, Rhys. I’ll try to stop crying now.”

  He gave a hiccup, but more tears slid down his cheeks, and he hid his face in Atta’s fur. She nuzzled his neck and licked away his tears. Her brown eyes, fixed on Rhys, seemed to reproach him.

  The kender rubbed his shoulder where Rhys had gripped him, and the monk felt like a monster. “I’ll go fetch some water.”

  He gave the kender an apologetic pat that only made Nightshade cry harder. Leaving him in Atta’s care, Rhys walked to a nearby public well. He was drawing up the bucket when he felt a divine presence breathing down his neck.

  “What secret have you been keeping from me, Monk?” Zeboim demanded.

  “I have no secrets, Majesty,” Rhys said, sighing.

  “What riddle is that girl talking about then? What is the answer?”

  “I do not know what Mina meant by that question, Majesty,” Rhys said. “Why don’t you ask her?”

  “Because she is a little liar. You, for all your faults, are not, so tell me the riddle and tell me the answer.”

  “I have told you, Majesty, that I don’t know what she was talking about. Since I am not a liar, I assume you must believe me.” Rhys filled his water skin and started to walk back to the alley.

  Zeboim fumed along beside him. “You must know! Put your mind to it!”

  Rhys heard his brother’s voice, his despairing plea for death. He felt Nightshade’s tears on his skin. Losing patience, Rhys rounded angrily on the goddess.

  “All I know, Majesty, is you had in your possession the person you commanded me to find. You have no business asking me anything!”

  Zeboim halted, momentarily taken aback by his anger. Rhys walked on, and Zeboim hastened to catch up. She slid her arm through his arm and held on tightly when he tried to shake her off.

  “I like it when you’re forceful, but don’t ever do it again.” She gave his hand a playful slap that numbed his arm to the elbow. “As for Mina, I introduced you to her, didn’t I? You know what she looks like now. I let her go, that is true, but I didn’t have any choice in the matter. You recall my son? His soul trapped in a khas piece?”

  Rhys sighed. He did, indeed.

  “You’ll be glad to know he’s been freed,” Zeboim said.

  Rhys found his elation at this news easy to contain.

  The goddess was silent a moment, watching Rhys through narrowed eyes, trying to see into his heart.

  He opened his soul to her. He had nothing to hide, and eventually she gave up.

  “You are telling the truth. Perhaps you don’t know the answer to this riddle,” Zeboim said in a hissing whisper. “If I were you, I would find out. Mina was troubled by you. I could see that. Don’t worry that you can’t find her, Brother Rhys. Mina will be the one to find you!”

  With that and a flurry of rain, she disappeared.

  Nightshade and Atta were both fast asleep. The kender had his arms around Atta’s neck. She had one paw laid protectively over his chest. Rhys looked at them, sprawled on the cobblestones of a squalid, refuse-laden alley. Atta’s fur was matted, and her once glossy coat had lost its luster. The pads of her paws were rough and cracked. Whenever they passed rolling meadows and green hills, Atta would gaze longingly out over the grasslands, and Rhys knew that she wanted to run and run across the green sward and never stop until she came trotting back to him, exhausted and happy.

  As for the kender, Nightshade was eating meals on a regular basis, which was more than he’d been doing before Rhys had found him. His clothes were ragged, his boots so worn that his toes poked through. Worse, the kender’s cheerful, lively spirit was being ground out of him by the road they trudged, day after day, following a dead man.

  Kender should never cry, Rhys thought remorsefully. They are not meant for tears.

  Rhys slumped down on a barrel. He lowered his head into his hands
and pressed his palms into his eyes. He tried, for comfort’s sake, to bring to mind the green pastures and white sheep and the black and white dog racing over the hillside. But it was all gone. He could see nothing except the road—a road of bleakness, degradation, emptiness, death, and despair.

  Shame filled him, and self-loathing.

  “I was so smug, so arrogant,” he said, as bitter tears burned his eyelids. “I thought I could flirt with evil and yet go my own way. I could make a show of serving Zeboim, yet she would never lay claim to me. I could walk a path of darkness without losing sight of the sunlight. But now the sunlight has vanished and I am lost. I have no lantern, no compass to guide me. I stumble along a path so choked and overrun with weeds that I cannot see where to put my feet. And there is no end to it.”

  The staff of Majere, which he had looked upon as a blessing, now seemed a reproach.

  Think on what you might have been, Majere seemed to say to him. Think on what you have thrown away. Keep this staff always, that it may remind you and be a torment to you.

  Rhys heard off-key humming in a voice he had come to recognize. Wearily, he raised his head and saw Lleu sauntering past the entrance to the alley that was already growing dark with the coming of night.

  Lleu—going to keep a tryst with some luckless young woman.

  Rhys had no choice. He reached down and shook Nightshade awake. Atta, startled, jumped to her feet. Catching a whiff of Lleu, she growled.

  “We have to go,” said Rhys.

  Nightshade nodded, and rubbed his eyes that were gummed with tears. Rhys helped the kender to stand.

  “Nightshade,” Rhys said remorsefully, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. And, the gods know, I never meant to hurt you.”

  “It’s all right,” Nightshade replied with a wan smile. “It’s probably just because you’re hungry. Here.” He dug into a pocket and produced the maltreated meat. He plucked off bits of pocket fuzz and removed a bent nail. “I’ll share.”

  Rhys wasn’t hungry, but he accepted a portion of the meal. He tried to eat it, but his stomach heaved at the smell, and he fed his half to Atta when Nightshade wasn’t looking.