Mina hesitated. She looked up at the endless stairs, where, at the top, Krell was waiting. She looked into the granary—smooth, dry floor, a secret way inside the main part of the Keep. She had only to cast off the cuirass, marked with the symbol of Takhisis.
Mina understood. “That is what you ask of me,” she said softly to the listening god. “You want me to cast off my last vestige of faith in the goddess. Put all my faith and trust in you.”
Balancing precariously on the stairs, her chill fingers shaking, Mina tugged and pulled at the wet leather thongs that held the cuirass in place.
Krell cursed himself for an idiot to allow himself to be seen like that. He cursed Mina, too, wondering what crazy notion had flown into the woman’s head to cause her to look up instead of down, cause her to look straight at him.
“Zeboim,” Krell muttered, and he cursed the goddess, a curse he uttered almost every hour of every tortured day.
He could no longer count on taking Mina by surprise. She would be ready for him, and while he didn’t really think that she could cause him any harm, he was mindful of the fact that this was the woman who had brought down Lord Soth, one of the most formidable undead beings in all the history of Krynn.
It is better to overestimate the enemy than underestimate him had been one of Ariakan’s dictums.
“I’ll wait for her at the top of the Black Stair,” Krell determined. “She’ll be worn out, too tired to put up much of a fight.”
He did not want to fight her. He wanted to capture her alive. He always captured his prey alive—when possible. One hapless thief, drawn to Storm’s Keep by the rumor of the Dark Knights’ abandoned treasure, had been so terrified at the sight of Krell that he’d dropped dead at the death knight’s feet, a severe disappointment to Krell.
He had confidence in Mina, however. She was young, strong, and courageous. She would provide him with a good contest. She might survive for days.
Krell was about to leave Mt. Ambition and head back to Storm’s Keep when he heard a sound that would have stopped his heart if he’d had one.
From down below came a woman’s terrified scream and the clanging, clattering of metal armor falling onto sharp rocks.
Krell dashed to the end of the promontory, peered over the edge. He cursed again and smashed his fist into a boulder, cracking it from top to bottom.
The Black Stairs were empty. At the base of the cliff, almost lost to sight in the frothing, bubbling water, Krell could see floating in the sea a black cuirass, adorned with a lightning-struck skull.
7
Her scream echoing back from the cliff face, Mina watched the black cuirass and helm strike the rocks below and go bounding off into the water. Her vision obscured by the gray half-light of the storm, she could not see at this distance that the armor had been empty when it plummeted off the stairs and now it was lost to sight in the lashing waves. She hoped that Krell’s vision was no better.
Mina sucked in her breath and squeezed her body through the crack in the rock wall. Even without the cuirass, she barely made it, and for one frightening moment, she was wedged tight. A desperate wriggle freed her and she dropped lightly to the floor. She paused to catch her breath, wait for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, and think how good it was to have her feet on a firm, level plane. How good it was to be out of the chill wind and away from the salt spray.
Mina dried her hands as best she could on the tail of her shirt, rubbing them to restore the circulation. She had no armor and no weapon. She had tossed not only the cuirass and helm into the ocean, but also, after a moment’s hesitation, she’d thrown away the morning star—thrown away the eager, innocent child who had gone searching for the gods and found them.
Mina had believed in Takhisis, obeyed her commands, endured her punishment, done the goddess’s bidding without question. She had kept her faith in Takhisis when everything had started to go wrong, fighting against the doubt that gnawed at her like rats in the grain. By the end, her doubts had eaten up all her stores, so that when her faith should have been strongest, when she should have been prepared to sacrifice herself for the sake of the goddess, all that was left was chaff. Mina had known wrenching sorrow then, sorrow for her loss, and she experienced something of the same sorrow as she threw the last vestiges of her belief in the One God into the sea.
Innocence was gone. Unquestioning faith was gone. Thus she had dared to ask Chemosh, “What will you give me?” Though she had now given him proof that she belonged to him, she would not be his puppet to dance at his command, nor yet his slave to grovel at his feet. Standing alone in the darkness of Storm’s Keep, Mina listened. She was not listening for the voice of the god to tell her what to do. She listened to her own voice, to her own counsel.
The Age of Mortals. Perhaps this is what the wise meant, what Chemosh meant. A partnership between god and man. It was an interesting premise.
The dim light of gray day made its way through the crack in the wall and poked through other, smaller gaps. As her eyes grew accustomed to the shadows, Mina could see most of the chamber. It was, as she had guessed, a room meant for storage, not only for grain but for other supplies.
A few wooden boxes and crates stood on the floor, their lids pried off, the contents spilled. Mina could picture the knights, in their eager haste to leave Storm’s Keep to begin their conquest of Ansalon, ripping open crates to see what they contained, making certain they left behind nothing of value. She glanced at the boxes as she passed them, heading toward an iron-banded door located at the end of the room. She noticed some dust-covered, rusted tools, such as blacksmiths used, and a few bolts of woolen cloth, now moth-eaten and mildewed. There had been rumors for years that the knights had left behind stores of treasure. The rumors made sense, for the knights would not have flown to battle on dragonback carrying chests of steel coins. But if so, the treasure was not here. As she walked, her boots crunched on dried rat dung and half-eaten kernels, all that was left of the might of the Dark Knights of Takhisis.
Mina picked up a prybar. If the door to the granary was locked, she would need a tool to force the lock open. She hoped she would not have to resort to that. Krell must think her dead, killed in her fall off the stairs, and she didn’t want to do anything to rouse his suspicions. Although she didn’t know for sure, she guessed that the death knight still retained his power of hearing and even above the keening of the wind—the wail of a goddess’s grief and fury—Krell might be able to detect the sound of someone beating at an iron lock with an iron bar.
When Mina reached the door, she put her hand on the handle and gave a gentle push. To her relief, the door swung open. Not surprising, when she considered it. Why bother to lock the door on an empty storage room?
The door opened into a hall, with the same paved stone floor and rough-hewn walls. The hall was much darker than the storage room. No cracks in the walls. She had no torch and no way to light one. She would have to feel her way.
Mina summoned from memory the map of the fortress that she left safely stowed in the boat. Prior to setting out on this adventure, she had traveled to the city of Palanthas to pay a visit to the city’s famed library. There she had asked one of the Aesthetics for a map of Storm’s Keep. Thinking she was a reckless treasure seeker, the earnest young Aesthetic had tried very hard to dissuade her from risking her life in such a foolhardy adventure. She had insisted, and by the rules of the library, which stated that all knowledge was available to anyone who sought it, he had brought her the requested map—a map that had been drawn by Lord Ariakan himself.