“Take it, then, by all means,” returned Zeboim, adding in a mutter, “Foolish chit. I could have made you rich beyond your dreams. I can’t think what my mother saw in you.”
Mina rose to her feet. Conscious of the goddess’s annoyed gaze upon her, she walked past the khas board, past the toppled suit of armor, past the two chairs to the far corner. The ram’s skull helm lay on the floor. Mina cast a glance at Zeboim. The goddess’s ever-changing eyes had gone gray as the stone walls of the Keep. The restless winds stirred her hair and clothes.
“She hoped to ensnare me,” Mina said to herself, as she turned away. “Keep me in her debt by lavishing wealth upon me. I did not lie. My loyalty and my faith are with the dead, just not the dead she was thinking about.”
Mina picked up the helm, examined it curiously. The horns of the ram curled back from the hideous ram’s skull that formed the visor. Each knight was free to choose his own symbol to use in the design of his armor. Mina found it intriguing that Krell had chosen a ram. He must have felt the need to prove something. She lifted the heavy helm and thrust it awkwardly under her arm. The tips of the horns and the jagged steel edges pricked her flesh uncomfortably.
“Anything else?” Zeboim asked caustically. “Perhaps you’d like one of his boots as a souvenir?”
“I thank you, Lady,” said Mina, pretending not to notice the sarcasm. She made a bow. “I revere you and honor you.”
Zeboim snorted. Tossing her head, she regarded Mina from slit eyes. “There is something else you want, I’ll be bound.”
Mina sensed a trap. She cast about in her mind, wondering what Zeboim was after.
“Safe passage off this blasted rock?” the goddess suggested. Mina bit her lip. Perhaps she had gone too far. The goddess of the waves could very easily drown her.
“Yes, Majesty,” she replied in her most humble tones. “Though perhaps that is more than I deserve.”
“Save your groveling for someone who appreciates it,” Zeboim snapped pettishly. “I begin to regret granting you my favor. I think I shall miss tormenting Krell.”
“You granted me no favors, Lady,” Mina said to herself, not aloud. She waited tensely to hear the goddess’s verdict. Not even Chemosh could protect her once she set sail upon the sea that was Zeboim’s province.
The goddess cast Mina and the helm one final, disdainful, sneering glance. Then she turned on her heel, leaving the library. The wind of her anger howled and tore at Mina, buffeted her with bruising force, striking at her until she dropped to her knees to avoid the blows. She crouched on the floor, her head bowed, as the wind blasted her, clutching the helm in her arms.
And then all went calm. The wind gave a final, irritated hiss, and then fell to nothing.
Mina sighed deeply. This was the goddess’s answer, or at least so she hoped. She stood up too fast and staggered, almost falling again. The encounters with the death knight and the goddess had drained both her body and her spirit. She was parched with thirst, and though there was rainwater aplenty standing in puddles that were almost as deep and wide as ponds, the water had an oily look to it and smelled of blood. She would not have drunk it for all the strands of pearls in the world. And she had yet to return to the Black Stairs, climb down those broken, slippery steps to where her little boat waited, then make the journey across the sea—the heaving bosom of an angry goddess.
She started to walk wearily toward the door. At least the storm had abated. The rain now fell in a muttering drizzle. The wind was calm, though now it whipped up and then in vicious little gusts.
“You have done well, Mina,” said Chemosh. “I am pleased.”
Mina lifted her head, looked around, hoping that the god was here on Storm’s Keep with her. He was nowhere in sight and she realized immediately that she’d been silly to think he might have come. Zeboim would still be watching her and his presence would have given all away.
“I am glad to have pleased you, my lord,” said Mina softly, warm with the glow of his praise.
“Zeboim will keep her promise and calm the seas for you. She admires you. She still has hopes of winning you over.” “Never, my lord,” said Mina firmly.
“I know that, but she does not; therefore, do not tempt her patience long. You have Krell’s helm?”
“Yes, Lord. I have it with me, as you ordered.”
“Keep it safe.”
“Yes, Lord.”
“God speed you to my arms, Mina,” said Chemosh.
She felt a touch upon her cheek—his kiss brushed against her skin. Mina pressed her hand to her cheek, closed her eyes, and reveled in the warmth. When she opened her eyes, she had renewed strength, as if she had both eaten and drunk.
Mindful of the helm, she stripped a ragged cloak from one of the many corpses that littered the room and bound the cloak around the helm, holding it in place with a leather belt she took off another victim. Toting the helm in its bundle, she left the Tower of the Lily and crossed the parade ground, heading for the Black Stairs and her little sail boat.
8
From her vantage point in the heavens, Zeboim watched Mina’s boat bob across the sun-glinting water of the sea, steering toward a rock-bound and desolate strip of coastline. A restless goddess, a cruel goddess, Zeboim could have raised up a wave to capsize the small craft or summoned a sea dragon to devour it, or done any number of things to torment or kill the mortal. This would be nothing to her. She sometimes sank entire ships filled with living souls, sending passengers and sailors to terrifying death by drowning or watching them suffer for days on end, huddled in tiny life boats until they died of thirst and exposure or were devoured by sharks.
Zeboim took delight in their desperate pleas. She loved to listen to them cry out to her. They promised her anything if she would only spare their lives. Sometimes she ignored them, let them die. Other times she heeded their prayers and saved them. Her actions were not based on mere caprice, as was often the accusation leveled against her by mortals and the other gods. Zeboim was a calculating, clever goddess, who knew how to play to an audience.
Dead sailors did not leave gifts at her altars or fill the heavens with songs of praise for her. But sailors who escaped death by drowning never passed a shrine to the Sea Goddess without stopping to leave a token of their gratitude. Sailors who feared drowning gave her the best offerings of all, hoping to win her regard. In order to keep them all coming back to her, Zeboim had to drown a few now and then. The same held true with hurricanes and tidal waves, floods and cyclones. The man who saw his son swept away in a raging torrent cried out her name and either blessed her or cursed her, depending on whether her hand reached down to pluck the boy out or hold him under. Blessing or curses, they were both meat on her table, for the next rainy season, that man would be in her shrine, begging her to spare the lives of his other children.
As for determining who should live and who must die, Zeboim was a bit whimsical on this score. She might well drown the ship owner who had paid for the building of her new shrine and keep alive the cabin boy, who had given a gift of a bent pfennig and then only because his mother had made him. She would drown her own priests, just to keep everyone on their toes.
In regard to Mina, the young woman intrigued the goddess. True, Zeboim had disparaged her during their conversations together. But that had been for show; Zeboim never gave a mortal power by appearing to favor one above another.
Although Zeboim had despised Takhisis, Zeboim had to admit that her mother had a talent for finding good servants and this Mina was bold and intelligent, courageous and faithful, clearly a prize among mortals. Zeboim wanted Mina to worship her, and as she watched the boat make a safe landing and Mina depart from it, lugging with her the bundle in which she had wrapped up the helm of the death knight, the goddess toyed with various plans to try to win her.