“Zeboim,” he cried, his breath torn and ragged. “Your son is safe in my possession. It is up to you now.”
The sea rose. Gray clouds, massed on the horizon, waited for the command to attack. Rhys also waited, confident that at any moment the goddess would carry them off this island.
A single stroke of lightning zinged from sky to ground. Striking the top of the tower, the bolt blasted off a great chunk of rock. Thunder rumbled, distant and far away. Rhys stood in the courtyard, the kender and the khas piece in his pouch.
The death knight’s heavy boots pounded closer.
The mantis’s horrific attack had scared Krell witless. No mortal could inflict pain on a death knight, but a god could and Krell knew agony and terror as the insect’s mandibles chomped down on his soul, as the hideous, bulbous eyes reflected back the nothingness of the death knight’s cursed existence.
Krell had always detested bugs.
He managed to land a few panic-stricken punches against the mantis and those were enough to dislodge it. Krell yanked his sword from its sheathe and thrust the blade into the insect’s body. Green blood oozed. The mantis’s jaws clicked horribly. Its spiny claws lashed out at him.
Krell slashed wildly at the mantis, hating it again and again. He struck blindly, flailing away at it, not aware of what he was hitting, only wanting the horrible bug dead, dead, dead. It took him a few moments to realize he was stabbing thin air.
Krell halted, looked fearfully around.
The mantis was gone. The monk’s staff was there, lying on the floor. Krell lifted his foot, prepared to stomp on the staff and grind it to splinters. He held his foot poised in the air. Suppose he touched it and the bug came back? Slowly, Krell lowered his foot to the floor and edged away. Keeping as far from the staff as possible, he circled warily around it.
Krell peered under the table. The knight piece was not there, nor was the kender.
Krell looked at the board. The other knight piece remained, standing on its hex. He snatched it up, stared at it hopefully, then flung it from him with a bitter curse.
The death’s knight’s view of the theft having been blocked by a giant mantis trying to eat his head, Krell had not actually seen Rhys run off with the khas piece. But the death knight had no problem figuring out what had happened. He set off in pursuit of the monk, spurred on by the dreadful knowledge of what Chemosh would do to him if he lost Ariakan.
Krell dashed into the courtyard. He could see Rhys some distance away, running for his life. He could also see storm clouds, gray and menacing, gathering overhead. A bolt of lightning struck one of the towers. The next bolt, he had the feeling, would be aimed at him.
“Don’t you lay a hand on me, Zeboim!” Krell bellowed, desperately dissembling. “Your monk stole the wrong khas piece. Your son is still in my possession. If you do anything to help this thief escape, Chemosh will melt down your pretty pewter boy and hammer his soul into oblivion!”
Lightning flickered from cloud to cloud; thunder gave a low, ominous growl. The wind rose, the skies grew darker and still darker. A few spatters of rain fell, along with a couple of hail stones.
And that was all.
Krell chuckled and, rubbing his hands, he went after the monk.
Rhys heard Krell’s bellow and his heart sank.
“Zeboim!” Rhys called urgently. “He’s lying. I have your son! Take us away from here!”
Lightning flickered. The rumble of thunder was muted. The clouds swirling about overhead were confused, unsure. The death knight raced across the parade ground. His fists clenched, his red eyes flaring, Krell advanced, incensed. When he caught Rhys, he would do more than break a few fingers.
“Majesty,” Rhys prayed, “We risked our lives for you. Now is time for you to risk something for us.”
Rain drizzled down in desultory ploppings all around him. The wind sighed and gave up. The clouds began to retreat.
“Very well, Majesty,” said Rhys. He yanked the scrip from his belt. “Forgive me for what I’m about to do, but you’ve left me no choice.”
Grasping the pouch in his one good hand, Rhys looked around, getting his bearings, judging distance. This would be his last move, use up all his remaining strength. He broke into his final sprint.
The heavens opened. The rain fell heavily, pounding at him. Rhys ignored the goddess’s warning. She could bluster and blow and threaten all she wanted. She dared not do anything drastic to him, for he might, in truth, have her son in his possession.
Zeboim tried blowing him off his feet. Rhys picked himself up and kept on running. She threw hail stones at his face. He flung up his arm to protect his eyes and kept going.
Krell pounded after him. The death knight’s footfalls shook the ground.
Rhys slipped and stumbled, his strength flagging. He did not have far to go, however. The parade ground ended in a jumble of rocks, and beyond that, the sea.
Krell saw the danger and his pace increased.
“Stop him, Zeboim,” Krell shouted angrily. “If you don’t, you’ll be sorry!”
Rhys thrust the scrip containing the kender and the khas piece into the bosom of his robe and climbed out onto the jagged rocks that were wet and slick from the rain. He slipped, had to use both hands to steady himself, and he sobbed in agony from the pain of his broken fingers.
He could hear Krell’s hissing breath behind him and feel his rage. Rhys pressed on.
His strength was gone by the time he reached the island’s edge. He didn’t need it by then, anyway. He had only one more step to take and that would not require much energy.
Rhys looked down. He stood at the top of a sheer cliff. Below him—far below him—the sea heaved and swelled and crashed up against the rock face. The goddess’s anger and fear lit the night until it was as bright as day. Rhys noted small details—the swirling foam, the green sweep of algae trialing off a glistening rock, floating on the surface like the hair of a drowned man.
Rhys looked out over the ocean to the horizon, shrouded in mist and driving rain.
Krell had reached the rocks and was blundering his way through them, cursing and swearing and waving his sword.
Moving carefully, so as not to slip, Rhys climbed up onto a promontory extending out over the sea. He stood poised, his soul calm.
“Hold on, Nightshade,” Rhys said. “This is going to get a little rough.”
“Rhys!” the kender wailed, terrified. “What are you doing? I can’t see!”
“Just as well.”
Rhys lifted his face to heaven.
“Zeboim, we are in your hands.”
He stood as though on the green hill, the sheep flowing over it in a mass of white, Atta poised at his side, looking into his face, her tail wagging, waiting eagerly for the command.
”Atta, come bye,” Rhys said and jumped.
11
Night seeped from the Blood Sea’s depths, spreading ink-like through the water, drifting gently toward the surface. Mina gazed upward, watching the last vestige of flickering sunlight shimmer on the water’s surface. Then it vanished, and she was in utter darkness.
During the hours they had spent waiting and watching the tower in the Blood Sea, she and Chemosh had seen no one enter it, no one leave. The sea creatures swam past the crystal walls as carelessly as they swam past the coral reef or the hulk of a wrecked ship lying on the ocean floors. Fish brushed up against the walls, traveling up and down the smooth surface, either finding food or entranced by their own reflections. None appeared afraid of the Tower, though Mina did notice that the sea creatures avoided the strange circlet of red-yellow gold and silver at the top. None would come near the dark hole in the center.
With the coming of night beneath the waves, Chemosh watched to see if any lights appeared in the Tower.
“There were windows in the Tower of Istar,” he recalled, “though you could not see them by day. All you could see was the smooth, sheer, crystal walls. When night fell, however, the wizards in their chambers would light their lamps. The Tower would gleam with pinpoints of fire. The people of Istar used to say that the wizards had captured the stars and brought them to the city for her own regal glory.”