Nightshade tried his best to keep hold of Atta, but the sight of Rhys being attacked was more than the dog could bear. She wrenched free of the kender’s grasp. Nightshade made a grab for her and missed, went sprawling onto his belly. Atta launched herself into the air and smashed bodily into Mina, knocking her down, knocking the sword from her grasp.
Snarling, Atta went for Mina’s throat. She fought the dog, using her hands to try to fling her off. Blood and saliva flew.
Nightshade staggered to his feet. Rhys was spewing up blood. The minotaur was either dead or dying. Valthonis lay unconscious on the ground. The kender was the only man standing, and he didn’t know what to do. His brain was too flustered to think of a spell, and then he realized that no spell, even the most powerful spell cast by the most powerful mystic, could stop a god.
The cold, pale sun flashed off steel.
Mina had managed to grab hold of the sword. Raising it, she slashed at the dog.
Atta collapsed with a pain-filled yelp. Her white fur was stained with blood, but she still struggled to get up, still snapped and snarled. Mina raised the sword to stab her again, this time going for the kill.
Nightshade clasped hold of the little grasshopper pin and gave a galvanized leap. He sailed over one of the black monoliths, and smashed into Mina, knocking the sword from her grasp.
Nightshade landed hard on the ground. Mina recovered herself and both of them dove for the sword, each scrabbling to seize hold of it. Rhys spit out blood and half-crawled, half-flung himself into the fray.
But he was too late.
Mina seized hold of the kender’s topknot of hair and gave a sharp, twisting jerk. Rhys heard a horrible snapping and crunching sound. Nightshade went limp.
Mina let loose his hair and the kender slumped to the ground.
Rhys crawled to his friend’s side. Nightshade stared at him, unseeing. Tears filled Rhys’ eyes. He did not look for Mina. She was going to kill him, too, and he couldn’t stop her. Atta whimpered. The sword had laid open her shoulder to the bone. He gathered the suffering, dying dog close to him, then reached out a blood-stained hand to close Nightshade’s eyes.
A little girl with red braids squatted down beside the kender.
“You can get up now, Nightshade,” said Mina.
When he did not move, she shook him by the shoulder.
“Stop pretending to be asleep, Nightshade,” she scolded. “It’s time to leave. I have to go to Godshome, and you have the map.”
Mina’s voice quivered. “Wake up!” the child gulped. “Please, please wake up.”
The kender did not move.
Mina gave a heart-broken wail and flung herself on the body.
“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!” she cried over and over in a paroxysm of grief.
“Mina…” Rhys mumbled her name through the blood and bone and broken teeth, and her name echoed back from the Lords of Doom.
“Mina, Mina…”
She stood up. The little girl gazed down sorrowfully at Nightshade, but it was the woman, Mina, who gently closed the staring eyes. The woman, Mina, walked over to Galdar. She laid a hand on him and whispered to him. The woman came back to Atta and petted her gently. Then Mina knelt down beside Rhys. Smiling sadly, she touched him on the forehead.
Amber, warm and golden, slid over him.
7
Mina, the woman, sat next to Valthonis on the hard, windswept stone. She was not wearing armor, nor the black robes of a priestess of Chemosh. She wore a simple gown that fell in folds about her body. Her auburn hair was gathered in soft curls at the back of her neck. She sat quietly, watching the Walking God, waiting for him to regain consciousness.
Valthonis finally sat up, looked about, and his expression grew grave. Rising swiftly, he went to tend to the wounded. Mina watched him dispassionately, her face impassive, unreadable.
“The kender is dead,” she said. “I killed him. The monk and the minotaur and the dog will live, I think.”
Valthonis knelt beside the kender and, gently arranging the broken body into a more seemly form, he spoke a quiet blessing.
“Shake off the dust of the road, little friend. Your boots have star-dust on them now.”
Removing his green cloak, he laid it reverently over the small corpse.
Valthonis bent over Atta, who feebly wagged her tail and gave his hand a swipe with her tongue. He brushed back the black fur that was covered with blood, but he could not find a wound. He stroked her head and then went to see to her master.
“I think I know the monk,” Mina said. “I’ve met him before. I was trying to recall where, and now I remember. It was in a boat… No, not a boat. A tavern that had once been a boat. He was there and I came in and he looked at me and he knew me… He knew who I was…” She frowned slightly. “Except he didn’t….”
Valthonis raised his head and looked into her amber eyes. He saw no longer the countless souls, trapped bug-like within. He saw in her clear eyes terrible knowledge. And he saw himself, reflected off the shining surface.
“The monk was sitting next to a man… He was a dead man. I don’t know his name.” Mina paused, then said with a catch in her voice, “So many of them… and I didn’t know any of their names. But I know the monk’s name. He is Brother Rhys. And he knows my name. He knows me. He knows who and what I am. And yet, he walked with me anyway. He guided me.” She smiled sadly. “He yelled at me…”
Valthonis rested his hand on Rhys’ neck, felt the lifebeat. The monk’s face was bloody, but Valthonis could not find any injuries. He said nothing in response to Mina. He had the instinctive feeling she did not want him to speak. She wanted, needed, to hear only herself in the deathlike silence of the valley of Neraka.
“The kender knew me, too. When he first saw me, he began to weep. He wept for me. He wept out of pity for me. He said ‘You are so sad’… And the minotaur, Galdar, was my friend. A good and faithful friend…”
Mina shifted her gaze from the minotaur to the barren, ghastly surroundings. “I hate this place. I know where I am. I am in Neraka, and awful things have happened because of me… And more awful things will happen… because of me…”
She shifted her gaze to Valthonis, looked at him, pleading.
“You know what I mean. Your name means ‘the Exile’ in elven. And you are my father. And both of us—mortal father, wretched daughter—are exiles. Except you can never go back.” Mina sighed, long and deep. “And I must.”
Valthonis walked to over the minotaur. He placed his hand on the strong, bull-like neck.
“I am a god,” Mina said. “I live in all times simultaneously. Though,” she added, a frown line again marring her smooth forehead, “there is a time before time I do not remember, and a time yet to come I cannot see…”
The wind whistled among the rocks, as through rotting teeth, but Valthonis did not hear anything except Mina. It was as if the physical world had dropped out from beneath him, leaving him suspended in the ethers and there was only her voice and the amber eyes that, as he watched, filled with tears.
“I have done evil, Father,” Mina said, as the tears spilled over and slid slowly down her cheeks. “Or rather, I do evil, for I live in all times at once. They say I am a god born of light and yet I bring forth darkness. Thousands of innocents die because of me. I slaughter those who trust me. I take away life and give back living death. Some say I am duped by Takhisis, and that I do not know I am doing wrong.”
Mina smiled through her tears, and her smile was strange and cold. “But I know what I am doing. I want to hear them sing my name, Father. I want them to worship me—Mina! Not Takhisis. Not Chemosh. Mina. Only Mina.”
She made no move to wipe away the tears. “The two who were mothers to me both died in my arms. When Goldmoon was dying, she looked at me from the twilight, and she saw the truth, the ugliness inside me. And she turned from me.”