If he jumped, he’d take with him the khas piece, and there was no way Krell could recover it. He had no intention of going for a swim in Zeboim-infested waters.
Krell had to catch the monk and stop him from jumping. Unfortunately, that was not proving an easy task to accomplish. His hulking form encased in the plate and chain mail armor of a death knight, Krell lumbered. He could not run.
Krell’s armor clanked and clattered. His ponderous footfalls sent tremors through the ground. He watched, in mounting terror, the monk outdistance him.
Krell found an unexpected ally in Zeboim. She, too, feared for the khas piece the monk was carrying. She tried to stop him. She pummeled the monk with rain and knocked him off his feet with a wind gust. The wretched monk stood up and kept going.
He reached the edge of the cliff. Krell knew what lay below—a seventy-foot fall onto sharp-edged granite boulders.
“Stop him, Zeboim,” Krell raged. “If you don’t, you’ll be sorry!”
The monk held a small leather bag in his hand. He thrust that bag into the bosom of his bloodstained robes.
Krell clambered and stumbled among the rocks, swearing and waving his sword.
The monk climbed onto a promontory that extended out into the sea. He lifted his face to the storm-shrouded heavens lit bright as day by the goddess’s fear.
“Zeboim,” the monk cried, “we are in your hands.”
Krell roared.
The monk jumped.
Krell blundered his way among the rocks, his momentum carrying him along at such a frantic pace that the edge of the cliff was upon him before he realized it, and he very nearly went over into the sea himself.
Krell teetered back and forth for what would have been a heart-stopping moment, if he’d had a heart, before hastily regaining his balance. He stumbled back several paces, then, creeping forward an inch at a time, he peered cautiously over the edge. He expected to see the monk’s mangled body lying sprawled on the rocks, with Zeboim lapping up his blood.
Nothing.
“I’m screwed,” Krell muttered glumly.
Krell glanced at the sky where the clouds were growing darker and thicker. The wind started to rise. Rain began to pour down on him, along with hailstones and lightning bolts, sleet and snow, and large chunks of a nearby tower.
Krell might have run for protection to Chemosh, but sadly, Chemosh was the god who had given Krell the khas piece for safekeeping—the khas piece that Krell had now lost. The Lord of Death was not known to be either merciful or forgiving.
“Somewhere on this island,” Krell reasoned, as he narrowly missed being flattened by a stone gargoyle hurtling past him, “there must be a hole deep enough and dark enough where no god can find me.”
Krell turned on his heel and lumbered off through the raging storm.
2
Rhys Mason was the monk who had made the desperate decision to leap off the cliffs of Storm’s Keep. He was making a gamble, staking his life and that of his friend, the kender, Nightshade, on the fact that Zeboim would not let them die. She could not let them die, for Rhys had in his possession the soul of her son.
At least, this is what Rhys was hoping. The thought was also in his mind that if the goddess abandoned him, he could either die slowly and in torment at the cruel whim of the death knight, or he could die swiftly on the rocks below.
As luck would have it, Rhys jumped into the water in an area around Storm’s Keep that was free of rocks. He plunged into the sea, sinking so deep that he left the light of day far above him. He floundered in the bone-chilling darkness, with no way to tell which way was up and which was down. Not that it mattered anyway. He could never reach the surface. He was drowning, his lungs bursting. When he opened his mouth, he would draw in gurgling, choking death. ...
The immortal hand of a furious goddess reached into the depths of her ocean, gripped Rhys Mason by the scruff of his neck, plucked him from the seas, and flung him on shore.
“How dare you endanger my son?” the goddess cried. She raged on, but Rhys did not hear her. Her fury closed over his head like the dark waters of the sea, and he knew nothing.
Rhys lay facedown in the warm sand. His monk’s robes were soaking wet, as were his shoes. His sodden hair trailed over his face. His lips were rimmed with salt, as was the inside of his mouth and his throat. He gagged, retched and fought to breathe.
Suddenly strong hands began to pummel him on his back, and swung his arms over his head, working his arms up and down in a pumping action to force the water out of his lungs.
Coughing, he spewed seawater out of his mouth.
“About time you came around,” Zeboim said, continuing to yank him and pump him.
Groaning, Rhys managed to croak, “Stop! Please!” He gagged up more water.
The goddess let go, allowing his arms to drop limply to the sand.
Rhys’s eyes burned from the salt. He could barely open them. He peered through half-shut lids to see the hem of a green gown rippling over the sand near his head. The toe of a bare, shapely foot prodded him.
“Where is he, monk?” Zeboim demanded.
The goddess knelt down beside him. Her blue-green eyes glowed. A restless wind stirred her sea foam hair. She grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head off the ground and glared into his eyes.
“Where is my son?”
Rhys tried to speak. His throat was sore and parched. He passed his tongue over his salt-coated lips and rasped, “Water!”
“Water!” Zeboim flared. “You swallowed half my ocean as it is! Oh, very well,” she added huffily, as Rhys’s eyes closed and he fell back limply in the sand. “Here. Don’t drink too much. You’ll throw up again. Just rinse out your mouth.”
Her hand propped him up as she held a cup of cool water to his lips. The goddess’s touch could be gentle when she wanted. He sipped the cool liquid gratefully. The goddess brushed moist fingertips across his lips and eyelids, wiping away the salt.
“There,” Zeboim said soothingly. “You’ve had your water.” Her voice hardened. “Now stop stalling. I want my son.”
As Rhys started to reach into the bosom of his robes where he’d stuffed the leather scrip, pain shot through him and he gasped. He lifted his hands. His fingers were purple and swollen and bent at odd angles. He couldn’t move them.
Zeboim regarded him with a sniff.
“I am not the goddess of healing, if that’s what you’re thinking!” she said coldly.
“I did not ask you to heal me, Your Majesty,” Rhys returned through clenched teeth.
He slowly thrust his injured hand inside his robes and sighed in relief at the feel of wet leather. He had been afraid that he might have lost the scrip in his dive off the cliff. He fumbled at the bag, but his broken fingers would not work well enough for him to open it.
The goddess seized hold of his fingers and, one by one, yanked the bones back into place. The pain was excruciating. Rhys feared for a moment he was going to pass out. When she was finished, however, his broken bones were mended. The bruising faded. The swelling started to recede. Zeboim had her own healing touch, it seemed.
Rhys lay in the sand, bathed in sweat, waiting for the nausea to pass.
“I warned you,” Zeboim said serenely. “I’m not Mishakal.”
“No, Your Majesty.” Rhys murmured. “Thank you anyway.”
His healed hands reached into his robe and drew forth the leather bag. Opening the drawstring, he upended the bag. Two khas pieces fell out onto the sand—a dark knight mounted on a blue dragon and a kender.
Zeboim snatched up the dark knight piece. Holding it in her hand, she lovingly caressed the figure and crooned to it. “My son! My dearest son! Your soul will be freed. We’ll go to Chemosh immediately.”
There was a pause, as though she were listening, then she said, her voice altering, “Don’t argue with me, Ariakan. Mother knows what is best!”