Rhys shook his head. “I will stay here and keep watch on Lieu. He said something about meeting a young woman later this evening.”
Nightshade took the food, but he didn’t immediately go off with it. He stood looking at Rhys and seemed to be trying to make up his mind whether to say something or not.
“Yes, my friend,” said Rhys mildly. “What is it?”
“He’s leaving on a ship in two days,” Nightshade said.
Rhys nodded.
“What are we going to do then? Swim across New Sea after him?”
“I’m talking to the captain. I have offered to work on board the ship in return for passage.”
“Then what?”
Leaning near, Nightshade looked his friend straight in the eye.
“Rhys, face it! We could still be chasing your brother when you’re ninety and using that stick of yours as a cane! Lieu will be as young as ever, going from tavern to tavern, slinging down dwarf spirits like there’s no tomorrow. Because, you know what, Rhys, for him there is no tomorrow!
Nightshade sighed and shook his head. “It’s not much of a life you have. That’s all I’m saying.”
Rhys didn’t defend himself because he couldn’t. The kender was right. It wasn’t much of a life, but what else could he do? Until someone wise found a way to stop the Beloved, he could at least try to prevent Lieu from claiming any more victims, and the only way he could do that was to track his brother like a hunter tracks the marauding wolf.
Nightshade saw his friend’s face darken, and he felt immediately remorseful.
“Rhys, I’m sorry.” Nightshade patted his hand. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s just that you’re a good man, and it seems to me you should be going around doing good things instead of spending your time stopping your brother from doing bad ones.”
“I am not hurt,” said Rhys, touching Nightshade gently on the shoulder. “Has anyone told you that you are wise, my friend?”
“Not recently,” said Nightshade with a grin.
“Well, you are. I will consider what you have said. Go along and eat your supper.”
Nightshade nodded and squeezed Rhys’s hand. He and Atta turned and were heading outside, when suddenly the door burst open with a slamming bang that jolted the drunks out of their stupor and caused several to drop their mugs. A gust of wind, smelling strongly of the sea, swirled about the interior of the tavern, kicking up the dust and spinning it into miniature cyclones that ushered in Zeboim.
The goddess casually knocked aside the kender, who was in her way, and stared about the shadowy room for Rhys.
“Monk, I know you’re here,” she called in a wave-crashing voice that rattled the timbers and set the rats fleeing. “Where are you?”
Her sea green dress frothed around her ankles, her sea foam hair tangled in the wind that whistled through the cracks in the hull. The barkeep gaped. The drunks stared. Lieu, sighting a beautiful woman, leaped up and made a gallant bow.
Rhys, startled beyond measure, rose to meet the goddess.
“I am here, Majesty,” he called out.
Atta ducked between his legs and hunkered there, growling. Nightshade picked himself off the floor. He’d managed, by some nifty acrobatics, to save his lunch, and he stuffed the meat into his pocket.
“I’m here too, Goddess,” he sang out cheerfully.
“Shut up, kender,” said Zeboim, “and you—” She raised a warding hand, pointed at Lieu. “You shut up as well, you disgusting piece of carrion.”
Zeboim focused on Rhys, smiling sweetly. “I have someone I want you to meet, Monk.”
The goddess gestured and, after a moment’s hesitation, another woman entered the tavern.
“Rhys, this is Mina,” said Zeboim casually. “Mina, Rhys Mason— my monk.”
Rhys was so amazed he fell backward, tripping over his staff and stepping on Atta, who yelped in protest. He could say nothing; his brain was in such turmoil it could make little sense of what he was seeing. He had a fleeting impression of a young woman who was not so much beautiful as she was arresting, with hair like flame and eyes like none he’d ever before seen.
The eyes were an amber color and he had the eerie impression that, like amber, they held imprisoned everyone she had ever met. The amber gaze fixed on him, and Rhys felt himself drawn to her like all the others, hundreds of thousands of people caught and held like insects in resin.
The amber seeped around him, warm and sweet.
Rhys cried out and flung up his arm to block her gaze, as he might have flung up his arm to block a blow.
The amber cracked. The eyes continued to confine their poor prisoners, but now he could see flaws, tiny cracks and striations, branching out from the dark pupils.
“Rhys Mason,” said Mina, holding out her hand to him. “You know the answer to the riddle!”
“Him?” Zeboim scoffed. “He knows nothing, Child. Now we really must be leaving. This was a fleeting visit, Rhys, my love. Sorry we can’t stay. I just wanted the two of you to meet. It seemed the least I could do, since I’m the one who commanded you to search the world for her. So farewell-—”
Lieu gave a hollow cry, an unearthly wail, and flung himself at Mina. He tried to seize hold of her, but she stepped back out of his way.
“Wretch,” she said coldly. “What do you think you are doing?”
Lieu fell to his knees. He held out his hands to her, pleading.
“Mina,” Lieu cried in wrenching tones, “don’t turn away from me! You know me!”
Rhys stared and Nightshade gaped, his mouth hanging open. Lieu, who did not remember Rhys, remembered Mina.
As to her, she regarded him as she might have regarded one of the rats. “You are mistaken—”
“You kissed me!” Lieu tore open his shirt to reveal the mark of her lips, burned into his flesh. “Look!”
“Ah, you are one of the Beloved,” Mina said, and she shrugged. “You have my lord’s blessing—”
“I don’t want it!” he cried vehemently. “Take it away!”
Mina stared at him, puzzled.
“Take it away!” Lieu shrieked. His hands clawed at her, clawed at the air when he could not reach her. “Take it away! Free me!”
“I don’t understand,” Mina said, and she seemed truly bewildered by his request. “I gave you what you wanted, what all mortals want—endless life, endless youth, endless beauty . . .”
“Endless misery,” he wailed. “I can’t stand your voice constantly dinning in my ears. I can’t stand the pain that drives me out into the night, the pain that nothing can drown, not the strongest liquor. .. .”
Lieu clasped his hands together. “Take the ‘blessing’ away, Mina. Let me go.”
She drew back, haughty and aloof. The amber hardened, the cracks sealed. “You gave yourself to my lord. You are his. I can do nothing.”
Lieu lurched forward, still on his knees. “I beg you!”
Zeboim cast the Beloved a look of disgust and drew Mina away.
“Come, Child. Speaking of Chemosh, he will be growing impatient. As for you, Monk”—Zeboim glanced back at Rhys over her shoulder and her look was not friendly—“I will talk to you later.”
Storm winds blew into the tavern, caught up Rhys, and flung him back against the wall. Sand stung his face. He could not see for the sand and the lashing rain, but he could hear people cursing, crates being tossed about the room. The storm raged for an instant and then subsided. Rhys found Atta cowering under a crate. Lieu was still on his knees. Hoping against hope his brother’s memory had returned, Rhys hastened over to him.
“Lieu, it’s me, Rhys. . . .”
Lieu shoved him aside. “I don’t give a damn who you are. Get out of my way. Barkeep, more spirits!”
The barkeep appeared, rising up from behind the bar. He stared around at the overturned crates and upended drunks, and then he scowled at Lieu.
“Fine friends you have. Look at this mess! Who’s going to pay for it? Not you, I suppose. Get out,” he shouted, shaking a clenched fist. “And don’t come back!”