Muttering that he had better things to do and better places to go, Lieu stalked out of the tavern, slamming the door behind him.
“I will pay for the damage,” said Rhys, handing over his last coin.
Whistling to Atta, he started after Lieu, saying to Nightshade in passing, “Hurry! We have to follow him!”
A whimper from Atta caused Rhys to stop and look back.
Nightshade was staring at the place where Mina had been standing. His eyes were round and wide, and Rhys saw in astonishment, tears were rolling down the kender’s cheeks.
“Oh, Rhys,” Nightshade gulped. “It’s so sad. So very sad!”
He buried his face in his hands and wept as though his heart would break.
2
Rhys hastened back to his friend.
“Nightshade,” he said in concern. “I’m sorry for being so thoughtless. That was a bad fall you took. Where does it hurt?”
But all Nightshade could say was, “It’s so sad! I can’t bear it!”
Rhys put his arm around the kender and led him from the tavern. Atta trotted after them, looking anxiously at her friend, and every now and then giving his hand a sympathetic lick.
Torn between his worry for his friend and his concern that he might lose track of his brother, Rhys did his best to soothe Nightshade, all the while keeping Lieu in sight.
His brother strolled along the docks, hands in his pockets, whistling an off-key tune, not a care in the world. He greeted strangers as though they were old friends and was soon in conversation with a group of sailors. Rhys thought back to only moments before, when his wretched brother had been begging for death, and he assumed he knew why the kender was sobbing.
Rhys patted Nightshade consolingly on the shoulder, thinking he’d soon regain his composure, but the kender was completely undone. Nightshade could only repeat, gulping and blubbering, that it was all so sad, and he cried even harder. Rhys was worried that he was going to have to leave his friend in this state, but then he saw his brother enter a bar in company with the sailors.
Certain Lieu would be there for some time, especially if the sailors were buying, Rhys steered Nightshade into a quiet alley. The kender plunked down on the ground and sobbed dismally.
“Nightshade,” said Rhys, “I know you’re sorry for Lieu, but this won’t help—”
Nightshade looked up. “Lieu? I’m not sorry for him! It’s her!”
“Her? Do you mean Mina?” Rhys asked, astonished. “She’s the one you’re crying over?”
Nightshade nodded, prompting more tears.
“What about her?” Rhys had a sudden thought. “Is she one of the Beloved? Is she dead?”
“Oh, no!” Nightshade gulped. Then he hesitated. Then repeated, “No . . .” only this time more slowly.
“Are you crying for the terrible evil she has done?” Rhys’s voice hardened. His hand clenched around the staff. “If she lives, that is good. She can be killed.”
Nightshade lifted a tear-stained face and stared at him in amazement. “Did you really just say that? You want to kill her? You—the monk who lifted a fly out of puddle of beer so that it wouldn’t drown?”
Rhys recalled his brother’s despairing plea and Mina’s callous and uncaring reply. He thought of young Cam in Solace, all the young people, slaves of Chemosh, driven to murder, the imprint of her lips over their hearts.
“I wish I’d killed her as she’d stood there before me,” he said.
Rhys reached over and shook the kender, pinching his shoulder hard. “Answer me! What is so sad about her?”
Nightshade shrank away from him.
“I really don’t know,” the kender said in a small voice. “Honest! The feeling just came over me somehow. Don’t be mad, Rhys. I’ll try to stop crying now.”
He gave a hiccup, but more tears slid down his cheeks, and he hid his face in Atta’s fur. She nuzzled his neck and licked away his tears. Her brown eyes, fixed on Rhys, seemed to reproach him.
The kender rubbed his shoulder where Rhys had gripped him, and the monk felt like a monster. “I’ll go fetch some water.”
He gave the kender an apologetic pat that only made Nightshade cry harder. Leaving him in Atta’s care, Rhys walked to a nearby public well. He was drawing up the bucket when he felt a divine presence breathing down his neck.
“What secret have you been keeping from me, Monk?” Zeboim demanded.
“I have no secrets, Majesty,” Rhys said, sighing.
“What riddle is that girl talking about then? What is the answer?”
“I do not know what Mina meant by that question, Majesty,” Rhys said. “Why don’t you ask her?”
“Because she is a little liar. You, for all your faults, are not, so tell me the riddle and tell me the answer.”
“I have told you, Majesty, that I don’t know what she was talking about. Since I am not a liar, I assume you must believe me.” Rhys filled his water skin and started to walk back to the alley.
Zeboim fumed along beside him. “You must know! Put your mind to it!”
Rhys heard his brother’s voice, his despairing plea for death. He felt Nightshade’s tears on his skin. Losing patience, Rhys rounded angrily on the goddess.
“All I know, Majesty, is you had in your possession the person you commanded me to find. You have no business asking me anything!”
Zeboim halted, momentarily taken aback by his anger. Rhys walked on, and Zeboim hastened to catch up. She slid her arm through his arm and held on tightly when he tried to shake her off.
“I like it when you’re forceful, but don’t ever do it again.” She gave his hand a playful slap that numbed his arm to the elbow. “As for Mina, I did introduced you to her, didn’t I? You know what she looks like now. I let her go, that is true, but I didn’t have any choice in the matter. You recall my son? His soul trapped in a khas piece?”
Rhys sighed. He did, indeed.
“You’ll be glad to know he’s been freed,” Zeboim said.
Rhys found his elation at this news easy to contain.
The goddess was silent a moment, watching Rhys through narrowed eyes, trying to see into his heart.
He opened his soul to her. He had nothing to hide, and eventually she gave up.
“You are telling the truth. Perhaps you don’t know the answer to this riddle,” Zeboim said in a hissing whisper. “If I were you, I would find out. Mina was troubled by you. I could see that. Don’t worry that you can’t find her, Brother Rhys. Mina will be the one to find you!”
With that and a flurry of rain, she disappeared.
Nightshade and Atta were both fast asleep. The kender had his arms around Atta’s neck. She had one paw laid protectively over his chest. Rhys looked at them, sprawled on the cobblestones of a squalid, refuse-laden alley. Atta’s fur was matted, and her once glossy coat had lost its luster. The pads of her paws were rough and cracked. Whenever they passed rolling meadows and green hills, Atta would gaze longingly out over the grasslands, and Rhys knew that she wanted to run and run across the green sward and never stop until she came trotting back to him, exhausted and happy.
As for the kender, Nightshade was eating meals on a regular basis, which was more than he’d been doing before Rhys had found him. His clothes were ragged, his boots so worn that his toes poked through. Worse, the kender’s cheerful, lively spirit was being ground out of him by the road they trudged, day after day, following a dead man.
Kender should never cry, Rhys thought remorsefully. They are not meant for tears.
Rhys slumped down on a barrel. He lowered his head into his hands and pressed his palms into his eyes. He tried, for comfort’s sake, to bring to mind the green pastures and white sheep and the black and white dog racing over the hillside. But it was all gone. He could see nothing except the road—a road of bleakness, degradation, emptiness, death, and despair.