“I lost you once, Mina,” Chemosh said quietly. “I don’t want to lose you again.”
244
Mina was suddenly overwhelmed with guilt. “I am yours, my lord, always and forever, until—”
“Until you die. For you will die someday, Mina.”
“That is true, my lord,” she replied. She looked at him uneasily, wondering if this was a threat.
He was opaque, unreadable.
“Have a good swim, my dear,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.
Mina remained for long moments after he left, her hand clutching the pearls. Her heart failed her. Her conscience rebuked her. She almost turned to run back to her room.
To do what? To pace away the hours, as she had done in the Tower of High Sorcery? To be a pawn of first one god, then another, then another, and another after that. Takhisis, Chemosh, Zeboim, Nuitari... “What is it they want of me?” Mina demanded in frustration.
She stood alone in the cold and empty storeroom, staring, unseeing, into the darkness. “I don’t understand! I give and I give to them, and they give me nothing in return. Oh, they say they do. Chemosh claims he gave me power over the Beloved, yet when he sees that I wield power over them, he is clearly jealous. Zeboim gives me pearls that promise me my heart’s desire and they bring me nothing but trouble. I cannot please these gods. Any of them!
“I must do something for me. For Mina. I must know who I am.”
Resolute, she continued on her way.
Chemosh had given her the secret to the magical portals that allowed entrance and exit from the castle. Mina feared he might have negated the magic, and she was relieved when the portal worked and she was able to leave. The storeroom opened into a yard filled with tumbledown outbuildings. Beyond this, a gate in the wall opened onto a path leading to the shore. The gate itself was gone. Rusting iron bands and blackened timbers were all that was left.
Once outside the castle wall, Mina stopped to look around. She had no clear idea where to go to find this grotto. Zeboim had said only that the pearls would guide her. Mina touched the pearls, thinking she might feel some sensation or an image would leap into her head.
The early morning sun shone on the water. The castle was built on a rock-bound promontory. Here, where Mina stood, the shoreline swept back from the promontory to form an inlet that had been carved out of the rock and was fronted by a crescent-shaped sandy beach that extended for about a half-mile, ending at a rock groin jutting out into the water. The groin on one side and the cliffs on the other broke the force of the waves, so that by the time they came to shore on the beach, they rolled meekly over the sand, leaving behind bits of foam and seaweed.
The sand was wet, and so were the rock walls behind it. Mina—child of the sea—realized that when the tide was in, the beach would be under water. Only when the tide was out could someone walk or play on the shore.
Mina scanned the cliff face and saw no grotto. She felt a bleak sense of disappointment. Her fingers ran over the pearls, one by one.
They felt bumpy—like pearls.
Movement out to sea caught her eye. A ship—a minotaur vessel to judge by the garishly painted sail—plied the ocean. She watched curiously, thinking it might be sailing in her direction, then realized it was moving rapidly away from her. She watched the ship until it vanished over the horizon line and disappeared from sight.
Mina sighed and looked around again and wondered what to do. She decided to go for a swim.
Her story concocted, she had better keep to it. Chemosh might be watching. That thought in mind, she glanced back at the castle ramparts. He was not there, or if he was, he was taking care not to be seen.
She stepped onto the path leading down to the beach. The moment her foot touched it, Mina knew exactly where to go. Though she had never set foot upon this path, she felt she knew it as well as if she had walked it every day for the past year.
Whispering an apology to Zeboim for having doubted her, Mina hastened toward the beach. She did not know where she was going, yet she knew where she was and she knew that every footfall brought her closer. The sensation was most disconcerting.
Mina kept on, running across the wet sand that was firm underfoot. She eyed the waves, trying to determine if the tide was coming in or going out. Judging by the wetness of the rocks, the tide was coming in. When the tide was in, the water level would be at least up to her shoulders, maybe higher, depending on the cycle of the moons.
Mina reached the rock groin with still no sign of a grotto. She clambered over jagged-edged boulders of granite, cursing the fact that her soft leather shoes had not been made for rock climbing.
On the far side of the groin, the shoreline curved sharply. Mina, looking back over her shoulder, could not see the castle, and anyone walking the castle walls could not see her.
Sand dunes extended beyond the rock groin. At the top, the land flattened out. There was likely a road up there, a road that led to the castle. Mina took a step forward, heading into the dunes, and knew immediately this was the wrong way. She was lost, with no idea where she was or where she was going.
Mina shifted direction, walking back toward the cliffs, and the sensation of being somewhere familiar returned. She continued on, leaving the sand dunes behind and climbing over rock-strewn ground, pausing every so often to look at the cliffs, trying to spot an opening.
She saw nothing but trusted now that she was heading in the right direction, and she kept going. She was further convinced by signs on the ground that someone else had recently come this way before her. She saw the print of a boot in a sandy patch—an extremely large boot.
Mina began to think she should have brought a weapon. She kept on walking, moving more cautiously, keeping her ears and eyes open.
The grotto turned out to be so well concealed she passed it without knowing. Only when the next step gave her the sinking sensation of being lost did she realize she’d missed the mark. She turned around and stared at the cliff face, and still she could not find it.
At length, she ventured around a large heap of rock and there was the opening to the grotto, half-buried by a rockslide. At one time the grotto must have been wholly buried, she realized, venturing near it. She could see where debris had been cleared, piled up on either side. The work had been done recently, by the looks of it. The ground beneath the slide was still moist.
Mina stood outside the grotto. Now that she’d reached it, she was hesitant to go inside. This was an ideal place for an ambush, out of sight of the castle walls. No one could see or hear her if she needed help. She remembered the large boot print. It had been three times the size of her own foot.
Putting her hand to the pearls, Mina felt their reassuring warmth. She had come all this way, risked her lord’s ire. She could not go back now.
The opening was large enough for two broad-shouldered men to pass through it, but the ceiling was low. She had to stoop her head and shoulders to make her way inside. She was bending down when, from somewhere inside, she heard a dog bark.
Mina’s heartbeat quickened in excitement. Fear vanished. The monk had been in her mind’s eye ever since their encounter. His visage was clear; she could have painted his portrait. She could see his face—chiseled, gaunt. Eyes—large and calm as dark water. Orange robes—the color sacred to Majere, decorated with the god’s rose motif, hung from his thin, muscular shoulders; the robes were belted around a lean waist. His every move, his every word—controlled and disciplined.
And the dog, black and white, looking to the monk as master.
“Thank you, Majesty,” Mina said softly, and she raised the pearls to her lips and kissed them.
Then she entered the grotto.
Ausric Krell, moving silently and stealthily, followed Mina at a discreet distance. Surprisingly, Krell could move silently and stealthily when he wanted to. The death knight didn’t like sneaking around like some slimy gutter-living thief. Krell enjoyed clanking about in his armor. Rattling steel meant death, struck terror into those who heard him coming. But he could manage stealth when required. Like his life, his armor was the stuff of accursed magic, and though he was bound to his armor forever, he could clang and clatter or not, as he chose.