Krell turned back to her. He seized her arm, twisted it, and flung her against the wall. She gasped with the pain but did not cry out. He penned her in with his arms, so she could not escape. He shoved his helmed head close to her. She could see the emptiness within and smell the foul stench of corruption and death.
“I wish I were a living man,” he said, gloating over her. “I would have some fun with you before I killed you, just like the old days. I liked seeing the fear in their eyes. They knew what I was going to do to them, and they’d squeal and beg and plead for their miserable lives, and I’d tell them if they were good little girls and let me have my fun with them I’d let them live. I lied, of course. When I was done, I’d wrap my hands around their necks—soft, slender necks, like yours—and choke the life out of them.”
He began to fondle her neck with bruising force.
“I guess I’ll just have to settle for choking you.”
His fingers clasped around her neck and started to squeeze.
Rage—hot and molten and bitter tasting—boiled deep within Mina. Amber light blazed in her eyes. Amber light shot from her fingertips. She grasped Krell’s wrists, yanked his hands from her neck, and flung him off her.
“Living man!” she cried, and her fury shook the castle walls. “You want to be a living man! I grant your wish!”
She pointed at Krell, and amber light suffused him. He screamed and began to writhe inside his armor, and suddenly the armor burst asunder and vanished.
Ausric Krell stood before her, his naked flesh quivering, his naked body shivering. His small piggy eyes were blood-shot, white-rimmed, and staring at her in horrified astonishment.
“Kneel to me!” Mina commanded.
Krell collapsed in a groveling, flabby heap at her feet.
“From now on, you serve me!” Mina told him.
Krell blubbered something unintelligible.
Mina kicked him and he cried out in pain.
“Yes, yes! I serve you!” he whimpered.
Mina walked past the cringing Krell and strode to the door. She touched it, and it burst into amber flame. She walked through the rain of cinders and into the dark hallway. She looked at a stone wall and it melted; stone stairs appeared. She walked the stairs that spiraled round and round, leading upward to the ramparts.
“Tell my lord Chemosh, when he returns”—Mina’s voice rang in Krell’s ears—“that I have gone to obtain his heart’s desire.”
Krell remained in a sodden mass on the floor. He was terrified to open his eyes for fear he might see Mina. At length, however, the stone floor began to hurt his bony knees. The cold raised goosebumps on the flesh of his naked arms and shriveled his private parts. Krell pinched his arm and gave a yelp, then he groaned and cursed.
There was no doubting it. Middle-aged, gray-haired, balding, with sallow skin and sagging gut, he had his wish.
Krell was, once more, a living man.
11
While Ausric Krell was having a very bad time inside Castle Beloved, Nightshade was having a worse time outside it.
He should have recognized Chemosh’s undead disciples at once. If he’d been paying attention, he would have noted that the two men— those he had hoped had been set by the god to save Rhys—coming down the road weren’t men at all. There was no comforting glow about them, no life light burning inside them. They were nothing but lumps in the night. Atta knew. Her bark had been a warning, not a welcome. Now she stood quivering by his side, growling, her teeth barred.
The two Beloved halted. They stared at Nightshade with their empty eyes, and he began to feel uneasy. He didn’t know quite why, though he did sort of remember hearing something from Gerard about someone’s husband being hacked to bits. But he’d been thinking of what was for dinner at the time and hadn’t been paying attention.
The Beloved he’d met previously had all been pretty docile, so long as they weren’t trying to seduce a person, and thus far no human—Beloved or not—had ever tried to seduce Nightshade (not counting that floozy in an alley in Palanthas, and she’d been extremely drunk at the time).
Still, Nightshade didn’t like the way these two were looking at him.
Most of the Beloved didn’t bother to stare at him. Most simply ignored him, and he’d come to prefer it that way.
“Sorry, fellows,” said Nightshade, giving them a wave. “My mistake. I thought you were someone else. Someone alive,” he muttered beneath his breath.
He didn’t know what to do. Should he saunter jauntily past them with a merry “heigh-ho,” or should he turn and run? Instinct voted for turning and running. He was about to obey, when he saw one of the men draw a knife.
“What are you doing?” asked his companion. “It’s a kender.”
“Yes,” said Nightshade, backing up. “I’m a kender.”
“I don’t care,” the man said in a nasty voice. “I’m going to send him to Chemosh.”
“He’s a kender,” his companion reiterated in disgust. “Chemosh doesn’t want kender.”
“He’s right, you know,” Nightshade assured the knife-wielder. “Like they say in the inns, ‘We don’t serve kender. No kender in the Abyss.’ I’ve seen the signs. They’re posted all over.”
He looked around uneasily, but no help was in sight, nothing but empty road. He continued to edge backward.
“Chemosh doesn’t care,” the Beloved returned. “Dead’s dead to him, and killing makes the pain go away.”
He advanced on Nightshade, brandishing the knife. Nightshade could see dark stains on the blade.
“I murdered a woman last night,” the Beloved continued in a conversational tone. “Gutted the bitch. She wouldn’t swear to Chemosh, but my pain eased. Try it yourself. Help me kill this runt.”
Shrugging, the other Beloved picked up a piece of driftwood to use as a club, and both of them walked toward Nightshade.
The Beloved weren’t killing to gain converts to Chemosh anymore, Nightshade realized in dismay. They were just killing!
He was in the act of pointing his finger at the Beloved, ready to drop them like he’d dropped that minotaur, when he remembered suddenly his magic wouldn’t work against them. His heart, which had been in his shoes, now scrambled up his innards to seize him by the throat and shake him. Nightshade had lost precious fleeing time with his almost spell- casting. He made up for it by whipping around and running for all he was worth—and then some.
“Atta, come!” he gasped, and the dog dashed after him. A Nightshade was good at sprinting; he’d had lots of practice outrunning sheriffs, angry housewives, furious farmers, and irate merchants. His sudden burst of speed caught the Beloved off-guard, and he outdistanced them for a bit, but he was already tired from slogging through sand and cutting his hands on boulders. His sprint didn’t have any staying power. His strength began to flag. The ruts in the road and the occasional large clumps of dry weeds, grass, and his pork-slick boots didn’t help.
The Beloved, meanwhile, had picked up speed. Being dead, they could run all month if they wanted to, while Nightshade figured he was good for just a few more moments. He didn’t dare take time to look back, but he didn’t need to—he could hear harsh breathing and thudding footfalls, and he knew they were catching up.
Atta was barking furiously, half-running after Nightshade and half-turning around to threaten the Beloved.
Nightshade’s breath began coming in painful, ragged gasps. His feet lurched and stumbled over the uneven ground. He was about done for.
One of the Beloved seized the kender’s flapping shirttail. Nightshade gave a wrench, trying to free himself, but ended up tumbling head-long into a large patch of weeds. He was ready to fight for his life, when suddenly he was in the middle of what could only be described as an explosion of grasshoppers.