“Did you question the kender?” Dalamar asked, as they wound round and round down the hidden staircase.
“Yes. He has the device. He said something else that I found interesting, Dalamar”—Palin reached out his hand, touched the elf on the shoulder—”Tasslehoff saw his own ghost.”
Dalamar swung the lamp around. “He did?” The elf was skeptical.
“This isn’t another of his swimming bird stories, is it?”
“No,” said Palin. He could see again the fear and terror in the kender’s bright eyes. “No, he was telling the truth. He’s afraid, Dalamar. I’ve never see Tasslehoff afraid before.”
“At least this proves he died,” Dalamar said, offhandedly, and resumed his descent.
Palin sighed. “The gnome is trying to fix the device. That’s what you meant, wasn’t it? The significance of the gnome. A gnome fixed the device the last time it was broken. Gnimsh. The gnome my uncle murdered.”
Dalamar said nothing. He continued hurrying down the stairs.
“Listen to me, Dalamar!” Palin said, moving so close to the elf that he had to be careful not to trip on the skirts of his robes. “How did the gnome come to be here? This is . . . this is not some simple coincidence, is it?”
“No,” Dalamar murmured. “Not coincidence.”
^
“Then what?” Palin demanded, exasperated.
Dalamar halted again, held up the light to illuminate Palin’s face. He drew back, half-blinded.
“You don’t understand?” Dalamar asked. “Not even now?”
“No,” Palin retorted angrily. “And I don’t think you do, either.”
“Not entirely,” Dalamar admitted. “Not entirely. This meeting should explain much, however.”
Lowering the lamp, he turned back to the descent. He said nothing more, and neither did Palin, who had no intention of demeaning himself further by continuing to ask questions that would be answered only in riddles.
“I no longer keep the wizard-lock functional,” Dalamar remarked. He gave the rune-covered door an impatient shove. “A waste of time and effort.”
“You’ve obviously used this chamber once or twice yourself,” Palin observed.
“Oh, yes,” said Dalamar with a smile. “I keep close watch on all my friends.”
He blew out the lamplight.
They stood on the edge of a pool of water that was as quiet and dark as the chamber in which they were standing. A jet of blue flame burned in the center of the pool. The flame gave no light. It seemed to exist in another place, another time, and at first Palin saw nothing except the reflection of the blue flame in the water. Then the two merged in his vision. The flame flared, and he could see the interior of the laboratory as clearly as if he had been inside.
Goldmoon stood by the long stone table. . . .
35
The One God
Goldmoon stood by the long stone table, staring down unseeing at several books that had been left lying about. She heard voices coming nearer. The voice of the person she was meeting, the person she had been summoned by the dead to meet.
Shivering, Goldmoon clasped her hands tightly around her arms. The Tower was cold with a chill that could never be warmed. A place of darkness, a place of sorrow, a place of overreaching ambition, a place of suffering and of death. Her destination. The culmination of her strange journey.
Dalamar had given her a lamp, but its feeble light could not banish the immense darkness. The glow of the lamplight did nothing more than keep her company. Yet, for that she was grateful, and she kept near the lamp. She did not regret sending Dalamar away. She had never liked, never trusted the dark elf. His sudden reappearance here in this forest of death only increased her suspicions of him. He used the dead. . . . “But then,”
said Goldmoon softly, “so do I.” Amazing power . . . for a person. A mere mortal.
Goldmoon began to tremble. She had stood before in the presence of a god, and her soul remembered. But something about this was not right. . . . The door opened, thrust aside by an impatient hand.
“I can see nothing in this wizard’s murk,” said a girl’s voice, a child’s voice whose melody sang through Goldmoon’s dreams. “We need more light.”
The light grew brighter gradually. Soft and warm, at first, the flames of a few dozen candles. The light grew brighter still, until it seemed that the limbs of the cypress trees had parted, the top of the Tower had been lifted, and sunlight poured down into the chamber.
A girl stood in the doorway. She was tall and well-muscled. She wore a chain-mail shirt, a black tunic and black hose and over that a black tabard decorated with a white death lily, the symbol of a Dark Knight. Her head was covered with a light down of red. Goldmoon would not have recognized her but for the amber eyes and the voice that sent a thrill through her body.
So terrible and wonderful was the shock that she caught hold of the table and leaned against it to support herself.
“Mina?” Goldmoon faltered, not daring to believe.
The girl’s face was suddenly illuminated, as if she were the sun, and the sun shone from within.
“You. . . you are so beautiful, Mother,” Mina said softly, awed. “You look just as I imagined.”
Sinking to her knees, the girl extended her hands. “Come, kiss me, Mother,” she cried, tears falling. “Kiss me as you used to. For I am Mina. Your Mina.”
Bewildered, her heart made whole by joy and riven by a strange and terrible fear, Goldmoon could feel nothing except the wild and painful beating of her heart. Unable to take her eyes from Mina, she stumbled forward and fell to her knees before her. She clasped the sobbing girl in her arms.
“Mina,” Goldmoon whispered, rocking her as she used to rock her when Mina woke crying in the night. “Mina. Child . . . why did you leave us, when we all loved you so much?”
Mina raised her tearstained face. The amber eyes gleamed. “I left for love of you, Mother. I left to seek what you wanted so desperately. And I found it, Mother! I found it for you.
“Dearest Mother.” Mina took hold of Goldmoon’s cold and trembling hands and pressed them to her lips. “All that I am and all that I have done, I have done for you.”
“I... don’t understand, child.” Goldmoon kept hold of Mina’s hands, but her eyes went to the dark armor. “You wear the symbol of evil, of darkness... Where did you go? Where have you been? What has happened to you?”
Mina laughed. She glittered with happiness and excitement. “Where I went and where I have been is not important. What happened to me along the way—that is what you must hear.
“Do you remember, Mother, the stories you used to tell me? The story about how you traveled into darkness to search for the gods? How you found the gods and brought faith in the gods back to the people of the world?”
“Yes,” said Goldmoon, but the word was a breath, not spoken. She had ceased trembling and begun to shiver.
“You told me the gods were gone, Mother,” said Mina, her eyes shining like those of a child who has a delightful surprise. “You told me that because the gods were gone we had to rely on ourselves to find our way in the world. But I didn’t believe that story, Mother.”
“Oh”—Mina placed her hand over Goldmoon’s mouth, silencing her—“I don’t think you lied to me. You were mistaken, that was all. You see, I knew better. I knew there was a god, for I heard the voice of the god when I was little and our boat, sank and I was cast alone into the sea. You found me on the shore, do you remember, Mother? But you never knew how I came to be there, because I promised I would never tell. The others drowned, but I was saved. The god held me and supported me and sang to me when I was afraid of the loneliness and dark.
“You said there were no gods, Mother, but I knew you were wrong. And so I did what you did. I went to find God and bring God back to you. And I’ve done that, Mother.” Mina was flushed with joy and pride in her achievement. The amber eyes were radiant. “The miracle of the storm. That is the One God. The miracle of your youth and beauty. That is the One God, Mother.”