Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [113]
Gerard gestured at the cell door. “She’s hasn’t moved from the bed,” he reported. “She won’t eat. Sends back the food untasted. You have visitors, Mistress,” he called out, unlocking the door.
“It’s about time,” said Zeboim, sitting up on the bed.
She drew back her cowl. Sea green eyes glittered.
Rhys gave Nightshade a shove, propelled the kender into the cell, and followed after him.
Gerard shut the cell door and inserted the key into the lock. He did not turn it but left the key where it was. He paused a moment, listening. The three kept their voices low, and anyhow, he’d promised he’d give them privacy.
Shaking his head, Gerard walked off to spend a few moments visiting with the jailer.
“How long you going to give them, Sheriff?” asked the jailer.
“The usual. Five minutes.”
A small hourglass stood on the desk. The jailer upended it, much to the fascination of the kender, who stuck heads, arms, hands, and feet between the bars in order to try to get a clearer view of the proceedings, all the while pelting Gerard with questions, the number one being how many grains of sand were in the glass and offering, since he didn’t know, to make a quick count.
Gerard listened to the jailor’s complaints about the kender, which he made on a daily basis, and watched the sand trickle through the hourglass and listened expectantly for sounds of trouble from down the corridor.
All was quiet, however. When the last grain dropped through the narrow neck, Gerard shouted, “Time’s up” and tromped off down the corridor.
He turned the key in the door and shoved it opened. He stopped, stared.
The crazy woman lay on the bed, her cowl over her head, her face to the wall. No one else was with her.
No monk. No kender.
The cell door had been locked. He’d had to unlock it to let himself in. There was only one way out of the corridor and that was past him and no one had passed him.
“Hey, you!” he said to the crazy woman, shaking her by the shoulder. “Where are they?”
The woman made a slight gesture with her hand, as if brushing away an insect. Gerard flew backward out of the cell and into the corridor, where he smashed up against the wall.
“Do not touch me, mortal!” the woman said. “Never touch me.”
The cell door slammed shut with a bang.
Gerard picked himself up. He’d hit his head on the wall and there would be a giant bruise on his shoulder in the morning. Grimacing at the pain, he stood staring at the cell door. Rubbing his shoulder, he turned and tromped down the corridor.
“Let the kender loose,” he called.
The kender began to whoop and holler. Their shrill cries could have cracked solid stone. Gerard winced at the racket.
“Just do it,” he ordered the jailer. “And be quick about it. Don’t worry, Smythe. I have a wonderful dog who’ll help me keep them in line. The dog needs something to do. She’s missing her master.”
The jailer opened the cell door and the kender streamed out joyfully into the bright light of freedom. Gerard cast a glance at the prison cell at the end of the corridor.
“I think she may be missing her master a long, long time,” he added somberly.
he Maelstrom of the Blood Sea of Istar. Once sailors spoke of it in hushed tones, when they spoke of it at all. Once the Maelstrom was a spiral of destruction, a swirling maw of red death that caught ships in its teeth and swallowed them whole. Once out of that maw, you could hear the thunder of the voices of the gods.
“Look on this, mortals, and know our might.”
When the Kingpriest of Istar dared, in his arrogance, to deem himself a god, and the people of Istar bowed to him, the true gods of Krynn cast down a fiery mountain upon Istar, destroying the city and carrying it far beneath the sea. The waters of the ocean turned a reddish brown color. The wise claimed that this color came from the sandy soil on the ocean floor. Most people believed that the red stain was from the blood of those who had died in the Cataclysm. Whatever the cause, the color gave the sea