Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [118]
Mina took a step backward, but Chemosh had hold of her.
“What is it, Mina? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to be a god, my lord!” she cried, struggling, trying to free herself from his grasp.
“You wanted power, Mina, power over life and death—”
“But not like that! You forget, my lord,” she said in hollow tones, “that I have touched the mind of a god. I have seen into that mind, seen the immensity, the emptiness, the loneliness! I cannot bear it—”
The words froze on her lips. She looked at Chemosh in terror. She, who had betrayed his innermost secrets.
“I was lonely, Mina,” he said softly. “I was empty. And then, I found you.”
His arms enfolded her. He pressed her to him, body to body, mortal flesh to god’s flesh made mortal. He put his mouth on her mouth, his lips eager and warm. He drew her down into the sand, his kisses spreading like treacle over her fear, hiding her terror beneath his sweetness that was thick in her mouth. She was consumed in his love until only the memory of her fear remained and his caresses soon burned that away.
The tide rose, as they lay among the sand dunes. The waves lapped over their feet, then their ankles. The sea water stole up and around them, smooth and soft as silken sheets. The waves covered Mina’s shoulders. Her red hair stuck to her wet flesh. She tasted salt in her mouth and she coughed.
Chemosh took hold of her. “The next kiss I give you, Mina, will take away your mortal’s breath. You will feel suffocated for an instant, but an instant only. I will breathe into your lungs the breath of the gods. For as long as you are beneath the water, my breath will sustain you. The water will be to you as the air is now.”
“I understand, my lord,” Mina replied. Her hair swirled in the water, flame dipped in blood.
“I am not sure you do, Mina,” said Chemosh, regarding her intently. “The water is as air to you. That means, the air will be as water. Once I do this, if you come to the surface, you will drown.”
In answer, she touched her lips to his, closed her eyes, and held him fast. He seized her, crushed her to him, and putting his mouth over hers, he drew the air from her body, sucked the life from her lungs.
The water rose over her head. Mina could not breathe. She gasped for the air, but water flowed in her mouth. She choked, strangled. Chemosh held her fast. She tried not to struggle, but she couldn’t help it. Her body’s instinct to survive overrode her heart. She fought to wrench herself free of the god’s grip, but he was too strong. His fingers dug into her flesh and muscle and bone, his legs pinned her down beneath the water.
“He is killing me,” she thought. “He lied to me …”
Her heart throbbed, her chest burned. Hideous star-bursts obscured her vision. She writhed in his grip and gasped and water flowed into her lungs and into her body as the sea rose higher and higher, gently rocking her. She was too tired to fight, so she closed her eyes and gave herself to the blood-tinged darkness.
ina woke to a world that had never known sunlight, a world of heavy, eternal night.
Sea water pressed on her, surrounded her, enveloped and encompassed her. It pushed her and pulled her, constantly in motion. There was no up, no down. Nothing beneath her feet or above her head to orient her. She was adrift, alone.
Mina could breathe the water as well as she had once breathed air; at least she tried telling herself she could. She felt smothered, half-suffocated. Panic fluttered inside her. She was suddenly afraid she might be trapped here in the squeezing, fluid darkness forever. Her impulse was to swim to the surface, but she forced herself to abandon that idea. She had no idea where the surface was, and flailing about in the water, she might sink deeper, not rise.
She could not call out to Chemosh. She could not cry out or scream. The water swallowed up her voice. She forced the panic down, tried to remain calm, relax.
“I have walked the dark places of Krynn,