Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [119]
A hand touched hers. She clasped the hand thankfully, held it fast.
“Not afraid, were you?” Chemosh said, half-teasing, half-serious. “You can talk, Mina. Remember, the water is for you as air. Speak. I’ll hear your words.”
“I was going to say that if I was afraid, it is only because fear is the curse of mortals, my lord,” said Mina.
“That is true,” said Chemosh, his tone grown grim. “Fear gives mortals good instincts.”
“Is something wrong, my lord?”
“There is a stirring, an energy that was not here when I came here before only a year ago. It may have nothing to do with our treasure-hunt, yet I do not like it. It has the smell of a god about it.”
“Zeboim?” Mina asked.
Chemosh shook his head. “I thought as much, and I returned to the surface. No storm clouds gather, no lashing winds howl. The sea is so flat that birds are starting to build nests on the water. No, whatever is amiss is down here; Zeboim is not to blame.”
“What other gods might be at work in the sea, Lord?”
“Habbakuk holds sway over the sea creatures. I do not worry about him, however. He is indolent and lazy, as one might expect of a god who spends his time among fish.”
He paused, listening. Mina listened, too, but despite what Chemosh said, her ears were stopped up with water. She could hear nothing except the sound of her own pulsing blood and the voice of the god.
“I don’t hear anything,” he said at last, and he sounded perplexed, “yet the feeling persists. Perhaps it is only my imagination. Come, let us find that which we seek. The ruins are not far.”
He walked through the water as though he walked on dry land. Mina tried to imitate him, but found walking difficult. She ended up half-swimming, half-walking, propelling herself forward with broad strokes of her arms, kicking with her legs. The fathomless darkness began to grow lighter; she and Chemosh were rising nearer to the surface, to the sunlight.
He halted again, his expression dour. He looked at her, looked at the filmy, silky gown she wore. “I should never have allowed you to come down here unarmed with no armor to protect you. I will send you back—”
“Do not send me away, my lord. I am armored in my faith in you. My love for you is my weapon.”
Chemosh drew her near. Her hair floated free in the water, shifting about her head and shoulders in sensuous waves. Her amber eyes seemed luminescent, the blood-red water lending them an orange hue, so that they had a fiery glow.
“It is no wonder I chose you as my High Priestess, Mina,” said Chemosh. “Yet I will give you something more substantial than faith to protect your mortal body, and a weapon more capable of doing damage.
He dove down into the darkness, plunging down to the bottom of the ocean. In a few moments he returned, carrying a human skeleton.
“Not very pretty, but it’s functional. You will not feel squeamish wearing a man’s ribcage, will you, Mina?”
“The armor Takhisis gave me was wet with the blood of a man who dared to mock her,” Mina replied. “Will you be my squire, my lord?”
“Just this once,” he said with a smile, and he began to fasten the bony armor to her body. “Does this fit? If it does not, I can find something that will. We have an unlimited supply of skeletons.”
“The fit is perfect, my lord.”
Her cuirass was a man’s breastbone and ribs. Collarbones protected her shoulders, shin bones her legs, and arm bones her arms. Chemosh welded them together with his power, strengthened them with his might. When he had dressed her, he eyed her accouterments and was satisfied.
“And now, your helm,” he said.
“Not a skull, my lord,” Mina protested. “I do not want to look like Krell.”
“God forbid!” Chemosh said dryly. “No, Mina. Here is your helm.”
He took her head in his two hands, kissed her on the forehead, on her cheeks, her chin and, finally, on her mouth.
“There, you are protected.” He hesitated, keeping hold of her. His grip on her tightened. “Mina,” he said softly, “I—”
“What, my lord?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said abruptly.