Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [126]
Thus far, this adventure had gone a long way to confirming Nightshade’s bad opinion.
From the beginning, he had not been keen on Rhys’s plan to reduce him to the size of khas piece. In a world of tall people, Nightshade considered that he was short enough already. He further did not like the idea of being dependent on Zeboim to shrink him in the first place and in the second place to bring him back from being shrunken. Rhys had assured Nightshade that he would have Zeboim swear on whatever it was goddesses swore upon that she would perform as required. Unfortunately, the goddess had whipped the spell on the kender before they’d had a chance to conclude this important term in the negotiations. Nightshade had been standing beside Rhys in the goddess’s prison cell, and the next thing he knew he was inside a smelly leather pouch, sweating and recalling with a pang that he’d skipped breakfast.
He’d wanted out of that pouch until the death knight showed up, and then he’d wanted only to crawl inside the pouch’s seams. He supposed he was as brave as any kender living, but even his famous Uncle Tas had, according to legend, been afraid of a death knight.
After that, there had been no time for fear. After Rhys dropped the scrip, Nightshade had only seconds to crawl out of the pouch and roll away before the death knight could spot him. Then there was the business of trying to hold stiff and unmoving as Rhys picked him up—gently as he could—and stood him on the khas board. In the worry and anxiety over all that, he hadn’t had time to be intimidated by the death knight.
When that flurry of activity was over, however, Nightshade had quite a good view of Krell, for he was forced to stand facing the death knight, who was every bit as loathsome as the kender had pictured.
Nightshade wondered if anyone would notice if he shut his eyes. A covert glance showed him that all the other kender on the board had his or her eyes wide open.
“Of course, they’re corpses—lucky bastards,” Nightshade muttered in his throat.
Krell did not appear too observant, but he might notice. Nightshade was forced to stare straight at the death knight. Nightshade might not have been able to withstand the awful sight but that he suddenly caught a glimpse of Krell’s spirit. Krell was big and ugly and terrifying. His spirit, by contrast, was small and ugly and craven. In the spirit department, Nightshade could have taken on Krell, thrown him to the ground, and sat on his head. This knowledge made Nightshade feel immensely better and he was starting to think that they just might get out of this alive—something he hadn’t really expected—when Krell broke Rhys’s first finger, and Nightshade had nearly collapsed.
“The sooner you finish your part of the job,” Nightshade told himself to keep himself from passing out, “the sooner you and Rhys can get out of here.”
Nightshade gulped, blinked away his tears, and proceeded to do what he’d been sent here to do—find out which of the khas pieces contained the spirit of Lord Ariakan.
When he’d heard that all the khas pieces were shrunken corpses, Nightshade had been concerned that he’d be overwhelmed with the spirits of the dead. Fortunately, the spirits of the dead had long since departed, leaving their tormented bodies behind. Nightshade felt the presence of only one spirit, but that spirit was angry enough for twenty.
Ordinarily Nightshade could have used such strong emotions as he felt resonate from the spirit to determine which khas piece was which. Unfortunately, the rage cascading over the khas board was so very strong that it made distinguishing between the pieces impossible. Anger and the fierce desire for vengeance was everywhere and could have come from any one of the pieces.
Zeboim had insisted that her son was trapped in one of the two dark knights, each riding a blue dragon—for that was what Krell had told her. Nightshade thought this likely, though he could not discount the possibility that Krell had lied. He looked over the heads of the