Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [132]
“My lord,” Mina called, reaching out to him. “My mortal eyes are blind in this murk. I cannot see you. I cannot see myself! More to the point, I cannot see where I am going. Is there some way you can light my path?”
“Those who can see can also be seen,” said Chemosh. “I prefer to remain cloaked in darkness.”
“Then you must guide me, Lord, as the dog guides a blind beggar.”
Chemosh grasped her hand and pulled her swiftly through the water, making no difference between it and air. The water flowed past Mina, washing over her body. Once, tentacles brushed her arm and she jerked away. The tentacled creature did not pursue her. Perhaps she tasted bad. If Chemosh noticed the creature, he paid no attention. He pressed forward, eager and impatient.
As they drew nearer the Tower, Mina became aware that the walls were shining with a faint phosphorescence, greenish blue in color. The eerie light covered the crystal walls, giving the Tower a ghostly appearance.
“Wait here for me,” Chemosh said, letting go her hand.
Mina floated in the darkness, watched as the god drew near the Tower. He ran his hands over the smooth surface of the walls and peered through the crystal walls, trying to see inside.
The crystal reflected his own image back to him.
Chemosh craned his neck. He looked up and he looked down and around. He shook his head, profoundly perplexed.
“There are no windows,” he said to Mina. “No doors. No way inside that I can see, yet there must be. The entrance is hidden, that is all.”
He moved along the walls, searching with his hands as well as his eyes. She could see his silhouette, black against the green phosphorous glow. She kept him in sight as long as she could, and then he disappeared, drifting around a corner of the building.
Mina was alone, utterly alone, as if she stood on the brink of Chaos.
She was parched with thirst and hungry. The hunger she could endure; she’d gone without food on many long marches with her army. Thirst was a different matter. She wondered how she could be thirsty, when her mouth was filled with water, except that the water tasted of salt and the salt was increasing her thirst. She did not know how long she could survive without drinking, before the need for water would become critical and she would have to admit to Chemosh that she could no longer go on. She would have to remind him, once again, that she was mortal.
Chemosh returned suddenly, looming out of the darkness.
“Admittedly, it has been many centuries since I last saw this Tower, yet something about it did not look right to me. I have figured out what is wrong. At least one third of it remains buried beneath the ocean floor. That includes the entrance presumably. In the old days, a single door led inside the Tower and now that door is buried in the sand. I can find no other way—”
Chemosh halted, staring. “Do you see that?”
“I see it, my lord,” said Mina, “but I am not sure I believe it.”
Deep inside the Tower, lights winked on. First one. Then another. Small globules of white-blue light appeared in different levels of the Tower—some far above them, near the top; others down below. Some of the lights seemed to be shining from deep within the Tower’s interior, others closer to the crystal walls.
“It is as I remember,” said Chemosh. “Stars held captive.”
The lights were like starlight, cold and sharp-edged. They illuminated nothing, gave off no warmth, no radiance. Mina watched one closely. “Look there, my lord,” she said, pointing.
“What is it?” Chemosh demanded.
“One of the lights went out and then came back,” said Mina. “As if something or someone had walked in front of it.”
“Where? Which light?”
“Up there, about two levels. My lord,” Mina added, “you can enter the Tower. You are a god. These walls, no matter if they are solid or illusion, cannot stop you.”
“Yes,” he said, “but you cannot.”
“You must go in, my lord,” said Mina. “I will wait for you outside. When you find an entrance, you will come for me.”
“I don’t like to leave you alone,