Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [138]
Nuitari closed his fingers over her.
Blood seeped from between the god’s fingers. The red drops fell to the floor, fell slowly at first, one after the other. Then the drops were a trickle, the trickle a torrent. The god’s hand was suffused with blood. He opened it …
Chemosh turned away.
cross the continent of Ansalon, the Beloved of Chemosh walked the land. Young men and young women, healthy, strong, beautiful, dead. Murderers all, they walked about openly, fearing no law, no justice. Followers of Chemosh, they basked in the sunlight and avoided graveyards. Beloved of Chemosh, they brought him new followers nightly, killing with impunity, seducing their victims with sweet kisses and sweeter promises: unending life, unfading looks, forever young. All they asked in exchange was a pledge to Chemosh, a few simple words, spoken carelessly; the lethal kiss, the mark of lips burned on flesh, a new-risen corpse.
As time went by, the Beloved discovered that unending life was not all they had earned. They began to lose the memory of who they were, what they had done, where they had been. Their memories were replaced by a compulsion to kill, a compulsion to find new converts. If they failed in this, if a night passed and they had not delivered that fatal kiss, the god let them know of his disappointment. They saw in their dead minds his face, his eyes watching them. They felt, in their dead bodies, his ire, which burned in their dead flesh, growing more painful day by day. Only when his Beloved came to him with offerings of new converts did he ease their torment.
And so the Beloved of Chemosh roamed Ansalon, drifting from village to city, from farm to forest, always traveling east, the morning sun on their faces, to meet their god.
A god who was not on hand to receive them.
The Lord of Death left Nuitari’s presence with every intention of searching through the whole blasted Tower, from spire to basement, pillar to post, for his holy artifacts. He opened a door and there was Mina.
For now I will no longer be mortal.
He slammed shut that door, opened another. She met him there.
More useful to you dead …
Mina was in every room he entered. She walked with him through the corridors of the Tower. Her amber eyes gazed at him from the darkness. Her voice, her last prayer, whispered over and over. The sound of blood falling, drop by drop, onto the floor at Nuitari’s feet, thudded in his breast like the beating of a mortal heart.
“This is madness,” Chemosh said to himself angrily. “I am a god. She a mortal. She is dead. What of it? Mortals die every day, thousands at a time. She is dead. Her mortal weaknesses die with her. Her spirit will be mine for eternity, if I want it. I can banish it if I don’t. Far more practical …”
He caught himself staring into an empty crate for the heavens knew how long, not seeing that it was empty, seeing only Mina’s face, staring back at him. He realized that he was wasting his time.
“Nuitari took me by surprise. I had not expected to find the Tower rebuilt. I did not expect to find the God of the Dark Moon taking up habitation here. Small wonder that I am distracted. I need time to think how to combat him. Time to plan, come up with a strategy.”
Chemosh grew calmer, thinking this through.
“I will leave now, but I will return,” he promised the moonfaced god.
He walked through the crystal walls, through the shifting ocean depths, through the ethers heading back to the darkness of the Abyss.
Darkness that was empty and silent.
So very silent. So very empty.
“Her spirit will be here,” he said to himself. “Perhaps she will choose to go on to the next stage of her life’s journey. Perhaps she will leave me, abandon me, as I abandoned her.”
He started to go to the place where the souls passed from this world to Beyond, walking through the door that would lead to them to wherever it was they needed to go in order to fulfill the soul’s quest. He went there to receive Mina’s soul.
Or watch it walk away from him.
He stopped. He could not go there,