Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [139]
Chemosh lay in his bed, their bed.
He could still smell her scent. He could see the depression in the pillow where she lay her head. He found a strand of glistening red hair and he picked it up and wound it around and around his finger. He ran his hand over the sheet, smoothing it, and he was running his hand over the soft, smooth skin, delighting in the feel of her warm and yielding flesh.
Delighting in the life. For she brought life to him.
He had once said to her: “When I am with you, that is the time I come closest to mortality. I see you lie back upon the pillow, and your body is covered with a fine sheen of sweat, and you are flushed and languorous. Your heart beats fast, the blood pulses beneath your skin. I feel life in you, Mina.” All that was gone.
He lay on the empty bed and stared into the darkness. His plans were all thrown into disarray. The “Beloved” were roaming Ansalon, their deadly kisses bringing more and more converts to his worship, converts who would obey his least command. He would have a powerful force at his disposal. He was not now certain what he would do with them.
He had meant for Mina to lead them.
Chemosh closed his eyes in agony and, when he opened them again, she stood before him.
“My lord,” she said.
“You came to me,” he said.
“Of course, my lord,” she said. “I pledged you my faith, my love.”
He reached out to her.
The amber eyes were ashes. Her lips dust. Her voice was the ghost of a voice. Her touch ghostly chill.
Chemosh rolled over on the bed, away from her.
No mortal, not even a dead one, should see a god weep.
ar distant from the Abyss, in the former Tower of High Sorcery at Istar—which had been renamed the Tower of the Blood Sea—Nuitari, god of dark magic, was closeted in one of the tower rooms with two of his wizards.
The three stood staring with rapt intensity into a large silver bowl of unique shape and design. Made to resemble the coiled body of a dragon, the base of the bowl was the dragon’s body winding around and around upon itself, ending in a tail. The dragon’s head, mouth agape, formed the bowl. Four dragon legs were the base, supporting the body. When the gaping mouth was filled with dragon’s blood (blood that had to be taken from a willing dragon) the bowl had the ability to reveal to those who looked into it what was transpiring, not in the world—that was of little interest to Nuitari—but in heaven.
The theft of the world by one of their own had caused profound changes in all the gods, some for the better, others for much the worse. The three cousins, gods of magic, had always been allies, if they had not always been friends. Their love and dedication to the magic formed a bond between them that was strong enough to accept differences of philosophy in regard to how the magic should be used and promulgated. They had always come together to make decisions in regard to the magic. They had worked together to raise up the Towers of High Sorcery. They had grieved together to see the Towers fall.
Nuitari still felt a bond with his cousins. He had joined with them to bring back godly magic to the world and he was a staunch—even ruthless—supporter of their desire to put an end to the practice of sorcery. But the relationship between the cousins had changed. Takhisis’s treachery had left Nuitari suspicious of everyone, including his cousins.
Nuitari had never trusted Takhisis’s ambition. He had many times worked against his own mother, particularly when her interests and his own clashed. Even he had not been prepared for her betrayal. Her theft of Krynn had caught him flat-footed, made him look the fool. She had left him to search the universe for his lost world as a child searches the house for a lost marble.
His anger at his mother for her betrayal and at himself for being blind to her perfidy was a smoldering fire in him. Never again would he put faith in anyone. From now on, Nuitari would look out for Nuitari. He would raise up a fortress for himself and his followers, one that he