Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [17]
He let the sentence hang, studied her intently, as he carefully adjusted the lace at his wrist.
“Except that finding a way to defeat him is part of my trial,” said Mina. “I understand, my lord.”
“Anything else you want, you have only to wish for.”
He cast a glance at the bed from which she had risen, at the rumpled sheets, still warm from her body. “I look forward to your safe return,” he said and, with a graceful bow, he left her.
Mina sank down on the bed. She understood his look and felt his promise, as she felt the touch of his lips on hers. Her body ached and trembled with her longing for him, and she had to take a moment to calm herself, force herself to concentrate on the seemingly impossible task he had set for her.
“Or maybe, not so impossible,” said Mina. “Anything I want, I have only to wish for.”
She was ravenously hungry. She could not remember eating while she’d been in the prison house of her own making. She supposed she must have. She had some dim recollection of Galdar urging her to eat, but there was no memory of taste or smell or even what it was she had fed upon.
“I require food,” Mina stated, adding, by way of experiment, “I would like venison steak, lamb stew, a cottage pie, spiced wine …”
As she spoke, the dishes appeared in front of her, materializing on a table, spread with a cloth. There was wine and ale for her to drink, and clear, pure, cold water. The food was wonderfully prepared—all she could have wished for. As she ate, she went over various plans in her mind, discarding some outright, taking up those she liked, mulling over them in her mind. She borrowed something from one, put it together with an idea from another, and at last came up with the whole. She went over it all and was satisfied.
A gesture banished the food and the table, the wine and the cloth. Mina stood a moment deep in thought to make certain she missed nothing.
“I want my armor,” she said at last. “The armor given to me by Takhisis. The armor forged of her glory on the night she proclaimed her return to her world.”
Candlelight gleamed from the depths of shining black metal. The armor that she had worn throughout the War of Souls, the armor of a Dark Knight of Neraka, marked by her queen’s own hand, was laid out on the floor at her feet. Lifting up the breastplate, adorned with Takhisis’s symbol—the lightning-struck skull—Mina sat down on the edge of the bed and began to polish the metal, using the corner of the cambric bed sheet, until the armor shone with a high gloss.
ina’s wish took her to the lord city of Palanthas, where she paid a visit to the Great Library. She did not linger in the city once she had completed her business at the library, though she did note that there were large numbers of elves about, ragged, thin, and impoverished. She looked at them as they passed her in the street and they looked at her as if they knew her, but couldn’t remember where. Perhaps in a bad dream. She left Palanthas and wished herself next to a small fishing village on the northern shores of Abanasinia.
“You’re daft, Lady,” said the fisherman bluntly. He was standing on the dock watching as Mina loaded supplies onto the small boat. “If the waves don’t swamp you and pound the boat to bits, the wind will rip off your sail, blow you over, and drive you under. You’ll never make it. Ruin of a good boat.”
“I’ve paid you the cost of your boat twice over,” said Mina.
She stowed a leather skin filled with fresh water in the stern. Walking precariously as the craft rocked with the waves, she climbed back up the ladder to the dock. She was about to haul down the second water skin when the fisherman halted her.
“Here, Lady Knight,” he said, scowling as he held out the bag of steel coins. “Take back your money. I don’t want it. I won’t be a party to this folly of yours. I’d have your death on my conscience for the rest of my life.”
Mina picked up the