Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [22]
“—might what? Aid you?” Zeboim laughed with malicious delight. “Chemosh is far too busy running around the heavens with his butterfly net trying to catch all the souls that Mommy stole from him. He cannot help you. I am the only one who can help you. Your prayers come to me.”
“Then I do pray to you, Mistress—”
“I think you should call me Majesty,” said Zeboim, languidly toying with a curl of her long tangled hair, watching the lightning dance on the mast. “Since Mommy is no longer with us, I am the Queen now. Queen of Sea and Storm.”
“As you will, Majesty,” said Mina, and she reverently lowered her head, a gesture that pleased Zeboim and allowed Mina to hide her eyes, keep her secrets.
“What is it you want of me, Mina? If it is to ask me to help you destroy the Betrayer, I don’t believe I shall. I take a great deal of pleasure in watching that bastard fret and fume upon his rock.”
“All I ask,” said Mina humbly, “is that you bring me safely to Storm’s Keep. It will be my honor and my privilege to destroy him.”
“I do love a good fight,” Zeboim said with a sigh. She twisted her hair around her finger, gazed into the storm that raged all around her, never touching her.
“Very well,” she said languidly. “If you destroy him, I can always bring him back again. And if he destroys you, which I think quite likely”—Zeboim cast a cold, blue-gray glance at Mina—“then I will have avenged myself upon Mommy’s little darling, which is the next best thing to avenging myself upon Mommy.”
“Thank you, Majesty,” said Mina.
There was no answer, only the sound of wind singing in the rigging, a mocking sound.
Mina raised her head cautiously and found she was alone. The goddess was gone as if she had never been, and for a moment Mina wondered if she had been dreaming. She put her hand to her aching jaw, her stinging lip, and drew back fingers smeared with blood.
As if to give her further proof, the wind ceased abruptly to howl around her. The storm clouds frayed, torn apart by an immortal hand. The waves calmed, and soon Mina’s boat was rocking on swells gentle enough to lull a baby to sleep. The sea breeze freshened, blowing from the south, a breeze that would carry her swiftly to her destination.
“All honor and glory to you, Zeboim, Majesty of the Seas!” Mina cried.
The sun broke through the clouds, glinted gold on the water. She had been going to raise the sail, but it was not needed. The boat leaped forward, skimmed atop the waves. Mina gripped the tiller and drank in the rushing, salt-tinged air, one step nearer her heart’s desire.
he isle of Storm’s Keep had once teemed with life. Fortress and garrison of the Dark Knights of Takhisis, Storm’s Keep had housed knights, men-at-arms, servants, cooks, squires, pages, trainers, slaves. Clerics dedicated to Takhisis had been on Storm’s Keep. Wizards dedicated to her service had worked there. Blue dragons had taken off from the cliff, gone soaring over the sea, carrying their dragon riders on their backs. All of them had one abiding goal—to conquer Ansalon and from there the world.
They had almost won.
But then had come Chaos. Then had come treachery.
Storm’s Keep was now the prison of death, with one lone prisoner. He had the mighty fortress, the towers and parade grounds, the stables and treasure vaults, the storerooms and warehouses, all to himself. He loathed it. Every sea-soaked inch of it.
In a large room at the top of the Tower of the Skull, the tallest tower of the fortress known as Storm’s Keep, Lord Ausric Krell placed his hands—covered in leather gauntlets to hide their fleshless state—on the table and leveraged himself to a standing position. He had been a short, heavy brute of a man in life, and he was a short, heavy brute of an ambulating corpse in death. That corpse was accoutered in the black armor in which he had died, burned onto him by the curse that kept him chained to this existence.
Before him, mounted on a stand, was a sphere fashioned out of black opal.