Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [29]
Innocence was gone. Unquestioning faith was gone. Thus she had dared to ask Chemosh, “What will you give me?” Though she had now given him proof that she belonged to him, she would not be his puppet to dance at his command, nor yet his slave to grovel at his feet. Standing alone in the darkness of Storm’s Keep, Mina listened. She was not listening for the voice of the god to tell her what to do. She listened to her own voice, to her own counsel.
The Age of Mortals. Perhaps this is what the wise meant, what Chemosh meant. A partnership between god and man. It was an interesting premise.
The dim light of gray day made its way through the crack in the wall and poked through other, smaller gaps. As her eyes grew accustomed to the shadows, Mina could see most of the chamber. It was, as she had guessed, a room meant for storage, not only for grain but for other supplies.
A few wooden boxes and crates stood on the floor, their lids pried off, the contents spilled. Mina could picture the knights, in their eager haste to leave Storm’s Keep to begin their conquest of Ansalon, ripping open crates to see what they contained, making certain they left behind nothing of value. She glanced at the boxes as she passed them, heading toward an iron-banded door located at the end of the room. She noticed some dust-covered, rusted tools, such as blacksmiths used, and a few bolts of woolen cloth, now moth-eaten and mildewed. There had been rumors for years that the knights had left behind stores of treasure. The rumors made sense, for the knights would not have flown to battle on dragonback carrying chests of steel coins. But if so, the treasure was not here. As she walked, her boots crunched on dried rat dung and half-eaten kernels, all that was left of the might of the Dark Knights of Takhisis.
Mina picked up a prybar. If the door to the granary was locked, she would need a tool to force the lock open. She hoped she would not have to resort to that. Krell must think her dead, killed in her fall off the stairs, and she didn’t want to do anything to rouse his suspicions. Although she didn’t know for sure, she guessed that the death knight still retained his power of hearing and even above the keening of the wind—the wail of a goddess’s grief and fury—Krell might be able to detect the sound of someone beating at an iron lock with an iron bar.
When Mina reached the door, she put her hand on the handle and gave a gentle push. To her relief, the door swung open. Not surprising, when she considered it. Why bother to lock the door on an empty storage room?
The door opened into a hall, with the same paved stone floor and rough-hewn walls. The hall was much darker than the storage room. No cracks in the walls. She had no torch and no way to light one. She would have to feel her way.
Mina summoned from memory the map of the fortress that she left safely stowed in the boat. Prior to setting out on this adventure, she had traveled to the city of Palanthas to pay a visit to the city’s famed library. There she had asked one of the Aesthetics for a map of Storm’s Keep. Thinking she was a reckless treasure seeker, the earnest young Aesthetic had tried very hard to dissuade her from risking her life in such a foolhardy adventure. She had insisted, and by the rules of the library, which stated that all knowledge was available to anyone who sought it, he had brought her the requested map—a map that had been drawn by Lord Ariakan himself.
The granary had not been marked on the map. Ariakan had included only those areas he considered important—meeting rooms, barracks, housing, etc. Mina had only the vaguest idea where she was, and that came mainly from knowledge of where she wasn’t.
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