Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [36]
“I have but to grab you by the short hairs and drag you back—”
Zeboim withdrew her hand, peered down it, expecting to see Krell’s soul, cringing and whimpering, writhing in her grasp.
Her hand was empty.
Zeboim stared into the immortal plane, searching for Krell’s soul.
The plane was empty.
Zeboim smote the metal armor with her hand. It disintegrated into fragments of metal no larger than a dust mote. Feverishly she stirred the fragments.
The armor was empty. Nothing lurking inside trying to hide from her wrath.
Swift as hurricane winds, Zeboim whirled through the Keep, searching every crack and crevice. She was tempted to tear the fortress apart, stone by stone, but she would only be wasting her time. She realized the truth. She knew it the moment she touched that empty armor. She was loathe to admit it.
Krell was gone. He had escaped her.
Zeboim saw Mina kneeling, heard her words.
My loyalty and my faith are with the dead.
“Ah, you clever little bitch.” Zeboim swore savagely. “You conniving, thieving, clever little bitch. ‘My faith is with the dead.’ You did not mean my mother. You meant Chemosh!”
She spoke the name in a blast of rage that caused the seas to seethe and boil and froth. Storm winds raged, rivers overflowed their banks. Zeboim’s rage shook the very foundations of the Abyss, where Chemosh felt her fury and smiled.
hemosh paced the world, waiting for Mina to return to him. He tried to interest himself in what was transpiring in the world, for events were unfolding that would have an effect on his plans and ambitions. He watched the build-up of the minotaur forces in Silvanesti with concern. Sargonnas was setting himself up to take over the leadership of the pantheon of Darkness and there did not appear to be much that could stop him now. Chemosh had some ideas in regard to that, but he was not yet ready to put those into motion. Patience. That was the key. Haste makes waste.
He dropped by for a glimpse of Mishakal, for he had recently added her to his list of gods who threatened his ambition. He would not have believed it, but the goddess who had once been known for her gentle, unassuming ways had lately become quite militant. She was starting to seriously annoy Chemosh, for her clerics were not limiting themselves to sitting beside sick-beds but were harrassing his clerics, pulling down his temples, and slaying his zombies. True, Chemosh didn’t much like zombies, but they were his and killing them was an affront to himself. He would soon take care of that as well. He would present Mishakal and her do-gooder clerics with a dark mystery they would be hard-pressed to solve, provided Mina turned out to be all that he believed and hoped her to be.
The other gods were not much of a threat. Kiri-Jolith was focused on re-establishing his worship among the Solamnic Knights and other war-minded individuals. Chislev danced with the unicorns in her forests, rejoicing in having her trees back. Majere watched a lady-bug crawl up the stem of a dandelion and marveled at the perfection of both bug and weed. The gods of magic were embroiled in their own politics and in bickering over what to do about the scourge of sorcery that had reared its playful head in their well-ordered world. The gods of neutrality were going about being firmly neutral and uncommited to anything, for fear that so much as a sneeze would tip the delicate balance in favor of one side or another.
Something was going to tip it and it wouldn’t be a sneeze. Mina was the golden weight in the hand of the Lord of Death, the golden weight that would drop onto the scales of balance and completely overturn them.
Chemosh had not been at all certain that Mina would succeed at the task he had set for her. He knew that she was an extraordinary mortal, but she was mortal and she was human into the bargain—an often unsatisfactory