Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [37]
Their appointed meeting place was an ancient temple dedicated to his worship off the coast of Solamnia. He had been waiting for her there, careful to keep out of sight, for Zeboim would be watching Mina for as long as she sailed upon the sea and perhaps even after she landed. Thus he had directed Mina to keep Zeboim off-guard by paying a visit to her shrine.
The temple in which he met her had once been a mausoleum, designed and built by a grieving noble lady for her noble husband. The family name, emblazoned across the front of the mausoleum, had eroded, as had the coat of arms. The hall had fallen into ruin. Nothing was left of it except the foundation, for the materials used in its construction had been hauled off by the local residents to use in rebuilding homes damaged in the First Cataclysm. The mausoleum remained intact, however, and in relatively good condition. None dare touch it, for legend had it that one could still hear the grief-stricken wail of the bereaved widow and see her ghostly figure weeping on the marble stairs.
Built of black marble, the mausoleum was almost a small hall. Four ornately carved spires stood at each corner of a sharply pointed roof, surrounded by delicate wrought iron filigree. A columned portico at the top of the famed marble stairs sheltered an immense bronze door. Inside the mausoleum, two rows of slender columns stood like sentinels on either side of the enormous marble tomb bearing the family coat of arms and replete with the outstanding moments of the man’s life carved in raised relief all around the base.
The noble lady had built an altar at the far end of the mausoleum and dedicated it to Chemosh. Here she had come to pray daily to the God of Death, swearing never to leave this place until he restored her husband to her. Since the husband’s soul had already gone on, Chemosh was unable to answer her prayer. He did, however, see to it that she kept her vow. Chemosh had returned to the world to find her ghost still there, still weeping on the stairs. He’d forgotten how annoying he found her blubbering and he freed her at last, sending her off to join her husband.
He wondered if he wasn’t becoming a bit of a romantic.
He entered the temple, looked around. The mausoleum was well-constructed. The roof did not leak; the building was dry and neither musty nor dank. There was only one body inside and he had remained decently interred. No stray shin bones or skulls cluttering up the place. Chemosh’s followers, undeterred by the ghost, had moved into the mausoleum during the War of the Lance and had remained here up until the theft of the world deprived them of their god. He was pleased to note that they had been an unusually tidy lot, cleaning up after their rites, so there was no melted candle wax upon the altar cloth, no blood stains on the floor, no fragments of bone left on the dais.
Chemosh found some evidence that someone—either one of those new, misguided users of necromancy or grave robbers—had recently been inside. Someone had tried to pry the lid off the tomb using a crow bar. The marble lid was extremely heavy and the attempt had failed. They had raided his altar, too, carrying off a pair of golden candlesticks and a ruby-encrusted chalice, both of which he distinctly remembered, for he kept track of all his sacred artifacts.
“No thief would have dared tempt my wrath in the old days,” Chemosh said, frowning in ire. “Thanks to our late and unlamented Queen, no one has any respect for the gods these days. That will change. One day soon, when mortals speak the name of Chemosh, they will speak it with respect, with reverence and awe. They will speak it with fear.”
“My lord Chemosh.” Mina spoke his name, but not with fear. With love and reverence.
Chemosh opened the bronze door to find her standing on the marble stairs. She