Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [4]
That would be worst of all, Mina decided. Takhisis, a queen who had ruled heaven and the Abyss, forever chained to the whining pleas of those who had done nothing to try to save her when she died except wring their hands and whimper, “What will become of me?”
Day in and day out, Mina paced before the entrance to the tomb beneath the mountain where she had placed the body of the dead queen. She had worked hard, for weeks, for months maybe—she had no sense of time—to hide the fact that there was an entrance, planting trees, bushes, and wild flowers in front of it, training them to grow over it.
Galdar helped her in her task, and so did the gods, though she was not aware of their help and would have scorned it if she’d known of it.
The gods who had judged Takhisis, Queen of Darkness, and found her guilty of breaking the immortal oath they had all sworn at time’s beginning, knew as well as Mina what would happen if mortals discovered the location of the Dark Queen’s resting place. Trees that were seedlings when Mina planted them grew ten feet tall in a month. Brush and bramble bushes sprang up overnight. A howling wind that never ceased to blow polished the cliff face smooth, so that no trace of the entrance to the tomb remained visible.
Even Mina could no longer find the entrance, at least when she was awake. She could see it always in her dreams. Now there was nothing left for her to do except to guard it from everyone—mortal and immortal. She had become distrustful even of Galdar, for he had been among those responsible for her queen’s downfall. She didn’t like the way the minotaur was always urging her to leave. She suspected that he was waiting for her to depart and then he would break into the tomb.
“Mina,” Galdar swore to her over and over, “I have no idea where the entrance to the tomb is. I could not even find this mountain if I left it, for the sun never rises in the same place twice!” He gestured to the horizon. “The gods themselves conceal it. East is west one day and west is east another. That is why it is safe to leave, Mina. Once you leave, you will never find your way back. You can move on with your life.”
She knew the truth of that in her heart. She knew it and longed for it and was terrified of it.
“Takhisis was my life,” Mina said to Galdar in answer. “When I looked in a mirror, her face was the face I saw. When I spoke, her voice was the voice I heard. Now she is gone, and when I look in the mirror, no face looks back. When I speak, there is only silence. Who am I, Galdar?”
“You are Mina,” he replied.
“And who is Mina?” she asked.
Galdar could only stare at her, helpless.
They had this conversation often, almost every day. They had it again this morning. This time, though, Galdar’s answer was different. He had been thinking long about this and when she said, “Who is Mina?” he responded quietly, “Goldmoon knew who you were, Mina. In her eyes you could see yourself. You didn’t see Takhisis.”
Mina considered this.
Looking back on her life, she saw it divided into three parts. The first was childhood. Those years were nothing but a blur of color, fresh paint that someone had smeared with a soaking wet sponge.
The second was Goldmoon and the Citadel of Light.
Mina had no memory of the shipwreck or of being washed overboard or whatever had happened to her. For her memory—and life—had begun when she opened her eyes to find herself, wet and water-logged, lying in the sand, looking up at a group of people who had gathered around her, people who spoke to her with loving compassion.
They asked her what had happened to her.
She didn’t know.
They asked her name.
She didn’t know that either.
They would eventually conclude that she had been the survivor of a shipwreck—though no ships had been reported missing. Her parents were presumed to have been lost at sea. That theory seemed most likely,