Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [44]
Despite a torrential rainstorm, the hostelry’s courtyard was soon packed with people, with the crowds overflowing into adjacent streets. The people began chanting “Mina, Mina!” and when, after about two hours, Mina appeared at one of the upper story windows, the crowd went wild, cheering and exhorting her to speak.
Throwing open one of the lead-paned glass windows, Mina gave a brief talk, explaining that Chemosh had returned to the world with new and stronger powers than before. She was constantly interrupted by rumbles of thunder and cracklings of lightning, but she persisted and the crowd hung on every word. Chemosh was no longer interested in going about cemeteries raising up corpses, she told them. He was interested in life and the living, and he had a special gift to offer anyone who would follow him. All his faithful would receive life unending.
“You will never grow older than you are this day,” Mina promised. “You will never be sick. You will never know fear or cold or hunger. You will be immune to disease. You will never taste the bitterness of death.”
“I’ll become a follower!” jeered one youth, one of the inn’s best customers in the dwarf spirit line. “But only if you come down here and show me the way.”
The crowd laughed. Mina smiled at him.
“I am the High Priestess of Chemosh, here to bring the message of the god to his people,” she said in pleasant tones. “If you are serious in becoming one of his followers, Chemosh will see into your heart and he will send someone to you in his name.”
She shut the window and faded back into the room, out of sight. The crowd waited a moment to see if she would return, then some went home to dry out, while others went over to poke and pinch the statues or watch those who trying unsuccessfully to chip at them with hammer and chisel.
Of course, the first thing people did was to rush word of the stone statues to Lleu, the cleric of Kiri-Jolith.
Lleu didn’t believe it.
“It’s some third-rate illusionist trick,” he said, scoffing. “Rolf the groomsman is gullible as they come. I don’t believe it.” He rose from his desk, where he had been writing a letter to his superior in Solanthus, detailing his concerns about Chemosh. “I’ll go expose this charlatan for what she is.”
“It’s no trick, Lleu,” said Marta, cleric of Zeboim, entering the study. “I’ve seen it. Solid stone they are. Black as Chemosh’s heart.”
“Are you sure?” Lleu demanded.
Marta nodded gloomily, and Lleu sat back down again. Marta may have been a cleric for a goddess who was cruel and capricious, but the cleric herself was honest, level-headed, and not given to flights of fancy.
“What do we do?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Marta. “My goddess is not happy.” An enormous clap of thunder that knocked several books from the shelves testified to Zeboim’s perturbed state of mind. “But if we go gawking at the statues like every other person in this city, we will only be lending credence to this miracle. I say we ignore it.”
“You’re right,” said Lleu. “We should ignore it. This Mina will be gone in a day or two. The people will forget about it and go on to some other wonder—a two-headed calf or some such thing.”
He winced as another horrific thunder bolt shook the ground.
“I only wish I could convince her Holiness of that,” Marta muttered, glancing toward the rain-soaked heavens. Shaking her head, she left the temple to return to her own.
Lleu knew his advice was sound, but he found he could not go back to work. He paced about the temple, confused and at odds with himself. Every time he passed the statue of the god, Lleu looked at that stern and implacable face and wished he possessed such determination and force of will. He had thought that once he did. He was distraught to find that perhaps he didn’t.
He was still pacing when there came a knock at the temple door. The cleric opened it to find one of the potboys from the hostelry.
“I have a message for Father Lleu,” said the boy.
“I am