Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [66]
“Thank you for the information, Mistress,” said Rhys. “And now I must bury my dead.”
Zeboim tilted back her head, regarded him from beneath her long lashes. A smile touched her lips. “You don’t even know who this Mina is, do you, monk?”
Rhys did not answer. Turning on his heel, he left her.
“And what do you know of the undead?” Zeboim pursued him, talking relentlessly. “Of Chemosh? He is strong and powerful and dangerous. And you have no god to guide you, protect you. You are all alone. If you agreed to work for me, I can be very generous …”
Rhys halted. Atta, cringing, crept behind his legs.
“What is you want, Mistress?”
“Your faith, your love, your service,” said Zeboim, her voice soft and low. “And get rid of the dog,” she added harshly. “I don’t like dogs.”
Rhys had a sudden vision of Majere standing before him, regarding him with an expression that was grieving, and at the same time, understanding. Majere said no word to Rhys. The path was his to walk. The choice his to make.
Rhys reached down to touch Atta’s head. “I keep the dog.”
The goddess’s gray eyes flashed dangerously. “Who are you to bargain with me, maggot of a monk?”
“You know the answer to that apparently, Mistress,” Rhys returned tiredly “It was you who came to me. I will serve you,” he added, seeing her swell with rage, like the boiling black clouds of a summer storm, “so long as your interests run the same course as my own.”
“Mine do, I assure you,” said Zeboim.
She placed her hands on his face and kissed him, long and lingering, on the lips.
Rhys did not flinch, though her lips stung like salt water in a fresh wound. He did not return the kiss.
Zeboim shoved him away.
“Keep the mutt, then,” she said crossly. “Now, the first thing you must do is locate Mina. I want—Where are you going, monk? The highway lies in that direction.”
Rhys had resumed his trek back to the monastery. “I told you. I must first bury my dead.”
“You will not!” Zeboim flared. “There is no time for such foolishness. You must start upon your quest immediately!”
Rhys kept walking.
A bolt of lightning streaked down from the cloudless heavens, blinding Rhys, striking so near him that it sizzled in his blood, raised the hair on his head and arms. An enormous thunder clap exploded next to him, deafening him. The ground shook and he fell to his knees. Chunks of debris rained down around them. Atta yelped and whimpered.
Zeboim pointed to a huge crater.
“There is a hole, monk. Bury your dead.”
She turned from him with a rustle of wind and a flurry of rain and was gone.
“What I have done, Atta?” Rhys groaned, pulling himself up from the ground.
By the confused look in her eyes, the dog seemed to be asking him the same question.
Rhys buried the dead in the grave provided by the goddess. He worked through the night, composing the bodies to some semblance of peace. Carrying them, one by one, from the dining hall to the gravesite. Laying them in the moist, soft earth. When all were laid to rest, he took the shovel and began to fill in the grave with dirt. The pain in his head had eased with the goddess’s kiss, a blessing he had not even noticed she had granted him until after she was gone.
He was weary in body and spirit, however. No blessing could ease that. Perhaps this weariness accounted for the impression that came to him that his body was one of those in the grave. The clods were falling on top of him. He was being buried underneath them.
Night was nearly over by the time he tossed the last shovelful of dirt onto the mass grave. He said no prayers. He had forsaken Majere and he doubted that Zeboim would be interested.
He needed sleep.
Rhys turned and, summoning Atta, he went to his cell, threw himself onto his mattress, and slept.
He woke suddenly, not to the tolling of the bell, but to its aching absence.
nce the dead were laid to rest, Rhys had to think about the living. He could not start his journey by abandoning the livestock, leaving them to starve or fall prey