Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [78]
“Maybe the clerics just missed this one,” Rhys suggested.
“I don’t think so,” said Nightshade. He munched his cheese with a thoughtful expression.
“What do you think is going on then?” Rhys prodded, truly interested to hear what the kender had to say. He’d developed a good deal of respect for Nightshade in the past hour.
The kender gazed out over the dark and empty field. “I think Chemosh has no need for dead slaves.”
“Why is that?”
“Because he’s finding slaves among the living.”
“Like my brother,” said Rhys, with a sudden cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. Other than their first conversation in the graveyard, when Rhys had told Nightshade about Lleu and the murders, the two had not discussed it much. The subject was not one Rhys liked to dwell on. Apparently Nightshade had been giving the matter thought, however.
Nightshade nodded. He handed back the remainder of the cheese and Rhys returned it to the scrip, much to Atta’s disappointment.
“How do you suppose Chemosh is doing that?” Rhys asked.
“I don’t know,” Nightshade answered, “but if I’m right, it’s pretty scary.”
Rhys had to agree. It was very scary.
aven was a large city, the largest Rhys had visited thus far. He and Nightshade spent days tramping from place to place, patiently giving a descripion of his brother, searching for someone who had seen Lleu. When they finally found a tavern owner who remembered him, Rhys learned that his brother had not stayed in Haven long but had almost immediately moved on. The best guess was that he’d gone to Solace, the reasoning being that everyone traveling through Abanasinia ended up in Solace. Rhys, Nightshade, and Atta journeyed on.
Rhys had been to Solace with his father when he was a child and he clearly remembered the city, famous in legend and lore for the fact that its houses and shops were built among the branches of enormous vallenwood trees. Its very name conjured up images of a place where the wounded of heart and mind and body could go to find comfort.
Rhys’s childhood memories of Solace were of a town of remarkable beauty and friendly people. He found Solace much changed. The town had grown into a city of noise and bustle, confusion and turmoil, roaring with a loud and raucous voice. Rhys could honestly say that had if it not been for the legendary Inn of the Last Home, he would not have recognized the place. And even the Inn had changed, having grown and expanded so that it now sprawled across the branches of several vallenwood trees.
Because the original dwellings had been built in the treetops, the citizens of Solace had not needed to build walls to protect their homes and businesses. That had worked well in the days when Solace was a small town. Now, however, travelers flowed in and out of the city unchecked, with no guards to ask questions. People of all sorts filled the streets: elves, dwarves, kender by the score. Rhys saw more different races in thirty seconds in Solace than he’d seen in all his thirty years.
He was astonished beyond measure to see two draconians, one male and one female, stroll down the main road with as much confidence as if they owned the place. People went out of their way to avoid the “lizard men,” but no one appeared to be alarmed by their presence, except Atta, who growled and barked at them. He heard someone say they were from the draconian city of Teyr and that they were here to meet some hill dwarves to discuss trade deals.
Gully dwarves fought and scrabbled among the refuse and a goblinish face leered at Rhys from the shadows of an alleyway. The goblin vanished when a troop of guards, armed with pikes and wearing chain mail, marched down the street, accompanied by a parade of giggling small boys and girls wearing pots on their heads and carrying sticks.
Humans were the predominant race. Black-skinned humans from Ergoth mingled with crudely dressed barbarians from the Plains and richly