Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [87]
Carrying the candle back to the shrine of Zeboim, Rhys placed it in its little wooden boat and gave his thanks to the goddess. He turned his footsteps toward the path that would take him to the Trough.
“Whatever Chemosh is doing in the world, he is not interested in building monuments,” Rhys remarked to himself as he walked past the beautiful temple, all done in white marble, of Mishakal.
He found that thought disturbing, more disturbing than if he’d come upon a group of black-robed priests skulking about inside the temple walls, raising up corpses by the score. The Lord of Death was no longer hiding in the shadows. He was out in the sunlight, walking among the living, recruiting followers like the wretched Lleu.
But to what end? To what purpose?
Rhys had no idea. Once he found his brother, he hoped he would gain answers.
“Rhys, hullo!” Nightshade appeared out of the twilight, came running up to him. “They told me back at the inn where you were going so I thought I’d come with you. Where’s Atta?”
“I left her at the Inn,” said Rhys.
“The people are nice there,” Nightshade commented. “A lot of places won’t let me in, but the lady who runs the Inn—you know, the plump, pretty woman with the red hair—anyway, she told me that she’s partial to kender. One of her father’s best friends was a kender.”
“Were you able to help the widow contact her husband?” Rhys asked.
“I tried.” Nightshade shook his head. “His soul had already passed on to the next part of his journey. If you’ll believe it, she was hopping mad. She said she figured he’d gone off with some floozy. I tried to explain that it didn’t work that way, that his soul was off broadening its horizons. She said ‘broad’ was the right word for it; he’d always been one for the ladies. She’s going to marry the baker and that would fix him. She didn’t give me any money, but she did take me to meet the baker and he gave me a meat-pie.”
The two made their way through the streets, leaving behind the bustling and busy part of Solace and entering into a part that was dark and dismal. There were no shops and only a scattering of tumble-down houses from which dim lights shone. Few people walked in this part of town by night. Occasionally they met some straggler, hurrying along the deserted street, keeping his head low and looking neither to the right nor the left, as if fearful of what he might see. Rhys was just starting to think that perhaps he’d taken a wrong turn, for it seemed they had reached the end of the civilized world, when he smelled wood smoke and saw flickering firelight streaming through a window. Loud voices raised in a bawdy song.
“I think we found it,” said Nightshade.
The original Trough was long gone. It and several later incarnations of the tavern had burnt to the ground. First the kitchen had caught fire. The next time it had been the chimney. Once a band of drunken draconians had set fire to the tavern when confronted with what they considered to be an unreasonable bill, and once the owner had set fire to it himself for reasons that were never very clear. Each time it had been rebuilt, using money said to be supplied by the hill dwarves, for it was one of the few places remaining in Abanasinia where one could buy the potent liquor known as dwarf spirits.
The tavern lurked in the thick shadows of a grove of trees near the edge of the road and had few distinguishing characteristics. Even when Rhys was close to it, he could get no clear impression of the building, except that it was long and low, rickety and unstable. It did boast a single window in the front. The glass for the window must have cost more than the entire building and Rhys wondered why the owner bothered. As it turned out, the window was not there for aesthetic purposes, but so those inside could keep on an eye on those outside and if necessary make a quick dash for the back door.
Rhys placed his hand on the iron door handle, noting it had a greasy feel to it, and leaned down to say in a low voice to