Amber and Blood - Margaret Weis [102]
Rhys smiled. “Those are the very questions you asked of me, Mina, when we first met. The riddle the dragon posed to you. ‘Where did you come from?’ You told me that I knew the answers. I did not know then, but I know now. And so do you, Mina. You know the truth. You have to accept it. You can no longer hide from it. Valthonis is your father, Mina. You are his child. You are a god. A god born of Light.”
Mina went livid. Her amber eyes widened, grew large.
“You lie,” she breathed. The words were soft, barely a whisper.
“Men sang your name, Mina. As did the Beloved. If you kill this man, commit this heinous crime, you will take your place among the Dark Pantheon,” Rhys told her. “The balance will shift. The world will slide into darkness and be consumed. That is what Sargonnas wants. Is that what you want, Mina? You have walked the world. You have met its people. You have seen the misery and destruction and upheaval that is war. Is that what you want?”
Mina’s form altered again and this time she was the Mina of the Beloved, the Mina who had given them the lethal kiss. Her auburn hair was long. She wore black and blood red. She was confident, commanding, and she regarded Valthonis with frowning intensity. Her expression hardened, her lips compressed.
“He killed my Queen!” Mina stated coldly.
She brushed past Galdar, who stared at her with gaping mouth and white-rimmed eyes, his frame trembling in fear. Mina walked over to Valthonis and gazed at him for a long moment, trying to draw him, another insect, into the amber.
He stood calmly under her scrutiny.
Does his mortal mind retain something of the mind of the god? Rhys wondered. Does some part of Valthonis remember that burst of joy at creation’s dawning that brought forth a child of joy and light? Does he remember the searing pain he must have felt upon realizing he had to sacrifice the child for the sake of that very creation?
Rhys did not know the answer. What he did know, what he could see on the elf’s ravaged face, was the grief of the parent who sees a loved child succumb to dark passions.
“Let me help you, Mina.” Valthonis held out his hands to Mina: his bound hands.
She regarded him with scorn, then she struck him a backhanded blow across the face that knocked the elf to the ground.
Mina stood over him. She held out her hand. “Galdar, give me your sword.”
Galdar looked uneasily at the fallen Valthonis. The minotaur’s hand went to his sword’s hilt. He did not draw the weapon.
“Mina, the monk is right,” Galdar said, anguished. “If you slay this man, you will become Takhisis. And that’s not who you are. You prayed for your men, Mina. Wounded and exhausted, you walked the battlefield and prayed for the souls of those who gave their lives for the cause. You care about people. Takhisis didn’t. She used them, just as she used you!”
“Give me your sword!” Mina repeated angrily.
Galdar shook his horned head. “And at the end, when Takhisis had been cast out of heaven, she blamed you, Mina. Not herself. Never herself. She was going to kill you in a spiteful, vindictive rage. That was Takhisis. Spiteful and vindictive, cruel and vicious and self-serving. Nothing mattered to her except her own aggrandizement, her own ambition. Her children hated her and worked against her. Her consort despised and distrusted her and rejoiced in her downfall. Is this what you want, Mina? Is this what you want to become?”
Mina stood regarding him scornfully. When Galdar paused for breath, she said with a sneer, “I don’t need a sermon. Just give me the damn sword, you stupid, one-armed cow!”
Galdar paled, the pallor visible even beneath his dark fur. A spasm of pain wrenched his body. He cast a glowering glance at heaven, then he drew his sword. He did not give it to Mina. Going to the unconscious Valthonis, the minotaur sliced the bonds that bound the elf’s wrists.
“I’ll have nothing to do with murder,” Galdar said with quiet dignity.
Slamming his sword into the sheath, he turned