Amber and Blood - Margaret Weis [104]
The kender did not move.
Mina gave a heart-broken wail and flung herself on the body.
“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!” she cried over and over in a paroxysm of grief.
“Mina …” Rhys mumbled her name through the blood and bone and broken teeth, and her name echoed back from the Lords of Doom.
“Mina, Mina …”
She stood up. The little girl gazed down sorrowfully at Nightshade, but it was the woman, Mina, who gently closed the staring eyes. The woman, Mina, walked over to Galdar. She laid a hand on him and whispered to him. The woman came back to Atta and petted her gently. Then Mina knelt down beside Rhys. Smiling sadly, she touched him on the forehead.
Amber, warm and golden, slid over him.
ina, the woman, sat next to Valthonis on the hard, windswept stone. She was not wearing armor, nor the black robes of a priestess of Chemosh. She wore a simple gown that fell in folds about her body. Her auburn hair was gathered in soft curls at the back of her neck. She sat quietly, watching the Walking God, waiting for him to regain consciousness.
Valthonis finally sat up, looked about, and his expression grew grave. Rising swiftly, he went to tend to the wounded. Mina watched him dispassionately, her face impassive, unreadable.
“The kender is dead,” she said. “I killed him. The monk and the minotaur and the dog will live, I think.”
Valthonis knelt beside the kender and, gently arranging the broken body into a more seemly form, he spoke a quiet blessing.
“Shake off the dust of the road, little friend. Your boots have stardust on them now.”
Removing his green cloak, he laid it reverently over the small corpse.
Valthonis bent over Atta, who feebly wagged her tail and gave his hand a swipe with her tongue. He brushed back the black fur that was covered with blood but her wounds did not appear serious. He stroked her head and then went to see to her master.
“I think I know the monk,” Mina said. “I’ve met him before. I was trying to recall where, and now I remember. It was in a boat … No, not a boat. A tavern that had once been a boat. He was there and I came in and he looked at me and he knew me … He knew who I was …” She frowned slightly. “Except he didn’t.…”
Valthonis raised his head and looked into her amber eyes. He saw no longer the countless souls, trapped bug-like within. He saw in her clear eyes terrible knowledge. And he saw himself, reflected off the shining surface.
“The monk was sitting next to a man … He was a dead man. I don’t know his name.” Mina paused, then said with a catch in her voice, “So many of them … and I didn’t know any of their names. But I know the monk’s name. He is Brother Rhys. And he knows my name. He knows me. He knows who and what I am. And yet, he walked with me anyway. He guided me.” She smiled sadly. “He yelled at me …”
Valthonis rested his hand on Rhys’s neck, felt the lifebeat. The monk’s face was bloody, but Valthonis could not find any injuries. He said nothing in response to Mina. He had the instinctive feeling she did not want him to speak. She wanted, needed, to hear only herself in the deathlike silence of the valley of Neraka.
“The kender knew me, too. When he first saw me, he began to weep. He wept for me. He wept out of pity for me. He said ‘You are so sad’ … And the minotaur, Galdar, was my friend. A good and faithful friend …”
Mina shifted her gaze from the minotaur to the barren, ghastly surroundings. “I hate this place. I know where I am. I am in Neraka, and awful things have happened because of me … And more awful things will happen … because of me …”
She shifted her gaze to Valthonis, looked at him, pleading.
“You know what I mean. Your name means ‘the Exile’ in elven. And you are my father. And both of us—mortal father, wretched daughter—are exiles. Except you can never go back.” Mina sighed, long and deep. “And I must.”
Valthonis walked to over the minotaur. He placed his hand on the strong, bull-like neck.
“I am a god,” Mina said. “I live in all times simultaneously. Though,” she added, a frown