Amber and Blood - Margaret Weis [105]
The wind whistled among the rocks, as through rotting teeth, but Valthonis did not hear anything except Mina. It was as if the physical world had dropped out from beneath him, leaving him suspended in the ethers and there was only her voice and the amber eyes that, as he watched, filled with tears.
“I have done evil, Father,” Mina said, as the tears spilled over and slid slowly down her cheeks. “Or rather, I do evil, for I live in all times at once. They say I am a god born of light and yet I bring forth darkness. Thousands of innocents die because of me. I slaughter those who trust me. I take away life and give back living death. Some say I am duped by Takhisis, and that I do not know I am doing wrong.”
Mina smiled through her tears, and her smile was strange and cold. “But I know what I am doing. I want to hear them sing my name, Father. I want them to worship me—Mina! Not Takhisis. Not Chemosh. Mina. Only Mina.”
She made no move to wipe away the tears. “The two who were mothers to me both died in my arms. When Goldmoon was dying, she looked at me from the twilight, and she saw the truth, the ugliness inside me. And she turned from me.”
Mina rose to her feet and ran over to the minotaur. She crouched beside him but did not touch him. She rose and walked over to where the kender’s body lay beneath the green cloak. Reaching down, she carefully replaced a corner the wind had blown askew. Her empty amber eyes shimmered.
“I can fix him,” she said. She stood up and flung her arms wide, encompassing the wounded and the dead, encompassing the blasted temple, the accursed valley. “I am a god! I can make all this as if it never happened!”
“You can,” said Valthonis. “But to do that you would have to go back to the first second of the first minute of the first day and start time again.”
“I don’t understand!” Mina cried, perplexed. “You speak in riddles.”
“All of us would start over if we could, Mina. All of us would wipe out past mistakes. For mortals this is impossible. We accept, we learn, we go on. For a god, it is possible. But it means wiping out creation and beginning again.”
Mina looked rebellious, as though she didn’t believe him, and Valthonis feared for one frightening moment that she was in such pain she might actually try to ease her own suffering by plunging herself and the world into oblivion.
Mina sank to her knees and lifted her face to heaven.
“You gods! You pull at me and tug me in all directions!” she shouted. “You each want me for you own ends. Not one of you cares what I want.”
“What do you want, Mina?” Valthonis asked.
She looked about, as though wondering herself. Her gaze went to the kender, lying broken and lifeless beneath the green cloak. Her gaze went to the unconscious Galdar, loyal friend. Her gaze went to Rhys, who had comforted her when she woke crying the night.
“I want to go back to sleep,” she whispered.
Valthonis’s heart ached. His own tears blurred his vision, choked off his voice.
“But I can’t.” Mina said brokenly. “I know. I have tried. They call my name and wake me …”
She gave a sudden, anguished cry. The tears flooded her amber eyes, so that the Walking God’s reflection seemed to be drowning.
“Make them stop, Father!” she begged, rocking back and forth in her terrible agony. “Make them stop!”
Valthonis crossed the stone floor of the valley of Neraka and came to stand beside his daughter. She knelt before him, clutched at his boots. He took hold of her and raised her up.
“The voices will not stop,” he said. “For you, they will never stop—until you answer them.”
“But what do I say?”
“That is what you must decide.”
Valthonis handed her the scrip Rhys had carried for so long. Mina regarded it, puzzled. Unwrapping it, she looked inside. Her two gifts lay there, the Necklace of Sedition, the crystal Pyramid of Light.
“Do you remember these?” Valthonis asked.
Mina shook her head.
“You found them in Hall of Sacrilege. You were going to give them as