Amber and Blood - Margaret Weis [14]
That, at least, was the gods’ plan.
Unfortunately, with Krell the plan hadn’t worked. In life, Krell had been a traitor, a murderer, a thief. He had duped, deceived, destroyed, and betrayed all who had ever trusted him. Possessed of no great intellect, Krell had relied on low cunning, small-minded trickery, a complete lack of conscience, and brute strength to batter his way through life. Krell was a bully and, as with all bullies, he had lived every day in secret terror and died a screaming, craven coward at the hands of the Sea Goddess, Zeboim, who could never forgive him for having slain her beloved son.
Deeming that his torment had been too brief, Zeboim had cursed Krell, transforming him into a death knight, intending he should suffer for eternity. Instead, to her ire, Krell had actually enjoyed undeath. He wielded lethal power with cruel delight. He became the consummate bully, finding pleasure in tormenting and terrorizing and ultimately slaying those mortals who were either foolish or brave enough to encounter him. And he could inflict his punishment without the constant fear that someone bigger and stronger would do the same to him.
True, Zeboim had continued to be a thorn in his skeletal side, but Krell had finally solved that problem. He had sworn to serve Chemosh, Lord of Death, and in return, Chemosh had offered him protection from the Sea Goddess.
And now all that was gone. Death had been snatched from him by that cursed bitch, Mina. He still couldn’t understand what had happened. He’d been going to snap her neck. It had all seemed so easy. She had fought him with bestial fury and somehow (he wasn’t clear on just how it had happened) she had cursed him by giving him back his life.
Krell was not only alive, he was a prisoner inside his room in Chemosh’s castle, fearful of leaving because of the Beloved who roamed the castle and who were thirsting to kill him in a most unpleasant manner. Krell could hear outside his window the rumbling voices of the gods, but he was far too absorbed in bemoaning his own fate to pay much attention to their clamor.
Krell was strong and brutal enough to hold his own against most humans, but he could not fight the Beloved—those heinous undead beings now roaming the castle wailing for Mina. No weapon could kill the Beloved, at least no weapon that Krell had ever found. He had tried to hack them apart with his sword. He had battered them with his fists and even used his formidable magical power on them to no avail. Hacked apart, they put themselves back together and they shook off magic like a duck shakes off water. And now, the Beloved were capable of killing him. Indeed, they seemed to bear him some sort of personal grudge. He’d been forced to throttle a couple of them on his way here, barely managing to escape with his life. Now they lurked about outside his door, keeping him a prisoner in his own bedroom. All this while, outside his window, the gods raged.
Something about Mina being a god … Krell snorted, thought it over. True she had done this to him, taken away his power, but he was certain Zeboim was behind it. The two females were in this together. It was a conspiracy against him. He’d get back at the Sea Goddess, and that Mina-bitch, as well.
Such were Krell’s brooding thoughts, as he sat in the room, wrapped in a blanket for warmth, for his wonderful, shining, magical armor had vanished. He was thinking with cruel pleasure what he would do to Mina when he finally managed to lay his hands on her when a voice interrupted his blood-drenched day dreams.
“Who’s there?” Krell snarled.
“Your master, you dolt,” said Chemosh.
“My lord,” said Krell, but he said it with a sneer. Once he would have groveled, but he was in no mood to play the toady. Let Chemosh polish his own boots. What had the god done for him? Nothing. Perhaps the Lord of Death had even been in on the