Amber and Blood - Margaret Weis [28]
Rhys looked intently into the shadows in the direction Nightshade had indicated. Rhys saw nothing, but he could feel eyes watching him and he could hear someone sucking in gasping breaths, as though he or she had run a long distance.
Exertion did not bother the Beloved. Whoever was lurking in the shadows must be a living being. Rhys had assumed the tower to be vacant—after all, it had been dragged up from the bottom of the sea. He started to think his assumption was wrong. Nuitari had built the tower of his magic; he would have almost certainly found a way for his wizards to inhabit it, even though it had rested on the bottom of the ocean.
Rhys looked at Atta, who usually warned him of peril. She was aware of something in the shadows, for she would occasionally turn her head to glare in that direction. The Beloved represented the greatest danger to her, however, and her attention was fixed on them. She barked a sharp warning.
Rhys turned to see the Beloved crowding around the open door. They did not enter, but hesitated, dead eyes watching Mina.
“Keep them out!” she told Rhys. “I don’t want them in here.”
“The brat’s right,” snarled a high-pitched, nasal whine from the shadows. “Don’t let those fiends in! They’ll murder us all. Shut the doors!”
Rhys would have liked nothing better than to obey the command, but he had no idea how the doors operated. Constructed of blocks of obsidian, red granite and white marble, the double doors were four times the height of a man, and must each weigh as much as a small house.
“Tell me how to close them,” he shouted.
“How in the Abyss should we know?” a deeper voice boomed irascibly. “You opened the blasted doors! You shut them!”
But Rhys had not opened the doors. Mina had, and she was too terrified of the Beloved to go back. The Beloved continued to mass around the entrance, but they could not find a way inside, and that appeared to be frustrating them.
“Some force seems to be blocking them,” Rhys called out to the strangers in the shadows. “I presume you two are wizards. Do you have any idea what the force is or how long it will last?”
He heard snatches of a whispered consultation, then two wizards dressed in black robes emerged from the shadows. One was tall and thin with the pointed ears of an elf and the face of a savage mongrel. His hair was ragged and disheveled, his robes were tattered and filthy. His slanted eyes darted about like the head of a striking snake. Once, by accident, the eyes met Rhys’s gaze and immediately slithered away.
The other wizard was a dwarf, short of stature with broad shoulders and a long beard. The dwarf was cleaner than his companion. His eyes, barely visible beneath shaggy brows, were cunning and cold.
Both wizards appeared to have gone through some traumatic ordeal, for the half-elf’s face was bruised. He had a black eye and he had tied a dirty rag around his left wrist. The dwarf’s head was swathed in bloody bandages and he was limping.
“I am Rhys Mason,” Rhys announced. “This is Nightshade.”
“I’m Mina,” said the girl, at which the dwarf gave a perceptible start and stared at her narrowly.
The half-elf sneered.
“Who gives a rat’s ass who you are, twerp,” he said in loathing.
The dwarf cast him a baleful glance, then said, “I am called Basalt. This is Caele.” He was speaking to Rhys, but he kept staring at Mina. “How did you get into our tower?”
“What is the force blocking the door?” Rhys persisted.
Basalt and Caele exchanged glances.
“We think it might be the Master,” Basalt said reluctantly. “Which means he allowed you to come inside and he’s keeping the fiends out. What we want to know is why he let you in here.”
Mina had been staring at the wizards. Her brow furrowed, as though trying to recall where she’d seen them before.
“I know you,” she said suddenly. “You tried to kill me.” She pointed to the half-elf.
“She’s lying!” Caele yelped. “I never saw this brat before in my life! You have five seconds to tell me why you