Amber and Iron - Margaret Weis [101]
Rhys was puzzled.
“The answer to the riddle,” Zeboim clarified. “Who is Mina? Where does she come from?”
Rhys sighed and closed his eyes. “In truth, I do not know, Majesty. How could I? Why does it matter?”
Zeboim rose to her feet. Clasping her arms together, her fingers drumming, she began to pace the cavern, her green dress roiling around her ankles.
“Why does it matter? I ask myself the same thing. Why does it matter who brought this irritating human into the world? It doesn’t matter to me. It matters to my brother for some bizarre reason. Nuitari even went so far as to visit Sargonnas to ask him what he knew about Mina. Apparently she had a friend who was a minotaur or some such thing. This Galdar was found, but he was of no help.”
Zeboim gave an exasperated sigh. “The long and short of it is—now all of the gods are exercised over this stupid question. The dragon who started it has vanished without a trace, as though the seas swallowed her up, which they didn’t. I can vouch for this much at least. That leaves you.”
“Majesty,” Rhys said. “I do not know—”
Zeboim halted in her pacing and turned to face him. “She claims you do.”
“She also claims I was wearing the orange robes of Majere when we met. You were there, Majesty. You know I was dressed in the green robes you gave me.”
Zeboim looked at him. She looked at his robes. She looked back to him. She ceased to see him. Her gaze grew abstracted.
“I wonder …” she said softly.
Her eyes narrowed, her focus coming back to him. She crouched in front of him, lithe, graceful and deadly. “Give yourself to me, monk, and I will set you free. This minute. I will even free the kender and the mutt. Pledge your faith to me, and I will summon the minotaur ship, and they will carry you wherever it is in this wide world that you want to go.”
“I cannot pledge to you what I no longer have to give, Lady,” Rhys replied gently. “My faith, my soul are in the hands of Majere.”
“Mina is as good as her word,” Zeboim returned angrily. She pointed at Nightshade. “She will kill both your dog and the wretch of a kender. They will die slowly and in agony, all because of you.”
“Majere watches over his own,” Rhys said. He looked at the staff, propped up against the wall.
“You will let those who trust you die in torment just so you can find salvation! A fine friend you are, Brother!”
“Rhys is not letting us die in torment!” Nightshade cried stoutly. “We want to die in torment, don’t we, Atta! Oops,” he added in a low voice. “That didn’t come out quite right.”
Zeboim rose, majestic and cold. “So be it, monk. I would slay you myself right now, but I would not deprive Mina of the pleasure. Rest assured, I will be watching and savoring every drop of blood! Oh, and just in case you were thinking that this might help you—”
She pointed a finger at the staff, and it exploded in a blast of ugly green flame. Splinters of wood flew about the cavern. One of the splinters sliced the flesh on Rhys’s hand. He covered the wound swiftly, so that Zeboim would not see.
The goddess vanished with a clap of thunder, a gust of rain-laden wind, and a sneer.
Rhys looked down at his hand, at the long, jagged tear made by the splinter. Blood welled from the wound. He pressed the hem of his sleeve over it. All that remained of the staff—the splinter that had cut him—lay on the floor at his side. He picked up the splinter and closed his hand over it.
He had Majere’s answer, and he was content.
“Don’t look sad, Rhys,” Nightshade was saying cheerfully. “I don’t mind dying. Neither does Atta. It might be kind of fun to be a ghost—I could slide through walls and go bump in the night. Atta and I will come visit you in our ghostly forms. Not that I’ve seen many dog ghosts, mind you. I wonder why? Maybe because the souls of dogs have already completed their journeys, and they are free to run off to play forever in grassy fields. Maybe they chase the souls of rabbits. That is, if rabbits have souls—don’t get