Amber and Iron - Margaret Weis [126]
Both of them stared out into the water that was thick with red silt churned up from the floor. The silt swirled about the Tower like tides of blood.
“I can’t see a thing in this murk,” Caele complained.
“Nor can I,” said Basalt, frustrated.
The Tower started to shake again. This time the floor canted in the other direction.
Caele and Basalt were run down by a cascade of furniture sliding across the floor. Both ended up slammed against the wall, Basalt trapped by a desk and Caele pinned by a bed frame.
The shaking ceased. Basalt had the strangest feeling that whatever was causing this upheaval was resting, catching its breath.
He shoved aside the bed frame, and ignoring Caele’s pleas for help, ran back to the window and looked out.
His nose pressed against the crystal, Basalt could see, amidst the swirling muck and bits of seaweed and frantically darting fish, a coral reef that snaked up from the ocean floor. Basalt had often enjoyed looking at this reef, for it reminded him of the formations of the underground world in which he’d lived for so long and which, on occasion, he still missed.
From this vantage point, he should be gazing directly across at the reef.
Now, instead, he stared down at the reef. It was several hundred feet beneath him. He looked up and saw moonlight and stars.…
“Master,” Basalt breathed, and then he howled, “Master! Nuitari! Save us!”
The Tower began to shake again.
ina stood alone on the battlements of the castle of the Lord of Death. An eerie amber glow lit the sky, the water and the land. She was darkness within its center and none could see her, though they were searching. Gods, mortals, all were searching for the reason the earth trembled.
Mina gazed out upon the water. Her love, her longing, her desire flowed from her and became the water. She willed it to be, and the Blood Sea began to boil and bubble. She willed it to be, and the motion of the water grew erratic. Waves crossed and criss-crossed and were flung back on each other.
Mina thrust her hands into the blood-red water and seized hold of the prize, the object of her lord’s desire, the gift that would make him fall in love with her. She shook it loose, then wrenched it from its moorings. Her exertions exhausted her, and she had to stop to rest and recover, then she began again.
The water of the Blood Sea started to slowly swirl around a central point. The Maelstrom—created by the gods to serve forever as warning to mankind in the Fourth Age—returned, moving sluggishly at first, then swirling faster and faster around the vortex that was Mina. Waves crashed against the cliffs, spewing foam and seawater. She felt the salt spray cool on her face. She licked her lips and tasted the salt, bitter, like tears, and the water, sweet, like blood.
Mina raised up her hand, and out of the center of the vortex came an island of black volcanic rock. Seawater poured off the island as it burst from the midst of the maelstrom, the water cascading down shining black crags. Mina placed her prize upon the island, and like a precious jewel on a black salver. The Tower of High Sorcery that had once been beneath the waves now rose above them.
The Tower, with its faceted, crystal walls, caught and held the amber light of Mina’s eyes, as the amber of her eyes caught and held the Tower.
The maelstrom ceased to swirl. The sea calmed. Water ran down the black rocks of the newly born island and poured in sheets down the smooth crystal walls of the Tower.
Mina smiled. Then she collapsed.
The amber glow vanished. Only the light of the two moons, silver and red, gleamed in the walls of the Tower, and these godly eyes no longer winked.
They were wide with shock.
ightshade woke to cold water in his face and a thumping pain in his head. This led him to erroneously conclude that he was a young kender again, back in his bed, being roused by his parents, who had discovered that only a