Amber and Iron - Margaret Weis [66]
The goddess casually knocked aside the kender, who was in her way, and stared about the shadowy room for Rhys.
“Monk, I know you’re here,” she called in a wave-crashing voice that rattled the timbers and set the rats fleeing. “Where are you?”
Her sea green dress frothed around her ankles, her sea foam hair tangled in the wind that whistled through the cracks in the hull. The barkeep gaped. The drunks stared. Lleu, sighting a beautiful woman, leaped up and made a gallant bow.
Rhys, startled beyond measure, rose to meet the goddess.
“I am here, Majesty,” he called out.
Atta ducked between his legs and hunkered there, growling. Nightshade picked himself off the floor. He’d managed, by some nifty acrobatics, to save his lunch, and he stuffed the meat into his pocket.
“I’m here too, Goddess,” he sang out cheerfully.
“Shut up, kender,” said Zeboim, “and you—” She raised a warding hand, pointed at Lleu. “You shut up as well, you disgusting piece of carrion.”
Zeboim focused on Rhys, smiling sweetly. “I have someone I want you to meet, Monk.”
The goddess gestured and, after a moment’s hesitation, another woman entered the tavern.
“Rhys, this is Mina,” said Zeboim casually. “Mina, Rhys Mason—my monk.”
Rhys was so amazed he fell backward, tripping over his staff and stepping on Atta, who yelped in protest. He could say nothing; his brain was in such turmoil it could make little sense of what he was seeing. He had a fleeting impression of a young woman who was not so much beautiful as she was arresting, with hair like flame and eyes like none he’d ever before seen.
The eyes were an amber color and he had the eerie impression that, like amber, they held imprisoned everyone she had ever met. The amber gaze fixed on him, and Rhys felt himself drawn to her like all the others, hundreds of thousands of people caught and held like insects in resin.
The amber seeped around him, warm and sweet.
Rhys cried out and flung up his arm to block her gaze, as he might have flung up his arm to block a blow.
The amber cracked. The eyes continued to confine their poor prisoners, but now he could see flaws, tiny cracks and striations, branching out from the dark pupils.
“Rhys Mason,” said Mina, holding out her hand to him. “You know the answer to the riddle!”
“Him?” Zeboim scoffed. “He knows nothing, Child. Now we really must be leaving. This was a fleeting visit, Rhys, my love. Sorry we can’t stay. I just wanted the two of you to meet. It seemed the least I could do, since I’m the one who commanded you to search the world for her. So farewell—”
Lleu gave a hollow cry, an unearthly wail, and flung himself at Mina. He tried to seize hold of her, but she stepped back out of his way.
“Wretch,” she said coldly. “What do you think you are doing?”
Lleu fell to his knees. He held out his hands to her, pleading.
“Mina,” Lleu cried in wrenching tones, “don’t turn away from me! You know me!”
Rhys stared and Nightshade gaped, his mouth hanging open. Lleu, who did not remember Rhys, remembered Mina.
As to her, she regarded him as she might have regarded one of the rats. “You are mistaken—”
“You kissed me!” Lleu tore open his shirt to reveal the mark of her lips, burned into his flesh. “Look!”
“Ah, you are one of the Beloved,” Mina said, and she shrugged. “You have my lord’s blessing—”
“I don’t want it!” he cried vehemently. “Take it away!”
Mina stared at him, puzzled.
“Take it away!” Lleu shrieked. His hands clawed at her, clawed at the air when he could not reach her. “Take it away! Free me!”
“I don’t understand,” Mina said, and she seemed truly bewildered by his request. “I gave you what you wanted, what all mortals want—endless life, endless youth, endless beauty …”
“Endless misery,” he wailed. “I can’t stand your voice constantly dinning in my ears. I can’t stand the pain that drives me out into the night, the pain that nothing can drown, not the strongest liquor.