Amber and Iron - Margaret Weis [96]
Now all Krell had to do was catch Mina in an act of betrayal. He knew from sad experience what happened when you angered a god, and Krell entertained himself, as he sneaked after her, by picturing in vivid detail the torment Mina was going endure. It is amazing how long someone can live after being disemboweled.
As Krell watched Mina enter the grotto, he leaped to the conclusion that she was going to meet a lover. Slipping close, Krell was immensely pleased to hear a man’s deep voice. He was somewhat disconcerted to hear what sounded suspiciously like the shrill voice of a kender as well, but Krell was open-minded. Whatever takes your fancy had always been his motto.
Rubbing his gloved hands in glee, he sidled near the entrance, hoping to hear more clearly. He found, to his disappointment, that the sounds emanating from the grotto were muffled and indistinct. Krell was not worried. It didn’t matter what was truly going on in there. He could always make something up. The jealous Chemosh would be quick to believe the worst. Krell hunkered down outside the grotto and waited for Mina to emerge.
hys lost all sense of time aboard the minotaur ship. The journey through the lashing waves of night, tossed on the storms of magic, seemed endless. Winds wailed in the rigging, sails billowed. The ship heeled precariously. The captain roared, and the crew cheered and shouted defiance into the wind.
As for him, he spent the dark night in prayer. Rhys had quit the god, but his god had refused to quit him. He knelt on the deck, his head bowed in shame and contrition, his cheeks wet with tears, as he asked humbly for the god’s forgiveness. Though the night and the ghostly voyage were terrible, he was at peace.
Day dawned. The ship sailed out of the sea of magic and settled down on calm water. The minotaur captain hauled the quivering kender and the limp dog out of their crates and handed them over to his crew. He looked down at Rhys, who still knelt on the deck.
“You’ve been praying, I suppose,” said the captain with an approving nod. “Well, Brother, your prayers are answered. You made it safely through the night.”
“I did indeed, sir,” said Rhys quietly, and he rose to his feet.
The minotaurs manhandled them into the shore boat, then rowed them onto an unknown landing. Rhys stared down into seawater that was the color of blood. He looked into a sun rising up out of the sea, and realization smote him. During the tumultuous night, their ship had sailed through time and space. They were now on the other side of the continent.
Rhys saw a fortress castle silhouetted against the fading stars, but that was all he saw before the minotaurs lifted him from the boat and dragged him over a wet beach and across sand dunes to the side of a cliff.
Arriving at the site of a rockslide, the minotaurs dumped Rhys and the kender and the dog onto the ground and began to lift up gigantic boulders and hurl them aside. He did not understand their language, but he heard the words “grotto” and “Zeboim” and he had the impression, from their hushed and reverent attitude, that behind the rockslide was some sort of shrine to the sea goddess.
At last, the minotaurs cleared the slide and entered the grotto, leaving Rhys outside with a guard. He heard banging and hammering and the clanking of iron. The minotaurs returned and picked up Rhys and hauled him inside, along with Atta and Nightshade.
Chains dangled from iron rings that had been newly driven into the stone walls. Working by the dim light that managed to straggle inside, the minotaurs chained Rhys and Nightshade to the iron rings, tossed down a small sack of food and a bucket of water, then departed without a word, refusing to answer any of Rhys’s questions.
The chains were attached to heavy manacles at the ankles and wrists and were long enough to allow Rhys and Nightshade limited movement. Each