Amber and Ashes

1

The black palanquin arrived at the city of Staughton early on the morning of the festival known as Spring Dawning. Festivities included a fair, a feast, and the annual Flower Dance. One of the most popular holidays of the calendar, the celebration of Spring Dawning, drew crowds of people to Staughton every year. Even though the day was as yet nothing more than a warm, red streak on the horizon, the gates leading into the walled city, located in the north of Abanasinia, were already jammed with people.

The lines moved fairly swiftly, for the guards were in a good humor, as were most of those in the crowd. Spring Dawning marked the end of cold, dark winter and the return of the sun. The festival was a raucous holiday celebrating life. There would be tippling and dancing and laughter and mild mayhem. The celebrants would wake the next day with aching heads, fuzzy memories, and vague feelings of guilt, which meant that they must have had a wonderful time. Babies born nine months from this night were known as “spring dawning” babies and were considered lucky. There were always a number of hastily made weddings performed after this holiday.

The very nature of the festival attracted all the ne’er-do-wells from miles around—pickpockets, thieves, con artists, whores, and gamblers. The guards knew it was hopeless to try to keep them all out of the city—those they turned away at one gate would try to gain entry at another and eventually they would find their way inside. The Lord Mayor told the guards there was no need to hold up the line by extensively questioning people, making them annoyed and angry when he wanted them to spend money in the city’s market stalls, inns, and taverns. The guards did have orders to turn away all kender, but that was mainly for show. Guards and kender both knew that the kender would be happily swarming over the city by midday.

The winter had been a mild one in this part of Abanasinia, and what with the mild winter and the death of the fearsome Overlord Beryl, there was much to celebrate. Some suggested they should also be celebrating the return of the gods, but most of the city’s inhabitants were ambivalent about that. Staughton had always viewed itself as a righteous city. The people missed the gods when they left the first time during the First Cataclysm, but life went on, and the people grew used to the gods not being around. Then the gods came back and the people were glad to see them return and life went on with the gods much as it had without. The gods left again, during the Second Cataclysm, and this time people were so busy, what with life going on, that they barely noticed. Now the gods were back again and everyone said they were pleased, but really it was all so tiresome, having to close the temples, then open them, close them, and then open them. Meanwhile, life went on.

Staughton was a small town of about two hundred people at the time of the First Cataclysm. It had grown and prospered in the centuries since. Its population numbered around six thousand now and it had overlapped its walls twice, causing them to be torn down, pushed out, and rebuilt. There was the inner part known as Old City and the outer ring known as New City and yet another addition of the city that as yet had no official title but was referred to locally as “newer.” All parts of the city were cleaned up in honor of the day and decorated with bunting and spring flowers. The young people woke early, eager for the fun to start. This was their day to frolic, a day when mamas and papas went conveniently blind to stolen kisses and midnight assignations.

This was the day and this was the mood of the city and its people when the black palanquin hove into view, moving slowly and majestically up the road toward the city. It attracted immediate attention. Those standing in line who first saw it stared in astonishment, then tugged on the sleeves of those standing ahead of them, telling them to turn to look. Soon the entire line of people waiting to enter the city were craning their necks and exclaiming in wonder at the sight.

The palanquin did not join the line but advanced up the road toward the gate. The people stood to one side to let the palanquin pass. An awed and uneasy silence fell on the crowd. No one, from noble knight to itinerant beggar, had seen anything like it.

The curtains that covered the palanquin were of black silk that swung gently with the motion of the bearers. The frame was black, trimmed in gleaming gold skulls. The bearers attracted the most attention: four human females, each standing well over six feet tall and muscular as men. Each woman was identical in appearance to the other and all were beautiful. They wore diaphanous black robes which clung enticingly to their bodies, so that it seemed one could almost see through the thin fabric, that flowed and rippled as they walked. The bearers looked neither to the left nor the right, not even when some drunken youths called out to them. They strode forward, their heavy burden balanced easily on their shoulders, their faces set and cool and without expression.

Those who managed to look past the bearers stared into the palanquin, trying to see the person inside. Heavy black curtains, weighted down with gold bead fringe, blocked the view.

As the palanquin moved past, one man—a cleric of Kiri Jolith—recognized the golden skulls on the side.

“Take care, my friends,” he called out, rushing forward to grab hold of some boisterous children, who were running along behind the palanquin. “Those skulls are symbols of Chemosh!”

Immediately the word flew up and down the line of people that the person in the palanquin was a priest of the Lord of Death. Some people shuddered and averted their eyes, but most were intrigued. No feeling of dread emanated from the palanquin; rather, the sweet fragrance of spicy perfume wafted from the swaying curtains.

The cleric of Kiri Jolith, whose name was Lleu, saw that the people were curious, not frightened, and he was uneasy, uncertain what to do. Clerics of all the gods had been waiting for Chemosh to try to grab the reins of power from Sargonnas. For a year, ever since the return of the gods, the clerics had been speculating as to what bold move he would make. Now it seemed that Chemosh was at last on the march. Lleu could see many in the crowd watching him expectantly, hoping he would make a scene. He kept quiet as the strange bearers strode past him, though he did stare at the curtains intently, trying to see who was inside.

After the palanquin passed, he left his place in line to follow discreetly after it, walking along the fringes of the crowd. When the palanquin reached the gate, the person inside would have to make himself known to the guards and Lleu intended to get a look at him.

Many others had the same idea, however, and the crowd surged forward, filling in behind the palanquin, as people jostled with one another to try to obtain a good view. The guards, having heard the rumors that this had something to do with Chemosh, had sent a runner post haste for the sheriff to ask for orders. The sheriff arrived on horseback to take charge of the situation and question this person himself. A hushed silence settled over the crowd as the palanquin arrived at the gate, and everyone waited to hear from the mysterious occupant.

The sheriff took one look at the palanquin and the females who bore it and scratched his chin, clearly at a loss.

“My lord sheriff,” Lleu said quietly, “if I could be of help—”

“Brother Lleu, I’m glad you’re back!” exclaimed the sheriff, relieved. He leaned down from the saddle for a quick conference. “Do you think this is a priest of Chemosh?”

“That is my guess, sir,” said Lleu. “Priest or priestess.” He eyed the palanquin. “The golden skulls are undoubtedly those of Chemosh.”

“What do I do?” The sheriff was a big, stalwart man accustomed to handling tavern brawls and highwaymen, not six-foot-tall females, whose eyes didn’t move, hauling a palanquin containing a mysterious traveler. “Do I send them packing?”

Lleu was tempted to say yes. The arrival of Chemosh boded well for no one, of that he was convinced. The sheriff had the power to deny entrance to anyone for any reason.

“Chemosh is a god of evil. I think you would be well within your province to—”

,`—to do what?” called out a woman, her voice quivering with indignation “Forbid the priest of Chemosh from entering our city? I suppose this means you will be burning my shrine and turning me out next!”

Lleu sighed deeply. The woman wore the green and blue robes of a priestess of Zeboim. The city of Staughton was built on the banks of a river. Zeboim was one of the city’s more popular goddesses, especially during the rainy season. If the sheriff denied access to a representative of one of the gods of darkness, rumors would fly about that Zeboim would be the next to go.

“Permit them to enter,” Lleu said, adding loudly for the crowd to hear, “The gods of light promote free will. We do not tell people what they can and cannot believe.”

“Are you sure?” asked the sheriff, frowning. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“That is my advice, sir,” said Lleu. “The final decision is, of course, up to you.”

The sheriff looked from Lleu to the priestess of Zeboim to the palanquin. None of them gave him much help. Zeboim’s priestess watched with narrowed eyes. Lleu had said all he had to say. The palanquin stood at the gate, the bearers patiently waiting.

The sheriff stepped forward to address the unseen occupant.

“State your name and the nature of your business in our fair city,” he said briskly.

The crowd held its collective breath.

For a moment, there was no response. Then a hand—a female hand—put aside the curtains. The hand was shapely. Jewels, red as blood, flashed on slender fingers. Lleu caught a glimpse of the woman inside the black palanquin. His mouth gaped, and his eyes widened.

He had never before seen such a woman. She was young, not yet twenty. Her hair was auburn, the color of leaves in the autumn, and it was elaborately arranged beneath a black and golden headdress. Her eyes were amber, luminous, radiant, warm, as if all the world was cold and her eyes the only warmth left to a man. She wore a black dress of some sheer fabric that hinted at everything beneath it and gave away nothing. She moved with studied grace and there was a look of knowing in those eyes, a knowledge of secrets no other mortal possessed.

She was disturbing. Dangerous. Lleu wanted to turn on his heel and walk disdainfully away, yet he stared, entranced, unable to move.

“My name is Mina,” she said. “I have come to your city for the same purpose as have all these good people.” She gestured, to indicate the crowd. “To share in the celebration of springtime.”

“Mina!” Lleu gasped. “I know that name.”

Kiri-Jolith is a militant god, a god of honor and war, patron god of the Knights of Solamnia. Lieu was not a knight, nor was he a Solamnic, but he had traveled to Solamnia to study with the knights when he had decided to dedicate himself to Kiri-Jolith. He had heard from them the stories of the War of Souls, heard their tales of a young woman named Mina, who had led her armies of darkness to one amazing victory after another, including the destruction of the great Dragon Overlord, Malys.

“I have heard of you. You are a follower of Takhisis,” Lleu said harshly.

“The goddess who saved the world from the terror of the Dragon Overlords. The goddess who was most foully betrayed and destroyed,” Mina said. A shadow darkened the amber eyes. “I honor her memory, but I now follow a different god.”

“Chemosh,” said Lleu in accusing tones.

“Chemosh,” said Mina, and she lowered her eyes in reverence. “Lord of Death!” Lleu added, challenging.

“Lord of Endless Life,” Mina returned.

“So that is what he is calling himself these days,” Lleu said scornfully.

“Come visit me to find out,” Mina offered.

Her voice was warm as her eyes, and Lieu was suddenly conscious of the crowd gathered around him, their ears stretched to hear every word. They all looked at him now, wondering if he would accept her invitation and he realized, to his chagrin, that he’d been led into a trap. If he refused, they would think he was afraid to take on Chemosh and they would immediately jump to the conclusion that this must be a powerful god, yet Lieu did not want to talk to this woman. He did not want to be in her presence.

“I have only just returned from a long absence,” Lleu said, temporizing. “I have much work to do. If I can find the time, perhaps I will stop by for a theological discussion with you. I think it would be quite interesting.”

“So do I,” said Mina softly, and he had the feeling she wasn’t talking about theology.

Lleu could think of nothing to say in answer. He inclined his head politely and pushed his way through the crowd, pretending not to hear the snickers and gibes. He hoped fervently that the sheriff would refuse to admit the woman. Going straight to his temple, he stood before the statue of Kiri-Jolith and found solace and comfort in the stern, implacable face of the warrior-god. He grew calm, and after giving thanks to the god, he was able to go ahead with the work that had piled up during his absence.

The sheriff, lost in amber eyes, gave Mina admittance to the city, along with the name of the finest inn.

“I thank you, sir,” she said. “Would you have any objection if I spoke to the people? I won’t cause you any trouble. I promise that.”

The sheriff found himself curious as to what she had to say. “Make it brief,” he told her.

She thanked him and then asked her bearers to lower the palanquin to the ground.

The bearers did so. Mina parted the curtains and stepped out.

The crowd, most of whom had not been able to see her prior to this, marveled aloud at the sight. She stood before them in her cobweb thin black dress, her perfume drifting on a light spring breeze. She raised her hands for silence.

“I am Mina, High Priestess of Chemosh,” she called out in ringing tones, the same that had once echoed across the battlefield. “He comes to the world with a new message, a message of endless life. I look forward to sharing his message with all of you while I am visiting in your fair city.”

Mina returned to her palanquin. She paid the sheriff the tax required of all vehicles for admittance into the city and closed the curtain. The bearers lifted up the palanquin and carried her through the gates. The crowd watched in awed silence until the black palanquin was lost to sight. Then tongues began to wag.

All could agree on one thing—this promised to be a most interesting Spring Dawning.

2

Spring Dawning in Staughton proved to be far more interesting than anyone had anticipated. Word soon spread through the city that a miracle had occurred at the hostelry. As word spread, people began leaving the fair grounds and hastening to see for themselves.

One of the groomsmen was an eyewitness and he was now the center of attention, urged to tell and retell his story for the benefit of those who had arrived late.

According to the groomsman, who was reputed to be a sober and responsible individual, he had been returning from the hostelry’s stables when the black palanquin was carried into the courtyard. The four bearers lowered the palanquin to the ground. Mina stepped out of it. The bearers removed a fancifully carved wooden chest from the palanquin, and at Mina’s behest, carried it to her room. Mina entered the hostelry and was not seen again, though the groomsman lingered in the courtyard on purpose, hoping to catch another glimpse of her. The four female bearers returned to the palanquin. They took up their positions at the front and back of the palanquin and stood there, unmoving.

A kender immediately descended on the bearers and began badgering them with questions. The bearers refused to answer, maintaining a dignified silence. They were so silent, in fact, and so completely oblivious of the kender—when by now any normal person would have given him a box on the ears—that he poked one of the bearers in the ribs.

The kender gasped and poked the woman again.

“It’s solid rock!” the kender cried shrilly. “The lady’s turned to stone!”

The groomsman immediately assumed the kender was lying. Further investigation revealed otherwise. The four female bearers were four black marble statutes. The black palanquin was a black marble palanquin. People swarmed to the hostelry to see the wondrous sight, doing additional wonders for the innkeeper’s business in ale and dwarf spirits.

Despite a torrential rainstorm, the hostelry’s courtyard was soon packed with people, with the crowds overflowing into adjacent streets. The people began chanting “Mina, Mina!” and when, after about two hours, Mina appeared at one of the upper story windows, the crowd went wild, cheering and exhorting her to speak.

Throwing open one of the lead-paned glass windows, Mina gave a brief talk, explaining that Chemosh had returned to the world with new and stronger powers than before. She was constantly interrupted by rumbles of thunder and cracklings of lightning, but she persisted and the crowd hung on every word. Chemosh was no longer interested in going about cemeteries raising up corpses, she told them. He was interested in life and the living, and he had a special gift to offer anyone who would follow him. All his faithful would receive life unending.

“You will never grow older than you are this day,” Mina promised. “You will never be sick. You will never know fear or cold or hunger. You will be immune to disease. You will never taste the bitterness of death.”

“I’ll become a follower!” jeered one youth, one of the inn’s best customers in the dwarf spirit line. “But only if you come down here and show me the way.”

The crowd laughed. Mina smiled at him.

“I am the High Priestess of Chemosh, here to bring the message of the god to his people,” she said in pleasant tones. “If you are serious in becoming one of his followers, Chemosh will see into your heart and he will send someone to you in his name.”

She shut the window and faded back into the room, out of sight. The crowd waited a moment to see if she would return, then some went home to dry out, while others went over to poke and pinch the statues or watch those who trying unsuccessfully to chip at them with hammer and chisel.

Of course, the first thing people did was to rush word of the stone statues to Lleu, the cleric of Kiri-Jolith.

Lleu didn’t believe it.

“It’s some third-rate illusionist trick,” he said, scoffing. “Rolf the groomsman is gullible as they come. I don’t believe it.” He rose from his desk, where he had been writing a letter to his superior in Solanthus, detailing his concerns about Chemosh. “I’ll go expose this charlatan for what she is.”

“It’s no trick, Lleu,” said Marta, cleric of Zeboim, entering the study. “I’ve seen it. Solid stone they are. Black as Chemosh’s heart.”

“Are you sure?” Lleu demanded.

Marta nodded gloomily, and Lleu sat back down again. Marta may have been a cleric for a goddess who was cruel and capricious, but the cleric herself was honest, level-headed, and not given to flights of fancy.

“What do we do?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Marta. “My goddess is not happy.” An enormous clap of thunder that knocked several books from the shelves testified to Zeboim’s perturbed state of mind. “But if we go gawking at the statues like every other person in this city, we will only be lending credence to this miracle. I say we ignore it.”

“You’re right,” said Lleu. “We should ignore it. This Mina will be gone in a day or two. The people will forget about it and go on to some other wonder—a two-headed calf or some such thing.”

He winced as another horrific thunder bolt shook the ground.

“I only wish I could convince her Holiness of that,” Marta muttered, glancing toward the rain-soaked heavens. Shaking her head, she left the temple to return to her own.

Lleu knew his advice was sound, but he found he could not go back to work. He paced about the temple, confused and at odds with himself. Every time he passed the statue of the god, Lieu looked at that stern and implacable face and wished he possessed such determination and force of will. He had thought that once he did. He was distraught to find that perhaps he didn’t.

He was still pacing when there came a knock at the temple door. The cleric opened it to find one of the potboys from the hostelry.

“I have a message for Father Lleu,” said the boy.

“I am he,” said Lieu.

The boy held out a scroll tied up with a black ribbon and sealed with black wax.

Lleu frowned. He was tempted to slam the door in the boy’s face, then realized that word would go around that he was afraid. He was young and insecure. He hadn’t been in Staughton that long and he was working hard to establish himself and his religion in a city that only marginally cared. He took the scroll.

“You have leave to go,” he told the boy.

“I’m to stay, Father, in case there’s a reply.”

Lleu was about to say that there would be no reply, that he had nothing to say to a High Priestess of Chemosh, but again, he thought of how that would look. He tore off the black ribbon, broke the seal, and hastily read through the missive.

“Tell the High Priestess Mina that I would like very much to come to talk theology with her, but that I have pressing matters of my own temple to which I must attend,” Lieu said. “Thank her for thinking of me.”

“I’d reconsider if I were you, Father,” said the potboy with a wink. “She’s a looker.”

“The High Priestess is a cleric and she is your elder,” said Lieu, glowering. “As am I. You owe both of us more respect.”

“Yes, Father,” said potboy, chastened. He scuttled off.

Lieu returned to the altar. The cleric looked again at the face of Kiri-Jolith, this time for reassurance.

The god regarded him with a cold eye. Lleu could almost hear the voice. “I want no cowards in my service.”

Lieu did not think he was being cowardly. He was being sensible. He had no need to bandy words with this woman and he certainly had no interest in Chemosh.

He went back to his study to finish his letter.

The quill sputtered. He spilled the ink. At last he gave up. Staring out at the pouring rain that beat on the roof of the temple like a drummer summoning all true knights to battle, Lieu tried to divest himself of thoughts of amber eyes.

At the hour of moonrise, Lieu stood outside the hostelry. He stared at the marble statues, which shimmered with a ghostly light in the silver moonshine of Solinari. Zeboim had worn herself out, apparently, and taken her fit of pique elsewhere, for the storm had at last abated, the clouds gone, sulking off.

Lieu found the statues profoundly disturbing. He longed to touch one but feared there might still be people watching. He shivered, for the spring night was chill and damp, and looked around. Sounds of laughter and revelry reached him from the fair grounds. There was free ale and a pig roast at the fair grounds and most of the citizenry were attending the festivities. The hostelry was quiet.

Lleu stretched out his hand to touch one of the statues.

The door to the inn opened and he quickly snatched his hand back.

Mina stood in the entrance, a slender figure of darkness against a blaze of firelight.

“Come in,” she said. “I’m glad you changed your mind.”

She did not look like a high priestess. She had changed out of the flowing, tantalizing dress and removed her golden and black headdress. She wore a soft black gown that was open at the front, tied together at her waist with a belt of gold cord. Her auburn hair was simply braided and coiled around her head, held in place by a jeweled pin made of amber. The scent of myrrh hung in the air.

“I can’t stay,” said Lleu.

“Of course not,” Mina said in understanding tones. She stepped aside so that he could enter.

The common room was deserted. Mina turned away from Lleu and started to ascend the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Lleu demanded.

Mina turned to face him. “I have ordered a light supper. I’ve asked that it be served to me in my private room. Have you dined? Will you join me?”

Lleu flushed. “No, thank you. I think perhaps I will return to the temple. I have work to do …”

Mina walked over to him, rested her hand on his forearm, and smiled at him, a friendly smile, ingenuous. “What is your name?”

He hesitated, fearing that even giving her that much information might somehow entrap him.

Finally he answered, “I am Lleu Mason.”

“I am Mina, but you know that. You came here for a theological discussion, and the common room of an inn is hardly a suitable place to debate serious matters, do you think?”

Lieu Mason was a young man in his early twenties. He had blonde hair that he wore in the manner of Kiri-Jolith’s clerics shoulder length, with a central part and straight-cut bangs. His eyes were brown and intense with a restless, seeking look about them. He was well-built, with the muscles of a soldier, not a scholar, which was not surprising. Kiri-Jolith’s clerics trained alongside the knights they served and were notable among clerics in Ansalon for being skilled in the use of the long sword. His grandfather had been a mason, which is how he came by his name.

He looked at Mina. He looked around the inn, though he didn’t see much of it. He smiled faintly.

“No, not very suitable.” Lieu drew in a deep breath. “I will come upstairs with you.”

Mina walked again up the stairs. This time he followed after her. He was gravely courteous, moved to precede her down the hallway and opened the door to the room for her. This was a private dining chamber, with a table and chairs and a fire on the hearth. The table was laid. A servant stood obsequiously in the background. Lleu held Mina’s chair and then took his place across from her.

The meal was good, with roasted meats and bread followed by a sweet. They spoke little during the meal, for the servant was present. When they were finished, Mina dismissed him. They shared a jug of wine, neither drinking much, only sipping at it as they drew their chairs over to the fire.

They talked about Lieu’s family. His elder brother, now thirty-five, had become a master mason, joining his father in the family business. Lleu was the youngest and had no interest in masonry. He dreamed of becoming a soldier and had traveled to Solamnia for that purpose. Once there, he was introduced to the worship of Kiri-Jolith and realized that his true calling was to serve the god.

“You might say the church runs in our family,” he added with a smile. “My grandmother was a cleric of Paladine and my middle brother is a monk dedicated to the worship of Majere.”

“Indeed?” said Mina, interested. “What does your brother think of your becoming a cleric of Kiri-Jolith?”

“I have no idea. His monastery is located in some isolated place and the monks rarely leave it. We have neither seen nor heard from my brother in many years.”

“For many years.” Mina was puzzled. “How could that be? The gods, including Majere, returned to the world only a little over a year ago.”

Lieu shrugged. “According to what I am told, some of these monasteries are so isolated that the monks knew nothing of what was transpiring in the world. They maintained their lifestyle of meditation and prayer despite the fact that they had no god to pray to. Such a life would suit my brother. He was always dour and withdrawn, given to roaming the hills alone. He is ten years my senior, so I never knew him very well.”

Lleu, forgetting himself, had moved his chair nearer to her. He relaxed as the meal progressed, disarmed by Mina’s warmth and her interest in him. “But that is enough talk of me. Tell me of yourself, Mina. There was a time when the whole world talked of you.”

“I went in search of a god,” Mina replied, staring into the fire. “I found god. I kept my faith in my god until the end. There is not much more to be said.”

“Except that now you follow a new god,” said Lleu. “Not a new god. A very old one. Old as time.”

“But . Chemosh.” Lleu grimaced. As he gazed at her, he was consumed with admiration. “You are so young and so beautiful, Mina. I have never seen a woman as lovely. Chemosh is a god of rotting corpses and moldy old bones. Don’t shake your head. You cannot deny it.”

“I do deny it,” said Mina calmly. She reached out, took hold of his hand. Her touch made his blood burn. “Do you fear death, Lleu?”

“I … yes, I guess I do,” he answered. He did not want to think of death at this moment. He was thinking very much of life.

“A cleric of Kiri-Jolith is not supposed to fear death, are you?”

“No, we are not.” He grew uncomfortable and tried to withdraw from her touch.

Mina pressed his hand sympathetically, and almost unknowingly, he tightened his grip.

“What does your god tell you of death and the after-life?”

“That when we die, we embark upon the next part of our soul’s journey, that death is a door that leads to further knowledge of ourselves.”

“Do you believe this?”

“I want to,” he said. His hand clenched. “I really want to. I have wrestled with this question ever since I became a cleric. They tell me to have faith, but…”

He shook his head. He stared into the fire, brooding, still clasping her hand. He turned to her abruptly.

“You are not afraid of death.”

“I am not,” said Mina, smiling, “because I will never die. Chemosh has promised me life unending.”

Lleu stared at her. “How can he make such a promise? I don’t understand.”

“Chemosh is a god. His powers are limitless.”

“He is the Lord of Death. He goes to battlefields, raises up unburied bodies and forces them to do his bidding—”

“That was in the old days. Times have changed. This is the Age of Mortals. An age for the living. He has no use for skeletal remains. He wants followers who are like you and me, Lleu. Young and strong and full of life. Life that will never end. Life that brings pleasure such as this.”

She closed her eyes and leaned toward him. Her lips parted, inviting. He kissed her, tentatively at first, and then passion took him. She was soft and yielding, and before he knew what he was doing or quite how he was doing it, his hands were beneath her robes, fondling warm, naked flesh. He groaned softly, and his kisses hardened.

“My bedroom is next door,” she whispered, her lips brushing his.

“This is wrong,” Lleu said, yet he could not tear himself from her.

Mina put her arms around him, pressed her body against his. “This is life,” she said to him.

She drew him into her bedchamber.

Their passion lasted all through the night. They loved and slept and woke to love again. Lleu had never known love-making such as this, never known such transports of joy. He had never felt so much alive and he wanted his feeling to last forever. He fell asleep in her arms, that thought in his mind. He woke to the dawn—spring dawning. He found Mina beside him, propped up on one elbow, gazing down at him, her hand running gently through his hair on his chest.

He raised up to kiss her, but she drew back.

“What of Chemosh?” Mina asked. “Have you thought of all I have been telling you?”

“You are right, Mina. It does make sense that a god would want his followers to live forever,” Lleu admitted, “but what must I do to obtain this blessing? I’ve heard tales of blood sacrifices and other rites—”

Mina smiled at him. She ran her hand over his bare flesh. “That is what they are—only tales. All you have to do is give yourself to the god. Say, ‘I pledge my faith to Chemosh.’ “

“That is all?”

“That is all. You may even return to the worship of Kiri-Jolith, if you want. Chemosh is not jealous. He is understanding.”

“And I will live forever? And love you forever?” He stole a swift kiss.

“From this day, you will not age,” Mina promised. “You will never suffer pain or know hunger or fall ill. This I promise you.”

“Then I have nothing to lose.” Lleu smiled up at her. “I pledge my faith to Chemosh.”

He put his arm around her, drew her down to him. Mina pressed her lips against his breast, above his heart. He shivered in delight, then his body shuddered.

His eyes flew open. Pain seared through him, terrible pain, and he stared at her in horror. He struggled, tried to free himself, but she held him pinned down, her kiss sucking out his life. His heart thudded erratically. Her lips seemed to feed off it. Pain wrenched and twisted him. He gave a stifled cry and clutched at her spasmodically. He writhed in agony. His heart stopped, then everything stopped.

Lieu’s head lay rigid on the pillow. His eyes stared at nothing. His face was frozen in an expression of unnamed horror. Chemosh stood beside the bed.

“My lord,” said Mina. “I bring you your first follower.”

“Well done, Mina,” he said. Bending down, leaning across the body of the young man, he kissed her on the lips. His hand caressed her neck, smoothed her hair. “Well done.”

She drew away from him, covering her nakedness with her gown.

“What is it, Mina?” he asked. “What is the matter? You’ve killed before, in the name of Takhisis. Are you now turned suddenly squeamish?”

Mina glanced at the corpse of the young man. “You promised him life, not death.” She looked up at Chemosh and her amber eyes were shadowed. “You promised me power over life and death, my lord. If I wanted merely to commit murder, I could go to any dark alley—”

“You have no faith in me, Mina?”

Mina was silent a moment, gathering her courage. She knew he might be furious with her, but she had to take the risk.

“A god betrayed me once. You asked me to prove myself to you. It is now your turn to prove yourself to me, my lord.”

She waited, tensely, for his rage to break over her. He said nothing, and after a moment, she dared look up at him. He was smiling down on her. “As I told you, Mina. You will not be my slave. I will prove myself to you. You will have what I promised. Put your hand on the young man’s heart.”

Mina did as he told her. She placed her hand on the cooling flesh, over the burst heart, over the imprint of her lips, burned black into the flesh.

“The heart will never beat again,” Chemosh intoned, “but life will flow through this body. My life. Endless life. Kiss him, Mina.”

Mina placed her lips on the burned imprint of her kiss. The heart of the young man remained still, but he drew in a deep breath, the breath of the god. At Mina’s touch, his chest rose and fell.

“All will be as I promised him, Mina. He cannot die, for he is already dead. His life will go on unending. I ask only one thing of him in return. He must bring me more followers. There, my love, have I proven myself to you?”

Mina looked at Lleu, who was stirring, stretching, waking. The knowledge came to her that she had not only taken life, she had restored it. She had the power to give everyone in the world life unending. Her power … and that of the god.

She reached out her hand to Chemosh, who clasped her hand in his own. “We will change the world, my lord!”

She had only one question, one lingering doubt. She placed her hand over her own breast, where the mark of Chemosh was black on her white skin. “My lord, my heart still beats. My blood is still warm and so is my flesh. You did not take my life—”

Chemosh did not tell her that it was her life that he loved about her. Her warm, beating heart, her hot, pulsing blood. Nor did he tell her that the gift of unending life she was bestowing on these mortals was not as bright and shiny as it appeared on the surface. He could have given it to her, but then he would lose her and he was not ready to give her up. Not yet. Perhaps, some day, when he had grown weary of her.

“I am surrounded by the dead, Mina,” he said, by way of excuse. “Day in, day out. Like that fool Krell, who will not leave me in peace, but is constantly pestering me. You are a ‘breath of life’ for me, Mina.”

He laughed at his jest, gave Mina a parting kiss, and was gone.

Mina slipped out of the bed. She picked up a comb and ran the comb through her tangled hair, began to slowly and carefully work out the knots.

She heard a rustle behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Lleu sitting up amid the bed clothes. He looked confused and clutched at his heart, wincing as if in remembered pain.

Mina watched him, and combed her hair.

Lieu’s expression cleared. His eyes widened. He looked around again, as if seeing everything anew. He climbed out of bed, walked over to her, bent down and kissed her neck.

“Thank you, Mina,” he said fervently.

He wanted to make love. to her again. He tried to kiss her. Laying down the comb, she turned to face him and put aside his seeking hands.

“Not me, Lleu,” she said. “Others.”

She looked into his eyes that were bright and alert, no longer wondering, no longer restless. She traced a finger over the kiss burned into his skin. “Do you understand?”

“I understand. And I thank you for this gift.”

Lleu caught hold of her hand, kissed it. His skin felt cool to the touch. Not deathly chill, but cooler than usual, as if he’d come from some chill place such as a shaded grove or a cavern. In all other respects, he appeared normal.

““Will I see you again, Mina?” he asked eagerly, as he dressed himself in the robes of a cleric of Kiri-Jolith.

“Perhaps,” Mina answered, shrugging. “Do not count upon it. I have my duty to Chemosh, as do you.”

He frowned, disappointed. “Mina …”

She kept her back to him. Her fingernails tapped impatiently. “Praise Chemosh,” he said, after a moment, and went on his way.

She heard his boots clatter on the stairs, heard him give the innkeeper a boisterous greeting.

Mina picked up the comb and began to patiently ease the tangles from her auburn hair. Chemosh’s words lingered with her, as did his kiss.

He had promised her power over life and death and he had fulfilled his promise. He had kept faith with her.

“Praise Chemosh,” she said softly.

3

Rhys sat amid the tall grass at the bottom of the hill, his staff cradled loosely in his arms, his thoughts drifting skyward, up where the white clouds scudded across the clear blue sky. Spread out on the hill above him, the sheep placidly grazed. Grasshoppers buzzed in the grass around him. Butterflies fluttered from buttercup to buttercup. Rhys sat so still that occasionally the butterflies landed on him, fooled by the burnt-orange color of his home-spun robes.

Rhys was mindful of the sheep, for he was their shepherd, but he did not keep close watch on them. There was no need. His dog, Atta, lay on her belly some distance from him. Her head on her paws, she watched the sheep intently, noting every move each made. Atta saw three starting to stray from the flock, wandering off on a course that would soon take them over the hill, out of her sight. Her head raised. Her ears lifted. Her body tensed. She cocked an eye at her master, to see if Rhys had noticed.

Rhys had seen the errant sheep, but he pretended he didn’t. He continued to sit at his ease, listening to the song of sparrow and goldfinch, watching a caterpillar crawl up a blade of grass, his thoughts with his god.

Atta’s body quivered. She gave a low, warning growl. The sheep were almost at the top of the hill. Rhys relented.

Rhys rose easily, effortlessly to his feet. He was thirty years old. His years showed on his face, which was dark-skinned and weathered, but not on his body. Daily exercise, his rigorous outdoor life, and his simple diet made him strong, lean, supple. He wore his dark hair long, in a single braid down his back. Extending his arm in a sweeping gesture, he gave the command, “Go bye.”

Atta sped up the hillside, her black and white body a blur against the green. She did not head straight for the sheep or even look directly at them. Such a move from an animal that sheep equate with a wolf would have panicked them. Facing away from the sheep, watching them out of the corner of her eyes, Atta flanked the sheep on the right, causing them to veer left, back toward the herd.

Rhys put his fingers to his mouth, gave a piercing whistle. The dog was too far away to hear his voice, but the shrill whistle carried clearly. Atta flopped onto her belly, keeping her eyes on the sheep, waiting for the next command.

Rhys made a fist of his hand, held it between the sun and the horizon line. One fist for every hour between now and sunset. Time to think about returning his flock to the pens in order to be back for supper and the ritual training exercises. He gave another shrill whistle—long, short. This was “away,” the command that sent her to her left.

Atta herded the sheep down the hill, back toward where Rhys stood with his staff. She kept her body in a straight line with the shepherd, balancing his movements with her own, the sheep between the two of them. If Rhys moved left, she moved right. If he moved right, she moved left. Her duty was to keep the sheep in motion, facing the correct direction, making certain they stayed together, and do all this without sending them into a panic-stricken run.

The flock was about half-way down the hillside when Rhys spotted a sheep left behind. It had wandered into a stand of tall grass and he hadn’t noticed it. Rhys whistled again, a different command, one that meant “Lie down.”

Atta slowed her pace. The command was not meant to be taken literally, although sometimes the dog would actually lie down on her belly. In this instance, she came to a halt. The flock slowed their pace. Atta fixed them with her mesmeric brown eyes, holding them, and they stopped.

Rhys whistled again, another different signal. “Turn back,” he commanded.

Certain that the flock would remain where she left them, Atta turned and sped up the hill. She spotted the lone sheep and got it moving, heading back to the flock. Once it was apparent that the sheep would rejoin the herd, Atta urged her flock on toward Rhys.

All was going well until a ram took it into his woolly head to defy Atta. The ram, which was far heavier and several times larger than the small dog, turned around, stamped his hoof, and refused to budge.

Atta crouched, froze in place. She stared at the sheep, her eyes intent. If the ram remained stubborn, she might rush in to give him a nip on the nose, but that rarely happened. The ram lowered his head. Atta began to creep forward at a moving crouch, her eyes fixed on the ram. After a moment’s tense confrontation, the ram suddenly gave way before the dog’s mesmerizing stare and whipped around to join the herd. Atta started them off once again.

Rhys felt the blessings of the god swell within him. The green hillside, the blue sky, the white clouds, white sheep, the black and white dog flying over the grass, the darting swallows, a spiraling hawk, grasshoppers jumping up on his robes; the bright, hot, sinking sun; the feel of grass beneath his calloused bare feet: all was Rhys and he was all. All was Majere’s and the god was all.

The blood flowing warm through his body, his staff lightly thumping the ground, Rhys moved without haste. He enjoyed the day, enjoyed the view, enjoyed his time alone in the hills. He enjoyed going back to his home again in the evening. The granite walls of the monastery stood on a hilltop opposite him and inside those walls was brotherhood, order, quiet contentment.

His routine this day had been exactly the same as that of countless days previous. Majere willing, tomorrow would be no different. Rhys and the other monks of the Order of Majere rose in the dark hour before dawn. They spent an hour in meditation and prayer to Majere, then went out into the stone courtyard to perform the ritual exercises that warmed and stretched the body. After this, they ate a breakfast of meat or fish, served with bread and goat’s milk cheese, with goat’s milk to drink. Lunch—cheese and bread—was eaten in the fields or wherever they happened to be. Supper was onion soup, hot and nourishing, served with meat or fish, bread, and a mix of garden greens and fresh vegetables in the summer, apples and dried fruit and nuts in the winter.

After breakfast, the monks went to their daily tasks. These varied by season. In the summer, they worked in the fields, tended to the sheep, pigs, and chickens, and made repairs to the buildings. Fall was harvest and laying in stores, salting down meat so that it would keep through the long months of cold and snow ahead, packing apples in wooden barrels. Winter was a time for indoor work: carding and combing wool, weaving cloth, cutting and sewing clothes; doing leather work; concocting potions for the sick. Winter was also a time for the mind: writing, teaching, learning, discoursing, discussing, speculating. Majere taught that the mind of the monk must be as quick and supple as the body.

Evenings, no matter what the time of year, were spent in the ritual practice of unarmed combat known as “merciful discipline.” The monks of Majere recognized that the world is a dangerous place and although they practiced and followed Majere’s precepts of peace and brotherhood for all mankind, they understood that peace must sometimes be maintained with force, and that to protect their own lives and those of others, they must be as ready to fight as to pray. Every night—rain or shine, snow or blazing sun—the monks gathered in their outdoor courtyard for training. They fought by waning sunlight in the summer, in darkness or by torchlight in the winter. All were required to attend practice, from the eldest—the Master, who had seen eighty years—to the youngest. The only excuse for missing nightly training was illness.

Stripped naked to the waist, their bare feet slipping on the ice-rimed ground in the winter or the mud in the summer, the monks spent long hours training both body and mind in disciplined combat. They were not permitted to use blades or arrows or any other type of steel weapon, for Majere commanded that his monks must not take life unless innocent lives were in peril and then only when all other options had been tried and failed.

Rhys’s favored weapon was the emmide—a staff that was much like a quarter staff, only longer and narrower. The word, emmide, was elven in derivation; the elves used such a staff to knock fruit from the trees. He had become a master of the art of fighting with the emmide, so much so that he now taught others.

Rhys was content with his ordered life, deeply content, now that Majere had returned to them. He could see himself at eighty years of age—the same age as the Master—looking much the same as the Master: grizzled hair, weather-beaten skin stretched taunt over muscles and sinew and bone, face deeply lined, eyes dark and placid with the wisdom of the god. Rhys never planned to leave this place where he had come to know himself and make peace with himself. He never wanted to go back into the world.

The world was inside him.

Rhys arrived at the sheep pen. The sheep trotted docilely past him and into the fold, with Atta right behind them.

“That’ll do,” said Rhys to the dog.

This was the command that freed her of her charge. Atta wriggled all over in pleasure and came trotting up to him, her tongue lolling, eyes bright. He gave her reward—a pat on her head and a playful fondling of her ears.

Rhys shut the sheep in the pen for the night. Atta joined the other herding dogs, brothers and sisters and cousins, who greeted her with sniffs and wagging tails. She settled down near the sheep fold to gnaw bones and doze, all the while keeping watch on the flock. Resting or sleeping, the dogs served as the guards through the night. Wolves and wildcats were not much of a problem during the summer months, when food was plentiful in the wild. The winter time was the most dangerous. Often the monks were roused from their sleep by the furious barking of the dogs. The monks would rush from their beds to drive the predators away with flaming torches.

Lingering by the sheep pen, watching a mother dog hold down a squealing pup firmly with her paw while she licked him all over, Rhys gradually became aware that something was different. Something had changed. The tranquility of the monastery had been disturbed. Rhys could not have said how he knew this, except that he had lived here so long that he could sense even the most subtle differences in the feel of the place. He left the sheep fold, circled around the outbuildings: the forge, the baker’s large oven, the privies, and storage sheds, and walked within sight of the monastery proper.

The monastery had been built by the monks of Majere hundreds of years ago, and it had changed little during all that time. Simple in design, more like a fortress than a temple, the two story building had been raised by the hands of the monks themselves, constructed of stone they had dug from a nearby quarry. The main building contained the sleeping quarters for the monks on the top story, with a communal dining hall, warming room, infirmary, and kitchen on the bottom level. Each monk had his own cell, furnished only with a straw mattress. Each cell had a window that was open to the air year-round. There were no doors on the cells or any of the rooms. The main building did have a door at the entrance, though Rhys often wondered why they bothered, for it was never locked.

The monks had no fear of being robbed. Even kender would pass the monastery by with a shrug and a yawn. Everyone knew that the monks of Majere had no treasure vaults—not so much as a single pfennig, for they were not permitted to handle money. They had no possessions, nothing worth stealing unless you were a wolf with a taste for mutton.

Walking around the building to the entrance door, Rhys came upon a strange wagon parked outside. It had just arrived, apparently, for its team of draft horses were being unhitched and led off for food and rest and a rub-down by two of the younger monks.

Unhitching the horses was a bad sign, Rhys thought, for that meant the intruders would be staying. He turned on his heel and left, heading back to the monastery. He had no desire to meet these visitors. He was not in the least curious about them. He had no reason to think that these folk had anything to do with him and thus he was startled when he heard a voice call out to him.

“Brother Rhys! Stay a moment. You are summoned to the Master.”

Rhys halted, looking back toward the wagon. The two novice monks, who were leading the horses to the shed, bowed as they passed him, for he was a weapons master, known as a Master of Discipline. He bowed in response then went on. He and the monk who had called to him—who was the Master of the House—bowed to each other simultaneously, to reflect their equal status.

“The visitors are here to see you, Brother,” said the monk. “They are with the Master now. You are to join them.”

Rhys nodded his understanding. He had questions, naturally, but the monks refrained from all unnecessary speech and, since his questions would soon be answered, there was no need to engage in conversation. The two monks bowed again, and Rhys entered the monastery, while the Master of the House, who was in charge of the daily household affairs of the monastery, went on about his duties.

The head of the monastery was known simply as the Master. He had an office off the common area. The office was not private, for it also served as the monastery library and the school room. The windowless room was furnished with several wooden desks of simple, solid construction, and wooden stools. Shelves filled with books and scrolls lined the walls. The room smelled of leather and vellum and ink and the oil that the monks rubbed into the wood of the desks.

The Master was the eldest of the monks. Eighty years of age, he had lived in the monastery for over sixty of those years, having joined at the age of sixteen. Although he answered to the Prophet of Majere, who was the head of all the monks of Majere throughout the continent of Ansalon, the Master had only met the Prophet once, twenty years ago, on the day he had been confirmed as Master.

Twice a year, the Master made a written report on the affairs of the monastery, a letter that was carried to the Prophet by one of the monks. The Prophet sent back a letter acknowledging receipt of the report, and that was the only exchange the two would have until the next letter. There were no comings and goings between monasteries, no exchange of news between one monastery and the next. So isolated were the monasteries that monks in one often had little knowledge of where another was located. Traveling monks were permitted to stay at a monastery, but most chose not to, for when they went out into the world—usually on a personal, spiritual journey, they were commanded to walk among the people.

The monks of Majere were not interested in news of their fellow monks. They had no interest in the politics of any nation, took no sides in any war or conflict. (Because of this, they were often asked to be peace negotiators or to sit in judgment on disputes.) The yearly reports made by the Master were often little more than a notation of deaths among the brethren, a record of those who had newly joined, and a record of those who had gone out into the world. There would also be a brief description of the weather and how it had affected the crops or the harvest, and any additions or changes made to the monastery’s buildings.

Change and upheavals in the outside world had such small effect on the monastery that a letter written by a Master from a monastery in 4000 PC would read similar to one penned by a Master from the same monastery centuries later.

Rhys arrived in the office to find three people in the room with the Master—a middle-aged man and woman, who looked distressed and uncomfortable; and a young man, wearing the robes of a cleric of Kiri-Jolith, who was smiling, at ease. Rhys paused in the doorway. He had the impression that there was something familiar about these people, that he knew them. Rhys waited in silence for the Master to notice him.

The Master’s long gray hair fell over his shoulders. His face was wrinkled as a winter apple, with high cheek bones, strong jaw and prominent nose. His eyes were dark and penetrating. He was a Master of Discipline and there was not a monk in the monastery, including Rhys, who could best him in combat.

The Master was listening patiently to the middle-aged man, who was talking so fast that Rhys could not make out the jumble of words. The woman stood silently by, nodding her head in agreement, and sometimes casting an anxious glance at the young man. The older man’s voice and way of speaking was also familiar to Rhys. Finally, the Master glanced his way and Rhys bowed. The Master’s eyes flickered in response. He continued to give his full attention to his visitors.

At last the elder man paused for breath. The woman dabbed at her eyes. The young man yawned and looked bored. The Master turned to Rhys.

“Honored One,” Rhys said, bowing deeply to the Master. He bowed again to the strangers. “Fellow travelers.”

“These are your parents,” said the Master without preamble, answering the question Rhys had not asked. “And this is your younger brother, Lleu.”

4

Rhys turned his calm gaze upon them. “Father, Mother,” he said politely. “Lleu.” He bowed again.

His father’s name was Petar, his mother’s Brandwyn. His brother, Lleu, was a little child when he left home.

His father’s face flushed red in anger. “After fifteen years, is that all you have to say to your own parents?”

“Hush, Petar,” soothed his mother, resting her hand on her husband’s arm. “What should Rhys say? We are strangers to him.”

She smiled tenuously at Rhys. She was not angry, like his father, only weary from the journey, and distraught over whatever troubles had brought her all this distance to seek out a son she barely remembered, a son she had never understood.

Bran, her first born, had been her darling. Little Lleu, her pet. Rhys was the middle child who never quite fit in. He was the quiet child, the child who was “different.” He even looked different, with his dark eyes and black hair and slender, wiry body; a stark contrast to his blonde, big-boned brothers.

His father glanced at Rhys from beneath lowering brows. Rhys met his gaze steadily and his father lowered his eyes. Petar Mason, who was gray-haired now, but who had been a tow-head in his youth, had never been comfortable around Rhys. Although Petar adored his wife, perhaps there was some lingering doubt inside him, maybe not even recognized, that this middle son, who was so very different from the other two, was not actually his progeny. Rhys was obviously his mother’s son, for he took after her side of the family. His uncles were all dark, wiry men. He had nothing in him of his father. For all that, his mother found it difficult to love the child, who rarely spoke, never laughed.

Rhys held no animosity toward his parents. He understood. He’d always understood. He waited in patient silence for them to explain the reason for their visit. The Master also waited in silence, for he had said all that was necessary. Rhys’s mother looked anxiously at his father, who was flustered, unnerved. The silence grew uncomfortable, at least for the visitors. The monks sometimes went for days without speaking, and neither the Master nor Rhys were bothered. It was his younger brother who finally spoke.

“They want to talk about me, Rhys,” Lleu said in an easy, overly familiar tone that was jarring. “And they can’t do that with me here. I’ll go take a walk around the grounds. With your permission, of course,” he added, turning with a grin to the Master. “Though I don’t suppose you lot have much to hide. Any chance of your Bug God finding me a glass of dwarf spirits?”

“Lleu!” exclaimed his father, aghast.

“Guess not.” Lleu winked at Rhys and sauntered out of the library, whistling a bawdy tune.

Rhys and the Master exchanged glances. Majere was known as the Mantis God by some, for the praying mantis was sacred to Majere and used by the god as his symbol, the mantis appearing to be always in the aspect of prayer, keeping still and quiet, but with the capacity to swiftly attack its prey. The young man was, by his attire, a cleric of Kiri-Jolith. He was certainly not acting like a cleric of Kiri-Jolith, who was stern and serious and would not countenance such sacrilege as referring to Majere as the “Bug God.”

“I am sorry, Master,” said Petar, the red color in his face deepening, except that now it was from embarrassment, not anger. He wiped his face with his sleeve. “No son of mine was brought up to speak to clergy in that tone. You know that, Rhys.”

Rhys did know it. His father, whose mother had been a cleric of Paladine, had always been deeply respectful of the gods and any man of god. Even in the days when the gods were gone, Petar had taught his boys to keep them in their hearts.

“Lleu’s changed, Rhys,” said Brandwyn, her voice trembling. “That’s why we came here. We … we don’t know him anymore! He spends his time in the taverns, drinking and carousing and hanging out with a group of young ruffians and whores. Forgive me, Father,” she added, blushing, “for speaking of such things.”

The Master’s dark eyes flickered with amusement. “We monks of Majere take vows of chastity, but we are not ignorant of life. We understand what goes on between a man and a woman, and in most instances, we approve of it. We would soon run out of monks otherwise.”

Rhys’s parents did not seem to know what to make of this speech. They found it vaguely shocking.

“Your son is, by his attire, a cleric of Kiri-Jolith,” the Master observed.

“Not for long,” Petar said heavily. “The clerics cast him out. He broke too many of their laws. He should not be wearing those robes now, but he seems to take pleasure in making a fool of himself.”

“We don’t know what to do,” Brandwyn added with a catch in her throat. “We thought maybe Rhys could talk to him …”

“I doubt I will have much influence on a brother who obviously has no memory of me,” said Rhys mildly.

“It can’t hurt,” said his father, starting to grow angry again. “Please, Rhys,” his mother begged. “We are desperate. We have nowhere else to turn!”

“Of course, I will speak to him,” said Rhys gently. “I just wanted to warn you not to expect too much. But I will do more than speak to him. I will pray for him.”

His parents looked relieved, hopeful. The Master offered them a room for the night and invited them to share the monks’ simple evening meal. His parents accepted gratefully and went to the room to rest, worn out from the trip and their anxiety.

Rhys was about to depart in search of his brother, when he felt a touch upon his spirit, as clear to him as a touch on the arm.

“Yes, Master?” he said.

“Lleu is his own shadow,” said the Master.

Rhys was startled, troubled. “What do you mean, Honored One?”

“I don’t know,” said the Master, his brow puckering. “I am not certain. I have never seen the like. I must think this over.” He turned his gaze on Rhys, and it was serious, penetrating. “Speak to him, Brother, by all means. But be careful.”

“He is a young man and full of high spirits, Master,” said Rhys. “The life of a cleric is not for everyone.”

“There is more to it than that,” the Master cautioned. “Much more. Be careful, Rhys,” he said, and it was unusual for him to speak Rhys’s name. “I will be at my prayers, if you have need of me.”

The Master sat down, legs crossed, on the floor of the office. Resting his hands on his knees, he closed his eyes. A look of peaceful repose came over the old man’s face. He was with the god.

Majere had no formal places of worship, no temples filled with pews, no altars. The world is the temple of Majere, the sky his grand vaulted ceiling, the grassy hills his pews, the trees his altars. One did not seek the god inside a formal setting but looked inward, wherever one was.

Rhys left the Master to his prayers and went out to find his brother. He saw no sign of him, but hearing the dogs barking, Rhys headed in that direction. As he rounded the corner of the storage shed, the sheep fold came into view and there was his brother.

The sheep were all huddled together at the far end of the pen. Atta stood between Lleu and the sheep. The dog’s ears were back, her tail moving slowly side to side, legs rigid, teeth bared.

“Foul beast!” Lleu cursed at her. “Get out of my way!”

He aimed a savage kick at the dog. Atta made a light leap sideways, easily avoiding the man’s boot. Furious, Lleu struck at her with his hand.

Atta snapped and Lleu let out a yelp. He jerked his hand away, staring angrily at a red slash that ran across the back.

“Atta, lie down,” Rhys ordered.

To his astonishment, Atta remained standing, brown eyes fixed on Lieu. The dog growled. Her lip curled.

“Atta, down!” Rhys said again, sternly.

Atta dropped onto her belly. She knew by his unusually loud tone that Rhys was displeased. The dog cast her master a pleading glance as though to say, “You wouldn’t be angry if you understood.” She shifted her watchful gaze back to Lleu.

“That demon dog attacked me!” Lleu yelled, his face twisted in a scowl. He held one hand over his injured hand, cradled it. “The beast is vicious. It should have its throat cut.”

“The dog’s job is to protect the sheep. You should not have been bothering them, nor should you have tried to kick her or hit her. That nip was a warning. Not an attack.”

Lleu glowered at the dog, then muttered something and looked away. Atta continued to watch him warily, and the other dogs were roused and stood on the alert, hackles raised. The mother dog snapped at her pups, who wanted to play, letting them know that this was a time to be serious. Rhys found the reaction of the dogs odd. One would have thought the wolf was on the prowl.

He shook his head. This was not a propitious beginning to a confiding conversation between two brothers.

“Let me take a look at where she bit you,” Rhys offered. “The infirmarer has salve we can put on it to keep it from putrefying, although generally dog bites heal quite cleanly. More cleanly than human bites.”

“It’s nothing,” said Lleu in sulky tones. He continued to press his hand over the wound.

“Her teeth are sharp,” said Rhys. “The cut must be bleeding.”

“No, really. It’s just a scratch. I overreacted.” Lieu thrust his hands into the sleeves of the clerical robes he no longer had a right to wear. He added, with a grimace, “I suppose Father sent you out to lecture me on my sins.”

“If he did, he will be disappointed. It is not up to me to tell another how to live his life. I will give advice, if my council is sought, but that is all.”

“Well, then, brother, your council is not sought,” said Lleu. Rhys shrugged, accepting.

“What do you fellows do for fun around here?” Lleu asked, casting a restless glance around the compound. “Where’s the wine cellar? You monkish types all make your own wine, or so I hear. Let’s go split a bottle.”

“What wine we do make we use for medicinal purposes,” said Rhys, adding, as Lleu rolled his eyes in disgust, “I seem to remember that you enjoyed hearing tales of battle and warriors when you were small. As a cleric of Kiri-Jolith, you are a trained warrior. Perhaps you would be interested in learning some of our methods of combat?”

Lleu’s face brightened. “I have heard that you monks have an unorthodox style. You don’t use weapons, just your hands. Is that true?”

“In a way,” said Rhys. “Come with me to the fields. I will demonstrate.”

He made a gesture to Atta, dismissing her from duty, sending her back to join the pack. Lleu joined him and they headed for the compound. Rhys heard the soft patter of feet behind him and turned his head.

Atta was following him. Again, she had disobeyed his command.

Rhys halted. He said no word, only frowned, so that she could see by his expression that he was not pleased. He made an emphatic gesture, pointing at the pen.

Atta held her ground. Her brown eyes met his. She knew she was disobeying him. She was asking him to trust her.

Rhys recalled another instance when he and Atta had been searching for a lost sheep in the midst of a thick fog. He had ordered her to go downhill, thinking the animal would take the easiest route. Atta had refused, stubbornly insisted on going up the hill. He had trusted her and she had been right.

Lleu was laughing. “Who’s trained who?” he asked with a sly grin.

Rhys glanced at Lieu, recalled the Master’s remark. Lleu is his own shadow. Rhys still did not understand, but perhaps Atta could see more clearly through the fog than he.

Rhys made the gesture that brought the dog to heel. He reached down and touched Atta lightly on the head, letting her know all was well.

She thrust her nose into his palm, then fell back a pace, trotting along quietly at his heel.

“You wear a sword, I see,” Rhys said to his brother. “Are you skilled in its use?”

Lleu launched into an enthusiastic account of training with the Solamnic knights. Rhys watched his brother talk, observing him closely, only half-listening to his words, trying to see what the Master and Atta saw. He realized, as they walked, that he had already sensed something was wrong with Lleu. Otherwise, he would not have been taking him to the fields to show him the art of benevolent discipline. Rhys could have taken his brother to the practice yard, where the monks trained, but he’d chosen not to.

The practice yard was not a sacred place, except as all places are sacred to Majere, nor was it secret. Yet Rhys felt more at ease with his brother out in the open, away from the monastery. Shadow or not, Lleu was a disturbing influence, one that perhaps would be dissipated in the freshening breeze, beneath the clear sky.

“It is true that we do not use weapons made of steel,” Rhys explained, in answer to the earlier question. “We do use weapons, however, those that nature and Majere provide.”

“Such as?” Lleu challenged.

“This, for example.” Rhys indicated his emmide.

“A stick?” Lleu cast a scathing glance at the long, slender wooden shaft. “Against a sword? Not a chance in the Abyss!”

“Let us try,” said Rhys. He gestured to the long sword his brother wore at his side. “Draw your weapon and come at me.”

“This is hardly fair…” Lleu protested. He gestured to the two of them. “We’re the same height, but I outweigh you. I’m bigger through the shoulders, more muscular. I might hurt you.”

“I will risk it,” said Rhys.

Dark-avised, slender, he did not carry any spare flesh. He was bone and sinew and muscle, whereas he could see the tell-tale signs left on his brother by his dissipated life. Lieu’s muscle were flaccid, his face an unhealthy, pasty color.

“All right, then, brother.” Lleu grinned. “But never say I didn’t warn you—especially when I slice your arm off.”

Relaxed and confident, Lleu drew his long sword and took up a warrior’s stance, the blade in his right hand. Atta had been lying on the ground in the shade of a tree. Seeing the man about to attack her master, she growled and rose to her feet.

“Atta, sit,” Rhys commanded. “All is well,” he added in reassurance.

Atta sat, but she obviously wasn’t happy, for she did not doze, as she would have done if he’d been out here practicing fighting technique with another monk. She remained awake, alert, her gaze fixed on her master. Rhys turned his attention back to his brother. Seeing Lleu holding the sword, Rhys recollected the dog bite. He looked with concern at his brother’s hand, hoping it wasn’t giving him too much pain.

Lleu had struck at Atta with his right hand, the hand holding the weapon. Rhys could see quite clearly the marks made by Atta’s teeth. The dog had not bitten the man hard, just enough to make him think twice about accosting her. Still the wound looked deep, though it had not bled much, apparently, for there were no blood-stains on the skin or on the sleeve of his robe. Rhys could not see the wound well, for his brother’s hand kept moving, but he noted that it had a peculiar appearance, more like a bruise than a slash, for the wound was a strange color of bluish purple.

Rhys was so puzzled by this that he kept staring at the wound, rather than watching his brother, and he was taken by surprise when Lleu made a sudden rush at him, bringing the sword down in a slashing motion, meant to cleave through helm or skull and finish the fight in a hurry.

Lleu threw all his strength in the blow. Rhys, holding the emmide in both hands, lifted the staff above his head to meet the sword. The blade struck the emmide. The staff held, though the impact of the shattering strike jarred Rhys’s arms and sent vibrations resonating throughout his body. He could feel the force of the blow in his teeth. Rhys had misjudged his brother, apparently. Those muscles were not so flabby as they appeared.

Lieu’s face twisted in a snarl. His arm muscles bulged, his eyes gleamed. He had expected his blade to chop the fragile stick into kindling and he was angry and frustrated that his attack had been thwarted. He lifted the sword over his head, intending to strike at the staff again.

Rhys lashed out with his bare feet; first one, then the other, striking Lleu in the solar plexus.

Lleu groaned and crumpled, dropping his sword.

Rhys stepped back, waiting for his brother to recover.

“You hit me with your feet!” Lleu gasped, slowly straightening, massaging his gut.

“I did,” said Rhys.

“But …” Lleu floundered. “That’s not fair!”

“Perhaps not in a knight’s tourney,” Rhys agreed politely. “But if I am fighting for my life, I will use every weapon at my disposal. Pick up your sword. Have another go at me if you like.”

Lleu snatched up his blade and flung himself at Rhys. The sword’s blade flashed red in the waning sunlight. Lleu thrust and stabbed, fighting with more force than skill, for he was a cleric, who had only lately come to swordsmanship, not a knight who had been in training most of his life.

Rhys was not in any danger. He could have ended the fight almost before it started with a jab to the gut, a thump to the head, or another well-placed kick. He did not want to hurt his brother, but he soon saw that Lleu was under no such constraint. Lieu was outraged, wounded in both pride and body. Patiently, Rhys parried Lieu’s blows, which were becoming increasingly wild and desperate, and watched for his chance.

Ducking beneath one of Lieu’s arcing slashes, Rhys thrust the emmide between Lieu’s legs, tripping him. His brother came down hard on his backside. He held onto his sword, but a twitch of the emmide sent the weapon flying through the air to land in the grass near Atta.

Lieu cursed and scrambled to his feet.

“Atta, guard,” Rhys commanded, pointing at the sword.

The dog jumped to her feet, positioned herself in front of the weapon.

Lieu’s hand darted to his belt. Pulling a knife, he lunged at the dog.

Rhys seized hold of the hand gripping the knife and squeezed Lieu’s forearm, pressing his fingers deep into the soft parts of the wrist.

Lieu’s hand went suddenly limp. The knife fell to the ground. Rhys bent down, picked up the knife, and thrust it into his own belt.

“The paralysis is only temporary,” Rhys advised his brother, who was staring at his hand in dumb-founded astonishment. “The feeling will return to your fingers in a few minutes. This was a friendly contest. Or so I thought.”

Lleu scowled, then looked ashamed. Nursing his useless hand, he backed off, away from the dog.

“I just meant to scare the flea-bitten cur, that’s all. I wouldn’t have hurt it.”

“That much is true,” Rhys said. “You would not have harmed Atta. You would now be lying on the ground with your throat torn out.”

“I got carried away, that’s all,” Lleu continued. “I forgot where I was, thought I was on the field of battle.” He added stiffly, “May I have my sword and my knife back? I promise I’ll restrain myself.”

Rhys handed over the knife. Retrieving the sword from the watchful dog, he gave it to his brother, who took hold of it with his left hand. Lleu eyed it, frowning. “I still think I should have cut through that stick of yours. Damn blade must be dull. I’ll have it sharpened when I return home.”

“There is nothing wrong with the blade,” said Rhys.

“Bah! Of course, there is!” Lleu said, scoffing. “You can’t tell me that twig stood up to a long sword!”

“This ‘twig’ has gone up against countless swords for five hundred years,” Rhys replied. “See these tiny nicks?” He held up the stick for Lleu to examine. “Those were made by sword and mace and all manner of steel weapons. None broke it or even harmed it much.”

Lleu looked put out. “You might have told me the blasted stick was magic. No wonder I lost!”

“I didn’t know it was a question of winning or losing,” Rhys returned mildly. “I thought I was demonstrating a fighting technique.”

“Like I said, I got carried away,” Lleu muttered. He wiggled his right hand. He could the move the fingers now and he thrust his sword back into the scabbard. “I think that’s enough demonstrating for today. When do you eat around here? I’m starved.”

“Soon,” said Rhys.

“Good. I’ll go wash up. I’ll see you at supper.” Lleu turned away, then thought of something else and turned back. “I heard that you monks live on nothing but grass and berries. That’s not true, I hope?”

“You will have a good meal,” Rhys assured him.

“I’ll hold you to that!” Lleu waved at him and walked off. Apparently all was forgotten, forgiven.

Lleu even paused to apologize to Atta, scratch her on the head. The dog submitted to his touch, but only after a nod from Rhys, and she shook herself all over the moment Lleu departed, as though to remove any trace of him. Trotting over to Rhys, she pressed her muzzle against his leg and looked up at him with her expressive brown eyes.

“What is it, girl?” Rhys asked, frustrated. He rubbed her behind the ears. “What have you got against him, besides the fact that he is young and feckless and thinks far too well of himself? I wish you could let me know what you are thinking. Still, there is a reason the gods made animals dumb.”

Rhys’s troubled gaze followed the figure of his brother, strolling over the meadow. “We could not bear to hear the truths you might tell us.”

5

Rhys did not immediately return to the monastery. He and Atta walked to the stream that provided water for both man Atta and beast and sat down on the grass beneath the willow trees. Atta rolled over on her side and went to sleep, worn out from the rigors of a day spent guarding first sheep and then her master. Sitting cross-legged on the bank, Rhys closed his eyes and gave himself to the god, Majere. The sighs of the wind through the willow branches and the soft evening song of the finches mingled with the chuckling laughter of the stream to soothe away worried speculation about his brother’s odd behavior.

Despite the fact that he had not lectured his brother and instantly turned his life around, as his father had hoped would happen, Rhys did not feel he had failed. The monks of Majere do not view life in terms of success and failure. One does not fail at a task. One merely does not succeed. And since one is always striving for success, so long as one continues striving, one can never truly fail.

Nor did Rhys resent his parents thrusting this responsibility upon him—a son they had likely given no thought to for fifteen years. He could see they were desperate. He did feel badly in that he was going to have to tell them there was nothing he could do. He would speak to the Master first, of course, but Rhys knew what the elderly monk would tell him. Lleu was an adult. He had chosen his own path to walk. He might be persuaded through wise counsel and example, but if that didn’t change him, no one had the right to bar his way or shove him off the path or force him to shift direction, even if that path was self-destructive. Lleu had to make the choice to change, otherwise he would soon be back on the same road. So Majere taught, and so the monks believed.

The bell rang, announcing the supper hour. Rhys did not move. Monks were required to be present at breakfast, where any business relating to the monastery was discussed. The supper hour was informal and those who preferred to continue to meditate or work were permitted to do so. Rhys knew he should attend, but he was loathe to leave his peaceful solitude.

His brother and parents would be there and they would expect him to sit with them. The meeting would be an uncomfortable one. They would want to talk to him about his brother, but they would feel reluctant to discuss Lleu in the presence of the other monks. And so their conversation would be limited to family matters: his father’s business concerns, his mother’s news of the birth of her latest grandchild. Since Rhys knew nothing about any of this, and truthfully did not care, he would have nothing to contribute. They would not be particularly interested in his life. Talk would falter and eventually die off into strained silence.

“I am better employed here,” Rhys said to himself.

Rhys remained with his god, the two of them joined, the mind of the human freeing itself from the body to touch the mind of the deity, a touch the Master likened to the tiny, flailing hand of a newborn babe finding and tightly clutching at one finger of the enormous hand of his father. Rhys presented his concerns about Lleu to Majere, allowing his many questions to sift through his mind and that of the god, hoping to find answers, hoping to find some way to help.

He sank so deeply into his meditative state that he lost all track of time. Gradually, a nagging twinge, like the beginnings of a toothache, became annoying enough that he was forced to pay attention to it. Feeling true reluctance and sadness at being forced to return to the world of men, he parted from the god. He opened his eyes, sensing that something was wrong.

At first, he could not think what. Everything seemed right enough. The sun had set, darkness had fallen. Atta slept peacefully on the grass. No barking dogs, no alarm from sheep fold or barn, no smell of smoke that would have indicated a fire. Yet something was wrong.

Rhys jumped to his feet, his sudden movement startling Atta, who flopped over onto her belly, ears pricked, eyes wide.

Then Rhys knew. The bell for the weapons practice had not rung.

Rhys doubted himself a moment. His inner clock might well have been thrown off by his deep meditative state. Yet a glance at the position of the moon and the stars confirmed his reckoning. In all the fifteen years he’d lived at the monastery and in all the years the monastery had been in existence, the bell for practice had rung nightly at the same hour without fail.

Fear gripped Rhys. Routine was an important part of the discipline practiced by the monks. A break in routine might be commonplace anywhere else. A break in the monk’s routine was shattering, catastrophic. Rhys picked up his emmide and he and Atta returned to the monastery at a run. He had well-developed night vision from having to practice with his weapons in pitch darkness during the winter months, and he knew every inch of ground. He could have—and once did—find his way back home through a dense fog in the blackest night. This evening, Solinari’s silver light brightened the dark sky and the stars added their own pale radiance. He could see the way clearly.

He almost ordered Atta back to the sheep fold. He decided, as the command was on his lips, to keep her with him, at least until he knew what was wrong.

He arrived back at the monastery grounds to find all peaceful and quiet—a bad sign. The monks should have been in the compound, either listening to one of the masters as he demonstrated a technique or practicing with their partners. He should be hearing the sound of thwacks from emmide and quarter staff, the grunts of exertion, the thuds as one partner felled another. And all the time, the voices of the masters chiding, correcting, praising.

Rhys looked swiftly about. Yellow light streamed from the windows of the dining hall where the monks took their meals. That in itself was all wrong. At this time of the night, the lights were doused, the tables scrubbed down, wooden trenchers and crockery, kettles and pans cleaned and ready for tomorrow’s breakfast. Rhys headed in that direction, hoping for some logical explanation. The thought came to him that the Master might be talking to his family and that he might have kept the other monks from their practice because he required their assistance. Such an occurrence was completely out of the norm, but not out of the realm of possibility.

The main door led to the monastery’s common room. Rhys saw through the windows that it was dark, as it would be this time of night. He shoved open the door and was about to enter when Atta made a strange sound—a kind of frightened whimper. Rhys looked down at her, concerned. The two had worked together for five years and he’d never heard her make that sound. She stared into the darkened room. Her body shivered and she whimpered again.

Something terrible lay ahead. Not outlaws or marauders or thieves. Not a bear bumbling into the building, as had once happened. The dog would know how to react to that. This was something she didn’t understand, and it was terrifying.

He took a slow and cautious step inside.

All was quiet. No voice rose and fell in wise counsel. No voices could be heard at all. A foul smell, as of a sick room, hung in the air.

Rhys’s instinct was to rush in to see what had happened. Discipline and training overrode this impulse. He had no way of knowing what lay ahead. He gestured to Atta to “walk up” and she slowed her pace, dropped into a crouch, and crept along at his side. Rhys gripped his emmide and moved stealthily into the common room, his bare feet making no sound.

The common room opened into the dining hall. Lights shone from within and, although he could see nothing except the end of a bench, he could hear a faint sound, an odd sound, a kind of muttering mumble. He could not make out words, if words there were.

He eased ahead cautiously, listening and keeping watch on the room ahead. Atta could be trusted to warn him if someone or something was about to leap at him from the darkness. He had no sense of anything lurking in this room, however. Danger lay in the light, it seemed, not in the shadows. The sickening smell grew stronger.

He reached the dining hall. The stench caused him to gag and he put his hand over his nose and mouth. The mumbling voice was louder now, but it was so low that he could still not make out what it was saying, nor could he identify the person speaking. Standing just inside the entryway, so that he could see without being seen, Rhys looked into the dining hall.

He stood, appalled.

Eighteen monks lived in the monastery. Their numbers had been greater in times past, upwards of forty in the years following the War of the Lance. The monastery’s population had dwindled during the Fifth Age, when there had been only five, and was only just now beginning to recover. The monks dined in brotherly companionship at a large rectangular table made of a long wooden plank arranged on wooden trestles. The monks sat on wooden benches, nine on either side.

This day, there were only seventeen monks, for Rhys had chosen to skip dinner. There had been the guests, however¬Rhys’s parents and his brother. They would sit with the monks at the table, share their simple repast. Twenty people, all told. Of those twenty, nineteen were lying dead.

Rhys stared at the terrible scene in shock, his discipline shattered all to pieces, his reason scattered like leaves in a gale. He looked about in bewilderment, unable to take in the horror, unable to comprehend what had happened.

Though he could tell after one despairing glance that all were dead, he ran to the Master and knelt down beside him, placing his hand on the man’s neck in a desperate hope that the faint beat of life might yet remain.

He had only to look at the elderly monk’s twisted body, the frightful contortion of the facial muscles, the swollen tongue and the purged contents of his stomach to know that the Master was dead and that he had died in agony.

All the monks had died the same horrible death. Some, it seemed, had risen the moment they felt the first symptoms and tried to reach the door. Others lay near the bench where they had been seated. The bodies of all the monks were hideously contorted. The floor was foul and slimy with vomit. That and the swollen tongues revealed the cause of their death—they had been poisoned.

Rhys’s parents were dead, as well. His mother lay on her back. The expression frozen on her dead face was one of sudden, horrendous knowledge. His father lay on his stomach, one arm thrust out, as though in his final moments, he had tried to seize hold of someone.

His son. His youngest son.

Lleu was alive, and to all appearances, hale and healthy. His was the voice Rhys had heard mumbling and muttering.

“Lleu!” Rhys said, his mouth dry, his throat so tight that he did not recognize the sound of his own voice.

Hearing his name, Lieu ceased to mumble. He turned to face his brother.

“You didn’t come to dinner,” said Lleu.

He eased himself up off the bench, stood up. His voice was calm. He might have been in his own kitchen, chatting with a friend. Not standing in the midst of mayhem.

He’s mad, Rhys thought. The horror has driven him insane. Yet, for all that, Lleu didn’t have the look of madness.

“I didn’t feel like eating,” said Rhys. He needed to remain calm, try to find out what was going on.

Lieu lifted a bowl of soup and held it out to his brother. “You must be hungry. You had better have some dinner.”

Rhys’s heart constricted. He knew in that moment what had happened, just as his mother and father had known before they died. But the why of it was as far beyond Rhys’s reach as the dark face of Nuitari. Behind him, he heard Atta growl, and he put out his hand in a warding gesture, commanding her to stay where she was.

Rhys kept his gaze fixed on his brother. Lieu’s robes were in disarray; he had scratches on his face and chest. Perhaps his father had managed to lay hands on his murderous son before death took him.

Lieu’s chest was bare and there was a curious mark on it—the imprint of a woman’s lips branded into his flesh. Rhys noted the mark as being strange, and that was all. Horror drove it out of his mind, and he forgot about it.

“You did this,” said Rhys, his voice cracking. He gestured at the dead.

Lleu glanced around at the bodies, turned his gaze back to his brother. Lleu shrugged, as if to say, “Yes. So what?”

“And now you want to poison me.” Rhys’s hand clasped his stiff so tightly that his fingers began to cramp. He forced himself to relax his grip.

Lieu considered the matter. “It’s not so much a question of ‘want’ as ‘need’, brother.”

“You need to poison me.” Rhys worked to keep his tone cool and level. He knew now that his brother was not insane, that there was some sort of terrible rationale behind the killings. “Why? Why have you done this?”

“He would have stopped me,” said Lleu. He turned his gaze to the body of the Master. “The old man there. He knew the truth. I saw it in his eyes.”

Lleu looked back at Rhys. “I saw it in your eyes. All of you were going to try to stop me.”

“Stop you from doing what, Lleu?” Rhys demanded. “From bringing disciples to my god,” Lleu answered. “Kiri-Jolith?” Rhys asked in shocked disbelief.

“Not that prattling killjoy,” Lleu scoffed. An expression of awe softened his face. His voice was reverent. “My lord Chemosh.”

“You are a follower of the God of Death.”

“I am, brother,” said Lleu. He tossed the bowl of soup back down on the table and rose from the bench. “You can be one of his followers, as well.”

Lleu opened his arms. “Embrace me, brother. Embrace me and embrace endless life, endless youth, endless pleasure.”

“You have been deceived, Lleu.”

Rhys shifted his feet, clasped his staff in both hands, and eased himself into a martial stance. Lleu was not wearing his sword; the monks would have forbade him from bringing a sword into the monastery. He was in the throes of religious ecstasy, however, and that made him dangerous.

“Chemosh does not want you to have any of that. He seeks only your destruction.”

“On the contrary, I already have everything I was promised,” said Lleu lightly. “Nothing can harm me.”

Turning back to the table, he lifted up a soup bowl and held it for Rhys to see. “That’s mine. Empty. I ate the water hemlock as did the rest of these poor fools. I had to eat it, of course, otherwise they might have been suspicious. They are dead. And I am not.”

This could have been a lie, bravado, but Rhys guessed from his brother’s tone and his expression that it wasn’t. Lleu had spoken the truth. He’d ingested the poison and was unscathed. Rhys thought suddenly of the dog bite, the absence of blood.

Lleu tossed the bowl carelessly back onto the table. “My life is one of pleasure and ease. I know neither hunger nor thirst. Chemosh provides all. I want for nothing. You can know the same life, brother.”

“I don’t want that life,” said Rhys. “If ‘life’ is what you call it.”

“Then I guess you had better die,” said Lleu in nonchalant tones. “Either way, Chemosh will have you. The spirits of all those who die by violence come to him.”

“I have no fear of death. My soul will go to my god,” Rhys replied.

“Majere?” Lleu chuckled. “He won’t care. He’s off somewhere watching a caterpillar crawl up a blade of grass.” Lieu’s tone changed, became menacing. “Majere has neither the will nor the power to stop Chemosh. Just as this old man lacked the power to stop me.”

Rhys looked about at the dead, looked at the hideously contorted face of the Master, and Rhys felt a sudden stirring of rage. Lleu was right. Majere could have done something. He should have done something to prevent this. His monks had dedicated their lives to him. They had worked and sacrificed. In their hour of need, the god abandoned them. They had cried to him in their death throes, and he had turned a deaf ear.

Majere’s monks were commanded to take no sides in any conflict. Perhaps the god himself was refusing to take sides in this one. Perhaps the souls of his beloved Master and his brethren were having to fight alone against the Lord of Death.

Anger twisted inside Rhys, hot and clenching and bitter-tasting. Anger at the god, anger at himself.

“I should have been here. I could have stopped this.”

Rhys had pleaded as an excuse that he was with the god, but in truth, his own selfish longing for peace and quiet had kept him from being where he was needed. Because both he and Majere had failed those who put their faith in them, nineteen people were dead.

He wrestled with himself, berating himself, and at the same time, fought against the rage that made his hands itch to seize hold of his murderous brother and strangle him. Rhys was so involved in his internal struggle that he took his eyes off Lleu.

His brother was quick to take advantage. Seizing the heavy crockery bowl, he hurled it with all his might.

The bowl struck Rhys between the eyes. Pain burst in his skull, red-hot pain fringed with yellow-tinged fire, so that he couldn’t think. Blood poured down his face, into his eyes, blinding him. He staggered, clutched at the table to remain standing. He had the dizzying impression of Lleu lunging for him and another impression of a black and white body hurtling past him. Rhys tasted blood in his mouth. He was falling and he stretched out his hand to stop his fall, reached out his hand to the Master …

A monk in orange robes stood before Rhys. The monk’s face was familiar to him, though he’d never before seen it. The monk had a resemblance to the Master, and at the same time to all the other brethren of the monastery. The monk’s eyes were calm and tranquil, his demeanor mild.

Rhys knew him.

“Majere …” Rhys whispered, awed.

The god regarded him steadily, not answering.

“Majere!” Rhys faltered. “I need your council. Tell me what I must do.”

“You know what you must do, Rhys,” said the god calmly. “First you must bury the dead and then you must cleanse this room of death, so that all is clean in my sight. On the morrow, you will rise with the morning sun and make your prayers to me, as usual. Then you must water the livestock and turn the cows and horses out to pasture and take the sheep to the fields. Then weed the garden . .”

“Pray to you, Master? Pray for what? All of them died and you did nothing!”

“Pray for what you always pray for, Rhys,” said the god. “Perfection of the body and the mind. Peace and tranquility and serenity…”

“As I bury the dead bodies of my brethren and my parents,” Rhys returned angrily, “I pray to you for perfection!”

“And to accept with patience and understanding the ways of your god.”

“I don’t accept it!” Rhys retorted, his rage and anguish knotted inside him. “I will not accept it. Chemosh has done this. He must be stopped!”

“Others will deal with Chemosh,” said Majere imperturbably.

“The Lord of Death is not your concern. Look inside yourself,

Rhys, and seek the darkness within your own soul. Bring that to the light before you try to wrestle with the darkness of others.”

“And what of Lleu? He must be brought to justice—”

“Lleu speaks truly when he claims that Chemosh has made him invincible. You can do nothing to stop him, Rhys. Let him go.”

“And so you would have me skulk here, safe inside these walls, tending to sheep and mucking out the barn while Lleu goes forth to commit more murders in the name of the Lord of Death? No, Master,” said Rhys grimly. “I will not turn away and let others take on what is my responsibility.”

“You have been with me fifteen years, Rhys,” said Majere. “Every day, murder and worse has been done in this world. Did you seek to stop any of them? Did you search for justice for these other victims?”

“No,” said Rhys. “Perhaps I should have.”

“Look inside your heart, Rhys,” said the god. “Is what you seek justice or vengeance?”

“I seek answers from you!” Rhys cried. “Why didn’t you protect your chosen from my brother? Why did you forsake them? Why am I alive and they are not?”

“I have my reasons, Rhys, and I do not need to share those reasons with you. Faith in my means that you accept what is.”

“I cannot,” said Rhys, glowering.

“Then I cannot help you,” said the god.

Rhys was silent, his inward battle raging. “So be it,” he said abruptly and turned away.

6

Rhys woke from a profoundly disturbing dream in which he denied his god to throbbing pain and flickering light and a rough, wet tongue licking his forehead. He opened his eyes. Atta stood over him, whining and licking his wound. He gently pushed the dog away and tried to sit up. Rhys’s stomach heaved, and he was sick. He lay back down with a groan. The monks’ rigorous practice session often resulted in injuries. Learning how to treat such injuries and how to bear pain was considered an important part of their training. Rhys recognized the symptoms of a cracked skull. The pain was acute and he longed to give into it, to sink back into the darkness, where he would find relief. Victims who did that, however, often did not ever wake up. Rhys might not have awakened, if it hadn’t been for Atta.

He fondled her ears, mumbled something unintelligible, and was sick again. His head cleared a little and a wave of bitter memory washed over him, along with the realization of his own danger.

He sat up swiftly, gritting his teeth against the sharp pain, and looked for his brother.

The room was dark, too dark to see. Most of the thick beeswax candles had gone out. Only two remained burning and their flames wavered in the melting wax.

“I’ve been unconscious for hours,” he murmured dazedly. “And where is Lleu?”

Blinking through the pain, trying to bring his eyes into focus, he cast a swift glance around the room but saw no sign of his brother.

Atta whined, and Rhys petted her. He tried to recall what had happened, but the last thing he remembered was his brother’s charge against Majere: He has neither the will nor the power to stop Chemosh.

One of the candles sputtered and went out with a sizzle. Only one tiny flame remained burning. He fondled the dog’s silky ears and he had no need to ask why Lleu had not murdered him while he was unconscious.

Rhys did not have to look far for his savior. Atta lay with her head in his lap, regarding him anxiously with her dark brown eyes.

Rhys had seen Atta stand guard on the sheep during an attack on the flock by a mountain lion, placing her body between those of the sheep and the lion, facing it fearlessly, brown eyes meeting and holding the cat’s yellow-eyed gaze until it turned and slunk away.

He let his eyes close drowsily, petting Atta and imagining her standing over her unconscious master, glaring balefully at Lieu, her lip curled to let him see the sharp teeth that might soon be sinking into his flesh.

Lleu might be invincible, as he claimed, but he could still feel pain. The yelp he’d given when Atta hit him had been real enough. And he could still picture quite vividly what it would feel like to have those sharp teeth sinking into his throat.

Lleu had backed down and run off. Run away … run away home .

Atta barked and leapt to her feet, jolting Rhys awake. “What’s the matter?” he asked, sitting up, tense and afraid.

Atta barked again and he heard another bark, distant, coming from the sheep pen. The bark was uneasy, but it was not a warning. The other dogs could sense something was wrong. Atta kept barking and Rhys wondered grimly what she was telling them, how she would describe this horror that man had perpetrated on man.

He woke again to find that she was barking at him.

“You’re right, girl. I can’t do this,” he muttered. “Can’t sleep. Have to stay awake.”

He forced himself to stand, using the bench to pull himself up. He found his emmide lying on the floor beside him, just before the flame of the final candle drowned in its own wax and went out, leaving him in moonlit darkness, surrounded by the dead.

The throbbing ache in his head made thinking difficult. He focused on the pain, and he began to mold it and shape it and press it, compact it into a ball that became smaller and smaller the more he worked on it. Then he took the small ball of pain and placed it inside a cupboard in his mind and shut the door upon it. Known as Ball of Clay, this was one of many techniques developed by the monks to deal with pain.

“Majere,” he began the ritual chant without thinking. “I send my thoughts upward among the clouds—”

He stopped. The words meant nothing. They were empty, held no meaning. He looked into his heart where the god had always been and could not find him. What was there was ugly and hideous. Rhys gazed inside himself a long time. The ugliness remained, a blot on perfection.

“So be it,” he said sadly.

Leaning on his staff for support, he staggered toward the door. Atta padded along beside him.

First, he needed to determine what had become of Lleu. He thought it possible that his brother was lurking somewhere around the monastery, waiting in ambush to offer up his final victim to Chemosh. Logic dictated Rhys search the stables, to see if horse or wagon was missing. He kept close watch as he went, peering intently into every shadow, pausing to listen for sounds of footsteps. He looked often at Atta. She was tense because she felt her master’s tension and watchful because he was watchful. She gave no sign that anything was amiss, however.

Rhys went first to the barn, where the monks kept a few cows and the plow horses. The wagon his parents had driven was still here, parked outside. He entered the barn cautiously, his staff raised, more than half-expecting Lleu to attack him from the darkness.

He saw nothing, heard nothing. Atta buried her nose in the straw spread over the floor, but that was probably because she was not usually allowed in the barn and she was intrigued by the smells. His father’s draft horses were inside their stalls. The horse that Lleu had ridden was not.

Lleu was gone, then. Gone back to his home. Gone to some other city or village or lonely farm house. Gone to create more converts of Chemosh.

Rhys stood in the barn, listening to the heavy breathing of the slumbering animals, the rustling of bats in the rafters, the hoot of an owl. He heard the night sounds and he heard, far louder, the sounds he would never hear again—the thwack of his emmide against the staff of a brother, the animated discussions in the warming room in winter, the quiet murmur of voices raised in prayer, the ringing of the bell that had divided up his day and marked out his life in long, neat furrows that had, only a few hours before, stretched into the future until Majere took his soul onto the next stage of its journey.

The furrows were jagged now and crisscrossed, one over the other in confusion, leading nowhere.

He had lost everything. He had nothing left except a duty. A duty to himself and his murdered parents and his brethren. A duty to the world that he had shunned for fifteen years and that had now come down on him with a vengeance.

“Vengeance,” he repeated softly, seeing again the ugliness inside him.

Find Lieu.

Rhys left the barn, and headed back to the monastery. His head pounded. He was dizzy and sick to his stomach, and he was having trouble focusing his eyes. He dared not lie down, as he longed to do. He had to remain awake. To keep himself awake, he would keep busy and there was work to do.

Grim work. Burying the dead.

“You need help, Brother,” said a voice at his shoulder.

Atta leapt straight up at the sound. Body twisting in mid-air, she landed on her feet, hackles raised, teeth bared in a snarl. Rhys raised his emmide and whipped around to see who had spoken.

A woman stood behind him. In looks and in dress, she was extraordinary. Her hair was pale as sea foam and in constant motion, as was the green gown that rippled over her body and flowed down around her feet. She was beautiful, calm and serene as the monastery stream in midsummer, yet there was that in her gray-green eyes that told of raging floods and black ice.

She was all in darkness, yet he saw her clearly by her own inner radiance that seemed to say, “I have no need for the light of moon or stars. I am my own light, my own darkness, as I choose.”

He was in the presence of a goddess and he knew, from the strands of seashells she wore in her unkempt hair, which one.

“I need no help, I thank you, Mistress of the Sea,” Rhys said, thinking that it was strange that he should be conversing with a goddess as calmly he might have spoken to one of the village milkmaids.

Looking down at the broken pieces of his world in his hands, he thought suddenly that it was not so strange after all. “I can bury my dead myself.”

“I’m not talking about that,” said Zeboim irritably. “I am talking about Chemosh.”

Rhys knew then why she had come. He just did not know how he was to answer.

“Chemosh holds your brother in thrall,” continued the goddess.

“One of the Death God’s High Priestesses, a woman named Mina, cast a powerful spell on your brother.”

“What kind of spell?” Rhys asked.

“I—” Zeboim paused, seeming to find it difficult to go on. The admission came out with a wrench. “I don’t know,” she said sullenly. “I can’t find out. Whatever Chemosh is doing, he is taking great care to conceal it from the other gods. You could find out, monk; you being mortal.”

“And how would I discover Chemosh’s secrets better than the gods?” Rhys demanded. He put his hand to his head. The pain was seeping out of the cupboard.

“Because you are a mite, a flea, a gnat. One among millions. You can blend in with the crowd. Go here. Go there. Ask questions. The god will never notice you.”

“It seems as though you need my help, Mistress,” said Rhys wearily. “Not the other way around. Atta, come.” He turned aside, resumed his walk.

The goddess was there in front of him. “If you must know, monk, I’ve lost her. I want you to help me find her.”

Rhys stared, perplexed. His head ached so that he could scarcely think. “Her? What her?”

“Mina, of course,” said Zeboim, exasperated. “The priestess who enthralled your wretch of a brother. I told you about her. Pay attention to me. Find her and you find answers.”

“Thank you for the information, Mistress,” said Rhys. “And now I must bury my dead.”

Zeboim tilted back her head, regarded him from beneath her long lashes. A smile touched her lips. “You don’t even know who this Mina is, do you, monk?”

Rhys did not answer. Turning on his heel, he left her.

“And what do you know of the undead?” Zeboim pursued him, talking relentlessly. “Of Chemosh? He is strong and powerful and dangerous. And you have no god to guide you, protect you. You are all alone. If you agreed to work for me, I can be very generous…”

Rhys halted. Atta, cringing, crept behind his legs.

“What is you want, Mistress?”

“Your faith, your love, your service,” said Zeboim, her voice soft and low. “And get rid of the dog,” she added harshly. “I don’t like dogs.”

Rhys had a sudden vision of Majere standing before him, regarding him with an expression that was grieving, and at the same time, understanding. Majere said no word to Rhys. The path was his to walk. The choice his to make.

Rhys reached down to touch Atta’s head. “I keep the dog.” The goddess’s gray eyes flashed dangerously. “Who are you to bargain with me, maggot of a monk?”

“You know the answer to that apparently, Mistress,” Rhys returned tiredly “It was you who came to me. I will serve you,” he added, seeing her swell with rage, like the boiling black clouds of a summer storm, “so long as your interests run the same course as my own.”

“Mine do, I assure you,” said Zeboim.

She placed her hands on his face and kissed him, long and lingering, on the lips.

Rhys did not flinch, though her lips stung like salt water in a fresh wound. He did not return the kiss.

Zeboim shoved him away.

“Keep the mutt, then,” she said crossly. “Now, the first thing you must do is locate Mina. I want— Where are you going, monk? The highway lies in that direction.”

Rhys had resumed his trek back to the monastery. “I told you. I must first bury my dead.”

“You will not!” Zeboim flared. “There is no time for such foolishness. You must start upon your quest immediately!” Rhys kept walking.

A bolt of lightning streaked down from the cloudless heavens, blinding Rhys, striking so near him that it sizzled in his blood, raised the hair on his head and arms. An enormous thunder clap exploded next to him, deafening him. The ground shook and he fell to his knees. Chunks of debris rained down around them. Atta yelped and whimpered.

Zeboim pointed to a huge crater.

“There is a hole, monk. Bury your dead.”

She turned from him with a rustle of wind and a flurry of rain and was gone.

“What have I done, Atta?” Rhys groaned, pulling himself up from the ground.

By the confused look in her eyes, the dog seemed to be asking him the same question.

Rhys buried the dead in the grave provided by the goddess. He worked through the night, composing the bodies to some semblance of peace. Carrying them, one by one, from the dining hall to the gravesite. Laying them in the moist, soft earth. When all were laid to rest, he took the shovel and began to fill in the grave with dirt. The pain in his head had eased with the goddess’s kiss, a blessing he had not even noticed she had granted him until after she was gone.

He was weary in body and spirit, however. No blessing could ease that. Perhaps this weariness accounted for the impression that came to him that his body was one of those in the grave. The clods were falling on top of him. He was being buried underneath them.

Night was nearly over by the time he tossed the last shovelful of dirt onto the mass grave. He said no prayers. He had forsaken Majere and he doubted that Zeboim would be interested.

He needed sleep.

Rhys turned and, summoning Atta, he went to his cell, threw himself onto his mattress, and slept.

He woke suddenly, not to the tolling of the bell, but to its aching absence.

7

Once the dead were laid to rest, Rhys had to think about the living. He could not start his journey by abandoning the livestock, leaving them to starve or fall prey to wild beasts. Their care was his responsibility now. He and Atta and the rest of the herd dogs drove the sheep and the cattle thirty miles to the nearest village, traveling the entire distance through a torrential downpour that made mud soup of the roads. Zeboim was obviously not pleased at the delay.

The last time he had walked this road was fifteen years ago, when he’d been on his way to the monastery. He had not been on it since. He had not left the monastery in fifteen years. He looked at the world to which he was returning and found it wet, sodden, gray, and not much changed. Trees were taller. Hedges were thicker. The road appeared to be more traveled than it had been, which meant that the village must be prospering. He passed a few people on the road, but they were full of their own concerns and said nothing to his greeting, although several cursed at him and his flock for blocking their way, holding them up. Rhys remembered why he’d left the world and he was sorry to be going back. Sorry, but determined.

The villagers gratefully accepted the monk’s gift, although they were somewhat alarmed when Rhys told them that he was doing this because the other monks had died of disease, leaving him the sole survivor. He assured the people that there was no danger of contagion. That and the well-fed milk cows and the healthy sheep went far to persuade the villagers that they could safely accept this unlooked-for wealth.

Rhys lingered on the outskirts of the village to watch the villagers herd the sheep to the meadows. He’d given them the herd dogs as well. Atta’s brothers and sisters ranged behind, keeping the flock together, guiding them up the hillside.

Atta sat at Rhys’s side, watching with doleful eyes the pack into which she’d been born going off and leaving her behind. She kept looking questioningly at Rhys, waiting for him to give the command for her to rush off to join them. Rhys stroked her ears, bid her quietly, “Stay.”

He had never thought of giving her up, not even at the command of the goddess. Atta had defended him when he could not defend himself. She had risked her life to protect his. There was a bond between them that he could not bear to break. He needed at least one companion in whom he could put his trust. Trusting Zeboim was out of the question.

Rhys returned to the monastery. He scrubbed the dining hall clean of all the terrible traces of the murders. This done, he scoured the kitchen. He was not certain if the poison would wash away or not and decided not to chance it. He smashed all the crockery. He hauled the pots and kettles to the stream, weighted them down with rocks and sank them in the deepest part of the water. He left no trace behind.

That final, terrible task done, he made a last tour of the buildings that were horribly, achingly silent. The monks’ most valued possessions were their books, and these he locked away in a safe place until a representative from the Prophet of Majere could be found who would come to take over. Rhys would stop at the first temple of Majere to send a message to the prophet. In the meantime, he trusted that the god would watch over his own.

Rhys had no personal possessions, other than his emmide that had been a gift from the Master seven years ago. The emmide was a holy artifact, made of the wood of a holly tree, said to be sacred to Majere. Since Rhys had turned his back on the god, he did not feel right about keeping the god’s gift. He left the emmide in the library with the books, propping it up against the wall. As he walked away, he felt as if he were leaving behind one of his arms.

He went to his bed, but sleep would not come to him this night, despite the fact that he was bone-tired. No ghosts of his murdered brethren haunted him. They were in his heart, however. He saw their faces before him, heard their voices. He heard, too, the impatient goddess pounding her hand on the roof. The rain fell steadily all night.

He had planned to set out before daylight, but since he couldn’t sleep, he might as well start walking. He packed bread and dried meat and apples for himself and Atta in a leather scrip, slung the leather scrip over his shoulder, and then whistled for Atta.

When she did not come, he went in search of her, thinking he knew where to look.

He found her lying beside the empty sheep pen, her eyes sad, wondering.

“I know how you feel, girl,” said Rhys.

He whistled again and she rose to her feet and came obediently after him.

He did not look back.

The rain ceased the moment they were on the road. A low ground fog blanketed the valley. The rising sun was an eerie red blur, its light strained through the gray mist as through a cheese cloth. Moisture dripped from the tree leaves to land with a dull plopping sound on the wet ground. All other sound was hushed and muted.

Rhys had much to think about as he walked. He gave Atta her freedom to roam, an unusual treat for the hard-working dog. She could dash into the brush in search of rabbits, bark at squirrels, frisk down the road ahead of him, come racing back with tongue lolling, her eyes bright. She did not do any of that today but trotted behind him, head down, tail drooping. He hoped she would perk up, once they were away from her familiar surroundings, away from the lingering scent of sheep and the other dogs.

When he had taken the livestock to the village he had questioned the inhabitants, asking if they had seen a cleric of Kiri-Jolith pass through recently. None of them had. Rhys did not find that surprising. The village lay north and east of the monastery, whereas the city of Staughton—Lleu’s home—was located to the south. There was no reason why Lleu should not return to Staughton. He could always concoct some plausible tale to explain his parents’ disappearance. Traveling these days was dangerous, particularly in Abanasinia, where lawless men roamed the countryside. Lleu had only to invent a tale of an attack by robbers, in which his parents had been killed and he himself wounded, and he would be believed.

Rhys walked along, so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not miss Atta until a cessrat skittered across his path and no dog bounded after it. He halted, called and whistled, but Atta did not appear. The thought came to him that she had gone back to her pack. That was only natural. She had made her choice, as he had made his. He had to see for himself, however, had to make certain she was safe. Turning around, his heart heavy, he almost stumbled over the goddess, who, with characteristic impetuosity, appeared with no warning to stand before him, blocking his path.

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

“I am going first to look for my dog, Mistress,” he said, “and then to Staughton to search for my brother.”

“Forget the dog. And forget your brother,” Zeboim commanded imperiously. “I want you to seek out Mina.”

“Mistress—”

“Majesty, to you, monk,” Zeboim said in haughty tones. “I am no longer a monk, Majesty.”

“Yes, you are. You will be my monk. Majere can have monks. Why can’t I? Of course, you will have to wear different colored robes. My monks shall wear sea-green. Now, Monk of Zeboim, what was it you were about to say?”

Rhys watched his robes change from the sacred orange of Majere to a green he presumed was reminiscent of the ocean. He had never seen the sea, so he could not judge whether it was or it wasn’t. He counseled patience, then drew in a deep breath before he spoke.

“As you pointed out yesterday, I do not even know who this Mina is. I don’t know anything about her. I do know my brother, however—”

“She was commander of the Dark Knights during the War of Souls. Even you secluded monks must have heard of the War of Souls,” Zeboim said, seeing Rhys’s blank expression.

Rhys shook his head. The monks had heard tales from travelers about a War of Souls, but they’d paid scant attention. Wars between the living were none of their concern. Neither were wars between the living and the dead.

Zeboim rolled her eyes at his ignorance. “When my honored mother, Takhisis, stole away the world, she dredged up an orphan named Mina and made her a disciple. Mina went about spreading the word of this One God, performing showy miracles, killing dragons, and leading an army of ghosts. Thus she managed to convince foolish mortals that she knew what she was talking about.”

“So Mina is a disciple of Takhisis,” Rhys said.

“Was.” Zeboim corrected his verb tense. “When Mommy met her just reward for her treachery, Mina mourned her goddess and carried off the body. She was, by all accounts, prepared to end her miserable life, but Chemosh decided he could make use of her. He seduced her and she has now transferred her allegiance to him. Mina is the one who made your poor sap of a brother into a murderer. She’s the one you must find. She is mortal and therefore the weak link in Chemosh’s chain of command. Stop her and you stop him. I admit, it won’t be easy,” Zeboim conceded, adding grudgingly. “The chit has a certain charming way about her.”

“And where do I find this Mina?” Rhys asked.

“If I knew that,” Zeboim flared, “do you think I would bother with you? I would deal with her myself. Chemosh cloaks her in a darkness that not even my eyes can penetrate.”

“What about other eyes? The other gods? Your father, Sargonnas—”

“That numb-skulled cow! He is too absorbed in his own concerns, as are all the others. None of the gods has the wit to see that Chemosh has developed a dangerous ambition. He means to seize my mother’s crown. He plans to upset the balance and plunge Krynn into war again. I’m the only one who realizes this,” Zeboim said loftily. “The only one with the courage to challenge him.”

Rhys quirked an eyebrow. The idea of the cruel and calculating Zeboim as the champion of the innocent was a remarkable one. Rhys guessed uneasily there was more to it than that. This smacked of a personal vendetta between Zeboim and Chemosh. He was going to get caught in the middle, between the anvil of one and the hammer of the other. And he found it difficult to accept the fact that the gods of light were blind to this evil. He would know more, however, once he was out in the world. He remained silent, thoughtful.

“Well, Brother Rhys,” Zeboim demanded, “what are you waiting for? I’ve told you all you need to know. Be off with you!” “I do not know where Mina is—” Rhys began.

“You will search for her,” the goddess snapped.

“—but I do know where my brother is,” Rhys continued. “Or at least where he is likely to be.”

“I told you to forget your brother—”

“When I find my brother,” Rhys continued patiently, “I will question him about Mina. Hopefully, he will lead me to her or at least tell me where I can find her.”

Zeboim opened her mouth, shut it again. “That does have a certain logic to it,” she conceded grudgingly. “You may carry on with your search for your brother.”

Rhys bowed his thanks.

“But you are not to waste time searching for your mutt,” she added. “And I want you to make a slight detour. Since you are dealing with Chemosh, you will need someone with you who is an expert on the undead. You yourself have no such knowledge, I believe?”

Rhys had to admit he did not. The monks of Majere were concerned with life, not death.

“There is a town about twenty miles east of here. In that town is a burial ground. You will find the person you seek there. He comes every night around midnight. He is my gift to you,” said Zeboim, highly pleased with herself and her magnanimity. “He will be your companion. You will need his help in dealing with your brother, as well as any other of Chemosh’s followers you might encounter.”

Rhys did not like the idea of a companion who was not only a crony of Zeboim but who also apparently spent his nights hanging about graveyards. Nevertheless, he did not want to argue the point. He would at least take a look at this person and perhaps ask him a few questions. Anyone with knowledge of the undead would also likely have knowledge of Chemosh.

“I thank you, Majesty.”

“You are welcome. Perhaps you will think more kindly of me from now on.”

As the goddess started to disappear, dissolving into the morning mists, she called to him, “I see your mutt heading back along the road. It seems you left something behind. You have my permission to wait for it.”

The mists rose, burned off by the sun. Atta was walking down the path toward him. She carried something in her mouth. Rhys stared, astonished.

Atta had his staff.

The dog dropped his emmide at his feet and looked up at him, her whole back end wagging, her tongue hanging out in what was, for her, a grin.

Rhys knelt down on the path, ruffling her ears and the thick white fur on her neck and chest.

“Thank you, Atta,” he said and added softly, “Thank you, Majere.”

The emmide felt good in his hand, right and proper. Majere had sent it back to him—a clear message that, although he would receive no further blessings from the Mantis God, at least Rhys had Majere’s forgiveness and his understanding.

Rhys rose to his feet, his emmide in his hand, his dog at his side. A day’s walk would take to them to the town.

Night would introduce them to Zeboim’s gift.

8

The burial ground was an old one, dating back to the founding of the town. Set apart from the town in a grove of trees, the cemetery was well-maintained, grave markers in good condition, weeds trimmed. Flowers had been planted on some of the graves and they were in bloom, their perfume scenting the darkness. Some of the graves were decorated with objects dear to the departed. A rag doll lay on one small grave.

Rhys stood in the grove, keeping to the shadows, wanting to view this mysterious personage first before speaking to him. Atta dozed at his feet, snoozing but watchful.

The night deepened, nearing the midpoint, the cross-over from one day to the next. Bats skimmed through the air, feasting on insects. Rhys gave them his grateful thanks, for the insects had been feeding on him. An owl hooted, making known this was her territory. In the distance, another answered. The graveyard was quiet, empty except for the slumbering dead.

Atta rose suddenly to her feet, ears up, body quivering, tense and alert. Rhys touched her lightly on the head and she remained quietly at his side.

A person entered the graveyard, wandering among the markers, sometimes touching them with his hand, giving each a small, familiar pat.

Rhys was taken aback. He hadn’t known what to expect—a cleric of Zeboim; possibly a necromancer or even a black-robed wizard, follower of the dark god, Nuitari. In his wildest imaginings, Rhys had not foreseen this.

A kender.

Rhys’s first thought was that this was Zeboim’s idea of a joke, but the goddess did not strike him as the sort to indulge in a light-hearted prank, especially when she was so intent on the search for this Mina. He wondered if the kender was really the person he was supposed to meet or if his arrival was coincidental. Rhys discounted that after a moment’s consideration. People did not generally flock to graveyards in the middle of the night. The kender had arrived at the appointed hour, and by the way he walked and talked, he was a frequent visitor.

“Hullo, Simon Plowman,” said the kender, squatting down comfortably by a grave. “How are you tonight? Doing okay? You’ll be pleased to know the wheat is up about six inches now. That apple tree you were worried about doesn’t look so good, however.”

The kender paused, as if waiting for a reply.

Rhys watched, mystified.

The kender heaved a dismal sigh and stood up. He moved on to the next grave, the one with the rag doll, and sat down beside it.

“Hullo, Blossom. Want to play at tiddle-winks? Maybe a game of khas? I have my board with me and all the pieces. Well, most of the pieces. I seem to have misplaced a rook.”

The kender patted a large pouch he wore slung over one shoulder and looked with hopeful expectancy at the grave. “Blossom?” he said again. “Are you here?”

He sighed dolefully and shook his head.

“It’s no use,” he said, talking to himself. “No one to talk to me. They’ve all gone.”

The little fellow seemed so truly sad and heart-broken that Rhys was moved to pity him. If this was lunacy, it had certainly taken a strange form. The kender did not appear to be insane, however. He sounded rational, and apart from looking rather thin and pinched, as if he hadn’t had much to eat, he seemed healthy enough.

His hair was done up in the typical kender topknot. The tail straggled down behind him. He wore more subdued colors of clothing than was usual with kender, having on a dark vest and dark britches. (In this Rhys was mistaken. In the darkness, he mistook them for black. He would later come to find out, in the light of day, that they were a deep, but vibrant, shade of purple.)

Rhys was curious, now. He walked toward the graveyard, deliberately stepping on sticks and shuffling his feet through the leaves so that the kender would hear him coming.

Her nose twitching at the unusual smell of kender, Atta ranged alongside him.

“Hello—” Rhys began.

To his astonishment, the kender leapt to his feet and retreated behind a tall grave marker.

“Go away,” said the kender. “We don’t want your kind here.”

“My kind?” Rhys said, pausing. “What do you mean—my kind?” He wondered if the kender had something against monks.

“The living,” said the kender. He waved his hand as though he were shooing chickens. “We’re all dead here. The living don’t belong. Go away.”

“But you are alive,” said Rhys mildly.

“I’m different,” said the kender. “And, no, I’m not afflicted,” he added, offended, “so wipe that pity-look off your face.”

Rhys remembered hearing something about afflicted kender, but he couldn’t recall what and so he let that pass.

“I am not pitying you. I am curious,” he said, threading his way around the grave markers. “I mean no disrespect to the honored dead, nor do I mean them any harm. I heard you talking to them—”

“I’m not crazy, either,” stated the kender from behind his grave stone, “if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Not at all,” Rhys said amiably.

He sat down comfortably near the grave marker of Simon Plowman. Opening his scrip, Rhys drew out a strip of dried meat. He broke off a share for Atta and began to chew on a piece himself. The meat was highly spiced and the pungent smell filled the night. The kender’s nose wrinkled. His lips worked.

“Odd place for a picnic,” the kender observed.

“Would you like some?” Rhys asked and he held out a long strip of meat.

The kender hesitated. He eyed Rhys warily. “Aren’t you afraid to let me get close to you? I might steal something.”

“I have naught to steal,” Rhys answered with a smile. He continued to hold out the meat.

“What about the dog?” the kender asked. “Does he bite?” “Atta is a female,” Rhys answered. “And she harms only those who do harm to her or those under her protection.”

He held out the meat.

Slowly, cautiously, his distrusting gaze on the dog, the kender crept out from behind the stone. He made a dart at the meat, snatched it from Rhys’s hand, and devoured it hungrily. “Thank you,” he mumbled, his mouth full.

“Would you like more?” Rhys asked.

“I— Yes.” The kender plopped down beside Rhys and accepted another piece of meat and a hunk of bread.

“Don’t eat so fast,” Rhys cautioned. “You’ll give yourself a belly ache.”

“I’ve had a belly ache for two days,” said the kender. “This tastes really good.”

“How long has it been since you’ve had a proper meal?”

The kender shrugged. “Hard telling.” He put out his hand and gave Atta a gingerly pat on the head, to which Atta submitted with good grace. “You have a nice dog.”

“You’ll forgive me for saying this,” Rhys said. “I don’t mean to offend, but usually your people have little difficulty acquiring food and anything else they want.”

“You mean borrowing,” said the kender, growing more cheerful. He settled down comfortably beside Atta, continued to pet her. “Truth is, I’m not very good at it. I’m ‘all thumbs and two left feet,’ my pap used to say. I guess it’s because I hang around with them all the time.” He gave a nod toward the graves. “They’re much easier to get on with. Not one of them ever accused me of taking anything.”

“Who do you mean by ‘them’?” Rhys asked. “The people who are buried here?”

The kender waved a greasy hand. “People who are buried anywhere. The living are mean. The dead are much nicer. Kinder. More understanding.”

Rhys regarded the kender intently. Since you are dealing with Chemosh, you will need someone with you who is an expert on the undead.

“Are you saying you can communicate with the dead?”

“I’m what they call a `nightstalker.” The kender held out his hand. “Name of Nightshade. Nightshade Pricklypear.”

“I am Rhys Mason,” said Rhys, taking the small hand and shaking it, “and this is Atta.”

“Hi, Rhys, hi, Atta,” said the kender. “I like you. I like you, too, Rhys. You’re not excitable, like most humans I’ve met. I don’t suppose you have any more of that meat left?” he added with a wistful glance at the leather scrip.

Rhys handed over the bag. He would restock his supplies in the morning. Someone in the town would need wood chopped or other chores done. Nightshade finished off the meat and most of the bread, sharing bites with Atta.

“What is a nightstalker?” Rhys asked.

“Wow! I thought everyone knew about us.” Nightshade regarded Rhys with astonishment. “Where have you been hiding? Under a rock?”

“You might say that.” Rhys smiled. “I am interested. Tell me.”

“You know about the War of Souls?”

“I’ve heard mention of it.”

“Well, what happened was that when Takhisis stole away the world, she blocked off all the exits, so to speak, so that anyone who died was trapped in the world. Their souls couldn’t move on. Some people—mystics, mostly, usually necromancers—found out that they could communicate with these dead souls. My parents were both mystics. Not necromancers,” Nightshade added hurriedly. “Necromancers are not nice people. They want to control the dead. My parents just wanted to talk to them and help them. The dead were very unhappy and lost, because they had no place to go.”

Rhys regarded the kender intently. Nightshade spoke of all this in such matter-of-fact tones that Rhys found it difficult to think the kender was lying, yet the idea of the living holding conversations with the dead was a hard one to comprehend.

“I went along with my parents whenever they visited a burial ground or a cemetery or a mausoleum,” Nightshade was saying. “I’d play games with them while my parents worked.”

“You played games with the dead,” Rhys interrupted.

Nightshade nodded. “We had a lot fun. We’d play at `nine-men Morris’, and `duck, duck, goose, goose, and `red rover’ and ‘king of the crypt’. A dead Solamnic knight taught me to play khas. A dead thief showed me how to hide a bean under three walnut shells and switch them around really fast, then have people try to guess where it’s hidden. Do you want to see that one?” he asked eagerly.

“Maybe later,” said Rhys politely.

Nightshade rummaged around the scrip and, not finding anything else to eat, handed it back. He leaned comfortably against the marker. Atta, seeing that no more meat was forthcoming, put her head on her paws and went to sleep.

“So now, Nightshade, you continue your parents’ work?” “I wish!” The kender heaved a gusty sigh.

“What happened?”

“Everything changed. Takhisis died. The gods came back. The souls were free to go on their journey again. And I don’t have anyone left to play with.”

“The dead are all leaving Krynn.”

“Well, not all,” Nightshade amended. “There’re still your spirits, poltergeists, dopplegängers, zombies, revenants, ghosts, skeletal warriors, phantoms, and so on. But they’re harder to come by these days. Generally the necromancers and the clerics of Chemosh snap them up before I can get to them.”

“Chemosh,” said Rhys. “What do you know of Chemosh? Are you a follower of his?”

“Yuck, no!” Nightshade stated, shuddering. “Chemosh is a not a nice god. He hurts the spirits, turns them into his slaves. I don’t worship any god. No offense.”

“Why should I be offended?”

“Because you’re a monk. I can tell by your robes, though they’re sort of strange. I’ve never seen that odd green color before. Who is your god?”

The name of Majere came readily and easily to Rhys’s lips. He paused, bit it back.

“Zeboim,” he said.

“The sea goddess? Are you a sailor? I’ve always thought I’d like to go to sea. There must be lots and lots of bodies underneath the ocean—all those who died in shipwrecks or were swept away in storms.”

“I’m not a sailor,” Rhys replied, and changed the subject. “So what have you been doing with yourself since the War of Souls?”

“I travel from town to town, searching for a dead person to talk to,” said the kender. “But mostly I just get thrown into jail. It’s not all that bad. At least they feed you.”

He was so thin and frail, and although he talked cheerfully, he seemed so unhappy that Rhys made up his mind. He still couldn’t figure out if the kender was crazy or sane, lying or honest (as kender go). He figured it would be worth his while to find out, however. And he preferred not to offend his temperamental goddess, who had given him this strange gift.

“The truth is, Nightshade,” said Rhys, “I was sent here to seek you out.”

The kender jumped up, startling Atta from her doze. “I knew it! You’re the sheriff in disguise!”

“No, no,” Rhys said hastily. “I really am a monk. Zeboim was the one who sent me.”

“A god looking for me?” Nightshade said, alarmed. “That’s worse than the sheriff.”

“Nightshade—” Rhys began.

He was too late. With a leap and a bound, the kender cleared the grave marker and took to his heels. Having spent a lifetime fleeing pursuers, the kender was fleet and agile. A good meal had given him strength. He was familiar with the surrounding territory. Rhys could never catch him. He had someone with him who could, however.

“Atta,” Rhys said, “away!”

Atta was on her feet. Hearing the familiar command, she instinctively started to obey, then stopped and looked back at Rhys in perplexity.

“I will do what you say, Master, but where are the sheep?” she seemed to be asking.

“Away,” he said firmly and gestured at the fleeing kender.

Atta regarded him for another second, just to make certain she understood, then she sped off, bounding through the grave yard in pursuit.

The dog used the same tactics with Nightshade that she would have used with sheep, coming up on his left flank, circling wide, not looking at him so as not to frighten him, steering around in front of him to turn him, force him back toward Rhys.

Seeing the black and white streak out of the corner of his eye, Nightshade veered from his course, heading off in another direction. Atta was there ahead of him and he was forced to turn again. She was there again and once more he had to turn.

She did not attack him. When he slowed, she slowed. When he came to a halt, she dropped to her belly, staring at him so intently with her brown eyes that he found it hard to look away. The moment he moved, she was on her feet again. Nightshade tried every dodge and dart he knew, but she was always in front of him, her lithe little body turning time and again to head him off. He could move freely only one direction and that was back the way he’d come.

Finally, panting, Nightshade climbed up on a grave marker and stood there, shivering.

“Get her away from me!” he howled.

“That’ll do, Atta,” said Rhys, and she relaxed and came over to him to have her head patted.

Rhys walked up to where he’d treed the kender.

“You are not in trouble, Nightshade. Quite the opposite. I am going on a quest and I need your help.”

Nightshade’s eyes widened. “A quest? My help? Are you sure?”

“Yes, that is why my god sent me to find you.”

Rhys told the kender everything that had happened, from his brother’s arrival at the monastery to the terrible crime he’d committed. Nightshade listened, fascinated, though he picked up on the wrong part of the quest. He jumped down from the grave marker and seized hold of Rhys’s hand.

“We have to go back there right away!” he said, trying to tug Rhys off. “Back to where you buried your friends!’

“No,” said Rhys, standing firm. “We need to search for my brother.”

“But all those uneasy spirits need me,” Nightshade said, pleading.

“They are with their god now,” said Rhys.

“You’re certain?”

“Yes,” said Rhys, and he was certain. “We have to find my brother and stop him before he harms anyone else. We need to find out what Chemosh did to him to turn him from a cleric of Kiri-Jolith to a follower of the Lord of Death. You can communicate with the dead, which might prove to be useful, and you can do so without rousing suspicion. I can’t pay you anything,” he added, “for we monks are forbidden to accept any reward except what we need for our survival.”

“More meat like what we just ate would be fine with me. And it will be good to have a friend,” Nightshade said excitedly. “A real live friend.”

He glanced at Atta with trepidation. “I suppose you have to take the dog?”

“Atta makes a good guardian as well as a good companion. Don’t worry.” Rhys rested his hand reassuringly on the kender on the shoulder. “She’s fond of you. That’s why she chased after you. She didn’t want you to leave.”

“Really?” Nightshade looked pleased. “I thought she was herding me like I was a sheep or something. If she likes me, that’s different. I like her, too.”

Rhys let the darkness hide his smile. “I am staying with a farmer whose home is nearby. We’ll spend the night there and get an early start in the morning.”

“Farmers don’t usually let me into their houses,” Nightshade pointed out, falling in beside Rhys, the kender’s short legs taking two strides to his one.

“I think this one will,” Rhys predicted. “Once I explain to him how fond Atta is of you.”

Atta was so fond of the kender that she lay across his legs all night, never letting him out of her sight.

9

Rhys had no difficulty picking up his brother’s trail. People remembered quite clearly a cleric of Kiri-Jolith who spent his nights carousing in the tavern and his days flirting with their daughters. Rhys had been grimly expecting to hear that his brother had done murder again and was surprised and relieved to hear no worse of him than he’d left town without paying his bar tab.

When Rhys asked if his brother had spoken of Chemosh, everyone looked amused and shook their heads. He’d said no word to them of any god, especially not such a dark god as Chemosh. Lieu was a pleasant and handsome young man looking for fun, and if he was a little reckless and heedless, there was no harm in that. Most thought him a good fellow and wished him well.

Rhys found this all very strange. He could not equate the picture these people were giving him of a light-hearted bounder with the cold-blooded murderer who had so ruthlessly killed nineteen people. Rhys might have doubted that he was truly on his brother’s track, but everyone recognized Lieu by his physical description and the fact that he wore the robes of Kiri-Jolith. Clerics of that god were not plentiful in Abanasinia, where his worship was just starting to spread.

Rhys found only one man who had anything bad to say about Lleu Mason and that was a miller who had given Lieu room and board in return for a few days work at the mill.

“My daughter has not been the same since,” the miller told Rhys. “I curse the day he came and curse myself for having anything to do with him. A dutiful child my Besty was before he started taking notice of her. Hard-working. She was to be married next month to the son of one of the most prosperous shop-keepers in this town. A fine match it was, but that’s off now, thanks to your brother.”

He shook his head dourly.

“Where is your daughter?” Rhys asked, glancing about. “If I could speak to her—”

“Gone,” said the miller shortly. “I caught her sneaking home from a meeting with him in the wee hours. I gave her the whipping she deserved and locked her in her room.” He shrugged. “After a few days, she managed to get out somehow and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her since. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.”

“Did she run off with Lieu?” Rhys asked.

The miller didn’t know. He didn’t think so, for Lleu had departed before the daughter ran away. It was possible, the miller conceded, that she might have run off to be with him, although, in truth, she had not appeared to be that enamored of him. The miller didn’t know and he obviously didn’t care, except that he had lost a hard-worker and a chance for a marriage from which he stood to profit.

Rhys conceded it was possible that his brother had seduced the young woman and persuaded her to run away with him, but in that case, why hadn’t they run off together? He thought it more likely that the young woman had simply fled a loveless home and the prospect of a loveless marriage. Nothing sinister about it.

Still, the matter troubled Rhys. He asked for a description of the girl and inquired about her, as well as about Lleu, along the road. Some had seen her, some had seen him, but none had seen them together. The last he heard of the miller’s daughter, she had joined up with a caravan headed for the sea coast. His brother, it seemed, had spoken vaguely of traveling to Haven.

While Rhys talked with the living, Nightshade communicated with the dead. While Rhys visited inns and taverns, Nightshade visited crypts and cemeteries. Nightshade forbade Rhys from accompanying him, for, the kender claimed, the dead tended to be shy in the presence of the living.

“Most of the dead, that is,” the kender added. “There are those who like to go about rattling bones and clanking chains and tossing chairs out of windows. I’ve met a few who get a kick out of reaching up from the grave and grabbing people by the ankle. They’re the exception, however.”

“Thank the gods,” said Rhys dryly.

“I guess so.” Nightshade wasn’t convinced. “Those sort of dead are the interesting ones. They tend to stick around, not run off to some higher plane of existence and leave a fellow without anyone to talk to.”

The “higher plane “appeared to be a popular destination, for Nightshade was having trouble communicating with the dead, or so he claimed. Those he did find could tell him nothing about Chemosh. Rhys had been skeptical of the kender’s claims from the beginning and his skepticism was growing. He decided to follow the kender one night, see for himself what was going on.

Nightshade was excited this evening, for he’d heard of a battlefield nearby. Battlefields were promising, he explained, because the dead were sometimes abandoned on the field, their bodies left unburied to rot in the sun or be torn apart by vultures.

“Some spirits are good sports about it and just go ahead and depart,” Nightshade explained. “But others take it personally. They hang about, waiting to vent their anger against the living. I should find someone who’s eager to talk.”

“Might not that be dangerous?” Rhys asked.

“Well, yes,” the kender admitted. “Some of the dead develop a really nasty attitude and take it out on the first person they come across. I’ve had a few close calls.”

“What do you do if you’re attacked? How do you defend yourself? You carry no weapon.”

“Spirits don’t like the sight of steel,” Nightshade replied. “Or maybe it’s the smell of iron. I was never very clear on that. Anyhow, if I’m attacked, I just take to my heels. I’m faster than any old rattle-bones.”

When darkness fell, Nightshade departed for battlefield. Rhys gave the kender a lengthy head-start, then he and Atta set off after him.

The night was clear. Solinari was on the wane and Lunitari full and bright, giving the shadows a reddish tinge. The evening air was soft and scented with the perfume of wild roses. The woodland creatures were going about their business, their rustlings and barks and howls causing Atta no end of concern.

In what he was now thinking of as his past life, Rhys would have enjoyed walking through the perfumed night. In that life, his own spirit would have been tranquil, his soul composed. He did not think he been blind to the evil in the world, to the ugliness of life. He understood that one was needed to balance the other. Or rather, he’d thought he’d understood. Now it was as if his brother’s hand had torn aside a curtain to show Rhys evil he had never imagined existed. In a way, Rhys conceded, he had been blind because he’d seen only what he’d wanted to see. He would never allow that to happen again.

He had much to think about as he walked. He believed he was very close to catching up with his brother. Lleu had been in this village until two days ago. He had taken the road to Haven, a road that because of brigands and goblins was not now safe to travel. People who dared go abroad traveled in large groups for protection.

Rhys had little to fear about from bandits. “Poor as a monk” was a household expression. One glimpse of monkish robes (even those of a strange color) and thieves turned away in disgust.

Atta’s low rumble caused Rhys to abandon his thoughts and turn his attention to the task ahead. They had reached the battlefield and he could see Nightshade quite clearly, the red moon smiling down on him brightly, as if Lunitari found it all quite funny.

Rhys chose a place in the shadows beneath a tree that, by its splintered branches, had been caught up in the fighting. He felt a prick from his conscience for spying on the kender, but the matter was too important, too urgent to be left to chance.

“At least I’ve given Nightshade the benefit of the doubt,” Rhys said to Atta, as he watched the kender prowl hopefully around the battlefield. “Anyone else hearing such a tale would have hauled him off to the cells for the insane.”

The battlefield was a large stretch of open ground, several acres in length and breadth. The battle had been fought only a few years previous, and although the field was now overgrown with weeds and grass, some scars of the conflict could still be seen.

Any intact armor or weapons had been looted by either the victors or the townspeople. Left behind were broken spears, rusted bits of armor, a worn boot, a torn gauntlet, splintered arrows. Rhys had no idea who had been fighting whom in the battle. Not that it mattered.

Nightshade roamed about. Once he stopped to pick up something off the ground. After examining it carefully, he dropped it into his pouch.

He glanced about, sighed dismally, then shouted out, in neighborly tones, “Hullo! Anybody home?”

No one replied. Nightshade roamed on. The night was calm, peaceful, and Rhys felt sleep start to overcome him. He shook his head to shake off the fuzziness, rubbed his eyes and drank some water from his flask. Atta tensed. Rhys could feel her body stiffen. Her ears pricked.

“What—” he began, then his voice stuck in his throat. Nightshade had stooped to pick up a battered and dented helm. Pleased with his find, the kender put the helm on his head.

The helm was far too large, but that didn’t bother Nightshade. He thunked himself on the top of the helm with his fist and endeavored to flip up the visor, which was somewhere around his chin.

He was fumbling with the visor, which was rusted, and missed seeing the ghostly apparition rising up out of the ground almost directly in front of him. Rhys saw it clearly and even then he might have doubted his senses, but he could tell from Atta’s stare and her rigid muscles, taut beneath his hand, that she could see it, too.

The specter was about the height and bulk of a human male. He was clad in armor—nothing as sophisticated as a knight might wear; just a few cast-off pieces cobbled together. He wore no helm and there was a ghastly wound on his head, a gash that had cleaved through his skull. His features were twisted in a scowl. The specter reached out a ghostly hand toward the kender, who was still happily ensconced in the helm, with no inkling of the horror in front of him.

Rhys tried to call out a warning. His throat and mouth were so dry that he could make no sound. He might have sent Atta, but the dog was shivering, terrified.

“Whoo boy, it got cold all of a sudden,” said Nightshade, his voice echoing inside the helm.

He managed to free the visor about that time and it popped open. “Oh, hullo, there!” he said to the specter, whose hand was inches from his face. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were here. How have you been?”

At the sound of the kender’s voice, the specter dropped its hand. It hovered uncertainly in front of Nightshade, as if trying to make up its mind to something.

Awed, Rhys listened and watched and tried to make some sense of what was happening. Nothing in his training, his prayers, or meditation had prepared him for this sight. He stroked Atta, soothing her and reassuring himself at the same time. It was good to touch something warm and alive.

Nightshade pulled off the helm and let it fall to the ground.

“Sorry. Was that yours?” He saw that the specter was missing about half its skull. “Oh, I guess not. You probably could have used it. So things haven’t been going real well for you. Would you like to tell me about it?”

It seemed that the specter was speaking, though Rhys could not hear the voice. He could see the spectral hand making angry gestures. The spectral head would turn to look off into the distance.

Nightshade listened with calm attentiveness, his expression one of sympathy and concern.

“There’s nothing here for you now,” Nightshade said at last. “Your wife has married someone else by now. She had to, even though she grieved for you and missed you. There were the kids to raise and she couldn’t manage the farm by herself. Your comrades lift a glass to you and say things like, ‘Do you remember the time old Charley did such and such?’ But they’ve moved on with their lives, too. You need to move on with yours. No, I’m not trying to be funny. Death is a part of life. The sort of dark and quiet part, but definitely a part. You’re not doing yourself any good hanging about here, fretting about how unfair it all was.”

Nightshade listened to the specter again, then said, “You could look at it that way or you could take the view that the unknown is filled with new and exciting possibilities. Anything’s better than this, right? Skulking about here lost and alone. At least, give what I’ve said some thought. You don’t happen to play khas, do you? Would you like a game before you leave?”

The specter apparently wasn’t interested. The ghastly form began to dissipate like mist in the moonlight.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” Nightshade called. “Have you seen or heard anything from Chemosh lately? Chemosh. God of the Dead. You never heard of him? Well, thanks anyway. Good luck to you! Have a safe journey.”

Rhys tried to pick up the shattered pieces of what he’d thought he’d known about life and death and sort them all out and reassemble them. At length, he found he couldn’t and he simply threw them all away. Time to begin again. He walked over to where Nightshade was standing. The kender was eyeing the helm and eyeing his pouch, as if trying to determine if it would fit.

Hearing movement, Nightshade turned his head. His face brightened. Dropping the helm, he came dashing up to them. “Rhys! Did you see that? A specter! He was kind of a dismal specter. Most of them are livelier, so to speak. Oh, and he doesn’t know anything about Chemosh. My guess is the man died before the gods came back. I hope he feels better now that’s he’s on the next part of his journey. What’s the matter with Atta? She’s not sick, is she?””

“Nightshade,” said Rhys contritely, “I want to apologize.”

The kender’s face screwed up in a bemused wrinkle. “If you want to, Rhys, you can. I don’t mind. Who are you going to apologize to?”

“You, Nightshade,” said Rhys, smiling. “I doubted you and I spied on you, and I’m sorry.”

“You doubted—” The kender paused. He glanced at Rhys, glanced at the dog, glanced around the empty battle field. “I see. You came after me to make sure I wasn’t lying when I said I could talk to the dead.”

“Yes. I’m sorry. I should have trusted you.”

“That’s all right,” said Nightshade, though he said it with a little sigh. “I’m used to being not trusted. Comes with the territory.”

“Will you forgive me?” Rhys asked.

“Did you bring any food with you?”

Rhys reached into his scrip, pulled out a hunk of cheese, and handed it to the kender.

“I forgive you,” said Nightshade, taking a large and contented bite. He cocked an eye at Rhys. “It’s very odd.”

“It’s ordinary goat cheese—”

“Not the cheese. It’s quite good. No, what I mean is that it’s odd that the specter didn’t know Chemosh. None of the specters or ghosts or haunts I’ve met have been visited by him or his clerics. True, Chemosh wasn’t around when that particular specter was alive, but it seems to me that if I were the Lord of Death, the first thing I would have done when I came back was to send out my clerics to do a sweep of all the battlefields and dungeons and dragon lairs, to enslave as many wandering spirits to serve me as I could find.”

“Maybe the clerics just missed this one,” Rhys suggested.

“I don’t think so,” said Nightshade. He munched his cheese with a thoughtful expression.

“What do you think is going on then?” Rhys prodded, truly interested to hear what the kender had to say. He’d developed a good deal of respect for Nightshade in the past hour.

The kender gazed out over the dark and empty field. “I think Chemosh has no need for dead slaves.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he’s finding slaves among the living.”

“Like my brother,” said Rhys, with a sudden cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. Other than their first conversation in the graveyard, when Rhys had told Nightshade about Lleu and the murders, the two had not discussed it much. The subject was not one Rhys liked to dwell on. Apparently Nightshade had been giving the matter thought, however.

Nightshade nodded. He handed back the remainder of the cheese and Rhys returned it to the scrip, much to Atta’s disappointment.

“How do you suppose Chemosh is doing that?” Rhys asked. “I don’t know,” Nightshade answered, “but if I’m right, it’s pretty scary.”

Rhys had to agree. It was very scary.

10

Haven was a large city, the largest Rhys had visited thus far. He and Nightshade spent days tramping from place to place, patiently giving a description of his brother, searching for someone who had seen Lleu. When they finally found a tavern owner who remembered him, Rhys learned that his brother had not stayed in Haven long but had almost immediately moved on. The best guess was that he’d gone to Solace, the reasoning being that everyone traveling through Abanasinia ended up in Solace. Rhys, Nightshade, and Atta journeyed on.

Rhys had been to Solace with his father when he was a child and he clearly remembered the city, famous in legend and lore for the fact that its houses and shops were built among the branches of enormous vallenwood trees. It’s very name conjured up images of a place where the wounded of heart and mind and body could go to find comfort.

Rhys’s childhood memories of Solace were of a town of remarkable beauty and friendly people. He found Solace much changed. The town had grown into a city of noise and bustle, confusion and turmoil, roaring with a loud and raucous voice. Rhys could honestly say that had if it not been for the legendary Inn of the Last Home, he would not have recognized the place. And even the Inn had changed, having grown and expanded so that it now sprawled across the branches of several vallenwood trees.

Because the original dwellings had been built in the treetops, the citizens of Solace had not needed to build walls to protect their homes and businesses. That had worked well in the days when Solace was a small town. Now, however, travelers flowed in and out of the city unchecked, with no guards to ask questions. People of all sorts filled the streets: elves, dwarves, kender by the score. Rhys saw more different races in thirty seconds in Solace than he’d seen in all his thirty years.

He was astonished beyond measure to see two draconians, one male and one female, stroll down the main road with as much confidence as if they owned the place. People went out of their way to avoid the “lizard men,” but no one appeared to be alarmed by their presence, except Atta, who growled and barked at them. He heard someone say they were from the draconian city of Teyr and that they were here to meet some hill dwarves to discuss trade deals.

Gully dwarves fought and scrabbled among the refuse and a goblinish face leered at Rhys from the shadows of an alleyway. The goblin vanished when a troop of guards, armed with pikes and wearing chain mail, marched down the street, accompanied by a parade of giggling small boys and girls wearing pots on their heads and carrying sticks.

Humans were the predominant race. Black-skinned humans from Ergoth mingled with crudely dressed barbarians from the Plains and richly clothed humans from Palanthas, all of them jostling and shoving each other and trading insults.

Every type of occupation was represented in Solace as well. Three wizards, two wearing red robes and one wearing black, bumped into Rhys. They were so absorbed in their argument that they never noticed him or begged his pardon. A group of actors, who referred to themselves as Gilean’s Traveling Troupe, came dancing down the street, beating a drum and banging tambours, adding to the noise level. Everyone either had something to sell or was looking for something to buy, and they all were shouting about it at the top of their lungs.

While all this was happening on the streets below. Rhys looked up to see more people traveling along the swaying plank and rope bridges running from one vallenwood tree to the next, like the silken filaments of a gigantic spider web. Access to the tree levels was limited, it seemed, for he noted guards posted at various points, questioning and halting those who could not convince them that they had business up above.

As he slogged through the mud churned up by an unending stream of traffic, Rhys marveled at the changes that had come to Ansalon while he’d been hidden away in the never-changing world of the monastery. From what he’d seen, he hadn’t missed much. The noise, the sights, the smells—ranging from rotting garbage to unwashed gully dwarf, from day-old fish to the scent of meat being roasted over hot coals and bread coming fresh from the baker’s oven—left Rhys longing for the solitude and tranquility of the hills, the simplicity of his former life.

Atta, by her demeanor, was in agreement. She often looked up at him, her brown eyes moist with confusion, yet trusting him to guide them through it. Rhys petted her, reassuring her, if he could not reassure himself. He might be daunted by the size of Solace, by the numbers of people, but that did not change his resolve to continue to search for his brother. At least, he now knew where to look. Lleu had rarely missed stopping at a single inn or tavern along with the way.

Rhys had one other option, or so he hoped. The idea came to him when he saw a small group of black-robed clerics walking openly down the street. A city the size and disposition of Solace might well have a temple dedicated to Chemosh.

Rhys turned his steps toward the famous Inn of the Last Home, thinking that he would start by asking for information there. He had to stop once on the way to extricate Nightshade from a group of kender, who latched onto him as though he were a long-lost cousin (which, in fact, two of them claimed to be).

The famous inn where, according to legend, the Heroes of the Lance had been accustomed to meet, was filled to capacity. People stood in line, waiting to enter. As customers departed, a certain number were admitted. The line began at the foot of the long flight of stairs and extended down the street. Rhys and Nightshade took their places at the end, waiting patiently. Rhys kept watch on all those traipsing up and down the stairs, hoping one of them might be Lleu.

“Look at all these people!” exclaimed Nightshade with enthusiasm. “I’m certain to raise a few coppers here. That roasted goat meat smells wonderful, doesn’t it, Atta?”

The dog sat at Rhys’s side, her gaze divided between her master and Nightshade. The kender thought happily that Atta had developed a true affection for him, for she never let him out of her sight. Rhys did not disabuse his companion of this notion. Atta took to “kender-herding” quite as well as she took to herding sheep.

As he watched those leaving the Inn, Rhys listened to the chatter around him, picking up various bits of local gossip, hoping he might hear something that would lead him to Lleu. Nightshade was busy advertising his services, telling those ahead of him in line that he could put them in contact with any relative who had shuffled off this mortal coil for the bargain price of a single steel, payable upon delivery of the said relative. The watchful dog, meanwhile, kept the kender from accidentally “borrowing” any pouches, purses, knives, rings, or handkerchiefs by insinuating her body between that of Nightshade and any potential “customer.”

The crowd was generally in a good humor, despite the fact that they were having to wait. That good humor suddenly deteriorated.

“Perhaps you didn’t hear me the first time, gentlemen,” a man stated, his voice rising. “You have no right to cut in front of me.”

Rhys looked over his shoulder, as did everyone around him. “Did you hear something, Gregor?” asked one of the men to whom this statement had been addressed.

“No, Tak,” said his friend, “but I sure do smell something.” He laid heavy emphasis on the word. “Must be driving a herd of swine through town today.”

“Ah, you’re mistaken, Gregor,” said his friend in mock serious tones. “It’s not swine they’ve let into town this day. Swine are sweet-smelling, clean, and wholesome beasts compared to this lot. They must’ve let in an elf!”

Both men laughed uproariously. By their leather aprons and brawny arms and shoulders and soot-blackened hands and faces, they were metal-workers of some kind, ironmongers or blacksmiths. The man who was the butt of their joke wore the green garb of a forester. He had his cowl pulled up over his head so that no one could see his face, but there was no mistaking the lithe body and graceful movements and the soft and melodic tones of his voice.

The elf said nothing in reply. Stepping out of line, he walked around the two humans, and stepped back into line, in front of them.

“You damn grass-eater, get the hell outta my way!” The man called Gregor seized the elf by the shoulder and spun him around.

Steel flashed, and Gregor sprang backward.

The elf held a knife in his hand.

The two humans glanced at each other; then, doubling their huge fists, they came surging forward.

The elf was ready to lunge, when he suddenly found his way blocked, as Rhys stepped between the combatants. Rhys did not raise his staff, nor did he raise his voice.

“You may have my place in line, gentlemen,” he said. The men—all three—stared at him, mouths agape.

“I am near the front, at the foot of the stairs,” Rhys continued pleasantly. “There, where the kender and the dog are waiting. We are next to go up. Take my place and welcome, all three of you.”

Behind Rhys, the elf said vehemently, “I do not need your help, monk. I can handle these two myself.”

“By spilling their blood?” Rhys asked, glancing around. “What will that accomplish?”

“Monk?” repeated one of the humans, eyeing Rhys uncertainly.

“By his weapon, he is a monk of the Mantis,” said the elf. “Or Majere, as you humans know it. Though I never saw one wearing sea green robes,” he added scornfully.

“Take my place, sirs,” Rhys repeated, gesturing toward the stairs. “A mug of cool ale to quench a hot temper, eh?”

The two humans eyed each other. They eyed Rhys and they eyed his staff. There was no good way out of this. If they’d had the support of the crowd, they might have continued the fight. As it was, Rhys’s offer had clearly captured the crowd’s fancy. Perhaps these two were well-known bullies, for people were grinning at their discomfiture.

The two men lowered their fists.

“C’mon, Tak, I’m not hungry anymore,” one said scathingly, turning on his heel. “The stench has killed my appetite.”

“Yeah, you can drink with their kind if you want, monk,” sneered the other. “I’d sooner suck down swamp water.”

The elf glowered at Rhys. “That was my battle. You had no right to interfere.”

He, too, walked off, heading in the opposite direction.

Rhys returned to his place in line. Several in the crowd applauded and an old woman reached out to touch his shabby, travel-stained robes “for luck.” He wondered what she would think if she knew he was not truly a monk of Majere but a sworn follower of Zeboim. He realized, with an inward sigh, that it probably wouldn’t make any difference. He had pleased her, pleased the crowd, as they would have been pleased by a Punch and Judy puppet show.

Rhys took his place in line, next to Nightshade, who was all agog with admiration and excitement. The kender’s eager questions were interrupted by the man who regulated the flow of traffic into the inn.

“Go on up, monk,” he called with a flourishing gesture, “before you drive off the rest of my customers.”

Everyone laughed and the crowd cheered as Rhys, Nightshade, and Atta climbed the stairs, with Nightshade waving and leaning over the rails precariously to shout out, “Would any of you like to make contact with a loved one who has passed over? I can talk to the dead—”

Rhys took hold of the kender by the shoulder and gently guided him through the open door.

The Inn of the Last Home had achieved ever-lasting fame during the War of the Lance, for it was here that the legendary Heroes of the Lance began a quest that would end with the defeat of Takhisis, Queen of Darkness. The Inn was owned by the descendants of two of those heroes, Caramon and Tika Majere. Listening to the gossip as he’d been standing in line, Rhys had learned a considerable amount about the Inn, its owners, and Solace in general.

A daughter, Laura Majere, ran the inn. Her brother, Palin, had once been a famed sorcerer, but was now the Lord High Mayor of Solace. There was some sort of scandal involving his wife, but that was apparently resolved. Laura and Palin had a sister, Dezra. People rolled their eyes when she was mentioned. The Sheriff of Solace was a friend of Palin’s, a former Solamnic knight named Gerard. He was a popular sheriff, it seemed, with a reputation for being tough, but fair-minded. He had a thankless job, as far as most of the gossipers were concerned, for Solace had grown far too fast for its own good. In addition, it was located near the border of what had once been the elven kingdom of Qualinesti. The dragon Beryl had driven the elves from their homes and Qualinesti was now a wild, lawless and uncivilized no-man’s land, refuge to roving bands of outlaws and goblins.

The Inn of the Last Home had undergone a number of changes down through the years. Those who recalled it from the days of the War of Lance would not have recognized it now. The inn had been destroyed at least twice by dragons (maybe more times, there was an argument on that score) and besides being rebuilt had undergone a series of expansions and renovations. The famous bar, made from the vallenwood tree, was still there. The fireplace beside which the infamous mage Raistlin Majere once sat had been shifted to a different location to make room for more tables. An additional wing had been built to accommodate the growing crowds of travelers. The kitchen was no longer where it had once been but was in a different place entirely. The food was still as good—better, some said—and the ale was still spoken of in near reverent terms by ale-connoisseurs all over Ansalon.

Upon entering, Rhys was impressed by the atmosphere of the inn, which was merry without being boisterous or rowdy. The busy barmaids found time to laugh and exchange friendly barbs with the regulars. A broom-wielding gully dwarf kept the floor spotless. The long wood plank tables where the customers sat were clean and neat.

Nightshade immediately launched into his spiel. The kender spoke extremely fast, knowing from experience, that he rarely got far before he was summarily stifled. “I can talk to dead people,” he announced in a loud voice that carried clearly over the laugher and the shouting and the clanking of pewter and crockery. “Anyone here have loved ones who have died recently? If so, I can talk to them for you. Are they happy being dead? I can tell you. Have you been searching for Uncle Wat’s will? I can find out from his spirit where he left it. Did you forget to tell your late husband how much you loved him? I can pass on your regards …”

Some customers ignored him completely. Others regarded the kender with expressions that ranged from grinning amusement to shock and indignation. A few were starting to look seriously offended.

“Atta, away,” ordered Rhys quietly, and the dog leapt into action.

Trotting over to the kender, Atta pressed her body against his legs, so that he had no choice but to back up or tumble over her.

“Atta, nice dog,” said Nightshade, patting her head distractedly. “I’ll play with you some other time. I have to work now, you see—”

He tried to circle around the dog, tried to step over her. Atta dodged and wove, and all the while continued to force the kender backward until she had him wedged neatly into a corner, with a table and chairs hemming him in on two sides and the patient dog in front.

Atta dropped down on her belly. If Nightshade moved a muscle, she was back on her feet. She did not growl, was not menacing. She just made certain the kender stayed put.

As the patrons of the Inn watched this in awe, a barmaid hastened over, offering to guide Rhys to a table.

“Thank you, no,” he said. “I came for information, that is all. I am looking for someone—”

The barmaid interrupted him. “I know that the monks of Majere take vows of poverty. It’s all right. You’re a guest of the Inn this day. There’s food and drink for you and mats in the common room for you and your friend.”

She cast a glance in the direction of Atta and Nightshade, but whether by “friend” she meant the dog or the kender was left open.

“I thank you, mistress, but I cannot accept your offer, which is kind, but does not apply in my case. I am not a monk of Majere. As I said, I am searching for someone and I thought perhaps he had been here. His name is Lleu—”

“Is there a problem, Marta?”

A large man with a shock of straw-colored hair and a face that might have been called ugly, but for its strength of character and a genial smile, came up to where Rhys and the barmaid were talking. The man was clad in a leather vest. He wore a sword at his hip and a gold chain around his neck, all of the finest quality. “The monk here has refused our hospitality, Sheriff,” said the barmaid.

“I cannot accept her charity, my lord,” said Rhys. “It would be given under false pretenses. I am not a monk of Majere.” The man held out his hand.

“Gerard, Sheriff of Solace,” he said, smiling. He cast an admiring glance at the dog and the penned-up kender. “I don’t suppose you’re looking for work, Brother, but if you are, I’d be glad to take you on. I saw the way you handled yourself out there in the line this morning, and that kender-herding dog of yours is worth its weight in steel.”

“My name is Rhys Mason. Thank you for the offer, but I must decline.” Rhys paused, then said mildly, “If you were watching what was happening between those men and the elf, my lord Sheriff, why did not you intervene?”

Gerard grinned ruefully. “If I rushed around trying to stop every knife fight that took place in Solace, Brother, I’d never do anything else. I spend my time on more important matters, such as trying to keep the town from being raided, looted, and burned to the ground. Gregor and Tak are the local bullies. If things had gotten out of hand, I would have come down to settle those boys. You had the situation under control, or so it looked from my end. Therefore, Brother, you, the dog, and the kender will be my guests for supper. It’s the least I can do for you, seeing as how you did my work for me this day.”

Rhys felt he could accept this offer and he did so. “That’ll do, Atta,” he called, and the dog jumped up and returned to his side.

Nightshade was on his way over to join Rhys when the kender was accosted by a plump, middle-aged woman, wearing a black shawl over her head, who said she wanted to talk to him. The two sat down and were soon deep in conversation; the kender looking extremely sympathetic, the woman dabbing her eyes with the hem of her shawl.

“She’s a recent widow,” said Gerard, frowning at the kender. “I wouldn’t want anyone to take advantage of her grief, Brother.”

“The kender is what is called a `nightstalker‘, my lord,” Rhys explained. “He can actually do what he says he can do—speak to the dead.”

Gerard was skeptical. “Truly? I’ve heard of his sort before. Didn’t know they actually existed. Figured it was just another tale the little buggers made up to make nuisances of themselves.”

“I can vouch for Nightshade, my lord Sheriff,” said Rhys, smiling. “He is not your typical light-fingered kender. He is able to communicate with the dead. I’ve seen him do it. Unless, of course, the spirits have moved on, in which case he can impart that information. Perhaps he can be of comfort to the widow.”

Gerard eyed the kender. “I knew a kender once,” he said quietly, speaking more to himself than to Rhys. “He wasn’t your typical kender either. I’ll give this one a chance, Brother, especially if you’ll vouch for him.”

A moment later, Nightshade came hurrying over. “The widow and I are going to the burial ground to talk to her husband. She misses him most dreadfully and she wants to make sure he’s doing all right without her. I’ll probably be gone most of the afternoon. Where shall I meet you?”

“You can meet your friend here,” said Gerard, interrupting Rhys. “You have a place in the common room to sleep tonight.”

“No more sleeping in stables! That’s wonderful. I’m getting really tired of the smell of horses,” said Nightshade, and before Rhys could contradict the sheriff, the kender had dashed off.

Gerard eyed Rhys. “I’m holding you responsible for emptying his pockets when he comes back.”

“You needn’t worry about that, my lord. Nightshade’s not very good at ‘borrowing.’ If he tries, he’s so inept that he’s almost always caught in the act. He is much more interested in speaking to the dead.”

Gerard snorted and shook his head. Sitting across the table from Rhys, the sheriff regarded the monk curiously, more interested in him than in the kender, which, the gods knew, Solace had in abundance.

The barmaid brought over bowls of savory stew, so thick with meat and vegetables that Rhys could barely dig his spoon into it. She put down a bowl of water and a meaty bone for Atta, who accepted the treat after a glance at Rhys and suffered the barmaid to pat her head. Atta dragged her bone under the table, plopped down on top of Rhys’s feet, and began to gnaw at it contentedly.

“You said you were searching for someone?” Gerard asked, leaning back in his chair, looking at Rhys with a pair of eyes that were a startling shade of blue. “I don’t begin to try to keep track of everyone who comes into Solace, but I do get around. Who is it you’re looking for?”

Rhys explained that he was searching for his brother. He described Lleu as wearing the robes of a cleric of Kiri-Jolith and spending his time in taverns and ale houses.

“Where are you from?”

“Staughton,” Rhys answered.

The sheriff raised his eyebrows. “You’ve traveled a long way in search of this young man, Brother; gone to a lot of trouble. Seems to me there must more to it than a family worried about a young vagabond.”

Rhys had decided to keep the truth about Lieu to himself, knowing that if he told anyone that his brother was guilty of murder, Lieu would be hunted down and slaughtered like a wild beast. Rhys found himself liking this man, Gerard, whose calm demeanor accorded well with Rhys’s own. If Rhys did find Lieu, he would be obliged to hand him over to the local authorities until he could be brought to justice by the Prophet of Majere. The Prophet would be the one to determine Lieu’s fate, since his crime had taken place in one of the monasteries. Rhys decided to tell the sheriff at least part of his story.

“I am sorry to say that my brother has lately become a follower of Chemosh, God of the Dead,” he told Gerard. “I fear that he is the victim of some evil spell cast on him by a disciple of Chemosh. I need to find Lleu in order to have the enchantment broken, if that is possible.”

“First Takhisis, now Chemosh,” Gerard growled, running his hand through his hair and making it stand straight up. “Sometimes I wonder if the return of the gods was such a good thing. We were doing all right on our own—not counting the Dragon Overlords, of course. We’ve got trouble enough now, what with displaced elves, rumors of a goblin army build-up in southern Qualinesti, and our local robber baron, Captain Samuval. We don’t need gods like Chemosh coming around to complicate matters. But then, I guess you must’ve figured that out for yourself, Rhys, since you’re no longer a monk of Majere, eh? You’re wearing monks’ garb, though, so you must be a monk of some sort.”

“I can see why you were hired on as sheriff, my lord,” Rhys said, meeting the blue eyes and holding them. “You have the ability to interrogate a man without letting him feel like he is being interrogated.”

Gerard shrugged. “No offense, Brother. I’m a good sheriff because I like people, even the rascals. This job is never boring, I can tell you that much.”

He leaned his elbows on the table and studied Rhys intently. “Here you are, a monk who leads the life of a monk of Majere and follows the ways of a monk of Majere and yet claims he’s not a monk of Majere. Wouldn’t you find that to be of interest?”

“I find everything involving mankind to be of interest, my lord Sheriff,” Rhys replied.

Gerard was about to respond, when their conversation was interrupted. One of his men entered the Inn, came up to him in haste. The two conferred in low tones together, and Gerard rose to his feet.

“Duty calls, I’m afraid. I haven’t seen this brother of yours, Brother, but I’ll keep an eye out for him. I can find you here, I guess?”

“Only if I can engage in some task to earn my keep,” Rhys said firmly.

“See? What did I tell you! Once a monk, always a monk.” Gerard grinned, shook hands again with Rhys, and left. He had gone only a few steps, when he turned back, “I almost forgot. There’s an abandoned temple a few blocks off the Town Square in what we locals call ‘Gods’ Row.’ Supposedly this temple was once dedicated to Chemosh. It’s been empty since anyone here can remember, but who knows? Maybe he’s moved back. Oh, and there’s a tavern off the beaten path known as the Trough. It’s popular with young ne’er-do-wells. You might try looking for your brother there.”

“Thank you, my lord Sheriff, I will investigate both,” Rhys replied, grateful for the tips.

“Good hunting,” called Gerard with a wave as he departed.

Rhys ate his stew and carried his bowl back to the kitchen, where he was finally able to persuade the reluctant Laura Majere to allow him to work to pay for their room and board. Ordering Atta to a corner, where she wouldn’t be underfoot, Rhys washed dishes, hauled water and wood up the kitchen stairs and chopped potatoes, destined to be used for one of the Inn’s best known delicacies.

It was late afternoon by the time Rhys was finished with his chores. Nightshade had not yet returned. Rhys asked the cook directions to the Trough. He received a startled look. The cook was certain Rhys must be mistaken. Rhys persisted and eventually the cook told him, even going so far as to walk to the top of the stairs to point out the road he should take.

Before he left, Rhys took Atta to the stables and gave her the command to wait for him. She flopped down on her belly in the straw, put her head between her paws, and gazed up at him. She was not happy, but she was prepared to obey.

He had considered bringing her with him. Atta was an obedient dog, one of the best that Rhys had ever trained, but she had taken against Lleu from the very start, and after his violent attack on her master, Rhys was afraid that if the two came in contact again, Atta would not wait for her master’s command but would go for Lieu’s throat.

Rhys gave her a pat and some meat scraps by way of apology and to assure her she was not being punished, then he departed, heading for the Trough, which sounded just like the kind of place his brother tended to frequent.

11

Rhys did not go immediately to the Trough as he had planned.

Discovering that God’s Row was not far from the main square, he decided to visit the ruined temple on his way out of town, perhaps gaining information that might prove useful in dealing with his brother, should he chance to find him.

The end of the War of Souls brought the return of the gods, and the return of their clerics, performing miracles in the name of their gods and gaining followers. They built new temples dedicated to the various gods, and here in Solace, as in other cities, the temples tended to be clustered in the same general part of town, much as sword dealers located in Sword Street, cloth merchants in Clothier’s Street, and mageware shops in Magi Alley. Some said this was so that the gods, who’d been duped once by one of their own, could keep a closer eye on each other.

Gods’ Row was located near the Tomb of the Last Heroes. Rhys paused for a look at this monument, which—he was thankful to see—remained faithful to childhood’s memory. Solamnic knights posted honorary guard in front of the Tomb. Kender picnicked on the lawn and celebrated their hero, the famous Tasslehoff Burrfoot. The tomb was graced with a reverence and a solemnity that Rhys found restful. After paying a moment of silent respect for the dead who slumbered within, he continued on past it to the street where the gods lived.

Gods’ Row was bustling with activity, with several new temples under construction. The temple to Mishakal was the largest and most magnificent, for it was in Solace that her disciple, Goldmoon of the Que-Shu, had come bearing the miraculous blue crystal staff. Because of this, the people of Solace always claimed that the goddess took a personal interest in them. The temple to Kiri-Jolith was almost as large and stood side-by-side with Mishakal. Rhys saw several men wearing tabards that marked them as Solamnic knights emerging from this temple.

Next to these two, Rhys was nonplussed to see a temple dedicated to Majere. He had not expected to find such a temple, though, on second thought, he supposed he should have been prepared for it. Solace was a major cross-roads in the region. Locating a temple here provided the clerics of Majere with easy access to a major portion of western Ansalon.

Rhys crossed the street to walk on the opposite side of the temple, keeping to the shadows. If ordinary laymen mistook him for a monk of Majere, Majere’s clerics would do the same and they would find out the truth immediately, for Rhys would not think of trying to lie to them. He might well be waylaid and questioned and brought before the temple’s High Abbot for a “talk.” They might have even heard about the murders from the Prophet of Majere and want to discuss that. The clerics would be well-meaning, of course, but Rhys did not want to waste time answering their questions, nor did he think he was up to the task.

Several clerics in their orange and copper robes were working in the temple garden. They paused in what they were doing to regard him curiously. He continued on his way, his gaze straight ahead.

A blast of wind, the scent of the sea, and the feel of an arm entwined through his arm announced the presence of his goddess.

“Keep close to me, monk,” Zeboim ordered peremptorily. “Majere’s busy-bodies will not notice you this way.”

“I do not need your protection, Majesty,” Rhys said, trying unsuccessfully to withdraw from her embrace. “Nor did I ask you for it.”

“You never ask me for anything,” Zeboim returned, “and I would be so happy to accommodate you.”

She pressed up against him, so that he could feel the softness and the warmth of her.

“What a hard, firm body you have,” Zeboim continued in admiring tones. “All the walking you do, I suppose. Make a scene,” she added, her voice soft as a summer breeze with just a hint of thunder, “and you will spend the rest of the night discussing the good of your soul, when you might be talking to your brother.”

Rhys cast her a sharp glance. “You know where Lleu is?”

“I do, and so do you,” she returned with a meaningful look.

“The Trough?”

“He is there now, tossing down tumbler after tumbler of dwarf spirits. He is drinking so much, one would imagine the makers are about to go extinct. They would, if I had anything to say about it. Hairy little bastards—dwarves.”

“Thank you for the information, Majesty,” said Rhys, once more trying to disentangle himself. “I must go to Lleu—”

“Certainly, you must. You will. But not before you pay a visit to my shrine,” said Zeboim. “It’s just down the road. That is where you were bound, I presume?”

“In truth, Majesty—”

“Never tell a woman the truth, monk,” Zeboim warned. Rhys smiled. “Then, yes, that is where I was bound.”

“And you have some little gift for me?” the goddess asked archly.

“My possessions consist of my scrip and my emmide,” said Rhys, smiling. “Which would you like, Majesty?”

Zeboim regarded the proffered objects with disdain. “A smelly leather sack or a stick. I want neither, thank you.”

They passed the temple of Majere. Seeing Rhys walking with a woman, the clerics knew he was not one of theirs and went back to the chores. Ahead was the temple to Zeboim, a modest structure made of drift wood hauled here from the shores of New Sea, decorated with sea shells. Before they reached the doorway, Zeboim halted and turned to face him.

“Your gift to your goddess will be a kiss.”

Rhys took hold of her hand, and respectfully pressed it to his lips.

Zeboim slapped him across the cheek. The blow was hard, left him with burning skin and an aching jaw.

“How dare you mock me?” she demanded, seething.

“I do not mock you, Majesty,” Rhys returned quietly. “I show my respect for you, as I would hope you have respect for me and the vows I have taken—vows of poverty and chastity.”

“Vows to another god!” Zeboim said scornfully.

“Vows to myself, Majesty,” said Rhys.

“What do I care about your silly vows? Nor do I want your respect!” Zeboim raged. “I am to be feared, adored!”

Rhys did not flinch before her, nor did he touch his stinging cheek. Zeboim grew suddenly calm, dangerously calm, as the seas will go smooth and flat before the storm.

“You are an insolent and obdurate man. I put up with you for one reason, monk. Woe betide you if you fail me!”

The goddess departed, leaving Rhys feeling as drained as if he’d come from the field of battle. Zeboim did not want a follower. She wanted to capture him, take him prisoner, force him to work for her like a chained-up galley-slave. Rhys had one weapon to use to keep her at a distance and that was discipline—discipline of body, discipline of mind. Zeboim had no understanding of this and did not know how to fight it. He infuriated her, yet he intrigued her. Rhys knew, however, that the time would come when the fickle goddess would cease to be intrigued and would give way to her fury.

At the far end of the street, Rhys could see the broken-down temple of Chemosh, the ruins of which were strewn among a patch of weeds. Rhys had no need to go there, since he now knew where to find Lleu, but he decided to pay a visit to the temple anyway. Rhys had all night to find Lleu, who would not soon leave the tavern. He turned his steps toward the temple of the God of Death.

Perhaps it was the influence of the god, or perhaps it was merely Rhys’s imagination, but it seemed to him that the shadows of coming night clustered more thickly around the temple than other parts of the street. He would need a light to investigate and he had no lantern with him. He returned to the shrine of Zeboim. He saw no sign of priest or priestess. No one answered his repeated calls. Several candles, standing in holders fashioned to look like wooden boats, burned on the altar—gifts to Zeboim made in hopes that she would watch over those who sailed the seas or traveled the inland waterways.

“You said I never asked you for anything, Majesty,” Rhys said to the goddess. “I ask you now. Grant me the gift of light.”

Rhys removed one of the candles from the altar and carried it outdoors. A puff of wind caused the flame to waver and nearly go out, but the goddess relented, and candle in hand, Rhys went to investigate the temple of Chemosh.

Chunks of fallen stone lay upon crumbling stairs. Rhys had to climb over them to gain the door, only to find that it was blocked by a pillar. He squeezed his way inside through a crack in the wall. The temple floor was littered with debris and dust. Weeds and grass poked up through the cracks. The altar was cracked and overgrown with bind-weed. Any objects sacred to the god had been carried off either by his priests or looters or both. The prints of Rhys’s bare feet were the only prints in the dust. He held the flame high, looked searchingly all around the temple. No one had been here in a long, long while.

Carrying the candle back to the shrine of Zeboim, Rhys placed it in its little wooden boat and gave his thanks to the goddess. He turned his footsteps toward the path that would take him to the Trough.

“Whatever Chemosh is doing in the world, he is not interested in building monuments,” Rhys remarked to himself as he walked past the beautiful temple, all done in white marble, of Mishakal.

He found that thought disturbing, more disturbing than if he’d come upon a group of black-robed priests skulking about inside the temple walls, raising up corpses by the score. The Lord of Death was no longer hiding in the shadows. He was out in the sunlight, walking among the living, recruiting followers like the wretched Lleu.

But to what end? To what purpose?

Rhys had no idea. Once he found his brother, he hoped he would gain answers.

“Rhys, hullo!” Nightshade appeared out of the twilight, came running up to him. “They told me back at the inn where you were going so I thought I’d come with you. Where’s Atta?”

“I left her at the Inn,” said Rhys.

“The people are nice there,” Nightshade commented. “A lot of places won’t let me in, but the lady who runs the Inn—you know, the plump, pretty woman with the red hair—anyway, she told me that she’s partial to kender. One of her father’s best friends was a kender.”

“Were you able to help the widow contact her husband?” Rhys asked.

“I tried.” Nightshade shook his head. “His soul had already passed on to the next part of his journey. If you’ll believe it, she was hopping mad. She said she figured he’d gone off with some floozy. I tried to explain that it didn’t work that way, that his soul was off broadening its horizons. She said ‘broad’ was the right word for it; he’d always been one for the ladies. She’s going to marry the baker and that would fix him. She didn’t give me any money, but she did take me to meet the baker and he gave me a meat-pie.”

The two made their way through the streets, leaving behind the bustling and busy part of Solace and entering into a part that was dark and dismal. There were no shops and only a scattering of tumble-down houses from which dim lights shone. Few people walked in this part of town by night. Occasionally they met some straggler, hurrying along the deserted street, keeping his head low and looking neither to the right nor the left, as if fearful of what he might see. Rhys was just starting to think that perhaps he’d taken a wrong turn, for it seemed they had reached the end of the civilized world, when he smelled wood smoke and saw flickering firelight streaming through a window. Loud voices raised in a bawdy song.

“I think we found it,” said Nightshade.

The original Trough was long gone. It and several later incarnations of the tavern had burnt to the ground. First the kitchen had caught fire. The next time it had been the chimney. Once a band of drunken draconians had set fire to the tavern when confronted with what they considered to be an unreasonable bill, and once the owner had set fire to it himself for reasons that were never very clear. Each time it had been rebuilt, using money said to be supplied by the hill dwarves, for it was one of the few places remaining in Abanasinia where one could buy the potent liquor known as dwarf spirits.

The tavern lurked in the thick shadows of a grove of trees near the edge of the road and had few distinguishing characteristics. Even when Rhys was close to it, he could get no clear impression of the building, except that it was long and low, rickety and unstable. It did boast a single window in the front. The glass for the window must have cost more than the entire building and Rhys wondered why the owner bothered. As it turned out, the window was not there for aesthetic purposes, but so those inside could keep on an eye on those outside and if necessary make a quick dash for the back door.

Rhys placed his hand on the iron door handle, noting it had a greasy feel to it, and leaned down to say in a low voice to the kender, “I do not think you’re going to find much work here. It would be best if you did not seek to offer your services for contacting the dead.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Nightshade returned.

“Nor do I think this would be a good time for you to borrow anything from anyone.”

“There never does seem to be a good time,” Nightshade said cheerfully. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep my hands in my pockets.”

“And,” Rhys added, “if my brother is here, let me do the talking.”

“I’m to be seen and not heard,” said Nightshade. He looked a little daunted. “I miss Atta.”

“So do I,” said Rhys. He opened the door.

A fire burning sullenly in a fire pit at the back of the tavern was the only source of light, and it was smoking so much that it wasn’t doing a very good job of that. Rhys peered through the murky interior of the tavern. The song fell silent in midnote when he and the kender entered, except for one drunk who was not singing the same song anyway and who droned on without pause.

Rhys saw Lleu immediately. His brother sat at a table by himself in the middle of the tavern. He was in the act of taking a swig from an earthenware jug when Rhys entered. Wiping his mouth, Lleu set the jug back on the table. He glanced at the new visitor, then glanced away, not interested.

Rhys crossed the room to the table where his brother sat. He was afraid that his brother might try to run, once he recognized him, so he spoke to him first.

“Lleu,” said Rhys calmly, “do not be alarmed. I’ve come to talk with you. Nothing more.”

Lleu looked up. “Fine with me, friend,” he said with a smile that was meant to be genial but which had a strained quality to it. “Sit down and talk away.”

Rhys was disconcerted. This was not the reaction he had expected. Rhys stared at Lleu, who stared right back, and Rhys realized that his brother did not recognize him. Given the shadowy, smoky atmosphere of the tavern and the fact that he was no longer wearing orange robes, this was perhaps understandable. Rhys sat down at the table with his brother. Nightshade plunked down beside him. The kender regarded Lleu with a round-eyed gaze, then glanced at Rhys and seemed about to say something. Rhys shook his head and Nightshade remembered that he was supposed to keep quiet.

“Lleu,” said Rhys, “it’s me, Rhys. Your brother.”

Lleu cast him a bored glance, went back to his jug. “If you say so.”

“Don’t you recognize me, Lleu?” Rhys pressed. “You should. You tried to kill me.”

“Obviously I failed,” Lleu grunted. He lifted the jug, took a long pull at the liquor and set it back down again. “So you’ve got nothing to complain about, that I can see. Have a drink?”

Lleu held out the jug to his brother. On Rhys’s refusal, Lleu offered it to the kender. “How about you, little fella?”

“Yes, thank … uh, no, that’s all right,” said Nightshade, catching Rhys’s eye.

“Just as well,” Lieu continued, shoving the jug away in disgust. “Damn spirits must be more than half water. This is my second jug and I can still see just one of you, monk, and just one of your little friend there. Usually after three tips, I’m seeing six of every-thing and pink goblins to boot.”

He turned his head, yelled over his shoulder, “Hey, where’s my supper?”

“You ate already,” said a voice from the vicinity of the bar, that was lost in a gloom of smoky haze.

“I don’t remember eating,” Lieu said angrily.

“Well, you did,” said the voice dourly. “Yer empty plate’s sittin’ in front of you.”

Lieu frowned down at the table to see a battered pewter plate and a bent knife.

“Then I’m hungry again. Bring me some more of whatever that slop was.”

“Not ’til you pay for the last meal you ate. And them two jugs of spirits.”

“I’m good for it,” Lleu snarled. “I’m a cleric of Kiri-Jolith, for gods’ sake.”

A snort came from out of the smoke.

“I have part of a meat pie I couldn’t finish,” said Nightshade, and he brought out the pie wrapped in a grease-spotted handkerchief.

Lleu snatched up the pie and devoured it hungrily, as if he’d not eaten in days. “Any more where that came from?”

“Sorry,” said the kender.

“I don’t know why it is,” Lleu muttered. “I eat and eat and never get full. Must be the damn food in this part of the country. All tastes the same. Bland, like these dwarf spirits. No kick to em.

Rhys took hold of his brother’s arm, gripped it hard.

“Lleu, quit talking about food and dwarf spirits. Don’t you have any remorse for what you’ve done? For the terrible crime you committed?”

“No, he doesn’t,” said the kender.

“I told you to be quiet,” Rhys ordered impatiently. Nightshade leaned close to Rhys and put his hand on his arm. “You do realize he’s dead, don’t you?”

“Nightshade, I don’t have time—”

The words froze on Rhys’s tongue. He stared at his brother. Slowly, he relaxed his grip, loosened his hold on his brother’s arm.

Unfazed, Lleu sat back in his chair. He picked up the jug, took another swig, and then set it back down with a thump. “Where’s my food?” he yelled.

“Ask me again and you’ll get your food, all right. I’ll stuff it straight up your arse.”

“Nightshade, what are you talking about?” Rhys whispered. He could not take his gaze from his brother. “What do you mean, ‘he’s dead’.”

“Just what I said,” the kender replied. “He’s dead as a coffin nail. He just doesn’t know it yet. Would you like me to tell him? It might come as a shock—”

“Nightshade, if this is some type of jest—”

“Oh, no,” Nightshade protested, appalled at the mere suggestion. “I may joke about a lot things, but not my work. I take that very seriously. All those poor spirits waiting to be set free…” The kender paused, cocked an eye at Rhys. “You truly can’t see he’s dead?”

Lleu had forgotten they were there. He stared into the smoke, every so often taking a pull from the jug, more by force of habit, seemingly, then because he took any pleasure in it.

“He is acting very strangely,” Rhys conceded. “But he is breathing. His flesh is warm to the touch. He drinks and eats, he sits and talks to me—”

“Yeah, that’s the odd part,” said Nightshade, screwing up his face into a puzzled expression. “I’ve seen plenty of corpses in my life, but they were all quiet, peaceful sorts. This is the first time I ever saw one sitting in a tavern drinking dwarf spirits and wolfing down meat pies.”

“This is not funny, Nightshade,” Rhys said grimly.

“Well, it’s hard to explain!” The kender was defensive. “It’s like you trying to tell a blind person what the sky looks like. I can see he’s dead because … because there’s no light inside him.”

“No light …” Rhys repeated softly. He recalled the Master’s words: Lleu is his own shadow.

“When I look at you or those two men playing bones over in the corner, I see a kind of light coming off them. Oh, it’s not much. Not bright like the fire or even a candle flame. You couldn’t read a book by it, or find your way in the dark or anything like that. It’s just a wavering, shimmering glow. Like the very tip tiptop of the flame before it trails off into smoke. That sort of light. When you had hold of him, did you feel a pulse? You might see if he’s got one.”

Rhys reached out, took hold of his brother’s wrist.

“What are you doing?” Lleu asked, regarding Rhys with a frown.

“I am afraid that you are not well,” Rhys said.

“That’s an understatement,” muttered the kender.

“I’m fine, I assure you. I never felt better. Chemosh takes care of me.”

“Well?” the kender asked Rhys eagerly.

Rhys felt something that might have been a pulse but was not quite the same. It did not feel like the rush of life beneath the skin. More like turgid water moving sluggishly beneath a layer of thick ice.

“What about the eyes?” Nightshade sat forward, trying to see Lleu through the smoke.

Rhys had a better view. He looked into his brother’s eyes and recoiled.

He’d seen those eyes before gazing up at him from the grave. Eyes that were empty. Eyes that had no soul behind them. Lieu’s eyes were the eyes of the dead.

He could not take this as proof, however, for he was starting to doubt his own senses. His brother looked alive, he sounded alive, his flesh felt alive to the touch. Yet, there were the Master’s warning, the kender’s assessment, and now that Rhys came to think of it, there was Atta’s reaction to Lleu. She had taken against him from the first, confronting him with bared teeth and raised hackles. She did not want him near the sheep. She’d bitten him when he tried to lay his hands on her.

Rhys might have assumed that the Master was speaking in metaphors. He might dismiss the kender as talking nonsense. But Rhys trusted the dog. Atta had realized from the moment she saw and smelled Lleu that there was something wrong about him.

“You are right,” said Rhys softly. “His eyes are those of a corpse.”

Lleu shoved back his chair, stood up. “I’ve got to go. I’m meeting someone. A young lady.” He winked and leered.

“That wouldn’t be Mina, would it?” Rhys asked.

Lieu’s reaction was startling. Reaching over the table, he grabbed hold of the collar of Rhys’s robes and nearly dragged him from the chair.

“Where is she?” Lleu demanded, and he was panting with an ugly eagerness. “Is she around here somewhere? Tell me how to find her! Tell me!”

Rhys looked down at his brother’s hands, gripping the homespun fabric. The knuckles were white with intensity. The fingers quivered.

“I have no idea where she is,” Rhys said. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

Lleu glared at him suspiciously. Then he let go.

“Sorry,” Lleu mumbled. “I need to find her, that’s all. It’s all right. I’ll keep looking.”

Lleu flung open the door and walked out, slamming the door shut behind him. The barkeep roared out that he wanted his money, but by then, Lleu was long gone.

Rhys was on his feet. Nightshade jumped up in response. “Where are we going?”

“After him.”

“Why?”

“To see what he does, where he goes.”

“Hey!” shouted the barkeep. “Are you going to pay for your friend?”

“I have no money—” Rhys began and was interrupted by the sound of steel coins ringing on the bar.

“Thanks,” said the barkeep, scooping up the coins.

Rhys looked accusingly at Nightshade.

“I didn’t do it,” said the kender promptly.

“That’s two you owe me, monk,” said Zeboim’s sultry voice from the smoky shadows. “Now go after him!”

Rhys and Nightshade left the tavern, silently hurrying along behind Lleu, who was heading back into Solace.

They took precautions to keep him from seeing that he was being followed, although that proved unnecessary, for he never once looked behind. He strolled jauntily down the road, his head thrown back, singing the refrain of the bawdy song.

“Nightshade,” said Rhys, “I have heard that there are undead known as zombies.” He felt strange, asking such a question, unreal, as if in a horrible dream. “Is it possible—”

“—that he’s a zombie?” Nightshade shook his head emphatically. “You’ve never seen a zombie, have you? Zombies are corpses that are raised up after death. Their stench alone is enough to curl your socks. They have rotting flesh, eyeballs hanging out of the eye sockets. They shuffle when they walk because they don’t know how to move their legs or feet. They’re more like horrible puppets than anything else. They don’t sing, I can tell you that, and they’re not young and handsome.

“I’ll say one thing for your brother, Rhys,” Nightshade concluded solemnly. “He’s the best looking dead man I ever saw in my life.”

12

Rhys and Nightshade followed Lleu to one of the newer parts o Solace. In order to accommodate the numbers of people moving into the city, houses were being hastily constructed below the vallenwood trees, not up among the branches. Those who lived in these new houses were generally refugees who had fled the destruction caused by Beryl. They had lived in tents when they first arrived in Solace, but by now some of them had done well for themselves and wanted permanent dwellings.

A great many houses could be built around the bole of one of the giant trees. To save money and wood, the designer followed the elven plan of using the tree itself as one wall of the house, so that the homes resembled mushrooms sprouting out of the mud at the base of the tree. The hour was late. Most of the houses were dark, their occupants having gone to bed, but here and there a light shone from one of the windows, casting its glow into the street.

Lleu slowed his pace when he reached this part of town and ceased to sing. He walked up to one of the darkened houses and peeked in a window. Then he loitered up and down the street, casting an occasional glance at the house. Rhys and Nightshade stood in the shadows and watched and waited.

The door to the house opened a crack. A young woman in a cloak slipped out and softly and stealthily closed the door behind her. She was having trouble seeing in the darkness and looked about fearfully.

“Lleu?” she called in a tremulous tone.

“Lucy, my dove.” He caught her in his arms and kissed her. “No, no, not here!” she said breathlessly, pushing him away. “Suppose my husband were to wake up and see us?”

“Where shall we go, then?” said Lleu, holding her around the waist and nuzzling her neck. “I can’t keep my hands off you.” “I know a place,” she said. “Come with me.”

Clinging together, laughing and giggling, the two hastened down the street. Rhys and Nightshade followed after them. Rhys was troubled, uncertain what to do. This was apparently nothing more than a midnight assignation with a young woman, perfectly normal for a young man like Lleu, except that Lleu was far from normal and the young woman was married.

Rhys should probably call a halt to this now, take hold of the young woman and drag her back to her house. There would be a scene with the husband: tears and wails, rage, a fight. The neighbors would wake. Someone would summon the authorities.

No, Rhys determined. Nothing good would come of an uproar. He would bide his time, wait until they were someplace quiet, then try to talk to Lleu.

The couple reached a secluded, cleared area amidst a grove of pine trees. From the looks of the trampled grass, this was the local meeting ground for lovers. They had barely stopped walking before Lleu had his hands all over the woman. His kissed her neck, ran his hands over her breasts, lifted up her skirts.

“He’s pretty lively for a dead guy,” Nightshade observed.

Rhys was uncomfortable watching this. He felt he should intervene, although what he would say was open to question. The young woman would be embarrassed and upset. Lleu would be angry. Again, there would be tears, recriminations.

The young woman sighed, panted, and clung to Lleu, pressing his head against her bosom, running her fingers through his hair. Lleu took off her cloak and spread it on the pine needles. The two sank down onto the ground.

“We should leave,” said Rhys, and he was about to turn to go when his brother’s next words halted him.

“Have you thought more about what we talked about, my dearest?” Lleu asked. “About Chemosh?”

“Chemosh?” Lucy repeated vaguely. “Don’t let’s talk about religion now. Kiss me!”

“But I want to talk about Chemosh,” Lleu said, his hand fondling her breasts.

“That old, moldy god?” Lucy sighed, pouting. “I don’t see why you want to talk of gods at a time like this.”

“Because it is important to me,” said Lieu. His voice took on a soft tone. He kissed her on the cheek. “To us.” He kissed her again. “I can’t run away with you if you won’t swear to worship Chemosh, as I do.”

“I don’t see what difference it makes,” Lucy said, between her own kisses.

Lleu brushed her lips with his own. “Because, my sweet, I will live forever, as I am now—young, vibrant, handsome—” She giggled. “You are so vain!”

“You, on the other hand, will grow old. Your hair will turn gray. Your skin will wrinkle and your teeth fall out.”

“You wouldn’t love me then,” Lucy said, faltering.

“You will die, Lucy,” Lleu said softly, stroking her cheek with his hand. “And I will be alive and healthy and needing someone to share my bed …”

“And if I worship Chemosh, he will keep me young and beautiful?” Lucy asked. “Forever and always?”

“Forever and always,” said Lleu. “And that is how long I will love you.”

“Well, then,” said Lucy with a laugh, “I give my soul to Chemosh!”

“You will not regret it, my love,” said Lleu.

He pulled down her bodice, exposing her breasts that were white in the moonlight. She sighed and shivered and put her hand on his head, drew him down to kiss her soft flesh. He pressed his lips against her left breast, gripped her tightly in his arms.

“Lleu,” Lucy said, her tone changing. “Lleu, you’re hurting me— Ah!”

She gave a piercing scream and struggled in his arms. Lleu held her fast. Her scream swelled to an agonized shriek. Her body jerked and twitched. Rhys jumped to his feet and raced toward the couple, with Nightshade dashing along behind.

“She’s dying!” cried the kender. “He’s killing her! Her spirit light’s fading.”

The young woman shuddered, her body stiffened, and then she went limp.

Rhys grasped hold of Lleu, pulled him off her and flung him aside. Kneeling down on the ground, he gathered up the body of the young woman in his arms, hoping to feel yet some spark of life.

“Too late,” Lleu said coolly. He rose to his feet, looked down at the dead woman dispassionately, as upon a job well done. “She belongs to Chemosh now.”

The woman was no longer breathing. Her eyes were empty and unknowing. Rhys felt for the lifebeat in her neck, found none. On her breast, burned into her flesh, was the imprint of his brother’s lips.

“Majere,” Rhys prayed. “She didn’t know what she was saying. Have mercy on her. Restore her to life!”

Rhys shifted position slightly. The woman’s head lolled to one side. Her flaccid arm slid off his knee and fell limply to the ground. Rhys listened for the voice of the god.

“Do not punish this innocent woman because of me, Lord!” Rhys begged. “Her death is my fault! I could have saved her, as I could have saved my brothers.”

There came no answer. The only sound was Lieu’s scornful laughter.

“Zeboim,” Rhys cried, his voice harsh. “Grant this poor woman her life.”

An echo of his brother’s scornful laugh came back to him from out the shadows of the trees.

Rhys gently lowered the woman’s body onto the ground.

“Her spirit’s gone,” said Nightshade. “I’m sorry, Rhys. There’s nothing can be done. I’m afraid your brother may be right. Chemosh has her.”

Rising to his feet, Rhys faced his brother. “I didn’t want to do this, Lleu, but you have left me no choice. You are my prisoner. I’m going to take you to the authorities. You’ll be charged with murder. I want you to come with me quietly. I don’t want to have to hurt you, but I will, if necessary.” •

Lleu shrugged. “I’ll come with you willingly, brother. But I think you’re going to find it hard to make that charge of murder stick.”

“Why is that?” Rhys asked grimly.

“Because there has been no murder,” said a voice behind him, with a giggle.

Lucy scrambled to her feet and ran over to stand beside Lleu. She clasped her arms around him, pressed up against him. Her hair was disheveled, her bodice undone. Rhys could still see the mark—red and fiery—of Lieu’s lips on her breast, that rose and fell with the breath of life. She regarded Rhys with mocking laughter in her eyes.

“I am alive, monk,” she said. “Better than ever.”

“You were dead,’ said Rhys, his throat constricting. “You died in my arms.”

“Maybe I did,” Lucy returned archly, “but who will believe you? No one. No one in the whole wide world.”

“Do you want me to come with you to the sheriff, brother?” Lleu asked. “I can introduce him to a couple of other young women I’ve met during my time in Solace. Women who now understand and embrace the ways of Chemosh.”

Rhys was starting to understand, though the understanding was so horrendous that he found it difficult to accept.

“You are dead,” he said.

“No, brother, I am one of the Beloved of Chemosh,” said Lleu. He and Lucy both laughed.

“I tried to explain all to you once, Rhys, but you wouldn’t listen. Now, you see it for yourself. Look at Lucy. She is beautiful, blooming, radiant. Does she look dead to you? Show him, Lucy.”

The young woman advanced upon Rhys, hips swaying, her eyes half-shut, her lips parted provocatively. “Your brother is envious, Lleu. He wants me for himself.”

“He’s all yours, my dove,” said Lleu. “Have fun—”

Lucy continued to advance, her head thrown back, her lashes half-closed, her lips parted.

“Kill her!” said Nightshade suddenly.

Rhys fell back a pace. He could not take his eyes from her, the woman who had died in his arms, and who was now fondling him with a flirtatious smile.

“Kill her and kill him, too,” said Nightshade urgently. “According to Lleu, they can’t be killed,” Rhys said. “Besides, there’s been too much death already.”

Lucy took hold of the collar of Rhys’s robes, slid her hands beneath it.

“You have never lain with a woman, have you, monk? Wouldn’t you like to find out what you’ve been missing all these years?”

Rhys thrust aside her clutching hands, shoved her away.

“You have to try to kill them,” said Nightshade, relentless, “or they’ll do murder again.”

“A monk of Majere does not kill . .” Rhys said softly.

“You’re not a monk,” Nightshade returned brutally, “and if you were, it doesn’t matter. They’re already dead!”

“I can’t be sure of that.” Rhys shook his head.

“Yes, you can! Look in her eyes, Rhys! Look in her eyes!”

Rhys looked into the girl’s eyes. He saw not emptiness, as he had seen in his brother’s eyes, but something more terrible. He had seen such a look once before and he tried to recall where.

Then it came to him—the eyes of a starving wolf. Driven by hunger, desperate to feed, the animal’s need overrode every other instinct, including fear. Rhys had been armed with two flaming torches. Atta tore at the wolf’s flank with her teeth. The wolf had gone straight for Rhys’s throat …

He saw the truth of the kender’s words in Lucy’s eyes. She would kill again to satisfy that desperate need. Again and again…

Rhys lifted the emmide and jabbed it straight into the girl’s forehead. Her head snapped back and he heard, quite clearly, the neck bone crack. She slumped to the ground, her head twisted at an odd angle. Rhys whipped around to face his brother.

Lleu lounged against a tree, his arms folded across his chest, watching the proceedings with a smile.

Rhys gripped the staff and started to advance on his brother. “Look out! Behind you!” Nightshade’s voice rose shrilly. Rhys turned, stared, horrified.

Lucy walked toward him, hips swaying, lips parted, hands outstretched.

“Chemosh will have your soul,” she said to him, laughing, lilting. Her head was at an odd angle from where he’d broken her neck. With a twist and a jerk, she righted it and kept coming. “Whether you will it or not.”

He could hear, behind him, the scraping of Lieu’s sword sliding from its scabbard. Rhys faced Lucy, holding her at bay with the emmide, his eyes watching her while his ears kept track of Lieu’s movements. Nightshade was yammering some-thing and waving his hands, as though he was casting some sort of magic spell. Rhys wished the kender would be quiet. He heard a rustle in the grass, a crackle of brown pine needles, and Lieu’s sudden, indrawn breath.

Rhys sprang sideways, twisting his body. The sword sliced the air where he had been standing.

Lieu’s wild lunge carried him halfway across the clearing. Rhys smacked Lucy in the face with the emmide. The blow smashed her nose, spread it all over her face. A thin trail of blood trickled from the wound, but not the gushing torrent that should have flowed from such an injury. She cried out, more in anger than in pain, and staggered backward.

Rhys shifted about to face Lieu in time to see his brother run at him again, sword in one hand, knife in the other.

Rhys struck the sword with his staff, broke it in two. Twirling the staff rapidly so that it looked like a windmill in a high gale, he brought it down hard on Lieu’s wrist, heard the snap of bone. Lleu dropped the knife. Rhys remembered clearly the last time he’d struck Lleu, he’d also cried out in pain. Lleu did not cry out now, did not even appear to notice the fact that his hand no longer functioned.

Weaponless, Lleu flung himself at his brother, grappling for his throat with one good hand, flailing at him with his broken hand, using it as a club.

His soul sick with horror, Rhys side-stepped. Lleu lurched past him, and as he went, Rhys kicked his feet out from underneath him. Lleu fell onto his stomach.

Standing over his fallen brother, Rhys drove the butt end of the staff with all his strength into Lieu’s spinal column, separating the vertebrae, smashing through to the spinal cord, severing it.

Rhys fell back, on the defensive, watching his brother.

“My mystic spell didn’t work!” Nightshade panted, running toward him. “I’ve cast that spell a hundred zillion times and it always stops undead. Usually bowls ‘em over like nine pins. It didn’t even faze your brother.”

Lieu grimaced, as if he’d stubbed his toe, then, slowly, as though putting himself back together, he started to regain his feet. He rubbed his back, arching it.

“If you want my opinion, Rhys,” the kender added, gasping for breath, “you can’t do anything to kill them. Now would be a good time to run away!”

Rhys didn’t answer. He was watching Lleu.

“Right now!” Nightshade urged, tugging on Rhys’s sleeve.

“I told you before, Rhys,” said Lleu. He reached down to his maimed hand, grabbed the wrist and snapped it back in place. “I am one of the Beloved of Chemosh. I have his gift. Life unending . .”

“I am also Beloved of Chemosh,” said Lucy. She appeared oblivious to the fact that her nose was mangled and bloodied. “I have his gift. Life unending. You can have it, too, Rhys. Give yourself to Chemosh.”

The two corpses advanced on him, their eyes alight, not with life, but with the desperate need to take life.

Bile filled Rhys’s mouth. His stomach clenched. He turned and fled, running through the forest, crashing into tree limbs, plunging headlong into weed patches. He stopped to be sick, and then he ran again, ran from the mocking laughter that danced among the trees, ran from the body of the girl in his arms, ran from the bodies in the mass grave at the monastery. He ran blindly, heedlessly, ran until he had no more strength and he fell to the ground, gasping and sobbing. He was sick again and again, even when there was nothing left to purge, and then he heaved up blood. At last, exhausted, he rolled over on his back and lay there, his body clenched and shaking.

Here Nightshade found him.

Although the kender had recommended running away, he hadn’t been prepared for Rhys to act on his advice in quite such a sudden manner. Caught off guard, Nightshade made a slow start. The hungry eyes of the two Beloved of Chemosh turning in his direction put an extra spring in the kender’s step. He couldn’t see Rhys, but he could hear him tearing and slashing his way through the forest. Kender have excellent night vision, much better than humans, and Nightshade soon came across Rhys, lying on the forest floor, eyes closed, breathing labored.

“Now don’t you go dying on me,” the kender ordered, squatting down beside his friend.

He laid his hand on Rhys’s forehead and felt it warm. His breathing was harsh and rasping from his raw throat, but strong. Nightshade recited a little singsong chant he’d learned from his parents and stroked the monk’s hair soothingly, much the way the kender petted Atta.

Rhys sighed deeply. His body relaxed. He opened his eyes and, seeing Nightshade bending over him, gave a wan smile.

“How are you feeling?” Nightshade asked anxiously.

“Much better,” Rhys said. His stomach had ceased to churn, his raw throat felt warm and soothed, as if he’d drunk a honey posset. “You have hidden talents, seemingly.”

“Just a little healing spell I picked up from my parents,” Nightshade replied modestly. “It comes in handy sometimes—mending broken bones and stopping bleeding and making fevers go away. I can’t do anything major, not like bringing back the dead—” He gulped, bit his lip. “Oops. Sorry. Didn’t mean to mention that.”

Rhys rose swiftly to his feet. “How long was I unconscious?”

“Not long. You might have waited for me, you know?”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Rhys said softly. “I couldn’t think of anything except how horrible—” He shook his head. “Are they coming after us?”

Nightshade glanced back over his shoulder. “I don’t know. I guess not. I don’t hear them, do you?”

Rhys shook his head. “I wish I could.”

“You want them to chase after us? They want to kill us! Give us to Chemosh!”

“Yes, I know. But if they were coming after us, it would mean that they fear us. As it is–” He shrugged. “They don’t care what happens to us. That’s disturbing.”

“I see,” said Nightshade solemnly. “They know there’s nothing we can do to stop them. And they’re right. My magic had no effect on them. And that’s never happened to me before. Well, not since I was a little kender and just starting out. Maybe if we had a holy weapon—”

“The emmide is a holy weapon blessed by the god. Majere gave it to me, a parting gift.” Rhys tightened his grip on the staff. He could see Atta prancing with it in her mouth and he felt a momentary warmth in the midst of the chill darkness. “Even though the wielder of the staff may not be blessed by Majere, the weapon is. And you as you saw, it could not slay my brother or even slow him down much. As Lleu said, he’s not afraid that we might tell someone that he is a murderer. Who would believe us?”

“I guess you’re right,” said Nightshade. “I never thought about it that way. So what do we do?”

“I don’t know. I can’t think rationally anymore.” Rhys looked around. “I have no idea where we are or how to get back to the Inn. Do you?”

“Not much,” said Nightshade cheerfully. “But I see lights over in that direction. Don’t you?”

“No, but then I do not have a kender’s eyes.” Rhys put his hand on Nightshade’s shoulder. “You lead the way. Thank you for your help, my friend.”

“You’re welcome,” said Nightshade. He sounded dispirited, though, not his usual cheerful self. He started walking, but he wasn’t watching where he was going and he almost immediately stepped into a hole.

“Ouch,” he said and rubbed his ankle.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“What’s the matter?”

“There’s something I need to tell you, Rhys.”

“Yes, what is it?”

“You’re not going to like it,” Nightshade warned.

Rhys sighed. “Can it wait until morning?

“I suppose it could. Except … well, it might be important.” “Go ahead then.”

“I saw more people like your brother and Lucy. I mean, like those things that used to be your brother and Lucy. I saw them today, in Solace.”

The kender’s face was a white glimmer in Solinari’s light.

“How many?” Rhys asked, despairing.

“Two. Both of them young women. Pretty, too. But dead. Dead as dead can be.” Nightshade shook his head sadly. “I would have told you before, except I didn’t know what I was seeing. Not until I saw your brother in the tavern. Then I knew. Those women were just like him—no spirit light shining from them, yet they were walking about as happy as you please, talking, laughing …”

Rhys thought back to the miller’s daughter, who had taken up with Lleu, then run away from her home. How many more young women had Lleu seduced, murdered, and given their souls to Chemosh? Rhys saw again the terrible hunger in Lucy’s eyes. How many young men would these women seduce in their turn? Seduce and murder. The Beloved of Chemosh.

“No one knows what they are about, because no one knows they are dead,” he said to himself, as the awful perfection of the god’s scheme struck him.

Rhys knew the truth of the matter, but as he had told the kender, who would believe him? How could he convince anyone? Nightshade could always tell what he saw, but kender were not known for their veracity. Rhys might seize hold of Lucy, truss her up and drag her before the magistrates, demand that they look into her eyes. Rhys could envision their reaction. He would be the one arrested, locked up as a raving lunatic.

Death had a new face and that face was young and beautiful; Death’s body whole and strong.

Rhys could shout this to the world.

And no one would believe him.