Margaret Weis - Amber and Blood

A little girl with red braids squatted down beside the kender.

“You can get up now, Nightshade,” said Mina.

When he did not move, she shook him by the shoulder.

“Stop pretending to be asleep, Nightshade,” she scolded. “It’s time to leave. I have to go to Godshome, and you have the map.”

Mina’s voice quivered. “Wake up!” the child gulped. “Please, please wake up.”

The kender did not move.

Mina gave a heart-broken wail and flung herself on the body.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!” she cried over and over in a paroxysm of grief.

“Mina…” Rhys mumbled her name through the blood and bone and broken teeth, and her name echoed back from the Lords of Doom.

“Mina, Mina…”

She stood up. The little girl gazed down sorrowfully at Nightshade, but it was the woman, Mina, who gently closed the staring eyes. The woman, Mina, walked over to Galdar. She laid a hand on him and whispered to him. The woman came back to Atta and petted her gently. Then Mina knelt down beside Rhys. Smiling sadly, she touched him on the forehead.

Amber, warm and golden, slid over him.

Mina, the woman, sat next to Valthonis on the hard, windswept stone. She was not wearing armor, nor the black robes of a priestess of Chemosh. She wore a simple gown that fell in folds about her body. Her auburn hair was gathered in soft curls at the back of her neck. She sat quietly, watching the Walking God, waiting for him to regain consciousness.

Valthonis finally sat up, looked about, and his expression grew grave. Rising swiftly, he went to tend to the wounded. Mina watched him dispassionately, her face impassive, unreadable.

“The kender is dead,” she said. “I killed him. The monk and the minotaur and the dog will live, I think.”

Valthonis knelt beside the kender and, gently arranging the broken body into a more seemly form, he spoke a quiet blessing.

“Shake off the dust of the road, little friend. Your boots have star-dust on them now.”

Removing his green cloak, he laid it reverently over the small corpse.

Valthonis bent over Atta, who feebly wagged her tail and gave his hand a swipe with her tongue. He brushed back the black fur that was covered with blood, but he could not find a wound. He stroked her head and then went to see to her master.

“I think I know the monk,” Mina said. “I’ve met him before. I was trying to recall where, and now I remember. It was in a boat… No, not a boat. A tavern that had once been a boat. He was there and I came in and he looked at me and he knew me… He knew who I was…” She frowned slightly. “Except he didn’t….”

Valthonis raised his head and looked into her amber eyes. He saw no longer the countless souls, trapped bug-like within. He saw in her clear eyes terrible knowledge. And he saw himself, reflected off the shining surface.

“The monk was sitting next to a man… He was a dead man. I don’t know his name.” Mina paused, then said with a catch in her voice, “So many of them… and I didn’t know any of their names. But I know the monk’s name. He is Brother Rhys. And he knows my name. He knows me. He knows who and what I am. And yet, he walked with me anyway. He guided me.” She smiled sadly. “He yelled at me…”

Valthonis rested his hand on Rhys’ neck, felt the lifebeat. The monk’s face was bloody, but Valthonis could not find any injuries. He said nothing in response to Mina. He had the instinctive feeling she did not want him to speak. She wanted, needed, to hear only herself in the deathlike silence of the valley of Neraka.

“The kender knew me, too. When he first saw me, he began to weep. He wept for me. He wept out of pity for me. He said ‘You are so sad’… And the minotaur, Galdar, was my friend. A good and faithful friend…”

Mina shifted her gaze from the minotaur to the barren, ghastly surroundings. “I hate this place. I know where I am. I am in Neraka, and awful things have happened because of me… And more awful things will happen… because of me…”

She shifted her gaze to Valthonis, looked at him, pleading.

“You know what I mean. Your name means ‘the Exile’ in elven. And you are my father. And both of us—mortal father, wretched daughter—are exiles. Except you can never go back.” Mina sighed, long and deep. “And I must.”

Valthonis walked to over the minotaur. He placed his hand on the strong, bull-like neck.

“I am a god,” Mina said. “I live in all times simultaneously. Though,” she added, a frown line again marring her smooth forehead, “there is a time before time I do not remember, and a time yet to come I cannot see…”

The wind whistled among the rocks, as through rotting teeth, but Valthonis did not hear anything except Mina. It was as if the physical world had dropped out from beneath him, leaving him suspended in the ethers and there was only her voice and the amber eyes that, as he watched, filled with tears.

“I have done evil, Father,” Mina said, as the tears spilled over and slid slowly down her cheeks. “Or rather, I do evil, for I live in all times at once. They say I am a god born of light and yet I bring forth darkness. Thousands of innocents die because of me. I slaughter those who trust me. I take away life and give back living death. Some say I am duped by Takhisis, and that I do not know I am doing wrong.”

Mina smiled through her tears, and her smile was strange and cold. “But I know what I am doing. I want to hear them sing my name, Father. I want them to worship me—Mina! Not Takhisis. Not Chemosh. Mina. Only Mina.”

She made no move to wipe away the tears. “The two who were mothers to me both died in my arms. When Goldmoon was dying, she looked at me from the twilight, and she saw the truth, the ugliness inside me. And she turned from me.”

Mina rose to her feet and ran over to the minotaur. She crouched beside him but did not touch him. She rose and walked over to where the kender’s body lay beneath the green cloak. Reaching down, she carefully replaced a corner the wind had blown askew. Her empty amber eyes shimmered.

“I can fix him,” she said. She stood up and flung her arms wide, encompassing the wounded and the dead, encompassing the blasted temple, the accursed valley. “I am a god! I can make all this as if it never happened!”

“You can,” said Valthonis. “But to do that you would have to go back to the first second of the first minute of the first day and start time again.”

“I don’t understand!” Mina cried, perplexed. “You speak in riddles.”

“All of us would start over if we could, Mina. All of us would wipe out past mistakes. For mortals this is impossible. We accept, we learn, we go on. For a god, it is possible. But it means wiping out creation and beginning again.”

Mina looked rebellious, as though she didn’t believe him, and Valthonis feared for one frightening moment that she was in such pain she might actually try to ease her own suffering by plunging herself and the world into oblivion.

Mina sank to her knees and lifted her face to heaven.

“You gods! You pull at me and tug me in all directions!” she shouted. “You each want me for you own ends. Not one of you cares what I want.”

“What do you want, Mina?” Valthonis asked.

She looked about, as though wondering herself. Her gaze went to the kender, lying broken and lifeless beneath the green cloak. Her gaze went to the unconscious Galdar, loyal friend. Her gaze went to Rhys, who had comforted her when she woke crying the night.

“I want to go back to sleep,” she whispered.

Valthonis’ heart ached. His own tears blurred his vision, choked off his voice.

“But I can’t.” Mina said brokenly. “I know. I have tried. They call my name and wake me…”