Margaret Weis - Amber and Iron

“What’s the matter?” she asked, alarmed.

“Nothing!” he gasped. “A cramp in my foot. That’s all. Say the words: ‘I pledge myself to Chemosh.’”

Gerta repeated the words and added, “I love you.”

Then Timothy said something very strange as he bent over and pressed his lips on her left breast above her heart.

“Forgive me. . ..”

Ausric Krell, death knight, watched in astonishment, the white kender khas piece went racing across the board, lunged full-tilt at his own dark knight khas piece, and grappled with it. Both pieces fell off the board and began rolling around on the floor.

“Here, now! That’s against the rules,” was Krell’s first outraged thought.

His second, more bemused thought was, “I never saw a khas piece do that before.”

His third thought included dawning revelation. “That’s no ordinary khas piece.”

His fourth thought was deeply suspicious. “Something funny’s going on here.”

His thoughts after this were muddled, undoubtedly due to the fact that he was engaged in a battle for his undead life against a horrible giant mantis.

Krell had always detested bugs, and this particular mantis was truly terrifying, for it was ten feet tall with bulbous eyes, a green shell, and six huge green legs, two of which held onto Krell while its mandibles clamped onto his cringing spirit and began to chomp into his brain.

Krell figured out after a horrifying moment that this was no ordinary bug. There was a god mixed up in this somewhere, a god who didn’t much like him. This wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Krell had managed to offend several gods during his lifetime, including the late and unlamented Takhisis, Queen of Darkness, and her chaotic, vindictive daughter, the Sea Goddess Zeboim, who had been outraged when she found out that Krell was the one responsible for the betrayal and murder of her beloved son, Lord Ariakan.

Zeboim had captured Krell and killed him slowly, taking her time.

When there was finally no spark of life left within his mangled body, she had cursed him by changing him into a death knight and imprisoning him on the isolated and accursed isle of Storm’s Keep, where he had once served the man he had betrayed, there to live out his eternal existence with the memory of his crime always before him.

Zeboim’s punishment had not had quite the impact she had hoped for. Another famous death knight, Lord Soth, had been a tragic figure, consumed by remorse and eventually finding salvation. Krell, on the other hand, rather liked being a death knight. He found in death what he’d always enjoyed in life—the ability to bully and torment those weaker than himself. In life, the spoilsport Ariakan had prevented Krell from indulging in his sadistic pleasures. Now Krell was one of the most powerful beings on Krynn and he took joyful advantage of it.

Just the sight of him in his black armor and helm with the ram’s horns, behind which blazed red eyes of undeath, struck terror into the hearts of those foolish or daring enough to venture onto Storm’s Keep in search of the treasure the knights had supposedly left behind. Krell enjoyed such company immensely. He forced his victims to play khas with him, livening up the game by torturing them until they eventually succumbed.

Zeboim had been a bother, holding him prisoner on Storm’s Keep until he’d attracted the notice of Chemosh, Lord of the Dead. Krell had struck up a deal with Chemosh and gained his freedom from Storm’s Keep. With Chemosh protecting him, Krell had even been able to thumb his rotting nose at Zeboim.

Chemosh had in his possession the soul of Lord Ariakan, the beloved son of the sea goddess. The soul was trapped in a khas piece. Chemosh was holding that soul hostage for Zeboim’s “good behavior.” He had designs upon a certain tower located in the Blood Sea, and he didn’t want the sea goddess meddling.

Zeboim, incensed, had sent one of her faithful—some wretched monk—to Storm’s Keep to rescue her son. Krell had discovered the monk snooping about and, always happy to have visitors, had “invited” the monk to play khas with him.

To be fair to Krell, he had not known that the monk was sent by the goddess. The thought that the monk might be there to steal the khas piece containing Ariakan’s soul never entered Krell’s brain—a brain that admittedly was not all that large to begin with and was now further hampered by being encased in a ponderous and fearsome steel helm; a brain on which a giant bug, sent by a god, was now feasting.

The god belonged to this blasted monk, a monk who had not played fair. First, the monk had brought in an unlawful khas piece; second, that khas piece had made an illegal move; and third, the monk—instead of writhing and moaning in agony after Krell had broken several of his fingers—had physically attacked the death knight with a staff that turned out to be a god.

Krell fought the mantis in a blind panic, punching, kicking and flailing at it until, suddenly, it disappeared.

The monk’s staff was a staff again, lying on the floor. Krell was prepared to stomp it to splinters when a fifth thought came to him.

Suppose touching the staff would cause it to turn back into a bug?

Keeping a wary eye on the staff, Krell made a wide detour around it as he took stock of the situation. The monk had run off. That was only to be expected. Krell would deal with him later. After all, he wasn’t going anywhere, not off this accursed rock. The massive fortress stood atop sheer cliffs raked by the lashing waves of the turbulent sea. Krell righted the board that the monk had overturned. He gathered up the pieces, just to make certain the precious khas piece given to him by Chemosh was safe.

It wasn’t.

Feverishly Krell placed all the pieces on the khas board. Two were missing, one of which was the khas piece containing the soul of Ariakan; the khas piece that Chemosh had ordered Krell to guard with his undead life.

The death knight broke into a chill sweat, not an easy thing to do when one has no shivering flesh, palpitating heart, or clenching bowels. Krell fell to his knees. He peered under the table and groped about with his hands. The knight piece was not there; neither was the kender.

“The monk!” Krell snarled.

Spurred on by the vivid image of what Chemosh would do to him if he lost the khas piece containing the soul of Lord Ariakan, Krell set off in pursuit.

He didn’t expect this to take long. The monk was broken—both in bones and in spirit. He could barely walk, much less run.

Krell left the tower, where they’d been having such a comfortable, friendly game until the monk ruined it, and entered the keep’s central courtyard. He saw immediately that the monk had an ally—Zeboim, the Goddess of the Sea. At the sight of Krell, storm clouds gathered thick in the sky and a sizzling bolt of lightning struck the tower he’d just left.

Krell was not one of the world’s great intellectual thinkers, but he did have occasional flashes of desperate brilliance.

“Don’t you lay a hand on me, you Sea Bitch, you,” Krell bellowed. “Your monk stole the wrong khas piece! Your son is still in my possession. If you do anything to help the thief escape, Chemosh will melt down your pretty pewter boy and hammer his soul into oblivion!”

Krell’s ruse worked. Lightning flickered uncertainly from cloud to cloud. The wind died. The sky grew sullen. A few hailstones clunked down on Krell’s steel helm. The goddess spat rain at him, and that was all.

She dared do nothing to him. She dared not come to the monk’s aid.

As to the monk, he was gamely hobbling over the rocks, vainly trying to escape Krell. The man’s shoulders sagged. He sobbed for breath. He was about finished. His goddess had abandoned him. Krell expected the monk to give up, surrender, fall to his knees and plead for his miserable life. That was what Krell himself had done when in a similar situation. It hadn’t worked for him, and it wasn’t going to work for this monk.