Dragons of a Vanished Moon by Margaret Weis;Tracy Hickman

Author:Margaret Weis;Tracy Hickman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, .Correct&Complete, .Reading List, Dragonlance, Fantasy
ISBN: 9780786927418
Publisher: Esdevium
Published: 2002-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

12

The New Eye

As he stalked back toward the West Gate, Gaidar was disappointed to find that he didn’t feel as pleased with himself as he should have. He had hoped to infect the confident and self-assured Solamnic with the same sickness that infected him. He’d done what he’d set out to accomplish - the angry, frustrated expression on the Solamnic’s face had proven that. But Gaidar found he couldn’t take any satisfaction from his victory.

What had he hoped? That the Solamnic would prove him wrong?

“Bah!” Gaidar snorted. “He’s caught in the same coil as the rest of us, and there’s no way out. Not now. Not ever. Not even in death.”

He rubbed his right arm, which had begun to ache persistently, and found himself wishing he could lose it again, so much did it pain him. Once he’d been proud of that arm, the arm that Mina had restored to him, the first miracle she’d ever performed in the name of the One God. Now he caught himself fingering his sword with some vague notion of hacking off the arm himself. He wouldn’t, of course. Mina would be angry with him and, worse, she would be hurt and saddened. He could endure her anger, he’d felt its lash before. He could never do anything to hurt her. Most of the pent-up fury and resentment he felt toward Takhisis was based not on her treatment of him but the way she treated Mina, who had sacrificed everything, even her life, for her goddess.

Mina had been rewarded. She’d been given victory over her enemies, given the power to perform miracles. But Gaidar knew Takhisis of old. The minotaur race had never thought very highly of the goddess, who was the consort of the minotaur god, Sargas, or Sargonnas, as the other races called him. Sargas had remained with his people to fight Chaos until the bitter end, when-so legend had it-he had sacrificed himself to save the minotaur race. Takhisis would never dream of sacrificing herself for anything. She expected sacrifices to be made to her, demanded them in return for her dubious blessings.

Perhaps that is what she has in mind for Mina. Gaidar grew uneasy listening to Mina’s constant talk of this “great miracle” Takhisis was going to perform on the Night of the New Eye. Takhisis never gave something for nothing. Gaidar had only to feel the throbbing pain of the goddess’s displeasure with him to know that. Mina was so trusting, so guileless. She could never understand Takhisis’s deceitfulness, her treacherous and vindictive nature.

That, of course, was why Mina had been chosen. That and because she was beloved of Goldmoon. Takhisis would not pass up a chance to inflict pain on anyone, most especially on Goldmoon, who had thwarted her in the past.

I could tell all this to Mina, Gaidar thought as he entered the temple. I could tell her, but she wouldn’t hear me. She hears only one voice these days.

The Temple of the Heart, now the Temple of the One God.

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